Like all true patriots I was going to post memes of Harambe tonight, along with not so subtle references to the UK's NHS screening men for pregnancy, Two-Tier Kier locking people up for mean tweets, and the bizarre apotheosis of Kackling Kamala. Or "La," as she's now known on Joy to the World Leftist agitprop media like the View. Yes, that's what I was going to do, but we're in the Octave of the Assumption so here's something altogether more serious, a Lament:
In the wrackes of Walsingam
Whom should I chuse
But the Queene of Walsingam
To be guide to my muse?
Then, thou Prince of Walsingam
Graunt me to frame
Bitter plaintes to rewe thy wronge
Bitter wo for thy name.
Bitter was it, oh to see
The sely sheepe
Murdred by the raveninge wolves
While the sheepharde did sleep.
Bitter was it, oh, to viewe
The sacred vyne
Whiles the gardiners plaied all close
Rooted up by the swine.
Bitter, bitter oh to behoulde
The grasse to growe
Where the walles of Walsingam
So stately did shewe.
Such were the worth of Walsingam
While she did stand
Such are the wrackes as now do shewe
Of that so holy lande.
Levell, levell with the ground
The Towres doe lye
Which with their golden, glitt'ring tops
Pearsed oute to the skye.
Where weare gates noe gates are nowe,
The waies unknowen,
Where the presse of freares did passe
While her fame far was blowen.
Oules do scrike where the sweetest himnes
Lately wear songe,
Toades and serpents hold their dennes
Where the palmers did throng.
Weep, weep O Walsingam,
Whose dayes are nightes,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deedes to dispites.
Sinne is where our Ladye sate,
Heaven turned is to helle;
Sathan sitte where our Lord did swaye,
Walsingam, oh, farewell!
What pain in those lines. The purity and innocency of the Faith, exemplified by Our Lady; think Piers Plowman and Urban, the first Crusade, and the Lament itself, this had been trampled underfoot by evil men.
You see, what had happened was that a syphilitic despot needed money, he was short of cash, both for himself and to pay off and create an aristocracy loyal to him. Problem. Solution? Sack the church, not least the holy shrine of Walsingham, England's Nazareth, and rake in the loot. Which is exactly what he did, and make no mistake, there was plenty to loot, over half a millennium of continuous giving and associated endowments. Rich pickings.
So, well done, Henry, you got your Field of the Cloth of Gold and created a whole new class of millionaire who waxed fat off of Church lands and went on in the next generation to cut of Charles' head. Bad enough, to say nothing of the catastrophic effect on England's piety.
England's piety, consider that. A country which had been known as Mary's Dowry, the most Marian realm in Europe, became a place where even the Rosary was illegal. Imagine, a land whose people had the greatest devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, Theotokos, were banned from asking, publicly, for her intercession. As in, how dare you, traitor. Now we're going to draw out your entrails, and burn them as you hang. Traitor to the State.
Yes indeed, Sathan sitte where our Lord did swaye.
Fast forward. We're reaping the rewards of Henrician blasphemy now, Godless despotism and Satanic degeneracy masquerading as tolerance and love; endless deceit barely covering bestial profiteering, see Ukraine and everywhere else. But surely, LSP, you go too far, how can Walsingham's ruin count as our own?
In every way. One of the civilized, Catholic provinces of the Western Empire gave itself over to ruining the Church for profit, and from there to giving its weight to a Reformation which without her would've been still-born, a confusion of Eastern Germans. With her, it became a powerhouse as England expanded on her late Medieval genius and went on to rule the world.
Industrial Revolution, anyone? And with that, what Vigo Demant called "the greatest disaster ever to befall the world," (I remember him intoning the Angelus at the end of Mass at S. Mary Mag's, Oxford) exported her disbelief around the globe. And you will note that the same country whose Puritan army smashed the monasteries, convents, iconography, altars and windows of its churches, which banned devotion to the Mother of God, doesn't believe in Him anymore. The whole Reformation experiment, powered by the great Catholic Medieval Power, England, poisoned Christendom with disbelief and every kind of vice. And all, at root, for cash.
We're suffering from it here, when you think for half a second on it. Problem. Solution? Pray for the powerful intercession of the Immaculate, Ever Virgin Mother of God. Her seed, you'll recall, will crush the serpent's head.
END.
LSP
A top 10 LSP post, if I may say so.
ReplyDeleteBrothers and sisters, you may sometime meet a soul who has grown so weak, and sunk so low that he can't even reach out to the King for mercy. Remind him, prayerfully, that the Queen of Heaven can bridge the gap and help make anyone presentable to her Son. So one can take the first step toward forgiveness.
Yes, Anon, she is our Mother.
DeleteAnd thank you.
DeleteFunny, France herself started falling the minute that her people decided to get rid of Christianity. And then waffled back and forth over it for the next 200+ years. The atheistic peoples' movement of the Revolution did a lot of damage to the Church and churches, much like Scottish Levelers did to what remained of many of the great churches, monasteries and convents that managed to survive Feckless Henry and his merry band of thieves, whores and ne'er-do-wells.
ReplyDeletePoor Richard III, blamed for everything that Henry Tudor did. So glad Richard is slowly becoming not-an-evil person in the eyes of history.
Question, Beans. Do we find the seed of Protestantism in Phrygian Gnosticism? Monsignor Knox thought so, read his MAGESTERIAL book, Enthusiasm.
DeleteAnd Beans, read THE ROAD by Belloc, if you haven't already. I think it'd resonate.
DeleteSwap Washington for Walsingam and Ooooopsie! Look how far we've come.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the Belloc recommendation. I'm-a look into it.
Right on, Wild. I enjoy Belloc, who's a more ferocious Chesterton. Check out Europe and the Faith, How the Reformation Happened and perhaps The Road.
DeleteOr whatever, all good, imo.