In Extremis

All these things, which I have securely in mind to the extent that in this life I have been able to understand them, are, compared with what I have said, extremely great.  Beside them, all the sights and sound and justice and truth of this world seem to me lies and nothingness.  I am left confused because I cannot find words extreme enough for these things (St. Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory).

St. Catherine of Genoa (+1510) was a great mystic who was given insights into the plight of our poor brothers and sisters in Purgatory.  Like all mystics she was given an understanding of supernatural realities that she had a hard time putting into words.  The pain of the Poor Souls in their purification was beyond her ability to describe.  But so was the love and joy of these souls who were so drawn to God by the bands of His love and who were so eager to be delivered from the imperfections that hindered them from uniting themselves to Him completely and freely.

The world lies to us about happiness and about the relative value of the experiences of this life as compared with those that exist beyond the veil of death.  Every time we sin we make a false estimation of the consequences of our actions.  We take imprudent risks to our own detriment.  We sell our inheritance for a bowl of porridge.  All the while we settle on a transient relief from suffering and purification, like addicts getting their next fix only to crash harder than before.

Even on the night before Our Blessed Lord and Savior died, just after the apostles had received the first Eucharist they preferred sleep to His company. He underwent purification for them, suffering the pain of pure love, not because He had no other choice, as those of us who wind up in Purgatory, but because he willed to undergo pain and suffering so that we might be delivered from that necessity . . . and worse.

Cardinal John Henry Newman spoke of the mental sufferings of Christ, by which He assumed not only our guilt, but the very experience of our compromises, as He sweat blood in the garden, and how like a myriad of demons they all descended upon Him as though He was the depository of every iniquity:

Hopes blighted, vows broken, lights quenched, warnings scorned, opportunities lost; the innocent betrayed, the young hardened, the penitent relapsing, the just overcome, the aged failing; the sophistry of misbelief, the wilfulness of passion, the obduracy of pride, the tyranny of habit, the canker of remorse, the wasting fever of care, the anguish of shame, the pining of disappointment, the sickness of despair; such cruel, such pitiable spectacles, such heartrending, revolting, detestable, maddening scenes; nay, the haggard faces, the convulsed lips, the flushed cheek, the dark brow of the willing slaves of evil, they are all before Him now; they are upon Him and in Him. They are with Him instead of that ineffable peace which has inhabited His soul since the moment of His conception. They are upon Him, they are all but His own; He cries to His Father as if He were the criminal, not the victim; His agony takes the form of guilt and compunction. He is doing penance, He is making confession, He is exercising contrition, with a reality and a virtue infinitely greater than that of all saints and penitents together; for He is the One Victim for us all, the sole Satisfaction, the real Penitent, all but the real sinner.

And the apostles slept, as we sleep, content with the thought that there is still time for us to change and that our compromises are small.  How we deceive ourselves.

St. Catherine has no words for the extremity of our danger . . . and of the love that is the cure of our torpor. The souls in purgatory when they were alive thought too little about their danger and too little about love.  Now they think nothing of their pain and only about the love of God.  They will their purification.  They do not sleep and they have no desire for it.  Yet for all their love and joy in the midst of their pain, it is for them no merit, for their time has passed.

Remembrance of the holy souls is self-forgetfulness.  It is the cure . . . for them, and for us.  Unless, God forbid, we go to hell, someday we will forget ourselves and remember the ultimate realities:  God and our obligations toward one another.  We can do it now or we can do it later.  The souls in Purgatory would have us do it now.

They remember us.  Do we remember them?  This is no time to sleep.  Rest will come, but until now, we have not toiled for God nearly enough.

The good men we have canonized at their funerals will not thank us for the kind and laudatory eulogies.  We forget the sufferings of others so as to console our families, and ourselves and in this no one is served, not ourselves, not our families, and certainly not the souls of the departed.

Oh, sweet sleep.  How we crave rest, yet we will not find it unless we give it.  During this November we would do well to do more than a casual visit to a cemetery or a  write a check  and conveniently hand it to our pastor for yearly masses, though both of these we should do.  Indeed, nothing can be more efficacious than the Mass, except a Mass that is dedicated by the stipend of our own hearts.

The apostles slept through Our Lord’s agony and we sleep through the agony of the poor souls.  It is so easy to do.  Perhaps we could offer time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, or more frequent communions for the grace to understand better the extremity of the situation and how the deliverance of the poor souls from their suffering will help protect us against our own peril, and how our imitation of their selfless desire for purity may save us from their present distress.

Love is not loved.  But it need not be that way.  Now is not the time for us to rest.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May they rest in peace.  Amen.

A Penitent’s Reflection on Halloween

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that Thy faithful people may ever rejoice in honoring all Thy Saints, and may be defended by their unceasing prayers (post-communion prayer, Solemnity of All Saints).

After Holy Communion has been received during the Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints, the priest asks Almighty God that the prayers of the saints be a defense to all the faithful.  All the saints are our elder brothers and sisters who have been victorious over sin and death through Christ’s death and resurrection.  These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (cf. Ap 7:14).  They have passed through the fire and have come out the other side unscathed (cf. Dn 3:26).  Now they are present to us in the Holy Spirit as our defenders and protectors.

But we must want to be protected.  He who loves danger will perish in it (Eccl. 3:27).  And danger is everywhere.  We have a real enemy who is bent upon our destruction and all of sacred history is a chronicle of this endless war. Our enemy is our constant foe and our better in the art of war.  For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph 6:12).  We are not strong enough to resist this enemy, unless we want to be protected by one who is stronger.

Standing Fast Widget

Ave Maria!

You will notice in the side bar a new widget which will allow you to watch Standing Fast without my turning the videos into individual posts here on MaryVictrix. You see, my commitment to vlogging belongs to AirMaria, so all my videos get posted there and then uploaded to various share sights. I am grabbing the videos from our YouTube account so that they can be played in the side bar.

I am sorry the formatting of the widget is not the greatest.  I will work on it when I have a chance.

The most recent video is “Guarding the Heart,” and expands on what I wrote in my latest post.

The Armor of God and Guarding the Heart

I have been reflecting lately on the notion of Dom Chautard concerning that aspect of the interior life that is Englished in his book “custody of the heart.”  Perhaps a more militant way of translating this notion in modern English would be “guarding the heart.”

It is the duty of a knight to guard and protect, and we often associate this role with his perennial preoccupation with the Damsel in Distress.  Elsewhere I have noted that the Blessed Virgin is the personification of the Damsel in Distress–not so much because She is helpless, which She is not, nor is that an essential quality of any such damsel, but because She personifies everything true, good and beautiful.  She does this precisely at the foot of the cross as the personification of the Bride of Christ and as Mother and exemplar of the Church.  Ultimately the Christian Knight must be at Her service.

But the curious fact is that the knight, while an image of Christ, the Bridegroom and Savior, is first of all a sinner and one who must identify with the needy Bride as much as any woman should.  This is not to say that the knight must become a woman spiritually, but that his masculinity need not be threatened by whole-hearted honesty about his dependence on God.

In fact, nothing could be more important.  In order to stand fast in the breach that has been blasted in the wall of the City of God, Our Lady’s knight must first repair the breach in his own heart.  How can a knight defend the City of God, how can he fight for the honor of the Immaculate Heart and guard it from the dishonor of the heathens, if he has not first mastered the art of guarding his own heart?  In fact, there is nothing more urgent than the attention we pay to our own vulnerabilities.

To this end, I would like to associate the notion of Dom Chautard with that of St. Paul concerning the Armor of God.

Fall Encampment 2009: October 16-18

Update: Encampment Cancelled due to weather.

The Encampment widget in the sidebar has been updated. The advertising flyer and the Registration form are now available in the link provided for download.

Click on the picture:

Happy Feast of Mary Victrix

The Feast of the Holy Rosary is a feast of prayer and recourse to the Blessed Mother. It is also a feast of the action of brave men who were men of prayer. That is why it is also the Feast of Our Lady of Victory.  On this day we pray for the Spirit of Lepanto.

In the current postcommunion oration for the Mass we find the closest thing in the current formulary to reference to Our Lady of Victory:

May we be helped we beseech Thee, O Lord, by the prayers of Thy most holy Mother, whose Rosary we celebrate; that we may draw strength from the Mysteries which we commemorate, and likewise obtain the fruit of the Sacraments which we have received: Who livest and reignest with the God Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.  Amen.

We are to draw strength from the paschal mystery, the mystery of the sacrificial love of Christ for all men.  The mysteries of which the oration speaks are the death and resurrection of the Lord.  But the feast integrates into these mysteries the mystery of Our Lady’s victorious mediation, and the “strength” which we draw from our participation in the Mysteries of Christ through Her mediation.

On this occasion I have returned to vlogging my series Standing Fast which you will be able find each week in the side bar on the right.  (It should be up momentarily.) Well I guess the widget won’t fly yet, so here is the video:

Here is the link to The Soul of the Apostolate that I mention in the video. And a Google Books version here.

You will also be able to find it on AirMaria as a regular post in a larger format.  I have delayed my post today due to the learning curve with some new video software.  My apologies for not posting sooner on Our Lady’s feast day.

The above painting was created by Tony Stafki and is available in various kinds of prints.  Tony sent my some information about the painting:

The battle formation of the ships just before the main clash.

The Catholic ships form a cross and the Muslim ships form a cresent.

The standard of the Holy Cross which was blessed by Pope Pius V can be seen on Don Juan of Austria’s ship which is leading the charge

Papal ships (St. Peter’s keys)

The miracle of the wind: just before the armies met the wind completely switched in favor of the Catholic ships.

Devils can be seen amongst the Muslim ships (they were summoned from hell by the Muslim leader).  The devils have peacock feathers as swords, a manifestation of their pride.

Our Lady of Victory with a sword in one hand ready to crush the devils and the other hand outstretched to the Muslim souls.

St. Michael leading the Angels

There are small white lights by the oars on the Muslim ships representing the souls of the Catholic prisoners.

The image of Our Lady with the sword reminds me of this:

The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death,
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent
As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.

One instant in a still light
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was a queen most womanly—
But she was a queen of men.

Over the iron forest
He saw Our Lady stand,
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart—
But one was in her hand.

I have always been a little put off that the image of Our Lady of Victory does not have a sword:

Nor images of our Lady at Lepanto, such as this:

Hats off to Tony.

Knights of Our Lady’s Altar

Finally, it is my experience that many boys and young men like to belong to a guild of servers where the standard is high, the expectations are strict, the training is rigorous and the camaraderie is encouraged. They like to belong to a group of other boys who take their faith seriously, and who are expected to meet a rigorous standard of behavior.

Father Dwight Longnecker, whose blog I highly recommend has posted on the subject of the altar serving guild he has formed at his parish.  He offers some great advice.

Roman Sacristan

On my last trip which took me to Australia, Texas and California–all of which my friends in here in New England believe are separate countries–I met a blogger who goes by the moniker of Roman Sacristan.  I had seen his blog before, but I would like to here mention it as a resource for things liturgical.  In an effort to explain the purpose of his blog, he says:

But getting back to the initial question of the “reform of the reform” vis-a-vis the extra-ordinary form of the Mass that has been placed back on an equal standing with the ordinary form by “Summorum Pontificum,” I can say that the motu proprio has actually put more “pressure” on the ordinary form to get it’s act together. I don’t mean that the Novus Ordo is to be changed to be more like the extra-ordinary form. That’s something for the Church to do with an organized reform of the liturgy. “Vigilante liturgical reform” is not the answer to the problems in the Novus Ordo Mass. What I mean is to get the Novus Ordo back on track and to start getting it said as it is supposed to be said. We’ll worry about actually reforming the ordinary use later. First we need to just get it said by the books.

My own experience tells me that knowledge of the extraordinary form of the Mass brings with it a context for the celebration of the ordinary form.  One can better percieve the logic of the reforms of Vatican II if one is familiar with the manner of celebration of the usus antiquus.

I appreciate the Roman Sacristan’s use of the term “vigilante liturgical reform.”  I think some of the more traditionally minded assume too much when their hopes for the future are defined by precise expectations about what the future holds in store. Sometimes this can translate into some liturgical adaptations that assume that now the traditional rubrics needs to be imposed on the ordinary form, with the hopes that the ordinary form will disappear altogether.

It seems to me that some of the promotors of Summorum Pontificum even assume that the use of the terms “ordinary form” for the novus ordo and  “extraordinary form” for the usus antiquus are a ruse used by the Holy Father to promote a kind of creeping traditionalism.  This goes too far.

In any case, I highly recommend the Roman Sacristan’s blog.  BTW, he is in the process of vocational discernment, so I know he would appreciate the prayers.

Icebox Chronicles

Well, I have settled back into life in the East Coast Icebox.  Nice. A far cry from Perth, LA and Texas.  In any case, I am glad to be back.

While in Texas I did more than just supervise Fra Didacus’ production of video antics.  I actually preached and heard confessions.  I don’t know if anyone got any further than our version of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, but there is actually a sermon after the intro.

Many thanks to Father Paul Weinberger for inviting us to his parish, St. William the Confessor.  I was happily edified by the good father’s care of his flock: six masses on Sunday and on the Holy Day and confessions galore.  And there was always a line for confession.  We were assisted by a large cadre of altar servers who were impeccable.   Thank you to them as well as to Chris who acted as MC, during the liturgy and was generally very helpful.   Many thanks  also to all the parishoners at St. William who were so kind to us.

Of special note is the devotion to the Blessed Mother that is clearly evident at St. William.  The Immaculate Conception Holy Day was attended by nearly everyone in the parish.  I had the honor of blessing a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Rosary Garden on the solemnity (statue pictured above) and of attending the nightly procession in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in preparation for the feast.

In particular, thanks to the family of our Fra Lawrence, the Fowlers.  In the photo above that would be from left to right: John (dad), Christa, Ashley, Meg (mom), (Fra Lawrence), Mary, (yours truly), Katherine, (Father Paul and Fra Didacus).  Thank you for all the hospitality and entertainment!! It was refreshing to see traditional Catholicism lived with a sense of humor, that is, with a sense of proportion.

Well, I have to knuckle down now. . . that is, with white knuckles as my fingertips go numb typing away and my breath freezes in mid air and then melts all over the monitor (drama, sniff).

When Worlds Collide

From a homily of mine for today’s feastday:

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is about the conflict between two worlds, or better between two diametrically opposed visions of the world. When the Immaculate Virgin appeared to St. Juan Diego and spoke the gentlest words of encouragement to him, She was standing, quite literally, on top of the shrine of the mother goddess of the Aztecs. That image of the Woman Clothed with the Sun, standing on Tepeyac Hill upon the ruined idolatrous shrine is little snapshot of the whole of history: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel (Genesis 3:15).

There can be only one ultimate outcome of the struggle between the two visions of the world. The kingdom of darkness will fall and the kingdom of light will prevail. But the outcome remains in play as regards the individual destiny of each person. We have a choice. In fact, we must choose. There is no standing on the side lines in this conflict.

Why would we choose not to be on the winning side, on the side of right, of godliness and virtue? The tragedy and incongruity of human history is that many do in fact choose ultimately to lose their life forever. But the Virgin of Guadalupe has the strongest objections to our being lost.

PDF of the entire homily