Saturday, November 29, 2014

Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (1st Sunday of Advent 2014)

     Welcome to a new Liturgical Year, and welcome also to Sunday Snippets, A Catholic Carnival.  Sunday Snippets is a weekly gathering of Catholic bloggers who share their posts from the week past here, at This That and the Other Thing under the benevolent gaze of our leader in snippetude, RAnn.

The view from Principium et Finis World Headquarters Wednesday, 26 Nov.
     Today is also the First Sunday in Advent, the beginning of a special penitential season set apart to prepare ourselves, as I say in yesterday’s post, “for the coming of Jesus, not only at Christmas, but at his second coming, and also his coming for each one of us individually.”
     Now, you might be afraid that I’m one of those people who is prone to ranting about keeping Advent and Christmas in their own appropriate seasons and not celebrating Christmas too early; and you’d be right, but I’m not going to do it  today: there will be plenty more opportunities for that over the next four weeks.  I’m thinking more about the meeting each one of us will have with Christ at the end of our own lives – or maybe more accurately, the meeting that I will have with Him at the end of my life.  It may seem that the Creator of so immensely vast a universe would have little time for me or you.  Jesus tells us otherwise:  

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  (Matthew 10:29-31)

The details matter, the particulars matter.  God chose a particular people to preserve his Word and to nurture the Word made Flesh, who came forth as a real individual person, as a tiny baby, in a specific town, at a definite time, not in some indefinite mythological past; for which reason the Evangelist Luke  made sure that we knew that Augustus was the emperor and Quirinus the governor.  The Nicene Creed similarly named  Pontius Pilate as the Roman procurator under whom Jesus was crucified.  And because people matter, not just collectively but as individuals, we relate to the Church through the lives of individual Christian men and women, the Saints, and we call upon them by name so that they might speak for us before the throne of God. 
     The Season of Advent, then, is a reminder to us that the infinite God has enough time and attention for each and every one of us.  Christ is coming, and we will meet him, face to face.  There will be no hiding in the crowd, no slipping past unnoticed.  We are given a reminder, and the opportunity to prepare ourselves: let’s not pass it up.

     Now, moving from the sublime to the . . . well . . . less than sublime, let us say (although I do my best), let’s look at the past week at Principium et Finis.  This was actually our busiest week in quite a while:

Monday – It’s ironic that perhaps the only reason Antonio Salieri’s music is played today at all is that he was turned into a monstrous caricature in a very successful play and film; he wasn’t a murderer, of course, and he was a gifted composer: “ Salieri: Requiem in C minor – Sanctus & Benedictus” [here]

Tuesday – Unlike Salieri, St. Catherine of Alexandria has not seen her reputation blackened (aside from the accusation that she is only a fabrication), but she certainly merits more attention than she receives today: “St. Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Modern Women” [here]

Wednesday – The old “clump of cells” canard: “Abortion Myth #10” [here]

Thursday – For what should we be more thankful than God’s love?  And what better time to bring back my favorite photo of my bare feet in the surf than a Thanksgiving Day blessed with 10 inches of snow? “What Is Man That Thou Art Mindful Of Him? (Thanksgiving Throwback)”  [here]

Saturday – The discovery of a long-unnoticed flaw in my trusty rosary is the occasion for reflection on God’s perfection, my own lack thereof, and the coming of the Christ:  “Be Vigilant At All Times” [here]

Be Vigilant At All Times


   I discovered a very curious thing yesterday.  As we were saying our family prayers, I noticed that the rosary that I have been carrying has only nine beads on its first decade, as you can see in the picture to the left.  It has wooden beads strung on a strong cord which has never broken, so it must have been that way since I bought it.
     The first thought that entered my mind (after I got over my initial surprise) was of the Muslim prayer rugs that have a few stiches the wrong color, or the great mosques where every row of columns has one that’s just slightly out of kilter.  The makers put these imperfections into their work intentionally, as an acknowledgement that only God can lay claim to perfection, which it is right and proper for us to acknowledge.
     These visible flaws don’t simply remind us that God is perfect, of course; their purpose is also to remind us that we ourselves are radically imperfect; not simply morally flawed, but incomplete without God.  So my flawed rosary, through the (unintentional, no doubt) mistake of its maker can represent the flawed nature of all of us. 
     There is also a reminder here, however, of my own particular imperfection: I have carried this rosary in my pocket for seven or eight years; I don't use it every day (when I pray the rosary in the car, as I often do, I usually forgo the beads and use my fingers, in the interests of automotive safety), but I use it frequently enough that I ought to have noticed that it is one “Hail Mary” short.  In fact, I really should have noticed when I first bought it at the local Catholic book store.  So, I have not only a symbol of human imperfection, but a very real, concrete reminder of my own broken nature, and in a very particular area.    
     Today, as it happens, is the last day of Ordinary Time.  Here is the Gospel reading for the day:

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”    (Luke 21:34-36)


As we are about to embark on the Season of Advent, in which we prepare for the coming of Jesus, not only at Christmas, but at his second coming, and also his coming for each one of us individually, we are enjoined to pay attention.  It looks like I have my work cut out for me; and every time I put my hand in my pocket, I have a tangible warning of how far I have to go.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

What Is Man That Thou Art Mindful Of Him? (Thanksgiving Throwback)

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States; it is also Throwback Thursday. It seems a fine time to bring back this post from June 24th of this year (which I composed at the beach, when I wasn't snapping selfies of my feet), a reflection on God's Providential Love for us.  Of all the things for which we can be thankful, God's gift of His very Self is by far the greatest.

            When I look at the Heavens, the work of thy fingers,
            The work moon and the stars which thou hast established;
            What is man that thou art mindful of him,
            And the son of man that thou dost care for him?
            Yet thou hast made him little less than God,
            And dost crown him with glory and honor.  (Psalm 8:3-5)

The author's feet, Pine Point Beach, Maine, June 2014

Yesterday morning at the beach with my family, enjoying some beautiful early summer weather, I was reminded of a hymn we sing at Mass sometimes: “There is a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.”  Standing on the edge of the ocean we can find its vastness overwhelming: we can feel very, very small in comparison.  Sometimes when we look up at the heavens and think about the immensity of the universe , we can almost feel physically overwhelmed by it, as Edna St. Vincent Millay describes it in her poem “Renaissance”:

            So here upon my back I’ll lie
            And look my fill into the sky.
            And so I looked, and, after all,
            The sky was not so very tall.
            The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
            And – sure enough! – I see the top!
            The sky I thought, is not so grand;
            I ‘most could touch it with my hand!
            And reaching up my hand to try,
            I screamed to feel it touch the sky.
            I screamed and – lo! – Infinity
            Came down and settled over me;
            Forced back my scream into my chest,
            Bent back my arm upon my breast . . .

     How much more humbling than the vastness of creation is the infinite God who created it?  How can we not feel absolutely insignificant by comparison?  As I’ve said before, it’s not so much the existence of a creator-God that is so difficult for us to believe, it is that such a God could possibly even notice something as small as ourselves, much less love us.
The view out my back door, Thanksgiving morning 2014.
     That’s part of the wonder of the Incarnation, which we just celebrated this past Sunday in the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16): God put himself on our level (to the degree that he can), he gave us a human face to gaze on, and in taking on human form sanctified humanity.  “If God is for us,” Saint Paul asks, “who is against us?” (Romans 8:31)  It is Christ Incarnate that allows us to feel the boundless immensity of creation not as an infinite indifference swallowing us up without a second thought, but the embrace of infinite Love, because by lowering himself to become man, and by suffering and dying for us, Jesus showed us in the flesh that, truly, “God is Love”(1John 4:8). Let us thank The Lord.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

A Happy Thanksgiving and God's Blessing to all.  This is the scene at Principium et Finis World Headquarters today, the Eve of Thanksgiving, November 26th 2014:


I guess I should have taken in the Tiki Torches:


Abortion Myth # 10

MYTH: “Abortion doesn’t kill a child, it just terminates a pregnancy; after all, the unborn isn’t a human being, it’s just a clump of cells.”

TRUTH: The unborn is, by any objective measure, a human being from the moment of fertilization.

First, a “being”, that is, a living entity:

- Jerome LeJeune, the professor of genetics who discovered the chromosome pattern of Down Syndrome, was simply expressing the nearly unanimous scientific consensus when he said “After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.”

-When the U.S. Senate judiciary committee invited pro-abortionists to present experts to testify about when life begins, they were unable to produce even one expert witness to specifically state that life begins at any point other than conception or implantation (from Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments).

Not only is the unborn indisputably alive, he or she is incontestably a human:

-The living entity in the womb has human DNA; were a lab to test a DNA sample, it would be indistinguishable from that of a newborn, a twelve year old or a sixty year old.

-From the first moment of fertilization, the entire genetic blueprint for a unique individual is already present; the child’s sex, hair and eye color, height  and skin tone are already determined.

-Before the earliest surgical abortions the unborn child already has every body part and organ he or she will ever have (females already have all their own eggs in their ovaries).

The unborn child is not a part of the mother’s body: no part of the mother’s body has different DNA or blood type, or its own heart lungs or liver.

The unborn child is simply a human being at a particular stage of development, as is toddler, an adolescent, or an adult.  The only objective, verifiable scientific conclusion is that human beings begin their lives at conception.


DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Watch an amazing 3D ultrasound video of an unborn child at 14 weeks after conception posted by Dr. Rafael Ortega Munoz:





Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  


Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)


To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

St.Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Modern Women

  
St. Catherine of Alexandria
      Today is the Optional Memorial for a very intriguing Saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria.  There was a time when she was considered one of the Great Saints, but we hear of her much less today . . .  about which, more below, but first let’s take a look at her story.
     For a full account, see here.  I’ll provide a brief sketch. Saint Catherine, we are told, was a beautiful princess born of pagan parents.  She was possessed of a superior intellect, and applied her talents in the study of the sciences and philosophy.  When she became a Christian, she betrothed herself to Christ in a Mystical Marriage, and used her formidable intellectual prowess in defense of His Church.  In this way she came to the attention of the Emperor Maxentius, who enlisted a small army of philosophers to refute Catherine’s arguments.  Not only did they fail, but some of them were converted by her.  The enraged emperor ordered the young woman to be imprisoned and tortured, in the midst of which she gained even more converts, including the emperor’s own wife.  After executing his wife (along with all the other converts) Maxentius tried to win over Catherine with an offer of marriage.  After she refused (already being married to the King of Kings), she was condemned to be tortured to death on a spiked wheel.  When this implement of torment was destroyed by the mere touch of the Saint, the emperor finally ordered Catherine beheaded.  He body was brought by angels to the monastery on Mt. Sinai that now bears her name.
     For a long time St. Catherine was one of the most well-known and honored Saints.  The story of her martyrdom was widely told, and she was popular as the patroness of single women; she was also one of the Saints who spoke to St. Joan of Arc.  Today, however, many Catholics have never heard of her.  Her feast day was removed from the Liturgical Calendar in 1969, although it has returned more recently as an Optional Memorial.
     There are no doubt a number of reasons for St. Catherine of Alexandria’s loss of prominence, but one of the more important (possibly the most important) is the fact that there is no historical record of her life until several centuries after the fact.  While we can’t deny, of course,  that some pious traditions and stories are clearly fantastic, to conclude that we must therefore reject anything handed down by our predecessors in the Faith that falls short of the sort of documentary evidence required by modern historiography is to concede too much to a materialistic worldview.  There is certainly no evidence that that St. Catherine is a fabrication, and in doubtful matters I’ll throw my support to Christian tradition.
     St. Catherine’s lower profile is also unfortunate because she has so much to say to women in our world today.  She is the embodiment of the sort of “Christian Feminism” that St. John Paul II described in his Apostolic letter Mulieris Dignatem [here] and in other places: while she is able to equal accomplished men, she does not seek to supplant them, and she does not lose sight of her essential femininity.  Notice that she finds her fulfillment in her spousal relationship with Christ, and her miraculous deeds are a result of her absolute trust in Him.  Her later namesake Catherine of Siena [here], who was a diplomat and advisor to Popes, was also known for her Mystical Marriage to Christ, and was like her in that even when she went toe-to-toe with men on their turf, she didn’t try to be one of them.   
St. Joan of Arc
     I find the connection to St. Joan of Arc [here] instructive here as well.  I don’t see St. Joan as a precursor of modern feminism, as she is sometimes depicted.  She is really much more like the Old Testament Judge Deborah.  In Chapter 4 of the Book of Judges Deborah takes the reins of the army unwillingly, only after her general Barak tells her that he won’t lead their troops against their enemy Sisera without her.  “I will surely go with you”, she replies, “nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9).  As a result, not only does Deborah receive credit for the victory that should have been Barak’s, but Sisera himself dies at the hand of another woman, Jael, who drives a tent peg through his head as he sleeps.  Likewise, when Joan of Arc takes up the sword, it is not to assert that women should behave just like men; it is a rebuke to the men who have been failing to do that which they have been called to do.
     There’s a lesson here.  Today’s radical feminism is to a large degree an overreaction to a genuine failure to show due respect women and their appropriate role, but feminism has taken a cure that is worse than the original ailment: it denies the essential nature of women by attacking their maternal and nurturing mission.  At the same time, a major result of so-called sexual revolution has been to reduce woman to a mere object of desire.   As a consequence, women are, in important ways, less respected than ever.  St. Catherine of Alexandria has a lot to say to such a world.  She puts her trust completely in Jesus Christ, and so she trusts in the gifts he has given her, including her femininity. Therefore, she can be as strong as any man, without surrendering her womanhood.  She is not deterred by threats, seduced by bribes, and can’t be broken by the worst this world has to offer, because the Lord is her spouse.  She commands the respect of men, and invites the emulation of women.  What more could we ask of a Great Saint?
    


   


Monday, November 24, 2014

Salieri: Requiem in C minor - Sanctus & Benedictus

     While we're on the topic of neglected composers, how about poor Antonio Salieri?  Had he not been cruelly libeled by Peter Shaffer in the play & film Amadeus,  it is quite possible that his music would not be performed at all (incidentally, Shaffer did no favors to the memory of Mozart either, who was the purported protagonist of his story).  The truth is that although Mozart had some suspicions about Salieri when he first arrived in Vienna, the two eventually developed a friendly and respectful professional relationship.  Salieri, in fact, responded very favorably to Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, and in his final letter Mozart mentions taking Salieri to a musical performance in his own carriage.  Needless to say, Salieri did not murder Mozart (nor anyone else that we know of).
     The lovely piece below is the "Sanctus & Benedictus" from Salieri's Requiem Mass, one of his four Masses.  It is, I think, a good example of why he was considered one of the finest composers of his day.
   
   




Antonio Salieri

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (Feast of Christ The King 2014)

    Happy Feast of Christ the King!  Welcome one and all to “Sunday Snippets (A Catholic Carnival)”, a bubbling brew of bloggers in the Catholic tradition . . .no, better yet, Catholic Bloggers who gather (in the virtual sense of the word) on the Lord’s Day to share their posts from the week and enjoy the air of bonhomie to be found at This That and the Other Thing under the indulgent eye of our gracious hostess RAnn (main site right here). 
     Today is the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, a feast which, interestingly, has only been on the Liturgical Calendar since 1925 (and in its current place only since 1970).  Pope Pius XI added the feast in order to counter growing nationalist movements in Europe and elsewhere, and to remind Catholics that their Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ, not the Volk, and certainly not whatever Duce happened to have grabbed the reins of power at a given time. 
     While the totalitarian states of the twentieth century have almost all gone through the entire cycle of rise, decline, and fall, and now reside in what one of their authors so eloquently termed “the dustbin of history”, the totalitarian impulse and the idolatry of the state continues, albeit in a rather less homicidal form.  All of us, however, even those who have consciously sworn off looking for messiahs in politics or government, fall into idolatry from time to time: how often have I pinned my dearest hopes on some passing thing, such as a new job, the next tax return, or even some ridiculous new gadget to add to my collection of equally ridiculous gadgets? If I’m not careful (and, honestly, sometimes I’m not), I can find these seemingly innocuous little idols setting themselves up on the Throne reserved for Jesus alone.  Only Christ is the King of the Universe, only Christ is the Lord of men, only Christ is master of our hearts: Inquietum est cor meum, donec in te requiescat, “my heart is restless until it rests in you”.  Today’s Feast is a timely and needed reminder.


This Week's Snippets:

I’ve been woefully remiss - I’ve only once in the past year posted anything by Palestrina . . . until now: “Kyrie: Missa Papae Marcelli – Palestrina / Tallis Scholars 1980 [link

This is one of those things where a few random thoughts wandering through my brain surprise me by combining in a way that sort of makes sense.  A Throwback from Easter of this year: “Steyn, Spong, Kempton and The Passion of the Christ” [link

In this one I become the 3,987, 654, 033rd person to abuse the term “perfect storm”, while bemoaning the state of the culture, the Church, and whatever else is bugging me.  I also toss a little Latin around, just to be pedantic.  What, you don’t like it? Hey, “Don’t Be So Judgmental!” [link


Monday, November 17, 2014

'Kyrie': Missa Papae Marcelli - Palestrina / Tallis Scholars 1980

It occurs to me that I have only once posted any music by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, one of the great masters of sacred polyphony.  Tonight I'm making a start toward rectifying that omission with the "Kyrie" from his Missa Papae Marcelli.
     Music has developed and grown in the more than four centuries since Palestrina's time in wonderful ways, and there have been composers of outstanding genius, but nothing, if I may offer my personal opinion, has surpassed the sheer beauty of the best sacred polyphony. The video of this rendition by the Tallis Scholars complements Palestrina's beautiful music with beautiful views of religious sites in Southern France.  Enjoy.






Friday, November 14, 2014

A "Cool" Homeschooling Project

Our backyard in winter - not the ideal gardening environment
     Our faith calls us to live our lives by standards different than those of the secular world: “’My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).  God’s ways and the World’s ways seem further apart than ever.  As society at large becomes ever less Christian, it becomes correspondingly more hostile to the practice and the values of the faith, a hostility which is intensified in the public school system, which tends to be dominated by leftist and materialist ideologies.  To put young children there, at an age when character, values, and worldview are still being formed, seems too much like exposing tender plants to rigors of cold weather too soon.  State schools are simply too firmly committed to forming their students in the Ways of the World.

Marigolds protected in the unheated greenhouse
     Catholic schools are a much better option, of course, and a Godsend to countless Catholic families and others looking for a saner, healthier educational environment for their children.  Even here, however, the influence of the secular world can often have a more powerful effect than we would like, despite the best intentions and efforts of those who run the schools (and as one who has taught in Catholic schools for almost three decades, I know about both the good and the, um,  less good) .  And so a small but growing number of us are choosing (along with many of our separated brethren in other Christian traditions) is to teach our children at home.
     For us, then, the choice to homeschool  has been based mostly on a desire to have more influence over the character development of our children, in the hope that when they do go out on their own they’ll better understand what it means to be “in the world but not of it.”  As it happens, there are also some practical advantages as well.  For one thing, our children have been able to work on long-term projects that would have been impractical or even impossible if they had to schedule them in or around school attendance:
Marigolds from the same bed as those above left outside
several of them have written books and made feature-length movies, one has composed a piano sonata, and they all have participated a couple of times in productions of Shakespearean plays  (organized by a local Baptist Pastor with extensive training in theatre) that were intensely  involved, demanding, and rewarding.
     Their most recent project has been to convert our little front porch into a cold weather greenhouse. This is a whole-family project, but the main movers are my son John and my lovely bride, Linda.  John and Linda have just started a blog , “Little Greenhouse in the Woods” [here], chronicling the progress of the project.  Feel free to stop by to encourage a worthy homeschooling project, and to see how things are growing (God willing) through the Maine winter. 

     

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Christ Is King Of All . . . Even The Holidays

So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.  For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, “To an unknown god.”  What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” (Acts 17:22-23)

     Halloween is past, Christmas is coming, and not only are the geese getting fat but the doubters and mockers are getting ready for another round of “demystifying” the Incarnation by pointing out (or making up) connections to pagan holidays and practices . . . and then we’ll go through it all again at Easter time.  Here in the time in between, I’d like to take a few moments to reflect on the holiday (i.e., Holy Day) just past, and look forward to those that are to come.

Good Cop, Bad Cop     

    First, a little background. Many, many years ago, in the days of my neo-pagan youth, I recall reading that the Christians, as they converted previously heathen peoples, intentionally built churches on what had been pagan holy sites: the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, for instance, built on the ruins of what was believed to have been a temple of the Roman goddess of wisdom.  In the same way, countless churches were built adjacent to ancient circles and standing stones in Northwestern Europe, including a whole series of churches dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, the scourge of Satan (the most famous of these is Mont St. Michel, pictured above), which were situated on the hill tops that were considered especially sacred by the pre-Christian inhabitants.
     There was a two-fold purpose to this practice, an ancient precursor to what we today call the “Bad Cop, Good Cop” routine (wherein the suspect confesses to the Nice Policeman, the Good Cop, hoping to earn his protection from the Mean Policeman, or Bad Cop).  On the one hand, we have a concrete sign of the triumph of Christianity, a church built sometimes on the very foundations of a previous pagan establishment, sending as clear a message as one of those paintings of St. Michael with his foot on the Devil’s neck.  Consider also the very name of the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva: “Holy Mary over Minerva”.  The name does not simply tell us which building previously occupied the site, it proclaims the victory of the Mother of God over the pagan goddess.  This is the “Bad Cop” approach.
     We can see the “Good Cop” strategy in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles at the top of the page.  St. Paul commends the Athenians for their religious devotion, which may well be an expression of a real desire to find God, but directed toward false divinities.  Rather than condemn the Athenians for idolatry, he seeks to redirect them toward the True Lord.  In much the same spirit, the Church seems to have concluded that previously idolatrous peoples would accept conversion more easily if they could worship the True God in the same places that they and their ancestors had been accustomed to commune with the old gods.  We can see this as an example of “Baptizing the World”, of sanctifying what is good or neutral in the outside world, and using it to build up the Kingdom of God.  And in cases such as this, how powerful must the effect have been when the new Christians had a tangible sign, in the old familiar place, of the Victory of Christ?

Trick or Treat?

     We can see a similar process at work in the case of many Holy Days.  Not that the Church created them for the purpose of replacing pagan festivals, as the naysayers claim: the Christian feasts commemorate real events in Salvation History.   Christian feasts do tend, however, to subsume and Christianize some pagan practices, which the Church often allows to happen.  Take Halloween, for example.  A couple of weeks ago the Catholic blogosphere was filled with commentary, some arguing that Halloween is no more than a modern day pagan bacchanal, others that it is at worst harmless fun, and still others explaining its Christian source and purpose.  One of the better discussions is this one [here] by Nathan Barontini.  Of the “Four Halloween Mistakes for Catholics to Avoid” Nathan’s mistake #1 is thinking that “Halloween is ‘Pagan’ Rather than Christian.”  He points out that it is tied to the feast of All Saints established by Pope Gregory III in the eight century in conjunction with the dedication of a chapel to “All Saints” and not, as he says, “to compete with some Celtic pagan feast.”  Quite so.  At the same time, one can make a case that some pagan traditions did indeed attach themselves to the celebration of All Hallows Eve, but here we see them serving a new master.  As Mr. Barontini says (under the heading of “Mistake # 3 – Make Halloween ‘No Fun’”:

The traditional ghouls, skeletons, vampires, and zombies all speak to a simple post-Easter reality - Christ has conquered death. At Halloween we mock death, we laugh in its face, proclaiming with St. Paul, "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory?" (1 Cor 15:55).

In other words, like Holy Mary Over Minerva, or St. Michael curb-stomping the Devil, our celebrations on the eve of All Saints Day invoke images of death and corruption in order to show Christ’s victory over the forces they represent.

Our Battle Is Not with Flesh And Blood

     This is not to say that we should disregard those Christians who warn about the demonic aspects of Halloween: when Christ is out of the picture, all that’s left is death and corruption, and the powers of darkness are left in possession of the field of battle.  I have noticed over the past couple of decades that, as the wider culture becomes less Christian, observances of Halloween are becoming both more elaborate and more grotesque.  And there is always a risk when we set out to “Baptize the World” that, if we are not properly fortified and sustained by the Faith and the Sacraments, the World may instead have its way with us.  We should not, however, let the Devil have the last word. 



Our task is first to “put on the full armor of God” (see Ephesians 6:3-17) and then set out to reclaim Halloween for Christ, rather than surrender it to the hosts of the Evil One.

     It is good to bear all this in mind as we approach the so-called “holiday season” (i.e., the Christmas Season).  We will hear a chorus of claims that our Feast of the Nativity is really “only” a thinly disguised form of the Roman Saturnalia, or some Mithraic feast, or something similar (never mind that the Birth of Jesus really happened, and these other things are based on fantasies).  Even if it’s true (and most such claims are highly debatable) that Christmas took it’s gift-giving from Saturnalia, or Christmas trees from some pagan Germanic Yule tradition, and so on, well, so what?  If these things ever did have pagan origins, now they are in the service of Christ, who “will reign until he puts all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25).  So, be of good cheer, and when the time comes, throw another Yule Log on the fire, because Christ is King.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Blessed Pope Paul VI Is Proved Right Yet Again


     Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power [i.e., contraception] passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. (Bl. Paul VI, Humanae Vitae 17)


    Outrageous, but hardly surprising. As Pia Di Solenni reports [here], the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, the international aid group created by the United Nations, have been giving women in Kenya tetanus vaccine secretly laced with the HCG hormone, which causes infertility and miscarriages.  Di Solenni includes the text of a statement by the Catholic Bishops of Kenya detailing: the Kenyan government’s refusal to cooperate with the Bishops’ inquiries about the immunization program; their own clandestine efforts to acquire a few vials of the vaccine, all of which tested positive for the hormone; the “attempts to intimidate and blackmail medical professionals who have corroborated information about the vaccine, with threats of disciplinary action.” She also excerpts a portion of a statement by matercare.org that confirms the Bishops’ findings, and also reveals that the tetanus campaign in Kenya “is targeted at girls and women between the ages of 14-49 (child bearing age)” and involves giving five doses six months apart, which is not required for tetanus, but is necessary for the sterilization hormone.  The statement also reveals that WHO/UNICEF has previously done exactly the same thing in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Phillipines.
     Sin loves company.  It’s not content to sit quietly by itself, but seeks to implicate others in its corruption.  And so we see now the working out of Pope Paul’s prediction: having freed ourselves from the burden of Christian morality, we determined first that contraception was Good for married people; next, if it’s good for them, well then, it must be good for everyone.  If it’s good for everyone, it must also be good for brown-skinned people living in poor countries, even if they don’t want it.  If they don’t want what’s good for them, then we more enlightened folks (having freed ourselves from the burden of Christian morality) have not just the right but an obligation to force it on them. 
     So it goes when we allow such power to pass “into the hands of those authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law”.  The problem is, such authorities and, come to think of it, individuals, tend to create their own precepts, their own “moral law”, but it is untethered to God’s law, which is the only law perfectly attuned to the true good of humanity.  Thus Henri de Lubac, S.J., famously said: “It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God.  What is true is that, without God, he can only organize it against man”. 
     Catholics have long believed that our personal sins affect not only ourselves, but our neighbors, the Church, and the rest of the World.  We have usually taken these effects to be more spiritual in nature, but we can see that it is true in a very practical material sense as well. When we reject God and his precepts, we reenact the rebellion of Satan and the Fall of Adam and Eve.  And as we see here, even private sins can eventually become Public Policy.
     Now, going to confession and resolving to avoid further sin will not directly or immediately help the exploited women of Kenya: that requires exposing the wrongdoing and working to change the policies that allow it.  In the long run, however, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  If we want a more decent and moral world, we all (myself included  - mea culpa!) need to become more decent and moral people.  And we can only do that with God’s help.
    

Thursday, November 6, 2014

On Staying Awake In The Garden

This Throwback is a substantially revised version of a post called "Scripture: Why is Language Important?" that I posted on April 8th of this year.



The Word Made Flesh     

My family doesn’t attend the Extraordinary Form of the Mass on a regular basis, but we go whenever we can.  One of the things (among many) that always impresses me about the Tridentine Liturgy is the fact that every Mass closes with a reading of the “Last Gospel”, the opening of John’s Gospel, which reads in part:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made . . .  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,  (and we saw his  glory, the  glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:1-14)

St. Jerome Visited by Angels by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi
     On those occasions when I have been granted the privilege of teaching a religion course in the High School where I work, I always start the year with this passage because it is an excellent introduction to the Catholic understanding of the “Sacramental Principle”, that is, that God speaks to us through his creation. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"!  Catholic and Orthodox Christians have always understood that the embodiment of the Eternal Word Who Existed Before the Creation of the Universe in the Man Jesus Christ reveals a pattern that is repeated in countless lesser embodiments: in the men and women whom God chooses to carry out his will, such as prophets, evangelists, and saints, not to mention his ordained clergy; in his Church and its sacraments; in the events of Salvation History and of everyday life.  “The Heavens proclaim the Glory of God!”, says the Psalmist (Psalm 19:1).  Accordingly, things, details and events are important.  That’s why the early Church was always careful to emphasize that Jesus was an actual man who lived in known places, at a certain time, under certain verifiable Roman officials such as Pontius Pilate.  The details matter.

Loosening Up the Meaning

     I couldn’t help but reflect on these things as I read this Anthony Esolen article here. I have commented previously on the substance of Pr. Esolen’s characteristically excellent piece (here); today I’m more interested in a tangential matter that he brings up in the opening paragraph of his article, where he says:

I recently read Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae the way it was principally meant to be read: in Latin.  There’s something illuminating, I find, about reading in the original a work that is familiar to you in translation.  It becomes unfamiliar.  You can’t catch the gist of a clause unless you pay unusually close attention to the words.  You can’t dismiss something before you have quite determined what that something is.

     I immediately identified with the idea of reading something (particularly the Bible) in its original language as a way of reawakening my own attention to its substance because the same principle applies in many of my posts dealing with Holy Scripture (here and here, for instance). I often find that looking at a passage in the original Greek, and maybe the way it was translated into Latin just a few centuries later, is not so much a matter of “linguistic analysis” as it is simply a way of “loosening up” the meaning after the English translations have become so familiar that they have calcified, and no longer sink in.
     It’s also true that having to work through a language like Latin or Greek, where the syntax follows different principles, forces you to examine the language much more closely than if you were simply reading it in English.  Some of my students know this first hand. A few years ago I was searching through recent papal encyclicals looking for some “modern Latin” for a third year Latin class.  One day I heard some of the students in the class teasing one of their classmates because he had visited a store called “Condom Sense” (yes, it is what it sounds like).  “Of course!” I thought, “what would have more relevance to their daily lives than Humanae Vitae?”  Which we did indeed read, in the original Latin.  By the time we were through, those students knew Pope Paul’s teaching inside and out (which is not necessarily to say that they were pleased to know it).

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.' (from Through The Looking Glass)

     Another problem with translations is that invariably many of the connotations and possible meanings of the original language will be lost.  This perennial problem loomed even larger in the latter half of the twentieth century, when an approach called “dynamic equivalence” was popular among translators.  In brief, dynamic equivalence means that the translator renders what he thinks is the “essential meaning” of the text, as opposed to what it literally says.  The result for scriptural and liturgical texts was “translations” that were really interpretations, since the translator would often replace figurative language with whatever (in his or her judgment) the figures or images were intended to convey. 
     We find a good example in Psalm 51, for instance, verse 7 or which literally reads “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I will be made clean”. The official translation used in the Liturgy of the Hours renders this as “O purify me, then I shall be clean.”  Notice the concreteness of the original text: we can picture in our minds the priest in the Temple (or a Catholic Priest today) dipping an evergreen branch into a bowl and sprinkling the congregation; “purify”, on the other hand, is an abstraction which we can certainly understand, but it does not engage our imagination, and is easily passed over as we move on to the next line. We lose much of the distinctness, and sense of embodiment (“Word become Flesh”!), because much of the concrete and vivid imagery has been flattened or erased. Think also of the recently replaced translation of the Mass, where dynamic equivalence formerly obscured the scriptural source of things such as “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you . . .”; this allegedly “dynamic” translation is clear enough, but it is abstract and remote. The new, more literal, translation, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof . . .”, is not only something that we can visualize, but we see a clear connection to the Roman centurion with a sick servant in Matthew 8:8, whose words we are speaking.  It is always more meaningful when our imagination is engaged.

They Are There For A Reason

     We should also bear in mind that images that have been written into Holy Scripture by writers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit could very well be there for more than one reason. In the passage from Psalm 51 above, for instance, in addition to what is a clear suggestion of a liturgical purification, the “sprinkling” can be seen as looking forward to Baptism. Another example is a translation I have heard (not in specifically Catholic circles) of the Lord’s Prayer which substitutes “daily strength” for “daily bread”.  While “strength” is certainly one of the things implied by the image of bread, there are so many other implications contained in the original image (which, in this case, was chosen by Jesus Christ Himself), not the least being allusions both back to the Manna that fed the Hebrews in the desert and forward to the Eucharist.

It’s All Greek To Me

     So, you might be saying, "I don’t know Latin or Greek: where does that leave me?"  Fortunately, there are things you can do refresh your reading of Scripture, short of learning another language (although it’s never too late to start), and that can help you achieve much of the same result.  You can read the Bible with a good Catholic commentary, for instance.  It can also be helpful to compare different translations (sticking to approved Catholic translations, of course). I would make a point of including the Douay-Rheims version, which for a long time was the Catholic Bible in English; it is from the same era as the King James (a few decades earlier, in fact), and makes a point of following the original text much more closely than has been the fashion in recent years (the passage from John's Gospel at the beginning of the post is from this translation). Working with the language in this way can help to free it from the choices of a particular translator, and also help the reader to get below the surface of a translation that has become too commonplace.

     Here’s my final point: God speaks to us through his creation, including the words of Holy Scripture.  But we are like the Apostles, who could not remain awake with the Son of God in the Garden of Gethsemane; it’s a mark of our fallen nature that the very words of our Lord can become so familiar to us that we barely notice them as they fly past our eyes or ears.  The good news, however, is that sometimes looking at a familiar text from a different angle can loosen up the stuck cogs in our brains, Deo volente.

      

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Monteverdi: "Laetatus Sum", Copenhagen Soloists

     Another delightful piece from Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine, “Laetatus Sum”.  It is a musical setting for Psalm 122 (English translation below from the RSV).  The Psalm itself celebrates the joy and peace to be found in “The House of the Lord”.       
     The ancient psalmist was no doubt referring principally to the actual Jerusalem of his day, and the Temple of stone and wood built upon its heights. We, looking back through the lens of God’s Revelation in Jesus Christ, can see a deeper meaning: “the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God”, our Heavenly Destination (God willing) that is spoken of in the Book of Revelation (Rev 21:2).  The New Testament, as St. Augustine pointed out, is concealed in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. And, here, beautifully put to music.





Psalm 122

I was glad when they said to me,
"Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!
Jerusalem, built as a city
which is bound firmly together,
to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
"May they prosper who love you!
Peace be within your walls, 
and 
security within your towers!"
For my brethren and companions' sake
I will say, "Peace be within you!"
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.