“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4, 7)
If everyone wants happiness, it is legitimate to ask whether idealism brings happiness. The answer is yes; not only happiness but joy as well.
To lead a life focused on egoism is the shortest way to sadness; as the author puts it, it is to have “hell in this life.”
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Authentic Joy Is the Reward
How beautiful is the life of a man who, when still young, refused all sorts of pleasures and selflessly engaged in the fight; and who, on the edge of maturity, sees he still has a large reserve of strength and opportunities to strive so that his struggle is victorious! [Legionário, Jan 1, 1944]
There is no true joy except in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the shadow of the Cross. The more a man mortifies himself, the more joyful he is; the more he seeks pleasures, the sadder he becomes.
That is why he was cheerful in the heyday of Christian Civilization—just think of the Middle Ages. Today, the more ‘de-Catholicized’ he is, the sadder he becomes.
This transformation becomes more accentuated from generation to generation. For example, 19th-century man no longer had the delicious “douceur de vivre” [from the French, ‘sweetness of living.’] of the 18th century. But how much more filled with peace and inner well-being he was than today’s man! [Catolicismo, n. 29 (May 1953)]
The Idealist’s Anthem
Who Are We?
We are:
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Those who bend not even one knee before Baal. [Baal: An idol of the Phoenicians; in this phrase, Baal is the idol of the modern world]
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Those who have Thy Law written on the bronze of our souls and do not allow this century’s doctrines to engrave their errors on this bronze made sacred by Thy Redemption.
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Those who love the immaculate purity of orthodoxy as the most precious treasure and reject any pact with heresy, its infiltration and works.
Those who give no quarter to insolent and proud wickedness or vice boasting about with pride and scorning virtue. [Legionário, Oct. 22, 1946]
Who Are We?
We are sons of confidence who will become this virtue’s heroes and champions! The more events seem to belie the voice of grace telling us, “You will win,” the more we believe in Mary’s victory![Dec. 20, 1991]
Who Are We?
In the storm, seeming disorder, distress and breakdown of all that would mean our victory, we are those who trusted and never doubted even when evil seemed to have won forever. [Aug. 9, 1995]
The Idealist’s Prayer
O Virgin Mother, Lady of Fatima, who announced to the world such extreme afflictions and joys by revealing the terrible chastisements and great triumphs that Christendom will go through; Thou who didst denounce with such clarity the extremes of moral abomination we have reached while making us see the fullness of thy unfathomable sanctity, I beseech thee to change my soul.
Permit me not to remain one of the countless persons with short horizons whose interest is reduced to the sphere of my own ego.
Instead, make it so that through unpretentiousness and selflessness, I may become an open and ardent soul capable of gauging the extremes envisaged at Fatima to their full extent.
And to take an intransigent and complete position on behalf of the sacrosanct extreme that Thou art, o my Mother—extreme love of God, extreme purity, extreme humility, extreme and unbreakable combativeness! [May 8, 1971]
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