Saint Bridget prayed for a long time to know how many blows Our Lord
suffered during His terrible Passion. Rewarding her patience, one day
He appeared to her and said:
"I received 5475 blows upon My Body. If you wish to honor them in some
way, recite fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys with the following
Prayers, which I Myself shall teach you, for an entire year. When the year is
finished, you will have honoured each of My Wounds."
You can find the fifteen prayers of the one year devotion of Saint Bridget at this link here. You can find the seven prayers of the twelve years devotion at this link here. It is perhaps useful to your understanding to be aware that St. Bridget would have written them down in Latin, not in English. So if you find the words not exactly aligned with your expectations, feel free to think through how you might translate them into your own parlance.
Paladin
Paladin - noun, a warrior for God.
It had been my intention to write this essay about my experiences at coming to understand that my work involves being a warrior for God. It was my thought to write about how I came to that realisation and some of the things that happened to me along the way that come under the heading of what John Arcovio described as “spiritual boot camp.” But this essay is about the possibility that you might be meant to become a paladin. In which case my experiences, while perhaps instructive, are necessarily beside the point.
Choice
To understand the nature of reality and therefore the nature of being human, it is useful to have a model of the universe. The Bible begins with a model of the universe which is described in its very first chapter. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The beginning of creation is a formless void and God speaks into that void to create light and then all the other things. But before God created the earth, which is the realm you see around you, out to the farthest stars, God created the heavens.
Your soul comes into existence because God chooses to create your soul. I have offered an analogy that you may find helpful. God is like a great huge oak tree, and you are like an acorn. God’s goal is to have more trees, a veritable forest. One of the things that is true of a forest of trees is that they are connected to one another underground by a network of roots and mycology. Information, water, and nutrients are passed from one tree to another, and the trees that are most connected are near one another. These tend to have a common ancestry. Some trees grow taller because they are in favoured locations where there is more sunlight or greater access to water, or both. Take from this analogy what seems applicable and leave what isn’t relevant.
You are at all times connected to God. God has done everything since the beginning of creation with purposes in mind. God knows what you are, what is the nature of your soul, and what God has intended for you. You have the choice to obey God and do what will best fulfil God’s will. It is essential to understand that eternal salvation for you is always necessarily a part of God’s plans for you. Obeying God is the most certain way to obtain eternal salvation.
The greatest shepherd mankind has ever known is Jesus Christ, who lives and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. Jesus purchased for all of us the rewards of eternal salvation. To partake of those rewards, you should learn the words of Jesus, do them, be baptised in water to wash away the sins you have committed, and be baptised in the Holy Spirit. So, even if you have disobeyed God in this life, it is possible to obtain eternal salvation. What is eternal salvation? It is life everlasting in heaven with God.
I believe our souls come from heaven. We enter into a life in this earthly realm by choice. Nobody comes here unless you volunteer. Some souls enter into their lives here after much training. Others enter after brief training. But you are told what to expect and you have the choice. Choice figures prominently in this realm because in order for you to become the kind of being you are meant to be (Psalm 82) as gods, sons and daughters of the most high (John 10: 34-36) it is essential you be free to choose. Free will is part of your nature, and you were created in God’s image: God has free will and great power, and is free to choose at all times.
Eve and Adam’s Choice
A very long time ago, God had plans for mankind that began with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. In this paradise, Adam was the elder and Eve the younger. There was a certain tree in the centre of the garden from which they were not to eat. A serpent tempted Eve to ignore God’s commandment and eat from it anyway. It was this crime of disobedience that set in motion a long train of events. Among the very first events was that Eve shared this temptation with Adam who also chose to disobey.
Mary and Jesus’s Choice
In the fullness of time, mankind will again have detailed knowledge about the events that took place between the original sin of Eve and of Adam and today. So far, the most important of these events took place about two thousand years ago when Mary came into the world and served in the Temple of God in Jerusalem. She was told by holy Gabriel the archangel that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit, give birth to a child, and that he would be named Jesus. She chose to obey, saying at the time, “Behold the hand maiden of the Lord. May it be unto me according to all thy words.”
After giving birth to Jesus, Mary travelled to the Temple for what we call the presentation. St. Joseph made a sacrifice of two birds in the Temple in accordance with his understanding of the commandments. Saint Simeon was there, an old man, who had been told by God that he would live to see the Messiah promised in prophecies. Mary had grown up in the Temple, so she would have known who Simeon was. So when Simeon beheld the child Jesus and said that Jesus was the Messiah, and that a sword of sorrow would pierce the heart of his holy mother, Mary knew it was true. She chose to continue obeying.
The Price Paid
Jesus grew to manhood. He began ministering to the people. Many people knew he was the Messiah. Many signs, wonders, and miracles accompanied the work of Jesus to support this knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus challenged not only the state of his day, the pagan Roman demon worshipping state that abhorred individual liberty, taxed all property and many activities, and was abusively corrupt, but he also challenged the Temple hierarchies. Jesus was betrayed by the Iscariot, was unjustly judged by three judges, was scourged, crowned with thorns, made to carry his cross, and was crucified unto death. His body was then cleaned and covered in linen and placed in the tomb. Three days later he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven a further forty days later. After another ten days the Trinity sent down the Holy Spirit. Throughout his life, even through great suffering, Jesus has been obedient to God. Throughout her life, even though it was very sorrowful and difficult to see all these events, Mary has been obedient to God.
The Rosary
There are many ways of praying the rosary. The way I was taught is to pray a complete rosary with both hands on the rosary at all times. The only meditations that I pray are the Joyful mysteries, the Sorrowful mysteries, and the Glorious mysteries. These have been described to me as the three white roses. I asked in prayer and was told not to pray the “luminous mysteries.”
If God has chosen you to be a warrior for God, a paladin, you may spend some time in training. In that case, you may find yourself praying the rosary. You may be called upon to pray it many times in a given day. Do so.
There are books you can read about the rosary, how it is held, how it is prayed. There are places you can go, especially to churches and cathedrals where the traditional Latin mass is provided, where the rosary is prayed aloud by many worshippers. You can learn to pray the rosary.
There is also a particular way of praying the rosary called the penitential rosary. It involves far more prayers, four prayers spoken on each bead of the five decades of Mother Mary beads. I was taught to say the penitential rosary on my knees, with my arms extended and held wide throughout, with the rosary in my right hand the entire time after first crossing myself with the crucifix in my right hand and the central medallion in my left. If you find this position difficult, try it on stony ground.
The rosary is a spiritual weapon. Praying the rosary drives away evil. You can drive evil away simply by carrying the rosary, especially if you have prayed the rosary with a particular rosary chain. Visibly having the rosary in your possession, with part of it emerging from a pocket or from your grasp, helps to encourage other people to pray the rosary.
The cross is a weapon against evil. The cross, especially the crucifix, especially the crucifix showing the medal of St. Benedict behind the figure of Jesus, is a weapon against evil.
St. Benedict is known for several important things. He wrote a set of rules called “the Rule of Benedict” which is the basis for the order kept in many convents, monasteries, and abbeys. He is also known for a command called the Vade Retro Satana which is effective in casting out demons. Its initial letters are found on the reverse of his medal. Many rosaries use the St. Benedict medal as the central medallion or even in place of the large “Our Father” beads or both.
The Bible is also a weapon against evil. Simply holding a Bible, or a crucifix, or a medal of St. Benedict, or a rosary, and saying, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command all demons to go from this place forever” you can banish demons. Note, please, that you are more capable in doing so if you have been baptised in water and with the Holy Spirit.
Daily Devotions
At the beginning of this essay, I wrote about the fifteen prayers of the one year devotion. In order to accomplish the devotion, you pray each of the fifteen prayers every single day. In my experience praying them, I would say them one after another. However, if you need to take a break, it is acceptable to stop after one of the prayers and take up the remainder later in the day.
The same is true of the seven prayers of the twelve years devotion. I began this devotion in 2019. I have some more years to go. It is my habit to recite all seven prayers before I go to supper, which lately is the one meal I eat each day.
Another prayer that I say devotedly, and which I say many times a day, is the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great for the Holy Souls in purgatory. For the last several years, I say this prayer after reciting the seven prayers of the 12 years devotion. I also say it after the rosary because in each of the sets of the mysteries I pray, there is mention or reference made to the most precious blood of Jesus.
Another sort of daily devotion during which I find myself persistently bored is my daily forty-five to fifty-five minutes of exercise. I believe that I need to be physically fit to carry out the things God has in mind for me to do, and that a warrior for God should be able to go wherever needed. The twenty minutes on the elliptical is a time when I begin with a sprint to see how fast I can go, and then recite prayers quietly while I continue in order to have something to do other than boring repetitive motion.
Waiting Worship
How did I learn about all these things? I would say that a number of dreams in my youth pointed me at some greater purpose in life. But quite a lot began happening after 2017 when I found myself at a Quaker meeting and learned waiting worship.
Waiting worship is simply a process of not talking, not moving about noisily, not filling your mind with words, but waiting. Be still and know that I am God, says God in Psalm 46:10. The Quakers, who call themselves the Religious Society of the Friends of Jesus, don’t meet in a church, they are a part of the church. The term “the church” refers to the entire body of believers in the words of Jesus. Friends in the 17th Century would sometimes meet in private homes or in any place they could.
By sitting still for ten minutes, you can clear your mind and silence your own inner voice. You can listen for the voice of God. God is connected to your soul. If you wonder what that means, consider that you live in a universe which quantum physicists think of things for twelve dimensions to be doing, so the idea of connexions through dimension doorways should come to mind.
What if you think of something while sitting silently and you wonder if it is from God? Discernment is useful. How should you discern God’s words? You should consider love and consider Scripture. If what you hear in your mind is consistent with love and consistent with Scripture, then you should consider that it is from God. If it is about your ego, about your bodily needs, if it is about something you hate or find revolting, it probably is not from God but from your own spirit. So use your discernment.
Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual warfare is necessary. I believe, and have been told in prayer, that we are in a spiritual war that has been going on for two hundred thousand years. We are fighting against demon worshippers who have accumulated wealth and made themselves powerful. They have been exposed to view by God’s will.
It is God’s will that this war end. It happens to be in our day that the war will be brought to its conclusion. It won’t end without some more events, and considerable suffering, so you should prepare yourself.
It may be that you are not going to devote your life to God’s work. It may be that you are not called upon by God to become a paladin. Yet, in the course of the events that are ahead, you may encounter a demon or a group of demons. You may need to protect your family or people who are given into your care. You may need to face evil. So, consider the things I have written here as tools to use in fighting against evil.
There is a group to which I have in the past had the opportunity to donate. It is headed by Lew Rockwell, who is a good man. Lew is a devotee of the writings of Ludwig von Mises and of Murray Rothbard. The group is called the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It has a motto, which was adopted by von Mises himself:
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Give nothing to evil but proceed ever more forcefully against it. It is very good advice.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.
A most excellent summary of Christianity and how we as disciples of Christ Jesus ought to live.
Paladin defined is a new definition for me.
While i respect your choice to live as a Catholic, there is no where we are directed in God's Word to pray the rosary or to Mary et al - this all can easily be refuted scripturally, logically and historically .
Nonetheless, God bless you and yours brother, with much gratitude for your detailed essay here. Your essays are well worth the follow and reading...
"Be still and know that I am God"- Psalm 46:10 ; I awake and end my day with this psalm. (10 years this coming November). The psalm had a place of prominence (as a plaque upon the wall of my mother's kitchen) in my childhood home. Today, a different plaque honours that psalm (that includes a picture of my Mother) in my family's home. Powerful psalm; *almost* overcomes the ineffable nature of God. Thank-you Jim!