A Walking Weapon

Whilst praying the Rosary this morning, I had an unexpected insight.

I had been reading an article on the Israeli self-defense system Krav Maga and a phrase had stayed with me that a ‘well-trained practitioner of Krav Maga is basically a walking human weapon” My insight was that praying the Rosary was our equivalent in the realm of the spiritual life.

Many of the traditional martial arts are primarily defensive; derived from a philosophy or observations in nature and tend to take many years to master; it becomes a way of life. They also tend to be quite precise and elegant in movement. Transplanting them to western culture it becomes competitive with tournaments and grades and so on.

Krav Maga on the other hand was developed out of necessity by a Jewish chap in Slovakia to protect their communities from fascist anti-Semitic thugs who attacked them in the run-up to the second world war. It is the ‘blunt force trauma’ of martial arts, which has only one objective- to neutralize an attack (with multiple attackers in mind) and render them unable to continue. It is easily learned and improved with practice. 

Within the church we do have our own experts in the martial arts of prayer; like the desert fathers who spent their whole lives in fasting and contemplation and today’s monks and religious sisters whose life of prayer is derived from that and continue to hold the world together by their intercession and holiness and inflict great violence on the enemy. 

For the ordinary man in the street though; we have the Rosary, our means to weaponise our prayer life; to neutralize the attacks of the evil one on our own lives on a daily basis. The reality is that we are all in this fight, like it or not, acknowledge it or not, and to protect ourselves and our families is essential. Particularly for men; the heads of families need to enter into this. Let your sons see you praying the Rosary so they will learn it too and become “well trained practitioners; walking weapons.”

“Woman, Why do you besiege me?”

A woman from San Giovanni Rotunda watched her sick husband go from bad to worse and sink rapidly towards death. In great distress , she ran to the monastery to get Padre Pio to pray for his recovery but could not get past the crowds.

She could not wait in the long line for confession to see him so prayed interiorly that Padre Pio would help her husband who , at any moment might die and leave her alone to bring up their children.

When she saw Padre Pio move to the altar to celebrate Mass she dashed over there but was engulfed in the crowds again, she tried going to the right, then the keft but could not reach him. So she prayed interiorly again, filled with anguish that wrenched her heart, because of her husband’s condition.

When Mass was over she managed to squeeze through into the corridor he would use to return to the monastery and continued to pray again. Padre Pio came along and stopped by her saying “woman of little faith, why do you beseige me and bombard me with your prayer? Do you think I am deaf? You have already told me what you want 5 times, from the right, from the left, in front, behind, I get the message ! Go home , everything is alright” Full of joy, she thanked him and ran home to find her husband in perfect health.

A Rosary Miracle ... Sr Emmanuel (Medjugorje)

During the Second World War, my father was arrested by the Gestapo for his activities in the Resistance. He spent three years in a cell with 10 other resistance fighters in concentration camps in Germany. As a great lover of Our Lady, he prayed the Rosary often. His mother, whose only son he was, had no news of him over those years, but she was heroically trusting in Mary, and kept believing that he would return, praying rosary after rosary.

One day when my father was exhausted and starving like all his fellow prisoners, the SS in faction asked the prisoners to carry stones from a quarry to the place where they planned to build something. Each prisoner was given a stone to carry. When my father saw the stone he was given, he understood that his last hour had come, for it was impossible for him to lift it even an inch as it was so large. He also knew that if he didn't carry it, the dogs of the SS would jump on him and the guards would finish him off like a beast. He had seen this happen before.

Standing by his stone, in his distress, he looked up. He then saw a simple house close by, and on its façade was a small alcove in which stood a statue of the Blessed Mother. When my father saw the statue, he exclaimed inwardly, "Mary, save me!" At that very moment, the heavy stone became weightless! My father used to say, "It became lighter than confetti!"

Of the 10 men in his Resistance cell, he was the only one to come back alive (thanks to which I was born!). Needless to say, my father never failed to pray his rosary every day!

Jesus Wept

One survivor from the concentration camp in Buchenwald had a surprising attitude about his experience there.  It was a place noted for extremes of cruelty; one guard used to hang inmates by the wrists and leave them to die in what became known as the singing forest on account of the wailing his victims made as they died in agony.

The survivor though, having seen so much horror did not seek for vengeance or even justice for his tormentors. His own suffering was nothing compared to the broken-heartedness he felt for those poor German youths who could be so cruel; and thinking about the state of their souls was what troubled him, not their victims, whom he saw as ‘on the side of Christ’.

I was on the Mount of Olives a couple of months ago at a chapel commemorating the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem and I imagine this as analogous, he was heartbroken at the refusal of his people to recognize Him and accept His offer of mercy and the life in its fullness that the Gospel offers.

As we returned to England and came back to my home town in Manchester arriving in the early hours of the morning at the bus station, we were met with the revelry of the Gay pride festival, men with beards in dresses celebrating their rights; it was quite a contrast having been in Bethlehem the morning before.

We live in strange days. I read an article the other day where a woman who had recently given birth now decided that she ‘identified herself as a man’ and was demanding the right to change the birth certificate to have her recognized as the father of her baby. Many parents are increasingly concerned about the way gender ideology and its massive confusion are being inflicted on their children in the classroom, made to believe that it’s all ‘normal’.

This undermining of the family and validation and forced acceptance of all and any manner of ‘alternative lifestyles’ coupled with the continued genocide against the unborn shows that society has reached a peak of decadence beyond which there can only be ruin. These contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction.

The ancient Greeks and Roman’s went down a similar (though much less extreme) decent into effeminacy and it was the end of their civilizations; it’s heartbreaking to watch people destroy their own lives though. Only prayer can really make the difference; at least for some. As a Face Book posting I saw this morning said “Jesus told the story of the prodigal son to make a simple point, - never mind what you’ve done just come home.”

“No; you will forget it”

Among the many people who came to see Padre Pio was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who , later clinging stubbornly to Catholic Tradition, as he called it, questioned the authority of Vatican II and was removed from office by Pope Paul VI. He had a meeting with Padre Pio who looked at Lefebvre sternly and said “Never cause discord among your brothers and always practice the tule of obedience, above all when it seems to you that the errors of those in authority are all the more serious. There is no other road than that of obedience for those of us who have made this vow”

Lefebvre responded to Padre Pio with “I will remember that Father” Padre Pio looked at him intensely and seeing what would soon happen said “no !You will forget it !You will tear apart the community of the faithful, oppose the will of your superiors and even go against the orders of the Pope himself and this will happen quite soon. You will forget the promise you made here today,,a dn the whole church will be hurt by you. Don’t set yourself up as a judge. Don’t take powers that don’t belong to you and do not consider yourself as the voice of God’s people, as God already speaks to them. Do not sow discord and dissension. However I know this is what you will do”