Economies Spiritual and Temporal

One of the things about living in a market economy is that it is designed as "win/win", which of course is why it is mostly works in a fallen world. If I invest in a company and the company does well both the owner of that company and myself do well. Similarly, in a bartering economy if I have too many sheep and you have too many chickens, we can trade and we'll both end up with more temporal wealth. This is in contrast to a bet where someone must lose in order that someone else might win.

But the spiritual economy seems different. Christ became poor that we might become rich seems a zero sum game since he had nothing to gain. Most Christians are uncomfortable with the atonement being seen in the harsh terms of the Father sending his Son to die so that the Father might "gain satisfaction", as if God is a stern Judge who requires restitution for all offenses. But even if we don't look at it in that light we are left with the fact that the world is a spiritual combat zone where, as Christ said, gain is achieved by loss; even in our own earthly experience war is never win/win. Michael Freze, in They Bore the Wounds of Christ, writes of a polarity:

For every reality in the universe, there has always been an opposing reality that seeks to disrupt the beauty and order of nature. In the beginning, we see how God created out of disorder and chaos a goodness and perfection in the universe He had made: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep..." (Gen 1:1-2).

Central to this of course is the mystery of evil, about which St. Augustine said "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution". Pope Paul VI spoke in 1972 about its reality: "Evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and preverting, a terrible reality, mysterious and frightening..." That there is an Adversary who is bent not merely on selfishness (the agent behind capitalism) but actively willing the destruction of him and us. It's hard to see how you can have other than a zero-sum game in that situation. Freze writes of even all-night physical beatings Padre Pio received by the devil and asks:

Why are the holiest of souls tempted so severely? Is there any reason why they would not be relieved of their opposition at some point in their spiritual journey? One reason is that the devil is most furious toward those who work against this world of sin, oppression and deception; another reason is that the pious soul needs these trials in order to purify his soul, to humble himself, and to abandon himself unconditionally in the arms of the divine Savior. With the stigmatist in particular, nothing provokes the fury of Satan more than this victim soul who sacrifices himself unconditionally in the arms of the divine Savior.

You can't help both notice the difference between a stigmatist and one of the television preachers of the health/wealth variety. The latter seem healthy - physically and emotionally. The stigmatist seems a wreck, physically and emotionally, though his refuge is God, and God never allows more than he can take. The contrast between the two seems almost irreconcilable and yet, as Tom of Disputations wrote the other day, "God wants to give us ridiculous quantities of really good things. Some of these really good things are common or garden natural goods, the sorts of things we might want as individual human persons." And some of those good things are presumably physical and emotional health. Perhaps the televangelists are comfortable in temporal terms but bothered by evil; Freze goes so far as to say: "Indeed, when one senses that the forces of evil are quiet and do not bother him, then he must be suspicious of his own level of spirituality and faith."

Another image I carry around is not that of Padre Pio being buffeted by the devil but that of a peaceful Juan Diego, the devout man who received the holy vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In my imagination at least, he lived a peaceful, quiet, devout life. He went to Mass every day. He went about his duties. He kept a low profile after a high profile assignment. Is that just my naivety? Or is it that the church is catholic and there are Juan Deigos and there are Padre Pios and everyone is called to a different mission?

Paul VI's Death

The recent mention of the possible canonization of Paul VI reminds me of something I read in Pontiff, by Gordon Thomas, concerning his last hours. In his final moments the pope asked those surrounded by him to pray for him, then a bit later began saying the Our Father:

Fontana bends over Paul, listening for an unusually long time to his chest. He feels for the pope's pulse. The doctor straightens and looks at the others. Then he glances at Paul's alarm clock to verify the time. It is 9:40 P.M. There is a distinct tremor in his voice as he pronounces: "It is over."

At that precise moment the ancient alarm clock, which had rung at six-thirty that morning and which had not been rewound or reset, begins to shrill, filling the bedroom with its tinny sound.

It would...

...really be funny if the Dems end up not taking the House. Unlikely, but certainly Dick Morris has me pegged:

The GOP base, alienated by the Foley scandal and the generally dismal record of this Congress, may have fast forwarded to the prospect of a Democratic victory and recoiled.

I've certainly been recoilin' lately. Columnist Robert Novak says if the election were held today it would be a 21-seat pickup for the Dems in the House and a narrow holding of the Republican-led Senate. Democrats, take the House (please! my obligatory Henny Youngmen joke) but don't take the Senate. (Actually I'd rather they not take either but I don't want to stand in the way of a good joke.)

Today's Funny

Terrence Berres offers a plan in response to my point that we never learn that it is only with great difficulty we can retire a tax or withdraw our troops:

Might be an opportunity for the Libertarian Party to propose sending the IRS to Iraq.

Voting for Theologians & Potential Saints

Fun vote here for most popular theologians: Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar or John Henry Newman? Beyond my level of competence, but I like Evangelical Catholics's lucid handicapping. Maybe, like my grandpa Gunner, I'll "vote for the mudder".

They also pose the question:

Who would you like to see beatified first?

John Henry Newman
Dorothy Day
Fulton Sheen
Pope Paul VI
Sister Lúcia of Jesus

Which for me wasn't much of a close call -- it would be Fulton Sheen (cause for canonization update here). Pope John Paul II twice urged the Sheen Foundation to hurry up with the sainthood bid.

Of Swallows Returning

Amy Welborn has a must-read post, responding to Bottum's post about the direness of the post-Vatican II landscape. The only thing I would add is not to underestimate the effect of the mass media (and seminaries) promoting modern biblical criticism. Undermining the bible undermines the Church (though of course the Church preceded the bible) and by explaining away the miraculous (i.e. loaves & fishes was about "sharing") you give rise to a kind of Pelagianism where Christ isn't the focus because we don't really need him. If what was handed down to us in the form of Scripture is not respected, then how much more will the liturgy, also handed down to us, not be respected?

A couple interesting comments in the ensuing tsunami (up to 100 comments at last check):

I know more Catholics who have completely abandoned their faith in every way except for abstaining from meat on Fridays than practicing Catholics who observe meatless Fridays. What's up with that?

Non-Catholic Mike Poterma of National Review fame weighs in:

Vatican II was a brave act on the part of the Catholic branch of Christianity to bring itself more closely in line with the will of the Holy Spirit. It was brave because the result of such wide-ranging change was quite foreseeable: A certain "mystique"--the aura of perfect changelessness, of divine stasis--would be lost. Within a decade George Carlin would be joking that "Hey, there are still people doing time in Hell on a meat-on-Fridays rap." In other words: You don't need to take the Catholic Church seriously, folks; they've already admitted they were wrong on some things, and if you disagree with them on anything else, well, just wait till they see the error of their ways on that too. You could see, finally, the little man behind the curtain.

Vatican II was a great gamble, and conservatives find it easy to recite the statistics about all the harm that has ensued from it (declining Mass attendence, low vocations, etc. etc.). But I think that, fundamentally, the Vatican II leaders--Montini, Suenens, Lercaro, Leger, Ratzinger, Wojtyla, et al--had a touch of the Spirit in what they were doing. The Catholic Church made herself vulnerable, in trying to be faithful to the truth (as opposed to its own institutional power and importance)--and I can't help seeing, in that very vulnerability that has been the cause of anguish to so many Catholics, the face of Christ.

I predict that after this dark transition, there will be (25 years from now? 50? 75?) one of the brightest chapters in Catholicism's history.

An Observation

Did you ever notice how the gospels tend to emphasize what man must do, while St. Paul in his letters and epistles emphasizes what God does?

An interesting way to look at it is that God (Jesus) emphasizes man's role while man (Paul) emphasizes God's role. Not that there aren't overlaps; Jesus says that with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible and Paul gives a long list of behaviors that will preclude entrance into the Kingdom. But that doesn't negate the general tone.

It sort of reminds me of the old cliche that we should work as if everything depended on us and pray as if everything depended on God.

If you can find a moment, pray for my dad's soul. I am morally certain that he was not in a state of grace, and I can only hope that at the very last he came to an acknowledgment and repentance. I take hope in the private revelations given to St. Faustina about the Divine Mercy. Pray, too, for one of my sisters. She and my dad were estranged, and now she is just torn up inside and out. Pray that she will find the peace that I know God wants her to have. - Alicia of "Fructus Ventris"; also if you might offer a prayer for my friend Amy who died yesterday

Rod Dreher, in the course of a post about GOP recriminations, remarks that "it'll be easy after the November slaughter to blame the Evangelicals, because the media despises them." Is he right? I'm afraid the signs point to yes. A while back, I argued that religious conservatives were going to come out of the Bush years in better repute than other factions on the right, because they hadn't sold out (or seemed to sell out) their principles the way the small-government types did with pork-barrel spending and the Abramoff affair, and their ideas hadn't been discredited the way, say, neoconservatism looks to be at least temporarily discredited by Iraq. But I think that I reckoned without the eagerness of pundits left and right to use the religious right as a whipping boy for GOP failures. Thus Ryan Sager's claims about the Southern captivity of the GOP; thus Dick Armey's attacks on James Dobson; thus Andrew Sullivan's argument that everything from the prescription-drugs entitlement to the botched post-war plans are the fruits of "fundamentalism," which dovetails nicely with the oft-heard canard that we really invaded Iraq because of nutty religious millenialism. - Ross Douthat of "American Scene"

As for the subject of translations (rather than commentaries or editions), my first advice is always to pick a book that you like the look of, read some of it, and if you like the sound of it, then buy it. The New American Bible is somewhat more banal than the Catholic edition of the RSV; but both are "accurate" and readable. If you can read Latin, the Nova Vulgata is better than anything in English, but, well, that's not a recommendation for everybody.- William Porter on "Evangelical Catholic"

I remind the readers that [unbelievers] do the exact same thing with Bible texts: assert that there are "errors and contradictions" in the text. Again, talk is cheap and anyone can do it. This person would probably not be so critical of those who sought to demonstrate that there were not contradictions and errors in the biblical text. So I for one wish that they would kindly stop being inconsistent and acting as if those who do this with magisterial texts are somehow disingenuous while those who do this with the Bible are not. The underlying methodology to this approach is either commendable or it is not: they cannot have it both ways. - "Rerum Novarum" on magisterial texts

I will agree that the two ex-marines were most irritating, perhaps some extra discipline is due, such as mild therapeutic beatings. - Fr. John, on "Open Book", regarding two monks on TLC's "The Monastery"

One monk waxed poetic about the virtues of focusing one's attention on one thing at a time. He said our many distractions caused our exhaustion at the end of a day. Then there was a break for commercials a minute later. - Kevin Jones on "Open Book"

Ijust heard Cardinal Arinze's latest podcast on modesty. One point that the rather irritating interviewer kept going back to was on the morality of artists drawing from the nude. The cardinal was taking the position that it is at the very least dangerous to the soul for an artist to draw nude models. The objections that the interviewer kept throwing up were primarily straw men: arguments of art for the sake of art, that there is so much of this in culture that it can't possibly be wrong, etc. Insofar as the ordinary person's understanding of looking at the nude goes, the Cardinal quite properly pointed out that morality trumps art and that morality trumps culture. Fine. What both the interviewer and the Cardinal miss, however, is that a serious artist drawing from life tends to distance himself from the prurience that is assumed in spending hours with a nude model. I have spent many hours drawing and painting nude models, and based on my own experience and from talking to many other artists on the matter, one tends to take a fairly clinical and anatomical view of the body...Now, certainly there are artists who will find the sort of detached view difficult, and simply cannot get beyond the fact that a purty nekkid girl is in front of them. There are probably med students with similar problems, and it behooves them, as it behooves the aforementioned theoretical artist, to avoid this sort of thing, even if it means abandoning the profession. - Erik of Erik's Rants & Recipes

We have an insufficient understanding of the term "sufficient." Because the common usage has come to mean "just barely enough to cover it," we tend to look at "His grace is sufficient" as a kind of wary half-promise. But the real meaning of "His grace is sufficient," says nothing about the amount of it nor its efficacy. What it says is that it is His grace alone--entirely and only. His grace is sufficient in that nothing need be added to it and we only need a kind of meta-desire for it to be effective. - Steven of "Flos Carmeli"

The functional-utilitarian-self-fulfillment way of doing Church has failed because it is not true. It is a mixed-up confused consequence of the perceived need to make faith more understandable to the modern person, and the slow acceptance of the total privatization of personal faith - that it is all about my personal spritiuality and no longer about the story of the world. It has resulted in a mode of doing and speaking that is profoundly misleading, leaving many Catholics adrift in the culture, not quite sure why they should go to church on Sunday apart from habit, guilt and the vague hope that they might be "inspired" a bit and their kids might absorb some moral constraints here and there. It is not their fault. When this is what they are taught, this is the fruit. - Amy Welborn

If you aren’t fully conversant with the scholarship, I’d tread very lightly in those areas, and focus on the text itself...Ignatius Press is coming out with some study guides, put together by Scott Hahn. Now Hahn has a lot of advantages, and a lot of people get a lot out of what he offers. That doesn’t make him an oracle or anything. Keep in mind, there isn’t necessarily "one" proper interpretation of most passages: Scripture is God’s word, and it is endlessly fruitful. So, Scott Hahn gets this from it; the early Father of the Church got other things; the editors of CSB and NJBC got what they got; I offered you my thoughts, for what they’re worth…The goal of our use of Scripture is, after all, to lead people to faith in Christ! It isn’t Scripture for its own sake. - Fr. Martin Fox of "Bonfire of the Vanities"

Emails from God

I was recently required to take a thirty-minute online class on writing business emails, which seemed mostly comprised of when not to write them. Our company is encouraging anything of even a slightly sensitive, controversial, important or confusing nature be handled by phone - or far more preferable - face-to-face.

There is a recognition in this that no matter how well-written the email, if you miss the facial expressions, the way something is said, the emphasis and the body language, you are potentially missing a good part of the message.

And I got to thinking if that was true with something like the words used in emails, how much more true of the words used in Scripture -- important, sensitive and sometimes controversial and confusing. Fortunately we have a context with the Church, for she is the one who gives emphasis, who gives us the "body language", who answers (sometimes) questions about things unclear. She speaks to us in a way we can understand, with warmth and assurance and under the guidance of the same Holy Spirit who originally inspired the words of the sacred authors. By listening to the Church, we are hearing the "email" explained in person. It can happen in many ways: we can draw upon the compassionate words of our confessor, learn as we watch the suffering of our late Holy Father, see the healing gaze of Mary in religious art, or taste the Host that is Christ.

Lead Us Not to the Test

My grandmother turns 95 today. She's suffering a lot these days and is showing signs of dementia. Those close to her constantly ask me, "why is God making her live so long?"

What to say? (Your prayers appreciated, btw.) The Catechism of Trent frankly states that "baptism does not free us from the miseries of life". "Christ, although clothed from His birth with the plentitude of grace and truth" was not spared human infirmity and pain. Second, the catechism continues, it is God's plan that we practice perserverance. God delivered Israel from bondage, yet did not lead them immediately to the Promised Land but "tried them that His people might always have occasion to exercise fortitude and courage". Finally,

"If the heavenly gifts with which the soul is adorned in Baptism were joined temporal advantages, there would be good reason to doubt whether many might not approach Baptism with a view to obtain advantages in this life, rather than the glory to be hoped for in the next; whereas the Christian should always propose to himself, not these delusive and uncertain goods which are seen, but the solid and eternal ones which are not seen."

Of course no one likes to be tested. Yet it seems built-in to the human condition. The garden of Eden was not heaven but a place of probation: Adam and Eve were tested in the form of fasting from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Jesus himself was tempted by the devil. The angels were tested. It's just a fact of life, and the challenge is to accept with humility a lack of entitlement; to know that we are unfinished and will be probably be tried even though we can and should pray "lead us not to the test". The only salve is Jesus, of course, who was tested and tried even though he was God Himself and who, crucially, will help us through it.

Lost Heritage...

...writes Rich Leonardi, and I get a glimmer of that when my father speaks of the intensity of Holy Name Society marches through town back in the '40s & '50s.

I've Learned...

...not to turn off the Notre Dame game until it's o'er:



Exciting finish and glad I witnessed this one.

Two Ways to Be Cleansed

Jesus told His disciples in John 15:3 that they were cleansed by His Word. And in the gospel of Luke he says:

"Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”

One could say we are cleansed by his Word because to know Him is to love him, which forms one half of the great command to love God and love others. And to give alms means to love others, forming the second half.

Leadership

It's always interesting to observe the line where optimism begins to turn into a denial of reality, although of course in public the President can't afford to be anything other than confident since that can effect the outcome. I share Bush Sr's view of things while Ham o' Bone is optimistic concerning the mid-terms. If Ham is right, I'll decorate the blog in Dolphin colors & iconography for a week. (He's a Miami fan.)

One thing that has surprised me is just how crucial leadership is for a party. It seems less an important element than the important element. Arguably, the only periods during which the Republicans have been any good have been under Reagan and George W. Bush (and the latter only in spots, i.e. tax cuts and judges) and the only time the Congress has been any good was under Gingrich. Good leadership is a lagging indicator; you don't know someone isn't doing the job until they're already in the job.

Autumn in Ohio