+Depart in Peace! Alleluia, Alleluia!

Yes, another blogging hiatus.

I am in the final throws of finishing the editing process on my dissertation (as well as writinf two more chapters), and the next few weeks are going to be quite hectic with a flurry of activity.

First, there's what is oftimes called the "summer camp for medievalists": The 43rd International Medieval Congress, held at the University of Michigan in Kalamazoo (no, I don't "have a girl" there, for you Glenn Miller fans). I will be attending some cool sessions, getting a sense of where the field of medieval studies is currently in the disciplines of history, philosophy and literature.

Then comes Don Rags. This is the end-of-semester evaluation that we put our students through, grilling them on what they have learned in the course of their readings and class discussions. These are oral exams, so they have to articulate, concisely and acurately, such concepts as being and becoming in Plato's dialogues, happiness as the highest good in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, etc. I have thirty-four students under my mentoring care that I am responsible for making sure they can sufficiently articulate these concepts in good, clear and cogent arguments. Anything less than "A" level work is grounds for being put on probation, and even might merit expulsion. I will be paired with a colleague, who will have just as many mentees as I do, so you can imagine how tough and tight the schedules are going to be.

And on top of that, there is, again, my dissertation. I was hoping to defend this spring semester, but the more realistic and probable scenario is no later than October.

So there you have it. This will not leave much time for blogging. I will start up again some time in the summer.


But for now, I wish you all a happy and blessed Pascha. Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Alleluia!

The Resurrection: The Central Mystery of Christ's Sacrifice

From Pastoral Ponderings by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon

Too often---if my impressions are correct---the Resurrection and Ascension of our Savior are treated simply as the aftermath of the sacrifice of the Cross, the first effects of Redemption, so to speak. A Christian theology informed by Holy Scripture, however, will insist that the Lord's Resurrection and the Ascension were also integral components of that sacrifice. His glorification on high accomplished that latreuic perfection which was but faintly symbolized in the Old Testament sacrifices that prefigured it.

The victims of those sacrifices, after all, were not only immolated, expressing the self-gift of those who offered them; they were also transformed by sacred fire and thereby ascended to God as the expression of Israel's worship. God received them in the fire.

In the case of our High Priest and Victim, the Holy Spirit was the true fire that transformed His immolated Body and raised it up to the Father as the perfect oblation, the supreme act of worship. The Father received that sacrifice in the fire of the Holy Spirit. This, I take it, is what St. Paul had in mind when He wrote that Christ "gave Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma" (Ephesians 5:2). On the cross Christ "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" (Hebrews 9:14).

This truth respecting the sacrificial quality of the Lord's glorification is perhaps best expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which portrays Jesus' entry into the true and heavenly sanctuary as the final act---the liturgical act!---by which He was perfected in His priesthood. Indeed, if Jesus "were on earth, He would not be a priest" (8:4).

That entrance into the Holy Place not made with hands was also the perfection of Christ as our Victim, because in it was achieved the goal of all sacrifice---the Victim became completely the possession of God, transformed by the divine acceptance of the gift. It was the fire of the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and handed Him to the Father as the perfect sacrifice, through and in which the human race has access to the Throne. This is why the Church calls the event of the Cross the "Paschal Sacrifice."

According to St. Augustine, "this sacrifice was offered by the one true Priest, the Mediator of God and man; and it was proper that this sacrifice should be pre-figured by animal sacrifices, . . . for a natural body is endowed with heavenly attributes, as the fire in the sacrifice typified the swallowing up of death in victory" (Against Faustus 22.17).

The immolated flesh of Christ, because of the perfect love that He offered to the Father in the self-gift of the Cross, received the Holy Spirit as the iron receives the fire and is thereby transformed. It was the energy of the Holy Spirit in the flesh of Christ (for His soul had departed) that preserved Him from decay and raised Him from the dead.

The glorious Christ abides, therefore, in the divinized state of sacrifice. He is the Lamb who forever stands "as though immolated"---hos esphagmenon (Revelation 5:6)---our Spirit-bearing Mediator with the Father. In this state of glory, ascended on high, He is the channel of the Spirit's sundry gifts (Ephesians 4:4-13).

The Holy Spirit Himself was the first gift of the risen Christ to the Church: "Jesus said to them again, 'Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:21-22). It is a principle of the New Dispensation that this Holy Spirit comes to the Church through Christ's transformed, divinized flesh.

The Eucharistic Mysteries are especially pertinent to this principle. How do bread and wine become the very Body and Blood of Christ? Because, says St. John of Damascus, "The Holy Spirit is present and does these things." He goes on, "The bread and wine are not mere representations of the Body and Blood of Christ---God forbid!---but the same deified Body of the Lord." We partake of these Mysteries, Damascene insists, "that we may be inflamed and deified by participation in the divine fire." This is how the Christian is transformed: "Being purified thereby, we are united to the Body of Christ and to His Spirit" (On the Orthodox Faith 4.13).

Christus Resurrexit!

St. John Chrysostom's Paschal Homily:

If any man be devout and loveth God,Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!If any man be a wise servant,Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have laboured long in fasting,Let him how receive his recompense.

If any have wrought from the first hour,Let him today receive his just reward.

If any have come at the third hour,Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.

If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.

For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,For the Saviour's death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.I
t was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominionUnto ages of ages.
Amen.

Victimae Paschali laudes:

1. Victimae paschali laudes immolent Christiani

2a. Agnus redemit oves:Christus innocens Patri
Reconciliavit peccatores.
2b. Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando,
Dux vitae mortuus, regnat vivus.

3a. Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via?
Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
Et gloriam vidi resurgentis:
3b. Angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes.
Surrexit Christus spes mea:
Praecedet vos in Galilaeam.

4a. Credendum est magis soli Mariae veraci Quam Judaeorum Turbae fallaci.
4b. Scimus Christum surrexisse a mortuis vere:

Tu nobis, victor Rex, miserere. Amen. Alleluia.

English: Christians, to the Paschal victim offer your thankful praises!A lamb the sheep redeemeth:Christ, who only is sinless,reconcileth sinners to the Father.Death and life have contendedin that combat stupendous:the Prince of life, who died,reigns immortal.Speak, Mary, declaring what thou sawest, wayfaring:"The tomb of Christ, who is living,the glory of Jesus' resurrection;"Bright angels attesting,the shroud and napkin resting."Yea, Christ my hope is arisen;to Galilee he will go before you."Christ indeed from death is risen,our new life obtaining;have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!Amen.

Hear a beautiful choral recording of the Victimae Paschali laudes

Here's another one, from a celebration of the paschal mass according to the Tridentine usage.

IMHO, one of the most beautiful paschal anthems ever written, right up there with the Paschal Troparion: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

A blessed Pascha to all.

Christus Resurrexit! Vere Resurrexit!
Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!
Christos Voskres! Voistinnu Voskres!
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

And of course, I must add Chaucerian English: Crist is Arisen! Arisen He Sothe!

Old Footage of an Easter Mass according to the Tridentine Rite...

narrated by this man:



Bishop Fulton Sheen (+1979), Bishop of Rochester and major media figure.

Here he masterfully explains every aspect of the mass as we are treated to a beautiful celebration of the Paschal liturgy.

View it here

A cautionary note to some of my Orthodox and Eastern Catholic readers: Bishop Sheen has a very "Anselmian" interpretation of the atonement as he explains the nature of the "prayers at the foot of the altar." Of course, similar intuitions are found in St. Nicholas Cabasilas, but nonetheless, I think the need for repentance that the prayers at the foot of the altar convey can be interpreted in very non-Anslemian ways.

Clyde Cook, President Emeritus, Biola University, +Requiescat in Pace

1935-2008

Read this Wikipedia article on his amazing life.

He was president when I attended Biola as an undergraduate (1984-1988), and continued to head the university when I returned in 1996 as a faculty member in the Torrey Honors Institute, which he helped get off the ground.

+Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetuam luceat ei!

+Requiescat in pace!

Please, Not Another FDR

by Christopher Westley,
The Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Harold Meyerson, writing in the Washington Post, calls for a new New Deal. The old one worked just fine, and current times call for some of the same medicine.

"Harold says it, and he's not alone. FDR's nanny-like visage has been showing up on left-liberal and neocon publications — web and print — by folks who don't understand that their favorite New York patrician-president is the reason for this economic season, to the extent that his legacy justifies intervening in market forces."

Read the rest here

What is "Orthodox Theology"?

From Eirenikon:

"What almost always passes for "Orthodox theology" among English-speaking Orthodox these days is actually just a branch of the larger Orthodox picture. Indeed, it tends sometimes to be rather sectarian.

The Orthodox Church is an ancient castle, as it were, of which only two or three rooms have been much in use since about 1920. These two or three rooms were furnished by the Russian émigrés in Paris between the two World Wars. This furniture is heavily neo-Palamite and anti-Scholastic. It relies heavily on the Cappadocians, Maximus, and Gregory Palamas (who are good folks, or course). Anything that does not fit comfortably into that model is dismissed as "Western" and even non-Orthodox.

Consequently, one will look in vain in that theology for any significant contribution from the Alexandrians, chiefly Cyril, and that major Antiochian, Chrysostom. When these are quoted, it is usually some incidental point on which they can afford to be quoted.

Now I submit that any "Orthodox" theology that has so little use for the two major figures from Antioch and Alexandria is giving something less than the whole picture.

Likewise, this popular neo-Palamite brand of Orthodoxy, though it quotes Damascene when it is convenient, never really engages Damascene’s manifestly "Scholastic" approach to theology.
Much less does it have any use for the other early Scholastic theologians, such as Theodore the Studite and Euthymus Zygabenus. There is no recognition that Scholasticism was born in the East, not the West, and that only the rise of the Turk kept it from flourishing in the East.
There is also no explicit recognition that the defining pattern of Orthodox Christology was formulated in the West before Chalcedon. Pope Leo’s distinctions are already very clear in Augustine decades before Chalcedon. Yet, Orthodox treatises on the history of Christology regularly ignore Augustine.

Augustine tends to be classified as a "Scholastic," which he most certainly was not.
But Western and Scholastic are bad words with these folks.

In fact, however, Augustine and the Scholastics represent only other rooms in the larger castle.
For this reason I urge you, as you can, to read in the Orthodox sources that tend to get skipped in what currently passes for "Orthodoxy." For my part, I believe the Russian émigré theology from Paris, which seems profoundly reactionary and anti-Western, is an inadequate instrument for the evangelization of this country and the world. I say this while gladly recognizing my own debt to Russian émigré theology."

– Father Patrick Henry Reardon (All Saints’ Orthodox Church, Chicago), an excerpt from an e-mail to an inquirer that’s been making the rounds in the Orthodox and Catholic blogospheres

Out Today: The Monastic Breviary Matins

I announce to you a great joy. Lancelot Andrewes Press has finally released the Monastic Breiviary for the office of Matins!

Here is an excerpt from the LAP website:

• Monastic Breviary Matins is a complete
English translation of the ancient Monastic
Night Office, and is necessary for those who
wish to recite the complete traditional Monastic
Divine Office in English.
• Contains beautiful, classic translations
of the Psalms, Canticles, Hymns, Responsories,
Lessons, Gospels, Collects and other elements
of the Monastic Night Office, including
the Lives of the Saints and readings from the
great Fathers and Doctors of the Church.
• Originally published in 1961 by the Society
of the Sacred Cross, an Anglican religious
community for women, in Tymawr, Wales.
• A companion volume to The Monastic
Diurnal, originally published by Oxford University
Press in 1932 and reprinted in 2006 by
Lancelot Andrewes Press.
• As with The Monastic Diurnal, this
translation conforms to the Coverdale Psalter
of the classic Book of Common Prayer, as well
as the Authorised (“King James”) Bible.
• Parallel sets of Office texts and rubrics
conforming to both the traditional Roman
and Anglican usages, where necessary.

The cost is $45, which includes shipping and handling (if odering in the U.S.).

I guess I know where my book allowance from my next paycheck is going to go!

Act repeal could make Franz Herzog von Bayern new King of England and Scotland

Good news for Jacobites! Gordon Brown, in an effort to redress historic injustices, works to repeal the Act of Settlement of 1701, which prohibits any Catholic from sitting on the English throne. For those who hold to the traditional Stuart line as the legitimate heirs to the throne, their man, Franz Herzog von Bayern, Duke of Bavaria and blood descendant of King Charles I, would have a shot at the throne as a Stuart contender against the Prince Charles.

Read the story here.

LOL: "Franz becomes the rightful claimant to the throne. We would just exchange one German family for another one." Remember, the present royal family descends from the Protestant Stuarts who married into the royal houses of the Hanoverian princes in the 18th century. Up until 1917, their family name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, when it was changed by George VI to Windsor.

Conservatives: Stay or go?

"Larison identifies the traditionalist conservative dilemma: to be in a position to move the culture, you probably will have to violate your traditionalist principles. Excerpt: 'Conservatives who don’t eschew pursuing professional and academic degrees are said to lack authenticity and credibility when they make arguments to go home, and the temperamental conservatives who don’t pursue such paths find themselves arrayed against institutions dominated entirely by people who valorize constant mobility and who embrace political and cultural values antithetical to everything the conservatives treasure.' It's a real problem. How credible are traditionalists who advise people to stay home, develop roots, etc., from comfortable positions in the academy, in the think tanks, or, well, in newsrooms -- all far from their homes? Aren't we really saying, "Don't be like us!"? Or: "Do as we say, not as we do"?"-Rod Dreher

This prompts the question of whether or not a truly conservative ethos can be lived out in a highly mobile society. Wendell Berry doesn't think so.


On a side note, Steve says: "The role of the conservative is not to stand before the march of history and stop it but rather to slow it or redirect it."

Good point! This is what a conservative ethos is all about: not to "stop" change, but to slow it down enough for us to consider how it will be incoporprated with our recieved traditions. And this requires (shall I use such an un-pc word?) some kind of "discrimination," a careful sorting of what and how certain changes can be incoroporated into the fabric of our society and what can't.

Incidently, the Senate was supposed to be the "conservative" branch, each member given six years in order to slow down radical legislation from the more "radical" branch-the House of Representatives.

Contra linguae vulgari

Arturo Vasquez discusses the necessity for sacred language in the worship of the Church.

"It is a common argument nowadays that a sacred language would never fly with modern man, that if the Catholic Church went back to having all Latin services tomorrow, people would leave in droves. People want to understand what is being said in services, people benefit from learning the “Word of God” etc. This may be true, but it is a rather curious assumption, since the now largest religion in the world, Islam, uses Koranic Arabic in its instruction and prayer from Morrocco to the southern Philipines, from mosques in sub-Saharan Africa to store front meeting places in the ghettos of Oakland. Venacularization may not be the best growth strategy if we look at the example of our main competitor."

Read the rest.

New Regulations Will Shape the Next Crisis

What do we have to worry about? According to Gary North at LewRockwell.com, everything!

Here's the truth of the matter: the government and the FED create a crisis. Then new regulations are put in place to address the crisis, but having the deleterious effect of creating bigger crises that bring about more regulation, thereby threatening our economic liberty.

Read it here

Tibetan Protest in San Francisco Ahead of Olympic Torch Relay

So now China has its first Olympic games, and wants to polish its image to the world.

Tibet, of course, is going to make it very difficult for her to do that.

I think it quite interesting, and hypocritical, that the U.S., in cooperation with NATO, would recognize and virtually create an expanded Islamic state in the Balkans which oppresses Christians, would completely ignore Tibet's cry for self-determination. Tibet, IMHO, has an even better claim to independence and self-determination than Kosovo, and yet we turn a blind eye to China's relentless campaign of destruction and oppression of this ancient and venerable people.

Read the BBC article here

My two-cents worth:

We turn a blind eye primarily because we are now economically beholden to China! We are so much in debt that we dare not raise our voices to our new economic masters. They own our debt, and it will not be long before we, too, will be dictated to in our foreign and domestic policies. We can stop buying Chinese products, and that will force us to tighten our belts, pay our debts and live within our means. Will we do that? Not bloody likely.

In the meantime, China continues to grow exponentlially, and we are selling her the rope by which she will hang us as well. Or should I say, we are borrowing more to buy the rope (on credit), so that when we can no longer pay, China will hang us. She will continue to have a free hand in Tibet, and the "leader of the free world" will have nothing to say about it. We will go after small fish like Robert Mugabe, but will continue to be silent about China's oppression of Tibet.

The Sermons of Cowards

From Fr. Methodius' blog:

The powerful nations of the West are fond of preaching sanctimonious sermons about freedom and democracy to tin-pot dictators like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, but are too chicken to speak the truth to power when it come to the evils in their own back yards.

Read article here

Biretta tip to The Young Fogey

Charlton Heston, +Requiscat in Pace

A bit belated, but I would be remiss in not reflecting on the death of my favorite actor.

A true Christian gentleman, that rare breed of fellows who knew how to relate to people. He held his conservative political convictions in such a way that he could engage in a calm, reasonable exchange with people who disagreed with him with great congeniality, respect and humour. His command of classical literature was astounding, with quotes from Cicero, Virgil, Juvenal and Seneca rolling out of his tongue as though they were old friends. A devout Presbyterian, faith was for him an indispensable part of who he was.

My favorite Heston films: The Agony and the Ecstasy, Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Omega Man, Planet of the Apes.

Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

+Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetuam luceat ei!

+Memory Eternal! Memory Eternal! May his memory be eternal!

St. Isidore of Seville

San Ysidro de Sevilla

Last of the Latin Fathers, perhaps first of the medieval Aristotelians (at least the Anglican Breviary attributes to him the promulgation of Aristotle in Spain before the Moors got there).

This was a man who combined deep piety and scholarly curiosity, composing a summa of universal knowledge known as the Etymologiae. This was an encyclopedic compilation of learned treatises on natural philosophy (drawing heavily from Aristotle). It had a long life as a basic textbook in the medieval universities, and its popularity continued well into the Renaissance. In Dante's Divine Comedy, he is mentioned in Paradise (XI:30) with the great theologians and doctors of the Church.

Here is a link to the complete text of the Etymologiae in Latin.

I have not found any online text in English, but here is a good translation by Priscilla Throop.

Bishop, Confessor, Doctor: Ora pro nobis!

War By Faith Alone

David Gordon reviews George Weigel's Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism(Doubleday, 2007):

The key to George Weigel's thought lies in his earlier massive volume Tranquillitas Ordinis (Oxford University Press, 1987). St. Augustine beautifully defined peace as the tranquility of order. Weigel twists Augustine's dictum for his own bellicose purposes. In standard just war theory, the conditions a legitimate war are required to meet are so demanding that, as the eminent theologian Charles Cardinal Journet contended,

"After reading this specification [by St. Thomas Aquinas of the criteria] for a just war we might well ask how many wars have been wholly just. Probably they could be counted on the fingers of one hand." (Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate, Volume 1, Sheed and Ward, 1955, pp. 306–307)

Weigel endeavors to escape from these limits. Anything less than a stable, ordered world does not meet Augustine's definition of peace. But should not our goal be to promote this sort of peace, rather than be satisfied with peace as the mere absence of war? If so, we may aim actively to secure an ordered world. Needless to say, Augustine did not take his remark to have these implications. Quite the contrary, he helped initiate the tradition of strict limits on war to which Cardinal Journet refers. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism may be regarded as an application of Weigel's "tranquillitas ordinis fallacy" to current American foreign policy.[1]
The book consists of three parts: the initial part concentrates on Islamic theology and the other two on foreign policy issues. I propose to concentrate on the latter two parts, since theology far exceeds my competence. The sum and substance of the first part is that the notion of three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, should be rejected. Islam diverges sharply from the other two faiths. The issue, further, cannot be confined to mere theological argument. Many Muslims wish to wage holy war against the West in order to bring about the triumph of their faith. In doing so, some countenance tactics of terror, as we learned to our horror on 9/11. Some Muslims seem amenable to compromise, but the danger from Islam must not be underestimated; and tough tactics are the order of the day. An "Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI" signed by thirty-eight Islamic leaders is encouraging.

"Yet it is not without interest that this statement — which despite its shortcomings was still the most forthcoming from senior Muslim leaders in living memory — followed a robust critique [by the Pope] of the theological roots of jihadism, not the exchange of banalities and pleasantries that too often characterizes interreligious dialogue. Surely there are lessons here for the future." (p. 61)

I do not wish to argue for a different view of Islam from that which Weigel adopts: his foreign policy conclusions do not follow even if one sees Islam as he does. But his efforts to drive a wedge between Islam and the other two "Abrahamic" religions are sometimes forced. He rightly notes that Muslims believe that their faith has superseded Judaism and Christianity.

Read the rest of the article here

Very key point:
" Weigel says: 'Islam's radical stress on the unicity (oneness) of God, which Islam sharply distinguishes from the Christian Trinitarian concept of God, may also help explain the differing success each religion has had in creating societies characterized by a healthy, vibrant pluralism.' (p. 169, note 21) Weigel omits to mention that Judaism also insists on God's absolute unity. Indeed, Maimonides largely for that reason thought Islam closer to the truth than Christianity."