Well, I am on my way to the Logan Airport. I fly out this evening for Rome. Our general chapter begins on Tuesday morning with two day retreat, and then the chapter begins deliberations on matters concerning our order. On the eve of Pentecost the Minister General and his vicar will be elected.
Please pray for our order, the Franciscans of the Immaculate and for the chapter fathers, that we will be enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
I will try to post, if I can. I am bringing a camera. I hope to visit a few places that would be interesting to anyone with the spirit of chivalry. I will be back on May 14. I leave you with a section from the legislation of the friars concerning our Marian Vow. It is the spirit of chivalry:
The constitutive element most specific to the Marian Vow is the “unlimited” character of the consecration to the Immaculate.
In its most obvious and fundamental meaning, “unlimitedness” is the completeness of dedication to and possession by the Immaculate, excluding any limit and reservation, condition and regret of any kind. Gradually, in accord with the original inspiration of the Founder, there takes shape that resemblance to Her who in the Coredemption realized the most perfect unlimited love.
From this it follows that unlimited consecration to the Immaculate includes all other possible offerings and excludes none, nor can it exclude any, in virtue of the very nature of unlimitedness, which does not admit limits of any kind.
Because of this the Marian Vow entails “heroic action and unlimited striving for perfection”. It includes in itself an offer to be a “victim”, even beyond the furthest limit, namely, the immolation that is “martyrdom”. In the Marian Vow is found the most complete and radical offer of self to the Immaculate: She may demand “everything” from Her consecrated, ask any sacrifice and heroism, even that of being consumed as a victim of sacrifice and of immolating one’s life with the violent death of a martyr (cf. Const. 26), after the example of the death of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe.
That is the ideal. Please pray that we live it.
Ave Maria! Hopefully, I you will hear from me again soon.
The following video was cut together from footage captured last October for the Fall Encampment. Doug Barry runs his Radix Boot Camp for kids of all ages.
The weekend was challenging, but as you will see everyone had a great time. Don’t be put off by the challenges. Doug is great with kids and had everyone encouraging each other. I didn’t matter how athletic or advanced the kids were in their catechism everyone was treated with respect and support.
This Spring Encampment the Knights of Lepanto will be running the Boot Camp, but we hope to have Doug back for the Fall Encampment.
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.
Not so long ago, with the publication of Blessed Mother Teresa’s letters to her spiritual director much misinformation was disseminated about her “dark night,” namely, that is Mother had lost her faith. The arch-atheist, Christopher Hitchen’s and other anti-Catholic enthusiasts were quick to vilify this holy woman, whose trial should be a source of edification.
Recently Zenit interviewed Missionary of Charity Father Joseph Langford, cofounder with Mother Teresa of her community of priests, the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, about his new book Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady.
Blessed Teresa, like Our Lady, took the road to Jerusalem in obedience to Jesus: Unless you pick up your cross and carry it, you cannot be my disciple. Perseverance in the dark night of faith is spiritual chivalry, spiritual prowess and largess, and in the case of Mother Teresa, it is an extension of the Marian Way of Beauty.
One cannot argue with likes of a blasphemer like Hitchens. In an debate between him and Bill Donahue of the Catholic League he referred to the faith-based defense of Mother as “white noise.” All we can do is say to Hitchens is “come and see.” His only hope is the Way of Beauty . . . and of course, prayer and fasting. Here is an excerpt of the Zenit interview with Father Langford: Read the rest of this entry »
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.
On Saturday I conducted a day of recollection for the Knights of Lepanto. The question as to whether there is such a thing as Catholic masculinity was one of the main topics.
In the course of my presentation I brought up the controversy between Cardinal John Henry Newman and Charles Kingsley. Kingsley accused the recent convert to Romanism, Newman, and the Catholic clergy generally, of dishonesty. The polemical exchange between the two thinkers generated Newman’s masterful defense of his conversion and of the Catholic faith, Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
In the debate, much more was at stake than just the honor of the the Catholic clergy. Kingsley was an advocate of “Muscular Christianity,” a kind of manly expression of Christian faith, which emphasized physical exercise and sport as a necessary balance to a more bookish approach to Christian spirituality. While much can be said for a distinctly manly expression of Christian faith (as is often advocated here), Kingsley went further, by blaming Catholic Marian devotion and asceticism for the emasculation of the Church, and especially Catholic men.
Newman refuted Kingsley soundly, but the assertion that Catholic spirituality produces effeminate men is an idea that remains. Leon Podles in The Church Impotent: The Femininization of Christianity traces the current of bridal spirituality throughout the history of the Church, and even notes the Marian character of western chivalry as a contributing factor to the development of feminine spirituality. He also points out that while St. Bernard was one of the foremost influences on the development of bridal spirituality, he was also the great promoter of the Knights Templar, that is, of militant spirituality. While Podles critiques much of the ascetical and marian dimension of the western Church, he does admit that bridal spirituality is a part of the scriptural data.
Bridal spirituality cannot be jettisoned. Marriage is the fundamental metaphor for the spiritual life. It is the great sacrament as St. Paul says in Ephesians 5. It is the sacrament of nature; man is created male and female, and as such is the image and likeness of God. Christ is, in fact the Bridegroom and the Church the Bride. These realities are too fundamental to minimize.
If we adopt the language of Benedict XVI which he uses in the inaugural encyclical of his pontificate, Deus Caritas Est, and speak about the necessary balancing of eros (possessive love) by agape (oblative love), indeed if we assert the primacy of agape over eros, I think we have the answer to what sometimes might legitimately be perceived a feminizing tendency of bridal spirituality. Asceticism or perhaps better, spiritual discipline need not appear exclusively contemplative and oriented to religious experience. It is also part of the training of the whole man to confront the World, the Flesh and the Devil, our cosmic enemies. Likewise, Marian devotion is not merely the imitation of Our Lady’s virtues, particularly Her feminine virtues, but a commitment to defend all that is true, good and beautiful. Our Captain, Christ the Lord, enters into battle for the sake of His Bride and defeats the Dragon, but only at the oblative cost of His life. Yes, in the end oblation is a manner of submissiveness to the provident will of God. It is obedience. But it is also an undaunted militance. It is warrior spirituality. It seems that the real argument here is about the right balance.
On Saturday, one of the guys asked if I could give a practical example where the critique of Muscular Christianity against Catholic spirituality has shown itself false. After a little thought, I replied that perhaps the best example is the almost universal compromise of Protestantism with contraception. Wayward eroticism not only produces effete men who are more occupied with words and feelings than actions and principles, it also produces, as we know, men who brutally subordinate women to their own desire for sexual gratification. Only in the Church where the Virginity of Our Lady, and the ideals of consecrated chastity have been retained has the full doctrine on the sanctity of matrimony and chaste love survived.
Contraception is a plague upon our world which must be fought to the death, and those who choose to do so face humanly insurmountable odds. Even in nations where the demographics are radically changing and birthrates are well below the replacement rates, governments are finding that their efforts to encourage large families with entitlements are ineffective. The sort of self-indulgence which is involved in contracepting the future has certainly not produced a manly culture. On the other hand, facing the monster and fighting against it, no matter how difficult or lonely the quest might be, is exactly the militant and evangelical spirit necessary to restore manliness to religious experience.
It seems to me that it is only chivalry, specifically Marian Chivarly, that guarantees for men, both prayer and action, chastity and strength, obedience and authority. I will fully admit, though, that if Our Lady remains only and ideal and not the living and acting Queen Mother in the order of grace and prayer, then the extremes are not likely to be avoided.
Oprah has become a real cult prophetess. For some time, she has been in cahoots with sham artist and new age guru Eckhart Tolle, as was pointed out here by prolepticlife not so long ago. The latest information indicates that this is not just a passing interest. What is more, her new religion is also good for her bottom line:
And what’s different about the Tolle connection for Winfrey is that for the first time in her much-applauded Book Club’s history, she’s gone into business with the author. And the author is not one of a novel, memoir or cookbook; he’s the mysterious creator of a philosophy that Winfrey endorses and suggests her readers live their lives by.
I noticed that even Salon.com was scandalized by Oprah’s crooked promotion of The Secret.
Just how shameless is all this too-good-to-be-true hype that has become the hallmark of Oprahware? Salon author Peter Birkenhead refers to The Secret sham as a “bottle of minty-fresh snake oil.”
Here is just one example: when I was researching The Secret, I took a look at the cast of characters employed by the author Rhonda Byrne. One of her gurus is a gentleman by the name of “Dr.” Joe Vitale, who goes under the revealing nickname of Mr. Fire (take it as you like), and promotes himself as a marketing expert. Indeed. I checked out some of his books. If this is not a red flag, I do not know what is. That’s right, the title is Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words. Now that’s shameless.
I cannot emphasize enough how destructive this way of thinking is to our moral and cultural future. Turn Oprah off.
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)
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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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Blessed Virgin Mary, Catholicism, Chivalry, Marian Chivalry, News, Religion, Retreat, Spirituality, Uncategorized | Tagged: Franciscans of the Immaculate, general chapter, Rome | 
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