The Little Cook

Here is a fascinating Spanish statue of the Christ Child and the story behind it:

One of my favorites is this Niño Cocinero, from a cloistered convent in Madrid. The original figure is a rather non-descript 18^th century polychromed wooden statue of a naked Child. The figure was probably kept in the monastery kitchen, since Spanish monasteries had an abundance of Niños. Unknown kitchen nuns of some 200 years ago dressed the figure in the clothing of their oficio, that is, their trade, and even gave him a platter of roasted chicken to carry! But this reflected what St Teresa of Avila said, "también entre los pucheros anda el Señor," that is, the Lord is also to be found among the pots and pans, in the midst of our daily duties and not only in church.

Thanks to Terry Nelson for the link. More on devotion to the Child Jesus HERE. Share

Ridiculous

It is unbelievable that such nonsense would find its way into print. It is a little scary to know that people can be so stupid. Fr. Philip's commentary is priceless. More HERE. Share

The Immaculate Conception and the Popes

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus solemnly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Here are the majestic words of the Vicar of Christ which echoed throughout the galleries and domes of St. Peter's in Rome:

...By the authority of Jesus Christ Our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: We declare, pronounce, and define that the...most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her Conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

The Holy Father explained the consequences of rejecting the dogma in very strong terms.

...If anyone shall dare- God forbid- to think otherwise...let him know that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he is separated from the unity of the Church....

The pontiff hoped that the declaration of the dogma would bring many blessings to the Church, which in the mid-19th century was already beleaguered by modernism.

We have complete confidence that this most Blessed Virgin will ensure by her powerful patronage that all errors will be dissipated...Under her guidance...nothing is to be feared, nothing is hopeless.

Although the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been believed and taught since apostolic times, at least implicitly, it was during the turbulent modern era that Pope Pius IX saw the necessity of declaring it a matter of faith. Why? Fifty years later, Pope St. Pius X in his encyclical Ad Diem Laetissimum (1904) explains that belief in the Immaculate Conception is a remedy for the ills which flow from modernist, secular thinking.

What in fact is the starting point of the enemies of religion in spreading great and grievous errors by which the faith of so many is shaken? They begin by denying that man has fallen by sin...they regard as mere fables original sin and the evils that are its consequence.

St. Pius affirmed that belief in the Immaculate Conception will restore belief in original sin and in the need for Christ and His Church in order to be saved. "Thus Rationalism and Materialism will be torn up by the roots and destroyed...." He goes on to speak of the disobedience to authority, so prevalent in modern times, which leads to anarchy.

Now the evil which is equally fatal to society at large and to Christianity is dispelled by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by which we are impelled to recognize in the Church that power to which not only must the will be subject but also the mind.

The holiness of God demanded that His Mother be conceived without original sin. That this honor would be conferred upon a member of our race was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Pope St. Pius mentions several prophetic incidents:

Adam, the father of mankind looked to Mary crushing the serpent's head...; Noe thought of her when shut up in the ark of saftey...; Moses was amazed at the sight of the bush which burned but was not consumed...; Elias as he looked at the little cloud that rose out of the sea.

Carmelite tradition has also long asserted that Elias had a prophetic glimpse of the Immaculate Virgin in the cloud from the sea. It is one reason why Carmelites long defended the belief in the Immaculate Conception. She who was hailed "full of grace" by the angel Gabriel experienced that fullness from the first moment of her existence. The evil one never had any part of her. How powerful is her prayer with God! As Pius IX concluded in Ineffabilis Deus: "What she asks, she obtains. Her pleas never can be unheard."

(All quotations from Papal Teachings: Our Lady. Monks of Solemnes, St. Paul Editions, 1961)

(Artwork: "The Immaculate Conception" by Velasquez) Share

Death of Madame du Barry

Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry, the notorious mistress of Louis XV, was guillotined on December 8, 1793. Madame du Barry was the successor of Madame de Pompadour in Louis XV's affections. At the court of Versailles she belonged to the party opposing the Choiseul-Pompadour clique which had arranged the marriage of the Dauphin Louis-Auguste to Marie-Antoinette of Lorraine-Austria. Madame du Barry was allied with the royal family, who were against the Austrian marriage. The daughters of Louis XV, although she was more or less on their side, would have disliked anyone who shared their father's bed, on moral grounds. It was they who encouraged the teenage Marie-Antoinette not to speak to Madame du Barry. The young princess shunned the courtesan, causing a diplomatic crisis. The aunts were not always prudent in the guidance of their nephew's bride, whom they ultimately damaged through their own pettiness and gossip.

Much has been made of Marie-Antoinette's refusal to speak to the royal mistress, but it was the kind of power play that happened in courts all over Europe. I sometimes wonder that if Marie-Antoinette had lived to be an old lady and had died peacefully in her bed, if anyone in posterity would have given the incident between her and Madame du Barry a second thought. Because Marie-Antoinette died stripped of all human dignity, after being destroyed in practically every way a woman can be destroyed, with her reputation in shreds, people are always looking for reasons that led to such a dreadful fate. Hence the focus on the early rift with Du Barry, which but for the debacles that followed, would have been forgotten.

It is said that Madame du Barry became hysterical on her way to execution, begging them not to hurt her. Her last words to the executioner: "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment." ("One moment more, executioner, one little moment.") Unfortunately for her, the moment had passed.

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The American Myth

Here is the latest from cousin John Laughland.

We can see this in the way Americans often refer to their state as “young”. In reality, the American state is no younger than other states which never refer to themselves in the same way, Australia or Canada for instance. The reason for the difference is that Americans believe their country represents and new and different kind of society, created ex nihilo by the “Founding Fathers” on the basis of rational principles. According to the dream, those principles live on today, and continue to form the basis for the continuing existence of the American state as the result of a kind of necessity rather than historical contingency. The American dream is, in this sense, a sort of semi-religious “covenant” which never ages because it is constantly renewed by the adherence of each individual American to the social contract.

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Vigil of the Immaculate Conception

Here is an excerpt from the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception:

Holy Mary, Mother of God, I firmly believe in thy Immaculate Conception. I bless God for having granted thee this glorious privilege. I thank Him a thousand times for having taught it to me by the infallible voice of the Church. Receive my heart, O Immaculate Virgin; I give it to thee without reserve; purify it; guard it; never give it back to me, preserve it in thy love and in the love of Jesus during time and eternity. AMEN.

V. Thy name, O Mary, is as oil poured out.
R. Thy servants have loved thee exceedingly.

Let us pray.
O God, Who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, did prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son: we beseech Thee, that as in view of the death of that Son, Thou didst preserve her from all stain of sin, so Thou wouldst enable us, being made pure by her intercession, to come unto Thee. Through the same Christ Our Lord. AMEN.

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Decorating with Berries

Some advice and ideas HERE, via Peterman's Eye.

It's almost time to be on the lookout for berries to bring into the house. The standard option is holly, from which came the Christmas colour combination of red and green. It's the cheapest, most accessible and obvious choice, but why not be more creative? Bright red and deep, glossy green are a weighty, Victorian combination that can get gloomy. Let's break with tradition, and opt for something new with fresher, punchier berries.

Fresh herbs are delightful, too.

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How Green Was My Valley (1941)

There is no fence nor hedge round Time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember. So I can close my eyes on my Valley as it is today - and it is gone - and I see it as it was when I was a boy. Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the earth. In all Wales, there was none so beautiful. ~from How Green Was My Valley (1941)

St. Nicholas being the patron saint of miners, I thought it only appropriate to recall the John Ford masterpiece How Green Was My Valley. Based upon the novel by Richard Llewellyn, the film follows the travails of a Welsh coal mining family in the late Victorian era, as seen through the eyes of the boy Huw Morgan, played by Roddy McDowall. John Ford had the gift of making every shot into a work of art, using the contrasts of light and shadow, snow and coal dust, sunshine and smoke from the colliery, to tell the tale. As the wages are decreased, and the quality of life declines, the film grows darker.

In the beginning of the film the Morgan family live in thriving simplicity in one of the row houses provided for the miners. The table is laden with food, their basic material needs appear to be met as the father and brothers are able to provide adequately for the family by their labors in the "colliery." The Morgans enjoy the support of the close knit community, led by a rather utopian-minded young minister Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon.) Welsh songs punctuate the film, especially at weddings and other festivities. Life was plain and toilsome but there was magic to be found in the very ordinariness. However, as the industrial revolution churns along, and the greed of the mine owners grow, the wages decrease, there are strikes, the work becomes more laborious and dangerous than ever. The villagers become distrustful of each other; the Morgan family begins to break apart as the sons must leave the Valley to seek employment elsewhere.

The poignant romance between Angharad Morgan, Huw's sister, and Mr. Gruffydd the minister swirls at the center of the drama. Mr. Gruffydd rebuffs Angharad, heartrendingly portrayed by Maureen O'Hara, because he does not want her to have to share his impoverished lifestyle. She marries the mine owner's wealthy stuffed-shirt of a son; the stony expression on Angharad's face at her wedding bodes no good. When she returns to the Valley after being away for some years, the women of the village begin to circulate calumnies about her and Mr. Gruffydd. The fact that Angharad and her lost love have had absolutely no contact with each other does not keep the gossip from besmirching the good name of her entire family. Mr Gruffydd confronts his congregation, rebuking them for their hypocrisy in one of the most scathing film sermons of all time:

Why do you come here? Why do you dress your hypocrisy in black and parade before your God on Sunday? From love? No. For you have shown that your hearts are too withered to receive the love of your Divine Father. I know why you have come - I have seen it in your faces Sunday after Sunday as I've stood here before you. Fear has brought you here. Horrible, superstitious fear. Fear of divine retribution - a bolt of fire from the skies. The vengeance of the Lord and the justice of God. But you have forgotten the love of Jesus. You disregard His sacrifice. Death, fear, flames, horror and black clothes. Hold your meeting then, but know if you do this in the name of God and in the house of God, you blaspheme against Him and His Word.

After the mine explosion, when Mr. Gruffydd descends into the depths to search for the injured Mr. Morgan, his eyes meet Angharad's; their hands clasp for an instant before he disappears into the pit. Light pierces the clouds, as Mrs. Morgan sees her husband, killed in the accident, in the place of glory. It is then that young Huw, the narrator, says of his father: "Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then."

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St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker

Saint Nicholas of Myra, the "Wonder-worker," was in some ways the Padre Pio of the fourth century. If people of some distant century were to read of the extraordinary miracles of Saint Pio, they would surely think them to be legendary, except that so many of his healings are documented. Saint Nicholas did not have the advantage of modern medical science to affirm the healings worked by God through him, but he has the devotion of the Church of the East and the West, and has long been venerated as patron of children, mariners, prisoners, miners and brides. He is the patron saint of brides because he gave dowries to poor girls. As Catherine Delors remarks in her wonderful post about St. Nicholas:

Why was it considered so important then to give poor girls dowries? Simply because they were among the most vulnerable of the paupers, likely to sink into prostitution. Securing dowries for them was the best way of helping them avoid that grim fate.

So Nicholas became the patron saint of children, of mariners, of young people wishing to marry, of newlyweds, of prisoners (whether fairly or unjustly accused) and yes, of lawyers. The veneration for his memory was such that his bones were stolen by adventurous sailors from his original tomb in the Church of Myra in 1087 and brought to Bari, in Italy, where they rest to this day in the Basilica that bears his name. His popularity extends well beyond Italy, to Eastern France, to Brittany, to Germany, to the Netherlands, to Russia...

The picture above by Russian artist Ilya Repin shows St. Nicholas delivering an innocent man from execution.

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