Response of a Lady to an Ecclesiastic on SpiritismA lady’s answer to a priest about Spiritism
Our friends from Bordeaux tell us that a vicar from that city wrote the letter below on January 8th to a very ill and elderly lady. We are formally authorized to publish it as well as the reply that followed.
“Madam,
I am sorry that I could not have exchanged some private ideas yesterday about certain religious practices that are contrary to the teachings of the sacred Church. There was a lot of talk about that in your family and in another circle. I would feel happy, Madam, to learn that the only thing you feel about such diabolical superstitions is repugnance and that you are always and sincerely connected to the unchanging dogmas of the Catholic religion.
Yours sincerely, etc.
“X”
Response
“My dear Vicar,
Since my mother is too ill to be able to personally respond to your kind letter dated 8th of the current month I promptly do it for her and in her name in order to satisfy your solicitude with respect to the dangers that might surround her and her family.
Dear Sir, in my house there is no religious practice that might bother the most devout Catholics unless the respect and faith towards the dead, my faith in the immortality of the soul, a boundless trust in the love and mercy of God and a strict observation of the sacred doctrine of Jesus, as much as allowed by my human nature, unless they are reproachable practices before the sacred Catholic Church.
“With respect to what people may say about my family, even in a circle, I am appeased. Not there or elsewhere they will never say that any of us has done things that will shame them or make them hide as I am not ashamed and I do not hide for the admission of the development and clarity that the Spiritist manifestations spread, to me and many others, about points that were obscure to my intelligence regarding everything that seemed to be part of nature. To those diabolical superstitions I owe a sincere belief, with acknowledgment, in all miracles that the Church gives us as articles of faith and that up until now I kept as symbols, or better saying, I confess, as fantasies. I owe them the quietness of my soul, unreachable up until now irrespective of my efforts. I owe them my faith, a limitless faith, without reflection, without comments, the same faith that the Church commands its children, as the Lord must d s the one that the divine Savior preached by word and example.
Thus, rest assured my dear Sir! The Good Shepherd gathered around the indifferent sheep, those who followed mechanically and out of habit, and that now follow him and will always do with love and appreciation. The divine Master forgave St. Thomas for not having believed before seeing. Then! Still in our days he comes to allow the non-believers to touch him and feel his hands and it is with an immense love that those who were skeptical now approach in order to kiss his bleeding feet and thank the good and merciful father for allowing that these immutable truths become touchable so as to strengthen the weak and clarify the blind who even refused to see the light that has been shining for many centuries.
Allow me now to rehabilitate my mother to the eyes of the sacred Church. In my whole family it is only me and my husband who are fortunate to follow such a path that each one has the freedom of judging from their own standpoint. I then quickly reassure you about that.
As for myself I personally found a lot of strength and consolation in the touchable certainty that those who we loved and cried for are always around us, preaching the love of God above all, the love to our fellow human beings, charity in all of its facets, abnegation, forgetfulness of calumnies and paying evil with good (which does not seem to distant from the dogmas of the Church).
Whatever happens down here I cling to what I know, to what I have seen, asking God to send His consolations to those like myself who dared not think about the mysteries of religion, afraid that this poor human reason that cannot admit but what it can understand could destroy the beliefs that habit made me look like I had.
I then thank our Lord whose unquestionable might and benevolence allow the saints and angels to become visible now to rescue people from denial and doubt something that the devil had the permission to do in order to veer them off the good path since the creation of the world.
To God everything is possible, even miracles. I now recognize that with joy and confidence.
Receive, my dear vicar, my sincere thanks for your attention towards us and believe me that I eagerly wish to see the same faith and love that I now strongly feel penetrating everyone’s hearts.
Yours sincerely,
Émilie Colignon”
OBSERVATION: There is no need for us to comment this letter, allowing each person to appreciate it as they will. The only thing we must mention is that we are aware of a large number of them with the same meaning. The passage that follows from one of those letters may summarize them if not with respect to the terms but at least with respect to the meaning.
“Although I was born and baptized in the Roman Catholic Church thirty years ago, that is since the first communion, I had forgotten my prayers and the path to the Church. In short I believed nothing but the reality of the material life. For a grace of Heavens, I finally see Spiritism opening my eyes. Today the facts spoke with me. I not only believe in God and in the soul but also in a future life that can be fortunate or unhappy; I believe in a fair and good God that punishes bad deeds and not wrong beliefs.
Like a mute person that recovers the ability to speak I now remember my prayers and I pray but no longer with the lips and without understanding what I am saying but with my heart, intelligence, faith and love. Not long ago I even admitted to carrying out an act of wickedness as long as I sought the sacraments of the Church. Today I believe that I humbly do a God-pleasing good deed. You reject me even in the tribunal of penitence. Before anything else you demand from me a formal denial of the Spiritist ideas. You want to renounce to the opportunity of talking to my beloved son who I lost and who came to bring me such reassuring and sweet words. You want me to declare that the child that I recognized as if he were alive right before me that he was the devil. No! A mother cannot be so grossly mistaken.
However, Mr. Vicar, I was convinced about a future life by the very words of that child that led me back to the Church! How come you want me to believe that it was the devil? If that had to be the last word of the Church we then ask what is going to happen when everybody is Spiritist?
You stigmatized me from the heights of your pulpit; you pointed your finger at me; you led a crowd of fanatical against me; you forced a poor woman that shares my beliefs to lose her bread winning job, telling her that she would get help if she stopped seeing me, expecting to beat her by hunger. Honestly, Mr. Vicar, would Jesus Christ have done the same?
You say that you act according to your conscience. Do not be afraid for I will not commit any violence but in turn be happy considering that I behave according to my own.
You sent me away from the Church. I will not try to force my way back there because the prayer pleases God everywhere.
Let me just tell you about the causes that have kept me away from the Church for a long time; that raised doubt in my spirit and from there total denial. If now I am cursed, as you say, you will see who bears the responsibility…”
OBSERVATION: The reflections that come out of such things can be summarized in two words: Fatal imprudence! Fatal blindness!
We browsed a manuscript entitled “Memories of a non-believer”. It is a curious report of the causes that lead people to materialistic ideas and the means b ided back to faith. We still do not know if the author will have it published.
