We are soldiers of Christ, in the Church Militant. In the present Great Apostasy, we must fight for the true Traditional Catholic Faith and Morals against errors all around us.
The citadel of the Church is under attack. The knights and professional soldiers all seem to be gone – either slain or gone over to the side of Christ’s enemies. Christ and His truth must be defended. Because those who have the most responsibility to defend Christ are not fulfilling their duty, the duty to defend Christ’s Truth falls all the more upon the laity. We must do our best to defend the truth because someone must defend it and it is every Catholic’s duty to do so!
In his magnificent work, The Liturgical Year, Dom Guéranger recounts a similar example of how a simple layman stood in the breach of the Church’s “citadel wall”, defending the Catholic Faith, because someone needed to do so:
[O]n Christmas Day, 428, Nestorius [the arch-heretic who was then Patriarch of Constantinople], taking advantage of the immense concourse [crowd] which had assembled in honor of the Virgin Mother and her Child, pronounced from the episcopal pulpit the blasphemous words: “Mary did not bring forth God; her son was only a man, the instrument of the Divinity.”
The multitude shuddered with horror. Eusebius, a simple layman, rose to give expression to the general indignation, and protested against this impiety. Soon a more explicit protest was drawn up and disseminated in the name of the members of this grief-stricken Church. … This generous attitude was the safeguard of Byzantium, and won the praise of Popes and Councils.[1]
This layman, Eusebius, publicly defended the Catholic Faith against the heretical Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, because someone had to do it.
Like Eusebius, we are not scholars or theologians. We are just laymen doing the best we can for Christ the King. Dom Guéranger teaches us this guiding principle:
When the shepherd becomes a wolf, the first duty of the flock is to defend itself. It is usual and regular, no doubt, for doctrine to descend from the bishops to the faithful, and those who are subject are not to judge their superiors.
But in the treasure of revelation there are essential doctrines which all Christians, by the very fact of their title as such, are bound to know and defend. The principle is the same whether it be a question of belief or conduct, dogma or morals. Treachery like that of Nestorius is rare in the Church, but it may happen that some pastors keep silence for one reason or another in circumstances when religion itself is at stake.
The true children of Holy Church at such times are those who walk by the light of their baptism, not the cowardly souls who, under the specious pretext of submission to the powers that be, delay their opposition to the enemy in the hope of receiving instructions which are neither necessary nor desirable.[2]
We are sheep obliged to defend against wolves, because we cannot stand idle while the Church is attacked. We all must do this as best we can, walking by the light of our baptism (as Dom Guéranger phrases it). Seemingly without the help of any “professional soldiers”, all of us must fight in our own little corners of the battle, with whatever weapons we have. We are farmers fighting with pitchforks. We are carpenters fighting with the hammers on our tool belts.
We would prefer that this fight would be left to the “professionals”. But whatever faithful “professional soldiers” might remain are also busy (somewhere) in this fight. Like Eusebius, all of us must stand in the breaches of the citadel wall because someone needs to do it. In truth, at all times, all members of the Church Militant should be part of the fight. However, in our extraordinary times, our responsibility has increased because of the lack of large armies of faithful “professional soldiers” in the Church Militant, to help us and to defend us.
Conclusion
So, let us fight the best we can, although we are ill-equipped for this fight. We must choose the best weapons we have – e.g., a pitchfork, because we have no gun.
As true Soldiers of Christ, we must not be deterred because we are outnumbered, ill-equipped or “out-gunned”.
We must keep fighting, even though we are “nobodies” and are our King’s “unprofitable servants”.[3]
As true Soldiers of Christ, we must never stop fighting because we are tired and want peace with the world.
If we are Soldiers of Christ who are worthy of the name, we must fight for love of Christ the King, each in his own way, each doing the best he can in the “battles” Christ sends us to fight.
Let us go forth to battle!
[1] The Liturgical Year, Vol. IV, Dom Guéranger; Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, February 9th, Britons Catholic Library, 1983, p.379 (emphasis, bracketed word, and paragraph break added for clarity).
[2] The Liturgical Year, Vol. IV, Dom Guéranger; Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, February 9th, Britons Catholic Library, 1983, p.379 (emphasis, bracketed word, and paragraph break added for clarity).
[3] Our Lord instructed us: “When you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.” St. Luke’s Gospel, 17:10