Tongues of Fire

The Pantheon (the Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs) in Rome has a very beautiful custom for the feast of Pentecost. From the opening in the ceiling of the church, red rose petals come streaming down symbolic of the toungues of fire that descended and rested on the heads of Our Lady and the apostles in the Upper Room on that first Pentecost.

It's ironic, and yet quite appropriate, that this custom be done at the Pantheon). In this building, incense was burned before the graven images of the Roman gods and those who persecuted the early Christians bowed before statues of Jupiter and other pagan imagery. And yet, the persecutors now lay cold and dead as the marble of their idols. Yet, in place of the goddess Juno, now is honored the great Mother of God, Mary, Queen of the Martyrs. In place of the honor given to Augustus, now prayers for the successors of St. Peter are heard at every corner of the temple. Where once the statue of Jupiter was bowed before, now incense rises to Heaven for Him who resides in the tabernacle, God with us, who is adored at every moment throughout the world, and whom is seen a greater honor to die for rather than to kill for.

Since the earliest days of the Church, we have lost many churches such as the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople which has been desecrated by the Mohammedan heretics and the Church of St. Genevieve in Paris which was desecrated by the repugnant modernist revolutionaries who almost certainly for conceited notions renamed it the Panthéon. Their occupation of our property cannot and will not compare to the victory of our gain of the Roman Pantheon, for the Pantheon was a victory for Christ to the end of time, while the heretics' reign will one day come to a crashing end and will bend the knee at the Name of Christ with the rest of us, even if they have to be forced to.

Veni, Creator Spiritus mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia, quae tu creasti pectora.