One must defend a space for the sacred, for thought and prayer. Raymond Llull, one of the most important of all Christian philosophers, also authored a book of knighthood that explains the importance of the institution. Knights are not less necessary than priests, for without security there is little capacity for contemplation of the divine nor for carrying out the sacraments. Lk. 22:36-8 instructs us that no less than disciples should bear swords even if they need to sell their coats to buy them.
"Lk. 22:36-8 instructs us that no less than disciples should bear swords even if they need to sell their coats to buy them"
ReplyDelete2 out of 12 is enough, on that interpretation. Presumably this would be a matter of calling/vocation. Some callings are more popularly "godly" than others, though I think God called most people over the centuries to be farmers and herders--and if they followed that obediently, well, God prefers obedience to sacrifice.
I grant the point, but it is why you need an order of knighthood as well as a priesthood. Maybe it’s a sixth the size, but it is as necessary.
DeleteAlso, for those of us called to the sword, to deny that participation is to deny us a role in the faith that is a true calling. How can you find a home when your true calling is denied?
ReplyDeleteOf course, if Templars or anyone else had attempted to interfere with the attack on the worship service by the Hamas supporters, the police would have been ordered to use maximum efforts to arrest *them*...Hochul would have sent the National Guard and Biden would have sent troops if necessary.
ReplyDeleteWell, as long as you mention "liturgical order," I think that the sword should be used--often and ferociously--on guitars and bongo drums used at Mass, not to mention their proponents and players.
ReplyDeleteKeith Graves's Christian Warrior Training addresses this need. He's a retired cop who has made church security his second career.
ReplyDeleteHere's his YouTube channel.
In the Llull book linked in the OP, Brian R. Price is the translator. He looks like an interesting fellow. Here's part of his bio from Amazon:
ReplyDeleteQuote:
Dr. Brian R. Price writes about military culture, technology, and war. His research interests include modern American military history, medieval/Renaissance, and counter-insurgency/full spectrum operations. An Associate Professor of Military History at Hawai'i Pacific University. Simultaneously, he teaches "chivalric" martial arts and historical swordsmanship and modern combatives based on the early fifteenth century work of Fiore dei Liberi through the Schola Saint George (http://www.scholasaintgeorge.org).
...
Part of his writing is based on his deployment to Afghanistan in 2011-12 as a senior social scientist, where he focused on the military subcultures of the Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan Local Police (ALP) and surviving networks of Soviet-era Mujahidin. While deployed he worked closely with French forces as part of Task Force LaFayette and the 1/82nd Airborne as part of Task Force Devils, experiencing both the Tajik-influenced culture of the North and the Pashtun-dominated one of Ghazni, accompanied combat patrols to friendly and hostile villages and working closely with the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), Dept. of State, USAID, and PRTs, in addition to combat troops.
The Hamas supporters were removed rather roughly which I was glad to see.
ReplyDeleteThis article gives the names of the men and says they were arrested:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/free-palestine-protesters-interrupt-easter-mass-arrested/ar-BB1kQmsR
It says all 3 had "previously been arrested for protest-related incidents". It only gives details of 2 of the arrests, both for climate change protests. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the consequences are for the St. Pat incident.
Hm - I thought if I commented on my Google account (instead of just as Name/URL) that I could edit my comments, but apparently not.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when I said "addresses this need" above I meant for the practical side of things - how to make your church a harder target, how to balance security with being welcoming, how to train security teams, individual training, etc. Graves says nothing about formal orders of knighthood, if that's what's needed.
David Foster:
ReplyDeleteYes, we live in a disordered nation. The government is actively hostile to the people and our traditions. It is our chief enemy.
Thomas D:
Oh, he was on a Human Terrain Team. Interesting that he doesn't reference it by name. I had two of them in Iraq reporting to me at one time, because the uniformed military didn't know how to use 'social scientists' but figured out that I did. There was a lot of controversy about them, though, because academia decided to do its "everything military is evil" act against people who worked on them, even though the whole point of them was to reduce the amount of force and conflict necessary in the war.