Reminder: The Red Army Choir Does Christmas Music Now

I listen to Christmas music basically non-stop during Advent (shut up Advent police) and Christmas. One of the types of music I really like to listen to is the Christmas music of the Red Army Choir. Not just because I like the style of music. But also because the fact that the Red Army Choir now has to make Christmas music to earn lunch money is the delicious honey of sweet, sweet victory. “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked,” says Scripture.

“The Pope, how many divisions?” Stalin asks. “And lo, there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and singing: glory to God in the highest!” answers Scripture.

Woody Guthrie’s guitar said “This machine kills fascists.” They should write “This machine eats empires” on the front of Saint Peter’s. (Instead, Divine Providence wrote the name of a corrupt Pope, to remind us not to get too proud.)

The obelisk in the center of St Peter’s Square was taken from the coliseum where Peter was crucified; it was probably the last thing he saw before he died. And we took it and put it in St Peter’s Square, as an upraised middle finger to all the powers, principalities, thrones, dominions.

Ecclesia militans! Behold, O Lord, Lion of Juda, your glorious army of bums! By your grace, see how Theodosius bowed to Ambrose, see the Emperor in penitent’s robes at Canossa, see your glorious work through us! You were there, weren’t you, when your servant Boniface was beaten by thugs for confessing the faith, when Thomas More walked the scaffold and when Margaret Clitherow was crushed with stones, you were there in the Vendée, and when your servant Pius was made prisoner, when the Gestapo raided the churches to seize Mit brennender Sorge, when Maximilian Kolbe went to his pit, when your servant John Paul took the bullet, when Mother Teresa defended life at the United Nations, you were there at Tibhirine and when Cardinal Kung went to his gaol, imitated by Cardinal Zen.

Bit by bit, haltingly, imperfectly, sadly, humanly, confusedly, the Church continues on her pilgrimage, propelled against every wind, storm, snow, gale, fire, propelled by a force that mere human agency cannot explain, propelled because it was founded on your Incarnation, you, the Lord of Hosts, who became the smallest of the small, who became a child in a manger, who revealed the nature of existence itself to be love.

The Red Army Choir does Christmas music now. It’s a wonderful time to be alive, a wonderful time to be at war, this delicious war of love, and thanks and glory be to God, now and for the centuries of centuries.