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| Detail from the Ghent Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck |
Submitted by John Ogilvie
The Kings of Christendom are nearly all gone. In the world of Christendom, Christian kings bent their knee to God’s law, and held that law as a sacred trust to be revered and enshrined in every subject’s heart. That was a great world, where earthly kings reigned who acknowledged Jesus Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The once-great world belongs to the distant past. Now, we live after Christendom; all her kings are gone, and her thrones lie in the dust, torn down by the gods of the revolutions of modern man—the modern man who tramples everywhere on the laws of nature and the laws of God. Such is our world, our brave new world, for the modern man. Be not fooled though: It is a world that runs thick with blood: the blood of revolutions, the blood of the unborn innocent; the blood of those who would not bend their knee to the gods of revolution. I will not dwell in a bloody brave new world.
But amidst the chaos and wreckage of the revolutions of modern man, you and I have glimpsed the ruins and the remnants of Christendom. We have seen the glory of Christ the King in his great churches, in the silent majesty of his basilicas, in his ancient rites of grace. In Christendom’s Gothic churches, we have often found true palaces of the Virgin, built by the faithful peasants of a bygone age to their beloved Lady. We have heard the sound of our King’s ancient rites. Indeed, we have heard the chants and songs of Christendom. We know a beauty ever ancient, ever new. We know that the ruins of Christendom are better than the gleaming towers of the brave new world—of the hollow men. One day in the ruins of Christendom is better than a thousand elsewhere.
Christ is my King; Him alone will I serve; in his kingdom’s ruins will I live. Time hath worn us with rainy marching in the fields of this world’s battles. But we are warriors for the working day. Under the standard of the Cross, we shall labor. In the ruins of Christendom, we shall live. Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat.
