The Christian suspicion is not that we must first be just and then we can be loving and charitable, but that we will, in all likelihood, only be just if we first find
caritas. And this realization often means the Cross and suffering, just as Christ taught. -
Fr. James SchallWhat [the Pope] says about the loss of trust in reason was true of many popular authors and movements in the Catholic church in the century or so before the Reformation (Thomas a Kempis; The Brethren of the Common Life; Richard Rolle; The Cloud of Unknowing). That's why he names Duns Scotus (ca. 1300) as a saintly culprit, ushering in to the west the idea of a voluntarist God, whose will takes precedence even over the divine reason. Since the divine reason is the Logos, Benedict concludes that voluntarism ultimately severs God from Himself, or the Father from the Son, which is impossible...That Islam rejects the deep coherence of faith and reason is not to be doubted. The devout Avicenna was the last Muslim to try to harmonize the Koran with the truths of philosophy; the heretic Averroes scoffed at him for supplanting philosophy with religion; and the theologian Al-Ghazzali denounced them both, and the whole enterprise. That was a long, long time ago. Now at last secularism and Islam meet. -
Anthony Esolen at "Mere Comments"There is no Grace in Islam, no miracle, no expiatory sacrifice, no expression of love for mankind such that each Muslim need not be a sacrifice. On the contrary, the concept of jihad, in which the congregation of Islam is also the army, states that every single Muslim must sacrifice himself personally. Jihad is the precise equivalent of the Lord's Supper in Christianity and the Jewish Sabbath, the defining expression of sacrifice that opens the prospect of eternity to the mortal believer. To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass. -
Spengler at "Asian Times"[The writer Joseph] Conrad tells us that one of the sources of terrorism is laziness, or at least impatience, which is to say ambition unmatched by perseverance and tolerance of routine. Mr. Verloc, the secret agent, has a “dislike of all kinds of recognized labour,” which, says Conrad, is “a temperamental defect which he shared with a large proportion of revolutionary reformers of a given social state. For”—Conrad continues—“obviously one does not revolt against the advantages and opportunities of that state, but against the price which must be paid in the same coin of accepted morality, self-restraint, and toil. The majority of revolutionists are the enemies of discipline and fatigue mostly.” Ahmad’s refusal to go to college might be interpreted in this light: for the path to constructive achievement is long, hard, and unsure, strewn with tedium and the chance of failure, while the life of destruction is exciting, even in its most tedious moments, because of the providential role that the destructive revolutionist has awarded himself. Once the magic wand of revolutionary destructiveness has been waved, even dull routine becomes infused with significance and excitement. The mental laziness of Islamism, its desire that there should be to hand a ready-made solution to all the problems that mankind faces, one that is already known, and its unacknowledged fear that such a solution does not really exist, Updike captures well. -
Theodore Dalrymple in "City Journal", reviewing Updike's TerroristThe Historic Jesus is manufactured for the comfort of speculators and ersatz historians; the Apocalyptic Jesus will be seen when He is present in the linear flow of time. But for us, now, here, at this moment, Jesus is present. He is present when the torrent of sound and event that is used to block him out is dimmed for a moment, when minds are released from the flood of cares to look clearly for a single moment--the eternal benediction of the Present in His Presence. -
Steven at "Flos Carmeli"One of the worst problems for me, right after I became Catholic, was to find books about the saints that weren't so treacly and hopelessly "so holy you'll certainly never get there, MamaT". I despaired. Wasn't I supposed to love the saints? Read about them? Be inspired by them? I kept throwing down the books in disgust. One time Smock's husband asked a very pertinent (to me) question: "Do you find the saints a comfort or do they make you nervous?" At the time of my conversion, they made me nervous, because their lives seemed so out of reach for someone as weak and stupid as I am. As I found a few more biographies that showed me the saints weren't necessarily paragons of virtue 100% of the time, they became a comfort to me. But now? I think they're making me nervous again. Why? Because I'm learning that it's a goal we might attain. And that puts the focus back on what I"m not doing. And how I'm far too lukewarm. Oh, dear. It seems like I have that classic love/hate relationship with the saints! -
MamaT of "Summa Mamas" on Steven's blogThe suffering we experience in this life and offer to God, in reparation or expiation or obedience or charity, will in some way be transformed into a spiritual beauty...[it is an] opportunity for
us to bring glory to God. (And it's because it all redounds to God's glory that it's a false modesty that would say, "Oh, I don't care about my own spiritual beauty." Would I say, "Oh, I'm not vain about my appearance, so I'm not going to shave before going to a party at my wife's friend's home"?) . -
Tom of DisputationsOf recent date, I have been in a sort of spiritual and personal doldrums, casting about this way and that to find something worthwhile to read, some way to access the prayer life I seemed to know at one time. This book was a real spirit-lifter and spiritual life-saver for me in ways that most lives of saints are not. In fact, I find most lives of saints depressingly Calvinistic, with one pious anecdote after another telling me about God's precious chosen few who from conception are preserved from any serious error. Saints who emerge from the womb preaching to all and sundry and after fourteen days die in the odor of Sanctity. I read of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Therese of Lisieux and reach the conclusion that sanctity is for the precious few. And then along comes this breath of fresh air. Craughwell's intent is not to "downgrade" the saints, but to present less than perfect models after whom we might pattern ourselves. -
Steven at Flos CarmeliWho, having seen Jesus convince people to "share" the loaves and fishes they had secretly concealed in their robes, would not desire to rush off and make him a KING! -
commenter on Disputations regarding the tendency of modern biblical critics to explain away miraclesWhy can't that stoopid Pope get with the program, and realize that his primary task is media management, i.e., reassuring people like This Journalist & His Friends that he, the Pope, is just a harmless old coot they have to write boring stories about until he dies. Can't he just smile and wave and stuff, instead of making speeches they don't understand? -
Kathy of "Relapsed Catholic", sarcastically responding to papal criticsI second [Whitaker Chambers']
Witness with the greatest possible enthusiasm. Anyone who fancies himself a Conservative and still has failed to read it, ought to read it --right now. -
Paul CellaI distrust the government but as a realistic conservative I think government is staffed with mostly well-intentioned but incompetent people — not because they're dumb, but because bureaucracies are dumb. These conspiracy theorists reverse this entirely. They think government is evil-intentioned but supremely, even divinely, competent. That's crazy-talk, Count Chocula. -
Jonah Goldberg at "The Corner"; Count Chocula references merit automatic STG inclusionSo let us not refuse to say: I, supposed Christian, hypocrite! And may I never flee the grace of God that answers, Welcome home! -
Karen at "From the Anchor Hold", also quoting St. Gregory saying, "I myself do not live my life according to my own preaching"