Trinity Sunday

From Mater Dei:

St. Leo the GreatSERMON LXXV(ON WHITSUNTIDE, I.)
I. The giving of the Law by Moses prepared the way for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
The hearts of all catholics, beloved, realize that to-day's solemnity is to be honoured as one of the chief feasts, nor is there any doubt that great respect is due to this day, which the Holy Spirit has hallowed by the miracle of His most excellent gift. For from the day on which the Lord ascended up above all heavenly heights to sit down at God the Father's right hand, this is the tenth which has shone, and the fiftieth from His Resurrection, being the very day on which it began, and containing in itself great revelations of mysteries both new and old, by which it is most manifestly revealed that Grace was fore-announced through the Law and the Law fulfilled through Grace. For as of old, when the Hebrew nation were released from the Egyptians, on the fiftieth day after the sacrificing of the lamb the Law was given on Mount Sinai, so after the suffering of Christ, wherein the true Lamb of God was slain on the fiftieth day from His Resurrection, the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles and the multitude of believers, so that the earnest Christian may easily perceive that the beginnings of the Old Testament were preparatory to the beginnings of the Gospel, and that the second covenant was rounded by the same Spirit that had instituted the first.
II. How marvellous was the gift of "divers tongues."
For as the Apostles' story testifies: "while the days of Pentecost were fulfilled and all the disciples were together in the same place, there occurred suddenly from heaven a sound as of a violent wind coming, and filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance." Oh! how swift are the words of wisdom. and where God is the Master, how quickly is what is taught, learnt. No interpretation is required for understanding, no practice for using, no time for studying, but the Spirit of Truth blowing where He wills, the languages peculiar to each nation become common property in the mouth of the Church. And therefore from that day the trumpet of the Gospel-preaching has sounded loud: from that day the showers of gracious gifts, the rivers of blessings, have watered every desert and all the dry land, since to renew the face of the earth the Spirit of God "moved over the waters," and to drive away the old darkness flashes of new light shone forth, when by the blaze of those busy tongues was kindled the Lord's bright Word and fervent eloquence, in which to arouse the understanding, and to consume sin there lay both a capacity of enlightenment and a power of burning.
III. The three Persons in the Trinity are perfectly equal in all things.
But although, dearly-beloved, the actual form of the thing done was exceeding wonderful, and undoubtedly in that exultant chorus of all human languages the Majesty of the Holy Spirit was present, yet no one must think that His Divine substance appeared in what was seen with bodily eyes. For His Nature, which is invisible and shared in common with the Father and the Son, showed the character of His gift and work by the outward sign that pleased Him, but kept His essential property within His own Godhead: because human sight can no more perceive the Holy Ghost than it can the Father or the Son. For in the Divine Trinity nothing is unlike or unequal, and all that can be thought concerning Its substance admits of no diversity either in power or glory or eternity. And while in the property of each Person the Father is one, the Son is another, and the Holy Ghost is another, yet the Godhead is not distinct and different; for whilst the Son is the Only begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, not in the way that every creature is the creature of the Father and the Son, but as living and having power with Both, and eternally subsisting of That Which is the Father and the Son[1]. And hence when the Lord before the day of His Passion promised the coming of the Holy Spirit to His disciples, He said, "I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth shall have come, He shall guide you into all the Truth. For He shall not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He shall have heard, He shall speak and shall announce things to come unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I that He shall take of Mine, and shall announce it to you." Accordingly, there are not some things that are the Father's, and other the Son's, and other the Holy Spirit's: but all things whatsoever the Father has, the Son also has, and the Holy Spirit also has: nor was there ever a time when this communion did not exist, because with Them to have all things is to always exist. In them let no times, no grades, no differences be imagined, and, if no one can explain that which is true concerning God, let no one dare to assert what is not true. For it is more excusable not to make a full statement concerning His ineffable Nature than to frame an actually wrong definition. And so whatever loyal hearts can conceive of the Father's eternal and unchangeable Glory, let them at the same time understand it of the Son and of the Holy Ghost without any separation or difference. For we confess this blessed Trinity to be One God for this reason, because in these three Persons there is no diversity either of substance, or of power, or of will, or of operation.
IV. The Macedonian heresy is as blasphemous as the Arian.
As therefore we abhor the Arians, who maintain a difference between the Father and the Son, so also we abhor the Macedonians, who, although they ascribe equality to the Father and the Son, yet think the Holy Ghost to be of a lower nature, not considering that they thus fall into that blasphemy, which is not to be forgiven either in the present age or in the judgment to come, as the Lord says: "whosoever shall have spoken a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but he that shall have spoken against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him either in this age or in the age to come." And so to persist in this impiety is unpardonable, because it cuts him off from Him, by Whom he could confess: nor will he ever attain to healing pardon, who has no Advocate to plead for him. For from Him comes the invocation of the Father, from Him come the tears of penitents, from Him come the groans of suppliants, and "no one can call Jesus the Lord save in the Holy Ghost,'' Whose Omnipotence as equal and Whose Godhead as one, with the Father and the Son, the Apostle most clearly proclaims, saying, "there are divisions of graces but the same Spirit; and the divisions of ministrations but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations but the same God, Who worketh all things in all."
V. The Spirit's work is still continued in the Church.
By these and other numberless proofs, dearly-beloved, with which the authority of the Divine utterances is ablaze, let us with one mind be incited to pay reverence to Whitsuntide, exulting in honour of the Holy Ghost, through Whom the whole catholic Church is sanctified, and every rational soul quickened; Who is the Inspirer of the Faith, the Teacher of Knowledge, the Fount of Love, the Seal of Chastity, and the Cause of all Power. Let the minds of the faithful rejoice, that throughout the world One God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is praised by the confession of all tongues, and that that sign of His Presence, which appeared in the likeness of fire, is still perpetuated in His work and gift. For the Spirit of Truth Himself makes the house of His glory shine with the brightness of His light, and will have nothing dark nor lukewarm in His temple. And it is through His aid and teaching also that the purification of fasts and alms has been established among us. For this venerable day is followed by a most wholesome practice, which all the saints have ever found most profitable to them, and to the diligent observance of which we exhort you with a shepherd's care, to the end that if any blemish has been contracted in the days just passed through heedless negligence, it may be atoned for by the discipline of fasting and corrected by pious devotion. On Wednesday and Friday, therefore, let us fast, and on Saturday for this very purpose keep vigil with accustomed devotion, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Senator Sam Brownback: "What I think of Evolution"

Brilliant op-ed piece in the New York Times by the Kansas Senator.

Biretta Tip: Fr. Ernesto Obregon via Huw Raphael

IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and with the seriousness it demands.
The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason.

Read the rest here

Incidently, you'll see that the Senator draws on a basic Thomistic premise, without, of course, citing the Angelic Doctor himself: Gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat (Grace does not destroy or supplant nature, but perfects it).

Veni Creator Spiritus

VENI, Creator Spiritus,mentes tuorum visita,imple superna gratiaquae tu creasti pectora.

Qui diceris Paraclitus,altissimi donum Dei,fons vivus, ignis, caritas,et spiritalis unctio.

Tu, septiformis munere,digitus paternae dexterae,Tu rite promissum Patris,sermone ditans guttura.

Accende lumen sensibus:infunde amorem cordibus:infirma nostri corporisvirtute firmans perpeti.

Hostem repellas longius,pacemque dones protinus:ductore sic te praeviovitemus omne noxium.

Per te sciamus da Patrem,noscamus atque Filium;Teque utriusque Spiritumcredamus omni tempore.

Deo Patri sit gloria,et Filio, qui a mortuissurrexit, ac Paraclito,in saeculorum saecula.Amen.

COME, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,and in our souls take up Thy rest;come with Thy grace and heavenly aidto fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O comforter, to Thee we cry,O heavenly gift of God Most High,O fount of life and fire of love,and sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;Thou, finger of God's hand we own;Thou, promise of the Father, ThouWho dost the tongue with power imbue.

Kindle our sense from above,and make our hearts o'erflow with love;with patience firm and virtue highthe weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread,and grant us Thy peace instead;so shall we not, with Thee for guide,turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestowthe Father and the Son to know;and Thee, through endless times confessed,of both the eternal Spirit blest.

Now to the Father and the Son,Who rose from death, be glory given,with Thou, O Holy Comforter,henceforth by all in earth and heaven.Amen.

Rabanus Maurus (776-856)

Western Rite Orthodoxy, or ‘Who’re you calling a Uniate?’

A lively discussion is taking place over at the Young Fogey's blog article, which is in part a response to Ben Johnson's article The Western Rite is not "Reverse Uniatism".

I am not normally a very pugnacious man, but when rank nonsense like this by a certain "Death" Bredon is uttered all over the blogosphereabout a rite in Orthodoxy in which I worship...well, let's just say that statements like this bring it out in me:

"Of course the Roman Rite (the words of the Eucharistic service) largely predates Trent, but the usage, ceremonial, art, architecture, music, devotions, etc. that surround the Rite itself and give it its character or ethos changed radically as the West first Germanized and then "Scholasticized." Hence, the ethos of Tridentine spirituality (including the liturgy) became extremely "Good Friday-esque" due in large part to the doctrines of satisfactionary atonement either to God's honor (Anselm) or wrath (Aquinas). Indeed, the difference between the Roman Rite in the first millennium and the second can be summed up in the very life-like crucifixes of Christ in agony found in traditional RC and Anglo-Catholic parishes today versus the stylized frescoes and murals of Christ Pantocrator in all his glory that typified all churches (yes, even in Britian) before the schism but only Orthodox and some Eastern Unitate churches now. In short, the Roman Missals according to Ritual Notes or Fortescue were employed (twisted?) to embody the very unOrthodox doctrines of Trent."

And here's the clincher:

"In any case, my main point is that Western Rite Orthodoxy parishes in North America are by and large engaged in varying degrees of false Uniatism with Orthodoxy."

Notice the lack of any specifics. Many critics of WRO speak in generalities, like "Well we all KNOW that the Western Rite is just Tridentine/Anglo Catholicism with an epiklesis..." and there the "argument" ends.

Now observe with what finesse our own Subdeacon Benjamin Andersen answers this "argument":

"Death Bredon -I can't say much about your view of the Antiochian Western Rite, which you have broadcasted far and wide in the blogosphere, except that I don't think that you have much experience of the way that the Vicariate actually is. Lots of people have strange ideas about what Western Rite Orthodox liturgies are actually like, and I find that most (even some of the most implacable Byzantine types) are pleasantly surprised when they actually experience it.Of course, we will never match your dreams and expectations for a perfect Church, but I doubt that any religious body ever will.Perhaps your problem is not necessarily with the Vicariate but perhaps with a very skewed, radically dichotomized view of East and West, the kind in which every day is either Good Friday or Pascha. Sorry, but it's just not that simple.Anyhow, we know absolutely nothing of the dreary religion you describe above. The Western Rite Vicariate may have its problems and inconsistencies (I am the first to admit), but we are far closer to the "Mass-and-Office" model of Catholicism described by the YF above than the caricature you so often describe (without, of course, having any experience worshipping in a Vicariate community)."

Well done, Cardinal Subdeaon :-)

The Right Rev. Archimandrite Michael Trigg, Requiescat in Pace

On Saturday, 12 May, 6:30pm, our dear pastor emeritus, Fr. Michael Trigg, fell asleep in the Lord, after over thirty years of faithful service to the parish family of St. Michael Orthodox Church in Whittier, CA.

What was most impressive about him was not his Oxford degree in anthropology (having studied under the famed anthropologist E. Evans-Pritchard), but his humility. This was the one quality that he tried to find in people, the one he most valued. Humility, he taught, was near and dear to the heart of God, as Christ himself humbled himself to the point of dying the most cruel and humiliating death. Love and humility for him were the calling of all true Christians, as all are enjoined to take up their cross and follow Him who humbled himself and triumphed over death. The way to glory for him was in none other than the way of the cross.

He had a way of looking straight into your soul, forcing you to look at yourself honestly. Nothing escaped him in confession. He was the kind of confessor with whom you knew you were in good hands, like a good surgeon.

His gracious manner was always quite welcoming. His congenial manner and engaging personality could make you feel like you were the most important person int he world for him at that moment.

He was at his best in the celebration of the blessed mysteries. Every mass was special to him, because he knew that at every celebration he was bringing his parishoners into the kingdom of God, where "with angels and archangels, and with all the hosts of heaven, we laud and magnify" the Lord's name. This was his highest vocation, what he considered to be his greatest moment, for which he would sacrifice a thousand Oxford D.Phils, and his very life, to do: to bring his flock into the throne room of heaven.

A man of prayer, he had a great personal devotion to St. Benedict of Nursia, nourished by the Anglican Benedictine Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, England, where he received his seminary education. He imbibed from this stream deeply.

He, along with a few intrepid souls, founded the parish of St. Michael, Whittier, on 10 April, 1977, after they had broken with ECUSA because of its continuing fall into theological and disciplinary innovations (he often called it by its true name-heresy). He often told me that at that sermon on Easter day, he encouraged those few faithful souls that if they remained true to the apostolic faith, God would bless them beyond their wildest imaginings. The work he had begun bore fruit, with a harvest of souls that spans the globe. He brought this parish into the Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church in 1983, under the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America. When our new parish building was consecrated on September 9, 1990 by Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Saidna Philip said that when the history of Orthodoxy in North America is written, St. Michael's would be a shining light which historians could scarcely ignore.

The parish family of St. Michael's is saddened by the departure of our dear pastor, but I know that he is assured that the work he had begun will go on, inspired by his courage and vision.

The gates of heaven have opened up to him, and now he goes as angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers saints, martyrs, apostles, and the very Mother of God sing triumphantly: Axios! Dignus est! He is worthy!

For us, still living this side of heaven, we lament his passing as the end of an era. We can also rejoice, however, that his legacy will live on in the hearts of the faithful at St. Michael's, as we carry on his vision of a Western Orthodox parish intent on leavening the culture and engaging it with the ancient and yet ever new message of the faith of the Apostles, martyrs and saints. One of our best warriors is now safely in the hands of his Lord and King. May we be worthy of this great legacy he has left us.

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

Requiescas in pace, pastor bonus et fidelis!

Congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy

Here is a man who is determined to bring some of the market reforms that much of the EU had adopted in the 1990's. Will he succeed? Is this France's novus ordo saeculroum of sensible public and labor policy?

Felicitations, Monsieur President!

Read the story here

Episcopal Visitation

This past Sunday, our Father in God, His Grace Bishop Joseph, of the Antiochian diocese of Los Angleles and the West, granted us the blessing of an episcopal visit. Pictures of the mass are up on the diocesan website. You can view them here

Your host served as the subdeacon of the liturgy that day. The above picture shows the prayers at the foot of the altar, with Fr. Stephen Herney (standing), our new rector, Deacon Stephen Holley, (kneeling to his right), and yours truly, to the left of the good padre.

Fr. Stephen was officially named our new rector, Fr. Michael Trigg being named rector emeritus.

Happy Birthday King James Bible

From Fr. Joseph Huneycutt:

This, stolen with gratitude, from today's edition of The Writer's Almanac ...

It was on this day in 1611 that the first edition of the King James Bible was published in England. It is one of the greatest and most influential works in the English language, even though it was translated by a committee.It was produced during a particularly chaotic period for England.

An epidemic of the black plague had struck London so severely that the year before work began on the King James Bible, 30,000 Londoners had died of the disease. At the same time, Puritans in the country were beginning to agitate against the monarchy as a form of government. And a group of underground Catholics were plotting to assassinate the king.

Read the rest hear

Biretta Tip to the Young Fogey

Archduke Otto Von Habsburg: A Legitimist

http://orientem.blogspot.com/2007/04/awaiting-his-throne-is-his-most.html


"I am often asked if I am a republican or a monarchist. I am neither, I am a legitimist: I am for legitimate government. You could never have a monarchy in Switzerland, and it would be asinine to imagine Spain as a republic." Archduke Otto Von Habsburg


Birreta tip to The Western Confucian (http://orientem.blogspot.com/2007/04/awaiting-his-throne-is-his-most.html) and the Young Fogey (http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/)

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev on God, Science, Communism and the Russian Orthodox Church

Read it here:
http://en.hilarion.orthodoxia.org/7_1

"How do you think believers managed to keep alive faith in their heart when religion was forbidden in Russia?

Some people continued to go to church regardless of persecutions, but there were also many secret Christians, who practiced their religion in a clandestine way, without attending church services but keeping faith in their heart. Indeed, people in the Soviet Union had no direct access to Christian literature or to religious education. But Russian culture, including music, painting, literature and poetry, was so imbued with Christian ideas that it continued to become the bearer of religious message even in the times when religious propaganda was officially forbidden. For example, people could not access the works by the Church Fathers, but they could read Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, where many pages are dedicated to the presentation and interpretation of patristic ideas."

This is why a good, classical education steeped in Christian tradition matters!

Russian Ex-President Dies

From the BBC:

"Mr Yeltsin may have disappointed Russians by bringing them neither peace nor prosperity, our correspondent says.
But, she adds, he did help end 70 years of Soviet Communism, and that, in the long run, is what he will probably be remembered for. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6584481.stm

Requiescat in Pace!

Memory Eternal!

St. Paul's Philippian Odyssey

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mythfolklore.net/lahaye/237/LaHaye1728Figures237ActsXVI24PaulSilasInPrison.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mythfolklore.net/lahaye/237/index.html&h=1118&w=700&sz=243&hl=en&start=30&sig2=slIpcqsew4QV_7Ai6wCZag&um=1&tbnid=qkVcDG1mda3tgM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=94&ei=8E4pRoXJHYHAhAS_opWXDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpaul%2Band%2Bsilas%26start%3D21%26ndsp%3D21%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGFRC,GFRC:2006-49,GFRC:en%26sa%3DN

From Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon's Pastoral Ponderings:

April 22, 2007
Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearers

Father Pat's Pastoral Ponderings

Of the three years (roughly 52-55) that St. Paul spent in Ephesus (Acts 20:31), we can account for only 27 months (19:8-10). This calculation leaves nine months unexplained. Some historians have suggested that Paul was in prison at Ephesus during that remaining time, an experience perhaps indicated by his having "fought with beasts in Asia" (1 Corinthians 15:32). I have always thought this an attractive and helpful suggestion.
Many of those that hold this view also believe that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians during that imprisonment. This has long been my own position.

While imprisoned in Ephesus during those nine or so months, Paul learned something important about his ministry. Whereas imprisonment would seem to be a considerable hindrance to the proclamation of the Gospel, the Apostle discovered the very opposite to be the case. He found that his time in confinement led, rather, to the advantage of the Gospel. During this imprisonment Paul wrote, "But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear" (Philippians 1:12-14).
The word translated as "palace guard" in the NKJV ("headquarters" in the NEB, "barracks" in The Living Bible) is praitorion, the Greek equivalent of the Latin pretorium. Roman governors were normally guarded by such a group, as we see at Jerusalem (Mark 15:16) and at Caesarea (Acts 23:35). Paul was under the custody of such a guard at Ephesus, where the governor of Asia resided.

In prison, then, the disadvantage of Paul became the advantage of the Gospel. Indeed, how else would these official Roman guards ever have heard the Gospel unless Paul had been their prisoner? This is what the Apostle learned in prison, and it was but another example of strength being made perfect in infirmity (2 Corinthians 12:9).
There is a special irony in Paul's writing these things to the church at Philippi, and the irony consists in this: Among the Philippian Christians sitting in church that day, listening to this epistle being read in public for the first time, was a family that understood exactly, and by experience, what Paul was saying—the family of the Philippian jailer.
When this epistle was read at Philippi, this Christian family could not but remember a certain night only a few years earlier. They had all been sleeping soundly in their beds when they were awakened by a sudden and considerable hubbub in the middle of the night. First, "there was a great earthquake" (Acts 16:26). This surely would have been disturbing enough, but shortly afterwards there was even more commotion.
The husband and father of the household, who was the city jailer, unexpectedly arrived back home, bringing two men with him. These, it turned out, were prisoners, incarcerated the previous day because of some obscure public disturbance (16:16-24).
Now, however, the father of this family suddenly appeared on the scene, and he had these men with him. Something rather exciting seemed to be happening. The jailer father, who was manifestly quite agitated, came in carrying a light (16:29). Next he washed the wounds of the two men (16:33), who had yesterday been very badly beaten with rods (16:22).
Then the whole family sat down and listened to the two prisoners, whose names were Paul and Silas. Whatever had happened back at the jail, the family could see that their father had been much impressed by it. They sat and listened, then, to what the two men had to say (16:32). At the end of it, the head of the household pronounced faith in someone called "the Lord Jesus Christ" (16:31), and then the whole family submitted to something called baptism (16:33). Afterwards they sat down to eat.
In the years that followed, the family's identity and history were determined by the events of that night. They gradually learned the significance of that teaching, that baptism, and the family's new relationship with "the Lord Jesus Christ."
Now this Paul had written a letter to the congregation at Philippi, of which they were among the original members, ever since that night when the writer of it had been their father's prisoner.

Anti-Americanism in Venezuela

Yes, we Yanks have misbehaved (and perhaps still do), but all of Latin America's problems cannot be laid at the feet of "The Great Satan." If anti-Americanism was the motivating factor in the Venzuelan parliament's vote to grant Mr. Chavez sweeping new powers (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6315819.stm), then a classic case of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" would be at work here, and it won't be long before they regret it.

Here is the latest:

For the second in a series of sceptical snapshots of the anti-American world, the BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb travelled to Caracas, the car-choked, sweltering capital of oil-rich Venezuela.

Chavez is one of the ringleaders of the anti-American movementWhy Caracas? Because at the moment it is the heart - the very epicentre - of Latin anti-Americanism.
Venezuela is unusual, indeed unique. It is a Latin American nation which in recent years has become rich enough to have the power to tell the US to take a hike. And Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected leader, loses no opportunity to do just that.
In the early part of this century, he became one of the ringleaders of the worldwide anti-American movement.
Hugo said this recently about George: "The imperialist, mass murdering, fascist attitude of the president of the United States doesn't have limits. I think Hitler could be a nursery baby next to George W Bush."

Read the rest: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6572615.stm

Abortion and subsidiarity

By Rod Dreher

Friday, April 20, 2007
Abortion and subsidiarity
Megan McArdle, a libertarian who considers herself to be "moderately pro-choice," doesn't like the SCOTUS decision on partial-birth abortion, but believes that America's abortion politics would probably benefit from Roe being overturned and the abortion issue being sent back to the states for decision at the local level. Excerpt:

"This argument has a lot of appeal. As one of my colleagues at The Economist pointed out, Europe had the same conversation as America about abortion in the sixties and seventies. The difference is, European countries either passed laws, or submitted the question to referendum. Even those who weren't happy with the outcome felt the process by which it had been reached was legitimate. In America, neither group feels that the Supreme Court's process was morally legitimate--or at least, I infer that pro-choicers do not, since they seem to view an attempt to ban abortion by exactly the same process as a completely illegitimate usurpation of power by conservative ideologues. "

Read the rest: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/2007/04/abortion-and-subsidiarity.html

Biretta tip: The Young Fogey http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/

N.T. Wright on Teaching Classics and Religion

Read it here: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/nicholas_t_wright/2007/03/teach_the_classics_in_all_fiel.html

"How do you teach religion, given that this word covers everything from Russian Orthodox Christianity to New Age crystal-mongering? It is possible to teach it all from a secular point of view ('these are the peculiar things some peculiar people like to do and teach'), but that is about as much fun as taking a course on the history of music from someone who's tone deaf. " N.T. Wright

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban of 2003

Te Deum Laudamus!!!!

Washington DC, Apr 18, 2007 (CNA).- In a stunning victory for life, the Supreme Court of the United States today upheld a 2003 law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, which bans the procedure known as partial-birth abortion.In a 5-4 decision the justices ruled that the 2003 law does not violate a woman’s right to procure an abortion and, as such, is in line with the court’s precedent set by 1973 decision in Row v. Wade.The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.The court accepted arguments on behalf of the legislation which claimed that the procedure, which involves partially removing the child then crushing or cutting its skull, qualifies as infanticide and not as abortion.According to the AP the cases constitutes the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how - not whether - to perform an abortion.The decision found President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.All five of the majority-voting Justices are Catholic.

Read the rest of the article here (http://ewtn.com/news/index.asp)

Eliminating the God of the Gaps to Make Room for God Himself

By Dr. Jeff Mirus

In 2005, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn touched off a firestorm in a New York Times opinion piece which raised significant concerns about the relationship among science, reason and faith. That intervention was not as successful as it might have been because of the Cardinal’s assessment of the idea of “randomness” in science. Returning to the subject in the April 2007 issue of First Things, Cardinal Schönborn makes what I believe is a far more successful presentation.
Most sound Catholic commentators over the past two hundred years have argued strenuously that there can be no intrinsic quarrel between faith and reason, or between religion and science. The chief problems have arisen because many scientists mistakenly believe—on the basis of unrecognized philosophical preconceptions—either that a mechanistic knowledge of nature is the only kind of knowledge possible, or that an explanation of how things work in a mechanical sense somehow eliminates the idea of teleology (that is, a consideration of nature’s design and purpose).

Read the rest of the article (http://beta1.catholicculture.org/commentary/blog.cfm?id=120)

Orthodox Prayer for Those Slain at Virginia Tech

Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend the souls of those slain at Virginia Tech, and beseech thee to grant them rest in the place of thy rest, where all thy blessed Saints repose, and where the light of thy countenance shineth forever. And I beseech thee also to grant that our present lives may be godly, sober, and blameless, that, we too may be made worthy to enter into thy heavenly Kingdom with those we love but see no longer: for thou art the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose of thy departed servants, O Christ our God, and unto thee we ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Catholic Teaching Outlawed in England...

Read it here (http://p202.ezboard.com/ftheyorkforumfrm2.showMessage?topicID=2464.topic)

England has long been known for its Burkian distate for radicalism, but now new winds seem to be blowing in Parliament.

This is of concern not only for RC's, but for all traditional Christians. If Catholics can't teach Catholic doctrine in Catholic schools, what a priest or minister says from the pulpit will be the next target of legislative interloping.

Biretta tip to The Young Fogey (http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/)

Happy Feast of the Resurrection!

St. John Chrysostom's Paschal Homily (http://www.monachos.net/library/John_Chrysostom,_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 fastedAnd 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 embitteredWhen 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.It 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.

Another by St. Leo the Great (http://www.monachos.net/library/Leo_the_Great_of_Rome,_Homily_71:_On_the_Lord's_Resurrection,_I):

I. We must all be partakers in Christ's Resurrection life.
In my last sermon, dearly beloved, not inappropriately, as I think, we explained to you our participation in the cross of Christ, whereby the life of believers contains in itself the mystery of Easter, and thus what is honoured at the feast is celebrated by our practice. And how useful this is you yourselves have proved, and by your devotion have learnt, how greatly benefited souls and bodies are by longer fasts, more frequent prayers, and more liberal alms. For there can be hardly any one who has not profited by this exercise, and who has not stored up in the recesses of his conscience something over which he may rightly rejoice. But these advantages must be retained with persistent care, lest our efforts fall away into idleness, and the devil's malice steal what God's grace gave. Since, therefore, by our forty days' observance we have wished to bring about this effect, that we should feel something of the Cross at the time of the Lord's Passion, we must strive to be found partakers also of Christ's Resurrection, and 'pass from death unto life' while we are in this body. For when a man is changed by some process from one thing into another, not to be what he was is to him an ending, and to be what he was not is a beginning. But the question is, to what a man either dies or lives: because there is a death which is the cause of living, and there is a life which is the cause of dying. And nowhere else but in this transitory world are both sought after, so that upon the character of our temporal actions depend the differences of the eternal retributions. We must die, therefore, to the devil and live to God: we must perish to iniquity that we may rise to righteousness. Let the old sink, that the new may rise; and since, as says the Truth, 'no one can serve two masters', let not him be Lord who has caused the overthrow of those that stood, but Him Who has raised the fallen to victory.
II. God did not leave His soul in Hell, nor suffer His flesh to see corruption.
Accordingly, since the Apostle says, 'the first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is from heaven heavenly. As is the earthy, such also are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, so let us also bear the image of Him Who is from heaven', we must greatly rejoice over this change, whereby we are translated from earthly degradation to heavenly dignity through His unspeakable mercy, Who descended into our estate that He might promote us to His, by assuming not only the substance but also the conditions of sinful nature, and by allowing the impossibility of the Godhead to be affected by all the miseries which are the lot of mortal manhood. And hence that the disturbed minds of the disciples might not be racked by prolonged grief, He with such wondrous speed shortened the three days' delay which He had announced, that by joining the last part of the first and the first part of the third day to the whole of the second, He cut off a considerable portion of the period, and yet did not lessen the number of days. The Saviour's Resurrection therefore did not long keep His soul in Hades, nor His flesh in the tomb; and so speedy was the quickening of His uncorrupted flesh that it bore a closer resemblance to slumber than to death, seeing that the Godhead, which quitted not either part of the human nature which He had assumed, reunited by its power that which its power had separated.
III. Christ's manifestation after the Resurrection showed that His person was essentially the same as before.
And then there followed many proofs, whereon the authority of the Faith to be preached through the whole world might be based. And although the rolling away of the stone, the empty tomb, the arrangement of the linen cloths, and the angels who narrated the whole deed by themselves fully built up the truth of the Lord's Resurrection, yet did He often appear plainly to the eyes both of the women and of the Apostles, not only talking with them, but also remaining and eating with them and allowing Himself to be handled by the eager and curious hands of those whom doubt assailed. For to this end He entered when the doors were closed upon the disciples and gave them the Holy Spirit by breathing on them, and after giving them the light of understanding opened the secrets of the Holy Scriptures, and again Himself showed them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails, and all the marks of His most recent Passion, whereby it might be acknowledged that in Him the properties of the divine and human nature remained undivided, and we might in such sort know that the Word was not what the flesh is, as to confess God's only Son to be both Word and flesh.
IV. But though it is the same, it is also glorified.
The Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, dearly. beloved, does not disagree with this belief, when he says, 'even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more'. For the Lord's Resurrection was not the ending, but the changing of the flesh, and His substance was not destroyed by His increase of power. The quality altered, but the nature did not cease to exist: the body was made impassible which it had been possible to crucify: it was made incorruptible, though it had been possible to wound it. And properly is Christ's flesh said not to be known in that state in which it had been known, because nothing remained passible in it, nothing weak, so that it was both the same in essence and not the same in glory. But what wonder if Saint Paul maintains this about Christ's body, when he says of all spiritual Christians 'wherefore henceforth we know no one after the flesh'. Henceforth, he says, we begin to experience the resurrection in Christ, since the time when in Him, Who died for all, all our hopes were guaranteed to us. We do not hesitate in diffidence, we are not under the suspense of uncertainty, but having received an earnest of the promise, we now with the eye of faith see the things which will be, and rejoicing in the uplifting of our nature, we already possess what we believe.
V. Being saved by hope, we must not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
Let us not then be taken up with the appearances of temporal matters, neither let our contemplations be diverted from heavenly to earthly things. Things which as yet have for the most part not come to pass must be reckoned as accomplished: and the mind intent on what is permanent must fix its desires there, where what is offered is eternal. For although 'by hope we were saved' and still bear about with us a flesh that is corruptible and mortal, yet we are rightly said not to be in the flesh, if the fleshly affections do not dominate us; and we are justified in ceasing to be named after that flesh, the will of which we do not follow. And so, when the Apostle says, 'make not provision for the flesh in the lusts thereof', we understand that those things are not forbidden us which conduce to health and which human weakness demands, but because we may not satisfy all our desires nor indulge in all that the flesh lusts after, we recognizethat we are warned to exercise such self-restraint as not to permit what is excessive nor refuse what is necessary to the flesh, which is placed under the mind's control. And hence the same Apostle says in another place, 'For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it', in so far, of course, as it must be nourished and cherished not in vices and luxury, but with a view to its proper functions, so that nature may recover herself and maintain due order, the lower parts not prevailing wrongfully and debasingly over the higher, nor the higher yielding to the lower, lest if vices overpower the mind, slavery ensues where there should be supremacy.
VI. Our Godly resolutions must continue all the year round, not be confined to Pascha only.
Let God's people then recognize that they are a new creation in Christ, and with all vigilance understand by Whom they have been adopted and Whom they have adopted. Let not the things, which have been made new, return to their ancient instability; and let not him who has 'put his hand to the plough' forsake his work, but rather attend to that which he sows than look back to that which he has left behind. Let no one fall back into that from which he has risen, but, even though from bodily weakness he still languishes under certain maladies, let him urgently desire to be healed and raised up. For this is the path of health through imitation of the Resurrection begun in Christ, whereby, notwithstanding the many accidents and falls to which in this slippery life the traveller is liable, his feet may be guided from the quagmire on to solid ground, for, as it is written, 'the steps of a man are directed by the Lord,and He will delight in his way. When the just man falls he shall not be overthrown, because the Lord will stretch out His hand'. These thoughts, dearly beloved, must be kept in mind not only for the Easter festival, but also for the sanctification of the whole life, and to this our present exercise ought to be directed, that what has delighted the souls of the faithful by the experience of a short observance may pass into a habit and remain unalterably, and if any fault creep in, it may be destroyed by speedy repentance. And because the cure of old-standing diseases is slow and difficult, remedies should be applied early, when the wounds are fresh, so that rising ever anew from all downfalls, we may deserve to attain to the incorruptible Resurrection of our glorified flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Longinus

From Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon's Pastoral Ponderings:

In his description of the death of Jesus, Saint John is the only Gospel-writer to include the detail that "one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out" (19:34).

Although the evangelist does not name this soldier, Christian legend calls him "St. Longinus," a name that one suspects is corrupted from logke (pronounced "lonki"), the Greek word for "spear." A small feature of art history lends weight to this suspicion. A Syriac manuscript preserved at the Laurentine Library at Florence contains an illumination, by an artist named Rabulas, which depicts the death of Jesus on the cross. It includes the figure of the soldier in question, over whose head, in Greek letters, is inscribed the name "Loginos." This appears to be the immediate source for the Latin name "Longinus."

This manuscript illumination, which is safely dated to the year 586, is contemporary with our first records of the presence and veneration of the spear itself at Jerusalem. The later fortunes of that spear are also somewhat documented. The point of the spear, we know, found its way to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. After the crusaders' sack of that city in 1204, it was taken to France, where it was enshrined, along with what was believed to be the Lord's crown of thorns, in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It disappeared in the chaos that followed the French Revolution.

The larger portion of the spear, which seems to have been remained at Jerusalem long after being deprived of its point, eventually found its way to Constantinople, apparently after the Fourth Crusade. What the Crusaders had started, however, the Turks finished. The shaft part of the spear fell into the hands of the conquering Turks in 1453. These, in turn, as part of a later arrangement with the pope (who happened to have in his control a person that the Turks very much wanted released) sent that longer part of the spear to Rome in 1492. It is preserved to this day in St. Peter's Basilica, behind an enormous statue of St. Longinus, sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Various kings over the centuries, Athelstan and Charlemagne among them, have claimed to have at least a part of that venerable spear, but these claims seem less reliable.

Given such exotic legends about his spear, it is not surprising that Longinus himself became the subject of legend. For example, according to The Golden Legend of James of Voragine in the 13th century, the blood and water from the side of Jesus cured Longinus of poor eyesight. That same work goes on at some length to describe the martyrdom of Longinus in Cappadocia, and to this day the church of St. Augustine in Rome claims to hold his relics.

What these latter stories have in common, of course, is their assumption that Longinus was converted to the Christian faith in the context of what he did to the body of Jesus on the cross. This assumption, which is scarcely unreasonable, was surely related to the fact that the deed of Longinus was done as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. It was in this detail that St. John saw enacted the words of ancient Zechariah, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced." Thus, in opening the side of the crucified Jesus--in cleaving for all of us the Rock of ages--Longinus opened likewise the deep fountain of Holy Scripture.

Perhaps we may say, as well, that he opened the wellsprings of divine grace, inasmuch as the blood and the water, in which Longinus was the very first person to be bathed, have long been understood in the Christian Church to symbolize the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. It was this double flood of redemption that the Roman soldier brought forth to pour upon the earth. It was his spear that found its way into that source of infinite love which is the heart of Christ.

It is through Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, after all, that believers are united to the mystery of the Cross. They are buried with Him in Baptism (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12), and as often as they eat this bread and drink this cup, they proclaim the Lord's death till He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26). These two ordinances of the Church, summoned forth by the mystic spear of Longinus, make effective to believers the redemptive power of the Cross.

Thus, through the mystery of divine providence, the coup de grace given by a Roman executioner to a condemned criminal is transformed, by way of symbol, into a sort of sacerdotal act; it takes on the hieratic significance of a liturgical rite. It is certain that the Church sees it this way, something that is obvious in the prescribed rite preparatory to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. As the priest cuts into the bread that is to become the Body of the Lord, the Church's rubric requires him to recite the appropriate verse of John: "one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out." We may note, in addition, that an image the spear of Longinus is customarily stamped on the loaf designated for the Holy Eucharist.

In short, Longinus, in opening the side of Christ, provided a path of faith, furnished a place for the hand of Thomas--along with the rest of us. It was of this wound inflicted by Longinus that Jesus says, "reach your hand, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."

Passiontide Anthem

Vexilla regis prodeunt,
fulget crucis mysterium,
quo carne carnis conditor
suspensus est patibulo.

Confixa clavis viscera
tendens manus, vestigia
redemptionis gratia
hic inmolata est hostia.

Quo vulneratus insuper
mucrone diro lanceae,
ut nos lavaret crimine,
manavit unda et sanguine.

Inpleta sunt quae concinit
David fideli carmine,
dicendo nationibus:
regnavit a ligno deus.

Arbor decora et fulgida,
ornata regis purpura,
electa, digno stipite
tam sancta membra tangere!

Beata cuius brachiis
pretium pependit saeculi!
statera facta est corporis
praedam tulitque Tartari.

Fundis aroma cortice,
vincis sapore nectare,
iucunda fructu fertili
plaudis triumpho nobili.

Salve ara, salve victima
de passionis gloria,
qua vita mortem pertulit
et morte vitam reddidit. Amen



The royal banners forward go,
the cross shines forth in mystic glow;
where he in flesh, our flesh who made,
our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

Where deep for us the spear was dyed,
life's torrent rushing from his side,
to wash us in that precious flood,
where mingled water flowed, and blood.

Fulfilled is all that David told
in true prophetic song of old,
amidst the nations, God, saith he,
hath reigned and triumphed from the tree.

O tree of beauty, tree of light!
O tree with royal purple dight!
Elect on whose triumphal breast
those holy limbs should find their rest.

Blest tree, whose chosen branches bore
the wealth that did the world restore,
the price of mankind to pay,
and spoil the spoiler of his prey.

Upon its arms, like balance true,he weighed
the price for sinners due,
the price which none but he could pay,
and spoiled the spoiler of his prey.

O cross, our one reliance, hail!
Still may thy power with us avail
to give new virtue to the saint,
and pardon to the penitent.

To thee, eternal Three in One,
let homage meet by all be done:
whom by the cross thou dost restore,
preserve and govern evermore. Amen.

St. Fortunatus, 569

Sloth (Dejection and Listlessness)

Sloth is something people think they know when they see it, but there is more to it than meets the eye. You see, it is more than just mere inactivity. After all, not doing anything except "contemplating the universe" has its rewards. Contemplation is an activity which puts us in tune with the world around us, making our golden thread to our Triune God ever stronger and more resilient as we observe his truths in ourselves and in nature. It gives us true leisure from the workaday world, where we can rediscover ourselves in the God who created us. Sloth, more than inactivity, can be understood as a kind of boredom of human existence. The ancients called it "accidia".

St. John Cassian divides this vice into two parts: dejection and listlessness. Of dejection he says that it "obscures the soul's capacity for spiritual contemplation and keeps it from all good works." He goes on to say that this demon "instills a hatred of every kind of work," including the monsatic profession. Notice that this is no passive sin: the one who suffers from dejection is very active in his opposition to all good works. The soul afflicted with this kind of sloth is fuled by hatred towards his neighbor, since it has deluded itself into believing that people are the cause of his problems, rather than looking inward. This hatred so paralyses him to the point of hatred towards anything relating to prayer and good works. It is a hatred of life itself.

To the soul thus afflicted, St. Cassian gives a remedy-a recognition that the source of the malady is not external, but internal. This vice "suggests to the soul that we sould go away from other people, since they are the cause of the agitation." It fools the sould into thinking that the source of the problem lies with other people (I can't help but to think of Jean Paul Sartre's startling but logical conclusion in his play, No Exit: "Hell is other people"). This leads to a sense of melancholy, a stiffling of all good work, since this person can't see the real root of the problem: himself. He withdraws from all human company, only to find that his hatred of life gets ever more intense, bringing on a greater sense of melancholy.

Listlessness, on the other hand, is the kind of vice that falls upon a monk "at the sixth hour" (12noon), "making him slack and full of fear, inspiring him with hatred for his monastery, for work of any kind, and even for the reading of Holy Scripture." He calls this the "noontide demon", since it attacks the monk at the time of day when most folks (especially in southern European countries) take a break from the noontide heat and take their customary naps. This is accompanied by a great hunger. This is the hour where a greater vigilance must be maintained, with the full awareness that one has a limited time on this earth, and must therefore take up the weapons of ascetic struggle. Rather than engage in the struggle against his passions, the listless soul is content to fill his belly and sleep in idleness. Commenting from St. Paul's injunction to avoid the company of men who do no work, becoming busydbodies (I Cor. 9), he portays a natural progression that attends this vice: "from laziness comes inquisitiveness, and from inquisitiveness, unruliness, and from unruliness, every kind of evil." Taking his cue from the monks of Egypt, he provides a simple remedy: work. By this he does not mean constant business, but the kind of labor that is offered as an acceptable sacrifice to God. A person working in this spirit brings forth a great degree of charity and a hearty and sober love of life. Such a one, according to St. Cassian, may be afflicted by one demon, "while someone who does not work is taken prisoner by a thousand demons."

Perhaps this is why St. Cassian categorizes slothfulness (dejection and listlessness) above wrath in the list of vices. A wrathful man loves life, so much so that he thinks there are things to get riled up about (whether the things he chooses to b e angry about are worth it is quite another matter altogether). The murderer loves life; he just thinks some are not worthy of it. The slothful, on the other hand, are possessed of a boredom with life, not taking joy in any kind of work. Such a person may be continually busy, but still slothful, in that he hates life to such a degree that he sees no value in any kind of work. He suffers from dejection in that he suffers from melancholy, and such melancholy leads him to listlessness. The listless man's life thus becomes parasitic, for in addition to robbing himself of the joy of life, he sucks in others into his maliciousness.

In the cornice of the Slothful in Purgatory, Dante has the souls work out the effect of this sin through ceaseless activity done with godly zeal (Canto XVIII). But he precedes this cornice by having Virgil discourse about love. Dante the pilgrim asks his master to "Define me love, to which thou dost reduce all virtuous actions and their contraries." To which the master responds:

Fix then on me the luminous

Eyes of the intellect, and plain I'll prove

How, when the blind would guide, their way they lose.

The soul, which is created apt for love,

the moment pleasure wakes it into act,

to any pleasant thing is swift to move. (Canto XVIII, 16-20)

This, perhaps, is the key to the soul's remedy from this particular vice, and is embedded in St. Cassian's counsel that his monks undertake zealous activity as a meaningful sacrifice to God. Love is the central reality of all activity done to the glory of God, since it is what moves us to all good work. It lightens our load, so that we can more swiftly undertake such works with a joy and eagerness that characterizes any activity that a lover does for his beloved.

As Lent draws to a close, and we enter into Holy Week, I am reminded of how the lightness of Laetare Sunday (4th Sunday in Lent), with its joyful, celebratory character, announced by the theme of the introit-"I WAS glad when they said unto me, / 'We will go into the house of the Lord" (Psalm 122:1)- rolls into Passion Sunday. On Laetare Sunday, and the rest of that week, we experienced the "Elim" of our Lenten sojourn, for like the children of Israel, we too expereinced a small respite from our journey. With Passiontide, we are roused yet again from our slumber, taking up the weapons of our struggle for holy freedom. The Church bids us now to take up the royal banner of the cross, and go forward, to labor on with love and devotion to our true rest. The words that began our Lenten journey-Remember, man, that dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return-spur us on to action with holy zeal towards the goal of resurrection.

Ash Wednesday

We Western Orthodox Christians begin our lenten journey today with the solemn words "Remember, Man, that thou art dust, and to dust shall thou return," while the priest spreads ashes on our foreheads in the form of a cross. The remembrance of death is what initiates our lenten journey, a journey that will end in the glorious celebration of the Resurrection, where Our Lord "trampled down death by death." In this is mirrored redemptive history, as we show our connection to our first ancestors-Adam and Eve-in their creation and fall, hear the sentence, and then walk the road of redemtption. This is a time for us to look into ourselves and see that divine drama played out in our own lives. We are given the opportunity to look into our hearts and root out those things that keep us from living abundant lives well-pleasing to Him who is the author of life. Lent is our summons, a clarion call, exhorting us to get busy with the business of heaven, for "dust thou art, and to dust shall thou return." There is no time for sin and death. Choose life!

Hear is a little wisdom from St. John Climacus that will help us get started on this journey:

God belongs to all free beings. He is the life of all, the salvation of all – faithful and unfaithful, just and unjust, pious and impious, passionate and dispassionate, monks and laymen, wise and simple, healthy and sick, young and old – just as the effusion of light, the sight of the sun, and the changes of the seasons are for all alike; “for there is no respect of persons with God.”-- Those of us who wish to go out of Egypt, and to fly from Pharaoh, certainly need some Moses as a mediator with God and from God, who, standing between action and divine vision, will raise hands of prayer for us to God, so that guided by him we may cross the sea of sin and rout the Amalek of the passions. That is why those who have surrendered themselves to God deceive themselves if they suppose that they have no need of a director. Those who came out of Egypt had Moses as their guide, and those who fled from Sodom had an angel. The former are like those who are healed of the passions of the soul by the care of physicians; these are they who come out of Egypt. The latter are like those who long to put off the uncleanness of the wretched body. That is why they need a helper, an angel, so to speak, or rather, one equal to an angel. For in accordance with the corruption of our wounds, we need a director who is indeed an expert and a physician.-- Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me; “We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?” I replied to them: “Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be arrogant towards anyone; do not hate anyone; do not be absent from the divine services; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another man’s domestic happiness, and be content with what your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven.” Ladder of Divine Ascent

Back on the saddle

For those of you wondering where I've been, fear no more. I've been working simultaneously on my dissertation proposal, and the actual text of my dissertation, as well as keeping up a full-time schedule of teaching in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University.

The working title of my dissertation is "St. Francis the Ascetic: Thomas of Celano's First Life of St. Francis in Hagiographic Context." What I propose to do is situate Thomas of Celano's work within a broader context of ascetic models of sanctity, stretching back to St. Athanasius' Life of St. Anthony, and noting some peculiar overlaps. This is partly a critique of some of the most recent scholarship on medieval Mendicant spirituality (taking its cue from Lester Little's Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe) that seeks to tie it closely to socio-economic shifts. I will attemot to show that at least insofar as the original sources are concerned, no reflection of a "merchant spirituality" exists, and where a merchant metaphor might occur, it is associated with a gospel imagery (the "pearl of great price"), which would have been familiar to the more monastically-oriented early middle ages. What Thomas of Celano is most eager to show is that St. Francis is one who follows a traditional path of sanctity-the ascetic path-but undertakes it in a new way: within the city walls of Assisi, which in away becomes his "desert." With Francis (at least as Thomas portrays him) we have a association of the new urban culture as the new "desert," where the passion of avarice is confronted directly. I'm hoping that this will have the value of reading the life of St. Francis "forward," seeing how it overlaps in some significant ways with past models of sanctity, especially that of the ascetic struggler, as opposed to the tendency to read later Jesuit spirituality back into what Francis is doing.

On another note, it has been a rich and rewarding time of reading and teaching from the canon of the Great Books. This past week I taught Virgil's Aenead and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and teaching these two books back to back is always quite revealing. On the one hand, we get a noble epic rendering about what the new imperial Roman order, inaugurated by Caesar Augustus (Octavian), is all about. On the other, there is some evidence of what might be called a "hermeneutics of suspicion" concerning what, in the end, the Roman Empire is really about. In the first, Aeneas, the hero, is given a vision of Rome's future greatness by his dead father, Anchises, in the underworld, and ends it with this charge: Tu regere imperio popule, Romane, memento (hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos (Remember, Roman, these are your arts: to rule the peoples of the earth with order, to impose a settled way of peace, and to subdue the proud). The experience of the underworld proves crucial in Aeneas shedding his Trojan identity, and taking on a more Roman outlook.



And yet what is this "new Roman outlook?" Ovid seems to have a very "cheeky" take on it all, and he presents it with a great deal of humor. This is why C.S. Lewis often calls him "that jolly fellow." There is a humor that comes out, a "tongue and cheek" quality that almost jars you after you've ascended the heights of epic nobility with Virgil. Ovid, in a sense, is the Monty Python of the Roman world. What looks noble in Virgil, will be shown in a more hunorous light under his pen. Take, for example, the tale of the Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs, with their unconventional weapons and battle scenes that almost verge on something one would see on Looney Tunes.



But there is a sobriety to Ovid's "cheekiness." His subversion of the heroic tradition comes in the very first book, where, recounting the ages of mankind, he makes a direct parallel between Caesar Augustus and Jove:

Confremuere omnes studiisque ardentibus ausum
talia deposcunt: sic, cum manus inpia saevit
sanguine Caesareo Romanum exstinguere nomen,
attonitum tantae subito terrore ruinae
humanum genus est totusque perhorruit orbis;
nec tibi grata minus pietas, Auguste, tuorum
quam fuit illa Iovi.

(All the gods murmured with a loud voice, and ardently
demanded fit punishment for those who committed such crimes.
Thus when with impious hands they burned to drown Romes name
In the blood of Caesar, the human race shuddered in the face
Of such a terror, and the whole earth was horrified.
Nor do you, Augustus, rejoice any less in the piety (loyalty)
Of you subjects than does Jove.)

But reading the rest of the Metamorphoses, it is clear that Jove is a scoundrel. This is brought out to full relief in the tale of Arachne, where Pallas and Arachne engage in a weaving contest, Pallas weaving a tapestry where the gods are prtrayed in majesty and power, with Jove sitting on his throne. Arachne, however, portrays the folly of the gods. Here Jove is anything but "regal": the rape of Europa, where he takes on the form of a bull and carries her off to Crete; the rape of Antiopre, where jove takes on the guise of a satyr, and makes her beget twins.

All of these instances of divine folly, portrayed by Arachne in full form, gets her the grand prize: to be turned into a spider by Pallas!

Towards the end of the work, he recounts the apotheosis of Aeneas, Virgil's hero. But a nagging doubt remains: is it really that good to be a god? in the end, Ovid ends with a triumphant proclamation of his own immortality, assuring his readers that whatever change comes, one thing will always remain constant: his own fame, which will live on through this book. So there we have it. The epic tradition ends with Ovid's immortality! No wonder C.S. Lewis calls him a "jolly fellow."

This is the world wher Our Lord will become incarnate, the "fullness of time," the time appointed by God. And the world was ready for it! With Virgil, we get a sense of messianic urgency (albeit pagan), with a desire for a unifying world empire that would unite "all peoples of the earth with order." And yet, Ovid shows its fulitily, taking note, in his own humorous way, of the fact that, inherent in the very title "Metamorhoses", all things do indeed change, and so will this universal imperial order. It is precisely at this point that christ came, bringing a kingdom not of this world. "Ant the Word became flesh..."

Well, this is what I've been up to.

Coming up next: further reflections from St. Cassian's "On the Eight Vices".

What did Dante Look Like?

Get the scoop here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6255223.stm).

While not "the best looking man in the world", he created what can arguably be called the most perfect epic poem ever, Latin, Greek or vernacular.

Of course, the article makes mention of his death in Ravenna, where he was exiled. In life, he was "persona non grata" at his home town in Florence where, being a White Guelph, he was out of favor. After his death and the success of the Commedia-well, now that's a different story. The Florentines sent several delegations to Ravenna to reclaim their famous son, Ravenna has steadfastly said "senza possibilita". That's Italian for "No way, Jose"! (I know, maybe it should be "Giuseppe", but what would that do to the rhyme?)

The Virgin Mother as Historical Source for Matthew and Luke

From Father Patrick Henry Reardon's Pastoral Ponderings:

A special historical problem attends the Gospel accounts of our Lord's Nativity, but the correct solution to that problem, I believe, offers a unique perspective on those narratives. This subject is easily understood and very much worth the pursuit. We will look first at the problem, and then consider its solution.

The problem, as I remarked, is historical. We may put it simply: Just where did Matthew and Luke find the historical material that fills the first two chapters of each of those Gospels?

The significance of this question will be obvious if we examine the content of the earliest apostolic preaching. It is not a hard task to demonstrate that that preaching was based on a defined narrative structure, which invariably began with the ministry of John the Baptist. It contained nothing pertinent to the Lord's conception, birth, and childhood.

We discern the structure of that early apostolic preaching in the Acts of the Apostles. Thus, when St. Peter began to evangelize Cornelius and his friends at Caesarea, he commenced by speaking of the ministry of John (10:36-37). He went directly from John to Jesus; there was nothing mentioned about Jesus prior to His baptism by John.

The same is true of St. Paul's evangelization of Pisidian Antioch. To speak of Jesus, Paul began by linking Him directly to the ministry of John. He included not one word of Jesus’ life prior to that time (13:23-25). That is to say, the "evangelical narrative," the story form in which the Gospel was proclaimed, embraced the ministry of Jesus, beginning with John the Baptist. It contained no information about the earlier years of Jesus, or about His conception and birth.

Now this is exactly what we should expect from a close inspection of the directive that Peter gave to the assembled Apostles prior to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When they determined to choose some person to take the place of Judas Iscariot to fill up the number of the Twelve Witnesses, Peter specified the time period concerning which that chosen person would have to bear witness. He must be selected, said Peter, from among "these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism by John to the day that He was taken up from us" (1:21-22). That period of time, beginning with John's ministry, defined the specified limits of the original apostolic narrative, the primitive story structure of the Gospel.

Two of the Gospel writers adhere rather strictly to these specified time limits. Thus, Mark begins his Gospel with the ministry of John the Baptist (1:2-3). Even the evangelist John, whose first words take us up to the eternity of the Word's relation to the Father (1:1-5), commences the story of Jesus' life on earth by introducing John the Baptist. Even before declaring that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," John proclaims, "there was a man sent forth from God whose name was John." He goes on to describe the Baptist's ministry at some length (1:6-40). He moves directly from John to Jesus. Neither Mark nor John mentions a single detail about Jesus' life from an earlier period.

In short, then, the inherited story structure of the first apostolic witness began the story of Jesus' life at the point of the preaching of John the Baptist. That apostolic witness seems to have contained not a single detail about Jesus prior to the Baptist’s appearance at the Jordan. Matthew and Luke, consequently, in order to lengthen the Gospel story to include accounts of Jesus' conception, birth, and early life, had available no pertinent material from the earliest apostolic preaching. As far as we can tell, no one had ever preached on such material.
Therefore, this is the historical problem: just where did Matthew and Luke obtain the narrative material that fills the first two chapters of each Gospel? What source was available to them?

The only reasonable answer, it seems to me, is Jesus' own mother, of whom we are told, "Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19,51). Luke is obviously disclosing his source here. Mary alone was still alive to remember, years later, those details no longer known anyone else. She is surely the living witness of the precious stories about herself and Joseph, the conception and birth of John the Baptist, her own virginal conception, the manger in the stable, the swaddling clothes, the angels and the shepherds, the Magi and their gifts, the Lord's circumcision, the presentation in the Temple, Simeon and Anna, and the dramatic event that occurred when Jesus was twelve years old.

Matthew and Luke differ greatly between themselves with respect to details and their differing literary and theological interests, but they tell essentially the same story, and it was a story they could have learned from only one source.
Consequently, to read their Christmas stories even today is to enter into a mother's contemplative heart where those stories were preserved until they were written down in the Gospels under the inerrant guidance of the Holy Spirit. Holy Church, in order to proclaim this earlier part of Jesus' life, draws us into the immaculate heart of Mary, to share in her inner faith and contemplative vigilance, to understand Christmas as she understood it.

St. John Cassian's "On the Eight Vices": Wrath

Well, here it is. So sorry it took me so long to post this, but the end of term is quite difficult, with Don Rags taking up much of my time.

I started this series of meditations based on St. John Cassian's "On the Eight Vices" (or the Seven Deadly Sins) back in Lent, and am now taking it up this Advent for the purpose of "making the way straight" for our God, by rooting out all that should not be in us.

We now take up what the Holy Father Cassian calls the "fourth struggle": Wrath. The first two vices-gluttony and lust-play on what is according to our nature. That is why, in the Divine Comedy, this grouping of sins are identified with the loepard, who is portrayed by Dante as a romping,frolicking and jovial beast. With avarice and anger, we are now dealing with things that are contrary to our nature. This grouping of sins are identified in the Divine Comedy as sins of incontinence.

With wrath, St. Cassian is very uncompromising: "We must, with God's help, eradicate this deadly poison from the depths of our souls."

To what lengths must we go to destroy this unnatural passion? Well, St. Cassian is quite clear, and most uncompromising, on this point: : "If, therefore, you desire to attain perfection and rightly to pursue the spiritual way, you should make yourself a stranger to all sinful anger and wrath. Listen to what St. Paul enjoins: 'Rid yourselves of all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking and all malice ' (Eph. 4:31)." ("On the Eight Vices", Philokalia, p. 83)

"All", for St. Cassian, means ALL. Unlike some of today's politicians, whether Republican, Democrat, Tory, Labour, etc., there is no confusion for him as to what words mean. When he says eradicate all anger, he means ALL ANGER: "In saying 'all' he (St. Paul) leaves no excuse for regarding any anger as necessary or reasonable. If you want to correct your brother when he is doing wrong or to punish him, you must try to keep yourself calm; otherwise you yourself may catch the sickness you are seeking to cure and you may find that the words of the Gospel now apply to you: 'Physician, heal yourself' (Luke4:23), or 'Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother's eye, and not notice the rafter in your own eye?' (Matt. 7:3) (p. 83)

It is clear why St. Cassian does not allow even "righteuous" anger to his monks. Anger "blinds the soul's eyes, preventing it from seeing the Sun of Righteousness." Anger works on our incensive power, which is classified as a part of the appetetive, or desiring, aspect of the soul, that part of us that "provokes vehement feelings". (Glossary, Philokalia, p. 358). When used correctly, it may lead us to fight against sin, and "intensify our desire for God." (p. 358) When used wrongly, however, it leads to anger, which is the root of hatred and violence. Thus, we can see how it is that anger, no matter how "righteous" or "justified," puts us in danger of obstructing our soul's power to reflect the divine light. It prevents us from "seeing the Sun of Righteousness."

Anger, then, is the use of that incensive power in a way that is contrary to nature. But what of the Psalm, "Be angry, but sin not" (Psalm 4:4)? St. Cassian gives this peace of wisdom: "Be angry with your own passions and with your malicious thoughts, and do not sin by carrying out their suggestions." The battleground, of course, is the human heart, that field of battle where, as Solzhenitsyn once said, draws a line not between good and evil. When we realize that this line cuts through our very hearts, it forces us to look into ourselves, and not our brother, to find the cause of our anger and grief. From the Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian: "Yea, O Lord, grant that I may percieve my own transgressions, and not judge my brother." From St. Paul: "Quia non est nobis conluctacio adversus carnem et sanguinem sed adversus principes et potestates, adversus mundi rectores tenebrarum harum, contra spiritalia nequitiae in caelestibus." (Eph. 6: 12 Vulgata: For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the dark rulers of this world, against the vil spiritual forces in the heavens). It is on tis level that we engage the passion of wrath: in our own hearts and souls.

This is why St. Cassian enjoins his monks to to not only fight wrath in action, but also in thought, "otherwise", he says, " our intellect will be darkened by our rancour, cut off the light of spiritual knowledge and discrimination, and deprived of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit." (p. 84) Even more than lust and gluttony, wrath blinds the soul to the divine light to such an extent that it renders us unable to make proper judgements, devoid of malice. No matter how "righteous," it always has that ability to make us blind to the true goal of correction: the encouragement of a brother to forsake sinful passions. Again, how can we encourage a brother towards virtue, when we ourselves are blinded by sinful passions, especially of anger? For St. Cassian, the answer is quite clear and uncompromising-cut it off at the very root, making no concessions to it.

Because it is a sin which affects our relationships, St. Cassian commands his brethren to take up the fight not in solitude, but in community. He discourages seeking retreat to deal with this sin, since "our passions grow fiercer when left idle through lack of contact with other people. Even that shadow of patience and long-suffering which we thought we possessed while we mixed with our brethren is lost in our isoaltion through not being exercised." (p. 85) Here is the key: the virtue of continence must be worked out in community with our brethren, not in isolation. For St. Cassian, virtues are best exercised when we interact with our brethren. Drawing from his own experience, he relates how, when he lived in the desert as a solitary, he would at times get angry at a piece of wood which he wished to cut quickly, but was not yielding so easily to his strikes, or a flint which would not light fast enough. (p. 86)

While I'm still wrestling with his rejection of righteous anger, I must also be quick to add that when I ponder this more deeply, and am honest with myself, many of ny own bouts with anger (justifiable or otherwise) leave me with an uneasy feeling of satisfaction for the "rush" that it provides. At such times, my mind is on everything BUT God-it is scattered in a million directions, as I obsess about the injury done to me, or to a loved one. Sometimes it takes place at rush hour on the way to work, driving on the I-5, reacting in a way that is, as my students would have it, "ugly". "After all, there are classes to teach, great thoughts to discuss and communicate to my students, dissertations to write, and all the while I'm stuck in this @#$*%$@! traffic!" Now I can see where road rage begins. At such a time, I have been instructed by my Father Confessor to pray for those around me Praying the Jesus Prayer, both for myself and those around me, goes a long way in reining in my passions.

I can see most clearly, at such times, why St. Cassian is relentlessly uncompromising in his attitude against wrath and anger. This is a passion where the will is actively involved, with a demonic level of intentionality that very easily leads to violence, and fraud. This is why, in the topography of Dante's hell, the circle of the incontinent, containing that of the wrathful, is just above the circle of the violent, which includes, interestingly, heretics, and the level of the violent is just above that of the fraud. As we descend further into nether-hell, our relationships become ever more estranged, souls become more self-directed. With wrath, we are that much closer to the "slippery slope" of the descent into the nonth circle-traitors to their lords. Here Dante shows wrath's ultimate end-an isolated existence, where the only relationship between Satan and anyone else is a consuming one. This is the ultimate violence: the breakdown of all relationships, between humanity and God, and humanity with its self. Contra Sartre, hell is not other people, but my own narcissistic self. These are the wages of wrath.

As we await the advent of our Incarnate God and King, let us be done with this malady, that we may recieve Him who comes invisibly upborn by the heavenly hosts! May He, who knew no malice, direct our steps in meekness and love so that, at His glorious and dread judgement seat, He may find us worthy to partake of his Kingdom, now and always, et in saeculam saeculorum. Amen.

Next meditation: On Sloth (Dejection and Listlessness)

Tridentine Mass on YouTube

Biretta tip to Subdeacon Ben Andersen: http://occidentalis.blogspot.com/

Missa Solemnis from the SSPX Seminary in Flavigny, France

Part I: Procession, Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, Introit, Kyrie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zwao3bi1fs)

Part II: Gloria, Collects, Epistle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfozGmBZdWQ)

Part III: Gradual, Gospel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ0u6Ps8jn4)

Part IV: Credo ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQoKC2WLavo)

Part V: Offertory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKIRfhb6rY0)

Part VI: Preface, Sanctus, Canon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ipMjI5xpU)

Part VII: Pater Noster, Pax, Agnus Dei, Communion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI5ODgL08Y0)

Part VIII: Ablutions, Postcommunio, Dismissal, Last Gospel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZUMjAdVPpA)

Continuing Series: St. John Cassian's On the Eight Vices

During Lent of this year, I had begun my series of meditations on St. John Cassian's On the Eight Vices. Since Advent is a time where we prepare and "make way in the desert a highway for our God," I think it fitting that we continue to prepare the highway of our hearts by clearing away the weeds and other obstacles that get in the way of our receiving Him who "comes invisibly upheld by the Angelic Hosts." (Liturgy of St. James)

Tomorrow's meditation: On Wrath.

Stay tuned...

St. Nicholas of Myra

He didn't write any great works of theology, but one could perhaps say that his life was theology in action.

He is reputed to have given the heretic Arius a "shiny red nose" at the Council of Nicea. A man of few words, but whose zeal for the house of the Lord knew no compromise when it came to the proper knowledge of the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Ora pro nobis!

1400-Year-Old Christian Burial Ground Found in London

Biretta tip to Huw Raphael (http://raphael.doxos.com/)

Archaeologists excavating near the edge of Trafalgar Square in London have found evidence of early Christianity in England, suggesting the area has a much older religious significance than was originally believed.
A team from the Museum of London has discovered a hoard of what is almost certainly royal treasure, buried in a mysterious, empty human grave laid out in the traditional Christian manner - east to west.
"Our excavations demonstrate the position as a significant and important place at an earlier date than we thought," said Alison Telfer, the senior archaeologist in charge of the dig.
The finds are among the most remarkable discoveries ever made in London and are likely to shed new light on the very early stages of the introduction of Christian ideas into the Anglo-Saxon world 1,400 years ago.
Located immediately next to one of the capital's most famous churches - St Martin-in-the-Fields - immediately to the north of Trafalgar Square, the empty grave appears to form part of a previously unknown ancient cemetery, dating back more than one and a half millennia. Archaeologists have also discovered 24 other graves on the site, all still holding the remains of their occupants.

Read the rest: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2029264.ece

Intimations of Eternity: George MacDonald, Charles Williams and Dorothy Sayers on the Medieval Imagination

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

In T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem, The Love Letters of J. Alfred Prufrock,there is a haunting quality to the way he concludes it: in a disenchanted world of tea cups, marmelaid and toast, with the occasional interruption of women “talking of Michaelangelo,” the image of a bygone age of enchantment-the mermaids-makes her appearance. These mythical sea creatures sing to each other, and yet “I do not think they will sing to me.” This dreamlike world, in the end, is just that-a dream, where mermaids sing, and where “sea girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown” interrupt our prosaic existence. But in the end, “human voices wake us, and we drown.”
This, I think, captures a very key idea and intuition in modernism, one which Eliot certainly draws upon-the near-total alienation of modern man who, unable to be fulfilled by the promises of “science,” is left alienated, no longer able to draw on a world of enchantment. The Nietzcshean search for autonomy has ended in alienation, and no longer do the mermaids sing to us.
But into this lonely world step three individuals who saw things quite differently, for whom the medieval cosmos still held sway: George MacDonald, Charles Williams and Dorothy Sayers. The first two wrote about other worlds that erupted and entered into our own, and Dame Dorothy Sayers, famous especially for her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels, ended her life, inspired by Charles Williams, to translate Dante’s Divine Comedy, that poetic bard of medieval cosmology.
George MacDonald perhaps captured a fundamental impulse latent in the Romantic movement: the Faustian strife and struggle, the importance of feeling and emotion as at least a balance against rationalism. In Lilith, perhaps one of his most famous works, (along with Phantastes) Mr. Vane, the main character, is a very unlikely hero. He, like Wagner, Faust’s assistant, is primarily a reader, and he does not venture much outside the library he has inherited. His sense of reality is shaken by a book he finds in his library that he cannot read, and, guided by a raven/librarian, he enters into a world quite outside of his ordinary experiences, where he will be challenged to rethink who he is and what his place is in the world. It is a fantasy encompassing a wide range of adventures where, like a knight-errant, he experiences triumphs and tragedies that bring him closer to his true self. His attempts to save Lilith, Adam’s mythical “first wife”, leads to the death of his true love, Lona. Throughout, Raven, his guide (who turns out to be redeemed Adam), gives him instructions, which Mr. Vane follows, but not completely, thus bringing a number of disasters upon himself. In the end though devastated by the loss of Lona, he learns a fundamental truth, both about himself, and about the world: “Now I knew that life and truth were one, that life mere and pure is in itself bliss”. He comes to “know himself”, but this self-knowledge comes in light of another world, perhaps even more real than himself, where his beloved lives. That world reveals itself more and more to Vane, until he erupts in praise: “See every little flower straighten its stalk, lift up its neck, and with outstretched hand stand expectant: something more than the sun, greater than the light, is coming-none the less surely coming that it is long upon the road! What matters to-day, or to-morrow, or ten thousand years to Life himself, to Love himself! He is coming, is coming, and the necks of all humanity are stretched out to see him come!... It was a glorious resurrection-morning. The night had been spent in preparing it!” (MacDonald, Phantastes and Lilith. Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1964 p. 420) Here MacDonald turns, like many other Romantic poets and novelists, to the medieval world, drawing on the knightly tradition. But for MacDonald’s character Vane, these adventures lead to defeat, but only in defeat can he be raised to victory, much like the Spencer’s Redcrosse Knight. He rises again, not for the purpose of continual strife, like Faust, but for submission to a higher truth, where he finds his rest.
This same sense of the numinous characterizes the novels of Charles Williams, who, in answer to the modernist crisis, creates stories where, rather than the hero coming into a world of enchantment, like Lewis, that world increasingly intrudes into our world. This comes across most strongly in War in Heaven (1930), which begins as a regular detective story, but then ends up as a fantastic tale where the clue to the murder ends up being the discovery of the Holy Grail. Both the heavenly and the demonic continually enter into this world, the Arch-Bishop calling upon God through prayer, and the antagonist, Gregory Persimmons, calling upon the powers of hell. Williams begins in an almost prosaic way, calling to mind images of contemporary England (at least contemporary to the time he is writing), and then bringing the reader into an eternal reality that manifests itself incessantly to the point that it cannot be ignored, like the mermaids in T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock. Even Prester John, that legendary bishop-king in the east who provided the medieval mind with a great amount of fodder for tales of exploits the quest to find him and enlist his help against the Saracens, makes his appearance, providing valuable help in solving the murder. But one book in particular, his work of literary criticism titled The Image of Beatrice: A study in Dante, reveals his indebtedness to the medieval world view, one that sees the unseen world as a reality, and one that can be known through the only faculty that will give us access to it-faith. After Virgil comes Beatrice as a guide, and this, for Williams, is fundamental to Dante’s growth in knowledge and wisdom: the transition from rational knowledge to a knowledge that can only be attained through union with the beloved. Beatrice, then, represents a higher, mystical way of knowing.
The influence The Figure of Beatrice had on Dorothy Sayers was significant enough to encourage her to undertake perhaps the greatest crowning achievement of her literary career: the translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, with her own commentary and explanation of the images. She herself had studied Medieval Literature at Oxford, but wrote detective novels to keep body and soul together, centered around the hero Lord Peter Wimsey, that aristocrat/detective with an air of foppishness about him. These novels established her as a novelist, but it was in her translation of the Divine Comedy that her literary powers shine forth most brilliantly, in that she will use the full powers of the literary possibilities of the English language to match the Italian text. This project drew upon her three strengths-her knowledge of medieval literature, her interest in theology, and her literary powers. Most importantly, this project captured her attention precisely because underneath the these shocking and at times unnerving images that Dante employs is the most fundamental truth of the epic poem: the soul’s search for God. (See Introduction, Inferno, p. 49) This is a reality that the modernist 20th century had forgotten, and was in desperate need to see again.
What binds these authors together, then, is their keen sense of the eternal, and how the soul, in its sojourn on earth, really yearns for it, and will not be satisfied with anything less. The images they employed to capture this need were ancient and medieval images, making them interact with their contemporary world. Macdonald, writing for the Romantics, and Williams, writing in a Modernist age, nonetheless had their characters interact with a world outside themselves. Sayers translates a medieval classic in such a way as to bring us face-to-face with that eternal quest we are all set upon. With these three authors, Prufrock finally has what he had been eluding him-the song of the mermaids.

Nature, Grace and Glory

Another one by my friend and colleague, Fred Sanders http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/middlebrow/archives/nature-grace-and-glory/#more-361


Three fundamental categories for theologizing are nature, grace, and glory. These terms indicate things you’ve already thought about before, but they don’t quite map onto other terms you might already know.
Nature is what a thing is in itself. Human nature is a created good, a thing with its own integrity and a recognizable completeness in itself. You can’t quite call it independent, because every nature you’ve ever encountered is a created nature which owes its being to God. But nature, the realm of created goods, has to have a relative independence from God in that it genuinely has existence as something distinct from the creator. You didn’t have to exist, and it’s worth thanking God for the gratuity and bonus of your sheer existence.Grace, on the other hand, is more. It is something given to nature from beyond. When God gives grace to nature, he elevates nature beyond its own resources and makes it participate in something superior to itself. As Aquinas would say in his Aristotelian tone of voice, a creature does not have within its finite nature the potential to reach an infinite end, so if finite creatures (nature) are to enjoy fellowship with the infinite God, it will have to be by grace. Human nature may have its own finite telos (end), but salvation is the perfection of human nature in the true end of man, which is the glorification and enjoyment of God. Is there a natural desire for what is beyond nature? Is the structural integrity of human nature some sort of structural openness to God? “It takes God to be a man,” said Major W. Ian Thomas.

Read the rest: http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/middlebrow/archives/nature-grace-and-glory/#more-361