The Wild Tears Fall

And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face. And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai...And the king said to him: Hang him upon it. So Aman was hanged on the gibbet...and the king's wrath ceased. (Esther VII: 8-10)

Queen Esther observed in prayer, before she went before her lord, king, and husband's face, that the threat against the Jews had been visited upon them as punishment for sin. Great then had been her personal mortification before she undertook to save her people. Likewise, she demanded fasting and weeping from them, before she ventured to beg Artaxerxes to spare the lives of the Israelites.



Father Augustyn Kordecki, and later King Jan Kazimierz, made the same observation concerning the Swedish 'Deluge' (1655-1660), the former ascribing that chastisement to the sins of Poland's people, and the latter to the crimes of her rulers. His majesty spoke these words after he had crowned the Virgin as his nation's queen:

As I see, to the great sorrow of my soul, that all the adversities which have fallen upon my Kingdom in the last seven years—the epidemics, the wars, and other misfortunes—were sent by the Supreme Judge as a punishment for the groans and the oppression suffered by the peasants, I promise and vow, after the conquest of peace, in union with all the states, to use all means to free my people from all unjust burdens and oppressions. Grant, Oh most loving Queen and Lady, that I obtain the grace of Thy Son to do all that I propose, and which Thou hast inspired me! (Memoirs of the Siege of Częstochowa, Augustyn Kordecki, C. S. P., translated by Plinio Correa de Oliveira)

This noble resolution was most wisely entrusted to Our Lady's keeping. After all, it had been the miraculous survival of her shrine that had turned the tide of the war in Poland's favour. 

Yet, while the great men living through this fiery era beat their breasts for their own sins and prepared to save their fatherland with mortification and repentence, the enemy were unwittingly blunting their own swords by committing iniquities themselves. Like Nabuchodonozor's warrior, Holofernes of the Book of Judith, General Burchard Müller, might have fared better in his campaign against the Catholics of Poland if he had had his own Achior to warn him thusly: 


Wheresoever they went in without bow and arrow, and without shield and sword, their God fought for them and overcame. And there was no one that triumphed over this people, but when they departed from the worship of the Lord their God. But as often as beside their own God, they worshipped any other, they were given to spoil, and to the sword, and to reproach. And as often as they were penitent for having revolted from the worship of their God, the God of heaven gave them power to resist. (Judith V: 16-19)


Alas for him, the general's religious sect had ousted that book from Holy Scripture, so he could not profit from its wisdom.  Making the same mistake as General Holofernes, he sallied forth in contempt of the Church still revered in Poland, even referring to the shrine he wished to capture as a 'henhouse.' History would soon turn him into another proof that God is not mocked, and only a fool spits on His beloved.


Still, no one could call him unreasonable for expecting the surrender of a single, Polish fortress (and a monastic one at that) when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had already buckled under the Swedish invasion. And did he not go about the siege with the greatest of human wisdom? Did he not send Polish, Catholic aristocrats and even old friends to treat with those stubborn Paulines? Did he not offer them the hope of preserving their monastery if they would yield? Did he not cajole them not once, but eleven times? One of these emissaries even begged Father Kordecki to give in by threatening the defenders of Jasna Góra with damnation: 


...the aim of a religious order is to abstain from temporal matters. What do you have to do with the turbulence of war, you whose rules call you to solitude and silence. Ponder it well, lest the arms which you brandish instead of your Rosaries, carry you to perdition…. (ibid.)

Yet, though the Polish king was a refugee in Silesia, the nobles had surrendered to the invaders, and all tactical and technical prospects of defending the Bright Mountain were bleak, Father Kordecki was driven by one fierce determination--no one who despised Our Lady would stain her sanctuary with his impious feet.


His staunch defiance cannot be justified or condemned in the light of human reason. The probability of clemency on the part of the Swedes would have been a matter for diviners, not logicians. Though defeat was certain, stalling for time in the face of capitulating to an unendurable peace possessed its own wordly wisdom. In the end, surrender is always a gamble, and choosing one side of a coin is not mad.


Can the priest be condemned on religious grounds then? Was the nobleman correct in admonishing him against taking such an active stance on what must in the end be a secular affair--the identity of one's sovereign?


There can be no doubt that fire for one's homeland and the principles of natural pride consumed many of the hearts defending Jasna Góra's walls. But the motto carved above so many portals in Polska is Bóg, Honor, i Ojczyzna. When some of the monks complained against Father Augustyn that it was for God's providence to determine the fate of kings and sovereigns, he did not dispute this fact, but made a new argument:


“…what Faith is ours,” he bellowed, “what love, what gratitude to God Who is so generous to us—that such small damage to our earthly comforts is able to turn us away from the guard and protection of the chest containing the celestial treasures of the eternal King? Let us consider that it is far more prudent for us to defend the integrity of the House of God, the Holy Faith and at the same time our own liberties, than for us to lose all and, in addition, to go into exile and eternal slavery.” (ibid.)


There would be no trust given to the devil, nor a chance for him to commit defamation. This resolve, united with hopeful reports of the king, does much to justify the Pauline's reason, but the feeling remains that there was also something--rather someone--else, who would not allow him to give in. As with Ozias, the Israelite ruler of Bethulia, this someone was very likely a woman.


When Holofernes lay siege to the above-mentioned city, the inhabitants (like those sheltered in the monastery) did not religiously apostatize as they became parched with thirst. Separating their earthly state from their eternal duties, they argued for capitulation on different grounds:


For it is better, that being captives we should live and bless the Lord, than that we should die, and be a reproach to all flesh, after we have seen our wives and our infants die before our eyes. We call to witness this day heaven and earth, and the God of our fathers, who taketh vengeance upon us according to our sins, conjuring you to deliver now the city into the hand of the army of Holofernes, that our end may be short by the edge of the sword, which is made longer by the drought of thirst...

and their ruler, Ozias, was prepared to give in:


 Ozias rising up all in tears, said: Be of good courage, my brethren, and let us wait these five days for mercy from the Lord. For perhaps he will put a stop to his indignation, and will give glory to his own name. But if after five days be past there come no aid, we will do the things which you leave spoken.
(Judith VII 16-17, 23-25)


In the modern world, with its restive field of free choice, we so often forget what our individual duties are or if we have any at all. What is explicitly holy or evil is taught to us and inscribed on our hearts, but the things we owe to God and the world as ourselves is a thing we hardly ever stop to consider. Living life according to the universal virtues, it does not often occur to the modern thinker that what is allowed for him, may not be permitted another man or that the reverse may be true.


Hence, while such a resolution as Ozias's is not objectively impious, and a Christian state of today may even be permittied it, it was wrong. The matter was apparent for the noblewoman Judith:

And who are you that tempt the Lord? This is not a word that may draw down mercy, but rather that may stir up wrath, and enkindle indignation.You have set a time for the mercy of the Lord, and you have appointed him a day, according to your pleasure...And therefore let us humble our souls before him, and continuing in an humble spirit, in his service: Let us ask the Lord with tears, that according to his will so he would shew his mercy to us: that as our heart is troubled by their pride, so also we may glorify in our humility. (Judith VIII 11-13, 16-17)


Perhaps the Pauline priest was not reading Judith in his time of great trial, but he responded to a traitorous, Polish lord that came to urge his surrender with the same fire as that great lady:

“On account of former benefits which Your Excellency has conceded to this sanctuary, your life has been spared various times during this siege; but lower thy head, do not abuse the patience of God!” (ibid.)

Yes, lower thy head lest a hand mightier than Judith's sever it as she severed that of Holofernes's. It was not until after the siege, and from the mouth of enemy witnesses, that the Virgin's gallant knights learnt she had been with them all the time:


"What witch is this that is to be found in your cloister of Czestohowa, who covered with a blue mantle sallies from the cloister and walks along the walls, resting from time to time on the bastions – and whose sight makes our people drop with terror, so much so that, when she appears, we have to turn our faces to the ground and protect our eyes?" (ibid.)

However, the Poles had soldiered on by faith and not by sight. That vision which terrified the Swedes had not consoled their earthly eyes. Persevering with the sacraments without fail, honouring Our Lord without fear, and praying without ceasing had been their preservation and sweetness of spirit. In the end, it prevailed in Heaven and on earth.

In June 1863 after more than two years of bloody conflict the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee commanding, slips across the Potomac to begin the invasion of the North...Their objective is to draw the Union army out into the open where it can be destroyed...General Lee knows that a letter has been prepared by the Southern government; a letter which offers peace. It is to be placed on the desk of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States the day after Lee has destroyed the Army of the Potomac somewhere north of Washington... (Opening Narration: Gettysburg, 1993 [emphasis mine]) 

Surely there are few literal pacifists living on this earth. The majority of us would acknowledge the necessity of violence in the case of self-defense or the defense of others. To feel one's self in danger invokes all the natural instincts necessary to commit physical evils in order to prevent moral evils. Love, which moves us to will the good of another, brings other persons into that realm of one's own being which we wish always to protect. It may even be more intense than the attachment one has to one's literal self. The more loving the husband and father, the more tender the wife and mother, and the more devoted the brother or sister, the more capable they are of turning viciously on a wicked aggressor in a way which they would never even wish their loved ones to witness. 


This is rather self-evident to anyone who has truly loved. What is not self-evident is when the ratiocinations of which man alone is capable projects beyond our emotive, animal instincts and thinks of defense in the light of attack. Here the avenging hand falters. Less than two centuries ago, at just such a juncture, i.e., the Mason-Dixon line, thousands of the grey army of the Confederacy, though bound to their General Robert E. Lee with the most intense filial affection, laid down their arms and refused to go further:

'They had volunteered willingly enough to defend their homes,' a regimental historian explained, 'but some did not think it right to invade Northern territory.' _(Landscape Turned Red, Stephen Sears) 


On such a subject as attacking in the name of defense, I am writing of something completely out of the reach of my personal sympathies, both as a woman and as one of melancholic temperament. When I hear of one nation bearing swords across the boundaries of another, I shudder with the same repugnance that I would feel on seeing an armed man entering another man's home. Yet, with my reason, I must acknowledge that my emotive reaction is not necessarily an intution of what is true. Reason must govern emotions. 'The heart can and should obey the head.'


An officer of the state must take in a dangerous criminal, even if he must do so before the man's wife and children. Her pleas and their tears must not alter the course of justice. However clemency may wish to provide for these unfortunates later, evil must not be tolerated to spare them pain. The sacredness of the threshold of hearth and home is not an absolute thing in the case of the individual. Nor is it the case with the State. A nation that has been bellicose against another is not often sufficiently rebuked by merely being defeated on the foreign soil where it had no right to go: 

Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow... _Stonewall Jackson


The enemy must be pursued and soundly chastened. It is not enough to make a thief return his booty. He must give expiation for the evil in his act--providing some recompense to the injured party. He must be punished enough himself so that he shall never wish to commit the crime again.


Lee therefore justly overruled his generals in taking his army North. What seemed a desecration of the cause to some, was the best chance of ending the war and securing victory. Considerations of feeding the Confederate army and the hopes of impressing--even galvanizing--European allies also played a great part in the decision. The ability to carry a hard or even severe idea into act is the reason choleric men exist. Once vindicated by their minds, they see--and rightly see--that the time has come to lock up their hearts. 


Lucy Maud Montgomery observed this well through one of her finest works. In her narrative, it is revealed that it is possible for a woman's husband to have a surgery that may restore his senses after years of living life only half-aware. The trouble is that he was an unkind, selfish, immoral bore beforehand, and his wife's life has at least been easier after her husband became an idiot. Anne naturally wishes to spare the wife, who is also her friend, but the men in her life come down against her:

"Oh, Captain Jim, I didn't think you'd say that," she exclaimed reproachfully. "I thought you wouldn't want to make more trouble for her." 

Captain Jim shook his head. "I don't want to. I know how you feel about it, Mistress Blythe-- just as I feel meself. But it ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life--no, no, we'd make shipwreck mighty often if we did that. There's only the one safe compass and we've got to set our course by that--what it's right to do. I agree with the doctor. If there's a chance for Dick, Leslie should be told of it. There's no two sides to that, in my opinion." 

"Well," said Anne, giving up in despair, "wait until Miss Cornelia gets after you two men." 

"Cornelia'll rake us fore and aft, no doubt," assented Captain Jim. "You women are lovely critters, Mistress Blythe, but you're just a mite illogical. You're a highly eddicated lady and Cornelia isn't, but you're like as two peas when it comes to that. I dunno's you're any the worse for it. Logic is a sort of hard, merciless thing, I reckon." (Anne's House of Dreams, Chapter XXX: Leslie Decides) 

Leslie's decision was one for the truth. In the end, it set her free. Ergo:

Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God. (Psalms 145:2-5)

Thou shalt not speak ill of the gods*, and the prince of thy people thou shalt not curse. (Exodus 22:28)

*'gods' has often been interpreted here as magistrates, judges, or priests

I had had my share of fallen stars, just as any other teenager does, when I was talking one day in 1999 with a fellow disciple of Father Malachi Martin.

'Rachel, it looks bad.'

'Meaning?

'It looks like he was living with that woman in an intimate way.'

'The New York Times is hardly a paragon of truth, and even they did not dare say it outright. They merely implied she was his companion.'

'Rachel,' she said gently, 'Would it shake your faith if Father Malachy was guilty?'

'No it wouldn't. And he's not.'

Then came Robert Kaiser's book, Clerical Error. 'It really looks like he may have been a great sinner,' many said.

'He's still the man who helped me, and in any case, he's not guilty.'

Even if Kaiser's ex-wife had collaborated that madman's account, or if Mrs. Livanos had claimed to be his mistress and produced photographic evidence, I would still not have believed it. There's something to be said for detachment from our heroes, but there is also something to said for loyalty. Even though cynicism is, alas, often justified, in the case of persons, it may be that, as L. M. Montgomery observes, love has 'the truer vision.' Therefore, the devotees of the renegade Jesuit and priest forever, will inflexibly maintain his saintliness until contradicted by his own shade. Even then, I do not think we will do much more than shrug.

Still, it is good to see that he is defended, and by those who knew him for many intimate years.

The Kings

A man said unto his Angel:
"My spirits are fallen low,
And I cannot carry this battle:
O brother! where might I go?

"The terrible Kings are on me
With spears that are deadly bright;
Against me so from the cradle
Do fate and my fathers fight."

Then said to the man his Angel:
"Thou wavering, witless soul,
Back to the ranks! What matter
To win or to lose the whole,

"As judged by the little judges
Who hearken not well, nor see?
Not thus, by the outer issue,
The Wise shall interpret thee.

"Thy will is the sovereign measure
And only events of things:
The puniest heart, defying,
Were stronger than all these Kings.

"Though out of the past they gather,
Mind's Doubt, and Bodily Pain,
And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
That is kin to the other twain,

"And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
And ringletted Vain Desires,
And Vice, with the spoils upon him
Of thee and thy beaten sires, --

"While Kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is with broken sabre
To rise on the last redoubt;

"To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covet the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall." _Louise Imogen Guiney

As I sit in my flat and ponder the execution and aftermath of the glorious Warsaw Uprising, I shiver. I know what I love so much about the Polish Nation; heroism and martyrdom still breathe alive through a generation not entirely gone from this Earth, pulses beat now that did beat in an age of heroes. There are testimonies in flesh here as well as in stone.

I think of the Polish resistance against the twin heads of the Godless Right and Left, and I find I can believe in anything. Achilles's shield blinds my eyes; the Maccabean sword pierces my vision. The Song of Roland rings in my ears as does the whizzing shaft of Robin, the Hooded Man. Arthur's mallet shatters my stony, sceptical heart, and my faith in man is renewed. Even the cringing treachery of the West and the demonic brutality of the East cannot draw a veil over the deeds of this 'Christ of Nations.'

Sixty-six years hence though, I see worrying trends paired with encouraging ones in a nation despised by the 'little judges,' yet revered by the truly wise. As I ready myself for the pilgrimage from Warsaw to Częstochowa, my first plea is to the souls of the heroes for their intercession. Their nation still requires their aid.