Saturday, May 9, 2009

GKC - The Macbeths

"Make a morbid decision and you will only become more morbid; do a lawlesss thing and you will only get into an atmosphere much more suffocating than that of law. Indeed, it is a mistake to speak of a man as 'breaking out.' The lawless man never breaks out; he breaks in. He smashes a door and finds himself in another room, he smashes a wall and finds himself in a yet smaller one. The more he shatters the more his habitation shrinks. Where he ends you may read in the end of Macbeth.

"For us moderns, therefore, the first philosophical significance of the play is this; that our life is one thing and that our lawless acts limit us; every time we break a law we make a limitation. In some strange way hidden in the deeps of human psychology, if we build our palace on some unknown wrong it turns very slowly into our prison. Macbeth at the end of the play is not merely a wild beast; he is a caged wild beast."

- G. K. Chesterton [ht: Joseph Pearce]

Crisis of Distinctions - Dymphna

Dymphna pulls back far enough for us to see the convulsing cultural upheaval surrounding gay marriage in her well-written gay marriage, welcome to the vomitorium.

Any way you slice it

Friday, May 8, 2009

Connect the Dots

This and this should be read carefully and cool-headedly, remembering that Dr. Jeffrey Burke Satinover, formerly of both the Harvard and Yale medical schools, laid out the political reasons that the APA did not include homosexuality as a character disorder any longer in its Diagnostic and Statistics Manual IV. The multitudinous scientific reasons for including it were over-ridden by the shrill caucus claiming victimhood, but the scientific reasons now politically incorrect are voiceless and unheeded.

The unfettered adulation of the human will and worship of the instincts is now the highest good in dying western culture, gaining power by law and in negative imitation of Magisterial truth. Where it will end, and where it has always ended, is the place of sacrifice.

Burke, ND, and Epistemology

St. George and the Dragon. 1868 - Sir Edward Burne-Jones, PRB

With this, I will now say that Fr. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, is in a peck of trouble. Not only is he out on a limb with the saw in his own hand half way through it - the limb, not his hand - but he has created a public scandal that qualifies as a mortal sin insofar that it has divided the faithful (and so-so faithful).

Our Lord himself had grave promises about such sin:
"Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin."
- Luke 17,1b-2
Rest assured. There is judgment, there is eternal consequence to our decisions and actions; regardless of the functional atheists who call themselves Christians and jettison all the faith and morals that Mother Church guards and protects till the end of time.

What we can be assured of from their kind is more outrage, damage, and pushing of the squirm-line in actions like this or this.

You see, quite simply, without a reliable source of epistemological certainty, "truth" is whatever or whomever has the greatest power with which to determine the terms of discourse.

That the Catholic Church has strode through history this long, outlasting all earthly governments (you really can't call China unchanging, now) during her tenure; that the Catholic Church has done, is doing, and will do so much good in the world compared to all other mere human institutions (think of the 20th century utopian projects of Stalin, et al. I'll live with the Inquisition and I vote for the Crusades - we were there centuries before the Muslims); that the Catholic Church is the keeper of faith and morals discarded and rejected bit by bit by all other christianities - and I am indelibly happy to be in full communion with Mother Church.

Notre Dame needs to put up or shut up. Academia does not set the terms of discourse. The Church does.

Guilty as Charged

Here are two irresistible headlines fairly begging to be posted for the record:

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hughes - PRB

Good Night (1865-66) - Arthur Hughes

'Day's turn is over: now arrives the Night's.'
- Robert Browning, Pippa Passes

'Great Rage, Great Fear'

The WaPo reports today on the reaction to citizens of Pakistan to the entree of the Taliban to their regions.

GOLRA, Pakistan, May 6 -- Hajji Karim and his extended family of 70 were camped in a dirt-floor stable 10 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was as far as they could get from the Swat Valley, where thousands of people are fleeing from the ravages of the Taliban and the imminent prospect of war with government forces.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

And, thus, do ordinary, peace-loving peoples experience the primitive sacred in its full-blown, violent reality. In theory, the primitive sacred can infiltrate any religion in which the gospel's influence has little or no presence, even fundamentalist Christianity.

But the Scimitar is a more apt host, since the Cross of Christ is denied by it. Pity the poor people who are now face-to-face with the "hideous strength" of the primitive sacred.

Read more of In Pakistan, ‘Great Rage,’ ‘Great Fear’

Be of Good Cheer - the Reason

Gil Bailie once said somewhere that the primitive sacred has such an entrenched place in human culture - it is our default, fall-back position since it is the origin of fallen cultural anthropology - that when those of the Christian faith attempt to work against it, it seems to carry a near-omnipotent power to thwart our efforts. It seems like a vast conspiracy, so well organized is it with lightning-like communication and mobilization between its proponents and officer-class leaders.

This explains why this is going to feel like a no-win situation for Catholic truth, faith, and morals.

We should neither be afraid nor despairing. Our Lord promises us we will have tribulation in this world; but to be of good cheer. For, He tells us, "I have overcome the world"

So gird up your loins, Christian. We have work to do.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Punszer Attack

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still..

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his orders.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blown apart.

9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmo t her telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

19. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

20. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

21. A backward poet writes inverse.

22. In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

23. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

24. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

And, finally:

25. A man wrote ten puns and entered them all in a pun writing contest hoping to win it. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Oakes - Can I Won be Converted

For the record, Father Edward T. Oakes, S. J., on Can Barack Obama Be Converted on Abortion?

Head planted firmly in the sand

Pardon the unacceptably low level of discourse, but what the hell has this guy been smoking? This is precisely the kind of thinking that got I Won elected by the majority of Catholics in the United States, and, apparently, continue to approve of his pro-abortion, anti-Catholic presidency.

Try Sixty-six

An old Jewish saying: if one man calls you a donkey, pay him no heed. If two call you a donkey, think about it. If three men call you a donkey, buy a saddle.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Purpose of Life

When I am tempted to despair by the lapping waves creeping higher on the shores of Atlantis, I sometimes will remember an image from the Star Wars films. All the members of the cadre are captured by Darth Vader at the Cloud City mining facility, and some are being tortured; all in the attempt to draw Luke Skywalker to their assistance ... and into a trap.

Chewbacca the wookiee has just undergone a form of sonic torture. When it relents, he picks up box of pieces formerly C3PO, to begin the process of putting the android back together. No praise expected. No hoopla. No glory. Just helping, though he is probably still hurting.

I thought of this when I read a poignant entry at Saint Austin Review's Ink Desk:

“I didn’t know you had a lawn service,” I say to my sister.

We are sitting at the breakfast table in her home in Oklahoma City with the unmistakable roar of a mower in the background. “It’s the neighbors,” she replies.

Turns out her neighbors come over and mow and weed whack without being asked.

Normally her husband would do all this, but my brother-in-law has been diagnosed with cancer and can’t do what he once did.

Frankly, I am stunned by this degree of neighborly love.

At Mass each Sunday I say a prayer asking God’s forgiveness for “what I have done and what I have failed to do.” The latter list in my case seems long, especially when it comes to helping people who have not asked for assistance.

Read all …

Hold the Illuminati

It's for a lot of yard work

And here's some good news: 1,000 lbs. of high-grade nitrate fertilizer was stolen from a lawn-care business in Tuscumbia, Alabama. And, yes, that’s the kind of fertilizer that can be used to make explosives.1,000 lbs. of high-grade nitrate fertilizer was stolen from a lawn-care business in Tuscumbia, Alabama. And, yes, that’s the kind of fertilizer that can be used to make explosives.

Tuscumbia was the home and birthplace of Helen Keller.

Black Helicopters - 1 Homeschoolers - 0

InsideCatholic runs this gem: State Stomps on Common Good.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Notre Dame Alum Response

Update. Thanks to brother Aramis for the tip.

Who You Gonna Trust

Notre Dame Response makes a powerful response. [ht: American Papist]

The matter here is who are you going to trust to provide you certain truth (epistemology), a firm foundation on Reality himself (ontology), and, yes, HOPE (soteriology) - a progressivist academician/politician with a spotless pro-abortion voting record, or the episcopal leaders of the Catholic Church?

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Good Shepherd Sunday

Inscription dedicated by parents of deceased 7 year old girl, Apuleia Crysopolis; Good Shepherd and bush (Catacomb of St. Callisto, Rome).

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His,
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And, where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home rejoicing brought me.

In death's dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy Cross before to guide me.

Thou spread'st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And oh, what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

Zo - Under My Bus

@ Karen Hall, Zo celebrates the first 100 days. Priceless.

Primitive Sacred "Progress" & the Scimitar

This and this are structurally the same.

From a mimetic theory viewpoint, it is the setting up of check points at which new victims for the sacrificial mechanism can be acquired. "Tripwires" catch certifiable and, hence, duly sanctioned "evil-doers".

The power of the Sacred, anthropologically speaking, is still the greatest foe of the Gospel.