The True Cross

 

Today's the Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross. You may recall that Constantine's Mother, Helena, recovered the True Cross in Jerusalem, where it was rightly venerated until the heathen Persians sacked the Holy City in the early mid-7th century. Emperor Heraclius retook it in 628 AD, only for the savage Moslems to overtake his victory and conquer the holy city in 638 AD.

Heraclius, perhaps the last of the classical Roman Emperors, saved the Cross from Mohammedan fanatics, however, a large fragment remained in Jerusalem and was rescued by the first Crusaders, who venerated the relic and took it into battle with varying degrees of success.

I find the history or legend of the relic fascinating and compelling, that's me, but reflect on the words it points to, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." 

Again, "Whoever would save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." And lest there be any doubt, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" Reflect on that.

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

The Feast of St. Francis

It being the Feast of St. St. Francis, I drove across the dam to say Mass and the sky was huge, such is Texas.

Some say that Francis was a kind of hippy, although his hair was notoriously short, he didn't thieve and was a catholic Christian. Are the two synonymous? I'd say they are, at the end of the day and while we're at it, Europe is the Faith; thanks Belloc, for that. 

ChesterBelloc

Of course the old Europe is fast denying the Faith and becoming something else in its great secularist experiment which has, oddly enough, a peculiar fondness for Islam. 

Foretold, when you think about it, by Chesterton in the Flying Inn,  wherein a cheerful band of heroes roam about England with a large cheese, lots of ale and a "pop up" Inn. 

Say No To The NWO

In doing so they defeat an evil ruling elite which has embraced Mohammedanism and banned alcohol, much less pubs. Prescient stuff, GKC, and with the fierce ChesterBelloc in mind, will America take up the mantle Western Civ? 

Good question and I'd argue, if the present howling, gnashing of teeth and wailing of the Left is any metric, that we are and have a chance of winning. So get your act together, GOP, defeat the antichrist globalist elite NWO and their Illuminati Hollywood shills and #ConfirmKavanaughNow

A Saint

But back to Francis. He may not have been a thieving hippy but he did, apparently, talk to animals. That sounds pretty freakish dreadlock, right? Not so fast, punters. Francis preached to the animals because he felt he got a better response from them than he did with his human congregations.

He also went on to try and convert the great jihad general Saladin. He failed, but the remarkable Moslem, and he was, gave the mendicant saint the True Cross or fragments of it, which the Islamic war horde had captured at the disaster which was Hattin.

Saladin

Moral of the story? 

Don't be a hippy, strive to be a saint, scorn our globalist elite NWO overlords and ask for Francis' powerful intercession.

And as always,

Deus Vult!

LSP