A blessing in disguise?

Make mine a double scotch! With a round of some heavy-duty vodka!

Courtesy of 3rd Blog from the Right by way of The Young Fogey

Islam and "Sunday Christianity"

What happened in the 20th century after we made Christianity "easy"?

Fr. Timothy Kroh of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Chester, Pennsylvania tells us why young people in Chester are converting to Islam in large numbers. Hint: something about the demand for a true conversion, a real and radical change of life.

Read the article here.

Biretta tip to The Young Fogey

A Visit that Changed the World

This is the day when heaven broke into our world, because a poor Judean girl two-thousand years ago said "yes" to God, and nothing has been quite the same since.



A sermon by St. Proclus of Constantinople:

Our present gathering in honor of the Most Holy Virgin inspires me, brethren, to say of Her a word of praise, of benefit also for those come unto this churchly solemnity.
It comprises a praise of women, a glorying of their gender, which (glory) is brought it by Her, She Who is at one same time both Mother, and Virgin. O desired and wondrous gathering! Celebrate, O nature, that wherein honor be rendered to Woman; rejoice, O human race, that wherein the Virgin be glorified. "For when sin did abound, grace did superabound" (Rom 5:20). The Holy Mother of God and Virgin Mary hath gathered us here, She the pure treasure of virginity, the intended paradise of Second Adam -- the locus, wherein was accomplished the co-uniting of natures, wherein was affirmed the Counsel of salvific reconciliation.

Whoever is it that ever saw, whoever heard, that within a womb the Limitless God would make habitation, Whom the Heavens cannot circumscribe, Whom the womb of a Virgin limiteth not!?
He born of woman is not only God and He is not only Man: This One born made woman, being the ancient gateway of sin, into the gateway of salvation: where evil poured forth its poison, bringing on disobedience, there the Word made for Himself a living temple, bringing in thither obedience; from whence the arch-sinner Cain sprang forth, there without seed was born Christ the Redeemer of the human race.

The Lover-of-Mankind did not disdain to be born of woman, since this bestowed His life. He was not subject to impurity, being settled within the womb, which He Himself arrayed free from all harm. If perchance this Mother did not remain a Virgin, then that born of Her might be a mere man, and the birth would be no wise miraculous; but since she after birth remained a Virgin, then how is He Who is born indeed -- not God? It is an inexplicable mystery, since in an inexplicable manner was born He Who without hindrance went through doors when they were locked. When confessing in Him the co-uniting of two natures, Thomas cried out: "My Lord, and my God!" (Jn 20:28).

The Apostle Paul says, that Christ is "to the Jews indeed scandal, and to the Gentiles yet folly" (1 Cor 1:23): they did not perceive the power of the mystery, since it was incomprehensible to the mind: "for had they understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor 2:8). If the Word had not settled within the womb, then the flesh would not have ascended with Him onto the Divine Throne; if for God it were disdainful to enter into the womb, which He created, then the Angels too would have disdained service to mankind.

That One, Who by His nature was not subject to sufferings, through His love for us subjected Himself to many a suffering. We believe, that Christ not through some gradual ascent towards the Divine nature was made God, but being God, through His mercy He was made Man. We do not say: "a man made God"; but we confess, that God was incarnated and made Man.
His Servant was chosen for Himself as Mother by That One Who, in His essence did not have mother, and Who, through Divine foresight having appeared upon the earth in the image of man, does not have here father. How one and the same is He both without father, and without mother, in accord with the words of the Apostle (Heb 7:3)? If He -- be only a man, then He cannot be without mother -- but actually He had a Mother. If He -- be God only, then He cannot be without Father -- but in fact He has the Father. And yet as God the Creator He has not mother, and as Man He has not father.

We can be persuaded in this by the very name of the Archangel, making annunciation to Mary: his name -- is Gabriel. What does this name mean? -- it means: "God and man." Since That One about Whom he announced is God and Man, then his very name points beforehand to this miracle, so that with faith be accepted the deed of the Divine dispensation.

To save people would be impossible for a mere man, since every man has need in the Saviour: "for all, -- says Saint Paul, -- have sinned, and come short the Glory of God" (Rom 3:23). Since sin subjects the sinner to the power of the devil, and the devil subjects him to death, then our condition did become extremely hapless: there was no sort of way to be delivered from death.
There were sent physicians, i.e. the prophets, but they could only the more clearly point out the malady. What did they do? When they saw, that the illness was beyond human skill, they summoned from Heaven the Physician; one of them said "Lord, bend the heavens, and come down" (Ps 143[144]:5); others cried out: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shalt be healed" (Jer 17:14); "restore Thine power, and come yet to save us" (Ps 79[80]:3). And yet others: "For if God truly be settled with man upon the earth" (3[1] Kg 8:27); "speedily send before Thine tender mercy, O Lord, for we are brought very low" (Ps 78[79]:8).

Others said: "O woe to me, my soul! For the pious art perished from the earth, and of the upright amongst men there is none" (Mich 7:2). "O God, in help attend to me, O Lord, shield me with Thine help" (Ps 69[70]:1). "If there be delay, endure it, for He that cometh shalt come, and not tarry" (Hab 2:3). "Perishing like a lost sheep: seek out Thine servant, who doth hope on Thee" (Ps 118[119]:176). "For God wilt come, our God, and wilt not keep silence" (Ps. 49[50]:3).
That One, Who by nature is Lord, did not disdain human nature, enslaved by the sinister power of the devil, the merciful God would not accede for it to be forever under the power of the devil, the Ever-Existing One came and gave in ransom His Blood; for the redemption of the race of man from death He gave up His Body, which He had accepted of the Virgin, He delivered the world from the curse of the law, annihilating death by His death. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law" -- exclaims Saint Paul (Gal 3:13).
Thus know, that our Redeemer is not simply a mere man, since all the human race was enslaved to sin. But He likewise is not God only, non-partaking of human nature. He had body, since if He had not clothed Himself in me, He then likewise should not have saved me. But, having settled within the womb of the Virgin, He clothed Himself in my fate, and within this womb He perfected a miraculous change: He bestowed the Spirit and received a body, That One only indeed (dwelling) with the Virgin and (born) of the Virgin. And so, Who is He, made manifest to us? The Prophet David doth point it out for thee in these words: "Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord" (Ps 117[118]:26).

But tell us even more clearly, O prophet, Who is He? The Lord is the God of Hosts, says the prophet: "God is the Lord, and hath revealed Himself unto us" (Ps 117[118]:27). "The Word was made flesh" (Jn 1:14): there were co-united the two natures, and the union remained without mingling.

He came to save, but had also to suffer. What has the one in common with the other? A mere man cannot save; and God in only His nature cannot suffer. By what means was done the one and the other? Wherein that He, Emmanuel, being God, was made also Man; both this, that what He was, He saved by -- and this, that what He was made, He suffered as. Wherefore, when the Church beheld that the Jewish throng had crowned Him with thorns, bewailing the violence of the throng, it said: "Daughters of Zion, go forth and behold the crown, of which is crowned He of His mother" (Sng 3:11).

He wore the crown of thorns and destroyed the judgement to suffering from the thorns. He Only is That One both in the bosom of the Father and in the womb of the Virgin; He Only is That One -- in the arms of His Mother and in the wings of the winds (Ps. 103[104]:3); He, to Whom the Angels bowed down in worship, at that same time reclined at table with publicans.
Upon Him the Seraphim dared not to gaze, and at the same time Pilate pronounced sentence upon Him. He is That One and Same, Whom the servant did smite and before whom did tremble all creation.

He was nailed to the Cross and ascended to the Throne of Glory -- He was placed in the tomb and He stretched out the heavens like a skin (Ps. 103[104]:2) -- He was numbered amidst the dead and He emptied hell; here upon the earth, they cursed at Him as a transgressor -- there in Heaven, they exclaimed Him glory as the All-Holy.

What an incomprehensible mystery! I see the miracles, and I confess, that He is God; I see the sufferings, and I cannot deny, that He is Man. Emmanuel opened up the doors of nature, as man, and preserved unharmed the seal of virginity, as God: He emerged from the womb thus as He entered through the announcing; the same wondrously was He both born and conceived: without passion He entered, and without impairment He emerged, as concerning this doth say the Prophet Ezekiel: "He returned me back the way of the gates of the outer sanctuaries, looking upon the east: and these had been shut. And saith the Lord to me: son of man, these gates shalt be closed, and not open, and no one go through them: for the Lord God of Israel, He Only, shalt enter and come forth, and they wilt be shut" (Ez 44:1-2). Here it clearly indicates the Holy Virgin and Mother of God Mary.

Let cease all contention, and let the Holy Scripture enlighten our reason, so that we too receive the Heavenly Kingdom unto all eternity. Amen.

Happy 403rd Birthday, Kappelmeister!

The Master turns 403 today, and he is still setting the standard for instrumental and choral virtuosity, driven by one holy passion: Soli Deo Gloria! May his works know many, many more centuries of life and influence.

My thoughts on Bach as playd on piano: In my humble opinion, there was only one pianist who could pull this off-Glenn Gould. As a matter of fact, if Bach is being played on piano, and it's not Glenn Gould, then it's not Bach on piano. PERIOD! It is useless otherwise. Why, it's like trying to have the Benny Goodman Orchestra without Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa, or Led Zeppelin without John Bonham. It's simply not-going-to-happen!

To see what I mean, here's Glenn Gould playing the Bach's Partita NO. 6.

Now listen to the Rostropovich, AKA The Master Cellist, play Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.

Edmund Burke as Christian Statesman

An article by Fr. Francis Canavan, S.J., published by The Edmund Burke Society

First, Edmund Burke was a Christian, despite the doubts that critics have expressed about his faith. But he was the child of a mixed marriage between a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, a member of the Established Church of Ireland.
Because Edmund was somewhat sickly as a child he was sent to spend some years with his mother’s Catholic relatives in the healthier air of the Cork countryside. With them, he remained in friendly (and helpful) contact throughout his life. Always sympathetic with their lot and that of their fellow Catholics, he took an active part in relaxing the penal laws both in Ireland and England.

If Burke had a personal problem because of the religious division in his family, he resolved it by minimizing the theological differences among the various Christian churches. As he wrote to a Quaker friend while he was a student at Trinity College in Dublin, “we take different roads, it is true,” but “as there is but one God so there is but one faith and one Baptism.”
The one faith was, in his words, “Christianity at large.” It was “our common faith,” “our common hope,” the “one common bottom on which all the principal religions in Europe stand.” The European nations were thus members of “the great commonwealth of Christendom,” having “the very same Christian religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the subordinate doctrines.”

Burke never troubled himself to list those fundamentals, but his conviction about them enabled him to favor a relatively high degree of religious tolerance while insisting on the value of national religious establishments, Protestant in Great Britain and Ireland, but Catholic in France. When the French Revolution arrived, he strove to rally the nations of Europe to defend the commonwealth of Christendom against it.

But he denied that he was pressing religion into the service of an aristocracy and its political order. On the contrary, he said: “Religion is so far from being out of the province or the duty of a Christian magistrate, that it is, and it ought to be, not only his care, but the principal thing in his care; because it is one of the great bonds of human society; and its object the supreme good, the ultimate end and object of man himself.”

The revolution in France, as he saw it, was the spawn of an anti-Christian Enlightenment and therefore an attack on a civilization whose basis was Christianity. If the Christian religion “is destroyed, nothing can be saved, or is worth saving,” because “on that religion, according to our mode, all our laws and institutions stand as upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every transaction of life; and if that were done away, every thing else, as in France, must be changed along with it.”

Read the rest here

Ash Wednesday Sermon

I am occasionally called upon, as a subdeacon in my parish, to give a short sermon. For Ash Wednesday (which was just five days ago for us Orthodox Christians worshipping in the venerable rites of the West), Father requested that I give a short meditation.

Yes, I know! Many of you, my Roman Catholic and Protestant readers, are in the midst of Holy Week, and we Orthodox are just getting Lent under way. Hopefully, the themes of this sermonette will be of some edification to you.

Here it is:

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

It has begun! The season for feasting is put aside today, as the Church, in her wisdom, enjoins us to put away all earthly care, to rest our bodies, minds, our tongues, and especially-our stomachs. It is a season for us to remember, with St. Paul, the Christian vocation of struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil, and to bring our bodies into subjection, that we may present both soul and body as a reasonable act of worship before God. Yes, our bodies do matter, because God loves the material world so much that He chose to come down and take on a material body, to bathe in it, dance and sing in it, to heal the sick and the blind with it, and finally to die and rise with it. And not only would He rise with it, but He would transfigure it by ascending with it to the right hand of the Father.

This is the glory that we ourselves are destined for. St. Paul draws a striking picture of the great destiny that awaits not only the Christian, but through the Christian, all of creation: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but we ourselves, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:19-23) The groans of creation for its deliverance from bondage is a reflection of the inner groaning of our souls for redemption from the futility of sin and death. We are called to rise and acknowledge our true vocation as human persons, to be the priests of creation, to offer it up to God the father, in humble imitation of Him who for our sakes took on flesh, fulfilling the original vocation of the first Adam. We are called, at this time, to take up the arms of holy fight against those things that would keep us from our true destiny in Christ. The very chief thing we need to fast from is sin!

On this day, we have heard the solemn sentence: “Remember, Man, that thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return.” We stand with Adam, lamenting the loss of Paradise, but looking forward with the hope of redemption and the ultimate goal of why we were created: to be deified in Christ, becoming by grace what He is by nature. The Church proclaims this reminder of our mortality not to be morbid, but to awaken us to the reality of the fact that sin has caused the corruption of our nature, and therefore we have but a little time left in this life. She seeks to awaken us with a hard and necessary reality chaeck. If you seek warm fuzzies, the Church has none to offer you. What she gives you instead is a cross to bear, made lighter by His sacrifice, surely, but one which we must bear in this life in order to reach our ultimate destiny. Lent is a reminder of the nature of the sojourn in this life we are all called upon to undertake. But this “vale of tears” leads ultimately to victory and the joy of resurrection. We have heard the cold, hard sentence that sin has brought upon us, but thank God, that is not where the story ends. It ends with the joyous proclamation of paschal joy, for in Christ’s resurrection, we too have the hope of rising with glorified bodies, and seeing Him face to face.

But for now, we are enjoined once again to take up the arms of holy fight, to realize how short our time is, and to get busy in the work of the Kingdom. Holy reading, regular prayer, regular confession with your priest, together with what Holy Church calls the corporal works of mercy-feeding the hungry and clothing the naked-put us in such a mind that we see our own need for God, and at the same time, show love for others as we see them as God sees them.

The time has come to fight, good Christian soul. Let us put away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, that our Lenten journey may be fruitful and prepare us for the paschal joy that awaits us.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Metropolitan Laurus, Requiescat in Pace

With great sandess I report, a day late, the repose of one of the Orthodox Church's great hierarchs: Metropolitan Laurus of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). He led the flock in its principled stance against the Moscow Patriarchate and its tendencies to compromise with the Godless Bolsheviks, but rightly reconciled with her when it was time to do so.

Reqiscas in Pace, sacerdos bonus et fidelis!
Memory Eternal! Memory Eternal! May his Memory be Eternal!

Plight of Christians in Iraq

The abduction and murder of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho raises questions about the plight of Christians in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq. The answer-not good!

Apparently, the kidnapping of priests and hierarchs has become a commonplace occurance. Usually they are held for ransom, then released. In the case of the Archbishop, he had had a heart condition, so he may have died as a result of the stress of kidnapping. This would make sense, since the kidnappers might think he would bring a pretty considerable sum of ransom money, being such a high-ranking figure in Iraq's Christian community.

Pray for Iraq's Christians!

Read the BBC article here

Requiem for Iraqi Archbishop

+Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei!
+Requiescat in Pace!

Read article here

Yemeni Jew Explains: Allah is a Name for God!

A bit anti-Christian, but nonetheless nails it: Christians, it is ok to call God "Allah"!

View it here.

Glory be to the Triune Allah: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Alu Akhbar! (God is Great!)

Darn Gringos!

by Arturo Vasquez

On a Catholic radio show, many people, including the host, chimed in on how they were unnerved by news of the exhumation of Padre Pio on the fortieth anniversary of his death. While they understood it on the intellectual level, they still found the idea unsavory.
Attitudes like that make me all the more pessimistic about the fate of the Church in this country. People can hoot all they want about how great it is to be Catholic and be triumphalistic about doctrine and apologetics. But when the rubber hits the road, and you have to whip out all of the blood and guts of the real Catholic Faith, people hesitate and are almost horrified by the ancient traditions of the Church.
One would wonder what the first inclinations of American Catholics would be when witnessing a martyrdom. I remember the case of Blessed Miguel Pro who was executed by the Masonic government in Mexico. I think his own family whipped out handkerchiefs to soak up the blood. “First class relics,” they thought.
Only proves one thing: Catholicism in this country doesn’t come instinctively for most. Hence, I suppose, my sometimes profound distaste for it.

My comment:

I can tell you what many might do in the presence of a martyrdom. While the family of Blessed Miguel Pro would take up hankerchiefs to soak up the great martyr’s blood, many American churchmen would be content to let the city sanitation department deal with the “handling” of the “remains.” Of course, we will need face masks (Lord only knows what germs and bacteria would be flying all over the place at such an unsanitary and unsavory site) and latex gloves if, and only IF, we need to handle “the remains” at all.
So much for the Incarnation of the Son of Man, who by His blood raised us from death to life, conquering death by death!

Kyrie eleison!

Do "Raghead" Christians Count?

by John Zmirak at Taki's Magazine

Conditions in the new Iraq continue to get worse for that country’s dwindling Christian population. On Friday, February 29, 2008 terrorists kidnapped Paulos Faraj Rahho archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and killed three of his assistants. We still don’t know who’s responsible--our Shi’ite “allies” (who have marched around Christian neighborhoods closing down liquor stores and offering Christian women the choice of hijab or death), Sunni Ba’athists, or the tiny cadres of Al Qaeda in Iraq. It might just be bandits, preying on a group that has lost the protection its once enjoyed under the sturdily secular (if tyrannical) regime of Saddam Hussein. This is just the sort of thing which “unpatriotic” war skeptics feared, and some of us predicted: that in removing the iron fist of secular dictatorship, we might well unleash the will of the people. In Iraq, as in many parts of the world, what people will seem to want is the chance to gouge, slaughter, and drive out their neighbors. It’s hackneyed to point to the death of Tito and the subsequent bloody dismemberment of Yugoslavia, but the comparison holds--right down to the ethnic cleansing that even today the Kosovo Albanians are practicing against the harried remnant of Christian Serbs.

Read the rest of the article here

Meatfare Sunday: An Ode (to the tune of Terry Jacks)

Well, if you are Orthodox, lent is just a week away!

For those following the Byzantine observance, yesterday was Meatfare Sunday, the last day you can consume meat. In Russia, I'm told that the two weeks leading up to Lent are a big party, Cheesefare week being especially celebratory, with pastry shops open around the clock and champaigne and chilled vodka flowing quite liberally.

Rod Dreher (his carnivore self pictured above) has composed a witty little version of that Terry Jacks classic, Seasons in the Sun, to commemorate the sad parting with "all things fleshly":

Goodbye bacon, my trusted friend/ I've loved having you in my kitchen/ Together
we've drawn out your grease/ To season my black-eyed peas./ You're so good with eggs and cheese.

Goodbye pork ribs, it's hard to die
To yourself; I'll really miss pot pie
And steaks seared on the grill.
Chicken tacos? Steel the will!
Mortify that fleshly thrill!

(Chorus)We had joy, we had funWe had pulled pork on a bun.
But the meat on which we dine
For two long months we must pine.

Father Joseph, pray for me
I want lamb chops almost constantly.
Though I know it's very wrong
I'll inhale a grilled foot-long
When I quit this stupid song.

Vladyka, dear, it's hard to fast
Fried tofu is pretty poor ballast
And I'm real sick of eating beans.
Emitting aromas most unclean,
The kids call me Stinky Jeans.

(Chorus)We had joy, we had fun
We had pulled pork on a bun.
But we are called to be ascetic:
At this holy task I'm most pathetic.

Goodbye kebab and tandoori.
Meat lasagna -- arrivider-er-ci!
Beef tamales -- adios.
No more gravlax upon toast
By order of the Holy Ghost.

(Chorus)We had joy, we had fun
We had pulled pork on a bun.
Protein's in an eight-week rut:
Endless butter from the nut.

(Chorus)We had joy, we had fun
We had pulled pork on a bun.
For this devoted carnivore
Vegan life is a crashing bore.

(Chorus)We had joy, we had fun
We had pulled pork on a bun.
Heathens, grill for me by proxy.
I'm sold out to Orthodoxy.

"Some Damn Fool Thing in the Balkans"

by Pat Buchanan at Antiwar.com

"When the Great War comes, said old Bismarck, it will come out of 'some damn fool thing in the Balkans.'"

"The U.S. war on Serbia was unconstitutional, unjust, and unwise. Congress never authorized it. Serbia, an ally in two world wars, had never attacked us. We made an enemy of the Serbs, and alienated Russia, to create a second Muslim state in the Balkans. By intervening in a civil war where no vital interest was at risk, the United States, which is being denounced as loudly in Belgrade today as we are being cheered in Pristina, has acquired another dependency. And our new allies, the KLA, have been credibly charged with human trafficking, drug dealing, atrocities, and terrorism. And the clamor for ethnic self-rule has only begun to be heard. Romania has refused to recognize the new Republic of Kosovo, for the best of reasons. Bucharest rules a large Hungarian minority in Transylvania, acquired at the same Paris Peace Conference of 1919 where Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina were detached from Vienna and united with Serbia."

Read article here

Good News for a Post-Christian World

The original Young Fogey shares this bit of wisdom:

Malcolm Muggeridge always talked about how Christendom was something that had ended — that we are now in effect back in the subterranean channels, having to do it all over again. And yet he was also, by nature, very happy and amusing. I should like to think that the inherent vibrancy of Christianity is waiting to be understood and appreciated. Mind you, I move among a set of people who are the intelligentsia. They are among the most deprived. If one were moving among most other sets of people, one would feel less loneliness in this matter. It is one thing to consult only with the faculty of Yale but quite another to consult the Civic Council of Columbus, Ohio. Christianity is more likely to be a staple part of their lives.

There is a sense in which being a conservative Christian and a traditional conservative (NOT a "neo-con") means that you are always going to be somewhat pessimistic of the times, and for good reason-traditional conservatism, like the ancient faith, understands that even in the best of times, human beings are flawed, and so in a sense, the times are always going to be "bad" until the fulfillment of the eschaton. We can make our world less wicked, but rooting out wickedness would require that we all wrench our hearts out, because that is where the line between good and evil runs. Traditional conservatism has no time for utopias. Government fascism, corporate fascism, communism, et al., are, in the end, (to quote the late Eric Voeglin) petty "immanentizations of the transcendent eschaton."

But then again, there is a lot to be hopeful about:

But on a personal level, I’m much more ebullient, and enthusiastic. How could I not be? As long as people are still singing the liturgy, writing books and making art and children, there is hope, and there is truth, goodness and beauty in the world.

Amen!!!