Against the Robots

What a beautiful initiative! A novena for France. A novena to express our love for the Blessed Virgin and ask her to watch over our beautiful country with all the saints. It's pointless to rant on social media, the internet, or even in the street; it's pointless to rant if we don't ask for the intercession of our Blessed Mary for our country. If we don't do this, if this effort of prayer isn't personal and obligatory, then we have no use for France. We're just gorging ourselves on words. The intercession of the Blessed Virgin is the means to receive enough graces to hope that our country's future will be worthy of its past. Let us never believe that our future depends on anger, agitation, or grandstanding. Whatever we do, good or bad, the future also belongs, first and foremost, to our prayer. Let us never believe ourselves to be self-sufficient. Accepting our weakness, our lack, the very inadequacy of our strength and will proves that divine intercession is necessary. This acceptance marks our entry into the novena! Without realizing it, the docility linked to this acceptance, the "combination" of our soul, allows us to enter into this novena. Let us allow ourselves to be guided when the Lord has only one profound desire: to lead his little flock. Docility is the fruit of tenderness…

Some quotes from Georges Bernanos to better understand, to better discern the mission of France and the French people:

"Never before has a nation that preserved its honor perished, body and soul; its honor and its life are one."

“We face our misfortune head-on, we reject nothing of it, we mold our hearts to its measure. Whatever humiliation it brings to our poor individual destinies, it is now sacred to us since it has already taken its place in our history; it is one of the links in the long chain that connects us to our ancestors. We no longer have the right to touch it, not even to curse it. Were it to seem irreparable, it would only be irreparable for us, for we are but passing through; France remains, it will soon absorb us, our errors and our faults. The oldest Christianity in the world has so well shaped our souls that this national passion, in which the essence of the old hereditary paganism survives in other European peoples with its harshness and inflexible pride, is in us prodigiously spiritualized, retaining a certain gentleness and profound humility, which we are loath to express because no one understands it.” Not only as Christians, but as Frenchmen, it seems we have heeded the lesson of Saint Paul: we refuse to live under the law; we have entered the realm of grace. We do not feel French by right, but by grace, and we do not believe we deserve this grace. However great the sacrifices made for our country, it is not in them that we place our trust; it is always France who saves us, she is the pledge of our temporal salvation, it is from her that we await our temporal redemption. This is undoubtedly why no setback can defeat us, for we keep the pain and the affront to ourselves: she retains the expiatory power, our own faults are her redemption, our humiliations her glory

" There are no privileges, only services ; such was once the fundamental principle of the old French monarchical law."

"Europe has worked for a thousand years to replace race with nations."

“It is useless and even dangerous to write that this war is one of Force against Right, for true force never opposes true right. From the very justice of her cause, France today derives both her strength and her right. If she were momentarily defeated, it would be because she would have doubted one or the other, because she would not have fully exercised her strength and her right. But God will not allow it, or He will only allow it to better save us.”

Let us pray for France! The novena offers three commitments. Three commitments for France!:
— to take a moment each day to pray for my country (rosary, decade, or other)
— to recite the novena prayer each day
— to fast every first Friday of the month for my country

The novena prayer:

Virgin Mary,
Our Lady of France,
welcome our childlike hearts,
trusting in your loving care.
Guide us to Jesus our Savior,
so that we may receive from his Heart the graces
of his divine mercy.

We present to you our country,
its suffering, its troubles
and its conflicts,
but also its resources
and its aspirations.
Welcome them, purify them,
present them to your Son
so that He may intercede on our behalf,
direct our actions towards Good
and guide us in Truth.

We consecrate France to you
in fidelity to the hope
and strength of the Holy Spirit
received at our baptism. Amen.