Adoro Te

 

St. Thomas Aquinas is rightly known as the Angelic Doctor, perhaps the greatest of theologians, and the sanctity of his thought and devotion comes through in his hymnody, not least Adoro Te, composed for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Here:

Anglo-Catholics, that rare breed, are familiar with this translation:

Humbly I adore thee, Verity unseen,

Who thy glory hiddest ‘neath these shadows mean;

Lo, to thee surrendered, my whole heart is bowed,

Tranced as it beholds thee, shrined within the cloud.

Taste and touch and vision to discern thee fail;

Faith, that comes by hearing, pierces through the veil.

I believe whate’er the Son of God hath told;

What the Truth hath spoken, that for truth I hold.

O memorial wondrous of the Lord’s own death;

Living Bread that givest all thy creatures breath,

Grant my spirit ever by thy life may live,

To my taste thy sweetness never failing give.

Jesus, whom now hidden, I by faith behold,

What my soul doth long for, that thy word foretold:

Face to face thy splendor, I at last shall see,

In the glorious vision, blessed Lord, of thee.

And in the military Latin original, so beautifully moving in the singing:

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,

Quae sub his figuris vere latitas;

Tibi se cor meum totum subiicit,

Quia te contemplans, totum deficit.

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur,

Sed auditu solo tuto creditur;

Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius,

Nil hoc verbo veritatis verius.

In Cruce latebat sola Deitas.

At hic latet simul et humanitas:

Ambo tamen credens, atque confitens,

Peto quod petivit latro paenitens.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor,

Deum tamen meum te confiteor:

Fac me tibi semper magis credere,

In te spem habere, te diligere.

O memoriale mortis Domini,

Panis vivus vitam praestans homini:

Praesta meae menti de te vivere,

Et te illi semper dulce sapere.

Pie pellicane Iesu Domine,

Me immundum munda tuo Sanguine:

Cuius una stilla salvum facere

Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio,

Oro, fiat illud, quod tam sitio,

Ut te revelata cernens facie,

Visu sim beatus tuae gloriae.

Amen.

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 A.D.) was  born into a noble family in northern Italy. His Father, Count Landulph of Aquino, was of Lombard descent and his Mother, Theodora, was Norman.

Unsurprisingly, the men of his family were knights and warriors but Thomas chose the religious life and joined the newly formed Domincan Order, much to the annoyance of his brothers and doubtless Father. But if he declined the offer of a temporal sword he most definitely took up its spiritual equivalent.

His writing, like light cast on a darkened city, like a flare of sanctity and truth, illumines and drives back error, evil and disbelief today.

Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro, fiat illud, quod tam sitio.

Yes,

LSP

God Save The Tzar

 

What can we say? Bravo au chef d'orchestre, Mr. KARABANOV! And then there's NATO, which totally isn't a captive US arms market. See Zero:

What can we say? War's a racket.

Cheers,

LSP

Some Good News

 

Keen-eyed readers of this popular international mind-blog will have noticed ACoC (Anglican Church of Canada) left earth orbit many years ago for the icy void of deep space, but not the Diocese of the Arctic. So here's some good news from an unlikely source.

Anglican Samizdat reports on an interview at VOL:

The Diocese of the Arctic is unusual.

First, its bishop, David Parsons, is a member of a species all but extinct in the Anglican Church of Canada: he is a Christian bishop.

Second, the diocese is in communion with ANiC (Anglican Network in Canada) and is open to licensing its priests.

Third, the diocese does not support the recently adopted liturgies for Gender Transition and Affirmation or any of the other LGBT+ claptrap that obsesses other ACoC clergy.

Fourth, the diocese sees itself as the Anglican Church of Canada and the rest of the organisation as – something else. By implication, not a church.

Lastly, Parsons thinks, “that the great and terrible day of the Lord is coming, and many bishops are going to have a stark wake up as they stand before God and are asked why they have not stood against the doctrines of demons and devils. My fear is, that day will not be a day of repentance but just justice and judgment because the day of grace will be over.”

 

Did you spot that? the diocese does not support the recently adopted liturgies for Gender Transition and Affirmation or any of the other LGBT+ claptrap that obsesses other ACoC clergy. Wow. He just got out and said it. And again, many bishops are going to have a stark wake up as they stand before God and are asked why they have not stood against the doctrines of demons and devils. Exactly.

Well done, Bishop Parsons and the small but faithful Diocese of the Arctic, would that England's Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals would be so bold. Regardless, we stand with you in the Diocese of Fort Worth.

So take heart punters, there is Good News, both in Christ and in his Church.

Have a beautiful Sunday,

LSP

PS. I take credit for coining the now ubiquitous acronym ACoC, so let's see some applause, international ortho/trad commentariat. Thx.

Harvard Skulls

 

Looks like a prominent Ivy League school's been selling body parts. The shocking revelation came to light when FBI agents raided James Nott's apartment in Kentucky, finding 40 human skulls. 

James Nott and an Harvard Skull

Six other people have been charged with dealing in human skulls, skeletons, spinal cords and more, not least Cedric Lodge, manager of the Anatomical Gifts Program at, you guessed it, Harvard.

Cedric Lodge and his Creepy Wife

Harvard's popularly known as Satan's Vatican and enjoys an endowment of over $49 billion. Do you remember that bit in the Gospels where Jesus says "you cannot serve God and mammon"?

Cheers,

LSP

Transgender Empire

 

Have you noticed how everyone's trans all of a sudden and wondered how this latter day Mengele madness swept through the Western world? This short from Christopher Rufo gives a synopsis of our current, and I'd argue Satanic, Frankensteinian trend:

From Pritzker billions to the slums of Detroit with cultural Marxism at the beginning, middle and end of the Godless project. Imagine the damage, physical and mental, to the victims of this nihilist abhorrence and the mighty profits which accrue from it.

You'd think, in the face of such demonism, that the Church would stand up and be counted but no. Mĕnēʾ mĕnēʾ tĕqēl ūpharsīn, מְנֵא מְנֵא תְּקֵל וּפַרְסִין‎, you've been weighed in the balance and found wanting. God's writing on the wall has, perhaps the weight of a curse, certainly divine judgement.

Out demons out,

LSP

Do Yourself A Favor

 

Word to the wise. Do yourselves a favor and watch Sound of Freedom in a small country movie theater or anywhere, but a small cinema in a small town may well be best. We still have a few, a very few, in this part of Texas and I went to one this evening, the Cliftex, with some kind church people.

Here's Prodigal's review:

Just returned home from watching "Sound of Freedom" at the Cliftex Theater in Clifton, Texas. Was built in 1916! $5 ticket!!!

Outstanding movie! Multiple times you could have heard a pin drop. Such a gut-wrenching reality. And it was done in a very mature manner. Not just an "appeal to the emotions" movie.

The level of perverseness and utter depravity that this, dare it be said, industry sinks to is heinous and wicked and demonic. There is no pit in hell deep enough for these haters of humans and humanity. Archangel Michael will usher all of them and their devil daddy to hell soon enough.

May God's Name be hallowed and praised. We beseech Him for strength to bind the strong man.

And use our prayers to frustrate and bring to naught the machinations of the ungodly. 

 

Right on and thanks, Prodigal, for the ticket. On theme, watch Nefarious too, maybe the best demon possession movie I've seen, very "Hostage to the Devil." 

Libs hate, despise and scorn both these excellent films, can't think why.

God bless,

LSP

Fear And Loathing

 

That is all, well almost all.

You can almost feel sorry for the poor fellow.

Lars Porsena,

LSP

Sound Of Freedom

 

Look, it's too hot to think so I'm asking you, the reader, to help me out. Why are California Democrats blocking a bill to make child trafficking a felony? Likewise, why are mainstream media and film critics ignoring or rubbishing Sound of Freedom?

Perhaps you've heard of it, an indie box office smash hit detailing the very real, very serious and very evil scourge of pedo sex trafficking. It's based on real life LE experience and details, in suspenseful form, the utter evil of the thing.

The people love it, it's a very popular film. The critics and most media hate it. I say again, why? Why does Rolling Stone, which somehow still exists, hate it so much? Because, they say, the movie fosters a right wing conspiracy theory. Viz. Thousands of children are sold into sex slavery every year.

You see, there is no organized child-sex slavery operation, it's a figment of Nazi Fascist, tinfoil hat conspiracy crazies. That's what they say, there is no large scale pedophile trafficking going on in our country or around the world. It is, you stupid redneck Nazis a figment of your imagination. Listen to the science. No. Children. Being. Sold. For. Sex. Gettit?

No, I don't get it, because pedophile sex-slavery and torture is real. Just ask Jimmy Saville and Huw Edwards. You'd think, all ye champions of right over wrong, that this would be a bipartisan issue. Stop child sex-slavery even if the threat was remote, stamp out even the mere rumor of such a thing. But no, the Left chooses to ignore it and worse, castigate those who fight against it. 

Why? As you reflect, people who champion killing babies in the womb are capable of anything. But your call, it's too hot to think.

Out Demons Out,

LSP

Hot

 

So what's going on, LSP, apart from vaguely unhinged ranting on our evil transnational elite and Europe's schizophrenic war lust. You know, bay for war, clamor for combat, but don't produce any ammo or tanks or planes or ships or guns. Of course that's hard if you've offshored your industry to China and rely on cheap Russian gas. That aside, what's going on?

I'll tell you, heat, extreme heat. It's like a preheating oven out there and it's getting to the point where the very air itself might ignite, thermobaric style. Imagine driving under a scorching Texan sun, the fields around you bleached by its light and someone carelessly flicks a spent cigarette out of the rig's window. Boom, ignition as mesquite dust, pollen and chaff explode. Terrifying.

typical Texas hat

In the old days, I'd think nothing of getting out in the field in the midst of it all and ride, shoot, fish in the heat of the day. Now? Not so much, it doesn't seem so attractive to slowly boil under a 107* Heat Dome. That in mind, we have to wonder at the sheer toughness of the people who pioneered this place. Remember, they had Commanche as well as the heat to deal with, and most definitely no AC.

Speaking of which, the Compound had a wrap 'round sleeping porch up until the '80s when it was sadly destroyed to make way for an extension. Error. Maybe we need to fix that mistake, the upstairs AC's barely cutting it. But such is the War on Weather, no one ever said it'd be easy.

Don't melt,

LSP

Marine Le Pen On Fire

 

Listen up, all ye heathen, Marine Le Pen's on fire:

Ask yourselves, since when did being a patriot, and a country having borders equate with Fascism? 

Follow the money to the root of the issue, our beloved, transnational, elite, insatiable great replacement rulers. Hint, dear readers, who benefits from massive immigration? Labor, or its private island owning boss. Ponder that, reflect on it, rainbow unicorn style.

In related news, Germany's donated 20,000 HE artillery shells to the Ukraine out of its stock of, ahem, 20,000 shells, but at least they have 15 nukes. Does this mean European defense policy is equivalent to some guy walking around unarmed with a dynamite vest? You get the issue.

Regardless, and as always, your call,

LSP

Just Taking It Easy

 

Huh, relaxing. Then there's Hawkwind

Hall of the Mountain Grill, or something like that. Here at the Compound we're whistling Dixie. Just taking it easy, until the next time.

"The time has come for you to choose, better get it right." 

Your old Pal,

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