Let Freedom Ring: Freedom from Elitism Day 8
"The ruling class are society's 'ins.' This class comprises persons in government, those who depend for their livelihoods on government, and whose socio-economic prospects and hopes are founded on government. Thus, it includes most people in the educational establishment, the media, and large corporations. Its leading elements and its major voting constituencies are the Democratic party. But It transcends political parties because any number of Republicans aspire to its privileges and share its priorities.Above all, the ruling class defines itself by a set of attitudes, foremost of which is contempt for those outside itself. This contempt stems from the rather uniform education that the ruling class's members absorbed from universities and which they developed by living in their subculture. Believing themselves intelligent apostles of scientific truth, they regard others as dumb and in the grip of religious obscurantism. Religion is the greatest of the divides between the ruling class and those it deems its inferiors. Whereas they believe themselves morally good and psychologically sound, they regard others as suffering from psychological dysfunctions and phobias-effectively as bad people. The ruling class does not believe that those outside itself have the right or capacity to conduct their own lives."
We have allowed the temptation of the devil to move our hearts toward elitism.
We have allowed works of evil to foment within us a heart of needing approval.
We have been divided and weak in our lack of resolve to seek the unity and spiritual strength to resist the elites of our culture today.
In our fear and silent self-protection, we have allowed the ancient foe to advance.
We turn to you Lord, in our shame, and beg your forgiveness for our lack of resolve.
We beg for the grace of Your strength and power to grant us the resolve to turn back the falsehoods of the enemy by freely and openly speaking Your truth with love to a waiting world.
We know, Lord, if You will it, it will be done.
Trusting in You, we offer our prayer to You who live and reign forever and ever.
Amen.
In Your power and goodness, You created all things.
You set a path for us to walk on and a way to an eternal relationship.
By the strength of Your arm and Word of Your mouth
Cast from Your Holy Church every fearful deceit of the Devil
Drive from us manifestations of the demonic that oppress us and beckon us to elitism and division.
Still the lying tongue of the devil and his forces so that we may act freely and faithfully in imitation of You.
Send Your holy angels to cast out all influence that the demonic entities in charge of elitism have planted in Your church.
Free us, our families, our parish, our diocese, and our country from all trickery and deceit perpetrated by the Devil and his hellish legions.
Trusting in Your goodness Lord,
We know if You will it, it will be done in unity with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever.
Amen.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy, etc.
God the Holy Ghost,
Holy Trinity, one God,
St. Michael, the Archangel,
Most glorious attendant of the Triune Divinity,
Standing at the right of the altar of Incense,
Ambassador of Paradise,
Glorious Prince of the Heavenly armies,
Leader of the Angelic hosts,
The standard-bearer of God's armies,
Defender of Divine glory,
First defender of the Kingship of Christ,
Strength of God,
Invincible Prince and warrior,
Angel of Peace,
Guide of Christ,
Guardian of the Catholic Faith,
Champion of God's people,
Guardian Angel of the Eucharist,
Defender of the Church,
Protector of the Sovereign Pontiff,
Angel of Catholic action,
Powerful intercessor of Christians,
Bravest defender of those who hope in God,
Guardian of our souls and bodies,
Healer of the sick,
Help of those in their agony,
Consoler of the Souls in Purgatory,
God's messenger for the souls of the just,
Terror of the evil spirits,
Victorious in battle against evil,
Guardian and Patron of the universal Church,
spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Relying, O Lord, upon the intercession of Thy blessed Archangel Michael, we humbly beg of Thee, that the Sacrament of the Eucharist which we have received may make our souls holy and pleasing to Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
BASTILLE DAY
Malachi,
Chapter 3, verse 19-21
19 For
the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers
will be stubble, And the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them
neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts. 20 But for you who FEAR
my name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings; And you will
go out leaping like calves from the stall 21 and
tread down the wicked; They will become dust under the soles of your feet, on
the day when I take action, says the LORD of hosts.
Bastille Day[2]
Today, July 14, is
Bastille Day, the commemoration of the revolution that brought down France’s
Ancien Régime and led to the establishment of a new order that promised to
totally refashion society. Unlike the American Revolution, which was
fought to conserve rights and maintain political order, the French Revolution
destroyed the fabric of French society. No aspect of human life was untouched.
The Committee of Public Safety – influenced by Rousseau – claimed that to
convert the oppressed French nation to democracy, “you must entirely refashion a people whom you wish to make free,
destroy its’ prejudices, alter its habits, limit its necessities, root up its
vices, purify its desires.” To achieve this end, the new rational state, whose
primary ideological plank was that the sovereignty of “the people” is unlimited,
attempted to eliminate French traditions, norms, and religious beliefs.
The revolutionary
governing bodies were particularly determined to destroy every vestige of the
Roman Catholic Church because France was hailed by Rome as the Church’s “eldest
daughter” and the monarch had dedicated “our person, our state, our crown and
our subjects” to the Blessed Virgin. The Constituent Assembly began the
campaign against the Church by stating in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
“no body or individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed
directly from the nation.” In other words, the Church could no longer have any
say in public matters. The secular state would now have the final word over
every aspect of human and social life.
Next, the government
abrogated the 1516 Concordat that defined France’s relationship with the Vicar
of Christ. Financial and diplomatic relations with the papacy ceased. In the
name of freedom, all monastic vows were suspended and in February 1790,
legislation was approved to suppress the monasteries and confiscate their
properties. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 12, 1790,
decreed that the priesthood was a civil body and all bishops and priests were
to be selected by the people and paid by the state.
·
The
pope was to have no say in the matter. In addition, clerics had to swear an
oath of loyalty to the French Constitution. Dissidents had to resign their ministries,
and many were prosecuted as criminals. Lay Catholics loyal to the pope were
treated as rebels and traitors. With only four out of 135 bishops taking the
oath in 1791, the more radical Legislative Assembly ordered additional
sanctions against the Church. All religious congregations were suppressed and
wearing clerical garb was forbidden.
·
Priests
loyal to the papacy were automatically guilty of “fanaticism” and sentenced to
ten years imprisonment. Processions were forbidden; crucifixes and religious
artifacts were stripped out of churches. Government priests were granted
freedom to marry, divorce was permissible, and marriage became a civil
procedure.
·
Also,
education, managed for centuries by the Church, was nationalized. To further
de-Christianize France, a new civil religion was introduced – patriotism. The
Gregorian calendar was eliminated and replaced with names related to nature. To
abolish Sunday worship, months were rearranged to contain three “weeks” of ten
days apiece, thus designating every tenth day for rest.
·
Catholic
holy days were replaced with national holidays and civic days of worship. The
“Cult of Great Men” (i.e., Rousseau) replaced the veneration of saints. The use
of the word “saint” was forbidden. “There should be no more public and national
worship but that of Liberty and Holy Equality,” declared the revolutionary
government. Every city and village were ordered to erect an “altar to the
fatherland” and to conduct July “Federation Month” patriotic rites.
·
The
Feast of Nature was observed in August and the Cult of Reason was celebrated at
Paris’ Civic Temple, formerly the Cathedral of Notre Dame. A female dancer was
crowned as the Goddess of Reason and performed for the assembly. In 1794, the
deistic cult of the Supreme Being replaced the atheistic adoration of reason.
At the first public worship, the self-declared high priest, Robespierre,
pronounced in his homily, “the idea of the Supreme Being and the soul’s
immortality is a continuous summons to justice and consequently social and
republican.”
·
Despite
all the efforts of the missionaries of terror, the Church was not stamped out
of existence. The heroism of the thousands of martyred bishops, priests, and
religious inspired millions of the faithful and caused a spiritual renascence
in France during the nineteenth century. The notorious political rogue and
excommunicated bishop of Autun, the Prince de Talleyrand, reviewing that
terrible period of persecution, conceded, “Regardless of my own part in this
affair, I readily admit that the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . . . was perhaps
the greatest political mistake of the Assembly, quite apart from the dreadful
crimes which flowed there from.” General of the Republic, Henri Clarke,
agreed. In a report to the government in 1796, he wrote, “Our revolution, so
far as religion is concerned, has proved a complete failure.
·
France
has become once more Roman Catholic, and we may be on the point of needing the
pope himself in order to enlist clerical support for the Revolution.” The
French ideologues learned, as did their barbaric heirs in the twentieth
century, that every effort to destroy the Church and eliminate the faithful
fails. As Christ Himself promised: “the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.”
“Therefore,
do not be afraid of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor
secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the
light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid
of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the
one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
Bastille Day-the other story[3]
Bastille Day marks the
anniversary of the attacks on the French prison of Bastille, a symbol of King
Louis XVI's power. On, July 14, 1789, a group of Parisian revolutionaries
attacked the Bastille looking for gun powder to go with the rifles they had
recently stolen from the Invalides. The revolutionaries stormed the prison,
defeating the soldiers and bringing victory to the common people of France.
This event marked the beginning of the French Revolution, the defeat of a
monarchy and the birth of a republic as King Louis XVI was beheaded by use of a
guillotine on July 21, 1793 in front of a crowd of Parisians. The anniversary
of this attack is now the French National holiday and is observed on July 14th
each year.
Bastille Day Facts & Quotes
·
The
French Revolution was brought about partially due to the unequal class system
found in France during the late 1700s. The Catholic clergy held the
highest position, next came Louis XVI and his court, and lastly were the
general population. Without the benefit of being born into a higher
class, the general population had almost no hope of ever bettering their
station in life.
·
Louis
XVI's spending at Versailles and his financial support of the American
Revolutionary War against the British, placed France in severe economic crisis.
The general population was starving while King Louis XVI was building a
great navy and continuing his lavish lifestyle in Versailles.
·
The
French flag consists of blue, white and red. White was the color of the Monarchy
and red and blue represented Paris. During the Revolution, the white was
surrounded by blue and then red.
·
A
revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is
for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
Bastille Day Top Events and Things
to Do
·
Watch
the Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. They usually start around 11pm and can be
viewed from the Champs de Mars and Trocadero.
·
Attend
a French military parade.
·
Visit
a French national museum as most are free to visit on Bastille Day or visit a
local firehouse in France - they are open to the public on this holiday.
·
Watch
a movie or a documentary about the French Revolution. Our picks: The French
Revolution (2005), Jefferson in Paris (1995), Marie Antoinette
(2006), Danton (1983) and That Night in Varennes (1982)
·
Go
out to a French Restaurant. Many have specials for this day.
Grand Marnier Day[4]
Grand Marnier Day celebrates
this innovative adult beverage and all of the wonderful ways it can be used. Grand
Marnier was the labor of love of Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle, founder of
the Grand Marnier brand. His ambition to blend together Haitian tropical
oranges with traditional Cognac out of France was seen as entirely unexpected
during its time, but that didn’t
deter him at all. Since then his family name has risen to mean quality and
innovation in the liquor industry and maintains a position of distinction among
connoisseurs. Nothing but the highest quality Cognac is used in the creation of
Grand Marnier, specifically the Ugni Blanc grapes from within the Cognac region
of France. The grapes are double distilled in copper stills to bring out the
richest aromas and delicious flavor profile. The same Cognac has been sourced
since the creation of Grand Marnier in 1880. Since their first release, they’ve continued to release other
groundbreaking liquors including their Cordon Jaune, produced with a neutral
grain spirit instead of Cognac, and their Cuvee du Centenaire, a limited
release made with 25-year-old Cognacs.
How to Celebrate Grand Marnier Day
·
The
best way to celebrate Grand Marnier Day is to try out a few of the mixed drinks
that can be made with it, and indulge in its rich succulent flavors.
·
Why
not start off with a Marnier & Bubbles! All you need to do is mix Grand
Marnier with Champagne or another French sparkling white wine. The proportions
are 1 ounce of Grand Marnier and 4 ounces of sparkling white wine. Then, for a
splash of color, add a cherry.
·
Or
you can mix up a Grand Marnier-Ita. Simply mix 2 parts Tequila with 1-part
juice of lime and mix it up. Pour it into a cocktail glass through a strainer
with ice, and then add some lime wheels to finish it off.
Daily
Devotions/Practices
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face-Tuesday
Devotion
·
Pray Day 4 of
the Novena for our Pope and Bishops
·
Tuesday:
Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Practice fidelity to baptismal
vows
·
Rosary
[1] James Keller, You Can Change the
World!
[4] https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/grand-marnier-day/
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