The Feast Of The Assumption

 

It's the great Feast of the Assumption today, in which we honor Mary, the Ever Virgin Mother of God. Now, some people think that's idolatry, others don't think about it at all, but exorcists tell us with unerring consistency that the demons hate, fear and loathe Mary. For them, an Ave (Hail Mary) is like a "blow to the face." No wonder, her purity and faith stand diametrically opposed to demonic filth and disbelief.

No wonder, again, that she is Our Lady of Victories, not just at Lepanto but against all evil. Ask for her powerful intercession as we fight, and the fight is increasingly simple if not easy; it's Good v. Evil, Light v. Dark, Heaven v. Hell. A ferocious, heavenly struggle and Our Lady is our ally, and the Christ whom she bears to us is Life, Light, Good and Truth.

If you stand against that, which you're free to do, you will be relentlessly destroyed, like the Moors in Spain. Mark my words.

Ave,

LSP

Te Deum - And Return

 

Return to what? The ancient Faith of the West, the faith of Bohemund at the gate, of all that's right and true. Stand fast by that and think, what else do you have? No luggage racks on the back of a hearse, my friends, ask Epstein.

Saying,

LSP

Poetry Monday - Lepanto

 

It's everyone's favorite day, Poetry Monday, and here's Chesterton's Lepanto in full. You recall the battle, in which a Catholic fleet destroyed the Sea Johad and ended Moslem domination of the Med:

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 swat, 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.)

Years ago, decades ago, an old friend would recite this in his library study in London over glasses of port. Moving, as is the poem.

Domino Gloria!

LSP

Supernatural Sunday

 

Mass at the Missions went well, despite our old enemy the Weather, and everyone was happy, the Spirit moved. The Spirit moved! How lightly we take that phrase, the third person of the Trinity moved with infinite power amongst the people of North Central Texas. Really? Yes, really. That in mind, I recall a time outside Philadelphia, in a failed, asset-stripped steel town.

The church was beautiful, very, and had a perfect side chapel, I do not say that lightly. So that was used for daily Mass, the Divine Office and, at Noon, the Rosary. There I'd be, at 12, praying the rosary and sometimes a few people joined in but mostly not. No bad thing, say your prayers, LSP.

Well, one day I rolled up for the devotion, all very cassock and beads, and said the prayers, I forget which mysteries. And, as I recited out loud, was pleased to hear a few voices behind me joining in, the rosary's better in company.

Good, I thought, this habit of prayer's catching on. Then, when the devotion finished I turned around and no one was there. Had I hallucinated? Conceivable. To test things out I invited a friend to join me the next day, which he did.

The same thing happened, several voices joining in, they sounded like women, and no one was there apart from us. I asked him if he'd heard what I heard, and he had. He is now a priest.

Make of this what you will and as you do, remember Lepanto.

Stella Maris,

LSP

Assumption

 

Today's the great Feast of the Assumption and the Compound's celebrating with garlic, spring onion, and ginger stir fried pork, sweet and sour to boot. It's not hard, just shake it up in an iron skillet or wok and off you go. But some people don't like this.

"The Assumption, that aptly named feast," said one famous Anglican cleric. And for sure, it's not in Scripture but is it "repugnant to the Word of God"? Of course not. If Elijah can get assumed into heaven why shouldn't the same be true of the incomparably more holy ever virgin Mother of God? No, they snarl, that's idolatry. But is it. 

At this point in time excessive reverence of the saints is the least of our worries. Where, really, do our idols lay? Not in plaster, polychrome images of holy men and women, but in wealth and power, in Mammon. In worldly, carnal, atheistic disbelief.

To put it another way, if you conducted a thorough interrogation of an average congregation, asking the hapless Christian captive what thing or series of things was most important in their lives, their god, what would you get?

I'll wager the fighting monkey that it wouldn't be Mary or her divine Son. And therein lies the decline of the Western Church, call it apostasy if you like. In the meanwhile, the unpleasantly lib/smug Atlantic magazine's run an article saying the Rosary's an extremist war symbol. Well yes, especially if you're a Turk at Lepanto.

House of Gold,

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

Sunday Sermon

 

Cardinal Vigano, who is a hero of the Faith, wrote this a little while ago. Via Adrienne:

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As devout Christians and faithful citizens of the United States of America, you have intense and heartfelt concern for the fate of your beloved country while the final results of the Presidential election are still uncertain.

News of electoral fraud is multiplying, despite the shameful attempts of the mainstream media to censor the truth of the facts in order to give their candidate the advantage. There are states in which the number of votes is greater than the number of voters; others in which the mail-in vote seems to be exclusively in favor of Joe Biden; others in which the counting of ballots has been suspended for no reason or where sensational tampering has been discovered: always and only against President Donald J. Trump, always and only in favor of Biden.

In truth, for months now we have been witnessing a continuous trickle of staggered news, of manipulated or censored information, of crimes that have been silenced or covered up in the face of striking evidence and irrefutable testimony. We have seen the deep state organize itself, well in advance, to carry out the most colossal electoral fraud in history, in order to ensure the defeat of the man who has strenuously opposed the establishment of the New World Order that is wanted by the children of darkness. In this battle, you have not failed, as is your sacred duty, to make your own contribution by taking the side of the Good. Others, enslaved by vices or blinded by infernal hatred against Our Lord, have taken the side of Evil.

Do not think that the children of darkness act with honesty, and do not be scandalized if they operate with deception. Do you perhaps believe that Satan’s followers are honest, sincere, and loyal? The Lord has warned us against the Devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).

In these hours, while the gates of Hell seem to prevail, allow me to address myself to you with an appeal, which I trust that you will respond to promptly and with generosity. I ask you to make an act of trust in God, an act of humility and filial devotion to The Lord of Armies. I ask that all of you pray the Holy Rosary, if possible in your families or with your dear ones, your friends, your brothers and sisters, your colleagues, your fellow soldiers. Pray with the abandonment of children who know how to have recourse to their Most Holy Mother to ask her to intercede before the throne of the Divine Majesty. Pray with a sincere soul, with a pure heart, in the certainty of being heard and answered. Ask her – she who is the Help of Christians, Auxilium Christianorum – to defeat the forces of the Enemy; ask her – she who is terrible as an army set in battle array (Song 6:10) – to grant the victory to the forces of Good and to inflict a humiliating defeat on the forces of Evil.

Have your children pray, using the holy words that you have taught them: those confident prayers will rise to God and will not remain unheard. Have the elderly and sick pray, so that they may offer their sufferings in union with the sufferings that Our Lord suffered on the Cross when he shed His Precious Blood for Our Redemption. Have young ladies and women pray, so that they turn to her who is the model of purity and motherhood. And you, men, must also pray: your courage, your honor and your boldness will be refreshed and strengthened. All of you, take up this spiritual weapon, before which Satan and his minions retreat furiously, because they fear the Most Holy Virgin, she who is Almighty by Grace, even more than Almighty God.

Do not allow yourselves to be discouraged by the deceptions of the Enemy, even more so in this terrible hour in which the impudence of lying and fraud dares to challenge Heaven. Our adversaries’ hours are numbered if you will pray, if we will all pray with Faith and with the true ardor of Charity. May the Lord grant that one single devout and faithful voice rise from your homes, your churches, and your streets! This voice will not remain unheard, because it will be the voice of a people that cries out, in the moment when the storm rages most fiercely, “Save us, Lord, we are perishing!” (Mt 8:25).

The days that await us are a precious occasion for all of you, and for those who unite themselves spiritually to you from every part of the world. You have the honor and privilege of being able to participate in the victory of this spiritual battle, to wield the powerful weapon of the Holy Rosary as our fathers did at Lepanto to repel the enemy armies.

Pray with the certainty of Our Lord’s promise: “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you” (Lk 11:9). The King of Kings, from whom you ask the salvation of your Nation, will reward your Faith. Your testimony, remember this, will touch the heart of Our Lord, multiplying the heavenly Graces which are, more than ever, indispensable in order to achieve victory.

May my appeal, which I address to you and to all people who recognize the Lordship of God, find you to be generous apostles and courageous witnesses of the spiritual rebirth of your beloved country, and with it the entire world. Non praevalebunt.

God bless and protect the United States of America!

One Nation under God

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

Non praevalebunt. 

LSP

Remove Kebab?

 

We love classical music. This piece is entitled Remove Kebab. Don't say Maestro.

OLV,

LSP

Our Lady of Victory

 

This is a naval blog and today's the great Feast of Our Lady of Victory, now known as Our Lady of the Rosary, which celebrates the utter defeat of Turkish Sea Jihad at the battle of Lepanto in 1571.

The Ottomans, some two decades fresh from conquering Constantinople, launched across the Mediterranean with the grand aim of conquering Rome itself, the Big Apple. They were smashed by a Christian fleet led by Don John of Austria, the first decisive victory of arms against the Jihad in hundreds of years.

Don John's fleet sailed under the protection of the Virgin Mother of God and miraculously routed the Moslem aggressor. You can read about the action here and as you do, don't forget GKC's Lepanto. Death light of Africa? Love light of Spain.

Poetry in mind, here at the Compound we're about to grill Turkish style kebabs on short swords in homage to the victory. For breakfast? Croissants.

Deus Vult,

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

Fish Till Your Arms Ache

Today was beautiful in this part of Texas, slightly misty but warm, like an autumnal Spring. Such is Fall in Hill County, season of mists and mellow respite from having to turn on the AC. Pleased by this happy turn in the War on Weather I drove to the dam in search of fish.

Idea being to replicate last week's success against the fluid adversary and get out in the clean air, rod in hand, which is exactly what happened. First cast, up came a baby bass, then perch, followed by baby striper, followed by decent sized drum, followed by young catfish.

OK, the fish weren't as big as the ones I would've caught with a boat, granted, but there were plenty of rod-benders, tug, pull, snap and here we go, battle on. What a lot of fun, to say nothing of the tranquility of the sound of the water coming gently off the dam in the rare moments of peace between strikes.

And on it went 'til I lost count and a fierce wind blew in from Waco, exciting the immature catfish but making it hard to cast. Throw out your line and watch it go horizontal in the gale, type of thing, so I packed up and headed for home.

On the way back over the bridge a vulture dive bombed the rig, like an avian Stuka or feathered Richtofen. No kidding, I thought the thing was going to hit the truck, first time that's ever happened.

In other news, you can read about the looming threat of war between Greece and Turkey here. And while you're at it, consider how good it would be to see Sultan Erdogan sink beneath the waves of the Med in Lepanto 2.0 and Hagia Sophia restored to its glory.

Fish till your arms ache,

LSP

Immaculate Conception

Today's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so I hope you managed to take some time off from storming hated Macron's green palace on the Champs D'Elysees and contemplated the mystery of Mary conceived without Original Sin.

She was, says the Angel, "full of grace," gratia plena, and who are we to discount Gabriel? Of course Mohammad gave it a shot but that's a different, less edifying story. So here's a few prayers to help on the way.

O GOD, Who, by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, didst prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son, we beseech Thee, that as by the foreseen death of that same Son, Thou didst preserve her from all stain, so too thou wouldst permit us, purified through her intercession, to come unto Thee. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

...Do thou, then, O Blessed Mother, our queen and advocate, who from the first instant of thy conception didst crush the head of the enemy, receive the prayers which, united with thee in our single heart, we implore thee to present at the throne of God, that we may never fall into the snares which are laid out for us, and may all arrive at the port of salvation; and, in so many dangers, may the Church and Christian society sing once again the hymn of deliverance and of victory and of peace. Amen.

The hymn of deliverance and of victory,  at Lepanto, Vienna and on. Be assured we'll sing it again.

Ave Eva,

LSP

All Saints & Souls

You've probably been far too busy with the noble sport of unicorn hunting to get to church, but that's a mistake. You see, there's been a lot of feasting. On Wednesday we celebrated the Feast of All Saints and on Thursday the Feast of All Souls.

Powerful stuff, eh? And let's not hear any nonsense about "idolatry" or "soul sleep." Think instead of the miraculous efficacy of the prayers the saints, not least the Virgin Mary who destroyed the Moslem Sea Jihad at Lepanto. Well done, Rosary, you work.

May the Saints intercede for us and the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

God bless,

LSP

Lepanto, Our Lady of Victories

Listen up, heathen. It's the anniversary of the battle of Lepanto, in which a combined catholic fleet under Don Juan of Austria, on october 7, 1571, took on the Turkish Sea Jihad and killed it. Dead.

The Mohammedans, under Grand Admiral Ali Pasha, had hoped to land an invasion fleet on the coast of Italy and seize Rome, which they curiously called the "Big Apple." But they were routed and victory is accredited to the miraculous intercession of the Blessed  Ever Virgin Mary.

Ali Pasha was killed in the action aboard his ship, the Sultana, which had engaged Don Juan's flagship, the Real. Pasha's severed head was subsequently displayed on the Real on the end of a pike.

Today's TransMed Jihad comes in a different form and the Moslems don't have a navy; neither, of course, do the Europeans. I'll leave it to you to figure out if the threat is any less real.

Salve Regina,

LSP

Hot Chocolate Onesies And Kittens

In Safe Space no one can hear you scream! Anonymous

You're proably wondering, scornfully, "Is LSP capable of serious thought?" Well, maybe not, but George Rutler is. Here's the Upper East Side onetime Anglican on the discouraging "safe space" trend:

"Professors who never attained moral maturity themselves, reacted by providing “safe spaces” for students traumatized by reality. In universities across the land, by a sodality of silliness in the academic establishment, these “safe spaces” were supplied with soft cushions, hot chocolate, coloring books, and attendant psychologists. More than one university in the Ivy League provided aromatherapy along with friendly kittens and puppies for weeping students to cuddle. A college chaplaincy invited students to pray some prescribed litanies that offered God advice in an advisory capacity.

"The average age of a Continental soldier in the American Revolution was one year less than that of a college freshman today. Alexander Hamilton was a fighting lieutenant-colonel when 21, not to mention Joan of Arc who led an army into battle and saved France when she was about as old as an American college sophomore. In our Civil War, eight Union generals and seven Confederate generals were under the age of 25. The age of most U.S. and RAF fighter pilots in World War II was about that of those on college junior varsity teams. Catholics who hoped in this election for another Lepanto miracle will remember that back in 1571, Don Juan of Austria saved Western civilization as commanding admiral when he was 24."

Don Juan was twenty four when he took down the Moslem sea jihad.  Ponder that and as you do, reflect on the West's cultural devolution. Who will save us? Rome? Moscow?

I'm not a betting man but I'd lay odds on the latter. Then again, all the polls were confounded last Tuesday so perhaps there's hope for the West yet.

Sink me, a Guinea on the Monkey.

LSP

Peace Explodes in New York

When is an IED in a crowded civilian area, that exploded injuring 29 people, not an act of terrorism? When New York's Mayor, Bill Dhimmi de Blasio says it's not. And how could it be, when Islam's a religion of peace and Islam might, by some weird stretch of the imagination, be implicated.

Aftermath of a Peace Bomb

Here's what ISIS says about the peace explosion, at least on social media:

“The lions of the Caliphate roar in New York, we cause you pain inside your house, the carrier of the Cross,” wrote one Twitter user who went by the name “I am ISIS, come and block me.” The account was soon suspended. Another, called “The Lone Wolves,” tweeted with the Arabic hashtag #ExplosionManhattanNewYork “Oh God burn America, take revenge in the name of your oppressed slaves and believers’ blood.”

Spreading Peace in Minnesota

Nothing quite like a peace bomb, eh? Not to be outdone, another soldier of the Peace God cooked off in Minnesota, hacking at people in a mall with a machete. In the meanwhile, German women are being urged to wear hijabs, you know, just in case they provoke some peace.

SUBMIT

But what about the Pope, the "carrier of the Cross" himself? He's telling us that the way to bring more peace out of the religion of peace is to invite more followers of the religion of peace into what they ironically call the "House of War."

The Papal Flag

That means, presumably, that the Reconquista, Charles Martel, Don Juan and the sailors of Lepanto, the Poles at the siege of Vienna, the Knights of Malta and the doomed defendants of Constantinople had it wrong. Et al.

I refuse to believe that.

Deus Vult,

LSP