Enduring Questions, Perfect Answers?

Lovers and Defenders of the western literary/philosophical/theological tradition often point to The Enduring Question of Life as touchstones for all of our humane, liberal studies.  Answering these questions is tantamount to Living Life Well.  I recently ran across an article in a small magazine that attempts to formulate these questions for a postmodern audience; that is, an audience deeply suspicious of Big Narratives like God, Religion, Law, Reason, Purpose, etc., an audience trained in the modernist art of irony, cynicism, and nihilism.  The author's version of the questions precluded answers that Catholics and other Lovers and Defenders would find satisfactory.

Being a Lover and Defender of the Western Tradition and a reader of and thinker about postmodern culture, I thought I'd take a stab at reformulating these same questions w/o the irony, cynicism, etc.

Traditional:  What is man's relationship to God?

PoMo:  What is the relationship between the human person and the divine/transcendent?

Traditional:  What duties are worthy of our commitment to fulfill them?

PoMo:  What are we willing to commit ourselves to wholeheartedly?

Traditional:  What do the lives of heroes teach us about nobility and villainy?

PoMo:  What do the lives of Saints & Sinners teach us about love and mercy?

Traditional:  What does history teach us about liberty and order?

PoMo:  What history teach us about freedom and constraint, responsibility and rights?

Traditional:  What does history teach us about civilization and its decline?

PoMo:  What does history teach us about culture and barbarism, about progress and regress?

My versions aren't all that different from the traditional versions, but I think they open the questions up a bit more and allow a little more room for broader answers.  

Of course, as a Lover and Defender of the Western Tradition, my inclination is to believe that we will find the best answers to these questions in the literature of our ancestors.  Not dogma or formula but rather narratives of how honest men and women dealt with the problems of being human in a world that constantly challenges our innate need for growth toward perfection. 

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Wolves, sheep, doves, & snakes

N.B.  OK.  Here's my excuse for this homily.  Unbeknownst to me. . .my little 10 y.o. travel hardened alarm clock died in the night.  I came-to around 6am!!!  That's TWO hrs later than I usually wake up.  Lauds/Mass begin at 7.45am.  So, by the time the 'puter booted up and the coffee booted me up. . .well, there just wasn't much time.  Therefore:

14 Week OT (F)

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Albert the Great Priory

Wolves. Sheep. Serpents. And doves. That's quite a zoo living in Jesus' imagination this morning! In the wolf, we see a predator's singular focus on his prey and the cold cruelty of instinct. In the sheep, we have docility, innocence, and the need to be protected. Serpents are cunning, calculating, and dangerously patient. And doves are gentle and pure. Jesus says that he is sending us as prey among the predators, so we must learn to be both shrewd and gentle, both cunning and pure. How do we manage that? Our Lord assures us that when we are handed over to be prosecuted for treason or heresy, we need not worry about what we will say in our defense, “You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” But if we will be given what to say in our own defense at the moment of greatest need, then what is the purpose of learning to be both a serpent and a dove while living as sheep among the wolves? Before we can speak, we must listen.

Sheep are stupid animals. Too stupid to learn much of anything. Wolves are much, much more intelligent but they are largely driven by predatory instinct and not very obedient. So, Jesus is sending us to live as stupid animals among intelligent predators. But we are to be shrewd and gentle. OK. Serpents have a rep for being sly, patient, manipulative, so they would probably make good students but dangerous friends. Doves don't exactly inspire wonder with their smarts, but they are beautiful and they have a history of showing up at just the right time. Since the Spirit of the Father will be given to us when we need Him, our serpentine cunning and dove-like gentleness aren't really meant to be primary defenses against the wolves. Our primary defense is the Holy Spirit! Shrewdness and gentleness prepare us to receive the Spirit of the Father and to speak His Word. To receive His Spirit requires docility, and to speak His Word in the Spirit requires ingenuity. To receive His Spirit requires the peace of obedience, and to speak His Word in the Spirit requires the determination of a predator hunting his prey. 

Wolves will never fear sheep. Nor stop hunting them. And sheep will always need a shepherd to protect them. The Holy Spirit is our protector, and if we will hear Him speak to us, we will grow in obedience, docility, and trust. We will also strengthen our resolve to be preachers of the truth; to be wily promoters of God's justice and glowing examples of His mercy.  The Spirit of the Father will not speak with the voice of a hungry wolf or a sneaky snake. He chooses His sheep—sheep who are prepared (with His abundant help) to speak His Word and see It done. That is how we will endure.

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Father, where are you preaching. . .?

Mass/Preaching schedule this weekend:

Sat., July 9:  Church of the Incarnation (U.D., Irving)  5.00pm

Sun., July 10:  Church of the Incarnation (U.D., Irving)  9.00am

Sun., July 10:  Prince of Peace (Plano)  5.00pm

This schedule will be updated.

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What young men considering the priesthood want. . .

Fr. Z. has a post up listing 10 things that young men considering the priesthood are looking for in their future vocation (red).  Since I can't resist a list, my (cranky) comments follow:

1. Prospective priests (Religious or Diocesan) are not looking primarily for community life, as we live it. They are looking for a Church-related mission that they believe in.

Not entirely sure what this means.  If "as we live it" means "not living it," then I understand.  Community life is extraordinarily difficult and living community life with a group of priests who are working in full-time ministry is nearly impossible.  In every situation where I've lived in a community attached to a parish, the parish schedule rules the priory schedule and we risk becoming diocesan priests living in the same building.

2. Prospective priests want to know what the Pope teaches, not what the U.N. teaches.

Nor do they care a fig for what the "social justice" bureaucrats of the order/diocese say they ought to be worried about.  Most are fine with recycling, just immigration laws, ending human trafficking, etc. but they also want to hear about justice issues from perspectives other than just the Religious Left.

3. Prospective priests do not want to sit around with older “veterans” and listen to the latter whine about the Pope, Rome and the bishops.

Nor do they want to listen to these same vets applaud pro-abortion, pro-SSM, etc. politicians during recreation time in front of the TV or at table.  

4. Prospective priests are not in favor of women’s ordination. Period.

A view they had best keep quiet about until after ordination!  The "Spirit of Vatican Two" cadre of theological revolutionaries will not go out w/o a fight.  Smile.  Tell them what they want to hear.  Get through.  I know, I know. . .hardly seems honest.  Think of it as "learning stress-coping skills" for your future ministry. 

5. Prospective priests do not want to attend Masses that resemble hootenannies, Quaker meetings, or Presbyterian services.

Nor--I hope--are they inordinately focused/obsessed with prissy liturgical ornamentation, mechanized rubrical obedience, and clerical fashion.  The habit/collar does not make the friar/priest.  Never has, never will. 

6. Prospective priests are not ashamed of the Pro-life movement, they’re for it.

And they are just as ready and willing to help women who have had abortions recover from their mistake.

7. Prospective priests do not want to hear their brothers mock the Pope and gripe about liturgical norms.

Nor do they want--I hope--tedious lectures on the liturgical arcana of the Extraordinary Form as it was celebrated in 16th century Italy. 

8. Prospective priests do not want to study at theological unions/seminaries that are embarrassed by Catholic teaching.

And they are tired of the feminist identity politics, the hermeneutics of suspicion, the historical-critical method, "the pastoral solution," inculturation of the liturgy, pantheistic spirituality, and the bullying that comes with the triumphalist lay-empowerment movement (i.e., Lay = Good, Clergy = Bad).

9. Prospective priests know that Vatican II was not the only, or even the most important, Ecumenical Council.

And they also know to ask their professors, "Dr. Jones, where is that in the documents of the council, please?"  Oh, they have a copy of the documents in Latin so they can check the (often dubious) English translation.

10. Prospective priests are not embarrassed by Marian devotion, and are seen praying the Rosary.

But they are not so enamored by Marian devotion that they forget our Blessed Mother's proper place in salvation history as the human vehicle for bring forth the Word Made Flesh, i.e. she's not the fourth member of the Trinity.

Missing from the list is:  "Prospective priests want instruction on how to preach courageously to a contemporary congregation w/o offending or alienating half their people or pandering to the lowest common denominator."

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Coffee Cup Browsing

Gaza Flotilla (a.k.a. "Ridiculous Leftist P.R. Stunt of the Week") is stopped by the Greek gov't.  Who knew the Greek gov't had that much sense?

B.O.'s own economics team reports that the "stimulus" costs $278,000/job "created or saved." 

Are we becoming an "atheocracy"?  [Fixed Link]

Christian preacher battered and abused by a largely Muslim crowd. . .in Iran?  Yemen?  No.  Dearborn, MI. 

Episcopal parish comes home to Rome.  Watch for more of this as the E.C. continues its slow suicide.

Like ancient Rome, the postmodern West is increasingly "polytheistic, proud, anti-Christian, sexually confused, with rampant infanticide, frequent wars, incivility and cruelty, and a general breakdown of family loyalties."  Are we prepared for martyrdom? 

Three ways to declare your independence from the federal/state Nannies. . .

Big brothers are the same across species.


Oh, that explains it. . .

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Ambushed in the Bookstore

Went to Half-Priced Books this afternoon to browse the philosophy and poetry selections.

While looking through the poetry anthologies, a young man walked behind and said something I didn't quite catch.   

--Sorry.  I didn't hear you.

--What church do you go to?

I thought he must recognize me from Mass, or maybe from U.D.  He seemed harmless, if a little addled.

--What church do I go to?

--Yes.  

--Well, I go to the priory.

--OK.  Do you family and friends go to church?

By this time I've figured out that this is a Religious Ambush, and I ain't playin'.

--Yes.  They all do.

--Good.  What's the priory?

--It's where I live.  I'm a Catholic priest and a Dominican friar.

--Oh. . .(long pause with an anxious look). . .have you read Revelations 17 lately?

--Lately?  No, can't say I have.

--Do you know the name of the city in that chapter?

--Let me guess:  Rome?

--Yes.  Now that you are old enough to make your own choice, you should re-read that chapter.

My brain is whirling now.  I'm trying to decide if I really wanna do this.  Do I want to confront this guy with his historically illiterate fundamentalism and challenge him on his anti-Catholic bigotry?  He doesn't strike me as being very open to discussion and the last thing I want is a public shouting match. 

I chicken out. . .

--OK.  I will.

He nods and walks off.

What would you have done?

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Love is a person

Most Sacred Heart

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Albert the Great Priory

John uses the word “love” eighteen times in this morning's selection from his first letter. We might conclude from the frequency of its occurrence and the confidence John shows in its use, that love is a word that picks out a clearly formed idea, a concept sharply distinguished from similar but imprecise notions. This means that we should be able to read John's letter and answer with a great deal of confidence the question, “What is love?” But this is exactly the wrong question to ask. Asked this way, the question leads us to a woefully impoverished answer. The better answer comes with the question, “Who is love?” And to this question, John answers, “God is love.” Lest we think that this too is an imprecise definition, hear what our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has to say about what it means to acknowledge and accept this fundamental truth, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” Love is an event, a person. Still too sterile, maybe too abstract? I believe Yeats can help us here. Following the Magi in his imagination, Yeats goes to Bethlehem and finds “the uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.” In the flesh and bone of a child, the uncontrollable mystery of love wiggles and cries. Meeting this child, loving this child is to know, to love God.

When did we start to think of love as a concept rather than a person? When did we start to define love in terms of pure emotion, or describe it with the language of biology? When did love become a game piece in the battles of politics and economics? Love has become a libertine passion, a criminal excuse, a political talking-point, an ideological hot-button. It's a reason to demolish, to fight, to build, to save, to heal. In the name of love, we feed thousands and slaughter just as many; for love, we marry and destroy marriage; we rescue and condemn. Is this what Yeats means when he describes the child Jesus as an “uncontrollable mystery”? Released into the world, divine love is untamed and untamable—a mystery to be met, to be accepted or rejected but never properly trained. If God is love, then Love is uncontrollable; at the very least, Love is uncontrollable by those who claim to love.

We do not tame divine love. Rather we are tamed by Him who is Love. Jesus tells us to take on his yoke and take direction. Put on his harness and be driven. The “uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor” dares us to risk life and limb in his care, to place ourselves ahead of him in the field but yoked to a task—the work of giving his Father's love hands and feet, minds and voices. This is not only what he dares us to do, it is what we have vowed to do. If love has become so plastic, so malleable as to mean anything, to be anything, then those of us who claim to love must demonstrate—unambiguously demonstrate—that Love is a person, and that He abides with those who abide with Him. His yoke is our witness. And the work we do in his name must bear the fruit of His love for all.

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Coffee Cup Browsing

TIME editor gets the Constitution wrong. . .fourteen times!  Fortunately, no one reads TIME anymore.

Five Easy Steps to Cultural Destruction

"Infamous liberal outpost". . .Washington Theological Union to close in 2013.  The "Spirit of Vatican Two" has left the building!

Every rapist in Norway in 2010 was a Muslim??? 

More hilarity at the U.N.:  North Korea put in charge of nuclear disarmament. 

On the effects of WI's budget repair. . .

Fishing with Moses


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Update

Yes!  I'm still out here. . .

Reading/preparing for the two classes I'm teaching this summer is keeping me unusually busy.

The 20th Century Literature course is particularly time-consuming given that we've been reading several large modernist novels.  Now that we've moved into modernist poetry difficulty has replaced length as the principal challenge. . .though the novels pose their own difficulties.

I'm celebrating/preaching the Friday Mass at the priory.  So far, no invitations to celebrate a Sunday Mass have arrived.  

Next term will be much less hectic. . .at the very least, Coffee Bowl Browsing will return as a regular feature.

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The best Catholic Books

Brandon Vogt provides the Catholic cyberworld with an invaluable service!  

Best Catholic Books

More of the Best Catholic Books

I'm just a little embarrassed by how few of these books I've read. . .too many years studying modernist literature. . .hmmmmm. . .

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On books rec'd and not. . .(Updated)

Time for a few Mille Grazie's to my kind and generous Book Benefactors. . .

. . .to Robert B. for The Road to Serfdom. . .

. . .to Fr. Matthew G. for Theology Remixed. . .

. . .to C.J. & Kitty D. for Recent Catholic Philosophy, vol 2. . .

. . .to Blaine H. for Recent Catholic Philosophy, vol. 1. . .

and Anon for Bright of the Sky. . .this is the one I thought has been purchased as a Kindle Book.

Though they were purchased back in March, I haven't yet received:

Opening Up the Scriptures or Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments. . .maybe they went to Rome ahead of me.  

Mille grazie!  Book Benefactors are always in my daily prayers!

P.S.  How could I forget!?  Thanks to Jeff M. for the Kindle Book, The Gypsy Morph.

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What?! What!? I can't hear you!

Last week I noticed a significant decline in the acuity of the hearing in my right ear.  If I closed my left ear, I was completely deaf.   Beginning Thursday, the hearing started to improve a bit.

So, this morning I went to the ENT doc and he told me--after several tests, etc.--that I have Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. . .to the tune of a 20% loss in my right ear.  The most likely cause is inflammation around the cochlear nerve (I think that's what he called it, anyway), so he's giving me a month's course of steroids.  

I asked him, "Doc, you're telling me that my ear nerve isn't working b/c my brain is swelling?"  He said, "Well, that's a rough summary."  I said, "Brain swelling.  I blame philosophy."

Please pray for my Ear Nerve!  Who's the patron saint of hearing???

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Two classes for 2nd summer term at U.D.

I will be teaching two classes at the Univ of Dallas second summer term: American literature and a poetry writing workshop. 

The workshop will focus on critical reading and the creative process in writing poetry.  We will be reading L.O.T.S. of contemporary poetry!

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Will you lose your head for Jesus?

Nativity of John the Baptist

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

St Albert the Great Priory

When the angel Gabriel announces to Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth will give birth to a son, a son who will go one to announce the coming of the long-promised Messiah, Zechariah gives voice to the doubts of his heart and asks, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." A perfectly reasonable question, one anyone of us might ask! Zechariah's question earns a stern rebuke and a punishment. He's struck speechless and will remain so until his son is born. Once John is born and Zechariah confirms in writing the infant's non-traditional name, his tongue is loosed and he sings a hymn of praise to God. The unusual events surrounding the conception and birth of John lead the people to ask, “What, then, will this child be?” This child will grow into a herald of the Lord, not only announcing the arrival of the Messiah but baptizing him as well, standing in witness at the Jordan when the Holy Spirit descends to confirm the Sonship of Jesus. John the Baptizer runs before the Christ, proclaiming the imminent fulfillment of God's promise to send among His people one who will restore all of creation to righteousness. For Christ, John is a forerunner, a harbinger; for us, he is an example, a model of joyful obedience to the Word once and always spoken. 

John baptizes Jesus and hears the voice of the Father speak, “This is my son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” John's ministry for all the years leading up to this moment has been a ministry of obedience, of listening to the Word being spoken. Conceived for a single purpose and born to give voice to God's promise of a Messiah, John roams as a prophet among the people, baptizing them with water, preparing them in repentance for the arrival of the Christ. Determined, maybe a little obstinate, certainly faithful, John's obedience to God's Word costs him his freedom on more than one occasion and eventually head—a price he no doubt willing paid. As our example of faithfulness, we have to ask: are we prepared to follow John into prison, all the way to the executioner's block? To answer this question, we have to answer another one first: what is our purpose as followers of the Christ?

Daily we called upon to distinguish between the means and the end of our baptismal vows; that is, we are called upon to remember the difference between what we have vowed to be and do and how we have vowed to accomplished these goals. Being baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ makes us imperfect Christs and sets us on the way to becoming holy as God Himself is holy. To become Christs for others. That's our end as followers of Christ. The means we use to reach this perfected end flow out of our cooperation with God's gifts to each of us: we feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, heal the sick, clothe the naked, bury the dead, announce mercy to the sinner, and love our enemies in the face of their hatred for us. Each of these can be a means to our end; they are not the end itself. If our end is to become Christ, then we can say with certainty –even if tinged with a little trepidation—that Yes we will follow John to prison and on to the executioner's block if necessary. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. does not require the kind of obedience to God's Word that John exemplified. However, becoming Christ requires just such obedience and more. Becoming Christ requires the clear, unambiguous commitment of the heart and mind, our whole person, to the single clarion truth that there is nothing more important, nothing more vital to our lives as creatures of a loving God than our undivided love for Him. Listening to His Word, His Word made flesh, and acting accordingly is the very center of our lives. Though this truth costs us nothing to acquire, it might cost us our lives to share. If so, we remember what the people said of John, “For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.” And He is with us as well.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

On the failure of liberal Catholicism:  Part One and Part Two

100 Words and Phrases Banned from use on blogs

Passive-aggressive, manipulative, self-aggrandizing?  Fr. Corapi's adieu to his priesthood.

Evangelists for the Church of Global Warming caught fudging the data. . .again.  You're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

In 2009, ten companies a week on average left CA for more business-friendly states.  Today, that number is fifty-four. [Link Fixed]

Does your desk tell you anything about your mind?  In this case, yes.

B.O.'s USDA wants "heterosexism" (i.e. support for traditional marriage) equated with racism.  Let the re-education regime commence!

Just say NO!!!! to sudsy water.

Southwest Airlines implements a new and more humiliating seating procedure.

"This ole thing?  Just something I saw in the window and had to have." 

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