OBSERVANCE OF THE HOLY HEARTS OF JESUS AND MARY
The Church and Christendom
In order to promote Christendom, i.e. the social and political reign of Our Lord, Holy Mother Church established two important institutions. First of all, the royal or imperial anointing and coronation, a sacramental which gives a participation in the Kingship of Christ, and graces in order to fulfil the corresponding mission. However, faced with the social chaos after Charlemagne’s death, the Church reminded even barons and knights that they had, at their own level, the same duties as the kings. Consequently, She Christianised the military dubbing, modelling it after the coronation rite and giving it an official mission along with the corresponding graces. This is how Christendom reached its apex.
However, in order to protect Christendom, the Church also founded another two institutions: the Crusades, with the temporary vow of the Cross, and Military Orders –Orders of Chivalry– of a permanent nature, with religious vows for religious knights and private vows for secular knights. So, how could the Kingship of Christ be restored today? Quite probably, using institutions established for that very purpose! By definition, they are the best way to reach the goals they were given: good for all times and everywhere.
It is upon these last two perennial institutions that the Order of the Knights of Our Lady was founded in France in 1945 by Gérard Lafond, with the support of Dom Gabriel Gontard, Benedictine Abbot of St Wandrille, and was canonically erected by Bishop Roger Michon of Chartres in 1965, with Our Lady as our Sovereign and St Michael as our Grand-Master. It was later also canonically erected in Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain.
The Knights of Our Lady
Of course, one does not enter the Order as one would join an association. The postulant is received as a squire after a minimum formation of 6 months. After another 2 years, he may take temporary vows as a donate for a 2-year period, which is indefinitely renewable. Then, at the call of the Master in Council, he may be admitted to his final profession, and to the knightly dubbing.
When the private vows of Conversion of Morals (life according to the Rule), Fidelity to the Order (obedience and fraternal mutual aid) and Defence of the Church (vow similar to the Crusade vow, to defend the Church and Christendom at the risk of one’s life) are definitively taken, the donate receives the white mantle stamped with the cross of the Order. The following day, after the vigil at arms and Holy Mass, he is knighted.
The Battlefield
On the battlefield, more than anywhere else, one is likely to face death, injuries and traitors. The first crack took place, only ten years later, in 1955: it was a deviation that tended to turn the Order into a worldly intellectual circle. But the most serious was undoubtedly the one that followed the implementation of the Conciliar reforms, in 1970.
Nevertheless, in that same year, faithful to their pre-Conciliar Rule, a number of knights confirmed their rejection of the erroneous concepts that had emerged in the wake of “Vatican II”, as well as of the reformed liturgy. The new members henceforth received the liturgical dubbing – Benedictio Novi Militis from the Roman Pontifical – from Archbishop Lefebvre himself. His 1974 Declaration and numerous reminders, like his 1976 Lille sermon and 1988 homily in which he explained that, if he was to consecrate four bishops, it was due to the necessity to secure valid ordinations and other sacraments, were adopted as the Order’s own guideline. In 1995, the traditional branch called the “Order of the Knights of Our Lady, Observance of the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary” were approved by a decree from the Canonical Commission of the Society of St Pius X. The blue patonced cross of the Order was stamped with the scarlet Holy Hearts.
More casualties on the battlefield were however to be expected, as a rapprochement of SSPX with Conciliar Rome seemed to be taking shape in 2012, and in 2022, with a “coup d’état” by a perjured newly elected Magistral Lieutenant, who remained at the head of a splinter branch with the support of a religious, while two clerics had found it opportune to start their own tiny Order “of Our Lady of the Assumption” for their own service, with 2 of our former members in Europe for one and 3 of them in America for the other one, without ever recruiting anybody else in so many years.
The Order Today
Spread at the four corners of the world, the Knights of Our Lady commit themselves to the recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the entire Rosary every week, to set aside a certain time for daily mental prayer, to go on a yearly closed retreat, to pursue their doctrinal and spiritual formation, to train physically, to attend the monthly chapter meetings of their local commandery, and to participate in the combats of the Order for the reign of Christ the King. The wives and daughters of members may also be admitted. There are also pages and cadets, who prepare for knighthood from a young age, and may remain in the Order all their lives, without having to change orientation or spirituality.
The knightly vocation –to work in the temporal city, with the graces of knighthood, to establish the kingship of Our Lord– is the vocation par excellence of the laity. In particular, men “enjoying an extensive social influence are naturally called to chivalry” (Rule 2:1). It is meant for natural leaders with a social influence (Rule). In 1979, on the occasion of his priestly Jubilee, Archbishop Lefebvre solemnly called for this commitment: “We must make a Crusade […] in order to restore Christendom, as the Church desires it to be […]. with the same principles […]. You must act […]. You should get organised […].”
The Knights of Our Lady are consequently active in the field of charitable action and help, the service to the sick during pilgrimages, doctrinal and physical formation, and the education of the youth, but first and foremost their thrust is in the winning back of minds and hearts, as well as of the political and social institutions, to Christ the King, and therefore tirelessly work for the defence of the Faith and the restoration of Christendom. In 2023 and 2024, while dozens of new members took the surcoat of the Order, seven new knights made their profession, received the white mantle and, after the all-night vigil at arms, were dubbed by His Excellency Bishop Ballini or His Excellency Bishop Stobnicki.
Only Official Web Sites
militiasanctaemariae.com and militiamariae.net