Beloved, being a convert into the Catholic Church and having come to deeply appreciate and love the Church’s age-old Mass and Tradition, I can relate in measure to the heart of Michael Matt and to the millions of “traditionalists” who have weathered painful years in a Church that seems to be being ripped from them limb by limb, only to be given limited snatches and places in school gyms or in any place as long as it is not a church. I can relate, but I cannot fully experience the anguish of those who were born and raised in the Catholic Church, who never knew anything but the “Mass of the Ages”, who never experienced anything other than the traditional rites, who were taught and steeped in the Faith, and who were kept from the world while being in it.

Whether or not you see yourself as a Traditional Catholic, I think it is important for us to understand the heart of someone who has known, who loves, and who desires nothing else. And I pray that it may be Our Lord’s will, through our new Holy Father, to restore to the Church and to the sheep all that Our Lord has given in establishing His Church on earth, in “the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B.