The Wild Tears Fall

At least I hope I speak that truthfully. When we were children studying the history of vile deeds, I know we all asked ourselves how common, ordinary people no different from us in essentials, did--without dissent--deeds that most individuals would never contemplate for a moment. Genocide, rape, enslavement, apostasy. 

One of the most chilling moments in the film Beyond the Gates, a vivid recounting of the atrocity of Rwanda, is when the English teacher at a religious school sees one of his Hutu friends after the blood bath has begun. He has known this man for some time; this person even worked for the church to which the school is connected. When the Englishman sees him again after the ethnic cleansing has begun, the man is covered with blood and wielding a machete. Even with the grace of the sacraments, he turned to unspeakable evil.

Will most always be united with grace. While God must always reach out for us, while we can do nothing of ourselves, we must choose to wake when He calls.  A sort of spiritual drowsiness, a deliberate blindness, a surrender of one's reason and volition to a stronger agent is the only thing that can account for the Satanic manipulation of whole peoples. It is strange how often we choke on the submission due to God, yet we render it unto Lucifer quite readily. And all because he presents the act in the form of a bargain, and man thinks he retains his dignity merely because he got something for his soul.

Degenerate evil is fast becoming the theme of our day, and the call for a rescue against our bellicose animosity towards one another has become the anthem even of those who do not believe:




We must be awake! It is hard, especially in this epoch of multitudinous distractions, and even the five wise virgins of the parable dozed while waiting for the Bridegroom. We have drifted off ourselves, but now we must right our course.


The first step of waking is to open our eyes. Every one has talked with that friend who said, 'Of course, I'm listening to you...I'm just resting my eyes.' Indeed. She was soon napping after saying that. When we wake in the morning we open our eyes and draw the curtains immediately, letting the sun's light dispel our bodily lethargy. Well, what is the light of the soul? 


Wisdom is the universal answer, but who is she? And why has her patronage not protected many purportedly wise men from committing diabolical acts? A brilliant musical scholar, Molly Gustin (who strove to show how right reason was wed with good music), was once explaining why the worst music was always made by the educated man. Only scholars produced atonal abominations after all. She said that their education, willfully twisted, had snuffed out the light of truth that a folk musician or even a rocker still retains in his natural state: 'You have to go the university and became an intellectual in order to be perverted.' she gleefully teased her students.


So both the simple brute and the erudite ninny may be drowsing in moral torpitude. Then who is Wisdom, and where may we find her? How can we obtain her when she is found?


Well, the man who has truly awakened himself in mind, heart, and soul, will first say that wisdom cannot be obtained. Remember the ancient image of Wisdom as Athena. She is an armoured woman, and she would skewer any mortal that dared to make her his slave. You bear her yoke; she does not bear yours. The Renaissance made man 'the measure of all things', and until that error is unlearned, we cannot even hope to begin the journey to the light.

And in the multitude of the elect she shall have praise, and among the blessed she shall be blessed, saying: I came out of the mouth of the most High, the firstborn before all creatures: I made that in the heavens there should rise light that never faileth, and as a cloud I covered all the earth: I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud. I alone have compassed the circuit of heaven, and have penetrated into the bottom of the deep, and have walked in the waves of the sea, And have stood in all the earth: and in every people, And in every nation I have had the chief rule: And by my power I have trodden under my feet the hearts of all the high and low: and in all these I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord. (Ecclesiasticus XXIV:4-11)


Humility is the prequisite condition for receiving wisdom. Without it, we may gain knowledge, but will not otherwise profit from any study. For proud creatures, such as fallen human beings, humility has always been hard, but at least it was properly held as a virtue in many creeds and cultures of the past. The postmodern First World however has thoroughly rejected meekness in all its forms, particularly where it concerns feminine-like submission.


The idea of femininity in a position of governance is a concept not to be countenanced by the movers of our times, be they men or women. 'Feminists' did the world a great injustice in choosing to agree with the apostatized West that femininity was of no value and that it was only in imitating man, woman could achieve real worth.


The Catholic neurologist and psychiatrist, Karl Stern, explained the problem thus:


The problem of activism--a lack of balance between action and contemplation--is said to be characteristic of our time...Now whenever we psychiatrists have an opportunity to observe this kind of person as a patient, we find at the bottom of it all a maternal conflict and a rejection of the feminine. (Stern, The Flight from Woman, Chapter I: Introduction)


A 'maternal' conflict. And what is the maternal conflict of our age? Whose motherly voice have we refused to hear? What enlightenment have we refused from fair Wisdom?


Either one believes in a thing, or one does not, so rather than attempting to set the supports for a bridge in the abyss, I shall try to leap it. 


It has been ninety-four years now today that we, both the low and the high of humanity, have chosen to ignore the requests of the Lady of Fatima. That non-Catholics have done so is understandable (even with the well-documented miracle that occurred in Cova de Iria, Portugal on this day in 1917). But that Churchmen and the faithful have done so? Granted, one is not obliged to believe in private revelation. One is also not obliged to exercise his body, illumine his mind, or love from the heart in order to stay alive, but such lack of exertion is generally frowned upon by mankind in general.

So what is one to say of the actions of the Vicar of Christ in 1960 in refusing the request of Fatima? Well, nothing in fact. It is impossible to pronounce on the plans of the Lord's anointed, for there is no way of knowing what instruction he might have received from the Holy Spirit. We have never sat in the Chair of Peter. Yet, as we are meant to pray for the Pontiff, we must be alert in some way to what duties he may have to perform. It is necessary for us to know when to double our mortifications for his sake, to know when the lone, white-robbed figure most earnestly needs our prayers to strengthen his fortitude. In that sense, while we may draw no conclusions, we must to some extent ruminate about the duties of a pontificate.


Now in 1962, a certain spirit was about to be unleashed upon the world from the Roman Catholic Church, and we have come to call it the 'Spirit of Vatican II.' When someone finds the good fruits of that spirit, they must write of it. Until then, the faithful will suffer from its effects (whether consciously or no), and those outside the Faith will see it as a sign of the Church's eventual collapse. 


Papa Roncalli of course did not envision such an effect from his Council. Father Malachi Martin, in spite of what that priest's detractors have said, believed completely in Pope John XXIII's good intentions and wrote this of the kindly pope:


...May...during the second session of the Council. By then, Pope John knew that the Council was out of his control; his agenda for a deep renewal of activist faith in the Church had been set on a course the Pontiff had not foreseen, and it would serve someone else's agenda instead. And he also knew that he would have no time to alter that fact. One June 3, Angelo Roncalli died in his faith and his regrets. (The Keys of This Blood, Book II: The Geopolitics of Faith, Chapter XXX: Papal Training Ground: Under the Sign of Solidarność)

One particular regret may have reached as far back as 1960, when the behest of Our Lady, penned by the hand of a nun who had been a simple shepherdess, was refused by His Holiness. Whether that is true, it must have struck the Pope as very strange with the Polish Primate, Stefan Wyszyński, later approached him with a request bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Madonna's in the very midst of the Second Vatican Council.

Mainly...Wyszyński wanted to urge upon Pope John that he dedicate the Council, the bishops of the Church, and the laity of the world, whose servants they were, to the same bond of servitude to Mary that the Cardinal was preparing in Poland...

...it was nonetheless widely known by now that Mary had called for dedication of more or less the same kind Wyszyński was urging on Papa Roncalli; and that she had apparently done so for more or less the same georeligious and geopolitical reasons that had motivated Wyszyński.

...Roncalli listened with indulgence and interest...and admitted that if he had heard Wyszyński out before he had made and implemented his decision, he might have acted differently. But his attitude to Wyszyński's urgings was the same as it had been when he had first read the secret instructions of Fatima in 1960...was that this time ''our time as Pope'' was not the time for such an act of dedication. Had the Cardinal been privy to the full contents of the ''three Fatima secrets," he might have wondered if there would be another time. (ibid.)

The heads of great men have of late not steered the barque of the world very well. Perhaps, it is time the Immaculate Heart of the Woman Clothed with the Sun took the helm, and we might begin to cede control to her in honouring this day and the bidding connected with it: pray the rosary.

"A truce to business! Our great task at present is to thank God for the victory which He has just given the Catholic army."_Pope Pius V

The Pope who was in his chapel before day or battle broke also knew of the triumph of the Holy League's navy before word of herald arrived. Thusly he spoke to his cardinals and broke off every order of the day to offer thanksgiving for the deliverance of Christendom from the infidel's chains of fleshly bondage and the spiritual rape of Kismet.

At the dawn of that day, 7 October 1571, Don Juan of Austria--the noble, young leader of the Holy League's fleet--sailed forth in the formation of a cross, with the rowers in the galleys sweating to push the ships forward. Ali Pasha's forces glided towards the defenders with ease, a favourable wind in that navy's sails. Don Juan's plans were for fighting at close quarters, but it seemed that the enemy's vessels were to have the advantage of impacting his. At the same time however, as Don Juan was grimly testing the air, the Pope was on his knees praying the rosary, and later in the day the wind changed. As if blown by God Himself, the impetus blew forth the galleys of the cross. The Muslim flag returned so obligingly to Istanbul in 1965 and once held in the basilica of Mary Major was the trophy offered to our Lady for the stunning victory she procured over the barbarous hostiles.

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out: The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth:

He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths: When He established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: When He compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times;

Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. Now therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord:

But he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul. All that hate me love death. (Proverbs 8: 22-36)

Cited above we have the Lesson from the Mass dedicated to our Lady on this day in gratitude for her intercession in 1571 A.D. Forever is her name woven with that of Wisdom's. Forever is she the most beloved creature of God, and hence her rosary is a most powerful weapon. One wonders how many amongst the Holy League's forces thought of their holy beads when they saw the Christian slaves break through the oarships' decks, swinging their chains against their cruel masters.


The rosary came about thanks to the most common and tenderly devoted believers. In the Middle Ages, the poor man who could obviously not attend the Liturgy of the Hours was offered this alternative while he plowed his fields or tended to his daily business. He might say 150 Ave's, in honour of the 150 Psalms, while meditating on the mysteries of her Son's life and of hers. Thus, the rosary was born, Mary's Psalter.

When St. Dominic asked for her assistance against the Albigensian heresy, she offered him the rosary as one of the many ladders the children of men might climb to Heaven, but one that had the advantage of being held by her.

It is the finest bouquet that could ever be presented to a loved one; this chain of devotion has healed infirmities, spared the lives of atomic weapon victims, and saved souls. On this day, it saved Europe from the Turkish slaughter. No spirit can withstand the chains of love, no subject dare stand before the Queen beloved by her King, and no conqueror may despise the Mother of God without abandoning wisdom. She was in His Mind's Eye before all things--the being who loves Him perfectly though not incarnate with Him. The one unblemished creature, full of grace, that renders for us the devotion and passion due to God.

His love for her moved Him to crush the world's mightiest empire, battle after battle. What may we not ask in our moment of desperation? For the noose is tightening, and we can expect a much worse fate in our spoilt, slavish age than those who at least knew what it was to work, to fight, and to love.

Last year, the Society of Saint Pius X asked all the sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church, including those outside their fraternity, to participate in their third rosary crusade. The first one secured the motu proprio. The Latin Mass was finally liberated, and all the Traditionalists who had argued that it had never been suppressed at all were vindicated.

The second brought about the remission of the excommunications of the Society's bishops. I cannot speak for all my fellow Catholics, but I fell on my knees and wept for joy when I heard the news. Deo gratias! and what came to mind was a verse of that beautiful, 'anti'-ecumenical hymn:

For all Thy Church, O Lord, we intercede;
Make Thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
Draw us the nearer each to each we plead,
By drawing all to Thee, O Prince of Peace;
Thus may we all one bread, one body be, Through this blest Sacrament of Unity

Then Bishop Fellay asked us to pray for a most contentious request: the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, which I (and many others) have already discussed at length. He asked for 12 million rosaries to compose a spiritual bouquet to present to the Pope. The Pope has received over 19,107,331 blossoms of Mary's Psalter! I say 'over' the tallied number for I know many who forgot to inform the Society of how many rosaries they prayed.

Thus are the efforts of the Crusade! Now, we wait for the fruits....

It is finished. I dropped the form into the plain white box on the card table in the vestibule. My fingers are stained green from the leak in my fountain pen. I had wanted the writing on the form to be beautiful, even though the paper itself was a sheet of recycled paper, lined with a plain graph and stamped with simple, black print. My letters were fine and delicate though, and the '25' I had traced satisfied me. I hope the spiritual bouquet will be more comely in its final presentation to the Pope. For today ends the rosary crusade for which Bishop Fellay called in an effort to persuade Pope Benedict XVI to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

I am not bound to the chapel of the Society of St. Pius X. My nature is such that it dare not oppose so strongly the established patriarchs, past or present; however logic may try to justify it. While I do not know if this is a craven mistrust of my reason, or rightful submission to the Vicar anointed by the Holy Spirit, I shall not submit to this movement until they have unambiguously submitted to Peter’s Successor. In the meanwhile, I do not scruple at visiting their chapel to say the rosary in Latin with their community.

His Excellency, Fellay, has twice presented a spiritual bouquet to the Holy Father. With each, a flurry of grace showered on the Earth, whiter than cherry blossoms and more numerous than rain drops. Another spray of prayers is to be given the Pontiff now. This one begs that Gloria Olivae honour a request that has yet to be fulfilled.

Pastor et Nauta said: ‘It is not for our times.’ Flos Florum also did not address it, nor was this done by De Labore Solis, unless one finds satisfaction with the 13th of May, 1982. Perhaps it is true that Pope John Paul II fulfilled the wishes of Our Lady expressed at Fatima adequately. Yet, when has adequate been enough for a queen?

Sister Lucia was understandably bound hand and foot as to what she could say concerning Fatima, and her official commentary concerning the Pope's consecration of the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is ambiguous enough to cast doubt on whether the request has been fulfilled. If one can trust the three men who interviewed her later (the Lisbon Nuncia, Dr. Lacerda, and Father Messias), then her final pronouncement is thus:The consecration of Russia has not been made as Our Lady has demanded. I could not say so because I did not have the permission of the Holy See. (http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr16/cr16pg22.asp)

In the misty realm of private revelation (which constitutes any supernatural message given after the death of the last apostle), no Catholic is held to believe anything. Once visions have been examined and acquitted by Holy Mother Church, a soul is free to embrace them, though it is still not required. But one should give pause before dismissing these post-Patmos visitations. Remember that we are also not ‘required’ to say a daily rosary, read the Scripture daily, attend Mass more often than Sundays and Holy Days of Obligations, or go to Confession more than once a year. Yet, how greatly it would promote the health of our souls to do more than the bare minimum!

If a patient were to ask his doctor: ‘Will I die if I don’t eat spinach?’ the medic would likely be flustered. ‘Well, it won’t kill you not to each spinach, but it’s very healthy and an excellent source of iron. Seeing as how you’re anaemic…’

‘Thank you, doctor. And are three cups of coffee a day likely to be lethal?’

‘Er, no, but it leeches calcium, depletes your iron, and may aggravate anxiety…’

‘Thank you, doctor! I now see no need to change my habits, and as I dislike spinach and love coffee, I'm greatly relieved.’

Ignoring the munificence of divine visitation is no sin, but it is also no wiser than living as dangerously as one can without actually risking death. Our Lady of Fatima came. She came in a time of great trial with messages of hope, words of warning, and prophecies—all of which have been vindicated by history (http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr49/cr49ap2.asp).

If the king’s mother visited an impoverished village and showed it the way to a salt mine to revive its fortunes and prepare for coming depravation, and the villagers ignored her guidance—content to remain subject to their misfortune—what would the lord of this realm think of that hamlet? In times of famine, would they have any right to the stores of food prepared by more diligent hands? This is not to mention the anger he may feel that his mother was slighted in her efforts to help. Be he tyrant or no, why tempt the wrath of a king?

It is presumptuous to ask for a sign, yes, as St. Matthew has well related to us:

And there came to Him the Pharisees and Sadducees tempting: and they asked Him to shew them a sign from heaven. But He answered and said to them: When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning: Today there will be a storm, for the sky is red and lowering. You know then how to discern the face of the sky: and can you not know the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign (Matthew 16: 1-4)

Reading carefully though, one will see that the Pharisees and Sadducees were not only reproached in asking for a sign, but in not seeing the signs already given them. ‘Can you not know the signs of the times?’

Well, one may say that as Our Lady of Fatima’s requests were not fulfilled, their time is past. It is now fitting to let them rest. However, the sins over which Our Lady admonished us have multiplied and worsened. Nations have grown more bellicose and capable of inflicting even more ruin on each other. Is not another World War imminent? Or if not war, are we not on the verge of economic ruin?

‘But Our Lady of Fatima’s particular request concerning Russia is no longer pertinent. Communism has fallen, and while it is a superpower, it is not the only nation with that title.’

This is true, but it may be that Russia’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary may benefit the world now more than ever before. Pious as the hagiography of the Orthodox Churches is, they dare to say that the Madonna was not immaculately conceived. That the Womb, the Tabernacle of the Most High, was rotten with Adam's sin! Were they to make the concession of her purity, would that not magnificently propel reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and the East?

There is also an argument politically. Throughout history there have occasionally arisen men of destiny. Like the Judges of Israel, they were not always virtuous, but they were the men chosen by God to dominate the affairs of this world. They were called messiahs—the anointed ones—and even in the Old Testament, they weren’t always Jews:

Thus saith the Lord to My anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of, to subdue nations before his face, and to turn the backs of kings, and to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut. (Isaias 45: 1)

As a daughter of the Church, I believe the Messiah has come, and that He dwells in every licitly established tabernacle on this Earth. Yet, it is not the wont of a Catholic to tear at the veil of mystery, or to engrave in stone what God has not written. He is not limited by what He decrees, and if He chooses to decree again, outside the realm of prophecy, He may.

There may yet be men He anoints for a mighty destiny on this Earth; there may yet be messiahs to come in the realm of temporal affairs. And of all the world leaders today, who is the only one that calls on the name of God? who has wrested power from the oligarchs of his nation? whom his people follow with adulation and confidence? I can name but one man: Władimir Władimirowicz Putin. Whether a messiah or not, he is a man I would wish to see displaying the standard of Our Lady.

On the 13th of October 1917 at 1:30 p.m., the sun whirled wildly about in the sky above those at Fatima, imbuing the area with every colourful shade that is found in light, healing them of their infirmities, and so converting many. Signs from Heaven are not to be sought, but God is generous and dotes on us with divine munificence. What might we see if Our Lady’s requests are to be fulfilled? I have given a mere 275 rosaries towards that end, but in union with a much greater crowd of intensely faithful souls. Will we number the twelve million, Marian psalters that Bishop Fellay wishes to present to His Holiness? Pray God that we do!