LEFEBVRE NO ATHANASIUS

We were given a copy of Marcel Lefebvre's sermon delivered on June 29, 1976 when he "ordained" 13 men as "priests" and 13 as "sub deacons." Although his sermon was widely distributed from the various chapels allied with this strange man, we have not heard one critical statement against the 5½ pages presenting his remarks at Econe, Switzerland.

Here are two paragraphs from page 3 of his published sermon and one sentence from a paragraph on page 4. We give the page 4 sentence first as it is very short but clues you in immediately as to what to expect. "There is only one Word, the Word of the Holy Ghost."

Now for the two paragraphs from page 3:

"They will no longer be men like other men. They will be men of God. They will be men, I should say, who almost participate in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ by his sacerdotal character. For Our Lord Jesus Christ is Priest for eternity, Priest according to the Order of Melchisedech, because He is Jesus Christ; because the divinity of the Word of God was infused into the humanity which He assumed. And it is at the moment that he assumed this humanity in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary that Jesus became Priest."

"The grace in which these young priests are going to participate is not the sanctifying grace in which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us to participate by the grace of baptism it is the grace of union — that grace of union unique to Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in this grace they are going to participate, for it is by His grace of union with the divinity of God, with the divinity of the Word, that Our Lord Jesus Christ became Priest; that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King; that Our Lord Jesus Christ is Judge; that Our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be adored by all men; by His grace of Union, sublime grace, grace which no being here below could ever receive -- this grace of the divinity itself descending into a humanity which is

Our Lord Jesus Christ, anointing it, after a fashion, like the oil that descends on the head and consecrates him who receives this oil. The humanity of Our Lord Jesus was penetrated by the divinity of the Word of God, and thus He was made Priest. He was made Mediator between God and men. [Underscoring ours]

In speaking those words, Lefebvre spoke heresy. His words are a neat gathering of the gnostic heresies so vigorously opposed by St. Athanasius, the great Athanasius who was recognized as the "Champion of Christ's Divinity."

Lefebvre is in error because his words contain (1) a denial of the two separate and distinct natures in Christ (the Divine and the human), (2) a denial of the Divinity of Christ, (3) a denial that Christ, the Son, is the Word of God.

The Incarnation is not the case of humanity being infused with divinity or humanity penetrated by divinity, but rather the actual union of the two natures in Christ. Mary was not already pregnant before the Babe in her womb became divine. At the Incarnation, the Word instantly became flesh. Again, the Incarnation is not the union of the "divinity of God with the divinity of the Word"; rather, the Word of God united with our human nature. Christ is Perfect God and Perfect Man. It is God becoming man — not man becoming God. Christ, the Son of God, was conceived and made man by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the ever Virgin Mary, and this is why she is the Mother of God. It is a paramount Jewish falsehood that God would not stoop to become man, but that man could become divine, God.

This is the error mouthed by Lefebvre: that a man became divine by the infusion of divinity. He is saying that Christ does not have a separate and distinct Divine Nature; conceding only that divinity came into a man,

Jesus Christ. He is saying that Christ, a man, happened to be graced by the Word of God, Whom, says Lefebvre, is the Holy Ghost. What Lefebvre believes and expresses is condemned by the Catholic Apostolic Church.

Consequently, the seminarians at Econe, where the false teaching of V2 is carefully observed, are not being schooled in the Catholic Apostolic Faith; they are being indoctrinated with the falsehoods of the Synagogue under the auspices of V-2.