Congratulamini mihi

R/. Congratulamini mihi, omnes, qui diligitis Dominum: quia, cum essem parvula, placui Altissimo, * Et de meis visceribus genui Deum et hominem. V/. Beatam me dicent omnes generationes, quia ancillam humilem respexit Deus. * Et de meis visceribus genui Deum et hominem.

(R/. Rejoice with me, all ye who love the Lord: for, when I was a little girl, I pleased the Most High, * And from my womb I brought forth to God-and-Man. V/. Blessed shall all generations call me, for God hath regarded the humility of His handmaid. * And from my womb I brought forth God-and-Man.)

Our Lady's Hours

Ante thorum hujus Virginis, frequentate nobis dulcia cantica dramatis.

(Before the couch of this Virgin, repeat often unto us sweet chants with solemnity.)

– Third antiphon of the First Nocturn both in Our Lady's Office and in the Common for her feasts; it is also the second antiphon at Matins for feasts of Virgins.

I have taken a break, so to speak, by turning to the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin these past few days... I must say, it has helped me observe the veritas horarum by reciting Matins upon arising (before dawn, it being winter), Lauds and then Prime around dawn when heading off for work, Terce, Sext, and None at their appropriate times mid-morning, noon and mid-afternoon, then Vespers in the evening twilight before dinner, and Compline later in the evening. The strain and stress of trying to get through the full Day Hours of the Breviary, and feeling guilty for not managing Matins, is good to get away from: and I like praying these beautiful Marian Hours in honour of the Holy Mother of God. For a long time, I had shied away from reading Our Lady's Hours alone, thinking it insufficiently liturgical; but this I realize is untrue.

While delighting in this devotion, the origin of certain lines in Our Lady's Office has been exercising my seldom-inactive discursive mind, or rather, my curiosity. Now, many verses and antiphons are plainly Scriptural, such as those from St Luke chapter i, or from the Psalms; many are just as plainly ancient and venerable ecclesiastical compositions, such as Dignare me laudare te; but there are some that seem to sit in-between, for example:

Benedicta, filia, tu a Domino, quia per te [*] fructum vitæ communicavimus.

(Blessed, daughter, art thou by the Lord, for through thee we have partaken of the fruit of life.)

Down to the asterisk, this text is a rearrangement of Judith xiii, 23b and 22b; but the second half is not Scriptural, though it plays on many Scriptural themes: Mary is the new Eve, not proffering the abysmal apple of deceit and death, but bringing forth to the faithful Him Who is the fruit of her womb, and the food of eternal life.

The text that really causes me confusion is the fifth antiphon of Vespers (used also in the Breviary for Marian feasts), since it sounds like a quotation from the Canticle of Canticles, but isn't:

Speciosa facta es et suavis in deliciis tuis, Sancta Dei Genitrix.

(Thou art made beauteous and sweet in thy delights, Holy Mother of God.)

I have been unable to find anything closely resembling the phrase Speciosa facta es et suavis in deliciis tuis in the Scriptures. Canticles vi, 3 contains the word suavis, while Cant. vii, 6 reads Quam pulchra es, et quam decora, carissima, in deliciis! - but neither of these bear more than a vague resemblance to this text. Where does it come from? I would appreciate any advice...

Finally, I was struck by the conceptual identity of Judith xiii,22b with the well-known antiphon Gaude Maria Virgo (a text I have long prayed daily):

Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas hæreses sola interemisti in universo mundo.

(Rejoice, Virgin Mary, all heresies alone thou hast crushed in the whole world.)

Benedixit te Dominus in virtute sua, quia per te ad nihilum redegit inimicos nostros.

(The Lord hath blessed thee with his power, for by thee have our enemies been brought to nought.)

Farnborough

I have been advised by a certain prelate, who shall remain nameless, that St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, is the place to visit - and now Rob, a mate of mine from W.A. (he's a fellow Tasmanian, actually), sends me a postcard of same...

He tells me he's been there a fortnight, and by now will be in Oxford (at the home of our semi-detached brethren, Pusey House), pursuing his academic researches into eighteenth century Anglicanism. (I have no trouble with a purely academic interest in Anglicanism as quaint history, just as studying Egyptology is of no danger so long as one realizes that the beast-headed deities so dignifiedly represented in ancient arts and hieroglyphic inscriptions are but fables and dust.)

Famously, Farnborough, to return to matters Catholic, is not just possessed of a splendid history - having been founded by the exiled Empress Eugénie to pray for her fallen royal house, that of the (in)famous Bonapartes, becoming the final resting place of her husband Napoleon III, of their son the Prince Imperial, who died fighting not against but for the British Empire, in a remote conflict against the Zulus, and finally of herself* - but is very much a living cloister, with beaut church and monastery, wherein, by their services and labours, much is being done "to foster a new liturgical revival". Rob reckons rightly that "You would love their bookshop!" Too right.

God bless, Rob, hope your visit to the Old Dart is a blessing.

[* In a nice touch, the 45th asteroid to be discovered, in 1857, was named Eugenia, after the Empress Eugenie, and in 1998 it was found to have a moon, which was named Petit-Prince, in allusion not just to the famous novel by de Saint-Exupéry, but to him who would have been Napoleon IV.]

Carthusian Office of Our Lady

Thanks to Google Books, the Carthusian Breviary of 1717 may be consulted online; here are clips (click on them to bring them up in full) of the relevant nine pages giving the Office of Our Lady as recited by the holy monks of the Charterhouse, even to-day:

Note some of the intriguing items...

The hymns at Matins and Lauds are Carthusian versions of those used in the Ambrosian Rite:

MATINS

Mysterium Ecclesiae!

Hymnum Christo referimus,

Quem genuit Puerpera,

Verbum Patris in Filium.

Sola in sexu femina

Electa es in saeculo.

Quae meruisti Dominum

Sanctum portare in utero.

Vates antíqui temporis

Praedixerat quod factum est,

Quia Virgo conciperet

Et páreret Emmanuel.

Mysterium hoc magnum est,

Mariae quod concessum est,

Ut Deum, per quem omnia,

Ex se prodire cerneret.

Gloria tibi Domine,

Gloria Unigenito,

Una cum sancto Spiritu

In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.

LAUDS

Vere gratia plena es

Et gloriosa pérmanes;

Quia ex te nobis natus est

Christus per quem sunt omnia.

Pastores, qui audierunt

Gloriam Deo cantarunt,

Cucurrérunt in Bethlehem

Natum vidére Dominum.

Sic Magi ab ortu solis,

Propter stellæ indicium,

Portantes typum Gentium,

Primi offerunt munera

Rogemus ergo, populi,

Dei Matrem et Virginem,

Ut ipsa nobis ímpetret

Pacem et indulgentiam.

Gloria tibi Domine,

Gloria Unigenito,

Una cum sancto Spiritu

In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.

Officium Parvum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis

The Little Office is a blessing and a relief - why not try it as a fit devotion and rule of prayer suited to a traditionalist Catholic? I know that Fr Tattersall recommended it to my friend Justin for one.

I have previously posted on:

• the Little Office of Our Lady (which, as that day, I've again used instead of the full Breviary this Saturday);
• and more on the Little Office; and yet more on it;
• The Little Office of Our Lady after the Use of Sarum;
• I've put the whole of the Dominican Little Office of Our Lady online as well;
• and also made some suggestions regarding the Little Office and the Office of the Dead;
• furthermore it must be noted, lest would-be pray-ers go astray, that the Baronius Press edition of Our Lady's Office is full of misprints and mistakes, to a really vexing degree.

Some other useful resources:

• the Little Office, in parallel Latin and English, according to the Use of Rome in 1599: hence the hymns are in their original state prior to Urban VIII's misguided 'correction' of them, the antiphons are not doubled - given in full before as well as after each psalm or canticle - and the items removed in the reforms of Pius X (that is, Psalms 66, 149 and 150 at Lauds) and Pius XII (the prefatory Ave of each Hour, the Kyrie before the Collect, the memorial of the saints at Lauds and Vespers, the Pater and versicle to be said at the end of the Hours one has said, and the Pater, Ave and Credo after the Marian anthem at Compline) are still there;
• the Little Office according to the Ambrosian Rite as of 1957;
• the Little Office as put on someone's blog, apparently in the pre-1950's form (with all the above-named items removed under Pius XII still included).

It's Nova et Vetera Misprint Time Again

In volume II of the otherwise quite excellent Nova et Vetera edition of the 1962 Breviary, in the Common of Martyrs at Sext (on page 60), the versicle has an extra word inserted, by evident confusion with the text of the short responsory immediately preceding:

V/.  Exsúltent iusti in conspéctu Dei, iusti [sic].

R/.  Et delecténtur in lætítia.

While still minor, this is a worse misprint than the mistaken substitution of A for Æ...

Upcoming Retreat

The indefatigable Fr Michael Rowe, Latin Mass Chaplain of the Archdiocese of Perth (and, de facto, of Western Australia), is again running his yearly Ignatian retreat, at the historic town of Toodyay, 85 km north-west of Perth - I attended it last year, and would recommend it:

TOODYAY RETREAT

SIX DAYS  IN OCTOBER

Sunday 4 October 2009 to Friday 9 October 2009

A Silent Ignatian Retreat

At Toodyay:
         Daily  Holy Mass
                   Holy Hour
                   Benediction
                   Adoration
                   Silent Reflection

Cost:
The Retreat itself is FREE but Meals and Accommodation will cost $210 per retreatant  (if paid by 18 September ‘09 Early Bird discounted price is $190).
Deposit of $50.00 please to confirm your attendance.

COME ONE AND COME ALL

For An UNFORGETTABLE
Ignatian Spiritual Experience

For further enquiries, please contact
The Retreat Master Fr Michael Rowe
PO Box 337 NORTH PERTH W.A. 
Ph./Fax (08) 9444 9604 
Email : latinmasschaplaincywa@iinet.net.au 

Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum

Spiritual aerobics: walking up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs here at home, reading Matins.  Told you I was crazy.

Because of time constraints, I usually say Matins (if at all) out of due order: before work, I say Lauds and Prime (asking for a blessing the day and my actions), perhaps fit in Terce and/or Sext at breaks, but in any case get them and None done by mid- to late-afternoon (I hope)... Vespers is said in the evening, then Compline to complete the day.  Or at least that is my general aim...

I must note that to me, Wednesday Matins are very beautiful because of their sublime (and not overly long) psalmody: Psalms 44 (Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum - a royal epithalamium, the song of David's love for his wife the queen, of God's love for Israel, of Jesus' love for His Mother, for His Church, for the Christian soul), 45 ("God is for us a refuge and strength"), 47 ("Great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised"), 48 ("Hear this, all ye nations"), 49 ("The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and summoned the earth") and 50 - the incomparable Miserere.  (Psalm 46, which would fit in the midst of these, is read at Lauds on Mondays - "All nations, clap your hands... psallite sapienter...")  Since to-day is the feast of a canonized queen who, widowed, took the habit as a holy religious, how fitting to sing Psalm 44 at the opening of her Office!

While my Latin is by no means perfect, I know these psalms well, having prayed them for many years in English in the modern Divine Office (let us say that some psalms aren't quite so well-recalled)...

Friends, such as Terra, prefer to pray the Benedictine Breviary, wherein Psalm 44 is instead the last of the twelve psalms at Monday Matins (or "Vigils"), while on Tuesdays at Matins the following psalms are prayed: the six Psalms 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51 in the First Nocturn, and another six, Psalms 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58 in the Second Nocturn.  Phew!  (And Psalm 50 makes its appearance as the second psalm daily at Lauds.)  

It is considered that St Benedict based his arrangement of the weekly cursus of psalms on that then current at Rome, making various changes here and there, while the Roman arrangement endured until the minor reform of St Pius V (who removed Psalms 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 from Sunday Prime, and redistributed them among the other weekdays - until his day, Sunday Prime had nine psalms!) and the major reform of St Pius X (who decreed that each psalm - with the exception of the Venite, Psalm 94, and at penitential times the Miserere, Psalm 50 - was to be assigned but one Hour at week at which it was to be said, thus cutting back substantially on the length of the Office). 

Before 1912, the Roman Breviary, too, had twelve psalms at Matins - this number allegedly goes back to the Egyptian Fathers of the Desert, who received a response from an angel to their question of the proper number of psalms for the night office.  To this day, their lineal descendants, the Copts, pray in their Office an astonishing number of psalms every day, but they have a cheeky way of speeding up their devotions: one monk says the first of the psalms appointed, another the second, and so on - all together saying their respective psalms at once!

Whatever of this, the psalms for Wednesday Matins in the 1962 Breviary were previously included in the twelve said at Tuesday Matins until 1912: Psalms 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, and 51 - for Psalm 50 was instead said every day at ferial Lauds (and when this happens in the 1962 Breviary on Wednesdays, as in Lent, Psalm 50 is dropped from that day's Matins).

St Elizabeth of Portugal

To-day Holy Mother Church bids us venerate a Queen and Widow, a peacemaker; not she who is Queen of Queens and yes, wonderful to say, Widow of St Joseph, her well-beloved spouse, and moreover Immaculate Virgin Mother of He Who Is our Peace, but a dear spiritual daughter of Our Lady, to whom she appeared to forewarn her of her death: that is to say, St Elizabeth of Portugal (or, of Aragon), "the Peacemaker".  (Her great-aunt and namesake is St Elizabeth of Hungary; however, in Spain and Portugal she is known as Isabel, Elizabeth not being a common Iberian name.)

The Breviary gives us the clue to why this St Elizabeth (1271-1336) deserves a universal cult among Christians: for her Office begins with a proper Invitatory - "Let us praise our God in the holy works of blessed Elizabeth".  Yes, as is proper for a widow, according to St Paul, she had "the witness of her good works" (I Tim. v, 10) and diligently "pursued every good work" (ibid.): her own special grace was the God-given ability to bring peace to warring parties among her royal relatives, over and above her perseverance in righteousness, prayer and alms-deeds.  Having since her youth prayed the whole Divine Office, and seeking after ever greater perfection, upon her husband's death she retired to a cloister of Poor Clares, but came forth therefrom, when already nigh unto death, to bring peace yet once more to her feuding relations.  "Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called children of God."  (St Matthew v, 9.)  At her death, she went to be with her heavenly Father, who called home His adopted daughter, a true sister of His Son.  It was for her bright-shining miracles, signifying this, the Lord's everlasting delight in her virtues, that, centuries later, Urban VIII wrote her name among those of the Saints.

Her true royalty derives not from her blue blood, but from God crowning her, so crowning His own gifts.  She rightly imitates her namesake the mother of the Baptist: we, her neighbours and kinsfolk in Christ, in the fellowship of the Saints, rejoice with her that God's mercy has been so magnified in her (cf. St Luke i, 58), for she and her dear husband King Denis, once a sinner but converted by her example, "were just before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord" (St Luke i, 6).  How is this possible to men?  Because the Holy Ghost dwells in the heart of the Christian, gracing and supernaturalizing, enabling us to fulfil the New Law of love.

The Hours of St Elizabeth provide selections from Proverbs xxxi, the pæan to the Valiant Woman, and also feature two proper hymns (well worth serious consideration, with verses like "...Blessed charity, able to place us in the ark of stars for all ages.."), plus a proper Collect - which reminds us to seek the one thing necessary, the Kingdom of God, over and above all other good things, which we ask in and through and because of Jesus Christ, our King and Lord:

Clementissime Deus, qui beatam Elisabeth reginam, inter ceteras egregias dotes, bellici furori sedandi prærogativa decorasti: da nobis, ejus intercessione: post mortalis vitæ, quam suppliciter petimus, ad æterna gaudia pervenire.  Per...

(Most clement God, Who beautified blessed Elizabeth the Queen, amongst other illustrious endowments, with the prerogative of calming warlike fury: give to us, at her intercession, what we suppliantly entreat: to come to eternal joys after this mortal life.  Through...)

[This is, I think, a beautiful prayer: note the regal terms "Queen" and [royal] "prerogative", the feminine terms "beautified" and "dowries"...]

The Salt Water Fallacy

During and after the Second World War, the British were often annoyed that the U.S.A. seemed all too much to favour dismantling the British Empire, even though Great Britain was their ally.  The British did not see in this merely an altruistic desire to spread the blessings of liberty - and after all, these blessings in Africa and elsewhere have proved rather elusive ever since decolonization was brought in ahead of time - but a desire to profit from such a break-up, while committing all the time the "salt water fallacy": that territories separated by sea from the metropolis are somehow less legitimately part of a nation's dominions than contiguous lands, such as the then "republics" that made up the Soviet Union...

We see the same fallacy in play to-day in the Chinese Empire (and yes, that should be its proper name), as regards two of its "autonomous regions", or should that be contiguous colonies: Tibet and East Turkestan - known by their Han Chinese names of Xizang and Xinjiang, which significantly enough mean "Western Treasure House" (how exploitative!) and "New Territory".  (Note also that the modern province of Xizang only includes about half of historic Tibet.)  

How surprising, not, is it that in recent years the natives of both regions (Tibetans and Uyghurs) have rioted against the demographic deluge of Han immigrants that threatens to make them dispossessed minorities, rather than majorities in their own lands...  It would seem to me only just that these nations have their independence, and China be composed of China proper (plus the former Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, since both those formerly non-Chinese regions are now overwhelmingly ethnically Chinese).  And of course, I pray for a China happy and free, delivered from one-party rule, corruption, militarism and repression, where the blessings of true liberty are available - above all, that the Church militant be delivered from persecution, so that the Gospel may bring blessings to souls - but part of freedom is recognizing injustices inflicted on others, that they too may be set free.

Of course, as an Australian of Anglo-Celtic descent I cannot shamelessly criticize the establishment of settler colonies across the globe: Australia, New Zealand, Canada (once unblushingly called "the White Dominions") plus the United States (Britannia's revolting offspring!) all owe their main origins to settlement from the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales...); for these, together with Ireland (a nation with a fraught relationship to the larger island next door), form the centre of the Anglosphere, the modern nations whose common tongue is English, whose main ethnic origins stem from two small outliers of Europe (joined then and now with many others), whose system of common law stems from the jurisprudence of England, and which for better or worse have had and continue to have a great deal of influence on the history of the world.

Nonetheless, "imperialism" and "colonization" are no longer in vogue: except, it appears, in the Middle Kingdom.  Does this bode well?  It is excellent that the material prosperity of China is daily increasing for the benefit of her people, but a nationalistic and expansionist State will not contribute to the peace of the world, whereas history has shewn that first the Pax Britannica and now the Pax Americana has, overall, been for the greater good (whatever enormities have been unjustly committed all unworthily), not least in defeating other, evil, Empires - the Nazi in World War II, the Communist in the Cold War...

Monthly Mass - July 2009

Off to Hobart at 8:30 am... stopping briefly at Campbell Town on the way... arriving at 11:15... Confessions before Mass... the Missa Cantata from about 11.40 till just before 1 pm... lunch with an old dear friend of mine, and then back on the road north at 2.45... making brief stops at Oatlands as well as Campbell Town again... finally getting back home at 5.45 pm.

What we have to do for the Mass of our fathers!

I used to be impressed when Michael, one of my friends from W.A., used to drive up from Bunbury or beyond (a little further than I do) so as to attend the Latin Mass in Perth.  Now I have to do so.

The Mass itself: Mass VIII (de Angelis) and Credo III, with full Gregorian Propers... a smaller than usual congregation of 45 in attendance.  Since the Mass is rather late in the day, takes well over an hour, and only comes once a month, more would - and have - come, but for various reasons don't always turn up.  I do hope Father, bless him, could say Mass just a little bit faster (he may only say it once a month, owing to the strictures of this archdiocese, which is not enough for getting into practice; his Latin is fluent, but it is somewhat evident that he is carefully reading the rubrics at certain points, such as at the end of the Canon).

Enemies of the Human Race

Reading about the martyrs of the Roman persecutions helped me better to understand the central charge against them - that Christians were "enemies of the human race", foes of the common good, haters of and hated by all men: for they refused to sacrifice to the gods by whose favour the Pax Romana endured, and thus were thankless atheists; they refused the commands of the Emperors, and thus were stiff-necked, obstinate, disobedient rebels and traitors; they were members of a sinister secret society, by its cloak of darkness gravely suspect of plotting against the State, and containing a whole illegitimate rival hierarchy; and they held to beliefs and practices subversive of public morals (contemporaries found them odious and shocking, thinking they worshipped a condemned criminal or even an ass, partook of cannibal feasts, and even committed incest).  The Empire was the world, and the Christians were a fifth column within it.

At least the stiff-necked and obstinate Jews, against whose revolts the Empire had to fight on several occasions, were adherents of an ancient religion, the proper cult of their fathers and their nation, and their peculiar religion was recognized, even permitted unusual privileges by the laws - but Christians, seemingly holding perverted Jewish beliefs blasphemous to the Jews themselves, were every one a traitor to their own individual ancestral religions, having spurned their native gods and turned to a new and disturbingly exclusive deity, whose worship had not been permitted by the Senate (part of whose purview was the detection and punishment of strange and vile religious cults that undermined public order).

(Refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods as the Emperor commands for the good of the State, the Christian bishop is done to death as an enemy of the world, an ingrate atheist, a dangerous innovator, a spreader of unlawful superstition and a rebel rabble-rouser.)

As the West sloughs off more and more vestiges of Christianity, as secularism bites or rather disbelief spreads, what is found is a return to paganism - for as Chesterton pointed out, those who believe nothing will believe anything.  Ever seen the pages of astrology, fortune telling, numerology, tarot card reading, and worse in women's magazines?  What of ghosts, witches and mediums on television - the last being on non-fiction programmes!  It's a wonder animal sacrifice isn't back in vogue.  Pagans could read fine philosophy, albeit vitiated by horrendous moral deviations not excluding infanticide - sound familiar?  But their morality was expediency...

Note how every other religion (even, ahem, one that seems to have more than its fair share of aggressive members, yet is forever being declared in its pure form "a religion of peace" - which ought be Christianity's title), in a suitably watered down version acceptable to bourgeois sensibilities, is accorded unquestioning respect: visit some odd New Age shop and see a vast kitsch collection of Buddhas, angels, crystals and more... a veritable idol shop.   But one thing you will not find: a crucifix.  The world cannot abide the Crucified.

Christianity to-day, above all the Catholic Church, faces more and more the same accusations that it faced in the beginning: of practising an irrational, immoral, exclusive, world-hating religion, completely inappropriate for our enlightened age, discriminating against decent citizens: it's a wonder it's allowed at all, as it is its inappropriate and politically incorrect views deserve to be banned from being propagated or followed.  Note that "politically incorrect" means precisely "not appropriate for the City, the Polis" - that is, our civil society.

St Peter writes of the pagans' uncomprehending hatred of Christians in his First Epistle (iv, 1-4):

Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought: for he that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sins: that now he may live the rest of his time in the flesh, not after the desires of men, but according to the will of God.  For the time past is sufficient to have fulfilled the will of the Gentiles, for them who have walked in riotousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and unlawful worshipping of idols.  Wherein they think it strange, that you run not with them into the same confusion of riotousness, speaking evil of you.

To our cost, too many Christians have behaved anything but as becomes saints - the filthy crimes revealed to the world's eyes have deeply scandalized many both inside the Church, and those who, outside in darkness, might otherwise have been curious to seek after Truth, but now have recoiled in horror.  We have been a stumbling block to many.  The scandals besetting the Church, especially in lands with a strong Irish background, have been pleasing to none but Satan, the Deceiver.  They have also revealed how compromised many in sacred orders have been, and how the innocent have suffered, the guilty prospered.  All this seems to confirm the common external diagnosis: that Christianity is a wicked false religion, imposing guilt and slavish obedience on its dupes, while those in positions of power use it for their fell ends and personal gain.

What eventually overcame three hundred years and ten great Persecutions?  The blood of the martyrs, which is the seed of the Church as Tertullian noted: the witness of sanctity, of unheard of generosity (such as the Christians who laboured to help plague victims and died trying - why? for they weren't even coreligionists or relations!), and the fact that ordinary folk were willing to suffer and die horribly for their belief.  No pagan cult could claim such power to make the weak strong.  The Holy Spirit was indeed active in His Saints, as these noble athletes ran in the footsteps of Christ Who in His Passion had preceded them: and in their witness God was glorified, and the world converted.

Persecution does seem, perversely enough, to crystallize the real issue - to be really Christ's, or not - and thus strangely to bring not death but life to the Church: as someone said, believers would be more fervent "if they were burning priests on Bourke Street" (the main road leading through the city up to Parliament House in Melbourne).  A friend of mine, speaking of what he considers to be the impending return to the times of persecution, such is the falling away, cheerfully said, "Of course we'll all be martyrs!"  The martyrs confessed themselves all unworthy of the gratuitous gift that was theirs - to fight the good fight, keep the faith, and for the sake of temporary suffering win eternal glory in Christ Jesus our Lord.  I rather agree with the blogger who said, "She thought she could be a martyr, if they killed her quick".  We must all seriously ask ourselves whether we bear witness to the Lord, or keep cowed, frightened and silent; as the roadside poster said, "If you were tried for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"  

Only if one can be convicted of Christianity can one's witness hope to convert others - to the greater glory of God.

Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.

(The white-robed army of martyrs praise Thee.)