Holy Face Novena: Day 6 - Viva Cristo Rey!

(Console Holy Face and recite Daily Preparatory Prayer).(p. 1)
Psalm 51,12-13.
A pure heart create for us O God,
put a steadfast spirit within us.
Do not cast us away from your presence
nor deprive us of your Holy Spirit.
May our hearts be cleansed, O Lord, by the inpouring of
the Holy Spirit, and may He render them fruitful by watering
them with His heavenly dew. Mary, the most chaste spouse
of the Holy Spirit, intercede for us, Saint Joseph pray for us.
Through the merits of your precious blood and your Holy
Face, O Jesus, grant us our petition.................. Pardon
and mercy.

Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel
O Victorious Prince, most humble guardian of the Church
of God and of faithful souls, who with such charity and zeal
took part in so many conflicts and gained such great victories
over the enemy, for the conservation and protection of the
honour and glory we all owe to God, as well as for the promo-
tion of our salvation; come, we pray Thee, to our assistance.
for we are continually besieged with such great perils by our
enemies, the flesh, the world and the devil, and as Thou
wast a leader for the people of God through the desert, so
also be our faithful leader, and companion through the desert
of this world, until Thou conduct us safely into the happy
land of the living, in that blessed fatherland from which we
are all exiles. Amen. (St. Aloysius)
Pray one (1) Our Father, three (3) Hail Mary's, one (1)
Glory Be.
O Bleeding Face, O Face Divine, be every adoration Thine.
(Three times)

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

There is a name, now, for that culture which resisted – and that name is Vendée.  Perhaps not the name you were expecting.  But that is the narrative I grew up with.  It is the narrative of the terrible history of the people of western France, particularly Vendée and Brittany during the French Revolution, a story of both great hideousness and great heroism.  Out of the ashes of Vendée, rose Vendée itself.  It is a story which until very recently was suppressed and denied.  Generations of lies have meant that most French people never knew it.  Only the people of Vendée and Brittany themselves kept it alive, through never forgetting.  It is only in the last two years that major memorials have been put up to the Vendéen martyrs, and then only by local government, never by the central one; only very recently that the Republic of France has begun to acknowledge the horrors of what can be seen as perhaps the first modern genocide.  I was brought up with it because one side of my father's family came from Vendée (the other came from the South); we were taught the stories, the songs of resistance, we felt the pain and horror and, yes, hate and yet also the astonishing surviving spirit of the Vendéen people, the spirit of the Chouans. 

The Chouans! I was brought up on their names, their stories, stories that were for so long suppressed, but that stayed in the hearts, the minds, the words of their descendants.  Once, to even mention them would be to invite fashionable scorn, ridicule, contempt and even hate.  "Superstitious savages"; "obstacles to progress"; "deluded fools" – these were just some of the gentler terms.  It is easy to see why.  For to look at their real stories, to peel away the generations of lies, is to invite some very uncomfortable reflections indeed. 

In 1789, the French Revolution began, a revolution that at first was full of optimism, of the genuine wish for reform; a revolution that was not even opposed by King Louis XVI himself.  This was the Enlightenment.  Humanity was to be trusted to behave well.  Liberty, equality, fraternity.  Who could argue with that? Very few did, least of all the peasants of western France, who welcomed many of the changes – the abolition of compulsory labour, the gradual abolition of privilege.  The revolutionaries produced a passionate and idealistic document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man.  Some of those rights were the right to freedom of religion; the right to live peacefully, without tyranny or arbitrary rule; the right to discuss.  Alas! While Desmoulins and Danton debated and wrote passionately, Robespierre bided his time.  That time came all too soon. 

[...]

In 1790, the first cracks began to appear.  Provincial assemblies were abolished, stripping people of their local governments.  The clergy was to be stripped of its property and would be appointed by lay people, not the church.  In practice, this meant that the bourgeois of the cities now had the right of imposing chosen priests on peasant communities.  Vendée and Brittany and Normandy began to stir at this; they were greatly attached to their own priests and resisted the imposition of others.  A year later, the King was arrested.  Riots erupted in Brittany.  In 1792, the extremist Jacobins under the leadership of Robespierre took power and formed the now infamous Convention.  And then the horrors began in earnest. 

The atrocities multiplied, the exterminations systematic and initiated from the very top, and carried out with glee at the bottom.  At least 300,000 people were massacred during that time, and those of the intruders who refused to do the job were either shot or discredited utterly.  But still the people resisted.  Still there were those who hid in the forests and ambushed, who fought as bravely as lions but were butchered like pigs when they were caught.  No quarter was given; all the leaders were shot, beheaded, or hanged.  Many were not even allowed to rest in peace; the body of the last leader was cut up and distributed to scientists; his head was pickled in a jar, the brain examined to see where the seed of rebellion lay in the mind of a savage. 

That was two hundred years ago; but at the recent bicentenary celebrated by the intruders, not a mention was made of the dead.  Not a mention was made of the genocide.  It was the people themselves who remembered.  For that is what the intruders did not take into account: memory.  The people still tell the tale, vividly, with pain.  But their pain is not that only of victims.  It is a glowing, rich thing, a thing that paradoxically enabled them to survive.  Paradoxically, it united them in a way that could never otherwise have been possible.  At least half of the people of that secret, remote and beautiful land died during that hideous time, but their memory is still there.  They live forever in the minds of their descendants but also in the land itself.  For they did not give away their land, their soul.  And now that things are changing, a little, now that the descendants of the intruders are discovering the truth about their glorious past, now the people are beginning to tell their stories, out loud, out where it can be heard.  Still, there is a long way to go...

~Sophie Masson, Battle of Savenay, Remembering the Vendée

The sea rolls over my feet, and as it retreats, I notice it has left me something.  I bend over to pick it up.  A perfect fossil, an amnonite in white stone, beautifully imprinted, so frail-looking, yet so enduring, patiently preserving the memory of something long gone.  And as I look at it in my hand, on this beach where my ancestors once walked, incongruously, tears prick at the backs of my eyes.

May 29, 2004

Sophie Masson [send her mail] is a French-Australian writer, some of whose ancestors came from Longeville, in Vendée. She also has Southern French, Basque, Spanish, Portuguese, Scottish, and Canadian ancestry. Sophie was born in Indonesia but has lived in Australia since the age of 5. She is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Visit her website. First published in Quadrant magazine, Melbourne, Australia, in 1996.  © Sophie Masson, 1996

¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Bd. Miguel Pro SJ, Martyr

       Father Pro [Guard Duty site]

                    

....General Cruz granted Father Miguel Pro’s final request to have a few moments for prayer. Father Pro knelt silently for two minutes then stood up. He was offfered a blindfold but refused. Instead he stretched out his arms in the form of a cross and said in a loud voice, “Viva, Cristo Rey” (“Long live Christ the King!”) Shots rang out from the firing squad and Father Pro fell to the ground. He was still breathing, so General Cruz walked over and fired a final rifle shot to the priest’s head…

Sometime before his death, Father Pro told a friend, “If I ever get arrested and wind up in Heaven, get ready to ask me for favors.” He also joked that if he came upon any somber-looking saints in heaven, he would do a Mexican hat dance to cheer them up. At his funeral an old blind woman in the crowd who came to touch his body left with her sight restored. Others testified to his miraculous help within a week of his death…

- From a homily by Father Peter Grace, CP Saint Ann’s Basilica, Scranton, PA

Comment at Guard Duty site:

I saw your article on Miguel Pro. My grandfather was a Cristero during the persecution of the Church in the 1920′s. My grandmother taught catechism in hiding. My grandfather and grandmother also helped to hiding priests in the state of Jalisco. On my maternal side of the family we were taught to be proud of the faith and to love all aspects of Her.

Unfortunately after many years of being in America my family has, in one generation, left the Church. There are probably 7 of us that are still practicing Catholics. (Most have joined fundamentalist churches). I wonder if my grandparents would have known this if they would have come to America?      (Tomas)TT

The Cristero War (1926–29) also known as La Cristiada, was an attempted counter-revolution against the anti-clericalism of the ruling Mexican government. Based in western Mexico, the rebellion was set off by the enforcement of theMexican Constitution of 1917 by Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles, in order to hinder the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its sub-organizations.

The Mexican Revolution was the largest rebellion in Mexican history. It was based on the peasants' overwhelming demand for land and for social justice. The Catholic Church was cautious not to support the revolution, which at times threatened the property rights of many Mexicans. The Calles' administration felt its revolutionary initiatives, such as those against private property and Catholic schools, were being threatened by the Church. As a solution to the Church's influence over the Mexican people, the anti-clerical statutes of the Constitution were instituted, beginning a 10-year persecution of Catholics, resulting in the death of thousands.

Mexican government forces publicly hanged Cristero rebels on telegraph poles in Jalisco, Mexico. The tactic was used throughout the war, with bodies often remaining on the poles until the pueblo or town renounced public religious practice.

After a period of peaceful resistance by Mexican Catholics, skirmishing took place in 1926; and violent uprisings began in 1927.^[1] The rebels called themselves Cristeros, invoking the name of Jesus Christ under the title of "Cristo Rey" or Christ the King. The rebellion is known for the women who assisted the rebels in smuggling guns and ammunition and for certain priests who were tortured and murdered in public and later canonized by Pope John Paul II.

The Catholic Church has recognized several of those killed in the Cristero rebellion as martyrs, including the Blessed Miguel Pro(SJ), who was executed by firing squad on 23 November 1927—without a trial—on trumped-up charges of involvement in an assassination attempt against former President Álvaro Obregón but in actuality for his priestly activities in defiance of the government.^{[46][47][48][49][50][51]} His beatification occurred in 1988...   Wikipedia, Cristero War

'Cocol'

...While exercising his secret ministry as a priest, Father Pro signed many of his letters "Cocol." As a child, he once had a bad fall which knocked him senseless. When he came to, seeing the worried faces of his parents, he immediately asked for some cocol, his favorite type of Mexican sweet bread. Because of this, he acquired the nickname "Cocol." When he signed his letters this way as a priest in hiding, it reminded people not only of the delicious treat, but also of the living bread of the Eucharist.

"Ave and good evenin’ to ye, Father.
Seems to me ye’ve changed a wee bit."

• Blessed Miguel Pro Heroic Mexican Martyr contains his biography taken from Ann Ball's works as well as a chaplet and several photographs. This is part of a larger work dedicated to Catholic Saints.
• Fr. Pro’s Funeral
•   Thousands accompanied Fr. Pro at his funeral...

...November 24, 1927, at the front of the Jesuit church of the Holy Family, a multitude accompanied the remains of Father Pro.  Father Mendez Medina cried out, "Make way for the martyrs of Christ the King!"  In response, a great and unanimous cry soared from the hearts and mouths of thousands:.. "¡Viva Cristo Rey!"
                                                      

 Bd.Miguel Pro SJ in Nicaragua
These photos, made in Nicaragua in 1921, show Miguel with some of his students and on a picnic day in the country.  One of his students remembered "We all thought he was the best teacher in the world." In his joking manner, Miguel remarked, "There is nothing more agreeable than to be persecuted by a multitude of insects and snakes in the wonderful heat and humidity of this land."

                                          Sacred Heart of Jesus we trust in You