Ministranten beim Gebet

by Felix von Ende, ca.1888

Prussia

Adolph von Menzel, Departure of King Wilhelm I to the Army on July 31, 1870

A Young Marine Praying

by Corporal Eugene Suarez

During the Korean War in 1951, a young Marine finds a moment of quiet and solitude in which to offer up a prayer for the safety of himself and his comrades. Minutes later, the 1st Marine Division launched an offensive against entrenched communist troops during the Korean conflict.

Der Held und seine Kinder

[H/T: Tribunus]

Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and the Knights Templar

Adolf Josef Lanz was born on 19 July 1874 in the Penzing district of Vienna in what was then Austria-Hungary, as the son of schoolmaster Johann Lanz and his wife Katharina, née Hoffenreich. His parents were middle class, and his father's ancestors had been burghers in Vienna since the early 18th century.

Lanz became a monk in the Cistercian order in 1893, assuming the name Georg and living in the Heiligenkreuz monastery. In 1894, he claimed to have been "enlightened" after finding the tombstone of a Knight Templar, and began developing his theories of "blue-blond Aryanism" and "lower races". He left the monastery in 1899; although Lanz claimed that this was due to "growing nervousness", the official documents recorded "carnal love" as the reason. 

[Wikipedia (Adapted slightly)] 

One is, of course, tempted to feel sorry for a neurotic young Cistercian who got kicked out of his monastery for fantasising about blond-haired, blue-eyed Knights Templar.

After all, who am I to judge?

The Knights Templar themselves were of course de facto the Cistercians' "military wing". They were suppressed in the late middle ages, for bum-sex, and for doing weird things with crucifixes.

But still, they did lots of good fighting, they lived (most of the time) according to a strict rule, and their singing was jolly impressive.

Poland vs. Ukraine?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by DW News (@dwnews)

What's the point of the Jews?

The big theme of Roy Schoeman's apostolate (and indeed the title of his website) is that 'salus ex Iudaeis est salvation if of the Jews'.

non enim ad populum profundi sermonis et ignotae linguae tu mitteris ad domum Israhel, 

neque ad populos multos profundi sermonis et ignotae linguae quorum non possis audire sermones et si ad illos mittereris ipsi audirent te. 

For thou art not sent to a people of a profound speech, and of an unknown tongue, but to the house of Israel: 

Nor to many nations of a strange speech, and of an unknown tongue, whose words thou canst not understand: and if thou wert sent to them, they would hearken to thee 

[Ezechiel 3:5-6]

The Jews themselves, of course, must first acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messias. Indeed, they have no Messias other than Jesus. In modern Jewish "theology", the remission of man's sins even today comes only from Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac on Calvary (Mount Moriah). The Jews themselves have no other sacrifice, since they no longer have either a priesthood or the Temple. According to the Talmud, the red thread on Yom Kippur stopped turning white at the time of the Crucifixion.

That's not to say that the Jews aren't a remarkable people. They maintained their identity for 2,000 years - which was very unusual! And for what? Well, St Paul seems to imply that when the Jews have accepted Jesus Christ - and of course the Church, which He founded - they will have a special role to play at the End of the World:

quid ergo quod quaerebat Israhel hoc non est consecutus electio autem consecuta est ceteri vero excaecati sunt 

sicut scriptum est dedit illis Deus spiritum conpunctionis oculos ut non videant et aures ut non audiant usque in hodiernum diem 

et David dicit fiat mensa eorum in laqueum et in captionem et in scandalum et in retributionem illis 

obscurentur oculi eorum ne videant et dorsum illorum semper incurva 

dico ergo numquid sic offenderunt ut caderent absit sed illorum delicto salus gentibus ut illos aemulentur 

quod si delictum illorum divitiae sunt mundi et deminutio eorum divitiae gentium quanto magis plenitudo eorum 

What then? That which Israel sought, he hath not obtained: but the election hath obtained it. And the rest have been blinded. 

As it is written: God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, until this present day. 

And David saith: Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them. 

Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see: and bow down their back always. 

I say then: Have they so stumbled, that they should fall? God forbid! But by their offence salvation is come to the Gentiles, that they may be emulous of them. 

Now if the offence of them be the riches of the world and the diminution of them the riches of the Gentiles: how much more the fulness of them?

[Romans 11:7-12]

Indeed, "Messianism" is a growing phenomenon in modern religious Judaism - albeit of a strongly protestant variety. Jonatham Bernis is a TV Messianic Rabbi, who interviewed Schoeman (see above) without quite realising his position.

Unfortunately, one modern saecular form of Messianism is a Jewish version of Socialism. It was this messianic socialism that became one of the roots of Marxism, via Karl Marx's friend Moses Hess. Hess also introduced Friedrich Engels to socialism, though Marx and Engels later had a falling out with Hess after Engels had an affair with Hess's wife.

Most interestingly, Schoeman takes the view that the state of Israel's early victories against the Arabs were literally miraculous (not figuratively or hyperbolically!), but Israel then once again failed to acknowledge this and became proud. He also believes that the conversion of the Jews is necessary for the Second Coming.