Whereas the uncertainty affecting the celebration of the traditional Latin liturgy precludes participation on the same scale as at previous World Youth Days, Juventutem will be present in Lisbon. Adequate venue has been secured in the centre of the capital. Doctrinal and spiritual conferences, and liturgies, will be held daily. Please note that Juventutem will take no booking of any kind. Pilgrims must secure their travel, accommodation, meals and any such arrangements separately from Juventutem.
Schedule: Friday 4, Sat 5 and Sun 6 August
Friday 4th August 9:30am – 1:00pm
Calçada do Duque de Lafões 1, 1950-207 Lisbon
– 9:30am: Arrival
– 10:00am Talk: “You are what you listen to: Sacred vs Pop Music” by music expert Fr Evans FSSP
– 11:00am: Low Mass
– 12:00pm Talk: “Four Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven & Hell” by Fr de Malleray, FSSP
Saturday 5th August 11:00am – 3:00pm
Rua Francisco Marto 74, 2495-448 Fatima
– 11:00am Arrival
– 11:30am Solemn Traditional Latin Mass
– 12:30pm Talk: “The Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Sanctification” by Fr de Malleray, FSSP
– Visit to Sanctuary after
Sunday 6th August 10:00am – 11:30am
Calçada do Duque de Lafões 1, 1950-207 Lisbon
– 10:00am Arrival
– 10:30am Low Mass
– Homily on the Transfiguration by Fr de Malleray, FSSP
Palácio dos Duques de Lafões, Calçada do Duque de Lafões 1, 1950-207 Lisboa, Portugal.
Directions:
When walking up the street, turn left through green gates, walk straight ahead across the courtyard of the palace and enter the building at the far back. Welcome!
When walking down the street, turn right through green gates, walk straight ahead across the courtyard of the palace and enter the building at the far back. Welcome!
Contact us only via this website and our social media.
On 21-23 July, 70 young adults attended the annual summer weekend at Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire. It was a great success and we look forward to next year.
A Lenten meditation by the General Chaplain of the Juventutem International Federation. Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP explains how the thorns of the crown prophetically stem from the timber of the cross.Or watch this meditation as a video here.
Introduction: What crown?
What is a crown? A crown is a circle of metal, normally precious, set around the head of a human ruler. As a piece of jewellery, the crown draws attention to the head of its bearer, and more specifically to his brow, under which his brain is the organ associated with intellect and will. The crown therefore signals human authority. In the beginning, God had granted the first man authority over the material world. We read in Genesis that God had generously empowered Adam and Eve as regents of the material world: And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth (Gen 1:28). Thus, Adam was to subdue the world and to rule over it all.
Adam did not wear a material crown as God’s appointed ruler over the material world. But he bore a spiritual crown made of the preternatural gifts. Those were qualities added to his human nature alongside justice: bodily immortality, integrity and infused knowledge. Later on, tempted by the devil, Adam ambitioned to be like God: it was the first sin. It consisted in claiming authority as his own instead of confessing it as a gift undeservedly received from God. Through sin, Adam lost his spiritual crown. His disobedience undermined his authority over the world instead of magnifying it. Just as Adam had rebelled against God, so would the material world rebel against Adam. God described Adam’s punishment: Cursed is the earth in thy work:with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee (Gen 3:17-18). Thorns bear no fruit and hinder cultivation because their sharp ends scratch human skin, causing pain and bleeding. Thorns are to soil what sins are to the soul. As a sign given by God, thorns therefore manifest in botanical form the harmful consequences of man’s disobedience, all stemming from the pride once instilled in him by Satan.
In Jesus the New Adam, God became man, dying for our sins: it wrought our redemption. In reparation for Adam’s usurpation of authority, Christ the New Adam was crowned with thorns: And platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying: Hail, king of the Jews (Mt 27:29). Thorns were brought forth by the earth as a consequence of Adam’s usurpation of authority when he ate the forbidden fruit from the tree. Later on upon the Cross, again thorns encircled the brow of the New Adam above whose head a title read, Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. The Lord Jesus, who truly was king over the entire world, accepted to be mocked in expiation of Adam’s pride. Since the crown is a symbol of sovereignty, and since pride was the main sin of Adam, the crowning with thorns synthetises our fall and our redemption. The crowning with thorns depicts sovereignty usurped: culpably by Adam, purportedly by Jesus. The moral humiliation and physical sufferings of the crowning with thorns undergone by the New Adam heal the wounds inflicted upon human nature by devilish pride since Adam of old.
Our Lord suffered many torments during his Passion: sweat of blood in Gethsemane, blows and binding of limbs from his arrest onward, scourging at the pillar, carrying of the cross and finally crucifixion. The crowning with thorns is the apex of all these sufferings because by mocking Christ’s genuine kingship, it atones for Adam’s usurped sovereignty. Therefore, the crowning with thorns can be seen as the nexus of our redemption. Since the Passion of the Lord is the Hour toward which all history converges, most of its aspects were prefigured in the Old Testament. This certainly applies to the crowning with thorns. Like all events in the life of the Saviour, but supremely for the reasons just explained, the crowning with thorns is hinted at, sketched, announced, echoed in various ways in the Holy Bible. Such stages vary in precision. Some are strikingly explicit, casting meaning upon less obvious ones. Let us now examine successively: Adam and Eve’s hiding; Isaac’s ram; Moses’ bush; the Ark of Covenant; Samson’s demise; and finally Absalom’s death. We will see how those six biblical episodes display across time the pattern of a lethal entanglement of one’s head or person in wood, ultimately unfolded in the mystery of Christ’s crowning with thorns. Like shades of light separated through a prism, those six stages evoke different titles of Our Lord: New Adam, Lamb of God, Son of Man, Deliverer, Nazarene, and Son of David. On Golgotha, all titles combine like coloured waves emanating from Our Lord crowned with thorns on the throne of our redemption, the cross.
Hiding in the wood
After they ate of the forbidden fruit, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise (Gen 3:8). Culpably, our first parents sought concealment in some arboreal surround. The Douai-Rheims version has our first parents hide amidst trees, at the plural. Thus, they ran into a grove. However, following the Septuagint (i.e. the original Greek version), St Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translates tree in the singular, not in the plural: Adam and Eve hid in the midst of the tree of the paradise. Tree is here used collectively, and can also mean wood as a matter rather than a plant. One may even picture our first parents entering inside the tree, as if literally hiding within a wooden cavity. The conclusion is the same: whether amidst a grove or inside a hollow trunk, Adam and Eve hid in some arboreal surround. They had anticipated that gesture when, perceiving themselves to be naked immediately after eating of the fruit, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons (Gen 3:7). Fig leaves were chosen as wider and thus more effective to cover their bodies, even though the actual trees in which they hid soon after may not have been fig trees. Let us take note of the common nature and purpose of leaves and wood, though: they belong together as the lesser and main parts of any tree, and are meant by the offenders as hiding devices. This prefigures the unity, many centuries later, between the timber of the cross and the crown of thorns of the Lord Jesus, as if the latter were branches stemming from the former. Combined, they stand as wood wherein Our Lord is caught. Thus, Adam and Eve’s posture is the initial stage in our prophetic thread of the lethal entanglement of one’s head or person in wood. Indeed both culprits are soon arraigned and death sentence is pronounced. But their progeny will avenge them, God promises: the New Adam Our Lord.
Isaac’s ram
On Mount Moriah (located in what became Jerusalem according to tradition), God instructed Abraham to spare his son Isaac. In response, Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw behind his back a ram amongst the briers sticking fast by the horns, which he took and offered for a holocaust instead of his son (Gen 22:13). Here the pattern becomes more precise. Young Isaac was under immediate threat since, bound upon the wood of sacrifice, he could see his father’s dagger about to cut his throat. His salvation is granted by God as a reward for the obedience of Abraham (and his own). This fortunate outcome is sealed by a sacrifice of substitution. An animal is killed instead of the son. What we should note at this stage is the posture of the victim. The ram is caught in brambles by the horns, therefore, by its head. Instead, the animal could have been caught by its leg in a crevice, the landscape being mountainous. Like sheep, rams naturally grow long tails swelling with fat, when not cut off by shepherds as would have been the case for a wild ram in the desert mountain of Moriah. The ram’s wide and long tail then could have plausibly caught in brambles. Or else, the ram could have been caught by its neck. Or simply, it could have been wandering unawares and directly seized by Abraham, well accustomed to such handling, since he had sheep and oxen and he asses (Gen 12:16). All those suppositions help us realise that the posture of the ram conveys prophetic meaning. With its horns entangled, that is, its head, the ram mirrors Isaac bound on the wood and announces the definitive Victim, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world: Christ crowned with thorns, that is, also caught by the head in brambles.
Moses’ bush
This third episode is similar to that of Isaac’s sacrifice. In both instances a nomadic shepherd (Abraham, Moses) travels toward a mountain (Moriah, Horeb) where God speaks to him in close connection with a bush: Now Moses… drove the flock to the inner parts of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush (Ex 3:1-2). The Hebrew word used is seneh, a thorny bush, perhaps a blackberry bush. The Greek word is batos (βάτος): a thorn bush or bramble bush. We can be sure that the bush had thorns because the same word was used by Our Lord when referring to Moses’ bush: Moses also shewed, at the bush, when he called the Lord (Lk 20:37); and in his comparison of the good and bad trees: For men do not gather figs from thorns; nor from a bramble bush do they gather the grape (Lk 6:44). Unlike in Isaac’s story though, here no threat weighs upon either boy or ram. Could it be that God be the one made vulnerable through dwelling in the bush? Is God caught in the brambles? No mention of a head is needed here, God being incorporeal. But the Fathers of the Church have interpreted the Burning Bush as a prophecy of the Incarnation of the Divine Word. The fire is the godhead, they wrote, and the unburnt bush is the human nature assumed yet not consumed. Some authors are more specific, suggesting that the fire is Our Lord yet unborn and the bush is Our Lady pregnant, whose virginity, like the shrub, is brightened, not consumed, by the divine Fruit she bears. Further, it could prefigure the Holy Eucharist in which the divine Presence communicates itself through the externals of wine and bread. When becoming Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word eternal entangled himself in our human nature out of love, like the fire in the thornbush. He became our substitutive victim like the ram caught in Abraham’s bush was for Isaac. As the biological progeny of Mary, Jesus is therefore truly the Son of Man, subjected to death that we may rise.
The Ark of the Covenant
Once Moses had led the Hebrews out of Egypt God commanded him to build the Ark of Covenant: a piece of sacred furniture the size of a chest. Within it the Almighty would dwell, accompanying his people on their way to the Promised Land: Frame an ark of setim wood… And thou shalt overlay it with the purest gold, within and without; and over it thou shalt make a golden crown round about (Ex 25:10-11). After Adam and Eve’s hiding tree, Isaac-ram’s thicket and Moses’ burning bush, once again we encounter the pattern of a presence caught within wood. As with the burning bush above, no head of the incorporeal God needs mentioning here, or obliquely through the faces of his two angels carved on the top of the ark. The Hebrew word setim (or shittim) means acacia. The Vulgate explains it as not liable to putrefaction. The Hebrews came across acacia trees when wandering in the desert. To survive heat, acacias grow very dense, strong wood, hence unpalatable to insects or other decay agents. The surround pattern occurs again with the golden crown round about the ark. The Septuagint reads: You shall make [for] it a waved border of gold, twisted round about. Thus, once again God assigns the pattern of wooden encirclement (here with acacia enhanced by gold) as a sign for his presence, either personal or prophetic. In addition, most acacia trees grow thorns, some up to three inches long (over seven centimetres). Thorns were surely cut off for the wood to be shaped into an ark, but the notion of threat is by no means absent from this sacred device since thousands of Philistines were killed by God for having captured his ark (1 Sam 5; 6). Indeed, the ark inspired dread down to King David’s time. On its way to Jerusalem, the guard Oza put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it: because the oxen kicked and made it lean aside. And the indignation of the Lord was enkindled against Oza, and he struck him for his rashness: and he died there before the ark of God (2 Sam 6:6-7). Its sacredness kept hands off the ark more surely than its original acacia thorns shaved off. God further commanded: Thou shalt put in the ark the testimony which I will give thee (Exo 25:16). The Septuagint mentions here testimonies in the plural, martyria (μαρτύρια). They are the stone tablets of the law, Aaron’s rod and a jar of manna. Historically connected with Moses, all three items point to Christ as the definitive Deliverer: Giver of the New Law, Saviour through his Cross and Bread of Angels.
Samson’s demise
An ambivalent character listed among the judges of Israel, Samson also prefigures Christ in striking ways: notably through his treacherous delivery for money, his bringing the wooden gates of the city up to a nearby hill like Christ carrying his cross to Golgotha, and his sacrificial death. Intending to betray Samson to his enemies the Philistines, his ill-trusted Delilah presses him to reveal the secret of his superhuman strength. He deludes her twice, pretending that binding him with cords and ropes would overcome him. His third riddle leads her dangerously close to the truth, pointing to his head and hairs instead of man-made bonds: If thou plattest the seven locks of my head with a lace, and tying them round about a nail, fastenest it in the ground, I shall be weak (Judg 16:13). Her attempted betrayal having failed a third time, Delilah allows Samson no respite so that, His soul fainted away, and was wearied even unto death (Judg 16:16). His anguish announces that of Christ in Gethsemane, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Mk 14:34), sorrowing upon the fallen human race, the unfaithful spouse whom he comes to cleanse in his blood. Samson finally gives up and admits to Delilah: The razor hath never come upon my head, for I am a Nazarite, that is to say, consecrated to God from my mother’s womb: If my head be shaven, my strength shall depart from me, and I shall become weak (Judg 16:17). The Lord Jesus was called a Nazarene, not only because he grew up in Nazareth but because he was consecrated to God even from conception, better than Samson or any prophets. Nazarites were to wear long hair, as echoed in all traditional depictions of Our Lord from his Holy Shroud onward. Paradoxically, Samson was safe when his hairs were entangled in lace and tied around a nail; whereas he was doomed once shaven. This prefigures Jesus’ entanglement of love when crowned with thorns. Christ vanquished as the thorns combed his long hair, piercing his scalp. Upon the tree of the cross, quoting the psalm where his sufferings were prophesied in striking details, the true Nazarene affirmed his total consecration to God: From my mother’s womb thou art my God (Ps 21:11).
No thorns or brambles caught Samson, even though he lost his eyes when betrayed. Our thread of the arboreal entanglement seems interrupted here. Still, his posture implied a lethal embrace as Delilah craftily lulled the lover she has already sold for money: She made him sleep upon her knees, and lay his head in her bosom (Judg 16:19). Prophetically, would not that sentence describe just as fittingly the newborn Child Jesus in his young mother’s arms, and even the dead Christ embraced by his sorrowful mother the Blessed Virgin Mary? For us who came long after Samson and Delilah, their embrace gleams like an evil negative of the Nativity or of the Pietà. The crowning with thorns fulfils, we realise, the entanglement of love initiated at the Incarnation and manifested at the Nativity. As the sacred liturgy affirms, Beata viscera Mariae Virginis quae portaverunt aeterni Patris Filium: Blessed is the womb of the Virgin Mary, that bore the son of the everlasting Father. Our contrition increases and our gratitude even more when devoutly recalling the virginal viscera after the Latin quote above. The Virgin’s bowels, to translate literally, form the organic entanglement sought by the Word Eternal when becoming man in Our Lady’s womb. To what end? To die on the cross for our sins, his kingly head entangled in brambles. It was still a plant, then, in which the incorporeal Word was caught through his Incarnation, the Jesse Tree of his human descent, culminating in Jesus the divine Nazarene, that is, following St Matthew’s connection with the word nezer, an offshoot.
Absalom’s death
The name of King David’s third son was Father of Peace, from Abba, father, and shalom, peace. The similitudes between Absalom and Our Lord are more numerous and striking than with Samson, as are the contrasts. Absalom intrigued to succeed his father before the time, even waging war against him. Jesus came to do his Father’s will, even unto death. Absalom’s external appearance was unrivalled: But in all Israel there was not a man so comely, and so exceedingly beautiful as Absalom (2 Sam 14:25). Not of his rebellious son, though, but of the divine Messiah did King David prophesy: Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips; therefore hath God blessed thee for ever (Ps 45:2). Samuel wrote further of Absalom that, From the sole of the foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. Contrasting word for word, Isaiah beheld Christ in his Passion: From the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein: wounds and bruises and swelling sores (Isa 1:6).
The circumstances of their deaths bring our thread of the lethal wood entanglement to its climax. Both sons of David rode on a mule soon before being caught, their heads entangled with branches: As [Absalom’s] mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and he earth, the mule on which he rode passed on. And one saw this and told Joab, saying: I saw Absalom hanging upon an oak (2 Sam 18:9-10). After the Resurrection, St. Peter bore witness before the Jews to Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree (Acts 5:30). All four evangelists affirm of Jesus that, platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head (Mk 15:17). Vital force emanated from Absalom, but purely material and probably vain. Thus he had been described earlier as growing hair in striking quantity: When he polled his hair (now he was polled once a year, because his hair was burdensome to him) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred sicles, according to the common weight (2Sa 14:26). In contrasted similitude, St. Luke wrote of Jesus that, all the multitude sought to touch him: for virtue went out from him and healed all (6:19). It is likely that Absalom’s abundant mane caught all the more tightly into the branches of the oak, sealing his fate as Joab, took three lances in his hand, and thrust them into the heart of Absalom (2 Sam 18:14). Following the Hebrew, the Greek Septuagint brings together the heart of the fugitive son and, surprisingly, the heart of the oak tree: Jonas stuck the arrows in theheart of Absalom [while] yet he was living, in the heart of the oak. Indeed the same Greek noun cardia, heart, is used for the man (καρδία Αβεσαλώμ) andfor the tree (καρδία τῆς ὃρυός). The oak thus appears as an extension of the man. Their hearts superimpose as his hair mingles with its branches. This detail strengthens the assimilation of the human victim with the arboreal creature. Their association seems fortuitous in this episode of the Old Testament, but not in the light of Jesus’ crucifixion and crowning with thorns. According to his revelation, God intended a correspondence between Christ, fruit of our redemption, and the cross, tree of salvation. A bitter summary of mankind’s aversion from God, the palms waved by the crowd in acclamation before the Son of David entering Jerusalem on his mule became, but five days later, lethal thorns forced around his head. Such a mystery could not be explained all at once. Its unfolding was prepared by stages.
Conclusion: Harvesting
We have just surveyed various episodes of sacred history as if flying over a dense forest. The intricate complexity of so many details and concrete circumstances can overwhelm us, making us wonder where this is all leading up to. Are we lost? Through one pin on the map of redemption―the holy Cross planted on Golgotha―God solves our helplessness. To the Cross of his Son everything leads, and from it all life stems. The Cross is steady while the world turns, to quote the motto of the Carthusians: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis. Falling from grace, Adam was expelled from Eden. God followed him headlong, moved by compassion. Adam was caught in the wood, a symbol for his godless outlook on creation. So God got himself caught in the wood as well. How? Prophetically, through victimal substitution with the ram caught by the head in the thicket. Through arboreal illumination in the burning bush. Through wood wrapping in the wandering Ark of Covenant. Through organic nesting in the Virgin’s womb as prophesied in Samson’s head caught in Delilah’s bosom. Finally, through the actual hanging of Absalom’s head from the tree.
The transformative power of divine grace is such that God, made wood for the sake of rescuing Adam, revives fallen humans through grafting them in him. Thus, St. Paul applies that horticultural verb to Jews and Gentiles alike: And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again (Rom 11:23). Such spiritual grafting occurs when we embrace the true faith. But any living branch requires sap. The sap of our souls is the Holy Eucharist, flowing in us through Holy Communion. In that main sacrament the fall of Adam is fully repaired. Lured into the tree by the serpent in Genesis, Adam had turned away from God, eating of the tree or wood, hence losing the godly use of his reason. Having embraced a tree against God’s order, Adam had spiritually become wood himself as is the fate of idolaters: Let them that make them become like unto them: and all such as trust in them (Ps 115:8). As a merciful antidote, the New Adam made himself vine to pour the sap of his own blood into our bodies and souls.
We can now better appreciate the divine logic illustrated by the various stages described earlier. God had made himself wood, that is, he had manifested or prophesied his presence through botanical surrounds to reach us where we lay, rooting us and grafting us back in him to unite us with him anew. The clusters of grapes and sheaves of wheat carved on the tabernacles of our churches fittingly display this literal transformation of plants by God into his Body and Blood for our consumption and salvation. Which of us would not want to be crowned in his turn with such Eucharistic wreaths, helmets of salvation purchased for us by the Lord? After the grapes and wheat changed into the Eucharistic Body and Blood of the Lamb, our persons are turned into his limbs, mystically. But again, all the merit of such a salutary change stems from the racking of the Lord upon the tree of the Cross and the piercing of his kingly brow within the fiery crown of thorns. Glory to the King who redeemed us from the barbed jungle of sin at the cost of his divine sap: Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat! Christ conquers! Christ reigns! Christ commands! □
Join our Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross of her Son and walk with her on the road from life to death to eternal life, by meditating upon the Stabat Mater line by line.
The Juventutem International Federation is pleased to announce that Henry Walker (England) succeeds Bertalan Kiss (Hungary) as President and John Paul Makilya (Kenya, New York) succeeds Monica Clarke (USA) as Secretary. Cosimo Marti (Switzerland, Italy) stays on as Treasurer as does Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP (UK) as Chaplain. We are grateful to all at the Bureau, and in our local groups for their past and current involvement at the service of the sanctification of the young according to the Roman traditions of the Church.
Please visit the pages of our various chapters to communicate and book for the forthcoming events, notably: the Pilgrimage of Christendom from Paris to Chartres on the weekend of Pentecost; the annual Summer Weekend in the UK (Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, 21-23 July 2023); and WYD (see below).
World Youth Day: Lisbon 2-6 August 2023
Whereas the uncertainty affecting the celebration of the traditional Latin liturgy precludes participation on the same scale as at previous World Youth Days, Juventutem will be present in Lisbon. Adequate venue has been secured in the centre of the capital. Doctrinal and spiritual conferences, and liturgies, will be held daily. Please note that Juventutem will take no booking of any kind. Pilgrims must secure their travel, accommodation, meals and any such arrangements separately from Juventutem. The location and schedule will be advertised on Juventutem medias in time before WYD begins.
“We, Your Young, Loyal, and Traditional Catholics”
In composing the FIJ Bureau’s Reflections on the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, we chose to use these stirring words as the title. The young have a great capacity for loyalty, indeed they yearn for it, and it is tradition that often provides the object of their loyalty: family, community, country, faith. Today, we humbly speak for all young members of Juventutem in proclaiming our loyalty to the Faith of our Fathers and its expression in our lives.
We, Your Young, Loyal, and Traditional Catholics
[Full text:]
Reflections by the Bureau of the Juventutem International Federation on the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes
29 July 2021
I will go in to the altar of God; to God who gives joy to my youth. The youth evoked here in Psalm 42 is not a matter of age. Rather, it is the spiritual youth of souls rejuvenated by divine grace given by Jesus Christ in the Holy Church. The name Juventutem is the Latin for youth.[1]Juventutem is an international Catholic movement for the sanctification of young people through the Roman traditions of the Church. Juventutem was founded in the context of the Year of the Eucharist inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in October 2004 and concluded by Pope Benedict XVI in October 2005. The emblem of Juventutem is a Eucharistic monstrance. For the past seventeen years, Juventutem has illustrated this unexpected combination: one can be an average teenager, a loyal Catholic, and a lover of Latin traditions.
In his Letter to the Bishops on Traditionis Custodes (TC),[2] Pope Francis refers to the words of Pope Benedict XVI about the usus antiquior: “young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.”[3]Juventutem recognises itself in this portrayal by the Vicars of Christ. For over seventeen years, Juventutem has supported hundreds of young Catholics worldwide in their aspiration to holiness. This goal was sought through the traditional Latin Mass offered always in full communion with the pope and the bishops. Notably, at World Youth Days, dozens of cardinals and bishops offered the traditional Latin Mass for the Juventutem young adults and gave catecheses as part of the official WYD schedule, as formally approved by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. World Youth Day is the largest recurrent Catholic event in the world, bringing together one million young adults or more around the Vicar of Christ on various continents every few years. WYDs provide a colourful assessment of the modern Church. Since 2005, having the traditional Roman liturgy officially included in the WYD schedule has fostered unity in diversity. It has provided inspiration to the younger generation who encountered these beautiful traditions with Juventutem in Cologne (2005), Sydney (2008), Madrid (2011), Rio de Janeiro (2013), Krakow (2016), Panama (2019).
By now, the young adults involved with Juventutem in its early years have answered God’s call to sanctity in married life and in consecrated life within Holy Church. Many are now spouses, parents, nuns, monks, and priests. In their parishes and dioceses, in their movements and communities, these young Catholics are active members of the Church of today and of tomorrow. The many cardinals, bishops and priests who met them at WYDs and on other occasions have found them to be cheerful, prayerful, kind, and generous. For many prelates, encountering traditional Catholic young people was a happy surprise. Since WYDs occur only every three years, they called for local initiatives to foster the sanctification of the young all year long. In response, Juventutem soon established itself as an international federation[4] of small youth groups, spread all over the world.[5] Nearly all chaplains to the Juventutem groups are diocesan priests. All activities are supported by the parish or diocese. As an official participant in the 2017 Youth Conference in Rome organized by the new dicastery of the Vatican for the Laity, Family, and Life, and in the 2018 Youth Synod at the Vatican, Juventutem reported on the activities and aspirations of young traditional Catholics worldwide.
Even without formal Juventutem membership, thousands of young adults have attended traditional Latin liturgies and activities as visitors at Juventutem events, or have watched them online. Many adults as well among the clergy and the laity have been interested to see the favourable impact of the traditional liturgy on young people. To all it was clear that the doctrine preached and the spirituality fostered were simply Catholic. Juventutem chose St. John Bosco as its special patron. The great apostle of the youths once dreamed of three whitenesses, the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Roman Pontiff. The more those three are honoured together, the more Juventutem young people feel at home. Like their fellow Catholics all around the world, young traditional Catholics read recent Magisterial documents, including Vatican II. As a lay organisation dedicated to the sanctification of youth, they wholeheartedly support the universal call to holiness stated by the latest council. Since many of them are converts, they praise religious freedom and deplore any prejudice and coercion which would deter God’s children from finding Him in Jesus Christ through His Holy Church. They also welcome ecumenism as a genuine invitation to all fellow Christians to avail themselves of the means of salvation appointed by God in His Holy Church. Lastly, they favour the openness of the Church to the modern world – like “A city seated on a mountain [that] cannot be hid” (Matt 5:14) – displaying God’s truth and love for the benefit of society at every level. They know that the guidance offered by Holy Church earlier is still valid for today’s Catholics, whom Pope Francis called to be made “fully conscious of all the fruits derived from this Council [of Trent], and that they may unite themselves in bringing these fruits to others and in propagating them in every way”.[6]
We, the young, loyal, and traditional Catholics, pray that our Holy Father Pope Francis and all our bishops will allow us further to seek sanctification from the liturgical and spiritual traditions of the Church of Rome, in keeping with the encouragements received over the past seventeen years from the Church Hierarchy and in thanksgiving to God for the good fruits bore. May we conclude with this wise statement by Pope Francis at the end of his Post-Synodal Exhortation Christus Vincit to Young People and to the Entire People of God on 25 March 2019:
“229. These and various other opportunities for evangelizing the young should not make us forget that, despite the changing times and sensibilities of young people, there are gifts of God that never grow old, for they contain a power transcending all times and places. There is the word of the Lord, ever living and effective, the nourishing presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Reconciliation, which brings us freedom and strength. We can also mention the inexhaustible spiritual riches preserved by the Church in the witness of her saints and the teaching of the great spiritual masters. Although we have to respect different stages of growth, and at times need to wait patiently for the right moment, we cannot fail to invite young people to drink from these wellsprings of new life. We have no right to deprive them of this great good.”[7]
Signed: Bureau of the International Juventutem Federation
Bertalan Kiss, President
Monica Clarke, Secretary
Cosimo Damiano Marti, Treasurer
Rev. Armand de Malleray, FSSP, Chaplain
[1] Here in the accusative form, as a quote from Psalm 42 recited at traditional Holy Masses.
[3] Letter to the Bishops on Summorum Pontificum: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi.html
[5] Youth groups normally don’t last longer than five years. Juventutem chapters are currently active in Austria, Canada, Spain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, England and America. Formerly active chapters were in Brazil, France, Switzerland, Germany, Kenya, Slovenia, Poland, Argentina, Hong Kong, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Chile, Colombia, Scotland and Spain.
The Bureau of the FIJ: Treasurer Cosimo Damiano Marti, Secretary Nicholas Heiny, President Bertalan Kiss, and International Ecclesiastical Assistant Fr. Armand de Malleray FSSP.
A graduate of Indiana University, Nick is pursuing licensing as a CPA. An alum of the Chartres Pilgrimage, he has a long history of Christian service including mission projects with FOCUS, the Fellowship Of Catholic University Students. He has helped priests become trained to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and is working to organize a Juventutem chapter in that diocese.
In the role of the Secretary of Juventutem, Nick will focus on communication and diplomacy in support of the mission of Juventutem, promoting the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, and in particular, the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass:
– Facilitating communication among leaders of Juventutem chapters and communicating with chapters as to participating in international events such as World Youth Day and as to paying the annual dues.
– Receiving communications from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life and responding to them (or causing them to be responded to by the Juventutem member whose competence it is to do so).
– Receiving inquiries from those who are interested in seeking to affiliate a group of young adults to the Juventutem movement and facilitating the consideration of their applications by the full Bureau.
– Meeting members of Juventutem and other faithful attached to the Traditional Latin Mass in person as often as possible.
Together with the other members of the Bureau, the Secretary supports the institutional memory of Juventutem – both by familiarizing himself or herself with such resources as exist to report on Juventutem as well as by exercising active curiosity to query those with personal experience of Juventutem’s activities. Nick can be emailed at: secretary at juventutem dot org.
The Bureau thanks wholeheartedly Paul Schultz of Juventutem Michigan for serving as the Secretary from November 2013 until now with great dedication and much fruit, as well as all of the friends and benefactors of the Juventutem movement who have supported our efforts.
Secretary Emeritus Paul Schultz, pictured with his family at the 2018 pilgrimage in Rome.
Populus Summorum Pontificum
Rome : 25-27 octobre 2019
En 2019, le pèlerinage “Populus Summorum Pontificum” sera guidé par Mgr Dominique Rey, évêque de Fréjus-Toulon.
Vendredi 25 octobre
> 15h45 – Chemin de Croix, église Saint-Louis-des-Français, Institut du Bon Pasteur
> 17h15 – Messe d’ouverture du pèlerinage, basilique Santa Maria ad Martyres (Panthéon), célébrée par les prémontrés de Godollo (Hongrie) et chantée par la schola de l’église Saint-Michel de Budapest (Juventutem)
Samedi 26 octobre
> 9h30 – Adoration eucharistique (et confessions) en la basilique San Lorenzo in Damaso (CNSP)
> 10h30 – Procession solennelle vers Saint-Pierre, présidée par Mgr Rey
> 12h – Messe pontificale à l’autel de la Chaire de Saint-Pierre, célébrée par Mgr. Rey, chorale dirigée par le maestro Aurelio Porfiri (CISP)
Dimanche 27 octobre
> 9h30 – Messe pour la Fête du Christ-Roi en l’église de Jésus-et-Marie (ICRSP) pou les pèlerins désireux de participer à l’Angelus du Saint-Père
> 11h – Messe pontificale célébrée par Mgr Rey, en la paroisse personnelle de la Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini (FSSP)
Activités complémentaires proposées par nos membres
> Vendredi 25 octobre, 20h : présentation par la FIUV du livre “The Case for Liturgical Restoration”
info: secretary@fiuv.org
Friday, 24 May 2019 – the Feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians – is claimed as the 15th anniversary of the Juventutem idea. While Julien Bodereau, Fabien Vieillefosse, and Fr. Armand de Malleray had already been working for months on the idea of an international collaboration of young adults attached to the Traditional Latin Mass – and, in particular, for a manifestation of such a group at World Youth Cologne (pdf report) – 24 May 2004 was the first date in which the name “Juventutem” was emailed between the founders as a name under which the apostolate might be carried out.
In 2006, when the Juventutem idea was formalized into the Juventutem movement in the Fœderatio Internationalis Juventutem, the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians was named in the Juventutem Charter (pdf) as the day each year when each involved Catholic young adult is asked to consider the Six Commitments of Juventutem and to confirm whether he or she will undertake those commitments for the next 12 months. For a Juventutem chapter to continue to be accredited in any particular locale, it must continue to have at least three members who undertake the commitments (link to application form). The more-or-less up-to-date list of Chapters is here.
At least three chapters around the world are gathering this day to corporately observe our anniversary: If you know any young adult within a short ride or drive of these locations, please send him or her an encouragement to be involved.
London: Fr. Armand de Malleray, International Ecclesiastical Assistant of the FIJ will celebrate Mass for Juventutem London and for the intention of all members, friends, and patrons of the Juventutem movement at St. Mary Moorfields at 7:30 p.m., with social to follow – Facebook
Austria: Juventutem Kärnten will gather for a Traditional Latin Mass on Friday morning.
Ireland: weather-permitting, Juventutem Corcaigh will gather for Holy Mass at Kilcrea Friary at 7:30 p.m. – Facebook
Minnesota: Juventutem Twin Cities – Holy Hour at the Cathedral – Facebook
Wherever you are, please keep Juventutem in mind and say a prayer for the sanctification of young adults through its efforts.
(the image above, of Our Lady, Help of Christians, is borrowed from Vultus Christi, the blog of the Traditional Benedictine community now installed at Silverstream Priory in County Meath, Ireland. The blog made use of that image on the eponymous feast day in 2008, which Pope Benedict XVI had inaugurated as a day of universal prayer for the Church in China.)
Fr. Armand de Malleray, FSSP – Ecclesial Assistant of the Fœderatio Internationalis Juventutem, rector of St. Mary’s Shrine in Warrington, England, and the superior of the FSSP apostolate in England – has recently published a beautiful new book on the Most Holy Eucharist.
Of this new title, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski says “In this book Fr. de Malleray has given us a vivid introduction to the ‘font and apex of the Christian life,’ with unexpected angles and brilliant connections that refresh an old subject for contemporary readers. May it bring the minds and hearts of many readers nearer to ‘the bread of God that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world.'”
The book may be ordered here (in Europe) and here (in the USA).
![D844-Meditations-on-the-Stabat-Mater[1]](http://juventutem.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/D844-Meditations-on-the-Stabat-Mater1.jpg)
