Prelude
We do not know yet how dark things will get. It feels like they will get darker still.
Saint Paul said: even if an angel from heaven came – if he proclaims any other gospel than the true gospel of Our Savior, let him be anathema.
If all shepherds leave us or turn out to be wolves – the true Shepherd does not. He is there with us until the end of the age.
„Por fim o Meu Imaculado Coracao triunfara.“
With the faith of children we have to trust in that, no matter how dark things get.
The children of Fatima felt burdened to intercede in prayer for sinners constantly, to be vigilant in prayer, to make acts of reparation, to make continual sacrifices. With the earnestness of children, they did so. Untiringly. They had already been told that they would go to heaven – and maybe that is the kind of assured hope they needed to be able to spend themselves for reparation and intercession. Joy was set before them and so they were able to endure the way of the cross. On the way of the cross leading to salvation, it is about dragging as many people along to heaven as one can, through intercessions, sacrifices of love and our wounds offered up to God for the souls of those entrusted to us along the way.
I
Maybe it was a bit insane, or even outrageously insane, when the young Don John of Austria went out to take on a vastly superior Muslim fleet? He could have lost this battle – and he could have lost both life and honor in it. He had been victorious before – but this was not the kind of battle you surely, most likely win. Was it not a great risk that he and all his comrades faced? Yes, maybe indeed nothing short of insane – to move out against the Muslim fleet with prayers and rosaries… Who does that? It is like the glorious story of the shepherd David taking on Goliath and the Philistines, saying: Who are those uncircumcised men? It is so utterly romantic. It is the kind of romance we are missing today and longing for.
II
Without romance, all song is lost to the world. Music, like prayer, is the language of lovers, the language of one who is not alone in his insanity. Without romance, the world is dead silent, and so are we, no matter how many words we make. But true romance is always hidden from the unchaste eyes and tickling ears of the world. It is only for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. It is an inside story, that the uncircumcised will never understand.
III
There is a logic of love that is absolutely illogical – and extravagant. Pouring out the whole alabaster jar of precious nard on the Beloved… Love is not, never, calculating. The moment we begin to calculate, we are out of love.
IV
How will we enter heaven, and who will enter heaven? Will heaven not be full of romantics? Will it not be full of great lovers who dared greatly and loved extravagantly, patiently, child-like forcefully? True life is not won by our calculations and rationales. It is won by receiving the mark of a burning coal, a refiner‘s fire: passion, of the pure sort – pure as sacred fire is.
V
“Don John of Austria burst the battle lines“ (G. K. Chesterton) – the bastard son was the only one child enough and the only one man enough to accomplish that.
If you ever love, you got to love to the end. If you ever love, you cannot, you cannot ever count the cost.
VI
We are made for sober inebriety. There is no chance on sober inebriety without surprise. Surprise is at the heart of the romantic life. Whoever is immune to surprise, is immune to falling in love. Whoever is immune to falling in love, is immune to the very heart of reality.
VII
But who can joyfully perceive a poem when it is written, in cryptic letters, all across the deep oceans and the wide open skies, be there even the enemy‘s cacophonic, fierce fleet covering the whole horizon, as far as your eyes can see? In cryptic letters, something must have been written on the inside of his heart, that makes him understand…
VIII
Only human beings sanctified, by grace sharing in God‘s creative power and higher vision, graciously infused with the ever conquering virtues of faith, hope, and charity, can anticipate victory in gratitude in the midst of anxious labor, as Pope Pius V. did, having eyes to see… Can be fruitful and active in waiting, and peaceful and still in the midst of battle and adversary.
IX
In the life of the anti-romantic, neither is prose ever true prose, nor poetry true poetry. He is never creative and ever repeating, just like any machine can only do whatever it was programmed to do in advance, unable to amend its ways during the task, during the encounter with reality. Untouchable. Unable to be surprised. Yet, in the romantic life, prose and poetry permeate each other and make one another bring out what is true, real and fruitful. Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.
Romantics, redeemed scribes, real human beings of body, mind and soul all joined together and never falling apart, are the only ones in touch with reality.
X
One who fights is alive, even if he fights in vain. One who is aware of the two-fold potential of either losing or winning the battle, is awake and alive – and if he is deadly wounded out on the open sea, his fate surely is more honorable than if he stays at home safe and sound. He alone knows courage and every other virtue, and can make sense of them, as they become for him far more than just old fairytales on either chiselled or enshrined paper.
Sacred fire, from which glowing coals may fall on hearts and lips, burns inside the paradox, the very heart of all reality, and only there.
XI
The bastard son was the only one who was not a coward, answering the call of the Holy Father, and the only one who truly loved his Mother. The one without honor won high honors by honoring the Virgin Mary, asking her for victory, so that in the case of victory, the victory would be all hers – but honored he never truly was throughout all his life, this side of things.
If you ever love, you got to love to the end. If you ever love, you cannot, you cannot ever count the cost.
XII
Once upon a time it was the battle of Lepanto that required some romantic insanity to be won. And today? Whoever is anointed with oil flowing from the Head of the priestly people and of the royal nation, whoever is sealed with the cross He bore, is marked out for combat, called to arms. Even if he’s just a shepherd or a child. Shepherds and children take on Goliaths and take them down with slings, rosaries and faith. Whosoever knows true love, knows that this is true.
