Holy Thursday letter of His Holiness the Florentine-Roman Papa, traditionally sent to priests, clergy, and lay leadership.
This year our Lenten journey saw much of the world torn apart, as it has been so many times in history, by hatred, bigotry, ignorance, and fear. As we know from the prophet Isaiah, however, the people that walked in darkness shall see a great light. That light is Christ. Tomorrow we commemorate our Lord as Victim, and Sunday we celebrate His glorious Resurrection. The light of Christ triumphed and will continue to triumph forever.
We recall again that the Roman State that is Our sacred duty to maintain was the foundation of modern society. It was built on ancient values of rationality, community, courage, and virtue. When the light of Christ illuminated the empire, those values were brought into their fullest, meaningful form. They went from being merely a means of good living to being the path to eternal life.
To ensure that we may each have the hope of eternal life, on this day so many years ago, our Lord established the Holy Eucharist, ordaining the Apostles priests. This day each year we truly celebrate the establishment of the Christian priesthood, for it is truly from the altar of God that all authentic service must flow. God’s holy justice must be maintained rather than abandoned in favour of mere worldly expediency, political maneuvering, or hatred. Yet, that happens all too often in the world.
We give Our fraternal greetings and Our blessing to each of Our brother priests around the world! We especially give Our fraternal greetings in Our blessing to the clergy of the newly-reestablished Gallican Rite of the Catholic Church.
Therefore, We charge each of you this coming Easter season to continue in your Christian service, sustaining and spreading the ideals of our Christian civilisation so that the light of Christ may be seen in each of you and reflected to others.
Rutherfordus Pp. I
Servant of the Servants of Christ