HaJollyHa

Closing Shop

2008-04-29T14:51:00.002-04:00

Well, I want to formally close this old place as I withdraw from the world of blogging in order to prepare for my upcoming entrance into a monastic community. Visitors may still peek through the windows and walk the grounds, but I will not be receiving any messages after tomorrow afternoon. This abode has not only preserved my sanity during long hours of office boredom, but has incidentally inspired a few serious writing attempts, which improved me if no one else. For that reason, I shall remember it with some affection. But it is time to move on to, well, more exciting things. I look forward to finally living out my principles in deeds as well as words.

Some things will definitely be harder to leave behind. The grief of separation from family looms terribly before me in these last months. But whenever my feelings lead me to question the purpose of this stripping away, I remember again that Love is its cause and Love is its goal:

"What does He do to a soul which He has chosen from all eternity to be entirely His? In the great majority of cases 'He leads her into solitude to speak to her heart': Ducam eam in solitudinem et loquar ad cor ejus. Just as a vineyard is enclosed with a hedge to protect it, so the Spouse encloses that soul in the cloister 'in the clefts of the rocks': in foraminibus petrae; the mysterious sepulchre which becomes the cradle of life; He hides her 'in the secret of His face'; in abscondito faciei suae: He makes her dwell in silence, so that she may be recollected, may hear His voice more easily, may please Him alone. He gives the Rule which at each instant shows His will; for light, the Holy Scriptures, which recount His history and reveal His love; He gives the Church for Mother. He confides to her His praises so that 'her voice sounds sweet in His ears' Sonet vox tua in auribus meis, vox enim tua dulcis; He makes her live again the cycle of His mysteries, and by His sacraments gives her sovereign power. Such are the means by which the Spouse establishes safeguards, maintains and augments the love and fidelity of His elect."
Blessed Columbia Marmion, Sponsa Verbi

Clear Creek in the News

2008-04-25T15:02:00.002-04:00

Tulsa World recently featured Clear Creek Monastery in a special project including two articles and a pictorial slide show. If you have never visited the Clear Creek website, get over there instantly. It will warm your heart. Here are a few of the pictures you'll find there:

I've Got a Golden Ticket

2008-04-18T10:05:00.014-04:00

Photo courtesy Fox News

Though it's more of a scrapbook item now. As you have probably surmised, I attended the Papal Mass in D.C. yesterday. Yes , my sensibilities were offended on any number of levels by the music(most especially by a reggae/tribal offertory piece and a syncopated Veni Creator Spiritus), the concession stands, indecent or casual dress, and pep rally style cheering after the homily. However, I must say there is something indescribably moving about being in the presence of the Holy Father. Il Papa! That says it all. The sense of his spiritual fatherhood really hits home when find yourself physically under his gaze, hearing words directly from his lip, receiving his blessing in person and not on a piece of paper. Besides, there was a dignity about him which transcended the liberal antics - he graciously acknowledged all the cheering before and after Mass, but he gravely remained seated when cheers broke out after his homily. That struck me as a subtle rebuke. Similarly, the only music which he positively acknowledged was Placido Domingo's tasteful rendition of Panis Angelicus. Also, despite a handful of egregious exceptions, I sensed a general intention of accommodating the Pope's preference in the music selections for the Mass which was endearing despite(or perhaps because of) the pathetic ignorance and poor taste it revealed. The Holy Father seems to be biding his time, steadily working for reform but with a patience and gentleness that has caught the world off-guard and won him admiration - even a degree of filial devotion - from unexpected quarters. While this mildness chaffs my righteous inner traddy, I sense a paternal tenderness behind it that I dare not criticize. Perhaps it will even make his reforms more effective in the long run.

So it was mostly a positive experience. I especially enjoyed hearing his homily and bringing home a commemorative metro ticket with the papal flag printed on it!

Bees Again

2008-04-16T09:46:00.005-04:00

An interesting new explanation for the bee crisis. While a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, it appears that a rose by any kind of factory, vehicle or other noxious engine of pollution will not. These sort of things stir up my latent Luddite tendencies (so she types).

Globalization

2008-04-15T13:30:00.005-04:00

Ahem..ahem...
I would just like to mention that TWO students from my alma mater, Christendom College, received awards in ISI's International Student Essay Contest, taking 1st and 3rd places respectively. The topic:
Can Character and Communities Survive in an Age of Globalization?
I skimmed the first place essay and it is worth reading.

The odd thing is that I was just pondering the same question myself and James Poulos over at Postmodern Conservative obligingly offered his thoughts on the question.

Chesterton on Human Creativity

2008-04-15T10:24:00.002-04:00

I recently attend a lecture on Chesterton by Dale Alquist, President of the American Chesterton Society. I've been hoping to attend one of his lectures for several years. The best lectures on Chesterton are always replete with quotes and Mr. Alquist did not disappoint in that respect. He also maintained a light-hearted informality which seemed in keeping with the classic Chestertonian spirit, abbreviating his own remarks in order to leave ample time for questions and conversation.

A few of his insights which bear repeating(these are not direct quotes but my own summary and reflection):

Man has unique intellectual powers which distinguish him from other animals. While everything in creation reflects the Creator to a certain degree, the peculiarly human powers are higher because they reflect God more apparently. The imagination is one example. It possesses a kind of limitlessness in creative scope which reflects something of the infinite divine nature.
The purpose of the imagination is to help us see the truth in all of its wonder and charm. Art is both the fruit of the imagination and a means of training it. The primary purpose of art is to inspire wonder through beauty, thereby preparing the intellect to receive truth.
In general, art should depict the world as it should be. Because of our fallen human nature, we understand and depict the fallen world more easily. However, art instructing through negative examples is not as edifying as art which makes the beauty of truth and goodness visible.

I will leave the final word to Chesterton himself:
“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

A Good Read

2008-04-14T15:22:00.004-04:00

From the About page:
"Norumbega is an online feuilleton and news portal collected from a traditionalist perspective. In the left-hand column of the home page is ‘News of the World’. Here we bring notice of current events in Europe, America, and around the globe. In the right-hand column is ‘Around the Sphere’, our collection of the latest interesting posts and entries from around the blogosphere. The middle column is the heart of Norumbega: our collection of feature articles updated (hopefully) every fortnight.

Norumbega is an entirely amateur effort and no one involved in its production is paid for their contribution.

What is a ‘feuilleton’?

Originally, feuilletons were the sections of continental newspapers that were devoted to criticism, art, history, science, or light literature. The first feuilleton was started by Julien Louis Geoffroy and Louis-François Bertin (“Bertin the Elder”) in their Journal des Débats (printed from 1789 to 1944). As the 1911 Britannica remarked of the feuilleton, “it consists chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles; and its general characteristics are lightness, grace and sparkle”.

Norumbega aims to revive the spirit of the feuilleton by ignoring the heavy fatuousness that marks journals of greater import and instead looking at the world from a serious yet light-hearted traditional perspective. Through its three main components, Norumbega aims to enlighten and inform its readers irrespective of the arbitrary distinctions of “Left” and “Right”, of tribe and faction, that mar both print and online outlets. Norumbega aims to be cosmopolitan rather than nationalist or globalist. Above all, Norumbega aims to hold fast to that which is good and true.

What is the origin of the name?

Norumbega is the name given to an ancient and mythical city which rested on a great bay at the head of a great river in the New World. It first appeared on maps in the first half of the fifteenth century and had largely disappeared from them by the end of the seventeenth."

Obscure Dominican Book Recommendation

2008-04-10T13:20:00.013-04:00

The Living Water
Fr. Pierre Thomas Dehau
Translated from the French by Dominic Ross, O.P.

When I first opened The Living Water, I did not realize that the entire work comprises a patient unfolding of one passage from the Gospel of John, that of the Samaritan woman at the well. So I found myself pleasantly surprised as each chapter returned to it at some point, to draw forth new insights and meaning. Indeed, the scope of the meditations is truly impressive. With an admirable mixture of precision and emotion, Fr. Dehau considers every word Christ speaks, revealing how even the most commonplace expressions receive a rich significance when uttered by the lips of the Word Himself. Here is an excerpt from Chapter XI which will recommend Fr. Dehau better than volumes on my part:
"Our Lord said to the Samaritan woman: 'If thou didst know the gift of God, thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him...'(John 4:10). You will notice that Our Lord here employs a very curious expression, perhaps. This word is terrible because, as St. Thomas remarks, it indicates a frightening contingency--that of our liberty.
One can know and not ask. The intelligence does not necessarily move the will. If liberty is a magnificent gift of God, a gift which makes our glory, we can, alas! use it badly as long as we are not in the light of glory. If we will it, we can remain faithful; if we do not will it there is no power in the world capable of constraining us, of forcing our will, down to its very depth, to turn toward God; even the most beautiful lights from God, can accomplish nothing, for our will can always escape from them. Therefore to ask it is necessary that we will it, which is why Our Lord said to the Samaritan: Perhaps...oh! perhaps...! Let us then beg Our Lord to send us graces so efficacious that no heart however hard can resist them, says St. Augustine, in order that bathed in this light, we may indeed ask; for if we ask, God will give us the living water; here there is no more 'perhaps'. 'And He would have given thee living water'(John 4:10). God will surely give it.

Perhaps we will have to wait for an answer, and then it will be for reasons of divine pedagogy. We see good souls who say: I have been asking for a long time and I receive neither promptly nor abundantly; there is nothing but the most complete dryness. How does this happen? Must not the reason for it be sought on the side of God? We do not obtain for one or other of these reasons which I am about to state: we ask poorly--or God wishes us to persevere in our demand.

The first reason: we ask poorly, that is to say, we do not ask humbly. Humility! Ah! such is not easy! And yet if we do not have humility, we stand before God in an attitude which displeases him. Humility is politeness toward God, it is the beholden attitude of the creature toward his Creator; it must begin in the depth of one's nothingness. 'Out of the depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord' (Ps. 129:1). Why do certain little souls obtain all that they wish? Because they ask humbly. He scattered(his gifts), He gave them to the poor. We have already remarked: as soon as God finds really poor, really humble souls He gives with prodigality. 'God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble' (Prov. 3:34). We receive in the measure of our humility. God Himself cannot dispense us from it. He can produce it in us, but He cannot dispense us from it. That, He owes to himself. When a little child, anxious for some object which it covets, does not ask its father respectfully enough, it is quickly put in its place by being told to ask politely. It is not difficult to say to one's father: 'if you please,' but it is sometimes very difficult, so it appears to say it to God. The devil did not want to do it, and we ourselves sometimes have great difficulty doing so and yet as long as we will not do it, God will not grant it, otherwise He would be like a worthless father who does not know how to raise his children. Let us then try to become more and more humble in our prayer.

The second reason why God makes us wait so very long is because He wishes to compel us to persevere. He appears to be sleeping in order that we may continue to knock as in the parable of the Gospel, you know, wherein the poor man makes so much noise at his friend's door, he puts into his demand such importunity, that his friend finally opens up to him. In like manner, the Canaanite woman; the Lord repels her; He seems very hard on her, almost scornful, but it is in order to obtain from her this word, this prayer which He Himself will admire.

I shall add a third reason which can be our consolation when condemned to a delay whose end we do not see: the Lord wishes, by that, to make us copy his own attitude to which most souls condemn Him, to which we have too often condemned Him. Thou waited, says Our Lord, and I...? This is what I do continually, I wait. Thou knocked at the door. And I? 'I stand at the gate and knock' (Apoc. 3:20). The Lord consoles Himself thus by making us suffer what we ourselves make Him suffer. This kind of suffering is very sacred, very holy. We must then know how to say to Our Lord: 'Lord, if I can console you for all the neglect which I have heaped upon you; if I console you by humbly supporting you in your dereliction, by awaiting you for a long time, you whom I have made wait for so long a time, I accept; yes, I am willing to remain waiting at your door as long as you like; but when finally you open it, be sure that I will rush in and when you give me the living water, I shall drink it avidly. For the present, thy will be done.'"

Well, For Heaven's Sake

2008-04-09T15:59:00.002-04:00

It would appear that Tolkien felt as helpless about the whole thing as I do:

"Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos."

Need to File a Complaint

2008-04-08T15:23:00.004-04:00

I have a complaint to lodge against my favorite author, Tolkien, who held the highest place in my affections long before the [blighted] movies were released and remained there despite them. After many years of reading random passages from The Silmarillion every now and again, in fits and starts as it were, I finally sat down this year with the intention of reading the book from start to finish. How cruel I find Tolkien! With prose so lucid and stirring that one imagines some divine inspiration at work in it, he depicts a world of glorious promise...only to introduce the sorrows that befall it, sorrows whose magnitude and number seem to multiply almost exponentially as the story progresses. Sheesh. I feel as one raised into celestial regions where the view was, admittedly, of surpassing splendor only to be summarily dropped into the lower regions of Dante's Inferno without so much as a gin and tonic to fortify me on the way. I hope a little compassion crept into his art somewhere in the final chapters.

Distributist Conference

2008-04-03T20:02:00.000-04:00

Distributism in Action

As John Médaille from The Distributist Review pointed out recently, various new endeavors are in preparation for the coming year.
We hinted in the past about a future conference. Now we are working in earnest to secure a site and date for the event. This will be a full day conference with eight speakers who have generously offered their time and support. Please return to our site for updates as developments unfold.
A Grassroots Movement Rising…Again
The original Distributist League initially met at the Devereux pub and spawned 24 like-minded branches across Great Britain within a single year.* These in turn hosted lectures and conferences, and coordinated with complimentary organizations such as Fr. McQuillan's Catholic Land Association.
In recent years, many have made efforts to re-introduce Distributism and, as a result, discussions surrounding the topic have been increasing on the world-wide-web. These consequences are not negligible. Book publishers, online and print journals, lectures, universities, and television programs have either touched on the topic or have dedicated themselves to it.
Short-term Goals
We would like to notify our readers of the following proposed objectives we will meet:
1. The establishment of a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to educate society about and in support of Distributism. This apostolate will engage in the dissemination of educational materials, semi-annual lecture series, and conferences.
2. A chronicle in print is in development with the intent of discussing solutions to our current global dilemmas. Conceptually the magazine will concentrate on both the practical application of Distributism, as well as analysis of various movements conformes with Distributist thought. This journal will include some of the writers featured on our online archive and debates with capitalists and socialists will also be welcome.
3. Fund-raising will play a supporting role towards keeping our costs down for events and all materials. All profits will be used toward our described efforts.
You Can Have an Impact
Send us an email and let us know whether you would like to be contacted with updates and information about said events. We will not release your information to any third parties and you will not have to provide your name if you desire not to do so. Just send us an email that you wish to subscribe and please provide us with your country of residence, city and state/province. This will assist us when preparing future events.
Ultimately we would like to lecture across the globe, so please support this effort by being a part of the mailing list
Establishing a database will allow us to quantify the existing support for these ventures, and inform our readers when and where they will take place.
Please contact us at:
societyfordistributism@gmail.com **
Country of residence:
City:
State/Province:
Sending us your information will be invaluable in our efforts to coordinate these goals
Servire Deo Regnare Est!

Richard Aleman
The ChesterBelloc Mandate
*According to John Michael Thorn's book, An Unexplored Chapter in Recent English History, these branches were founded between 1926 and 1927.
**Upon the establishment of a non-profit, we will notify our subscribers of our new email address.

Hobbit Housing: Whimsical or Practical?

2008-04-03T13:49:00.005-04:00

Modern architectural projects obviously lack the attentiveness to aesthetics which was integral to more traditional building methods. Perhaps they are more expensive and less efficient too.

Hat Tip to Zoe at the Inside Catholic.

Harmoniousness

2008-04-02T21:09:00.006-04:00

I am not a frequenter of YouTube but Hilary put me on to these. This guy deserves an award. Too funny.

Hilary said:
"Now, it says on my profile that I'm a Bach person, and it's true. But I find Bach is occasionally annoying. He writes very catchy little tunes that make you want to sing or hum along. But as beautifully as they might play in one's head, they are nearly impossible to sing or hum out loud because they are always in four or five parts.

Fugues and things. Impossible to hum. You follow along one line and it gets interrupted by the next bit of the fugue and you find yourself only humming it in bits and having to play the rest in your head. Annoying.

Fortunately, technology now comes to the rescue."

Easter Hymn

2008-04-01T14:05:00.003-04:00

This is from Lauds for Paschaltide. It is not a literal translation of the original Latin, but I think it is wonderful nonetheless:

Light's glittering morn bedecks the sky,
Heaven thunders forth its victor cry,
The glad earth shouts its triumph high,
And groaning hell makes wild reply;

While He, the King of glorious might,
Treads down death's strength in death's despite,
And trampling hell by victor's right,
Brings forth His sleeping Saints to light.

Fast barred beneath the stone of late
In watch and ward where soldiers wait,
Now shining in triumphant state,
He rises Victor from death's gate.

Hell's pains are loosed and tears are fled,
Captivity is captive led;
The Angel crowned with light hath said,
"The Lord is risen from the dead!"

We pray Thee, King with glory decked
In this our Paschal joy protect
From all that death would fain effect
Thy ransomed flock, Thine own elet.

To Thee Who, dead, again dost live,
All glory, Lord, Thy people give;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To Father, and to Paraclete.
Amen.

In resurretione tua, Christe, alleluia.
Caeli et terra laetentur, alleluia.

Motu News

2008-04-01T13:19:00.003-04:00

The military is still being denied the Traditional Mass. It probably presents a logistical nightmare, retraining chaplains who might have very little interest in learning an older and more demanding rite.

Please Pray

2008-03-31T14:16:00.004-04:00

Some acquaintances of my family in upstate New York are really suffering right now. Their daughter (8 or 9 years old) has Ewing's Sarcoma cancer. She endured nearly a year of painful treatments and separation from siblings (the hospital is 2 hrs away) only to have the cancer manifest itself once again this Lent. You can read her story here.

Militant Error

2008-03-31T10:41:00.003-04:00

To enlighten.

To horrify.

To inspire.

On this feast of the Annunciation, let us implore the Queen of Heaven to crush the loathsome serpent, who is manifesting himself once more through the followers of Islam!

Festive Cookies

2008-03-25T12:40:00.005-04:00

Another of our favorite Easter traditions is baking cookies with these lovely Springerle molds from House on the Hill, where you can also purchase flavor oils of amazing flavorfulness. We only have the Almond oil, but we have also made the Lemon and Vanilla recipes with regular cooking extracts. All of them turned out yummy and they look so exquisite! I will post pictures of the cookies too, if they don't disappear before I snap a picture.

Holy Week Project

2008-03-19T14:15:00.004-04:00

My sister recently learned how to decorate eggs in the Eastern European fashion. Tonight she will impart the coveted knowledge to the rest of our family and we plan to devote several nights to extravagant artistry.

St. Patrick's Breastplate

2008-03-18T11:51:00.006-04:00

This is one of my favorite prayers. It makes a wonderful morning consecration. There are many versions out there, but I prefer this one:

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of sun,
Brilliance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak to me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to secure me,

Against snares of devils,
Against temptations of vices,
Against inclinations of nature
Against every one who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in a crowd.

Christ to protect me today
Against poisoning, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I sit,
Christ when I lie,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Toward the Creator.

Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of Christ.
May Thy Salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Behind the Times

2008-03-18T11:48:00.002-04:00

I meant to post this over the weekend. Better late than never I always say:

"Lord, Thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness: Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. He asked life of Thee and Thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever."
Psalm 20:4-5
Gradual from the Feast of St. Joseph

All that Glitters is not Gold

2008-03-14T12:19:00.003-04:00

Someone finally states the obvious.

Guardians of Latin

2008-03-11T13:41:00.004-04:00

I discovered this group a long time ago and forgot to post about them. These days, I have Latin on the brain, and I came across them again. Here is a sampling from their constitution:

Familia Sancti Hieronymi
Constitutio

Sub tutela Beatissimae Virginis Mariae, Dei Matris almae,
et sub protectione omnium Angelorum et Sanctorum, et
sub speciali invocatione

SANCTI HIERONYMI

quem nobis in Patronum ac patrem seligimus spiritualem,
cum fuerit Summo Pontifici sincerrime deditus
Fidei Catholicae defensor acerrimus
in exponendis Sacris Scripturis doctor eximius
vitae spiritualis verbo et opere magister praeclarus
atque Latinitatis Ecclesiasticae auctor uberrimus,
in festo Beatissimae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmelo
die 16 mensis Julii A.D. 1989 nos infrascripti condidimus consociationem quam

FAMILIAM SANCTI HIERONYMI

appellare voluimus

Caput I ) DE CONSOCIATIONIS FINE

Cujus consociationis membra fieri possunt omnia fidei Romanae Catholicae homines, qui una nobiscum in hunc finem sibi constituendum consentiant, ut

1.Sincerum amorem erga Summum pontificem et filialem oboedientiam
erga ejus Supremum Magisterium Ecclesiasticum profiteantur;
2.Vitam spiritualem quae ad intimam cum Deo unionem conducit
secundum tot Sanctorum doctrinam et eorum vestigia sequentes
intense et fideliter colant;
3.Linguam Latinam vivam, Romanae Ecclesiae propriam, sedulo
studio et cotidianis exercitiis ita discere satagant, ut tandem
facile et expedite tum Latine scripta legere, cum et cogitare
et loqui et scribere Latine valeant.

Reviving An Older Model

2008-02-29T13:32:00.004-05:00

This group sounds very promising.

My Choir Cup Runneth Over

2008-02-28T14:39:00.004-05:00

I am learning a lot of music right now. It is all very pretty but, at this point, I count myself lucky when I remember which tune goes with which words. Without further ado, I bring you the melodious themes thoroughly devouring my leisure these days:

(For Fun)
Missa Brevis in B Flat Major, Mozart

(For Lent)
Christus Factus Est, Anerio
Coenantibus Autem Illis, Lienas
Media Vita, chant
O Vos Omnes, Victoria
Super Flumina Babylonis, Palestrina
Tenebrae Facte Sunt, Ingegneri
Vere Languores, Victoria

(For Easter)
Haec Dies, Byrd
Regina Coeli, Lotti
Victimae Paschali Laudes, Morales

(For Pentecost)
Factus Est Repente, Aichinger
Missa Secunda, Hassler
Veni Creator Spiritus, Palestrina

Under Construction

2008-02-27T17:22:00.003-05:00

As you can see, things are changing around here. Every once in a while a girl needs to reinvigorate her decorating scheme. If she's lucky, nothing gets broken in the process.

A Guilty World

2008-02-26T15:33:00.006-05:00

I know a plaintive round with lyrics brief and simple, yet profoundly stirring: "When Jesus wept, the falling tear in mercy fell beyond all bounds; when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear seized all the guilty world around." During Lent, we remember our guilt, our need for a Savior. However, if you really strive for holiness, it is easy to "rest on your laurels," forgetting the monstrous evil of sin. Contrition is an act of the will and not primarily a matter of sentiment, but feelings of contrition certainly help inspire a more prompt and perfect will. To that end...I bring you more poetry. While Chesterton emphasizes the joy of the Cross, John Donne evokes the tragedy.

CRUCIFYING.
By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate :
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O ! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas ! and do, unto th' Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life's infinity to span,
Nay to an inch. Lo ! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

HOLY SONNETS.
XI.
Spit in my face, you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me,
For I have sinn'd, and sinne', and only He,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died.
But by my death can not be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety.
They kill'd once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorified.
O let me then His strange love still admire ;
Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment ;
And Jacob came clothed in vile harsh attire,
But to supplant, and with gainful intent ;
God clothed Himself in vile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.

In Good Hands

2008-02-26T14:58:00.010-05:00

I pity all those who reject the doctrine of Divine Providence. There is great comfort in being part of something bigger(and better) than yourself.
"Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum." (Luke 23:46)

A Prayer in Darkness
Chesterton

This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave,
Pity me not; but let the world be fed,
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead,
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave.

If I dare snarl between this sun and sod,
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own,
In sun and rain and fruit in season shown,
The shining silence of the scorn of God.

Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,
If I must travail in a night of wrath,
Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,
Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had
Thought it beat brightly, even on—Calvary:
And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree
Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad.

Stomping Out Abuses?

2008-02-25T14:57:00.007-05:00

I wonder if the rumors are true.

Seasonal Music Recommendation

2008-02-14T11:17:00.003-05:00

"Media Vita", John Sheppard

The Tallis Scholars have a very nice recording. Here is a translation of the text:

In the midst of life we are in death
of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?
O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Do not cast us away in our old age; When our strength fails us do not abandon us O Lord.
O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts
O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us
O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Confessional State - Read 'Em and Weep

2008-02-11T13:50:00.000-05:00

About a week ago I read Cardinal Ottaviani's "Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion."

I almost jumped out of my skin with delighted satisfaction. Let me share a few choice passages:

"I have said, first of all, that the State has the duty of professing its religion, even socially."

"I have said, in the second place, that it is the duty of the Rulers to see to it that the moral principles of the True Religion inspire the social activity of the State as such and its legislation.

He quotes Pope Leo XIII's Libertas: "Justice forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness, namely to treat the various religions(as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges."

From the section entitled "The Rights of Truth":

"Here it is necessary to answer another question, or rather a difficulty, so specious that, at first sight, it may seem insoluble.

"The objection is put to us: You maintain two different standards or norms of action according as it suits you. In a Catholic country, you uphold the doctrine of the Confessional State with the duty of exclusive protection for the Catholic religion. On the other hand, where you form a minority, you claim the right of toleration or straightaway the equality of forms of worship. Hence for you there are two weights and two measures. The result is a really embarrassing duplicity from which the Catholics who take account of the actual developments of civilization wish to be delivered.

"Well, quite frankly, two weights and two measures are to be employed, one for TRUTH, the other for ERROR."(emphasis added with reckless abandon)

In other words, we owe God worship and He has revealed that he wants to receive worship through the liturgy of the Catholic Church. So, it is the duty of the State to acknowledge, protect and honor the one true Faith.

Great Lent Begins

2008-02-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

Attende, Domine, et Miserere: quia peccavimus tibi.

TRACT (Ps. 102:10; 78:8-9)
O Lord, repay us not according to the sins we have committed, nor according to our iniquities.
V. O Lord, remember not our iniquities of the past; let Your mercy come quickly to us, for we are being brought very low.
V. Help us, O God our Savior, and for the glory of Your name, O Lord, deliver us; and pardon us our sins for Your name's sake.

Topsy-turvydom

2008-02-01T11:33:00.000-05:00

Another gem from Hilary:

I was giving a talk to a bunch of eleventh graders once, and was accused of being 'judgmental', possibly the harshest criticism the poor brainwashed kid could think of.

So, I gave them the Beethoven story...trite and old hat to us, but quite a bit of eye-opening revelation to them and they seemed a bit shocked to be told after they had voted to kill him.

Then I gave them the story of a young woman in an abusive marriage that is about to end, with a family history of epilepsy and mental instability, with no qualifications or money who is pregnant.

I asked them to vote by a show of hands whether they thought abortion should be legal for women in such dire straights.

In both cases they voted almost unanimously for abortion.

I said, "Well, you've just told me that I would have been better off dead. But I personally beg to differ."

People with my kind of political and social beliefs are regularly (and quite tiresomely) accused of judgmentalism. It is, in our culture that extolls license and complete social anarchy, the worst sin.

But I wonder. The pro-lifers say to someone disabled, socially "underprivileged", poor, sick, old or unhappy, "I think you should be allowed to live, to carry on, to give life a try and see what you can make of it".

The abortionists and euthanists say to someone, who has not yet had a first breath or a first glimpse of his mother's face or a first taste of human kindness, "You should be dead, your life has no value."

I wonder, then, who is "judgmental"?

Magical Paintings

2008-01-31T10:40:00.000-05:00

The other day I stopped in a quaint rare book store and learned a great deal from my chat with the friendly book seller. Amidst all the trivia, he took a moment to show me a magical type of book I never knew existed. Sometimes, books with gold-edging on the outside edge also have an elaborate painting spread thinly across the inside edges of the paper, ordinarily hidden from view...sort of like Runes only visible in the moonlight...except, in this case, you fan the pages and the image magically appears.

You can read a bit about the forgotten craft of Fore-Edging here.

A Good Sense of Direction

2008-01-28T12:30:00.000-05:00

...is a great trait in a man. But a sense of liturgical orientation is even more admirable.

Quote of the Day

2008-01-25T15:05:00.000-05:00

"The State which controls men's actions and educates their intellects, which, in a word, enforces the knowledge of truth and compels obedience to it, is actually freeing its citizens by that process...I am more free to exercise my powers and use the forces of the world in which I live, and not less free, when I have submitted my intellect to facts."

Robert Hugh Benson, Paradoxes of Catholicism

A Contest

2008-01-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

I am going to steal an idea from the Dappled Things forum and invite all of my readers(ahem, all 2 of them) to take part in an Irish Drinking Song Contest. Scandalous Irish drinking songs were an important part of my formation! Here was my submission at Dappled Things:

Ale in the Hills by the Sea

I met a lightsome lass
In the hills by the sea
And she sang right bonnily
(Ay, she sang right bonnily, clap)
There on the braes o’ grass
Where her father’s kine did sleep

I offered her a drop
In the hills by the sea
And it proved a happy thought
(Ay, it proved a happy thought, clap)
For beside me she did stop
And from me didn’t stray

My choicest ale we shared
In the hills by the sea
As I told her tales right bold
(Ay, tales right bold, clap)
Of what I was prepared
To do for her sweet face

Says she, you are most kind
In the hills by the sea
And your boldness I do need
(Ay, my boldness she did need, clap)
For my father he did bind
Me to marry a muckle fool

Well the lass she did not lie
In the hills by the sea
For the man was muckle indeed
(Ay, the man was muckle indeed, clap)
I beheld him with a sigh
As he came over the lee

Then I choked upon my drink
In the hills by the sea
As he bellowed an angry oath
(Ay, he bellowed an angry oath, clap)
Sure I wanted to shrink
As he swung his shillelagh at me.

But the ale was e’r my aid
In the hills by the sea
For he slipped upon that bottle
(Ay, he slipped upon that bottle, clap)
And I fled away with the maid
While he lay like a great felled tree

And we married and built a fine house
(Aye, we married and built a fine house, clap)
Away from the hills by the sea

Stranger Than Fiction

2008-01-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

After a holiday replete with good company, delectable banquets, innumerable carols and rich devotions, I return refreshed and ready to take up the bally sword...er pen...er keyboard...against (drumroll) BANKS. Actually, I am going to let YouTube do the heavy lifting on this occasion. Just take a look at the five part series, Money As Debt. It would be chilling if it weren't so darn funny too.

Deck the Blog: Part IX

2007-12-25T14:30:00.000-05:00

Adoration of the Magi
Gentile Da Fabriano, 15th century

Deck the Blog: Part VIII

2007-12-24T14:49:00.000-05:00

How far is it to Bethlehem?
Frances Chesterton

How far is it to Bethlehem?
Not very far.
Shall we find the stable room
Lit by a star?
Can we see the little child,
Is he within?
If we lift the wooden latch
May we go in?
May we stroke the creatures there,
Ox, ass, or sheep?
May we peep like them and see
Jesus asleep?
If we touch his tiny hand
Will he awake?
Will he know we've come so far
Just for his sake?
Great kings have precious gifts,
And we have naught,
Little smiles and little tears
Are all we brought.
For all weary children
Mary must weep.
Here, on his bed of straw
Sleep, children, sleep.
God in his mother's arms,
Babes in the byre,
Sleep, as they sleep who find
Their heart's desire.

Deck the Blog: Part VII

2007-12-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

New Prince, New Pomp
Robert Southwell

Behold a silly tender Babe, in freezing winter night;
In homely manger trembling lies, alas a piteous sight:
The inns are full, no man will yield this little Pilgrim bed,
But forced He is with silly beasts, in crib to shroud His head.
Despise Him not for lying there, first what He is enquire:
An orient pearl is often found, in depth of dirty mire;
Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish, nor beasts
that by Him feed:
Weigh not His mother’s poor attire, nor Joseph’s simple weed.
This stable is a Prince’s court, the crib His chair of state:
The beasts are parcel of His pomp, the wooden dish His plate.
The persons in that poor attire, His royal liveries wear,
The Prince Himself is come from heaven,
this pomp is prized there.
With joy approach, O Christian wight, do homage to thy King,
And highly prize this humble pomp,
which He from heaven doth bring.

Deck the Blog: Part VI

2007-12-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

St Bridget & the Vision of the Nativity
Niccolo di Tommaso, 14th century

Deck the Blog: Part V

2007-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Holy Night
Elizabeth Barret Browning

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horned faces
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought their visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Just between you and me...

2007-12-20T14:07:00.001-05:00

I just discovered another limitation of Blogger. You cannot queue blog posts for future posting dates. If you attempt it, your posts will post immediately, in fickle disregard for their posting date which, seemingly, might as well be designated B.C. for all the effect it would have on the post itself. So, as I don't expect to spending much before this glowing screen during the coming days of festivity, I am going to post all my "decorations" today and, if you don't mind, you can just ignore them until the appropriate day comes around. Much obliged...

Deck the Blog:Part IV

2007-12-20T13:32:00.000-05:00

Nativity, Duccio di Buoninsegna, 14th century

Deck the Blog: Part III

2007-12-19T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Burning Babe
Robert Southwell

AS I in hoary winter’s night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorchèd with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were bred:
‘Alas ‘quoth He, ‘but newly born
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire but I!

‘My faultless breast the furnace is;
The fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men’s defilèd souls:
For which, as now on fire I am
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in my blood.’
With this He vanish’d out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callèd unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.

Cavalcade of Bad Nativities Part II

2007-12-19T10:17:00.000-05:00

Too funny...laughed..so..hard...insides may never recover.

SEE FOR YOURSELF

(If you have never visited this site before, be sure to check out Part I from several years ago.)

Deck the Blog: Part II

2007-12-17T12:10:00.000-05:00

Nativity
John Donne

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

Deck the Blog: Part I

2007-12-14T14:56:00.000-05:00

I recently discovered a handful of really fine Advent/Christmas poetry. I have not been inspired to write much myself these past few weeks, so as we approach the most wonderful and glorious feast of the Incarnation, I've decided to use this blog space as a bulletin board to display my favorite seasonal reflections from poetry or song. I hope you enjoy...

A LITTLE LITANY
by G.K. Chesterton
When God turned back eternity and was young,
Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth
(As under the low arch the land is bright)
Peered through you, gate of heaven--and saw the earth.

Or shutting out his shining skies awhile
Built you about him for a house of gold
To see in pictured walls his storied world
Return upon him as a tale is told.

Or found his mirror there; the only glass
That would not break with that unbearable light
Till in a corner of the high dark house
God looked on God, as ghosts meet in the night.

Star of his morning; that unfallen star
In that strange starry overturn of space
When earth and sky changed places for an hour
And heaven looked upwards in a human face.

Or young on your strong knees and lifted up
Wisdom cried out, whose voice is in the street,
And more than twilight of twiformed cherubim
Made of his throne indeed a mercy-seat.

Or risen from play at your pale raiment's hem
God, grown adventurous from all time's repose,
Or your tall body climed the ivory tower
And kissed upon your mouth the mystic rose.

*HAT TIP Blue Boar for introducing me to this delightful selection.

Truth Myth: Better Than Fiction

2007-11-26T15:24:00.000-05:00

“Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes, a man advanced in years, and of a comely countenance, was pressed to open his mouth to eat swine's flesh. But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life, went forward voluntarily to the torment. And considering in what manner he was come to it, patiently bearing, he determined not to do any unlawful things for the love of life.

But they that stood by, being moved with wicked pity, for the old friendship they had with the man, taking him aside, desired that flesh might be brought, which it was lawful for him to eat, that he might make as if he had eaten, as the king had commanded of the flesh of the sacrifice: That by so doing he might be delivered from death: and for the sake of their old friendship with the man they did him this courtesy. But he began to consider the dignity of his age, and his ancient years, and the inbred honour of his grey head, and his good life and conversation from a child: and he answered without delay, according to the ordinances of the holy law made by God, saying, that he would rather be sent into the other world. For it doth not become our age, said he, to dissemble: whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar, at the age of fourscore and ten years, was gone over to the life of the heathens: And so they, through my dissimulation, and for a little time of a corruptible life, should be deceived, and hereby I should bring a stain and a curse upon my old age.

For though, for the present time, I should be delivered from the punishments of men, yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty neither alive nor dead. Wherefore by departing manfully out of this life, I shall shew myself worthy of my old age: And I shall leave an example of fortitude to young men, if with a ready mind and constancy I suffer an honourable death, for the most venerable and most holy laws. And having spoken thus, he was forthwith carried to execution. And they that led him, and had been a little before more mild, were changed to wrath for the words he had spoken, which they thought were uttered out of arrogancy. But when he was now ready to die with the stripes, he groaned, and said: O Lord, who hast the holy knowledge, thou knowest manifestly that whereas I might be delivered from death, I suffer grevious pains in body: but in soul am well content to suffer these things because I fear thee.

Thus did this man die, leaving not only to young men, but also to the whole nation, the memory of his death for an example of virtue and fortitude.” 2 Machabees 6:18-31

The Joys of the Hearth

2007-11-26T12:49:00.000-05:00

Now that the Autumn is upon us and Winter fast approaches, Domus Laxtonorum often gathers around the hearth of an evening to enjoy knitting, tea, conversation and song before a cheery blaze. A seasonal music recommendation is in order. Last year, I discovered a lovely folk album with a most glorious "Woodcutter's Song." Gentlemen, take note. You will find sound advise here:

Oak logs will warm you well
That are old and dry
Logs of pine will sweetly smell,
But the sparks will fly
Birch logs will burn too fast,
Chestnut's scarce at all, sir
And hawthorn logs are known to last
That are cut down in the fall, sir

Surely you will find
There's none compare with the hardwood logs
That are cut in winter time, sir

Holly logs will burn like wax
You can burn them green
Elm logs burn like smoldering flax
With no flame to be seen
Beech logs for winter time,
Yew logs as well, sir
Green alder logs it is a crime
For any man to sell, sir

Surely you will find
There's none compare with the hardwood logs
That are cut in winter time, sir

Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent your room
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom
But ash logs, smooth and grey,
Buy them green or old, sir
And buy up all that come your way,
For they're worth their weight in gold, sir

Surely you will find
There's none compare with the hardwood logs
That are cut in winter time, sir

Great Source for Books

2007-11-15T11:18:00.000-05:00

I know where I am doing my Christmas shopping this year.

Meditation for November

2007-11-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

Of the glory of the Blessed.
"Similarly, the just soul, for whom life finishes in the affection of charity and the bonds of love, cannot increase in virtue, time having come to naught, but she can always love with that affection with which she comes to Me, and that measure that is measured to her. She always desires Me, and loves Me, and her desire is not in vain -- being hungry, she is satisfied, and being satisfied, she has hunger, but the tediousness of satiety and the pain of hunger are far from her. In love, the Blessed rejoice in My eternal vision, participating in that good that I have in Myself, everyone according to his measure, that is that, with that measure of love, with which they have come to Me, is it measured to them. Because they have lived in love of Me and of the neighbor, united together with the general love, and the particular, which, moreover, both proceed from the same love. And they rejoice and exult, participating in each other's good with the affection of love, besides the universal good that they enjoy altogether. And they rejoice and exult with the angels with whom they are placed, according to their diverse and various virtues in the world, being all bound in the bonds of love. And they have a special participation with those whom they closely loved with particular affection in the world, with which affection they grew in grace, increasing virtue, and the one was the occasion to the other of manifesting the glory and praise of My name, in themselves and in their neighbor; and, in the life everlasting, they have not lost their love, but have it still, participating closely, with more abundance, the one with the other, their love being added to the universal good, and I would not that you should think that they have this particular good, of which I have told you, for themselves alone, for it is not so, but it is shared by all the proved citizens, My beloved sons, and all the angels -- for, when the soul arrives at eternal life, all participate in the good of that soul, and the soul in their good. Not that her vessel or theirs can increase, nor that there be need to fill it, because it is full, but they have an exultation, a mirthfulness, a jubilee, a joyousness in themselves, which is refreshed by the knowledge that they have found in that soul. They see that, by My mercy, she is raised from the earth with the plenitude of grace, and therefore they exult in Me in the good of that soul, which good she has received through My goodness.
"And that soul rejoices in Me, and in the souls, and in the blessed spirits, seeing and tasting in them the beauty and the sweetness of My love. And their desires forever cry out to Me, for the salvation of the whole world. And because their life ended in the love of the neighbor, they have not left it behind, but, with it, they will pass through the Door, My only-begotten Son in the way that I will relate to you. So you see that in those bonds of love in which they finished their life, they go on and remain eternally. They are conformed so entirely to My will, that they cannot desire except what I desire, because their free-will is bound in the bond of love, in such a way that, time failing them, and, dying in a state of grace, they cannot sin any more. And their will is so united with Mine, that a father or a mother seeing their son, or a son seeing his father or his mother in Hell, do not trouble themselves, and even are contented to see them punished as My enemies. Wherefore in nothing do they disagree with Me, and their desires are all satisfied. The desire of the blessed is to see My honor in you wayfarers, who are pilgrims, forever running on towards the term of death. In their desire for My honor, they desire your salvation, and always pray to Me for you, which desire is fulfilled by Me, when you ignorant ones do not resist My mercy. They have a desire too, to regain the gifts of their body, but this desire does not afflict them, as they do not actually feel it, but they rejoice in tasting the desire, from the certainty they feel of having it fulfilled. Their desire does not afflict them, because, though they have it not yet fulfilled, no bliss is thereby lacking to them. Wherefore they feel not the pain of desire. And think not, that the bliss of the body after the resurrection gives more bliss to the soul, for, if this were so, it would follow that, until they had the body, they had imperfect bliss, which cannot be, because no perfection is lacking to them. So it is not the body that gives bliss to the soul, but the soul will give bliss to the body, because the soul will give of her abundance, and will re-clothe herself on the Last Day of Judgment, in the garments of her own flesh which she had quitted. For, as the soul is made immortal, stayed and established in Me, so the body in that union becomes immortal, and, having lost heaviness, is made fine and light. Wherefore, know that the glorified body can pass through a wall, and that neither water nor fire can injure it, not by virtue of itself, but by virtue of the soul, which virtue is of Me, given to her by grace, and by the ineffable love with which I created her in My image and likeness. The eye of your intellect is not sufficient to see, nor your ear to hear, nor your tongue to tell of the good of the Blessed. Oh, how much delight they have in seeing Me, who am every good! Oh, how much delight they will have in being with the glorified body, though, not having that delight from now to the general Judgment, they have not, on that account, pain, because no bliss is lacking to them, the soul being satisfied in herself, and, as I have told you, the body will participate in this bliss.
"I told you of the happiness which the glorified body would take in the glorified humanity of My only-begotten Son, which gives you assurance of your resurrection. There, they exult in His wounds, which have remained fresh, and the Scars in His Body are preserved, and continually cry for mercy for you, to Me, the Supreme and Eternal Father. And they are all conformed with Him, in joyousness and mirth, and you will all be conformed with Him, eye with eye, and hand with hand, and with the whole Body of the sweet Word My Son, and, dwelling in Me, you will dwell in Him, because He is one thing with Me. But their bodily eye, as I told you, will delight itself in the glorified humanity of the Word, My only-begotten Son. Why so? Because their life finished in the affection of My love, and therefore will this delight endure for them eternally. Not that they can work any good, but they rejoice and delight in that good which they have brought with them, that is, they cannot do any meritorious act, by which they could merit anything, because in this life alone can they merit and sin, according as they please, with free-will.
"These then do not await, with fear, the Divine judgment, but with joy, and the Face of My Son will not seem to them terrible, or full of hatred, because they finished their lives in love and affection for Me, and good-will towards their neighbor. So you see then, that the transformation is not in His Face, when He comes to judge with My Divine Majesty, but in the vision of those who will be judged by Him. To the damned He will appear with hatred and with justice. And to the saved with love and mercy."

Dialogue of Catherine of Siena (from the "Treatise of Discretion")

Thanks Where Thanks is Due

2007-10-26T13:36:00.000-04:00

In July, I posted a prayer request for my newborn nephew, Raphael, who suffered a grave and unexplained hemorrhage of the brain 6 weeks after birth. Thanks be to God, he survived and recovered remarkably well. Recent scans revealed permanent damage to a small part of his brain but, at this point, everything indicates that the damage is insignificant. This week we celebrated the feastday(Oct 24) of his glorious and holy patron, St. Raphael, whose name means "God has healed." I want to post again the Litany of St. Raphael, which my family received great comfort from praying throughout the crisis, and also a picture of the little fellow who caused all the fuss. Unfortunately, I don't have any recent photos uploaded, so this is a nice one from his baptism in July. Please offer a prayer for his continued health, as the cause of the bleeding remains undetermined. Certain viruses and bacteria cause internal bleeding, so he received medicines at the hospital which will eliminate any further danger on that account. However, he is still being tested for a rare blood disease which also causes hemorrhaging. We prayerfully entrust his future to the Lord and to His servant, St. Raphael.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

God the father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, King of Angels, have mercy on us.

Mary, Queen of the Angels, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, whose name means "God has healed", pray for us.
Saint Raphael, preserved with the good Angels in God's kingdom, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, one of the seven spirits that stand before the Most High, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, ministering to God in heaven, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, noble and mighty Messenger of God, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, devoted to the Holy Will of God, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, who offered to God the prayers of the father Tobit, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, traveling-companion of the young Tobias, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, who guarded your friends from danger, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, who found a worthy wife for Tobias, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, who delivered Sarah from the evil spirits, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, who healed the father Tobit of his blindness, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, guide and protector on our journey through life, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, strong helper in time of need, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, conqueror of evil, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, guide and counselor of your people. pray for us.
Saint Raphael, protector of pure souls, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, patron Angel of youth, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of joy, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of happy meetings, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of chaste courtship, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of those seeking a marriage partner, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of a happy marriage, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Angel of home life, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, Guardian of the Christian family, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, protector of travelers, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, patron of health, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, heavenly physician, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, helper of the blind, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, healer of the sick, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, patron of physicians, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, consoler of the afflicted, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, support of the dying, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, herald of blessings, pray for us.
Saint Raphael, defender of the church, pray for us.

Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world; spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world; graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world; have mercy on us.

Pray for us, O glorious Saint Raphael the Archangel,
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:
God, you graciously gave the Archangel Raphael as a companion to Your servant Tobias on his journey. Grant us, Your servants, that we may ever enjoy his protection and be strengthened by his help. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Home again, home again Jiggity jig!

2007-10-22T11:11:00.000-04:00

I've been out of town for ten days on a refreshing, inspiring retreat. My ears still ring with the ancient melodies of the Church and my mind lingers yet upon Her psalms and hymns. Maybe when I collect my thoughts and accustom myself to NOISE again, I'll post something serious for a change. My holiday included many blessed hours of quiet reading.

Keep the Doctor Away...

2007-10-08T10:42:00.000-04:00

...with a rustic apple tart.

I went apple picking a couple of weeks ago and since that fateful day pies of every shape and kind abound in Domus Laxtonorum. A few new recipes emerged and took a place in the catalog of family favorites. The English Apple Pie - rather like a crisp except that the topping resembled cookie dough more than the traditional crumb - received high praise. The following Apple Galette recipe from William-Sonoma inspired another fortuitous baking enterprise:

Apple Galette

A galette is a rustic, free-form tart that is cooked on a baking sheet rather than in a tart pan. It can be prepared with a variety of seasonal fruits.

Ingredients:

For the dough:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. sugar
16 Tbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into
1/2-inch pieces
1/3 to 1/2 cup ice water

For the filling:
2 lb. apples, such as Granny Smith or Jonagold,
peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 Tbs. cornstarch

1 egg, lightly beaten
Sugar for sprinkling
1/4 cup apricot jam
Lightly sweetened whipped cream for serving

Directions

To make the dough, put the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Put the butter in another bowl and place both bowls in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Transfer the flour mixture to a food processor and pulse about 5 times to blend. Add the butter and pulse 15 to 20 times, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 1/3 cup of the water and pulse twice. Squeeze the dough with your fingers; it should hold together but should not be sticky. If it is crumbly, add more water 1 Tbs. at a time, pulsing twice after each addition.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, gather into a ball and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Place a baking sheet on the bottom rack of an oven. Position another rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 400°F. Line a second baking sheet with a Silpat nonstick liner and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

To make the filling, in a large bowl, stir together the apples, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cornstarch. Set aside.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let stand for 5 minutes. Place the dough between 2 sheets of lightly floured waxed paper and roll out into a 12-inch round. Brush off the excess flour. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Arrange the apple filling in the center of the dough, mounding the fruit slightly and leaving a 2-inch border. Gently fold the edges of the dough over the apples, pleating loosely. Brush the dough with the beaten egg. Lightly sprinkle sugar over the apples.

Bake until the crust is golden and the apples are tender, about 1 hour. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the galette cool completely, about 1 hour.

Just before serving, in a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the jam. Brush the apples with the jam and let cool. Cut the galette into 8 slices and accompany each slice with a dollop of whipped cream. Serves 8.

I used a baking stone with greased wax paper, rather than a baking sheet with Silpat liner.

Next on my list: Swiss Apple Pie and Apple Claufoutis

A Good Match

2007-10-03T15:29:00.000-04:00

Oh.My.Goodness. I just completed an INTENSE chess match.

For those unaware of my (minor) obsession, take note. I never tire of playing chess. It began with a family friend in junior high. Then, someone bought me a board for my birthday. After watching the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, my younger sister and I played once a day for a period of several months. The college chess club sealed my fate. I bought books with chess exercises, strategy and trivia. At one point, my college roommates feared for my health, when I took up end game puzzles as a regular evening pastime.

For nerds(I played black):

1. e4 e5
2. Qd1h5 Nb8c6
3. Bf1c4 Qd8e7
4. Nb1c3 Ng8f6
5. Qh5f3 d6
6. h3 Bc8e6
7. Bc4xe6 Qe7xe6
8. Nc3b5 O-O-O
9. Qf3e3 a6
10. Nb5a7 Nc6xa7
11. Qe3xa7 Qe6c4
12. Qa7a8 Kc8d7
13. Qa8xb7 Qc4xc2
14. f3 Qc2c4
15. Ng1e2 Qc4b5
16. Qb7a7 Bf8e7
17. Qa7e3 d5
18. a4 Qb5c6
19. d3 d4
20. Qe3g5 Rh8g8
21. O-O Nf6xe4
22. Qg5xe5 Ne4f6
23. Qe5xd4 Kd7c8
24. Qd4c3 Qc6xc3
25. Ne2xc3 Rd8xd3
26. Rf1e1 Be7b4
27. Re1e3 Rg8d8
28. Kg1h2 Rd3xe3
29. Bc1xe3 Bb4xc3
30. bxc3 Rd8d3
31. Be3d4 Kc8d7
32. Ra1b1 Kd7c6
33. Rb1b3 Kc6d5
34. Rb3b7 Kd5c6
35. Rb7b8 Nf6d5
36. Bd4xg7 Nd5xc3
37. a5 Nc3d5
38. Rb8h8 Rd3a3
39. Rh8xh7 Ra3xa5
40. Bg7f8 Ra5a2
41. Rh7xf7 a5
42. h4 a4
43. h5 Nd5e3
44. h6 Ra2xg2
45. Kh2h1 Rg2g5
46. Rf7f6 Kc6b5
47. Rf6f4 Rg5h5
48. Kh1g1 Ne3c4
49. Rf4f7 c5
50. h7 a3
51. Bf8e7 Rh5h6
52. Be7f6 Nc4d6
53. Rf7d7 Nd6e8
54. h8=Q Rh6xh8
55. Bf6xh8 Kb5b4
56. f4 c4 57. f5 c3
58. Rd7d8 Ne8c7
59. Rd8b8 Nc7b5
60. f6 c2
61. Rb8c8 Nb5c3
62. Rc8b8 Kb4c4
63. Rb8c8 Kc4b3
64. Rc8b8 Kb3a2
65. f7 c1=Q
66. Kg1g2 Qc1g5
67. Kg2h3 Qg5f5
68. Kh3h2 Qf5xf7
69. Bh8xc3 Qf7f4 0-1

Great Catholic Men of History

2007-10-01T16:24:00.000-04:00

Christendom College, my alma mater, now provides a website where you can download recordings of notable speeches made on campus, or made elsewhere by faculty of the College. Two of the topics particularly excite me - these were lectures given by the beloved founder of Christendom and well-known Catholic historian, Dr. Warren Carroll:
Blessed Charles of Austria: A Man of Peace in a World at War

Charles V: The Man Who Saved Christendom

The Ring of Truth

2007-09-21T12:58:00.000-04:00

"Laudo Deum verum plebem voco congrego clerum Defunctos ploro, nimbum fugo, festa decoro."

"I praise the true God, I call the people, I assemble the clergy; I bewail the dead, I dispense storm clouds, I do honour to feasts."
The Golden Legend

One of the great deficiencies modern churches suffer is the absence of bell towers with blessed bells. Where a bell tower exists, a rarity indeed, it is often occupied by a speaker which broadcasts recorded hymns or bell sounds. A little inquiry into history and tradition reveals the poverty of such a substitution, for pealing music was not the only, nor the most significant, merit church bells boasted in days of yore. For, church bells are sacramentals, one means of spiritual assistance and material succor which the Church mercifully offers the faithful: "The effects of the sacramentals are to free us from spiritual, bodily, and temporal evils, and bring us spiritual, bodily, and temporal advantages. They heal suffering and wrong, dispel trouble of mind, moderate the passions, temper temptations, save us from barrenness, drought, storms, and devilish plagues, and send us growth, fruitfulness, and bodily strength."GTCC

During the Middle Ages, bells emerged as a common feature of church architecture: "The great development in the use of bells may be identified with the eighth century. It was then, seemingly, that they began to be regarded as an essential part of the equipment of every church, and also that the practice of blessing them by a special form of consecration became generally prevalent."CE The ritual of blessing is popularly known as "baptism of bells," a title, noxious to Protestants, and provoking an inordinate fuss since the 16th century. It persisted unofficially nonetheless, revealing the noteworthy reverence and weight which the faithful commonly attached to the benediction of bells. Here is the a description of the venerable rite taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The bishop in white vestments first recites seven psalms with his attendant clergy to implore the Divine assistance. The he mixes salt with water, reciting prayers of exorcism analogous to those always used in the preparation of holy water, but making special reference to the bell and to the evil influences of the air--the phantoms, the storms, the lightning--which threaten the peace of devout Christians who come to the church to sing the praises of God. Then the bishop and his attendants 'wash' (lavant) the bell inside and out with the water thus prepared and dry it with towels, the psalm "Laudate Dominum de coelis" and five others of similar import being sung meanwhile."

In other words, the blessing beseeches God to invest the bell with a holy power, that its ringing may drive away evil, both physical and spiritual, and inspire devotion in the hearts of the faithful.

"These are followed by various unctions, those on the outside of the bell being made with the oil of the sick in seven places, and those on the inside with chrism in four places. In the accompanying prayers mention is made of the silver trumpets of the Old Law and of the fall of the walls of Jericho, while protection is asked once more against the powers of the air, and the faithful are encouraged to take refuge under the sign of the Holy Cross."

These anointings signify the bell's purpose - to declare, far and wide, the glory of the Cross and recall the faithful to the sacraments.

"Finally, the thurible with incense (thymiama) and myrrh are placed under the bell so that the smoke arising may fill its cavity. Then another prayer is said of similar purport to the last, and the ceremony ends with the reading of the passage in the Gospel concerning Martha and Mary."

A blessed bell calls the faithful into the presence of the Lord. It should inspire eagerness for the spiritual life, recalling Mary, who set aside temporal concerns and sat at the Saviour's feet, hungry for His word.

There is a certain disposition absolutely essential in the spiritual life; you must acknowledge your need for God and accept His assistance. One may cultivate that disposition through an appreciation and fervent use of the spiritual aids provided by Holy Mother Church. In short, bring back the Bells please.

MY SOURCES
Catholic Encylopedia
The Glories and Triumphs of the Catholic Church

A Cup of the Steaming

2007-09-14T15:31:00.000-04:00

As I tripped gaily out the door this week, a sudden chill came over me and I fell into a pensive state. As you have probably surmised, I felt the first whiffs of autumn and wondered whether my tea chest needed stocking. Then, with a great sigh of satisfaction and relief, I recalled the silk sachets of Mutan White, the loose Lemon Rooibos, the Nectarine Ginger Black and the White Tea with Cinnamon which have gradually taken over my cupboards not to mention put a comfortable sag in the old shelves. For nothing prods the eyes open on a frosty morning with more graciousness than a cup of the hot and leafy.

Now, one thing troubles, indeed, vexes me sorely. A despicable abuse has crept into the ancient ritual of tea drinking and wrested away something of, well, that whatsit and thingummy it ought to have. I mean to say, some folks actually sip their brew from ungainly and commercial mugs or - dare I even pen the words - styrofoam cups. If we wish to restore culture, it is imperative to begin from the bottom up, with the essentials if you know what I mean. Root of the problem and all that. So, if you enter into the great tradition of tea time, you must realize that a bit of china is of the essence. For those who enjoy a pot more casually, please, use stoneware at the very least. Be assured, you won't regret it.

Happy Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

2007-09-14T12:27:00.001-04:00

A Tridentine Mass will be celebrated three blocks from my dwelling place this evening. The corners of my mouth have been twitching up outrageously all morning. Picture it...I shall walk to a Tridentine Mass on a FRIDAY evening. Undoubtedly, any post-liturgical perambulations must lead to champagne, song, dance and general conviviality. Cheers!

Our Hearts Are Restless...

2007-09-04T16:46:00.000-04:00

And pop culture is not what they seeketh.

Another good read from Jeff Culbreath.

Pip-pip, Cicero and St. Jerome!

2007-08-17T13:31:00.000-04:00

I signed up for a Latin class this fall. Pope John XIII claimed that "Latina est lingua Ecclesiae viva," but local tradition associates it with the slow and tortured death of countless students. I wonder if that bodes ill for those with full time jobs who try to study Latin in their spare time?

Holy Parents

2007-07-26T09:36:00.000-04:00

Last year, I sought out an image of Sts. Joachim and Anne for my older sister. Few artistic representations exist and most of them represent the Meeting at the Golden Gate, a delightful legend which was unfamiliar to me. I soon discovered that the Protoevangelium, one of the apocryphal writings, includes a little known account of Our Lady's parents, birth and upbringing. Over the centuries, a tradition developed around it, and the story even makes an appearance in that famed collection, The Golden Legend. Here is an excerpt:

"Joachim, which was of Galilee of the city of Nazareth, espoused Saint Anne of Bethlehem, and they were both just and without reproach or reprehension in the commandments of our Lord, and divided all their substance in three parts: that one part was for the temple, that other they gave to the poor and pilgrims, and the third was for themselves and their meiny to live with, and thus lived twenty years in marriage without having any lineage. And then they avowed to our Lord that if he sent to them any lineage they should give it to him, for to serve him. For which thing they went every year into Jerusalem in three principal feasts, so that in the feast of Encenia, that was the dedication of the temple, then Joachim went unto Jerusalem with his kindred, and came to the altar with the others and would have offered his offering. And when the priest saw him, he put him apart by great despite, and reproved him because he came to the altar of God, and said to him that it was convenable that a man cursed in the faith should not offer to our Lord, ne he that was barren should be among them that had fruit, as he that had none to the increase of the people of God. And then Joachim, all confused for this thing, durst not go home for shame, because they of his lineage and his neighbours which had heard it should not reprove him. And then he went to his herdmen, and was there long, and then the angel appeared to him only, and comforted him with great clearness, and said to him that he should not doubt ne be afraid of his vision, and said: I am the angel of our Lord sent to thee for to denounce to thee that thy prayers have availed thee and been heard, and thy alms be mounted tofore our Lord. I have seen thy shame and heard the reproach. That thou art barren is to thee no reproach by right, and God is venger of sin and not of nature. And when he closeth the belly or womb, he worketh so that he openeth it after, more marvellously. And the fruit that shall be born shall not be seen to come forth by lechery, but that it be known that it is of the gift of God. The first mother of your people was Sara, and she was barren unto the ninetieth year, and had only Isaac, to whom the benediction of all people was promised. And was not Rachel long barren? And yet had she not after Joseph, that held all the seigniory of Egypt? which was more strong than Samson, and more holy than Samuel? And yet were their mothers barren. Thus mayst thou believe by reason and by ensample that the childings long abiden be wont to be more marvellous. And therefore Anne thy wife shall have a daughter, and thou shalt call her Mary, and she, as ye have avowed, shall be from her infancy sacred unto our Lord, and shall be full of the Holy Ghost sith the time that she shall depart from the womb of her mother, and she shall dwell in the temple of our Lord, and not without, among the other people, because that none evil thing shall be had in suspicion of her, and right as she shall be born of a barren mother, so shall be born of her marvellously the son of a right high Lord. Of whom the name shall be Jesus, and by him shall health be given to all the people. And I give to thee the sign, that when thou shalt come to the golden gate at Jerusalem, thou shalt meet there Anne thy wife, which is much amoved of thy long tarrying, and shall have joy of thy coming. And then the angel, when he had said this, he departed from him. And as when Anne wept bitterly and wist not whither her husband was gone, the same angel appeared to her, and said all that he had said to her husband, and gave to her for a sign that she should go into Jerusalem, to the golden gate, and there she should meet with her husband which was returned. And thus by the commandment of the angel they met, and were firm of the lineage promised, and glad for to see each other, and honoured our Lord and returned home, abiding joyously the promise divine. And Anne conceived and brought forth a daughter, and named her Mary."

May Sts. Joachim and Anne, blessed parents of the Holy Virgin, serve as a model and inspiration for every Christian home!

Morbid Interest

2007-07-25T15:48:00.000-04:00

Bill Powell writes another fine post, waxing eloquent on Calvin Elliott and the troubling question of usury.

St. Raphael, Medicine of God, Ora Pro Nobis!

2007-07-24T13:26:00.000-04:00

My newborn nephew was gravely ill last week. In thanksgiving for his steady recovery and as a plea for his future health, here is a litany in honor of his glorious patron, St. Raphael the Archangel:

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

Pray for us, O glorious Saint Raphael the Archangel,
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:
God, you graciously gave the Archangel Raphael as a companion to Your servant Tobias on his journey. Grant us, Your servants, that we may ever enjoy his protection and be strengthened by his help. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Habemus Papam!

2007-07-11T12:53:00.000-04:00

Enemies of the true Faith beware. The Shepherd is losing patience with wolves in sheep's clothing.

Hat tip to Steve Skojec for the link.

Fellay Responds

2007-07-10T10:48:00.000-04:00

Archbishop Fellay, Superior General of the Society of Pius X, has issued a letter in response to the recent Motu Propio. My mother, wonderfully proficient in the French language, provided me with a spiffin' translation:

Press release of the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.

By means of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, pope Benedict XVI has restored to its rights the Tridentine Mass, clearly affirming that the Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V was never abrogated. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X rejoices to see the Church thus recover its liturgical Tradition, giving to the priests and to the faithful who have been up to the present time deprived of them, the possibility of having free access to the treasure of the traditional Mass for the glory of God, the good of the Church and the health of souls. For this great spiritual benefit, the Fraternity of Saint-Pius X expresses to the Sovereign pontiff its lively gratitude.

The letter which accompanies the Motu Proprio does not obscure, however, the difficulties which still remain. The Fraternity of Saint-Pius X forms the wish that the favorable climate founded by the new provisions of the Holy See will make it possible - after the withdrawal of the decree of excommunication which continues to injure its bishops - to calmly address the doctrinal points in litigation.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, the law of the liturgy is that of the faith. In fidelity to the spirit of our founder Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, the attachment of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint-Pius X to the traditional liturgy is indivisibly united to the faith which has been professed “always, everywhere and by all”.

Menzingen, July 7, 2007
Mgr. Bernard Fellay

Hat tip to the Cornell folks for the link.

First Fruits

2007-07-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

I just got goosebumps reading this news at Stony Creek Digest.

A Mystery with a Puzzle

2007-07-02T13:47:00.001-04:00

I figure it's about time for a frivolous post. If you are mystified by the title...ha! my purpose succeeded.

Anyways, I cracked open a collection of Dorothy Sayers' mysteries this weekend and made the acquaintance of the inimitable Lord Peter Wimsey and his congenial valet Bunter. If you are entirely ignorant of his lordship, Wikipedia has a substantial entry chronicling his illustrious history. I enjoyed this quote from Sayers:

“Lord Peter's large income ... I deliberately gave him ... After all it cost me nothing and at the time I was particularly hard up and it gave me pleasure to spend his fortune for him. When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull I let him drive it. I can heartily recommend this inexpensive way of furnishing to all who are discontented with their incomes. It relieves the mind and does no harm to anybody.”

To get to the point, however, I am in the throes of the most outrageous, brain-numbing obsession, solving a crossword puzzle from “The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleagar’s Will.” In place of standard clues, it presents a dizzying array of riddles united by one classical(ie., ancient Rome) theme.

Brilliant.

Unveiling a Tradition

2007-06-29T15:23:00.000-04:00

I have been too busy with this CR post to write anything for my own blog.

Forgotten Devotion

2007-06-19T16:00:00.000-04:00

My sister recently played me a recording of the chant hymn "Ave Maris Stella." I was struck by the great beauty of the melody and by the fact that it was entirely unfamiliar to me.

In addition to its aesthetic recommendations, the hymn carries Our Lady's promise of protection: "During a riot at Rome, a mob came to the house where St. Bridget lived; a leader talked of burning Bridget alive. She prayed to Our Blessed Lord to know if she should flee to safety and He assured her to stay, saying: 'It doesn't matter if they plot thy death. My power will break the malice of thy enemies: If mine crucified me, it is because I permitted it.' The Blessed Virgin added: 'Sing as a group the Ave Maris Stella and I will guard you from every danger.' [I found that story and a translation of the text here.]

When reading The Lord of the Rings, I always delighted in the power of names, e.g. when Frodo is stabbed on Weathertop, he repels the Nazgul with the cry "Elbereth Gilthoniel!" With what delight, then, do I discover that this aspect of Middlearth is but another reflection of the True Myth.

A Catholic Perspective on the Iraq Conflict

2007-06-08T14:16:00.000-04:00

The Cornell Society for a Good Time interviewed a Navy Chaplain concerning the war in Iraq. You can view the first part of their discussion here.

Side Note: Unfamiliar with the parts of prudence (gnome, eubulia, and synesis) mentioned by Simplex Sacerdos, I sought for enlightenment in the Summa Theologica. In the Secunda Secundae, Question 48, Article 1, St. Thomas mentions that: gnome “concerns judgment in matters of exception to the law”; eubulia “refers to counsel”; and synesis concerns “judgment in matters of ordinary occurrence.”

Regina Coeli, Restore the Earth!

2007-06-06T14:24:00.000-04:00

In The Restoration of Christian Culture, John Senior declares that devotion to Our Lady produced the cathedrals of Europe, the glorious flourishing of art and culture in Christendom. John Saward affirms and expands this notion in The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty. Here are a few key passages from Chapter Three, "Tota Pulchra:The Beauty of Our Lady and the Renewal of Christian Culture", parts of which also correspond well with my recent post on wonder:

In the purity of her whole person on earth, and in the glory of her whole person in Heaven, the Mother of God is the Church's image and beginning, the promise of final beauty for the members of Christ. What she is now, the Church is meant to be and one day will be. The Woman clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars is both Mary and the Church: the Church in Mary and Mary in the Church.

....................................................

There can be no Christian culture without Christ, but without true devotion to the Mother, true faith in the Son soon withers. As Cardinal Newman saw in the last century, the Reformation's Maryless Christology developed, in Liberal Protestantism, into a Christless Christianity...The Theotokos - by her name and her icon, by her lovely person and her loving prayers - is the God-given protector of the truth about her Son. As it was in antiquity, so it is again in modernity: the Blessed Virgin crushes all the serpents of heresy('cunctas haereses sola interemisti in universo mundo').

....................................................

True devotion to the Blessed Virgin builds up the Civilization of Love because it leads men into the admiration and contemplation that fill her heart, the admiration without which there is no love, the contemplation without which there is no civilization.

The great German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper has argued that leisure is the basis of human culture. By 'leisure' he means, not procrastination, but contemplation. He compares and contrasts the two powers of the human mind as distinguished by the Schoolmen: ratio and intellectus. The first is discursive activity, the mind examining and searching, arguing and defining. The second is contemplative rest, the mind simply and effortlessly gazing upon the truth. The two operate together in our knowledge in this world, but there is no doubt that the second is the higher of the two. Discursive reason is properly human, but there is something superhuman about contemplative intuition. In Heaven, Thomas and Bonaventure no longer argue and deduce, but they rest and they see, they see and they love, they love and they praise.

....................................................

There is no culture, then, without contemplative wonder at the beauty of being. Now this natural attitude is perfected supernaturally and most perfectly in Our Lady, who magnifies the Lord for His marvels (cf. Lk 1:46) and ponders the things of Jesus in her heart (cf. Lk. 2:51). It is the Virgin Mary, even more than Martha's sister, who 'hath chosen the best part' (cf. Lk 10:42)...she is pure in her openness and therefore perfect in her contemplation. The gazing at divine beauty is itself a beautiful act, for which the spiritual beauty of chastity is an essential requirement: the man whose reason is clouded by concupiscence cannot see clearly. No human person is purer than the Immaculate, so none is more suited to contemplation.

Queenly Deaths

2007-06-04T12:37:00.000-04:00

Following a link from Jeff Culbreath, I read the Last Letter of Marie-Antoinnete. This recalled Come Rack, Come Rope, Robert Hugh Benson's novel about Catholics suffering persecution in England. When I read it this past Lent, the account of Mary, Queen of Scots' execution moved me greatly. At the time, I wondered how closely it adhered to historical facts. I neglected the research until this morning:

Last Letter of Mary, Queen of Scots
" 8 February 1587
To the most Christian king, my brother and old ally,

Royal brother, having by God's will, for my sins I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, at whose hands I have suffered much for almost twenty years, I have finally been condemned to death by her and her Estates. I have asked for my papers, which they have taken away, in order that I might make my will, but I have been unable to recover anything of use to me, or even get leave either to make my will freely or to have my body conveyed after my death, as I would wish, to your kingdom where I had the honor to be queen, your sister and old ally.

Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning. I have not had time to give you a full account of everything that has happened, but if you will listen to my doctor and my other unfortunate servants, you will learn the truth, and how, thanks be to God, I scorn death and vow that I meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were their subject. The Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English crown are the two issues on which I am condemned, and yet I am not allowed to say that it is for the Catholic religion that I die, but for fear of interference with theirs. The proof of this is that they have taken away my chaplain, and although he is in the building, I have not been able to get permission for him to come and hear my confession and give me the Last Sacrament, while they have been most insistent that I receive the consolation and instruction of their minister, brought here for that purpose. The bearer of this letter and his companions, most of them your subjects, will testify to my conduct at my last hour. It remains for me to beg Your Most Christian Majesty, my brother-in-law and old ally, who have always protested your love for me, to give proof now of your goodness on all these points: firstly by charity, in paying my unfortunate servants the wages due them - this is a burden on my conscience that only you can relieve: further, by having prayers offered to God for a queen who has borne the title Most Christian, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her possessions. As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him. I have taken the liberty of sending you two precious stones, talismans against illness, trusting that you will enjoy good health and a long and happy life. Accept them from your loving sister-in-law, who, as she dies, bears witness of her warm feeling for you. Again I commend my servants to you. Give instructions, if it please you, that for my soul's sake part of what you owe me should be paid, and that for the sake of Jesus Christ, to whom I shall pray for you tomorrow as I die, I be left enough to found a memorial mass and give the customary alms.

Wednesday, at two in the morning

Your most loving and most true sister
Mary R"

Account of her execution by Robert Wynkfielde

" Her [Mary queen of Scots] prayers being ended, the executioners, kneeling, desired her Grace to forgive them her death: who answered, 'I forgive you with all my heart, for now, I hope, you shall make an end of all my troubles.' Then they, with her two women, helping her up, began to disrobe her of her apparel: then she, laying her crucifix upon the stool, one of the executioners took from her neck the Agnus Dei, which she, laying hands off it, gave to one of her women, and told the executioner he should be answered money for it. Then she suffered them, with her two women, to disrobe her of her chain of pomander beads and all other her apparel most willingly, and with joy rather than sorrow, helped to make unready herself, putting on a pair of sleeves with her own hands which they had pulled off, and that with some haste, as if she had longed to be gone.
All this time they were pulling off her apparel, she never changed her countenance, but with smiling cheer she uttered these words, 'that she never had such grooms to make her unready, and that she never put off her clothes before such a company.'
Then she, being stripped of all her apparel saving her petticoat and kirtle, her two women beholding her made great lamentation, and crying and crossing themselves prayed in Latin. She, turning herself to them, embracing them, said these words in French, 'Ne crie vous, j'ay prome pour vous', and so crossing and kissing them, bade them pray for her and rejoice and not weep, for that now they should see an end of all their mistress's troubles.
Then she, with a smiling countenance, turning to her men servants, as Melvin and the rest, standing upon a bench nigh the scaffold, who sometime weeping, sometime crying out aloud, and continually crossing themselves, prayed in Latin, crossing them with her hand bade them farewell, and wishing them to pray for her even until the last hour.
This done, one of the women having a Corpus Christi cloth lapped up three-corner-ways, kissing it, put it over the Queen of Scots' face, and pinned it fast to the caule of her head. Then the two women departed from her, and she kneeling down upon the cushion most resolutely, and without any token or fear of death, she spake aloud this Psalm in Latin, In Te Domine confido, non confundar in eternam, etc. Then, groping for the block, she laid down her head, putting her chin over the block with both her hands, which, holding there still, had been cut off had they not been espied. Then lying upon the block most quietly, and stretching out her arms cried, In manus tuas, Domine, etc., three or four times. Then she, lying very still upon the block, one of the executioners holding her slightly with one of his hands, she endured two strokes of the other executioner with an axe, she making very small noise or none at all, and not stirring any part of her from the place where she lay."

Further Reading on the English Martyrs
The Martyrdom Of Father Campion and His Companions, William Cardinal Allen
Edmund Campion, Evelyn Waugh

The Business World

2007-05-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

At the CR site, a posts raise questions about the dignity and purpose of work.

Meanwhile, Bill Powell tries to keep a sense of humor about the business world.

Festive Photos

2007-05-21T15:10:00.000-04:00

Here are some great photos of a Marian procession in the Netherlands.

Hat tip to The Norumbega Monitor.

Bella the Movie

2007-05-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

At the end of April, I attended a pre-screening of the movie Bella, an overtly pro-life movie, made with an impossibly low budget and filmed in a ridiculous 23 (or was it 22?) days. And it might just do some good. In fact, it's already won the Toronto Film Festival and, since his involvement with the film, the star has already saved two babies from state-approved murder (one was baptized and has since gone to meet Our Lord).

Also present at the screening were the film producer, Leo Severino(a darn witty speaker) and the aforementioned star, Eduardo Verstegui , who was every bit as good-looking as one might expect. More importantly, however, they were pious and orthodox Catholics, with radical trust in Divine Providence and their favorite patron, Our Lady of Guadalupe. They want the film to succeed, but they don't care for success at the price of purity or truth. They believe that Our Lady is blessing their work and I think they might be right.

Filmed in New York City, the events of one day comprise the main storyline. After a tragic incident in his past, a famous Mexican soccer player, Jos, struggles as a cook in his brother's restaurant. When his brother unwittingly fires a pregnant employee, Nina, Jos spends the day with her, rescuing her from despair and demonstrating the dignity of human life by his disinterested assistance and care. A few light-hearted scenes of Mexican family life punctuate the drama. One powerful scene actually takes place in an abortion clinic and is filmed with such subtle artistry that one hopes even the frosty hearts of liberal, feminist viewers must recognize abortion for what it truly is: a violence against women, as well as innocent life. It also impressed me that the film cast a critical gaze upon the selfishness of modern business practices. If we want to restore a regard for human life, we must raze all the skulking haunts of that individualism which is at the heart of the Culture of Death.

After such a glowing recommendation, a few caveats are in order. Despite a very worthy message, I thought a few aspects of the film weakened it's overall effectiveness. At the beginning of the movie, it was unclear whether or not Jos had romantic feelings toward Nina. Eventually, it becomes evident that his solicitude is purely fraternal, and that seems fitting. However, her attitude toward their relationship remains more ambiguous. For that reason, in a few scenes, their interaction struck me as inappropriate or incongruous with their relationship as revealed in the end of the film. After he spends the day counseling her, securing her a new job and welcoming her into his family life, they lie on the beach stargazing together. At one point, he falls asleep and she draws up against him. The film implies they spend the night there on the beach. In the first place, a woman in her position is very vulnerable emotionally, so a truly noble man, not interested in a romantic relationship with her, would offer more guarded attentions. Furthermore, whether Jos' interest was romantic or not, common decency and concern for Nina's character should have prevented him from staying out all night with a young lady, particularly one whose unwedded pregnancy already fell as a shadow upon her purity.

That said, and a few other nit-picky criticisms aside(like the revealing shirt Nina wears for the latter portion of the film), if it ever reaches the public, Bella has great potential for opening minds and changing hearts. The producer and star impressed me very much with their Catholic perspective and their spiritual focus. I attribute any deficiencies in the film to the time limitations their budget imposed and to unformed sensibilities(Eduardo is a recent convert, famous in Mexico as a former soap opera star and popular "boy band" performer).

More on the Bee Crisis

2007-05-16T10:46:00.000-04:00

What a tangled web we weave with our precious technology. I wonder how long it will take before the electromagnetic signals cause obvious symptoms in humans as well.

Farmer and Saint

2007-05-15T16:23:00.000-04:00

This prayer is from the National Catholic Rural Life Conference:

O GOD, Who taught Adam the simple art of tilling the soil, and who through Jesus Christ, the true vine, revealed yourself the husbandman of our souls, Deign, we pray, through the merits of blessed Isidore, to instill into our hearts a horror of sin and a love of prayer, so that, working the soil in the sweat of our brow, We may enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Read about Sts. Isidore and Maria here, here and here.

John Senior: Should We Moderate Our Praise?

2007-05-10T03:16:00.000-04:00

In a recent discussion amongst the Restorationists, John Senior was mentioned several times with great admiration, even alongside names like Plato and Newman. These references recalled to me the impressions I formed last fall, when I first read The Restoration of Christian Culture. While it contained many ideas worthy of praise, some of his recommendations struck me as recklessly unqualified. Undoubtedly, his strength lay in storytelling - when he described his visit to Fontgombault, my heart throbbed with the beauty of it. I also agree heartily with his claims that children benefit from reading good books, that singing around a piano is infinitely better than watching a movie and that devotion to Our Lady inspired the cathedrals of medieval Europe. Indeed, John Senior offers many timely insights and is certainly worth reading. However, if we truly desire a restoration of Christian culture, we must take care, not only to captivate the heart and imagination, but to engage reason with clear and prudent distinctions.

Three bothersome passages:
1) In criticizing technology, he goes so far as to disparage the simplest of mechanisms, the abacus. While I appreciate his purpose, such extreme rhetoric discredits the entire argument. To my mind, technology signifies tools which increase the potential fruit of human activity. This increased potential fruit implies more than mere increased productivity. With the proper saws, a carpenter can fashion furniture decorative as well as functional. Those saws increase the potential beauty of his work, without necessarily increasing its quantitative fruit. From this it seems that we ought to judge the worth of technology by two standards: whether it increases fruitfulness; and whether the increased fruitfulness is achieved at the expense of a more important good. I cannot imagine that the abacus fails in either way.

2) I was also disappointed with his attitude toward adolescence. He warns against sheltering children excessively, claiming that the experiential knowledge of good and evil gained through moral failure must naturally precede spiritual maturity. This sounds dangerously like the deception at the heart of the Fall - that one must experience evil in order to understand it, that we cannot be "wise as serpents and simple as doves."(Matthew 10:16)

3)Finally, he mentions The Three Musketeers as a timeless novel every child should read. In the first place, Dumas was paid by the word and wrote tremendous volumes, which makes the literary value of his work very dubious. However, the impurity of the heroes in the aforementioned tale is even more troubling. Art ought to improve our likes and dislikes by revealing the desirability of goodness and the baseness of evil. At times, this may require the depiction of sin, but good art always puts sin in the proper context.

Another Little Black Book

2007-05-09T16:01:00.000-04:00

Not a missal this time. I am now the proud owner of a traditional Benedictine breviary, the Monastic Diurnal published by St. Michael's Abbey Press. Those folks have a shop with other nifty books, cds, cards, statues, and things.

Aside from the obvious value of the work of God("Ergo nihil operi Dei praeponatur." - Rule of Benedict XLIII.3), I pray the Office in pursuit of a long-time goal: committing Scripture, prayers and hymns to memory. I once heard a story about men, imprisoned in a concentration camp, who entertained each other and preserved sanity by reciting passages from Scripture. In the event of a persecution, what fortifies martyrs and discomfits enemies of the Faith more than the Veni Creator or Te Deum? If I found myself in similar circumstances, at this point, I could contribute little. To that end, I hope to learn a few psalms in Latin.

Omnes sancti martyres, orate pro nobis!

What Restoration Looks Like

2007-05-08T09:58:00.000-04:00

This makes me happy.

The Catholic Restorationists

2007-05-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

Steve Skojec has called for a crusade of words and prayers, a group devoted to the restoration of Catholic Faith and culture. Check it out: The Catholic Restorationists

Industrialism: Overturning the Natural Order

2007-05-03T13:53:00.000-04:00

For several weeks now, I have been reading Flee to the Fields, the Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement. The book opens with an outline of principles, first in the bold and emphatic "Introduction" - which claims, among other things, that industrialism undermines family life and is, thus, incompatible with Catholic culture - and then in a stirring "Preface" by Belloc. Both excite the reader's interest and provide some preparation for the organization and purpose of the essays which follow, but they make sweeping generalizations likely to ring true with the believer, but to engender scornful skepticism from the uninitiated. "Chapter One" follows, with a short summary of the Movement's historical background, but it is "Chapter Two:The Rise and Fall of Industrialism" which first offers substantial, historical economic data. For a convinced Distributist of many years, long persuaded of the evils of the Industrial Revolution, considering the grim details of that bleak narrative demands discipline and perseverance.

However, I am fighting my usual distaste and attending with some interest to the concrete details of wages, supply, transportation, etc found in "Chapter Two." The chapter recounts the origins of industrialism in England, and the great changes it wrought upon the economic and social structure there. From its beginnings, industry was tied to a materialistic emphasis upon non-essential, or luxury, goods. Before the cotton industry developed, England obtained many luxury goods(spices, precious metals, etc.) through piracy. When that practice lost respectability, they imported the goods through merchant trade. Lacking a natural resource of commensurate value, they soon realized that England's natural resources - which were agricultural(food and wool) and would always be seasonally dependent - had limited production and trade potential. I do not believe the value of cotton was higher than that of food or wool, at least in the long run, but as a manufacturing product, it allowed merchants to rapidly produce great quantities of goods, unhampered by the inflexible limitations of seasonal crops.

Those who denigrate the agrarian cause always inquire: "Why did people flock to the city, if they enjoyed such a wonderful life in the country?" The answer has never been terribly clear to me - I imagined the lure of riches was at the heart of it. However, Herbert Shove's essay reveals that the first manufacturing enterprises created economic pressure which quickly caused landowners to raise their rent prices, driving tenant farmers into the city. Industrialism was already undermining the foundations of rural life - the odds were already set against the farmer.

From the historical narrative of the Industrial Revolution in England, Shove draws a general conclusion about industrialism itself. He claims that it always overturns the natural order of economics by withdrawing economic priority from more essential goods(necessities of food, clothing, shelter) and bestowing it upon less essential goods. With remarkable accuracy, he notes that, at the beginning, advertisement is employed to convince consumers of the essentialness of non-essential goods; but, eventually, society is restructured so that those goods actually become essential(e.g., cars). As the degeneration of society continues, the triviality of the manufactured goods increases. History reveals the indubitable truth of his prediction - manufacture began with cotton, but it now provides us with gadgets and gizmos of every shape, size and color. Aside from the greediness and disorder at the root of the industrial program, Shove also points out devastating long-term consequences for the environment: Less essential goods are proportionally less organic(from living or, at least, natural material), therefore their production is less limited AND the product less biodegradable. Steve Skojec's recent link about bees gives Shove's warning pressing relevance.

The Catholic Understanding of Conversion

2007-03-22T14:05:00.000-04:00

Last evening I attended a most interesting lecture on "conversion" in the Rule of Benedict. It was very edifying, particularly as I - quite coincidentally - returned to that text this month for my first entirely non-academic reading. By entirely non-academic, I mean that I approached it primarily as a spiritual work, rather than as a spiritual work which was fodder for exams and papers.

The speaker, a professor of Classics and a Benedictine oblate, compared the Protestant notion of conversion with St. Benedict's use of the term conversatio in his Rule. We began with readings from Luther, Calvin and Wesley, whose "conversion" accounts are characterized by a sudden, interior perception (or feeling at least) of complete change wrought in their soul, a change which anoints them for holy work. In contrast, St. Benedict uses conversatio to describe a program for holiness, the ongoing journey of the soul, the great reditus to God. The Rule is a collection of recommendations for those who embark upon that pursuit of holiness. As such, it has significance for the laymen as well as the monk.

Our speaker identified four key aspects of the program:

A) Peace through strife. The tranquility of order(Augustine) is achieved through battle - both a physical struggle with the world and a spiritual violence within our fallen souls.

B) A sound understanding of human nature. The Rule provides very thorough, practical guidelines for a life of strident discipline and prayer, yet it makes merciful provision for human weakness, and recommends a prudent flexibility. The goal of the Benedictine program is charity and wisdom, and at times it must adapt to serve them better.

C) The importance of enclosure, of self-sufficiency. If you wish to escape the distractions of the world but you are not yet fit to do battle alone (as a hermit), you should live in a community which can provide for your needs while sheltering you from the world. [Our speaker pointed out the dangers of the internet in this regard - it is an infinite breach in the wall, a limitless opportunity for distraction from the world, if you do not take strong measures to place limits on yourself.]

The 2nd and 3rd aspects, especially, reveal the wisdom of the Benedictine tradition concerning the spiritual life - grace builds upon nature. We must be attentive to the physical arrangement of our lives before we can hope to achieve success ordering ourselves spiritually.

D) Most importantly, the clear governing role of the Abbot. To give up your will is fruitless, unless you subject it to a higher authority.

Atheism of Economics

2007-03-13T15:05:00.000-04:00

This from Mr. Stork, at Caelum Et Terra:

Perhaps the best summation of the commercial republic can be found in the Argentine writer, Julio Meinvielle, in his book, From Lamennais to Maritain.[iii]

We might also point out that a society under the banner of Money, such as the Anglo-American commercial society, or under the banner of Work, such as Soviet Russia, will be structurally atheistic; for even though the merchant and the worker may believe in God, they do not believe in Him in their capacity as merchant or worker but just as private persons; that is, because they are more than just merchants or workers. For that very reason, a society which exalts Money or Work as the supreme value of life is necessarily atheistic as a society.

A Definition

2007-03-13T13:27:00.000-04:00

People always ask for a definition of Distributism. From Dr. William Fahey's preface to The Church and the Land:

"Distributism may be described as a social disposition held by those who emphasize life as lived out in a local community."

Brethren of Valaam

2007-03-09T13:09:00.000-05:00

Most terribly exciting news (for those who enjoy Eastern chant):

You can download all kinds of music here.

EDIT Be sure to listen to the track "Behold the Bridegroom Comes" from the cd titled similarly.

Seasonal Music Recommendation

2007-03-06T13:36:00.000-05:00

Tenebrae Factae Sunt by Ingeneri

Superflumina Babylonis by Palestrina

Miserere Mei by Allegri

O Vos Omnes by Victoria

Lenten Reflections

2007-02-28T11:15:00.001-05:00

"Lent, then, is a time consecrated in an especial manner to
penance; and this penance is mainly practiced by fasting. Fasting
is an abstinence, which man voluntarily imposes upon himself as an
expiation for sin, and which, during Lent, is practiced in
obedience to the general law of the Church. According to the
actual discipline of the western Church, the fast of Lent is not
more rigorous than that prescribed for the vigils of certain
feasts, and for the Ember Days; but it is kept up for forty
successive days, with the single interruption of the intervening
Sundays.

We deem it unnecessary to show the importance and advantages of
fasting. The sacred Scriptures, both of the old and new Testament,
are filled with the praises of this holy practice. The traditions
of every nation of the world testify the universal veneration in
which it has ever been held; for there is not a people or a
religion, how much soever it may have lost the purity of primitive
traditions, which is not impressed with this conviction-that man
may appease his God by subjecting his body to penance.

St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory the
Great, make the remark, that the commandment put upon our first
parents in the earthly paradise was one of abstinence; and that it
was by their not exercising this virtue, that they brought every
kind of evil upon themselves and upon us their children. The life
of privation, which the king of creation had thenceforward to lead
on the earth (for the earth was to yield him nothing of its own
natural growth, save thorns and thistles), was the clearest
possible exemplification of the law of penance imposed by the
anger of God on rebellious man.During the two thousand and more
years, which preceded the deluge, men had no other food than the
fruits of the earth, and these were obtained only by the toil of
hard labour. But when God, as we have already observed, mercifully
shortened man's life that so he might have less time and power for
sin, He permitted him to eat the flesh of animals, as an
additional nourishment in that state of deteriorated strength. It
was then, also, that Noe, guided by a divine inspiration,
extracted the juice of the grape, which thus formed a second stay
for human debility.Fasting, then, is abstinence from such
nourishments as these, which were permitted for the support of
bodily strength."

Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year

Lewis on Tolkien

2007-02-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

"Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron: here is a book which will break your heart...good beyond hope."
-C.S. Lewis concerning The Lord of the Rings

My thoughts exactly.

Silliness

2007-02-06T14:56:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'll admit it... I was not content with the dispensations of fate and took the liberty of submitting my name repeatedly until I received a satisfactory title. Can't say I'm sorry either.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Her Grace Lady Raindear the Clement of Pease Pottage
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Until Candlemass

2007-01-11T16:42:00.000-05:00

A seasonal musical recommendation...

Medieval Carols as performed by the Oxford Camerata under the direction of Jeremy Summerly. The lyrics are theologically rich and the music is both contemplative and festive.

A Christmas Sonnet(carol eventually)

2007-01-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

When first man’s life began, in Eden’s garden fair,

The wicked serpent came and tempted sorry Eve.

Both she and Adam fell, through sin earned grief and care,

In fleshly bondage fast, until virgin conceive.

Now in this manger poor, lies He they did await,

His childish face awash, with radiant glory bright.

True God incarnate here, has taken man’s estate

At last the promised One, who’s born to be our Light.

In hymns of joy which echo and resound,

Creation sings the Savior’s holy birth;

In lowly child, salvation now is found,

And see, the very hills, they ring with mirth!

So raise your voice aloud and please to join our gleeful air,

For God this day gave us His Son in answer to our prayer.

Any ideas for a title anyone?

Soul Food

2006-11-07T16:29:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of the Web Gallery of Art

Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genetrix.

Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

Taking Stock of the Food Industry: The Whole vs. the Part

2006-10-18T13:45:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I made chicken stock with a free-range, organic hen from Polyface Farm. As the broth bubbled happily, I reflected upon the absurdity of our modern eating habits. For every day kitchen needs, a whole chicken is much more economical and useful than this or that part of several chickens. A whole chicken, with organs and bones and all, allows you to make healthy and flavorful soup stock, whilst also providing a fair bit of meat at a reasonable price. True, its preparation requires a significant time commitment, but is that not preferable to the incredible waste of "producing" miriads of chickens for only the legs and breasts? Yet, if you stroll down the poultry aisle, about three quarters of the packages contain one or another appendage of said bird, while only about a quarter enclose a whole hen.

In the interest of convenience and profit, we have distanced ourselves from agriculture and thereby from nature itself. As usual, the consequences are spiritual as well as physical. But before considering the realm of the immaterial, I shall briefly address the latter, and less grave, effects.

By the time the typical chicken reaches your grocery shelf, it is in a sorry state. Commercial farms crowd chickens into indoor cages, a practice unfortunate for several reasons. First, the Creator provided chickens with beaks in order that they might peck the ground in search of insects, seeds, etc. When you stack chickens in cages with concrete floors, they cannot make proper use of their beaks. This leads to unhappy chickens, who must be debeaked lest they kill one another. Furthermore, in these close quarters, diseases breed wildly, necessitating heavy use of antibiotics. Naturally, these unreasonably "cooped up" chickens, eating pesticide-ridden grains instead of their proper food, require growth hormones in order reach a satisfactory size. I am not an animal rights activist, but I do believe in the Christian stewardship of creation. You can read about its violation here.*

The above reference leads me into my second consideration, that creation points us toward the Creator. By distancing ourselves from the farmer and his animals, by associating meat with cellophane wrapped packages in our flourescent grocery aisles, we distance ourselves from He Who is the ultimate source of life. In his lovely essay The Pleasures of Eating, Wendell Berry points out the spiritual value of knowing your food: "Some, I know, will think it bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude." As he makes clear, this gratitude toward the creature draws one's gaze even higher, to offer gratitude to God as well.

*I realize that conservatives will naturally regard with some measure of skepticism an organization which designates itself United Poultry Concerns. Truly, that title sounds more like a parody than the name of a serious group. Nevertheless, their account of industrial farming corresponds with the tales I have heard from other and more respectable sources. In any case, their immoderate concern for animals does not negate the gruesome validity of the facts. You need not regard animals as "persons" with "rights" in order to recognize their current treatment as a shameful and repulsive abuse.

Recommended Reading:

The Pleasures of Eating

The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfection of Our Nature

Cultivating Community

Technology

2006-09-26T13:48:00.002-04:00

Some thoughts from TMF, a former classmate and friend and, God-willing, a future Dominican sister who will bless the world through her prayers and through her example:

Person-to-Person Communication vs. Technology
Recently I attended a talk given by a priest on the role of technology in our lives. Rather than focusing on technology itself in his talk, he spoke about the importance of personal relationships in man's fulfillment. On earth Jesus ministered to the whole person, body and soul; we receive the life of the Church through the sacraments, ministered by other people. The communication involved is not mere transfer of information, but a meeting of persons that is much deeper than that.

Technology separates us from that personal contact, even if it connects us in some way with more people faster than ever before. But human fulfillment lies not in IMing five people at once, as they do the same, while checking your e-mail, stock quotes, watching TV and listing to the radio, but in having real human relationships with others. I thought he spoke directly to my experience of life online, but also just how busy busy busy and distracted my life usually is, always typing, listening, reading blogs and boards, being distracted. Letting all that go is almost like entering another dimension, but you have to in order to fully communicate as a person.

Father spoke about how the religious life, especially of those in formation, is so counter-cultural--they keep a "technology fast" Monday-Saturday ("And on Sunday, you'd better get out of the way! Stampede for the computers!"), eat three meals a day together in community ("nobody in America does that anymore"), etc. It takes such a change of gears in order to interact with others in that way. But Father said, "Of course, the whole point of this is prayer. If you can't give your complete attention, and be present as a person in your totality to another human, how can you expect to be present to God."

Aristotle and Natural Medicine

2006-09-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

The insidious errors of Cartesian philosophy underly most conventional medicine. Although New Age hippies and pagans now claim natural medicine for their own, the basic principles of alternative methods are actually in greater conformity with the Aristotilian(and thus Thomistic) understanding of human nature.

According to Descartes, the human body is a complex machine, inhabited and used by the soul, but not informed by it. In other words, he denies that the human soul is the act of the body, which gives it life and makes it be a human person, and not merely a human body. Instead, he posits a mechanistic explaination for the life, or operations, of the body. Such an account rejects the Aristotilian understanding of nature and of the essential unity between the body and soul.

According to Aristotle, everything that exists possesses a nature, a principle of motion or rest within itself, which determines its existence as this or that kind of thing. In living things, we call this principle the soul. The soul organizes the matter of the thing toward the specific operations of a specific kind of thing. In other words, it directs the body toward an end. Now, for living things, part of that end is health. Thus, living things have a natural inclination toward health.

The principles of conventional, modern medicine reflect the Cartesian model. Unlike traditional medicine, which recognizes the intrinsic power of the body to heal itself, modern medicine treats the body like a machine. When it malfunctions, the problem must be artificially corrected by external intervention which generally precipitates new problems of its own. In contrast, natural medicine seeks to preserve health by preventitive measures - avoiding the causes of disease - and by stimulating the body's natural healing forces. Furthermore, conventional treatments usually address the symptoms of the illness, rather than its root cause. Traditional medicines, on the other hand, approach illness holistically, concerned with the long-term health of the entire person (mind, body, spirit) and generally have no negative side effects. One simple example - painkillers. This is not a grave issue, but it is a common one. In the face of a headache, most people immediately reach for Advil, IBProfen, etc. These are anti-inflammatory drugs which relieve symptoms without addressing their cause. Many are unaware that they are also terribly bad for the kidneys. If you suffer from frequent headaches, natural medicine might recommend one or several of the following:

Less caffeine,
Food allergy testing
Exercises relieving eye strain
More water

While some of the suggestions above require a sacrifice (e.g., giving up coffee) and none of them promise immediate relief, they are certainly more conducive to overall health and to the virtue of temperance than popping 2 or 3 Advil and continuing in habits harmful to the body.

Pattern Dancing

2006-09-18T12:02:00.000-04:00

Modern dancing reflects modern culture. It is sensual, chaotic, individualistic and undignified. Put on a throbbing Techno tune and everyone gyrates madly; put on a crooning Pop ballad and couples pair off to cling and sway; put on a jarring Rock song and they'll jump up and down, yelling incoherently.

Let me present the civilized alternative. Pattern dancing. Couples form two lines and dance a specific pattern with the couple next to them. Often, in each group of four, the couple nearer the head of the set performs a different dance pattern from that of the couple nearer the foot. After completing the pattern, the bottom couple in each group of four has progressed up the line, and the top couple has progressed down the line, to dance in a new set of four. Once they reach the end of the line, each couple enters again and progresses back the other way, performing the other dance pattern.

A few benefits of pattern dancing:

1. It is an agreeable way to acquire a sense of rhythm, proportion, and good posture.

2. Catchy fiddle tunes and lively dances preserve fitting decorum and order without oppressing an energetic crowd.

3. The complex progression of the dance provides a pleasing and elegant scene for those merely watching on account of indisposition, derth of partners, old age, etc.

4. Young men and women can become better acquainted in a communal and formal setting, discouraging improper intimacy and providing set forms of behavior which distinguish the proper roles of men and women.

5. Some of the loveliest folk music falls into this genre.

5. The dances are such jolly fun!

I most enjoy the English Country Dances. They are danced to a particular song, often to a waltz tempo, and the evening always closes with a series of "regular" waltzes. For those who prefer a more "aerobic" dance, Contra dancing and Irish set dancing offer a rollicking alternative.