15 September - the Feast of Princess St Edith of Kemsing and Wilton

Saint Edith of Kemsing and Wilton (Eadgyth in Old English) was the natural daughter of King Edgar “the Peaceful” of England, born at Kemsing, Kent, in 961. She was the half-sister of King Æthelred the Unready. 

Her feast day is 15 September. 

She was the illegitimate daughter of King Edgar by the Lady Wilfrida, or Wulfthryth, a noble-woman and a nun of Wilton Abbey standing nearby the royal residence at Wilton, whom Edgar carried off forcibly from the nunnery. 

He took her to his manor at Kemsing in Kent where Edith was born but, so soon as Wulfthryth could escape from Edgar, she returned to Wilton Abbey, taking Edith with her.  

Wulfthryth became Abbess which tends to show that people were rather less squeamish then that they are today in our supposedly tolerant, but actually supremely intolerant, age. 

Princess St Edith was educated at the Abbey and herself became a nun early in her young life. 

King Edgar offered to make her abbess of 3 communities but she chose to remain with her mother at Wilton. 

St Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury, imposed a 7-year penance upon King Edgar for his crime. The King became holy himself, in due course, and died in the odour of sanctity in 975. 

 

 The village sign in Kemsing

showing a monk or nun praying at St Edith's well

In 979, Edith had a dream that her half-brother, King St Edward the Martyr, was in danger and so it transpired. He was murdered while visiting his step-mother, Queen Ælfthryth, at Corfe Castle, in Dorset. 

St Edith built a church at Wilton dedicated it to St Denis and she died not long after, on 15 September 984, aged only 23 and was buried in her own church. Her loss was greatly lamented by St Dunstan.

 

The ruins of Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire

St Edith was a celebrated scholar and a devotion to her quickly grew up. She appeared in a dream to St Dunstan, telling him that her body was incorrupt and, when St Dunstan had the tomb opened, in the presence of her mother, Abbess Wulfthryth, it was so and the body gave off fragrant perfume. 

Her half-brother, King Æthelred, introduced her cause for sanctity which was also supported by her nephew, King Edmund “Ironside” and his successor King Canute the Great, he who showed his overly fawning courtiers that he was not all-powerful by taking them all to the sea-side to show them he could not order the waves to retreat.

 

The surviving seal of St Edith identifies her as regalis adelpha or “royal sister” to show that she was of royal blood, half-sister of Kings Edward the Martyr and Æthelred the Unready.

 

The Wilton Diptych

 

Wilton Abbey is also associated with the famous English diptych called "the Wilton Diptych" which shows King Richard II being presented to our Lady by St John the Baptist, King St Edmund the Martyr and King St Edward the Confessor, and our Lady presents the Christ Child, all symbolical of England as Dos Mariae, or our Lady's Dowry.

 

On the Sunday nearest her feast day, Catholics and Anglicans gather to pray at St Edith's well in the village of Kemsing, Kent, with Benediction and tea afterwards at the nearby home of Mr Anthony Tyler OBE, formerly Chairman of the Catholic Writers Guild of Great Britain.

 

 

S. Editha, ora pro nobis!

 

 

St Edith's well in Kemsing village, Kent

 

 

+++

14 September - The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and of Summorum Pontificum

On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Exaltatio Crucis), the hymn, Crux Fidelis, is sung.

CRUX fidelis, inter omnes, arbor una nobilis;
Nulla talem silva profert,
Flore, fronde, germine.
Dulce lignum, dulci clavos, dulce pondus sustinens!

FAITHFUL Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!Sweetest Weight is hung on thee!

~~~

So for centuries has been sung the song composed by Venantius Forntunatus (530-609) extolling the Triumph of the Cross.

In the picture Crusaders kneel down and worship the Cross on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

And never more so than on the Feast which recalls the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem following its recapture from the pagan Persians by the Roman Emperor in the East, Emperor Heraclius.

Indeed, this Feast used to be celebrated with almost as much ceremony as the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, themselves.

But this Feast Day, 14th September, is also the anniversary of that triumphal day in which our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, restored to the Roman Church the use of the ancient and noble Roman rite of our ancestors.

All hail Pope Benedict XVI, the restorer of the ancient Roman rites!

Yes, this Feast is the 2nd anniversary day when, by his own motion - motu proprio - Pope Benedict XVI restored to the Roman Church its ancient rites. In so doing he has placed himself in the same hallowed tradition of all those popes, among his predecessors, who always sought to preserve the ancient rites of the Church, as all popes until 1970, did.

For this alone, he will go down to history as a great pope.

He chose a very significant and memorable day to make his motu proprio, called Summorum Pontificum, become effective.

It is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross upon which day we sing the praises of the Holy Cross with such ancient hymns as Vexilla Regis and Crux Fidelis.

Listen to the beautiful version of Crux Fidelis written by the gifted royal composer and image of King David, the author of the Psalms, His Majesty King John IV of Portugal - Dom Joao IV. This piece is sung every year on Good Friday at the Brompton Oratory, Knightsbridge in London:

Venantius Fortunatus wrote both hymns, the latter for a procession that brought a part of the true Cross to Queen Radegunda in 570. This hymn is used on Good Friday during the Adoration of the Cross and in the Breviary during Holy Week and on feasts of the Cross like today.

Ancient legend is hinted at in the second verse of this hymn. According to this tradition, the wood of the Cross upon which Christ was crucified was taken from that tree which was the source of the fruit of the fall in the Garden of Eden. When Adam died, the legend states, Seth obtained from the Cherubim guarding the Garden a branch of the tree from which Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Seth planted this branch at Golgotha (the place of the skull), which is so named because Adam was buried there. As time went on, the Ark of the Covenant, the pole upon which the bronze serpent was lifted, and other items were made from this tree.

Eventually the Holy Cross was made from it and our Lord crucified thereon upon Golgotha directly over the tomb of Adam so that the Precious Blood of Christ, seeping through cracks, penetrated into the mausoleum of Adam beneath and fell upon the very skull of Adam to symbolise that the Sin of Adam had now been atoned for by the Crucifixion.

In the old Roman Calendar, the Finding of the True Cross (Inventio Crucis) was celebrated on 3 May to commemorate that day when the Empress St Helena, daughter of a British king and mother of the Emperor Constantine, found the True Cross after long searching for it among the wells and cisterns of Jerusalem.

The British born Roman Empress St Helena finds the True Cross

The True Cross was set up and a Basilica built to house it for posterity.

Three centuries later, the pagan, fire-worshipping, Zoroastrian Persians (not yet Muslim), under King Chosroes II, attacked Jerusalem and took away the precious relic, the True Cross.

The Catholic Roman Emperor Heraclius, then reigning, swore to recover it and warred against the Persians.

Heraclius had been the emperor who changed the language of the Eastern Empire from Latin to Greek which he did in 620. Thus for 600 years the language of the Empire and the Church was exclusively Latin. The Greek language, though used often enough colloquially in the Levant, was not the official language of Byzantium and the Eastern Empire until 620 AD. The Greek Orthodox Church often forget this.

Emperor Heraclius had a number of successes against the Persians, particularly the Battle of Nineveh.

Nineveh is now in northern Iraq and is still a Christian city peopled by Chaldean rite Catholics whose liturgy is still in the language of Christ, Aramaic.

Heraclius, however, suffered a series of defeats and Constantinople was threatened, not only by the Persians,  but also by the Avars and Slavs who invaded and took the Balkans and then attacked Constantinople from the rear.

Heraclius was on the point of being defeated himself and Constantinople taken.

However, an internal dispute arose within Persia which threatened Chosroes II. The distraction gave Heraclius his chance. He soundly defeated Chosroes in 629 and recovered the True Cross.

This was seen as an answer to prayer by all at the time.

Eventually, Chosroes was murdered by his own son, who became king and thereafter the Sassanid Persians were swept away by a new and rising force, Islam which had recently arisen out of the formerly heretical Christian territories of the Monophysites and Monothelites.

When Heraclius returned to Jerusalem to restore the True Cross he carried it himself, as had our Lord, intending to process along the Via Dolorosa in his gorgeous imperial robes. But when he arrived at the gate of Jerusalem he was frozen to the spot and could not move. All were puzzled and eventually the Patriarch of Jerusalem suggested that the Emperor divest himself of his imperial robes. The Emperor did more and stripped himself to little more than the seamless garment that Christ Himself had worn to carry His Cross.

At once the Emperor found himself able to proceed and so he continued until he was able to restore the True Cross to its rightful place in the Basilica upon Golgotha, walking barefoot in a single shift all along the way to the great edification of the people of Jerusalem, his subjects.

Ever after that day, 14 September, was celebrated with great ceremony - nearly as much as Easter and Pentecost - as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Exaltatio Crucis).

The Catholic Roman Emperor Heraclius who restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629AD

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, chose this most memorable and triumphant of days to restore to us the glory of the ancient Roman rite which the Roman emperors of old fought and died to protect and preserve and which countless saints and martyrs gave their lives for.

VEXILLA REGIS prodeunt:
Fulget Crucis mysterium,
Qua vita mortem pertulit,
Et morte vitam protulit.

Abroad the Regal Banners fly,
Now shines the Cross's mystery;
Upon it Life did death endure,
And yet by death did life procure.

O CRUX AVE, SPES UNICA,
In hac triumpha gloria
Piis adauge gratiam,
Reisque dele crimina.

Hail, Cross, of hopes the most sublime!
In this triumphant glorious time,
Improve religious souls in grace,
The sins of criminals efface.

On Good Friday the second line reads "Now in this mournful Passion time" but on the Feast of the Cross this is replaced by "in hac triumpha gloria" - in the glory of this triumph!

Triumph, indeed, thanks to our Holy Father gloriously reigning!

St Helena, pray for us!

True Cross, protect us and our Pope!

...

And yet still some wish to quibble blindly...

Here are a few of the same, old, tired objections that one always gets from ill-educated Protestants.

"While I mostly agree with the attempted focus on the Good News as the common denominator of all Christian denominations, I find it rather difficult to reconcile the original teachings of the Scriptures with the traditions of the Roman Catholic church. Foremost in my disagreement is their way of exalting humans for whatever reason. I don't see why Mary should be able to hear anyone's prayers, given that she's dead and not a god. Neither do I quite get why every other person who did something is a saint- and in so doing greater than any other Spirit-Inspired human. While I don't doubt that the earliest beginnings of this Catholic church was let by Inspired men, I find it hard to believe that the Holy Spirit can work in this church today given their idolatry (see the above exultation of humans/objects) and the existence of copious amounts of pride in their ranks. Neither do I doubt that, as the above post illustrates, do they really live out a New Life in Christ."

For sheer pomposity and self-righteous arrogance, this one is a real peach, eh?

What makes this chap think that Protestant churches don't have "copious amounts of pride in their ranks".

As a matter of fact, they have Pride to over-flowing!

Idolatry means worshipping the created as if it were equal to the Creator. Giving honour to another human being is not idolatry. It is love, respect and affirmation.

Not everyone is of equal virtue - that is obvious. Some people are better than others. That's a fact. And the saints are the best of all.

This guy doesn't like the idea that there might be someone better than him. There's a word for that: it's called "Pride".

Why shouldn't Mary - or anyone in heaven - be able to hear our prayers?

And the simple reality is that the Bible is a Catholic book and the Catholic religion is the only truly Biblical religion.

The writer of the above is a Protestant who thinks he is better than Mother Teresa, St Francis of Assisi, St Damien of Molokai, St Bernadette, St Therese of Lisieux, St Thomas More, St Edmund Campion and all the saints whom he thinks do not "really live out a New Life in Christ".

Who, then, has the problem with Pride?

Here's another:

"WE ARE NOT SAVED BY GOOD WORKS.However good works are necessary to prove our faith. If we do not do good works , we do not demonstrate our faith and do what Jesus told us to. It's like a boy who joins the scouts but then refuses to wear the uniform.Using good works as our ticket to paradise is extreme selfishness."

Says who?

Errrrrr.....uuummm... he doesn't say. Why? Because he doesn't know. And because he will nowhere find his version of Christianity in the Bible.

In fact, quite the opposite. He will find that the Bible says that faith without works is DEAD. Fact.

Here is what it says:

"Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith alone? ...For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead."

James 2:24,26 

See? The Bible says that faith without works is dead and man is NOT justified by faith alone.

This verse alone demolishes the whole of classic Protestantism. And yet it come straight from the Bible.

Martin Luther so hated this verse that he took the Epistle of St James out of the Bible altogether and called it "Epistola straminea" - "an epistle of straw"!!

The fact is that the Bible is a Catholic book, chosen by Catholics and it teaches the Catholic faith.

Here's more:

"Dear Sir, You seem to idolize the Catholic Church and Catholics too much. Perhaps the 'anti-Catholic' comment made by yeomanrycavalry was out of order; but there might be some truth to it. If you believe, or have even read, what the Bible says, then you will agree that the one who is to be worshipped is not the Church, popes, images on walls, or people. All of us people, including popes, are subject to a strong sense of pride, self-righteousness and even stubbornness. It is not surprising that in ancient times people took the 'spiritual warfare' quite literally and crafted it into deadly crusades. We cannot justify that, as it was obviously a mistake and not something mentioned as a task in the Holy Scripture. In addition, your judgment towards yeomanrycavalry stating 'the usual, 'sex, money or power' is misplaced and contradictory. As it suggests that you are all-righteous in your daily living, something the Bible says there is 'not one righteous man' as Romans 3:10 says."

This comment is particularly self-righteous, proud and stubborn. But, then, we have come to expect that from certain types of Protestants.

What about "if you believe, or have even read, what the Bible says"?

Who's he kidding?

I quote the verses. He quotes none. And yet he claims to know it all. But that is all too typical of some.

In fact, as we have seen, the Bible is a Catholic document, selected by Catholics, teaching Catholic doctrine.

He fails to understand the meaning of Romans 3:10. When it says that "there is not any man just" this means that there is no man just by virtue either of the law of nature, or of the law of Moses, but only by faith and grace coming from Christ. THAT is what it means - but our Protestant friend thinks he knows better.

And therein lies another Protestant error: private judgement of Scripture. From this there has resulted over 90,000 different Protestant sects all claiming to teach the truth.

Whereas there is only ONE Catholic Church and it really DOES teach the true meaning of Scripture since that same Catholic Church CHOSE THE VERY BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE!

As to the Crusades, there are a wide variety of examples in Scripture of the people of God fighting battles to defend their culture, religion and way of life. Moses sanctioned this frequently and the Israelites did not scruple from war to defend themselves and their religion.

The inescapable fact is that the Crusades were a response to the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the sacking of sacred Christian sites in the Holy Land by Muslims.

Thereafter Islam set itself to invade and capture the whole of Europe.

Was it wrong, or any surprise, that Christendom decided to defend itself from these marauders?

When Islamic Barbary pirates raided the coasts of Europe to kill all the men, rape the women and enslave them and all the children, was it wrong to fight them and defend Europe from such brutal and savage raiders? And yet that is what a "Crusade" was.

But Protestants simply do not know their history. As Blessed John Henry Newman wrote: "to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant".

One might also say "to be deep in Scripture is to cease to be a Protestant".

...

Where the Bible came from: the Roman Catholic Church.

Many people simply do not know where the Bible came from.

They think it was “always there”.

Some even think that only the King James Version (KJV) is the real, authentic version, the ONLY one to be inspired by the Holy Ghost.

Some even seem to think that the Evangelists and Apostles actually produced the KJV (presumably in English!).


The KJV was authorised by King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland, who rejected the Protestant Geneva Bible but also the Catholic Bible. He ordered Anglican scholars to translate the original texts into English. This became the KJV. It is not a bad translation but it was chiefly designed to suit Anglican doctrines.

Here is a message to our Protestant Evangelical brothers:

It was the Roman Catholic Church which decided which books would make up the Bible.

Yes. True fact.

In fact, the final canon of Scripture, thereafter recognised by all Christians for over 1,000 years, was settled on 28 August 397 AD by the Council of Carthage after the example set by St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350.

This Council met under the supervision of the Bishop of Carthage, North Africa, and the Western Roman Emperor, Flavius Honorius, the decrees being later approved by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, who later also approved the definitive translation of St Jerome called the Vulgate.

Biblical texts in original Hebrew

The original texts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic are the directly inspired texts of the Bible. They were written by the hands, and through the directly and Divinely-inspired understanding and language of the Holy Prophets, Priests and Patriarchs of old, and by the Apostles and Evangelists who are their successors in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, true God and true man, the Second Person of the Trinity and the son of God (ho huios tou anthropou - as the Biblical Greek has it) and the Saviour of all who believe in Him.

Jews and Christians were loath to translate these texts for the simple reason that meaning can easily be changed in translation. Thus translations required some sort of authorization from the community of believers (usually the leading Jewish/Christian emperor/king or bishop/elder) lest promiscuous translations be spread among Jews and Christians to deceive them and lead them away from the truth.

After the Babylonish captivity, when Aramaic became the common language tending to replace classical Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the people to understand the Torah when read in the Synagogues. However, the most well-known movement to translate the Bible came in the 3rd century BC when over a third of the population of the great Greek-speaking city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, were Jews.

With the approval of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a group of Hebrew scholars who spoke Koine (or spoken) Greek made what is perhaps the first universally accepted authorised translation thereafter called the Septuagint whereby the original Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament was translated into Koine Greek.

Printed version of the beginning of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint

The next major translations came after the death of our Saviour and include the most sacred of all texts, those written by the Evangelists and Apostles under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost providing the Euangelion, "Glad Tidings" or "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

This was rendered as Gospel (originally God-spell) in Anglo-Saxon, the language of the early English who had originated in Fryslan or North Germany (whose inhabitants in turn spoke the original of what is now Frieslandisch, the language of Ost-Friesland in North-West Germany).

Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite

The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted on an informal basis by the Christian community previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the book of Revelation), and later established by St Athanasius of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church, in 367 (with Revelation added)

The Council of Carthage, held on 28 August 397 under the tutelage of the Bishop of Carthage but with imperial and papal approval, issued a definitive canon (legal decree) of Scripture setting out all the texts that form what is now universally called "The Bible". This canon remained unchallenged for over 1,000 years until not long before the Protestant Reformation when the inclusion of the Deutero-Canonical texts was, among other things, repudiated. These texts were thereafter called "Apocryphal" by Calvinists, Lutherans, Anglicans and others but are often included in some Protestant translations.

Co-extensive with Carthage came the magisterial translation of the Vulgate of St Jerome and it was widely received and recognised as authorised by the Christian authorities, princes, governors and spiritual leaders. It has remained so ever since and has stood the test of time clearly under the guidance and indirect inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

St Jerome, Cardinal and Doctor of the Western Church, the fiery Illyrian penitent who translated the Bible from the original texts to give us the Vulgate

Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 420. Latin translations pre-dating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, by-passing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew, wherever he could, instead of the Septuagint (as, later, did the translators of the King James Version).

The New Testament was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. In the 5th century, Mesrob translated the Bible into Armenian. Also dating from the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Georgian translations.

However, important though the Vulgate was, it nevertheless was only indirectly inspired through the scholarship of the Christian doctor, St Jerome. The original texts remained - and still remain - the only DIRECTLY INSPIRED texts written in the hand and language of those authors who were DIRECTLY INSPIRED by the Holy Ghost.

On the other hand, it was important that Scripture be available to the people in their own language since only scholars tended to know Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and the Latin of the Vulgate. This resulted in various authorised translations.

From the Middle Ages we still have some fragmentary Anglo-Saxon Bible translations, notably a lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English (Anglo-Saxon) by the Venerable Bede, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death around the year 735.

An Old High German version of the Gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Emperor Charlemagne in ca. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic dates to the late 9th century.

King Alfred the Great had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and free-standing version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Anglo-Saxon appeared, in the West Saxon dialect; these are called the Wessex Gospels.

King Alfred the Great who translated parts of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon

In 1199, Pope Innocent III banned unauthorized versions of the Bible as a reaction to the Cathar/Waldensian heresies.

The Cathars manipulated Scripture in accordance with their real beliefs which were not Christian but rather those of the Chinese philosopher, magician and theologian, Mani, who believed in Dualism (the existence of two equal forces one good, God, and one evil, the Devil, but each of equal strength and standing, a view entirely opposed to orthodox Christianity). They believed that flesh was evil, thus child-birth was evil, and marriage was evil but sodomy, which produced no children, and euthanasia, which eliminated flesh, were good.

They believed in a "sacrament" called the consolamentum which included euthanasia by suffocation or starvation.

They also included many terrorists who regularly murdered orthodox Christians so that the Church was therefore obliged to launch a defensive counter-terrorist war against them, eventually won, at Muret in 1213, by Count Simon de Montfort (whose son founded the English Parliament) when his 700 Knights miraculously defeated a vast Cathar army of 50,000 under King Peter of Aragon.

Count Simon de Monfort led 700 Christian knights against a huge army of 50,000 or more Albigensian Cathars under King Pedro II of Aragon in the Battle of Muret 1213. St Dominic was praying the Rosary for victory in the Church of Muret. The tiny army of Christian knights defeated the brutal and bloody Cathars who fled away, defeated.

The synods of Toulouse and Tarragona (1234) outlawed possession of Cathar renderings of the Bible. There is evidence of some vernacular translations permitted while others were being scrutinized for Catharist influences.

The most notable Middle English Bible translation, Wyclif's Bible (1383), based on the Vulgate, was banned by the Oxford Synod in 1408 because of its alterations to the text. An Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in the mid 15th century, and in 1478, a Catalan translation in the dialect of Valencia.

In 1521, Martin Luther was placed under the Ban of the Empire, and he retired to Wartburg Castle. During his time there, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. This was printed in September 1522.

Tyndale's Bible (1526) was met with heavy sanctions given the widespread belief that Tyndale had changed the Bible as he attempted to translate it. William Tyndale was first jailed in 1535 for translating the Old Testament without permission, and, a year later, after refusing to recant or retract, was executed by order of the English King Henry VIII and Parliament

There was also the 1530 translation of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. The Froschauer Bible of 1531 and the Luther Bible of 1534 (both appearing in portions throughout the 1520s) were an important part of the Protestant Reformation.

The vast international missionary activity of the Jesuit order led to a large number of 17th century translations into the languages of the New World, to enable the indigenous Indian natives to understand the Bible.

Each translation of the Bible tends to put its own "spin" on the text and this can give rise to controversy. Thus the translators of the KJV were authorised by King James I of England to undertake their translation work because of the very clear "spin" put upon the texts by the Geneva Bible which both King James and the Fathers of the KJV translation famously rejected

For example, the Geneva Bible translated episkopoi as "elders" rather than as "bishops". This the KJV translators rejected and returned to the more traditional rendering of "bishop". King James famously said "No bishop, no king" and so would not tolerate the Presbyterian rendering of "elder" which he knew spelt the end of the bishops and thus of himself as king.

So it proved under his son, King Charles I when the even more extreme and revolutionary Congregationalists or Independents, under Oliver Cromwell, banned all bishops and executed the King setting up a military dictatorship of Army generals under Cromwell as the Dictator.

To the extent that any translation of the Bible is faithful to the original texts, it is an INDIRECTLY INSPIRED text and therefore, to a greater or lesser degree (depending upon the faithfulness of the translation), suitable to nourish the faith of Christians and suitable for them to rely upon.

However, the texts of the Bible DIRECTLY inspired by the Holy Ghost are the Old Testament (called the Tanakh by the Jews) in the classical Hebrew of the masoretic texts mostly, but with some (e.g. the Talmud and the Book of Daniel) in Aramaic, and the New Testament in the original Koine Greek with smatterings of Aramaic (the language spoken by our Lord) and various semitisms typical of Greek-speaking Jews.

However, the decision as to which inspired books would make up the Bible was decided by a Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 397.

The Bible is, thus, a Catholic book, not a Protestant one.

...

La Reine au balcon - the courage of the Queen of France faced by the devils of Paris

The French Revolution unleashed an army of blood-guzzling devils upon France and then upon the world.

It led to further revolutions including the Italian, Spanish, Russian, Nazi-German and many more revolutions. It was a disgusting display of the most appalling evil then seen and led to yet more disgusting and vile revolutions.

In the name of a totally false cry of "liberty, equality and fraternity" it killed liberty, equality and fraternity in the most foul murders imaginable.

Oceans of blood were spilled and only to introduce into the world a most evil ideology - ideology which has continued to poison the world ever since.

This ideology is that of hatred of God, of rightful authority, of justice, of charity, and of simple humanity.

If anyone be in any doubt about this, they need only read the history of the violence and bloodshed of this most grotesque flood-tide of venomous hatred.

From the very beginning, agitators persuaded the rebels to cut off heads and stick them on pikes

A few facts:

- the vast majority of those murdered were French peasants.

- the supposedly “democratic” revolution led straight to a totalitarian dictatorship under the Convention, the Directory, the Committee of Public Salvation, Maximilien Robespierre and then an imperial dictatorship under Napoleon Bonaparte. Some democracy! Pah.

- It was the people of the Vendee and of Brittany who opposed the Revolution by force of arms and, under their generals, they did so successfully. However, whenever the Revolution had a chance it would slaughter, maim, burn and torture every living thing: men, women, children, the elderly, livestock – everything! Then it would burn and lay waste. And this was against its own people!

- In Nantes the bestial Jean-Baptiste Carrier tied men and women together naked and drowned them in the Loire calling this “republican marriage”. He took boatloads of priests out into the Loire and deliberately sank them. He pitted brother against brother and child against parent. He said “never have I so much enjoyed it as to see the last grimaces of a dying priest”. He was barely human, a base brute of the worst kind.

- In the end, the Revolution was unsustainable: it destroyed the very people who made it. First the Girondins, then Hebert, then Georges Danton himself and finally Louis-Antoine de St Just and Robespierre. Truly did the odious St Just declaim that “the Revolution consists in the destruction of its enemies”. It was death and destruction for the sake of both.

And yet there are still stupid people today who actually pretend that the French Revolution was something good!

No.

It was a cataclysmic outpouring of hatred and degradation. It was pure evil.

In stark contrast stands the nobility of those who suffered torture at the hands of the God-hating revolutionaries.

Here is how the young Queen Marie-Antoinette, aged 33, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria-Theresa, conducted herself before the howling mob that invaded Versailles in October 1789 to force the King and Queen to leave Versailles and go to the run-down Tuileries Palace in Paris, an act calculated to destroy the authority of the Monarch:

This is authentic. The Queen, by her courage and dignity, silenced the baying, howling mob that had intended to kill her. But the agitators and rebels would soon enough imprison her, the King and their children. And that was but the beginning of their travails and sufferings.

The King and Queen were imprisoned during the terrible period of the September Massacres in 1792 when the devilish Parisian mob broke into the prisons and simply slaughtered everyone in sight without regard for age, sex or condition, brutally, callously, shamefully and in the most cowardly manner.

The first to die were some 24 innocent non-juring priests being transferred from one prison to another.

The satanic mob attacked and slaughtered the priests and then mutilated them obscenely, cutting off their privy parts and displaying them crudely placed at various points on – and in – the mutilated bodies.

Then they broke into the prisons and slaughtered all crying “death to the aristocrats, death to the priests”. Many prisoners were forced to drink the blood of the slaughtered as “revolutionary communion” in blasphemous mockery of Christian Holy Communion.

These living devils in human form then searched out, found and attacked the Queen’s best friend, Marie-Louise of Savoy, the Princesse de Lamballe. And what did these devils do to her?

They throttled and stabbed her, then one of these living devils cut out her beating heart and began to eat it raw and pumping blood.

Then they cut off her head and stuck it on a pike and thrust it at the window of the cell in which the Queen was imprisoned, to horrify her.

This was what those devils called "liberty, equality and fraternity"!

Yes, really!

Here is that appalling scene re-captured in all its horror but in film, the vile, devilish mob singing the odious "Carmagnole":

Those odious women are calling out "Hey autrichienne! Here's your friend the Princesse de Lamballe! How do you like her now?!"

And they deliberately pronounced "autrichienne" meaning "Austrian woman" as "autre chienne" meaning "you other bitch" or sometimes "autru chienne" meaning "you ostrich bitch". These devils truly lived in themselves the morals of the gutter.

Soon enough the mob and their "democratic" representatives and agitators demanded the death of the King and Queen.

Here is how the noble King Louis XVI, that simple and gentle man, met his accusers and their grotesquely unjust and treacherous sentence of death against the innocent King.

See how the odious rebels – Danton, Robespierre, Desmoulins, St Just and the disgusting Jean-Paul Marat – smirk at the simple words of the King.

The same Danton who helped himself liberally and corruptly to the goods and chattels of those whose lands and property he despoiled, has the effrontery to vote for the King’s death, as does the strikingly hypocritical Robespierre and the supposedly “reasonable” Camille Desmoulins - lying, odious scoundrels, all of them.

All, save Marat, will meet death in the same way, the ghastly Revolution devouring its own excrement.

Marat himself is murdered by Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont whose brother’s murder had been contrived by Marat.

The priest attending the King was an Irishman, the Abbé Henry Essex Edgeworth de Firmont, and, as the blade descended, this great Irishman, who had so faithfully served the King, called aloud “Fils de St Louis, monte au ciel!!”, that is:

“Son of St Louis, ascend to heaven!”

So died a noble king, one who faithfully followed the example of his Redeemer who also died an innocent, brutally murdered by the baying mob consisting of those who ought to have loved Him most.

Truly King Louis XVI embraced the Crown of Thorns and the Cross of Christ.

So, too, did his noble wife, Queen Marie-Antoinette.

See how, when she hears the guns announcing that the King has been executed, and her daughter runs to her bed crying, this noble Queen faithfully remembering her own little son, Charles, goes to him, embraces him and then bows low before him who is now the Most Christian King of France, His Sacred Majesty King Louis XVII, successor to Clovis, Hugh Capet and St Louis of France.

Truly this is a most touching and inspiring scene.

In so bowing to her new Sovereign, her own child, she bows to Christ the King through His earthly representative in France, and imitates the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven, who, likewise, treated her own Holy Child as Son, King and God, demonstrating both the highest humility, the highest royal dignity and the highest maternal devotion and piety.

This is the truest and highest sanctity!

It is the sanctity shown by the Blessed Virgin herself and the reason why she, the Queen of Juda and Queen of Heaven, and Mother of God, who made herself the lowest, is now far above us all.

She will have ensured that her Son rewarded Queen Marie-Antoinette, of the House of Austria and Most Christian Queen of France, with a great diadem for her faithfulness and humility.

Not much later comes the trial and condemnation of that same noble Queen. This most innocent and horribly maligned Queen is accused before the fatuous and ridiculous revolutionary tribunal of the most horrible crimes such as sexually corrupting her own children.

Then she is condemned and, like her husband, goes courageously, nobly and valiantly to her death, another martyr to innocence, truth and true Christian charity.

She even apologised to the executioner for tripping on his foot.

This was the gentle nobility of Queen Marie-Antoinette of Austria, the Most Christian Queen of France.

What devilish, hate-filled savages could ever even begin to consider murdering an innocent woman, let alone one like her?

These royal saints gave, like many after them, a stirring and inspiring example of heroic martyrdom for the sake of Christ and the Holy Catholic religion.

Left behind was the child-king, Louis XVII, but he was imprisoned in a darkened cell by the vile revolutionaries and left in his own filth. He eventually died aged around 10, neglected or murdered by the vile beasts who claimed to act in the name of freedom, equality, fraternity and justice.

See how the odious Robespierre even persuades himself, in the face of the rising in the Vendee and Brittany, that he, who claimed to act in the name of the "people", now thinks that even the "people" are wrong. Only he can be right. Oh, odious hypocrite!

His murderous lieutenant, Louis-Antoine de St Just, born noble but living most ignobly, now calls for the Republic to require men to prove their innocence or face death, a complete reversal of true justice.

Danton even abandons the Revolution to live on his ill-gotten gains and is married by a non-juring, anti-revolutrionary priest. Later, like a dog returning to its vomit, he goes back to his revolutionary career of murder.

But they are all destined to die the same ignoble death that they planned for others, the Revolution devouring itself in a frenzy of devilish hatred.

Princess Marie-Therese of France, the King's eldest daughter, lived on in exile, with her other kin. She eventually married her cousin, the Duc d'Angouleme, who became, titularly, King Louis XIX.

She is buried in Nova Gorica in Slovenia, whence she was later exiled with her husband and her uncle, King Charles X, who reigned briefly again in France before another revolution. Both are buried beside her.

On her tomb are written in Latin the words from Tenebrae of Good Friday:

"O all ye who pass by, attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow"

So ends a fitting tribute to a deeply devout, royal family whom modern, atheist, Godless, republican France repudiates but whom God Himself has rewarded with an eternal crown, a crown that the atheist godless revolutionaries shall never see unless they repented of their foul deeds.

O Mary, Mother of Sorrows, pray for us!

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3rd Sunday after Easter: "Love the brotherhood...Honour the Emperor"

3rd Sunday after Easter

"Honour all men: love the brotherhood: 

fear God: honour the Emperor"

The imperial crown of the Emperor Charlemagne

EPISTLE ¤ 1 Blessed Peter the Apostle 2:11-19 Lectio Epistolae beati Petri Apostoli. Caríssimi, Obsecro vos tamquam ádvenas, et peregrínos abstinére vos a carnálibus desidériis, quæ mílitant advérsus ánimam, conversatiónem vestram inter gentes habéntes bonam: ut in eo, quod detréctant de vobis tamquam de malefactóribus, ex bonis opéribus vos considerántes, gloríficent Deum in die visitatiónis. Subjécti ígitur estóte omni humánæ creatúra propter Deum: sive imperatori, quasi præcellénti: sive dúcibus, tamquam ab eo missis ad vindíctam malefactórum, laudem vero bonórum: quia sic est volúntas Dei, ut benefaciéntes obmutéscere faciétis imprudént-ium hóminum ignorántiam: quasi líberi, et non quasi velámen habéntes malítiæ libertátem, sed sicut servi Dei. Omnes honoráte: fraternitátem dilígite: Deum timéte: imperatorem honorificáte. Servi, súbditi estóte in omni timóre dóminis, non tantum bonis, et modéstis, sed etiam dyscolis. Hæc est ením grátia: in Christo Jesu Dómino nostro. Deo Gratias...


Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Peter the Apostle. Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul, having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may, by the good works which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the Emperor as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of the good: for so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. Honour all men: love the brotherhood: fear God: honour the Emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is grace before God: in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God.

The Blessed Emperor Charlemagne, first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 

GOSPEL ¤ Blessed Apostle John 16:16-22 † Sequéntia sancti Evangélii secúndum Joannem. In illo témpore: Dixit Jesum discípulis suis: "Módicum, et jam non vidébitis me, et íterum módicum, et vidébitis me: quia vado ad Patrem." Dixérunt ergo ex discípulis ejus ad ínvicem: Quid est hoc, quod dicit nobis: Módicum, et non vidébitis me: et íterum modicum, et vidébitis me, at quia vado ad Patrem? Dicébant ergo: Quid est hoc, quod dicit, Móodicum? nescímus quid lóquitur. Cognóvit autem Jesum, quia volébant eum interrogáre, et dixit eis: "De hoc quæritis inter vos, quis dixi, Módicum, et non vidébitis me: et íterum módicum, et vidébitis me? Amen, amen dico vobis: quia plorábitis, et flébitis vos, mundus autem gaudébit: vos vero contristabímini, sed tristítia vestra vertétur in gáudium. Múlier cum parit, tristítlam habet, quis venit hora ejus: cum autem pepérerit púerum, jam non méminit pressúre propter gáudium: quia natus est homo in mundum. Et vos ígitur nunc quidem tristítiam habétis: íterum autem vidébo vas, et gaudébit cor vestrum: et gáudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis." Laus tibi Jesum Christum.

† Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Blessed Apostle Saint John At that time. Jesus said to His disciples: "A little while, and now you shall not see Me: and again a little while, and you shall see Me: because I go to the Father." Then some of His disciples said one to another: what is this that He saith to us: A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again a little while, and you shall see Me: because I go to the Father? They said therefore: What is this that He saith, A little while? We know not what He speaketh. And Jesus knew that they had a mind to ask Him. And He said to them: Of this do you inquire among yourselves, because I said: A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again a little while, and you shall see Me? Aman, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. So also you now indeed have sorrow: but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice: and your joy no man shall take from you." Praise be to Jesus Christ.

The Blessed Emperor Charles I of Austria, successor to Emperor Charlemagne

Good Shepherd Sunday - "I know my sheep and they know me..."

Ego sum Pastor bonus, allelúja: et cognósco oves Meas, et cognóscunt Me Meæ. Allelúja, allelúja.

I am the good Shepherd, alleluia: and I know My sheep, and Mine know Me, alleluia, alleluia.

The Gospel is from John 10: 11-16:

In illo témpore: Dixit Jesus Pharisæis: "Ego sum Pastor bonus. Bonus pastor ánimam suam dat pro óvibus. Mercenárius autem et qui non est pastor, cujus non sunt oves própriæ, videt lupum veniéntem, et dimíttit oves, et fugit: et lupus rapit et dispérgit oves: mercenárius autem fugit, quia mercenárius est, et non pértinet ad eum de óvibus. Ego sum Pastor bonus: et cognósco oves meas, et cognóscunt me meæ. Sicut novit me Pater, et ego agnósco Patrem: et ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis. Et alias oves hábeo, qum non sunt ex hoc ovíli: et illas opórtet me addúcere, et vocem meam áudient, et fiat unum ovíile, et unus pastor."

At that time Jesus said to the Pharisees: "I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and flieth: and the wolf catcheth and scattereth the sheep: and the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling, and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good Shepherd: and I know Mine, and Mine know Me, as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down My life for My sheep. And other sheep I have that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

Take note all pastors and bishops and be not hirelings but true shepherds.

We should also note that our Lord says He has sheep that are "not of this fold" who shall hear His voice - perhaps better than those who are currently of His Flock - and they shall become part of the Flock, too.

This should teach us to be humble and not to presume or become complacent. Some who are not currently of the Flock may be judged better than us to sit amongst the saints in Heaven.

Let us pray for them, also, and remember that the Catholic Church is for all, including those who are not yet members. It is not a convenient little club only for cradle Catholics.

God chose the Israelites but all but a few later rejected Him and he transferred His favour to the Gentiles who converted to Him and loved Him better than many of His own chosen people.



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