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Rekindling
the Crusading Spirit
by Michael Whitcraft
On a recent trip to Fatima, I stopped
to spend a night in the city of Obidos, Portugal. As I stood
atop the walls of that medieval city, I felt almost as though
I were breathing history…but not just any history.
I was filling my lungs with a Catholic combative history.
With each arrow loop I passed, my mind’s
eye could see a 12th century Portuguese knight, bedecked
with armor, ready to risk life and limb to defend Christian
civilization against hordes of Muslim invaders. I could
hear the alarm bell calling the peasants from the fields
to seek shelter behind the walls on which I stood.
As my mind drifted back and forth across
a threshold of 900 years, I compared the society I envisioned
to our own. The stark contrast overwhelmed me. Medieval
Christian man possessed a vision of the Church that has
been all but lost in our days.
Unlike modern man who sees the Church
and asks: “What is in it for me?” he saw the
Faith and asked: “How can I serve?” Thus, he
was willing to make any sacrifice and oppose any enemy in
defense of the Faith.
While these reflections passed through
my mind, I remembered a lecture Brazilian TFP founder, Professor
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, once gave on the crusading
spirit. In it he logically developed the theory that true
adoration of God can only exist when one has the spirit
of a crusader.
Original Sin and Self-seeking Friendship
Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira’s
reasoning was very clear. After Original Sin, man’s
tendency is to befriend only those who are pleasing to him,
and furthermore to seek a personal advantage in such relationships.
The resulting friendship is based on self-love,
not love of others. Thus, it cannot be considered true friendship.
Coupled with this self-seeking tendency,
fallen man has a loathing of sacrifice. This tendency is
so strong that it requires a tremendous effort to overcome.
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
However, to develop true friendship
both of these tendencies must be surmounted. Thus, true
friendship only exists when one is willing to sacrifice
himself for his friend without seeking personal advantage.
The more one is willing to sacrifice for his friend, the
deeper and truer that friendship is.
Our Lord stated this on the night before
His Passion, saying: “Greater love than this no man
hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
(John 15:13) Thus, the greatest love one can attain is one
by which he is willing to sacrifice everything for his friend.
Additionally, friendship is tested when
a friend is threatened. Then one’s willingness to
sacrifice is proven. That is why many veterans attest that
the greatest friends of their lives were made during war.
The daily sacrifice a soldier is expected to make for his
friends, seals a bond that is almost unbreakable.
Adoration and the Crusading Spirit
Applying these principles to God, we are
not called simply to be His friend. We are obliged to adore
Him. If simple friendship cannot exist without a selfless
spirit of sacrifice, adoration definitely cannot exist without
it. Therefore, true adoration can only exist when one is
willing to stand up for God and defend Him, even at the
risk of losing his life. This willingness is the very definition
of the crusading spirit.
Rekindling the Crusading Spirit
As I stood atop the walls of Obidos
with these considerations running through my mind, I was
able to put my finger on one main difference between the
world of the Middle Ages and our own.
Medieval man had the crusading spirit.
The Faith and God were of much more importance to him than
technological advances or material prosperity. When the
Faith called him to travel thousands of miles to a foreign
land with little hope of return, without hesitation, he
shouted a resounding: “Deus Vult!” (God wills
it!)1
Could it be that the lack of this spirit
has contributed, in large part, to the moral decadence of
our days? If our society as a whole would stop living selfishly
as though God does not exist and adore Him with the abnegated
worship that characterized the Crusaders of old, society
would undoubtedly be different.
Such reflections, standing on the castle
bulwark rekindled in me a crusading spirit. I could only
pray that Our Lady rekindle this crusading spirit among
Catholics and thus establish the triumph of Her Immaculate
Heart on earth.
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