Postscript to an Atheist Friend

Having spent a delightful week in the string of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina known as the Outer Banks, I am pleased to offer up beginning tomorrow an experience known as "chemotherapy". Probably the best online resource on the latter can be found here.

I spent some time with an old acquaintance there, a self-designated atheist. Interestingly, he went to the bother of "becoming ordained" so that he could perform weddings (which he has), yet he has abandoned, seemingly, the institution in his personal life.

Like so many such atheists, he sees a major issue to be one of authority. Where does a mainline Christian pastor get his or her authority? Where does the Pope? He asked these questions, clearly brandishing his "ordination" as carrying as much authority as either of these (being a relativist as well as atheist). Of course, we Catholics can guide any such questioner to the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew when Our Lord proclaimed Simon to be kephas / Πέτρος ("Rocky") and "on this rock," said He, "I will build my Church" (18-19). Catholicism is historical; Benedict XVI stands as our 265th pontiff since St. Peter.

Now, my atheist friend has several presuppositions that keep him from acknowledging such biblical authority, most of which were laid to rest as unsubstantial in epistemology by the great British Catholic thinker - some say the greatest mind to come through Eton and Oxford - Monsignor Ronald Knox (and others). But he still gives credence to "higher criticism" of liberal schools of thought, like, for example, the so-called "Jesus Seminar." Let us just say that authority for them comes from whomever thinks and sees things their way; i.e., the scriptures they see as "authentic" prove that Jesus, as it turns out, was a Jesus Seminarian!

Let me say, in the hope that my old friend will possibly read this post: authority is posited from a much higher and substantive source than one's individual opinions and life experience. We are created, finite, and mortal. We will answer to the One from whom we have our lives on-loan, ontologically speaking. And the Catholic Church has and provides the greatest and most coherent explanation of our lives, our purpose here on earth, and, please God, our ultimate telos.

For further information, Philip, please pick up a copy of A Little Guide for Your Last Days, here or here. Or, if you have no desire to shell out twenty bucks, perhaps you will find something of edification in my favorite post, here (pardon the title, if you will). Best, old friend.

St. John Vianney

St. John Vianney

Our Lady, Queen of Angels

Our Lady, Queen of the Angels

Much That is Fair

THE WORLD IS INDEED full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

- Haldir of Lothlorien (FOTR)

Knox - Politicians

A LITTLE BABY in a manger, a hunted criminal, a malefactor weighted with the instrument of his own punishment -- so our Lord looked to the world; not otherwise did his Church look -- does his Church look, to the scornful eye of the politicians that reject it. Christianity was the religion of slaves; it has abolished slavery. It was thrown to the lions in the amphitheatre; it has abolished the amphitheatre. Absolute monarchy, like a flustered giant, laboured to crush it; it has outlived absolute monarchy. Silently through the centuries the supernatural miracle has worked, like nature's miracle of fermentation.

- Ronald A. Knox

Corpus Christianum - An Invitation

If there resides in your heart and soul an undying though perhaps tarnished image of knighthood - that is, a yearning and longing to lay your sword at the feet of a king worthy of your fealty - you are invited to partake in the goodness of Marian chivalry within the fellowship of Corpus Christianum.

The quest for such a King, and his good Lady, to whom one may serve joyfully with good comrades-in-arms seems like an unanswerable one; and yet, Corpus Christianum does exactly that.

Come. See if your heart does not swell with joy - and faith and hope and charity. These dark and mean days need all who will to serve our Lord and our Lady in chivalrous valor. You will be welcome!

Knox - Catholic Truth

TODAY, WHEN THE WORLD has become so fuddled with its own philosophies that men cannot be sure whether two and two really make four, whether black is not really white under another aspect, they all agree on one thing -- that the Catholic religion can't be true. They will tell you one moment that it is impossible to discover whether truth exists, and the next moment that the Catholic religion is certainly false -- such is their logic. The Catholic religion must obviously be a deception, because it claims to know what is true.

-- Ronald Knox

Knox - Beyond Charity Alone

ALL THROUGH THE CENTURIES the Church has had to act in great measure as a nursing mother to the faithful, not content to be merely their teacher in the faith; providing schools, hospitals, orphanages, tending the sick, relieving the poor, burying the dead; she has drawn a whole network of charitable institutions across the world, vying with one another in the service of men's bodies. And always, that is not the point. With the other Christianities there is a constant risk that their spiritual message will lose itself in philanthropic endeavour. The movement which began in an access of burning zeal for men's souls will have been replaced, a century or two later, by a vast organization, religious in name, but merely philanthropic in purpose. With the Catholic Church, so much older than these others, it has never been so. Her message is of the world beyond; on it her eyes are set; she tends, feeds, teaches her children distractedly, only that she may point them to heaven; she will not lose her soul in what the world calls charity.

- Ronald A. Knox

George MacDonald - Philanthropy

THE (ROLE) OF PHILANTHROPIST is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbour good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye.

- George MacDonald

Knox - Sanctity of Persons

YOU PASS THROUGH THE STREETS as you go to your daily work, and all those thousands of your fellow beings - faces hardened by money-getting, faces impudent with the affectation of vice, faces vacant with frivolity, faces lined with despair - and it seems to you impossible that each one of those faces, with so little recognition in it of a divine vocation or of eternal destiny, can yet represent a soul for which God cares. And yet he does care, if theology is to mean anything; cares for this one as he ... cared for the penitent thief.

- Monsignor Ronald A. Knox

I have been scanning the usual blogs and websites of my BLRS (before liver resection surgery) days so much less these days: all the shrill, worrisome voices, clammering about this imminent social catastrophe or that. A pal whom I gratefully met on Enders Island, St. Edmund's Retreat - Mark Gordon - has been retreating also from those Cassandras and spending more time listening to the orthodox voices from Mother Church.

I'm not so much following his lead as performing triage with my time here on earth. You will read more from the good guide, Monsignor Ronald Knox (above), and less about the Scimitar, the secularization of the West, and other troublesome social matters here at Chronicles. It seems important for me - for the good of my - and your - soul. Best/blessings

16th Sunday - Ordinary Time

Old Testament Trinity (1408-25) - A. Rublev

The LORD appeared to Abraham by the terebinth of Mamre,
as he sat in the entrance of his tent,
while the day was growing hot. 
Looking up, Abraham saw three men standing nearby. 
When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them;
and bowing to the ground, he said:
"Sir, if I may ask you this favor,
please do not go on past your servant. 
Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet,
and then rest yourselves under the tree. 
Now that you have come this close to your servant,
let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves;
and afterward you may go on your way." 
The men replied, "Very well, do as you have said."

Abraham hastened into the tent and told Sarah,
"Quick, three measures of fine flour! Knead it and make rolls." 
He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice steer,
and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it. 
Then Abraham got some curds and milk,
as well as the steer that had been prepared,
and set these before the three men;
and he waited on them under the tree while they ate.

They asked Abraham, "Where is your wife Sarah?"
He replied, "There in the tent." 
One of them said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year,
and Sarah will then have a son."

-

Genesis 18:1-10a

Father Mark Delery - Requiescat in pace +

With the arrival of our diocesan newspaper, I was saddened yet not surprised to see that long-time friend and spiritual director, Father Mark Delery, had died.

Author, former abbot, medical doctor, fellow cancer survivor, Fr Mark was droll, insightful, wise, and, at times, hilarious. I was blessed on my last retreat to share with him my newest cancer battle news during spiritual direction, and he to hear my Confession and bless a few small articles I had brought with me. Too, he celebrated Holy Eucharist that Saturday morning at Holy Cross Abbey.

A soul guide, confidant, and friend. Pray for us, Fr Mark.

Knox - Guide for the Soul

RONALD ARBUTHNOTT KNOX (17 February 1888 - 24 August 1957) was not only one of the most brilliant minds at Oxford University in his day (admitted openly by C. S. Lewis), but one of the finest, most whimsical apologists, and explicators of orthodox Catholic teaching in the English speaking world.

During my recuperation from surgery, I read slowly and gratefully his book, The Hidden Stream, a series of conferences he gave at Oxford for Catholic students and other interested persons. I cannot speak highly enough about the book. If you wonder about who can be saved outside the Catholic Church, Christian marriage, the necessity of Revelation (to name only a few topics), get a copy. It will be worth it.

I am now delving into another book, The Creed in Slow Motion, talks he gave during World War II to girls who had been relocated during the bombing of London. Don't underestimate its value for ... hm ... you.

And, waiting in the wings is the rather large tome, Pastoral and Occasional Sermons.

Fighting cancer raises a host of questions in one's heart and soul. Monsignor Knox is a God-given guide for me. I can only offer his guidance, wisdom, concern, and love for you as well.

Invasion

Tired of trying to sort it all out? On overload from trying to manage the information universe?

Just remember: the Invasion has already occurred. It happened in the backwater of the Roman Empire in an insignificant cave-stable two thousand years ago. From now on, everyone is your neighbor. All we have to do is accept who we truly are and live on grace in the meantime in faith, hope, and charity with our neighbors. All of our neighbors.

Everything that we do should be a response to this Invasion of Grace, particularly in imitating the One Who invaded this planet that was under the dominion of a rebellious power who, in turn, held our species in slavery to sin and death. (For the history of our gracious Invader, read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.)

Corpus Christianum

Or Else

The WaPo puts forth on its front page an article no larger than a man's hand regarding the poor sufferers of "Islamophobia" in Kenya of all places. I certainly woke up this morning concerned about elections in Kenya. Didn't you?

When, o when, will the self-arrogating arbiters of topics of public discourse ever look at the actual level of "tolerance" practiced by those poor victims of "Islamophobia" and compare it with their own self-designated level of "tolerance" promulgated by the designated by the humanist drivel known as "multiculturalism"?

But that really is not the issue, is it? Ultimately, it goes back to appeasement of our petro-overlords. Always follow the Mammon. And always - always - give them what they want.