Once writing was not The New Journalism
Bloy and on Bloy -Awaiting the Cossacks-brief observation (unsure of source)
Paradise Lost.] Look about you on the distant mountains, on all the balconies of the horizon; look at those panic-stricken heads, those millions of faces taking on expressions of horror and grief as soon as the Fall and the lost Paradise are mentioned. Here is the universal testimony of men’s consciences: the deepest, the most invincible testimony.
There is but one sorrow and that is to have lost the Garden of Delights, and
there is but one hope and one desire, to recover it. The poet seeks it in his own way and the filthiest profligate seeks it in his. It is the only goal. Napoleon at Tilsit and a foul drunkard picked up in the gutter have precisely the same thirst. They must have the water from the Four Rivers of Paradise. All know instinctively that it cannot be bought too dearly. The ditch digger and the tinker spend their fortnight’s salary on it, and Napoleon, four million men.
Leon Bloy
AWAITING THE COSSACKS
To understand Leon Bloy it is necessary to know about the appearance of Our Lady at La Salette. There, two shepherd children saw the vision of the Blessed Virgin who wept and foretold dire mis-fortunes for the sinful world. The authenticity of the vision was doubted, the children were persecuted, and all attempts at the fostering of devotion to the Lady of La Salette were discouraged. To Bloy there was no doubt, and he undertook a personal crusade to spread the message and devotion of La Salette. He wrote Celle qui Pleure, a book dealing with the event, and constantly referred to the vision in his conversation, letters, and journals.
Due to the apparitions at Fatima and the second great war the Catholic world has become increasingly aware of Divine Justice. This explains much of the interest of the faithful in Leon Bloy, for Bloy considered himself the "Voice of Justice." As he beheld mankind busy about many secular things, but heedless of warnings and portents, he complained, "I die for need of Justice."
It seems more than coincidental that Bloy was born in the year of the apparition at La Salette and died in the year of the apparitions of Fatima. His love for Mary was tremendous and he spent the greater part of his life publicizing her warnings. Were he alive today he would undoubtedly be a tireless champion and trumpeter of the message of Fatima.
====
Our Lady appeared to these two children on the top of the mountain called La Salette. On this particular day, September 19, 1846, the two cow herders fell asleep around noontime in the great heat. They were on a mountain slope at an altitude of about six thousand feet. When they woke up, they saw a beautiful Lady sitting on a rock in the bed of a dried stream. She wept bitterly. Finally, after reassuring the fearful children she began to talk to them. Later, she gave to each child separately a secret, which they never revealed to anyone except to Pope Pius IX.
One of the extraordinary features of the apparitions at La Salette is that the children not only understood the long message, but could repeat it several times without hesitation. The message of La Salette, accompanied with the bitter tears of Our Lady is even more significant than that accorded to Catherine Laboure at the Rue de Bac: "If my people do not humble themselves, I will be forced to let go of the arms of my Son . . . I have suffered for you for a long time . . . If I would not have my Son abandon you, I am forced to pray to Him without ceasing. But as for you, you pay no heed." The message of La Salette is one of the bitterest: "There will be great famine, children under seven will be seized with palsy and die in the arms of those who nurse them. The rest will do penance because of the famine." But in addition to this prophecy, she spoke with love and assurance: "If the people are converted, the very rocks and stones will turn to heaps of grain…”
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3050
https://www.kubikbooks.com/pages/books/194877/leon-bloy/she-who-weeps-our-lady-of-la-salette
What I like best is to read a dull critique by somewhat intelligent people discourse upon mythic truth of imagination, intuition from the wrong premise. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/la-salette-sorting-fact-from-fiction
I like Bloy for his feeling and his art. I am astonished no poets well known have come forward.
Ko-fi.com/thejournaloflingeringsanity
DISCLAIMER: The Journal of Lingering Sanity is a reader-supported publication from Old Gold Mountain (Chinese: 旧金山. We are beholden to truth not party. “The time has come," the Journal said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings— And why the sea is boiling hot— And whether pigs have wings.”
This Surrealist is viewer supported. Please do your part today.