Friday, October 10, 2008

Modesty

Canadian novelist Michael O'Brien weighs in on modesty:
"I am convinced that the modern harping on the supposed repressiveness of the past is really no more than a symptom of our current obsession with sex. If we were to plunge back a century or two, I think we would find that while our ancestors' manner of dress was indeed more formal, and at times even constricting, most people still wed and had children and made happy marriages with startling frequency - and with an enviable rate of success. Compare that to our own dismal, liberated era, in which the image of the cavorting human body is thrust at us a thousand times a day from the pages of the tabloids at the supermarket check-out counter, from chewing gum commercials on television, home computer screens, and from what is being worn on the beach and at church. Modesty has gone out of style."
Read more here.

Of Columbus


Elizabeth Lev gives a glowing account of running across modern-day knights:
Perhaps it has something to do with the King Arthur stories I read as a child, but I have always been fascinated with knights. The ideal of a noble and virtuous warrior, protective of the weak but deadly to enemies, seemed to be the perfect balance of manly qualities.

Through the years, I learned how faith inspired and upheld such men, whether the Knights of Malta -- hospitalers by day and Mediterranean SWAT team by night -- or the Templars, who had fought and died to protect the Christian faith.

But this week I had the pleasure of meeting modern knights, not armed with swords and shields, but employing the same bravery and virtue as they battle new threats in contemporary arenas. Like their predecessors of old they wear their deep love of the Gospel and their fervent commitment to the magisterium more proudly than any medal-of-honor or badge of distinction.
Read all …

Thursday, October 9, 2008

May God Infuse Their Sacrifice with Meaning

Gates of Hell

Shall Not Prevail

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.

Enough of This 'Devout Catholic' Thing

Catholic Exchange explains:
If you are not Catholic, and you are trying to sell yourself to Catholics, simply describe as “devout” any supporter of yours who is a carbon-based life form with a pulse that shows up in Mass now and then because, well, that’s the AP style manual term for “Catholics who have been to Mass sometime in the past couple of years who support abortion, gay marriage, and like to talk about being green.”

Truth be told, the Culture of Death has done a stunningly good (sic) job of shutting down discourse on abortion and other satanic, de rigueur events enervating the remnants of Christendom during this presidential campaign season. The supporters of at least one candidate think that if he flatulates, it's Mozart.

It isn't "leftist" or "rightist" agendas we are struggling against. Humans succumbed to "luciferian logic" are under the influence of forces far greater than puny human reason, regardless of PhDs, etc. The blinders of such conventional reasoning literally turn a blind eye to the sacrificial elements involved ('abortion and other satanic events' above) ipso facto. Of course - it is part of conventional human culture whose origin is directly linked to the primitive sacred. Our enemies are legion.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Paganism - Redux

Paganism - Then & Now: Part I , Part II, Part III
{First posted 31 May 2008}

A careful reading may help one begin to understand such horrific events as this. Or this. Or this. Or this.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

SNL Does Will Rogers Imitation

Juuust in case you want to watch the SNL skit banned by Youtube, compliments of Michelle Malkin.

McInerny on New Atheism & 'Chesterbelloc'

Father Ralph McInerny recognizes the true target of the new atheists (actually rehash of 19th century positivists, only with less sophisticated weapons); namely, the Catholic Church and her vouchsafed Magisterium of revealed truth. Where are the Chestertons and Bellocs today?
If Catholicism is true, the central event of human history is the Incarnation, God become man in order to save men from their sins and reconcile them with God. Our destiny is eternal union with God, and earthly life takes on added significance from that fact. It is here in the Vale of Tears that we must live the great decision for or against Christ. Every other criterion of human history is secondary to this. The Catholic Church is the continuation in time of the salvific work of Christ, Who is not some dim figure in the past but a continuing presence among us, in the Mass, in the sacraments, in the guidance of the Church. Not for the Chesterbelloc the privitatization of religion, treating the faith as if it were some private quirk about which the less said publicly the better.

Recently, the continuing love of Belloc was dismissed as triumphalism. The dismissal may be ignored, but the charge seems just. Belloc and Chesterton were loudly proud of the faith and sought out opportunities to commend and defend it. What is the opposite of “trumphalism”? Perhaps filing one’s beliefs away from public view, suggesting that they have no broad social relevance, apologizing for Catholicism’s claim to be the one, true church, tailoring Catholic teachings to the zeitgeist so that they are indistinguishable from secular assumptions. Anyone holding one or all of these will of course be made uneasy by the Chesterbelloc.

Heretics all, whoever you be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
Caritas non conturbat me.

But Catholic men that live upon wine
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
Benedicamus Domino.
Read all of The Chesterbelloc Thing [ht: Mark Shea]

ad majorem Dei gloriam

And speaking of hope for Christendom, Real Clear Religion offers this beauty: A RESURGENCE OF LATIN AND CLASSICAL EDUCATION.

Our Lady of the Rosary

The Battle of Lepanto - Paolo Veronese

Pope St. Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto - click here for survey of the battle - a victory attributed to the praying of the Rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.

The development of the Rosary has a long history. First, a practice developed of praying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms. Then there was a parallel practice of praying 150 Hail Marys. Soon a mystery of Jesus' life was attached to each Hail Mary. Though Mary's giving the Rosary to St. Dominic is recognized as unhistorical, the development of this prayer form owes much to the followers of St. Dominic. One of them, Alan de la Roche, was known as "the apostle of the rosary." He founded the first Confraternity of the Rosary in the 15th century. In the 16th century the rosary was developed to its present form—with the 15 mysteries (joyful, sorrowful and glorious). In 2002, Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light to this devotion.
- Americancatholic.org

The greatest retelling of the victory at Lepanto is by G. K. Chesterton in his epic poem of the same name.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Mayors Dial 911

NIS News Bulletin reports that Netherlands Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst is setting up a telephone help-line for mayors who face aggression and violence. "No less than 60 percent of mayors in the Netherlands face aggression and violence, according to Ter Horst. From next year, they can phone a confidential line for advice. The information line will also be open to aldermen," they report. [ht: Gates of Vienna]

The hierarchy of western civilization is fraying badly: the courtroom, municipal leadership, financial markets. One of the two major political parties in this presidential election season is committed to aid in the fraying.

When the last remnants of conventional culture founded on prohibition, ritual, and myth are removed, with what shall we replace them?

Politics for the Depressed Voter

Benjamin Wiker helps the disillusioned voter make it through this dismal political campaign season with his, Why You Must Vote and What You Can Expect:
This is not an article for those who are unabashedly in love with democracy, who look forward to election year with patriotic zeal directed first of all to the nation and second of all to one of the political parties. I write instead for the genuinely dispossessed: for those who feel deep in their bones that the entire political process is a sham; who think that our country, whatever its previous merits, is accelerating in a decades-long slide; who grant that Americans enjoy great blessings, but do so in the midst of self-inflicted moral and spiritual deprivations; who believe that voting for either candidate is merely a decision about the handbasket in which to ride to hell. In short, I write for those who, faced with the prospect of choosing between Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain, are nearly in despair about democracy and who are consequently planning to skip the whole sordid affair rather than soil their consciences.

To those thus afflicted I say, "Cheer up and vote." Politics is always a sad compromise ... Read more …

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Vermeer

The Art of Painting (c. 1666-73) - Johannes Vermeer van Delft

For the Renewal of Christendom


Douglass Daniel, AP - Racially Tinged "Analsysis"

Douglass K. Daniel shows his kneejerk sympathy for anti-American activities in his "analysis" - Palin's words carry racial tinge. "RACIAL"? Huh?

This Douglass Daniel guy apparently only has one card in his toolbox - the race card. 'Thing is, Palin would never have said it about, say, Michael Steele.

Wouldn't have had to. However, Douglass Daniel DID make a racially tinged "analysis".

UPDATE: They've changed the title: Palin's words may backfire on McCain AP's attack is relentless.

A Little Comparison - Your Choice


The nexus of the cultural clash involving the Christian faith and the Scimitar is at the point where exemplars of the two most perfectly follow their respective models; namely, Christ and the Prophet. Nearly all of their fellows will say that the persons who do the best job imitating (fill in the blank) is the most devout, righteous, holy, etc.

So, then, one must look closely at the respective model for the Christian and the Muslim. Others have done so, so I will not in this brief space. The point is, for the Christian and the Muslim anthropological, epistemological, ontological certitude emanates from the being and the words of their respective mediator of what humans were created to be.

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church - the Guardian of Christian truth since the inception of the Church - makes astonishing truth claims about our Founder, Jesus of Nazareth: that he was born of a Virgin who conceived by God's Holy Spirit; that he was wholly God while wholly man; that lived among us, performed mighty signs ("miracles"), instituted both his Church with Sacraments by which we receive God's grace, was put to death on a cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. One need only read the accounts of the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John - to see that Jesus made similar truth claims about himself.

C. S. Lewis observed that, logically, he was (a) a liar, (b) mad, or (c) telling the truth.

The followers of the founder of the Scimitar make no such exorbitant claims about their model, only that he wrote the Koran which his Deity dictated to him, word for word. His life, again, can be read about elsewhere.

The question we must ask is, Which model, mediator of God's truth will one choose to believe? Concomitantly, which truth can truly lead humanity away from its bloodthirstiness, its fallenness?

The West may not have a choice much longer.

Spencer / Wilders Interview

A superb interview by Robert Spencer with G. Wilders, discussing his motives for producing the film Fitna, reactions by the Scimitar and the dhimmi in the West.

It is quizzical to see how proclaimers of accusations that the film is "insulting" are practitioners of Decisionism (Carl Schmidt), claiming the epistemological authority to make such a claim. In actuality, Wilders merely showed the temerity to hold up a mirror to the sanctioned beliefs and actions of the primitive sacred in the guise of the Scimitar.

They Don't Fit the Modernist Agenda

Students try to present books that represent a Christian viewpoint on homosexuality to school libraries in Fairfax County, Virginia. Unsuccessfully. [ht: Real Clear Religion]

Before Islam: Story of the Islamification of Egypt, Iraq and Iran

A laudable website from which the following video is gleaned: Occidental Soapbox – Reminding the West of Its Own History.

Lord, in Your Mercy


Hear Our Prayer

It is becoming clearer that a majority of United States citizens do not, unlike orthodox Catholics, see things like Archbishop Charles Chaput, who writes, "Many social issues are important. Many require our attention. But some issues have more weight than others. Deliberately killing innocent human life, or standing by and allowing it, dwarfs all other social issues ... "

They would, it seems, rather vote for an inexperienced junior U. S. Senator with a sterling record voting pro-abortion for President.

From this falling stone of murdering the God-given new life in a mother's womb, comes an avalanche of succubi all highly fashionable and tantalizing to the denizens of modernity: freedom from responsibility, a pipe dream of financial security, euthanasia, degeneracy, false transcendence of paganism - a veritable worshiping the pantheon of the worst elements of fallen humanity's instincts, drives, and passions - all under the aegis of luciferian logic, a hierarchy of secular academic degrees and other verisimilitudes of sanction that the world offers.

So, let us continue our vigilant efforts of Catholic chivalry - prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action - in devotion to Our Lady and her great Lord. And we will proffer the following, hoping against hope that the Holy Spirit will move more hearts before the fateful vote.