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Stories: Early Days of Tradition Part 5 - Persecution of Fr. Normandin

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JMJ

Following the thread of the internal persecution of Catholics (Bishops, Priests, Monks, Nuns, Brothers) who were repulsed by the 'new way' that swallowed the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, I have one story that I witnessed the end stages when my family started to attend the Tridentine Mass in the early 80's.

As I've mentioned before, I didn't want to be there as we walking into the little chapel. It was small, maybe it could hold 80 people.  It smelled, small building imbued with incense - a new experience.  It was strange, very strange.

It was a small chapel, a hall purchased by a group of pioneering Traditional Catholics to be their anchor in a Catholic World gone mad.

They had started as a rosary group in a layman's basement. Then when Fr. Normandin started travelling across Canada, they rented a room at the convention centre.

Those were heady days of First Fervour. When news that Fr. would unexpectedly be in town, the call went out: Father has a layover and will say Mass at 2 a.m.

The thirst for Mass was such that many came. I heard of a story of one Veteran who had already taken her sleeping pills, fought all the way through Mass to stay awake.



I had the grace to meet Fr. Normandin a few years before his death. He still had the light in his eye and recounted how he once blessed a forest fire.  According to the story, the flames stopped at the spot when he'd stood. On the wall in his room was a newspaper clipping with a photo of him blessing the flames.

In those early days the chapel was a picture of ethnic diversity.  I still remember everyone saying the Rosary before Mass, in their own language.  It was a little bit of cacophony, but a symbol that even if we prayed in different languages, we were all Catholic.

Someone objected once when a vacationing seminarian gave a sermon in French because they couldn't understand it. His response stuck with me, "It is one of the few sermons that Mme. Zed could understand." That ended the objection right there.

At that time, the chapel was like a small, someone cantankerous family with a blend of languages, ages and experiences.  Having been born near the end of the sixties, I had been baptised in the 'Old Rite' but grew up in the fog, ignorant of what Catholic Life had been like before V2.

In a way, I miss those days. Not because I like chaos, nothing could be further from the Truth.  I miss them because it was a simpler time where the focus was on the Mass and the Truths of the Faith. Anything that deviated, like Bayside or Sede-Vacantism was quickly addressed by the Vets and Father.

At the same time, there was a camaraderie between all those because we were all hanging on to the same rope with a knot tied at the end.

The Angelus Press has re-printed Pastor Out In The Cold and I heartily recommend it (link).

P^3

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