"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world."

We may not be in the End Times, but, boy, does it feel like it. Sure, this could be just another extended interregnum which will be neatly decided by a future council and non-heretic pope. It is possible, I suppose. But–on that hypothesis, I do wonder what signs there will be manifested in those days that will convince even the most skeptical that the end is nigh.

As I have written on this blog, the celestial lights are interpreted by Saint Augustine as the Church. The sign, then, is the disappearance of the Church. That is explosive commentary of Augustine, because it at once dispels the notion that there must be shepherds and teachers until the end of time in the sense that the Church faithful will be able to be instructed by them, receive their sacraments, and be governed by them as one flock. If they were, then the Church wouldn’t be hidden.

So, the question becomes, Where is the Church? If the Church is hidden, how can we find it? We know that the Church is not reducible to buildings, vestments, golden vessels, incense and candles. We know this, yet there are so many who think otherwise, who confuse the Church with a congregation of people who happens to be present in a building (formerly occupied by God-fearing Catholics) at the local parish church, most of whom believe contraception is okay, only a third believe in transubstantiation, and pretty much all freely and affectionately offer their “mass” in communion with a heresiarch.

Of course, the numbers are better at SSPX chapels and other traditionalists groups, including Sedevacantist mass centers. People here at least for the most part aren’t heretics, but they are schismatics. The Church cannot be where there is schism, just as light cannot coexist with darkness, nor that which is holy, evil.

Home Alone, Pray-at-Home, Recusant Catholics–if you know of a better term other than simply Catholic, email me; I respond to everyone–rightly do not go to either their parish church or their regional traditionalist chapel. We pray at home, keep the faith by candlelight in holy vigils, solemn fasts, joyful hymns, and many a rosary bead has slipped through our fingers in prayerful reflections, meditations, and contemplations of the infinitely unfathomable mysterious of God and His Mother.

The world is wise. The Vatican is wise. SSPX is wise. Sedevacantists are wise. We Home Aloners are fools. We don’t know anything about formal and material distinctions of the papacy, and colored titles and supplied jurisdiction elude our comprehension. We are fools–fools for Christ and His Mother, the rest of the world scoffs us to scorn. So be it. Let it be.

Wherever the Church is, the fool, and not the wiseman, will find it.

Ubi Ecclesia

by G.K. Chesterton

Our Castle is East of the Sun,
And our Castle is West of the Moon,
So wisely hidden from all the wise
In a twist of the air, in a fold of the skies,
They go East, they go West, of the land where it lies
And a Fool finds it soon.

Our Castle is East of the Sun
And abides not the law of the sunlight,
The last long shot of Apollo
Falls spent ere it strike the tower
Far East of the steep, of the strong,
Going up of the golden horses,
Strange suns have governed our going,
Strange dials the day and the hour.
With hearts not fed of Demeter,
With thoughts unappeased of Athene,
We have groped through the earth’s dead daylight
To a night that is more, not less:
We have seen his star in the East
That is dark as a cloud from the westward,
To the Roman a reek out of Asia,
To the Greeks, foolishness.

For the Sun is not lord but a servant
Of the secret sun we have seen:
The sun of the crypt and the cavern,
The crown of a secret queen:
Where things are not what they seem
But what they mean.

But our Castle is West of the Moon,
Nor the Moon hath lordship upon it,
The Horns and the horsemen crying
On their great ungraven God:
And West of the moons of magic
And the sleep of the moon-faced idols
And the great moon-coloured crystal
Where the Mages mutter and nod:
The black and the purple poppies
That grow in Gautama’s garden
Have waved not ever upon us
The smell of their sweet despair:
And the yellow masks of the Ancients
Looking west from their tinkling temples
See Hope on our hill Mountjoy,
And the dawn and the dancers there.

For the Moon is not lord but a servant
Of the smile more bright than the Sun:
And all they desire and despair of
And weary of winning is won
In our Castle of Joyous Garde
Desired and done.

So abides it dim in the midmost
The Bridge called Both-and-Neither,
To the East a wind from the westward,
To the West a light from the East:
But the map is not made of man
That can plot out its place under heaven,
That is counted and lost and left over
The largest thing and the least.

For our Castle is East of the Sun,
And our Castle is West of the Moon,
And the dark labyrinthine charts of the wise
Point East and point West of the land where it lies,
And a Fool walks blind on the highway
And finds it soon.