The Spring Encampment page is up. The even will take place on the weekend of May 23-25. The Advertising Flyer and Registration and Release Forms are available, plus all the details can be found there as well.
Please print out the Advertising Flyer and post it where you can. Let’s get the word out!
The linked thumbnail below will remain in the side bar, so it will always be visible on the site.
This is the title of the reatreat I am giving our sisters here in Bloomington, Indiana who are preparing to renew their vows on the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel. The line comes from a prayer composed spontaneously be Blessed John Duns Scotus, and which has entered into the language of the liturgy as an antiphon from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The full text is Allow me to praise Thee O Holy Virgin, give me strength against Thine enemies.
The story goes that Scotus was on his way by foot to Paris where he was to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception during a disputation conducted at the great University of Paris. Along the way he passed by a wayside shrine of Our Blessed Lady, and was inspired to kneel down and say this prayer. Our Blessed Lady was pleased to acknowledge the humility and devotion of her servant by miraculously manifesting that the prayer had been heard and answered.
The statue animated and bowed to the Blessed John, and he went on to Paris to brilliantly defend Our Lady’s prerogative of Her Immaculate Conception. The Franciscan Order has generally been recognized as one of the principle instruments for the defense and articulation of the dogma. Blessed Pope Pius IX, in fact, used the argumentation of Blessed John Duns Scotus as the basis for the papal bull defining the dogma in 1854. That defining moment is know affectionately within the Order as the Franciscan Triumph.
St. Maximilian Kolbe believed that the dogma was a blueprint for Catholic life, a battle plan for the crushing of the serpent’s head in our godless age. His act of consecration is a chivalric commitment, in our order a vow of blood to fight under Our Lady’s banner for the extension of the kingdom of Christ. Allow me to praise Thee O Holy Virgin, give me strength against Thine enemies.
Peter Wolfgang, the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut will be at our Holy Hour tomorrow night (Thursday, April 17) and after will speak about his work. We have always conceived the spirit of the Knights of Lepanto to be one of both prayer and action, and this spirit is exemplified by Peter and his colleague Larry Taffner.
Many of us know and appreciate the work FIC does, because we know how hard the anti-family and anti-life forces work to undermine traditional values, and we also know that without FIC, those forces would have been far more successful than they have been up to now.
Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time at the capital in Hartford knows how the same-sex marriage lobbyists walk around the State House as if they run the place and yet their schemes have been so often thwarted by the persistent efforts of just a couple of guys at FIC who keep up the fight everyday, while the rest of us show up now and again for the easy stuff. The efforts of those who donate, or show up at rallies and lobbying days, who volunteer to stuff envelopes and flood the legislature phone boards with calls to their legislators are not to be minimized; however, few of us realize how quickly Connecticut would be overrun by those who hate our values if it weren’t for a couple of guys that just won’t quit.
The fact is that the day to day work on the ground, in the State House and in the midst of enemies is being done by a couple of guys who bear up under the weight and keep going. This is a real knighthood, where men of honor do the right thing, no matter what the cost in the face of hopeless odds and push forward.
I really am urging the guys local to Connecticut to make the effort to come and pray with us during the holy hour and to hear Peter speak afterward. He really needs your prayer and support.
Several things or going on this week. First of all, I am on my way up to our friary in Maine NY, Mount St. Francis to visit our friars there before my trip to Rome during the first part of May. I will be there for our general chapter, which will conclude on Pentecost. Please pray for our community during this important time.
I will be back for the Third Thursday Night Holy Hour for the Fathers of our Families (program). This will be the third holy hour of the novena which will conclude in October just before the presidential election.
I have long encouraged the Knights of Lepanto to engage in Catholic action and our Third Thursday Meetings have been oriented in that direction. It is, however, far more important to pray and I have not wanted to neglect this. Hence the novena.
This particular month, I have invited Peter Wolfgang of the Family Institute of Connecticut to speak following the holy. I will be putting up a post shortly on the work of Peter at FIC. I am inviting all local men to come and learn more about how you can help to protect marriage and family life in Connecticut.
Thirdly, on Saturday, April 19 I will be directing a day of recollection at the friary for the Knights of Lepanto, specifically for all the first year members who are in need of their basic formation. This is open to all those who are formal MIM members and who attend the Knights’ meetings, including those who have already finished the first year formation and would like to review or just attend for their spiritual benefit.
We are planning on an early day, so that the whole Saturday is not shot for the guys who have stuff to do around the house. WE BEGIN AT 8:30 AM.
Here are the topics I will be covering on Saturday:
1. What is the group, The Knights of Lepanto? (Article 1 and 2, KL Directory)
The Divine Mercy festivities were well attended on Sunday at Our Lady of Ephesus House of Prayer in Jamaica, Vermont. I spoke to about 120 people on the mystery of Easter and Divine Mercy.
One thing I pointed out is how revelations of Our Lord to Saint Faustina about the Feast of Mercy utilizes time. We all know about the chaplet and the Hour of Mercy. Well, the Novena to the Divine Mercy leading up to the Feast begins on Good Friday, the historical Hour of Mercy, which in turn is part of the Easter Triduum that culminates the Season of Lent and begins the Season of Easter. The Feast itself comes on the Octave Day of Easter as a kind of grand finale of the Paschal mysteries as they are liturgically celebrated. All of these periods of time are pointing the the eternal Easter of paradise and solemnize our participation in the Redemptive and Eucharistic Sacrifices. Our hope is Easter, even as now we are more often in Lent and in the Hour of Mercy, the Hour of Suffering.
Our Lord points out to Saint Faustina that now is the Time of Mercy–now, as we continue to breathe. Beyond the veil of death, where time will end, there is no mercy, only justice. for God is a just judge, who will render to every man according to his works (Romans 2:6). The Message of Divine Mercy is supposed to instill confidence in all of us, but we need to understand the dimensions and character of Divine Mercy.
One day the sun will set on time for all of us. We continue to repeat the cycles of time, not only every year, but every week and day. The seven day cycle of the week beginning on Sunday, repeats over and over. The Day of the Lord where we give to God the first fruits of our lives looks foward to Our Lord’s second coming, when the seven day cycle of time will come to an end, and a new day will dawn, an Eighth Day that will never end. The ancient roman baptismal fonts were all octagonal, calling to mind our birth into new life, a life which looks forward to the bliss of eternity.
Each evening when the sun sets, we all lay down to sleep in a dress rehearsal for death and the Church prays: May the all powerful Lord, grant us a restful night and a peaceful death. Our sleep looks forward to the dawn and our hearts yearn for the final dawn of the Eternal Day.
Lord, for the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Here is a group shot with yours truly on the left, and then Don and Mary Tarinelli, the founders of the House of Prayer, with Father Marco Hurtado, priest of the Diocese of Newark, NJ, and Fra Solanus in the front and Fra Didacus all the way on the right.
It was a great grace to be invited by Don and Mary to preach. I highly recommend a visit to Our Lady’s House, you won’t be disappointed. It was also a pleasure to meet Fr. Marco and spend some time with him.
Here are couple of great photographs that Fra Didacus took. (He really is a camera bug!) The first is the replica of Our Lady’s House in Ephesus and the second is the lighted Cross on the House of Prayer property. Click on the thumbnail. I uploaded a larger file, since it is such and awesome photo.
Queen of Heaven Rejoice!
O Queen of heaven rejoice! alleluia:
For He whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia,
Hath arisen as he said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
Because the Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
This is the Regina Caeli, the great Marian antiphon for Easter, and, when it is first sung at the celebration of the Easter vigil, we will be reminded of the preeminence of Our Lady’s faith. She is the first to rejoice in the Easter mystery, not because She sees the empty tomb, but because She is certain, without need of seeing that sign, that what the Lord has promised will come to pass.
The Regina Caeli is about the victory of Our Lady’s faith. There is a tradition that the antiphon was composed, after a manner, by St. Gregory the Great, when in 596 Rome was ravaged by a plague, and he in response turned in confidence to Our Lady. St. Gregory organized a procession through the streets of Rome, which began at the ancient Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli on the capitoline hill, where He took into the procession an ancient Icon of Our Lady, said to be painted by St. Luke. As he passed the Tomb of Hadrian, as it was then called, he heard angels sing the first three lines of the Regina Caeli. He responded with the fourth line: Pray for us to God! The plague was ended, the Tomb of Hadrian was renamed Castle Santa’ Angelo (The Castle of the Angel), and the Regina Caeli was inscribed on the ceiling of the Church of the Ara Coeli. The same ceiling, centuries later, would be gilded and paneled in commemoration of the Victory of the Christian forces over the Ottoman Turks at the Bay of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. St. Pius V at the time instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, because it was through Her intercession, obtained by praying the Rosary, that led to victory. The Queen of Heaven is Our Lady of Victory, and She is always victorious because of Her faith. Read the rest of this entry »
The Fifth Sorrow of Our Lady: Mary Stands at the Foot of the Cross
Hail Heart of Seven Swords,
The fifth blade slays Thee.
Pierced as the Last Word is spoken,
Thy broken Heart Thou lift
up to the Father.
Holy Woman of the Promise,
Crush in us the serpent.
Enter our hearts and
make them Thy own home.
The Sixth Sorrow of Our Lady: Mary Receives the Body of Jesus From the Cross
Hail Heart of Seven Swords,
The sixth blade fells Thee.
Cedar hewn down to a manger.
Madonna bears Her Child
anew in sorrow.
Holy Stricken Image of Pity,
Supplant complacence
With Thy compassion
in our Communions.
The Pietá is a snapshot of the Passion that Compresses the whole tragedy and grief into a moment. Mel Gibson’s Caravaggio-esque rendering of the pieta was the best possible ending he could have chosen to complete the drama of the Cross. From there we can only fade to black.
We call it the Image of Pity, not in the fist place because we pity Our Lady, but because Our Lady pities Our Lord, and us. The modern sense of the word “pity” meaning sorrow or sympathy for another’s suffering, often has a condescending note to it. We pity those who share a lot worse than ours and deign for a moment to regard their misery, though an emotional and moral separation remains. Pity in its etymological origins and in its classical sense means compassion according the the latter’s etymological definition: from com- “together” + pati“to suffer.” Thus, true pity joins the witness of suffering to the one who suffers, so that they both suffer together in solidarity. To plumb the depths of this mystery accomplished at the foot of the Cross is to begin to enter into the mystery of Coredemption (cf Col. 1:24).
Worthy of note is the following:
Also fresh in the memory of the Holy League was the defense of Malta that had taken place only six years before in 1565. The Knights Hospitaller, or Knights of St. John (later known as the Knights of Malta) had come to the Island of Malta in 1530, after having been driven by the forces of Suleiman (father of Selim II) from Rhodes in December of 1522. The chronicle from time records that the Grand Master’s galley left the Island of Rhodes, “with a single banner lowered to half mast, on which was painted the picture of the Glorious Virgin Mary in tears, holding her dead Son in her arms, and the inscription Afflictis tu spes unica rebus, that is: In all which afflicts us thou art our only hope” (Spirit of Lepanto).
The following is an account of the Holy Week piety of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Try this on for size, ladies:
Nothing can express the fervor, love, and pious veneration, with which she celebrated those holy days, on which the Church, by ceremonies so touching, and so expressive, recalls to the mind of the faithful, the sorrowful and unspeakable mystery your redemption. On Holy Thursday, imitating the King of Kings, who, on this day, rising from table, laid aside his garments, the daughter of the king of Hungary, putting off whatever could remind her of worldly pomps, dressed herself in poor clothes, and, with only sandals on her feet, went to visit different churches. On this day, she washed the feet of twelve poor men, sometimes lepers, and gave to each twelve pieces, a white dress, and a loaf.
All the next night she passed in prayer and meditation upon our Lord’s passion. In the morning, it being the day on which the divine sacrifice was accomplished, she said to her attendants, “This day is a day humiliation for all: I desire that none of you do show me any mark of respect.” Then she would put on the same dress as before, and go barefoot to the churches, taking with her certain little packets of linen, incense, and small tapers; and, kneeling before one altar, would place thereon of these, and, prostrating herself would pray awhile most devoutly, and so pass to another altar, till she had visited all. At the door of the church she gave large alms, but was pushed about by the crowd, who did not know her. Some courtiers reproached her for the meanness of her gifts as unworthy of a sovereign. But though, at other times, her alms-deeds were most abundant, so that few ever were more splendidly liberal to the poor, yet a certain divine instinct in her heart taught her, how, in such days, she should not play the queen, but the poor sinner, for whom Christ died.
On a time as Saint Patrick preached in Ireland the faith of Jesu Christ, and did but little profit by his predication, for he could not convert the evil, rude and wild people, he prayed to our Lord Jesu Christ that he would show them some sign openly, fearful and ghastful, by which they might be converted and be repentant of their sins. Then, by the commandment of God, Saint Patrick made in the earth a great circle with his staff, and anon the earth after the quantity of the circle opened and there appeared a great pit and a deep, and Saint Patrick by the revelation of God understood that there was a place of purgatory, in to which whomsoever entered therein he should never have other penance ne feel none other pain, and there was showed to him that many should enter which should never return ne come again. And they that should return should abide but from one morn to another, and no more, and many entered that came not again. As touching this pit or hole which is named Saint Patrick’s purgatory, some hold opinion that the second Patrick, which was an abbot and no bishop, that God showed to him this place of purgatory; but certainly such a place there is in Ireland wherein many men have been, and yet daily go in and come again, and some have had there marvellous visions and seen grisly and horrible pains, of whom there be books made as of Tundale and others.
Here again is the post with links to the flyer and bulletin anncoucement. Please spread the word. And here is the program with are using for the holy hours.
In March the third Thursday will be the 20th, which happens to be Holy Thursday. Our Mass will be at 5:30 pm and the Blessed Sacrament should be reposed at the Altar of Reposition by 7:00 pm or shortly thereafter. It would not be appropriate to conduct a holy hour with vocal prayers; however, I am still encouraging men to come, that evening and adore in silence for the intention of our novena.
It is interesting to note that Thursday evening is a most appropriate time for a holy hour, since it is the time when our Lord went through His agony in the garden. Can you not watch one hour with Me? Our Lord pointed out to St. Margaret Mary that the Thursday evening holy hour was especially pleasing to Him. How much more, a holy hour on Holy Thursday evening.
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Our Lady of Victories
"O Lady of Last Assurance
Light in the laurels, sunrise
of the dead,
Wind of the ships and
lightning of Lepanto
In honour of Thee, to whom
all honor is fled."
And peace, Eustace. Do not scold, like a kitchen-girl. No warrior scolds. Courteous words or else hard knocks are his only language (King Tirian, last king of Narnia).
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Catholic Action, Catholicism, Chivalry, Doug Barry, Encampment, Fatherhood, Guy things, Husbands, Knights, Knights of Lepanto, Manliness, Marian Chivalry, Mary Victrix, Men, Prayers, Religion, Retreat, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Tagged: Camping, Flyer, Forms, Spring | 
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