Mary Victrix

Words fail.

It is only now that I have been able to bring myself to announce formally on this blog an event of immensely tragic proportions.  Two of our Knights of Lepanto, father and son died by accidental drowning on Monday, June 30.  Thomas Girard, was pronounced dead at the scene around 8:30 pm and his son Marc died around 2:00 am, July 1 in Providence hospital.

Thom was one of our finest knights and a first rate example of all I wanted the knights to be: courageous, committed, kind, geniune and loyal.  Mark was his father’s son.

Thom has been the Grand Master of all our encampments, both last year and this year.  He had many years experience as a scout master, but more than that he had really imbibed the Spirit of Lepanto and understood how to communicate it to others.  He really was what I wanted all the knights to be.

Marc was inducted into the Knights at the spring encampment this year, after having been among the squires since we began the Knights several years ago.  When Thom became distressed as he was swimming with his daughter Hanna, Marc, who was swimming with his younger brother Lucas, told his brother to continue to the other side, went to the rescue and saved Hanna’s life and then attempted to save his father also.  Marc died a hero, a true knight.  He was his father’s son.

Please pray for the repose of their souls.  The one consolation I keep returning to is that now we have two knights who, in the words of St. Maximilian, have both hands free.

Thom and  Marc leave behind Carol, wife and mother, Jacqueline, daughter and sister, Adam, son and brother, Lucas, son and brother and little Hanna, daughter and sister.  Please pray for them also.  They are strong, full of faith and hope, but their suffering is hard to imagine.

Thom wrote an elaborate knight’s “ritual” by which we could induct the older boys into the Knights of Lepanto.  We have used it only once, for the induction of Marc back at the Spring Encampment.  I reproduce part of it here.  The words of the “Father” were pronounced by me, but the whole “ritual” was written by Thom.  This was a dialoque between father and son: Read the rest of this entry »

In our franciscan communities it is our custom on most days to listen to a religious conference of some sort at breakfast. Lately we have been listening to downloads from Keep the Faith’s website.

Of particular interest to those who read MaryVictrix are the some of the conferences by Dr. John Rao, associate professor of history at St. John’s University and director of the Roman Forum.

• The Christian Warrior
• Mary & The Modernists: An Eternal Warfare
• The Roman Catholic Church: Where are the Men?

Of further interest are some of his series on Church history especially his ones on the Crusades.  Very Good.

I admire Keep the Faith and the Roman Forum very much.  The late Dr. William Mara was a giant among the great Catholic American thinkers of the last century.

Not being a Traditionalist myself, though celebrating the Traditional Rite, I can’t vouch for everything on the website.

God bless them for defending the crusading spirit.

(Part I can be found here.)

Theology of the Heart

Rereading Genesis in light of the spousal symbol in the Letter to the Ephesians enables us to grasp a truth which seems to determine in an essential manner the question of women’s dignity, and, subsequently, also the question of their vocation: the dignity of women is measured by the order of love, which is essentially the order of justice and charity (Mulieris Dignitatem, 29).

Clearly, the Theology of the Head enjoys the same primacy that faith does in respect to the other virtues, insofar as reason enlightened by faith provides the mean for all the other virtues and since without faith it is impossible to please God. Hence, man is to the family what faith is to the other virtues. Yet the dignity of women “measured by the order of love” suggests not only the virtue of obedience but the vocation to be the heart of the family, its core and center.

One here could enter into the debate of which ultimately has primacy, intellect or will, or as scholastics posed the question: In what does the essence of beatitude consist: the Intellectual vision of Infinite Truth or rest of the will in the Infinite Good? That debate is not going to be settled here.

Even so, the will does enjoy primacy in its own right when considered under the aspect of the perfection of virtue which is found in Charity, or what John Paul II calls in the above quote, “the order of love.” Knowledge leads to love. Love cannot be real unless it is based on truth, but if the apprehension of the truth does not lead to love, then such an apprehension is vain and sterile.

This primacy of love points to the reason why woman is the heart of the home, and the mother, the heart of the family. Woman is the guardian of the heart and hearth. Read the rest of this entry »

This should make the envelope pushers squirm.  I hope.

But it is really expenseeeeve.

Here is a WSJ article that I am not sure will be available much longer online.

And a link to the International Jousting League.

The phenomon of celebrity is a enegmatic fascination.  What is our problem?  Cotton Candy media personalities leave us hungry and rot our teeth.

This guy draws a mean cartoon.

Well here’s some news. Just wait for the feminists to come out of the woodwork and say there are no studies to verify what is perfectly obvious to those of us who have not yet drunk the coolaid.

Imagine, boys need fathers and men in their lives, and mothers and other women should let them be boys.  Revolutionary.

And would you believe that it is actually good for boys to take risks, that it actually helps them do better in school?

I’ll give the girl in the first link credit.  She sure as hell is going to catch hell:

Ms Lashlie, who describes herself as a feminist, said: “I’ve been in classes with young female teachers and by the end of the session my ears hurt.”

Woops!  I guess she already has:

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, told the paper the author was talking “a load of claptrap”.

“It is disappointing that a woman has felt the need to pander to the views of a tiny group of men who present themselves as the oppressed minority,” she said.

That’s right.  Men know nothing about boys, or how to get them to perform well.  Excuse our self-pity.

I will get back to the grindstone momentarily.  If I must choose to live or to blog, I choose to live.  Anyway, I will be back.

Meanwhile there is this, because I live in America and  this is a cultural gem.

At some point I will have to talk more about culture and asctetics and their relationship to the restoration of chivalry and manhood.  Behold the disconnect.  Click on the link.

Click on the image above to watch the AirMaria Roving Reporter interview with Thom Girard, Grand Master of our last encampment.  The next Encampment will be July 18-20.  I will have a new Encampment page up in the next couple of days.