LORICA
The early Celtic church had many
‘breastplate prayers’, or ‘lorica’, which
Declared the surrounding and
Encompassing of God. Such prayers were
Not to make God come – He is already
There – but to open our eyes to the reality.
In breastplate prayers, the person who
Prays seeks to become aware of what is
Already a reality.

(The lyrics are 4th century Irish, attributed to St Patrick)

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead
His eye to watch, His might to stay
His ear to hearken to my need
The wisdom of my God to teach
His hand to guide His shield to ward
The word of God to give me speech
His heavenly host to be my guard

TARA
(Tara, the ancient capital of Ireland)
At Tara today in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness
{ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/i/iona-lyrics/encircling-lyrics.html }
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightning with its rapid wrath
And the winds with their swiftness along the path
And the earth with its starkness.
All these I place by God’s almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness

The wisdom of my God to teach
His hand to guide His shield to ward
The word of God to give me speech
His heavenly host to be my guard

CAIM
Along with the prayer of encompassing,
The Celtic Christians had a practice called
The ‘caim’, in which they drew around them
A circle … this was a symbol of the encircling love of God.

The Mighty Three
My protection Be
Encircling me
You are around
My life, my home
Encircling me
O sacred Three

“If we think it’s been hard over these past four decades, I think the biggest challenges we face lie ahead of us,” the apostolic administrator of the Denver archdiocese said Nov. 5.

“America today is becoming what I would call an atheocracy — a society that is actively hostile to religious faith and religious believers. And I might add — the faith that our society is most hostile toward is Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular.”

The bishop’s comments came in his address to the annual benefit dinner for St. Joseph’s Helpers and the White Rose Women’s Center in Dallas, Texas.

Secularism, Bishop Conley said, is not simple neutrality towards religious beliefs. American elites are not neutral towards religion, but are “deliberately engaged in a process that aims to remove all traces of religious faith from our public life!”

This creates “publicly enforced religious indifferentism” in which Americans participating in civic life must first agree to think and act as if they have no religious convictions or motivations at all.

This “atheocracy” has no ultimate truths or inviolable ethical principles for its guidance.

“Hence, it has no foundation upon which to establish justice, secure true freedom, or to constrain tyrants,” Bishop Conley said, citing John Paul II’s warning that a democracy without values easily turns into “open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”

“God, not government, is the only sure guarantee of human rights and the blessings of our liberty. We need to live as if we believe that,” the bishop said. “Only a people who believes these truths to be sacred and self-evident can build a society worthy of men and women created by God.”

The 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion nationwide is an example of how “atheocracy” works by “the violence of the strong against the weak,” he added.

“Without God, there is no basis for morality and no necessary protections for man. The strong decide what is right or wrong — even who lives and who dies.”

The bishop denounced abortion, embryonic experimentation and euthanasia. He also strongly criticized the federal government’s plan to force employers to provide health insurance plans with sterilization and contraceptive coverage, including coverage for abortion-causing drugs.

The push to recognize homosexual unions is another danger, he said, because “our atheocratic government now deems itself competent to rewrite ‘the laws of Nature’s God’ — the God-given definitions of marriage and the family.”

In response to these trends, he said Americans need to restore “our sense of government based on theism and natural law.” They need to recognize “radical secularization” and remind others that “the America we have become is not the America our founders had in mind.”

Faithful citizens should rediscover “the basic religious and Christian values” in the Declaration of Independence, he suggested.

The Declaration recognizes the inalienable right to life, but that right is rooted in a broader framework of assumptions about what rights are and where they come from. Despite some “profound moral blind spots” of the American Founders, “the Declaration’s expressed belief in the divine origin of the human person is everywhere presumed in the Constitution.”

“And throughout American history, this belief has served as a goad to our national conscience,” he noted.
“The pro-life movement has always been a force for moral renewal in America,” Bishop Conley said. “Like the abolitionist movement before us, the pro-life cause has always called our country back to its beginnings — as a nation under God. Our country needs our witness now more than ever. The way forward begins with us.”

****

Kudos to Catholic News Service for printing this great article!

Aux. Bishop  James Conley received Bryan J. Brown into the Roman Catholic Church, married him to his beautiful Anne, remains a friend and confidant and spiritual advisor of The ArchAngel Institute.  More posts on Bishop Conley listed below:

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/auxiliary-bishop-james-conleys-endorsement-of-the-archangel-institute/

http://www.archangelinstitute.org/expect-neither-gratitude-or-respect-from-the-radical-secularists-post-23/

of the ArchAngel Institute

A rebirth of Christian chivalry that advances the Culture of Life by encouraging, empowering and emboldening Christians to cherish, defend and advance faith, family and freedom.

What does the ArchAngel Institute mean by “Christian Chivalry?”

The Short Answer:

The Broad-Stone of Honour (authored by Kenelm Henry Digby in 1822) helped re-image chivalry in a challenging post-Revolutionary (but pre-modern) age. That influential work offered the following definition: “Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.”

Notice the crucial balance: right thoughts and honorable actions.

Lord Alfred Tennyson, in Idylls of the King (1872), reduced the definition to these four simple instructions:

“Live pure,

speak true,

right wrong,

follow Christ the King.”

Please note that the first and last address the right thoughts about life, the second and third address honorable actions. The line that Tennyson penned after these four attributes is of great interest:

“Else, wherefore born?”

When the Institute references Christian chivalry, it means the idea balancing of the historic doctrines of the faith and the general expression of the same in one’s personal life in a fashion calculated to maximize impact upon the social order.

It is the balancing of our precious freedom in Christ with our duties to the Almighty and each other. When this balancing occurs in a family, in a community or in society-at-large, the result is Christian chivalry. When Christian chivalry is waning the result is social decay and chaos. When Christian chivalry is on the increase the result is renewal, rebirth, reformation, revival – and even revolution

This is idealistic, yes, but that does not render it something we should not pursue with great zeal.

For more on the philosophical underpinnings of this vision and mission, please click on “mission criticals” above.

Clicking on the archangel tabs above grants one insight into the multiple divisions of the ArchAngel Institute.

Ecumenical Religious Ceremonies to Take Place at
Former Abortion Clinic Site on May 19

Former Abortion Clinic Redeemed One of Fort Wayne’s most notorious addresses, 827 Webster Street, will be the subject of an ecumenical redemptive act on Saturday morning, May 19.

Feminist leader Susan Hill oversaw an estimated 24,000 abortions from this site between the years 1978-2006. Because of that, an Orthodox Church exorcism, Roman Catholic blessing and Evangelical dedication service will take place at the same location on Saturday morning, May 19, 2007.

The building at 827 Webster Street, located a mere 100 yards from the newly remodeled Allen County Public Library and directly across the street from Fort Wayne’s historic First Presbyterian Church, served as NorthEast Indiana’s sole abortuary for almost 30 years.

Susan Hill opened the clinic at 827 Webster Street as one of what was to eventually become ten “franchise” sites of the National Women’s Health Organization in numerous states. With demand for abortion waning, her for-profit, child killing business has fallen on hard times. Susan Hill is no longer affiliated with the Fort Wayne clinic, and now can claim only five clinics in her franchised operation.

The clinic at 827 Webster Street opened with great controversy in 1978. Susan Hill filed litigation against the City of Fort Wayne to locate her mill in a community that did not welcome the grisly “business.” See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC. V. CITY OF FORT WAYNE, 1978. (CASE # F78-31)

A year after opening, the Fort Wayne clinic sued seven nurses who did nothing more than offer alternative to abortion on the sidewalks surrounding the clinic. Highly-respected Fort Wayne resident Phyllis Avila, the President of Nurses Concerned for Life, was one of those nurses. Many, including her widowed husband Frank, have credited this baseless, pro-abortion and frivolous lawsuit for hastening Phyllis’ untimely death. See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC., ET. AL V. NURSES CONCERNED FOR LIFE ET AL, 1979. (CASE # F-79-9)

A decade later, the good people of Northeast Indiana rose up by the thousands in an ecumenical and unified attempt to warn their neighbors of the great danger inherent in abortion and to protect their friends, the volunteer sidewalk counselors, from more baseless litigation and continued disruptive harassment at the hands of the pro-abortion activists who routinely gathered outside the abortion clinic. This populist, pro-life movement calling itself NorthEast Indiana Rescue was crushed by the National Organization of Women’s legal team led by Susan Hill. See FORT WAYNE WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INC., ULRICH KLOPFER, M.D., & JANE DOE V. WENDELL BRANE, BRYAN J. BROWN, NORTHEAST INDIANA RESCUE ET AL., 1990. (CASE # F90-66)

Sixteen years after the lawsuit against Northeast Indiana Rescue was filed, a pro-life entity calling itself the Donegal Corridor has purchased the building and announced plans to locate an Institute in the building dedicated to advancing the Culture of Life.

The May 19 event is the second step in the plan to redeem this former holocaust site.

Following these liturgical events, the former abortion clinic will be open for silent and prayerful walkthroughs. The interior of the building remains as it was the day the former occupants abandoned it for their new facility off of State Street. All persons of good will are encouraged to visit the site and pray for those who suffered due to its twenty-eight year presence on Webster Street.

The former clinic will remain open for silent walkthroughs until 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 19. Representatives of the Donegal Corridor will be on hand to discuss their vision for the future use of the building at 827 Webster Street.

All persons of goodwill are invited to take part in some or all of the ecumenical service at 827 Webster Street on Saturday, May 19.