Mancipia July/August 2013

The Report

Mancipia
of the

July/August 2013

Crusade

of

Saint Benedict Center

Marian Procession May 19, 2013

To Friends of the Crusade:
bortion. Divorce. Sodomite marriage. Government-funded onanism. The Church’s sacred rights being usurped by the Nanny State. Until the traditional Catholic ideal of patriarchy is restored in the Br. Andre Marié, M.I.C.M., Church and in families, we will Prior keep losing the culture wars. Why? Because there will remain an absence of real Christian men to fight them. In the vacuum, matriarchs will rise up in an attempt to remedy the situation. This, of course, is no remedy, but only a painful prolongation of the status quo. Original Sin was Adam’s sin which was passed on to his progeny. It was not Eve’s. Adam was the head of the human race. He failed. Eve, his helpmate, “helped” him to sin, but the blame was all Adam’s. (There is an inverted parallel between the “last Adam,” Christ, and the first Adam. Christ

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Benevolent Patriarchy

Saint George victorious over the dragon

repaired what Adam had wounded. He, too, had a helpmate: Mary, the “New Eve.”) Catholic men must “man up” and take responsibility as heads of society — and, most especially, of that little society which is the building block of all societies: the family. Christian men must strive with the help of God to succeed where Adam failed. There is no use wringing our hands about how bad the world has become unless we can do something about it in our own homes. Let us, for a moment, elevate our minds to the vision of supernatural family life that we are given in the Scriptures. These words of Saint Paul on the Divine Fatherhood, coming from the Epistle to the Ephesians, will frame our considerations: “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man … ” (Eph. 3:14-16). Instead of “all paternity in heaven and earth,” some translations render the passage, “the whole family in heaven and earth.” The Greek word πατριὰ ( patria) means “family.” It is derived from the word for father, πατὴρ ( pater). Saint Jerome renders it paternitas (fatherhood, paternity) in Latin, whence comes the rendering of the Rheims New Testament. Father Challoner’s footnote in his edition of the Rheims Bible notes that “all fatherhood” could also be rendered “the whole family.” Here we see that, linguistically anyway, the family is derived from fatherhood. This is but one of the many indications of the truth that the father is the head of the family. A certain type of liberal Biblical exegesis would make us conclude that fatherhood in God is a mere metaphor. Man’s limited knowledge of spiritual concepts forces him to look for things in nature to which we must liken God. Since God is a creator, and creation is something like fatherhood, then the idea of “father” serves as a useful metaphor for God. But this is all wrong. Divine fatherhood is not a metaphor derived from human fatherhood. We are not in the realm of metaphor here, but in the realm of analogy. The difference is enormous, for metaphor and analogy are ontologically different concepts. Metaphor establishes a symbolic point of comparison, e.g., “the Lord thy God is a consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24): God is not literally fire, but fire destroys and purifies, and so does God. Analogy, on the other hand, predicates the same word, truly and literally, of two very different things: “God is good” (cf. Luke 18:19) and “salt is good” (Mark 9:49) are both true, but the word “good” is applied to God in a way partly the

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

same but partly different from the way it is applied to salt. Theologically speaking, all our knowledge of God is analogical, but it is not all metaphorical. (Mortimer Adler, the Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism, once commented that Protestantism could not meet the challenge of Enlightenment Rationalism because, having rejected Catholic scholastic thought, the Protestant sectaries abandoned the notion of analogy. Therefore, they could not speak of God in any intelligent way. Without analogy, we are intellectually doomed either to deism or to a crude anthropomorphism — i.e., God as a “big man.”)

might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself ” (Ephesians 5:25-28). • “And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). • “Fathers, provoke not your children to indignation, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:21). Each one of these gems from the holy Apostles Peter and Paul can provoke fruitful meditations, acts of contrition for the past, prayers of petition for the present, and firm resolutions for the future. While it is not inspired, the oldest surviving major work of French literature, La Chanson de Roland , provides a beautiful picture of Catholic manhood in the Knights’ Code of Chivalry it contains. Note that, of the seventeen entries in the Code, at least twelve relate to acts of gentlemanly virtue and not to combat.

Catholic men must “man up” and take responsibility as heads of society ... [especially] the family.
Divine Fatherhood is the primary analogue of human fatherhood. The primary analogue is the original analogue, that to which the secondary analogue is being compared. Because of this, there is a primacy to divine Fatherhood. It is more real than human fatherhood, which is derived from it. I sum this all up by citing Saint Jerome commenting on the passage in Saint Paul. What I said in less plain language, he makes simple: “Think by this analogy: As God exists, God allows the term existence to be applied to creatures as well. So we say that creatures exist and subsist, not so as to imply that they exist in and of themselves [as God exists] but as a derived existence enabled by God… . According to this same argument, God allows the term fatherhood to be given to creatures. So by analogy to His fathering we can understand creaturely fathering… . Similarly, as the only good One, He makes others good. As the only immortal One, God has bestowed immortality on others. As the only true One, He imparts the name of truth. So also the Father alone, being Creator of all and the cause of the subsistence of all things, makes it possible for other creatures to be called fathers.” These are lofty ideas concerning fatherhood. But the Scriptures are also practical, meaning that they give us instructions for our daily living. Here are a few treasures which, being meditated on, will provide excellent stimulants to fatherly benevolence: • “Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them [women] according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel, and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). • “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter towards them” (Colossians 3:19). • “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: That he

1. To fear God and maintain His Church

2. To serve the liege lord in valour and faith 3. To protect the weak and defenceless 4. To give succour to widows and orphans 5. To refrain from the wanton giving of offence 6. To live by honour and for glory 7. To despise pecuniary reward 8. To fight for the welfare of all 9. To obey those placed in authority 10. To guard the honour of fellow knights 11. To eschew unfairness, meanness, and deceit 12. To keep faith 13. At all times to speak the truth 14. To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun 15. To respect the honour of women 16. Never to refuse a challenge from an equal 17. Never to turn the back upon a foe

Where are the modern paladins of manhood, who will restore these noble ideals of Christendom? Where are the Catholic men? “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man…” (Eph. 3:14-16). ■ Email Brother André Marie at [email protected]

The Loyolas and the Cabots, and Gate of Heaven 50% off until next year. 3

Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

To Achieve Our Sublime Purpose We Must Work With Reality
ear Reader, I am going to share a secret newsletter with you. Yes, only the members of the Sursum Corda Society were supposed to receive this special Sr. Marie Thérèse, M.I.C.M., Prioress communiqué. I was going to write another article just for you, but I thought you might like a sneak peek at this May newsletter: Enjoy! Dear Society Member, The weather is beautiful outside. The other day we observed a chipmunk stretching and yawning and, with difficulty, coming out from hibernation in our rock wall. He seemed unaware of our presence as we were walking past praying our Rosary, and he made a beeline in his jerky motions for the nearby flowers, which he began to devour as quickly as his half-asleep body would allow. What if I told you that those flowers were actually artificial flowers that we had put there in the garden to make it look nice? Would you believe me for a minute if I told you that the chipmunk was hungrily devouring plastic flowers? Probably not. You know that chipmunk, as sleepy as it may have been, would not have been attracted by that “virtual reality” called an artificial flower. God put in chipmunks the desire for particular real food so that they would be encouraged and directed to take nourishment and sustain life.

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God is everywhere, and especially in our souls when we are in the state of grace.
However, you may have heard how birds can be tricked by a “virtual reality.” If they hear you making bird calls with a whistle, they will come to join your bird conversation. Although this is very delightful, no one would imagine it shows very much intelligence on the part of the bird. In fact, usually the “virtual reality” of a fake bird call is used to lure birds to their death by a hunter. The same is true for game mammals. They can be fooled by the “virtual reality” of a game caller or a virtual scent, such as buck scent or doe scent. By these “virtual realities” they are lured, because of their lack of intelligence, into a dangerous situation. Unlike human beings, they do not have a choice about following their desires. The sound of a bird call, the beauty of a flower, and the musk of an animal are gifts from God to draw His creatures to fulfill their purpose in life. They can be used for other purposes by intelligent beings, as you can see, disconnected from that innate purpose.

Animals are simple creatures, “innocent,” as Saint Thomas More says, that follow the senses and passions that God gave them, and thereby wonderfully fulfill the purpose for which God created them. We human beings also have senses and passions given to us by God to help us to know and fulfill His purpose for us. So, for example, hunger or the desire for tasty food was given to us by God to encourage us and direct us in sustaining life by eating. What would you think of the chipmunk that crawled out of his hole and deliberately chose to eat artificial flowers rather than real flowers? If you interviewed the chipmunk, you might find out that he was on a diet, instead of simply not eating flowers for the day, or eating fewer of them, he chose to eat artificial flowers — specially designed for chipmunks, of course — because that way he could still enjoy the feeling of a full stomach and the pleasure of flower taste in his mouth. It looks like a flower, it smells like a flower, it tastes like a flower (well, almost), but without the calories. The surgeon general for chipmunks might express a concern for the side effects this type of self-abuse might cause! The chipmunk might even get cancer! We used to have a pet parakeet, but before we got a companion parakeet for him, he was very lonely and despondent in the cage. We gave him a mirror. He perked up immediately and began having birdy conversations with the bird in the mirror, and was so enthusiastic that he was dancing in front of the mirror and ended up pecking with birdy kisses at the bird in the mirror and sharing seeds. This was wholesome — at least we were told it was — since, being unintelligent, a bird can profit by having an imaginary friend in a frame. Dear Society Member, what would you think of a human being who had a “friend in a frame”? There used to be things called imaginary friends. There is no need for imaginary friends anymore because of the computer. There you can get your very own “friend in a frame.” In fact, unlike the reflection of the bird, your “friend in a frame” can captivate your attention for hours on end, leaving you simply to react to its stimuli. At least in the case of the bird, it had to provide what was interesting in its virtual friend. But being captivated by a mirror or a screen, a human being has things to consider that a bird does not. First of all, a human being has intelligence. Therefore, the conscious decision to choose a virtual friend and virtual reality over reality is a blow against his intelligence and against his humanity. All artificial or virtual reality seeks to find fulfillment in pleasurable side effects while avoiding the responsibility of the purpose. This will always have disastrous results. If

Continued on page 15

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

The Blessed Sacrament Explained to Barbara
ather, in order to be a priest you have to know a lot about bread, don’t you, I mean if bread becomes the Blessed Sacrament?” “Come to think of it, Barbara, you really do. You have to know a lot about bread Fr. Leonard Feeney if you’re a priest. Not about preparing it, or mixing the flour, or baking it. That can be left to the nice sisters who have charge of the hosts which are to be used in the Holy Sacrifice. But about bread as a thing, about what it is and what it can become when Our Lord asks it to, you really have to know a lot. And by the way, I like you, Barbara, because you ask such sensible questions.” “I ought to be sensible. I’m nine years old, going on ten.” “Yes, and I find more joy in discussing the Blessed Sacrament with you then with almost any person I know.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “But, Father?” “Yes?” “In the Mass, where does the bread go when you say ‘This is My Body’?” “Where does it go? It doesn’t go any place. It just ceases to be. It just vanishes. It just drops out of existence, not by becoming nothing, which we would call annihilation, but by becoming the Body of Our Lord.” “Doesn’t it mind it? I mean, having to drop out of existence?” “No, it doesn’t really mind. Because, you see, it can’t really mind anything, because it hasn’t got a mind. It never knows what happens to it, because it doesn’t know anything. But if it did know what was happening to it, it would be delighted.” “Would it?” “Of course.” “Why?” “Because there isn’t anything it could do, is there, that would please it more than to give God its color, its shape, its taste, all its delicate little structure, to be used for the vesture of His most beautiful Body?” “No. But do you think it would want to do that for anybody else?” “Of course not. The only one it would ever want to obey in such a way is God. If anybody else stood over it and said ‘This is a flower,’ ‘This is a stone,’ or ‘This is a bird,’ the little bread would simply laugh. It wouldn’t budge an inch. It wouldn’t pay the slightest attention. But when Our Lord, through the mouth of the priest, says, ‘This is My Body,’ the little bread just has to give up. It hasn’t got the strength to

Founders’ Column

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resist Our Lord’s orders. So it just vanishes out of existence, and leaves its little shadow there, in the form of shape, taste and size, for Our Lord to clothe His Sacred Body within the Blessed Sacrament.” “Don’t you think it’s awfully nice of the little bread to do this for Our Lord?” “Wonderfully nice. That’s why the priest always treats it with such reverence, even before it has succumbed to the words of Consecration. To begin with, the sisters take wonderful care of it when they are making it. They bake it until it is so white and fine and precious that you couldn’t imagine anything more lovely in the way of bread than a little host is. Then when it is sent to the sacristy and is waiting to be taken to the altar, it always gets the most wonderful respect. It is kept in a little silver case, sometimes lined with gold. And at the Offertory of the Mass, when it is still only bread, the priest says the most beautiful prayers over it and tells the Eternal Father what an immaculate little host it is. And you know, if something happened to it after the Offertory, and it couldn’t be used for the Consecration, the priest would have to take very good care of it and never could let it be used for anything else.” “Couldn’t it?” “No, siree! The priest would have to put it away in a sacred place where nobody could touch it.” “But it wouldn’t have become Our Lord’s Body if it didn’t stay on the altar until the Consecration, would it?” “No, it wouldn’t. But it would always be the little bread that was ready to become Our Lord’s Body, and was ready to give Him all its whiteness and littleness and roundness, and so you see, you would always have to respect it for that, and you could never treat it like any other little bread again.” “Did you ever see a host that was offered in the Offertory and then wasn’t consecrated into the Body of Our Lord?” “Yes, I did, once. It was an awful pity. I had put it on the paten, and had offered it to the Eternal Father, and had told Him what a spotless little host it was, and then, when I looked at it closely, I found it was broken.” “Couldn’t you use it when it was broken?” “No, you couldn’t, that is if you had another little host there that wasn’t broken.” “But wasn’t it bread all right?” “Yes, it surely was bread, but there was something which Our Lord’s Body wanted to borrow from it which it didn’t have to give.” “And what was that?” “Roundness and wholeness. You see this little host was jagged and broken. It could have given God brokenness, but He didn’t want that at the moment.” “Didn’t you feel sorry for it?” “Of course. But there was no use asking it to give Our Lord’s Body something it didn’t have.”

Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

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“What did you do with it then?” will have been respected in a reverential and holy way. God, “I dissolved it and dropped it down a little secret hiding you know, has a marvelous respect for every creature He has place we have under the sacristy, called a sacrarium.” made, even for those things which haven’t any minds or can’t “Is that where all the little hosts go that don’t become think. Before He uses them, He blesses them and makes Our Lord’s Body?” them holy, as He did, through the priest, the water with “Exactly.” which you were baptized.” “Do you think they feel sorry?” “The host looks the same after the Consecration as it does “If they could feel anything they’d be so sorry you could before, doesn’t it, Father?” never console them.” “Exactly the same.” “I hate to think of them buried under the church.” “But the bread is no longer there?” “I do too. But it’s best to forget them. They’re really “No. God takes the lookness right off the bread and uses happy in their own way. They did the best they could. They it for His own lookness.” were ready to give God all their “Why doesn’t He look like little qualities to use in His Blessed Himself in the Blessed Sacrament?” Eucharist, if He had wanted them. “Don’t you know?” And that’s something to have been “Almost. But maybe you’ll help bread for, isn’t it, Barbara?” me to know it better.” “Yes, it is.” “Why, the reason God takes the “Well, what next?” lookness and the whiteness and the “Does the little bread make any tastiness of the bread, is so that you struggle about leaving its appearances can eat Him.” when you say ‘This is My Body’?” “Couldn’t I eat Him otherwise?” “No, it obeys promptly. It just “Of course not. You could hold gives up all it has in the way of His hand or touch the hem of whiteness, texture and shape, and His garment. But you couldn’t eat vanishes immediately. Then Our Him unless He became eatable. Lord’s Body comes in and takes its So in order to become eatable and place, looking just like it, but being come to us in the form of Holy something entirely different, as you Communion, He takes away the know. But the wine that becomes qualities of something that is eatable Our Lord’s Blood makes a little bit of and palatable, and gives us His own a struggle.” Body hidden under this edible shape. First Communion at Saint Benedict Center “Does it?” That’s why we can consume Him and “Well, you really wouldn’t call it a struggle, because it is let Him nestle close to our hearts, because He has become all unconscious of what is happening. But you have to talk to breadlike for love of us.” it more strictly that you do to the bread.” “Father?” “Do you?” “Yes?” “Yes. You have to give it a little sermon and let it know “Wouldn’t you rather see Him than eat Him?” that something great is being done to it, that the Old “I’d really like to do both. But if I had my choice, Testament is being completed in the New, and that this honestly, and had to take one or the other, I’d rather receive new Substance to which it is lending all its fragrance and Him in Holy Communion than listen to His voice in a sweetness and taste and color, is the Blood of Jesus, which thousand sermons, or see Him in a thousand postures, shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins.” however beautiful they may be. Because sermons are, after “Why do you suppose it takes longer to consecrate the all, only His words, and sights of Him only His images in wine into Our Lord’s Blood than it does to consecrate the our eyes, but the Blessed Sacrament is Himself united to us bread into Our Lord’s Body?” as food. You can’t get any closer to Him than that.” “Well, it wouldn’t take a second longer if God wanted to “But, Father?” insist. But wine, you know, is a very fastidious substance. “Yes?” It is the nearest to a living thing of any non-living thing we “Isn’t it lovely of the little bread to give Our Lord’s Body know. It has an individuality (no two wines are the same), all its whiteness, its taste, its smallness, so we can receive and when you bottle wine you always write the date on the Him in the Blessed Sacrament?” bottle. It even seems to be sensitive about its age. And so “Barbara, it is not only lovely of it, it is perfectly darling God, in His nice way, sort of respects it at the Consecration, of it.” and in asking it to give up its taste and odor and pungency “Good-bye.” so that they can be used by His Precious Blood in the “Good-bye.” ■ Eucharist, gives it, so to speak, a little sermon, so that it

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

Catholic Memory Items

Prefect’s Column

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Bother John Marie Vianney, M.I.C.M., Tert., Prefect

ometimes it is important for us to simply review those simple things each Catholic should know. Here are three lists, straight from our Saint Augustine Institute of Catholic Studies Syllabus.

Have you ever thought, what are the months of the year devoted to? Well, here is the list:

Devotions for the Twelve Months of the Year January — The Holy Name of Jesus February — The Passion of Our Lord March — Saint Joseph April — The Blessed Eucharist May — Our Lady June — The Sacred Heart July — The Precious Blood August — The Immaculate Heart September — The Sorrows of Mary October — The Holy Rosary November — The Holy Souls December — The Divine Infancy

To whom is each day of the week devoted? This list is one everyone should have memorized too: Devotions for the Seven Days of the Week Sunday — The Holy Trinity Monday — The Holy Angels Tuesday — The Apostles Wednesday — Saint Joseph Thursday — The Holy Eucharist Friday — The Sacred Heart, and the Passion Saturday — Our Lady

Finally, what are the choirs of angels and how many are there? The Nine Choirs of Angels (1) Angels (2) Archangels (3) Principalities (4) Powers (5) Virtues (6) Dominions (7) Thrones (8) Cherubim (9) Seraphim

Now you can test yourselves on these three lists. Let me know how you did. God bless you all. ■ Email Brother John Marie Vianney at [email protected].

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

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Chapel Update
ardon my pun, but excitment is building as we get closer and closer to finishing the chapel. The best news is that on June 10, 2013, we received our occupancy permit from the Town of Sr. Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. Richmond. All the inspections have been completed, and we passed with flying colors. Now, we just need to keep taking one step at a time, exercising patience and confidence in Saint Joseph. We've been working on this project for over twelve years; a couple more months won't hurt.

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Details

So many little details there are to attend to! Many are not yet visible; for example, the confessional curtains are being sewn and materials for the altar rail kneeler have been ordered. We have received a couple of donations towards landscaping; plans are underway to make the exterior grounds a lovely setting for our little jewel of a chapel. An overall plan will allow us to do things in phases with the help of volunteers for minimum expense. There are still key items to get into place before the first Mass, especially finishing the ceiling, transporting and refinishing the pews, painting the murals, and sewing the altar linens. Your prayers and sacrifices are very valuable. Please don't forget to offer up those daily crosses.

Our general contractor, Sy Wrenn, checks out the new back-up generator.

A unique view of the chapel — under the watchful gaze of Our Lady of Fatima

The beginning of May: final site work. The loam saved back in September is spread.

The south side of the chapel, ready for grass seed. The retention pond is on the left.

The altar rail is here installed, sanded, and ready for staining and oiling (with Tung oil).

Cleaning the sanctuary gates, we discovered that very old lacquer needed stripping first.

The priory gets some touch-up site work — and a new section of sidewalk where the water line enters the building.

The sanctuary lamp arrives and is partially unpacked. The detail of the brass work is beautiful. It is now hanging from the center of the sanctuary arch.

The new bridge over Tully Brook Road (a state/town/SBC project)

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

Left: Hard to tell in black and white, but the arch is getting a facing of red. What a difference it makes, drawing the eye right into the sanctuary! Each little detail adds so much to The base of the altar (a solid piece of marble the final picture. weighing around a half-ton) is brought into the chapel with the help of John Deere.

This picture (May 16) shows the finished altar rail and the masonry substructures of the altar and side shrines.

Brother Louis Marie and Brother Joseph Mary take a ride as the pulpit we salvaged a decade ago gets brought out from storage.

The altar base is lifted into place with the help of some of the local gentlemen.

Above top: Wieslaw Pieniazek, a Polish artisan from Worcester cuts down one of the side altars. Above bottom: The marble base of the St. Joseph side shrine is cemented in place and waiting for its cap.

Different stages of installing the main altar: lifting the mensa (the altar top) so that it can be rolled up the stairs; raising the mensa; and pushing it into place.

The constellations went up in about ten hours and now we're filling in with the tiny stars.

or an update on memorializations, please visit our website (ora.catholicism. org) or give me a call (603-239-6495) to find out what items are still available, and how your family and loved ones could be remembered with perpetual prayers. May Our Lady bless you with her Holy Child!

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The wood base is installed around the altar base. For color pictures: ora.catholicism.org.

The star project: first the stars are "weeded", and the constellations are mapped out, with the help of volunteers and a borrowed laser.

Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

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Faith and Miracles

Kelly Forum

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Mr. Brian Kelly

ith his Apostolic Letter of October 11, 2011, Porta Fidei , Pope Benedict XVI declared that a “Year of Faith” would begin on October 11, 2012, and conclude on November 24, 2013. October 11, is the feast of the Divine Maternity.

What is Faith? The Holy Ghost shows us what to see. Imagine being Miracles and the Mission to the Nations in a dark room, no light whatsoever. You’ve been there, Other “motives of credibility,” principally miracles, right? Totally disoriented. This is life without faith. Turn have been with the Church since the Incarnation. The on a light, and you can see. That is reason without faith. Old Testament, also, abounds in miracles, especially Let the sun shine before you through the stained-glass those performed by Moses and many of the prophets. No windows of a church, that is the matter of supernatural prophet, however, performed miracles comparable to Our faith or revelation, short of actual vision. It is as if God Lord’s. Being God, He commanded the elements by His said, “This is My truth: now you own authority and, being Life, see spiritually, now believe in brought the dead back to life. what you see.” The act of faith is Nevertheless, Our Lord went so the believing. far as to promise His disciples In the added prayer section, that they would perform greater the Roman hand-missal gives the miracles than He, but in His Act of Faith as follows: “O my name. “Amen, amen I say to you, God, I firmly believe that thou art he that believeth in me, the works one God in Three divine Persons, that I do, he also shall do, And the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. greater than these shall he do” I believe that thy divine Son (John 14:12). became man and died for our sins, Saint Patrick was sent by Pope and that He will come to judge Celestine as bishop to Ireland the living and the dead. I believe in 433 and the whole island these and all the truths which the converted from his preaching. Catholic Church teaches because This would not have happened Thou hast revealed them, who can had not this holy man performed neither deceive nor be deceived.” astounding miracles. His battles Pope Benedict XVI, in his with the druid priests were Message for Lent 2013, taught like Moses contesting with the that “the greatest work of charity magicians of Pharao. I know of no is evangelization, which is the saint who raised so many people ‘ministry of the word.’ There is from the dead to give them the The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes: crutches left behind no action more beneficial — and faith and baptism. by pilgrims, amassed on the walls of the cave. (Photo credit to Wellcome Library, London) therefore more charitable — towards Other nations converted by holy one’s neighbour than to break the miracle workers were in the East bread of the word of God, to share with him the Good Indies (India, Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo, Japan) where the News of the Gospel, to introduce him to a relationship with ten-year-mission by Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552) was God: evangelization is the highest and the most integral filled with miracles, producing millions of converts. promotion of the human person.” (Part 3) Then, glory to God, there is Mexico. While much Divine and Catholic Faith is a supernatural virtue given of Europe was leaving the Church for the errors of by God, illuminating and elevating the soul, giving it the Protestantism, the missionaries were replacing them with capacity to embrace divine truths that are above reason. the American Indians. But it took Our Lady herself, in

How did the Church grow throughout history? In the early Church the Apostles and their successors and all the faithful had tremendous enthusiasm. There was a zeal, among laity as well as clergy, to spread the Kingdom of God on earth, which is the Catholic Church. There was great holiness, of course, especially in the Church’s missionaries. There were millions of martyrs, as well, over the centuries of persecution. The Church father, Tertullian (160-22), is most famous for saying, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians.”

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

1531, to give us the great miracle that abides still in the miraculous image she painted of herself on the tilma of Saint Juan Diego. By 1541, just ten years thence, thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe’s maternal mercy, there were ten million Aztecs who had entered the Church. Some cynics are so steeped in their unbelief that they are not even moved by miracles. Look at the stiff-necked priests who could not deny that Christ had raised Lazarus

What is Faith?
from the dead, saying in secret session: “What do we, for this man doth many miracles?” (John 11:47), and hearing the testimony of His resurrection from the temple guards stationed at the tomb, they invented a lie to blacken their conscience. Jesus foretold it, “neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Normal people, however, if they cooperate with grace, would be moved to embrace the religion attended by undeniable miracles. Miracle at Lourdes In connection with this, I lifted the following account of a miracle at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes from Franz Werfel’s book, The Song of Bernadette. Werfel, a Jew, came into the Church late, at the eleventh hour. The apparition occurred in 1858, and the miraculous cures from the spring of water, opened by the Mother of God, are ongoing. “Jules Lacassagne had become a mere shadow and seemed doomed to die of starvation. His mother took him to a seaside resort: perhaps the ocean’s energy would help. It did not. On the beach whither they carried the boy he found a torn piece of newspaper. Holding it in his feeble hands he read an account of the healing of young Marie Moreau. He pocketed the piece of paper but dared not at first utter his wish. He knew his father’s character and convictions well and was afraid of being laughed at. Not until many days later, when, obviously doomed, he was taken back to Bordeaux, did he hesitantly tell his mother the story of Lourdes and Marie Moreau. Madame Lacassagne besought her husband to set out for Lourdes on that very day. The husband consented without debate. In the face of death unfaith is far unsurer of itself than faith. In his own arms Roger Lacassagne carried his son [Jules] to the grotto. A former army man, he was disinclined to stand for any nonsense. If miracles can happen, let them! Hence he had brought with him a bag of soft biscuits. After Jules, endlessly agonizing, had succeeded in getting down a glassful of the water drop by drop, the absurd father handed him one of the biscuits and gave an order in his military fashion: ‘Now, then, eat!’ And now an absurder thing happened: the boy ate. He bit off a piece, chewed it, and swallowed it like any ordinary mortal. The tall Lacassagne with his grey pompadour turned aside, reeling

like a drunken man, and beat his breast and panted: ‘Jules is eating ... Jules is eating ... ’ And the people around the grotto burst into tears.” (pg. 437) (The boy, Jules Lacassagne, had been suffering a long time from St. Vitus’ Dance which ended up attacking his esophagus. He was dying of starvation when, at his son’s own request, the father condescended to take him to Lourdes. His cure was instantaneous and his health improved daily to the point where no one would have ever known he had had such a disease.) Finally, we have the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13, 1917. In confirmation to her message to the three shepherding children, she promised to give a great sign to all the people gathered at the Cova that day. All the people, even the freemasons and atheists. It had been raining all morning that day when Our Lady gave her final message to the children. At high noon, she pointed to the sun which had unexpectedly burst through the clouds. The sun was turning wildly, dancing as it began spinning off beautiful colors, when, all of a sudden, it appeared to be falling from the sky, zigzagging to earth. People screamed in terror. Then, the solar star stopped plummeting, retreated, and resumed its normal position. Everyone’s clothes and the very mud on the ground were instantly dry. There is another miracle that we know will happen, for Our Lady said it at Fatima, but it has not happened yet. What is that? The conversion of Russia. Then, too, the grace of God can work with a noble culture which appreciates natural virtue. The Koreans, for example, came into the Church in the late eighteenth century without receiving a missionary. One of their ambassadors to China, Yi Byeok, was converted by Catholics he met there in 1784. When he returned to Seoul he brought Catholic books with him and the next thing you know the sages of the peninsula sent emissaries to Rome and a few missionaries arrived in Korea soon afterward. Nevertheless, miracles provide the most convincing and immediate motive of credibility. Jesus said as much when He answered Philip’s request at the Last Supper to “show us the Father.” Addressing Philip, Jesus said: “Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? Otherwise believe for the very works’ sake” (John 14:11-12). Saint Augustine gives us a lesson in this matter. I cannot find the exact quote, but in one of his sermons he pointed out that every day is a miracle. The only thing different in a “dancing sun” and the grandeur of a sunrise is familiarity. We see the sun rise in the east every morning without a sound in all its royal magnificence. It’s nature; we are used to it, so it’s no big deal. But it is a “big deal”; it’s a miracle that just so happens to have a daily course. Gravity, thank God, obeys a law, but what is it? Really, who can define it? We can only measure it. To paraphrase Roger Lacassagne: If miracles want to happen, let them happen. And they do, all the time. ■ Email Brian Kelly at [email protected].

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Guest Column

Joe MacIsaac, R.I.P.

n Trinity Sunday, 2013, When asked where the Germans were, he would respond: one of the founding “They left three days ago.” generation of the Joe would explain that wars were fought by young men, Crusade of the Saint Benedict eighteen to twenty-two years-old, who sometimes treated the Center entered into eternal life, weapons of war as toys. When confronted with the choice of a few weeks short of his ninetydriving through an open gate leading to a French farmhouse, or second birthday. His name was demolishing a stone wall, a young American tank driver would, C. J. Doyle John Joseph MacIsaac. He was an frequently, choose the stone wall. Given the deprivations of the exemplary Catholic and a truly extraordinary man. war, and the exactions by the Germans, often the only asset One of ten children, Joe was born in Nova Scotia, the son left to a poor French farmer, besides his land, was the family of a Scots Gaelic-speaker. The family traced its ancestry to the cow, which gave milk to the children. To the misfortune of the Isle of Eigg, in the Inner Hebrides, the part of Scotland which French, the gunners on Sherman tanks discovered that one of remained Catholic after the Protestant Revolution. the ways to correct the sights on their 75mm cannon was to use When Joe was an infant, his family emigrated to the pathetic creatures for target practice. Massachusetts, and settled in the Jamaica Plain district of Joe’s Christian charity even extended to the enemy. He was Boston, where Joe grew up, attending public and parochial appalled by the recurring habit of American soldiers to execute schools. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Joe German prisoners of war. This was almost never done in hot MacIsaac had a secure and draft-exempt position as a skilled blood. With stunning callousness, convenience, not vengeance, defense worker at the United States Arsenal at Watertown. He was the usual motivation. The question: “Do we really have gave it up to enlist in the armed forces.Turned down by the Air to march them all the way back to battalion?” was the familiar Corps because of his eyesight, Joe enlisted in the U.S. Army. prelude to the order to shoot the prisoners. Recognizing his lucid intelligence, the Army sent him to college to train as an engineer. As the war dragged on however, they needed more and more men to carry rifles, and Joe became a combat infantryman. In October, 1944, Joe landed in Marseilles following Operation Anvil — the invasion of southern France — and took part in the fighting as Allied forces worked their way up the Rhone valley and across the Vosges mountains into Germany and, later, Austria. His outfit, the 103rd Infantry Division, liberated the Kaufering concentration camp, a satellite facility of the infamous Dachau death camp. Conversant in French and fluent in German, Joe was often given the duty of communicating with French civilians and guarding Nazi prisoners. So proficient were his language skills that Germans often reacted with suspicion towards him, believing Joe to be a German collaborator, rather than an American soldier. The plight of an infantryman in wartime was not glamorous. It usually meant being cold, wet, sick, and hungry, and going, for weeks at a time, without hot food, a bath or a change of clothes. Joe MacIsaac’s profound Catholic sensibilities however, endowed him with a clear moral compass and, despite his own hardships, with an empathy for innocent civilians. Joe would recount how, as the Allies advanced against the retreating Germans, they would pulverize French towns and villages. The Army Air Force would bomb them. The field artillery would shell them. Ground forces would attack with tanks and half-tracks, supported by infantry with mortars and heavy machine guns. When it was over, a Frenchman would crawl out of a cellar waving a white handkerchief. Joe MacIsaac, R.I.P .

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Mancipia • The Report of the Crusade of Saint Benedict Center • July/August 2013

After his honorable discharge from the army in 1946, Joe entered Harvard on the GI Bill and quickly attained the Dean’s List. Sometime in 1947, his younger brother, Hugh MacIsaac — a former Army Ranger then enrolled in Boston University — telephoned Joe and asked him to attend an evening lecture at a place called the Saint Benedict Center, then located on the corner of Bow and Arrow Streets in Cambridge. Hugh had heard that a gifted and charismatic priest was speaking there, and valued Joe’s perspective. Joe went and listened, was impressed by what he heard, and brought Hugh with him the next week. It was the beginning of an eventful saga. A few weeks before graduation, Joe became one of two students to resign from the Harvard Class of 1948 (Robert F. Kennedy’s class), to become a spiritual follower of Father Leonard Feeney. Both brothers, with their imposing size, athletic build, and formidable physical strength, would become drivers and bodyguards for Father Leonard. Hugh was a born leader, equipped with a forceful character and an engaging personality. Joe was the more studious of the two, a bibliophile with remarkable powers of recall. He once gave, without notes, a memorable lecture at the Center on the history of Carthage, which earned the admiration of Catherine Goddard Clarke. While Joe had a vocation for married life as a Catholic layman, Hugh had a religious vocation. He took permanent vows as a Slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and went on to spend thirty years in that community, the last six as its Superior, before his untimely death in 1979. Joe, who outlived by thirty-four years the brother to whom he was so closely attached, would remain a supporter of Saint Benedict Center for the rest of his life, and would become a friend and a disciple of Brother Francis. (Another brother, Charles Stanley MacIsaac, would be ordained to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II and become professed in the Oblates of Wisdom.) Joe embarked on a forty-four year career in the U.S. Post Office, and its successor, the Postal Service. He married his wife of fifty-five years, Elena, in 1957. Together, they raised seven children (one of whom, Carol, tragically pre-deceased her father) and helped raise thirteen grandchildren. A faithful husband and a loving father and grandfather — and greatgrandfather — Joe was intensely and selflessly devoted to his family. It is a testament to the reciprocity of that devotion that, under the care of his family, he was able to die in his own home. An admirer of James Michael Curley, Joe MacIsaac spent decades in the political organization of Massachusetts State Representative James J. Craven, Jr. For eighteen years after that, he served on the Board of Directors of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. A fervent, pious, and apostolic Catholic, Joe MacIsaac never missed an opportunity to evangelize. He was a determined member of the Church Militant, who manifested an edifying capacity to be at once both resolute yet serene in the face of adversity, including the disease which ultimately ended his earthly life. Dedicated to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, he practiced, for many years, nocturnal adoration.

He recited the Holy Rosary every day, and said prayers to his patrons, Saints Joseph and John. I shall always remember Joe MacIsaac as a brave man, a loyal friend, and a Christian gentleman. I shall continue to think of him however, as a model of traditional Catholicity, which we should all aspire to emulate. ■ Email Joe Doyle at [email protected].

IHM graduate gives his speech

New Graduates from IHM School: Sam Bednar and James Doucette.

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Theodore Maynard

The Forgotten Historian Of American Catholicism
ur readers may recall a series of articles presented in the nineteen from the Calvinist theology into a vague humanitarian Mancipia of the founding of New France. It was based skepticism, when I read Orthodoxy. And that work began in on a book titled The White and the Gold by Thomas me a reaction which, by the grace of God, three years later Costain, which, incidentally, is available in our bookstore. This carried me into the Catholic Church.” Maynard left England historical masterpiece chronicled the French effort to evangelize, for America in 1909 where he took various odd jobs, but he explore, and colonize that untamed wilderness of Canada returned in 1911 and took up Unitarianism, making plans to detailing some amazing characters, lay and religious, who enter the Unitarian seminary at Oxford. Grace, however, was brought the Faith to the savage Indians, eventually establishing working, for he started reading the New Witness, the weekly a New France where the Catholic spirit was the guiding force edited by Cecil Chesterton (younger brother of G. K.), whose in all the struggles germane to any colonizing effort. That same major contributor was Hilaire Belloc. Using the analogy of Catholic spirit was employed in Florida and Mexico by the the sandwich again, with sublime arguments as pressure, the Spanish, and the list of characters in this southern adventure force of these literary geniuses finally brought Theodore into rivals their compatriots to the North. Both efforts had as their the Catholic fold in 1913. It was G.K. Chesterton who showed primary goal the bringing of the Catholic Faith to the natives; Maynard that faith, which is conceived through grace and secondary was the colonization of the new-found territories; and revelation, could be enhanced by reason and that a Church the third goal was the development of these natives to a higher could guide reason through a hierarchal body of doctrine. standard of living. Theodore also espoused Distributism, the program for awarding We need not descend into the well-known greed of some tracts of farmland to deserving individuals. And, through the of these explorers for, be it gold, furs, or Chestertons and Belloc, he learned that forest, man and his desire for personal Catholicism was the unifying force in gain is today much the same as his European culture, and also a force for pioneering forbearers. By way of analogy, democracy and equality, especially in its I will create a sandwich. The top crust disapproval of the concentration of wealth. will be the French Catholic effort, the So much influence did these men have bottom crust will be the Spanish Catholic upon him that he acquired a reputation effort; all we need to do is fill the middle, as “a robust imitator of G.K. Chesterton and for that we have the American and Belloc.” Alas, if more men could be Protestant effort, with a sprinkling of accused of this charge!! Catholic salt. We will call this sandwich Theodore married Sara Casey, a the Americanist ham and rye, for indeed, novelist and playwright, in 1918, and in the Catholic effort in America was 1920, left to lecture in America. He was terribly persecuted in the beginning, offered and accepted a teaching position but, owing to the War of Rebellion, at the Dominican College of San Rafael came to be accepted under the precept (California) and eventually settled there of “equality for all men”; then, in order with his family in 1921. Theodore’s earliest to be good Americans, they slipped into works were books of poetry which met that insidious heresy of Indifferentism. with success, and also an anthology of Usually, you have the advantage when drinking songs, which I am sure met Theodore Maynard you hold the top and bottom position, as with success for the Chesterons and in a pincer movement, and pressure can Belloc. But it was his meeting with the be applied to gain the victory, but as we shall see, the opposite historian Van Wyck Brooks that set him on the path to write occurred. This series of articles will chronicle this saga using Catholic history, eventually authoring over twenty books, many Theodore Maynard’s book, The Story of American Catholicism, hagiographies, some studies in poetry, and one in particular, first published in 1941. The Story of American Catholicism, which earned him, on the Theodore was born in India, in 1890, to parents who were whole, disdain from American critics and Church officials. missionaries for the Plymouth Brethren. They sent him to school This book, which was meant to be a handy pocket guide for in England, and though they expected him to follow in their the reader, exposes the constant undertone of Americanism, footsteps, he broke away from their sect and became a Baptist. of indifferentism, in the policies employed by our founding After leaving school he took a job in London and, providentially, Catholic fathers. Maynard begins his book with a quote from read G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. “I was sliding at the age of John Carroll, “In the United States our religious system has

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By Russell LaPlume

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Continued from previous page

undergone a revolution, if possible, more extraordinary than our political one.” Just what do you mean by that, Your Eminence? Maynard answers later in the foreword of the book: “So far, then, from the Church being an alien institution in America, it might also be said that American Catholics are often, from one point of view, rather too American.” And later he states, “The Catholic body acted upon America and was in turn acted upon by America.” He laments that “few Catholics are so badly instructed as those in this country or more easily fall away from the Church when it suits their convenience.” He considered Pope Leo’s encyclical condemning Americanism, Testem Benevolentiae, as a salutary warning to the American hierarchy “against resorting to streamlined apologetics.” Small wonder he was not highly regarded by American Catholic critics. These articles will study the book in time periods; namely, pre-War of Rebellion, post-War of Rebellion, pre-Civil War, post-Civil War, and the age of Cardinal Gibbons. I think we shall come to a better understanding of just how the middle of the sandwich overwhelmed the outlying crusts. ■ Email Russell LaPlume at [email protected].

you feel lonely, do yourself a favor and find a real friend away from the screen. If you want to be entertained, reach beyond your keyboard or joystick. If you desire exercise, step out into the real world of fresh air instead of imprisoning yourself in a Wii. If you want health, eat real food in moderation. And if you want happiness, seek the Ultimate Reality in all things and at all times. Sursum corda! Habemus ad Dominum! Kindling for the month of May God is everywhere and especially in our souls when we are in the state of grace. He constantly desires our attention and our affection. In competition are your iPhone, computer, cell phone, iPod, or other electronic devices. Instead of allowing these devices to zap your attention, time, and affections, you could make a choice. Who or what should have most of your attention and affection, dear Society Member? “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with thy whole... .” And don't forget “Thou shalt love thy neighbor”more than your electronic devices. ■ Email Sister Marie Thérèse at [email protected]

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Sister Marie Stella entering the Postulancy in June, 2013

First Communicants

Outside altar at Corpus Christi procession

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A Prayer for the Conversion of A merica
O Mary, Mother of mercy and Refuge of sinners, we beseech thee, be pleased to look with pitiful eyes upon poor heretics and schismatics. Thou who art the Seat of Wisdom, enlighten the minds that are miserably enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin, that they may clearly know that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church is the one true Church of Jesus Christ, outside of which neither holiness nor salvation can be found. Finish the work of their conversion by obtaining for them the grace to accept all the truths of our Holy Faith, and to submit themselves to the supreme Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth; that so, being united with us in the sweet chains of divine charity, there may soon be only one fold under the same one shepherd; and may we all, O glorious Virgin, sing forever with exultation: Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, thou only hast destroyed all heresies in the whole world. Amen. Hail Mary, three times (Pius IX, Raccolta No. 579).

Our Crusade:
The propagation and defense of Catholic dogma — especially Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — and the conversion of America to the one, true Church. For more information, visit: catholicism.org and our bookstore website: store.catholicism.org Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Saint Benedict Center Post Office Box 627 Richmond, NH 03470 [email protected] (603) 239-6485

Mark Your Calendar:
• The novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be August 14 thru August 22. • Saint Benedict Center Conference: Friday and Saturday, October 11 and 12, 2013. • The 18th annual Auriesville Pilgrimage for Restoration is scheduled for Friday through Sunday, September 20-22, in upstate New York. Visit www.national-coalition.org/pilgrim for details.

2013 Saint Benedict Center Conference
What Do ‘Liberal’ and ‘Conservative’ Mean?
Location: Saint Benedict Center — 95 Fay Martin Road — Richmond, New Hampshire, 03470 Time: Friday and Saturday, October 11 and 12, 2013. Both will be full conference days. Cost: $125 per person with meals for both days before August 31, $80 without meals. $150 after that date with meals, $90 without. Single days with meals are $65, without meals, $45. No early-bird discount for single days. Who: Speakers have not yet been lined up and will be announced shortly. Last year’s were: Mr. Gary Potter, Dr. Robert Hickson, Mr. Charles Coulombe, Dr. G.C. Dilsaver, Mr. C. Joseph Doyle, Sr. Mary Peter, M.I.C.M., Br. André Marie, M.I.C.M., and Mr. Brian Kelly. More details will be posted on www.catholicism.org as they become available.
There is a limited number of Saint Benedict Center community members who are willing to host conference attendees on a first-come, first-served basis; call the number below for details. There are hotels in the Keene vicinity, but reservations should be made early because of tourism during the foliage season. Some include: Best Western Hotel & Suites (603) 357-3038; Holiday Inn Express Keene (603) 352-7616; Days Inn (603) 352-9780; and Super 8 Keene (603) 352-9780. There are bed-and-breakfasts in the area; call for details. Further, there is a campground three miles from the Center: Shir-Roy Campground (603) 239-4768.

Register now — early-bird discount ends August 31, 2013! Call Russell at (603) 239-6485 to register or for more information. Registrations may also be done at our online store or mailed to the address above.