'Opportunities' in Catholic Education

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).

Sicut Cervus - The Spirit's Work

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

Old Saint Nick

Father Christmas - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

As I posted back on his actual feast day, Benjamin Britten did the world a thing of beauty by memorializing the events of the life of Saint Nicholas of Myra in his moving Saint Nicolas Cantata. And I noticed that Tim Jones posted on Chesterton's views of Saint Nick at Old World Swine, while young Andrew Cusack did also on the saint's day.

This, in my way of thinking, allows me the license to capture and republish both of their illustrations (above).

If you get an opportunity, do listen to Britten's gift of love for Saint Nicholas. (Reposted from 12/17/08)

Advent Vigil

This depiction of a knight kneeling before an altar has always symbolized the season of Advent in my mind. There is nothing ornate about the surroundings; nothing to spur on one's faith or hope or charity. In fact, it seems rather dark and cold and lonely.

And that, perhaps, is the deceiving thing about this vigil of Advent. The Catholic faith says in the midst of the world's bustle of buying and selling that He Whose second Advent we await in wintry silence and gloom is already with us as humbly as He first came to us at Bethlehem. The humility of the Word made flesh (Jn 1,14) is fully with us in the Real Presence of the Holy Eucharist.

And so we wait in vigil and longing for His second Advent in glory - we age, we grow ill, we make merry with friends and loved ones, we perish, and another generation begins the vigil. But we are not alone and all manner of things shall be most well. Thanks be to God.

Hope of Glory - Knox

The Resurrection (15th c.) - Piero delia Francesca

AT LAST CAME one who saw that (mortal) conflict with level eyes, and faced the future with untroubled brow. He had power, he said, to lay down his life, and power to take it again. No fear of human violence assailed him; when the Galileans would have cast him down from the top of a hill, he passed securely through their midst ... Then, at a time he himself had predicted, making all his arrangements with leisurely forethought, and comforting his friends against the trial that was in store for them, he went to his death voluntarily ... and on the third day he left his tomb empty.

With that action he broke the spell that had chained humanity so long. Immediately after his death, his followers began to spread through the world, living a life of self-discipline and, where need arose, of heroic self-sacrifice, in the unquestioning hope that they, too, would be counted worthy of this Resurrection which they had seen and handled in his flesh. He did not simply convince men that he had risen; he convinced them that they would rise. That change of the body from a passible to a glorious state, which they admired as a portent in him, they looked forward to as a common experience for themselves, did they but become, through faith and through the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, concorporate with him.

He died that he might institute such means of grace; he died that he might obliterate the curse of sin under which our race laboured; he died that he might encourage us to follow heroically in his footsteps; he died that we might learn how intimate a place suffering has in the economy of our existence here. He died also, that he might assume for our sakes, while he was yet on earth, that Resurrection body whose true home and medium of activity is elsewhere; we should see with our eyes, and our hands should handle, the Word of Life.

- Ronald A. Knox

Saturday Night - Rise and Come with Me

IN THE MYSTICAL INTERPRETATION of the (Canticle of Canticles), the voice of the beloved is understood of Christ speaking to the faithful soul ...

Arise (he says), make haste and come. Come away from the blind pursuit of creatures, from all the plans your busy brain evolves for your present and future pleasures, from the frivolous distractions it clings to. Come away from the pettiness and the meanness of your everyday life, from the grudges, the jealousies, the unhealed enmities that set your imagination throbbing. Come away from the cares and solicitudes about the morrow that seem so urgent, your heavy anxieties about the world's future and your own, so short either of them and so uncertain. Come away into the wilderness of prayer, where my love will follow you and my hand hold you; leave to live, with the innermost part of your soul, with all your secret aspirations, with all the centre of your hopes and cares, in that supernatural world which can be yours now, which must be yours hereafter.

- Ronald A. Knox

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

My spiritual director who died in June on the feast day of Sts Peter and Paul said that Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was the "air we breath" at Holy Cross Abbey, Berryville. I had asked him for a good place to begin reading St. Bernard. He sent me a voluminous letter with multiple photocopies, suggestions, one with the still intriguing title of The Family That Overtook Christ: the amazing story of the family of Bernard of Clairvaux.

We remember St. Bernard today as founder of a host of monasteries, the counselor to pontiffs, the figure whom Dante deemed worthy to escort his literary self into Paradise.

St. Bernard, son of knights, pray for us.

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe

“Courage, my sons. Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.”

- St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, when first arrested

From Notre Dame to Notre Dame

I always find it bolstering to see young adults choosing to light candles rather than curse the darkness. Andrew Cusack once again provides his readers with a photomontage of the annual pilgrimage from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on the Île de la Cité (above) to Notre-Dame de Chartres in the Orléanais by pilgrims young (and old). Enjoy - here.

Our Lady Help of Christians

Battle of Lepanto (c. 1572) - Paolo Veronese

Today is the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, which you can read all about here. You are, of course, well aware of G. K. Chesterton's epic poem commemorating the immense victory of Lepanto.

Be aware, gentle reader, that Our Lady also helps Christians in more personal battles, as I can - and do - attest.

Being a member of Corpus Christianum and practicing its Acta Militum, our organization recites a prayer of consecration to Our Lady this day, May 24th. I used with deep appreciation the The Militia Immaculata of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, unworthy though I am. I experienced immense power - dunamis - in so doing.

May God bless you and your consecration to Our Lady and her Lord.

Newman - Red Meat for the Soul

It isn't surprising that I have a strong and lasting admiration for British Catholics. They have been through alot. Read and inwardly digest the following soul food from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman: 41 Quotes from my favorite British Cardinal.

Monday Morning - for the record

Two offerings well worthy of an investment of your time:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Talks About South Park, Theo Van Gogh, and Death by the Scimitar - “There is one religion that is claiming to be above criticism.”

Obedience in Christ, Bishop Slattery's sermon tells us is the cause of our hope in the midst of suffering, persecution, lies, and indifference in and of the world.

Good Shepherd Sunday

Catacombs of Saint Callixstus

A Busy Forty Days

Christ Appearing to the Virgin ( 1475)

- Follower of Rogier van der Weyden

Good Friday

Crucifixion (1695) - El Greco

Chaput - Cans and Can't of Catholic Education

Archbishop Charles Chaput delineates the reasoning of the Church and Catholic education about a recent fiery issue facing a Denver school:

The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are “bad,” or that their children are less loved by God. Quite the opposite. But what the Church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society. The Church cannot change these teachings because, in the faith of Catholics, they are the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The policies of our Catholic school system exist to protect all parties involved, including the children of homosexual couples and the couples themselves. Our schools are meant to be “partners in faith” with parents. If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church.

Most parents who send their children to Catholic schools want an environment where the Catholic faith is fully taught and practiced. That simply can’t be done if teachers need to worry about wounding the feelings of their students or about alienating students from their parents. That isn’t fair to anyone—including the wider school community. Persons who have an understanding of marriage and family life sharply different from Catholic belief are often people of sincerity and good will. They have other, excellent options for education and should see in them the better course for their children..More>>

CT Scan Tomorrow

One thing my life has taught me is that things wished for or things dreaded rarely correspond to the actual eventualities that occur in the future. But, for one so graced with faith - and it is a gift not an accomplishment - grace is sufficient to every eventuality.

Marian chivalry consists in trusting as Our Lady did, obeying humbly as simply as earth (humus) accepts all that befalls it, offering up all woe and trials, and witnessing to God's steadfast love and faithfulness at all times, even when the path seems darkest, loneliest, most dread-filled, and hopeless.

Those who believe they are "in power" aren't; those who think they are powerless, aren't; those who fear the worst rarely face it; those who think they are prepared find they aren't. In this way Tolkien's master opus is the very finest teacher of reality; and it is a Catholic reality, after all.

Our Lord constantly sends us signs and portents of hope. Stay in a state of grace and so be ready to accept them open-handed.

And, if you find a moment, pray for me, like you, a poor ornery sinner, in need of even more grace. Thank you, gentle reader.

5th Day of Christmas - Becket

Saint Thomas Becket

The Chivalry of Father Kapaun

Holy Trinity – Andrei Rublev

Just as surely as I predicted Drew Brees' astronomical success this season, I predict that the following story will be the keeper of Advent 2009.

At sunrise on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1951, Father Emil Kapaun startled POWs by donning his purple priest’s stole and openly carrying a Catholic prayer missal, borrowed from Ralph Nardella.

He had talked atheist guards into letting him hold an Easter service, a favor they soon regretted.

No one there would ever forget this day. The most moving sight the POWs ever saw.

At sunrise, 80 officers — bearded, dirty and covered with lice — followed Kapaun up a little rise, to the cold steps of a bombed-out church. They gathered in a circle around him. Kapaun held a crude crucifix made from broken sticks. He looked thin and filthy; except for the black eye patch, he looked to Walt Mayo like one of the ragged apostles.

Kapaun began speaking, and his voice caught; he said he didn’t have the equipment to give them a proper Mass. But then he held up his ciborium, the tiny gold container that before his capture had held communion hosts he had placed on tongues of soldiers.

He opened Nardella’s prayer missal, and as he began to recite from it, the Christians among them realized what a risk he was now taking. He was beginning not from the Easter promise of rebirth but from the dark brutality of Good Friday.

As the guards glared, Kapaun read the Stations of the Cross, describing Christ’s condemnation, torture and death. Captives who had been mocked and tormented and beaten listened as Kapaun spoke of Christ being mocked and tormented and beaten.

Tears flowed.

Kapaun held up a rosary. He asked the non-Catholics to let the Catholics indulge for a bit; they knelt as he said the rosary, recited the glorious mysteries of Christ rising, ascending, defying death for all time.

A voice rose in song. A POW, Bill Whiteside, had a beautiful voice, and he raised it now to sing the Lord’s Prayer, a recital that gave goosebumps to Sidney Esensten, the Jewish doctor.

Kapaun spoke. His theme: forgiveness.

And he said he did not feel qualified to advise them about life because, “I am not any better than you are.”

Then they all sang as Kapaun had taught them: loud so that the enlisted men could hear. Starving men sang at sunrise, the same song Whiteside had sung, the Lord’s Prayer, a song they laced with reverence..Read all …

If in the dark days of an Advent filled with news like "hope and change" mandatory funding of abortuarial murder (read: "health care reform") that makes America resemble ancient Carthage, or the Scimitar threatening lands once part of Christendom (again), remember this:

Father Kapaun was only human. What he did was perform his priestly duties faithfully. Our Lord and his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist empowered the prisoners of war. He will continue to do so for us, prisoners in an unholy age.

God bless our faithful, wise, and loving priests. And God bless us as we gain sacramental grace and strength to be witnesses, joyful, jovial, chivalrous sons and daughters of the Most High. God bless you this Advent!

Good Christian Men, Rejoice

As the attempt to strangle Christian faith, morals, and traditions gathers momentum, from multiculturalism on the ascendancy in the Last Self-Help Administration and left in the United States and the EU on the continent, Christianity in general and the Catholic faith in particular will find itself more and more under siege. The above is the neo-pagan "pincer" confronting Catholic truth, faith, and morals.

"Neo-pagan?" you may ask. "Is it not rather radical secularism in word and deed?"

No, it isn't. Only if one listens to its themes and self-justifying slogans. Observed through a cool, forensic lens of René Girard's mimetic theory, the structural behavior betrays its pagan pomp and ritual, right down to its Molech-like abortuarial cultus.

The other "pincer" attacking the remnants of the Christian West is, of course, the Scimitar. Again, it betrays its claims of "monotheism", let alone being a religion of "peace", by its necessary dependency upon victims for its sacrificial pyres of regeneration.

The two "pincers" are unlikely bedfellows, but both writhe and roil before the revealed faith, morals, and truths of the Church. Both hate (and secretly admire and desire in rivalry's side-long glances) what they can only reject, revile, and seek to destroy. Both are enslaved to this mission of destruction, for both house a collective mind trapped in mimetic rivalry to Catholic truth. As Robert Hamerton-Kelly describes this trapped mind:

“It is a mind enslaved. It desires not only to possess the other, but to consume or destroy. It wishes not only to imitate the other, nor merely to possess itself in the other, but to destroy the other as the place where the self is alien to the self.”

If you want to know what is called for in this struggle for the survival of truth in the face of the above "twin pincers," I strongly recommend C. S. Lewis's Prince Caspian, and belonging to a worthy organization of Marian chivalry like Corpus Christianum. Only close proximity to the Blessed Sacrament, fixing oneself to the Barque of Peter, and fortitude born of fealty to the Once and Future King (of whom Arthur is a pale parody) will hold us in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.