TUITIO FIDEI - SAINT EXUPERY

" 'He says you eat greens like the goat and pork like the pigs. Your wives are shameless and show their faces - he has seen them. He says you never pray. He says, what good are your airplanes and wireless... if you do not possess the Truth?'

"And I am forced to admire this Moor who was not about to defend his freedom, for in the desert a man is always free; who is not about to defend his visible treasures, for the desert is bare; but who is about to defend a secret kingdom." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. 'Wind, Sand and Stars', Cap. VII, iv.)

For 900 years we have fought the Moor. Not for the first time must we learn from his dedication to his faith.

Now is the time for us to defend "a secret kingdom." Our Faith, Our Church, Our future. A secret revealed by God. Against the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio!

IN PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS - A MONK WRITES

 THE INCARNATION - ADVENT - A TIME TO PREPARE

We are indebted to our Chaplain Father Edward Corbold OSB, for this truly wonderful meditation upon Christ's entry into our life on earth, and our corresponding entry into his life of Eternity, Deo volente.

Father Corbold prepared this talk to be delivered at the Yarlington House Recollection, which would have been last Saturday. It is deeply to be regretted that we could not gather in such convivial joy this year; we offer out thanks to Count and Countess de Salis for the hospitality they offered us in will if not in fact, and to Duncan McKechnie and his family for their efforts of organisation.

Please pray for the soul of our late confrere, Tony Chambers, Carolyn de Salis' brother-in-law, and for his widow Rosemary. May he rest in peace.

THE INCARNATION

In a few weeks’ time we shall be celebrating Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity (the Incarnation). Our familiarity with it can blunt our awareness of the enormity of it – God became Man, ‘Emmanuel’, God with us.

 

The Christian belief in the Incarnation is quite staggering. The more we know about the universe, its vastness, its age, the more it is a mystery that God its creator could have chosen this planet, this race, this age (only two thousand years ago) to send his Son, Jesus, to it. It is a scandal, a stumbling block, a trip- wire, which has tripped many people. Lots of genial Christians are in fact crypto-Arians, willing to admit that Jesus is the most sublime of God’s creation but drawing the line at the assertion of the Incarnation. So straight away our faith is being tested. So, we can say, ‘Lord, I don’t understand, but I believe’. We are agnostic for the reason that we live by faith.

 

It is so easy to put the Incarnation into an historical box as an event which took place two thousand years ago, a sort of ‘one off’ intrusion into the world, instead of seeing it as the presence of God into the world  - NOW.

SAINT CECILIA AND SOLDIERS FOR CHRIST

Today, the last Sunday of the Year, the Feast of Christ the King in the Universal Calendar, is the Feast of Saint Cecilia.

This gentle child martyr virgin, patroness of the caressing muse of Music, the angels' art, inflames us to violent battle against the Powers of Darkness.

The Benedictus Antiphon of her morning Office rings out - "As dawn was breaking into day, Cecilia cried out saying: Courage, soldier of Christ, cast away the deeds of darkness, and put on the armour of light."

"Dum aurora fine daret, Cecilia exclamavit dicens : Eia, milites Christi, abicite opera tenebrarum et induimini arma lucis."

Let those fools who would deny our duty to fight for Christ against the World and the Devil, who makes his nest even within our midst, and turn our ancient and holy Order into a den of spiritual pacifists, take heed. Christ the King requires of us an Army, and we must be ready to answer the clarion call. 

Ordo Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Militaris et Hospitalis Melitensis, custodi et inflamma nos!

(The painting is by Carlo Saraceni,Venice, c 1610. Now Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

DEAR FRIEND - MEMENTO MORI

Blessed Robert Southwell, who was martyred, aetatis Domini, on 21 February 1595, wrote these verses below, so fitting for this month, and for our present age.

This excellent blog-post (H/T FrZ), by Anne Barnhardt HERE reminds us of our frailty, and the need to approach the Sacraments with awe. Now that we have been momentarily deprived of the Holy Eucharist, let us take this to heart, so that when we can next approach the august Throne of the Altar, we shall be properly and humbly disposed.

Every Communion should be received as if it were our First Holy Communion, and as if it were our last - our Viaticum. How many of us can claim that?  Memento Mori. Remember your death.

Read her HERE.

BEFORE my face the picture hangs

  That daily should me put in mind

Of those cold names and bitter pangs

  That shortly I am like to find:

But yet, alas! full little I

  Do think hereon that I must die. 

I often look upon a face,

  Most ugly, grisly, bare and thin;

I often view the hollow place

  Where eyes and nose had sometime been:

I see the bones across that lie,

  Yet little think that I must die.

My ancestors are turned to clay,

  And many of my mates are gone;

My youngers daily drop away,

  And can I think to 'scape alone?

No, no, I know that I must die,

  And yet my life amend not I.

If none can 'scape Death's dreadful dart,

  If rich and poor his beck obey;

If strong, if wise, if all do smart,

  Then I to 'scape shall have no way.

Oh! grant me grace, O God, that I

  My life may mend, sith I must die.

 

The top picture is by Albrecht Dürer (1521), the second by Domingos Rebelo (1919). It is salutary to think that, while romanticised, this depiction of Viaticum in a peasant house is only 100 years old. How much understanding we, and the whole Church, have lost in a century.

URGENT UPDATE ON NOVEMBER INDULGENCE IN LOCKDOWN

Before we have barely got started on our Indulgences for our deceased friends and relations, notwithstanding the generosity of the Holy See in extending this task to the whole month of November, the Devil has enlisted the British Government to frustrate our efforts. See the last post HERE.

Fear not!

The Special Conditions announced by the Holy Father in March (SEE HERE) continue to apply, and we may thus gain the Holy Souls Indulgences (on 8 separate days) under these conditions of a pious act done at home (Holy Rosary, Stations of the Cross, Spiritual reading for half-an-hour, Litany, etc) with prayer for the Pope's intentions, the intention to unite ourselves to the will of the Church at the altar, but in the absence of attendance at Mass and Holy Communion, and of immediate Confession, but with a firm purpose to receive both these Sacraments at the earliest opportunity.

If we are able to visit a church for private prayer we should try to do so. Confessions are also available under various conditions in many parishes.

The text of the Apostolic Decree may be found HERE.

Thus there is no justification to ignore the obtaining of these glorious Indulgences. Paradoxically it has never been easier, and probably never will be again. So, please, set to work in the greatest act of charity humanly possible, the releasing of your family, or indeed total strangers, from Purgatory to the Eternal Bliss of Heaven. They are crying out to us for our prayers.

For the of you who are isolating, please remember our very popular post, Spiritual Communion in Self-Isolation, HERE.

Pray also for our Bishops, that they may, within the great tradition of our 900 year-old history, learn the joy of a good holy fight.

ANIMAE EORUM, ET ANIMAE OMNIUM FIDELIUM DEFUNCTORUM, PER MISERICORDIAM DEI REQUIESCANT IN PACE. AMEN.

(Painting, The Holy Souls in Purgatory, Antonio María Esquivel, 1850)