Rossetti PRB

Sir Galahad at the ruined Chapel (1857-59) -

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Hitler, the Shroud, and the Sudarium

A fascinating little story: Adolph Hitler send troops to steal the Shroud of Turin, but was thwarted by a few plucky Benedictine monks. Bully!

Relatedly, Ignatius Press has an enormously good deal on a hard-bound copy of Janice Bennett's seminal study of the Sudarium of Oviedo. The Sudarium, the blood on which matches the blood on the Shroud of Turin (think about that for a moment), has a much longer and well-documented "paper trail" than that of the Shroud. It is, therefore, of primary importance in any investigation into the authenticity of the Shroud that Hitler, apparently, wanted so badly.

Magister - 6 Accusations, 1 Question

Sandro Magister examines Six Accusations, One Question against Benedict XVI.

'Modernism on the Rampage'

For the record: Lutheran theologian, John Stephenson, does an Ironman crumple on the recent attackers of the Pontiff in The dictatorship of relativism strikes back—and goes nuclear.

Benedict - 'Cure Against Death'

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Jesus is the “cure for death” man has sought since ancient times and still seeks at present, a “cure” that begins at baptism that continues for one’s whole life, this according to Benedict XVI who spoke last night at Easter Vigil, the “Vigil of all Vigils”, during which he performed baptism for six catechumens.

Men try to extend and improve life. “But let us reflect for a moment,” the Pontiff said. “[W]hat would it really be like if we were to succeed, perhaps not in excluding death totally, but in postponing it indefinitely, in reaching an age of several hundred years? Would that be a good thing? Humanity would become extraordinarily old; there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die, and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation.”

Christ instead transforms “our lives from within”; he creates “a new life within us, truly fit for eternity,” transforming “us in such a way as not to come to an end with death, but only then to begin in fullness.”

More>>

Duke 61 Butler 59

Gold Standard

Sanctity, Pure Love, and St Bernard

Fr Dwight Longenecker analyzes the age-old version of the two-pronged attack on Mother Church. He tells us, rightly, that each one of us is to engage in the battle using the only remedy: sanctity.

Below is a key understanding of the mysticism of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Doctor Mellifluus, on that remedy of sanctify as explicated by Thomas Merton:

False contemplation can be attained by the prudence of the flesh, but true mysticism is a gift that is granted only to those who are extremely little and poor in their own eyes, and who have learned, as Bernard himself did, to live not for themselves but for others. Such things are only learned supernaturally from the Holy Spirit ...

First ... every man should aspire to perfect union with God, at least in heaven. The fact that we are made in God's image should lead us to do this without any fear. The perfection of love, indeed, demands that we cast out all fear and seek the mercy of God with perfect confidence ...

...(S)ince God Himself is love, nothing can give Him greater honor than our love. Consequently nothing could be more meritorious than this pure love by which we abandon all and live for God alone. What does love merit? More love. For charity is at once the merit and the reward ...

Turning to our own world, the Holy Father (Pius XII) laments the fact this charity has grown cold. The love of God is not known. The doctrine of this divine union has been forgotten by those who lose themselves in the cares and business of increasingly active lives. They have forgotten the meaning of contemplation and of that charity which is fed not by human enthusiasm and the inspirations of natural ambition but by God Himself in prayer and sacrifice.

Christos Voskrese

Huge h/t and bow to Orthodox Fr Stephen, who provides the English translation (below video):

People rejoice, nations hear:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Stars dance, mountains sing:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Forests murmur, winds hum:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Seas bow, animals roar:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Bees swarm, and the birds sing:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!

Angels stand, triple the song:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Sky humble yourself, and elevate the earth:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Bells chime, and tell to all:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Glory to You God, everything is possible to You,
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!

Spinmeisters and Double Standards

Just imagine if Tea Baggers did this.

I don't fancy myself a Tea Party type myself, but it is interesting to note how the liberal progressivist agitprop machine works.

Boycott the NYT

Fr Dwight Longenecker and Francis Beckwith both are calling for Catholics to boycott the New York Times in light of Maureen Dowd's refusal to recant her "sleazy and false attack" on the Holy Father. Count me in.

Let's Cuff Him

This is what passes for British jurisprudence?

Meanwhile, amidst the knee-jerk accusations, a rabbi recommends the biblical ethos of charity.

P. Hitchens - The Lost Archbishop

For the record: the only Hitchens brother worth reading on Our nice, furry Archbishop... lost in a barbarous world.

4 Quotes for an Easter Afternoon

1.

“So after I signed the bill, I looked around. I looked up at the sky to see if asteroids were coming. I looked down at the ground to see if any cracks had opened up in the ground.

"It turned out to be a pretty nice day. Birds were still chirping. Folks were strolling down the street. Nobody had lost their doctor, nobody had pulled the plug on granny, nobody was being dragged away to be forced into some government plan.”

- President Barrack Obama

2.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

— Mark Twain

3.

"We are not baptized into the hierarchy; do not receive the Cardinals sacramentally, will not spend an eternity in the beatific vision of the pope. Christ is the point. I, myself, admire the present pope, but even if I criticized him as harshly as some do, even if his successor proved to be as bad as some of those who have gone before, even if I find the Church, as I have to live with it, a pain in the neck, I should still say that nothing a pope (or a priest) could do or say would make me wish to leave the Church although I might well wish that they would leave."

- Frank Sheed

4.

"If it don't play in the cancer ward, it ain't the Gospel."

- Carlyle Marney

Happy Easter

Resurrection (1518) - Albrecht Altdorfer

Resurrection (1400s?) - Fra Angelico

Resurrection (1515 Isenheim altarpiece) - Grünewald

Culling of the Church?

This may well be the culling of the Church. Anyone involved in politics knows that to discredit the credibility of one's foe is the first goal to accomplish. The mainstream media has been trashing the Catholic Church since the first scent of blood; i.e., the sex abuse scandal broke on the European continent and in Ireland.

This will help accomplish the second goal: to pick off the stragglers who were weak, young, or diseased.

Knowing that there is a growing virulent and violent demographic presence in the form of the Scimitar sets the stage for accomplishing the third goal: keeping the Catholic Church weary of attacks on many sides, otherwise known as "death by a thousand cuts."

Never mind that with the diminishment of the Catholic Church goes the last and greatest bastion against relativism. It is, after all, the sole source that offers epistemological, anthropological, theological, and soteriological certitude. Truth then is up for grabs by the highest bidder and the strongest political clout.

I do not turn a blind eye to the foolish, selfish, and sinful behavior that opened the door to this onrush of attacks. Without the sex scandal the task would have been much harder for her enemies to make such an immediate and unbalancing attack.

But the enemies of Mother Church think they have the upper hand. After all, they learned it well decades ago:

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” 

Adolf Hitler (from the chapter "War Propaganda" in Mein Kampf)

My greatest prayer is that all of this will lead us to a counter-counter-reformation led by the Holy Father and other great souls. For them, to reform the reform that will lead to a leaner, better fit, and more faithful Church engaged in whole-hearted Marian chivalry.

But for these meantimes, stay close to the Altar, pray and defend our priests, be a Pope's man - or woman, and keep your armor oiled and ready:

Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

- Ephesians 6,12-17

Holy Saturday

The Angels Hovering over The Body of Christ in the Sepulchre (1805) - William Blake

Laughable if it weren't so sad

Who are you going to trust?

It would be laughable if it weren't all so ridiculously sad. The MSM gets Fr Cantalamessa's superb analysis wrong - why? Because they latched onto something they thought they heard; namely, a comparison of (a) the continuing vitriolic junkyard-dog attacks on the Holy Father with (b) the nearly everlasting scapegoating of the Jews in world history.

Cantalamessa was correct and, beyond that, did an exquisite job of explicating Girard's mimetic theory. He showed mimetic theory to be a powerful servant and tool for the magisterium of the Church right there in front of God, the Holy Father, and - unfortunately - a selectively listening mainstream media. The MSM was as selective, I will hasten to add, as were the Pharisees were when they followed Our Lord around trying to find evidence for pinning Him to the wall.

Again, for proof read Fr Cantalamessa's homily in full here. See for yourself. Don't listen to the pharisaical, scapegoating, looking-for-trouble MSM.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Tucker's measured comments on all of the above: The Troubles of the Catholic World

Cantalamessa - Crimes Against Women

PREACHER DECRIES VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Says Christ Is Ally in Fighting This Crime

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 2, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The preacher of the Pontifical Household is denouncing violence against women, especially in the domestic realm, and is pointing out that Christ is the first to fight this crime.

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa stated this today in his homily at the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord, presided over by Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Basilica.

Speaking about the brutal death of Jesus, and the violence that has always been present to a certain extent in human history, the priest pointed to a "grave and widespread" manifestation of this savagery.

"I am not speaking here of violence against children," he said, though he acknowledged that some clergy are "stained" by this crime. On this topic, "there is sufficient talk outside of here," he said.

Rather, the preacher highlighted the crime of violence against women.

"This is an occasion to make persons and institutions that fight against it understand that Christ is their best ally," he said.

Father Cantalamessa asserted that "it is a violence all the more grave in as much as it is often carried out in the shelter of domestic walls, unknown to all, when it is not actually justified with pseudo-religious and cultural prejudices."

"The victims find themselves desperately alone and defenseless," he said. "Only today, thanks to the support and encouragement of so many associations and institutions, some find the strength to come out in the open and denounce the guilty."

More>>

Merciful Knight - Burne-Jones & Digby

The Merciful Knight (1863) Edward Burne-Jones

The source for this picture was an 11th century legend retold by Sir Kenelm Digby in 'Broadstone of Honour'. The hero of the legend was a knight called John Gualberto, who was later canonised. Burne-Jones explained the story as being 'of a knight who forgave his enemy (background, upper right) when he might have destroyed him and how the image of Christ kissed him in token that his acts had pleased God.'

Katz - Pink Slip the NYT

Here is a perfect example of the veracity of Jon Katz's dictum: "If cultural anthropologists could write, a lot of journalists would have to find other work. And if journalists were given the time, education, and training anthropologists receive, we might better grasp some of the complicated problems we face."

For students of Girard, the text of Father Raniero Cantalamessa's homily highly featured - and inexcusably torn out of context - by the NYT. He is an extremely astute and knowledgeable homilist who utilizes mimetic theory as an instrument of the magisterium of the Church. From his homily:

In 1972 a famous French thinker launched the thesis according to which "violence is the heart and secret spirit of the sacred."[2] In fact, at the origin and center of every religion there is sacrifice, and sacrifice entails destruction and death. The newspaper "Le Monde" greeted the affirmation, saying that it made of that year "a year to mark with an asterisk in the annals of humanity." However, before this date, that scholar had come close again to Christianity and at Easter of 1959 he made public his "conversion," declaring himself a believer and returning to the Church.

This enabled him not to pause, in his subsequent studies, on the analysis of the mechanism of violence, but to point out also how to come out of it. Many, unfortunately, continue to quote René Girard as the one who denounced the alliance between the sacred and violence, but they do not speak of the Girard who pointed out in the paschal mystery of Christ the total and definitive break of such an alliance. According to him, Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself, the victim of all violence...

Read it all here. Then ask yourself: How on earth could the NYT have written the above story and so idiotically misconstrued Fr Cantalamessa? How can anyone believe the New York Times is NOT scapegoating the Catholic Church, given these facts?

Ultimately one must ask oneself: Who are you going to trust? I've made my decision. But I,for one, would not want to be in the shoes of those who so glibly cast doubt into the hearts of those who need Christ's holy Church for salvation.

Colson - Dreadful Worship

Chuck Colson does a bang up job of describing René Girard's concept of the "primitive sacred" without any apparent knowledge of it. Then, he describes the revelatory power of the Gospel's Lord - the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection - the "word made flesh" (Jn 1,14) who destroyed the satanic power of the primitive sacred. Finally, he limns the dreadful filling of the vacuum left by the West's rejection and abandonment of the Gospel.

Read it here.

Good Friday

Crucifixion (1695) - El Greco

When the MSM Attacks

For the record: ZENIT's Elizabeth Lev on Holy Week's Sore Losers:

Daily headlines pairing Benedict XVI with sexual abuse reveal little substance and much specious reasoning, while the editorialists have been vying, like bullies in a school yard, to see who can deliver the sharpest kick.

To the secular minded it seems inexplicable that the Holy See doesn’t leap to its own defense, brandishing sheaves of files, swiftly rebutting each accusation, and decrying this defamation from the cupola of St. Peter’s. This is not Rome’s way. Not when the Landsknechts sacked Rome in 1527, forcing Pope Clement VII to flee for his life; not when 86-year-old Pope Pius VI was trundled off by Napoleon and driven around Europe until he died; and not when the Italians claimed Rome and drove Pope Pius IX into exile within the Vatican walls.

There are two main reasons for this. For all their pretensions, newspapers are not a court of law. They are bound to no rules when considering evidence, nor is there a process for establishing the worthiness of witnesses for the prosecution. They can pick and choose what to publish and what to silence, or simply ignore. The media’s self-styled tribunals bring more sales for the editors and more reasons and resources to keep attacking the Church, but little in the way of justice.

Moreover, in media courts, you are assumed guilty until proven innocent. In this arena, the press calls the shots, and slings the mud while all the Holy See can do is wipe it off. Much like the trial of Christ, there is no chance of acquittal here..More>>

King of kings

The Crucifixion (1515) - Grünewald

One of the joys of Holy Week is having the opportunity to compare and contrast what Our Lord reveals is true leadership with what the world (Gr. κόσμος) considers leadership.

In mimetic theory terms, Girard calls the former "external mediation" and the latter "internal mediation." The former is revealed by One Who, by definition, comes from without the hall of mirrors of human mimesis, social interaction, terms of acceptable discourse, and, well, to be blunt, the two-sided political penny of fear-of-the-crowd and courting/fooling the crowd.

In His encounter with Satan in the wilderness just after His baptism in the Jordan by John, Our Lord is given three golden opportunities to grasp what the "prince of this world" (Jn 12,31) has in his keeping to grant: (a) making bread from a stone, (b) forcing the hand of divine intervention by throwing Himself off a pinnacle of the Temple, and (c) receiving political power extraordinaire over all the kingdoms of the world - clearly, Satan's to give Him.

What mere politician would not say "Done!" to at the very least the last one (c) as the expedient thing to do for "the greater good?" That's what politics is all about, after all.

But Our Lord, the "external Mediator" Who bears the light of God to a dark world of sin will have none of it.* He was, as the Evangelist St. John says,

...true light, which enlightens everyone ... coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him.

He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God. And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.

Remember, as we enter the holiest time of the holiest season of the Christian calendar, what the cosmos, the world, does to gain political power, and its motives. Remember what Our Lord did on the Cross and why. Remember that mere politics are not sufficient to save the world, or, gentle reader, your eternal soul.

Kneel at the foot of the Holy Cross again. And pledge your fealty to the King of mere kings, despots, prime ministers, and presidents. He and He alone deserves your ultimate loyalty, not mere mortal "internal mediators." Particularly the ones who are so good at politics, the pocket-coin of the "prince of this world."

You are made imago dei for the eternal weight of glory. Worship and adore God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, blessed Trinity.

Vexilla Regis prodeunt:

Fulget crucis mysterium,

Quo carne carnis Conditor

Suspensus est patibulo.

The royal banners forward go,

The Cross shines forth in mystic glow,

Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,

Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

___________

*Jesus summoned them and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." - Mtt 20,25-28