Showing posts with label Christ the King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christ the King. Show all posts

Thursday, April 24, 2014

King, Crusader, Saint and Penitent -- Today, Louis IX. Was Born 800 Years Ago in France

(Paris) "Every period of history has its representative man. Saint Louis IX. summarizes the entire Middle Ages.  He was a legislator, a hero and a saint. Marcus Aurelius embodied power united with philosophy, Louis IX.  power united with holiness. And it is just the latter that goes to the foreground for him."  The words of François-René de Chateaubriand may be slightly frenchified.  But worth considering the significance in dealing with history and representing these figures, they are nonetheless. 
This coming April 25 is the 800th birthday of a holy king, glory of the Church and of Christendom, a model of a Christian ruler, a real monarch according to the will of God:  St. Louis IX. of France (1214-1270). A king who, in the Christian Middle Ages, embodied in his person, that which is referred to as "sweet springtime of faith".
He was the son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile, daughter, granddaughter, wife, sister and aunt of kings. Blanka was the daughter of King Alfonso IX. of Castile, the stormer of the battlements in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) that paved the way for the reconquest of the southern Iberian Peninsula. She was the granddaughter of King Sancho III of Castile, niece of English kings Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, wife of King Louis VIII of France, sister of King Henry of Castile, aunt of King Sancho II of Portugal and St. Ferdinand III., King of Leon and Castile and mother of King Charles I of Naples and Sicily and of Saint Louis IX., King of France. A high aristocratic, European network, in which, despite the emergence of principalities and kingdoms, possessing a population of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds still a largely intact early medieval Germanic unit was expressed on sovereign level.

Born in 1214 in the Fateful Battle of France Bouvines

St. Louis was born at Castle Poissy about 30 kilometers from Paris on 25 April 1214. At that time his grandfather  King Philip II Augustus of France still lived, the winner in the decisive Battle of Bouvines for France (1214) against the Anglo-German coalition in which he saved the fate of France, stopped the expansion of England  on the continent and the Empire let go from the Guelphs on to the Staufer.
The Childhood of St. Louis was a mirror image of honesty and wisdom. His father, who also combined chivalrous courage with the zeal for religion, was honored with the nickname "the Lion". He took pains in a special way for the education of his son and gave him excellent teachers and educators, says Matthias II of Montmorency, the Constable of France, and thus  was the highest-ranking nobleman in the service of the king; William of Barres, the Count of Rochefort, who was honored after the Battle of Bouvines as the "Bravest of the bravest" and Clement of Metz.  All three had been commanders of his grandfather and father. But they were also educated men and educated the Crown Prince in the humanistic disciplines and mediated the King above all by a love for the Church.
His mother, Blanche of Castile spared no effort to bring him to a Godly life and to be a wise king. Tradition has her sentence: "My son, I wish you would prefer  the grave, than be  stained with a single mortal sin." Towards the end of her life, Blanka moved back to the Cistercian Abbey of Maubuisson she founded, where she led a life of prayer and penance until her death in 1252.

Anointing and Coronation at the Age of Twelve

With the early death of his father, who died at the age of 40  in Montpellier on the way back from the crusade against the heretical Albigenses, the young saint came to the throne still a minor. The regency was led by his mother.  It was due to the loyalty of Matthias II of Montmorency, the commander of the army, that the throne was not lost at this critical stage to rebellious nobles who instigated internal conflicts to exploit the youth of the king for their aggrandizement.
On November 30, 1226 Louis IX was anointed in Reims at the age of twelve years as  king and crowned. Louis went from the internal struggles to victory and quickly  earned respect with his courage and prudence.

Happy Marriage with Margaret of Provence

On May 27, 1235 he married Margaret of Provence (1221-1295), the daughter of Raymond Berengar V, Count of Provence and grandson of King Alfonso II of Aragon. Her mother was Beatrice of Savoy, the daughter of Count Thomas I of Savoy and Beatrice of Geneva. "The grace of God and nature," as it is called in contemporary sources, had gifted the Queen in every respect with perfection. Throughout a long and harmonious married life the royal couple received eleven children, six sons and five daughters.
Margaret accompanied her young man on his first expedition to Africa to the  Sixth Crusade, according to the German reckoning. After the death of her husband, the queen in 1270 moved back to a Poor Clare Monastery of their native Provence, where she died on December 20, 1295 in the odor of sanctity. She became known as the "mother of the poor". Her funeral procession to the Abbey Daint Denis, where lay the graves of the Kings, where she was buried at her husband's side, was accompanied by a large crowd of beggars and poor, whom she honored.

Education of Children in the Faith

St. Louis raised his children personally together with Margaret. At the heart of his educational activity was the contempt of worldly vanities and love for "Beau Sire Dieu".The royal family took part in the daily Mass and praying the Marian hours of prayer. After dinner,  at Compline they were in the chapel praying together, then the king gathered the family in his room and gave a spiritual direction. Every Friday the royal family kept the law of fasting and abstinence from meat and alcohol. On Fridays the King never wore his crown, because Jesus Christ  had to wear the crown of thorns to ridicule.
A series of spiritual writings of the king have been preserved, including instructions to his daughter Isabella, Queen of Navarre. These texts are considered as exemplary spiritual teachings that are incorporated into some manuals of moral theology.

Wise Ruler

Louis was not only a wise educator of his children, but also an admirable ruler who led government affairs with great prudence. During his reign, France experienced a long period of peace and prosperity. He managed provide for the moral renewal of his country by trying to lift  its way of life and customs. He punished misconduct by severely, especially cursing. The penalties for this were so severe that Pope Clement IV requested the king to mitigate them. He tried to eliminate the bad habit of the duel, which cost much senseless blood because of vanity and other trifles. The same he tried against the gambling, the whole family fell into the worst trouble, against the brothels and other evils by which he saw poisoned the souls of his sub-aunts.

Chief Justice and Fair Administrator

Saint Louis IX. placed special emphasis on honesty in the administration of the state and the application of  laws.The judges appointed by him and officials prohibited the acquisition of state owned enterprises and the employment of children and close relatives. The king created a new Court of judges selected by him, whose task was to examine judgments of the ordinary courts in order to avoid injustice. If an error or an abuse happened, he gave himself at first  a penance as chief judge of the kingdom, and then punished the culprits. He forced a possible res furtiva refund or a restoration for those damages that had been wrongly convicted. Guilt was for the king always a personal guilt. If a judge or an official hired impeccable behavior in his office to prove he was reciprocated well  and rewarded by the king.
When he came to an area, it happened more than once that the king himself sat in judgment, to show his judges what a just and wise judge is.

Zeal for the True Faith

The king tried not just to fix a moral breakdown, but also to eradicate  heresy and to defend the faith. Louis was a great friend and supporter of the young Order of the Dominicans and the Franciscans, he looked for an instrument of Providence to save the soul of the people from apostasy. He joined the Franciscan Order as a Tertiary. In secret without showing outward visibility, he wore under the royal robes up to his death, the gross habit of Saint Francis of Assisi. Frequently and happily he invited great theologians and saints for dinner like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.
He acquired by Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople the relic of the Crown of Thorns. In Paris he had the Sainte Chapelle built for their dignified storage.  It is a jewel of Gothic architecture.

The Sixth Crusade (Seventh)

 In 1245 Ludwig was so severely ill that his speedy death was already considered certain. Throughout France prayers were intoned for the king. With Holy Mass, prayer vigils, processions and other spiritual exercises assailed heaven for the king's health. The king himself lived to swear a vow to  break into the Holy Land and liberate the Holy Sepulcher. In fact, he experienced his unexpected recovery and  set out for Lyons on 1248, where he met Pope Innocent IV and received his  Apostolic Blessing. From Aigues-Mortes he drove  with his crusade army in the direction Lake Orient. It was the 25th of August.
His wife Margaret  accompanied Louis IX. in 1249 and his two brothers, Robert of Artois and Charles of Anjou. In 1249 he succeeded in conquering the important Egyptian port city of Damietta in the Nile Delta. However, 1250 was followed by the defeat in al-Mansura, which had been caused by an awkward maneuver by his brother Robert of Artois.The king suffered  humiliating captivity. After 31 days he was released by payment of 200,000 gold ducats, favored by the unexpected death of Sultan Turan Shah, who had been murdered by his Mamluk bodyguard. King Louis IX.remained another four years in the Orient, where he also won the Muslim's high esteem due to his wisdom and his incomparable bearing.  Some Muslim parties even  wanted to raise him to  Sultan. His wife Margaret was always at his side. Because of the birth of a son and the news of his mother Blanka's death, the King and Queen returned from Acre  to France, where they arrived on September 5, 1254. In the Holy Land his crusade had not changed the status quo  in favor of the Christians.

Seventh Crusade and death of the King [Eighth]

In July 1270 Louis struck out again from Aigues-Mortes on a crusade that led him to Tunis. However, plague and dysentery decimated the Christian army before it could be used properly. On August 25, the king also fell victim. Before his brother Charles of Anjou led back the remains of the Crusader army to Sicily, he concluded a treaty with the Muslim Caliph of Tunis that secured him the possession of Malta and the island of Pantelleria located off the Tunisian coast.

The Relics of St. Louis IX.

The mortal remains of the king were brought from Sicily to France and ready to collect there by his son Philip III. His heart, however, remained in Sicily and was buried at Palermo in the Cathedral of Monreale. In 1297 Louis IX was canonized by Pope Boniface VIII. the difference was made primarily by the testimony of John of Joinville, Seneschal of Normandy. Johann was a confidant and companion in arms of Louis. In 1299 he published at the request of Louis's great-niece, Queen Joan of Navarre, a biography of the holy King, considered the first French-language biography in the modern sense.
While Chateaubriand looked at the connection of sovereign power and philosophy in Marcus Aurelius, he wrote that Louis IX. had a combination of sovereign power and holiness. This makes for Louis the emblematic figure of the Middle Ages.  Pope Leo XIII. said that at that time "the philosophy of the Gospel governed the States." The inserts Hélio Viana in his life image of St. Louis added: "Never was the state greater than when it is at the service of the Church. Never so much does the Church complete its mission, as when it forms a culture."
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Wikicommons / Ars Cristiana
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMGD

Friday, May 3, 2013

Queen Christina of Savoy to be Beatified

Rom, 3.5.13 (Kipa) For the first time after many years the beatification of a queen is imminent. The Vatican Congregation for the causes of saints will recognize the testimony of a miracle worked by Maria Christina of Savoy (1812-1836) on Friday.

Thus the first hurdle for beatification is passed. The last monarch to be beatified was in 2004, the last Emperor of Austria Karl I. (1887-1922). A Queen had not been raised to the altars during the John Paul II. and Benedict XVI..

Maria Christina was born on 14.November 1812 as the youngest daughter of King Victor Emanuel I. of Sardinia-Piedmont and his Queen Maria Theresia of Austria of Austria-Este in Cagliari in Sardinia.

In 1832 she was married to King Ferdinand II. of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and moved to the palace in Naples. She was honored by her subjects for her humility and piety. 15 days after the birth of her first son the Queen died on 31. January 1836.

The cause for the "Queen of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" was opened more than 150 years ago on 9. July 1859. Pius XII. (1939-1958) had recognized the Queen for the heroic virtue of her life in 1937. In the following decades the process made no further progress. The blessed, however, became honored as a saint in the region of her kingdom.

The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints will additionally recognize the Italian mystic Maria Bolognesi's miracle. The Polish religious foundress Maria Teresa of St. Joseph (1885-1946) and of the Italian religious founder Gioacchino Rossello i Ferra will be affirmed in his heroic virtue for a life worthy of veneration.

(kipa/cic/gs)






Sunday, October 28, 2012

Today is The Feast of Christ the King Against the Errors of Laicism

The last Sunday in October was declared according to the will of Pope Pius XI. as the Mystery of the Kingship of Jesus Christ.  This feast is no "eschatological" one -- Christ will rule at the end of times --, but today is a memorial directed against the "social errors".  This error is laicism.

The Feast of Christ the King proclaims the right of Jesus Christ over the hearts of individuals, families and the social life. and the commonwealth.

Pope Pius XI. introduced the feast with the Encyclical "Quas Primas".

Why a Liturgical Feast to honor Christ the King?  Pius XI wrote in his circular letter:

IN THE FIRST ENCYCLICAL LETTER which We addressed at the beginning of Our Pontificate to the Bishops of the universal Church, We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations. Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ; and that We promised to do as far as lay in Our power. In the Kingdom of Christ, that is, it seemed to Us that peace could not be more effectually restored nor fixed upon a firmer basis than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord. We were led in the meantime to indulge the hope of a brighter future at the sight of a more widespread and keener interest evinced in Christ and his Church, the one Source of Salvation, a sign that men who had formerly spurned the rule of our Redeemer and had exiled themselves from his kingdom were preparing, and even hastening, to return to the duty of obedience.

Link to New Advent for the Encyclical...

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Polish Conference President: Freemasonry Without and Divisions Within the Church


The President of the Polish Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Jozef Michalik:  "We are seeing how the Church is being targeted, as various libertarian, atheistic and Free masonic circles are attacking."



Przemysl (kath.net/KNA)  Poland's Catholic Church is being driven to the wall, in the opinion of the president of its Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Jozef Michalik. "We are seeing how the Church is being targeted, as various libertarian, atheistic and Freemasonic circles are attacking," said a critical Michalik in a Pastoral Letter for Lent this Monday.


Even the "government institutions", which are actually promoting pluralism in the media, have finally "discriminated" against a Catholic television station. Michalik said, with a glance at the denial of a digital license for "Trwam", the TV broadcaster of the conservative "Radio Maryja", that the conscience of the nation is becoming focused. There are attacks on the Catholics that do not fall on liberal TV broadcasters and print media.


Much more dangerous in the Archbishop's estimation are "divisions within the Church".  Spiritual superiors and even Bishops have refused to obey.  Michalike did not name names in his pastoral letter.  The text should be available at a reading in the coming Sunday at Liturgies in the southeast Polish Diocese of Przemysl.


A spectacle concerns perhaps the Priest Piotr Natanek from the Diocese of Krakow.  He campaigned massively for the introduction as Jesus as King of Poland and called upon, despite warnings from the Catholic Church leaders, "the Knights of Christ the King".  The Krakow Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz had forbidden Natanek,  to celebrate Masses any longer or hear confessions.


The denial of a digital frequency for "Trwam"  has strained the relationship for weeks between the Church and the conservative-liberal government.  More than a million Poles signed, according to the TV broadcaster, a letter of protest to the Broadcasting Authority.  They refused the license because of the supposed financial instability of the broadcaster.  The membrs of the Broadcasting Authority are responsible to both chambers of Parliament and the State President.  Besides "Trwam" four other TV broadcasters with licenses have failed
.

Link to kath.net...

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Is There Going to be a Consistorium For Christ the King?

[kreuz.net] The Papal Bureau for liturgical ceelbrations reported a Mass to be said for the 20th and 21st of November on the Feast of Christ the King. This is according to the Italian Website, 'Messainlatino.it' The Pontifical Office was not previously planned in the liturgical calendar of the Pope. 'Messainlatino.it' has determined from this that the Pope will hold a Consistorium on the 2oth of November in order to give a ring to the new Cardinals on the Feast of Christ the King.

Original report from, here...

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Polish Bishops' Conference Refuses to Consecrate Poland to Christ the King


Polish Bishops' Conference: "The Kingdom of Christ is Not of this World"

Warsaw (kath.net/KAP) Poland's bishops are against the idea of a popular movement for the Consecration of Poland to Christ the King -- who take as their Motto: "Christ, King of Poland". This plan should be given up, said the president of the Polish Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Jozef Michalik, this Wednesday at the close of the Autumn Meeting of Bishops in Warsaw. The Kingdom of Christ is "not of this world".

In the concluding explanation the Bishops warn against the supposition, that the Entrhonement of Christ as the King of Poland, "will solve all problems". In place of this they propose, the deepening faith in Christ as the "King of the Universe". Michalik recognized the good intentions of the people's movement.

More than 1,000 people had demonstrated in Warsaw this weekend for a proclamation of Christ the King of Poland. They came with National flags and pictures of the Crowned Christ, King of Parliament from the Presidential Palace. "The Movement for the Sovereignty of the Polish People" had called this demonstration.

Already in 2006 the Church had criticized around 40 priests, who then proposing a Christ the King blessing of Poland. The proposal elicited no comment from the Parliament. The organizers explained that in 1656 Poland officially proclaimed the Mother of God as the "Queen of Poland".

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Link to the original...