A Subtle Dragon

When I posted last I was poking around a little on Anthony Esolen’s page in the Touchstone archives and found an excellent article on the Quest called “The Lovely Dragon of Choice: The Freedom Not to Be Free.” I think I will make it the topic for discussion at tomorrow night’s men’s discussion group meeting in Griswold.

I recommend a careful reading of the piece. It is worth reading twice.

What I took away from it is the way in which the “Dragon of Choice” has insinuated itself, not only into the hearts of those who consciously purvey the culture of death, but also into the hearts of those who wish to be the champions of life. In fact, life itself is a quest full of adventure, something that is dissolved by calculation and cleverness. Esolen pegs “Modern Man,” and by that I mean not the “other guys” but all of us:

Modern man is afraid of the quest, and is not particularly fond of hunger and cliffs, either. He will not see that the very point of an adventure is that you cannot plan it. And to be in quest of the Holy Grail—that is, the mystery of Christ made manifest in our world under the humble appearances of bread and wine—is to be prepared for the appearance, sudden and awful, even on a bare rock and when one’s stomach knots with hunger, of the ineffable God.

Debriefing

Heading back to my old hideout for almost a week.  I need to get out of here.

I leave you with some good news from Doug Barry, a.k.a. Radix.  He is making some real progress on his Camp Gargano.

I have also come into contact with a group much like ours called Fraternus.  Check it out.  I will have more on this later.

Please also take a look at my last post on Our Lady and masculinity.

And last, but not least, a demented cat lover.

I’m sure you can find something to chew on while I am away.

Smashing Dragons

Since I am in an apocalyptic mood I thought it would be nice to have some more war, but let’s brighten things up a bit at the same time. Don’t worry, I won’t ignore the multi-headed devourer that threatens our existence, I just think that the Woman Clothed with the Sun might shed some light on what we should do in our predicament.  Forgive me for not being quite as lugubrious as usual.

Just read something interesting on Our Lady of Guadalupe:

The Image of Christ in the accidents of bread, and the image of Mary in the accidents of flowers, but with this lovable difference, that in Christ’s sacrament the accidents of bread appear, and not the image, and in Mary’s sacrament the image appears and the accidents of flowers disappear.

Father Juan de San Miguel, SJ preached these words in 1671 during the consecration of a side chapel of the Mexico City Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I can only assume that the context of the remarks would indicate that he is speaking metaphorically.  He certainly is not saying that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a “sacrament” in the proper sense of the term.  Nevertheless, a comparison with the Eucharist is valid.

The whole point of the continuous miracle of the tilma, which is comparable to the perduring miracle of the Real Presence of the Eucharist, is to reassure the members of the Church Militant that the Woman Clothed with the Sun is really with us and is ready to manifest that presence in power and victory.  John Paul the II made the central thought of his Marian encyclical “the role of Mary in the mystery of Christ and on her active and exemplary presence in the life of the Church.” That active and exemplary presence is going to bring the red dragon to the mat.  Just you wait.

Father Juan notes the ostensible difference between sacramental transubstantiation and the miracle of the tilma.  Jesus hides himself under the accidents of bread and wine in order to exercise our faith and to assume a form by which we partake of Him as our food.  Mary sheds the accidents of the flowers in order to manifest herself as the Woman Clothed with the Sun.  In the Eucharist we humble ourselves through faith and reverence.  Through the lesser charismatic grace of the tilma we are given an extraordinary sign of Our Lady’s presence and reason for confidence in the midst of conflict.

This was precisely the case historically when Our Lady appeared in Mexico.  The power of hell had been unleashed in Mexico through a diabolical religion and through the vices of the Conquistadors.  God had his way through the Woman Clothed with the Sun.

Soon the novena in preparation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception will begin and within its octave we will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  These are times in which we need unwavering confidence.  Make or renew an act of consecration to Our Lady.

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe also saw the connection between the Eucharist and the power of the Immaculate Conception:

We want Her to think, to speak and to act through us. We desire to belong to the Immaculate to the extent that nothing will remain in us that is not Her, so that we may be annihilated in Her, transubstantiated into Her, changed into Her, that She alone remains, so that we may be as much Hers as She is God’s. She belongs to God, having become His Mother. And we want to become the mother who would give the life of the Immaculate to every heart that exists and to those that will still come into existence. That is the M.I.–to bring Her into every heart, to give Her life to every heart. Thus entering these hearts and taking full possession of them, She may give birth to sweet Jesus, who is God, that He might grow in them in age and perfection.

If Father Juan looks to an extraordinary sign to find the presence of the Woman Clothed with the Sun. St. Maximilian looks to our own transformation which is a matter of constant effort at purification through prayer and penance (annihilation) and the power of God through Our Lady (transubstantiation).

It’s the consecration, stupid.  Our Lady at Fatima told us this when the whole contemporary mess got started.  When are we going to figure this thing out?

Politcians and Paternalism

It’s a bit ironic that the liberal party of self-governance and civil liberty has served us up a celebrity for a president whose cult of personality has permitted him to exercise an unprecedented kind of political paternalism. He has looked upon his candidacy as a “teachable moment,” and upon his victory in the Democratic primary as an event which restored “his faith in America,” as though the electorate owed him some kind of proof of its loyalty. Now he is putting forward this preposterous mandatory civilian security service, banking on the power of his creepy personality cult.

It’s not that Obama is altogether a phenomenon unto himself. This has been coming on for a long time. Why have we ever cared what celebrities think? Our thought processes have been formed by American Idol, and now we bow down before the empty suites that we have neatly arranged for our own destruction.

I am not one to complain about patriarchy, but the icon of a father is not a red, white and blue Obama, looking down from his perch of wisdom upon his needy children. No the real icon of a father is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

One of the earliest images of Our Lord used in the history of the Church is that of the Good Shepherd. In the catacombs of Rome, Our Lord was portrayed as a beardless young man who carried a lamb on his shoulders, calling to mind the parable of the lost sheep. It is a beautiful image, but it is only half the story. In the Gospels the Good Shepherd according to Our Lord is the one who lays down his life for his sheep. The Roman fresco of the Good Shepherd illustrates the paternal solicitude of Christ for the weak and the needy, His personal attention to the individual who is hurting, but Our Lord Himself applies the title of Good Shepherd to the one who stands up to the wolves to protect His sheep from death and himself is torn to shreds in the process.

I once saw a child’s crayon drawing of the Good Shepherd of Jesus wielding a spiked club, standing between the wolves and his sheep, and bleeding from the hands where He has been bitten by the wolves.  That’s Our Lord on the Cross.

Why don’t we have leaders like this? Because we don’t want them. Heaven forbid that we admit that we are weak and needy. Far be it from us to allow ourselves to be led by someone who has our best interests at heart, based on a commitment to the truth of Christ. Instead we throw our babies to the wolves and thank the lupine divinity for being delivered from the responsibility to care for them.

Hope of the World?

Adulation and finger-pointing are the order of the day in this post-election period. Everything from the supernatural powers of The One, to the shortcomings of Sarah Palin have been attributed to the success of the Man with No History.

I, for one, would not rule out a preternatural influence. Interestingly enough, Father Rutler came pretty close to connecting Obama to the Antichrist the night before the election. See for yourself. (The Lord of the World is well-worth the read. I have referenced it here before.)

Even so, if I were to have to choose between which one of our enemies had the greatest effect in bringing about the outcome (the world, the flesh or the devil), I would still say it was mostly the flesh, namely, that interior disorder due to original sin that is the constant companion of those who live this side of heaven.

I pointed this fact out in my pre-election homily. In my opinion, this fact’s importance cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately, this is precisely what is happening. Catholics Democrats are living in a dream world, and the Republican Party is in shambles because none of us want to face the music. We have lost our chastity and we don’t want it back.

The vast majority of Catholics don’t have the moral fortitude or political will to really be pro-life, because we have been evangelized by the purveyors of lust. We have not been witnesses to Christ and we don’t have the determination to be so, because we have put our trust in the world and what it has to offer.

How many people, even those in the pews, actually believe that fornication is a sin, let alone pornography, masturbation and lustful desires and thoughts? In principle most Catholics do not believe that lust is wrong unless it “hurts” someone else—whatever that means. So how can anyone like this be expected to put aside all their personal opinions and political fears and vote for someone they cannot stand because the Church says that we must vote pro-life?

Five minutes spent watching television will remind us how far from the Catholic vision our country has gone, even if we still remain one of the most religious countries in the world. Even Sarah Palin said she wouldn’t dream of having any more children and supports contraceptive sex education. (Could you imagine what would happen if a vice-president became pregnant during her administration?)

But of course this will largely remain undiscussed in the post mortem, even in conservative circles. Many conservatives will even argue more strenuously that the social cons are a drag on the Party. In part, this is the motivation for the scapegoating of Palin.

We must have our contraception and our dirty little fun. Kids must be “protected” from anything that is not “age appropriate,” that’s true, but we wouldn’t dream of depriving anyone of their “rights,” or even presume to know what’s best for society at large when it comes to matters of sexuality.

I will go a step further and critique the whole “new chastity movement.” I use that term so as not to be construed as disagreeing with the “Theology of the Body” of the late and saintly Pope John Paul II. I agree that that a more positive approach to the teaching of chastity is necessary, and that the insights of the Theology of the Body are important. However, some (notice the emphasis) of the promotion of these insights seem a bit gnostic and disingenuous.

I say gnostic, because it is asserted that this new way has been kept a secret until now, and with the new indoctrination all the old problems of original sin, scrupulosity, prudishness and guilt will be minimized. It is suggested that we will be naked without shame almost to the point of original innocence. Who is kidding who?

I say disingenuous, because there is an underlying cause for the new approach that has nothing to do with a “new revelation.” That underlying cause is simply the fact that the vast majority of Catholics refuse to give up their contraception. Some alternative had to be devised, just as some alternative had to be devised for Catholics who refuse to give up divorce and remarriage.

I believe many use Natural Family Planning for the right reasons. I also believe that many use it as a substitute for contraception, because that is the way it has been promoted and because many of us have lost hope that there is an alternative.

The fact is chastity is not possible without supernatural grace and hope. The only way someone will go into a voting booth and say, “I don’t care how I feel about this election; I will vote pro-life no matter how I feel, until my party takes me seriously,” is when they are willing to exercise the same kind of trust in matters of chastity and family life.

We really don’t want pro-life candidates because we really don’t want to be chaste. We don’t have the moral fortitude and political will because we have not yet humbled ourselves to beg for the grace we need—the grace we really need.

Consolation Corner for Concerned Catholics

I have no meds to hand out, and I am not a grief counselor.  All I have is a good home remedy: prayer and penance.

Here is my homily from the election vigil.  It is comprised of three parts:  1) our civil responsibility in voting; 2) the problem we confront; 3) the solution.  The first part says nothing that will help us in our present plight, unless we consider that many Catholics still have not learned the lesson of what their obligations are.  The second two parts are very much at the heart of what we must do in order to effectively confront cultural and moral pestilence which we face.

Unfortunately, the homily has not been uploaded to a share site so I am not able to embed the video here.  If it becomes available I will.

Our crisis is one of sanctity.  Be a saint.  That is the only way the Antichrist will be defeated.

Now, I am not saying that the Obama is the Antichrist, as he does not fulfill what seems to be characteristics of the Antichrist described in Scripture and the Fathers; however, I do think that he is antichristic by his own camp’s definition.  If the Mother Goddess of television can say things like this about Christ and then this about Obama, then, I think it is reasonable to not to mince words on the subject.

Obama’s own disicples are the ones who have chosen to adopt religious language.  They may do so with a sense of irony, but in so far as their godlessness will continue to claim the lives of millions in the name of hopeandchange, then the indictment sticks.

Oprah says that “God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience.  if your religion is a believing experience–if God for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.”  Obama is a feeling experience, not a believing experience.  If that were not true then all those who could not even mention one of his practical accomplishments would never have voted for him.

One of Mother Oprah’s new age gurus is looking to establish a new cabinet level Department of Peace in the U.S. government.  Oprah had a link to the Department of Peace idea up on her website that is now no longer functional.

For your true consolation read the words of the great Marian prophet, St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort (True Devotion, 46-48):

All the rich among the people, to use an expression of the Holy Spirit as explained by St. Bernard, all the rich among the people will look pleadingly upon her countenance throughout all ages and particularly as the world draws to its end. This means that the greatest saints, those richest in grace and virtue will be the most assiduous in praying to the most Blessed Virgin, looking up to her as the perfect model to imitate and as a powerful helper to assist them.

I said that this will happen especially towards the end of the world, and indeed soon, because Almighty God and his holy Mother are to raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs. This has been revealed to a holy soul whose life has been written by M. de Renty.

These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other. With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Fathers of the Church the Temple of Solomon and the City of God . By word and example they will draw all men to a true devotion to her and though this will make many enemies, it will also bring about many victories and much glory to God alone.

The Queen of Courtesy

John Saward has an excellent article on courtesy in the ETWN document library.

Courtesy is not strictly distinct from the other virtues, but rather a quality to be found in them all. It has something to do with reverence, humility, and chastity. It is shaped by charity, the form of all the virtues, into the quality of mercy. It is the beauty of a brave and generous life.

So reverence, humility, chastity, charity, mercy and beauty all go into making up a courteous man.  And of course, for all Christian courtesy to exist, namely that courteous quality of mind that is directed ultimately to the worship of God, all of these virtues are motivated by faith in Christ and love for God.

Courtesy is not merely the refusal to step out of the bounds of accepted manners, or even to do unto others as one would wish them to do unto him:

The courteous person has an attitude of “worship” toward his fellows: by small deeds of kindness, he acknowledges their worth, their dignity, as human persons. In the Sarum marriage rite, the husband vows reverence and thus courtesy toward his wife in the very acts of married love. “With my body I thee worship.” Chivalrous respect is of the very essence of husbandly love.

“Worship” here has the archaic connotation of reverence, which is to all those for whom Christ died.  No one should be excluded.  Christ came to serve.  He died for the many.  He wills that all men be saved.  True reverence for other men, especially our enemies is the spirit of Christ which wishes life upon all sinners.

St. Maximilian prayed not only that the Freemasons would be thwarted in their efforts to destroy the Church, not only for their conversion, but that they would become servants of Our Blessed Lady.

Which brings me to the Marian character of courtesy.  Saward says:

When we look at the artistic images of the Annunciation in the 15th century, the great age of courtesy, we find all the tell-tale signs of courtesy. In a painting by Fra Filippo Lippi in the Uffizi, Gabriel bends his knee and bows his head in the presence of the Holy Virgin, and his arm appears to strike his breast as if to say, ‘Madonna, my Lady, I am not worthy to come under thy roof.’ In fact, in all of the iconography of Christendom, the angels of God are courteously content to keep their wings in the wings and leave center-stage to the God-Man and his human saints. In the angels, person and mission are one–the very name “angel” describes an office,
not a nature. Everything in the angelic world is centered on God. Self-effacement and thus courtesy are the secret of the angels.

The Courtesy of our Lady Our Blessed Lady, God’s Mother and ours, is medieval man’s first thought when he hears the word “courtesy.” She is the object of the courtesy of Gabriel and Elizabeth, but among creatures she is also the virtue’s most perfect embodiment. Here is
incandescent purity, sublime humility, the most tender motherly mercy. If courtesy is self-emptying, then no created person is more courteous than she whose every thought, word, and deed is centered on her son. “Do whatever he tells you.” In Pearl, the Gawain poet finds
the soul of his little daughter in the presence and service of the Queen of Courtesy, “Matchless Mother, Merriest Maid, Blessed Beginner of Every Grace.” Our Lady is the Church’s supreme model in courtesy, as she is in everything that is Christian.

Now it would be a crass error to see the devotion of medieval man to heaven’s Queen as a mere transposition of the courtly honor he paid his earthly mistress. On the contrary, the veneration of Mary was a constant source of renewal and purification. It challenged men to love and look upon women in a more than merely erotic way. She who is uniquely both Virgin and Mother somehow cast her radiance upon all those who were separately virgins and mothers. There is a whole genre of writing that sings the spiritual beauty of women for the sake of the Mother of God. According to a 15th- century ballad, this Mary inspired courtesy toward women graced the life of Robin Hood.

Robin loved Our dear Lady;
For fear of deadly sin
Would he never do company harm
‘That any woman was in.

Don’t forget when we say “Our Lady,” (Domina Nostra), it implies both a reverence for her queenship and her femininity.  She is the ideal woman, and the Queen of Courtesy.

Catholic Men: Fr. Pablo Straub

This morning’s excellent homily for the Encampment by Father Straub:

Our Lady of the Rosary, Victrix at Lepanto

• The Spirit of Lepanto
• Altar of Heaven, Lady of Victory
• Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton

Today is the principle feast of the Knights of Lepanto and MaryVictix.com, so happy Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Victories to one and all.

I have been doing a lot of reading of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s writings lately.  These writings are the basis of our order’s spirituality and of the work we do.  I have been reflecting a great deal on the original inspiration for my own vocation and on the essential characteristics of our work.

When the Knights of Lepanto was founded, I remember being concerned about the absence of men from the life of the Church in general and from the MIM specifically, and I wanted to do something about it.  A masculine approach to spirituality, that is, prayer translated into action, seemed to be the order of the day.  And indeed it was.

Fall Encampment Time

Click on image for information page on the Fall Encampment (Friday, October 10-Sunday, October 12.