Ash Wednesday - "remember man that thou art dust..."

  

On Ash Wednesday...

 Feria quarta cinerum in tempi quadragesimæ...

(The Wednesday of ashes in the time of the 40 days i.e. Lent...)

 

On this day Catholics the world over receive on their foreheads the sign of the cross in ash, administered by the priest, to symbolise the transience of life, the need for repentance (ash being a sign of repentence) and the hope of immortality in the life to come.

 

As he administers the ashes the priest says (in Latin in the traditional rites):
 

Meménto, homo, quia pulvis es, et in púlverem revertéris...

Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return...

 "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh..." [Ecclesiasticus 1]
 
 

So may we well begin this Holy Season of Lent which so much reminds us of the transience of this life and, in contrast, the joys of heaven to come.

In a sense, there is both joy and sadness in Lent - sadness at death but joy at life, the life to come. Lent signifies the 40 days that our Lord spent in the desert fasting and doing penance for us and giving us an example of the way in which we can discipline ourselves to withstand the temptations of the world, grow in grace and virtue and become more truly ourselves, rather than our appetites.

This is our recollection behind the imposition of ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday. We are reminded of our mortality and that we shall return unto the dust from which man was originally made.

The words said by the priest come from Genesis 3:19 when Adam and Eve were made subject to the corruption of death and dying with the words of God ringing in their ears:

"for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return"

 "Remember friends as you pass by,
as you are now so once was I.
As I am now so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me." 

From the Roman Office of the Dead, the Anglican divines took the words of Job and used them for the Anglican burial service. They have since thereby become famous, used in many a film setting. They are powerful words:

"MAN THAT IS BORN OF WOMAN hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he flieth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we be in death: of whom may we seek for succour but of thee, O Lord, which for our sins justly art displeased. Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts, shut not up thy merciful eyes to our prayers: but spare us Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from thee." [Job 11]

On Ash Wednesday, the ashes are made by the burning of the palms from the previous year's Easter.

The imposition of ashes signifies sorrow for sin, contrition, spiritual aid and the receiving of grace thereby.

The head, being the seat of pride, is then imposed with ashes in the form of a cross as the priest utters the words reminding us of our mortality.

We should wear this sign of penance as a memento mori (remembrance of death) and as a sign of witness against the concupiscence of the world.




This painting shows the return of the Blessed Virgin after the Crucifixion on Calvary.

In the distance can be seen the 3 crosses upon Calvary mount. It is a fitting theme for the penitential season of Lent - or Great Lent as the Greeks call it. Lent is a time of very moving and indeed hauntingly beautiful liturgy and chant.

Ash Wednesday begins with the reading from Joel the Prophet, Chapter 2:

“Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. 13 And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. 14 Who knoweth but he will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? 15 Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, 16 Gather together the people, sanctify the church, assemble the ancients, gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride chamber. 17 Between the porch and the altar the priests the Lord's ministers shall weep, and shall say: Spare, O Lord, spare thy people: and give not thy inheritance to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations: Where is their God? 18 The Lord hath been zealous for his land, and hath spared his people. 19 And the Lord answered and said to his people: Behold I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.”

On the First Sunday of Lent the Gospel reminds us of the precedent for Lent: our Lord's 40 days in the desert fasting.

On the Saturday in Ember week of Lent, when it was customary to have Ordinations to the clerical state, there are 6 readings including the Gospel and many beautiful chants.

Ivan Kramskoy. Christ in the Desert. 1872.

It is customary to sing the Lenten chant Attende, Domine, et miserere - "Listen, O Lord, and have mercy".

Here it is in chant:

To Thee, highest King,
Redeemer of all,
do we lift up our eyes
in weeping:
Hear, O Christ, the prayers
of your servants.

Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee!

...

Innocent, He was seized,
not refusing to be led;
condemned by false witnesses
because of impious men;
O Christ, keep safe those
whom Thou hast redeemed!

Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy, because we have sinned against Thee!

In many communities, both religious and secular, it was also customary to have numerous additional pious devotions including chants, hymns and canticles dedicated to the instruments of the Passion, for instance the Holy Lance and the Holy Nails.

Love never dies...

 

+++

 

Apologies for absence - do not adjust your set...

Yes, life's been hectic....

...but I haven't disappeared, yet!

Tribunus

Lest we forget! The last broadcast of Czech radio as the Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring in August 1968...



Who now remembers the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968?

 

If you are too young to recall it then learn about it.

 

And never forget!

 

This was the true face of brutal, barbarous, savage Communism invading a country longing to be free from the yoke of that dreary, stultifying, loathsome and diabolical creed that so crushed the human spirit and all that makes life worth living.




The Soviet tanks roll in...and over...

 

Watch and listen to this most moving broadcast from Prague radio, the last outpost of freedom to be taken by the invading tanks of the Soviet beast.

Look at the images of oppression by the tyranny of the Soviet bullies.

 

Play it to the end and you hear the brave broadcasters calling to the brave Czech people to resist and preserve their freedom against the monstrous invasion of the Soviet war machine.

 

Play it to the end and, as the tanks roll down the streets toward the radio station, you will hear their last brave words, in their native language, and, finally, a recording of the Czech national anthem being broadcast to the Czech people with the sound of the Soviet tanks and machine guns firing and getting closer and closer to the radio station to capture and close it....but the national anthem plays on...

 

Salute the naked courage of the Czech people determined to be free and to throw off the ugly Soviet yoke!




A Czech passive resister bares his chest to the Soviet tanks...

 

Thank God that they are now free of the beast of Communism that so destroyed and ruined Russia and Eastern Europe.

 

May they grow in freedom and re-discover their Christian roots and once again become a great nation as in Bohemia of old.

 

Let us thank the Blessed Virgin, protectress of Bohemia, Czechs, Slovaks and Europeans generally that she procure for them and us delivery from the Communist hell hounds.

 

Lest we forget! The last broadcast of Czech radio as the Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring in August 1968...

 

Czech National Anthem
 

Kde domov muj

Kde domov muj, kde domov muj,
voda huci po lucinach,
bory sumi po skalinach,
v sade skvi se jara kvet,
zemsky raj to na pohled!

A to je ta krasna zeme,
zeme ceska domov muj,
zeme ceska domov muj!

 

 

Where is my home, where is my home?
Water bubbles across the meadows,
Pinewoods rustle among crags,
The garden is glorious with spring blossom,
Paradise on earth it is to see.
And this is that beautiful land,
The Czech land, my home.

 

Where is my home, where is my home?
If, in a heavenly land, you have met
Tender souls in agile frames,
Of clear mind, vigorous and prospering,
And with a strength that frustrates all defiance,
That is the glorious race of the Czechs,
Among Czechs is my home.

 

 

Oh Blessed Virgin St Mary, our Lady, 
preserve us forever from the Communist devil!

Good King St Wenceslaus, the martyr,
pray for Bohemia and the Czechs and for us all!





+++
 

The original "9/11" - the Battle of Vienna, 11-12 September 1683, and the charge of the Polish cavalry

Let us remember 9/11 and, in particular, 12 September, which is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.

It is the day that the cavalry of Poland and the Holy Roman Empire saved Christian Europe, aided by the Holy Mass and the Holy Rosary.

It is, perhaps, no accident that the 9/11 terrorists chose the first day of the Battle of Vienna, 11 September, to launch their now world-famous attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York City.

After the loss of the Holy Land, the Eastern Roman Empire and control of the Mediterranean, Christendom was in constant danger of being overwhelmed by the Muslim Ottoman Turks and the Protestant Reformation further weakened the defences.

Moreover, Catholic Christendom was fighting, now, on two fronts against both Muslim and Protestant and might, at any time, be swept away altogether.

Particular determination, tenacity and courage were now needed more than ever from the defenders of Christendom.

Fortunately, courage was not lacking.

In September 1529, after defeating the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohacs, the Ottoman Turks and their allies laid siege to Vienna – the famous Siege of Vienna of 1529.

After a tremendous struggle the Austrians, under the 70-year-old Count Nicholas von Salm, were finally victorious, although Salm himself was killed during the siege.



Statute in Vienna of Nicholas, Count of Salm,
the posthumous victor against the Turkish Siege of Vienna of 1529

On 7 October 1571, the Ottoman Turks had seized the opportunity to launch a vast fleet to conquer as much of Christendom as they could conquer.

Almost miraculously, they were defeated at the Battle of Lepanto by the combined Christian fleets under the command of Grand Admiral Don John of Austria, the illegitimate son of the Roman Emperor, Charles V.

To these were added the prayers of Christendom since the pope, St Pius V, had ordered a Christendom-wide Rosary prayer campaign for victory.

Moreover, a copy of the miraculous image of our Lady of Guadalupe sat in the cabin of Don John throughout the battle. The victory of Lepanto was commemorated by a new Feast, that of our Lady of Victory (or Victories) which was later made universal and later still re-named the Feast of our Lady of the Rosary.

In 1716, Clement XI inscribed the Feast of our Lady of the Holy Rosaryon the universal calendar in gratitude for the victory gained by Prince Eugene of Savoy, commander of the Imperial forces of the Habsburg Roman Emperor, on 5 August at Peterwardein in Vojvodina, in Serbia.

Later, however, on 11 September 1683 – 9/11 no less – came the Battle of Vienna of 1683, when King Jan (John) III Sobieski of Poland-Lithuania, also accompanied by Christendom-wide praying of the Rosary, delivered Vienna and Christendom once again from the Muslim Ottoman Turks and protected the Holy Roman Empire of Emperor Leopold I from imminent destruction.

His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I
The Holy Roman Empire, under this Habsburg emperor, was the main bastion of defence against the Turkish invasion which aimed to subdue the whole of Christendom. The Emperor had to face, also, revolts and rebellions from anti-Catholic, anti-Imperial, treacherous, Protestant nationalists within his empire, whilst also trying to defend Europe from the Turkish invasion. 

 

After the victory of Sobieski over the Turks, Blessed Pope Innocent XI, extended the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the whole Church to be celebrated on 12 September in memory of the deliverance of Christendom. The feast was extended to the universal Church and assigned to the Sunday after the Nativity of Mary by a Decree of 25 November 1683, or, if that was not possible, then it had to be kept on 12 September.

12 September had also been the day of the Battle of Muret 1213, when Count Simon de Montfort (father of the founder of the English parliament) and 700 knights had defeated the Albigensian army of some 50,000, whilst St Dominic and his friars were praying the Rosary in the church of Muret.

But 9/11 was the day that the battles began in each case.

The Battle of Vienna took place on 11 September and 12 September 12, 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle broke the advance of the Ottoman Empire into Europe, and marked the political hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty and the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Muslim Empire.The battle was won by Polish-Austrian-German forces led by King Jan III Sobieski against the Ottoman Empire army commanded by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha.

King Jan III Sobieski of Poland-Lithuania
His arrival at the Battle of Vienna with a huge Polish army turned the tide and, leading his Polish lancer-hussars, the Husaria, in a massive charge down the Kahlenberg mountain, together with Imperial cavalry, he utterly routed the Turkish army who fled believing they had been attacked by an "army of Djinns"!

 

The siege itself began on 14 July 1683 with an the Ottoman Empire army of approximately 138,000 men. The decisive battle took place on 12 September, after the united relief army of 70,000 men had arrived, pitted against the Ottoman army.

The battle marked the turning point in the 300-year struggle between Roman Christendom and the Ottoman Empire.
 

The siege before the Battle of Vienna (1683)

The capture of the city of Vienna had long been a strategic aspiration of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire had even been providing military assistance to dissident Hungarians and to anti-Catholic minorities in Habsburg-occupied portions of Hungary. There, in the years preceding the siege, Ottoman-fomented unrest had become open rebellion upon Leopold I's pursuit of Catholic Counter-Reformation principles.
 

King Jan Sobieski salutes the Roman Emperor Leopold I

In 1681, Protestants and other anti-Habsburg forces, led by Imre Thököly, were reinforced with a significant force from the Ottoman Muslims, who recognized Imre as King of "Upper Hungary". This support went so far as explicitly promising the "Kingdom of Vienna" to the disloyal and treacherous Hungarians, if it fell into Ottoman hands.

In 1681 and 1682, clashes between the forces of Imre Thököly and the Habsburgs' military frontier forces intensified, which was used as a casus belli by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha in convincing the Sultan Mehmet IV and his Divan, to allow the movement of the Ottoman Army. Mehmet IV authorized Kara Mustafa Pasha to operate as far as Győr and Komarom castles, both in northwestern Hungary, and to besiege them. The Ottoman Army was mobilized on 21 January 1682, and war was declared on 6 August 1682.
 



Sultan Mehmet IV
whose Turkish army invaded Europe, murdering, raping, maiming and enslaving wherever it went, he ordered the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, to stand outside his palace and surrender and be decapitated.

 

 The wording of this declaration left no room for doubt what would be in store after a Turkish success.

Mehmet IV wrote to Leopold I thus, verbatim:

"We order You to await Us in Your residence city of Vienna so that We can decapitate you... (...) We will exterminate You and all Your followers... (...) Children and adults will be equally exposed to the most atrocious tortures before being finished off in the most ignominious way imaginable..."

During the winter, the Habsburgs and Poland concluded a treaty in which Leopold would support Sobieski if the Turks attacked Kraków; in return, the Polish Army would come to the relief of Vienna, if attacked.

The King of Poland prepared a relief expedition to Vienna during the summer of 1683, honouring his obligations to the treaty. He went so far as to leave his own nation virtually undefended when departing from Kraków on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady.

Sobieski covered this with a stern warning to Imre Thököly, the rebellious Hungarian Protestant leader, whom he threatened with severity if he tried to take advantage of the situation — which, nevertheless, the treacherous Thököly did.

Imre Thököly
the treacherous Hungarian Protestant leader and rebel against his lawful Emperor,
who sided with the invading Turks against Christendom, just for the sake of his petty ambitions and those of short-sighted Hungarian Protestant nationalists.

The main Turkish army finally invested Vienna on 14 July.

Count Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, leader of the remaining 11,000 troops and 5,000 citizens and volunteers, refused to capitulate.

 

Count Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg,
commander of the Vienna garrison, loyal soldier of the Holy Empire and faithful son of the Church.

The Turks dug tunnels under the massive city walls to blow them up with explosives, using sapping mines.

The Ottoman siege cut virtually every means of food supply into Vienna, and the garrison and civilian volunteers suffered extreme casualties. Fatigue became such a problem that Count von Starhemberg ordered any soldier found asleep on watch to be shot.

Increasingly desperate, the forces holding Vienna were on their last legs when in August, Imperial forces under Charles, Duke of Lorraine, beat Imre Thököly, the treacherous and disloyal Protestant leader who sided with the Turks, at Bisamberg, 5km northeast of Vienna.

On 6 September, the Poles crossed the Danube 30km north west of Vienna at Tulln, to unite with the Imperial forces and additional troops from Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, Franconia and Swabia who had answered the call for a Holy League that was supported by Pope Innocent XI.

Blessed Pope Innocent XI
who extended the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the universal Church
after the successful defence of Vienna and Europe from the Turkish invasion.

The devious King Louis XIV of France declined to help and instead used the opportunity to attack cities in Alsace and other parts of southern Germany. Anyone who thinks Louis XIV a good Catholic king really needs to think again. He might just as well have been a Protestant considering how he always betrayed his fellow Catholics.

During early September, the experienced 5,000 Turkish sappers repeatedly blew up large portions of the walls, the Burg bastion, the Löbel bastion and the Burg ravelin in between, creating gaps of about 12m in width. The Austrians tried to counter by digging their own tunnels, to intercept the depositing of large amounts of gunpowder in subterranean caverns. The Turks finally managed to occupy the Burg ravelin and the Nieder wall in that area on 8 September. Anticipating a breach in the city walls, the remaining Austrians prepared to fight in Vienna itself.

The relief army had to act quickly to save the city from the Turks and to prevent another long siege in case they would take it. Despite the international composition of the Army and the short time of only six days in which to organise, an effective leadership structure was established. This was largely the work of the extraordinary and holy Austrian Imperial Chaplain-General, Blessed Marco d'Aviano, Emperor Leopold's privy counsellor.
 

Blessed Marco d'Aviano, OFMCap, Imperial Chaplain-General,
the saintly spiritual leader of this defensive Crusade against the invading Turkish marauders.

The Holy League forces arrived on the Kahlenberg (bare hill) above Vienna, signalling their arrival with bonfires. In the early morning hours of 12 September 1683, before the battle, King Jan personally served a Solemn High Mass.

While the Turks hastily finished their mining work and sealed the tunnel to make the explosion more effective, the Austrian "moles" detected the cavern in the afternoon and one brave man entered and defused the mines just in time.

At the same time, the Polish infantry had launched a massive assault upon the Turkish right flank.

After 12 hours of fighting, Sobieski's Polish force held the high ground on the right. At about 5pm, after watching the ongoing infantry battle from the hills for the whole day, four cavalry groups, one of them Imperial Austrian cavalry, and the other three Polish cavalry, totalling 20,000 men, charged down the hills - the largest cavalry charge in history.
 

The attack was led by the Polish king himself in front of a spearhead of 3000 heavily wing-armoured Polish lancer-hussars. This charge thoroughly broke the lines of the Ottoman troops. Seizing the initiative, Starhemberg led the Vienna garrison in sallying out of its defences to join the assault.

 

 

Husaria!

The massive charge of the Polish winged lancer-hussars which terrified the Ottoman troops and decided the Battle of Vienna. The wings made a terrifying sound as the Polish hussars came charging down the mountainside.

In less than 3 hours after this massive cavalry attack, the Christian Imperial forces had won the battle, saved Vienna from capture and Europe from conquest, and had rescued Christendom from the invading and marauding Turks.

The terrified Turks considered that they had been attacked by "an army of Djinns" or spirits!

One may recall the decisive charge of the Rohirrim from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, to get a flavour of what it must have been like, King Jan III Sobieski leading his Polish hussars just as King Theoden led his Riders of Rohan.

After the battle, Sobieski paraphrased Julius Caesar's famous quote by saying "venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit" - "We came, we saw, God conquered".

The Battle of Vienna, September 1683

The Turks lost about 15,000 men in the fighting, compared to approximately 4,000 for the Habsburg-Polish forces.

Though routed and in full retreat, the Turkish troops had found time to slaughter all their Austrian prisoners, with the exception of those few of the nobility whom they took with them for ransoming.

King Jan vividly described events in a letter to his wife a few days after the battle:

“Ours are treasures unheard of ... tents, sheep, cattle and no small number of camels ... it is victory as nobody ever knew of, the enemy now completely ruined, everything lost for them. They must run for their sheer lives ... Commander Starhemberg hugged and kissed me and called me his saviour.”

The victory at Vienna set the stage for Prince Eugene of Savoy's reconquest of Hungary and the Balkans within the following years.

Long before that, the Turkish Sultan had disposed of his defeated commander. On 25 December 1683, Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed in Belgrade by being throttled with a silken rope by the Sultan's Janissaries, his elite military force consisting of captured Christian children, enslaved and brought up Muslim.

However, it was the end for the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans fought on for another 16 years but lost control of Hungary and Transylvania and capitulated finally by the Treaty of Karlowitz.

Christendom was once again safe.

Because Sobieski had entrusted his kingdom to the protection of the our Lady of Czestochowa before the battle, Blessed Pope Innocent XI commemorated his victory by extending the feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the universal Church.
 

Croissants signify the Turkish crescent being defeated (by being eaten!)

The Battle of Vienna was marked by culinary inventions:

1. The croissant was invented in Vienna to celebrate the defeat as a reference to the crescents on the Turkish flags.

2. The bagel was made as a gift to King Jan Sobieski to commemorate the victory, being fashioned in the form of a stirrup, to commemorate the victorious charge by the Polish cavalry.
 

The Bagel, symbolising the Polish stirrup

3. After the battle, the Austrians discovered many bags of coffee in the abandoned Turkish encampment. Using this captured stock, Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki opened the third coffee house in Europe and the first in Vienna, where, Kulczycki adding milk and honey to sweeten the bitter coffee, thereby invented the cappuccino, so named after Blessed Marco because of the Capuchin’s brown hood.

The Capuccino or "Capuchin",
named after Bl Marco d'Aviano, Imperial Chaplain-General, because of the brown hood he wore as a Capuchin friar (the Italian for Capuchin is "cappuccino")

Our Lady of Czestochowa, pray for us!
Blessed Pope Innocent XI, pray for us!
Blessed Marco d'Aviano, pray for us!
Holy Name of Mary, protect us!

...

Feast of St Peter and St Paul - 29 June

 

St Peter and St Paul, pray for us!

 

Peter Paul Rubens. St Peter and St Paul.

 

St John's Day - 24 June - Feast of the Baptist and of the Sovereign and Military Order of St John of Jerusalem (Order of Malta)

 

St John the Baptist, pray for us!

 

 

Leonardo da Vinci. St John the Baptist.

His Most Eminent Highness, the Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra' Matthew Festing

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The great Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is of ancient origin.

Some - particularly Jansenists and particular types of Protestants - claim that this devotion is a novelty.

It is certainly not novel.

Indeed, the Fathers of the Church already had a devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus as can readily be seen from their writings.

However, by the time of the eleventh and twelfth centuries a special devotion to the Sacred Heart was being developed and cultivated. It was taken up particularly by St Bruno and the Carthusians.

The Cistercians also were much devoted to the heart of Jesus, particularly St Bernard himself.

St Gertrude the Great and St Mechtilde were also great promoters of the devotion as also the learned the author of the "Vitis mystica", thought to be St Bonaventure.

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the devotion was everywhere practised by individuals and by different religious congregations, such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans.

It was established as a devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises, found in the writings of Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, Louis of Blois (Blosius, 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut, John of Avila (d. 1569) and St Francis de Sales, the latter belonging to the seventeenth century.

It was also the symbol (see inset above) of the Grand Catholic and Royal Army of Catholic France against the diabolical forces of the French Revolution that sought to destroy all religion, truth, honesty, justice and true freedom in France.

St Gertrude the Great, Visionary-Apostle of the Sacred Heart

The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the habit formed by the Jesuits of placing the image on their title-page of their books and the walls of their churches.

The Jesuits subsequently became the great defenders of the devotion to the Sacred Heart and were opposed by the mean-minded, narrow, puritanical but revolutionary Jansenists who mockingly called the devotees of the Sacred Heart by the name of Cordicoles or heart-worshippers.

Jansenists, like Bishop Scipione de' Ricci of Pistoia-Prato in Tuscany, later openly embraced the principles of the French Revolution whilst those Catholics who fought against the Revolution frequently adopted the Sacred Heart as their symbol.

The heresiarch Jansenist, Bishop Scipione de' Ricci, the Bishop of Pistoia-Prato

Ricci worked in conjunction with Prince Kaunitz, the Freemasonic Chancellor of State (Prime Minister) of the Holy Roman Empire, who had consolidated himself in the government of the Empire under Empress Maria Theresa, and later under the liberal Modernist heterodox Catholic, Emperor Joseph II.

Joseph's younger brother, Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany, later himself Emperor for 2 years, was also a willing aider and abetter of Ricci's schemes.
 

Consider the disaster that it was for the Catholic Church, for European civilisation and for the whole world that the Christian Roman Emperor, he who had the most solemn duty to defend the Church and the Papacy and to defend and extend the bounds of Christendom, should have become, himself, a hypocrite, a liar, an heterodox deceiver and destroyer of the Church of Jesus Christ which he was pledged, upon a solemn oath, to defend and who derived all his power and privileges from that same duty.
 

It was the beginning of modern politics - power without responsibility, privilege without duty, desiring the the goods of this world whilst depriving others of them.
 

In short, the very Emperor himself had become the servant of Satan and had paved the ideological way for the devilish totalitarianism that was to come 2 centuries later.
 

Ricci held a famous Synod at Pistoia in which, with the support of the Grand Duke, he tried to impose, experimentally, an early form of liberal Modernist Catholicism upon people and clergy in his diocese.
 

But - the people rose up, locked his Synod members in the Seminary and would not let them out until they had rescinded all the Modernist decrees, even taking off roof-tiles to get them to hurry the rescissions!

Few foresaw that the foolish experiments of the Jansenists and liberal Modernists would lead to them, the Empire and the Grand Duchy being altogether swept away by the tide of revolutionary hatred and violence.

Some Jansenists, after the Terror, returned to the Faith but by then the damage was done.

Ricci did not return until 1805, after he had seen the arrest of Pope Pius VII by Napoleon Bonaparte who compelled him to come to Paris and there to preside at the coronation of the destroyer of Christendom. It finally dawned on Ricci that his experiments had not had a good result.

 

Heterodox Habsburg: HI&RH Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany was that rare thing, an heterodox Habsburg. He supported Ricci's ill-fated schemes and so prepared the way for his own family's later fall.
 

The faithless disloyalty of these Jansenists, Febronianists, Gallicanists and other liberal Catholics who had lapsed from the Faith, wrought appalling damage to Christendom and eventually led to the complete overthrow of Christendom.

Conversely, the Sacred Heart symbol became one of the great symbols of the defence of the Faith during the French revolutionary period and was used by the many Catholics who rose up against the usurping secularists and revolutionaries, not least in the Vendée region of Western France.

The enemies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus had become, wittingly or not, the prime tools of Satan. That is their legacy - fittingly so, since it is Satan who is primarily opposed to the love of God which is so much a part of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

 

St John Eudes, Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

St John Eudes (1602-1680) publicly and enthusiastically promoted the devotion and gave it an Office and established a feast for it. St John Eudes was also the apostle of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

On 31 August 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated in the Grand Seminary of Rennes in Brittany. Coutances followed suit on 20 October, a day with which the Eudist feast was from then on to be connected.

The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. It gradually came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray-le-monial resulting in a fusion of the two.

Our Lord shows His Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary Alacoque

Eventually the devotion was hallowed by private revelation with the now famous revelations to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in the Visitation convent in Paray-le-monial.

Thereafter the devotion was taken by her confessor and spiritual director, St Claude de la Colombiere SJ, to England where, as chaplain to the English Queen, Mary of Modena, he was able to promote the devotion.

St Claude de la Colombiere SJ, confessor of both St Margaret Mary Alacoque and HRH Queen Mary of England, wife of King James II and VII. He was a great promoter of the Sacred Heart devotion.
 

In 1676 he had been sent to England as preacher to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, afterwards Queen and wife to King James II and VII, the true Stuart monarch of England, Scotland, Ireland and France.
It is fitting that Mary came from Modena which is not far north of that later centre of Jansenism, Pistoia.

St Claude lived the life of a Religious even in the Court of St. James and was as active a missionary in England as he had been in France. Although encountering many difficulties, he was able to guide Saint Margaret Mary by letter.

HRH Princess Mary of Modena-Este, Duchess of York as wife to the future King James II and VII and thus, later, Queen of England. Her confessor was St Claude de la Colombiere SJ whom she helped to spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in England

Now the Feast is a great one and has an Octave. An external solemnity is also permitted to be celebrated on the Sunday during the Octave.

St Longinus,
the Roman soldier who opened the side of our Lord with a spear but later converted to Christianity - his statue is in St Peter's Basilica

"Unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua".

"One of the soldiers with a spear opened His side and immediately there came out blood and water".

[John, 19:34. Communio, Feast of the Sacred Heart]