I have loved you to the end
I wish you all a very blessed Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! The picture above shows the front and back of a medal from the Vendée counterrevolution. Here is what a French commentator writes on it:
Right from the start of the Revolution, two years before the military uprising, when religious objects were no longer being manufactured anywhere or sold in broad daylight, lead medals were being smuggled into the Vendée, bearing on the front the Heart of Jesus, with the inscription: Ego dilexi vos in finem, I have loved you to the end, and the date: 1791; on the back, the Heart of Mary with words alluding to the Stabat Mater: Doloris pertransivit gladius, the sword of sorrow pierced [her heart].
“The day after the Octave…”
My article this week at NLM talks about an important detail in the Lord’s request, made to St Margaret Mary, for a new feast in the Church. He specifically requests that it be instituted “after the Octave of Corpus Christi.” Moreover, he specifically asked that the feast be for reparation.
Is it not disturbing to think of liturgical reformers under Pius XII simply chucking out this Octave of Corpus Christi, which had endured from the time of its widespread observance in the 14th century until 1955, at which time all octaves were abolished except those of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost? And then, to think of Paul VI steering the feast decisively away from reparation, which was its original God-given purpose? One wonders if some of the modern Vicars of Christ care to pay any attention to the desires of the One of whom they are vicars.
The NLM article may be found here.
A visit to the Mother Church of the Acadians
This past week saw a fruitful visit to the catechists of the diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, to whom I gave two talks, and then to the town of St Martinville in Lousiana, home to the Mother Church of the Acadians, St Martin de Tours. I’ll share a couple of galleries of pictures of a town and parish saturated with American Catholic history.
Thursday evening we sang First Vespers for the Sacred Heart and then proceeded to the gym for a talk. The parish received me warmly. After the Q&A many of us stayed up talking at the rectory over drinks. Louisiana hospitality at its finest. Fr Jason Vidrine is a wonderful host and an exemplary priest for his flock. Thanks be to God for this visit!
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How the Bible and the Liturgy Illuminate Christian Marriage
This lecture was given in Fresno, CA on May 27, 2024.
“God offers mankind a great romance that plays out on all levels of His creation: the first man and woman were given to each other with the promise of a fecund love, flourishing with children and the increase of all of the created world, all of which is His; and yet He allows it to be given back to Him. To rescue His wayward Bride, He offered the sacrifice of the Lover of Man, Jesus, on the Cross. To participate in this sacrifice, each of us, man and woman, must be receptive like the Blessed Virgin Mary. All creation is hurrying toward the final marriage of heaven and earth spoken of in Revelation” (Leila Marie Lawler).
The purpose of my lecture is to unpack this marvelous message of revelation and to show how the traditional Roman liturgy embodies it, expresses it, and habituates us to it.
This video includes the Q&A with the audience.
Due Obedience & Peter’s Successor
On April 12, I spoke to the Catholic Citizens of Illinois.
Since even before Our Lord was amongst us, there has been a difficult tension between what “the law” proscribes and how we, as faithful believers, are expected to conduct ourselves. Thus, at Matthew 23:1-5, Jesus instructs: “The scribes and the Pharisees [sit] on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not… And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes.”
As faithful believers, we try to observe and to do what the one who sits on the chair of Peter says. Yet we also must contend with our own “scribes and pharisees.” As in Jesus’ time, these authorities do not always agree among themselves or with their predecessors, or even with the Word of God (as Jesus also pointed out more than once). How can we, as faithful laity, sort out what we are to “observe,” and what we need not or indeed must not observe, given our Lord’s admonition?
This video, too, includes the Q&A with the audience.
Ways to support my work
Sometimes friends & readers out there will ask how they can show their concrete support for my work, or express their gratitude for some help I've given them.
First way: Say a prayer for me (please!—I mean it).
Second way: Take out a paid subscription to Tradition & Sanity (if you haven’t already done so):
Third way: Purchase signed copies of my books, which you can get via the Os Justi Press website.
Fourth way: Put some change in my “change jar”—whether as a one-off, or as a recurring donation:
Fifth way: Invite me to come and speak at an event in your locale.
In the Memento of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I lift up to God all who work together for the protection, propagation, and restoration of our great Catholic Tradition. What a joy and a privilege to be alive at this time, and to be fellow soldiers on this campaign!
Have there been any reproduction medals made of that Vendee medal? The more I learn about them, the more edified I am, and have started to think of them as a sort of "patron group" of mine, along with the peasants of the Prayer Book Rebellion, the Cristeros, and those who fought the communists in Spain.
Random question here: do you know the history of how women came to be allowed in choirs? I have read that before scholas were only composed of men and boys. What is your opinion on this, Dr. Kwasniewski?