Templar Edification

The Knights Templar formally the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ of the Temple of Solomon played a significant military role in the Crusades, a series of religious wars initiated by Western European Christians primarily between 1095 and 1291. These campaigns aimed to recapture Jerusalem and other holy sites in the Levant from Muslim control, while also defending Christian pilgrims and the Crusader states established after the First Crusade. Levant is French for rising sun in the east Mediterranean. Now Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria. Home of Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam or Mohammedism. The phrasing "drive back the encroachment of the Muslims" reflects a perspective common in medieval Christian sources and some modern interpretations: viewing Muslim expansion particularly by the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and ongoing control of formerly Christian territories in the Middle East as an existential threat to Christendom that needed to be reversed or contained ...

The third in our series of biblical woodcuts by Gustave Doré illustrates Matthew 27: 33-34— And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they  offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. Jerusalem in Jesus’ day had spilled beyond its borders, with settlements cropping up outside the fortified city wall. Golgotha—Calvary, in Latin, both names referring to “skull”—began as a limestone quarry on the west edge of the city. The Romans used a high outcropping or hill here as a site of public execution, with crucified victims on full display for those entering, leaving, or simply passing along the road. We don’t know how Golgotha earned its name. Legends abound. Some say that criminals were beheaded there, or that the hill looked rather like a skull, or even that it had been the burial site of Adam once upon a time. The Romans certainly didn’t care. They bored post-holes in the top to hold their crosses, crucif...

The liturgical year of the Western Church begins anew at Advent, the season of four Sundays preceding the Nativity of Our Lord. It is a time of hope and expectation, of preparing our hearts and our homes for the King. In it, we await and we watch for light amidst the dark. When it comes to Yuletide celebrations, the Church often seems out of step with the surrounding culture. We laugh, a bit bitterly, regarding the appearance of Christmas decorations even before Halloween. My children cast covetous eyes upon those homes which have decorated their trees well ahead of Thanksgiving. And who could blame the advance guard? Perhaps you may be one yourself. It’s been a rough few years, a rough couple of decades. Who am I to begrudge someone their joy? If Christmas makes you happy, well, it makes me happy too. And we could all use some good holiday cheer both early and often. Yet Advent offers to us something a little different, something more than simply delayed gratification or finger-waving...