Is this a resurgence of the evil Captain Kirk? He did always love to play with fire...
Maniple wave to The American Catholic.
All Good Things…
3 years ago
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Armistice Day (the feast of St. Martin of Tours)
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(Lt. Col. John McCrae, 1915)
I insist on calling it Armistice Day, for the historical grounding it provides. "Veterans Day," while expressing a truth I support, mythologizes too much about the realities of Nov 11, 1918, and what came before. The truth contained in the name "Veteran's Day" is opposed to only one of the two ways we can "break faith with us who die;" namely, that we not forget our purpose, and our end. In fact, given the very grave moral evils which, lately, our society has supinely accepted as normal, this risk is very real.
But the other risk is that we forget for whom we fought and fight: not for ourselves, not for our own glory or power, and even, in the end, not only for self-preservation. The name "Veterans Day" doesn't give enough leverage to recognize this risk. But Nov. 11 was chosen for the Armistice because it is the feast of St. Martin, one of the great patron saints of France. Like St. Martin, we fight for Christ, "that the light not be utterly extinguished by the dark." We fight for the poorest and the least, who have no one to fight for them. We fight, only in order to be some part of the means by which Almighty God is "propitius, ut intercessione beati Martini Confessoris tui atque Pontificis, contra omnia adversa muniamur, per Dominum Nostrum," as today's Collect prays.
At least, that has to be our ideal in this imperfect world. To abandon that ideal is to break the covenant between us, who have received the torch, and those whose previous sacrifice kept it aflame.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(Lt. Col. John McCrae, 1915)
I insist on calling it Armistice Day, for the historical grounding it provides. "Veterans Day," while expressing a truth I support, mythologizes too much about the realities of Nov 11, 1918, and what came before. The truth contained in the name "Veteran's Day" is opposed to only one of the two ways we can "break faith with us who die;" namely, that we not forget our purpose, and our end. In fact, given the very grave moral evils which, lately, our society has supinely accepted as normal, this risk is very real.
But the other risk is that we forget for whom we fought and fight: not for ourselves, not for our own glory or power, and even, in the end, not only for self-preservation. The name "Veterans Day" doesn't give enough leverage to recognize this risk. But Nov. 11 was chosen for the Armistice because it is the feast of St. Martin, one of the great patron saints of France. Like St. Martin, we fight for Christ, "that the light not be utterly extinguished by the dark." We fight for the poorest and the least, who have no one to fight for them. We fight, only in order to be some part of the means by which Almighty God is "propitius, ut intercessione beati Martini Confessoris tui atque Pontificis, contra omnia adversa muniamur, per Dominum Nostrum," as today's Collect prays.
At least, that has to be our ideal in this imperfect world. To abandon that ideal is to break the covenant between us, who have received the torch, and those whose previous sacrifice kept it aflame.
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