Prologue to Cor Jesu Sacratissimum: One of Us

 

cor-jesu-prologue

Detail from Rose Window, Chartres Cathedral.

 

Today, we feature an extract from my just published book Cor Jesu Sacratissimum: From Secularism and the New Age to Christendom Renewed – the book’s prologue.

That said, this extract may seem familiar to long term readers, for years ago, back in 2010, it appeared at this weblog in an earlier form.

Indeed, over the years, I shared a number of portions of the book here in draft form – such as this long autobiographical section here regarding my conversion experience.

(But having mentioned that slice of autobiography, let me hasten to add my new book is not an autobiography! Rather it only occasionally includes autobiographical elements to illustrate the main themes of the text. Thus some of my experience as a New Ager at the Findhorn community in Scotland is included, as well experiences living in Catholic Ireland, France and Spain.)

At any rate, a point I want to make is that small portions of the book have appeared here in draft form, although the vast majority of the book has never been seen anywhere before. And indeed, the draft material that has previously appeared here has usually been reworked into a considerably better finished form.

But having explained all that, I now give you the book’s prologue!

 

Prologue: One of Us

One of us drives a 1937 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, plated in chromium that gleams.

One of us picks bananas for a living.

One of us longs to play at Wimbledon.

One of us longs to go to Outer Space.

One of us longs for the next edition of Better Homes and Gardens.

One of us designs cigarette packets and studies how to target customers.

One of us is dying from cancer of the lung.

One of us aches in fear. (He bungled the job and left his prints at the scene of the crime.)

One of us shakes in fear—of inadequate care in her old age. (And so she hoards: stocks and shares, property and policies— not to mention Krugerands.)

One of us sees inadequate care everywhere she looks and pours her lifeblood into social causes.

One of us is very kind and simple. (Her door is open to all who come, and she feeds them.)

One of us cannot stop his pedophile fantasies and loathes himself.

One of us is a pedophile and does not loathe himself at all.

One of us prays fervently to Allah for the conversion of Europe.

One of us worships at the “church” of Elvis.

One of us dreams of owning every issue of The Amazing Spiderman in near mint condition.

One of us ensures her seven poodles never fail to receive the most immaculate of grooming.

One of us is so starved that her breasts produce no milk for her baby.

One of us is fighting to get her food in a brutal third world country.

One of us longs to help the animals. (She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.)

One of us would “heal” the world—by eliminating “all God-talk and metaphysical nonsense.”

One of us regrets bitterly the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

One of us had thirty years of psychotherapy—and wonders why.

One of us murdered someone.

One of us was just aborted.

One of us stares at television from morning to eve—and is two years old.

One of us aims to give every human being the respect, mirroring, and interest that each one craves.

One of us photographs Playboy “Bunnies” for a living.

One of us is infuriated by “intolerant fascists” and regularly explodes when they refuse to conform to her own codes of conduct.

One of us is a groupie.

One of us believes in a “New Age of Aquarius” and that all this “Old Age” stuff will shortly vanish from the world.

One of us volunteers long hours in an African hospital that is breaking down.

One of us studies melting polar ice—with growing horror.

One of us is freezing.

One of us prays 159 Hail Marys a day, imploring help for humanity.

One of us works seven days a week, 16 hours a day in a sweatshop—making clothes for us to wear.

One of us longs for the perfect clothes, the perfect house, the perfect lawn, and the perfect pool.

One of us has never stepped beyond the confines of the English-speaking world.

And…

One of us looks on at all this, with a Sacred Heart of Infinite Burning Charity and feeling every individual gesture, tear, and tragedy. He calls each of us to come be warmed at His Blazing Hearth of Love and join Him in His Work.

End of book extract.

I shall just add that many, if not all of the above, foreshadow definite themes that appear in the book.

For example, the last one about the ‘confines’ of the Anglosphere – the world dominant – is most pertinent indeed to what I am trying to say.

But that is all for now. The global links are for Amazon worldwide and will take you to where you can see the book or buy it. And, a final request to my regular readers, if any of you felt you could share this post using the Facebook and Twitter etc buttons below, I would be particularly grateful. Thank you if you can help me make this book better known!

 

Click to see the book at your local Amazon:

buy-at-amazon

OR – for the Hardback Edition:

buy-at-amazon-roger-buck

 

This entry was posted in Roger's Weblog and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments are closed, but you can leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

One Comment

  1. Lynn
    Posted 18 December 2016 at 19:37 | Permalink

    You’ve captured humanity and reminded me to be humble.

One Trackback

  1. […] If anyone would like to see the complete unedited text of this meditation on the Sacred Heart, you can find it here. […]

  • Books from Roger Buck

    Foreword by Roger Buck

    Support Our Work

  • The Gentle Traditionalist Returns!

    New Book from Angelico Press!

    "The Gentle Traditionalist returns with a vengeance in this stand-alone sequel ... this book skewers the modern malaise with the kind of sanity we have come to expect from this author” — CHARLES A. COULOMBE

    ”Buck’s latest foray is a grand success ... The story features the same singular combination of whimsy and surprise, keen social commentary, and deft argumentation as the first [book]. The Gentle Traditionalist Returns appeals to what is best and deepest in us, so that we will reengage with that which ultimately matters while there is yet time.” — PETER KWASNIEWSKI

    ”A brilliant diagnosis of the spiritual malaise of modern society, written with gentleness, generosity, humour, pathos ... and, above all else, love”— MAOLSHEACHLANN Ó CEALLAIGH

    buy-at-amazon Video about New Book here:

  • Books from Roger Buck

     

    The Gentle Traditionalist

     

    ”Roger Buck ... in the spirit of Chesterton and Belloc ... takes on everything—from the reforms of Vatican II to the New Age ... a wonderful book.”— MICHAEL MARTIN

    ”A tale of whimsical fantasy, melancholy realism, and supernatural joy ... Buck’s deftly-reasoned post-modern apologetic for full-blooded Catholicism—a Syllabus of Errors in narrative form, a rousing hymn to ‘meaning, grace, beauty, life’.” — PETER KWASNIEWSKI

    "As brilliant a guide for the perplexed as this age is capable of producing” — CHARLES A. COULOMBE

    buy-at-amazon

    See Reviews in Full Here!

     

    Read First Chapter Online Here!

     

    Cor Jesu Sacratissimum

     

    cor-jesu-roger-buck

    ”Buck goes to the heart of the problem paralyzing our broken-hearted world ... moving beyond the spirit of the age to the Spirit who moves all ages.” — JOSEPH PEARCE

    ”In this elegant feast of a book, Roger Buck ... expertly skewers the modern world ... without a drop of malice in his compassionate soul ... to reveal the bright, shining love and truth at the center of the universe—symbolised by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and incarnate in the Catholic Church.” — CHARLES A. COULOMBE

    ”A great service to the Church ... Buck shows that the New Age is an attempt, however flawed, to escape the materialism of modernity, and that it is Catholicism in its traditional forms that can best reveal the immense reality of the suffering and love for all mankind of Christ’s Sacred Heart.”— JOSEPH SHAW

    buy-at-amazon

    See Reviews in Full Here!

     

  • EWTN Interview with Roger Buck here!

    TWO-part “Celtic Connections” EWTN  Interview!

    Part One here.

    Part Two here.

  • First Video from Kim Buck!