THERE IS NOTHING IRREVERENT, I think, in comparing man's search for God to a game of hide-and-seek. A child's games with its father, all the skill and foresight on the one side, al the romance and excitement on the other! When you read in the Old Testament about almighty God making a covenant with men, your sense of the fitness of things is outraged; how is it possible, considering what he is, that he should make a bi-lateral treaty with his children, he with his own income, they with nothing but the pocket-money he allows them; and what complicated transactions take place, in make-believe! And so it is with this game of hide-and-seek, that goes on all through the centuries, that goes on in every man's life from the cradle to the grave.
Why is it that God, who so loves us, makes himself so distant from us, so difficult to find? Dare we say it? - it is part of the rules of the game. He will make himself difficult to find, so that when we do find him, the shock of triumph may be something unexampled in our experience. Why does man, whose heart is made for God, and cannot find rest until it rests in him, yet spend long days, long years of his life, may be, trying to run away from God, to avoid his scrutiny? Once more, it is part of the rules of the game; not that we should hide from him, but that we should be able to hide from him ...
And then, in the fullness of time, God changed his hiding-place. Suddenly, while all was quiet around, with the deep stillness of a winter night, he came and hid in a little country town, came and hid in a manger, came and hid in the form of man. Not quite so silently but he betrayed himself; just a movement among the stars, just the brush of angels' wings, was enough to raise the hue and cry among a few searchers, shepherd folk with their keen ears, stargazers with their sharp eyes. And so the hunt started afresh: Tell us, where is he born, the King of the Jews? The question, repeated to one passer-by after another, begins to sound like the chorus of some children's game. What, this tumble-down house in a back street, this draughty cellar underneath it - it's no good looking in there! He wouldn't hide in a place like that! And then the door opens, and a woman stands there, a finger pressed to her lips; our Mother, come out to help in the search. "Yes, he's in there; but come in quietly; he's asleep." The God who does not dwell in temples made with hands, asleep in there! The God who neither sleeps nor slumbers, watching over Israel, in there asleep!
- Ronald A. Knox
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. 
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.
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.
Happily, gentle reader, old Athos wound his way to the television studio of Marcus Grodi's The Journey Home last Monday. The interview for the television show went well, I think. I had the added pleasure of discussing the seventh chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans (12-25) with Mr. Grodi for his radio program, Deep in Scripture. I did, of course, work in the vital topics of Marian chivalry and a means of avoiding distraction from the reality of our mortal life.
Several bloggers have recently sworn off the habit. Dawn Eden. Mark Gordon. Even brother Mass’keteers. For my part, settling down with a free half-hour to browse the internet reminds me of those characters in Matrix movies who get plugged in and visit bizarre, disturbing, and even dangerous territory. So unsettling, in fact, that one experiences the intensification of what is referred to in Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World as "sacrificial preparation." That is, the cultural meltdown of the remnants of old Christendom.
One thing I am discovering is that when a person goes into battle with a dragon, one is at a distinct disadvantage on several fronts. First, one is weaker and has fewer innate weapons. Second, one has to lean heavily on good timing and something that we call variously "good fortune" or, for people of faith, "Providence". Most of all, regardless of how one may prepare to do battle with such a primeval monster, when it strikes, all plans are out the window and one must, finally, come into full awareness of one's mortality, ineptitude, and need for strength and dunamis well-beyond one's own puny powers, not to mention one's need for allies who can help when least looked for.
When feeling most trapped by this "transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis," and, admittedly, under the literal breath-taking effects of the pain-killer Percocet, it felt as though I were entering a dark, airless, rock tunnel, far beneath the earth - forgotten, alone, doomed.
