July 2005 letter from Fr. Stehlin
I am posting below the most recent letter Fr. Stehlin has sent me. Father is the district superior for the SSPX in Eastern Europe and a great help to the Society of St. Josaphat (the traditional Byzantine rite). I am posting this portion of the letter in order that you might also become aware of the great and undeniable help the Immaculata is giving to those who have confidence in her and ask her help. She is working minor miracles all the time in the Eastern European countries, without a doubt. Reading between the lines may be necessary as Father likes to make little of the many, many trials and hardships that must be endured. Please keep this remarkable mission and missionary in your prayers - and pray especially to St. Maximilian Kolbe whose life Fr. Stehlin's own reflects!
"...(I)n these latter times of the world, God gave all treasures and of conversion and sanctification into the hands of the IMMACULATA. If we enter in Her spiritual army as Her knights, we will certainly win the battle: the salvation of our souls, the salvation of the world, the victory of Catholic Tradition depend on Her! The contents of this book are also an answer to those, who ask about the continuation of Catholic Tradition in Eastern Europe. Whatever has been done since the last 10 years, is entirely HER intervention and often Her miraculous action. We have been and want to be only her instruments, and She knows, how unworthy and sinful instruments we are!
How thankful we have to be to HER, that a great step forward has been accomplished again: on May 28, His Excellency, bishop Alfonso de Galarreta consecrated the new church in Warsaw, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. The church, which can receive 250-300 faithful, has been built in a record time of 14 month. The same day, His Excellency blessed the future primary school dedicated to the Holy Family. We will open the school this year for the children of our own faithful, but there are already other families (who do not yet know the traditional movement) who ask to inscribe their children. Here in Poland such a school can be an important means to attract serious Novus Ordo families to Catholic Tradition, because in Poland there are many good-minded Catholics who have been told the worst things about the ‘lefebvrists’ by the modernist hierarchy. But when considering the degradation in the schools and the religious teaching, serious parents would not hesitate to turn themselves towards us when they see the positive results of traditional catholic discipline.
Coming back to his Excellency, Mgr de Galarreta, 4 children have received from his hands the First Holy Communion and 12 faithful the sacrament of Confirmation. Monsignor was impressed about the big number of children and young faithful. In fact, in our chapel we have not yet many ‘white hairs’, but there is no lack of small children and young pregnant mothers.
During the next weeks, when the constructions here in Warsaw will be completely finished, our group of workers (many of them volunteers) will immediately move to Gdansk to continue in the constructions of the church of the Immaculate Heart. We had again to interrupt that construction because of the needs here in Warsaw, where we have so many young families who need really that school. And immediately when the construction permissions arrived, we started to build the school.
Another great joy: on June 25 the second polish priest of the Society of Saint Pius X was ordained. It is Rev. Fr. Rafael Trytek, who will work in Poland and take care of the very zealous chapel in Rzeszow and another chapel in Tarnow which our faithful are about to build themselves and which will be opened in September.
In UKRAINE, we bought for the Society of Saint Josaphat a beautiful terrain in the woods nearby the city of Lviv for the construction of the new seminary. The 20 seminarians are presently living in a big house in the centre of the town, which is not a good place for silence, study and recollection. This house will become the headquarters of the traditional Byzantine Catholic priests. The seminarians will move to the new place in October and during the constructions of the new seminary they will be located in an old house we bought together with the terrain.
You know, that the superior, Fr. Wasil, had been excommunicated, and that his recourse was accepted because the procedure of the process had been illegal. It was planned to restart the whole process in autumn last year, but since the political events (the so-called yellow revolution in November), the modernists have been silent. First they had been busy with the new government, and now probably they wait what will happen with the new pope. In the meantime, modernism increases in Ukraine, and therefore more and more faithful turn themselves toward Tradition. For the Lent devotions (via crucis, etc.) Father Wasil counted about 2000-3000 faithful on Fridays. During summer the High Mass on Sundays is celebrated outside the church for about 2000 faithful, but there are also other 4 Masses inside his church. The other 11 priests of the Society of Saint Josaphat have also their churches with 300-1000 faithful each. There are now 2 bulletins published in Ukrainian language to inform Catholics all over Ukraine about Catholic Tradition.
In the Baltic States, ESTONIA gives us a particular hope. This country counts only about 3000 Catholics and there is no catholic literature. When belonging to the USSR, the publication of religious books was not permitted, and since then the modernists only published their modernist books. One of our faithful, mother of 5 small children, translated the book “True Devotion to Mary” of Saint Louis Mary Grignon de Montfort during 3 years, and recently we have published it. Unimaginable was the reaction: the Catholics even modernists were very impressed. Many of them asked: why our priests do not publish these pearls of the Saints? This book made really discover to these people the spirituality of the Saints, and by this way Catholic Tradition. Thanks to this book we have many new contacts, and I could give conferences to groups of artists, musicians, theatre people, professors, etc. We have also been invited to give religious courses in a high school in the centre of the capital Tallinn. More and more people are interested in the traditional Mass. Now we prepare the publication of the “Imitation of Christ” and a book about the message and spirituality of Fatima. In summer we will have a children’s camp and I will preach another Ignatian retreat. Our chapel in Tallinn is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but the problem: it is located in the 5th floor, already too small for our young families and other faithful. It would be marvelous if we could build a true chapel there which would become a point of attraction for many souls, because I think, that many people in Estonia, catholic or not, seek sincerely the Truth. Please pray for this country, named formerly Terra Mariana – Land of Mary, to convert many souls through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom our entire work is dedicated.
Finally I want to inform you, that since April this year we have received the famous Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima “Padre Pio’s Queen of Peace” from Ottawa, Canada for several months. The Statue is now on a big tour throughout Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, White Russia, Russia and Ukraine up to the end of this year. We count on many graces and will inform you about this wonderful pilgrimage in our next letter.
....
Fr. Karl Stehlin"
"...(I)n these latter times of the world, God gave all treasures and of conversion and sanctification into the hands of the IMMACULATA. If we enter in Her spiritual army as Her knights, we will certainly win the battle: the salvation of our souls, the salvation of the world, the victory of Catholic Tradition depend on Her! The contents of this book are also an answer to those, who ask about the continuation of Catholic Tradition in Eastern Europe. Whatever has been done since the last 10 years, is entirely HER intervention and often Her miraculous action. We have been and want to be only her instruments, and She knows, how unworthy and sinful instruments we are!
How thankful we have to be to HER, that a great step forward has been accomplished again: on May 28, His Excellency, bishop Alfonso de Galarreta consecrated the new church in Warsaw, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. The church, which can receive 250-300 faithful, has been built in a record time of 14 month. The same day, His Excellency blessed the future primary school dedicated to the Holy Family. We will open the school this year for the children of our own faithful, but there are already other families (who do not yet know the traditional movement) who ask to inscribe their children. Here in Poland such a school can be an important means to attract serious Novus Ordo families to Catholic Tradition, because in Poland there are many good-minded Catholics who have been told the worst things about the ‘lefebvrists’ by the modernist hierarchy. But when considering the degradation in the schools and the religious teaching, serious parents would not hesitate to turn themselves towards us when they see the positive results of traditional catholic discipline.
Coming back to his Excellency, Mgr de Galarreta, 4 children have received from his hands the First Holy Communion and 12 faithful the sacrament of Confirmation. Monsignor was impressed about the big number of children and young faithful. In fact, in our chapel we have not yet many ‘white hairs’, but there is no lack of small children and young pregnant mothers.
During the next weeks, when the constructions here in Warsaw will be completely finished, our group of workers (many of them volunteers) will immediately move to Gdansk to continue in the constructions of the church of the Immaculate Heart. We had again to interrupt that construction because of the needs here in Warsaw, where we have so many young families who need really that school. And immediately when the construction permissions arrived, we started to build the school.
Another great joy: on June 25 the second polish priest of the Society of Saint Pius X was ordained. It is Rev. Fr. Rafael Trytek, who will work in Poland and take care of the very zealous chapel in Rzeszow and another chapel in Tarnow which our faithful are about to build themselves and which will be opened in September.
In UKRAINE, we bought for the Society of Saint Josaphat a beautiful terrain in the woods nearby the city of Lviv for the construction of the new seminary. The 20 seminarians are presently living in a big house in the centre of the town, which is not a good place for silence, study and recollection. This house will become the headquarters of the traditional Byzantine Catholic priests. The seminarians will move to the new place in October and during the constructions of the new seminary they will be located in an old house we bought together with the terrain.
You know, that the superior, Fr. Wasil, had been excommunicated, and that his recourse was accepted because the procedure of the process had been illegal. It was planned to restart the whole process in autumn last year, but since the political events (the so-called yellow revolution in November), the modernists have been silent. First they had been busy with the new government, and now probably they wait what will happen with the new pope. In the meantime, modernism increases in Ukraine, and therefore more and more faithful turn themselves toward Tradition. For the Lent devotions (via crucis, etc.) Father Wasil counted about 2000-3000 faithful on Fridays. During summer the High Mass on Sundays is celebrated outside the church for about 2000 faithful, but there are also other 4 Masses inside his church. The other 11 priests of the Society of Saint Josaphat have also their churches with 300-1000 faithful each. There are now 2 bulletins published in Ukrainian language to inform Catholics all over Ukraine about Catholic Tradition.
In the Baltic States, ESTONIA gives us a particular hope. This country counts only about 3000 Catholics and there is no catholic literature. When belonging to the USSR, the publication of religious books was not permitted, and since then the modernists only published their modernist books. One of our faithful, mother of 5 small children, translated the book “True Devotion to Mary” of Saint Louis Mary Grignon de Montfort during 3 years, and recently we have published it. Unimaginable was the reaction: the Catholics even modernists were very impressed. Many of them asked: why our priests do not publish these pearls of the Saints? This book made really discover to these people the spirituality of the Saints, and by this way Catholic Tradition. Thanks to this book we have many new contacts, and I could give conferences to groups of artists, musicians, theatre people, professors, etc. We have also been invited to give religious courses in a high school in the centre of the capital Tallinn. More and more people are interested in the traditional Mass. Now we prepare the publication of the “Imitation of Christ” and a book about the message and spirituality of Fatima. In summer we will have a children’s camp and I will preach another Ignatian retreat. Our chapel in Tallinn is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but the problem: it is located in the 5th floor, already too small for our young families and other faithful. It would be marvelous if we could build a true chapel there which would become a point of attraction for many souls, because I think, that many people in Estonia, catholic or not, seek sincerely the Truth. Please pray for this country, named formerly Terra Mariana – Land of Mary, to convert many souls through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom our entire work is dedicated.
Finally I want to inform you, that since April this year we have received the famous Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima “Padre Pio’s Queen of Peace” from Ottawa, Canada for several months. The Statue is now on a big tour throughout Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, White Russia, Russia and Ukraine up to the end of this year. We count on many graces and will inform you about this wonderful pilgrimage in our next letter.
....
Fr. Karl Stehlin"
posted by Monnie | 10:30 PM
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