Saturday, November 15, 2008
It's A Major Award!
Catholic Caveman has been so good as to nominate me for an award.
The Premio Dardos Award
Many thanks.
The rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to other 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment.
3) Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
So, 15 other blogs that I think are worthy of nomination.
A Penitent Blogger
Dyspeptic Mutterings
The Crescat
Tea At Trianon
Salve Regina
Vultus Christ
Pro Eccelsia, Pro Familia, Pro Civitate
What Does The Prayer Really Say
Irish Elk
The Inn At the End of the World
Ten Reasons
Against All Heresies
Evening Devotions
Hallowed Ground
Stony Creek Digest
OK, gang. Since all of trad/conservative blogdom hangs on every syllable that I write here, you may all consider yourselves notified.
The Premio Dardos Award
Many thanks.
The rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to other 15 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment.
3) Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
So, 15 other blogs that I think are worthy of nomination.
A Penitent Blogger
Dyspeptic Mutterings
The Crescat
Tea At Trianon
Salve Regina
Vultus Christ
Pro Eccelsia, Pro Familia, Pro Civitate
What Does The Prayer Really Say
Irish Elk
The Inn At the End of the World
Ten Reasons
Against All Heresies
Evening Devotions
Hallowed Ground
Stony Creek Digest
OK, gang. Since all of trad/conservative blogdom hangs on every syllable that I write here, you may all consider yourselves notified.
Labels: Awards
Saint Albert the Great
Our Blessed Lady's Saturday
Always remember that anything we do to help the Holy Souls is an act of charity
and it is one done to those who are the most in need of our assistance
since they can no longer help themselves, and are utterly dependent
on us to help them. If we release a soul from there, it will be
eternally grateful, and will intercede with God for us,
while we yet live on earth and if, we should go there.
When praying the Rosary, reserve, if possible, one decade to pray for these Poor Souls.
If you are able, say an entire Rosary exclusively for their release, at least in November.
Our Lady is the Queen of Heaven and earth, and of the Holy Souls in Purgtaory:
The Communion of Saints consists of:
The Church triumphant in Heaven,
The Church militant on earth,
and the Church suffering in Purgatory.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.
Labels: Our Blessed Lady
Friday, November 14, 2008
Friday At the Foot Of the Cross
Litany For the Holy Souls In Purgatory
Short Form, for private use only
The just shall be in everlasting remembrance;
He shall not fear the evil hearing.
V. Absolve, O Lord, the souls of the faithful departed from every bond of sin,
R. And by the help of Thy grace may they be enabled to escape
the avenging judgment, and to enjoy the happiness of eternal life.
Because in Thy mercy are deposited the souls that
departed in an inferior degree of grace,
Lord, have mercy.
Because their present suffering is greatest in the knowledge
of the pain that their separation from Thee is causing Thee,
Lord, have mercy.
Because of their present inability to add to Thy accidental glory, etc.
Not for our consolation, O Lord; not for their release from purgative pain, O God;
but for Thy joy and the greater accidental honor of Thy throne, O Christ the King,
For the souls of our departed friends, relations and benefactors,
Grant light and peace, O Lord.
For those of our family who have fallen asleep in Thy bosom,
O Jesus, grant light and peace, O Lord.
For those who have gone to prepare our place, etc.
(For those who were our brothers [or sisters] in Religion,)
For priests who were our spiritual directors,
For men or women who were our teachers in school,
For those who were our employers (or employees),
For those who were our associates in daily toil,
For any soul whom we ever offended,
For our enemies now departed,
For those souls who have none to pray for them,
For those forgotten by their friends and kin,
For those now suffering the most,
For those who have acquired the most merit,
For the souls next to be released from Purgatory,
For those who, while on earth, were most devoted to God the Holy Ghost,
to Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, to the holy Mother of God,
For all deceased popes and prelates,
For all deceased priests, seminarians and religious,
For all our brethren in the Faith everywhere,
For all our separated brethren who deeply loved Thee,
and would have come into Thy household had they known the truth,
For those souls who need, or in life asked, our prayers,
For those, closer to Thee than we are, whose prayers we need,
That those may be happy with Thee forever, who on earth
were true exemplars of the Catholic Faith, grant them eternal rest, O Lord.
That those may be admitted to Thine unveiled Presence,
who as far as we know never committed mortal sin,
grant them eternal rest, O Lord.
That those may be housed in glory, who lived always in recollection and prayer, etc.
That those may be given the celestial joy of beholding Thee,
who lived lives of mortification and , self-denial and penance,
That those may be flooded with Thy love, who denied themselves even Thy
favors of indulgence and who made the heroic act for the souls
who had gone before them,
That those may be drawn up to the Beatific Vision,
who never put obstacles in the way of sanctifying grace and
who ever drew closer in mystical union with Thee,
V. Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
R. And let perpetual light shine upon them.
Let Us Pray.
Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaids, N. and N., who are gone
before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of grace. To these, O Lord,
and to all who rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment,
light and peace, through the same Christ Our Lord. R. Amen.
Labels: Friday At the Foot Of the Cross
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The Great Gothic Cathedrals of Europe
As Belloc said, Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe!
Kathleen Battle does the singing.
Labels: Gothic Things
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Novmber 11th Birthdays Of Great Americans
Rememberence Day 2008
Today is also a day to mark the services of the British soldier, to whom I wrote a tribute, too.
How Tommy Atkins got his name.
How Tommy Atkins got his name.
Labels: Annual Cycles
Armistice Day 2008
This is the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I
At eleven minutes after the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, World War I ended.
It was a war entered into by most of Europe with jubilation 4 years before. The astonishing slaughter of the trenches in pointless battles at Verdun, Ypres, the Somme, the Argonne, the Marne, and Gallipoli turned the jubilation into bleak despair as Europe's generals could think of nothing better than to have an entire generation slaughtered and maimed, marched into machine-gun fire and left to hang on the barbed wire of no-man's land, while their governments ginned up what popular enthusiasm they could by proclaiming it a war to end all wars.
World War I ended Europe's dominance of the world.
It's outcome abruptly ended the rule of the Romanovs, Habsburgs, and Hohenzollerns.
It brought the menace of communism to reality in Russia.
It made the rise of Nazism in Germany possible.
It butchered innocence and optimism along with millions of young men.
The airplane, the tank, and the submarine for the first time became significant instruments of war.
Europe no longer had the self-confidence, or the money, to maintain colonial empires after the war, so most of mankind was swiftly cut adrift into the modern world without proper guidance in how to cope in it.
It brought the US and Russia to the fore of world power.
But the battle of attrition of that war wasn't properly concluded. The peace that was imposed was so mild, yet seemingly so harsh, that Germany was both motivated to, and able to attack again in 30 years, bringing on even greater human catastrophe, and dimming Europe's star, perhaps forever.
The day that ended that nightmare of a war has been commemorated solemnly ever since.
When I was a child there were still many World War I veterans alive. But, as Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy sang, "The old men still answer the call/But year after year, the numbers get fewer/Someday no one will march there at all." Today the youngest veteran of World War I is in his late 90s and very few people have contact with anyone who fought that grievous, bloody, pitiless war. They are almost all gone now, except for a handful for particularly hardy men across the globe. Sadly, World War I has become a forgotten war.
Today, World War II veterans are disappearing at a rate similar to the mortality of World War I veterans when I was young.
The subsequent history of mankind has made a mock of the claim that "The Great War" would end all wars.
On a personal note, my grandfather and 2 of his brothers enlisted in the 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers (formerly the 88th Regiment of Foot) in 1915. My grandfather was a gas casualty at Ypres, but survived the war. He died in 1936, 28 years before I was born.
At eleven minutes after the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, World War I ended.
It was a war entered into by most of Europe with jubilation 4 years before. The astonishing slaughter of the trenches in pointless battles at Verdun, Ypres, the Somme, the Argonne, the Marne, and Gallipoli turned the jubilation into bleak despair as Europe's generals could think of nothing better than to have an entire generation slaughtered and maimed, marched into machine-gun fire and left to hang on the barbed wire of no-man's land, while their governments ginned up what popular enthusiasm they could by proclaiming it a war to end all wars.
World War I ended Europe's dominance of the world.
It's outcome abruptly ended the rule of the Romanovs, Habsburgs, and Hohenzollerns.
It brought the menace of communism to reality in Russia.
It made the rise of Nazism in Germany possible.
It butchered innocence and optimism along with millions of young men.
The airplane, the tank, and the submarine for the first time became significant instruments of war.
Europe no longer had the self-confidence, or the money, to maintain colonial empires after the war, so most of mankind was swiftly cut adrift into the modern world without proper guidance in how to cope in it.
It brought the US and Russia to the fore of world power.
But the battle of attrition of that war wasn't properly concluded. The peace that was imposed was so mild, yet seemingly so harsh, that Germany was both motivated to, and able to attack again in 30 years, bringing on even greater human catastrophe, and dimming Europe's star, perhaps forever.
The day that ended that nightmare of a war has been commemorated solemnly ever since.
When I was a child there were still many World War I veterans alive. But, as Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy sang, "The old men still answer the call/But year after year, the numbers get fewer/Someday no one will march there at all." Today the youngest veteran of World War I is in his late 90s and very few people have contact with anyone who fought that grievous, bloody, pitiless war. They are almost all gone now, except for a handful for particularly hardy men across the globe. Sadly, World War I has become a forgotten war.
Today, World War II veterans are disappearing at a rate similar to the mortality of World War I veterans when I was young.
The subsequent history of mankind has made a mock of the claim that "The Great War" would end all wars.
On a personal note, my grandfather and 2 of his brothers enlisted in the 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers (formerly the 88th Regiment of Foot) in 1915. My grandfather was a gas casualty at Ypres, but survived the war. He died in 1936, 28 years before I was born.
Labels: Annual Cycles
Veterans' Day 2008
Martinmas 2008
Today the Church celebrates Saint Martin of Tours, one of the most important saints in western Christendom.
Martin was born in Pannonia around 325, and entered the Roman army's elite cavalry at an early age. Encountering a beggar while was stationed at Amiens, he divided his cloak with him. According to legend, the beggar revealed himself to be Christ himself.
Shortly after age 20, he was baptized and left the army, becoming an exorcist under the direction of Saint Hilary of Poitiers. He lived as a hermit on the island of Gallinaria, and returned to Gaul where he founded a monastery at Liguge, the first important monastery in the West. His monastery followed the Rule of Saint Basil.
In 371, he was forcibly carried off to become bishop of Tours. He had hidden from the delegation from Tours, but his hiding place, it is said, was revealed by a goose, hence the custom of eating goose on Martinmas.
He ruled the see of Tours for 26 years. In that time, he made numerous conversions in Berry, Touraine, Anjou, Beauce, Dauphiny, Paris, Luxembourg, Trier, and Sennonais. Wherever he went, he cast down idols, built churches, and left priests and monks to carry out his work.
In 397, worn out, he lay dying at Candes. His followers begged him to live. He struggled to say, "If God finds that I can still be of use to His people, I do not at all refuse to work and to struggle longer." He died with his face turned to Heaven.
He became almost immediately, the most popular saint in Chistendom. In France alone, 4,000 churches are dedicated to him, and over 500 villages are named for him.
Martinmas in Europe corresponds to the traditional time for slaughtering animals not intended to be kept alive through the winter. It also signals the time that the new vintage of wine is ready for drinking. Fresh beef and Beaujolais Noveau have traditionally meant feasting in Europe. So Martinmas has traditionally been a jolly time, a last opportunity to enjoy God's bounty before the fast of Advent starts.
Labels: Our Saintly Brethern
Monday, November 10, 2008
A Place Of Retreat, A Place Of Sanctuary
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus, unlamented, let me die;
Steal from the world,
And not a stone tell where I lie.
Alexander Pope, Ode on Solitude
This is Skellig Michael, the remote island monastery off the coast of Ireland, where Western Civilization was preserved at the time of the barbarian invasions of Europe at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The monks retreated to this desolate, windswept rock, and there kept up the classical traditions of learning and copied Greek and Latin texts that would otherwise have been lost in the upheaval on the Continent.
I am drawn to this place, and I think many of us are.
The whole trend of culture and politics in the West for the last 40 years has made a retreat from the decline of Western Culture by a remnant of civilized people very desirable. Many feel that a new barbarian invasion has occurred, and has engulfed Europe and the US. Massive waves of immigrants from less developed parts of the world, the almost inescapable liberal/socialist effort to force the the people born in the First World to tolerate, accept, pay for, and inculturate with the new immigrants, many of whom are not Christian, makes us feel like strangers in our own country. Assimilation into the existing culture of the US and the West? Don't make me laugh!
And then there is the culture. Rock was bad enough. But now there is the vile thing called RAP, and hip-hop. Abortion. Euthanasia. Declining standards of morality. Declining standards of educational achievement and knowledge. Gun control. Bilingualism. Affirmative Action and quotas. High crime. Rampant and unchecked drug use. The nanny state at its worst. Exorbitant taxation and regulation. Public disorder. Divorce. Feminism. Sodomy and the rise of a sodomites' rights movement. A society that seems to be spiraling out of control.
The results of this year's US elections accelerated this feeling that the public square is dangerously out of control and that withdrawal is the only viable option.
Many are trying to find their own Skellig Michaels by moving to gated communities, where they need not fear crime so much. Many are retreating from the declining standards and liberal indoctrination of the schools (both public and parochial) by homeschooling. Yet others are trying to combine these two by building Catholic communities, like Ave Maria.
But today, with the modern world's vastly expanded means of forcing itself on all of us no matter where we are, are even these means effective? I doubt that anyone can ever insulate themselves from the disorder of the world as effectively as the monks at Skellig Michael did. States are trying to reign in homeschooling. God help you if your gated community isn't racially balanced. Move to an island, like the monks did? Well, you had better pay allegiance to the ever-extending hand of Caesar Obama. And don't even think about acquiring guns!
I wish it were so simple as just to move to islands and live there, cut off from the world. But the world won't let us. Now more than ever, we need some sort of Skellig Michael, a refuge, a place of sanctuary. But no such place can exist in the modern world.
Thus, unlamented, let me die;
Steal from the world,
And not a stone tell where I lie.
Alexander Pope, Ode on Solitude
This is Skellig Michael, the remote island monastery off the coast of Ireland, where Western Civilization was preserved at the time of the barbarian invasions of Europe at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The monks retreated to this desolate, windswept rock, and there kept up the classical traditions of learning and copied Greek and Latin texts that would otherwise have been lost in the upheaval on the Continent.
I am drawn to this place, and I think many of us are.
The whole trend of culture and politics in the West for the last 40 years has made a retreat from the decline of Western Culture by a remnant of civilized people very desirable. Many feel that a new barbarian invasion has occurred, and has engulfed Europe and the US. Massive waves of immigrants from less developed parts of the world, the almost inescapable liberal/socialist effort to force the the people born in the First World to tolerate, accept, pay for, and inculturate with the new immigrants, many of whom are not Christian, makes us feel like strangers in our own country. Assimilation into the existing culture of the US and the West? Don't make me laugh!
And then there is the culture. Rock was bad enough. But now there is the vile thing called RAP, and hip-hop. Abortion. Euthanasia. Declining standards of morality. Declining standards of educational achievement and knowledge. Gun control. Bilingualism. Affirmative Action and quotas. High crime. Rampant and unchecked drug use. The nanny state at its worst. Exorbitant taxation and regulation. Public disorder. Divorce. Feminism. Sodomy and the rise of a sodomites' rights movement. A society that seems to be spiraling out of control.
The results of this year's US elections accelerated this feeling that the public square is dangerously out of control and that withdrawal is the only viable option.
Many are trying to find their own Skellig Michaels by moving to gated communities, where they need not fear crime so much. Many are retreating from the declining standards and liberal indoctrination of the schools (both public and parochial) by homeschooling. Yet others are trying to combine these two by building Catholic communities, like Ave Maria.
But today, with the modern world's vastly expanded means of forcing itself on all of us no matter where we are, are even these means effective? I doubt that anyone can ever insulate themselves from the disorder of the world as effectively as the monks at Skellig Michael did. States are trying to reign in homeschooling. God help you if your gated community isn't racially balanced. Move to an island, like the monks did? Well, you had better pay allegiance to the ever-extending hand of Caesar Obama. And don't even think about acquiring guns!
I wish it were so simple as just to move to islands and live there, cut off from the world. But the world won't let us. Now more than ever, we need some sort of Skellig Michael, a refuge, a place of sanctuary. But no such place can exist in the modern world.
Labels: Restorationists
Sunday, November 09, 2008
"Fons Amoris" Fontgombault Clips
