Blessed Karl , the Hope of Austria

21 Friday Oct 2016

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I bless Archduke Charles, who will be the future Emperor of Austria and will help lead his countries and peoples to great honor and many blessings — but this will not become obvious until after his death.

-St. Pius X, Audience with Empress (then Princess) Zita of Bourbon-Parma

“In exile far from the lands, you sojourn, Hope of Austria…” These words, written for His Imperial and Royal Majesty Otto while he was still an exile in Spain, might very well apply to his father the last reigning Emperor-King, Karl of Austria. His body still sojourns on the isle of Madeira, the final shores of his exile. It might seem strange to connect Hope with his long suffering, his earthly failure as the powers in the world dethroned him, his young death after an excruciating illness. And yet his suffering was not in vain, rather, it was the beginning of something greater, something we now may not see the end of in our earthly lives.

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The Rescuer

20 Thursday Oct 2016

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A few days ago at the official website for The Emperor Karl League of Prayer, I came across something I’d like to share with you, my readers, as we approach the feast day of Blessed Emperor Karl. As you probably all know by now, the saintly Emperor has been a huge influence in my life, and I have been praying annually for his canonization. So it is with great pleasure that I present to you a brilliant recounting of an important day for the Imperial-Royal soldiers on the Italian Front, written by author Christopher Reibold. The story itself is based on a true event in Blessed Karl’s life, attested to in the biographies prepared for his beatification. So please enjoy it over there at the League of Prayer website:

The Rescuer

Novena for the Canonization of Bl. Karl of Austria

13 Thursday Oct 2016

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Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Emperor Karl of Austria:

[To be prayed at the beginning of each day of the novena.]

Heavenly Father, through Blessed Emperor Karl You have given Your Church and the people of God an example of how we can live a discerning and spiritual life in a convincing and courageous way.

His public actions as emperor and king, and his personal acts as a family man, were firmly based in the teachings of the Catholic Faith. His love for his Eucharistic Lord grew in times of trial, and helped him to unite himself to Christ’s sacrifice through his own life’s sacrifice for his peoples. Emperor Karl honored the Mother of God, and loved to pray the rosary throughout his life.

Strengthen us by his intercession when discouragement, faintheartedness, loneliness, bitterness and depression trouble us. Let us follow the example of Your faithful servant, and unselfishly serve our brothers and sisters according to Your will.

Hear my petitions and grant my request [mention your intention here].

Grant that Blessed Karl of Austria be deemed worthy of canonization, for the glory of Your Name, the praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and for blessings upon the Church.

Amen.

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On the Current Crisis

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

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One can readily understand what the dread of passing evils can do, and what great eternal evil follows!

-Pius XII, Exsul Familia Nazarethana

The current crisis to which I refer is not what one would expect, the displacement of peoples, the present wars in which neither side is really “the Right side”. Rather it is the crisis of ideals and definitions, of right and proper relations; not so much what is happening as how it is dealt with- and how it ought to be dealt with. What is at stake is the Right Order of the World, of Human Society, the proper and just relations of beings and of states of being, and the solution is to be found, following the example of the ancients, by looking at the Right Order of the Human Person and Soul to which earthly things are ordered.

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“Men Hastening to be Slaves or Tyrants…”

07 Friday Oct 2016

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Whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we [the devils] make Liberalism the prime bogey.

This quote, taken from The Screwtape Letters (those quite literally infernal epistles recorded by C.S. Lewis), struck me as something very telling about the Left, and the current opposition to it. The Left, understood as that which throughout the ages leads men further from Salvation, has indeed created “Liberalism” (as understood in the form condemned by the Church), but it has also created Illiberalism (understood as a disordered hatred of Liberty, as opposed to Liberalism as a disordered love). Leftism is both Nationalist and Internationalist, without the Patriotism and ordered love of nationality that the Right has, nor the Right’s concern for the greater good of Mankind.

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“Still round the corner there may wait…”

22 Thursday Sep 2016

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The following account was found among the marginalia of a late Fourth Age manuscript of The King’s Book of Findegil, quite possibly based on a now lost journal or letter;

I am Tuor Artirion, of the Citadel Guard of Minas Tirith, son of Galdor Artirion, lately of the White Company of the Prince of Ithilien. I am the last of mortal men to enter the land of the Halflings while that country lasts, unless it be that the King decides to grant such a grace again, and this is my tale.

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Patriotism and Nationalism: Ordered Love of Country and Disordered Attachment to Nation

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

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Patriotism, not nationalism, is the ideal political attachment. The patriot is proud of and happy about his country and the variety of cultures, languages, races, institutions, estates and classes, traditions and opinions it harbors. The nationalist is in danger of considering himself (as part of a collective unit) superior to the members of other nationalities (ethnic groups). He comes dangerously close to the racist. His loyalties have taken on a horizontal rather than a vertical character.

Nationalism is a “natural” tendency: the nation is the cultural group one is born into (natus). The patriot, however, takes a supranatural, an ethical stand. He vows loyalty and affection to the country of his birth, of his forebears, or to an adopted fatherland. Indeed, there are great countries on this globe which have grown by virtue of choice and adoption on the part of their citizens rather than by birthrates.

Nationalism (and racism) have repeatedly created dissent, rebellion, and wars. The modern “popular” mass-war has ideological or nationalistic roots and sometimes even racist undertones.

-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Portland Declaration Article 21  

United in Victory

12 Monday Sep 2016

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Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit!

“We came, we saw, God conquered!” These words of the Polish King Jan Sobieski reflect well the Hand of Providence in the victory which decisively saved Christendom from the long Turkish onslaught.  The soldiers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their King certainly deserve the glory hard won on the Kahlenberg. However, save in their own countries those who fought alongside the renown Winged Hussars are often overshadowed and overlooked, be they Imperials, or the Lipka Tatars (Lithuanian Turkic Muslims who fought in the defense of Vienna).

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There Never was a “First German Empire”!

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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Holy Roman Empire Allegory

Of course, there was always Germany, in the sense that there were always Germans. But in so far as those Germans had a country, a culture, a common centre of their civilisation, it was never, through all the ages, what we now call Germany. It was what we now call Austria. In so far as they were ruled by a Kaiser, the Emperor of Austria was the one and only Kaiser. In so far as there was a German Empire, the Austrian Empire was the one and only German Empire. They were more loosely federated than the solid nations like France; they could be regarded as small separate kingdoms and dukedoms; but in so far as they were ever one thing, this was the one and only thing. If they belonged to any Empire, it could only conceivably be the Holy Roman Empire, and the great imperial throne upon the Danube.

-G.K. Chesterton, The End of the Armistice

Throughout the Anglosphere since the rise of the heresy of Nationalism (which Deo volente will be the subject of one of my next posts) there has arisen the regrettable practice of referring to the “First German Empire”.  This error pervades even the most well thought out articles, which otherwise provide valid points and arguments. Yet why exactly is this commonplace understanding so much in error?

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For the Honor of Austria: Ban Josip Jelačić von Bužim

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Being a son of the nation, being the supporter of liberty, and being subject to Austria, I am faithfully committed to the constitutional Emperor of the Empire and its Kings, and I long for a great, free Austria. The [Revolutionary] Hungarian Government, as it is evident, would not like to agree on this; they insist on their separatist moves, which means they struggle to dismantle our Empire. It is the command of our duty and honour to go till the ultimate and to call for arms against them. And we, not sparing our wealth, blood and life, will stand for our rightful demands and sacred deeds.

-Josip Jelačić, Ban of the Kingdom of Croatia, Count von Bužim, Knight of the Military Order of Maria Theresa

Bože živi, Bože štiti Cara našeg i naš dom.
Vječnom Ti ih slavom kiti, Snagom Ti ih jačaj svom.
Ti nam sretne dane množi, Habsburškoj ih kući daj,
S njenom snagom zauvijek složi
Hrvatske nam krune sjaj

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