We
agree with those who say that the fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is
symbolic of the spiritual health of the West.
However, even if Notre Dame were to be rebuilt exactly as it was (and
that is not guaranteed, given the state of political correctness in France
today: https://www.prisonplanet.com/elitist-architects-want-notre-dame-rebuilt-to-reflect-new-globalist-france.html),
it would not help the state of the souls in the West, for the Gothic
architecture of Notre Dame represents the theology of the ‘new Christianity’ of
the Roman Catholic Papacy that arose after the Great Schism of 1054:
The
architecture of the Orthodox Church, from which the West has fallen away, had
long before the Schism and the rise of the massive Western cathedrals found
suitable forms to express her worship/theology, the theology of the wise
fishermen, the Holy Apostles, such as the basilica, the cross and dome, and the
square and dome designs. E.g., http://www.stnicholasil.org/orthodox-architecture-and-iconography/
Some
of these pre-Schism Orthodox church buildings remain in the West as a
continuing witness of the Orthodox foundation she has rejected, such as the
Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy:
.jpg/1280px-Sacrifice_of_Isaac_mosaic_-_Basilica_San_Vitale_(Ravenna).jpg)
If
there is to be any hope for the spiritual rebirth of the West, it will only
come through the repentance of the Western peoples, through their re-embracing
of the Orthodox Faith that once lightened their lands, created the sacred
architecture, singing, calendar--yea, the whole Christian culture of the West,
and most importantly gave birth to the saints of the West. The saints are worth incomparably more than
any cathedral or other physical cultural artefact. The are the ‘lively stones’ that connect us
with God. Without their intercessions we
are powerless to act, weak before out enemies, sunk in the mire of sins and
passions. We must welcome these kinsmen
of ours back into the house of the West.
One
of these holy saints we especially commend to everyone for veneration is St
Burgandofara (or St Fara, as she is also known; commemorated 7 Dec. and 3
April, reposed about the year 657 of our Lord) of France. A short account of her life is related in Rev
Butler’s The Lives of the Saints. Her holiness had a wide influence in the
French lands, and beyond their borders:
AGNERIC, one of the
principal officers of the court of Theodebert II. king of Austrasia, had by his
wife Leodegonda, four children: St. Cagnoald, who took the monastic habit under
St. Columban at Luxeu, about the year 594; St. Faro, who became bishop of Meaux;
St. Fara, 1
and Agnetrudis. In 610, St. Columban being banished from Luxeu, in his flight
lodged at the house of Agneric, called Pipimisium, two leagues from Meaux, the
present Aupigny, according to Mabillon, or Champigny, according to Du Plessis.
St. Cagnoald, who accompanied this abbot in his exile into Switzerland,
probably introduced him to his father, and St. Columban gave his blessing to
all the family; and when he came to Fara, consecrated her to God in a
particular manner. Jonas says she was then in her infancy; Baillet supposes her
then fifteen; Du Plessis only ten. When she had attained the age of puberty,
her father proposed to her an honourable match. The holy virgin did every thing
that lay in her power to prevent it and fell into a lingering sickness, which
brought her life in danger. St. Eustasius, St. Columban’s successor, when that
holy man went to Bobio in Italy, made a journey thither, by order of Clotaire
II. in order to persuade him to return, taking with St. Cagnoald, who had
returned to Luxeu when St. Columban left Switzerland. St. Eustasius, after he
came back, repaired to the court of Clotaire II. to give him an account of his
embassy, and in his way lodged at Agneric’s. Fara discovered to him her earnest
desire of consecrating her virginity to her heavenly spouse. The holy man told
her father, that God had visited her with a dangerous illness which threatened
certain death, only because he opposed her pious inclinations, and after
praying some time prostrate on the ground, he arose, and made the sign of the
cross upon her eyes; whereupon she was forthwith restored to her health. The
saint recommended her to her mother, that she might be prepared to receive the
veil at the time he should come back from court. No sooner was he gone out of
doors, but Agneric began again to persecute his daughter, in order to extort
her consent to marry the young nobleman to whom he had promised her. Fara fled
to the church, and when she was told that, unless she complied with her
father’s desire, she would be murdered; she resolutely answered: “Do you think
I am afraid of death? To lose my life for the sake of virtue, and fidelity to
the promise I have made to God, would be a great happiness.” St. Eustasius
speedily returned, and easily reconciled her father to her, and engaged
Gondoald, bishop of Meux, to give her the religious veil. This happened in the
year 614. The foundation of the famous monastery of Faremoutier, is dated a
year or two after this, Agneric having given his pious daughter a competent
portion of land, and raised a building proper for this purpose. The abbey was
originally called Brige, from the Celtic word which signifies a bridge: Du
Plessis supposes that there was then, as there is at present, a bridge over the
river at the confluence of the Aubetin and the Great Morin. Hence the
neighbouring forest now called the Forest of Faremoutier, took that name. 2 The Latin name
Eboriacas or Evoriacas, which in the seventh age was given to this monastery,
seems to have been derived from the Celtic; and from this monastery and forest
a district of the country on the south of the Marne took the same name, and is
now called Brie. 3 This monastery
was founded double, and St. Eustasius sent thither from Luxeu St. Cagnoald,
who, in 620, was made bishop of Laon, and St. Walbert, who being born of an
illustrious family in Ponthieu, and having served some time in the army, had
retired to Luxeu. He afterwards succeeded St. Eustasius in that abbacy in 625.
Jonas was also a monk at Faremoutier, soon after the foundation of that house,
and an eye-witness to the eminent virtues of the holy persons who inhabited it,
and of which he has left us an edifying account.
St. Fara, though very
young, was appointed abbess of the nunnery, and, assisted with the councils of
St. Cagnoald and St. Walbert, settled there the rule of St. Columban, in its
greatest severity. We find that the use of wine was there forbidden, and also
that of milk, at least in Lent and Advent, and the religious made three
confessions a-day, as is mentioned in the life of St. Fara; that is, thrice
every day they made a strict examination of their consciences, and made a
confession or manifestation of what passed in their souls to their superior.
This practice of rigorous self-examination and confession or manifestation is
most strenuously recommended and ordered in all the ancient rules of a monastic
life, 4
as a most important and useful means of attaining purity of heart, a perfect
government of the affections, an habitual Christian watchfulness, and true
perfection. Under the direction of guides perfectly disengaged from all earthly
things, and enlightened in the paths of virtue, many heroic souls at the same
time filled this monastery and all France with the odour of their sanctity.
Among these, several are honoured in the calendars of the saints, as St.
Sisetrudis, St. Gibitrudis, St. Hercantrudis, 5 and others.
From the life of St. Gibitrudis, it appears, that in this monastery it was
customary to say a trental of masses for every one that died in the house,
during thirty days after their decease. St. Fara was the directress of so many
saints, and walked at their head in the perfect observance of all the rules
which she prescribed to others. Her younger brother St. Faro was so moved by
her heavenly discourses one day when he came to pay her a visit, that he
resigned the great offices which he held at court, persuaded a young lady to
whom he had promised marriage to become a nun, and took the clerical tonsure.
In 626, he succeeded Gondoald in the episcopal chair of Meaux, died in 672, and
was buried in the monastery of the Holy Cross, which he founded, and which
bears his name. His protection and holy counsels were a support and comfort to
St. Fara, under the assaults which she had to sustain. Agrestes, a turbulent
monk, pretending to correct the rule of St. Columban in several points, drew
over St. Romaric, founder of the abbey of Remiremont, and St. Amatus, first
abbot of that house: though they afterwards discovered the snare, and repented
of their fault. St. Fara was upon her guard, and constantly opposed all
attempts to undermine the severity of the holy rule which she had professed.
Ega, mayor of the palace of Clovis II. raised a troublesome persecution against
her, which she bore with patience and constancy to his death, in 641. On the
other side, the reputation of her virtue reached the remotest parts. Several
English princesses crossed the seas, to sacrifice at the foot of the altars the
pomp and riches which waited for them on thrones. The glittering splendour of
the purple and courts appeared in their eyes an empty seducing phantom: they
trampled it under their feet, and preferred the humility of a cloister to
worldly greatness.
. . .
St. Fara, after having
been purified by a painful lingering illness, and made worthy of the crown of
eternal glory, was called to receive it on the 3d of April, about the year 655. . . . The relics of St. Fara were enshrined in 695, and a
great number of miracles has been wrought through her intercession.
Mark
well the miracle related hereafter in the text; it is full of weight for the
modern West, which staggers about in spiritual blindness:
Dame Charlotte le Bret,
daughter to the first president and treasurer-general of the finances in the
generality or district of Paris, who was born in 1595, lost her left eye at
seven years of age, was received a nun at Faremoutier in 1609, and in 1617 lost
her right eye, and became quite blind. She went twice out of her monastery to
consult the most famous oculists at Paris, who unanimously agreed that an
essential part of the organ of her eyes was destroyed, and her sight
irrecoverably lost; and, to remove the pain which she frequently felt, they by
remedies extinguished all feeling in the eye-balls and adjacent nerves,
insomuch that she could not feel the application of vinegar, salt, or the
strongest aromatic; and if ever she wept, she only perceived it by feeling the
tears trickle down her cheeks. Four years after this, in 1622, the relics of
St. Fara being taken out of the shrine, she kissed one of the bones, and then
applied it to both her eyes. She immediately felt a pain in them, though they
had been four years and a half without sensation, and the lids had been
immovably closed; and she had scarcely removed the relics from her eyes, than a
humour distilled from them. She cried out, begging that the relics might be
applied a second and a third time; which being done, at the third touch she
cried out, that she saw. In that instant her sight was perfectly restored to
her, and she distinguished all the objects about her. Then, prostrate on the
ground, she gave thanks to the author of her recovery, and the whole assembly
joined their voices in glorifying God. 13 The
certificates and affidavits of the surgeons and physicians who had treated her,
and the affidavits of the eye-witnesses of the fact were juridically taken by
the bishop of Meaux, (John de Vieupont,) who, by a judicial sentence, given on
the 9th of December, 1622, declared, that the cure of the said blindness was
the miraculous work of God. The abbess, Frances de la Chastre, and the
community of nuns, signed and published a certificate to the like purport; in
which they also mention the miraculous cures of two other nuns, the one of a
palsy, the other of rheumatism.
--Ibid.
We
ought to plead earnestly with St Fara to heal the West of spiritual blindness
and decrepitude, just as she healed those mentioned above of physical blindness
and rheumatism.
There
is no other way for the West; she has been dying for almost 1,000 years now,
sundered from the life-giving springs of the Orthodox Church. Either she returns to her Mother, or she
dies.
St
Fara and all the Orthodox Western saints, not the massive cathedrals or the
Renaissance paintings and music, etc., are the true treasures of the West. Therefore, let us not be overly concerned
about what will become of Notre Dame Cathedral, since it is a symbol of the
West’s departure from the True Faith, but rather let us say over and over again
with all our heart, ‘Holy Saints of the Western lands, pray most fervently for
the West!’
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England,
South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð,
unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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