German Shepherd Among Wolves

Our Holy Father is surrounded by enemies. More HERE. Share

Suicide of the Christian West

Scott Richert discusses how the contraceptive mentality will destroy us all. Share

Septuagesima Sunday

It is Septuagesima Sunday, according to the traditional calendar. The season of Septuagesima is a time to start thinking about Lent; the "seventy" days until Easter are symbolic, among other things, of the seventy years of the Israelites' Babylonian captivity.

According to Dom Gueranger in The Liturgical Year, Vol. IV: "We are sojourners upon this earth: we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country, we long to return to it...."

Fr. Mark Kirby expresses it thus:

The seventy-day period that begins with Septuagesima recalls the seventy-year exile of the children of Israel in Babylon. Seventy is the perfect number, signifying that God has fixed for us a delay of mercy to pass from the anguish of sinful Babylon to the beatitude of Jerusalem. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps 136:4). We do well to recall Pope John Paul II’s assertion that, “the power that imposes a limit on evil is Divine Mercy.” The seventy days before Pascha signify this, and so become a season of hope for all who sit and weep by the waters of Babylon (cf. Ps 136:1).

At the same time, the history of the world is divided into seven ages. The first is from the creation of the world to the flood; the second, from the renewal after the flood to the call of Abraham; the third from the covenant with Abraham to the call of Moses; the fourth from Moses to King David; the fifth from the reign of David to the Babylonian exile; and the sixth from return from captivity to the birth of Christ. With the birth of Our Lord comes the seventh age: the appearance of the Sun of Justice who rises over the world “with healing in his wings” (Mal 4:2). This seventh age of “these last days” (Heb 1:2) stretches until Christ’s second coming as Judge of the living and the dead. The seven weeks before Pascha are a review of salvation history.

In the traditional Roman Rite Septuagesima Sunday is marked by putting away the Alleluia; the Gloria is omitted and, already, violet vestments are used in preparation for Lent. Sound psychology and practical pastoral wisdom indicate the need for a kind of countdown before Ash Wednesday. Otherwise Lent arrives all of a sudden, finding us flustered and frightfully ill prepared.

We are far away but drawing ever nearer; let us encourage our fellow travelers, and keep on going. In a little while it will be eternity.

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Saint Josephine Bakhita

Today is the memorial of Saint Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947). She was kidnapped as a child from her home in Sudan by slave-traders and sold to various families. She suffered unspeakable abuse and torture. Finally, a Catholic family "bought" her and she was able to make it to Italy where she became a Christian and a nun. She was remarkable for many things, especially for her spirit of forgiveness and lack of bitterness. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Don Marco has a beautiful meditation with rare photos of this saint to offer us today. Share

Tea Etiquette

Lucy introduced me to one of the most charming blogs in the world, Etiquette with Miss Janice. Miss Janice gives detailed instruction on the do's and don'ts of tea-time deportment, HERE, many of which apply not only to tea parties but to every meal. She also explains place-settings and how to arrange the glasses and utensils. There are some rules we all occasionally need to be reminded of.

There is also a post in which Miss Janice describes the proper way to arrange a tea table. She explains different ways of doing things. I usually brew the tea directly in the pot when having several guests, although I know that others like to pass out tea bags, which works especially if you have a samovar. A silver service is perfect for entertaining a large group; a smaller china tea set is better for a gathering of only a few friends. Nothing is homier than an earthenware or ceramic tea pot for everyday. There are some lovely tea sets available at our Tea Room, along with everything and anything else needed for a pleasant and delicious event. Share

Hitchcock's San Francisco

Takuan Seiyo discusses the San Francisco portrayed by Hitchcock in his films and how the old town has changed.
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Gifts

St. Valentine's Day is one week away. Please consider patronizing our sponsors for romantic gifts of jewelry, fragrances or flowers.

The most romantic gifts, of course, are free. Here is Sonnet 43 from Elizabeth Barret Browning's Sonnets of the Portuguese:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

(Artwork: "A King and A Beggar Maid" by Edmund Blair Leighton)
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Reflections on Burke

Our friend Eric Hester found an excellent article by Gertrude Himmelfarb called "Reflections on Burke's Reflections" from The New Criterion. It is worth a careful reading. To quote a portion of it:

Edmund Burke was, and still is, a provocative thinker—a provocation in his own day, as in ours. At a time when most right-minded (which is to say, left-inclined) English literati were rhapsodizing over the French Revolution—Wordsworth declaring what “bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”—Burke wrote his Reflections on the Revolution in France, a searing indictment of the Revolution. He was accused then, as he often is now, of being excessive, even hysterical, in his account of the Revolution:

a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices, … laws overturned, tribunals subverted, industry without vigor, commerce expiring … a church pillaged … civil and military anarchy … national bankruptcy.

All this, one must remember (it is sometimes hard to remember), was said in November 1790, three years before the Reign of Terror, which Burke was so presciently describing.

While others were witnessing what they took to be a natural and much needed political revolution, the transformation of an absolute monarchy into a limited monarchy, Burke saw nothing less than a total revolution—a social, religious, and economic revolution as well as a political revolution. And beyond that, a cultural revolution, “a revolution,” he said, “in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions.” This was well before the momentous events: the abolition of the monarchy and establishment of the republic; the execution of the king and queen; the declaration of war against much of Europe (and England); the confiscation of the property of dissidents and emigrés; the imprisonment, expulsion, and assassination of more moderate (and not so moderate) revolutionaries; and, finally, the establishment of the Reign of Terror. Three years before Robespierre came to power, Burke took the measure of the man and his regime.

Justifying perfidy and murder for public benefit, public benefit would soon become the pretext, and perfidy and murder the end; until rapacity, malice, revenge, and fear more dreadful than revenge could satiate their insatiable appetites.

This was the Revolution Burke described—or, rather, predicted—in his Reflections on the Revolution in France—an extraordinary feat of political imagination. Burke’s critics have never forgiven him for that “premature” account of the Revolution, for recognizing the seeds of the Terror so early and so dramatically. Nor can they forgive him for revealing the flawed philosophy and the temper of mind that had inspired the Revolution and had made it so total. In this sense, the Reflections was even more provocative than it seems on the surface, for it was an indictment not only of the French Revolution but of the French Enlightenment, which was even more revolutionary, aspiring to create nothing less than an “age of reason.” This is why so much of the Reflections went well beyond the Revolution itself, reflecting upon the nature of man, society, politics, religion, and much else—reflections, I may add, that are as provocative and challenging to conservatives as to liberals.

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The Return of Madame Royale, April 1814

She had spent the entire voyage across the channel on deck, breathlessly awaiting her first glimpse of France in almost twenty years....The sound of English cannon had barely faded when they began to hear an echoing roar on the French shore. The closer the coast of her homeland came to her, the more the rush of tears seized Thérèse. The moment had come at last. There she was, in a high-crowned, beplumed hat, and tailored white dress with a shoulder cape, at her uncle's side on the ship's bridge, looking at the throng who had come to greet them. They were her own people, for whom she felt an overwhelming maternal love that would risk anything for their benefit.

The moment of disembarkation had arrived. With the King leaning upon her arm, they went forth from the ship, to be met by the local clergy and worthies of Calais....The first to bend the knee was an old priest, who had once been exiled for refusing the constitutional oath....

~ from Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal, Chapter Nine: "The Return"

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