December 17, 2022
The Coming of Christmas, the Coming of
Hope
In Times of Anguish and Despair
Friends,
Since
the Charleston church shooting in 2015, the hysterical—I would say
diabolical—attack on everything Confederate and traditionally Southern has
continued non-stop. Our monuments have been desecrated and removed from public
spaces, relegated to obscure museums or storage barns, sometimes smashed to
bits (the latest outrage is the uprooting of the monument to
General A. P. Hill in Richmond which had crowned his very grave for decades—his
remains moved to a private cemetery, but the statue to a Black History Museum
for additional scorn and degradation).
Our
flags have been banned and termed “symbols of hate.” Entire sections of public
libraries have seen anything remotely favorable to Confederate history and
heritage expunged. Our children and grandchildren, if they are taught anything
substantial at all about the War for Southern Independence, are instructed that
the conflict was one of evil white oppressors attempting to maintain (and
spread) slavery and “white privilege.” So-called “conservative” authors and
media personalities condemn Southern tradition as “racist” just as those on the
frenzied Left, and seek to forever expel an entire and integral part of the
history of the American nation from any reasonable and fair comprehension.
How
many times must we watch and listen to obnoxious Fox personalities such as Karl
Rove, Marc Thiessen, Bret Baier, and Brian Kilmeade (who praises the radical actions
of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in a book, no doubt largely ghost
written for him) or writers at the one-time “conservative” magazine, National
Review, or self-appointed conservative-favored historians like Allen
Guelzo, warmly praise the destruction of the Southland and the deification of
“Father Abraham,” with the concomitant destruction of the old American
constitutional system?
Our
so-called “conservative” Republican defenders, political creatures without
souls like Senators Thom Tillis, Tim Scott, and Lindsey Graham, and former
South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, have not only gone along with this
cultural genocide, but in many cases have led and championed it. How many
“conservative” GOP Southern senators stood up to oppose the original proposal
(2019) for a national Naming Commission to ruthlessly remove the names of our
nation’s military posts (and any and all iconography associated with them)
which in any way recalls the honor and careers of anyone related to the
Confederacy? You can count them on just one hand.
The
most recent example of action by the Naming Commission is its dedicated effort
to uproot and remove the Arlington National Cemetery Monument to the
Confederate veterans buried there. That supremely historical and artistically
beautiful statue was created by famed sculptor Moses Ezekiel, a proud Jewish
Confederate, whose work is known and respected internationally. But more than
that, the monument’s erection was supported by four American presidents as a
major gesture symbolizing the real re-union of North and South. Yet today’s
“conservative” representatives in many ways are far worse than Joseph Stalin’s
iconoclasts; they are evil cultural barbarians. Their actions are a direct and
demonic attack not only on the very understanding of the Framers’ view of the
American federation, but also on the collective weight of Christian tradition,
itself.
Perhaps
more disconcerting is the apparent apathy and lack of concern shown by so many
of our fellow Southerners. Anesthetized by far too many of our elected
representatives and their pseudo-defense of our traditions and heritage, mired
in the neo-abolitionist “newspeak” of favored “conservative media outlets” like
Fox News, their children infected by the schools, and brain-dead, thanks to jaundiced
entertainment, is it any wonder our compatriots are poisoned by regional
self-hatred and a resulting feeling that, as one friend recently told me,
“nothing can be done—we just have to live with it.”
With
this understanding and sobering observation in mind, I return to a Christmas message
I authored several years ago. It is a message of Hope in the midst of Darkness.
With a few changes, I think it may have even more resonance now for traditional
Southerners in today’s world which is increasingly consumed by madness,
apostasy, and outright rebellion against the laws of Nature and of God.
------------------------------------
In America circa 2022 the Powers of Darkness have asserted
their near-complete control over what is left of this decaying and decadent
nation. Now perhaps more so than ever we behold the awful visage of sheer
Evil—in the scowls of our leaders, in most of our institutions (the media, the
church, education), and in the very faces of our fellow citizens. Truly, it is
a kind of demonic possession, not so much in the traditional theological sense,
but, yes, as a type of intellectual
possession full-blown, which directs thoughts, actions, indeed, language
itself. This rampant Evil refuses to accept dissent. Those of us who oppose it
are labeled disdainfully “deplorables” or “irredeemables,” and worse: we are called racists, bigots, homophobes,
white supremacists, misogynists, not worthy of any consideration except for our
very extinction. We are “cancelled,” our monuments pulled down, our symbols
forbidden, our voices banned, and thousands—perhaps millions—of our number
placed on Joe Biden/Merrick Garland’s “domestic terror watch list,” to be
punished for our views, perhaps even eventually imprisoned (as has happened to
hundreds of simple bystanders who went to Washington, DC, in January 2021 to
protest the great election rigging of 2020).
And if not cancelled or banned, perhaps it will be as a
“woke” student son of some friends lectured me several years ago: “You older
conservatives will die off in a few years, and with you, your bigoted views.
Then we young Generation-Z people will take full control of this country!”
Those words were burned into my thoughts and memory, because there is some
truth in them—because with our schools and colleges now captured by the diabolical
progressivists, the triumph of critical race theory and woke socialism, and
dictatorial trans ideology dominant in our schools, each year thousands of
newly-minted demonic automatons (i.e., formerly our children) are spewed out
like zombies. With the subservience of both political parties to managerial
Deep State globalism, the future looks bleak.
At times it seems that all hope is dimmed, that a new Dark
Age descends irresistibly over us, that we are helpless before its ravages and
destructive power. But in fact Hope has not been exiled from the World. In
these darkest moments, in the apparent despair, it continues to light our way,
if we would listen and take heart.
The Advent Season—and the coming celebration of the Nativity
of Our Lord—fill us with anticipation and scarcely concealed joy as we await
the memorialization and recreation of that ineffable Event—unimaginable in
human terms—that forever changed human history.
The sin of Adam—Original Sin—affected all mankind and left
descendants marked, indelibly stained by that original fault. Adam’s sin was a form of disobedience, but a
disobedience so grave and monumental against God’s Creation, that only the
Coming of the Messiah, the Second Person of the Trinity of the Godhead, could
repair it. And the Son of God would be Incarnate in a woman who would be pure
and herself Immaculate, untouched by the inheritance of sinfulness (by the
merits of her Son). Only such a pure womb would be fitting for the Incarnate
God. And only the Incarnation into one of His creatures would serve the purpose
of demonstrating that Our Blessed Saviour would come to us, not only as God, but also in the form of Man—this
was fitting because it was to Mankind
that He was sent.
For hundreds of years the People of Israel had awaited the
coming of a Messiah to lead them, to liberate them and, if you will, to repair
Adam’s Fall. But this vision—whether expressed in the revolts of the Maccabees
or in later violent episodes like the revolt of Simon bar Kokhba against the
Romans (132 A.D.)—implied not just satisfaction for sinful ways, but
increasingly the establishment of an earthly and insular kingdom for and of the
Hebrews.
And although Our Lord and Saviour indeed came first to the Jews, and offered them His
reparative Grace and Salvation, it was by no means to be limited to them.
Indeed, His message was universal (as it had been to Abraham). And those
Hebrews who accepted the Messiah—and those gentiles who also joined them—became
the Church, the “New” Israel, receptor of God’s Grace and holder of His
Promises and carrier of His Light unto all the world.
While a majority of old Israel rejected Our Lord, demanding
His Crucifixion before Pilate, those who followed Him and believed in Him
entered the New Covenant, a New Testament. It is in this sense that the
Christian church inherited the promises of Israel and the Old Testament and
fulfilled those prophesies. And that fulfillment continues.
St. Paul in his Epistle to Titus [2:11-15] summarizes both
the dazzling and miraculous wonder of Our Saviour’s Grace amongst us and its
inexhaustible power to transform us, as we await His final Coming in Glory:
“The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us, that,
denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and
godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of
the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Who gave Himself for us, that He
might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to Himself a people
acceptable, a pursuer of good works. These things speak and exhort: in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”
We—the Christian church, those chosen out of Grace who accept
God’s gifts—are in a journey to that final day when Our Lord will return. We
have been given for that journey the armament of Our Lord’s graces in the
Sacraments and through His love, our Faith, and a Hope that whenever we are
tempted to despair, pulls us back and redirects our vision.
Years ago (1970s) when I was doing my doctoral work in
Pamplona, Spain, I had several dear friends. One of them, by name Teofilo
Andueza, although he and his wife, Josefa, lived in the city, kept his family’s ancestral
home and farm up in the Pyrenees Mountains. On numerous Sundays we would travel
out there after (traditional) Mass; the women would busy themselves in the
kitchen to prepare roasted lamb chops, pork shoulder, “patatas fritas,” various
“ensaladas mixtas,” all sorts of desserts (flan and pastries), and, of course,
there would be plenty of Rioja wine and cognac. After eating—which usually
continued off and on for most of the day—we would sit and smoke some “puros” (Cuban
cigars—well, I didn’t worry about THAT aspect of Cuban Communism back then!).
I remember on one occasion Teofilo took me up to the crest of
a nearby mountain; below we could see miles away the city of Pamplona, as he
related how in 1873 the city was occupied by “liberals” who supported the
central and centralizing government in Madrid, but that elsewhere in all of
Navarra, in every rural village and small hamlet, the people had risen up as
one under the military banner of “God – Country – States’ Rights – and the Rightful
King” (against the liberal king then installed in the Spain’s capital). In July
1936 Teofilo, his father, and his elderly grandfather (who as a teen had joined
the 1873 Traditionalist rising) all volunteered to fight under that same
banner, the standard of the Traditionalist Carlist Communion against the
secularist and socialist Spanish Republic (which is so loved by the
establishment Neoconservatives these days).
Like his grandfather in 1873, Teofilo was barely 16 when he
enlisted in 1936. And while his grandfather was too old to see active, front-line
combat in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 (serving in rear-guard duty),
Teofilo saw combat in some of the fiercest battles against the Red Republic and
marched in the Victory parade in Madrid in 1939.
But like my other Carlist Traditionalist friends—who were
termed “Intransigentes” by more
moderate (and compromising) partisans on the Right—Teofilo believed that
Francisco Franco had not carried through with the actual re-establishment of a
Christian kingdom as promised—too many foreign influences, too many
compromises, and, lastly, opening the door in 1953 to all the worst aspects of
American commercialism and cultural decay. The national reawakening promised in
1939 had not taken place, its fruits dispersed, and in exchange, Spanish
society had increasingly accepted the worst features of American culture and
secularist thinking.
At the top of that mountain crest, as we looked down at
Pamplona, Teofilo became emotional. “My grandfather fought against that liberal
contagion 100 years ago,” he exclaimed. “And in 1936 three generations of my
family dropped everything and went to war against the communists and
socialists, to a crusade for Christ the King—that He might reign in society.”
And then, he turned to me, took me firmly by the shoulder, and said: “And now,
if it were just you and me—and we were on
God’s side—once again we would be victorious, for even if we are only two,
nothing is impossible to men if they fight on God’s side!”
I have remembered that incident constantly over the years,
especially when things appear dark or despairing. For not only did Grace and Salvation and the
Healing for sin come into the world in a humble Cradle in Bethlehem a little
over 2,000 years ago, but Hope came also. And it buoys us up, gives us balance
and equilibrium, and acts as “Faith’s Sentry” to protect our Faith from harm
and the threat of despair and apostasy.
In the year 312 A.D., facing an immense military challenge,
the Emperor Constantine prayed to the Christian God, asking what he should do.
As related in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical
History, he had grave doubts about the
traditional Roman gods. He prayed earnestly that the Christian God would
“reveal to him who he is and stretch forth his right hand to help him.” His
prayer changed the course of human history. The answer came in a vision of a cross emblazoned
across the noonday sky, and upon it the inscription read: “In hoc signo vinces”—By this
sign you shall be victorious. The emperor then ordered that his soldiers
have the Christian cross inscribed on their shields.
Victorious at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine then
issued orders that the
Christian church was to be fully free in its mission and the exercise of its
functions. Although he did not make Christianity the official religion of the
empire, Constantine bestowed favors on it, built places of worship for
Christians, and presided over the first general church council. He became the
first emperor to embrace Christianity and was baptized on his death bed. In less than 300 years the faith of Christ born in humble surroundings
in remote Judaea and persecuted mercilessly and ruthlessly, nourished by the
blood of martyrs, now emerged from the catacombs, triumphant, a light unto the
pagans, to continue its salvific mission.
Is this not the power of Faith
supported by Hope? That even if we be in the catacombs, even if we see our
civilization and culture coming apart at the seams, even if we see the Church
subverted and false prophets in positions of immense authority preaching false
doctrines—even in these circumstances, we hold “fortes in Fide,” firm in the
faith, bolstered by Faith’s Sentry.
So, then, as we approach the Holy
Day of indescribable joy, we know with assurance that the ineffable Gift from
God of salvation and forgiveness is ours, and that no one can take our Faith
from us, buoyed, as it is, by the unbreakable assurance of Hope—which came to
us that Christmas so long ago.
“Even if it were just you and me—and we were on God’s side—once again we
would be victorious, for even if we are only two, nothing is impossible to men
if they fight on God’s side!”
Saving Grace entered the world two
millennia ago, and with it the Hope we possess.
And there are broad smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts.
Merry and Blessed Christmas!