I thank Mundabor for this post because it applies to my own minuscule effort to uphold the Catholic faith into which I was born...
The warrior ant metaphor is very powerful...
We are the Blessed Virgin’s warrior ants
May 24, 2017
Not without surprise, I sometimes read the one or other Rad Trad blog (not excluding mine, I must very immodestly say). My critics seem to read me more than I read them, and I notice their criticism only by way of a limited number of blog referrals, which in turn do not indicate a huge readership, called “insignificant”. As if, in the great battle between Right and Wrong, this had any importance.
Let us say you bravely defend Catholic Truth among friends and relatives, and no one heeds you. Is your effort insignificant? Certainly not! It is very significant, in fact, to the Angels looking on you from heaven. It is very significant for your own salvation. And, last but not least,
it is significant because it is right.
But let us say that you have a blog, and this blog reaches thirty people, who read you three times a week and draw some benefit from it. Thirty people who actually think that you make a difference in their spiritual life, or in their view of Catholicism, or in helping them not to drown in a sea of confusion; and, therefore, come back to your blog again and again.
Is this insignificant? Certainly not! You are, in fact, already exercising a bigger influence than most teachers, bar the very best, have on their pupils! And all this, in most cases,
gratis et amore Dei. No, it is certainly not insignificant. It is, in fact, a notable achievement.
However, it must be clear to all of us that, in the great scheme of things, we are all insignificant, in that none of us will ever, alone, change the course of history or be a leader of nations. This is true both for our insignificant blogs, and for those still insignificant Catholic publications who call us insignificant, and I doubt if they ever properly strengthen the faith of anyone, rather than leading them towards indifference or perdition.
But then again I wonder: how insignificant is insignificant, if your blog is mentioned on other blogs as an example of lack of significance? Does not this deny, in itself, the premise? Still, they are right in the essence: in the great scheme of things, insignificant we all are, together with our detractors.
How should, therefore, each faithful Catholic (mother and father, friend and colleague) see ourselves? We should see ourselves, I think, as warrior ants.
Each one of us, taken individually, is certainly insignificant in the great scheme of things (albeit what he does is most significant for his own salvation, which in itself is infinitely important). However, warrior ants are a frightful force when they march together. Does the individual warrior ant care about how much “significant” she is? I have never asked one, but most probably not. The warrior ant cares, in her own way, about what she can do exactly as insignificant, expendable warrior ant, and that is the beginning and the end of it.
When we die we will not be asked whether we have “changed the world”. We will not be asked how “significant” we were. We will not be asked how many readers our blog used to have.
We will be asked whether we have kept defending Truth when no one listened to us; when we were mocked and insulted; when we were, in fact, being – exactly – insignificant to the world. And by the way: be afraid when the world calls you “relevant”: you might just have become like it.
I started this blog hoping to reach sixty or seventy people every day: two to three school classes. My thinking was that this kind of readership would allow me to help my fellow Catholics in a comparable way as, say, a deeply Catholic high school history or philosophy teacher who has the ability to, as they say, “touch the life” of a comparable number of people every day with his own solid faith.
Every blogger who is inclined to write and perseveres in his aim can, I think, reach this goal (and compensate for a non-existent Catholic philosophy or history teacher) obviously for no pay. Call it insignificant as much as you want, but I think it already counts a lot, both in this world and in the next.
This little effort – insignificant, of course, in the great scheme of things – reaches around 1500 unique users every day, and it is sailing towards five million page views. You can call it, if you wish, a very fat and very angry warrior ant, but a warrior ant it still is. Few good history or philosophy teachers reach as many lives as this warrior ant does.
You can also call it fifty philosophy classes, or three healthy parishes (apart from the fact, of course, that your fat warrior ant is not a priest). But you see, I do not start writing a blog post thinking of the fifteen hundred people my blog post might reach. I start writing for this blog because I want to be one of the Blessed Virgin’s Warrior Ants. Small. Expendable. Utterly insignificant. But still there, marching together with many other warrior ants, and not caring about this world’s or his battle’s outcome.
A single warrior ant can be easily squashed, but an army of them is a devastating force.
One of the reasons I write this blog is to encourage every one of my readers to be, in his little sphere of influence, Blessed Virgin’s Warrior Ants. I encourage you to be warrior ants – with the due prudence; we aren’t like those Proddies crying "Repent!" on Oxford Street - when everyone just considers you that very strange guy. One day, with God’s grace, the one or other may well remember your words, start to connect the dots and, in time, start to finally understand.
In order to do this, the warrior ant must bite. Fluff is easily forgotten after two days, strong words will be remembered in fifty years. By God’s grace, the words your atheist relative resents today might be the words God uses to save his soul on his deathbed in, say, 2055; with Pope Francis V very unhappily reigning , and Catholic ruins everywhere.
Yes, we are – taken individually – utterly insignificant. Expendable warrior ants. Not even a small nuisance to the world.
May we die that way, all of us, and what a blessing!
I gather only from his previous and rare self-references that Mundabor is an Italian who has been living in the United Kingdom for some time now. Perhaps his description on his blog says who he is best:
Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor,
Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
[You will sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be cleansed
You will wash me, and I shall be whitewashed more than snow is.
Pity me, O God, according to Your great mercy.]
These words are familiar to everyone fortunate enough to be able to attend a Traditional Latin Mass. They are taken from Psalm 51 (50) and constitute part of the Asperges me, the initial antiphon of the Tridentine Mass. [And I must say that the chanting of the hymn in the sung Mass I attend every Sunday, during the processional and the celebrant's walk down and up the nave of the church to sprinkle the congregation with holy water, does not fail to literally 'thrill' me, especially since it also incorporates the full 'Gloria Patris et Filii et Spiritui Sancti..."]
The author of this blog thought this antiphon a powerful illustration of his hopes and aspirations and this particular word – Mundabor, “I shall be cleansed” – a fitting nickname for his internet activities; he has been using it for some years now. You’ll have understood by now that this is no place for misguided ecumenism, false kindness or diluted Catholicism.
This is the blog of a conservative Catholic. A very conservative one. This blog’s aim is to allow true, traditional, unadulterated, strictly orthodox Catholic doctrine to be made available in a world suffocating more and more in political correctness and “feel-good”, “everything goes”, “let us not upset anyone” so-called Catholicism.
This blog is strictly anonymous. The author has no desire of notoriety or recognition. His aim is to react to the increasing secularisation of Western societies by saying it as it is.
Comments are allowed but moderated. Moderation policy includes, but is not limited to, messages of those a) who keep repeating the same things; b) claim to talk with Jesus; c) seek attention or publicity; d) racists, and e) conspiracy theorists.
This is a one-man blog so please be patient. This is also the blog of a foreigner, please forgive whatever errors and strange expressions borrowed from my native tongue that you may find in my writings.
If you like my posts, I ask you to recite a Hail Mary for the author, a sinner.
I wish everyone – and myself – a happy journey toward the only real aim in life: salvation.
For all that, I give him a pass for his often intemperate (un-Christian?) words - against
the reigning pope which are necessarily ad hominem, but then Bergoglio invites it.
And if you think Mundabor's 'Evil Clown' logo to designate the pope is over-the-top, Mundabor
is not any kinder to himself:
Left, 'Evil Clown' logo; right, Mundabor's 'Self-Portrait, 2016'[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/05/2017 13:31]