The Cross Conquers the World

Boomers trying to evangelise the young with "youth Masses" has been a disaster. The young want mystery and reverence, not guitars and bongos!

From Crisis

By Fr Kevin Drew

Christ told us to love our enemies. But loving our enemies does not mean pretending they are our friends. And note that Christ never said “Blessed are the pacifists.” Rather, He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” 

Back in July, Pope Leo sent a warm and gracious message to the Life Teen organization. A priest-friend of the pope is on the leadership team at Life Teen. Have you ever heard of Life Teen? Its Wikipedia page states:

Life Teen holds youth-focused masses, which it says are the most important part of its program. Particular efforts are made to create a welcoming atmosphere, reverent and relevant music, and an engaging homily that speaks to the issues in teens’ lives.

I went to a Life Teen Mass once, over 25 years ago, when I was still a layman. I had been traveling on a Sunday and made it to my mother’s. She said there was a 5 p.m. Mass in town but added, “It’s a Life Teen Mass.” I said, “What does that mean?” And she said, “Well, it’s for the youth.” And so, duly warned, I went. 

Before Mass started, an upper-middle-age man and wife, sporting bright colored T-shirts that said “Life Teen,” walked around the half-empty nave. They asked how everyone was doing, if anyone was visiting from out of town, and if it was anyone’s birthday. A young child slowly raised his hand, and all were instructed to sing “Happy Birthday” to him.  

The Mass, offered by an upper-middle-age priest, began not with “In the name of the Father…” but with “Good Afternoon!” During the Gloria and Alleluia, someone played the drums while a teenage girl prompted the small crowd to make various bodily motions with their arms in some sort of half-cocked dance routine.  

At Communion time, the priest processed to the front of the sanctuary to distribute Holy Communion, but he was empty-handed. Standing on his left and his right were two teenage girls wearing very short shorts. They were both holding ciboria, the sacred vessels which hold the Most Holy Eucharist. 

As people processed up the aisle, two by two, the priest would take a Communion host from the girls’ ciboria. The communicants were instructed to hold out their left hand and the priest then reached out and held their hand below their wrist. He looked them in the eye while holding their hand and said, “The Body of Christ.” 

While watching all this as I processed up, I said to myself, “I’m not going to hold hands with this man.” And so, as I approached, I put my arms behind my back and stuck out my tongue. Visibly shocked, the priest placed the host on my tongue.  

Of course, the rules for Mass did and do not call for the priest to be holding hands or otherwise touching anyone during the Communion Rite. Last Sunday, I mentioned the liturgical abuse of non-communicants processing up at Communion time to get a blessing, which causes confusion and sacrilege. At weddings and funerals, fallen-away Catholics process up; and if they do not commit sacrilege by receiving Holy Communion, they get a blessing, which means absolutely nothing because they have no intention of reconciling with the Church.  

Parents have been conditioned to have their very young children be blessed at Communion. This is a distraction for all involved. For when those parents should be focused like a laser beam on what is taking place—that God Himself is being placed on their tongue—they find themselves busy looking at their children, making sure they get a blessing. 

And priests, not wishing to offend anyone, give blessings. In the past, it was considered gravely sinful for a priest to break the rules at Mass. Not so much today, as Mass has become more focused on us instead of the One person who can save us from ourselves; the One person who can save us from Hell.  

That One person died, tortured to death for our sins. And so, Holy Communion only comes to us through a death. Any food we eat has to die first before we can eat it. The wheat gets ripped off the stalk, ground up, and put in the fire before becoming bread. The grape gets smashed in the press. And the lamb gets its throat slashed, bled out, and then roasted before we can have communion with it. 

Oh, by the way, Life Teen was invented in Arizona in 1985 by a priest who claimed the Church needed a new way to evangelize youth. After being appointed to the important post of Vicar General of his diocese, he was arrested for sexually abusing teenage boys. Later, he was excommunicated by opening a Protestant non-denominational worship center in Phoenix. Sources claim it was this man who invented or greatly popularized the idea of people processing up and getting blessings at Communion time. 
Recently, in Rome, with the apparent blessing of the Vatican, sexually-confused men processed into St. Peter’s Basilica carrying a wooden cross painted in the colors of the rainbow. The men wore T-shirts which featured Michaelangelo’s huge dome of St. Peter’s Basilica draped in the colors of the rainbow. Now, do you think the rainbow attire sent a message of love and inclusiveness and tolerance? Or were those colors and the defaced cross a statement that said, “We’ve conquered this place”?  

In 614, the Persians conquered the Holy Land, which for almost 300 years had been what it was supposed to be—Christian. When the Persians broke through the walls of Jerusalem, they killed tens of thousands and destroyed some 300 churches. They took 35,000 prisoners, along with Jerusalem’s treasures, including the relic of the True Cross. Then the Persians gave Jerusalem to the Jews, who had given the Persian invaders significant help in overtaking the Holy City (see Warren H. Carroll’s The Building of Christendom, Ch.8). 

Fifteen years later, a Christian army, led by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, reconquered the Holy Land and recaptured the Church’s treasures from the Persians. On September 14, 629, the emperor placed the True Cross back in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. 

It’s interesting about the Persians and the Jews joining forces all those centuries ago against Christians. It’s interesting because it shows some things don’t really change. The recently-assassinated Charlie Kirk had noted how Marxism and Islam have joined forces in modern day to conquer Christianity. Abortion, atheism, and sexual deviancy have been coupled with mass migration of military-age male Muslims in an effort to overtake what was once Christendom. 

Charlie Kirk said the American way of life was a Christian way, which meant not having to live anywhere where the Muslim call to prayer was heard five times a day over loudspeakers. I have been to the Middle East three times and have heard the Muslim call to prayer. It does not sound like tolerance, welcome, and peaceful co-existence to me. To me it sounds more like “We’ve conquered the place.” 

Charlie Kirk had the courage to venture into our Marxist-controlled universities and tell them the truth. They couldn’t debate him, so they killed him. And many people are now celebrating his death in ghoulish and satanic fashion. 

The leaders in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago couldn’t debate Christ, so they killed Him. But here’s the thing: The truth cannot be killed. Therein lies our hope. And so, we Christians wear an emblem of torture and violent death around our necks and hang it on our walls. The emblem is the cross, representative of the most hideous, barbaric form of execution there ever was—crucifixion—invented by the Persians and perfected by the Romans. 

St. Paul said we boast in the Cross. Why? Because it’s the weapon we use to kill people? Do we tell people to submit to Christ and then hang them on a cross if they refuse? No. We don’t hang people on crosses. Instead, we hang on crosses, by dying to ourselves and the world. We follow St. Paul’s urging to make our bodies living sacrifices; to become obedient to death, even death on a cross.  

Becoming obedient to death, however, does not make us cowards. Fortitude (courage) is a cardinal virtue. And we are called to be virtuous, which includes being courageous. A writer wrote the other day that, in Romans, Paul taught that rulers were God’s ministers and therefore were to punish evil doers and protect the good (13:4). Citing Thomas Aquinas, he wrote that the common good requires rulers to suppress injustice and preserve order. He quoted Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903, who warned that when authority neglects its divinely ordained duty, bloodshed follows. 

Christ told us to be merciful as our Father is merciful. And so we are. He told us to love our enemies. But as I’ve instructed before, loving our enemies does not mean pretending they are our friends. And note that Christ never said “Blessed are the pacifists.” Rather, He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  

My friends, we are not Quakers. When our homes, families, or churches are attacked, we have a duty to defend those things. It is not mercy to stand by and watch good things be destroyed, it is cowardice. A Christian puts a stop to mindless evil destruction. Then he forgives. For he desires that all men, friend and foe alike, attain eternal life.

Christ told us to conquer the world by baptizing it. Christ did so first, conquering Satan with the same weapon Satan used to trap our first parents—a tree. So, we glory in that tree. We glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ. We glory in the sweet wood and the sweet nails that deliver us and set us free.  

Switzerland Is Criminalising Common Sense

Woke gender insanity at its finest! A man is facing ten days in prison for saying that skeletons are either male or female. You can't make this stuff up!

From The European Conservative

By Lauren Smith

A Swiss man is facing ten days in prison for saying that skeletons are either male or female.

Every time it feels like we’ve hit peak woke, some new horror comes along to upstage the last. This time, it’s a story about a Swiss man who is facing a prison sentence for making a ‘transphobic’ social-media post. As we reported, citing Reddux, Emanuel Brünisholz, a wind instrument repairman from Burgdorf, refused to pay his fine for expressing a supposedly offensive view on Facebook and, as a result, will now be serving a ten-day stint in jail this December. 

You might be wondering what exactly Brünisholz could have said to receive jail time. Did he maybe threaten a transgender person, harass an activist, or call for violence against a group of people? Not even close. In 2022, he wrote a comment in response to Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner: 

If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum. 

For this, he was reported to police—allegedly by several activists and journalists—and interrogated by officers in August 2023. When asked what his intent with the post was, he explained: “Well, that those who think there’s not just man and woman, I want to tell them that there’s only man and woman.” He was also asked about his opinion of the LGBT community, to which he replied:  “Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s an extremist bunch. They want to silence me.”

What Brünisholz wrote was clearly nothing more than a biological fact—it is entirely possible to look at a skeleton and determine whether it is male or female. So why did saying this out loud turn him into a criminal? The Swiss justice system decided that, under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code, his comment constituted incitement to hatred. This law was expanded in 2020 to include the vague category of “sexual identities.” 

In a sane country, this case would never have reached the prosecutors’ office. But it was nonetheless decided by a Swiss court that Brünisholz had “publicly belittled the group of LGBT(Q)I people based on their sexual orientation and in a way that violates human dignity.” As such, he was slapped with a fine of 500 Swiss francs. 

Brünisholz, however, refused to accept this. He appealed the ruling in December 2023 at Emmental-Oberaargau Regional Court but was once again found guilty. The appeal also cost him a further 600 francs in court fees. Despite this, Brünisholz is still declining to pay the fine. He has instead opted to receive a ten-day jail sentence, which is set to begin in December this year. 

His decision to sit in a prison cell for ten days rather than pay a fine for stating scientific facts highlights the absurdity of this case. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that sex is biologically determined. It is quite literally the job of archaeologists and forensic scientists to examine bones and judge what sex the deceased person was—this is how we can find the identities of crime victims or learn about the lives of our long-dead ancestors. To pretend otherwise is pure delusion. 

Incredibly, though, there exists a set of archaeologists who really do believe that we can’t—or shouldn’t—determine a person’s sex from their skeleton. Some historians are dead set on rewriting the past, arguing that ancient people could have been ‘misgendered.’ In one ludicrous example of this, a PhD candidate and tutor at the University of Liverpool claimed last year that 7th-century Anglo-Saxon warriors might actually have been transgender men. His reasoning was that, although some of the remains, discovered on England’s south coast, had been previously identified as female, they were found with items that would have historically been associated with men—such as swords, spearheads, and shields. This, apparently, could only mean that the Anglo-Saxons living over 1,300 years ago had decided to identify as trans. This particular academic believes that “the lens of trans theory and the 21st-century language of ‘transness’ has the potential to improve historians’ understanding of early Anglo-Saxon gender.” 

Others have gone further, arguing that archaeologists and anthropologists should stop classifying human remains as male or female altogether. We couldn’t possibly know, the argument goes, how these long-dead people identified and what pronouns they used. And it would be a grave offence to potentially misgender a Viking warrior or Roman centurion who has been dead for a thousand years. Some historians have suggested that all ancient skeletons be labelled as ‘nonbinary’ or ‘gender neutral’ in order to avoid inadvertently insulting them. 

Outside the batty world of ‘queer archaeology,’ however, most right-thinking people understand that humans can very much be sorted into one of two biological categories. There are always outliers, of course, but these are few and far between. And even in these instances, the bones of intersex individuals carry markers that indicate their dominant sex. But, in the vast majority of cases, skeletons are very clearly either male or female. Certainly, none of them are ever ‘nonbinary.’ 

This is what makes Brünisholz’s punishment so absurd and so insulting. People are being coerced, under threat of legal retribution, to pretend that the truth is optional. We’ve seen this far too many times before. Remember Isabella Cêpa, the Brazilian feminist who was forced to seek refuge in Europe after she faced criminal charges for ‘misgendering’ a trans politician? Mizuno could possibly be handed a 25-year prison sentence in her native Brazil, all because she referred to a man as a man. Brazil’s bizarre anti-discrimination laws treat transphobia as a kind of ‘social racism,’ and offences carry hefty penalties. 

Or look at Enoch Burke, the Irish schoolteacher who landed himself in prison because he refused to use a pupil’s preferred pronouns. Back in 2022, Burke said he would not comply with a request to call a male student ‘they,’ because it conflicted with his religious beliefs. He was subsequently suspended from teaching but continued to turn up to the school as normal. As a result, Burke was arrested and has been fined a total of €225,000. 

When ordinary people can be fined into oblivion or even face jail time for stating scientific facts, the truth has been well and truly subordinated to ideology. We are being compelled to lie in order to protect the feelings of a vanishingly small group of delusional activists. But criminalising reality doesn’t make it any less true. Threatening people into pretending that men can miraculously turn into women doesn’t mean they actually can. Facts cannot bend to feelings, and laws cannot rewrite biology, no matter how much the trans lobby wants them to. 

Pictured: Study of Skeletons, ca 1510, by Leonardo da Vinci

Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ October 1st

ON THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

Consider first, that by this commandment God forbids all manner of wrong to our neighbour, in his goods, rights, or worldly possessions; whether by open violence or by fraud; by stealing or by overreaching; by cheating in buying or in selling, or in any other bargain; by keeping from him what is his, or not giving him his dues, or not paying just debts; or by any extortion whatsoever, or any usury in the loan of money, or other things; or by putting him to any unjust charges; or by spoiling or damaging what belongs to him. In all these cases there is an injustice committed, which is not only condemned in this divine precept, but by the natural and eternal law, written from the beginning in the heart of man, and by that great principle of morality which forbids us to do to any other what we would not have done to us. And yet how many ways are poor mortals daily guilty of breaking through this divine and eternal law, for the sake of this wretched mammon of worldly interest, the great god of this world; and that in spite both of law and gospel, honour and honesty, conscience and religion. And how often do they affect to deceive themselves herein with vain pleas and pretexts, intended on purpose to cloak their guilt, and to hide it, if possible, not only from others, but also from their own consciences; that so they may go on without disturbance in the way that leads to death, by persuading themselves that all is right. But God is not to be deceived, who has declared that 'the unjust shall never possess his kingdom,' 1 Cor. vi.9. O! examine yourselves, Christians, impartially upon this head of justice in your dealing with your neighbours; for there is nothing more easy than for you to deceive yourselves herein; the consequences of which would be most dreadful to your souls.

Consider 2ndly, that every breach of this commandment, by any one of these ways of wronging one's neighbour, is always followed by the strict obligation of making restitution or reparation the crime will never be forgiven. And how few think of this! Alas! how many of these restitutions will be yet to be made when time shall be no more, and when that which has been neglected on earth shall be exacted in hell. Ah! sinners, what a load then have you charged upon your own shoulders by your injustices! And how is it possible you should think so little of discharging it! O do not be too easy in persuading yourselves you have it not in your power to make this restitution; you cannot deceive the all-seeing eye of him who clearly discerns how much you might do, if you would but retrench all superfluities in your expenses, would truly take to heart this necessary duty of satisfying justice in the first place, and would use all possible industry and labour for that end.

Consider 3rdly, that though all injustice in general be hateful in the sight of God, there are some branches of it in particular which more loudly cry to heaven for vengeance; and more especially such as tend to oppress the poor by usury or extortion, or by making a handle of their necessity, to raise to them the price of the things they want, or by defrauding them of their wages or hire; or otherwise taking or keeping from them that which belongs to them. O how heinous are all these sins in the eyes of him who is the Father of the poor! They are like murder in his sight. There is a curse entailed upon all such substance as is gathered together by oppressing his children. And so there is upon all sacrilegious rapines, by which the church or temple of God, or his ministers, are defrauded of what is their due; or by which pious foundations or donations are diverted from the purposes of religion to profane uses. In all such cases God looks upon the wrong as done to himself, and will certainly revenge it both here and hereafter. All that gold which is brought into the coffers by robbing either the poor or the church, shall not only moulder away itself, but shall consume all the rest it shall find there, together with the master of it.

Conclude to beware of all manner of injustice, and to keep off at the greatest distance possible from it, as a mortal enemy, both to thy temporal and eternal welfare. Take heed lest the love of that idol mammon should at any time impose upon thee in this regard - thou are never secure from danger, as long as that idol is not cast out of thy heart. For as the wise man assures us, Ecclus. x. 10. 'there is not a more wicked thing than to love money, for such a one setteth even his own soul to sale.'

1 October, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

The Month of the Holy Rosary

1. We should say the Rosary devoutly every day. This beautiful prayer is very pleasing to Our Lady, and the church is particularly anxious that we should recite it during the month of October. Families which say the Holy Rosary together can hope for a special blessing from God and for the maternal protection of Mary.

If possible, every family should gather together in the evening and recite the Rosary before an image of our Blessed Mother. If the parents set an example, their children will join them. It is consoling to come together after the toil and trouble of the day in order to confide our cares and hopes to Mary.

Do you say the Rosary every day? If you have neglected this pious practice, begin today. Do not plead lack of time. There is time for so many other things, so surely there is time to pray and to entrust ourselves in a special way to the protection of our heavenly Mother. The practice of reciting the Holy Rosary will win for you the blessing of God and the patronage of the Blessed Virgin.

2. One of the main advantages of the Rosary is that it enables us to unite with our vocal prayer meditation on the principal mysteries of our faith. During each decade we should meditate briefly on one of these mysteries. In this way our faith will be enlivened and we shall be roused to imitate in our lives the example of Jesus and Mary.

The Rosary is composed of the Church’s most beautiful prayers – the Our Father, which Jesus Himself taught us to say when addressing our heavenly Father, and the Hail Mary, which consists of the Angel’s greeting to the Blessed Virgin when he came to announce to her that she was to be the Mother of God, of the inspired words of St. Elizabeth on the occasion of the Visitation, and of the moving plea for mercy, both now and at the hour of our death, which the Church places upon the lips of her sinful children. Each decade concludes with the short hymn of praise in honour of the Blessed Trinity: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” This prayer expresses the two principal mysteries of our faith, namely, the unity and trinity of God, and, in an indirect fashion, the incarnation of the Second Divine Person.

If we think of all this when we are fervently reciting the Rosary, it will prove to be a treasury of grace.

3. It is untrue to say that the Rosary is a monotonous prayer in that it necessitates a constant repetition of the same formulae. In the first place, recitation of these prayers should be accompanied by meditation on the principal mysteries of our religion. Secondly, if we are inspired by love, the repetition of the same words can draw from them each time a new significance. The Christian who loves God and His Divine Mother will be happy to call his heavenly Father with filial confidence and to pray to the Blessed Virgin with trust in her maternal protection. An affectionate son does not find it boring to speak with his own mother.

Eastern Rite ~ Feasts of 1 October AM 7534

Today is the Feasts of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God of the Holy Apostle Ananias, One of the Seventy Disciples and of Our Venerable Father Roman Who Sang Sweetly.

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The Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos: “Today the Virgin stands in the midst of the Church, and with choirs of Saints she invisibly prays to God for us. Angels and Bishops venerate Her, Apostles and prophets rejoice together, Since for our sake she prays to the Eternal God!”

This miraculous appearance of the Mother of God occurred in the mid-tenth century in Constantinople, in the Blachernae church where her robe, veil, and part of her belt were preserved after being transferred from Palestine in the fifth century.

On Sunday, October 1, during the All-Night Vigil, when the church was overflowing with those at prayer, the Fool-for-Christ Saint Andrew (October 2), at the fourth hour, lifted up his eyes towards the heavens and beheld our most Holy Lady Theotokos coming through the air, resplendent with heavenly light and surrounded by an assembly of the Saints. Saint John the Baptist and the holy Apostle John the Theologian accompanied the Queen of Heaven. On bended knees, the Most Holy Virgin tearfully prayed for Christians for a long time. Then, coming near the Bishop’s Throne, she continued her prayer.

After completing her prayer she took her veil and spread it over the people praying in church, protecting them from enemies both visible and invisible. The Most Holy Lady Theotokos was resplendent with heavenly glory, and the protecting veil in her hands gleamed “more than the rays of the sun.” Saint Andrew gazed trembling at the miraculous vision and he asked his disciple, the blessed Epiphanius standing beside him, “Do you see, brother, the Holy Theotokos, praying for all the world?” Epiphanius answered, “I do see, holy Father, and I am in awe.”

The Ever-Blessed Mother of God implored the Lord Jesus Christ to accept the prayers of all the people calling on His Most Holy Name and to respond speedily to her intercession, “O Heavenly King, accept all those who pray to You and call on my name for help. Do not let them go away from my icon unheard.”

Saints Andrew and Epiphanius were worthy to see the Mother of God at prayer, and “for a long time observed the Protecting Veil spread over the people and shining with flashes of glory. As long as the Most Holy Theotokos was there, the Protecting Veil was also visible, but with her departure it also became invisible. After taking it with her, she left behind the grace of her visitation.”

At the Blachernae church, the memory of the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God was remembered. In the fourteenth century, the Russian pilgrim and clerk Alexander, saw in the church an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos praying for the world, depicting Saint Andrew in contemplation of her.

The Primary Chronicle of Saint Nestor reflects that the protective intercession of the Mother of God was needed because of an attack of a large pagan Russian fleet under the leadership of Askole and Dir. The feast celebrates the divine destruction of the fleet which threatened Constantinople itself, sometime in the years 864-867 or according to the Russian historian Vasiliev, on June 18, 860. Ironically, this Feast is considered important by the Slavic Churches but not by the Greeks.

The Primary Chronicle of Saint Nestor also notes the miraculous deliverance followed an all-night Vigil and the dipping of the garment of the Mother of God into the waters of the sea at the Blachernae church but does not mention Saints Andrew and Epiphanius and their vision of the Mother of God at prayer. These latter elements, and the beginnings of the celebration of the Feast of the Protection, seem to postdate Saint Nestor and the Chronicle. A further historical complication might be noted under (October 2) dating Saint Andrew’s death to the year 936.

The year of death might not be quite reliable, or the assertion that he survived to a ripe old age after the vision of his youth, or that his vision involved some later pagan Russian raid which met with the same fate. The suggestion that Saint Andrew was a Slav (or a Scythian according to other sources, such as S. V. Bulgakov) is interesting, but not necessarily accurate. The extent of Slavic expansion and repopulation into Greece is the topic of scholarly disputes.

In the PROLOGUE, a Russian book of the twelfth century, a description of the establishment of the special Feast marking this event states, “For when we heard, we realized how wondrous and merciful was the vision... and it transpired that Your holy Protection should not remain without festal celebration, O Ever-Blessed One!”

Therefore, in the festal celebration of the Protection of the Mother of God, the Russian Church sings, “With the choirs of the Angels, O Sovereign Lady, with the venerable and glorious prophets, with the First-Ranked Apostles and with the Hieromartyrs and Hierarchs, pray for us sinners, glorifying the Feast of your Protection in the Russian Land.” Moreover, it would seem that Saint Andrew, contemplating the miraculous vision was a Slav, was taken captive, and became the slave of the local inhabitant of Constantinople named Theognostus.

Churches in honour of the Protection of the Mother of God began to appear in Russia in the twelfth century. Widely known for its architectural merit is the temple of the Protection at Nerl, which was built in the year 1165 by holy Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky. The efforts of this holy prince also established in the Russian Church the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, about the year 1164.

At Novgorod in the twelfth century, there was a monastery of the Protection of the Most-Holy Theotokos (the so-called Zverin monastery) In Moscow also under Tsar Ivan the Terrible the cathedral of the Protection of the Mother of God was built at the church of the Holy Trinity (known as the church of Saint Basil the Blessed).

On the Feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, we implore the defence and assistance of the Queen of Heaven, “Remember us in your prayers, O Lady Virgin Mother of God, that we do not perish by the increase of our sins. Protect us from every evil and from grievous woes, for in you do we hope, and venerating the Feast of your Protection, we magnify you.”

Troparion — Tone 4

Today the faithful celebrate the feast with joy / illumined by your coming, O Mother of God. / Beholding your pure image we fervently cry to you: / “Encompass us beneath the precious veil of your protection; / deliver us from every form of evil by entreating Christ, / your Son and our God that He may save our souls.”

Kontakion — Tone 3

Today the Virgin stands in the midst of the Church / and with choirs of saints she invisibly prays to God for us. / Angels and bishops worship, / apostles and prophets rejoice together, / since for our sake she prays to the pre-eternal God.

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The Holy Apostle Ananias of the Seventy was the first Bishop of Damascus. The Lord ordered him to restore the sight of Saul, the former persecutor of Christians, then baptize him (Acts 9:10-19, 22:12). Saul became the great preacher and Apostle Paul. Saint Ananias boldly and openly confessed Christianity before the Jews and the pagans, despite the danger.

From Damascus, he went to preach at Eleutheropolis, where he healed many of their infirmities. Lucian, the prefect of the city, tried to persuade the holy one to offer sacrifice to idols. Because of Ananias’ staunch and solid confession of Christ, Lucian ordered that he be tortured. Harsh torments did not sway the witness of Truth. Then the torturers led him out beyond the city, where they stoned him. The saint prayed for those who put him to death. His relics were later transferred to Constantinople.

Troparion — Tone 3

Holy Apostle Ananias, / entreat the merciful God, / to grant our souls forgiveness of transgressions.

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Saint Romanus the Melodist was born in the fifth century in the Syrian city of Emesa of Jewish parents. After moving to Constantinople, he became a church sacristan in the temple of Hagia Sophia. The monk spent his nights alone at prayer in a field or in the Blachernae church beyond the city.

Saint Romanus was not a talented reader or singer. Once, on the eve of the Nativity of Christ, he read the kathisma verses. He read so poorly that another reader had to take his place. The clergy ridiculed Romanus, which devastated him.

On the day of the Nativity, the Mother of God appeared to the grief-stricken youth in a vision while he was praying before her Kyriotissa icon. She gave him a scroll and commanded him to eat it. Thus was he given the gift of understanding, composition, and hymnography.

That evening at the all-night Vigil Saint Romanus sang, in a wondrous voice, his first Kontakion: “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One...” All the hymns of Saint Romanus became known as kontakia, in reference to the Virgin’s scroll. Saint Romanus was also the first to write in the form of the Oikos, which he incorporated into the all-night Vigil at his places of residence (In Greek, “oikos”).

For his zealous service, Saint Romanus was ordained as a deacon and became a teacher of song. Until his death, which occurred about the year 556, the hierodeacon Romanus the Melodist composed nearly a thousand hymns, many of which are still used by Christians to glorify the Lord. About eighty survive.

Troparion — Tone 4

You gladdened Christ’s Church by your melodies / like an inspired heavenly trumpet. / You were enlightened by the Mother of God / and shone on the world as God’s poet. / We lovingly honor you, righteous Romanus.

Kontakion — Tone 8

You were adorned from childhood with the godly virtues of the Spirit; / you were a precious adornment of the Church of Christ, all-wise Romanus, / for you made it lovely with beautiful hymnody. / Therefore, we entreat you, grant your divine gift to those who desire it, / that we may cry out to you: “Rejoice, all-blessed Father, the beauty of the Church.”

IN LUMINE FIDEI: 1 OCTOBER – SAINT REMIGIUS (Bishop and Confessor)

IN LUMINE FIDEI: 1 OCTOBER – SAINT REMIGIUS (Bishop and Confessor): Saint Remigius baptising King Clovis of the Franks Remigius (also called Remedius) was born in about 435 AD at Laon of noble parents...

IN LUMINE FIDEI: OCTOBER – THE MONTH OF THE HOLY ROSARY

IN LUMINE FIDEI: OCTOBER – THE MONTH OF THE HOLY ROSARY: According to tradition the Rosary was revealed to Saint Dominic (1170 ‒ 1221), the founder of the Dominican Order (the Order of Fri...

1 October, The Chesterton Calendar

OCTOBER 1st

Of all the tests by which the good citizen and strong reformer can be distinguished from the vague faddist or the inhuman sceptic, I know no better test than this—that the unreal reformer sees in front of him one certain future, the future of his fad; while the real reformer sees before him ten or twenty futures among which his country must choose, and may in some dreadful hour choose the wrong one. The true patriot is always doubtful of victory; because he knows that he is dealing with a living thing; a thing with free will. To be certain of free will is to be uncertain of success.

Introduction to 'American Notes.'

1 October, The Holy Rule of St Benedict, Patriarch of Western Monasticism

CHAPTER VII. Of Humility

31 Jan. 1 June. 1 Oct.

The third degree of humility is, that a man for the love of God submit himself to his superior in all obedience; imitating the Lord, of Whom the apostle saith: “He was made obedient even unto death.”

2 October, The Roman Martyrology

Sexto Nonas Octóbris Luna nona Anno Dómini 2025

The morrow is the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.
October 2nd 2025, the 9th day of the Moon, were born into the better life:

At Nicomedia, the holy soldier Eleutherius, and an unnumbered multitude of others, all martyrs.
When the palace of the Emperor Diocletian was burnt, they were falsely accused of the crime of setting it on fire and by the command of that most cruel Emperor they were slaughtered in crowds some were slain with the sword, some were burnt in the fire, and some were cast into the sea. But the first of them was Eleutherius, who was long tortured, but at every new torment seemed to grow more steadfast, like gold tried in the fire, and crowned his testimony with victory.
In the country of Arras, the blessed Leodegar, Bishop of Autun, (in the year 678,) who was murdered by Ebroin, mayor of the palace to King Theodoric, after he had laid upon him diverse insults and sufferings for the truth's sake.
Likewise the holy martyr Gerin, brother of the said blessed Leodegar, who was stoned to death at the same place.
At Antioch, the holy martyrs Primus, Cyril, and Secondarius.
At Constantinople, the holy Monk Theophilus, who was cruelly scourged and sent into exile, under the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, for defending holy images, and passed away to be ever with the Lord.
At Hereford, in England, the holy Confessor Thomas, Bishop of that see, whose feast we keep upon the 3rd day of this present month of October.
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.

Meme of the Moment

Compline

From St Thomas Aquinas Seminary. You may follow the Office at Divinum Officium.

Byzantine Saints: Hieromartyr Gregory, Bishop of Greater Armenia

St Gregory, the Apostle of Armenia, & The Illuminator: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Gregory, Bishop, Surnamed the Apostle of Armenia, and the Illuminator

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

THIS apostolic man was a native of Greater Armenia, and by receiving his education at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, was there instructed in the Christian faith and baptized. He opened his heart to the lessons of eternal life with so great ardor as entirely to banish the love of the world and the concupiscence of the flesh. Having spent some years in the study of the science of salvation, and in the heroic exercise of all virtues, he was touched with a vehement desire of procuring the salvation of his countrymen. This important affair he long recommended to God by his most fervent prayers, and at length returned to Armenia, and there preached the faith of our crucified Redeemer. The zeal and heavenly spirit with which he was animated, and with which he proclaimed the great truths of eternal life, gave, an irresistible force to his words; nor were miracles wanting to confirm the holy doctrine which he announced. The people flocked to him in great multitudes to receive the holy sacrament of regeneration, and to be directed in the paths of salvation. The anonymous life of our saint in Surius says, that he suffered much in this arduous employment; but that after some time Tiridates, the king of that country, embraced the faith. We are informed by Eusebius,1 that Maximin Daia, at that time Cæsar in the East, and a violent persecutor of the Church, provoked at the wonderful progress which the faith made in Armenia, invaded that country; but was repulsed with confusion. This was the first war on account of religion mentioned in history.

St. Gregory was consecrated bishop by St. Leontius, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and continued his labors in propagating the faith over all Armenia, and among many very barbarous nations near the Caspian sea, as far as Mount Caucasus. He was called to bliss before Constantine the Great became master of the East, the Greek menologies say by martyrdom. An anonymous panegyric of this saint, published among the works of St. Chrysostom,2 mentions several discourses full of heavenly wisdom to have been written by him; also an exposition of faith, which he gave to the Armenians. The Abbé de Villefroi informs us that this exposition of faith and twenty-three homilies of this glorious saint are preserved in an Armenian MS. kept in the king’s library at Paris. See this saint’s life in Surius; the above mentioned panegyrics; Le Brun sur les Liturgies, t. 3 et 4; Lequien Oriens Christian. t. 1 et 3; Galanus, Hist. Armen. Narrat. de rebus Armen. by Combefis; and Moses Chorenensis, in his history of Armenia,1. 2. c. 88 p. 224. This history was published at London in 4to. in 1736, by William and by George Whiston, who maintain that the author lived in the fifth age, but they are certainly mistaken, for the work must be more modern. As to the life of St. Gregory the Illuminator, attributed by some to St. Chrysostom, it is apocryphal. See Stilting in vita S. Chrysost. t. 4. Sept. § 83, p. 663.

Collect of St Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop & Confessor ~ Indulgenced on the Saint's Feast (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.
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God: that the venerable feast of Blessed Gregory, Thy Bishop & Martyr, may through his intercession be strengthened in love of Thy Name.

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 Gregory 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 One Martyr.

Our Lady of Walsingham: The Queen of England

Our Lady of Walsingham, Queen of England's, Feast Day was 24 September, the same day as Our Lady of Ransom in the General Roman Calendar.

From The Imaginative Conservative

By Joseph Pearce

The reason for Walsingham’s importance is its association with the Marian apparitions to a pious English noblewoman in 1061. By the middle of the fourteenth century, people considered England to be “Our Lady’s dowry” and that she was, in some special sense, the protectress of the English people.

Few people in today’s godless England have heard of Our Lady of Walsingham. But there was a time that she was known and revered throughout the whole of Christendom, to such a degree that she could be said to have put England on the map, at least in spiritual terms.

During the Middle Ages, the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was one of the major pilgrimage sites in the world, ranking alongside Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela. It was the principal shrine to the Blessed Virgin, the place above all others that Christians flocked to pay homage to the Mother of God. And they flocked in such numbers that the Walsingham Way was also known as the Milky Way, suggesting poetically that the number of pilgrims rivalled the number of stars in the sky. A succession of English monarchs made pilgrimages there, and pilgrims arrived from all over Europe. An anonymous poem, entitled “As Ye Came from the Holy Land,” sometimes attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, refers not to Jerusalem but to “the holy land of Walsingham.”

The reason for Walsingham’s importance is its association with the Marian apparitions to a pious English noblewoman in 1061, at a glorious time in English history when the country was ruled by a saint, Edward the Confessor. The news of the apparitions spread and Walsingham’s reputation grew, as did the devotion of the English people to the Blessed Virgin. By the middle of the fourteenth century, and probably from much earlier, people considered England to be “Our Lady’s dowry” and that she was, in some special sense, the protectress of the English people. In 1350 a mendicant preacher stated that “it is commonly said that the land of England is the Virgin’s dowry.” An altarpiece from the late fourteenth century depicts King Richard II offering the Virgin an orb, on which a miniature map of England is depicted, with the inscription Dos tua Virgo pia haec est, “This is thy dowry, O Holy Virgin.” The Wilton Diptych, one of the masterpieces of late mediaeval art, dating from around 1395, depicts Richard II kneeling before the Madonna and Child and flanked by two canonized English kings, St. Edmund the Martyr and the aforementioned Edward the Confessor, the latter of whom had been generally accepted as the patron saint of England until the crusaders returned from the Holy Land, bringing the cult of St. George with them. As for St. George himself, he is represented in the Diptych by the flag emblazoned with the cross of St. George, the flag of England, held aloft by an angel.

At the end of the fourteenth century, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, wrote of the Blessed Virgin that “we English, being… her own Dowry, as we are commonly called, ought to surpass others in the fervour of our praises and devotions.” In the early fifteenth century, the title dos Mariae (Mary’s dowry) was being applied to England in Latin texts and, on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, English priests prayed for the intercession of “the Virgin, protectress of her dower.”

All was well until the monster, Henry VIII, destroyed the shrine in 1538, publicly burning the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham that so many generations had come to venerate. The distress that this caused the people of England was expressed in an anonymous poem, “The Ballad of Walsingham,” which depicts the ruins of the shrine several decades after its destruction:

Bitter, bitter oh to behold
The grass to grow
Where the walls of Walsingham
So stately did show.

Such were the worth of Walsingham
While she did stand,
Such are the wrackes as now do show
Of that so holy land.

Level, level with the ground
The Towers do lie
Which with their golden, glitt’ring tops
Pierced out to the sky.

Where were gates no gates are now,
The ways unknown,
Where the press of friars did pass
While far her fame was known.

Owls do scrike where the sweetest hymns
Lately were sung,
Toads and serpents hold their dens
Where the palmers did throng.

Weep, weep, O Walsingham,
Whose days are nights,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deeds to dispites.

Sin is where our Lady sat,
Heaven turned to hell;
Satan sits where our Lord did sway,
Walsingham, oh, farewell!

This plaintive cry was taken up by a later English saint, John Henry Newman, in his poem about England’s “Pilgrim Queen”:

“Here I sit desolate,”
sweetly said she,
“Though I’m a queen,
and my name is Marie:
Robbers have rifled
my garden and store,
Foes they have stolen
my heir from my bower.

The Pilgrim Queen goes on to speak of how the Puritans said they could keep her Son “far better than I,” placing him in a “palace of ice, hard and cold as were they.” After this Puritan palace had “all melted away,” the people of England, her people, had bartered her Son for “the spice of the desert” and the “gold of the stream,” choosing mercantile materialism over the pearl of great price:

And me they bid wander
in weeds and alone,
In this green merry land
which once was my own.

This sad and sorry scenario would appear to be the unhappy ending for England, this most distressful country which has sent her true Queen into exile. And yet there are signs of life after death, something which should not surprise those who worship a God who found his way out of the grave, to borrow a phrase of Chesterton’s. Over the past two years, the replica of the mediaeval statue of Our Lady of Walsingham has been touring England, visiting every one of England’s Catholic cathedrals. The Pilgrim Queen, long in exile, has returned!

Known as the Dowry Tour, in recognition of England’s traditional title, the Pilgrim Queen’s royal visit to all four corners of her realm culminated on March 29, 2020 with the formal rededication of England to Mary. This was done simultaneously at Westminster Cathedral in London, at the resurrected shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham, at all the other cathedrals of England, and in many parishes and homes. This divine development, which should bring joy to the hearts of all true sons and daughters of Albion, was the answer to the prayers of St. John Henry Newman, England’s most recently canonized saint, who prophesied in the final lines of his poem the Return of the Queen:

I look’d on that Lady,
and out from her eyes
Came the deep glowing blue
of Italy’s skies;
And she raised up her head
and she smiled, as a Queen
On the day of her crowning,
so bland and serene.

“A moment,” she said,
“and the dead shall revive;
The giants are failing,
the Saints are alive;
I am coming to rescue
my home and my reign,
And Peter and Philip
are close in my train.”

__________

The featured image is the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Slipper Chapel, photographed by Thorvaldsson, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. It appears here courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and has been brightened for clarity.