Who will I die for today?

[NB.  This is an attempt at "doctrinal preaching."  Let me know if you think it works.]

33rd Sunday OT: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Your best friend discovers that you and your spouse have cashed in your vacation savings so that your children can continue in their Catholic school. Your friend notes with admiration, “That's quite a sacrifice!” It's final exams week and you rush to be with your sick mother. Your professor, though sympathetic, says, “Unfortunately, your sacrifice will not help your grade.” You read in the Sunday paper that a well-trained German Shepherd in the local police force “sacrificed its life to save its human partner.” In that same paper, the stories from Iraq and Afghanistan are littered with references with the sacrifice of our soldiers in combat. Each time, the word “sacrifice” rings nobly in your ears, and you note that something has been lost so that something more important might be accomplished. We understand sacrifice in terms of loss and gain, in terms of “giving up mine” so that you might “have yours.” Something ends and something begins. Almost always absent in these descriptions is the sense of the holy, that taste of the transcendent that gives sacrifice a religious flavor, some deference to a time and place other than this one. For Christians, sacrificium, means sacrifice, oblation; an offering to God. The Latin word comes from sacer (holy) and facere (to make). To sacrifice is to make holy. That which is sacrificed is made holy; the one making the sacrifice is made holy. Most importantly for us, the ones for whom the sacrifice is made are made holy. Christ is the High Priest who sacrifices. He is the Victim of this sacrifice. And we are the beneficiaries: “For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.”

In Hebrews this morning, we read, “Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins.” The author of this letter is writing to the Jews who have come to Christ. He is using images and language that they will immediately understand. Having spent most of their lives in the temple-worship of the Father, offering animal sacrifice for their sins, these converts will know that the author is alluding to the ineffectiveness of those same animal sacrifices in relieving them of their sin. In obedience to the Covenant, they carry out their religious duties and demonstrate a fidelity to God. However, these sacrifices do not and cannot wipe away their sin. Though God may account them holy before Him, they are not, in fact, made holy through in their temple worship. God alone is holy and only He can make what is unholy holy in fact.

To accomplish the sanctification of all creation, God sends His only Son among us as a Man, one like us in every way except sin. The God-Man, Jesus Christ, born of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit, is sacrificed on the cross for us. As the incarnate Son, he is already holy. As the priest, he is holy. As the lamb on the altar of the cross is he holy. He offers himself to God as the one, perfect sacrifice for all that need not ever be repeated, that cannot be repeated. We can understand this sacrifice for in any number of ways: substitutionary, existential, exemplary. Christ died for our sins so that we need not die in sin; he died instead of us. Christ experienced the death of sin as a man so that all men might be saved from such a death; his experience reveals the hope of eternal life. Christ on the cross shows us the meaning of love: to die for one's friends; his death is our model for life. Wherever we want to place the emphasis, one element of his sacrifice is clear: our holiness is not our own, but rather a gift from the altar of the cross given freely by our great High Priest. We have only to accept this gift and follow him.

By one perfect offering of himself on the cross, Christ united us again with the Father, and we persevere in the presence of the Holy Spirit, striving against already-vanquished sin to achieve our perfection in the promise of holiness. Our constant failure to perfect his promise of holiness does nothing to revoke the promise. His offer of holiness made from the cross is universal and permanent: for all, forever. No tribe, tongue, nation, people, race, or class is excluded from the invitation. No one is missed out because he was born Man to save all mankind, and nothing broken is left unfixed. No sin, no fault, no vice, no deviance, no crime, nothing torn or damaged among his human creatures is left unhealed. Nothing in the entirety of His creation is left to chaos or disease. Where we find disorder, look for disobedience. Where we find strife, debauchery, disregard for life, anxiety and distress, look for men and women without hope. But as time grows short, look for Christ's return. What has been woven together will unravel when left uncared for and the weaver will return to repair the damage of our carelessness.

We care best of ourselves and one another when we sacrifice, when we “hand over to make holy.” As priests of the New Covenant, we offer oblation to God when we lay our worry, our sickness, our poverty, our arrogance, our sin on his altar and leave ourselves freshly vulnerable to being made again in his image and likeness, to being made over as Christ for others. It is not enough that we sacrifice as priests. If we are follow him, we must the victim of our sacrifice as well. Not my sin only, but yours too. Not your sin only, but mine as well. The Body must sacrifice for the Body, all its members for one another. We are holy together or not at all. This is the danger of being Catholic, of being one Body baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ: we are saved as a Church, bound together by the chains of God's sacraments. “Me and Jesus” is the Devil's lie that makes our faith into a religiousy version of the “Lone Ranger.” We rise or fall as one in the One who made us one by dying on the cross.

Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves upon waking each morning is: “Who will I die for today?”

Coffee Bowl Browsing (Catholic Round-Up Edition)

Here's a bishop who needs some time in a monastery. . .say, about twenty years at hard labor.

Spanish bishops actually doing their jobs!

Catholics and Muslims share a common enemy:  the aggressive secular state

I want an invitation to the ordination of the first Klingon bishop!  Did you know that the moon is officially part of the Diocese of Rome?  True.

Nasty anti-Catholic bigot gets jail time for child rape and kidnapping.

Fr. Robert Barron reviews Michael Moore's latest effort-in-hypocrisy, "Capitalism: A Love Story."

Damien Thompson demonstrates Catholic-Anglican relations with two pictures. 

Dominican friar spanks New Atheists in NYC.  Brutal beating. . .

B.O.'s foreign policy

B.O.'s foreign policy in a picture.

Let's hope he was polite enough to apply some chapstik.

During a press conference, B.O. was asked about the use of the atomic bomb during the war with Japan.  His response was horribly embarrassing.

"If Barack Obama can't stick up for the country he represents when he goes overseas, he should stay home."

The NYT writes:  "It wasn't a bow, exactly. But [the President] came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan."

Of course, the NYT would never write anything critical of the Messiah.  The above was written about Bill Clinton. 

My point here is that B.O. could have said any number of diplomatically vacuous things.  He could have said, "Any war is horrible.  President Truman made the decision he did with the best information he had.  It might not be the decision we would make today, but it ended the war and saved millions of lives."  Is it perfect?  No.  Is it a vigorous defense of the U.S.? Hardly.  But it would have been much less embarrassing than the hemming and hawing that gushed from the Great Orator's pie-hole.

Complementarity of Religion & Science

Opening paragraph of my thesis, "The Complementarity of Religion and Science:  John Polkinghorne's Scientific-Critical Realism":

As individuals committed to truth-seeking enterprises, modern scientists and modern religious believers are best equipped philosophically with a critical realist theory of science and religion. Anglican priest and physicist, John Polkinghorne, proposes that science and religion, properly understood in critical realist terms, are complementary human discourses designed and used to discover, describe, and explain what the world is really like. For science, “the world” is the self-made physical universe of observable entities, natural processes, cosmic forces, and sometimes unobservable objects whose existence is “theoretically necessary.” For religion, “the world” is all of creation, the universe made from nothing; created by God to grow and thrive under His guidance, and to serve as a living sign of His presence among His creatures. A critical realist theory of complementarity succeeds because both the world of the scientist and the world of the believer are open to rational inquiry and subject to critical dissection; that is, these worlds are intelligible. As such, Polkinghorne argues, the successful truth-seeking experiences of scientists and believers are necessarily always, already interpreted experiences. Truth is not the result of an immediate confrontation between the human mind and the really-real. Truth is a relationship between the perceived and the perceiver, where both the object of perception and the one perceiving share in the establishment of an “adequate” though not absolute description of how the world really is. Science, as a truth-seeking enterprise, is a systematically descriptive and explanatory investigation into the physical entities and processes of the world. Religion, also as a truth-seeking enterprise, is a systematic attempt to uncover and understand God's Self-revelation in His creation so that believers might be better able to imitate the love and mercy God has shown to us in our creation.

[N.B.  The worst part of writing this thing:  I am being forced to use the incredibly picky and byzantine Chicago-style manual!  MLA is a thousand times better.  Oh well.]

*Blogger wouldn't accept the footnotes for some reason.

Coffee Bowl Browsing

Ah, those open-minded and tolerant Episcopalians. . .always ready to welcome the dissenter.

Heck, even the Chinese know he's a socialist.

Did you know that "most Catholics" are pro-choice" [sic]?  Funny, neither did they.

What are the "demands of political correctness" that kill rational thinking?

How do we know that the Anglican Apostolic Constitution is a Very Good Thing?  The U.K. uber-leftist "Catholic" rag, The Tablet hates it.  So does the NCR crowd. 

This is what same-sex "marriage" leads to!  What's next?

Sure, it's dangerous. . .but it's air conditioning!  Well worth the risk.

OpenFilm:  original short films. . .everything from experiment to hilarious.

Turns out, Freud is good for something.

Report on Thesis Conference

Had a conference with my thesis director this evening.

Good news:  my line of argument is sound, so no major philosophical problems to work through in the revisions.

Bad news:  (and I knew this already. . .) My writing style at time tends to be too "informal and journalistic."  IOW, sometimes too chatty and not philosophically rigorous enough.  Mostly, this is about using non-philosophical terms to make philosophical points. 

And he didn't like my title.  "Too literary"!  Oh well. 

Scripture & Tradition: Leo XIII

Instead of working on Chapter Three of my thesis, I've been having a good combox discussion on the relationship between tradition and scripture with a Protestant fellow over at Midwest Conservative Journal.

In thinking about my responses, I ran across Providentissimus Deus written by Pope Leo XIII and issued in 1893.

Good stuff.  Check it out.

Five Hard Truths

Msgr. Charles Pope has a post up on his blog titled, "5 Hard Truths That Will Set You Free."

I thought I would provide my own commentary on these five truths.

Truth One:  Life is Hard.  Life can be difficult, true.  But let's think of "hard" here in a slightly different way.  Concrete is hard.  Wood is hard.  Sometimes your head might be hard!  How is life hard in the way that concrete and wood are hard?  We live, move, and have our being in a physical world of objects and processes.  Things move around us.  Real things, hard things.  We have to make instantaneously decisions about how we--also hard things--will navigate these other things.  Failure to properly navigate the things of the world can result in injury or death.  We can't ignore the hardness of the world, but we can give it meaning and purpose beyond being merely hard.  The German poet, R.M. Rilke, urges us to praise the things of this world to the angel.  Why?  ". . .the Things,/which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient,/they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all. . .Whoever we may be at last."  God gave the world being.  Adam gave the things of the world identity.  He named them.  We cannot make the things of the world softer, less dangerous by simply pretending that they do not matter.  Even as we left up the hard things, to the angel, God reveals Himself to us through them.  That's the sacramental imagination of the Catholic faith.

Truth Two:  Your life is not about you.  Can there be a more basic Christian teaching than this?  If Jesus showed us anything on the cross, he showed us that sacrificing oneself for love of another is the ultimate form of worship.  When Christians sacrifice, we fashion holiness from surrender.  Your life in the aftermath of baptism is one sacrifice after another.  Sometimes we sacrifice superficial happiness for the Real Deal.  Sometimes we sacrifice basic needs to provide for the wants of children or parents or friends.  Though these sacrifices are no doubt difficult, the most telling sacrifice of all is the one we make for the perfect stranger, someone we love simply for no other reason than that God loved him first.  This is what Jesus did on the cross.  He died for generations he never knew or would ever know while he roamed the earth.  Sacrifice is made even more profound when you consider that you are a divine gift to all of us in the time and place when and where you are.  You are Right Here, Right Now so that you might sacrifice for those who are here/now with you.  Imagine the world if we took this seriously!

Truth Three:  You are not in control.  Too often this truth leads to quietism, a laxity contrived to relief oneself of the responsibility to act justly in the face of Fate.  There is no such thing as Fate.  Your choices are not determined before you make them.  Saints are the ones among us who always make the right choice even when those choices mean ridicule and persecution.  Martyrdom is how we express the ultimate truth of surrender:  "I cannot deny the Truth.  That would be a Lie."  Many times this surrender to Truth means death.  Not being in control is frightening.  It is also freeing.  Not in the sense of being relieved from one's duty to justice, but rather in the sense of being free to do one's duty regardless of the consequences.  True, there is a temptation here to behave recklessly, but all virtues are properly exercised with prudence.  Perhaps the best way to think about letting go of control is to grasp onto hope.  No matter how bad it gets, no matter how hard we are opposed, we know that God's promises to us have already been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.  That's hope.  We play this game knowing that we have already won.

Truth Four:  You are not that important.  When cell phones first came on the market back in the mid-90's, it was an all too common sight to see people bouncing about with phones stuck to their heads.  We were supposed to believe that they were Terribly Important People b/c they couldn't risk being too far from a phone.  Maybe they were important is some secular sense, but in the Great Plan--no, not so much.  Measuring importance by one's overall impact on history is a truly worldly way to plumb the depths of one's ego.  It's the emo adolescent who whinges and cries when he/she realizes that the world will be just fine without them.  This is either a moment of clarity or a moment of confusion.  If the moment proves to be confusing, it's usually b/c pride has taught them to believe that the world centers itself on their every whim.  If the moment proves to be clarifying, it's b/c humility has taught them to believe that the world needs their gifts and love of others will help them perfect those gifts.  To believe that we are indispensable is a delusion bred in contempt for the gifts of others.  Yes, we need you.  But you--none of us--is so essential that the world ceases to turn simply b/c you are no longer with us.  This is a hard lesson to learn for an animal created to survive.

Truth Five:  You are going to die.  Death is what makes this life possible; knowing that death awaits us all adds weight to everything we do. Imagine if we never died.  How moved would we be to accomplish the little things of life much less the big things? How much energy would we invest in being just, faithful, loving?  The Greek gods were immortal and the imaginations of the ancient poets lamented their existence b/c they were capricious in their eternal boredom.   With no end in sight, no goal to reach, they meddled in human affairs; languished in their never-ending disputes; and grew more and more corrupt b/c there were no lasting consequences to their bad behavior.  How do you punish a god?  A Christian should give God thanks that she will die one day! Not b/c our lives here on earth are so horrible, but b/c the life we will share with God is so wondrous.  If there's a truth that makes it plain the truth of the other four truths, it is that we will all die one day.  Deo gratis!  We will die to live forever, knowing our Lord face-to-face.

Coffe Bowl Browsing

Feet, meet fire. RNC Cigna health insurance covers abortion.  Steele says the problem will be fixed.  Let's make sure that he does.

Conflating mainstream Islam with jihadist extremism. . .this is as dumb and dangerous as excusing Hasan's murderous rampage with lefty-postmodern psychobabble.

Chavez turns to ancient Rome for his lesson in governing a starving populace:  when the Great Unwashed start to get restless from lack of public services, give them gladiators in the arena!

B.O.'s Olympian cyber tribute to Himself in Berlin:  "In the world of a narcissist, everything is always about him."  Apparently, B.O.'s ego can time-travel.  I bet he'd like to go back to Jan. 20, 2009.

More pro-aborts who seem to think that priestly ordination removes a man's citizenship. 

U.S. bishop whopping a Kennedy's rear-end. . .and in public too!  Who knew.

Introduction to The Hiddenness of God:  this is what I'm thinking about researching for my Ph.D.   Since the problems here raise all kinds of epistemological questions , my philosophy of science background will help immensely.

Who would use dead flies to create art?  Germans, of course!

St Albert the Great would have loved one of these!

Not jewelry FOR Barbie. . .jewelry FROM Barbie

After this, the child was sold to a circus and now spends his days stretching the midget costumes.

Ninja Obama!  Too bad there's not one of him slashing the budget and whopping Pelosi in a sword fight.

Now this is one serious Diet Coke lover. . .

How a glass of wine with friends inevitably leads to suicide. 

P.S.  I am going to comment on the Anglican Apostolic Constitution. . .probably over the weekend.  Most of it is dry canon law stuff, but there are a few interesting pieces.

Free at last! Free at last!

Deo gratis!

Mama Becky was discharged from the hospital Tuesday afternoon.

She reports, "I thought I would feel 100% when I got back home.  I don't.  Any little activity tires me out."  

She's going back to work on Monday.

Oh, no dishes in the sink, "Your father won't even make coffee!"

:-)

Coffee Bowl Browsing

It's back. . .

Oh no.  Hasan was nuts.  But P.C. brainwashing trumps common sense. . .again.

There's a distinction to be made between "multiculturalism" and "multicultism."  The former is descriptive; the latter is prescriptive. . .and deadly to the American Experiment.

Not a new concept:  Christian prisons.  We call them monasteries.  Think about it.

E.T. phone Jesus?  Yup, why not? 

Will there be neighborhoods in the Global Village?  Yes, whether the globalists like it or not.

The Wall and the Cross:  how wood beat concrete in Berlin.

Chapter Two & Mama Becky

YEAAA!!!

Chapter two has been sent.  Our internet service was down for about 13 hrs. yesterday. 

A "guasto esterno" knocked it out, so I was late.  Only the second time I've ever turned anything in late.  I'm a procrastinator ready for the Olympics of Procrastination, but I really hate turning things in late.

Anyway, mille grazie for your prayers and encouragement.  I could not have finished without you!

Mama Becky Update:  Talked to her last night and she's doing quite well.  They will keep her in the hospital until Thursday.  She still has a bad cough, but the swine flu seems to have gone.  She wants to get back home ASAP.  She suspects that my dad may have left a dirty dish in the sink.  Horror.

It wasn't PTSD...it was terrorism

Heh.  The CIA knew for months that Major Hasan was trying to contact Islamist terrorists groups before he killed 13 servicemen at Ft. Hood.

Guess that puts the lie to the left-lib media meme that he snapped b/c he suffered so as a victim of anti-Muslim prejudice and harassment in the military.

Let's watch the Talking Heads on CNN and MSNBC spin this little revelation!

Pelosi boils a frog

Some of you have asked me to comment on the passage of PelosiCare (or, as I like to call it "ScaryCare") over the weekend.

Like most of the Dems voting on the bill, I haven't read it.  Don't need to.  The absolute bottom-line for me is that there are some things government cannot do and should not be allowed to do.  Manage health-care is one of those things.

Regulating insurance companies so that basic fairness and liberties are protected is something the gov't can and should do.  I don't pretend to be a policy wonk, but it seems to me that many of our health-care problems can be solved with minimal regulation.

As for the politics of the thing. . .well, I'm wondering how Pelosi and the Gang can call this bill a win.  It was passed with five votes.  She had to allow an explicit ban on abortion-funding, thus committing a sacrilege against the Political God of the Dems.  The Senate will not pass anything like the monster she cobbled together from her interest groups.  The gov't-run option is DOA in the Senate even if they manage to revive her Frankenstein in some prettier form.  The Dems are going to lose their super-majority in the Senate in 2010.

So, what exactly did any of this accomplish?  The only thing that makes sense to me is the How to Boil a Frog analogy.  Put a frog in a pan of cold water.  Slowly turn up the heat.  Before he realizes he's boiling, it's too late to jump.  PelosiCare is another notch on the socialist burner.  Get us used to the heat and we move the marker for what counts as boiling.

If the goal of the Dems is to create a permanent Democrat majority by creating a permanent class of citizens who are totally dependent on the state. . .well, gov't run health care will certainly move them in that direction.  It's pretty much what we have already with federal gov't workers:  permanent votes for the Dems.  What self-interested federal worker is going to vote for a candidate who runs on a platform of cutting gov't spending?  If my job, my health, my car, my bank account, and my newspaper all depend on gov't handouts, then you can be damned sure I'm voting for the guy who promises more gov't spending!

This guy has a good take on whole thing.

The Devil Lives. . .even without his Wall

The Berlin Wall may be nothing but chunks of souvenirs now, but the soul-killing ideology that created it lives on.  Of course, Christians know this all too well.  We call it "the Devil." 

from the Daily Mail:  

For many communist fellow travellers, the scales fell from their eyes when the Hungarian uprising was crushed in 1956. Others, over the years, lost faith not just in communism but in its less radical sister, socialism, as their core tenet of 'equality' proved itself in a myriad different ways to be the enemy of freedom and justice, with market forces appearing to carry the torch of liberty instead. [I have come to believe that you can have Equality or Freedom but not both. . .if "equality" is understood as "equality in result" rather than "equality of opportunity"].

But as communism slowly crumbled, those on the far-Left who remained hostile towards western civilisation found another way to realise their goal of bringing it down.  [And insofar as they remain hostile to western civilization, they remain hostile to Christianity.  As Pope Benedict has said many times--there is a direct, intractable connection between the Christian faith and Greek philosophical culture.]

This was what might be called 'cultural Marxism'. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.  [This is basically what I was taught in grad school.  In turn, I taught it to my students and graded their work on the degree to which they were willing to support a leftist cultural revolution.  We dressed it in liberal democratic terms, but what we pushed and pushed and pushed was cultural Marxism.  The family is a particularly vile institution to the leftist b/c the family is the most immediate threat to the power of the state.]

[. . .]

[Antonio] Gramsci [Italian Marxist philosopher] understood that the working class would never rise up to seize the levers of 'production, distribution and exchange' as communism had prophesied. Economics was not the path to revolution. [No, it's not.  Humans beings were created to perfect their natures against the model of the Word Incarnate.  We are not here merely to survive but proposer!  Leftists consistently prop up gov't programs that help people survive.  Not a bad thing in itself, of course, but how often do these programs trap people in mere survival?  One of Aquinas' many insights was that even the Virtuous Pagan can embrace the Good in the context of striving for perfection by living a virtuous life.  You don't need Christ to be a good person. . .but you do need him to be a Perfected Person.]

He believed instead that society could be overthrown if the values underpinning it could be turned into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society.  [Thus B.O.'s appointment of Bizarre Czars with radical backgrounds.  It's all about diversity and tokenism and never about competence or talent.]

So he advocated a 'long march through the institutions' to capture the citadels of the culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down and inside-out.  [A perfect description of the academic professoriate! And why you should be sending your kids to colleges like the University of Dallas.]

Read the whole thing.

B.O. is "profoundly uncomfortable" with the military

POW!  Right in the kisser!  This military wife socks our Ditherer-in-Chief right in the nose.  Someone, please, put her in Congress. . .

Tell me something: in a moment of national tragedy is it really too much to expect the President of the United States to forego the "shout outs"? Is it too much ask that he learn the difference between the Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor? What we require from our leaders at times like this is not much, really. No one expects them to actually care. What we want is precisely the kind of thing that comes so effortlessly to Barack Obama: honeyed words and a reassuring show of compassion from a man who thinks that quality is the most important attribute a Supreme Court judge can possess. A public acknowledgment that something grave has happened. But for some reason, asking the Commander in Chief of our armed forces to give even the appearance of empathy was a bridge too far.

[. . .]

Obama doesn't "get" the military because with every step they take, whether it's on prosthetic legs or the steely sinews of a combat hardened Marine, their strength and independence give the lie to his defeatest rhetoric. All those unbowed shoulders, unbeaten spirits and uplifted heads make him profoundly uncomfortable.

As well they should. Americans don't need to be rescued by the government. We have each other.

Read the whole article.  

UPDATE on Mama Becky

Talked to her twice yesterday.  She's still in isolation, but they moved her into a "step-down" room.

She said, "I feel really good!"   So, looks like the worst may be behind her. 

Thank you--again and again--for your prayers, messages of support, and offers to visit her.  I think she's a little surprised at quickly and overwhelmingly Catholics were willing to come to the aid of her Baptist soul!

God bless, Fr. Philip

P.S.  I missed yesterday's deadline for Chapter Two of the thesis.  I'm a terrible procrastinator, but I don't miss deadlines.  It goes out today if I have to sit here midnight. 

P.P.S.  Some readers are a bit confused. . .one of my faithful readers is "MightyMom."  In the combox I often address her as "Mom."  MM is about 10 years my junior, so she isn't Mama Becky.  MM is a hard-working R.N., mother of three, and wife of another faithful reader, Subvet.

Thanks for the prayers (UPDATE)

I am very grateful for the outpouring of prayers for Mama Becky!

Please add me to your list. . .

Along with thesis-writing anxieties, I am revisiting old "issues" and contemplating old choices.

Ah, memory!  Wasn't it St. Augustine who noted that memory is a blessing and a curse?

We can leave behind who we were. . .but who we were never leaves us, uh?

UPDATE @ 4.08pm:   Just got off the phone with my mom. . .she's been moved to an isolation unit.  The docs suspect swine flu.  She's in very good spirits, complaining about the lack of a decent shower. 

Book arrival...

C.C., Studies in Scientific Realism finally arrived!  Mille grazie. . .

My apologies for the post. . .I've managed to lose your email address.   The shipping invoice doesn't have a return address. . .so this is the only way I have to say Thank You! 

How fortuitous as well. . .Chapter Three of the thesis is on scientific critical realism.  

Fr. Philip

Thesis Update

Got the Introduction and Chapter One sent in ahead of schedule.  (Not happy with the results)

Chapter Two is due Sunday.

Chapters Three-Five are due Dec. 8th.

Pray for Mama Becky, please! (UPDATED)

URGENT Prayer Request!

Just got off the phone with Mama Becky.

She's been hospitalized in Memphis with pneumonia and bronchitis.  She's on 100% O2 and IV anti-biotics.

Despite all of this she's in good spirits.  Says the nurses are friendly and the food ain't bad!

:-)

UPDATE:  Just talked to Pop. . .Mom is doing well. . .fussing about having to wear an O2 mask.  Will likely stay in the hospital over the weekend.  

Writing Philosophy-ese is BORING!

I am having some difficulty adjusting my writing style to fit the expectations of philosophical discourse.

For example, this morning I composed the following sentence:  "Truth is neither found naked among the things of the world nor is it made a la Frankenstein's monster in the laboratory of words."

Translated into Philosophy-ese:  "Truth is neither a property of the real nor an artifact of language."

AAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!

(Clarification:  I don't mean that philosophy is intellectually boring. . .I just mean that it is no fun to write. . .)

Sinsinawa Dominican Statement on Sr. Quinn

Public Statement of the Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation

11/2/09

Several months ago, the leadership of the Sinsinawa Dominicans was informed that Sister Donna Quinn, OP, acted as a volunteer escort at a Chicago area clinic that among other procedures, performs abortions. After investigating the allegation, Congregation leaders have informed Sr. Donna that her actions are in violation of her profession as a Dominican religious. They regret that her actions have created controversy and resulted in public scandal. They are working with Sr. Donna to resolve the matter appropriately.

Congregation leaders offer the following statement on behalf of members of the Congregation. We as Sinsinawa Dominican women are called to proclaim the Gospel through the ministry of preaching and teaching to participate in the building of a holy and just society. As Dominican religious, we fully support the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity and value of every human life from conception to natural death. We believe that abortion is an act of violence that destroys the life of the unborn. We do not engage in activity that witnesses to support of abortion.

Very happy to see this statement from the Sinsinawas.  I have to admit that I am also very surprised to see it.  Please note that this statement, though clearly supportive of the Church's pro-life teaching, does not indicate what, if anything, will be done to discourage Quinn's public support of abortion.  Frankly, anytime you hear a Catholic religious use the word "process" or "resolution," you can bet that you're looking at years and years of back and forth yammering. 

Now that the Sinsinawa's have publicly declared themselves to be pro-life, maybe we can persuade them to adopt a Corporate Stance opposing abortion!  

Nuns, Space Lizards, Episcopal Klansmen, & UnGood Thoughts

Yet another reason why nations should avoid entangling themselves in Nanny State Social Engineering Experiments.

Sr. Donna Quinn has been slapped on the wrist.  She takes this parting shot:  "I take this opportunity to urge those demonstrating against women who are patients at the Hinsdale Clinic, whom I have seen emotionally as well as physically threaten women, to cease those activities," she said. "I would never have had to serve as a peacekeeper had not they created a war against women."  Sister, there would be nothing to protest had the women you support not declared war on their unborn children and condemned them to death through abortion.

This is very likely where B.O.'s and the Dem's "hate crime" legislation is taking us.  (h/t: Shea)

More 19th C. Klu-Klux-Klanish/Know-Nothing anti-Catholicism from the Enlightened Brights of the Episcopal Church. . .this time it's one their "bishops."

On the new sci-fi show, V. . ."The news media swoons in admiration [of the new leader] --one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: 'Why don't you show some respect?!' The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: 'Embracing change is never easy.'  So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?"
 

Book arrivals, etc.

Quick Wish List notes. . .

D.A. from Maryland. . .all seven of the books you shipped have arrived.  I gave them to Fr. Itza of the Angelicum library this morning.  Mille grazie!  A Thank You note will go out this weekend.

D.S. from N. Carolina. . .the book you sent some six months ago arrived safely!  One of my German brothers saw it and "borrowed" it almost immediately. . .don't worry:  I know where he lives.  Thank you for the addition!

P.P. from FL. . .I rec'd your gift while I was still in TX, however, the shipping invoice was shipped with my other books to Rome before I left Houston. . .just now getting it again.  Mille grazie. . .and a Thank You note headed your way.

Some of you may have noticed that my WISH LIST selections have shifted slightly from Philosophy of Science to Philosophy of Religion and philosophical theology.   As I move into Ph.D. work, my research must become more and more specialized.   Though I have not yet selected a specific topic, it will be something having to do with the controversy of using/abusing science in the defense of pluralistic theologies of religion (i.e., use/abuse of science in theology to promote heresy).

Pray for me!  Tough week. . .

Excuses instead of peace

St. Martin de Porres, OP: Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Peace is boring. Deadly dull. Where's that sense of moving forward? Getting places? Accomplishing goals? Peace is all about sitting still. Being calm. Silence and solitude. You can get moldy sitting still. You can also get run over by those moving and shaking around you. Besides, peacefulness is really just mental laziness, right? Being at peace just means choosing not to deal with reality; refusing to see things as they are. Who can be at peace living in this world of economic collapse, political upheaval, spiritual desolation? Peace is a luxury for those who can afford a retreat house on the mountaintop. Down here in the valley with the real people in the real world, we have real problems that humming sweet tunes about peace ain't gonna solve! So take your peace out back under the tree and tell it to the nuts and the squirrels! The rest of us have work to do— we have new fields, a new wives, new oxen, and, sorry, but you are just going to have to excuse us. We can't make the feast. We're busy. But you guys have a great time, OK?

Were those who excused themselves from the feast lying about their duties? Why would they lie to get out of attending a feast? Could it be that even a short time at rest, or even a tiny little moment of peace is too much for the frantic soul, the soul in perpetual panic over Things To Do? They made their choice. New land, new wife, new oxen. . .all come first. They all come before the Banquet of the Lord. Peace will come later. Peace is the product of hard work. Much turmoil. Peace is what gets settled after the fight. And all of that may be true...about this world's peace. This world's peace seems to be nothing more than the absence of violence. Some find their peace in dialogue. Diplomacy and negotiation. Concessions and treaties. These folks tend not to make it to the feast because they have new wives, new lands, new oxen. However, all those called to the feast later on—the lame, the blind, the unclean, the homeless—none of these guests have much to worry with other than what they do not have. When they make it to the table as invited guests, they might pray, “O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty; I do not busy myself with great things, nor with things too sublime for me.”

We must find our peace, and our place at the table, doing the little things of the Lord: holding on to what it is good; loving one another; staying fervent in faith; rejoicing in hope; enduring affliction; preserving in prayer—doing all those little things that not only bring us the peace of the Lord but also stand as witnesses against the truly soul-killing frenzies of being busybusybusy, too busy to accept an invitation to join the Lord at his table for the feast of Heaven. It's true: later always comes; but where will you be and who will you be when Later finds you. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Then, you can announce at the feasting table, “I have found my peace in you, O Lord!”

Prayers all around

I con-celebrated the All Souls' Mass this morning with the other friars, offering prayers for those whose names were left in the combox (almost 200 names!).

Please pray for my mom. . .I called her this morning for our usual Monday chat, but my dad was preparing to take her to the doctor. . .When I asked her what was wrong, she responded, "I think I have the Russian Pig Flu." 

Dr. Becky at her best!

Cover & Title of my newest prayer book!

Liguori Publications notes that Treasures Holy and Mystical will be available May 1, 2010.

Crdl Levada clarifies a question on celibacy

A clarification from Cardinal Levada of the CDF, regarding speculation that the publication of the Anglican apostolic constitution is being delayed in order to iron out the question of clerical celibacy for future seminarians of the Anglican Ordinariates:

There has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian correspondent Andrea Tornielli, that the delay in publication of the Apostolic Constitution regarding Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, announced on October 20, 2009, by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is due to more than "technical" reasons. According to this speculation, there is a serious substantial issue at the basis of the delay, namely, disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy of the Provision.

Cardinal Levada offered the following comments on this speculation: "Had I been asked I would happily have clarified any doubt about my remarks at the press conference. There is no substance to such speculation. No one at the Vatican has mentioned any such issue to me. The delay is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references. [Shudder. . .the tedious task of getting the footnotes right.] The translation issues are secondary; the decision not to delay publication in order to wait for the ‘official’ Latin text to be published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis was made some time ago.

The drafts prepared by the working group, and submitted for study and approval through the usual process followed by the Congregation, have all included the following statement, currently Article VI of the Constitution:

§1 Those who ministered [past tense] as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement "In June" are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1. [The pastoral provisions for married Anglican clergy will remain in effect.]

§2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit [future tense] only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See [this is not a good move].

This article is to be understood as consistent with the current practice of the Church, in which married former Anglican ministers may be admitted to priestly ministry in the Catholic Church on a case by case basis. With regard to future seminarians, it was considered purely speculative whether there might be some cases in which a dispensation from the celibacy rule might be petitioned. For this reason, objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed jointly by the Personal Ordinariate and the Episcopal Conference, and submitted for approval of the Holy See."  [So it is likely that married men currently studying for the Anglican priesthood will be granted dispensations for ordination if they come over to Rome.  Nothing here indicates what the norms will be for those entering seminary after the P.O.'s are established.  My guess is that they are choosing to wait and deal with this when the question arises in the future.  This strikes me as risky, but real-life cases help make better law].

Cardinal Levada said he anticipates the technical work on the Constitution and Norms will be completed by the end of the first week of November.

Will the P.O.'s become a "back door" for making married clergy the norm for the Latin Rite as a whole?  Probably not.  But the canonical language will have to be very carefully drawn so as to prevent revisionists from giving the canons "creative interpretations."  However, unlike the Anglican Communion, the RCC has a central authority that can prevent unintended applications of canon law.  In other words, creative bishops will not be able to abuse the provisions of the P.O. to sneak married clergy into the Latin Rite as the norm. 

Book Winners for 2009

One fairly quick and easy way to find out what's considered the best English-language literature available is to peruse the annual prize winners' lists.  Print out a copy of a list and take it to Barnes & Nobel or Borders and buy two or three of these books for your reading pleasure. 

If you would like some poetry recommendations, just ask.  My knowledge of contemporary fiction is limited at best, but I do keep up with the latest in poetry.  For novels and non-fiction, I rely on lists like these:

Publishers' Weekly Ten Best Books of 2009 (. . .and I've not read any of them!)

National Book Award Winners for 2009

The Man Booker Prize (UK) shortlist. . .Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall won

Pulitzer Prize winners for 2009. . .W.S. Merwin wins in poetry (no surprise there)

Nobel Prize in Literature:  Herta Muller (never heard of her)

Poetry Foundation's Ruth Lilly Prize winners list

Mini-Coffee Bowl Browsing (Scary Edition)

No, the Pope has NOT condemned Halloween! 

Is Britain sick of the "American cult of Halloween"?  No, but Damian Thompson is!

"Demonizing" Halloween only makes it more popular. . .Yup.

Truly frightening!  Tolerant, peace-loving, open-minded Piskies rage incoherently.

Catholic $$$ for anti-Catholic groups?

Once again it's that time of year to shine a little light on the CCHD. A collection will be taken this Sunday to support the activities of the CCHD. Most of the grants given out by this group are perfectly fine, perfectly Catholic. However, the administrators of the CCHD are still using parishioner donations to fund dodgy left-wing community-organizing groups and anti-Catholic ballot initiatives.

Like all good Catholics should: educate yourself and act accordingly!

Link:  Reforming the Catholic Campaign for Human Development 

Consider donating to an alternative Catholic charity.  One of my brightest students from U.D. works for A Simple House.  Check 'em out!

Why the delay in publishing the Apostolic Constitution?

The National Catholic Register is reporting. . .

Celibacy Issue Holds Up Apostolic Constitution

by EDWARD PENTIN

Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:39 AM

The delay in publishing the apostolic constitution, which will allow large numbers of Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church, is due not so much to translation problems as the more weighty issue of priestly celibacy. [The Vatican has been having a lot of translation problems since Benedict took over. . .methinks there may be Latinist moles in the Curia who don't care for the Holy Father's "reform of the reform" revolution.]

According to two reliably informed Italian newspapers, Il Giornale and Il Foglio, canon lawyers are continuing to define what has been a particularly unclear aspect of the new provision: whether married Anglicans could train as seminarians. [Why is this unclear?  The answer is no.]

Andrea Tornielli of Il Giornale reports that over the last few days, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts has been working to clarify this point. He writes that “everything suggests” seminarians in these future Anglo-Catholic communities “will have to be celibate like all their colleagues in the Latin Catholic Church.” [Yes, of course. . .I wonder why this is even a question.  To allow Anglo-Catholic seminarians to marry will completely undermine the discipline of celibacy in the Church.]

Both papers also report the Holy Father would have preferred the publication of the apostolic constitution to have taken place at the same time as last week’s press conference, mainly to avoid any repeat of the mishandling of his decision to lift the excommunications on four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X earlier this year. [Smart man, that Benedict!]

But as Cardinal William Levada had already informed the bishops of England and Wales and the Archbishop of Canterbury of the provision, and the date for their joint press conference in London had already been disclosed, it would have been impossible to keep the matter under wraps, Tornielli writes. The Vatican therefore decided to go ahead with the press conference, even though the precise canonical details of the constitution hadn’t yet been worked out. [The roll out of this historic announcement was done perfectly. . .now we learn it was all an accident.  Only in Italy!]

H/T:  Newadvent

How many trees must die for Obamacare?

Just read on Drudge that the PelosiCare bill is 1,990 pages long!

Let's see. . .

435 members of the House
100 members of the Sentate
1 occupant of the White House (unless he's playing golf)

That's 536 copies (at minimum) x 1,990 pgs each = 1, 066,640 pages!!!

Or 2,133 packs of standard printer/copier paper.

How many trees is that?

National Youth Sunday will be Christian this year

Anna Arco of the Catholic Herald draws out attention to National Youth Sunday 2009:  Witness to Hope.

Noting the failure of last year's event--a patronizing  "Let's Go Green for Jesus" fest--, Arco contrasts the descriptions of two events:

The blurb on the site, introducing Christ the King (and National Youth Sunday), reads:

“The feast of Christ the King invites us to reflect on the nature of the Kingdom of God, and challenges us to live as citizens of a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36). What is distinctive about Christ’s kingship? Jesus says that “all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice” (John 18:37). What does it mean to listen to this voice today? How do we act on its promptings to bring about the Kingdom of God here and now? “

Compare and contrast with:

"This year’s [2008] National Youth Sunday takes the theme Reclaim the future! It continues the live simply message of recent years by inviting us to think about how we can live sustainably in our communities. Green issues and environmental concerns remain constantly in the news: we continue to hear about the effects of global warming; we’re encouraged to consider how we use the world’s resources; we are told to recycle more and more, and so on. Living simply and sustainably reminds us that these aren’t just trendy, eco-friendly actions but God-given responsibilities."

Arco asks if we can spot the difference between the two events.  Yes, this year's event is Christian.

Urinating on Christ

A reader asks that I comment on a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm during which one of the characters urinates on a painting of Christ. . .

I worked in an adolescent psychiatric hospital for about four years.  As the unit team leader,  I dealt with emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually abused teens who acted out in violent ways to get adult attention.  The unit staff always responded to these outbursts by pointing out the difference between positive and negative attention.  Seeking after positive attention was praised as progress in treatment.  Seeking after negative attention was treated with clinical coolness and swift negative consequences. 

Peeing on a painting of Christ on TV is a cry for attention.  "Look at me!  Look at how avante garde I am!"

When I read about this urination incident, my first thought was:  "Someone needs a time out."  Now, I think this incident doesn't deserve any sort of attention at all.  Why?  First, it was designed to provoke exactly the kind of response it's getting--outrage and calls for condemnation.   Lots of attention that does nothing but boost the show's media profile.  Second, it's a cowardly act.  The show's writers would never have a character urinate on a copy of the Koran.  Since Christians don't declare fatwas, we're a safe and easy target.  Third, what harm was done?  Jesus suffered much worse in real life.  As Christians, we are certainly offended, but Christ promised us a tough road if we chose to follow him.  Fourth, within a few days the show's producers will apologize and come out looking like heroes who have decided to 'fess up and acknowledge the sputtering indignation of thin-skinned Christians. 

They win on every front.  Points to them from their equally adolescent fans for bravery in taking on a controversial issue.  Points to them for being mature enough to admit a mistake and apologize. 

The best response to adolescent attention-seeking behavior like this is to glance at it, sigh a little, shake your head, and keep on doing what you're doing.  Anything more than that reinforces the behavior as an effective means of tweaking the safely tweaked.

I don't think he likes Armstrong's new book. . .

A review of Karen Armstrong's new book, The Case for God.

It is a rare occasion that I find it difficult to point out any redeeming features in a book-when I struggle to find a single positive to write in a review. Unfortunately Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God is one of those books-one that is so monstrously bad, so hopelessly awful, so wretchedly miserable, that it took concerted effort just to finish it.

 

[. . .]

The Case for God, then, is in no way a case for the God of the Bible or, really, for the God of most other faiths. Rather, it is a defense of making the idea of God respectable again, even if it means radically changing what we mean by that name. It is an absolute mess and easily one of the most boring, most obnoxious books I’ve ever read.

Wow.  I've not read the book.  Comments from those who have?

The terms of religious life explained

Recent developments in Rome and Canterbury and the scandalous pro-abortion activities of a Dominican sister have raised a number of questions about the ordained ministry of the Church and religious life.   There's a lot of confusion out there!

Let's see if we can bring some clarity to the scene.  Before moving on, I have to point out that almost every distinction and claim made in what follows has its exceptions.  I am making no attempt here to be absolutely thorough.  These are general distinctions made in order to clarify terms for average Catholic folks. Objections can (and no doubt will) be made to just about everything I've written here.

1).  What is the difference between a sister and a nun?

All religious women are properly called "Sister."  Some religious women are nuns and others are sisters.  Nuns are solemnly professed religious women who live contemplative lives within the confines of a monastery.  Nuns are cloistered sisters.  Sisters (or "apostolic sisters") are solemnly professed religious women who live "in the world," working at various jobs either directly or indirectly associated with the Church.  Some sisters live in convents.  Others live alone or in small groups in apartments or houses.  Nuns typically wear some kind of habit.  Sisters rarely do. 

2).  Monastery vs. convent?

Monasteries are for men, convents for women, right?  Wrong.  These two terms denote whether or not the religious men or women are cloistered, that is, enclosed.  Religious who live enclosed lives live in monasteries.  Religious who live apostolic lives live in convents.  Monks and nuns live in monasteries.  Sisters and friars live in convents.

3).  Friar vs. monk?

Friars are a relatively new form of religious life (13th c. or so).  We are partly cloistered and partly apostolic.  Friars are free to leave the cloister when the occasion requires it.  Monks are cloistered all the time and leave only with permission.  For both friars and monks, modernization has loosen regs on leaving the cloister.  Another distinction that I'll throw in here is the difference between a "Father" and a "Brother."  Most male religious orders have members who are ordained priests and members who are laymen.  Dominicans have clerical friars and cooperator brothers (i.e. "lay brothers").  Historically, lay brothers in the Order were the laborers among the clerics.  They kept the practical side of priory life going while the priests contemplated the mysteries of philosophy and theology.  Brothers basically served the community in the kitchens, the garages, the yards, the laundries.  With the advent of Vatican Two, the decline in vocations generally, and the rise of egalitarianism in the Church, the brothers stepped up and took on ministries normally reserved to priests.  There was some significant pressure in the 1980's in response to the priest shortage for brothers to be ordained.  Many did so.  Nowadays, cooperator brothers earn PhD's in just about any field useful to the Order, serve in parishes, universities, chancery offices, etc.  Unfortunately, in many Dominican provinces, the lay brother vocation is on the decline, if not altogether extinct.  Currently, there is a move to reinvigorate the vocation.  Deo gratis!

4).  Secular priest vs. religious priest?

All Catholic priests are either secular or religious.  This is not a distinction between degrees of holiness or religious observance.  Secular priests work directly under a diocesan bishop.  They make promises of celibacy and obedience.  Typically, secular priests work in parishes or diocesan schools.  They can be assigned outside their diocese by their bishop.  Secular priests wear black clerical suits when "on duty." Religious priests are ordained men who belong to one of the Church's many orders, societies, or congregations, e.g. Benedictines, Jesuits, Dominicans.  Religious priests typically follow a rule of life designed by a saint or some other spiritual leader.  Religious priests take vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience.  Religious priests wear distinctive habits, or sometimes black clerical suits.  Secular priests tend to live alone, while religious priests tend to live in community.   This is not a hard rule, but it is almost always the case. 

5).  Vow of poverty?

Different orders have different philosophies of poverty.  For example, Franciscans typically see poverty as an end in itself.  To be poor is the goal, a sign of dedication and holiness.  Dominicans typically see poverty as a means to improving the preaching by eliminating distraction and material commitments.  Generally speaking, the vow of poverty commits the religious person to living within the means of his/her community for the benefit of the community.  Salaries, bonuses, donations all go into one communal pot and individual expenses are paid out of the community's resources.  For example, as a friar I do not own a car.  When I am assigned to a priory, the prior of the community assigns me a car to use while I am a member of that community.  Gas, insurance, maintenance are all paid out of the priory's communal pot.  For Dominicans, poverty does not mean impoverishment but rather something closer to simplicity in community life.  For Franciscans, it means something very close to impoverishment.  Theologians and philosophers are still trying to understand the notion of "Jesuit poverty."  ;-)

6).  Vow of celibacy/chastity?

Three terms need to be defined here.  Celibacy means not getting married.  Chastity means being faithful to your commitments.  Continence means no sex.  Reporters in the secular media often confuse these three terms. Vowed religious are bound to chaste celibate continence.  Celibacy and continence might be thought of as restricted behaviors:  no marriage, no sex.  Chastity is an attitude.   True chastity is extraordinarily difficult to achieve.  Married people are called to chastity.  So are single people.   Since Catholic moral theology teaches that sex activity is only morally permissible within a sacramental marriage, celibacy always means continence.  So, if a Catholic is single, he/she is also called to continence.

7).  Vow of obedience?

Again, lots of philosophical differences among the various orders of religious.  Historically, Jesuits have used a military model for obedience. Get your orders, follow them.  Period.  Dominicans used to be somewhat like this, but now we tend to see obedience as something more akin to paying careful attention to the needs of the Order and responding to those needs with generosity and good will when asked to do so.  It is rarely the case that a Dominican must be "ordered" to do something.  However, it can be done with a "formal precept."  Most assignments in the Order are made after careful consideration for the gifts and temperament of the friar.  No provincial wants to assign a friar to a ministry that he is loathe to take on.  This means unhappiness all around.  Abuses of authority in the past have led many religious orders to abandon the military model of obedience.  Now, we tend to focus on the root meaning of obedience and emphasize the necessity of "listening" to the needs of the community and responding in generosity.  This too causes problems, but so long as we are on this side of heaven we must deal with human fallenness.  Obedience is meant to mitigate our natural tendencies to seek out our own good regardless of costs.

8).  Habits:  yea or nay?

This is a minefield.  If you want to start a shouting match among religious, pronounce on the issue of habit wearing.  Regardless of how you come down on the issue, someone will object and they will usually object loudly.  Within communities, habit wearing (or not) has become a symbol for all the ideological fights that we are fighting in more detail in other arenas.  For example, habit wearers are traditionalists, conservative, authoritarian, medieval, and seeking after attention and privilege.  Non-habit wearers are reformers, liberals, loosy-goosy hippies, modernists, and trying too hard to be hip.  Wear a habit and you proclaim your ideological allegiance to institutional conformity and power.  Don't wear a habit and you proclaim your ideological allegiance to non-conformity and libertinism.  Of course, these are caricatures.  Most religious wear habits when appropriate.  The real fights begin when either side tries to impose its habit wearing views on the other.  Typically, there are times and places where habits are specifically called for, e.g. communal prayer, meals, ministry.  And there are times when the habit wearing is discouraged, e.g. casual shopping, outside work/recreation, etc.  And, as always, there are exceptions to these rules!  Local communities usually have their customs about what is and what is not an appropriate time and place to don the habit.  Younger religious these days tend to wear the habit more often then not.  Interestingly, habit wearing isn't a big issue among European Dominicans.  And they seem to think that American Dominicans are being silly to fight about it.  Welcome to religious life!

What have I left out?

Catholics are too stupid to get it

Bishop Donald Trautman thinks Catholics are too stupid to understand most of the new English translation of the Roman Missal:

"The vast majority of God's people in the assembly are not familiar with words of the new missal like 'ineffable,' 'consubstantial,' 'incarnate,' 'inviolate,' 'oblation,' 'ignominy,' 'precursor,' 'suffused' and 'unvanquished.' The vocabulary is not readily understandable by the average Catholic," Bishop Trautman said.

Here's a radical idea:  let's do what the Church has been doing for 2,000 years--let's teach the faith and not assume that our people are inherently unable to learn!  A bulletin insert should do the trick.   In arguing against what he thinks of as liturgical elitism, the good bishop exposes himself as a cultural elitist.  This is the sort of condescension we've come to expect from the progressive wing of the Church. 

"'The (Second Vatican Council's) Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy stipulated vernacular language, not sacred language,' he added. 'Did Jesus ever speak to the people of his day in words beyond their comprehension? Did Jesus ever use terms or expressions beyond his hearer's understanding?'"

If I'm not mistaken the gospels are jam packed with examples of Jesus doing just that--teaching and preaching ideas that baffled people, especially those who followed him closely.  The disciples are constantly misunderstanding his teaching.  Large numbers walked away from his Bread of Life discourse in John because they didn't get what he was saying.  He himself admits that his parables are meant to be understood only by those who "see and hear."   "Vernacular" certainly means "everyday language," but are we to believe that the Council Fathers intend for us to constantly re-translate the Mass to keep up with the ever-shifting trends in the language?  English is an incredibly dynamic language!  Of course, what the bishop fears is that the sacred language of the new translation will become the vernacular of the Church's liturgy.  Can't have all that transcendent mumbo-jumbo pointing us toward God, ya know?

"'Since [the Nicene Creed] is a creedal prayer recited by the entire assembly in unison, the use of "we" emphasized the unity of the assembly in praying this together as one body. Changing the plural form of "we"to "I" in the Nicene Creed goes against all ecumenical agreements regarding common prayer texts,' he said."

So, if I'm understanding the argument here, we only get the communal sense of the Creed if we start the prayer with "we."  Does reciting the prayer together fail to demonstrate the communal nature of the prayer?  Does starting the Pledge of Allegiance with "I" undermine its communal nature?  I have no objection to "we," but the bishop's argument here seems specious.  And I'll start worrying about conforming Roman Catholic liturgical practice to ecumenical  agreements when our non-Catholic brothers and sisters start worrying about conforming their doctrine and practice to ours.  Women bishops, anyone?  Communion for pets?

"The new translation asks God to 'give kind admittance to your kingdom,' which Bishop Trautman called "a dull lackluster expression which reminds one of a ticket-taker at the door. ... The first text reflects a pleading, passionate heart and the latter text a formality -- cold and insipid."

And the concluding prayer from yesterday's Mass ended with "May this Eucharist have an effect in our lives."  An "effect"?  Like giving us the measles?  Or causing excessive gas?  Or increasing male pattern baldness?  All of these are effects of causes.  Talk about insipid.  I'll confess right now:  I didn't conclude yesterday's Mass with the appointed prayer.  I flipped the page and used the prayer from the 31st Sunday.  

What the good bishop fails to understand, or willfully refuses to acknowledge, is that the Mass is a time and place apart from the market, the family room, the corner pub.  Instead of urging Catholics to take the sacred out into the world, he's pushing the Church to bring the world into the Church.  This is reverse evangelization.  Of course, the new translation will be clunky at times and it will use words that normal people don't hear everyday.  A little education will go a long way toward fixing these problems.  

The other element here that everyday Catholics aren't aware of is the theological differences between the 1970 translation and the new one.*  The 1970 translation renders most of the Latin in such a way that emphasizes human effort in achieving salvation and holiness.  God's work in us is minimized, if not outright eliminated.  The 1970 English missal has been credibly accused of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, ancient heresies that teach we achieve redemption/holiness by our efforts alone, or with little help from God.  The ideological effort, of course, is aimed at "building community down here" rather than leading us to become a Church that prays up there. 

The 1970 missal is deeply flawed.  The new translation will be deeply flawed.  Language is simply incapable of adequately expressing the fullness of God's glory.  That's a given.  But what do we need our prayers to do?  Remind us that we live in a fallen world?  Or lift us to the One who created us and redeemed us?

Thankfully, Bishop Trautman lost this fight. 

*I read a draft of the new translation while studying at Blackfriars, Oxford in 2003-4.  It is not as ridiculously ponderous as the good bishop would have us believe.

Choose to hope

30th Week OT (T): Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Sometimes planted seeds die in the ground. Sometimes yeast will not leaven wheat flour for bread. For those of us who are not farmers or bakers we could add: sometimes laptops do not boot up; sometimes buses do not run on time; sometimes you get a “C” in Latin. We experience the failure of potential to be fulfilled everyday. Essays go unwritten. Books and articles for class go unread. Chances to forgive and ask for forgiveness pass us by. So accustomed are we to mishaps, lapses, and near-misses that we have adapted ourselves to work around them, to count them as features of doing business in a world not yet perfected by God's grace. If there's any grand purpose in failure, it is this: who we are made to be in Christ is made all that much clearer, all that much more starkly evident. For those of us who are saved by hope, living in the middle of the contrast between what is and what could be hones the good habits of endurance so that our inevitable trials are not merely endured but enjoyed, celebrated as signs of what we have yet to achieve with Christ. The mustard seed will germinate and grow. The yeast will rise to leaven the bread.

Paul, writing to the Romans, asks: “. . .who hopes for what one sees?”  We do not hope that the bus arrives on time when we see it arriving on time. We do not hope that our laptop will boot up when we see it booting up. Hoping for success when we see success in action is irrational. So, Paul adds, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.” Notice here that he qualifies how we wait, “with endurance.” We do not hope, waiting impatiently, or angrily, for what we do not see. While we hope for what we do not see, we wait with strength, resolution; with guts and grit, with moxie and mettle. We dare failure to do its worst, and still we hope. But we must remember, lest we sound arrogant, we must remember: we do not hope in the works of our hands, or the words of our mouths; we hope in the marvelous deeds of the Lord, in His Word alone. It is only in the Kingdom of God that the mustard seed always grows, that the yeast always leavens. And only in His Kingdom that our failure might be counted as success.

Paul writes, “. . .in hope we were saved.” Saved from what? From whom? We are saved from despairing over our inevitable mistakes; from collapsing under the weight of temptation and sin; from suffering for the sake of suffering; we are saved from the one who would rejoice if we were to abandon eternal life for endless death; from the one who wishes us nothing but disorder, disease, insanity, and pain. The most marvelous deed that our Lord has done for us is to free us from all that binds us to the one who would kill us out of envy and spite. We are saved from his eternal failure. We are planted, watered, and fed so that all we can do is grow and thrive; all we can do is season and leaven this world. Therefore, choose to hope, or hopelessness will be chosen for you.

Sr. Quinn and canon law

Canon lawyer, Ed Peters outlines a few possible canonical responses to Dominican sister Donna Quinn's formal and material cooperation with abortion.

Unfortunately, he agrees with me that there is little to be done. 

Faith No More

Christopher Hitchens on "What I have learned from debating religious people around the world":

"[Pastor Doug] Wilson isn't one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just "metaphors." He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn't waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he "allows" it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. (Incidentally, just when is President Barack Obama going to decide which church he attends?)"

Read the whole thing here.

Insomnia, or On the use of Greek pastries in the Crimean War

Ugh.

I woke up this morning at 3.00am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up, got some coffee and fired up Ye Ole Laptop for some browsing.  (Note the time stamps on the posts below).  My hope was that I would get a little sleepy and manage to fall back into dreamland.

No luck. 

Anyway, after Laud/Mass, breakfast, and a turn around the cloister, I got to work.  Lunch, recreation with the brothers, and. . .finally!. . .a little nap.

However, I am still both wired and tired.  So, wired and tired that I completely misread this pic caption at one my new fav blogs, Big Government:  "Today is also the anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the Battle of Balaclava in 1854."

My first thought was, "Uh?  The Brits attacked the Russians with sticky Greek pastries?"

My next thought was, "Oh, maybe the Russians were allergic to pistachios."

Now I'm looking for my travel size bottle of Benadryl. 

More Anglican questions. . .*

1).  Any guesses about the title of the apostolic constitution?

Sure.  How about Tiberis Nare? (Now we wait for all the picky Latinists to correct my grammar. . .it's inevitable.)

2).  Will Anglican parishes be able to bring property along with them?

I hope so!  They don't allow ugly vestments in the Anglican Church.  Of course, the Episcopal Church has lately taken to wearing some howlers.  Seriously, in the U.S. it would be decided parish by parish, diocese by diocese.  In the U.K., you have the whole state religion problem.  My fear is that traditionalist Anglicans will resist the urge to Come Home to Rome for no other reason than their churches are actually look like churches instead of urology clinics.

3).  What will we call Father's wife?

Ummmm. . ."ma'am"?  Most anything but "Mother."

4).  What are the main differences between the English translation of the Roman Rite and the rite the Anglican Use parish will use?

The Anglican Use Rite doesn't condescend to the people by assuming that they are too stupid to know what words like "ineffable" mean.  The language is actually real English and not committee-speak designed to desacralize the liturgy with fortune cookie inanities. 

5).  Has there been any response from the Episcopal Church leaders?

Yes, the Presiding Bishopress donned her oven-mitt miter and invoked her goddess, Hecate, to pox the Holy Father.  It didn't work; in fact, it backfired.  Now she's all itchier and whinier than ever.

* No, these are not real questions.  I'm making them up.  The answers are real though.