Shownotes
It's a
Feria,
3rd Class, with the color of
White. In this episode: the meditation: "The Faith of the Paralytic", today's news from the Church: "Pokrov: The Protection of the Mother of God", a preview of the Sermon: "The Strength of St. Michael", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
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Sources Used Today:
- "The Faith of the Paralytic" — From the Assumption to Advent
- "Pokrov: The Protection of the Mother of God" (FSSPX.news)
- "The Strength of St. Michael" (SSPX Sermons)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:
Saint Remigius of Reims baptized one man and, in doing so, helped change the religious future of France.
He was born around the year 437 in Roman Gaul, as the Western Roman Empire was coming apart. Roman authority was disappearing, Germanic kingdoms were taking its place, and nobody really knew what the political map of Europe would look like a generation later.
Remigius became Bishop of Reims while still quite young and would remain there for an astonishing seventy years.
Then a Frankish king named Clovis entered his life.
Clovis was a pagan warrior who was steadily conquering much of Gaul. His wife, Clotilde, was Catholic and had spent years encouraging her husband to accept Christianity.
Eventually, after a military crisis in which Clovis reportedly prayed to the God of Clotilde for help, he agreed to be baptized.
That brought him to Remigius.
Tradition places the baptism at Reims, probably around the year 496, on Christmas Day. Clovis entered the church with thousands of his warriors, and Remigius baptized the king.
One famous line has echoed through French history ever since. Remigius is traditionally said to have told Clovis:
"Bow thy head, proud Sicambrian. Adore what thou hast burned, and burn what thou hast adored."
In other words: everything changes now.
Clovis's conversion was enormously important because many of the other Germanic rulers in Western Europe had embraced Arian Christianity, which denied the full divinity of Christ. Clovis instead became Catholic.
And his people followed.
That helped create the alliance between the Frankish monarchy and the Catholic Church that would shape medieval France for centuries.
Then comes one of the most fascinating traditions associated with Remigius.
According to later accounts, during Clovis's baptism the sacred chrism was running short. A dove miraculously appeared carrying a small vial of holy oil, the Sainte Ampoule.
That vial became one of the great relics of the French monarchy.
For centuries afterward, kings of France traveled to Reims for their coronations, where oil associated with the Sainte Ampoule was used to anoint them. From Louis VIII in 1223 through Charles X in 1825, Reims became the great coronation city of France.
Even Napoleon noticed the symbolism. When he crowned himself emperor, he deliberately chose Paris rather than Reims and created a completely different ceremony.
The original Sainte Ampoule was publicly smashed during the French Revolution in 1793, although fragments were reportedly rescued and later preserved.
So when you walk into the magnificent Notre-Dame de Reims today, you're standing in a place whose royal traditions ultimately reach back to one bishop pouring baptismal water over the head of a pagan Frankish king.
Remigius probably couldn't have imagined what would follow.
He simply baptized a convert.
History took it from there.
Saint Remigius of Reims, apostle of the Franks and baptizer of Christian France, pray for us.
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What is the SSPX Podcast?
The SSPX Podcast is produced by Angelus Press, which has as its mission the fortification of traditional Catholics so that they can defend the Faith, and reaching out to those who have not yet found Tradition.
What is the SSPX?
The main goal of the Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues, especially through the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls.
Although the traditional Latin Mass is the most visible and public expression of the work of the Society, we are committed to defending Catholic Tradition in its entirety: all of Catholic doctrine and morals as the Church has always defended them. What people need is the Catholic Faith, without compromise, with all the truth and beauty which accompanies it.
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