OUR FRENCH CAVALRY SWORD

As the story goes, my father-in-law, a doughboy who served in France during World War I, brought the sword home when he was discharged from the Army. A Frenchwoman of his acquaintance gave him the sword, which she said belonged to her deceased husband. I hasten to add that Doughboy Joe was not married when he served in the war.



The hilt of the sword appears to be made of copper or brass, and the blade, which is 34" to 35" in length, is made of steel. The sheath is iron and is entirely covered with rust. The sword and sheath together are heavy and, no doubt, were quite a load when dangling on a belt from the ring of iron on the sheath.



On the blunt side of the blade is an engraved inscription which says as nearly as I can make out "Mre d'Armes de Chât (?) Xbre 1883 Cavrié légère MLé (?) 1822 - (?)1883". The serial number stamped on the handle of the sword is (? ?) A 20893.

I wish we knew a bit more about the sword. I Googled around and found no pictures of the exact same sword, only similar swords. The weapon appears to be an 1883 French cavalry sword, and it seems not to be a hidden treasure worth a bucket of money.

Update from: susan s. in the comments:

What you call the "handle" is also referred to as the "hilt". It is made up of the guard which is what is made of metal and the handle which appears to be wrapped in leather and stitched into ribs to keep it from slipping in the hand. (I learned all I know about these things on the American version of "Antique Road Show.")

STORY OF THE DAY - FAST FORWARD

Fast forwarding through her messages
hoping to hear from old boyfriends who
finally realize the treasure they've
thrown away.

From StoryPeople.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY OH, BOY

Rick Santorum announces the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.

"Let America be America again."

Brilliant!

Rep. Anthony Weiner chokes up and admits he did it and then lied about it.

"This was a very dumb thing to do."

Really?

The Louisiana House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill to place a Ten Commandments monument in front of the State Capitol.

"HB277 generated debate prior in a House committee when it was questioned whether such a monument could make non-Christians and Jews uncomfortable." (My emphasis)

What can I say?

UPDATE: Neither Rick Santorum nor any of his brilliant aides came up with his campaign slogan. The words come from a poem by Langston Hughes:

Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

by Langston Hughes

ST LUKE'S IN MARYLAND THE FIRST TO JOIN THE RC ORDINARIATE

From the The Huffington Post:

An Episcopal parish in Maryland announced Monday that it will become the first in the United States to join the Roman Catholic Church under a Vatican process designed to bring disgruntled Anglicans and Episcopalians into its fold.

St. Luke's Episcopal parish in Bladensburg will become part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington within the next few months. It will sever ties from its liberal bishop, who has spoken out in favor of same-sex marriage and other controversial issues.

The bishop, John Bryson Chane, said in a statement Monday that he approved the separation. Chane said the decision was made with "mutual respect," adding that "Christians move from one church to another with far greater frequency than in the past, sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups."

The parish will lease its land from the Episcopal diocese with the option to purchase.

Godspeed to the folks at St Luke's. The transition seems to have taken place in a civilized manner, and the people and clergy had no notion that the property was theirs to take without compensation.

Nowhere do I find mention of the size of the congregation at St Luke's nor whether the entire congregation joined the ordinariate.

UPDATE: I learned something else new tonight. Anglicanorum coetibus is pronounced Anglican-orum chay-tee-boose). I did not know that.

UPDATE 2: For further information on St Luke's Church and their process of moving to the Roman Catholic ordinariate see Ann Fontaine's post at The Lead.

D-DAY - IN REMEMBRANCE

In remembrance of all who fought and all who died in the Normandy beach landings which began on June 6, 1944, and in the battles to secure territory that followed the landings.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France is located on the site of the temporary American St. Laurent Cemetery, established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944 and the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. The cemetery site, at the north end of its ½ mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,387 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. On the Walls of the Missing in a semicircular garden on the east side of the memorial are inscribed 1,557 names. Rosettes mark the names of those since recovered and identified.

From the American Battle Monuments Commission.

It's amazing that the plan for an invasion of this magnitude by the Allied Forces was kept secret and completely surprised the German forces in the area.

Grandpère and I visited in the late 1980s. The cemeteries are sad and beautiful. The ghosts linger on the hallowed ground. I remember seeing old veterans searching for the graves of their comrades in arms, and family members searching for the graves of their loved ones, and the quiet tears that often followed once they found the markers.

Until I visited the site, movies notwithstanding, I never quite realized the difficulty of the landing at Omaha Beach, the steepness of the cliffs, the exposure once the troops reached the top, not to mention those who were shot or drowned when they left the landing boats. More than 4,400 Allied troops died in a single day.

For those who died in the service of their countries.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead; We give thee thanks for all those thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of their countries. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence, that the good work which thou has begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. AMEN.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 42)

Note: Reposted from last year and the year before.

AND THE RAINS CAME!

Out damned spots! I don't know what the spots in the photos are. They sometimes appear when I don't have enough light.

Spots be damned, we had a good rain this afternoon. For a while there, I was worried. The thunder clapped; the lightening flashed; the wind blew, but no rain fell. I thought we'd have a storm without rain. And then the rains came.


Grandpère says that we have not had rain since Mardi Gras, which was on March 8, three months ago. Thanks be to God for the liquid refreshment.

DIARMUID MARTIN - A PROPHET SCORNED

From Maureen Dowd at the New York Times:

THE archbishop of Dublin was beginning to sniffle.

He could not get through a story about “a really nasty man” — an Irish priest who sexually abused, physically tortured and emotionally threatened vulnerable boys — without pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his nose.

“He built a swimming pool in his own garden, to which only boys of a certain age, of a certain appearance were allowed into it,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told me recently. “There were eight other priests in that parish, and not one of them seemed to think there was something strange about it.”

Two years after learning the extent of the depraved and Dickensian treatment of children in the care of the Irish Catholic Church — a fifth circle of hell hidden for decades by church and police officials — the Irish are still angry and appalled.

The only church leader who escapes their disgust is the no-nonsense, multilingual Martin. He was sent home to Dublin in 2003 after 27 years in the Vatican bureaucracy and diplomatic corps and found the Irish church in crisis, reeling from a cover-up that spanned the tenures of four past Dublin archbishops.
....

In February, Martin held an unprecedented “Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” at a Dublin cathedral, where he asked forgiveness from God and victims of abuse and praised the courage of those who had come forward.

Wearing a simple black cassock, he helped wash the feet of eight victims and conceded that the church “will always bear this wound within it.”
....

In return for doing the right thing, he has been ostracized by fellow bishops in Ireland and snubbed by the Holy See.
....

Yet Martin, famous protector of victims, is an outlier of the club, while Cardinal Bernard Law, notorious protector of pedophiles, has a cushy Vatican sanctuary. And Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was in league with the notorious abuser of seminarians and inseminator of women, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, is the dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome.

Garry O’Sullivan, the managing editor of The Irish Catholic in Dublin, told me that Martin “has had a prophetic role in the church.”

I really don't get it. Cardinals Law and Sodano are rewarded for their roles in covering up child abuse. Because of the decades long cover-up, I left the Roman Catholic Church in 1996. I knew that a portion of the tithe I gave to my parish church went to the diocese, a portion of which went to fund the cover-up of child abuse, and I could no longer write a check. I'm not saying all Roman Catholics should do what I did. I respect those who remain to fight the good fight.

When he [Archbishop Martin] was growing up, his mother always told him “go serve your Mass but don’t hang around with the priest.”
....

In his brusque way, he rejects the appellation of hero.

“Nobody could have read what I have read and not did what I did,” he said as he walked me out into the windy spring day. “If I didn’t react to the stories I heard, there would be something wrong.” (My emphasis)

Yes indeed, there would be something wrong. There is still something very wrong when a prophet and a hero is "ostracized by fellow bishops in Ireland and snubbed by the Holy See", and others in high places who participated in the cover-up are rewarded.

Thank God for Archbishop Martin!

Thanks to Ann for the link.

BISHOP YELLOW BELLY ON THE DEFENSIVE

The wikileaks of the Anglican Communion has Bishop Yellow Belly on the defensive, and Miss Young Person on the outs with the Mother Church.

Thanks to SCG at Wake Up and Live.

HOPE, FAITH, LOVE, AND FORGIVENESS

Reinhold Niebuhr:

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

“Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

“Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

“No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.

“Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

H/T to Rmj at Adventus.

SORRY, WE'RE NOT READY FOR A WOMAN

A good many folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, who see Christians arguing about women clergy and bishops and same-sexuality, bi-sexuality, trans-sexuality look at us in wonder, and not a few conclude, "I want no part of that." Women clergy, women in leadership in the church, same-, bi-, and trans-sexuality are simply not issues for them. Yet, those of us in the church continue to waste time and energy on these matters instead of being about the business of building the Kingdom of God. Is it any wonder that the generations vote with their feet and don't occupy the pews in the churches?

The Episcopal Church has progressed toward implementing just and equal policies for women in the church, but, at the grass roots level, those of us who are present know that in certain parishes and dioceses, all is not as rosy as it might appear in the press reports. The church has had women priests since 1977, 34 years, if you want to count from the date women were" regularly" ordained. It's way past time for those in parishes who say, "We're not ready for a woman priest," and those in dioceses who say, "We're not ready for a woman bishop," to put their (I call it what I believe it is.) misogyny behind them and begin to focus on calling or electing the most qualified of the candidates and the person who is the best fit for the parish or diocese where they will be serving, leaving aside entirely the gender of the candidate as a consideration.

Sadly, the present situation on the ground for LGTB clergy shows even less progress toward justice and equality than for women, but I'll leave that discussion for another post. In the meantime, let's not deceive ourselves into thinking that we don't pay a price for the inequality that remains.