Greetings, Papists. While the last column was pretty much gear oriented, I want to touch on something more spiritual in nature this week. I was actually going to write “theological” instead of “spiritual,” but then again, I’m no theologian. I’ll leave that up to Benedict XVI. He can lead, I will follow and before some protty says I shouldn’t be following a mere mortal, he is Christ’s personal representative on the Earth, albeit retired.
It also calls to mind the four truths of organized religion in the world…
- The Jews don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
- The Moslems don’t recognize Israel as a nation.
- Prottys don’t recognize the Pope of the leader of all Christians on Earth.
…and my favorite… - Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
I’m here all week, folks.
In any case, I’m here to talk about the Hail Holy Queen prayer. I just started praying it again. I’m not sure why I stopped, but I did. More importantly, I’m happy I started it back up again, and there is a reason why, but let’s see it in print first…
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.
To thee do we send up our sighs, mournings and weeping in this Valley of Tears.
Turn then most gracious advocate thine Eyes of Mercy towards us,
and after this our exile, show unto us the Blessed Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus,
Oh Clement, Oh Loving, Oh Sweet Virgin Mary!Pray for us, Oh Holy Mother of God,
that we may be worthy of the promises of Christ.”
This part gets me…
“To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve”
Yeah, that sums it up, doesn’t it? I can’t begin to even tell everyone the pain I suffer when I feel alone in this world, as if nobody understands me. Nobody gets it. And much of the time, I don’t think they do. Powerful into and of itself, but couple it with the next line…
“To thee do we send up our sighs, mournings and weeping in this Valley of Tears.”
The world is full of these. Abortion, murder, injustice, genocide, hatred, anti-Catholicism, addiction, you name it. The list goes on and on and on, and the toll it takes on us is nothing short of brutal. Yet, we carry on. And in our case, our music might express these things and our anger towards them. And it’s not just Catholic Metal artists but secular ones as well; Slayer’s “Silent Scream” is a great anti-abortion song, injustice is covered by a whole slew of thrash bands, and murder, genocide and hatred have been covered extensively in Death Metal and Grindcore. And an extreme minority promote these things as good; many of our secular brothers are just as angry about them as we are. We just look at the world through Catholic eyes, and while we experience and see the anger, we can also see the hope.
The secular world wants peace only God can give, but they never seem to look to God for it.
Till Next Time,
– CvHTP
