Fra’ Matthew Festing

Well, it’s been almost a month since you last posted, but I was pretty sure this would stir you.

Hooray!

Gesta Deî per Anglo!

Totally off topic, but I came over here to see whether you had posted any observations concerning the soon-to-be-ex Governor of the Empire State. Perhaps you have decided it’s best to ignore the whole tawdry episode . . .

Many thanks for what is the best post I have seen on our new Grand Master! (I am a member of the Malta Auxiliary.) Please keep him in your prayers, as the Order is facing many challenges.

I hope Fra Matthew ditches that grandiose, Ruritanian, red and gold uniform worn on occasion by his predecessor. If a uniform is required, something less Gilbert & Sullivanesque and less comic to the modern eye might be in order.

Pchaaa! If you think THAT uniform is “grandiose” you must not get out much!

On the contrary, Mr Zacher. All right thinking and therefore traditionally minded people will now be hoping that the very traditional Fra Matthew will insist that the uniform be used more frequently than before. The Order of Malta is an order of chivalry; its members are knights; why should they not dress as such?
And what, pray, is wrong with Ruritania?

Hear! Hear!

Praise God! I too hope he will keep the traditional uniform. Some other orders, such as the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, have abolished their uniforms and I think that is very, very sad.

To the best of my knowledge the EOoHS has not abolished their uniform.

Barbiconi still makes them to fit, but few knights, especially in the US, bother to order them. Probably due to the noxious egalitarian and anti-aristocratic sentiments so prevalent here.

A friend of mine is a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and he and I were just discussing his uniform the other day.

I would add, that the tailored EOHSJ uniform is a very expensive outlay for something that hardly ever gets worn. This is mainly because the American Lieutenancies hardly ever do the sorts of things one would wear a military uniform to do. Normally they dress up for religious functions, and therefore just stick with the Church robes (and I don’t think that most of the Knights and Dames in the U.S. are laboring under any kind egalitarian burden. Trust me.)

Same thing goes for the SMOM uniform, at least for Americans-you practically never see it (though the SMOM does tend to party a bit more than the EOHSJ, in my experience, so you think you would see it more often.)

WAC

This might interest the readership here:

[link]

;)

Though I cannot claim to have any knowledge of what this organization does for the poor — of which it is self-appointed guardian — it nevertheless strikes me as ironic that its leader should, judging from your description, move in a world, a “class,” as far removed from the poor as possible. And if helping the poor is really the order’s mission, perhaps its emblem should be something other than a jewel-festooned crown. The fact that the discussion in the comments centers around expensive ermine robes rather reveals this whole charade for what it is.

Alert! Blog incursion from somewhere in Ireland, or, more likely perhaps, an unusually adventurous part of old Irish Boston (not to be confused, and indeed it never is, with the gracious Boston of my Brahmin ancestors).
Mr Fitzgerald disgraces his fine old Norman Irish name. It is the historic role of the aristocracies of this world to care for those over whom it has pleased an all-wise God to place them. That at the same time they keep to their traditions of dress and decorum is surely no one’s business but their own.

Hooray! John Fitzgerald returns! And we thought you were beginning to stop loving us!

I cannot claim to have any knowledge of what this organization does for the poor

I mentioned a mere snippet of the Order’s activities in my post on the late Grand Master:

The operations of the Order today are astounding. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain in the early years of Fra’ Andrew’s reign, the Order of Malta rapidly expanded its charitable works in Central and Eastern Europe. Irish knights founded an ambulance corps in the 1920s and since that time the Order has become a major provider of first-aid training, ambulance transport, and community care services. In Scotland, the Order supports Dial-A-Journey, a charity that helps to keep the elderly mobile and help them get around. Hospitals were, of course, the very first work of the Order, and it maintains hospitals today throughout the world. The hospital in Rome specializes in neurological treatment and rehabilitation. “John & Lizzies”, the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in St. John’s Wood, London, has a unit specializing in the treatment of the terminally ill.

Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem is the only provider of Western-quality health services for pregnant women in the Palestinian West Bank. The French Association of the Order of Malta runs hospitals in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Togo. The Order runs leprosy care centers in Senegal and Cambodia, as well as Brazil. In France there are nine specialized centers for the disabled, and there are similar institutions run by the Order in Hungary, Poland, Lebanon, Ecuador, and the United States. One of the most prominent works of the Order with the disabled is their help in bringing the disabled to Lourdes. (Andrew Bertie was Hospitaller of the Sanctuary of Lourdes). These are just a sample of the works carried out under the auspices of the Order of Malta; there are also orphanages, centers for youth and adolescents, kindergartens for the poor, shelters for the homeless, rehabilitation centers for drug addicts, and rapid reaction humanitarian relief teams to care for the survivors of natural disasters and war, and for the accomodation of refugees.

Now you know!

it nevertheless strikes me as ironic that its leader should, judging from your description, move in a world, a “class,” as far removed from the poor as possible.

So you would be of the opinion that those who happen to be wealthy or noble should not be involved in helping the poor? This seems rather harsh on both the rich, for it robs them of the opportunity of doing good, as well as harsh on the poor, as it robs them of the opportunity of being helped.

The fact that the discussion in the comments centers around expensive ermine robes rather reveals this whole charade for what it is.

Or perhaps the fact that you disregard 900 years of service to the poor based on the conversation of less than a handful of people on a blog rather reveals your way of thinking for the charade it is.

Nonetheless, welcome back! I knew you couldn’t keep away for long!

Leaving aside the fact that the Grand Master, along with the rest of the religious members of the order, is, not withstanding his ancestry, a poor knight (bound to Lady Poverty,) and that his work is best accomplished in going to the people who HAVE MONEY in order to turn it over to the poor (which is a nutshell description of what the Order has done for the last 900 years,) I can speak anecdotally as to the merits of the Order’s work with the poor.

Should Mr. Fitzgerald ever wish to look me up in Washington, I am sure we could go see the members of the Order, the Catholic “elite”, consoling the crippled orphans down at the Children’s Home, or up to their elbows bedpans and human excrement at the AIDS hospice.

Does he not see that this work proves as well as enhances his noble status?

WAC

“Assure everyone”? What makes you think that the readers of Mr Cusack’s esteemed blog would find assurance in the knowledge that the Grand Master of the SMOM was neither rich nor elitist? That he is not rich is certain, given that he is not only a knight, but also a monk in solemn vows.
But not elitist? Of course he is, and in the proper sense of the word: striving for the best in both himself and others, not pardoning mediocrity, and cherishing superiority in all that man can make and be. Neither has one heard that he disparages titles or belittles pride of ancestry.
That he strives at the same time to help the poor and the sick contradicts none of this. The blending of the two attitudes is after all not unknown in the saga of our race – we call it chivalry.

May God bless Frater Matthew Festing on his journey.
The Order is not only a humanitarian Organization but a vehicle of God to help poor people around the world.
Danny

I am so pleased to see so many lovely posts on this site. I have known the Grand Master since I was a young boy. (I am now 37)! and I can not say, nor will I hear a bad word spoken of him. I grew up on his estate in Northumberland and looked on him as a living encyclopaedia and authority about pretty much everything that has stood me in good stead since. I have had the good fortune to meet people who I would never have met, been educated in what makes a healthy tree and how to sharpen a chainsaw. I know, thanks to the Grand Master, how to recover a tractor when it is stuck in deep mud and what type of wood will burn well on an open fire. Ray Mears will teach you many skills, Matthew will teach you just as many an he will do so in such a way as to make you laugh.
I think of the Grand Master as a friend, as a father figure and as a shining example of tolerance, patience, kindness and everything else that makes a person great.
Thank You.