Restoring Le Royaume de France Catholique
La réduction française philosophique de Ste. Jehanne d'Arc
La réduction française philosophique de Ste. Jehanne d'Arc
La réduction française philosophique de Ste. Jehanne d'Arc is a transcendent, systematic model of the French royal hearts of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux developed through the influence of the life of St. Joan of Arc, Thérèsian Carmelite spirituality, and the philosophical lens of Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross). Its aim is Faith, Hope, and Love "on earth as it is in Heaven" through the majesty of French Catholic spirituality and True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its means is personalized, phenomenological devotion to the combined hearts and spirituality of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
The Story
What is Royaume France?
Royaume France's purpose is to inspire others to make a dogmatic confession of Catholic faith in the spirit of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary as prescribed by St. Louis de Montfort. Our means of inspiring that confession of faith under the mantle of the Blessed Virgin is devotion to the eternal form of Our Lady's Catholic and Royal France under the patronage of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the two co-secondary patronesses of France.
The Royaume France model, built through the phenomenological reduction of the combined hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, is a transcendent form of traditional French Catholic spirituality designed to keep us on what I call "the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed with St. Joan and St. Thérèse" to the Kingdom of God. Without such a model, we likely will be swept away by the prevailing hurricane force winds of modern culture, philosophies, and disoriented spiritualities. Our goal is Heaven; our understanding of the only means to attain it is the Holy Catholic Church; our fundamental spirituality is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and the manifestation of all this is what we call the "Royal Heart." The Royal Heart is foremost a spiritual orientation resulting from Royaume France which naturally leads to a Catholic worldview in cultural and political affairs.
Foundational to meriting the Royal Heart of St. Joan and St. Thérèse in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the rejection of the grave errors of modernity - it's ideologies, philosophical manifestations, cultural premises, and socio-political structures.
Royal Hearts are inherently, substantively opposed to modernity for the simple reason that we are for the Kingdom of God. In the temporal cultural world, we are different from "reactionaries" who simply "conserve" the present (thus, fancying themselves as "conservatives"). Royal Hearts have a positive understanding of the Kingdom of God as our model "on earth as it is in Heaven," however imperfectly we instantiate that Kingdom on this earth. Therefore, we oppose modernity with its progressive liberalism not because we are "reactionaries" who are "afraid of change," but because we are Catholic and Royal Hearts who are pointing to a superior model in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary where Jesus Christ reigns in all His glory. We are "for" the better manifestation. We "oppose" what draws us further from it, while supporting what moves us closer.
Thus, we often share immediate goals with reactionaries. It is not unusual that we oppose the same liberal evil. However, we are not reactionaries attempting to conserve the existing ways; we always are seeking movement toward the superior model, a very different and life-giving motive. The interests of reactionaries and royalists coincide but are grounded in different paradigms.
My goal as a Royal Heart, and as reflected in Royaume France, is the rejection of modernity for the glory of Mary and to help usher in the reign of her Immaculate Heart. This model is one that provides lasting spiritual support in that effort. Only those who "endure to the end" will be saved. To reject modernity for the sake of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to take a step away from the gates of Hades and toward the Kingdom of God.
This is Royaume France, the "form" of True Devotion to Mary instantiated in us that we call the "Royal Heart" of St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
Royaume France's Goals
The action plan
Our desire is to evangelize and perform spiritual acts of mercy through the following:
Royaume France's Programs
Seek the Kingdom: True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin with Eucharistic Adoration as the most efficacious means for the renewal of our hearts in sanctifying grace and for acquiring the grace of repentant, dogmatic faith in Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church.
Love the Kingdom: The Dove and Rose devotion to the secondary co-patronesses of France, Sts. Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux, as a means of most efficaciously affecting True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin in our hearts, growing in sanctifying grace, and journeying joyfully and faithfully toward the mystical Kingdom of Catholic France in Eucharistic Adoration.
Defend the Kingdom: The Royal Hearts as a means of most efficaciously affecting the contemplative, counterrevolutionary spirit of the Kingdom of Catholic France in our hearts, which will aid us in persevering in sanctifying grace.
Royaume France's Goals
Seek the Kingdom: Bring True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by St. Louis de Montfort to as many hearts as possible. To increase devotion to Eucharistic adoration through Mary in all of these hearts.
Love the Kingdom: Bring The Dove and Rose devotion to Sts. Joan and Thérèse to as many hearts as possible as a means to most fully and deeply fulfill our True Devotion to Mary. To raise awareness of and to increase joyful devotion to Sts. Joan and Thérèse in all of these hearts.
Defend the Kingdom: Bring the spirit of The Royal Hearts to as many souls as possible. To increase the counterrevolutionary spirit of Traditional French Catholicism in all of these hearts.
Edith Stein - our Philosophy mentor
Edith Stein is our mentor for the philosophical foundations of Royaume France
The development of Royaume France was in accord with the following:
"For Thomas, the first axiom of philosophy—if we wish to use the word—is that God himself is the first Truth, the principle and criterion of all truth. From God proceeds any truth we can get hold of. The task of first philosophy follows from this fact: it must take God as its object. It must set forth the idea of God and the mode of his being and knowing.
Then it must establish the relationship to God of whatever else that exists, in its essence and existence, and the relationship to the divine knowledge of the knowledge of other knowing beings. We must bring to bear on these questions everything we can know about them, taking what we should not only from natural knowledge but also from revelation."
~ Edith Stein, Knowledge and Faith (The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 8, Kindle locations 818 and 821)
Reductive versus Emergent Approach
The Royaume France approach is uniquely reductive
I have written extensively on the subject of empathic devotion to St. Joan of Arc. Our Lord and Our Lady have transformed my life through this uniquely powerful relationship. The Holy Spirit has willed to provide the sanctifying grace I need in hierarchical fashion, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and then through St. Joan. I have been fascinated for over a decade as to the process and mode of this grace. It feels as though I am called to think it through for whatever mysterious purpose that thinking out, that modeling of the grace, serves the Kingdom of God.
The key aid has been Edith Stein, known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Here is why. The point of great importance in the model for which I seek is the interface between our natural philosophy and God’s supernatural grace. This seems to be my primordial point of focused interest. I contemplate the zero-point, the event horizon, between philosophy and grace. Where does our natural philosophical orientation meet grace, thus subsuming the former into the latter for our transformation into a member of the Kingdom? How are our minds transformed in congruous participation with the heart? As a philosopher saint, Edith Stein has proven invaluable in this endeavor.
Stein was a pre-conversion phenomenologist who, post-conversion, reconciled phenomenology with the scholasticism of the Church. The result has been a treasury of knowledge for my cause. Edith Stein integrated modern philosophical thought with the ancient tradition of the Church. She is modern without being a modernist, a spiritual talent sorely needed in contemporary society.
Her description of the philosopher’s need to engage a mentor, even across time and space, by studying their thinking from “grounds to conclusions” overwhelmed me as being most appropriate for understanding my own devotion to Joan, my mentor, and an introduction to Edith’s philosophy on empathy. It was my first reflection on empathy from Edith Stein’s perspective and the beginning of my articulation of “empathic devotion.” I began to realize that it was empathy, in the Steinian sense, that I felt with Joan of Arc, the very empathy Edith wrote upon extensively and described above.
The integration of Edith’s own model of empathy to ours, from the Holy Spirit’s voluntary Divine Glance of Grace, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to our empathic devotion to Joan, led me to the following proposition on the issue of the zero-point between our natural philosophy and supernatural grace, that is, about the point where they meet. Repentance, with the goodwill assumed by it, is that zero-point. Repentance makes us willing to listen, to follow another from “grounds to conclusions.” Without repentance Joan inspires us naturally in our own lives as we seek our own way (emergent qualities), but we are not transformed supernaturally in sanctifying grace to see as Joan sees (reductive qualities). By repentance we enter Joan’s life empathically in grace, allowing her to teach and guide us with the aid of the Holy Spirit and through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
For those who would ask how to prepare oneself to be transformed through devotion to St. Joan, I would say true repentance, an empathic willingness (goodwill) to see the world as Joan sees it, and the reductive act of surrendering all to Divine Providence through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This is the substance of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness that is our aim in inspiring others to seek a repentant, dogmatic confession of Catholic faith.
