Welcome to the first edition of our Call to Chivalry bulletin.
It is with great hope for the Catholic youth of Ireland that we launch this newsletter. It will be published monthly and distributed, free of charge, to those who have attended any our our youth activities and to all those who have shown an interest in doing so.
The aim of the this bulletin is to enlighten and encourage young people in the practice of the Catholic faith. Towards this end, we will be publishing articles on Catholic doctrine, morals, history and culture, as well as providing information on youth activities organised by Irish Society for Christian Civilisation.
We hope that the newsletter will fulfil these aims and that it will be found useful by all who read it. We will welcome any comments or requests to cover specific topics.
Confiding in the intercession of Mary, Most Holy, we beseech Her to bless this apostolate, that it may bear fruit and give glory to God.
Summer Camp in Mount St. Joseph’s Abbey
In the small town of Roscrea, with its old Medieval Castle and venerable 19th century Cistercian Abbey, a special event took place. Irish Society for a Christian Civilisation held its second Call to Chivalry camp. Young men from Ireland, England, Scotland, France and the United States gathered to learn more about the great gift of their Catholic Faith and the necessity of defending and upholding Catholic principles in today’s turbulent world. Volunteers came from Scotland, Italy, Portugal and USA to help organise the camp and to give meetings.
The camp was help from 29th June to 5th July 2008, and took place in the guest house and grounds of Mt. St. Joseph’s Abbey, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary.
This year, from 19th to 25th July, 2009, a similar camp for fathers and sons will take place. The camp will consist of talks on subjects ranging from Religious to Cultural and historical topics, as well as other events including cultural excursions and lively games.
On Friday, 24th July, the program will consist of Medieval Games, followed by a Banquet, to which the families of the participants are invited. Following the Banquet, there will be a rosary procession to the college chapel, where the program will formally finish with a solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
We will soon be sending out the application forms and further information on the summer camp. Please keep 19th to 25th July free for this memorable event.
Ambiences, Customs and Civilisations
Was Youth Made for Pleasure or Heroism?
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
With the guitar hanging around his neck and the microphone in his hand, Elvis Presley is shown in the photo singing and dancing before a frenzied public.
In man, the intelligence ought to direct the will, and both of them should in turn enlighten the sensibility, guiding it and supporting it to the extent that is required by the weakness proper to it. Where the human faculties (intelligence, will, and sensibility) are concerned, it is precisely the sensibility that is most frequently in disorder, crisis and confusion.
With his catchy, pulsating beat, Elvis drew thousands around him in a frenzied, hypnotic state.
On the contrary, everything about the bearing, gestures, and physiognomy of this poor, young man indicates the total unchaining of the sensibility so as to bring the will entirely in subjection to it. To allow the intelligence and will to be directed by the sensibility is to reverse the natural metaphysical order of the soul and to produce chaos. Accordingly, the unleashing of the sensibility in the performer causes movements in which one absolutely does not find any equilibrium, good sense or composure, all of which are inherent to the directive action of the intelligence.
In the present case, we are not even considering the hypertrophy of the sensibilities. Undoubtedly, their excessive emotionality in relation to certain artistic, political, social or literary matters or in face of certain personal situations such as orphanhood, widowhood, loneliness, etc., was censurable. It was an error without a doubt and a grave one, which produced in the history of Western culture tragic consequences, but it was an error which at least still presupposed a truth, that is, that the sentiment is one of the integral elements of the intellectual process.
Here, on the other hand, there is a mere vibration of nerves, of nerves which are ill and over excited and which vibrate without any reason, without any point of departure and without any objective other than the morbid pleasure of vibrating and whose frenzy in its turn calls forth continuously greater vibrations. In this way, one arrives rapidly at extreme manifestations, delirious rhythms, disorderly gestures, contorted expressions of the face and, finally, a total of disorders typical of those who, according to the incisive expression of Dante, “have lost the light of the intellect.”
In short, if a drunkard were to sing and dance, he would do it in an agonizing way like this. And this contagious drunkenness, which spreads like a new St. Vitus’s dance to millions of people, is much more dangerous than that of alcohol because it indicates a fundamental disorder in the soul which does not pass away like the effects of wine. Such rock and roll singers by putting millions in delirium have helped to make the light of reason wane in the general public and have stimulated the growth of hippyism which passes easily into nudism, arbitrary terror and Satanism.
Below the photograph of this lamentable manifestation of the interior indiscipline of so many youths of our day, the German Catholic students who participated in the Katholikentag of 1954 present a shining contrast, as shown in the photo below, and are for us a fine standard and beautiful example of youth.
These youths embody the bygone ideals of chivalry and heroism, timeless values needed for their modern-day counterparts.
The physiognomies here express the habit of concentration and study, created by a profoundly serious intellectual formation beginning in primary school. There is a physical vigor resulting from the training of the body, contained within its just limits and without the exaggeration of “sportism” so frequent among us. The frame has a bearing from which every kind of softness is excluded and which makes us see in these young men not only future intellectuals but also men disposed for action and combat.
The traditional attire of these German students corresponds completely to this concept of youth. On one hand, their clothing is multicolored, cheerful, varied and practical as is suitable for young men. On the other hand, it has the distinction proper to students who know to respect themselves and the things of the spirit to which they dedicate themselves. The sword medievally reminiscent of heroic combat, adds a note of militant idealism and simultaneously perpetuates thetradition of fencing, the intellectual sport par excellence since it is admirably apt in forming attention, astuteness, initiative and panache at the same time that it puts the whole body into action. In this picture, everything makes one think of the great truth enunciated by Claudel: “Youth was not made for pleasure, but for heroism.” In contrast, everything in the first picture seems to say to us that youth was not made for heroism but for pleasure — or worse yet, for sensuality.
Catholic Words’ Origin
Bonfire
Meaning: A large fire “specially built and lit to express public joy.”
Background: A gruesome throwback to the reign of England’s King Henry VIII, who had large fires specially built and lit to burn Catholics who refused to renounce the pope and accept him as the leader of the English church. Originally spelled bonefire, the word gets its name from the fact that surviving Catholics plucked the bones of the dearly departed out of the ashes and preserved them as relics.
*****
Chapel
Meaning: A private church.
Background: When Saint Martin of Tours died in the fourth century, his admirers kept his cape – called a capella in Latin – and built a shrine for it. The French named the shrine the chapelle, and when the English borrowed the word, they dropped the “le” and applied the word to any small place of worship … whether or not it had a cape in it.
Note: The person assigned to guard Saint Martin’s cape was known as the capellanus … which is the direct precursor of the English word “chaplain.”
http://www.st-ignatius-loyola.com/triva_word-origins.html
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