Tag Archives: christendom

G.K. Chesterton on the Legend of Emperor Charlemagne

17 Saturday Dec 2016

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It is when a fact is thus too big for history that it overflows the surrounding facts and expresses itself in fable. Nay, it is when the fact is in a sense too solid that its very solidity breaks the framework of ordinary things; and it can only be recorded through extraordinary things like fairy-tales and romances of chivalry. Everybody felt that merely saying that one Carolus or Carl had lived and died at a certain date, and had a palace at Aix, and fought such and such campaigns against Saxons or Saracens, was wholly inadequate to explain what had happened.

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Salve Regina!

12 Monday Dec 2016

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O Lady whom the stars adorn
O Star that shone in sunless hour
Light of those now oft forlorn
Winter’s rose, unfrosted flower

Clear were those stars upon that eve
Thyself thy God did bring to earth
And Greatest Gift of God receive
Upon that night of Holy Birth

O Maria! mother purest maid!
Look kindly on thy knights in gold
To Christendom’s Citadel swift bring aid!
The help of Him Whom thou behold

And lastly we pray in the vale of tears
Save those whose life is yet unborn
Keep safe the passing of the years
For those who wait before the morn

☩

A Restorationist in the Age of Racialism

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

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The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind.

– Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus

Encouraged by certain “victories”, the world is triumphantly entering a New Age of Nationalism… or so we are told in shouts of jubilation or despair. The sad truth is that the world has never left the downward spiral that is Nationalism; it has merely entered beginning the last phase, Racial Nationalism. That the world has fallen to such lowness is not surprising; such was always the Fate of the Fallen world, and yet we are not bound by that fate, but by Divine Providence alone. With God’s grace we can fight against this marring of the world.

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The Emperor is Dead! Long Live the Emperor!

21 Monday Nov 2016

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franz-josef-in-prayerOn this day (November 21) one hundred years ago (in 1916), His Majesty Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Jerusalem (etc.), and heir of the Holy Roman Emperors, entered Eternal Life after a reign of sixty-eight years. He came to the throne amidst the fires of revolution, and died amidst the ashes of the Great War, and yet for the long years of his reign, his peoples were at peace and contented. So long as he ruled it, this last remnant of Christendom in Europe seemed as though it would last into the far distant future. And yet his own life was fraught with tragedy that might have brought lesser men to despair, the murder of his brother, of his only son, of his wife, and finally of his heir, and through it all he held firm to his God-given duties to his peoples.

However, the death of the old Emperor was not only a time of mourning, for it was also on this day that Archduke Karl ascended to the throne of the war-torn Empire; Emperor as was foretold by St. Pius X, and though most of his reign would be spent in exile, he was certainly a worthy successor of his great-uncle Franz Josef, blessed with same courage and devotion.

Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem sempiternam

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The Vision of Roland

10 Thursday Nov 2016

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Far, far across the hills echoed the song of the Olifant of the Palatines. In the vanguard of his army Carolus Goldencrowned heard it beyond the Pass of Runcievalles, summoning the riders of the King of the West. Now swiftly they rode, their own horns giving answer, swiftly to brandish bright swords against the enemies of the free realms. Alas! too late had come the summons and what aid now could save those valiant knights of Christendom?

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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

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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“The Whole Modern Business…”

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

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I have already shown that the real Outline of History for the last few centuries largely consisted of Prussia dragging down the Holy Roman Empire, and transferring the Imperial Crown, the Kaiserdom or Kingship of the Germanies, from the old Catholic Princes who claimed to have it from Charlemagne, to a Protestant prince who had been but lately a Prussian squire. In short, the whole modern business has been the building up of a new Protestant Empire in the north, on the ruin of the old Catholic Empire in the south.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Heresy of Race

More quotations on the Holy Roman Empire taken from the works of Chesterton can be found in my earlier post, Catholic Authors on the Holy Roman Empire: Part I.