City Of Brass

 

This seems appropriate on the first Sunday of Lent, Kipling's City of Brass:

Here was a people whom after their works
thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion:
and in this palace is the last information
respecting lords collected in the dust.” –
The Arabian Nights.

In a land that the sand overlays – the ways to her gates are untrod – A multitude ended their days whose gates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all!

When the wine stirred in their heart their bosoms dilated.
They rose to suppose themselves kings over all things created –
To decree a new earth at a birth without labour or sorrow –
To declare: “We prepare it to-day and inherit to-morrow.”
They chose themselves prophets and priests of minute understanding,
Men swift to see done, and outrun, their extremest commanding –
Of the tribe which describe with a jibe the perversions of Justice –
Panders avowed to the crowd whatsoever its lust is.

Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made them –
The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them
As playgrounds of pleasure and leisure, with limitless entries,
And havens of rest for the wastrels where once walked the sentries;
And because there was need of more pay for the shouters and marchers,
They disbanded in face of their foemen their yeomen and archers.
They replied to their well-wishers’ fears – to their enemies laughter,
Saying: “Peace! We have fashioned a God Which shall save us hereafter.
We ascribe all dominion to man in his factions conferring,
And have given to numbers the Name of the Wisdom unerring.”

They said: “Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
Let him arise and control both that man and his labour.”
They said: “Who is eaten by sloth? Whose unthrift has destroyed him?
He shall levy a tribute from all because none have employed him.”
They said: “Who hath toiled, who hath striven, and gathered possession?
Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.”
They said: “Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it.
If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it!
So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him,
The slayer, too, boasted his slain, and the judges released him.

As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation.
They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.
They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.
When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
For the show and the world and the thought of Dominion is evil!”
They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defied them,
The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.
They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strengths which are Faith and Endeavour.
They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:

And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given. . . .

. . . . . . . .

When they were fullest of wine and most flagrant in error,
Out of the sea rose a sign – out of Heaven a terror.
Then they saw, then they heard, then they knew – for none troubled to hide it,
A host had prepared their destruction, but still they denied it.
They denied what they dared not abide if it came to the trail;
But the Sward that was forged while they lied did not heed their denial.
It drove home, and no time was allowed to the crowd that was driven.
The preposterous-minded were cowed – they thought time would be given.
There was no need of a steed nor a lance to pursue them;
It was decreed their own deed, and not a chance, should undo them.
The tares they had laughingly sown were ripe to the reaping.
The trust they had leagued to disown was removed from their keeping.
The eaters of other men’s bread, the exempted from hardship,
The excusers of impotence fled, abdicating their wardship,
For the hate they had taught through the State brought the State no defender,
And it passed from the roll of the Nations in headlong surrender!

On point, don't you think?

Your Old Pal,

LSP

PS. Thanks, LL, for the constant reminder.

Marley's Ghost - Conversion

 

Have you read Chesterton's remarkable biography of Dickens? If not, you should and must. Regardless, here's a snapshot, via Lifesite:

The moment of Scrooge’s conversion is of course legendary, and is the closest depiction I have ever read of what happens in a man’s soul when he accepts the logical justice of damnation and undeserved privilege to repent. I could not describe the culmination of A Christmas Carol any better than the author who knew him best:  

“The beauty and the real blessing of the story do not lie in the mechanical plot of it, the repentance of Scrooge, probable or improbable; they lie in the great furnace of real happiness that glows through Scrooge and everything around him; that great furnace, the heart of Dickens. Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. Whether or not the visions were evoked by real Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future, they were evoked by that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits. They are impelled and sustained by a quality which our contemporary artists ignore or almost deny, but which in a life decently lived is as normal and attainable as sleep, positive, passionate, conscious joy. The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home; and, like a happy and good man, when it cannot sing it yells. It is lyric and exclamatory, from the first exclamatory words of it. It is strictly a Christmas carol.” 

 

Right on, eh? 

God bless,

LSP

LEPANTO!

 

We beat back Mohammad's Sea Jihad today, thanks to the miraculous intercession of the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary and her Rosary. A huge victory, and Western civilization was saved against the demonic Moslem horde. Here's some poetry:

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,

The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,

That once went singing southward when all the world was young,

In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,

Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

Don John of Austria is going to the war,

Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold

In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,

Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,

Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,

Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,

Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain—hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria

Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,

His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.

He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,

And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring

Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii,

Multiplex of wing and eye,

Whose strong obedience broke the sky

When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,

From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea

Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;

On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,

Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;

They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—

They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.

And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,

And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,

For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,

Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know

The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:

It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

Sudden and still—hurrah!

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria

Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift

And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;

The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,

Trumpet that sayeth ha!

      Domino gloria!

Don John of Austria

Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck

(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,

He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey

Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,

And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,

But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—

Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah!

Don John of Austria

Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)

The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,

The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,

They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,

And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung

The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on

Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell

Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,

And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—

(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,

Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,

Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,

Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,

Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Vivat Hispania!

Domino Gloria!

Don John of Austria

Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria! Don John of Austria has set his people free! Yes. And let's have Constantinople back. We need the Bosphorus. 

Ave Maria gratia plena,

LSP

A Venetian Coronation

 

The Moslem fleet met its end at Lepanto and Western civilization was saved. Don Juan? Death light of Africa, love light of Spain. A glorious, supernatural, tempestuous, pneumatic, wind-driven victory. 

An exuberance of the Faith, if you like. In our own day the threat's no less real, perhaps more so. Swords about the Cross, are you in?

I'm up, just sayin,

LSP

Holy Wednesday

 

In between cleaning all the guns that I don't have and watching scenes from Tombstone on continuous loop, I look forward to Maundy Thursday with it's double mandate, do this and love one another as I have loved you, the former realized in the Eucharist, was ever a command so obeyed?, and the latter signified by Christ washing the feet of his disciples.

The connection is clear and lies in the Cross, from which Jesus washes away our sins in his supreme act of love. And it's precisely this sacrifice that's made present to us in the Sacrament of the Altar. The extent to which we receive the grace offered, think Parable of the Sower, depends on our obedience to the commandment to love. 

Benedict XVI reflects:

In it (Confession), the Lord continually rewashes our dirty feet, and we are able to sit at table with Him.

But in this way, the word takes on yet another meaning, in which the Lord extends the "sacramentum" by making it the "exemplum," a gift, a service for our brother: "If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). We must wash each other's feet in the daily mutual service of love. But we must also wash our feet in the sense of constantly forgiving one another. The debt that the Lord has forgiven us is always infinitely greater than all of the debts that others could owe to us (cf. Mt. 18:21-35). It is to this that Holy Thursday exhorts us: not to allow rancor toward others to become, in its depths, a poisoning of the soul. It exhorts us to constantly purify our memory, forgiving one another from the heart, washing each other's feet, thus being able to join together in the banquet of God.

Holy Thursday is a day of gratitude and of joy for the great gift of love to the end that the Lord has given to us. We want to pray to the Lord at this time, so that gratitude and joy may become in us the power of loving together with his love. Amen.

Amen to that. We must and should hunger and thirst for righteousness, swords about the Cross. But by the same token, there is no place for the poisonous serpent of hatred within our hearts. It is the hallmark of our Adversary, Satan. And remember, though it seems counter-intuitive, the enemy's lost and lost hard.

Be on the side of Light,

LSP

A Short Sunday Sermon

 

Some of you may be pleased to know that this is a short Sunday sermon. Here it is:

...the characteristic of the present age is a craving credulity. Why, my Lord, man is a being born to believe and if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth, sustained in the traditions of sacred ages and by the convictions of countless generations, to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and in his own imagination.

 

Disraeli said that, and he was prescient. At this very moment, as the churches refuse, hesitate and stumble over their title-deeds, millions upon millions of people believe, in their heart of hearts that the world is about to be destroyed by Global Warming. Even as they freeze or barely escaped a polar vortex. 

The same people will tell you that killing babies in the womb is healthcare and that Joe Biden got more votes than any other presidential candidate in history. Or that being on the side of corporate behemoths like Nike, Bank of America, Big Tech and Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex and our agitprop media is somehow anti-establishment. 

Bizarre. But as Cammaerts wrote, paraphrasing Chesterton, "The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything." You'll note that anything precludes neither made in China face masks nor the Devil. That in mind, crush the NWO serpent and it's Illuminati allies underheel.

Here endeth the Lesson,

LSP

A Late Sunday Sermon - Swords About The Cross

There we were in the church hall after Mass in Mission #2, just enjoying the fellowship which flows naturally in the Mystical Body of Christ. One of the guys had returned from a trip to Israel, where he'd visited the Holy Sepulchre.

"It was amazing, they'd built this church over the place where He died!" Another churchperson, Colonel Z, seemed a little skeptical, "I'm told that if you put the pieces of the True Cross together they'd circle the world several times."

Needless to say, I have a great devotion to the True Cross, disastrous defeat at Hattin notwithstanding, and replied, "But Colonel, if you put the lies of the Democrats head to head in the last week alone, how many times would they circumnavigate the globe?"

He laughed, "My, at least a 100 times and that's a modest estimate." We all laughed and here, fellow warriors in the battle against evil, endeth the lesson.

Swords about the Cross,

LSP

Parisians Sing As Notre Dame Burns

Europe, and by extension the West, is the Faith, a Faith which is increasingly, vehemently under attack. The burning of Notre Dame serves as an apt symbol.

Here's Z's take via WRSA:

As news spread of the fire consuming the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the first reaction of most people was shock and sadness. You don’t have to be Catholic or French to feel as if some part of you has been lost. That was not just an old building or a historically important place. It was a symbol of Western civilization. Stand inside a great church and you feel the awe and power that inspired the builders. That cathedral was the primal roar of a people celebrating their creator and the essence of who they were as a people.

Of course, it did not take long for people to notice that its burning was a metaphor for the current crisis in the West. As Europe is swamped by Muslims, promising to replace Europeans in their own lands, it is only a matter of time before the great churches are turned into mosques or destroyed. Despite the endless propaganda from our rulers, most people here and there, are well aware of what’s happening. They don’t know how to articulate it or react to it, but they know. Watching the fire, they knew what it meant.

An aggressive take on a tragedy? Perhaps, but one which took place in the midst of a wave of attacks on French churches this year, though you'd hardly know it from our media. 

Notre Dame still stands, thank God; does the Faith it represents? It does, though badly eroded in the West, but if it were to go and with it the soul of our culture, what would take its place, what will fill the vacuum?

Serious question,

LSP

The French Sixty Nine

The eternal suns and systems,

Solid and silent all,

To me are stars of an instant,

Only the fires that fail

From God's good rocket rising

On this night of carnival.

What better way to relax before the onslaught of multiple pancake dinners and the rigours of Lent than a fortifying French 69. You can shake it up like this.

69ml Champagne

30ml Old Raj gin

15ml elderflower liqueur

15ml lemon juice

Lemon twist garnish

Combine gin, elderflower liqueur and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled flute. Top with Champagne and garnish with a lemon twist.

Then, as you reflect upon the strange mystery of Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine's Day, raise your glass and drink to victory.

Cheers,

LSP

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Here at the Compound we wish you all the best for a great St. Patrick's Day. Get yourself a pint of Guinness and watch Leprechaun or President Trump and Angela Merkel and ask yourself who's more frightening, Merkel or the demonic leprechaun?

Or do none of these things, it's up to you, there's no "rule." But on a serious note, what happens to Merkel's Germany and the rest of Europe when Erdogan's Turks and associated Muslims outbreed everyone else?

Of course feminists would like that because then they'd be forced to wear Burkas and Hijabs, be beaten by their husbands and stoned for adultery; if they were lucky they might even be allowed to drive. And here's a thought, for what it's worth.

Nature abhors a vacuum, spiritual as well as physical. Given the de facto capitulation of the Western Churches to pietized secularism, where will people turn? To the Crescent? Perhaps they won't have much of a choice when they're in a minority. Then again, to quote GKC, history has a way of cheating the prophet(s).

Cheers,

LSP

Get Back!

All too soon the retreat was over and everyone drove off into the metrosprawl to their various destinations. You need a retreat after that drive, so I spent the night in Dallas before heading back to the rural idyll that is The Compound.

What did I gain in the few days away at Montserrat retreat house? A new-found appreciation for the rule of St. Benedict, Chesterton, and a significant dose of humility mixed with contrition. All very good things, as was the company of fellow clergy and the opportunity to worship together.

It was good, too, to step away from the news for a short time, but I couldn't help noticing that a 17 year old Danish woman is going to be punished for fighting off a "refugee" with pepper spray. The message seems pretty clear; women of Europe, don't you dare defend yourselves against your new Islamic overlords. 

So where's the feminist outrage? That seems to be in inverse proportion to the number of Germans purchasing firearms. Or, to put it another way, there isn't any.

Make of this what you will,

LSP

The Old Boot

Some call her The Old Boot, others are less flattering, but one thing's for sure, Hillary Clinton seems to live a charmed life that's above the law. Here's Chesterton on the phenomenon.

"But the idea of punishing a public man as a public enemy has, for good or evil, become an impossibility. And the idea of taking away the private wealth of a public man is equally inconceivable, especially if he is a really wealthy man... But at least it is certain that modern government makes life for the governing classes safer; and never before in the whole history of the world has it been so safe a business to govern." (On the Pillory)

I'm hoping that Hillary will prove to be the exception to this rule.

Cheers,

LSP 

Retreat!

We're advancing in a different direction, which means getting on I35E and driving to Montserrat Retreat House for the annual diocesan clergy retreat. You need a retreat after that drive, I tell you.

I was hoping for some quiet fishing off Montserrat's pier but it's underwater. Well, there's no telling where, when and how The Weather will strike in its vicious no-holds-barred war on humanity. Just look at New York, all that tax money and they still got hit by several feet of Climate Change.

So maybe there won't be any fishing, but there will be some Chesterton, The Crimes of England. I'm looking forward to that.

More anon, as the story unfolds.

LSP

The Ballad of East and West

This one's for LL. The Ballad of East and West, by Kipling.


Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side,
And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and the day,
And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.
Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides:
``Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?''
Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar,
``If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.
At dusk he harries the Abazai---at dawn he is into Borair,
But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,
So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,
By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tonuge of Jagai,
But if he be passed the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,
For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.
There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.''

Read the whole thing here, if you like.

It ends like this:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgement Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Chesterton hated Kipling and I like Chesterton lot. I also like Kipling.

Rumours that I charge about on a horse around the Compound with a saber may or may not be true.

LSP

Happy Thanksgiving

ISON

Out of respect for the person who said "a little Chesterton can go a long way," here's a short bit of GKC:

"The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder. We should always endeavor to wonder at the permanent thing, not at the mere exception. We should be startled by the sun, and not by the eclipse. We should wonder less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth. What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world. Somehow one must love the world without being worldly."

I love that.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving,

LSP

Lepanto

Battle of Lepanto

Inspired by Snarky Basterd, I thought I'd better post this, from the Battle of Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

Stirring stuff - Lepanto. Then again, I'm for the Faith, along with GKC. But more of that on the Feast of Our Lady of Victories (Oct. 7).

God bless,

LSP