Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


I was in a shop over the weekend and for the first time ever the assistant, the fair, young assistant, I may say - unasked and unsolicited - offered me.. . .the senior's discount... I tottered home to contemplate my new-found antiquity, although I probably should have stopped off to buy some Geritol. The two people I've mentioned this to so far have both wanted to know if I actually took the discount. Of course, I took it. It's a discount. I'm even cheaper than I am old and broker than I am proud. If they'd offered a fat-and-ugly discount I would've taken that, too. - John at the Inn at the End of the World

We're supposed to "take up" our crosses, not construct, deconstruct, invert, implode, or otherwise tamper with them. They are uniquely ours and they represent our share in working out our own salvation, but also our share in the salvation of all who surround us. Paul told us that he "made up what was lacking in the sacrifice of Christ." What could possibly be lacking in that sacrifice? It is a puzzlement, but I accept it as truth and from it conclude that we all have some duty to do the same. One thing we present to people that may "be lacking" is a sense of the immediacy and the intimacy of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. As we toil through Advent and thirst with the ancient peoples of the desert, awaiting our Salvation, we can take steps to make His presence known. Among those steps is taking up our crosses, not begrudgingly, but thankfully--knowing that by this sign we are saved and we proclaim salvation. - Steven Riddle of Flos Carmeli

I have to say that what concerns me these days is not so much the presence of heresy but rather the growing belief that these arguments are unimportant. Say what you will about Hans Kung; at least he believes that doctrine matters. Kung, like many of us, may suffer from pride, but I would hold that the greater danger these days is sloth, a sense that it doesn't really matter what Christians believe as long as we love each other. - Peter Nixon on Amy's Blog
I do owe more to the parish than just the balance on my building fund pledge. Tonight is the parish's annual meeting. If I belonged to some other parish, I might be at the meeting, thinking there was some point to attending. As I've said before, after being on the Parish Council, Dilbert is funnier than ever. - Terrence Berres

Many people think the Lenten call to examine our lives in light of the Ten Commandments is a guilt trip based on fear. But the reality is that examining our conscience in light of the Ten Commandments is the only ticket out of guilt and fear. Why? Because the Ten Commandments presuppose that we are to be taken seriously as moral agents who can choose both sin and virtue and be persons who act out of love, not just react as victims. The Ten Commandments treat us like competent grownups and call us to act like it. The practical result of refusing to be treated like a competent grownup is to regard oneself as a helpless child who can only be acted upon. The practical result of that is to make everybody a "victim" and nobody responsible. And the practical result of that is guilt, fear and simmering resentment against all those "other people" who act upon poor me. When you sin, you can repent and be done with it. When you are a helpless victim, you can only whine and seek damages. - Mark Shea

Maybe the problem is thinking sins are relative to some arbitrary and ad hoc rulebook, rather than to our very nature and being. - Tom of Disputations

The answer to the question "what does this passage of scripture means?" isn't "what the author intended it to mean", but "what the tradition of the Church understands it to mean". The SAME Holy Spirit both inspires scripture and its interpretation by the Church. Hence, patristics would be what is indispensable to the study of scripture, not historical-criticism. - commenter Ben on Disputations

The filioque is usually thought of as an issue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Yet it was argued at greater length than any other point between the Lutherans and the Patriarch [in the 16th century]. The Lutherans said they agreed with the Catholic position. The Patriarch explained the Orthodox belief on the relationship of works to justification in what sound to me to be the same as the Catholic position. Which raises the question in my mind why there are ecumenical dialogues on these issues if there are more than just two interested parties to each. It appears that an accord on the filioque between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches might further divide that Catholic Church from some Protestants. Likewise, an accord on justification between the Catholic Church and Lutherans might further divide the Catholic Church from the Orthodox Church. - Terrence Berres

From the desire of my blog being read...Deliver me dear Jesus. From the desire of my blog being praised...Deliver me dear Jesus. From the fear of my blog being forgotten...Deliver me dear Jesus...That Mark Shea may notice every blog but mine...Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it...That others may be pithier than I, provided that I may become as pithy as I should...Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. - Jeff of Curt Jester, a prayer for humility

The Old Testament...was written from the perspective of Israel, not of God or some disinterested third party. From the perspective of Israel, when Israel flourishes God is rewarding His people; when Israel is led away captive, God is turning His back on them. When Israel is faithful, God seems happy; when Israel is faithless, God seems angry. Does that mean Israel's faithfulness makes God happy, or her faithlessness makes Him unhappy? No. God's love is unchanging. It is Israel that changes, and when you change your experience of God's unchanging love changes. The analogy I like is from St. John Fisher. Sunlight is warm and cheery when you're healthy, harsh and bitter when you're sick. - Tom of Disputations

The purpose of the Church is to bring the Gospel to people where they are at, not where we would like them to be. The goal of the Church is the same as it was fifty years ago: to bring the Gospel of salvation to as many people as possible. The difference is that the Church believes that this can best be accomplished in means different from those employed in the past. One can argue as to whether or not these new means are effective or how effective they are, but the fact remains that the goal is the same. --Chris of Veritas

The [saints] are not robots or Stepford saints. But that sly voice still whispers--if you abandon yourself, you'll be nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Choose YOU. Choose yourself and YOUR will. That's the dangerous choice. Faced with Jesus and the Devil, most, if not all, folks would easily choose Jesus. But faced with the false choice--Jesus vs. self? Well, then that's a more difficult decision. -TLS of Summa Mommas

History

My knowledge of history is somewhat ad hoc and often concentrated on individual trees rather than forests. So it was refreshing to be given a bigger, grander picture of the events leading to the Reformation by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. Groeschel argues that the cause of the Reformation was partially the horrible, pathetic spiritual condition of the Catholic Church, which was was aided by events of the late 13th and early 14th centuries. There was the Black Death, the Plague that killed half of Europe - including two-thirds of the clergy and three-fourths of the religious communities. Its destabilizing effects were like an atomic bomb blast, a nuclear war.

But there was also William of Occam. From Fr. Groeschel's talk:

The Greeks, the Romans, the Jews and agreed (and many of the Oriental religions), as well as the early Church Fathers, that there were certain qualities of being that were part of the very essence of God - unity, truth, goodness and beauty. No one ever said this more clearly than St. Augustine. St. Thomas never denied it. Being, and ultimately being in its absolute form, is One, True, Good and Beautiful. There is a certain rightness to things that can never be altered.

William of Occam made the great mistake behind the Reformation. The mistake of the Reformation was not about the authority of the church, it is much more elemental than even that. Occam said that God had to decide what was right or wrong. That he had to decide that honesty was good and stealing was wrong. And Occam said that God would never make a mistake, because of his divine wisdom. So they ended up in the same place, but you got there the wrong way. He presented into philosophy and human thinking the idea of arbitrariness. God could decide that this or that was wrong. And it came to an incredible, unthinkable error. Now, Lutherans and the Calvinists got themselves out of this error long ago - politely. That God could decide, before a human being was created, apart from anything they did, that they were going to heaven or hell. That was based on William of Occam. God has to decide. It violates the very notion of goodness. Now Luther bought it lock, stock and barrel. Luther taught that before you were conceived it was determined whether you were going to heaven or hell, and that faith was a sign - a symptom - that you were going to heaven, but it didn't get you there. There wasn't anything you could do - completely arbitrary. And Calvin did something very interesting. He took a step back towards Catholicism. Although Calvinism is less liturgical and sacramental than Catholicism, in terms of spirituality it is closer to Catholicism than Lutheranism. (Read "The Catholicism of Jonathan Edwards" - even though Edwards probably never even saw a Catholic.)

This is how they got halfway back. Calvin taught if you were going to hell, that's it, goodbye. But if you were going to heaven, you could lose it. You could drop the ball. You could be lost. That's why Calvinism has always had a much stronger emphasis on spirituality. Now, as I've said modern Lutherans and Calvinists don't adopt these doctrines in the sharp and frightening way they were held. And it was a dark time. There was the Black Death, and the Hundred Years' War. A hundred years of war! Ripping Europe to pieces. The English land-grabbing France. And the war ended in less than a year by a girl, operating on a private revelation, Joan of Arc. In one year, by raising the siege of Orleans, Joan ended the hundred years' war.

The Sacramental System as Espoused by Frosty the Snowman

I was watching the old animated Frosty's Winter Wonderland, sequel to the classic Frosty the Snowman, when I thought how similar the saga to the story of sacraments.

If you recall, Frosty had a hat, which when removed effectively killed him, turned him into a lifeless snowman. The hat was a physical symbol joined with an underlying reality - the children's love. Frosty's wife was created because Frosty was lonesome and couldn't go indoors with the children. The children had Frosty; their love for Frosty's wife must've been inadequate because the hat given by the children did not effect a change. It was only when Frosty made his wife a bouquet of frost flowers - an outward sign of an inner conviction - that she came to life.

Jack Frost (the devil figure) whipped Frosty's hat off in order to inanimate him. But Frost was overcome when Frosty's wife made a snow corsage and placed it over Frosty's heart.

The children's hat sans love was superstition. Frosty's wife's love without a work did not avail. It was faith with works that worked.



Next week - Frosty's eschatology. Pre Trib, Pre Mil, Dispensationalist? Stayed tuned.

Touchstone Links

Some good links here and here concerning Naomi Wolf's anti-pornography article in the New Yorker.

A Marvelous Order

Once a year the Columbus Symphony comes to my place of work and offers a free concert. I'm always awed by how well they play; their crescendos perfectly crescendo, notes are never held too long or not long enough. They play with 'soft, soft hands' - nimble and quick when needed, graceful and gentle otherwise. And there is this marvelous order among so many moving parts.

This year they had it in the lobby outside the lunchroom, perhaps only a dozen listeners. I was three feet from the first chair violinist, a guy who'd always appeared as a tiny speck from my seat far in the back of the Ohio Theatre.

Hans Urs von Balthasar was quoted in National Review: "Whoever sneers at her [beauty's] name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past - whether he admits it or not - can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love."

Immaculate Conception Quote

From Balthasar via Fr. Bryce Sibley:

There was a long hesitation before Mary was exempted from the bane of original sin, since people were at pains to preserve her solidarity with the rest of mankind. This hesitation was only overcome when it was realized that her privilege (which is demanded by her mission) only deepens her solidarity with mankind. Sin brings about isolation and thwarts effective solidarity (there was no solidarity among those who shared "in eadem damnatione" in Luke 23:40), whereas innocence makes it possible to be open to suffering with others and to be ready, in love, to embrace such suffering.

Coach Francis Says...

The Cincinnati Bengals remarkable turnaround suggests how much difference a coach can make. And how does the coach make things different? By gettting the players to believe that his formula for success is correct, even if they don't see a cause and effect.

Players might say "I don't see how 'A' can lead to 'B'" - i.e. a victory - yet they trust their coach. If they have a good one, it works.

I apologize in advance for the preachiness of this post. (Can one sincerely 'apologize in advance'?) But we listen to our coaches - Christ, the saints, the pope - and copy what they do. An example is Eucharistic Adoration. At first this wasn't something I practiced. Why go to EA when I could go to Mass? But talk about a pedigree! When I read that the practice was initiated by St. Francis of Assisi and highly recommended by Mother Teresa I realized it was something I should be doing. And I found that it has increased my hunger for the Eucharist and set up the conditions for a more worthy reception of Communion.

Ascetism, Food and a Recipe

We may not all called to be monks, but aging demands its own ascetism. For example, I can't drink nearly as much alcohol as I used to. Nor can I eat nearly as much. I eat a tiny fraction of what I did in college despite weighing much more now. Back then I'd have meals of three McDonald's Quarterpounders with Cheese, yet tested out at a lean 10% body fat... I also understand that when you get much, much older sex becomes rare unless you take a little blue pill.

It is as if it is a built-in part of God's plan that we slowly divest ourselves of the good things of the world and increasingly whet our appetite for things spiritual. If the message is too subtle, nature lends a hand.

Speaking of food... I've noticed that some blogs feature cooking recipes, often with obscure ingredients that sound like poetry. I thought I should share one of my all-time favorite collegiate recipes:

O'Garlic Poor Boys^TM
Ingredients (serves two):

--New York style Garlic bread, I buy the sub-shaped kind at Krogers
--American Processed Cheese - a pack or two, comes in those individually-wrapped wrappers
--Bologna - two packages should be enough

1) Open the garlic bread and layer with bologna and cheese. Be generous with both. Sauté. (Not really, I just wanted a French word in here somewhere).

2) Heat that bad boy at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes depending on oven strength.


Use light bologna to reduce calories

VOILA! It's that easy. Bon Appetit!

Those Were the Days

"Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..."

So sang Archie & Edith. I was reminded of that song and its tuneful pining for the past while reading about Council of Ephesus, which said, in part, that Mary could rightly be called "Theotokos" or Mother of God. The titled was applied because the fullness of Christ's divinity was questioned by the Nestorians, but also due to tremendous "grass-root" desire. The masses of Christians at the time celebrated after Council, much as I would after an Ohio State national championship victory.

What is so striking is that I cannot imagine we modern grass roots Christians rising up and demanding something of a theologically disinterested nature. Some traditionalists are desirous of calling Mary Co-Mediatrix, so it's hardly unthinkable, but what are most laity demanding? A relaxation of the celibacy discipline. Allowance of artificial birth control. Women priests.

In other words, it's all about us. We as users of birth control, or we as women, or we as priests or potential priests.

There is something refreshing about the thought of those ealier Christians celebrating Mary's new name. They were thrilled for Mary, and her prestigious title, enough to carry the bishop on their shoulders as you would a conquering quarterback.

Mister, we could use a laity like that again.

Just in time for Christmas

Please, please... no orders after the 18th.

 
      

Autographed shirts extra. Rules and regulations apply. Not made in China. Otherwise prohibited where otherwise prohibited. Headaches, vomiting, diarrhea may occur.

Untethered Christians

David Brooks in the NY Times applies hammer to nail with regard to virtual candidate Dean:

Other candidates run on their biographies or their records. They keep policy staff from their former lives, and they try to keep their policy positions reasonably consistent...

He is, in short, a man unrooted. This gives him an amazing freshness and an exhilarating freedom.

Everybody talks about how the Internet has been key to his fund-raising and organization. Nobody talks about how it has shaped his persona. On the Internet, the long term doesn't matter, as long as you are blunt and forceful at that moment. On the Internet, a new persona is just a click away. On the Internet, everyone is loosely tethered, careless and free. Dean is the Internet man, a string of exhilarating moments and daring accusations.

I catch a whiff of this "exhilarating rootlessness" among some non-denominational Christians. Their relationship with Jesus is one-on-one, so what is Luther or Calvin to them? A co-worker of my wife interpreted the Book of Revelation and concluded that the end of the world would be in 2001. She's arrived with a new end date, her own history discarded. (Her own interpretations were largely borrowed, but we fool ourselves into thinking our independent thinking is independent thinking.) To go deep into history is to become Catholic, said John Henry Newman. But history is for losers; it can tie you down.

Full of Gore

Well the big political news is Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean, showing there's no honor among taxers or thieves, to the extent there is a difference.

The stab in the back is of Machiavellian proportions; he didn't even give Sen. Lieberman the fig leaf of a phone call despite Lieberman's patient wait for Gore to decide whether he was going to run in '04 before deciding to run himself. Also Rep. Gephardt went out on a limb and endorsed Gore in '99, long before fellow Dems did. But what have you done for me lately buddy? In some way I like Clinton better than Gore. Bill Clinton is all appetite but lacks discipline; Gore is all appetite but has discipline, and so has less excuse.

Gore, unlike Sen. Breaux, changed his position on abortion after it became politically expedient to do so. Did he join the anti-life forces out of conviction or political necessity? Only his conscience and God know. But it could be that disloyalty to unborn babies has bled into disloyalty toward his fellow Democrats.

The temptation to want to use people for your own ends is perhaps nowhere as evident as it is in politics.

The Other Keating

I was skeptical when James Keating, PHD was described as a "nationally-known speaker" in the parish bulliten. If he was nationally known then why hadn't I heard of him? But he gave a talk entitled "The Vocation of Marriage" that was simultaneously riveting and discomfiting. The hour talk went by in what seemed two minutes and there was so much food for thought that I'd wished it was recorded. That Flannery O'Connor character would've been good if she'd heard Keating talk every moment of her life. He put the smack down, which is to say he told the truth.

I won't even begin to try to paraphrase his talk but I was reminded of it after reading this from Empty Days blogger concerning Bill Murray's character in "Groundhog Day":

"[He became] altruistic out of desperation. Maybe it's the good kind of emptiness, when you just sort of float away from your own burdensome self like some holy air balloon."

Keating said something not too far distant. He said that we have to get to the point where we get sick of ourselves and want to go outside ourselves...want to embrace "the other". Trying to get the "other" to become a clone of ourself is a form of idolatry and mimics the demonic since that is what the devil attempts.

WANTED: For Armed Theology



Stolen from Jeff Miller At Curt Jester. Hi-laire as always, see all here.

From Presentation Ministries' One Bread, One Body:

As Lord Acton said, those who don't know history are condemned to repeat the mistakes of their forebears. Centuries ago, people tried to get by without Advent - only to deprive themselves of a real Christmas encounter with Christ. Even a short Advent often proved a failure. History tells us we need eery minute of Advent. The true meanings of Christmas are so great that it is a miracle to prepare for it in only three or four weeks. We must not waste even one precious moment of Advent.