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Transcription: Fr. Hewko's Sermon for Feast of St. Stephen 2024 "Liars Detest Truth" - Stone - 12-29-2024
"Liars Detest Truth"
Transcription of Fr. Hewko's Sermon for the Feast of St Stephen, Protomartyr
12/26/24
![[Image: rs=w:1280]](https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/df55e1a9-c854-4d0b-a2a9-94177954436c/IMG_3312.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1280)
Transcription of Fr. Hewko's Sermon for the Feast of St Stephen, Protomartyr
12/26/24
Transcript by The Catholic Trumpet [slightly adapted and reformatted] | December 28, 2024
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who stoned the prophets that I have sent you, and kill those who speak to you, how I would have gathered you under my wings, like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but you would not.”
And Our Lord warns His apostles, “You will preach to the synagogue, you will preach to these Pharisees, you will preach to the whole world, and many will not like it. Many will stone you, crucify you, they will put you to death, thinking they do a service to God.”
And today, Mother Church, right after the adoration of the baby Jesus in the crib, the charming Christmas night in Bethlehem, with the Angels singing, and the Shepherds adoring, and the Star appearing to the Three Kings, leading them for 13 days on the journey to find the face of the Savior, of the true Messiah, on this beautiful, charming night, we have the first day after the splash of blood.
Second day, splash of, not physical blood, but he was ready to give it- St. John- tomorrow. Tomorrow's feast is a blessing for wine and beer on a special day. St. John was boiled in oil, he should have sizzled into a french fry, but he didn't. God saved him to write the Apocalypse and to see the visions of the Last Days.
And then we have the Holy Innocents on the 28th. All the blood of those, some say up to 14,000 babies, baby boys, who were slaughtered under Herod's abortion law, abortion policy, post-abortion policy. So, all this blood splashed right after Our Lord Jesus Christ is born to tell us, “This is how they loved Me, they gave their life for Me”, and you and I love Our Lord this much that we would give our life for Him.
And the Church has seen so many martyrs and canonized so many of them, and there's many that are not canonized, many saints and martyrs who are just not known. In China, think of the millions killed in China and under Stalin, and even now going on in the Muslim countries, Catholics being slaughtered in cold blood, whole families just being massacred with machetes, and the news coverage is absolutely silent about it. And the persecution will come to blood again, as Our Lady of Fatima forewarned.
So, let's, I always quote this magnificent sermon of Saint Fulgentius, a holy bishop, speaking of Saint Stephen. Here it is:
Quote:“Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal King. Today, the triumph through suffering of His soldier, Saint Stephen. Yesterday Our King, having put on our robe of flesh, came forth from the sanctuary of the Virgin's womb to visit the world. Today, His soldier, Stephen, going forth from the tabernacle of his body, enters Heaven a conqueror.
The one, Our Lord Jesus Christ, retaining the majesty of the everlasting Godhead, girded Himself with the servile cincture of flesh and entered upon the battlefield of this world. The other, Saint Stephen, laying down the garments of this corruptible body, ascended to the palace of Heaven to reign eternally. The one, the Christ Child, descended veiled in the flesh.
The other ascended, laureled in blood. The one ascended amid the stoning of the Jews, because the other, the Christ Child, descended amid the jubilation of angels. Yesterday the holy angels chanted exultantly, ‘Glory to God in the Highest.’ Today, still rejoicing, they take Saint Stephen into their company. Yesterday, the Lord came forth from the womb of the Virgin. Today, His soldier, Saint Stephen, goes forth from the prison house of the flesh.
Yesterday, for our sake, Christ was wrapped in swaddling clothes. Today He clothes Saint Stephen in the robe of immortality. Yesterday a narrow manger held the infant Christ. Today the immensity of heaven receives a triumphant Saint Stephen. Alone the Lord came upon earth that He might raise up the many to Heaven. Our King humbled himself that He might exalt His soldiers. Now let us consider, brethren, the arms with which Saint Stephen girt himself to overcome the cruelty of the Jews and arrive at so blessed a triumph.”
In other words, what weapons did he use to overcome them?
Quote:“Saint Stephen indeed deserved to bear his name, which means, the crowned one, for he had armed himself with the mail, the chain mail of law and conquered through it everywhere. Because of his love for God, he was unshaken before the cruelty of the Jews. Through his love for his neighbor, he interceded even for those who stoned him. Through love, he argued with the erring that they might be corrected. Through love, he prayed for those who stoned him, lest they be punished. Strong with the might of love, he overcame Saul who had compassed his death cruelly and won his persecutor on earth as his comrade in Heaven.”
So by love, Saint Stephen conquered. Those were his weapons. Those were his weapons.Those are the weapons of all the martyrs. They say the truth. They preach the truth.
They get persecuted for it. Look at Saint Athanasius, exiled many times, condemned over five times, excommunicated by Pope Liberius. Look at Archbishop Lefebvre, a white martyr, we could call him, of Catholic tradition, suspended unjustly, excommunicated unjustly, all for what? For preaching the truth, condemning the Vatican II’s monstrous heresies and errors, and that horrible New Mass, and (he) called the Code of Canon Law full of heresies, which it is. So we can't just accept the Code of Canon Law of 1983 without distinction. Yet that's what happened in 2012 with the leaders of our SSPX.
So they raise their voices because they love, they love the truth, and they want to bring them to the truth. But Rome would not hear it. Rome, like the modern Pharisees, blocked their ears, gnashed their teeth, and came on him (Archbishop Lefebvre) with knives of abuse of their authority by persecuting Catholic tradition. And they changed their tactics under Pope Benedict XVI. They changed their tactic: “Let's not… let's not show our teeth. Let's not show our sharp ears, like Little Red Riding Hood.”
Oh, what nice teeth you have, and what nice ears you have. And it's the wolf dressed as the nice granny. And that's the tactic modernists used to seduce many traditional groups, many traditional priests.
And think of the great fighting priests of Bishop de Castro Mayer. Read The Mouth of the Lion by Dr. David Alan White to get an idea of the greatness of Archbishop de Castro Mayer. And he really built an army of great priests who would defend tradition.
But when he died in 1991, one month after Archbishop Lefebvre, [and] in 2003, they crumbled. They crumbled under a liberal bishop, Bishop Rangel, who wanted to make peace with modernist Rome. And he was seduced by Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, to lay down their weapons. “You (can) have your Latin Mass, you can preach against modernism.”
Sounds nice, doesn't it? But for Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer, “You make no peace until Rome comes back to tradition and proclaims the Kingship of Christ. No peace.”
And that's the same with the Catholic Resistance today. The good priests who are trying to defend the Faith, trying to rebuild, trying to continue “Operation Survival”. Yes, those priests do raise their voice against the modern compromises with the new SSPX of 2012, with the New Mass, the New Sacraments, Vatican II, the [false] Hermeneutics of Continuity, which is just a buzzword for accepting modernism under a mitigated form.
And then accepting point-blank the New Code of Canon Law, we just can't accept this. And our leaders know better, Bishop Fellay and Bishop de la Galaretta, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, may he rest in peace, they all knew better.
They all knew better. And then the later developments in what we call the “fake resistance”, which is exactly what it is, a fake resistance. You can't resist while accepting error.
You can't resist modernism while accepting that the New Mass can still nourish your faith and give grace. And I know there's many arguments that theologians can have over these questions. Does the New Mass, if it's valid, give grace? You're going to have different opposing opinions on this.
But we have to admit it's a dangerous teaching. And Archbishop Lefebvre, who was the best theologian of all, he said it very point-blank and without any mitigation: “The New Mass is sterile. The New Mass does not give grace!”
And there's a strong argument from St. Thomas Aquinas for this. And he says he's talking about the Orthodox Schismatics because they have a valid priesthood. They stole the Catholic priesthood. They stole the Catholic sacraments, and they are valid. So the argument that many liberals hold today is, “well, if the mass is valid, if the priests are valid and the bishops are valid, it's good to go to. It's safe. It's no problem at all.”
That's not how the Church thinks because they're not licit. They stole the Sacraments. So St. Thomas Aquinas raises the question, “Do they receive grace at those valid Masses?” And he says, “No, those Masses do not pass grace because they are not united to the head. The branches are not united to the Tree, Jesus Christ. We have to be united to the one holy Roman Catholic Faith to receive the grace through the Mass.” That's his argument. And that's St. Thomas Aquinas. I just bow down to him. And to me, case closed. With Archbishop Lefebvre, case closed.
So yes, you might have your arguing opinions, but it's certainly dangerous, to say the least, to argue that the New Mass so-called Eucharistic Miracles are all true and valid. These are very dangerous teachings because it just causes confusion. And it smears the lines of clarity.
When with Archbishop Lefebvre, he never descended to that level, “Does it give grace to me or not? Does it nourish my faith or not?” No, he said the New Mass attacks the Faith and dogmas of the Faith. It attacks the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist by focusing the real presence from the altar to the people. Hence, The Sign of Peace.
'You have to acknowledge the presence of Jesus in the presence of your neighbor and your brothers and sisters.' And that's the New Mass. It's an attack on the Real Presence. It's an attack on the Sacrifice of Christ on the altar by calling it a meal and diminishing every reference to sacrifice and diminishing all the reverence, genuflections, Signs of the Cross, bows, many of these just obliterated, which really makes the priest lose the faith when he says that New Mass. And then the New Mass attacks the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the propitiatory effect of the Mass for the souls in Purgatory, for example. Nowhere in any New Mass, even the one for the dead, will you find the word “soul” mentioned.
They don't mention “soul” to pray for the soul of the dead. It's been erased by Bugnini. So we have to be really blind not to see the attack of the New Mass, what it is really on our Catholic faith, and to pretend that it can be a means of grace is really insulting to the Catholic truth.
And Archbishop Lefebvre would recall all the people to remember the Martyrs of England, how many martyrs, boys, girls, young, old, priests, families, went to death or imprisonment or heavily fined, which they wouldn't have to have gone through if they just attended one time the Anglican service, which in those days, 1500-1600, you still had valid priests who before said the Tridentine Catholic Mass and now went with Henry VIII's “new religion” and are now saying the new Anglican service. So many of those masses, were still valid because the priests still kept the old consecration form, but (they) adapted to the whole Anglican service. And yes, you had Catholics in a quandary. They could have argued till the moon turns to cheese. They could have argued, “Well, it's valid. I can go to it. I can get grace.” But they didn't.
And you had St. Margaret Clitherow, a heroine of York. She had priests in her house. She was warned, “don't do this. If you get caught, off with your head.” And she had priests come to say Mass in disguise. They said Mass, and someone squealed on her, and she was sentenced to a cruel death. She was pregnant too.
And just the other few weeks ago, I was in England, and we prayed at the spot under the bridge where she was crushed with a door laid over her, over a rock, and then heavy weights put on her until her ribs snapped and penetrated through her skin. And she was suffocated to death and the little baby in her womb. So they wouldn't compromise on error.
And Saint Stephen too, look, he's talking to the Jews. He's telling them, “You uncircumcised bandits, you refuse to hear the truth. You refuse to realize that Moses was speaking of Jesus Christ, that all the prophets were speaking about Jesus Christ. He fulfilled all the prophets. Look at Daniel. Daniel said He would be sacrificed, the Lamb would be sacrificed outside the city of Jerusalem, and that's what you did on Calvary. And you remember John the Baptist pointing him out, there's the Lamb of God. You refuse that Lamb. And remember when Caiaphas and Annas were stabbing the Lamb at 3 p.m. on Good Friday, the Passover day, the earthquake hit, and the temple shook, and the veil of the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom. Don't you remember this?”
And Saint Stephen brought up all the prophecies, and still they blocked their ears and would not hear it. So that's how modernist Rome has treated Catholic tradition, and still is trying to crush tradition. So they won't succeed.
So we have to raise our voice, priests and bishops. We cannot pretend to have peace where there is no peace. Pretend to declare peace when there is war, and a war for the reign of Christ the King, the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the triumph of true Catholic doctrine in the dogmas of the Faith. These are the lights that will enlighten the world, and we cannot put these lights under a bushel. So let us in this happiness of Christmas time rejoice with all the angels in receiving Saint Stephen today in Heaven.
Pray for our bishops. Pray that we get a good pope. Pray for all the priests, especially of tradition, that all know better. Pray for all the priests who have compromised and have agreed to be silent, that they snap out of that trance.
Pray for all the priests of the Catholic resistance. Father Ruiz just visited the Oratory last week from Mexico. He spent a week, and he gave a couple great talks on the spirit of liberalism. I encourage you to hear it. They are posted on the Oratory of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary [You Tube channel]. Also, The Catholic Trumpet is a powerful little website, and also, of course, The Catacombs and The Recusant. These are the few anti-liberal Catholic publications that are warning the faithful: “They cannot compromise with error.”
So let's fight on, learning from Saint Stephen that we must love, conquer by love, conquer by charity, forgive those who injure us, pray for them, wish them no evil, hold no grudges, but always hold up the light and be ready to shed our blood for the beautiful Christ Child, who invites us to love Him with all our heart, all our strength, all our mind, all our efforts.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, You who burned with love at the foot of the Christ Child and held Him in Your arms and nursed Him, inflame our hearts to love Our Lord and receive Him today in Communion, and inflame us like gas on a dying fire. Inflame our hearts with the fuel of the love of God, that we may really love Him with all our heart, strength, and capacity.
O Mary Conceived without sin.
O Mary Conceived without sin.
O Mary Conceived without sin.
And for those who do not have recourse to thee especially, all communists and Freemasons and other enemies of Holy Mother Church. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.