Montjoie Saint Denis!

The Oriflamme

St. Denis carrying his own head

It is the feast of St. Denis the martyr, whose name was the battle-cry of France. Montjoie Saint-Denis referred to the oriflamme, the ancient banner of the kings of France. Saint Denis and his companions died from decapitation on Montmartre, now in Paris, as would many Parisians perish fifteen hundred years later. The Basilica of Saint Denis is where St. Denis was buried along with most of the kings and queens of France, until the tombs were despoiled during the French Revolution. The Carmel of St. Denis was where Blessed Thérèse of Saint Augustine sought the rigors and joys of the monastic life. From New Advent:

Bishop of Paris, and martyr. Born in Italy, nothing is definitely known of the time or place, or of his early life. His feast is kept on 9 October. He is usually represented with his head in his hands because, according to the legend, after his execution the corpse rose again and carried the head for some distance. That, however, while still very young he was distinguished for his virtuous life, knowledge of sacred things, and firm faith, is proved by the fact that Pope Fabian (236-250) sent him with some other missionary bishops to Gaul on a difficult mission. The Church of Gaul had suffered terribly under the persecution of the Emperor Decius and the new messengers of Faith were to endeavour to restore it to its former flourishing condition. Denis with his inseparable companions, the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, arrived in the neighbourhood of the present city of Paris and settled on the island in the Seine. The earliest document giving an account of his labours and of his martyrdom (Passio SS. Dionsyii, Rustici et Eleutherii), dating from the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century and wrongly attributed to the poet Venantius Fortunatus, is interwoven with much legend, from which, however, the following facts can be gleaned. 

On the island in the Seine Denis built a church and provided for a regular solemnization of the Divine service. His fearless and indefatigable preaching of the Gospel led to countless conversions. This aroused the envy, anger and hatred of the heathen priests. They incited the populace against the strangers and importuned the governor Fescenninus Sisinnius to put a stop by force to the new teaching. Denis with his two companions were seized and as they persevered in their faith were beheaded (about 275) after many tortures. Later accounts give a detailed description of the confessors' sufferings. They were scourged, imprisoned, racked, thrown to wild beasts, burnt at the stake, and finally beheaded. Gregory of Tours simply states: "Beatus Dionysius Parisiorum episcopus diversis pro Christi nomine adfectus poenis praesentem vitam gladio immente finivit" (Hist. Franc. I, 30). The bodies of the three holy martyrs received an honourable burial through the efforts of a pious matron named Catulla and a small shrine was erected over their graves. This was later on replaced by a beautiful basilica (egregium templum) which Venantius celebrated in verse (Carm. I, ii). (Read more.)

Our Lady of Victory

Battle of Lepanto

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary

Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the most high God, above all women upon the earth....for that thou hast not spared thy life, by reason of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but hast prevented our ruin in the presence of our God....Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people....(Judith 13:23-25, 15:10 )

It is the anniversary of the battle of Lepanto, now known as the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of Victory.

Here is a history of the rosary.

Don Marco discusses the comfort of the beads.

Sacramentals should be things of beauty. The soul thrives in an environment of chaste loveliness, harmony, and order. Finely crafted beads invite to prayer. There is no shame in going to God by means of the senses He has given us. The Word became flesh so that we, in our flesh and not in spite of it, might be able to go to God. 

Thomas Merton on Noise

Here is a quote from Merton's The Sign of Jonas:

Silence not a virtue, noise not a sin. True. But the turmoil and confusion and constant noise of modern society are the expression of the ambiance of its greatest sins - it godlessness, its despair. A world of propaganda, of endless argument, vituperation, criticism, or simply of chatter, is a world without anything to live for.

The Debate Over St. Faustina

 From Christine Niles:

October 5th is the feast day of St. Faustina. Debate continues to swirl around her and the Divine Mercy devotion. In this episode (originally aired June 6, 2023), Christine Niles delves into St. Faustina's life and the controversies surrounding Divine Mercy to answer the question: Is Divine Mercy a fraud — or is it one of God's greatest gifts to the modern world? 

 Objection 1: St. Faustina's diary was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. 

ANSWER: This was owing to errors in the Italian translation. Once an accurate translation was commissioned, any errors were eliminated and the ban was lifted in 1978. 

Objection 2: Divine Mercy preaches unconditional mercy without sacrifice. 

ANSWER: False. St. Faustina was given a terrifying vision of Hell, and confirmed that many souls who reject God and His mercy will end up there. She also practiced many penances and mortifications in reparation for sinners, understanding that suffering is the price of sin. 

Objection 3: How could Our Lord say to St. Faustina that He united Himself more intimately with her than with any other creature, when God clearly unites Himself more intimately with Our Lady? 

ANSWER: He clearly meant He united Himself with her more intimately than with any other mortal creature at that time living on earth — not for all time. 

 Objection 4: How could St. Faustina claim the Lord told her, “From today on, do not fear God’s judgment, for you will not be judged.” 

ANSWER: Any saint who dies in the state of perfection and goes directly to Heaven is exempt from judgment. Saint Faustina lived an extraordinarily holy life and is now a canonized saint; it would not be difficult to believe that God granted her the extraordinary grace not only of sainthood, but of knowing that she would escape judgment. (Read more and listen.)

The Rosary and the Interior Life

October is the month of the rosary. From Detroit Catholic:

In Luke 11:40, Christ speaks about His Father as a “maker.” The Father’s “making” always involves Christ Himself, the Word, through whom all things were made (John 1:3). Here in Luke, Christ reminds us that the Trinity made the interior of the human being. Man is not simply an object like those the Pharisees scrupulously wash; man has a rich interiority, a whole inner world of emotions and ideas and desires that are only partially visible exteriorly. That interiority is created by and for Love — Love who stands before the Pharisees, begging for the alms of their answering love.

In this month of the Rosary, we should turn to Our Lady as our guide to the interior life. What is going on in our head during the day? Do we lift our minds to the One who begs the alms of our love? Mary can teach us to do so. She lived each day with the knowledge that God was present to her at every moment; she lived in love and obedience to His will. She spoke to Him interiorly: in praise, in petition, in thanksgiving, in sorrow for sin — though not her own, of course!

The Rosary is a devotion that can foster this prayerful interiority; it masterfully addresses the needs of the human being, who has both an “outside” and an “inside.” The beads give us something to do with our hands, something to calm us, and also something to free our minds from counting the prayers so that we can, with Mary, “treasure the things [God has done], pondering them in [our] heart” (cf. Luke 2:19).

As we pray the mysteries of the Rosary, we learn to ponder the work of God in the world’s history and in our own personal story. Mary did this often, allowing the Holy Spirit to infuse her memory with His radiance. And from the interior treasury of her communing with God flowed alms for her neighbor — for example, her visit of charity to Zechariah and Elizabeth. (Read more.)

Feast of the Guardian Angels

Here is a brief history of the liturgical feast of the Holy Guardian Angels:

This feast, like many others, was local before it was placed in the Roman calendar.... Paul V placed it (27 September, 1608) among the feasts of the general calendar as a double "ad libitum" (Bäumer, op. cit., II, 277)....At the request of Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, he made them obligatory in all regions subject to the Imperial power; to all other places he conceded them ad libitum, to be celebrated on the first available day after the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel. It is believed that the new feast was intended to be a kind of supplement to the Feast of St. Michael, since the Church honoured on that day (29 September) the memory of all the angels as well as the memory of St. Michael.... Among the numerous changes made in the calendar by Clement X was the elevation of the Feast of Guardian Angels to the rank of an obligatory double for the whole Church to be kept on 2 October, this being the first unoccupied day after the feast of St. Michael....Finally Leo XIII (5 April, 1883) favoured this feast to the extent of raising it to the rank of a double major.

The following is an old English bed-time prayer for children, of which there are many variations:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless this bed that I lay on.
Before I lay me down to sleep,
I give my soul to Christ to keep.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels 'round my head,
One to watch, one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.
I go by sea, I go by land,
The Lord made me with his right hand,
If any danger come to me,
Sweet Jesus Christ, deliver me.
For he's the branch and I'm the flower,
Pray God send me a happy hour,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Needless to say, the belief in angel guardians is of ancient origin and has a strong Biblical foundation, as the Book of Exodus bears witness:

20 Behold I will send my angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared. 21 Take notice of him, and hear his voice, and do not think him one to be contemned: for he will not forgive when thou hast sinned, and my name is in him. 22 But if thou wilt hear his voice, and do all that I speak, I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and will afflict them that afflict thee. 23 And my angel shall go before thee.... (Exodus 23:20-23)

Recta Ratio has some pictures and some thoughts as well. More HERE.

And here is the prayer duet from the opera Hansel and Gretel.

St.Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts. (3 Kings 19:10)~Motto of the Carmelite Order

Today is the feast of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (1873-1897), whom Pope Pius XI hailed as being "the greatest saint of modern times." Her Little Way of love and self-surrender is vital to our modern materialistic age because she, like the sister of Lazarus, sought the "one thing necessary." (Luke 10:42) As she wrote to her sister Celine in 1889:

There is only one thing to do during the night, the one night of life which will come only once, and this is to love, to love Jesus with all the strength of our heart and to save souls for Him that He may be loved! (General Correspondence, Vol.I, ICS Publications, p.588)

In order to save souls, she was willing to embrace every suffering that came her way, from the petty annoyances of daily existence, to the physical and mental torments of the last months of her earthly life. In a letter to Celine, she exclaims:

Sanctity does not consist in saying beautiful things, it does not consist in thinking them, in feeling them!...It consists in suffering and suffering everything...A day will come when the shadows will disappear, and there will remain only joy, inebriation...Let us profit from our one moment of suffering...Let us see only each moment!...A moment is a treasure...one act of love will make us love Jesus better...it will bring us closer to Him during the whole of eternity...! (Ibid. pp 557-558)

Part of Saint Thérèse's secret of sanctity is that she kept the thought of eternity ever before her. "Just as this year passed, so also will our life pass, and soon we shall say: 'It is gone.' Let us not waste our time, soon eternity will shine for us." (Ibid, p.602)

Her profound realization of the shortness of life and her zeal for souls combined with a thirst for martyrdom. Through God's grace, she found the courage to face humiliations and disappointments that would have embittered lesser souls. Her father's mental deterioration and his committal to an asylum was a heavy trial for the teenage nun. Nevertheless, she wrote to Celine:

Let us die as martyrs! Unkown martyrdom, known to God alone, which the eye of the creature cannot discover, a martyrdom without honor, without triumph....That is love pushed to the point of heroism....Let us hurry to fashion our crown; let us stretch forth our hand to seize the palm. And if we love much, if we love Jesus with a passion, He will not be so cruel as to leave us for a long time on this earth of exile....Celine, during the short moments that remain to us, let us not lose our time...let us save souls! (Ibid, p.578)

During her fatal illness, Saint Thérèse reflected upon upon a glass of brightly covered but foul-tasting medicine, comparing it to her own life.

My life in the eyes of others must have seemed to be filled with the most pleasant colors....To them, I seemed to be drinking an exquisite draft, but in reality it was bitterness. I say bitterness and yet my life has not been bitter, for I have been able to find joy and sweetness in all that bitterness. (Father Jamart, The Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Therese , p.217)

Truly her love for Christ and souls was heroic. In her autobiography, St. Thérèse wrote: "When thinking of the torments which will be the lot of Christians at the time of the Anti-christ, I feel my heart leap with joy, and I would like these torments to be reserved for me." (The Story of a Soul, trans. by Father John Clarke, p. 193) Such zeal led her to offer herself as a victim to the Merciful Love of God in order to save souls, longing to spend her heaven "doing good upon earth." (Ibid, p.263)

God has honored the desires of His Little Flower. The efficacy of her intercession has been experienced in every part of the globe; her writings have been pondered by popes, saints, and scholars; she has drawn many souls to holiness by her prayer and example. Her Christ-like humility is the antidote for the intellectual pride of our time. Her zeal counteracts our sloth and dullness of mind, so suffocated are we by an excess of comforts and stimuli. She is a prophet of eternal beatitude; a guide to heaven for those on the brink of despair. She is Carmel's gift to modern man. How appropriately a Carmelite nun expressed it in one of the hymns for October 1:

Yet joy itself could not portray
The surge of her immense desire
Nor cloister walls have strength to stay
A love that swept the world like fire.
(Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD)