SSPX News Archive Sri Lanka 2003 Report On First Traditional Pilgrimage To The Miraculous Shrine Of Our Lady Of Madhu Sri Lanka (Ceylon) By Fr. Kevin Robinson SSPX 24/25 January 2003 IMPORTANCE OF THIS SHRINE: The Catholics of Ceylon were given the Faith by St. Francis Xavier and his helpers in the mid-sixteenth century. The teardrop island to the south of India (like Tasmania is to Australia) first heard of our holy Faith through the devout converts of St. Francis Xavier on the fishery coast of Tamil Nadu, and begged the saint to come and instruct them on the way to salvation. St. Francis sent missionaries who received into the church over 600 on the top part of Ceylon, the area called Mannar. The local king was enraged at these conversions and in 1544, he ordered the slaying of all the new Catholics. They are venerated as martyrs of the Faith every year on January 25. By the year 1583 there were 43,000 Catholics with 26 churches in the area! St. Francis wrote to Rome on Jan 27, 1545, about his work in South India… “God our Lord has moved so many people to become Christians that within a single month I baptised more than 10,000 persons…” He goes on to speak of the Mannar Martyrs … “about fifty leagues from where I now am…May God be thanked that martyrs are not lacking in our days; and since heaven is being so slowly peopled through pious works, God our Lord in His great providence permits the glorious number of His elect to be increased though cruelties that are wrought here on earth.” Our group sets out after an early mass Friday 24 January 2003 Worse than the persecution of the Tamil King was that of the Dutch “Christians” in the 17th Century. In the year 1670, twenty families of Catholics went hiding in the forests, and took with them their favourite statue of Our Lady of Good health. For many years they grew in both virtue and numbers, still hiding in the wild bush, yet not one beast: vipers, leopards, tigers, bears, spiders….harmed even one of these devout Catholics. Our Lady finally led them to build a church at the place we now venerate as Madhu, 45 miles from Mannar. The famous Fr. Joseph Vaz came after 1686, with other Oratorian priests (whose rule is a model used by Archbishop Lefebvre for the SSPX), came to bring about a Catholic revival. We hired this small bus with a driver and assistant, plus 28 of our devout faithful of sri lanka with their own traditional priest Every year for many years there used to be a pilgrimage to Madhu, last year it numbered half a million according to some reports. But for twenty years these pilgrimages were stopped by the troubles surrounding the Tamil Tiger Terrorist group, which have caused enormous national disruption since 1981, many innocents killed in reprisals and in their cause for a separate state. The Tamils look like the rest of Sri Lankans, but have a different language and mentality and Hindu religion. Over 70% of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese, a different racial stock, and of mostly Buddhist religion. The priest administrator and the patriarch of our group chat The Rev. Fr. Administrator to the Shrine, Fr. Phillips OMI (aged 65, ordained 35 years, of Tamil stock), told me that some pilgrims defied the risk to their lives, and decided to come on a pilgrimage to Madhu in 2001 trusting totally in Our Lady. He said since then there has been a cease-fire and a year of peace, with the government negotiating with the terrorists for some reasonable compromise of local rule. The peace, he said, comes from Our Lady. He also told me that sand coming from the shrine has raised to life more than a few people who were declared clinically dead, with countless other miracles from the Immaculate One for those who believe. Also, this sand, when applied to those bitten by venomous vipers, leave them unharmed. No wonder so many came last year, and this year is the first time our small group of traditional Catholics has ventured to go as a body with their priest (who was visiting this time from Australia rather than from Singapore). Some of the group poses outside the church St. FRANCIS XAVIER MISSION PILGRIMAGE OF THE SSPX PART A We left after a 6:00am Mass Friday morning, 30 people in a rented bus of pre-Vatican II standards. The trip was supposed to take only six hours but it took ten! The roads up north are of pre-twentieth Century standards. We were held up by two road accidents that forced us to re-route on very small and wretched paths that pass for roads. Then near the top part of the country we came into the Tamil Tiger dominated area, and had to stop and give ID details of every single member of the bus. This took quite some time, and caused some apprehension seeing all those military men with machine guns. A friendly warning about landmines. Thanks to Unicef This reminded me of my visit to China ten years previously, when I had to bring Holy Communion to a dying man from Hong Kong. There were three checkpoints to pass, showing my passport to Communist officials, as I prayed to be able to bear the cross of their dreaded jails and water torture. There is not much difference between a communist and a terrorist, but a big difference between a terrorist and a liturgist. One can always negotiate with a terrorist! On the way, we passed several terrorist checkpoints like this one near the shrine. Having passed all the checkpoints we proceeded to the holy shrine. On the way, men in uniform with machine guns stopped our bus several times more, now to check that we had no bombs or spies, now to push onto our bus a soldier or other traveller for us to take further on for God knows what purpose. We had no choice, take the men or face their guns. Our bus passed many signs to watch out for land mines, and take no photos. Finally we reached a road that said “Madhu Pilgrims only” This was a relief. We arrived around 5:00pm and went to the large church to pray before the sacred statue of our Heavenly Mother. Finally we arrive after 10 hours of driving. We approach the holy church of Our Lady of Madhu A side view of the church Then I went to see the priest, Fr. Phillips, who was most kind in welcoming us. We had chosen a date when there were no other organised groups, so we could stay in several rooms that were vacant, a special room for the priest with mosquito net and sink and desk. Father indicated that he had expected us and welcomed us to join his parish for a holy hour from 7-8pm, but we had our own Holy Hour prepared. I rested until called for dinner after 8:00pm then had a nice meal with the priest who discussed much of mutual interest. At nine I went to bless our people who were waiting outside the now locked church, saying their private novenas and devotions. Inside view of the nice church of Our Lady, north Ceylon I was able to give them the good news that Fr. Phillips kindly allowed us to use the main altar of the church for our Latin Mass, which had not been celebrated on that altar since the changes in 1969. He knew we were “Lefebvrists” but did not let that stop him from granting permission, so long as no photos were taken. 7:15 am Saturday we celebrated a sung Mass (de Angelis), after the New Mass (on the new table) was over. The sermon was on St. Pius X’s letter on Our Lady, Mediatrix of all graces. Some other pilgrims and locals stayed to participate in the Latin Mass, and asked, “Who are You, What are you Doing”. Luckily we had some literature to pass on to them, including Asian District Bulletins so they can come to our Mass in Negombo. Night prayers come to an end. One prayer was heard: we got to sing mass the next morning at the high altar and we are invited back next year PILGRIMAGE PART B JAN 25 Our people then took some holy soil, breakfast, and we went on our way by 10:00am. Fr. Phillips had invited us back next year or any time. His doors are always open to us, thank God. He told us the surprising news that this very day, 25 January, was the anniversary day of the 600 martyrs one hour north, where all the priests of the diocese were gathered for the solemn ceremony in their honour. The Vatican is considering the canonisation process for these heroes of the Faith. Of course I don’t think they would be martyrs if they had only known how to “dialogue” and practice “ecumenism”. We decided to go, no matter the cost in danger and distance and dollars (rupees). Off we went and arrived before noon. Before I left, I gave Fr. Phillips some back issues of the Catholic paper, the book by Fr. Schmidberger on the New Mass, the book by Bishop de Castro Mayer on the errors of today (1953), and various other items, including a CD with the Summa, the best Bible and commentaries, and lots of info on the SSPX. He was most grateful. One hour north of Madhu is the very place where 600 martyrs were slain, at Mannar. We arrived Saturday 25 Jan, the very day of the anniversary of the martyrs. Arriving at Mannar, we had just missed the several-hour long ceremonies to honour the martyrs. I met the parish priest, Fr. Christian Vaz, and two other diocesan priests, who were very interested in our visit and provenance. They were impressed and pleased to get the same info-pack as Fr. Phillips, including three CD’s and dozens of back issues of the Catholic for their fellow priests. The martyrs are depicted in a plaster relief above the church entrance. Photos were taken there. We prayed in the church and at the one huge tomb representing all the martyrs. When we sang a Latin rendition or Salve Regina after the Angelus, one man asked about our background, very disturbed that Latin has gone. He said his family is divided now that his children pray in Sinhalese, while they pray in Tamil, and services are all mixed up. WHY DID THEY ABOLISH THE LATIN MASS? Inside the church at Mannar, our people pray for strength of faith The return trip was longer but equally as interesting as the way up. We arrived at our church by 9:00pm, happily exhausted. The bus had passed more terrorists, more accidents, more potholes and more animals than I had ever seen. Goats, cows, tortoises, ducks, donkeys, swans, cats, dogs, pigs, snakes, lizards, (elephants earlier in the week) and even a chicken crossed the road. We said in common dozens of decades of the Holy Rosary, many other Hail Mary’s, with other prayers and hymns old and new, English and Sinhalese. All were spiritually gratified and some new opportunities opened. This pilgrimage could be the start of a regular event if God permits. May Our Blessed Mother make fruitful the seeds sown and the contacts made for the Kingdom of Her divine Son. Amen. Inside of Our Lady of Madhu Church Appendix of interesting Sri Lankan news: The days before this pilgrimage, I was taken on a tour to the High Country, which bypassed the National Seminary. I was pleased to call in and visit the philosophy section where I spoke with the Rector, Fr. Harold Periera, who told me a little about the place. There are ninety students of philosophy and 120 for theology. They are linked to the Vatican Pontifical Urban University. Fr. Periera gave me the handbook of studies for his half of the seminary, the Philosophy wing, and a booklet on the spiritual/personal side of their training. It was a surprising mixture of tradition and modern authors and methods. He told me that St. Thomas is used as the main author in theology, but only as one among many in philosophy. They must learn some Biblical Greek and Latin. They are recommended to read the Imitation, the Introduction of St Francis de Sales, The Story of a Soul by St Theresa. Along with Blondel, Rosmini and studies in Islam and Buddhism (even Tantric Buddhism! see handbook pg 41) they will have a mixed training indeed. Fr. Robinson with three priests of the Mannar diocese; a very interesting exchange took place The chapel was quite tasteful for a Novus Ordo one. There was even a new but good stained glass window above the altar. I was amazed to see the library where the Douay-Rheims Bible was given pride of place, and there were many TAN books, as well as the Summa, Gardeil, and lots of good books along with those of Buddha etc. The librarian is a seminarian who used to come to our Masses in Negombo and he is very tradition minded. He gladly took the doctrinal CD I had, and will make copies of it for the seminarians. He also took Fr. Schmidberger’s newest book on the New Mass, and will place it in the library. This is worth following up. His name is Francis Eymard. On this trip and the pilgrimage, we passed two amazing places, where the first-class relics of the great Buddha himself are claimed to be present. One place reputedly has the tooth of Buddha, another his right collarbone. Pilgrims come in the many thousands, but…. there are NO miracles there! Surprise surprise, false relics of a false god. “Pedes habent et non ambulabunt..” “Similes illis qui faciunt ea…” back to Sri Lanka SSPX New Archive