US Bishops Caught Funding James Martin's Depravity With Your Tithing Money

Anyone else remember when the USCCB were too conservative for Pope Francis? Under Leo, they've apparently fully embraced synodality.

The Most Powerful Ruler of Silesia! Visionary or Tyrant?

From Nie Uwierzysz

Henry the Bearded was not a king and never assumed the crown, but for a while he was one of the most powerful Piast dynasty of his era. It was he who built the power of Silesia, fought for Kraków, Greater Poland, and the Lubusz Land, and his reign became one of the greatest opportunities for the early unification of Poland after the feudal fragmentation. In this film, I tell the story of a prince who combined piety with hardline politics, founded monasteries, developed cities, supported settlement, and waged a long game for power over the Piast lands. Henry the Bearded was the husband of Saint Jadwiga of Silesia, father of Henry the Pious, and founder of the power known as the monarchy of the Silesian Henrys. If not for his death and the subsequent disaster at Legnica in 1241, could Poland have united much sooner? This question recurs to this day.

Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | October

Traditional Catholic morning prayers to lay a strong foundation for the rest of your day! The month of October is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I hope these prayers increase your devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary this month, to help us meditate on the events in the life of Christ and draw us closer to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Begin each day with morning prayer! This video is a compilation of many traditional evening prayers Catholics say, and should not be considered a replacement for those who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office morning prayers.

I Confronted My Pastor About the Catholic Church...

From Catholic Answers Live Clips

In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Karlo Broussard to discuss the connections between the teachings of the Apostolic Fathers and Catholic doctrine. Karlo addresses the objections raised by the caller's pastor and highlights the importance of engaging with historical evidence in faith discussions.

St Hedwig of Silesia: The Duchess Who Dressed Like a Peasant

Today is her Feast Day. Pope John Paul II, a Polish Pope, was elected 48 years ago, on the Feast of a Sainted Polish noblewoman.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

Even though St. Hedwig was the Duchess of Silesia, she sought to be among the poor and did not like her royal clothing.

Typically, the ruling class of a society are given the best of everything, and it can be tempting for royalty to look down upon the peasant class. Yet, St. Hedwig of Silesia did the exact opposite and sought to be with the poor, casting away any physical benefits she possessed.

St. Hedwig was a devout woman of the 13th century and was married to the Duke of Lower Silesia, Henry the Bearded.

Dressed like the poor

While she was duchess, it is said that she traded her own clothes for the clothes of a poor woman, according to Vatican News:

She was so modest that she was able, in an unheard of way, to disregard the fashions that her rank would have imposed upon her. Hedwig was not too proud to dress herself in used clothing and old shoes. She did not want to stand out from the poor, because, she said, “they are our masters.”

When her husband died, St. Hedwig moved into a Cistercian monastery of nuns that was led by her daughter.

Even while she was there she expressed her desire to be counted among the poorest.

In Butler's Lives of the Saints, Fr. Butler relates a story about her giving away her habit to the poor:

Out of a spirit of sincere poverty and humility she never wore any other than some old threadbare castaway habit. One of the nuns happened once to say to her: “Why do you wear these tattered rags? They ought rather to be given to the poor.” The saint meekly answered: “If this habit gives any offence I am ready to correct my fault.” And she instantly laid it aside and got another, though she would not have a new one.

St. Hedwig remains a powerful example of a member of the ruling class who saw the poor as her friends and desired to be like them in all things. She did not use her power and prestige as a way to lord it over others, but sought to be like those she ruled over, counting them as her friends.

The Business Model That Broke Catholic Schools

From AdVaticanum

For decades, Catholic K–12 schools across America were powered by the sacrificial labor of religious sisters and brothers. As vocations declined, schools transitioned to lay faculties…a necessary change that fundamentally altered the economic and cultural landscape of Catholic education. Let’s explore how soaring tuition costs, shifting student demographics, and the adoption of secular college-prep metrics changed the core identity of many parochial schools. And, is there a way to turn things around?

Dom Prosper Guéranger's Prayer to St Hedwig for Poland

Poland is once again in the hands of the Left.

Daughter of Abraham according to faith, thou didst imitate his heroism. Thy first reward was to find a worthy son in him thou offeredst to the Lord. Thy example is most welcome in this month, wherein the Church sets before us the death of Judas Machabeus. (1 August) As glorious as his was the death of thy Henry; but it was also a fruitful death. Of thy six children he alone, the Isaac offered and immolated to God, was permitted to propagate thy race. And yet what a posterity is thine, since all the royal families of Europe can claim to be of thy lineage! I will make them increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. (Genesis 17:6) This promise, made to the Father of the faithful, is fulfilled once more on thy behalf, O Hedwige. God never changes; he has no need to make a new engagement; a like fidelity in any age earns from him a like reward. Mayst thou be blessed by all, O Mother of nations! Extend over all thy powerful protection; but above all others, by God’s permission, may unfortunate Poland find by experience that thy patronage is never invoked in vain!

St Bridget’s Vision About a Bad Pope Is Relevant for Our Day and Age

Mrs Kreitzer looks at St Bridget’s vision regarding a bad Pope, Pope Honorius I, who was condemned by an Ecumenical Council, and the situation today.

From Les Femmes

By Mary Ann Kreitzer 

It's good to remember that times in the Church have always been challenging, even when they seemed like the "best" of times. And often, it's been the "worst" of times. Don't we see that daily with the synodal shenanigans? The modernist attack on Holy Mother Church disfigures her more than every other heretical attack in Church history. Even the Arians couldn't inflict the damage we're living through today.

Dickens had it right when he opened The Tale of Two Cites with his declaration that:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There are always good things and bad things happening in every age as the war between the powers of heaven and the prowling demons illustrates. God only allows evil for the good He can bring out of it, but sometimes that's hard to see in the day to day living out of our faith. Sometimes the corrections come only decades and even centuries later as happened in the case of Pope Honorius I who died in 638 and was later condemned as a heretic at the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681) when the council fathers wrote:

"We define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome."

 

On St. Bridget of Sweden's feast day earlier this week, I came across a conversation she had with the Lord over a bad pope (believed to be Pope Honorius I). Bad bishops, laity, and others were also condemned. While Honorius is not mentioned by name, scholars believe he is the pope whose actions are being addressed in the vision. But others throughout Church history have earned the same charges.

St. Bridget's visions were extensive and were collected in a number of books and hundreds of chapters many of which you can read at Daily Catholic. The document in question is Chapter 41 of Book One where Jesus condemns bad popes and their assistants. Remember, Honorius died as pope in 638. He was never deposed. He was never expelled from the chair. Only decades later were his actions condemned.

Keep in mind that no one must believe in private revelations, but the content of St. Bridget's writings are approved. And this chapter should light a fire under every cleric, every religious, and every layman who deviates from the Faith of the Fathers and preaches errors that endanger souls.

Revelations and Prophecies Imparted to St. Bridget

Our beloved Creator's words in the presence of the heavenly Host and the bride, in which He complains about five men signifying the pope and His clergy, the evil laity, the Jews and the heathens; and also about the help He sends to His friends, signifying all mankind, and about the harsh judgment He executes on His enemies.

Chapter Forty-one

'I AM the Creator of all things. I was born of the Father before Lucifer. I am inseparably in the Father and the Father in Me and one Spirit in us both. Accordingly, there is one God - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - and not three gods. I AM The One Who promised the eternal inheritance to Abraham and led My people out of Egypt through Moses. I AM The One Who spoke through the prophets. The Father sent Me to the womb of the Virgin without separating Himself from Me but remaining inseparably with Me so that mankind, who had abandoned God, would return to God through My love....

I now complain over you, O head of My Church, who sit on My seat which I gave to Peter and his successors to sit on with a threefold dignity and power: First, so that they would have the power of binding and loosing souls from their sins. Second, so that they would open Heaven for the penitent. Third, so that that they would close Heaven to the damned and to those who despise My Law. But you, who should be healing souls and presenting them to Me, you are in truth a murderer of souls. I appointed Peter as shepherd and guardian of My sheep. But you, however, scatter and wound them. [Remember Jesus describing the millstone for those who scandalize. This passage simply confirms what Jesus warned the pharisees about who made men more wicked than themselves. Are we not living in similar times?]

You are worse than Lucifer. For he was envious of Me and desired to kill none but Me so that he could rule in My place. But you are so much worse, for you do not only kill Me by driving Me off from yourself by your bad deeds, but you also kill souls by your bad example. I redeemed the souls with My blood and entrusted them to you as to a faithful friend, but you deliver them back again to the enemy from whom I redeemed them. [How many same-sex attracted souls will go to hell because of ear-tickling by homosexualists in Roman collars who convince them they are A-okay because "Love is love?" How many couples fornicate or practice contraception convinced that they are not sinning? How many priests with the obligation to teach and preach the truth have muffled their voices so they don't offend anyone? What will God say to them on Judgment Day?]

You are more unrighteous than Pilate. He judged no one else but Me to death, but you not only judge Me as if I were a powerless lord and worthy of no good thing, no, you also judge and condemn the souls of the innocent and let the guilty go free without any rebuke. [Was this written yesterday? How many abortionists, gays, and even atheists are honored at the Vatican or named to pontifical bodies? How many death peddlers are given a platform in Rome. It really is scandalous!]

You are more cruel than Judas who only sold Me, but you not only sell Me, but also the souls of My chosen men for your own shameful profit and vain name's sake. You are more despicable than the Jews, for they only crucified My body, but you crucify and torture the souls of My chosen men for whom your malice and your sins are more bitter than from any wound from a sword. And so, since you are like Lucifer and more unrighteous than Pilate and more cruel than Judas and more despicable than the Jews, I complain over you with justice.....

Then Our Lord said to Saint Peter: "You are the founder and defender of the faith and of My Church. While My Host is listening, state the sentence of the five men!"

Peter answered: "O Lord, all praise and honor to You, for the love You have shown to Your earth. Blessed be You by all Your Host, for You allow us to see and know all things in You that have been and will be, and that is why we see and know all things in You.

It is true justice that the first man who sits upon Your seat, while having the deeds of Lucifer, should shamefully lose the seat he dared to sit on and become a partaker in the torment of Lucifer. [Note that this did not happen during the earthly life of the pope, but was a sentence passed by God after his death.]

Then our Lord answered: "I swear by God the Father, Whose voice John the Baptist heard in the Jordan; I swear by the body which John baptized, saw, and touched in the Jordan; I swear by My Spirit Who revealed Himself in the form of a dove at the Jordan, that I shall do justice with these five men."

The letter goes on with all the punishments that God will mete out to the wicked. It is sobering indeed to read St. Bridget's writings. As I said, no one is required to believe or embrace private revelations, but it would be wise to take her seriously. Many people don't believe God will punish anyone, that He's really the candyman who wants to make everybody feel good. There will be a rude awakening on Judgment Day for many. Sin is a serious matter, not a joke. Let us all repent every day and seek to grow in virtue to honor the God Who loves us so much. We should love Him back, not out of fear but in gratitude. Go to Mary. She will teach you to love her Son as she does.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for those who have recourse to thee.

St Hedwig, Widow

Today's Holy Mass from SSPX Australia. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.

St Hedwige, Widow ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

St Hedwige, Widow

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the plateau of Upper Asia poured down a fresh torrent of barbarians, more terrible than all their predecessors. The one fragile barrier, which the Graeco–Slavonian civilization could oppose to the Mongols had been swept away by the first wave of the invasion; not one of the States formed under the protection of the Byzantine Church had any prospect for the future. But beyond this Ruthenia, which had fallen into dissolution before being conquered, the Roman Church had had time to form a brave and generous people: when the hour arrived, Poland was ready. The Mongols were already inundating Silesia when, in the plains of Liegnitz, they found themselves confronted by an army of thirty thousand warriors, headed by the Duke of Silesia, Henry the Pious. The encounter was terrible; the victory remained long undecided, until at length, by the odious treason of some Ruthanian princes, it turned in favor of the barbarians. Duke Henry and the flower of the Polish knighthood was left upon the battlefield. But their defeat was equal to a victory. The Mongols retired exhausted, for they had measured their strength with the soldiers of the Latin Christianity.

It is Poland’s happy lot that at each decisive epoch in its history a Saint appears to point out the road to the attainment of its glorious destiny. Over the battlefield of Liegnitz shines the gentle figure of St. Hedwige, mother of Duke Henry the Pious. She had retired, in her widowhood, into the Cistercian monastery of Trebnitz, founded by herself. Three years before the coming of the barbarians, she had had a revelation touching the future fate of her son. She offered her sacrifice in silence; and far from discouraging the young duke, she was the first to animate him to resistance.

The night following the battle, she awoke one of her companions, and said to her: “Demundis, know that I have lost my son. My beloved son has fled from me, like a bird on the wing; I shall never see my son again in this life.” Demundis endeavored to console her; no courier had arrived from the army, and her fears were vain. “It is but too true,” replied the duchess; “but mention it to no one.”

Three days later the fatal news was confirmed. “It is the will of God,” said Hedwige; “what God wills, and what pleases him, must please us also.” And rejoicing in the Lord: “I thank thee, O my God,” said she, raising her hands and eyes to heaven, “for having given me such a son. He loved me all his life, always treated me with great respect, and never grieved me. I much desired to have him with me on earth, but I congratulate him with my whole soul, for that by the shedding of his blood he is united with thee in heaven, with thee his Creator. I recommend his soul to thee, O Lord my God.” No less an example was needed to sustain Poland under the new task it had just accepted.

At Liegnitz it had raised up again the sword of Christendom, fallen from the feeble hands of Ruthenia. It became henceforth as a watchful sentinel, ever ready to defend Europe against the barbarians. Ninety-three times did the Tartars rush upon Christendom, thirsting for blood and rapine: ninety-three times Poland repulsed them at the edge of the sword, or had the grief to see the country laid waste, the towns burnt down, the flower of the nation carried into captivity. By these sacrifices it bore the brunt of the invasion, and deadened the blow for the rest of Europe. As long as blood and tears and victims were required, Poland gave them unstintedly; while the other European nations enjoyed the security purchased by this continual immolation. (Dom Guépin, S. Josaphat et Eglise grecque unie en Pologne, Introduction.)

This touching page will be completed by the Church’s story, where the part played by the saintly duchess is so well brought forward.

Hedwige was illustrious for her royal descent, but still more so for the innocence of her life. She was maternal aunt to St. Elizabeth, the daughter of the king of Hungary; and her parents were Berthold and Agnes, Marquis and Marchioness of Moravia. From childhood she was remarkable for her self-control, for at that tender age she refrained from all childish sports. At the age of twelve, her parents gave her in marriage to Henry, Duke of Poland. She was a faithful and holy wife and mother, and brought up her children in the fear of God. In order the more freely to attend to God, she persuaded her husband to make with her a mutual vow of continency. After his death, she was inspired by God, whose guidance she had earnestly implored, to take the Cistercian habit; which she did with great devotion in the monastery of Trebnitz. Here she gave herself up to divine contemplation, spending the whole time from sunrise till noon in assisting at the Divine Office and the holy Sacrifice. The old enemy of mankind she utterly despised.

She would neither speak of worldly affairs nor hear them spoken of, unless they affected the interests of God or the salvation of souls. All her actions were governed by prudence, and it was impossible to find in them anything excessive or disorderly. She was full of gentleness and affability towards all. She triumphed completely over her flesh by afflicting it with fasting, watching, and rough garments. She was adorned moreover with the noblest Christian virtues; she was exceedingly prudent in giving counsel; pure and tranquil in mind; so as to be a model of religious perfection. Yet she ever strove to place herself below all the nuns; eagerly choosing the lowest offices in the house. She would serve the poor, on her knees, and wash and kiss the feet of lepers, so far overcoming herself as not to be repulsed by their loathsome ulcers.

Her patience and strength of soul were admirable; especially at the death of her dearly-loved son, Henry Duke of Silesia, who fell fighting against the Tartars; for she thought rather of giving thanks to God, than of weeping for her son. Miracles added to her renown. A child, that had fallen into a mill-stream and was bruised and crushed by the wheels, was immediately restored to life when the Saint was invoked. Many other miracles wrought by her having been duly examined, Clement IV enrolled her among the Saints; and allowed her feast to be celebrated on the fifteenth of October, in Poland, where she is very greatly honored as Patroness of the country. Innocent XI extended her Office to the whole Church, fixing it on the seventeenth of October.

Daughter of Abraham according to faith, thou didst imitate his heroism. Thy first reward was to find a worthy son in him thou offeredst to the Lord. Thy example is most welcome in this month, wherein the Church sets before us the death of Judas Machabeus. (3rd Sunday of October) As glorious as his was the death of thy Henry; but it was also a fruitful death. Of thy six children he alone, the Isaac offered and immolated to God, was permitted to propagate thy race. And yet what a posterity is thine, since all the royal families of Europe can claim to be of thy lineage! I will make them increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. (Genesis 17:6) This promise, made to the Father of the faithful, is fulfilled once more on thy behalf, O Hedwige. God never changes; he has no need to make a new engagement; a like fidelity in any age earns from him a like reward. Mayst thou be blessed by all, O Mother of nations! Extend over all thy powerful protection; but above all others, by God’s permission, may unfortunate Poland find by experience that thy patronage is never invoked in vain!

St Hedwig of Silesia – A Noble Duchess of Faith, Charity & Holiness

A sermon for today. Please remember to say 3 Hail Marys for the Priest.

St Gall, Abbot: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Hedwiges, Duchess of Poland, Widow: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Gall, Abbot

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

From his life compiled by Walfridus Strabo, a monk, first of Fulde afterwards of St. Gall’s, who died abbot of the neighboring monastery of Richenow, in the diocese of Constance, founded by Charles Martel in 724. His name is famous for his books on the divine offices; he died about the year 849 Notker, monk of St. Gall’s, about the year 900,* compiled the life of St. Gall in verse. See on this saint Mabillon Acta Bened. t. 2, p. 230, and Annal. i. 11 and 13.

A. D. 646.

AMONG the great number of eminent disciples which St. Columban left imitators of his heroic virtues, none seems to have been more famous than St. Gall. He was born in Ireland soon after the middle of the sixth century, of parents who were conspicuous both for their piety and for their riches, and the rank which they held among the nobility. By them he was offered to God from his birth, and by their care was educated in the great monastery of Benchor, under the direction of the holy abbots St. Comgal and St. Columban. Studies, especially of sacred learning, flourished in this house, and St. Gall was well versed in grammar, poetry, and the holy scriptures. When St. Columban left Ireland. St. Gall was one of those twelve who accompanied him into England, and afterwards into France, where they arrived in 585. They were courteously received by Sigebert, the pious king of Austrasia and Burgundy, and St. Columban, assisted by the liberality of that prince, founded the monastery of Anegray, in a wild forest, in the diocese of Besanon, and two years afterwards that of Luxeu. St. Columban being driven thence by king Theodoric, whom he had reproved for his lust, St. Gall shared in his persecution, and both withdrew into the territories of Theodebert, who was then king of Austrasia, and reigned at Metz. Villemar, the holy priest of Arben, near the lake of Constance, afforded them a retreat. The servants of God built themselves cells in a desert near Bregentz, converted many idolaters who had a temple near that place, and, in the end of one of their sermons, broke their brazen statues and threw them into the lake. The pagans that remained obstinate, persecuted the monks, and slew two of them. Gunzo, governor of the country, also declared himself their enemy, and king Theodoric, by the death of Theodebert, whom he killed in battle, becoming master of Austrasia, St. Columban retired into Italy. St. Gall was unwilling to be separated from him, but was prevented from bearing him company by a grievous fit of illness. The cells which this saint built there for those who desired to serve God with him, he gave to the monastery called of St. Gall, the abbot of which is prince of the empire, and an ally of the Switzers. St. Gall was a priest before he left Ireland, and having learned the language of the country where he settled, near the lake of Constance, by his preaching, example, and miracles, he converted to the faith a great number of idolaters, so as to be justly regarded as the apostle of that territory.

A beautiful daughter of Gunzo, duke or governor of the country, being possessed by the devil, was delivered by the saint, and by his advice chose rather to consecrate her virginity to God in the monastery of St. Peter at Metz, than to marry a son of the king of Austrasia. The duke Gunzo, and a synod of bishops, with the clergy and people, earnestly desired to place the saint in the episcopal see of Constance; but his modesty and fears were not to be overcome. To avert this danger from himself, and satisfy the importunity of the people, he proposed to them his deacon and disciple John; who was accordingly elected. On the solemnity of his consecration St. Gall preached a sermon, which is published by Canisius,1 and in the Library of the Fathers.* In it a natural simplicity of style is set off by great penetration, strength, piety, and solid erudition. The author speaks of himself as one taken up in the apostolic labors of the ministry. He only left his cell to preach, and instruct chiefly the wildest and most abandoned among the inhabitants in the mountainous parts of the country: and returning continually to his hermitage, he there often spent whole nights and days in holy prayer and contemplation, in which he usually poured forth his soul before God with floods of tears. Upon the death of St. Eustasius, whom St. Columban had left abbot of Luxeu, the monks chose St. Gall in 625; but that house was then grown rich in lands and possessions: and the humble servant of God understood too well the advantages of the inestimable treasure of holy poverty in a penitential life, to suffer himself to be robbed of it. The charge of a numerous community also alarmed him; for he was aware how difficult a matter it is to maintain a true spirit of perfection in multitudes; and the lukewarmness of one monk would have been to him a subject of perpetual trembling, not only for that soul, but also for his own, and for the whole community, from the contagion of such an example.

Walfridus Strabo places the death of our saint soon after that of St. Eustasius. But Mabillon shows clearly,2 that he lived many years longer, and only died about the year 646, on the 16th of October, the day on which the church honors his memory. This abbey changed the rule of St. Columban for that of St. Bennet, in the eighth century, and was much increased by the liberality of Charles Martel, Louis Dbonnaire, and Louis the Big. The estates and civil jurisdiction of which this abbey was possessed, became so considerable, that Henry I. erected it into a principality of the empire; but its dominions, though very extensive and powerful before they were curtailed by the civil wars raised by the Calvinists, never properly comprised the town of St. Gall, which, by embracing the Calvinistical religion, deprived the abbot of what rights he before enjoyed in it. This abbey is one of the most famous in the world for the great number of learned men it has formerly produced, and for its library, which abounded with a great number of excellent and curious MSS. and printed books, though a great part of these were plundered and lost in the civil wars. It still contains very valuable MSS.3

He who desires to preach to others with fruit, must first preach to himself, treasuring up lessons of true piety in his own mind, imprinting deeply in his heart the sentiments of all virtues, and learning to practise first what he would afterwards teach others. Empty science fills with presumption vain-glory, and pride, and neither reforms the heart, nor teaches that language which infuses true virtue into others, which can only proceed from experimental virtue. The gift of true spiritual knowledge cannot be obtained but by sincere humility, and purity of heart, which is freed from vices and earthly affections, and by holy meditation, which alone can give a heavenly tincture and frame to the mind, as Cassian says.4 As our food is assimilated to our flesh by digestion; so spiritual affections pass, as it were, into the very substance of our souls by pious meditation, and the exercises of holy compunction, divine love, and all other interior virtues; which he will be able to teach others who is possessed of them himself.

St Hedwiges, or Avoice, Duchess of Poland, Widow

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

From her exact life extant in Surius, and D’Andilly, Saints Illustr. See also Chromer, Hist.1. 7, 8; Du loss, Hist. Polonic,1. 6 et 7 and F. Raderus, Bavaria Sancta, t. 1, p. 147.

A. D. 1243.

THE father of this saint was Bertold III. of Andechs, marquis of Meran, count of Tirol, and prince (or duke) of Carinthia and Istria,* as he is styled in the Chronicle of Andechs, and in the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.1 Her mother was Agnes, daughter of the count of Rotletchs. St. Hedwiges had three sisters and four brothers. Her eldest sister, Agnes, was married to Philip Augustus, king of France; Gertrude, the second, to Andrew, king of Hungary, by whom she had St. Elizabeth; the third was abbess of Lutzingen in Franconia. As to her brothers, Bertold died patriarch of Aquileia, and Elebert, bishop of Bamberg: Henry and Otho divided between them their father’s principalities, and became renowned generals. St. Hedwiges, by a distinguishing effect of the divine mercy in her favor, was from her cradle formed to virtue by the example and lessons of her devout mother, and of those that were placed about her. In her infancy she discovered no marks of levity, and all her inclinations were turned to piety and devotion. She was placed very young in the monastery of Lutzingen, in Franconia, and only taken thence, when twelve years old, to marry Henry, duke of Silesia, descended of the dukes of Glogau in that country; to which match she only consented out of compliance with the will of her parents. In this state, by the fidelity with which she acquitted herself of all her respective duties towards God, her husband, her children, and her family, she was truly the courageous woman described by the wise man,2 who is to be sought from the utmost boundaries of the earth: making it her study in all things only to please God, and to sanctify her own soul and her household, she directed all her views and actions to this great end. With her husband’s free consent she always passed holydays, fast-days, and all seasons of devotion in continence. She bore her husband three sons, Henry, Conrad, and Boleslas; and three daughters, Agnes, Sophia, and Gertrude. After the birth of her sixth child, she engaged her husband to agree to a mutual vow of perpetual continence, which they made in presence of the bishop of the place; from which time they never met but in public places. Her husband faithfully kept this vow for thirty years that he lived afterwards; during which time he never wore any gold, silver, or purple, and never shaved his beard; from which circumstance he was surnamed Henry the Bearded; and so he is constantly called by Dlugoss, Chromer, and other Polish and German historians.

The nobility of Greater Poland having expelled their duke Ladislas Otonis, conferred on Henry that principality in 1233. Hedwiges endeavored by all the means in her power to dissuade him from accepting that offer; but was not able to prevail. Henry marched thither with an army, and quietly took possession of that and some other provinces of Poland, and though Boleslas the Pious was duke of Cracow and Sendomir, both he and some other lesser princes of that country stood so much in awe of Henry’s superior power, as never to dare to have any contest with him. From that time he is styled duke of Poland. Out of partial fondness he was once desirous to leave his dominions to his second son, Conrad; but Hedwiges supported the cause of Henry, which was that of justice. The two brothers, with their factions, came to an open rupture, and notwithstanding their mother’s desire to reconcile them, a great battle was fought, in which Henry entirely routed his younger brother’s army, who died soon after in retirement and penance. This happened several years before the death of their father, and was one of those crosses by which the duchess learned more bitterly to deplore the miseries and blindness of the world, and more perfectly to disengage her heart from its slavery. Whether in prosperity or adversity, her whole comfort was in God, and in the exercises of religion. The duke, at her persuasion, and upon her yielding into his hands her whole dower for this purpose, founded the great monastery of Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz, three miles from Breslaw, the capital of Silesia; upon which he settled the town of Trebnitz and other estates, endowing it for the maintenance of one thousand persons, of which, in the first foundation, one hundred were nuns; the rest were young ladies of reduced families, who were to be here educated in piety, and afterwards provided with competent portions to marry advantageously in the world; or, if they were inclined to a monastic state, they were at liberty to profess it in this or in any other nunnery. This building was begun in 1203, and was carried on fifteen years without interruption, during which time all malefactors in Silesia, instead of other punishments, were condemned to work at it, and the severity of their servitude was proportioned to their crimes. The monastery was finished, and the church dedicated in 1219. The duchess practised in her palace greater austerities than those of the mosrigid monks, fasted and watched in prayer, and wherever she travelled had always thirteen poor persons with her, whom she maintained, in honor of Christ and his apostles, waiting upon them herself upon her knees at table, where they were served with good meat, before she took her own coarse refection. She often washed the feet and kissed the ulcers of lepers, and having an extreme desire to hear that amiable sentence from Christ at the last day: I was in prison, and you visited me, &c., she exhausted her revenues in relieving the necessitous. The simplicity which she observed in her dress while she lived with her husband, showed, that if respect to him and his court obliged her to wear decent apparel, she was yet an enemy to vain or gaudy ornaments, which amuse a great part of her sex, and much more to all decorations and artifices of dress, with which many ladies study to set themselves off to advantage: a certain mark of vanity, or a pleasure they take in themselves, and a dangerous desire of pleasing others. This passion, which banishes from the breast where it reigns the spirit of Christ, and his gospel, cherishes the root of many vices, and without design spreads snares to entangle and destroy unwary souls, cannot find place in one whose conduct is regulated by, and whose heart is penetrated with, the spirit of Christian modesty.

St. Hedwiges, after her separation from her husband, carried her love of humility and penance much further in this respect, and wore only clothes of plain gray stuff. Her desire of advancing in perfection put her upon leaving the palace with her husband’s consent, and fixing altogether at Trebnitz, near the monastery, often retiring for some days into that austere house, where she lay in the dormitory, and complied with all the penitential exercises of the community. She wore the same cloak and tunic summer and winter; and underneath a rough hair-shift, with sleeves of white serge, that it might not be discovered. She fasted every day, except Sundays and great festivals, on which she allowed herself two small refections. For forty years she never ate any flesh, though subject to frequent violent illnesses; except that once, under a grievous distemper in Poland, she took a little, in obedience to the precept of the pope’s legate. On Wednesdays and Fridays her refection was only bread and water. With going to churches barefoot, sometimes over ice and snow, her feet were often blistered, and left the ground stained with traces of her blood; but she earned shoes under her arms, to put on if she met any one. Her maids that attended her to church, though well clad, were not able to bear the cold, which she never seemed to feel. She had a good bed in her chamber, but never made use of it, taking her rest on the bare ground. She watched great part of the night in prayer and tears, and never returned to rest after matins. After compline she prolonged her prayers in the church till very late, and from matins till break of day. At her work, or other employments, she never ceased to sigh to God in her heart as a stranger banished from him on earth, and returned often in the day to the church, where she usually retired into a secret corner, that her tears might not be perceived. The princess Anne, her daughter-in-law, who usually knelt next to her, admired the abundance of tears she saw her frequently shed at her devotions, the interior joy and delights with which she was often overwhelmed during her communications with heaven, and the sublime raptures with which she was sometimes favored. The same was testified by Herbold, her confessor, and by several servant-maids. At her prayers she frequently kissed the ground, watering it with her tears, and in private often prayed a long time together prostrate on the floor. She continued in prayer during all the time it thundered, remembering the terrors of the last day. Her tears and devotion were extraordinary when she approached the holy communion. She always heard mass either kneeling, or prostrate, with a devotion which astonishes all that saw her; nor could she be satisfied without hearing every morning all the masses that were said in the church where she was.*

That devotion is false or imperfect which is not founded in humility and the subjection of the passions. St. Hedwiges always sincerely looked upon herself as the last and most ungrateful to God of all creatures, and she was often seen to kiss the ground where some virtuous person had knelt in the church. No provocation was observed to make her ever show the least sign of emotion or anger. While she lived in the world, the manner in which she reprimanded servants for faults, showed how perfectly she was mistress of herself, and how unalterable the peace of her mind was. This also appeared in the heroic constancy with which she bore afflictions. Upon receiving the news of her husband being wounded in battle, and taken prisoner by the duke of Kirne, she said, without the least disturbance of mind, that she hoped to see him in a short time at liberty and in good health. The conqueror rejected all terms that could be offered for his freedom; which obliged Henry, our saint’s eldest son, to raise a powerful army to attempt his father’s rescue by force of arms. Hedwiges, whose tender soul could never hear of the effusion of Christian blood without doing all in her power to prevent it, went in person to Conrad, and the very sight of her disarmed him of all his rage, so that she easily obtained what she demanded. The example of our saint had so powerful an influence over her husband, that he not only allowed her an entire liberty as to her manner of living, and exercises of piety, but began at length, in some degree, to copy her virtues, observed the modesty and recollection of a monk in the midst of a court, and became the father of his people, and the support of the poor and weak. All his thoughts were directed to administering justice to his subjects, and making piety and religion flourish in his dominions. He died happily, in 1238; upon which melancholy occasion all the nuns at Trebnitz expressed their sense of so great a loss by many tears and other marks of grief. Hedwiges was the only person who could think of the deceased prince with dry eyes, and comforting the rest, said: “Would you oppose the will of God? Our lives are his. We ought to find our comfort in whatever he is pleased to ordain, whether as to our own death, or as to that of our friends.” The serenity of mind, and composure of features, with which on that occasion she urged the unreasonableness of an ungoverned grief, and the duty of resignation to the divine will, showed, still more than her words, how great a proficient she was in the virtues which she recommended, and how perfectly the motives of faith triumphed in her soul over the sentiments of nature. From that time she put on the religious habit at Trebnitz, and lived in obedience to her daughter Gertrude, who, having made her religious profession in that house when it was first founded, had been before that time chosen abbess. Nevertheless, St. Hedwiges never made any monastic vows, that she might continue to succor the necessitous by her bountiful charities.

One instance will suffice to show with what humility and meekness she conversed with her religious sisters. Out of a spirit of sincere poverty and humility, she never wore any other than some old threadbare, castaway habit. One of the nuns happened once to say to her: “Why do you wear these tattered rags? They ought rather to be given to the poor.” The saint meekly answered: “If this habit gives any offence I am ready to correct my fault;” and she instantly laid it aside and got another, though she would not have a new one. Three years after the death of her husband she sustained a grievous trial in the loss of her eldest, most virtuous, and most beloved son Henry, surnamed the Pious, who had succeeded his father in the duchies both of Greater and Lesser Poland, and of Silesia. The Tartars with a numberless army poured out of Asia by the north, proposing nothing less to themselves than to swallow up all Europe. Having plundered all the country that lay in their way through Russia and Bulgaria, they arrived at Cracow in Poland. Finding that city abandoned by its inhabitants, who carried off their treasures, they burnt it to the ground, so that nothing was left standing except the church of St. Andrew without the walls. Continuing their march into Silesia, they laid siege to the citadel of Breslaw, which was protected by the prayers of St. Ceslas or Cieslas, prior of the Dominicans there, and the barbarians, terrified by a globe of fire which fell from the heavens upon their camp, retired towards Legnitz. Duke Henry assembled his forces at Legnitz, and every soldier having been at confession, he caused mass to be said, at which he and all his army received the holy communion.3 From this sacred action he courageously led his little army to fall upon the enemy, having with him Miceslas, duke of Oppolen in Higher Silesia, Boleslas, marquis of Moravia, and other princes. He gave wonderful proofs both of his courage and conduct in this memorable battle, and for some time drove the barbarians before him; but at last, his horse being killed under him, he was himself slain not far from Legnitz, in 1241. His corpse was carried to the princess Anne, his wife, and by her sent to Breslaw, to be interred in the convent of Franciseans which he had begun to found there, and which she finished after his death. The grandchildren of our saint were preserved from the swords of these infidels, being shut up in the impregnable castle of Legnitz. St. Hedwiges herself had retired with her nuns and her daughter-in-law, Anne, to the fortress of Chrosne. Upon the news of this disaster she comforted her daughter the abbess, and her daughter-in-law the princess, who seemed almost dead with grief. Without letting fall a single tear, or discovering the least trouble of mind, she said: “God hath disposed of my son as it hath pleased him. We ought to have no other will than his.” Then, lifting up her eyes to heaven, she prayed as follows: “I thank you, my God, for having given me such a son, who always loved and honored me, and never gave me the least occasion of displeasure. To see him alive was my great joy; yet I feel a still greater pleasure in seeing him, by such a death, deserve to be forever united to you in the kingdom of your glory. Oh, my God, with my whole heart, I commend to you his dear soul.” The example of this saint’s lively faith and hope most powerfully and sweetly dispelled the grief of those that were in affliction, and her whole conduct was the strongest exhortation to every virtue. This gave an irresistible force to the holy advice she sometimes gave others. Being a true and faithful lover of the cross, she was wont to exhort all with whom she conversed, to arm themselves against the prosperity of the world with still more diligence than against its adversities, the former being fraught with more snares and greater dangers. Nothing seemed to surpass the lessons on humility which she gave to her daughter-in-law, Anne, which were the dictates of her own feeling and experimental sentiments of that virtue. Her humility was honored by God with the gift of miracles. A nun of Trebnitz who was blind, recovered her sight by the blessing of the saint with the sign of the cross. The author of her life gives us an account of several other miraculous cures wrought by her, and of several predictions, especially of her own death. In her last sickness she insisted on receiving extreme unction before any others could be persuaded that she was in danger. The passion of Christ, which she had always made a principal part of her most tender devotion, was the chief entertainment by which she prepared herself for her last passage. God was pleased to put a happy end to her labors by calling her to himself on the 15th of October, 1243. Her mortal remains were deposited at Trebnitz. She was canonized in 1266 by Clement IV., and her relics were enshrined the year following.4 Pope Innocent XI. appointed the 17th of this month for the celebration of her office.*

The constancy of this saint at the loss of friends proceeded not from insensibility. The bowels of saints are so much the more tender as their charity is always more compassionate and more extensive. But a lively apprehension of eternity, and of the nothingness of temporal things, makes them regard this life as a moment, and set no value on any thing in it but inasmuch as God, his love or holy will, and our immortal glory, may be concerned in it. Lewis of Granada tells us, in the life of the venerable servant of God, John of Avila, that the marchioness of Pliego, when she saw her eldest son delight in nothing but in retirement and devotion, used to say, that no other pleasure in this world can equal that of a mother who sees a dear child very virtuous. The same author mentions another lady of quality, likewise a spiritual daughter of that holy man, who, when she lost her most pious and beloved son, said she was not able to express her joy for having sent so dear a saint before her to heaven. If our grief on such occasions is ungoverned, we have reason to fear that our faith is weak, which makes such slender impressions on our souls.

Collect of St Gall, Abbot & Confessor ~ Indulgenced on the Saint's Feast Day (See Note)

According to the Apostolic Penitentiary, a partial indulgence is granted to those who, on the feast of any Saint, recite in his honour the oration of the Missal or any other approved by legitimate Authority.

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.

R. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
O God, who by the preaching of Thy blessed servant Gall Thou didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in Canton St Gall. Grant, we beseech Thee, that, having his life and labours in remembrance, we may show our thankfulness to Thee by following the example of his zeal and patience

Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

R. Amen. 

Nota bene ~ St Gall is not celebrated on the Universal Calendar, but according to the Martyrology, today is his Feast Day. The Collect is taken from the Common of Confessors.

Collect of St Hedwig of Silesia, Widow ~ Indulgenced on the Saint's Feast

According to the Apostolic Penitentiary, a partial indulgence is granted to those who, on the feast of any Saint, recite in his honour the oration of the Missal or any other approved by legitimate Authority.

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.

R. And let my cry come unto Thee.
Let us pray.

O God, Who didst teach Thy blessed handmaid Hedwig to turn away from the glory of the world, and with all her heart to take up her Cross and follow Thee, teach us, for her sake and after her example, to hold light the perishing pleasures of this present world, and cleaving ever unto Thy Cross to rest in the end more than conquerors over all things that would hurt us.
Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

R. Amen.

Pope Leo To Proceed With November South America Trip Despite Lung Surgery, Says Cardinal

St Peregine Laziosi, Patron of Cancer Sufferers, pray for the Holy Father! May God protect him on his journey, if his doctors OK the trip.

From AdVaticanum

Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi has said Pope Leo XIV remains determined to proceed with his planned November trip to South America despite undergoing lung surgery this week

Pope Leo XIV is determined to keep his planned November trip to South America despite undergoing lung surgery, according to Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, who met the Pontiff on the eve of his hospital admission.

The Archbishop of Tokyo and president of Caritas Internationalis told Vatican correspondent Iacopo Scaramuzzi of La Repubblica that the Pope was calm and in good spirits during their private audience at the Apostolic Palace on Monday, 12 October, explaining that the procedure was intended to prevent disruption to his international travel plans.

“He is doing very well, as always. He was very calm,” Cardinal Kikuchi told Scaramuzzi. His Eminence further stated: “He [His Holiness] said that, not wanting to cancel his planned trips abroad, he decided to undergo the necessary treatment immediately. It’s a minor procedure, a small operation. It’s nothing serious.”

The cardinal said the Pope had made the decision to undergo treatment promptly because he wanted to preserve his existing schedule, including a planned 12-day journey to Latin America in November involving three countries and numerous stops.

Asked whether the Archbishop of Tokyo believed the trip would go ahead as scheduled, Cardinal Kikuchi replied: “I think so, that’s what he said. He wants to do it on the scheduled dates, he doesn’t want to change the plans. That’s why he’s having this surgery now.”

As president of Caritas Internationalis, Cardinal Kikuchi also had a separate reason to meet the Pontiff. He explained that he is expected to meet the Pope annually to report on the organisation’s activities.

The Banality of Disruption

"Modern society can offer endless distractions, but it is incapable of satisfying our deepest human needs. It can offer money and power, but it cannot provide deep roots or a means of salvation."

From The Imaginative Conservative

By Glen A. Sproviero, JD

Like medieval monks who preserved civilization after the fall of Rome, traditionalists can live active lives and work to keep the flame of Western culture alive. To do so, we must build loving families, construct independent schools, and erect parallel institutions to challenge those that have betrayed their purpose.

Some time ago, while living in the ancient university town of St Andrews, I watched a stonemason spend many months repairing the tall front steps of several centuries-old dwellings near the harbor. It is said that those houses were the former homes of fishermen, but over time, moss and moisture worked to weaken their stability and deface their once handsome facades rendering them uninhabitable. While there was a staid, romantic beauty in their decay, the mason’s efforts slowly and deliberately restored the dignity of those structures without undermining their innate character. With each new brick, he resurrected the old homes and stamped his own craftsmanship on them for future generations to enjoy.

Today, the work of that craftsman and the world in which we lived feels increasingly distant – a remnant of a civilization we are told to leave behind. “The stones cry out to us,” Sir D’Arcy Thompson observed, but have we lost our ability to hear them? In the hyper-connected present, the slow and careful labor of preservation is a distant care compared to the frantic mandate of “disrupters” who promise to show us the way toward a new and inevitable future. Rather than preservation and care, why not simply knock it all down and build a glass tower in its place?

Now, a bizarre uniformity haunts the public square.

From boardrooms and universities to media and popular culture, the message to embrace disruption and subvert old ways has nurtured a cultural phenomenon that we must always exist in a state of revolutionary change. This anthropology of disruption bears profound consequences for both our culture and for the human soul.

What does that anthropology teach about the human person and our nature? It says that we are autonomous and masterless, free from inherited obligations rather than forged by them, and oriented toward continual change rather than stewardship. In this view, disruption is our highest calling and the door to worldly success. It provides a path to freedom without obligation.

Disrupters, we are told, are the deep-thinking leaders that we should all aspire to be. “Question everything” and “break the rules” are the commands of every major institution in American life. From Wall Street and Silicon Valley to Washington and Stanford, the vocabulary of disruption and its celebration as a compass for discovering material wealth and political power is unyielding. More than a corporate trend, this is evolving into a self-conscious dogma celebrated by Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” where the constraints of ethics, law, and cultural norms are treated as social heresies, while the acceleration of change is tantamount to a spiritual calling. In the business world, this can be understandable (to a point), but when it is distilled throughout broader culture, the dangers are amplified.

While conservatives have long warned of the dangers of the revolutionary impulse, the seduction of the American mind by the soft ideology of progress has conditioned us to accept aggressive change as a cultural status quo. As a society, we have convinced ourselves that a life in constant unrest is healthy and socially advantageous. Human beings, the narrative implies, are meant to live as atomistic beings who continually set their own course and rebel against anything that preceded the triumphant present. Discontent with whatever we don’t create or fail to understand, we have crafted a vision of order to reflect our own preferences and facilitate a life of ease.

But at some point, the rule-breaking became mundane, with the notion of disruption becoming the predictable and unimaginative script of the establishment. Yesterday’s freedom fighter no longer speaks truth to power, but regurgitates the talking points of a technocratic elite that profits from a deracinated and unstable populace.

This need not be so, as conservatives have an opportunity to do more than gripe or consign themselves to a rear-guard defensive action. They can terrify the progressive establishment by turning what Russell Kirk called “the permanent things” – those enduring truths, conventions, and social bonds that make life unique and interesting – into a source of cheerful rebellion.

Turning away from exhausted tropes and the mutilated orthodoxies of modern mass society, the conservative mind can act as a wellspring to nurse the withering vines of a fatigued and destitute post-modern imagination. It can challenge the pernicious anthropological assertion, accepted with little argument, that human culture is intended to exist in a constant state of flux.

Look about you and everywhere you will see absolute mobility and a life of ease as hallmarks of human freedom. Untethered from God, family, and community – responsible only to the preferences of the self and indulgent of the appetitive side of his being – mass man has unwittingly abdicated his citizenship and, indeed, his humanity to become a subscriber and a user. Who needs to leave their couch when food delivery apps and online shopping can fill every need and care for our every desire? Who needs human interaction and discussion when echo-chamber blogs and thirty-second video clips can lead us to freedom and terrestrial paradise?

This is why mediating institutions matter. The family, religious institutions, and civic organizations – Edmund Burke’s “little platoons” – are fundamental pillars of human life. But a psychology of disruption that constantly strives for change undermines them all.

Even more concerning is that this revolution does not use a guillotine or a firing squad, but the gentle flow of predictive analytics. This is catastrophic given that these are the critical social institutions that stand between the fragile individual and the behemoth state. Even more tragic is that this portends a quiet, steady subversion of what it means to be a human person.

When we treat our cultural inheritance like a never-ending software update, we fall into what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” in which we assume that past ideas are always subservient to those of the present. Stripped of historical memory and a sense of place, modern man cannot help but feel anxious and unmoored, leaving him uniquely vulnerable to top-down administrative engineering.

Traditionalists must resist this liquid onslaught and rearm the garrisons of the moral imagination, moving beyond political grievance and taking intentional steps to restore a dying culture. Through a type of prescriptive dissidence, in which we embrace our local neighborhoods and build parallel institutions to challenge the corrupted organs of power, we can hope to restore the inner souls of our community.

We can take concrete steps to advance this cause, countering the anthropology of endless, exhausting change with habits of permanence.

As an initial matter, we must embrace the family. Entering a lifelong relationship and having children is the most effective way to shock a dying culture back to life. Teaching children to love and to live, and embracing them as an inextricable part of the eternal constitution of society is a paramount element of any genuine renewal.

While the intellect can falter and skepticism take hold, a person always knows where he physically stands. The soil that is our home, the place where we grow up and the community into which we are embedded, is a powerful antidote to the nomadic wanderlust of untethered hyper-modernity. When we live in a community with deep roots or move to a place where we intend to remain, we make an investment that could potentially last generations. This encourages face-to-face social interactions and the erection of an economy that is not entirely bound to globalism and broader market fluctuations. Neighbors can help each other and foster deep relationships that cultivate creative synergies that stand athwart mass markets and the all-encompassing power of popular culture. It builds traditions that anchor society and a sense of duty that ensures its survival.

Most importantly, the cultivation of faith is nonnegotiable. Religion is the basis of culture, and the ideological fanaticism of contemporary life is too-often the product of the failure to understand – or to permit – religion to play its natural role. A spiritual endeavor, culture cannot withstand the challenge of pure will and political power without its chastening and soul-nourishing presence. Without faith, we cannot be truly human and instead subject ourselves to totalitarian wrath and ideological whim.

Yet we have reason for hope – reason to be happy and to persevere.

Like medieval monks who preserved civilization after the fall of Rome, traditionalists can live active lives and work to keep the flame of Western culture alive. To do so, we must build loving families, construct independent schools, and erect parallel institutions to challenge those that have betrayed their purpose. We cannot simply romanticize an idealized past that never existed, nor can we afford to retreat from the torrent of political and intellectual combat that shapes our contemporary affairs. “When bad men combine,” said Edmund Burke, “the good must associate.” Two centuries ago, that great statesman called us to engage with the enemies of the permanent things so that we do not simply become the victims of our own disillusion.

How do we take our stand?

Modern society can offer endless distractions, but it is incapable of satisfying our deepest human needs. It can offer money and power, but it cannot provide deep roots or a means of salvation.

But by embracing tradition, we make a radical stance against the status quo of liquid modernity and reject the inertia of a meaningless, empty movement that exhausts our souls and enfeebles our intellect. We can escape the cycle of boredom and despair that masquerades as the novel and exciting, understanding that the most daring and adventurous path is the one that rejects the pathology of endless disruption for its own sake. If we care to listen, the stones do indeed cry out to us and invite us to use them as a foundation to renew our shaken culture.

__________

The featured image is “The Stonemason’s Yard” (circa 1725), by Canaletto, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.