Lighting the Lamps of the Worldwide Remnant

An essay of hope as a Christmas greeting from Michael J. Matt and the Remnant staff. I agree, we are seeing the 'light at the end of the tunnel'.

From The Remnant

It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now, our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. (Romans 12:11)

PUT ANOTHER WAY, the night is always darkest before the dawn. So, for heaven’s sake, don’t give up now!

The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans could be retitled the Epistle of St. Paul to the Traditionalists, so relevant is it to our situation. In the previous chapter of Romans, in fact, we find the Pauline inspiration for the very name of this newspaper: Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.

My father chose this 51 years ago, not out of arrogance – i.e., we are the remnant – but rather as a pledge of fidelity to the remnant, whose faith and final perseverance our holy scriptures happily foretell.

I’m sure my father was not the only one in the days following the Council to pledge solidarity with the remnant, to call them brothers—whoever they are, wherever they are—and to resolve to earn the right to walk with them to the ends of the earth if needs be.

But was it all in vain? Is there really going to be a remnant left?

Now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. How can this be when everything is blowing up around us— Rome is losing the Faith, the world is devouring itself, God seems to have grown silent in His heaven? Our salvation is imminent?

Is this faith, or presumption?

We see the lamps Sir Edward Grey saw from his office window back in 1914, and they’re still going out, not just all over Europe but the whole world.

“Will we see them lit again in our life?”

Indeed, will we?

My dear friends, I think I can be the bearer of good news this Christmas: the remnant foretold by St. Paul is revealing itself in our own day all over the world.

There was a time not so long ago when I accepted that on faith alone; but in recent years that has all changed. Something is happening. . . something big, which I know I've not seen before.

In the face of a new pagan empire where darkness covers the earth, the lamps of the little remnant of Christian believers who refuse to abandon the old Faith, are being lit once again.

In my nearly thirty years here at The Remnant, I’ve never seen so many signs of darkness being dispelled, and of scales being removed from Catholic eyes.

So many people are waking up to the true and evil spirit of the revolution in the Catholic Church that we must allow for the very real possibility that God Himself, in His mercy, is intervening on behalf of his Church by removing the blindfold from a faithful remnant.

And this should come as no surprise to true believers. That evil cannot sustain itself and darkness begets darkness has been demonstrated again and again in 2000 years of Christian history.

Christianity not only illuminated Europe, but it was the light of the whole world.

The lumen Christi, even on a purely human level, fostered happiness, family, color, wonder, joy and everything that makes life livable. (Have you ever met a truly joyful atheist? Me, neither.)

The culture established by the children of God gave birth not only to the most celebrated civilization of all time but also inspired such elevation of the human spirit that the greatest architects, artisans, sculptors, painters, musicians and poets that ever lived couldn’t help but devote their lives to painting and carving and singing and writing about it, about Christ, about His mother, about the Redemption of Man.

And what, one might ask, do the anti-Christians have to offer as an alternative?

Without Christianity everything falls back into darkness and nothingness, and we can see that reflected all over the world today, even in the “art” and "music" they produce.

Without Christ the world stops breathing, black become the predominant color, sentiments of abuse and perversion dominate the thoughts of poets and musicians alike. Without Christ, humanity has no destiny and even children lose the will to live.

Why? Because there is no meaning to life without God—every civilization in history knew this. Ours denies it altogether, which is madness, which is why we’re tearing ourselves apart; which is why the family is on life support; which is why suicide becomes a way of life, with some 47,173 Americans taking their own just last year, and another 1,300,000 attempting to do the same; which is why abortion is the leading cause of death of our babies.

The future of their precious new world order is being aborted, dying before it had the chance to get old.

In Modernity's hellish prison, of course the lamps of Christendom’s remnant are being lit again, and sooner than when we believed. 

There is no alternative to Life other than death, to Light other than darkness. If you want to escape the death and darkness of Modernity, sooner or later you’ll turn back to the lumen Christi, the Via, the Veritas and the Vita.

For You are my lamp, O LORD; And the LORD illumines my darkness.

The “enlightened” new world can mock the sons of Christendom all they want, but who was it that built the most magnificent cathedrals and the greatest empires in human history?

Who composed the most beautiful music ever written?

Who penned poetry surpassed by none, and fashioned a rule of law that lifted mankind up from the depths for a thousand years?

Who was it that developed science and philosophy?

Whose navigators discovered the New World?

Who crowned theology queen of the sciences?

— And what, pray tell, have the “enlightened” conquerors of the Cross done so far? The only thing they know how to do—kill everything in sight. They’ve engineered the most efficient killing machines in history, in fact.

They’ve become proficient at exterminating millions of babies.

They’ve perfected euthanasia, making it terrifyingly painless for the living and the dying.

The hopelessness of their anti-religion has given rise to the highest suicide rates in recorded history.

The anti-Christians are slaughtering themselves before our eyes.

So, yes, light your lamps, little remnant, and take heart. They crucified Christ once before, but He rose from the dead and conquered them all. And so it will be with His Mystical Body, and soon.

Ah, but they might also feed us to the lions.

Indeed, they might, but we know how that ends. Two thousand years ago they tried that, and we’re still lighting little vigil candles to the holy memory of Agnes, Barbara, Lucy—the little heroes whose lamps in pagan darkness set the world on fire for Christ and finally toppled the mighty Roman Empire.

So, even in persecution--perhaps especially-- Christians win. It has been thus ever since Jesus walked the earth.

Herod’s soldiers, swords red with the blood of the innocent, desperate to kill the Baby, managed instead to turn even history itself against their king—one of world’s most notorious villains.

But Christ lived on.

Similarly, papal efforts to kill the old Faith today have succeeded in waking a worldwide remnant of believers, convincing them to stand and fight for Tradition.

Christ will not be mocked, and neither will His Church.

From Washington to Brussels, the twisted totalitarianism of the new-world pagans is prompting millions to rise up against their new pagan Rome, unsure and tentative, to be sure, but on their feet at last, eyes wide open.

Invasions of new barbarian hordes, marching beneath the crescent, inadvertently remind fallen Christians of the Cross they’ve abandoned, prompting some of them at least to hoist the national colors of Christendom once again, in desperate attempt to prop back up that which devils toppled centuries ago.

And then there’s the Novus Ordo, which is “novus” no more, as Catholic Tradition storms back on the field, becoming new again.

Never, friends, in the history of this traditional Catholic counterrevolution has there been a moment like this. Fifty years after the close of the Council, hundreds of thousands of Catholics are returning to their knees, to the rails of the altar, to the confessionals, to the old Latin Mass—the evil spirit of Vatican II having proven itself no match for Catholic Tradition on the rise.

Even the secular world, whether it knows it yet or not, seems to be growing vaguely aware of the star rising over Bethlehem again. From Brexit in the UK, to the pro-hearth-and-home presidential victories in Hungary, Brazil, Poland, and even Russia, to the witch hunt against Donald Trump in America—the winds of change are putting the New World Order on notice: We’ve had enough of you. Go back to Hell, where you came from!

How can we not see the hand of God in this gradual awakening?

And, again, at the same time, the worldwide Catholic remnant is growing stronger than ever. The old Faith has survived. And the Child of Bethlehem will have the last word, even as the Immaculate Heart of His Mother will triumph in the end.

Here at The Remnant, the war goes on, surely, but we find ourselves looking ever more expectantly to the horizon. Call it the calm before the storm, if you like; but I prefer to call it the darkness before dawn.

And what is beyond doubt now is that, whatever it is, we will not be alone in this last stand. We’re blessed with new allies all over the world this Christmas, and for that we thank the Child King of Bethlehem.

The signs are everywhere. The Remnant’s League of the Sacred Heart, for example, has taken off like wild fire.

My children spend days filling orders and sending thousands of Sacred Heart lapel pins all over the world as a way for the remnant to show fidelity to Him and to identify themselves to each other.

And, let’s not forget, there was no fundraiser attached to the launch of that League. The remnant, from their quiet holdouts all over the world, spontaneously financed it, without even being asked. I see God’s hand in that.

Don’t you?

Please, do not give up hope. Together this Christmas let’s resolve to keep the lamps of the little remnant burning bright throughout the whole world. We need each other, and it’s clear to me that God in his Providence is seeing to it that we will indeed have each other, that we will not be alone, and that there will be a remnant left standing when this is over.

After all, I can see your lamp from here.

Pray for us, even as we—my wife and children—pray for you every night during our family rosary.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Christ is born!