The Philosophical Foundations of Le Royaume

The Rule of Life and its Forms

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Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash

The Le Royaume rule of life wells up by grace to nourish our souls in the same manner that a natural fresh spring of water wells up to give life to the meadow around it. The rule is that of The Kingdom Blessed of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, a manifestation of The Kingdom of God in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The rule is not “made” by us; instead, it is revealed to us as an eternal substance, a “what” of Heaven’s reality, that unfolds in us over temporal time. It is the form that God places in us as potency and that we actualize throughout our lives if we are faithful to the patronage of our saintly sisters, Joan and Thérèse. The rule is God’s gift and represents the definition and outline of the Heavenly species for which He created us so that we might reveal in the material world its place in the Heavenly genus and family of God in Our Lady’s heart.

The Rule

The rule is lived and actualized in our lives first by deliberate thinking, i.e., “intentionality,” second by sacrifice, i.e., the abnegation of our will in pursuing this intentionality, and thirdly by “knowing” the objective truth inherent in that which we seek. The result is our “being” in union with the combined hearts of St. Joan and St. Thérèse. We desire to think as they think, to desire what they desire, and to go where they are in the center of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“In either case, one spirit, by joining with another, comes to share in the other’s mode of being.” ~ Edith Stein. Potency and Act (The Collected Works of Edith Stein) (Kindle Location 2064). Kindle Edition.

Our rule stated in the positive is to “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice” with intentionality. We sacrifice all earthly honors, recognition, and material well-being to pursue this kingdom – “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” We journey in the certainty of God’s objective truth, beauty, and goodness, trusting Him and His Church as we abandon ourselves to His Divine Providence – “and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The substance of our efficient cause, which drives us from potency to act, is the Lord’s command to bring the Father’s Kingdom “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Our rule stated in the negative seeks to avoid our eternal loss and the loss of that which we were to add objectively to the kingdom in congruous participation with our Creator, that is, to miss becoming who we are in the mind of God.

“We are thinking of the parable of the buried talent. Someone has a great gift for poetry, say, and feels obliged to develop it as well as he can, to write the poem he has in mind as perfectly as possible. All sorts of obstacles stand in his way.

If despite all his exertion he is overcome by the external obstacles, his failure is a loss for the objective [objektiv] world of spirit, which now is missing something which would have made it the richer.

He does retain the possibility of actualizing it until the final moment of his earthly existence. Then the talent he buried will be taken from him.“

~ Edith Stein. Potency and Act (The Collected Works of Edith Stein) (Kindle Locations 2428-2440). Kindle Edition.

The Forms

We fill three Heavenly forms by following this rule and through which we “become who we are” in union with the hearts of our saintly sisters, Joan and Thérèse. These forms are French, Catholic, and Royal.

French

Le Royaume, The Kingdom Blessed of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, is substantively the combined hearts of these two French Catholic saints. It is a matter of the highest importance to note that their "French" spirit infused in our souls by grace is that of the Heavenly Kingdom of the Blessed Virgin Mary's Catholic and Royal France. "France" is in the center of Mary's heart, and she holds the Fleur-du-Lys close to her heart.