The King of All Men and All Nations by Thomas A. Droleskey (Written in 2005)

A discussion of the Feast of Christ the King, by Thomas Droleskey.

From Christ or Chaos

Today, October 30, 2005 is the eightieth time that the Feast of Christ the King has been celebrated in the calendar of Tradition on the last Sunday of October.

Instituted by Pope Pius XI when he issued his encyclical letter on the Social Reign of Christ the King, Quas Primas, on December 11, 1925, the Feast of Christ the King was first celebrated on Sunday, October 31, 1926. Pope Pius XI instituted this glorious feast to provide the faithful with a salutary reminder that Our Lord is meant to reign as King of all nations as all as the King of all men. Continuing the work that he had begun in his first encyclical letter,
Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, Pope Pius XI, who reigned between February 6, 1922, to February 10, 1939, sought to remind Catholics that they were living at a time in salvation history in which all aspects of social life were founded in a specific and categorical rejection of the necessity of belief in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb and
the Deposit of Faith He entrusted to His true Church as absolutely essential for both personal and social order. He labored mightily to exhort his bishops to remind the faithful that they had to defend the rights of Christ the King at every turn.

The following passages from Quas Primas explain the necessity of instituting this particular feast:

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or
less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable  consequences. We lamented these in the
Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak
resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.

Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

That is, the Feast of Christ the King, which we celebrate today, was instituted precisely to serve as antidote to the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity that gave birth to the modern state. One of the principal characteristics of the modern state is its embrace of religious indifferentism as a social good making it possible for men of divergent beliefs--or no religious beliefs at all--to live together in peace as they pursued the common good of their nations. As was the case with Pope Leo XIII, who reigned between February 20, 1878, and July 20, 1903, Pope Pius XI recognized that many Catholics were being seduced into the acceptance of the errors of Modernity as either irreversible "realities" about which they could nothing or as actual signs of progress that the Church should reconcile herself to and embrace with enthusiasm. Pope Pius XI wanted to institute the Feast of Christ the King so provide Catholics worldwide with a reminder that they had to oppose the errors of Modernity and could make no compromise whatsoever with its false notions.

Pope Pius XI recognized that the only contact that most Catholics had with their faith was their assistance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays and on Holy Days of Obligation. The Sacred Liturgy was, therefore, the greatest and most effective teacher of Catholics. What better way to stress the necessity of defending the rights of
Christ the King in civil society than to institute an annual feast to draw the attention of men away from the allure of the false philosophies and ideologies seeking to substitute themselves for the true Faith as the guiding forces of social life? Pope Pius noted this quite explicitly in Quas Primas:

That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more
effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year -- in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.

The feast of Christ the King was placed in the calendar on the last Sunday of October so as to signify the fact that there are four weeks left in the liturgical year prior to the start of Advent. This is meant to convey the immutable doctrine of the Catholic Church that nations must recognize the Son of God made Man as their King before His Second Coming in glory at the end of time. Just as there is time between now and the end of the liturgical years, so is there there is time between now and the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last Day. The transfer of the Feast of Christ the King from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in the liturgical year in the Novus Ordo calendar was meant to stress the eschatological Kingship of Our Lord at the end time to the denigration of His Social Kingship over men and their nations. The well-ordered reasoning of Pope Pius XI was thus overthrown in favor of the eclipsing of the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King in favor of the sort of generalized acceptance of the realities of the modern state that Pope Pius XI had instituted this feast to combat.

As I have noted endlessly in my articles over the past fifteen years or so, fifty-four of which are published in Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations, the Social Reign of Christ the King can be defined as the recognition on the part of civil rulers that they are bound to observe the precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law in all of their actions and that they have a duty to help to foster conditions in their jurisdictions that make it more possible for their subjects to save their immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. If these civil rulers propose to do things-- and have in fact done things--grievously contrary to the Divine positive law and the natural law and thus put into jeopardy the eternal welfare of the immortal souls of their subjects, then the Catholic Church has the right, exercised as a last resort after using her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself to countermand such actions. The Social Reign of Christ the King was the glory of Christendom, exemplified by the likes of Saint Henry, Saint Stephen of Hungary, Saint Edward the Confessor, Saint Louis IX, King of France, and countless others. It is meant to be the glory of every age, admitting that the collective sins of men can dim the glory of Christendom, requiring men to reform
their lives constantly in cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and by relying tenderly upon the maternal intercession of Our Lady.

Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical letter, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, 105 years ago this Tuesday, that is, on November 1, 1900. Pope Leo used Tametsi to reiterate many of the key points of his earlier encyclical letters, stressing the fact that all societies must conform themselves in all of their activities to the reality of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Deposit of Faith He has entrusted solely to His true Church. Rejecting all secular or nondenominational programs to address the problems of the day, Pope
Leo stressed the fact that nations must be converted to Our Lord through His true Church just as much as individual men need to do so: It is surely unnecessary to prove, what experience constantly shows and what each individual feels in himself, even in the very midst of all temporal prosperity-that in God alone can the human will find absolute and perfect peace. God is the only end of man. All our life on earth is the truthful and exact image of a pilgrimage. Now Christ is the "Way," for we can never reach God, the supreme and ultimate good, by this toilsome and doubtful road of mortal life, except with Christ as our leader and guide. How so? Firstly and chiefly by His grace; but this would remain "void" in man if the precepts of His law were neglected. For, as was necessarily the case after Jesus Christ had won our salvation, He left behind Him His Law for the protection
and welfare of the human race, under the guidance of which men, converted from evil life, might safely tend towards God. "Going, teach ye all nations . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew xxviii., 19-20). "Keep my commandments" john xiv., 15). Hence it will be understood that in the Christian religion the first and most necessary condition is docility to the precepts of Jesus Christ, absolute loyalty of will towards Him
as Lord and King. A serious duty, and one which oftentimes calls for strenuous labour, earnest endeavour, and perseverance! For although by Our Redeemer's grace human nature hath been regenerated, still there remains in each individual a certain debility and tendency to evil. Various natural appetites attract man on one side and the other; the allurements of the material world impel his soul to follow after what is pleasant rather than the law of Christ. Still we must strive our best and resist our natural inclinations with all our strength "unto the obedience of Christ." For unless they obey reason they become our masters, and carrying the whole man away from Christ, make him their slave. "Men of corrupt mind, who have made shipwreck of the faith, cannot help being slaves. . . They are slaves to a threefold concupiscence: of will, of pride, or of outward show" (St. Augustine, De Vera Religione, 37). In this contest every man must be prepared to undergo hard ships and troubles for Christ's sake. It is difficult to reject what so powerfully entices and delights. It is hard and painful to despise the supposed goods of the senses and of fortune for the will and precepts of Christ our Lord. But the Christian is absolutely obliged to be firm, and patient in suffering, if he wish to lead a Christian life. Have we forgotten of what Body and of what Head we are the members? "Having joy set before Him, He endured the Cross," and He bade us deny ourselves. The very dignity of human nature depends upon this disposition of mind. For, as even the ancient Pagan philosophy perceived, to be master of oneself and to make the lower part of the soul, obey the superior part, is so far from being a weakness of will that it is really a noble power, in consonance with right reason and most worthy of a man. Moreover, to bear and to suffer is the ordinary condition of man. Man can no more create for himself a life free from suffering and filled with all
happiness that he can abrogate the decrees of his Divine Maker, who has willed that the consequences of original sin should be perpetual. It is reasonable, therefore, not to expect an end to troubles in this world, but rather to steel one's soul to bear troubles, by which we are taught to look forward with certainty to supreme happiness. Christ has not promised eternal bliss in heaven to riches, nor to a life of ease, to honours or to power, but to longsuffering and to tears, to the love of justice and to cleanness of heart.

From this it may clearly be seen what con-sequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor self devotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been
built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in  harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching.

This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" John xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reason for that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the  obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites.
Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority.

And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness.

In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

Several sentences in that last paragraph need to be emphasized and highlighted:

We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

Pope Leo XIII called the belief that civil governance can be conducted without referencing the true Faith (he discussed in

Immortale Dei in 1885 that the phrase Christianity is synonymous with one thing alone, the religion instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ on the rock of Peter, the Pope) is blindness. Men will be steeped in material acquisition and believing that such acquisitiveness is perfectly compatible with the pursuit of sanctity. Pope Leo knew that materialism leads to "envy, jealousy, and hatred," resulting in "conspiracy, anarchy, and nihilism." Just re-read those few sentences. They have direct application to some of the headlines from the last few days, do they not?

Anticipating the work of Pope Pius XI in his entire body of encyclical letters on the Social Reign of Christ the King, Pope Leo stated very clearly in Tametsi:

The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue.

Do you believe that all elements of the national life must be made to drink the Life which proceedeth from Our Lord? If you do then you must recognize that each of us has a role to play in helping to plant the seeds for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King. I have pointed out some of these things in an article in the October 31, 2005, issue of The Remnant, adapted slightly from a piece that appeared on this site on July 4, 2005.

Suffice it to say for present purposes that we must be assiduous in our devotion to and promotion of the Traditional Latin Mass without any of the unjust and illicit conditions imposed by the Holy See since 1984.

We must spend time on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer.

We must be totally consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

We must pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary devotedly every day.

We must have the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus enthroned in our homes.

We must keep the Nine First Fridays and the Five First Saturdays.

We must go to Confession regularly, which many priests used to tell us was once a week.

We must live penitentially, embracing the crosses of daily living, offering all to the Blessed Trinity through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

We must pray for those who hate us and calumniate us and believe that our commitment to Tradition without compromise is a sign of disloyalty and/or disobedience to the hierarchy.

We must pray for our Holy Father and for all of the bishops and priests and religious of the world.

We must eschew anything that can further attach us to the world and distract us from the pursuit of sanctity, taking special measures to protect ourselves and our children from the harm of a culture that is in the grip of the devil himself.

We must, obviously, pray and make endless sacrifices for the proper consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart by a pope with all of the world's bishops, thus putting an end to the spread of the errors of Russia, which are nothing other than the errors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the Church.

We never lose heart as Catholics. We never surrender to despair. We recognize that Our Lord has willed from all eternity that we be alive in these troubling times, accepting the fact that He has work for us to do in his vineyard prior to His Second Coming in glory at the end of time. He wants us to be some small instrument in planting the seeds for the restoration of Christendom, a task that begins with His reigning over every aspect of our own lives without any exception whatsoever.

Trusting in Our Lady's loving protection and intercession, we observe this great feast with joy and thanksgiving. We count it as our singular privilege to be hated by the worldly-wise in the world and by the power brokers of this or that political philosophy or ideology and by the Modernists who control most of the ecclesiastical apparatus of the true Church at this point in time. We know that we are in Our Blessed Mother's loving hands. We know that our fidelity in keeping her company at the foot of the Cross of her Divine Son at each Holy Mass we are privileged to assist at will not go without its reward if we persist until the point of our dying breaths in states of sanctifying grace.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.