Chronicles of Atlantis

He Walks in Beauty

2011-06-28T05:09:00.000-07:00

Now Athos will see beauty all around him, and join his tenor voice and his violin to the music of the stars and the communion of saints in everlasting praise of our Holy and Triune God.

Thanks be to God for the life of Jeffry Leonard Morris Hendrix, born December 14, 1954, died June 28, 2011.

Posted by God's Weaver, his wife Mochel Morris

Our Lady's Discipleship

2011-05-31T01:33:00.000-07:00

The Holy Father's Message of Hope for Today

The Holy Father recently spoke about the dark times through which he lived as a youth, speaking of how "Hitler had subjected one country after another, Poland, Denmark, the Benelux States and France, and in April of 1941 -- precisely in this season 70 years ago -- he had occupied Yugoslavia and Greece."

"It seemed that the Continent was in the hands of this power that, at the same time, cast doubt on the future of Christianity," the Pontiff said.

He had joined the "Sodality of Our Lady" as a young man and, although the dissolution of the seminaries hindered it, this bond continued, since "Catholicity cannot exist without a Marian expression."

"To be Catholics means to be Marian ... that in the Mother and by the Mother we find the Lord," he said.

We have great hope in following Our Lady's example of discipleship. To read the full text of his message go here.

Coren - Fighting the Good Fight

2011-05-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

Author and apologist Michael Coren appears in Peter Jackson's extended DVD boxed-sets. He, and others, help to explain the influences on young J. R. R. Tolkien. Now, ZENIT reports, he has a new book that helps to defend the Catholic Church in the continuing onslaught of cultural attacks facing Her today.

A convert himself from Judaism, Coren apparently ranges over a variety of topics and incidents from his life, according to ZENIT. The book, Why Catholics Are Right, may be purchased here.

Sheed - Understanding the Trinity

2011-05-27T15:47:00.001-07:00

For the Record: The late author and publisher, Frank Sheed, offered this to help understand the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Courtesy of Ignatius Insight.

Knox - Praying for All Souls

2011-05-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

WE ALWAYS DO THINK OF them, don't we, as the poor souls in Purgatory. That seems curious, from one point of view; from one point of view they are so much better off than we are. You and I might go to hell; they can't. We sometimes think of them enviously for that reason. They are like friends who have gone on ahead, and successfully jumped over the precipice that lay in our path; we haven't jumped it yet - how much better off they are than we! Yes, but from another point of view they are hard up, the holy souls, desperately hard up. We can still merit; they can't. Nothing they can do can give them any relief, can bring them any nearer to the heaven which is their only desire, their only dream.

If you will, they are like people who have got plenty of money at the bank, but no cash in their pockets; what is the use of money if one can't get at it? So they ask for our prayers, which can help them; our prayers, which we ought to give generously, just as the saints give their prayers to us. So, each year, November reminds us about the Communion of Saints; about the help we can get, about the help we can give. You remember the fable about the lion which was caught in a net, and the mouse that helped it by eating through the net so that it could get out? You and I are like that when we pray for the souls of Christians departed. They are much more splendid people than you and I are; they are already on the last lap of their journey home. But they are held up on that journey, and they can't help themselves; we can help them, and it isn't presumptuous to think of ourselves as helping them, even splendid people who have fallen gloriously in battle - we are the mice nibbling away at the bonds which hold them, that is all.

- Ronald A. Knox, "The Communion of Saints (I)",

The Creed in Slow Motion

+ Saint Philip Neri

2011-05-26T01:34:00.000-07:00

St. Philip Neri (1515-1595)

(Check out below >>)

UPDATES: The Great Thing by Sophia Mason

Also - by Allison

Also - by Elizabeth Scalia

Sunday Evening Reflections on Hell

2011-05-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

I can still recall - with an importance borne out by the seriousness with which the grown-ups seemed to consider the topic - a Sunday evening when my evangelical pastor father's church held a Revival service. We had a guest preacher and got to dine him (No wining him - we were teetotalers!) before the church service. My sister and I speculated who would "come forward" to the altar rail to either "get saved" (in some cases, again) or renew their "personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ." In any case, it was serious, and we were inculcated from a very early age on the FACTs of the Last Four Things.

Adults can't manufacture those values; there is no winking to the audience, I am thankful to say. My father and my mother were in deadly earnest when it came to them, and my sister, Linda, and I caught those values.

So, it wasn't surprising to me to find myself after the revival preacher's sermon to find myself coming forward to the altar rail to "accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior." It wasn't that I hadn't done so before in private, so to speak; but in our neck of the woods, it you didn't trudge up where everybody could watch you do it, it just didn't count to your credit. See?

Well, I still believe in those Four Last Things, but I also know that I need the fullness of the Church that Jesus our Lord founded on Saint Peter ("Rocky") in Matthew 16, including all the sacramental grace that our Lord provides us creatures made in His image, imago dei. (For more read A Little Guide for Your Last Days.)

In fact, Dale Alquist puts succinctly the words and thoughts of fellow convert, G. K. Chesterton. (I would say fellow author, but the audacity sticks in my craw with an accompanying choking sensation.) A quick and easy essay just doesn't get much better than this one all of a Sunday evening. Read, read, pilgrim, and never forget GKC's insights in A Happy Little Reflection on Hell. And, thank you, too, Dale Ahlquist.

Don't you wish more people thought about the Four Last Things. Like those who garner power with a smug grin of happy and healthy human existence; at least, for now?

Ka ... Beauty

2011-05-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

On this auspicious day, when, if the news we hear from some quarters is correct, the "world" (κόσμος) will come to an end, may I make the recommendation that we all grab a cool drink and enjoy some truth, goodness, and beauty. If you cannot find any near by, start with Daniel Mitsui's THE LION & THE CARDINAL. Then you are on your own, gentle reader ...

Imagine - Not John Lennon

2011-05-21T02:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we can dream, can't we?

Byrd, Tallis, and Today

2011-05-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent documentary on the age of Henry VIII, the ruination of Catholicism in England, the dissolution of the monasteries (+/-20 a month), and the Catholic musicians, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

As I have said, a close and careful study of the (so-called) English "reformation" is important indeed for Catholics today.

Powers and principalities will always seek to do away with the Church and misunderstand Her Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Tallis and Byrd, composers, give us reason for Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Knox - Parables

2011-05-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

IT WOULD BE quite natural to suppose that the Incarnate Revelation of Truth would announce a single message to all alike in plain, unmistakable language ... as a matter of fact he did not, and has told us that he did not. After uttering the parable - surely a very simple one - of the sower sowing his seed, he goes out of his way to explain that he does not want all his audience to penetrate the full meaning of what he is talking about. That, surely, is something for us to think over.

- Ronald A. Knox

A Beastie Attack and Musical Praying

2011-05-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

'Had a rough day yesterday - I won't go into the gory details of the attack, but suffice it to say, my beastie had a field day with my body and I sat tight until my appointment for a shot at the Infusion Center to help boost my white blood cell count.

I found myself bouncing between the Giro d'Italia and EWTN mid-morning - both of which were, of course, fabulous. I saw my new friend and acquaintance, Marcus Grodi, interviewing an oldish looking fellow from Canada, Terry Hatty, former vocalist with The Guess Who, and stayed to watch.

His story about making his "journey home" isn't particularly theological or, probably, pertinent to many of our stories, but I found him to be a true victory; I know so many of his ilk who follow the progressivist propaganda line and flounder off into sad endings. Terry, on the other hand, has managed to keep his music alive and revert to Mother Church.

Go here if you want to see the interview with an aging rock and roll singer, and hear a sampling of his musical prayers. Great pipes for a fellow of his age!

Mitsui - Cathedrals ... in Color

2011-05-11T01:51:00.000-07:00

Did you happen to know, asked the sadly ignorant blogger, that the great cathedral churches of Christendom were once rich in polychromatic color - both on their exteriors and interiors?

Once again, the inimitable church art historian (and extraordinary artist) Daniel Mitsui brings to light of day a fact of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that yours truly did not until as of late have at his disposal.

I'll let our inestimable friend and brother in Christ show you what the above, Amiens Cathedral, looks like under the astonishing spotlights and lasers looks like by going, gentle reader, here. Enjoy.

BOOKs

2011-05-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

Yet another prototypical optical reading device is about to hit the market. And, don't you know, we do (of course) need one. I will let you read about it from the sales manifesto below:

Device to Replace Electronic Media

Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, trade named BOOK. BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere - even sitting in an armchair by the fire - yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc.

Here's how it works: BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now, BOOKs with more information simply use more pages. Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.

BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it. BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, though like other display devices, it can become unusable if exposed to high ambient temperatures. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.

BOOK can be stored for an almost unlimited amount of time without connecting any outside power source. Many BOOK units may be stored together as they cause no interference with one another, even when placed in close proximity. An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session - even if the BOOK has been closed.

BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOK markers can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK.

You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (PENCILS). Portable, durable, and affordable,

BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. Also, BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform and investors are reportedly flocking. Look for a flood of new titles soon. Try it! You'll like it!

***

Okay, okay. Enough tongue-in-cheek. If you happen to need the tactile experience of not merely seeing a mock-page turn as one does on iPad; if you happen to love the smell of old (but not mildewy ) books; if you can't stand to see a shelf standing without being filled with books, BOOK is obviously the "device" of choice for you! I strongly suggest Alibris if you know the author and/or title for which you are looking, though Amazon will do in a pinch.

I completed my Ronald Arbuthnott Knox collection, picking and choosing very carefully (there are bargains to be found; another joy of BOOK buying). Go, thou; and choose wisely.

Gibson Watching

2011-05-06T01:43:00.001-07:00

Two points make a straight line, or so I'd tell my math class students who would ever bother to use a straight edge to draw a straight line. So what do I see browsing the web today? Two stories on Mel Gibson. I will let you 'draw' your own conclusions about the two points here* and here, gentle reader.

*Lest you write-off what appears to be a brain-less comedy, remember that Jodi Foster starred in a thought-provoking film, Contact, that left the door open for agnostics to move toward theism some years back. Why would she direct a new film and co-star with Mel Gibson to boot? Perhaps time will tell.

Fools and Pilgrims

2011-05-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing since Graceland comes near to excellence until now. Go thee, purchase his new album So Beautiful or So What. For sheer heart-rending poignancy, The Rewrite. Best call-and-response preachin' - Getting Ready for Christmas. Hands down best answer to his (long time ago now) nihilistic song, The Boxer, Questions for the Angels.

Go! Get thee hence, hear, and respond in faith to this prophetic aging voice. Hey! Aren't they the best kind, after all?

Reading Signs of the Times

2011-05-04T01:35:00.000-07:00

Good advice and discernment regarding recent current events here, here, and here.

The No-Men Pt. 4 - Knox

2011-05-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

(This completes Knox's essay, "The No-Men")

THAT'S WHY I WANT TO appeal to you all, as you remember the English martyrs, to cultivate jealously and watchfully your own independence of mind ... You live in a frightful age of propaganda; books, newspapers, and above all the wireless are trying hard all the time to influence your mind; and a great deal of that propaganda is directed in a steady stream against the Catholic religion. Not openly, but in a insidious way; the worshippers of the State are always so selecting and so presenting the news that the Catholic Church always gets mixed up with what is unpopular at the moment, always appears as the enemy of liberty and of progress. It's a highly elaborate business and oh, it's boring! But you are going to live in a world which swallows all that sort of dope ... I don't say that you'll lose the faith, but you'll be a passenger; you'll be no use to the Church, when she wants you. Keep your independence of mind; only half believe what you hear; suspend judgement, think for yourself, learn for yourself. If I am privileged to meet any of you later on, I don't very much mind what else has happened to you ... if only you've preserved your independence of mind. God bless you all, and give you grace to do it.

- Ronald A. Knox

The No-Men Pt. 3 - Knox

2011-05-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

"Well," you say, "that's all ancient history. It's got nothing to do with us; the sort of problems which bothered people early in the sixteen century don't bother us." Well, in a sense that's true. Nobody bothers nowadays about the King, God bless him, being Head of the Church in England. It tickles the English citizen to read in the paper that their Majesties attended divine worship yesterday at Sandringham. "Sooner it was them than me", he reflects; but on the whole he rather likes the Church of England to be part of the set-up of monarchy in this country; it gives him a solid sense of prosperity. But as to King George being supreme Head of the Church, he bothers about it as little King George himself. In that sense, the whole controversy which cost More and Fisher their lives is a dead controversy now. But in a more general sense, we haven't nearly finished with it. It was all part of that general attack of Satan against the Catholic Church, which started immediately after our Lord's death, and is going on still (emphasis added).

Satan, like so many half-educated people, likes to be thought original, but he's really repeating himself all the time in slightly different ways. You will find that about your own temptations, if you look into them; you imagine at first sight that he's really pulled off something absolutely new on you, and then, when you trace it back a bit, you find it was just the same old story, the same kind of pride, the same kind of carelessness, which had landed you several times before. And so it has been with his grand attack on the Christian Church. For the first few centuries it was the Roman emperors that were the trouble; Christians were persecuted because they wanted to worship God instead of worshipping the Roman emperor. The Roman Empire fell, and there was a pause, a good long pause, and kings began to become important all over Europe; so Christians like St. John and St. Thomas were persecuted because they wanted to obey God instead of obeying the king. Nowadays, kings are at a discount, and the modern world has started to worship a dreadful thing called the State. Fascism or Communism, it's all the same thing really; it's just worship of the State. And because they hold out against this worship of the State, because they won't let the State dictate to them how they are going to worship and how the Church is going to be organized, people are being killed now all over Europe. We heard plenty about it when it was the Nazis who were doing it; we don't hear so much about it now that it isn't the Nazis. But the thing is going on; more and more the shadow of atheism is falling over the whole of eastern Europe. And it is quite on the cards that within your lifetime the main strength of the Catholic Church will lie in the English-speaking countries; the very countries we have been accustomed to think of as Protestant! France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, - you can't bet what is going to happen there. It's quite probable that you, later on, will find yourself having to pull your socks up, and help to save the Catholic Church, humanly speaking, from going under. (The No-Men will conclude in Pt. 4)

- Ronald A. Knox

A Great Day for the World

2011-05-01T00:59:00.000-07:00

(Scroll down)

(Images fr. Whispers in the Loggia, & Intentions for Month of May)

'Opportunities' in Catholic Education

2011-04-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Each morning, right after fulfilling my chivalric duties of devotion, I spend a minimum of fifteen minutes reading. Usually the author who receives my undivided attention at this time is Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (Eton, Oxford). During World War II and the German bombings of industrial and municipal centers, Monsignor Knox had the opportunity to retire to the countryside of England to work on his translation of the Bible. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? So it is amazing how the Holy Spirit sees things, most often, differently.

Just as Knox was settling into the lovely manor setting, it was decided that the manor would also be an extraordinary setting for Catholic school girls to continue their studies, far removed from the Blitz .

Indeed, now Knox would have the delightful daily opportunity to say Mass, hear weekly confessions, and generally serve as chaplain to gaggles of prepubescent schoolgirls while he attempted his mandated work of translation. Ah, yes. How plans change!

I thought of this as I read Monsignor Charles Pope's post, A Catholic University and Recovered Catholic Identity - A Study of Change and Possibility of Reform (a fine article, but one to which I will not allude here except as a jumping-off place).

When I was confirmed into the Catholic Church ten years ago this summer, I went looking for work and was honored to be offered a teaching position at a Catholic school in northern Virginia (St. Charles Borromeo School, pictured above as it looked when I arrived there). I remained there, a fixture in the sixth grade for nearly all of those ten years (the students, both male and female, probably looked at me as a "fixture" of sorts, also).

While working diligently to fulfill the requirements mandated by the diocesan Office of Catholic Schools, I found some of the most amazing times of learning came in planned, yet never choreographed, moments. For example, each morning students came in, hung up coats, etc., prepared for the day, sat and read the Gospel for Mass for the day, and then answered a related question on the board in their "Bellwork Journal."

Using these questions, I sought to help students move into "higher cognitive thinking" (Bloom) and also make them dig more deeply into the meaning of faith, morals, and other vital teachings of the Church. We would discuss the question and their answers before our Morning Offering and intentions.

I am grateful for the years that our Lord allowed me to teach in a Catholic school classroom. Never neglect to cherish and support your parish school (if you have one) and/or your diocesan Catholic schools. It is a unique place of growing, learning, catechesis, morality in action, and other "opportunities" for the Holy Spirit to help the young to come into a closer, richer relationship with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ... and their "neighbor as themselves" (Mark 12, 30-31).

Tornado Victims - Prayers

2011-04-28T01:45:00.001-07:00

Violent storms continue to march across the United States. I recall vividly the frantic yet familiar drill of heading to the basement as a boy in Indiana, the most damaging and murderous being the Palm Sunday Tornadoes of 1965.

Please keep in prayer the victims and their families of this week's spate of killer weather.

The No-Men Pt. 2 - Knox

2011-04-27T04:56:00.000-07:00

I HAVE BEEN INSISTING ON THAT, partly because it enormously enhances the credit of their performance. Mr. Belloc has written very well on that point. He writes of St. Thomas - and it was equally true of St. John - as follows: "To allow oneself to be killed, of one's own choice, in full life, rather than pay the price of yielding upon one dry, narrow, intellectual point; having, to sustain one ... neither enthusiasm within, nor the sense of agreement from others without, this is to die alone indeed! He had no enthusiasm for the Papacy; all his life he had been a reformer in the full sense of the word ... Nor was the extraordinary man supported from without ... The average Englishmen had little concern with the quarrel between the crown and Rome; it did not touch his life. The Mass went on just the same, and all the splendours of religion ... To the ordinary man of that day anyone, especially a highly-placed official, who stood out against the King's policy, was a crank ... No, he was not supported from without."

If you want to realize how lonely these two men must have felt in making their protest against the tyranny of King Henry, you have only to look at the sort of way More's wife talked about it, when she went to visit him in prison. "I marvel," she said, "that you, that hitherto have been taken for a wise man, will now so play the fool, to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be thus shut up among rats and mice, when you might be abroad at your liberty, and with the favour and goodwill both of king and his council, if you would but do as all the bishops and best learned men of his realm have done. And seeing that you have at Chelsea a right fair house, your library, your gallery and all other necessities so handsome about you, where you might in the company of me, your wife, your children and household be merry, I muse what a God's name you mean, here still thus fondly to tarry."

Thus was More's second wife, and she wasn't the ancestress of anybody here, so there is no reason why we should be specially polite about her. But I think it is fair to remember that her point of view was probably the common point of view about the line More was taking. And it was worse when his daughter Margaret came and tried to talk him round, because she was a really good woman and he was very fond of her ... Put this question to yourself for a moment. If your father, or someone you were very fond of, was in prison, and about to be martyred on a point of conscience, would you advise him to stick to his point of conscience? or would you advise him to cave in? ... Life is difficult, isn't it? (No-Men Pt 3 continues here.)

- Ronald A. Knox

It Never Left

2011-04-27T02:22:00.000-07:00

It is tempting to think we are past this sort of thing. But we aren't. We have "one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church" comprised of well over a billion people (and growing) that proclaims the truth and reality of the doctrine of Original Sin. So, when we take one last sip of coffee, fold the paper, turn the lock, and head off to work, we don't worry about the statuary at the parish. Or our priest(s). Or how well the ushers might handle the breaking-in of disruptors during either a major feast celebration or even a Saturday evening "There's-that-guy-in-his-bermuda-shorts" Vigil Mass.

What we forget in our daily functional atheism are the anthropological realities that our Lord's Church defines so well in the Catechism; specifically, the symptomology of paganism of all those outside the sphere and protection of our Lord's sacramental "containment system" (if you will allow such a crass way of describing it).

Read through Paganism, parts 1-3. Girard and Satinover give the Church's Magisterium two excellent tools for understanding what we still face; indeed, at a growing rate.

Easter Tuesday

2011-04-26T01:42:00.001-07:00

Easter Tuesday

The No-Men Pt. 1 - Knox

2011-04-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

I'M GOING TO TALK to you about two great saints: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, the two most influential people, in their day, among the ranks of the English martyrs ... I'm not going to tell you a lot about those two saints. I expect you know a good deal about them already; one of you is descended from one of them. I just want you to seize on one splendid quality about them; their utter independence of mind. You see, the really curious thing about the English martyrs is that there were so few of them. Here you have a completely Catholic country which in a matter of twenty years or so goes Protestant, and nobody seems to mind very much. Why weren't all the other people martyrs too? And the answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question, Why did the Germans ever let the Nazis get into power? - you can give it in four words: MOST MEN ARE SHEEP. You can get them to accept anything, by bluffing them, by bullying them, by applying soft soap when it's needed. But there are a few of the important people in any generation to whom you can't do that. They are not stupid enough to be hoodwinked by propaganda. They are too honest to be bribed with preferment. And they have just that touch of hardness about their minds which won't consent to sacrifice principle for the sake of general peace and calm. You can do nothing with such people, except martyr them. Such were St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.

Don't run away with a wrong impression of them; they weren't disagreeable sort of people in the literal sense; that is, in the sense that they were fond of disagreeing with their fellow-men. They weren't cranks with a passion for writing letters to The Times every day, not a bit of it. You couldn't have had a more human, companionable friend than St. Thomas More, a jollier host, a more open-minded critic of the world around him. Nor must you suppose that these men, either of them, were backwoods Conservatives, Colonel Blimps, with the fixed idea that what had been good enough for their grandfathers must be good enough for them. On the contrary, they were in the very van of the progressive movement. In the great revival of learning that was taking place just then, St. John Fisher took an enormous part, and kept on building colleges at the university. It's true that he always built them at Cambridge, which strikes some of us as bad taste; but probably Cambridge needed them more.

Anyhow, this is quite certain - that if these two men took a different line from most of their contemporaries, it wasn't because they were tiresome, cross-grained people, and it wasn't because they were people who disliked everything that was modern, and went about saying, "What I mean to say is, what?" They were men loved by their fellows, and typical of their age. That is why they were martyred. If they had been less representative people, they would have been left alone. (Pt. 2 will continue "The No-Men".)

- Ronald A. Knox

Easter Monday

2011-04-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

This joyous Easter Monday, let us call to mind, gentle reader, the Victory which was won, yea, e'en for each of us. In the coming days, I will be reproducing, excerpt by excerpt, portions of Monsignor Ronald A. Knox's little talk on standing firm in a milieu of satanic revolution, "No-Men," from his little volume, The Gospel in Slow Motion. In it, he lauds St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. He compares the truth that MOST MEN ARE SHEEP vs. the few who are not stupid enough to be hoodwinked by propaganda. About the latter, he says, "You can do nothing with such people, except martyr them."

Rejoice!

Christ Is Risen

2011-04-24T04:30:00.000-07:00

(I)F THERE IS ONE institution in the world which, by common consent of its friends and foes, is rooted in the past, indifferent , when it is not hostile, to this feverish propaganda of innovation all around it, it is the Catholic Church. During the last three days we have been assisting at ceremonies which have plunged us back into our Christian past; ceremonies which in part, I suppose, have come down to us almost from the catacombs. We have heard the Church, as she prayed over us, suddenly breaking away from the Latin which is her native tongue and take refuge in Greek, like a very old man who, in his second childhood, remembers the language of his youth; we have heard snatches of chants long disused, seen the survivals of ceremonies which belong to an older world than ours. Still, obstinately, the Church takes refuge in her remote past while she announces to us complacently: "Christ is risen; all things are made new."

So much her friends admit; her enemies are not slow to add that she herself is nothing better than a cumbrous survival, an institution, once great, that has outlived its usefulness, ripe for the scrap-heap. Kept going, who knows how? Partly from sentimental loyalty; partly from the force of long habit, but ... Her vitality is profound, witnessed from age to age not by revolutions or new deals, but by the fresh shoots of devotion and charity which she puts forth continually, age after age. It is always spring with her, hers is a perpetual youth; she has but to remember the three words, "Christ is risen", and with the very sound of them, all things are made new.

That spring, that youth, belong as of right, not only to the Church at large, but to the life of the individual Christian ... in the life of grace, ah, if we could only see it, there is a perpetual burgeoning of new life, not merely from one Easter to another, from one retreat to another, but with every worthy reception of the sacraments. Perpetual spring, perpetual renovation of our natures, if we could only catch the hour of grace, utilize it, make it our own. Whatever you are, and at whatever time of life you are, that possibility of spiritual renewal is with you no less surely than if you were a boy at school again, or just leaving school to make your way in the world. Christ is risen; those tidings can neither lose their force with age, nor be staled by repetition; Christ is risen, and life, for the Christian, is always new.

- Ronald A. Knox

Easter

2011-04-24T01:45:00.000-07:00

Our Holy Father proclaimed the Good News at the Easter Vigil in this homily. Had I been able to attend, I would have heard again with joy what Rocco Palmo says is the church's greatest song (if you generally don't assist at the Easter Vigil, take the time to drench yourself in its truth, goodness, and beauty). For friends who like St Thomas need a bit more evidence to believe, have them read Mark Shea's piece here.

Enjoy with gratitude this Day of days, join in splendor our Savior's praise:

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of your King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
echoing the mighty song of all God’s people!

Cantalamessa - Truly the Son of God

2011-04-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

Here is Father Raniero Cantalamessa's Good Friday homily (ZENIT reports both this and this as the 'Good Friday homily' - go figure).

Holy Saturday

2011-04-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

Monsignor Charles Pope weighs in on Where is Jesus Between His Death and Resurrection?

Cantalamessa - Our Great High Priest

2011-04-23T01:32:00.001-07:00

Adoration of the Mystic Lamb - Jan Van Eyck

Father Cantalamessa expounds on violence and redemption in his Good Friday Homily, presided over by Benedict XVI, in We Have a Great High Priest.

Good Friday

2011-04-22T01:53:00.000-07:00

Crucifixion (1500-08) - Grünewald

I began watching Gibson's Passion of the Christ last night. I woke with the lyrics and music of an old Paul Simon song going through my head, The Cross is in the Ballpark (The Obvious Child). May you have a blessed, peaceful, and holy Good Friday. As part of your meditations today, look through A Reluctant Sinner's entry for today here. Listen to the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. John at Daniel Mitsui's Lion and the Cardinal here.

Holy Thursday

2011-04-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

Last Supper (1530) - Joos van Cleve

Maundy Thursday

Millet

2011-04-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

The Angelus (1857–59) - Jean-François Millet

Satan - Living Actor in History

2011-04-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a catchy opening:

Some of you may know his work from your studies. (Leszek) Kolakowski was a former Marxist, a very gifted scholar, and a skeptic about many things – but not about the reality of evil or the nature of the devil. One of the disturbing things for Kolakowski's secular colleagues was that he talked about Satan not as a metaphor or legend or the figment of neurotic imaginations, but as a living actor in history. And that deserves some discussion. We'll get to that in a moment, but let's begin at the beginning. (Emphasis added)

Wise Men From the East

2011-04-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

While the present "leaders" of the West do their utmost to ignore and castigate its truth and reality, Chinese thinkers recognize it as true. Now, mind; some of us already knew and rejoiced in it. Have a blessed and peaceful Passion Sunday, gentle reader.

The Heart of Mary

2011-04-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

WHEN (SIMEON) TOLD our Lady that the effect of her Son's appearance in Israel would be to reveal the thoughts of many hearts, he gave her this additional piece of information: "Thy own soul a sword shall pierce." Other people's hearts will unfold their goodwill, or their wickedness, to a more or less degree, as they come in contact, to a more or less degree, with this little Son of yours. but you, who have been closer to him, who will always be closer to him than any other, your heart will be torn open as with a sword for all the world too the treasures it contains.

That prophecy, as we know, was verified on Calvary. When we contemplate our Lady in the stable, by the crib, the beauty of her is blinding enough, as she is lit up by the rays of the Child she holds in her arms. The humility which he showed in coming to earth is reflected in the humility with which she adapts herself to those wretched surroundings, the dark cave, and the manger, and the cold. The kindness of God our Saviour which appeared, St. Peter tells us, in his coming down to redeem us from our sins, is reflected in that love which lights up her features; all that love drawn from him and given back to him. But we have not yet really seen the Heart of Mary.

The Heart of Mary is not torn open, exposed fully to our view, until we see her standing beside the Cross; the great fire of charity which burned in the Heart of the Crucified playing on her features as she stands there, and lighting them up with a glow as red as the glow of martyrdom. We have not really seen the Heart of Mary until we learn to recognize the amazing considerateness with which she allowed him, all his life, to take his own course, though she knew where that course would lead, never asking him to hold back from the thought of what it would mean to her; until we learn to guess something of the compassionate love with which she grieved over the outrages done to him; grieved, in doing so, over our sins, and offered her satisfaction for them in union with his. That sword of sorrow opens to us the Heart of our Lady, as the centurion's lance opened for us the Heart of our Lord.

- Ronald A. Knox

Scimitar Burns Bible, and ...

2011-04-16T01:38:00.001-07:00

To understand this, gentle reader, one needs to engage in studying the model/rival relationship in mimetic theory; what René Girard calls the "problem of the doubles." The rival - in this case, the Scimitar - can barely get the model - in this case, the Christian faith in general and Catholics in particular - even to notice their slight. This in itself it infuriating to the rival. Alas.

Christians don't always follow the high road, but the Holy Spirit makes it an inchoate part of our awareness. What, do you ask, is that? For that, go here.

Burne-Jones PRB

2011-04-14T02:24:00.001-07:00

Angel - Edward Burne-Jones

Dolan - Don't Let Our Sins

2011-04-14T01:48:00.000-07:00

Archbishop Timothy Dolan slams one out of the park:

Let’s see now: we’ve got a Sunday night series on one of the most corrupt and tawdry families in Church history, the Borgias, with popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests, all part of this big, happy family; we’ve heard non-stop for a decade about abusive priests, (albeit a small minority) and lax bishops who reassigned them; we’ve got front page stories of priests who embezzled money from their parishes; and I saw one not long ago about a priest arrested for DUI.

Yes, all this is scandalous, sinful, sickening, and criminal.

But, it is not new.

Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, nuns, brothers are human.

That means, we are sinners.

Granted, when one of us falls, it hurts and shocks more. People rightly expect their spiritual leaders to practice what we preach. When we don’t, we’re hypocrites. And we know what Jesus thought about hypocrites.

But, this is not new.

If you think it worse today than in the past, I ask you to consider the solemn days we will observe next week, Holy Week: Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

Keep reading here.

Rosetti PRB

2011-04-13T04:54:00.000-07:00

Our Lady Gardening - Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Luciferian Naïveté, Expediancy

2011-04-13T01:03:00.000-07:00

This is a manifestation of this. What riles and infuriates, however, is this. Why? Because it feeds into the fallacious and luciferian thinking of this.

Praying for 'This Generation'

2011-04-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

When our Lord describes his generation, what simile does He use? He says in Luke 7,32:

"To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, `We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.'"

And that was only His generation. Or, was it only His generation? Elsewhere in Matthew 12, 39b-45, He describes the plight of a man who believes he can, on his own, whisk clean his "house" of evil spirits:

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nin'eveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here ... "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, `I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation."

Gil Bailie posits that what our Lord means by "this generation" is "business as usual" in terms of how culture is always generated among fallen human beings, the taxonomy of which is most clearly spelled out by René Girard's mimetic theory, a worthy tool in the hands of the Church's Magisterium. (For example, cf. especially the work and homiletics of Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap.)

"This generation" is what Satan offers our Lord during His temptations in the wilderness (Mtt 4,8ff).

The staggering thing is to be living and moving and having our being as people who affirm Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church among leaders of nations, industry, and global policy who are plainly and willfully citizens of "this generation." They cannot begin to accept the beliefs of the Church's deposit of faith, the Magisterium, and lordship of Jesus Christ. And so, they are like the cleaner of the evil spirit; like children in the marketplace - all cleaned up and so blindly naive to the realities of Satan in their lives, their thinking, their politics and policies.

Good reason to pray during this season of Lent. Very good reason. And very good reason to join in-arms in Marian chivalry in this godless age in need of the hope and glory our Lord offers.

Rotation Lives

2011-04-12T02:04:00.000-07:00

Not saying it is this easy, but the Jive Aces depict theological hope in a nice Walker Percy Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 kind of way:

Watching and Being Watched

2011-04-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

As if I needed any proof for my hypothesis, I noticed a correlation between my television viewing and a proportionate amount of junk mail asking me to support a certain channel that promotes the arts.

DVRs are wondrous things. But be aware that they are yet another way for one's interests to be monitored by "powers that be." Put another way, DVRs - and, of course, the internet and the availability of reading choices for Nook, iPad, Kindle, etc. (as if you did not know) - also sway people toward this or that interest at a very unconscious level.

What if Story of a Soul just isn't available via Kindle (it is) or Nook (it isn't) or iPad (it is)?

Marshall McLuhan, famous for his media theory when I was in graduate school, said famously, "The medium is the message." And judging by the number of persons reading from electronic devices in the public square today, an uptick is evident supporting his claim. But I will keep scoping out yard sales for providential gifts of grace. Not only because my eyes prefer paper and ink to dancing pixels, but because I prefer not to equate my ontological worth with keeping up with the latest fad:

The little front wave

Ran up the sand

And frothed there,

Wildly elated.

"I am the tide,"

Said the little front wave,

"And all the waves before me

Are dated."

- (A modern) Simon Stylites

Story of a Soul - Pope Says So

2011-04-11T02:40:00.001-07:00

St.Thérèse costumed as St. Joan of Arc

Some years back, I was walking among items at the yard sale of our school's Oktoberfest. I found three (of the four) Liturgy of the Hours prayer books and a book I felt strangely drawn to: the Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. I bought them all for a pittance and took them home.

While I've delved into the Hours, generally via the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I never opened the Little Flower's autobiography. Until now.

Benedict XVI just encouraged us, you see, to read her Story of a Soul. Talk about timely. And, just in case I had any doubts about the importance of doing so, I notice that the translator of my copy happens to be ... Monsignor Ronald Knox. Hmm. Time to get started.

UPDATE: Listen or read here.

Hope and Eternity

2011-04-11T01:35:00.000-07:00

If - IF - one forgets everything else about the Christian faith, never, gentle reader, forget what our Holy Father, Benedict XVI, drives home here. The crusty old Baptist preacher, Carlyle Marney, whom I had the privilege of hearing preach at the Duke Chapel, once said, "If it don't preach in the cancer ward, it ain't the gospel."

For the entirety of Benedict's message, go here.

Knox - Belonging and Salvation

2011-04-08T08:10:00.001-07:00

If you believe in the holy Catholic Church, then it follows that you believe in all the rest of the Credo; it would be silly to believe in the Church and not believe in what the Church tells you. So we'll get right down to it ... we'll stick to the idea of the Church in general, and remind ourselves what the Church means, and how jolly it is to have a Church to belong to ...

Part of the fun of being a Christian is belonging to a Church. It gives you a sort of cozy feeling ... For Christian people, and for us Catholics especially, this feeling of comradeship forms part of the stuff of our religion. It gives us a curious lightening of the heart, difficult rather to explain, when we find out suddenly that the policeman who stands on duty at the street corner or the girl who does our hair ... is a Catholic too ... there is a bond, after all, between you and them ... But, of course, it isn't just an association ... The Church is a supernatural association, which is meant to get us to Heaven. It isn't merely something which unites us together, you and me, it is the thing which unites us to Jesus Christ. And that, I think you can say, is the main difference between Protestant and the Catholic idea of salvation.

The Protestant hopes to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ; the Catholic hopes to be saved by living and dying as a member of the Church which Jesus Christ founded. You can put it quite simply in this way. If you think of the human race as sailors, travelling over a sea, which is this sinful world, and trying to reach a harbour, which is Heaven - the Protestant thinks of getting to heaven as something like being washed up to shore as a shipwrecked man, clinging to an empty barrel. But the Catholic thinks of salvation as sailing into port on a ship, and that ship is the Church of Jesus Christ.

- Ronald A. Knox

Power Corrupts. Again

2011-04-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

If you hadn't noticed the low level of public discourse coming from Republican New Hampshire lawmakers, the Catholic League, fortunately, has.

What is more disturbing is that what goes around comes around.

Sicut Cervus - The Spirit's Work

2011-04-04T03:49:00.000-07:00

Monsignor Charles Pope has good reflections on aging here. I would encourage you to read the following from my favorite spiritual guide these days, Monsignor Ronald Knox on the Holy Spirit, then watch the clip with the heavenly music of Palestrina that follows. God bless.

ALL THROUGH THOSE centuries before our Lord came, whenever a human heart aspired to God, it was the same old story; it was the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity carrying out in this visible, created world the same work which he carries out in the uncreated, invisible world of eternity. He was making, in us, that response of love towards the eternal Father which it is his nature to make. In spite of the Fall, there's a kind of instinct which makes man look up to God, try to get back to God, and that instinct is the silent working of the Holy Spirit, in the very heart even of unredeemed mankind.

- Ronald A. Knox

Disbelief Beyond Magisterium

2011-04-04T03:36:00.000-07:00

IT WOULD NOT BE TRUE, I think, to say that dogma is less preached today than it was a hundred years ago. The rise of Wesleyanism and the Evangelical Movement had, indeed, put and end by then to the long indifference of the latitudinarian age. But Wesleyanism and Evangelicism were interested in a handful of dogmas which concerned their own particular scheme of salvation. On the other hand, men did believe in the Bible, not as "given of God to convey to us in many parts and in divers manners the revelation of himself", but as inspired in an intelligible sense. And with the rise of the Oxford Movement this belief in Scripture was fortified by a confident appeal, unsound in its method but sincere in its purpose, to the deposit of Christian tradition. But during the last fifty years and more, the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion have been subjected, more and more, to criticism, or interpretation, and to restatement. Would a(n Anglican) diocesan Bishop have dared in the middle of the nineteenth century, to express in a newspaper article his disbelief in eternal punishment? Would the rector of a much-frequented London church have preached, and afterwards published, a sermon in which he recommended the remarriage of divorced persons? Would the whole Bench of Bishops have been prepared to alter, in the Baptismal Service, the statement that every child is conceived and born in sin? Appraise the tendency as you will; welcome or regret its influence; but only disingenuity can deny that the tendency is there, and is apparently constant. You do not believe what your grandfathers believed, and have no reason to hope that your grandsons will believe what you do.

- Ronald A. Knox

Cantalamessa - A Special Faith and Love

2011-04-02T02:06:00.000-07:00

The Household Papal Preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, shared with the Holy Father a special faith that fully believes in God's love for us in his second Lenten sermon here.

Lord - Honor and Truth

2011-03-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

Friend, Dawn Eden, kindly gave me among other volumes a real treasure: Christ Jesus our King - A Eucharistic Prayer Book, interestingly written by Father Daniel A. Lord, S.J., "Under the auspices of The Knights and Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament." Here is an essay that comes from this slim volume:

IN THE DAY OF CHRIST honor was a forgotten virtue - as perhaps it is today in many quarters. Philosophers had made an art of lying. Diplomacy had become trickery by which great empires absorbed small nations and small nations held by bribery and shameless flattery some semblance of independent rule. Between men and women there was no honor; a man took what he could take; a woman gave what she could profitably yield. The gods were proverbial liars and philanderers. Governors were greedy of hand and ruthless with sword. Armies lived by looting. Justice was a matter of bribery. And truth was to the pagan Pilate a word hardly worth repeating.

Into that world came the incorruptible Christ.

The devil tempted Him to a loss of honor, guaranteeing Him the world.

A little flattery or convenient closing of the eyes - and the armies would have come to His side.

Had He pretended to condemn the woman taken in adultery, the scribes would have admired Him and the Sadduccees would have accepted Him as one of them.

A smooth answer to Pilate rather than a harping on the truth - and Pilate might have given Him His freedom.

But to Him truth was above all else. He was the way, the truth, and the life.

He never minced a doctrine to make it easier to digest, nor did He fit a practice to conform to small-minded men. He refused to compromise with vicious practices, even those of long custom and tradition. He broke the taboos of the sabbath in the interests of mercy. He called villains and scoundrels by their proper names, even though He thus won their implacable resentment.

To the Apostles, as He knighted them for their glorious mission, He cried aloud, "Teach!" It was truth and the honorable living of truth that would save the world.

So it has been that, where it might have conciliated a heretic by the shaving of a revealed truth, the Church has declined to lose honor. When practice has seemed hard, the Church might have compromised its honor slightly - on confession, laws against divorce, attitudes toward birth control - and won new adherents or held hesitant ones; but it could not betray its honor or sacrifice its truth.

Has any other age ever needed honor and truth more than ours does?

Can a knight do more for the world than maintain among the debased, the panders, the sycophants, the distorters of truth, among crooked tradesmen, greedy laborers, and unethical professional men the knightly honor of Christ?

- Daniel A. Lord

Prez @ Georgetown Tomorrow

2011-03-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that the Last Self-Help commander-in-chief will be speaking at Georgetown again tomorrow. Will any Christian in general and Catholic in particular symbols be covered again? Might I recommend that he come in time to hear Mass, respectfully request a blessing from a priest, and then humbly speak in hushed tones about the season of Lent?

Perhaps I ask too much.

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 6

2011-03-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

The final excerpt from Monsignor Ronald Knox's essay, "He Suffered" in The Creed in Slow Motion, part 6:

ONE FURTHER QUESTION obviously occurs to one's mind. If we ought to welcome the suffering which God sends us whether we like it or not, oughtn't we, perhaps, to be taking on extra mortifications on our own, deliberately making ourselves uncomfortable, so as to have more suffering to unite with his? Well, of course the saints have always done that, scourging themselves and wearing hair-shirts and so on And there are very good people who do that sort of thing, but I don't think it is to be encouraged for the ordinary run of Christians. It can make you proud, it can make you self-righteous, it can make you unsympathetic to other people. When I say that, I'm not referring of course to self-denial. Giving up sweets in Lent, I mean, is perfectly all right, as long as the doctor assures you that sweets are not absolutely necessary to your health. But I don't think we ought to spend our time trying to think up ways of positively making ourselves uncomfortable, by putting salt instead of sugar in our tea and so on. We ought to ask god to make us very holy people; and perhaps when he has done that he will let us know what greater sacrifices he wants us to make for him, under our confessor's advice. Meanwhile, it's best for us to stick to ordinary ways, and content ourselves with bearing, for his sake, the mortifications which come to us from his hands.

- Ronald A. Knox

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 5

2011-03-29T06:07:00.001-07:00

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY IN WHICH you and I can turn this evil thing, suffering, into something good; and that is by uniting it with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. We saw that, when he made atonement for our sins, he made it in full. He was perfectly sinless, and therefore it was his right, if he had wished it, to live without suffering; it is only because we are all sinners that we have all got to be sufferers. But he, of his own will, took our punishment upon himself; he would be hungry, and thirsty, and tired out, on the roads of Galilee; and at the end of his life he would go through a long pageant of suffering, which ended with death on a Cross. And all the saints have realized that their job was to suffer in union with Christ. St. Paul even talks of himself as paying off "That which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ" (Col. 1:23b-24). He thinks of our Lord as a rich Benefactor who has paid off, once for all, the debt of suffering we owed, and now it is for us to pay back that debt to him, as far as we can, by enduring our own sufferings in union with him. So it is that you get this same curious contradiction about the saints' lives which you find in our Lord's own life; they are always relieving the sufferings of other people, and at the same time welcoming suffering for themselves. You've all heard of Bernadette Soubirous, who had the visions of our Lady at Lourdes, and scratched up with her own hands the spring of water which has brought health, since then, to so many thousands of people. She became a nun, and it was found, before long, that she was suffering from a very painful and an incurable disease. But there was one moment at which she seemed a little better, and even fit to travel; so the Reverend Mother of her convent came to her and said they had arranged a nice treat for her. She was to go back to Lourdes as a pilgrim and ask the beautiful Lady of her visions if she might not be cured among the rest - surely there could be no doubt that HER prayer would be listened to! But Bernadette immediately said, "No; the spring is not for me." The spring is not for me; it was her business, as a saint, to win healing for other people; it was her business as a saint to win not healing, but suffering, for herself. (Concludes in Pt. 6)

- Ronald A. Knox

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 4

2011-03-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Ronald Knox's excerpted explanation of "He suffered" from his book, The Creed in Slow Motion, which we began here, continues here in Part 4:

LET'S BE A LITTLE MORE practical. We turn this evil thing, suffering, into a good thing when we accept it as God's will for us. I've tried to explain to you already that the only way in which we human beings can justify our existence in creation at all is to obey God's will for us. That is what we are FOR. A human being who is not out to obey god's will is exactly as much use in his creation as a toothbrush is in the possession of a man who has had all his teeth taken out. And there are two ways in which we can obey God's will, by doing what he wants us to do, and by suffering what he wants us to suffer. There's this trouble about doing what God wants us to do - that it's so often, at the same time, the thing we want to do. Even if it is the kind of thing that doesn't sound very attractive at the first go-off, even if it means (say) going out and being a missionary in foreign parts, or washing dishes all day in a canteen, it's extraordinary how people get to like it, and take a pride in doing it well, and want to go on doing it. That means that we are never quite sure whether we are doing what is God's will because it is God's will, or because it is ours. Self-love, self-admiration, will go on creeping in and disturbing the purity of our motives. But with suffering it's different; I mean, when it's suffering God sends us, suffering we can't get out of. It's almost impossible to feel any pride about that. And if God calls on you to spend twenty years lying on your back, in pain most of the time, and you go on telling him that it is his will, and you want it to happen because it is his will, then, believe me, you are in a fair way to going straight to heaven. (Continues in Pt. 5)

- Ronald A. Knox

Belloc - Bare Ruined Choirs

2011-03-28T06:50:00.001-07:00

Tintern Abbey ( 1794) - J. M. W. Turner

Within four years of the breach with Rome (that is the denial of Papal authority), every monastery and nunnery in England had gone ...

England did not lose the Faith in 1550-1620 because she was protestant then. Rather, she is protestant now because she then lost the Faith ...

The grand effect of the Reformation was the isolation of the soul ...

- Hilaire Belloc

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 3

2011-03-28T05:27:00.001-07:00

Ronald Knox's excerpted explanation of "He suffered" from his book, The Creed in Slow Motion, which we began here, continues here in Part 3:

WELL THEN, IF SUFFERING is an evil, that means that you and I have got a right to avoid it. If you've got a toothache, you've a perfect right to have the tooth taken out, instead of saying, "No, thanks, I'd rather offer it up." And indeed it means that you have a duty of looking after your health, because your health is one of God's good gifts, and it isn't polite of you to throw it away carelessly as if you attached no value to it; any more than it would be polite if your rich uncle gives you half a crown to throw it out of the window and say you can get on very well without it. If suffering is an evil, that means that you must not inflict it on other people. I remember a small boy - only he isn't a small boy now, he's grown into rather a great man - who was teasing his sister, and when she complained of this treatment he replied, "A slight mortification, my dear, can only help to get you off Purgatory." That won't do; suffering is an evil, and human beings mustn't inflict it on one another, unless it is for the sake of securing a greater good - as, for instance, when the dentist inflicts suffering on you because that is the only way of stopping a bad tooth.

And again, if suffering is an evil, we must do our best to relieve the sufferings of other people. We must feed the hungry and look after the sick; or if we can't do it ourselves we must contribute to the charities that do. All these centuries Christianity has been preaching that suffering isn't what really matters, sin is what really matters. And yet, all these centuries, Christianity has been founding hospitals and running soup kitchens, because it knows that suffering is, in itself, an evil. I suppose that was part of the reason why our Lord, in Gethsemani, prayed to be delivered from the chalice of his Passion. He wanted to show us that suffering is an evil, and unless it is clearly God's will that it should come to us, we have a right to try and avoid it.

But sometimes, you see, it is God's will that suffering should come to us, and that we should not be able to avoid it. How is that? Well, we tried to go into all that last term, when we were talking about the Fall, and how suffering was the appropriate punishment of sin. The whole human race has sinned, and the whole human race has got to suffer; the bit of suffering which comes your way and mine is just you and me doing our bit. We have said that suffering is an evil thing in itself. But the suffering which comes to us in this way, suffering which we can't avoid because it is God's will for us, can be turned from an evil thing into a good thing, if we treat it in the right way. If you look at an electric light bulb when it isn't burning, you will see nothing inside but a rather uninteresting-looking bit of wire; and you might be tempted to say to yourself, "I don't see how anybody's going to get light out of that." But, once you switch the current on, that piece of wire does give light, because the electricity transmutes it into a glowing mass. So it is with suffering in human lives; an evil thing in itself, it becomes a good thing when it is transmuted, by the love of God, into the glowing focus of charity. (Continues in Pt. 4)

- Ronald A. Knox

Belloc - Church as Conservator

2011-03-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

YOU HAVE BEEN told, "Christianity (a word, by the way, quite unhistorical) crept into Rome as she declined, and hastened that decline." That is bad history.* Rather accept this phrase and retain it: "The Faith is that which Rome accepted in her maturity; nor was the Faith the cause of her decline, but rather the conservator of all that could be conserved ...

It was not the spread of the Faith which undermined the high civilization of pagan antiquity; on the contrary, the Faith saved all that could be saved; and, but for the conversion of the Roman Empire, nothing of our culture would have remained ...

We must begin by laying it down, again as an historical fact, not to be removed by affection one way or the other, that the conversion of the Roman Empire was a conversion to what was called by all our ancestry and what is still called by those with any just historical sense, the Catholic Church.

- Hilaire Belloc

* Belloc took a 1st in History while up at Oxford University

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 2

2011-03-27T04:28:00.000-07:00

Ronald Knox's excerpted explanation of "He suffered" from his book, The Creed in Slow Motion, which we began here, continues:

SO, YOU SEE, IT isn't necessary to explain away a great deal, if you want to persuade yourself that our Lord never experienced human suffering. There were heretics in early days, as I think I told you before, who thought that; who made out that our Lord didn't really become a man at his Incarnation; he only wore a kind of phantom body, something like a ghost. And in our own day the Christian Scientists - the people who tell you that you haven't really got a toothache, you've only got a stupid idea that you've got a toothache, and therefore the best thing to do is to pray about it, instead of going to the dentist - the Christian Scientists would tell you that our Lord didn't suffer. Oh, no, he was perfectly wise, and therefore he knew that there was no such thing as suffering, and that is why he went about persuading the blind people that they weren't blind, and the lepers that they weren't lepers, and Lazarus that he wasn't dead. If you are perfectly holy, they say, then you must be perfectly healthy. And, you know, it's good Catholic theology, though I don't know whether it's a matter of faith, that our Lord while he was on earth never suffered from any disease. His human body was such a perfect thing that it couldn;t go wrong of its own accord; it was only when he treated it roughly (or when other people treated it roughly) that it could enter into Adam's uncomfortable legacy of pain.

However, there it is; our Lord was hungry, was tired, did suffer, even before Pontius Pilate comes into the picture at all. And at the same time his whole life, as it is recorded for us in the Gospels, is a kind of campaign against suffering - no more blind, no more deaf, no more lame, no more paralytics, no more lepers - that seems to be his ideal. Now, you ask yourself, is suffering a good thing or a bad thing? If it is a good thing, why did he spend so much of his time in making it disappear from the countryside round him, when he might have been attending, instead, to the needs of people's souls? And if suffering is a bad thing, why did he bring upon himself - for it is evident all through that he brought it on himself - a death attended by such crowded circumstances of pain? What are we to make of suffering ourselves? Is it a thing to run away from, or is it a thing we ought to welcome? He suffered; our Lord suffered; what about his servants?

Well, let us take the answer to that question bit by bit. In the first place, suffering is of its own nature a bad thing, not a good thing. When I say that it's a bad thing, I don't mean of course that it's wicked to have a toothache; I don't want to have you coming round to me on Saturday evening and confessing that you've had a slight attack of neuralgia. I mean that suffering is an imperfection, brought into this world of ours by the fall of man: it's a blot on creation, it degrades us. And therefore, in the presence of a very good person, suffering tends to run away and hide itself; when our Lord met a leper, the leprosy couldn't maintain itself, it fled from his presence. And so it has been in the lives of his saints. You can read in the Bible how a dead man was being carried out to burial once, when a party of invading Syrians appeared; and the undertaker and his assistants thought it would be a good thing to cut short the funeral procession, so they dropped the corpse into the nearest tomb they could see. It happened to be the tomb of the prophet Elisha, who had just died. And the dead man immediately came to life. Death, you may say, couldn't bear to find itself anywhere near anyone as holy as Elisha, just as the undertaker couldn't bear to be near a party of invading Syrians. Death said (as it were), "Oh, gosh, I can't stand this," and ran away, leaving the man to come to life. That's putting it rather crudely, but you see what I mean; suffering is of its own nature an evil, and it tends to disappear when it is brought into contact with a very holy person, just as darkness disappears when you bring a candle into a room. (Continued in Pt. 3)

- Ronald A. Knox

Knox - 'He Suffered' - Pt. 1

2011-03-27T02:46:00.000-07:00

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox, writing and preaching to his war-time (WWII) congregation of school girls at Aldenham, produced for my money the most lucid explication of the Creed in print, The Creed in Slow Motion (readily available from Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN).

Chapter by chapter, Knox elucidates bite-sized portions of the Creed in a manner that one reviewer says exhibited "a freedom from ecclesial decorum which is sometimes startling, yet always with a purpose;" namely, to show how the age-old faith resonates with our contemporary experiences.

So, my purpose now is to display Knox's superlative grasp of the Catholic faith in a series of posts in which I will, gentle reader, give you in its entirety chapter IX, "He Suffered." It is apropos for this season of Lent, and, in a few short pages, it brings to us the meaning and purpose not only of our Lord's salvific suffering, but the meaning and purpose of our own suffering in this mortal plane of temporal existence. I hope you will find it as important as I have.

By the way, as friend Gil Bailie notes, good authors always create their own precursors. I lay no claim to being a "good author," but I will say that Knox here gives the foundation for my own book, A Little Guide for Your Last Days that was written, submitted, and published long before I laid eyes on Knox's book.

And so I begin presenting to you, "He Suffered - Part 1, excerpted from The Creed in Slow Motion."

I EXPECT SOME of your will be wanting to complain that I've only given you half a clause out of the Credo there, instead of a whole clause. When you say the Credo, you say, "Sufton Plntius Pilate," and that's that. But, you see, quite apart from the question when or how our Lord suffered, it is important to get it into our heads that he did suffer. Go back for a moment to what you rememeber of the Gospels, and tell me what evidence we have, earlier than his agony in the garden of Gethsemani, to tell us that our Lord did suffer? It's not so easy, is it? I think I'm right in saying that there are only three occasions, before Gethsemani, on which we hear of our Lord as suffering any kind of bodily discomfort. When his temptation in the wilderness was over, we are told that he hungered. When he passed by the fig tree that had leaves but no fruit on it, we are told that he was hungry. And when he sat down by the well and talked to the woman of Samaria, we are told that he was tired after his journey. Elsewhere we hear of his being sorry about things - he wept over Jerusalem, for example, and over the grave of Lazarus - but except on those three occasions I don't think we ever hear that he suffered bodily discomfort - till Gethsemani. (Continues in Pt. 2)

3rd Sunday of Lent

2011-03-27T02:33:00.000-07:00

Living Water

Knox - The Indelible Mark

2011-03-26T15:29:00.001-07:00

WE BELONG TO OUR LORD, that is, our Owner, just as the farmer's sheep belong to the farmer; that is why we carry his mark. If you have had anything to do with sheep, you will know that they have an incorrigible habit of squirming their way through hedges and getting mixed up with the sheep of the farmer next door. And that is why, especially when sheep are turned out to graze on hillsides, the farmer who owns them puts a sort of splotch on their sides, rather like what happened to you the last time you spilt the red ink. And so, if they do get straying and mix up with other people's flocks, there's no great harm done. So it was that, when you were baptized, our Lord put his mark on you, the sign of the cross. You and I can't see it there, because it belongs to the supernatural, not to the natural order; but an angel can see whether you are baptized or not, just as easily as you or I can see when somebody's got a smut on their nose. And that mark is indelible; it never comes out.

- Ronald A. Knox

Frost Warnings

2011-03-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

Saint Fiacre, I appeal to you on this Feast of the Annunciation to protect all the plants of gardeners who realize with some trepidation that we will be having frost again tonight.

Many thanks, good saint!

Lev - A Chivalrous Jewish Knight

2011-03-25T01:47:00.000-07:00

No display of crucifixes in classrooms? Had the EU cast out not only the last remnant of reminders of Europe's Christian origins, not only the Christ Child in the bathwater but the Savior of mankind upon his glorious throne?

Elizabeth Lev relates how close it came, and how a Jewish "knight" came riding to do battle:

(T)he true knight in shining armor of this story is a New York University law professor, Joseph Weiler, a devout and observant Jew, who represented, pro bono, the governments of Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, The Russian Federation and San Marino against the court's ruling.

With expert arguments, a mixture of wisdom drawn from the Old and New World and an occasional spark of humor, Europe's modern Galahad, made his winning case.

He compared the cross to a picture of the queen of England hanging in the classroom. "Like the cross," Weiler noted, "that picture has a double meaning. It is a photo of the head of state. It is, too, a photo of the titular head of the Church of England."

"Would it be acceptable," he asked, "for someone to demand that the picture of the queen may not hang in the school since it is incompatible with their religious conviction or their right to education since they are Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims?"

He closed with a warning, one that should echo in the United States: "A one rule fits all, as in the decision of the Second Chamber, devoid of historical, political, demographic and cultural context is not only inadvisable, but undermines the very pluralism, diversity and tolerance which the Convention is meant to guarantee and which is the hallmark of Europe."

Weiler won the day -- the court decided 15-2 in favor of Italy. Much like the Knights of Malta in 1565, who single-handedly held off the Turkish fleet, Professor Joseph Weiler and the nations and advisors who came to Italy's rescue, struck a decisive blow in favor of Europe's religious freedom.

Read all here.

By their fruits

2011-03-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

Enough said.

Royal Viewpoint

2011-03-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Very interesting, acute, and incisive analysis about England from an insider if ever there was one here.

Knox - Creatures of Earth and Heaven

2011-03-22T03:11:00.000-07:00

CREATURES EXIST TO REMIND us of God and make us think how much greater the Maker must be than the things he has made; how much more irresistible his power must be than the power of the whirlwind, how much more captivating his beauty must be than the beauty of the sunset. Creatures exist so that we can enjoy them and be grateful for them; so that when we have had a holiday we can go to bed thanking God, with a glow in our hearts, for all his goodness to us. Creatures exist so that we may make a right and wise use of them, mortifying ourselves and disciplining our appetites instead of being selfish about them, and making pigs of ourselves over them. All that is true of God's earthly creatures; but meanwhile, God made heaven as well as earth, and not only earth, but heaven, is ours, is meant for us to enjoy. Even now, the protection of the holy angels and the prayers of our Blessed Lady and all the saints are available to us, because we are his children.

How much more thrilling it will be when one day, please God, we put Purgatory behind us, and find, in heaven, the end for which we were really created, the existence which really satisfies the longings of our nature! Only then will the Artist put the finishing touches to his works; only then shall we be able to admire the grand scale of it, the perfect symmetry of it. The curtain will be drawn aside, and the Author of all that exists will stand there to take our applause.

- Ronald A. Knox

Belloc - Prophet of Our Times

2011-03-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

Hilaire Belloc is lauded as a prophet of our times by Father C. John McCloskey at ZENIT in an excellent interview here. Remember Belloc's immortal words:

"One thing in this world is different from all other. It has a personality and a force. It is recognized, and (when recognized) most violently loved or hated. It is the Catholic Church. Within that household the human spirit has roof and hearth. Outside it, is the night."

Knox - That God Exists

2011-03-20T04:21:00.000-07:00

WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG, YOU CAN always fall back on yourself for company, unless you are a very melancholy kind of person. When you go to bed at night, and can't get to sleep yet, you can be quite happy thinking about your own plans and your own pleasures, your own friends and your own ambitions; you can lie there day-dreaming, and tell yourself stories about what you are going to do when you grow up ... But when you've had fifty years and more of your own company, it ceases to be quite so enjoyable - you've got bored with it. And that breeds a dreadful loneliness inside the human soul, unless the human soul has learned, and has managed to remember, and still believes, that God exists. You have begun to see yourself as a pretty second-rate sort of article; your prospects of getting your way over this and that don't seem so frightfully important; your judgment of things and of people doesn't seem to matter so much; what the map of Europe will be like in a hundred years' time is a speculation that doesn't much interest you.

THEN, to believe that God exists means that you have something - better still, that you have somebody - to fall back upon; everything still matters, because there is God's will to be taken into account, God's glory to be considered. "I BELIEVE IN GOD"; forty years from now, if you keep then the faith you have now, you will be thanking God that God exists.

- Ronald A. Knox

God Wills It

2011-03-20T02:27:00.000-07:00

As historian Thomas F. Madden (Director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) elucidated to Colleen Carroll Campbell, Christians in general and Catholics in particular need not scurry away when conversation turns to either the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition.

An excellent if slightly dated article on the former can be found here.

Lord - Age of the Blessed Sacrament

2011-03-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

Madonna with the Host - Ingres

THROUGH THE GREAT MERCY OF GOD, we happen to live in the age of the Blessed Sacrament ...

The hatred that once reached out to fling the visible Christ into the plot of the Passion we have seen reach out once again to obliterate His priesthood, destroy the Mass, and make impossible the Eucharistic presence of the Incarnate God in His world. After all persecution is an act of perverted faith. Men cannot attack what they believe does not exist. The vicious persecution against the Catholic priesthood is the attack upon Christ and the Mass, the method by which He ordained He should enter the world. An age of persecution, like ours, is a glorious age of faith - angelic and demoniac - in the real presence ...

This is a great age, the age of the Eucharist and the age of Mary. The Eucharist and the Mother of the Savior are inseparable. The age that loves and honors one must love and honor the other. Our age gratefully and deeply loves them both, virgin Mother and virgin Son.

- Daniel A. Lord, S.J.

Christian Friendship - Close to Heaven

2011-03-15T01:26:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful occasion of providential faith and hope and charity. After an hour and one-half of dealing with a "home health nurse" and my apparent prime directive, who should show up at my doorstep but fellow Mass'keteer, young D'Artagnan, (graphic artist of the above) and Lady Dawn Eden! Each bore not only lunch-for-one (for herself; D'Art and I had eaten) but other fine, fine gifts and delights.

And for the next two and one-half hours, old Athos was bathed and swathed in such milk of human kindness, Christian friendship, and called-out-of-the-world-of-woes extradition that he thought he had somehow missed that rending of soul from body and been taken directly to the third heaven of what our brother Saint Paul speaks:

"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)

We chatted about books (ours and others') and new projects, one of which will take one of us far afield. We walked down to a nearby park and strolled next to a meandering stream. And then - the ceremonial exchanging of gifts!

Goodness! Lady Dawn, ever a keeper of what Tolkien called in hobbit terminology, mathom, brought out from her storehouse things old and new. And let us say, gentle reader, that D'Artagnan and Lady Dawn did not leave Athos' humble dwelling empty-handed. The former received in token of the chivalry which all of the Mass'keteers share in common brotherhood, and the latter is covered, though not yet blessed, in four-ways most blessed for her continuous deeds of errantry and pitched battle against the wicked and snares of the devil.

Can heaven come down and touch earth in any way more acceptably and nobly all of a Monday afternoon? Answer: Yes. For, before D'Artagnan and Lady Dawn left, we joined in prayer under the divine sign of the Most Holy Trinity and - gasp! - blessedly in the reliquarial presence (1st order) of Saint Dominic, compliments of a religious' gift to Lady Dawn in the wee hours at Notre Dame. D'Artagnan said he felt the great saint's hand on his shoulder as we knelt and prayed ...

May you have such an encounter with the true, good, and beautiful, gentle reader. And I will recount the deeds of two great friends and their superabundance of charity for long ages to come.

P. S. - Life is sweet and good if besides hosting friends like the above, one can field a phone call of concern on a Sunday afternoon, too, from a great friend, mentor, and all round great guy who now, again, lives in California.

Knox - Audacious Friendship

2011-03-13T04:29:00.000-07:00

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends ... (Jn 15, 15)

(T)HE BEST WAY OF ALL is to serve (God) because he is our friend, because we want to protest our love for him by our actions, and are sorry, sometimes, that he gives us so little chance of proving ourselves worthy of his friendship.

That is what God made us for, his human creatures, to be his friends, his personal friends. Not that he has need of our friendship; for his infinite beatitude would have remained unaltered if no soul had ever been breathed into a human body. But his overflowing Love is constantly forming new reservoirs, as it were, which it can fill with a human love that makes a response, however poor a response, to itself. As the single orb of the sun is reflected anew, whole and complete, by every puddle on the road-side, so in each insignificant human life that all-embracing love of God shines down, as if it had no other scope or aim for its self-fulfillment, and desires as far as our human imperfections will allow it to find its won image reflected there.

- Ronald A. Knox

Update on Athos

2011-03-09T11:57:00.001-08:00

This is Athos' wife posting at his request:

During the surgery yesterday, metastatic seeds were found throughout the abdomenal area, part of the colon was removed, and an ileostomy put in place. Chemo will begin after appropriate recovery from surgery. His spirits are good; it is better to know something than to be in the dark. Already he is making good progress following the surgery. He deeply appreciates the prayers of all.

Acton - Liberty

2011-03-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

Public discourse and behavior in our day are flat, boorishly predictable, slavishly partisan, and bereft of virtue and the virtues; they are, therefore, incapable of true liberty as Lord Acton understood it:

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.

Knox - Afraid of God, or Fear of God?

2011-03-03T04:53:00.000-08:00

SURELY THAT'S A VERY extraordinary thing, when you come to think what God is and what we are; that we should only want him to exist, now and again, for our convenience, instead of trying to realize that he is there all the time? That is what we are doing, you see, all of us; we are afraid of God, which is not at all what the Bible means by "fearing God". If we are to become better Christians, we have got to conquer that phobia, that shyness, as far as possible - we shall not get rid of it altogether. Shall I tell you what it reminds me of, this God-shy attitude of ours? It seems to me we are for all the world like some strange pet, a mongoose or something like that, which is only half-tamed. Come and meet it with a saucer in your hand, and it is all over you; the rest of the time, it runs away.

- Ronald Knox

The Way - Sheen, Estivez

2011-03-02T02:50:00.000-08:00

Let's keep our ears to the rails and see if we can find where this film will be showing. It is, according to one reviewer, the "perfect Easter family film."

St David of Wales

2011-03-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

St. David of Wales

Monday News

2011-02-28T06:31:00.000-08:00

Two brief announcements: old Athos will be appearing this evening on EWTN's The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi (8:00 ET). Check local listings for availability. It will be archived, however, for streaming at The Journey Home website.

Too, Athos will be facing more surgery in the not too distant future. Pity unnecessary, but prayers greatly appreciated. More information will be forthcoming. Thanks!

Prayer Fodder - Chivalry

2011-02-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

Keep these words of Russian President Medvedev in mind. The locked mind of the Scimitar is, as Girard describes, firmly located in the culture of the primitive sacred.

This volatile situation in the cultural fabric of our global community should afford us plenty of fodder for prayer, vigilance, practice of the theological virtues, and, of course, chivalry.

UPDATE: Jesuit and Egyptian-born Father Samir Khalil sees hope in the revolutions taking place here.

Benedict XVI - Avoiding Activism

2011-02-21T15:07:00.000-08:00

The Consideration by Saint Bernard is of course required reading for every Pope. There are great things in it, too, for example: Remember that you are not the successor of Emperor Constantine but rather the successor of a fisherman.

The basic theme is the one that you have noted: Do not become utterly absorbed in activism! There would be so much to do that one could be working on it constantly. And that is precisely the wrong thing. Not becoming totally absorbed in activism means maintaining consideratio, discretion, deeper examination, contemplation, time for interior pondering, vision, and dealing with things, remaining with God and meditating about God. One should not feel obliged to work ceaselessly; this in itself is important for everyone, too, for instance, for every manager, too, and even more so for a Pope. He has to leave many things to others so as to maintain his inner view of the whole, his interior recollection, from which the view of what is essential can proceed.

- Benedict XVI

GKC - Why Be Catholic

2011-02-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

Dale Ahlquist writing of G. K. Chesterton (of course) says,

(W)hen we have our days of doubt, when we are confused by the incessant attacks and the personal disappointments, it is a good exercise to sit down and make a list of all the things that prove that the Catholic faith is true.

The Church is the only consistent defender of morality and virtue. It defends marriage and the family. It defends children and babies and the unborn. It defends the poor. It defends peace and human dignity. It defends order and it also defends freedom. It defends the body and the mind and the soul.
The Church is the only institution in history that has continually survived its own defeats. Chesterton even maintains that it has survived its own death. Several times in history the Church seemed to be done and destroyed. But it is still here. It has survived its own death, says Chesterton, "because it had a God who knew his way out of the grave."
The history of Christianity is the history of the Catholic Church. The Church has not only carried the faith through history, it has carried the whole culture. The monasteries preserved the texts of the ancient world, keeping open our only windows to the past. When iconoclasts were smashing statues, Catholics preserved the art of sculpture. Catholic artists even brought sculpture inside paintings, giving them depth and dimension. They wrote music that we can still sing. The castles built in the medieval times are now museums or ruins. The Cathedrals built at the same time are still being used for their original purpose.
All other Christian sects are a reaction against or a splitting off from the Catholic Church. They are always something less than the Catholic Church, never anything more. They lack something, whether it be a pope or a priest or a pronouncement. Whatever partial truth they cling to is something that they have received from the Catholic Church, whether it be the Bible or baptism or "bringing in the sheaves."
History's greatest people, the saints, are Catholic ... Read all.

Stages of Spiritual Starvation

2011-02-21T01:11:00.000-08:00

At yesterday's Daytona 500 race, Jeff Gordon was sponsored by the AARP's new publicity stunt, Drive to End Hunger. How much did many minutes of commercial time cost during the Daytona 500? Vroom vroom.

A noble endeavor, you say? Perhaps; unless one looks behind the curtain at the man pulling the levers and turning the knobs. The AARP buckled and became an arm of the aspirations of Last Self-Help Administration even before the last election. If you see altruism in this new endeavor, I see an attempt to show even good-old boy racin' fans can be influenced by the cynical Left.

Instead of spending umpteen thousands of dollars on this new endeavor, AARP - and you, gentle reader - should with Monsignor Charles Pope consider a deeper analysis of hunger in the starving West; one that, I think, makes far more sense and, ultimately, can do far more good, here.

Invitation to Marian Chivalry

2011-02-19T13:24:00.000-08:00

Do you want to go beyond pew-sitting membership in the Catholic Church? Hear a call of silver trumpets to give more of your life to serving Our Lord and Our Lady in chivalrous fealty? I recommend that you give attention to Corpus Christianum. From the website:

What do members do?

Relying on the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, members pray daily for the renewal, unity, and spread of Christendom, for the protection of Christians, for the conversion of sinners and sanctification of all people, for Holy Mother Church, and for the reinstitution of family life. Members pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as a short prayer to Mary, Help of Christians, the Corpus Christianum Preces, and a rosary. On Saturdays members also pray the Litany of Loreto. For members who want to expand their spiritual life even more, they can choose to follow the Acta Militum (see question further below)

Where are members located?

Currently there are men and women in nine countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, Nigeria, Philippines, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States - with members in 28 different states in the U.S.).

What is the canonical status of the Association?

Corpus Christianum is an international Private Association of the Faithful.

The Association's Statutes have been reviewed and a nihil obstat has been granted by His Excellency, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska [USA] on August 2, 2010. His Excellency's reaffirm of support was confirmed again in a letter on January 24, 2011. These letters can be accessed here and here.

The Statutes mention the Acta Militum? What is that?

The Acta Militum is a document that can be used as a "plan" to expand one's spiritual life beyond the general Corpus Christianum prayers. Those persons who follow the Acta may also find it very useful as a discussion tool with their spiritual directors.

Rumbling Toward the Caliphate

2011-02-18T02:45:00.001-08:00

With such illuminating rhetoric as the following, imams in Afghanistan promulgate the goals of the Scimitar:

Under the weathered blue dome of Kabul's largest mosque, a distinguished preacher, Enayatullah Balegh, pledged support for "any plan that can defeat" foreign military forces in Afghanistan, denouncing what he called "the political power of these children of Jews."

Across town, a firebrand imam named Habibullah was even more blunt.

"Let these jackals leave this country," the preacher, who uses only one name, declared of foreign troops. "Let these brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs leave this country."

It should be manifestly clear that while the blinders of secularism make such organs of the MSM as the WaPo see the "unrest" in the nations of the Middle East solely in terms of politics, there is a vast sea of persons of the Scimitar who see it as the beginnings of the Caliphate.

It would be a messy, sloppy, chaotic thing to be sure; a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption of power-driven maniacs. But so long as the Scimitar clings to its scapegoats par excellence - the Jews and downstream cousins the Christians - it will find for a while a unifying factor.

But who will notice the outlines of such a unifying goal, I wonder?

UPDATES: Gee, what a surprise.

* Raymond Ibrahim's analysis here.

Into the Clearing

2011-02-16T15:54:00.000-08:00

I OFTEN IMAGINE A BOY who, not unlike Prince Caspian of C. S. Lewis's book, had a love for lore, for stories and legends of romance and greatness and great sacrifice for great causes, who chanced upon a clearing and structures ruinous the origins he knew not. It is my favorite kind of story.

Imagine my immense surprise when in my advancing years I found myself the protagonist in that story. It followed years of struggle, of having that kind of Story excised right out of me in the relativist blather of a "liberal arts education" followed by a different kind of relativism - a left-leaning form of Christianity that I call New Age Zen Protestantism.

And yet, here I stood at the age of 47, newly confirmed into full communion with the Holy Catholic Church. The words of Evelyn Waugh - fellow convert - were one with my own heart and mind:

“Conversion is like stepping across the chimney piece out of a Looking-Glass world, where everything is an absurd caricature, into the real world God made; and then begins the delicious process of exploring it limitlessly.”

To this moment, I have found nothing to contradict either the words of Waugh or the wonder of coming into the clearing of the Catholic World from the dark and cruel forest of derelict, atrophy, parody, and sin. And lo - what I had taken for a structure ruinous was not so at all. Rather, it was deeply old and immensely ancient, yet as new and vibrant as a fresh day of Spring and heart's ease. And at its center a lamb as though slain ... and His Mother, our good Lady, His most faithful and first and best disciple.

With all my days - however many or few there are - the best life, the only life, is to serve our good Lord and His good Lady in fealty and service. There is nothing for it but this. For I did not find my way in the Clearing. I got pulled into this Romance, undeservedly. And for that I am grateful.

Pearce - The Pub

2011-02-15T01:27:00.000-08:00

Joseph Pearce waxes poetic on the origins, joys, and necessity of the English pub here.