And Where Did That Get Them

At least someone is comparing with history in mind. This is a far cry from the usual back-pedaling as soon as one realizes one is getting close to the brink of allowing truth to break in upon one's consciousness: Roman Infanticide, Modern Abortion

Jos. Bottum - Signpost at the Crossroads

You head down the road of public life in America, and you run up against religion. From the conversations in the barber shops and the coffee klatches, through the aldermen’s offices and the town halls, the school boards and the zoning commissions, the campaigns and the columnists, and eventually to the state houses and even, perhaps, to that white-domed Capitol building, far off in Washington—somewhere along the line you come to the crossroads where religion cuts across your path.

You travel the long road of religion in America, and you find the Bible chapels, scattered along the prairie like tumbleweeds that have somehow grown white vinyl siding. You drive past the green-lawn suburban churches with cutesy messages on the brick-framed signs placed out near the street. You pass the exhaust-stained marble fronts of the old city congregations, the yellow taxis inching angrily by. You visit the grand cathedrals and synagogues, announcing their people’s success in America, this newfoundland, and you see the pulpits and the choir lofts and the pews and the Sunday schools—the church basement halls, with their dented aluminum coffeemakers and styrofoam cups, their book tables, their after-service conversations burbling away. And somewhere down that highway you come, again, to the crossroads where the public life of the nation confronts you.

There is a marker at that place, naming its many promises and dangers for travelers, with the word abortion at the top. Even now, abortion remains what it has been for more than thirty years: the signpost at the intersection of religion and American public life.

Of course, there are those who think this shouldn’t be so. Personally, I cannot see how abortion could not rank first. We eliminate 1.3 million unborn children in this country every year, a number that dwarfs, by far, the impact of every other activity with which the moral teachings of the churches might be concerned. For that matter, the story of abortion is a tale of blood and sex and power and law—I do not know what more anyone could need for public significance. The people who say they are uninterested in the issue of abortion have always seemed, to me, to be trying to suppress the imagination that most makes us human.

Nonetheless, even in the churches some do not see things this way, and they want the whole issue simply to go away. But the fact that they wish abortion didn’t matter shows that abortion does, in fact, matter. It’s proof that the social observation remains true, for good or for ill. Whether one approves or not, the issue of abortion is here in America—the signpost at the crossroads.

Read all of The Signpost at the Crossroads here.

Newman - Pilgrim Queen (1849)

The Pilgrim Queen (A Song.)

THERE sat a Lady

all on the ground,

Rays of the morning

circled her round,

Save thee, and hail to thee,

Gracious and Fair,

In the chill twilight

what wouldst thou there?

"Here I sit desolate,"

sweetly said she,

"Though I'm a queen,

and my name is Marie:

Robbers have rifled

my garden and store,

Foes they have stolen

my heir from my bower.

"They said they could keep Him

far better than I,

In a palace all His,

planted deep and raised high.

'Twas a palace of ice,

hard and cold as were they,

And when summer came,

it all melted away.

"Next would they barter Him,

Him the Supreme,

For the spice of the desert,

and gold of the stream;

And me they bid wander

in weeds and alone,

In this green merry land

which once was my own."

I look'd on that Lady,

and out from her eyes

Came the deep glowing blue

of Italy's skies;

And she raised up her head

and she smiled, as a Queen

On the day of her crowning,

so bland and serene.

"A moment," she said,

"and the dead shall revive;

The giants are failing,

the Saints are alive;

I am coming to rescue

my home and my reign,

And Peter and Philip

are close in my train."

The Oratory.

1849.

Reader - Are You Like Douglas Hyde?

THE ONE-TIME LEADER in British Communism, Douglas Hyde, astonished his twentieth century colleagues by seeing his name across national newspapers as having resigned his job as news editor of the Daily Worker and the Communist Party. He was becoming a Catholic.

Shortly before, he and his wife "outed" to one another and discovered that the Holy Spirit had been leading them in parallel direction. Joseph Pearce relates the events in his nonpareil must-read/own book, Literary Converts:

Hyde: "Are you becoming a Catholic or something?"

"I wish I were," she replied.

Hyde's heart leapt: "And I wish to God I could do the same."

For the first time in months they came clean with each other. Hyde told her exactly how far he had travelled. How he believed that the culture of the Middle Ages had not died with feudalism but was still alive in the modern world, 'a living Catholic culture' (243ff).

+ + +

If you are tired to death of the sham party politics of America, the present 'pharoah' who knows not Joseph (or Biblical faith and values from his progressivist place of power, only from afar); if you are like Douglas Hyde (though not so officially), exhausted by the mere human projects that keep ending, like those of the dark twentieth/twenty-first centuries, in Gulags, gas chambers, killing fields, Caliph-justified vitriolic violence, and Gulf water disasters ...

"The culture of the Middle Ages (has) not died, but (is) still alive in the modern world, a living Catholic culture."

The July/August issue of The Saint Austin Review (StAR), July/August is entitled, The Middle Ages. I recommend strongly that you pick up a copy, or, better yet, subscribe to this journal that clear-sightedly views global events and culture from a stance faithful to the Magisterium of the Church.

What you yearn for and want most deeply may - just may - still be quite alive and flourishing in a world that you see, quite rightly, that has gone mad. "Well, that's your opinion," you say? I paraphrase Evelyn Waugh:

... the Church is not, except by accident, a little club with its own specialised vocabulary, but the normal state of man from which men disastrously exiled themselves.

Hope - Christendom

Trinity (1408-25) - Andrei Rublev

First of all, let me apologize for the truncated manner of my posting. Sitting in an upright position less than two weeks out from my surgery leaves me at a disadvantage, so please forgive errors, etc.

An important hint I want to leave for those in search of breadcrumbs leading to cultural hope and the renewal of Christendom can, it seems to me, be found in this modern prophecy.

Conspiracy theories revolve around this document at quite a speed. It is vital, therefore, to slow down and realize a few things about this Fatima revelation. First, while there is an element that rightly sees "chastisement", in light of more recent events - namely, the cultural meltdown of the West rightly called suicide by the observant - there is a much more crucial element, one of theological hope.

Remnants of chivalry, of faithful sons and daughters of Our Lord's Catholic Church, of willingness not to buckle and give-in exist in old Europe, in new America, and elsewhere around the world.

Sadly, however, it is a well-documented reality that the West is emasculated, profligate, shamelessly promiscuous, literally de-generate, and no more forward-thinking than the next sensualist experience. It does not have the faith, morals, or virtuous wherewithal any longer to stand before the enemies of Christendom.

Not so, it seems, in Russia. Now"consecrated" to Our Lady as Fatima urged, Russia is just as sinful. Of course. As secularized? Perhaps ... but it seems not so. Russia has dealt as an entity with mightily violent foes for many long centuries - from the Tatars without to the Stalinists within. The West, except for the twentieth century's two huge bloodbaths, has become a mere batch of weathervanes, whiney sensualist splinters, avoiding mortal consciousness and distracting itself to death.

So, look with hope to the Holy Father. Be a Pope's man - or woman. Trust Catholic truth. Be strong in eucharistic grace, and all the other sacraments. And pray - pray - for our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Russia. They have NOT forgotten how to stand before the enemies of Christ our King and His holy Church.

We may learn and follow under the consecrated leadership of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven.

Knox - Christian Sorrow and Joy

In my abbreviated way of return to blogging, here are quotes from a real hero of mine, Monsignor Ronald Knox. As I glanced at the WaPo headlines this morning, the following could not be more apropos:

They have substituted for the infallibility of the Church a doctrine of the infallibility of perishable human intellects ... The newspaper proprietor, while he aspires to be the tyrant of public opinion, must in many ways stoop to be its slave.

Then, too, and perhaps more related to my - and your - life:

In proportion as we are good Christians, the world will find us ... a little removed from its insensate pursuit of pleasures, a little obsessed with thoughts of death and of judgment, a little skeptical about its facile optimisms ... in proportion as we are good Christians, this seriousness of character will not reflect itself in empty brooding on the wickedness of the world, will not make us morbid, self-centered, disillusioned. Rather, we shall find that Christian sorrow and Christian joy have their roots nearer together than we fancied; that the desire for God's will to be done perfectly in us and in all creatures, which is the Christian religion, bears a double fruit of sadness and of gladness. For so it must be, until our earthly Lent is over, and we rejoice for ever in the triumph of the eternal Easter-tide.

- Ronald Knox

Dispatch from the Front

From my perspective, persons view my situation differently this second time following cancer surgery. A steeper, less hopeful spiral. My place less secure, more obviously now in the 'sacred precinct' of facing death. More fascinating perhaps, but less attractive. I know that my case is a microcosm for Everyman - as I espied in A Little Guide for Your Last Days.

What am I aiming toward? Healing? Please. Isn't that just the kind of vapid trail of thought of our age (Modern, post-modern ... what is that all about if not a whiney child sitting in a corner)?

No. I am aiming to avoid a lack of gratitude. Lord, save me from this fate! To fall into such a place of silly attempts to avoid my - our - mortality, is once again to stumble into the mimetic swirl of ontology by comparison; the hall of mirrors others have limned so clearly.

No, Lord. I will remain grateful to You - for every moment, for every person with whom I come in contact. For we are, all of us, beholden to You for our very Being, on loan while we have life and breath.

If any are scandalized by my stance of faith, I regret it. But I believe most fully in the magisterium vouchsafed by the Catholic Church, the revealed knowledge of our covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, Three-in-One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So I thank You, Source of my being, for all that I have and all that I am. Thank You for Your inestimable gift of the Church and Your eucharistic grace within Her. Deo gratias. +

Deo Gratias

First of all, a huge thank you for all of your prayers. I am home and happy to be so. The experience provided a few surprises. Dr. Choti at Johns Hopkins began my surgery nearly three hours later than expected last Wednesday, but all went well.

He routinely removed the gall bladder, what happens with all liver resectioning, no encroachment of CA there. The tumors were all removed. I provided him with a surprise, however. The CA had moved to the diaphragm. This never appeared on any CTscan or MRI, but makes sense of other symptoms; namely, the originating complaint of pain when laughing, running, yawning, etc. This being the case, the CA in the diaphragm was probably there since at least my father's birthday, February of 2009. Dr. Choti asked if I had had pain in my shoulder - a big "YES" - which is a key symptom of problems in the diaphragm. The tumors in the diaphgram, now, are gone.

So, the hidden CA in the diaphragm led us to the early diagnosis of CA in the liver while it was still quite operable AND the removal of the CA in the diaphragm which Choti says he successfully removed. I am breathing easy, the shoulder is not nearly as painful, and except for the usual pain of going through the muscle wall, I am not doing poorly at all.

On the other hand, I cannot do any exercise other than walking, I cannot drive while on Oxycodone pain medicine, and are under orders to "mend" for the next 3 weeks, after which I see Dr. Choti to strategize.

Again, thank you for your kind well wishes and prayers; keep them coming!

Off I Go - Pt. 2

I can report, gentle reader, that the morning of major surgery to resection my liver is far different than it was two years ago when I was having my left kidney removed. I scanned my usual web and blog sites this morning and felt an enormous gap between my priorities and those heralded by the purveyors of all-things-crucial-to-blog-about.

Of course, this may be influenced on my part having fasted yesterday on a clear-liquid diet and doused my system with magnesium citrate (a quick way to lose 3-4 pounds), and no liquids at all since midnight.

So, for what it is worth - and, in the words of my esteemed mother, "Consider the source" - I will leave you as I journey to Johns Hopkins with the following.

Corpus Christianum +

Fail - Hyundai Duh

The automaker Hyundai - you know, the Korean manufacturer that, at first, couldn't find any automobile insurance companies that would cover their cars, so they created their own insurance company - is taking heat big-time for blaspheming the Sacrifice of the Mass in their recent ad campaign.

I'm not surprised. They mocked the singing - and singers - of Christmas Carols year before last, too.

Books to Cherish - MacDonald & Lang

WHEN IT COMES TO George MacDonald, do not read or entertain any critic's "good" advice, but go to the source. First read his Phantastes, then Lilith. If you have lived longer than half a century, (or if you have had a life-threatening illness, lost a parent, a spouse, or a child at any earlier age), you should first read C. S. Lewis's introduction to Phantastes in the edition I linked to (above).

Read these books in a spirit of lectio divina, and forgive their lack of adherence to the Magisterium of Mother Church (the way you forgive an uncle who has lived an adventuresome life, has great stories to tell with gusto, and who loves you enough to spend/waste all the time you want with him over a strong beer or glass of mead). Keep to the Magisterium, but let MacDonald re-enchant the world for you. Why? I was hoping you would ask!

The third book I cannot recommend highly enough is an absolutely essential read for all modern and post-modern denizens is David P. Lang's Why Matter Matters (NOT Simon Basher's book of the same name). Amy Welborn recommended it to me, and it is a vital part of the Catholic counter-culturalist's library.

Besides being a thorough-goingly orthodox Catholic book, it will unequivocally disabuse the reader of all the semi-Gnostic and full-blown Gnostic falderal we all have accrued living in our bland secularist landscape of dumbed-down wonderment in which the only end-point, apparently, is Freudian (a six-second promiscuous rush of rattling a ladle in a bowl ... ).

In actuality, MacDonald and Lang accomplish the same feat: both re-enchant and valorize this wondrous world and make one realize that if we can trust in the Providence that placed us in this world, we can trust that same Providence to help us safely, surely, and meaningfully into the next world as well.

Tripe and Piffle - NYT

Carl Olson relates the imbecilic typings of this poor critic. Which, all in all, says that the writer's editor was of like level of historical mindedness, as opposed to, say, this writer and historian or this one.

Dear old Hilaire Belloc had to deal constantly with the historical blatherings of his English revisionist brethren, so we should not feel too put upon. Yet the fight to stand our ground and set the record straight is a long and tiresome business; sort of like listening to this chap.

Pax et Bonum

"Hello, beastie."

As I have alluded, my "beastie" with which I had a spot of bother two years ago has returned, now in my liver. A renowned surgeon at Johns Hopkins will endeavor to resection my liver on Wednesday, two days from now, God willing. And then, after that ordeal, I will begin a regimen of general chemotherapy.

I am grateful for the renewed number of prayers, petitions, intentions, and good thoughts folk have offered up for me. I am reminded that I would not be published had this "terrible beastie" not entered my life in the first place, and I received the gift of the awareness of my mortality in a way that was longed-for in the high days of Christendom.

So, posting may occur if it strikes my fancy. But I will endeavor to keep you abreast of matters on the other side of Wednesday in any case. Pax et bonum. +

O'Connor - Quote of the Day

Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when, of course, it is the cross.

- Flannery O'Connor

Act like a Dhimmi ...

For the record: Victor Davis Hanson offers Raymond Ibrahim's important essay, What Did You Say About the Scimitar's founder?