Screwtape Letters to Jr.: #1 - Tradition Emerges

Screwtape Letters to Jr.: #1 – Encountering Old Traditions

My dear Wormwood Jr.,

Your patient’s recent activities recently caught the attention of our father below. Do not think for a moment that our family name will “carry you” to graduation. While it is true he holds your dad and I in highest regard; you can no longer rely on pedigree. Your advancement to graduation, or return to receiving, is totally dependent on you.

While you have been overindulging in our candy jar of temptations, which I must remind you is reserved for the humans; you let the enemy lead your man into that moment of weakness where he recognized and regretted the sins of his past. I admit this happens very often, and because it is normally easily overcome, tempters find no need to sound the alarm. After all, every minion knows that if we just maintain the normal tempter-to-patient time, they will surely revert to their old sinful self; simple tempting 101 stuff, right?

My dear boy, you must erase such thinking immediately. It stopped being simple the moment you let him discover, what we old-timers call the “forma antiquior" (older form) or “usus antiquior" (older use) traditions of his Catholic Faith. By the way, the fact Latin profanity appears here, should tell you how serious this matter is, and so pay close attention. Neither you nor your dad is familiar with these traditions because the minions of my generation suppressed them for the better part of the past half century. As a result, our instructors stopped including them in our training curriculums.

Who could blame them? After the elders and I successfully infiltrated the human’s fortress of faith last century, we planted time bombs designed to destroy them from within. As these bombs exploded, so did our population. The unprecedented boom in our census these last fifty years is proof of this.

Just look at everything we have going for us these days. Church attendance for Catholics have gone from nearly eighty percent in 1958 to barely twenty percent; the number of new religious vocations are at the bottom of the barrel; corruption and division within the Vatican, prelates, priests, and religious are at mouthwatering levels; nearly sixty million human babies were murdered by their own mothers; infidelity and divorce are at an all-time high; the very meaning of marriage is being redefined both anthropologically and socially; assisted suicides, cohabitation, addictions, violence, and you name it – all at salivating levels.  With all this going for us, it’s not surprising we allowed the antiquior traditions to go unchecked.

Our father below, unfortunately, is now very concerned about the resurfacing of these traditions, particularly that atrocious Tridentine Latin Missae, which you’ve allowed your patient to discover. These antiquior traditionsare a big thorn in his side. It’s baffling to him how everything has been plummeting to our advantage, yet these repugnant traditions grow in number and strength. It seems to be the only thing on his mind these days.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to put on your “A” game. What typically works for humans these days will have little effect on patients like yours. There’s a reason church attendance was so high and our population down here was much lower during the fifties. Back then, many more humans worried about the salvation of their souls. I know, hard to believe, right?

If it were just a matter of old humans missing the antiquior traditions of their youth, well, that would be easy to handle. This simply isn’t the case though. Today, most humans attaching themselves to these traditions are young. The ages range from the early teens to forties. Our elders are baffled by the fact they don’t have antecedents of these old traditions – zero.

Not to make your load seem much heavier, but based on your patient’s profile, he’s likely the type that will not keep his newfound discoveries to himself. Instead, I fear he fits the perfect mold of an evangelizer. Lose him, and you will lose many other souls, which will send you far back to receiving, and put a permanent stain on our family name.

Feel like committing suicide again? I don’t blame you. All I’ve given you so far is discouraging news, but don’t throw in the towel just yet. Our special forces have been gathering significant intel, and our elders are using them to better understand this phenomenon. Yes, there’s much to learn, but we are making great progress.

Here’s what we know so far. The most popular means of discovering these traditions is the Tridentine Latin Missae. When humans encounter this form of liturgy, its exterior characteristics connect to their inner soul. How? We’re not exactly sure, but until we are, you need to at least become familiar with what attracts them to it. There’s a plethora or reasons, but we have narrowed them down to three categories.

First, there is a strong theocentricity about it. Humans find themselves centering on Him, our enemy above. Often, they view the Missae as “vertical” and something that evokes His transcendence. This explains why we are seeing the return of the high altar of sacrifice, which we thought was done away with in the seventies.

Second, it emphasizes the hagiocentricity, or holiness, of how they should approach Him through all the revolting, pious, and reverent rituals it is filled with. The resurfacing of the rituals bring nauseating memories of the Missaes during my prime years of tempting. I remember how the constant use of incense really made me sick. It’s bad enough when humans pray aloud, but when their prayers turn to wretched smelly smoke, I lose all sense of bearing. If the incense didn’t make a tempter sick; all the praying, genuflecting, signing of the cross (which is done more than fifty times!), kneeling (especially when they receive Him), and all that awful silence, will definitely send any minion to the infirmary. For humans, on the other hand, these things tend to heighten their awareness of their own interiority, which I don’t have to tell you is very bad for us.

Third, its “you-know-who” centricity brings out the priesthood of you-know-who and His sacrifice on Calvary, which our enemy loves to constantly remind us. It’s really disgusting. Everything focuses on that dreadful victory. What makes matters worse is the fact priests almost always face Him on Calvary, which only contributes to the glorification of His victory. I’ve always hated when a priest downplays his idiosyncratic self. It’s so much more pleasing when they increase themselves and decrease Him. May our father below help us all, if the day should come when all priests go back to facing Him. This whole Ad Orientem thing is one of the most profane debaucheries imaginable!

Notice how these three just so happen to be what we have virtually rid the human society of today. The enemy sure knows how to get our goat by bringing these antiquior traditions back. Nonetheless, be on your guard. The greatest danger for you is to have your patient internalize these things and make it a part of his everyday life.  We can’t have that!

If this happens, things can get out of hand real fast. You must commit to increasing the frequency and duration of your temptations by taking advantage of every opportunity to weaken him. If you allow the graces from the Tridentine Missae to enter his daily life, your opportunities will dwindle.

You will need to think this through carefully, but don’t over think things. Success still comes down to your persistence and consistency. The more tempting hours you log in, the closer he will come to surrendering his soul.  It’s that simple.  

One thing you have going for you is his family. Let me remind you how powerful the family can be; as the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole human world. Allow this to inspire you. Make it a catalyst for your attacks.

Like him, they were never exposed to the enemy’s antiquior traditions. His wife was indoctrinated in the Norvus Ordo Missae for four decades, and his children for almost two. Use this to your advantage. From what I gather, he is passionate about learning more about the old traditions. This is good.

Contrary to what you may be thinking now, you want to encourage him to learn as much about the antiquior traditions. Start with the Tridentine Latin Missae, but do so using all the weapons we have created over the last several decades. By this I mean; books, articles, blogs, videos, and anything claiming it is the only true form of liturgy. Try to get him thinking the Novus Ordo Missae is invalid and sinful. If possible, convince him the chair of Peter is empty. Win that, and you will gain a great stronghold. You want to fill him with so much of the wrong knowledge that it becomes confusing to his wife and children. Confusion is a great weapon. Use it to create tension, malice, anger, and division within his family.

As you are doing these things, be careful not to expose him to the stupid truth of the Church’s indefectibility. If he learns that the Catholic Church can never fail in Her mission given by the Enemy above, he will start questioning our lies about the Novus Ordo Missae being invalid, heretical, and sinful. Eventually he will come to the realization that if it were; that would mean the mystical body of you-know-who, of which whose head is the Enemy above, was feeding himself poison. From there, he will naturally conclude the Enemy could not have been poisoning the members of His body for the past half century. I hope you see how dangerous this can be.  

Now, here are more helpful suggestions. Do not allow him to create time for silence, which he can use for self-reflection, contemplation, and prayer. Silence is one of our enemy’s great weapons, so fill it with any distraction possible. Do not allow him to feed any yearning for the Eucharist. It’s bad enough he goes every Sunday. Don’t let him become a daily Communicant. Do not allow him to find a spiritual director. You want him as vulnerable possible, which is when he is alone. Do not allow him to arm himself with Sacramentals. Once he embraces them, expect your opportunities for temptation to plummet.

I will allow you a few days to digest all of this so that you can truly internalize the severity of this matter. Blow the dust of your history books and get more familiar with the usus and formas antiquiors. Meanwhile, I will put together a more comprehensive strategy.

Your affectionate great uncle,

SCREWTAPE