[Frank Sheed]

The inimitable Mr. Hillaire Belloc:

From his first entrance into the public arena, Belloc made it clear where his allegiance lay. Standing for election to Parliament in 1906, he opened his campaign by announcing to the mainly Protestant voters: “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”

Anticipating the conversion of Mrs. Tax:

Heretics all, whoever you be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.
But Catholic (wo)men that live upon wine ;-o)
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine.
Benedicamus Domino.

What sustained Belloc? He himself would be the last to make explicit broadcast of it, but we may well conclude that a soldierly love for Our Blessed Lady figured predominantly in all that he tried to do for the Faith. He once wrote of Our Lady to Gilbert Chesterton: “She never fails us. She has never failed me in any demand.” And in one of his poems addressed to Our Lady, he says:

Help of the half-defeated, House of Gold,
Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendor apart, supreme and aureoled,
The Battler’s vision and the world’s reply.
You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengeance and the glories of the bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

[Tax-chick]

I do NOT live upon wine! I live upon lentils, chickpeas and eggplant, and the wine is just to wash it down!

[AnAmericanMother]

Belloc deserves to remembered for the Cautionary Tales alone!

. . every time she shouted, "FIRE!"
They only answered, "Little liar."
And therefore, when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the house, were burned.

- "Matilda, Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death."

[Salvation]

Finished three decades of the Rosary and only to #88!!