Walsingham Lament

 

This seems appropriate right about now, a Lament for Our Lady's Shrine at Walsingham:

In the wracks of Walsingham
Whom should I choose
But the Queen of Walsingham
to be my guide and muse.

Then, thou Prince of Walsingham,
Grant me to frame
Bitter plaints to rue thy wrong,
Bitter woe for thy name.

Bitter was it so to see
The seely sheep
Murdered by the ravenous wolves
While the shepherds did sleep.

Bitter was it, O to view
The sacred vine,
Whilst the gardeners played all close,
Rooted up by the swine.

Bitter, bitter, O to behold
The grass to grow
Where the walls of Walsingham
So stately did show.

Such were the worth of Walsingham
While she did stand,
Such are the wracks as now do show
Of that Holy Land.

Level, level, with the ground
The towers do lie,
Which, with their golden glittering tops,
Pierced once to the sky.

Where were gates are no gates now,
The ways unknown
Where the press of peers did pass
While her fame was blown.

Owls do scrike where the sweetest hymns
Lately were sung,
Toads and serpents hold their dens
Where the palmers did throng.

Weep, weep, O Walsingham,
Whose days are nights,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deeds to despites.

Sin is where Our Lady sat,
Heaven is turned to hell,
Satan sits where Our Lord did sway --
Walsingham, O farewell!

The Cure D'Ars said England would return to its  former glory, and he knew a thing or two.

Salve,

LSP

All Saints Day, Clean Your Gun

You can be part of today's benighted entitlement culture and think that the State is going to step in and clean your dirty gun. Go right ahead, just keep on thinking that and wonder why your firearm doesn't work anymore.

On the other hand, you can take destiny into your own hands and clean the filthy little beast yourself. Like a free man.

That's what I did tonight, as I reflected on the Saints and in particular on the Cure D'Ars, Patron Saint of parish priests. Jean Vianney didn't own any pistols, much less a Glock 21, but he could read minds and see into peoples' souls.

He also led a life of extraordinary asceticism, living on a potato and a glass of warm milk per day. He did that for decades and when he died, the examining doctor stated that there was no earthly reason why the humble priest should have lived as long as he did.

The Devil would taunt him at night, bellowing out, "Potato eater!" Look it up on the modern Delphi that is the internet, if you doubt me.

Have a blessed All Saints.

LSP

All Saints, All Souls

The Church celebrated the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls this week; some Christians find this strange and wrong. They think that asking the intercession of the saints is unnecessary at best and idolatrous at worst. The same thing applies, for them, to prayers for the departed.

They believe that the dead, saintly or otherwise, are sleeping "under the heavenly altar" and even if they weren't their prayers are redundant because Christ is the "only mediator" between man and God.

But what about the two great Jewish Saints, Moses and Elijah, who talked with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration? They weren't sleep-talking now, were they. Neither are any of the holy men and women who have left this life for the next, and so we ask for their prayers just as we would ask the same from a holy person here on earth. This doesn't detract from Our Lord's mediation but reinforces it.

SMOM

Likewise for the departed, we pray for them as we would for anyone else. Idolatry? Hardly and don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of comsymp lefty, but perhaps we need to look elsewhere for the Golden Calf of our troubled age - money, perhaps.

Jean Vianney

Jean Vianney, the Cure D'Ars, is the Patron Saint of parish priests. He abhorred dancing, which was a problem in rural France, and lead a life of remarkable austerity, eating little more than a potato a day. Vianney was often afflicted by Satan, who would drag his bed across the room while shouting "old potato eater!" Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to Ars to make their confession to him. A remarkable man who worked out his salvation in the fear and trembling proscribed by St. Paul.

Saints intercede for us. Faithful souls, rest in peace.

LSP