Ave Christus Rex! Viva Christo Rey! Hail Christ the King!

Ave Christus Rex!

The Feast of Christ the King

Munkácsy Mihály. Ecce Homo. 1896.

Ecce Homo!

"Behold the Man!"

"Then therefore, Pilate took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platting a crown of thorns, put it upon his head; and they put on him a purple garment. And they came to him, and said:

Hail, King of the Jews;

and they gave him blows. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith to them: Behold, I bring him forth unto you, that you may know that I find no cause in him. (Jesus therefore came forth, bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment.) And he saith to them:

Behold the Man!"

[John 19:1-5]

Diego Velazquez. The Crucifixion or Christ of San Placido. 1630.

Regnavit a ligno Deus

"God hath ruled us from a tree"

[Vexilla Regis, Venantius Fortunatus]

Christos Pantokratoros (Christ, ruler of all), ancient Byzantine ikon.

Rex regum et Dominus dominantium

"King of kings and Lord of lords"

[Revelation 19:16]

Dignus est Agnus qui occisus est, accipere virtutem, et divinitatem, et sapientem, et fortiudinem, et honorem. Ipsi gloria et imperium in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
[Revelation 5: 12, 13, Introit for the Mass of Christ the King]

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing...Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."

Dixit itaque ei Pilatus: ergo Rex es tu? Respondit Jesus: tu dicis quia Rex sum ego. Ego in hoc natus sum, et ad hoc veni in mundum, ut testimonium perhibeam veritati: omnis qui est ex veritate, audit vocem meam.
[John 18, Gospel for the Mass of Christ the King]

"Pilate therefore said to Him: art Thou a king then? Jesus answered: thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice".


"And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
[Revelation 19:6]

"And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever."
[Revelation 11:15]

"And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS."
[Revelation 19:16]

"For unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace".
[Isaiah 9:6]

Jusepe de Ribera. Christ in the Crown of Thorns.

The Kingship of Christ is not like the kingship of pagans, heathens, unbelievers and gentiles. The Kingship of Christ is the kingship of a God-King-Priest Who suffers for the sake of his subjects whom He considers to be His very own children.

His crown is the Crown of Thorns, His sceptre is the Reed of humility, His royal cloak is the Purple Robe of suffering, for a royal girdle He is bound with the Bonds of servitude, His white Seamless Garment of purity and integrity is stripped from Him in public, His subjects mock Him, His servants desert Him, His people for whom He suffers and dies reject Him, His path is a Way of the Cross and His greatest work is Crucifixion as a common criminal.

Behold the King Who is a servant to the meanest of His people!

In so suffering, this great King gives us a model for all Christian leadership - paternal, royal, priestly, loving, unselfish, all-suffering, all-giving and all-sacrificing.

This is how all Christian kings and fathers must conduct themselves. For kings are fathers and fathers are kings, their subjects are children and their children are subjects - to be loved, not oppressed; to be formed, not neglected; to be nourished, not abused.

For these little ones, a king and a father sacrifices all he has and, above all, himself.

That is the meaning of Christian kingship, fatherhood and leadership.

"He saith to them: My chalice indeed you shall drink; but to sit on my right or left hand, is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father. And the ten hearing it, were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them to him, and said: You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister:

And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant.

Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many."
[Matt 20:23-28]

But how few among us - even among us Christians - understands this meaning of Christian leadership? So few. They still think - like pagans - either that leadership and earthly power are useful means to enrich oneself and lord it over others or else, equally falsely, they think they are merely evil, which is to say the same thing.

It is false.

Others foolishly think that it is degrading to be a servant and better to be rich, powerful, and influential, not so as to be a servant, but so as to serve oneself and oppress and humiliate others.

In fact, kingship or leadership is given by God to men to serve others and to sacrifice oneself for the good of others, as Christ the King did for us. The role of Christian leader is one of suffering and self-sacrifice - not selfishness and self-aggrandisement. It is a most noble and holy calling and we must re-learn to regard it as such.

Woe betide those who use power and rule for themselves and not for others!

The Face of JESUS CHRIST on the Shroud of Turin - the face of love.

And so we must return to the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ...

"19. When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.

Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men.

'You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men'.

If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent.

Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man.

Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the Kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.
...
28. We further ordain that the dedication of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which Our predecessor of saintly memory, Pope Pius X, commanded to be renewed yearly, be made annually on that day."

[Pope Pius IX, Quas Primas, Encyclical letter establishing the Feast of Christ the King, 1925.]

Hail Christ the King!


...

King George VI, the servant king and perhaps our best for 250 years

His Highness Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George of York (3 years later styled His Royal Highness after the 1898 letters patent of Queen Victoria) was born at Sandringham on 14 December 1895.

He died, on 6 February 1952, having ruled as King George VI of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India (until 1947), the last King of Ireland (until 1949), and the first Head of the Commonwealth.

His family name of Wettin (or more fully Welf-Este-Wettin) was later changed to Windsor in view of the war with Germany. The Welf-Este family had ruled in Saxony and Bavaria and northern Italy. The Wettin family were their ancestors who had ruled Saxony.

The Hanover dynasty, from whom Queen Victoria descended, were Welf-Este and the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, from whom Prince Albert, the Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, descended, were Wettin.

Interestingly, the Italian branch of the Welf family (the Guelphs) were the pro-papal party against the pro-imperial party, the Waiblingen, (the Ghibellines), during the investiture contest in the 11th century.

As the second son of King George V, Prince Albert ("Bertie") was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his flamboyant elder brother, Edward, later King Edward VIII, and, later still, Duke of Windsor.

Prince Albert served in the Royal Navy during World War I, and fought at the Battle of Jutland, and after the war took on the usual round of public engagements. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923, daugher of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and they had two daughters, Elizabeth (who succeeded him as Queen Elizabeth II) and Margaret.

The Duke and Duchess of York with their daughter, later Queen Elizabeth II

His elder brother ascended the throne as King Edward VIII on the death of their father in 1936. However, less than a year later Edward revealed his desire to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. The British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, advised Edward that he could not marry Mrs Simpson and remain king, this being contrary to the teachings of the Church of which he was temporal head.

So, when Edward abdicated in order to marry, King George VI was crowned in his place and ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor.

On the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Coronation

Within twenty-four hours of his accession the Irish parliament, the Oireachtas, passed the External Relations Act, which essentially - and illegally - removed the power of the monarch in Ireland.

Further events greatly altered the position of the monarchy during his reign: three years after his accession, his realms, except Ireland, were at war with Nazi Germany and later with Italy and the Empire of Japan.

Though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. With the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, and the foundation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, George's reign saw the acceleration of the break-up of the Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations.

King George had been a sickly child and often suffered from ill health and was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears".

The young Duke and Duchess

His parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, were generally removed from their children's day-to-day upbringing, as was not uncommon in aristocratic families of that era. He was forced to write with his right hand although he was naturally left-handed, and developed a stammer that lasted for many years. He suffered from chronic stomach problems as well as knock knees, for which he was forced to wear painful corrective splints that kept him awake at night and often in tears of pain.

Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, and the Prince of Wales succeeded her as King Edward VII. The Duke of York became the new Prince of Wales. Prince Edward moved up to second in line to the throne, and Prince Albert was third.

From 1909, Albert attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne as a naval cadet. In 1911, he came bottom of the class in the final examination, but despite this he progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. When Edward VII died in 1910, Albert's father became King George V. Prince Edward was created Prince of Wales, and Albert was second in line to the throne.

TRH Princes David (later King Edward VIII) and Albert (later King George VI) as Osborne naval cadets with their father, HRH the Duke of York (later King George V), and grandfather, HM King Edward VII

Albert was commissioned as a midshipman on 15 September 1913 and one year later began service in World War I. His fellow officers gave him the nickname "Mr Johnson".

He was mentioned in dispatches for his action as a turret officer aboard HMS Collingwood during the Battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916), an indecisive action against the German navy which emerged as a strategic victory for the United Kingdom.

He did not see further action in the war, largely because of ill health caused by a duodenal ulcer.

In February 1918, he was appointed Officer in Charge of Boys at the Royal Naval Air Service's training establishment at Cranwell. With the establishment of the Royal Air Force two months later and the transfer of Cranwell from Navy to Air Force control, he transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force.

He was appointed Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys' Wing at Cranwell and he remained there until August 1918. During the closing weeks of the war, Albert served on the staff of the Independent Air Force at its headquarters in Nancy. Following the disbanding of the Independent Air Force in November 1918, he remained on the continent as a staff officer with the Royal Air Force.

In October 1919, Albert went up to Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied history, economics and civics for a year.

On 4 June 1920, he was created Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney. He then began to take on royal duties; he represented his father, the King, toured coal mines, factories, and railyards, and acquired the nickname of the "Industrial Prince".

But it was the Abdication crisis that changed his life forever for then Albert was to become King-Emperor, an appointment he dreaded and did not want. But he was the choice of Providence and he did his duty and was crowned in a glittering ceremony which can be seen in this clip shown in cinemas at the time:

His speech impediment, and his embarrassment over it, together with his tendency to shyness, caused him to appear much less impressive than his older brother, Edward. However, he was physically active and enjoyed playing tennis. He developed an interest in working conditions, and was President of the Industrial Welfare Society. His series of annual summer camps for boys between 1921 and 1939 brought together boys from different social backgrounds, from elite public schools like Eton and Harrow together with boys from slum schools and grammar schools.

The King and Queen with Mr MacKenzie-King, the Canadian Prime Minister

Because of his stammer, Albert dreaded public speaking. After his closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley on 31 October 1925, which was an ordeal for both him and the listeners, he began to see Lionel Logue, an Australian-born speech therapist. The Duke and Logue practised breathing exercises, and the Duchess rehearsed with him patiently.

As a result of the training, the Duke's opening address at Australia's Federal Parliament at Canberra in 1927 went successfully, and he was able to speak subsequently with only a slight hesitation. Most famously, the King was able to give his famous broadcast near the beginning of the war - "the King's Speech" - and here it is:

"The King's Speech" - speech of King George VI near the start of World War II

Shortly before Albert became king, a position he was reluctant to accept, he went, the day before the abdication, to London to see his mother, Queen Mary. He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child".

The Coronation of King George VI

After war broke out in September 1939, George VI and his wife resolved to stay in London, despite German bombing raids. They officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, although they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle.

The first German raid on London, on 7 September 1940, killed about one thousand civilians, mostly in the East End.

On 13 September, the King and Queen narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there. In defiance, the Queen famously declared: "I am glad we have been bombed. We can now look the East End in the face".

The King (left) with General Sikorski, the Polish Commander-in-Chief in World War II

The royal family shared the same dangers and deprivations as the rest of the country. They were subject to rationing restrictions, and Eleanor Roosevelt, champagne-socialist wife of the US President, remarked on the rationed food served and the limited bathwater that was permitted during a stay at the unheated and boarded-up Palace. The White House, needless to say, was never bombed during the war. In August 1942, the King's brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent, was killed on active service.

Throughout the war, the King and Queen provided morale-boosting visits throughout the United Kingdom, visiting bomb sites and munitions factories, and (in the King's case) visiting military forces abroad. Their high public profile and apparently indefatigable determination secured their place as symbols of national resistance. In 1945, crowds shouted "We want the King!" in front of Buckingham Palace during the Victory in Europe Day celebrations. The King invited Churchill to appear with him on the balcony to public acclaim.

When he died in 1952, King George VI was one of the best beloved of British monarchs. He had become, rightly, a symbol of self-sacrifice and duty. His attitude to monarchy was that of a Christian king, namely that it was a role that should imitate Christ the King, the suffering servant king who sacrificed his own desires to serve his people.

Yes, it is true that King George VI was obliged to become a Freemason, as part of the usual British Protestant establishment ritual, but that was not where his heart was. His heart, a profoundly Christian heart, was with his people, his duty, the Empire, his family and, ultimately, with God.

It is true that he was not a Christian saint like St Edmund, St Edward of Mercia, St Edward the Confessor, St Oswald, St Osbert, St Kenelm and other British kings, but he was, nonetheless, a good, humble and devout man, a fine husband and father to his wife and children and a fatherly figure to his people. In short, he was a good model for Christian kings to follow.

May God give peace and eternal rest to the soul of our last King-Emperor and his wife, our last Queen-Empress!



...

On a Christian gentleman

Here is a portrait of Charles Melchior Artus, the Marquess of Bonchamps, one of the gentlemen who led the uprising against the French Revolution in the name of the King of France.

He exemplified everything that was, and is, best in the Christian nobility of the old Catholic Kingdom of France.

The egalitarian modern world doesn't seem to have much use for gentility, still less Christian gentility.

Then, again, neither does it have much use for the ideas that engender Christian nobility and chivalry.

Jack's as good as his master and both of them are out to get what they can and the Devil take the hindmost.

That is the dog-eat-dog creed of the modern egalitarian world.

And what has it done for us?

It has ensured that the standards in society - at all levels - have taken a massive nose-dive into a slough of despond. Now the lowest common denominator rules and the worthless creed of Messrs Sell More, Swindle and Bolt is in the ascendancy.

Is that virtue? Is that the route to happiness? Has it made us happier?

Well, let's be frank. No.

When society recognized that the different classes were interdependent and mutually supporting, then charity and self-sacrifice were highly prized. A genuine equality of humanity was thereby encouraged rather than the spurious equality of egalitarianism which is no more than the grasping spirit of social Darwinism, the survival of the meanest and nastiest, and to hell with the weak and vulnerable. Some equality, that is!

But part of the problem is the failure by many to understand the relationship between the classes in society at its best. Successive generations of revolutionary writers and historians have so poured scorn on the values of former times that now no-one can remember what they even were, let alone understand or approve them.

The truth is that the proper relationship between the classes was one of mutual respect, understanding, obligation and charity.

A medieval knight at prayer

This was because it had been shaped and formed by Christianity and the darkness of paganism had been set aside by the newer religion.

As it is written in Scripture:

"25 But Jesus called them to him, and said: You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them.

26 It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: 27 And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant. 28 Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many".
[Matt 20:25-28]

"42 But Jesus calling them, saith to them: You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them: and their princes have power over them. 43 But it is not so among you: but whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister. 44 And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all. 45 For the Son of man also is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many".
[Mark 10:42-45]

"24 And there was also a strife amongst them, which of them should seem to be the greater. 25 And he said to them: The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent.

26 But you not so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that serveth. 27 For which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he that serveth? Is it not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth".
[Luke 22:26-27]

In the Christian dispensation, the necessity of hierarchy was recognised but the master and the servant were both the servant of each other since, in the kingdom of heaven, the last was to be first and the first, last.

In the modern egalitarian world, hierarchy, being natural to man, still exists but it is not recognized and no man is willing to be the servant of another but only of himself. That is the best definition of Hell imaginable. No-one and nothing is superior, not the law, not the king, not morality and not even God. No man can appeal to a higher authority against the depredations of his neighbour. The rule of the majority is the end of all morality and might is right.

Kings and gentlemen are abolished but not only them. So, too, is the sturdy peasant and the working man.

All that is left is the amorphous, conscienceless, aimless, masses with no identity, no origin, no goal, no ideals and nothing to give but only to take.

And a bizarre, mocking caricature of the Christian gentlemen becomes the fashionable butt of every uncultured and semi-literate ignoramus of the age.

The true likeness of the Christian gentleman is forgotten.

Louis, Marquess of Lescure, another Vendean General, was worshipped by his troops who called him "the Saint of Poitou" for his virtue, his courage and his sanctity. He was killed by the revolutionaries in the Vendean war.

The true Christian gentleman is first and foremost a Christian. He lives by the code of chivalry:

He defends the Church; he defends and extends the bound of Christendom; he respects all weaknesses, and constitutes himself the defender of them, as he would of our Lord Himself; he defends the honour, name and virtue of all women and treats them with the greatest courtesy and forbearance as he would our Lady herself; he opposes those who oppose truth and justice and who oppress the poor and weak; he does not bear false witness and remains faithful to his pledged word; he is generous to all, and he is everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.

Of such is the "reactionary feudalism" so much hated by modern egalitarians who do not want to be bound by duty or honour but want to be "free" - but their freedom is only to exploit, cheat, lie and steal.

Historically, the reason why the Christian nobility were often in pursuit of the fox or the stag was because that way they learned the necessary arts which were preparatory for war, since it was their role, above all others, to be prepared to sacrifice themselves for the defence of Christendom in war.

The "unspeakable after the uneatable" or the Christian nobility keeping themselves in readiness for war to defend others?

That, too, is why they were permitted to bear arms and why they wore the noble "culotte" or knee-breeches. This enabled them to don the riding boot and be ready for war at short notice.

The sacrifice of the Christian leadership did not end there. They were also obliged to take on offices of state in their spare time and to ensure that all those under their care and responsibility, from the greatest to the least, were provided for and treated with justice and humanity.

That, too, is why they were permitted the ownership of estates and wealth - not so that they could give themselves up to selfish and self-indulgent pursuits like the billionaires of our grasping, egalitarian age, but so that they could use their wealth and bounty to serve those in need and to enable themselves to have sufficient leisure to be able to serve others whether privately or in public office.

The Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem drew from the ranks of the Christian nobility and epitomised the spirit of nobility by combining both the vocation of war with that of hospital service to "Our Lords" the sick-poor and, furthermore, took the 3 vows of religion in so doing

Public office in that understanding was regarded as a sacred trust to be exercised for the benefit of others and particularly the weak and vulnerable.

It was not like today when it is seen as a means of feathering one's own nest at public expense when public figures do not hesitate to use public funds to clean their moats and buy themselves bird houses and cheap mortgages.

Of course not all gentlemen in times past behaved as they should but then they were universally condemned as "cads", "bounders", "mountebanks" and so on.

Now they would be lauded as "clever", "astute", "shrewd" and "business-like" when, in reality, they should be regarded as cheats, liars and traitors.

That is why the gentleman preferred amateur status rather than professional status in matters sporting. Games were for healthy, competitive fun and not for turning over to a den of thieves bent only upon filthy lucre which is what games like football have now become.

The Christian gentleman should emulate the "verray parfit gentil knight" of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and be men of honour, self-sacrifice and duty, scornful of moral weakness and self-indulgence and constantly aware of their duty to lead and to serve, to succour the weak and poor and to defend truth and justice.

The Christian nobility should witness to the true nobility and genius of Christianity. Antiquity of name, arms and family should not merely be an end in itself but should ever be an encouragement to greater and better deeds of charity, courage, heroism and self-sacrifice. The nobler the name, the nobler should be the deed and Christian gentlemen should vie with one another to outdo each other in virtue.

Pierre Jean David's famous statue of the dying Bonchamps - "Mercy to the prisoners!"

Few have reached the heights of nobility and self-sacrifice of Charles de Bonchamps, the noble Commander-in-Chief of the Royal and Catholic Grand Army of the Vendee. Beloved of his peasants, he led them, at their insistence, against the foul, murderous, egalitarian French Revolutionary regime.

When he lay mortally wounded and filled with horror at a plan of some of his men to set fire to a building filled with revolutionary soldiers who had murdered women and children, he commanded that they be spared.

He called to his officers to see that they were all saved, demanding that they prevent any such acts of murder: "It would be a horror. I forbid it. This is my last command! See that it is obeyed!".

And then the great and noble leader of the Vendeans himself died the noble death of a soldier who has done his duty.

One of the revolutionary soldiers spared was the father of the sculptor, Pierre Jean David, who, though an enemy of Bonchamps, later, in gratitude, carved a famous monument to the Vendean General, with the inscription:

"Grace aux prisonniers! Bonchamps l'ordonne!"

"Mercy to the prisoners! Bonchamps orders it!"

A more noble epitaph could hardly be imagined.

Sir Galahad, the perfect knight of Arthurian legend

...

7 October: The Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary

The Feast of our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Queen of the Holy Rosary, the chaplet of prayer beads that are used to invoke the Virgin to aid us whilst meditating upon scenes in the life of her Son, JESUS CHRIST.

The Rosary developed out of the habit of lay brothers, who did the manual work and did not have time to pray the whole Monastic Office, of praying Paternosters and Ave Marias in monasteries. This habit then passed to the devout laity.

In 1208 our Lady appeared to St Dominic in the Church of Prouille, France, and gave him a chaplet of beads representing roses commending to him the devotion which had spread among the Faithful of saying Paters and Aves whilst meditating upon the life of Christ.

St Dominic then gave the Rosary to all his Friars Preachers to use in their efforts to convert the heterodox Cathars in Southern France and to call upon our Lady to assist the soldiers of Count Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, father of the founder of the later English Parliament, to defend Christendom from the attacks by the armies of the heterodox Cathars and Albigensians.

St Dominic receives the Holy Rosary from our Lady

On 12 September 1213, whilst St Dominic and his brethren were praying in the Church at Muret in the South of France, Count Simon and 700 knights charged out of the town to meet an invading army of 50,000 marauding heterodox Albigensians who were set upon capturing the whose of Southern France for the Albigensian heresy.

The Albigensians were a type of Manichee and they believed in euthanasia, abortion and sodomy and opposed marriage and child-birth because they believed that all material things were evil and created by an evil force. They had one Sacrament which was called the consolamentum and consisted in euthanasia by either starvation or suffocation. They had murdered Catholic missionaries sent to preach to them and murdered bishops, priests and the Papal legate who was sent to negotiate with them.

Count Simon and his knights straight into the middle of their ranks and slew their leader King Pedro of Aragon, much to the chagrin of Count Simon who wanted to defeat him but not slay him. At this the Albigensian horde fell into disarray and were routed. Our Lady, Count Simon de Montfort and the Rosary saved the day.

Ever after, the Rosary became a great weapon of prayer against evil, and especially in time of battle.

In thanks for the victory of the Battle of Muret, Count Simon built the first shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Victory.

The Rosary was prayed in 1529 at the Siege of Vienna and a great victory won under Count Nicholas von Salm against the Ottoman Turks and their Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

In 1571 Pope St Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory as an annual feast to commemorate the victory of Lepanto, off the Greek coast, the huge naval battle won by the Christian navies against the navy of the invading Muslim Turkish hosts. The Turkish navies were many times larger than the Christian navies and had been bent upon conquering the whole of Christendom and enslaving all Christians.

Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto with our Lady and the saints interceding

The victory was attributed to our Lady, as a rosary procession took place on that day in St. Peter's Square in Rome for the success of the forces of the Holy League to hold back the Muslim forces from over-running Western Europe.

In 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title of this feast-day to the Feast of the Holy Rosary. This feast was extended by Pope Clement XII to the whole of the Latin Rite, inserting it into the Roman Calendar in 1716, and assigning it to the first Sunday in October.

King Jan Sobieski and his army at the Battle of Vienna, 12 September 1683

On 12 September (that date again!) 1683, King Jan Sobieski, appointed commander by Roman Emperor Leopold I, and his Polish Hussars, inflicted a massive defeat upon the Turkish hosts in the Battle of Vienna. Again a Rosary campaign had preceded his victory.

Venerable Pope Innocent XI instituted the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary on 12 September to mark the victory obtained by praying to our Lady.

Kara Mustapha Pasha, the commander of the Turkish host, was unfairly executed by his own king, Sultan Mehmed II, after losing the Battle of Vienna

Pope St Pius X changed the date to 7 October in 1913, being the actual date of the great victory at Lepanto.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI changed the name of the feast to Our Lady of the Rosary.

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us!

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The fast of the seventh month: Ember days and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement

This evening starts the day of atonement of the Jews, Yom Kippur.

This year, 2009, it virtually coincides with the Ember Days of September.

Ember Days are days of fasting and occur 4 times a year at Advent, Lent, Pentecost and the Exaltation of the Cross.

Even Dom Prosper Gueranger, the great liturgist of the Roman rite, speaks of them only in general terms as being days of fasting.

But they have a deeper significance still.

They are all liturgical days of ancient antiquity that remain from the days of the Jewish Temple worship.

The great Jewish feasts are continued in Leviticus 23.

Pesach or Passover, being the feast that our Lord transformed into the Mass on Maundy Thursday, of course, corresponds with our Easter Triduum. This feast also coincides with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasts a week, and the Feast of the First Fruits.

Sha vu ot which is the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, obviously corresponds to our Pentecost.

Sukkot which comprises the Feast of Trumpets (also Rosh Hashanah or Jewish New Year), the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Tabernacles or Ingathering. This corresponds (usually) with the month of September in which often occurs the Jewish seventh month, that is Tishrei, and often coincides with the Ember Days of September.

New Year is the 1st day of Tishrei, Yom Kippur is the 10th day of Tishrei and the Feast of Tabernacles starts on the 15th day of Tishrei, when the fruits of the land are gathered in, and lasts 7 days beginning and ending with a Sabbath.

During those 7 days the Jews are required by the Law to live in tabernacles, or elaborate tents, so that "your posterity may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt".

During Sukkot and following Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, the Jews are required to live in tabernacles for a week as a reminder of their exile from the land of Egypt. It is a wonderful tradition most worthy of preservation (and it has the added benefit of being exciting fun for the children!).

Of course, this is where we get our word "tabernacle" referring to the place wherein is kept the Blessed Sacrament over the High Altar in every Catholic Church.

The Jews believe (or are meant to believe) that the tabernacles also symbolised the dwellings of heaven. Thus the word "tabernacle" is all the more appropriate for use by the Church as the dwelling place of the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ, wherein the Lord of Heaven dwells here on the earth.

Here is a classic example of how the Ember Days retain crucial parts of the old Jewish Temple worship including the most sacred day of the year for Jews, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

The readings for the Ember Days are numerous but very fine because they retain those readings that relate to the old Jewish traditions and show the continuity with the Old Testament, show how our Lord fulfilled the Law and show how important it is to retain our ancient traditions in the Catholic Church.

The Ember Days celebrated at the traditional Benedictine Abbey of St Marie Madeleine at Le Barroux

It shows the hermeneutic of continuity from the time of Moses and Abraham to our Lord and on to our own day.

Where are the Ember Days in the new rite of Mass?

They probably remain as an option of some sort but let us face the truth with honesty and sincerity.

In the new rite the Ember Days simply are as good as never celebrated.

And yet the champions of the new rite assure us that the new rite has more of Scripture and the Old Testament in it!

Here are parts of the readings from Leviticus 23 which form the first 2 readings of Ember Saturday, yesterday:

"27 Upon the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement, it shall be most solemn, and shall be called holy: and you shall afflict your souls on that day, and shall offer a holocaust to the Lord. 28 You shall do no servile work in the time of this day: because it is a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be merciful unto you. 29 Every soul that is not afflicted on this day, shall perish from among his people: 30 And every soul that shall do any work, the same will I destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no work therefore on that day: it shall be an everlasting ordinance unto you in all your generations, and dwellings. 32 It is a sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls beginning on the ninth day of the month: from evening until evening you shall celebrate your sabbaths".
[Lev. 23:27-32]


"39 So from the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you shall have gathered in all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days: on the first day and the eighth shall be a sabbath, that is a day of rest. 40 And you shall take to you on the first day the fruits of the fairest tree, and branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. 41 And you shall keep the solemnity thereof seven days in the year. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month shall you celebrate this feast. 42 And you shall dwell in bowers seven days: every one that is of the race of Israel, shall dwell in tabernacles: 43 That your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God".
[Lev. 23:39-43]

Ivan Kramskoy, Christ in the Desert. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 1872.

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The sacred and the secular: the perfection of God's plan

A lengthy, slightly frustrating but ultimately useful discussion with a correspondent leads me to a few further random thoughts on the relationship between the lay and the clerical and, indeed, Church and State in a Catholic society.

This portrait of the Emperor Charles V recalls a time when all Christians understood the central importance of his role in Christendom as a model of the role of the laity.

At that time the Empire stretched across much of Europe and across the seas to the New World so that it was of this empire, before all others, that it was first said that the sun never set upon it.

Are the lay and clerical states a form of vocation?

Vocation means calling. God calls us to sanctity. The Catechism teaches:

"All the Faithful, whatever their condition or state... are called by the Lord to that perfection of sanctity...Charity is the soul of holiness to which all are called" [CCC#825-6].

The Catechism then quotes from St Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church, thus:

"Love, in fact, is the vocation which includes all others".

Clearly some do this better than others and some are called to a higher level than others, whether priest or lay.

Even more clearly, our Lady was called to that vocation, and fulfilled it, far more than any other creature, even including the Angels.

The fact that some have higher vocations than others does not mean that their higher vocation is somehow not a vocation.

Each is called but some are called to a higher level.

We should never suppose that it is only the most dignified and powerful offices in Church and State that represent the highest Christian vocation. Love is the highest Christian vocation. In the Kingdom of Heaven the least shall be the greatest and the last shall be first. Many a poor and humble wife and mother shall occupy a greater place in heaven than many a pope or emperor, priest or abbot. The more you commit yourself to, and so suffer for, your faith in this life, and the more you show humility, the greater shall you be in heaven. God has decreed it. God loves the humble but He resists the proud. Yet even the great and powerful can be humble, with God's help, just as many a poor person can become mortally proud if he or she spurns God's help.

That is clear from Sacred Scripture itself:

Multi autem sunt vocati, pauci vero electi [Matt 22:14]

and this:

Nisi unicuique sicut divisit Dominus unumquemque sicut vocavit Deus ita ambulet et sic in omnibus ecclesiis doceo[1 Cor 7:17].

Here is what the Catholic Encyclopaedia has to say on the subject:

"And in the celebrated passage 'every one hath his proper gift from God' (1 Corinthians 7:7) St Paul does not intend to indicate any particular profession as a gift of God, but he makes use of a general expression to imply that the unequal dispensation of graces explains the diversity of objects offered for our choice like the diversity of virtues. We agree with Liguori when he declares that whoever, being free from impediment and actuated by a right intention, is received by the superior is called to the religious life".

So - one is "called" to the religious life but "graces are dispensed unequally". Not everyone is offered ALL graces. God can choose Mary to be His mother and not Jane or Hannah.

And even if one is called, and answers, there are nonetheless wise virgins (i.e. good religious) and foolish virgins (i.e. bad religious) [Matt 25:1-11].

The wise ones will certainly be queens in heaven, although clearly not of the rank of our Lady.

The Wise Virgins

Scripture confirms that we shall have "crowns in heaven":

Bonum certamen certavi cursum consummavi fidem servavi; in reliquo reposita est mihi iustitiae corona quam reddet mihi Dominus in illa die iustus iudex non solum autem mihi sed et his qui diligunt adventum eius. [2 Tim 4:7-8].

Kings and queens have crowns. That is the origin of the meaning of the word.

Moreover, nuns are indeed mothers, too, understood spiritually, otherwise what would be the point of their being "Brides of Christ"?

Brides are married and married women have children. That's one of the purposes of marriage.

The spiritual motherhood of nuns is, in a spiritual and mystical sense, an imitation of the motherhood of Mary.

Any religious life, male or female, is, if fulfilled, higher by its nature than the life of a secular cleric.

If that were not so then one would have to ask why some clerics seek to enter religious life.

This is made clear by St Thomas in the Summa II-II, Art.184, Q.8 in which he poses the question:

"Whether parish priests and archdeacons are more perfect than religious?".

He replies:

"On the contrary, It is stated (XIX, qu. ii, cap. Duce): 'If a man while governing the people in his church under the bishop and leading a secular life is inspired by the Holy Ghost to desire to work out his salvation in a monastery or under some canonical rule, since he is led by a private law, there is no reason why he should be constrained by a public law'. Now a man is not led by the law of the Holy Ghost, which is here called a 'private law', except to something more perfect. Therefore it would seem that religious are more perfect than archdeacons or parish priests".

St Thomas, the holy Count of Aquino, who became a Dominican friar and whom the Church regards as one of the greatest of all the Doctors of the Church

In De Perfectione Vitae Spiritualis St Thomas repeats this and goes into more detail.

Thus the "vocation" of an abbot, including one who is lay and not clerical, would, in principle, be higher than the vocation of a secular priest.

But what of the secular, unconsecrated lay vocation?

For this we must look back to the days when kings, queens, emperors and empresses were the leading lay figures in Catholic society.

The vocation of emperor or king - or equivalent lay leadership role in a Catholic society - is also a vocation but it is not a religious vocation. It is a very high and dignified lay calling but this must be distinguished, once again, from the vocation to perfection.

Our primary Christian vocation is to perfect sanctity (through faith, hope and charity, by grace). There are degrees of perfection, however. In heaven (if we get there!) we shall all be perfect (which means “complete”) but some will be more perfect than others (e.g. our Lady).

That kind of vocation is to be distinguished from the use of that word to signify a calling – by a worldly superior as much as by God – to an office of dignity and rule.

In that sense, save that it is a lay, not a clerical, role and therefore has not the Sacramental character, the vocation of emperor or king (or its equivalent) is one of dignity and power, temporally, just as the priestly role is, spiritually.

Thus, just as the office of pope is the highest dignity in the clerical vocation, so that of emperor is the highest dignity in the lay vocation.

There is some coalescence since the Pope clearly also has some temporal power and the Emperor always had some power over matters spiritual for example in the appointment of bishops and a power of veto over the election of a pope.

Interestingly, it has been the custom since early times for the Emperor to be made a cleric by the Pope - at first a sub-deacon but, from the time of Emperor Charles V, a deacon. Nevertheless, the role of Emperor was always regarded as a primarily lay role by the Church.

Similarly, since at least the time of barbarian invasions when the Roman imperial power had been eclipsed, the popes have also had temporal, secular power, first in the city of Rome (which, however, still technically remained the temporal seat of power of the emperors) and then, after the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne, over the Pontifical States in central Italy. Nevertheless, the role of the Pope is, as we know, a primarily spiritual role.

This kind of “vocation” is distinguished from that of the vocation to perfection but it is, nonetheless, a vocation since the office-holder is, indeed, called to it (by election) in each case.

Roman Emperor Francis I, Caesar Semper Augustus et Romanorum Imperator, who was elected Holy Roman Emperor because he had married the Empress Maria Theresa, is pictured here in the imperial cope, stole, alb, gloves and buskins, wearing the original Crown of Charlemagne and the imperial sword and holding the imperial sceptre, the imperial orb being seen on the nearby cushion. The solemnity and holiness of his role is made very clear by his sacred apparel. It is from the ceremonial of the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor that all the ancient parts of the British coronation rite derive.

The role of emperor reflects the role of Christ the King which is one of the 3 roles of a Christian, they being Prophet (or teacher), Priest and King.

All of us, lay and clerical, must fulfil these roles.

We can do that as a layman (there is a priesthood of all the faithful which is wider than the ministerial priesthood) or as a cleric (a cleric chiefly rules spiritually but also has some temporal power which is a kingly role).

The Emperor symbolically exemplifies in his person, role and vocation the summit of the layman’s fulfilment of the role of Christ the King. He symbolises the Social Reign of Christ the King upon the earth.

The use of the word "vocation" has more than one sense. In the sense of a calling to perfection, the priesthood is not the highest vocation.

In the sense of a calling to an office, which connotes dignity and power, the priesthood is the higher but in a spiritual, rather than a temporal, sense.

However, the spiritual is higher than the temporal but here we speak generically.

Within each office there are higher and lower roles.

Pope St Pius X in the Papal Tiara

For the spiritual, the highest office is that of the Pope and for the temporal it is that of the Emperor. Each is the Vicar of Christ in his own sphere, spiritual and temporal.

The Pope is higher than the Emperor spiritually and vice-versa temporally.

However, since the spiritual is higher than the temporal, a papal excommunication, if just and right, ought to be obeyed above an imperial rescript.

However, if the papal injunction were unjust or trespassed unjustly upon the imperial power, then the imperial rescript, if just, was to be preferred.

Moreover, an illegal or immoral order of the Pope can justly be resisted, as Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, did - in the name of the Papacy and the proper use of papal power - when he refused a rich canonry in his Cathedral to the nephew of the reigning pope who had insisted on it out of nepotism.

Finally, a diagram might assist appreciation and understanding of the various roles in the Church:

LAY____________________CLERICAL

*
*
*

SECULAR

*
*
_______________________________________________________________
*
*

RELIGIOUS

*
*
*

Thus one can see that there are 2 separate axes forming a cross (appropriately): one axis is religious/secular and the other axis is lay/clerical.

One might be a secular cleric or a religious one. Equally one might be a religious layman or a secular layman. It was not just the lay brothers who were not clerics in a monastery. Traditionally, most choir monks were not priests or, often enough, even clerics.

Most people today are in the first quartile - the secular laity.

The idea that there must be a wall of separation between the secular laity, on the one hand, and the religious and clerical, on the other is as un-Catholic as a "wall of separation" between Church and State in a Catholic society.

But this has become common in our time.

The result is that it is a common occurrence for people to confuse the clerical with the religious and the lay with the secular whereas they are not the same at all.

Thus the expression "lay clerk", sometimes used to describe a layman acting in clerical roles like acolytes, is technically a misnomer. It is like saying something is both black and white at the same time. But it is an understandable misnomer.

Bartolome Esteban Murillo. The Assumption of the Virgin. 1670s.

The Blessed Virgin and Queen of Heaven fulfilled the highest vocation most fully and became, by God's power and grace, the highest of all creatures, higher even than the Angels themselves, the very Seraphim and Cherubim and certainly higher than any cleric, priest, archbishop, cardinal or pope. She is higher in heaven than the Apostles - higher than either St Peter or St Paul, and that by a very long way.

She is the most perfect of all models of the Christian life, followed some distance below, by those other laymen, her husband, St Joseph, and her cousin, St John the Baptist.

St John the Baptist came from the priestly line of Levi (his father, Zachary, being a priest of the Temple) but John himself was not a priest, either of the Old or the New Covenant.

St Joseph came of the line of Judah, the line of kings, and was, himself, tradition tells us, the true Prince of Judah and King of Israel, and his divine foster-Son was thus also, by inheritance and succession, the true King of the Jews, both in the flesh (through both His parents) and spiritually, as the Son of God.

The clericalists among us would do well to remember all of this!


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Jews and Christians: the untold story

A harmless but misguided individual calling himself "Anders" has written to this site surreptitiously seeking to get me to advertise his fanatical anti-Christian website which claims that the "Nazarite" sect and its leader, Ribi Yehosuah (guess who that is folks!), were really only another Judaic sect and those who "pretend" that he started a new sect are going to Hell with their apostate errors.

Nice, try, Anders but - as per usual for your type of false and black propaganda - you advance no arguments or sources other than those that agree with you because they already belong to your peculiar school of thinking.

It is the good old "you are wrong because I say you are" school of pseudo-philosophy.

Let me ask you a question, my dear fanatical friend. If you are right then please tell me:

Where are your sacrifices?

Where are your priests?

Where is your Temple in which to carry out those sacrifices?

Why are you not following the Torah and causing your priests to make the sacrifices in the Temple that the Torah orders you to make?

The answer is this: since the destruction of the Temple by Titus in 70AD there have been no sacrifices in the Jewish religion, Rabbinic Judaism has taken over and the Jewish priesthood has ceased to function.

Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD during the invasion by pagan Roman general Titus Flavius Vespasianus, later Emperor Titus. In fact, it was the Jewish defenders who themselves set light to parts of the Temple Wall, thinking to assist its defence, but then they attacked the Roman soldiers who were putting the fires out on Titus's orders. The fires therefore caught and spread so that the irnoiuc reuslt was that the Temple was actually fired by Jewish hands [Josephus. De Bello Judaeico. vi. 4]

For Christianity, this is because we believe that the Moshiach (Messiah) had come to bring in the New Law.

For Christians it is blasphemy to deny it. For observant Jews it is blasphemy to assert it.

However, for Charedic Jews the destruction of the Temple was a punishment for sin and it is yet further sin to set up a Jewish State before the Moshiach comes.

However, Charedic Jews, unlike some Zionists, want to live in peace with their neighbours, whether Jew, Christian or Moslem and despite the obvious and mutually exclusive differences in faith. That is a most noble aim.

We of the New Law want to do the same. We do not hate Judaism - still less the Jews. Witness the charity of recent popes to Jews and the heroic saving of hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives by Catholics in the Second World War during the Shoah.

Pope John Paul II is greeted by Elio Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome, outside the Roman Synagogue

Which city in Europe never once expelled Jews, even when some fanatics amongst them attacked the Christian host community?

The answer is: the Rome of the popes.

True fact!

The popes never expelled Jews from Rome. Ever.

On the other hand, it is a characteristic of fanatics that they are fanatically intolerant of others even when those others wish them no harm but only good. But these tend not to be genuinely religious people but rather those who try to harness religion to serve an earthly political purpose like the IRA, the Arab Ba'athists and the secular Zionists. These people are almost entirely unbelievers, apostates or heterodox, who use religion as a cloak, and distort it, to achieve their revolutionary political aims.

Having said that, it must be honestly admitted that there have been Christian fanatics in the past who have behaved badly to their Jewish minorities, even when innocent of any crime. I would, however, question just how Christian such people really were. Persecuting the innocent is a grave sin and against Christian doctrine.

Falashas: the ancient Ethiopian Jews

But now, sadly, the State of Israel is doing the same to its minority Christians and Muslims.

But even more does it persecute those Jews who are not Zionist like the Charedim.

The Charedim believe that there can be no State of Israel until the Moshiach comes and so they consider the State of Israel to be a blasphemy.

Hear this testimony from Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of the anti-Zionist Jewish movement Neturei Karta International.

Charedic Jews praying

Listen as pro-Zionist Cavuto of Fox news tries to shout him down, telling him to "answer the question" whilst not giving him a chance to do so. Watch how the bully Cavuto claims to be protecting Jews whilst saying he is against diplomatic dialogue and insults Rabbi Weiss with talk of his relatives being turned into "bars of soap" and falsely accusing him of holocaust-denial and wanting the atomic bombing of Israel simply because he dared to go on a peace mission to President Ahmedinajad of Iran.

It's a pretty disgusting performance by Fox but not surprising given the large amounts of conservative Jewish and Christian Zionist money which goes to Fox. However, Cavuto's views are also representative of opinion in particular sectors of American and British society:





This Charedic rabbi is genuinely interested in peace and co-existence in Palestine but, as can be seen, bigotry will not allow him to speak. And the bully pretends that it is to do with "time constraints" in television.

Well, it's a point of view!

Jewish music from the time of Temple worship was the immediate basis of Christian worship and it is from that source that we get our chant, later codified by Pope St Gregory the Great and thus called Gregorian chant.

Here is a somewhat schmaltzy but nevertheless wonderful old recording of Leibele Waldman singing the great hymn Kol Nidrei sung on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Judaism's most solemn annual day. Notice how orthodox Jews traditionally sway when they pray and the men cover their heads. Notice also, amidst the books, bells and candles, the horn that must be blown at the beginning of Yom Kippur.





Waldman was one of the great Jewish Cantors. Another was Yosselle Rosenblatt.

One of my favourite prayers is Sh'ma Yisroel but I could not find a Youtube version of it that wasn't ridiculously and excessively ultra-Zionist to the point of showing tanks, guns and artillery in virtually every scene.

Sh'ma Yisroel (שמע ישאל‎ר) - that is, "Hear, O Israel" - is central to the morning and evening prayers of Jews. It is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4 which reads thus:


"4 Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. 5 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength".


The Sh'ma is the most important prayer in Judaism, and it is a mitzvah (religious commandment) to recite or sing it twice daily. It is also a pray said by the dying.

The prayer comprises Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37–41 contained in this Torah prayers said regularly: VaEtchannan, Eikev, and Shlach.

The whole of the passage from Deuteronomy ought to be read regularly by Catholics, too, to remind us of our sacred duty to uphold the traditions that God has given to us and not to go hankering after novelties such as now predominate in so many parts of the Church in flat disobedience of God's law.

"4 HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD. 5 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength.

6 And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart: 7 And thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising. 8 And thou shalt bind them as a sign on thy hand, and they shall be and shall move between thy eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them in the entry, and on the doors of thy house. 10 And when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, for which he swore to thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: and shall have given thee great and goodly cities, which thou didst not build,

11 Houses full of riches, which thou didst not set up, cisterns which thou didst not dig, vineyards and oliveyards, which thou didst not plant, 12 And thou shalt have eaten and be full: 13 Take heed diligently lest thou forget the Lord, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt serve him only, and thou shalt swear by his name. 14 You shall not go after the strange gods of all the nations, that are round about you: 15 Because the Lord thy God is a jealous God in the midst of thee: lest at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and take thee away from the face of the earth.

16 Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, as thou temptedst him in the place of temptation. 17 Keep the precepts of the Lord thy God, and the testimonies and ceremonies which he hath commanded thee. 18 And do that which is pleasing and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee: and going in thou mayst possess the goodly land, concerning which the Lord swore to thy fathers, 19 That he would destroy all thy enemies before thee, as he hath spoken. 20 And when thy son shall ask thee tomorrow, saying: What mean these testimonies, and ceremonies and judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded us? "

The Jewish Queen, Mother and Virgin who is now our most Blessed Queen, Mother and Virgin

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