The Unity of All Romes: In studio veritatis

On My Blog

2007-05-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

I recently re-read (or rather, re-skimmed) many of my previous entries and realized my blog is quite different than all the other blogs I read. Most of them are oriented toward current events with various sidesteps into doctrine and apologetics (or apologetics with various sidesteps into current events).

All Romes, on the other hand, seems a bit more loopy and varied in its thoughts, but is usually looking at more philosophical/theological ideas, like how certain actions reveal certain things about our culture.

I think I finally understand my writing a little better now that I know what I am actually writing about.

Of Passings of Time

2007-05-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

So over two months have passed sense my last post. I am certain everyone has given up reading by now, so of course I start posting again (my blog then becomes some sort of Tabula Rosa, only for the readers and not the blog itself).

Of course, a lot has changed and everything has stayed the same (time is funny in that way, doing nothing and everything at the same time). It is much that there are the same old sins, the same old days, despite every change one makes to his or her own world. Our fight is not so much against the way we live but how we live (the difference being in actions versus intent). We must intent to live holy lives before we can.

In further news, I am contemplating starting a non-profit (at some point) under the name Studio Forma, Pursuit of Beauty. The purpose of the company would be to give money or items to parishes and religious instutions to be used for the beautification of their property. It might extend to include private individuals as well. It is incredible how much differences a single religious icon can make in an environment.

Further reports as merited.

Freedom

2007-03-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

I was recently running an imaginary conversation through my head (I do that a lot, sometimes to prepare for a coming conversation, sometimes to work out an argument, and sometimes because I'm bored. Usually 'cause I'm bored). I played a modern 'feminist' against the Church with the claim "the Catholic Church oppresses women and gives them no freedom."

The response is quite interesting: "The Church gives women the freedom to be women. Society denies her this right and tells her to be a man. Who really oppresses?"

To suggest that freedom is bound up in the idea that one can have the freedom from their very nature is absurd and dangerous. It is like suggesting that trees are oppressed because they have not been given the freedom to be mountains and all trees out to be mountains because they are bigger and stronger and exert a greater influence on the world. And once all the trees are mountains, the mountains will be bare and ugly.

The nature of something is what makes it what it is. A 'freedom,' or rather exile, from one's nature is a destruction of one's being. When a tree becomes a mountain it can no longer be a tree and thus is no longer the same being.

Society's attack on feminity and masculinity lies upon these lines, that nature is as interchangable as clothing. One can simply shuck their feminine nature for a masculine one just like changing pants. The problem is, it is more like leaving the pants and changing the person inside of them. A lack of foundation results in a lack of person.

The only response is the freedom to be what one's nature is. If man is free to be a man he is not scared of it and has no reason to desire to be a woman and vice versa. If one can embrace their nature they would have no reason to change it for both masculinity and feminity are, on their own, perfect, complimenting each other.

A woman's greatest gift is to be female and a man's to be male. It cannot be given up.

The Lessons of Illness

2007-03-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Monday evening I became quite ill. It was the first time in six years that I had really been physically sick and it taught me a couple of things.

A few times over the past year and a half or so I have suffered intense emotional pain, associated with anything from the death of family to loosing faith in another. While these pains were very intense, they were of a quite different form than the physical pain I suffered just the other day and it made me think.

As I was curled up in pain, I had a variety of thoughts, most on the lines of "make it stop" or "this hurts" (when you are in major pain you sort of forget to say 'ow). One thought I had, however, I find rather interesting. One moment I really wanted the pain to stop, the next I wondered how, if I could not handle this pain, I would be willing to let my (hypothetical) wife go through the pain of childbirth. It would be horrible of me to stand by my wife in labor and say "you can do this," etc. while having been completely unwilling to go through pain myself.

In addition, this experience reminded me how we are not designed to suffer. God created us to enjoy eternity with Him, an existence free of suffering. But we are broken (by our own free act) and so we suffer the supernatural experience of pain, the wounding of body and soul. The more we suffer the easier it is to see that we are made to be without it.

Beyond the actual pain, I gained an understanding of sacrifice and penance. I drink a decent amount of caffiene (probably seven caffienated beverages a week) and contimplated giving it up for Lent (as I had already given it up for Fridays) but wondered how I would be able to function without it.

Turns out pretty well. My total Caffiene intake for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was two Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans and I was awake enough to function until past midnight on Wednesday. During the same time my total food intake was hardly anything (having been virtually unable to eat for much of Tuesday) and I still functioned fine.

I am beginning to see why so many saints were ill for much of their life. While the cause may be explained by their poverty, very often I think the illness helped bring them to sainthood. When our bodies our weakened it takes less of the pleasures of life to fulfill our desires and it is clearer that we need less of what the world has to offer. It is in rejecting the world that we accept heaven.

Sacrifice

2007-03-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

There seem to me to be two things Americans don't think they can live without: wealth and noise.

Everywhere you turn people are buying things, generally things which are loud. There is no quiet in the world anymore. If we don't have a radio, TV, or computer (with massive speakers) available, we get our IPods out and listen to that. It seems that every moment is oriented either toward listening to things or purchasing new things.

It's not that everything should be quiet, just that we should, at times, enter into quiet places. When there is too much noise (particularly noise aimed at communicating something, such as modern music or TV) it is much more difficult to think.

Wealth is equally problematic. When there is always something to buy it is much more difficult to use money on others.

These are just a couple observations without solutions but we can take the first step. Don't buy the next thing you want to and don't listen/watch the next program you want to. One step toward being free of the cultural norm.

Desires

2007-02-28T22:38:00.000-08:00

I was talking with a friend over the weekend about pretty much everything (we ran the gammit from fantasy to the virtue of poverty) and at one point we discussed how Buddhism stands compared to Christianity.

This got me thinking and I worked up a definition that separates the Buddhist and Christian understanding of the afterlife: a Buddhist aims to have all desires erased, while a Christian aims to have all his desires fulfilled in God (assuming that all desires are good things that can simply be twisted by sin).

On the Writing of Letters

2007-02-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

If I had any readers before, I've probably lost them by not posting for a week and a half.

To start off, I would like to go back to my last post and explain what the Novena was for (something I should have done, oh, a week and a half ago). There were two ends for the Novena, both of which currently look more positive but neither is certain, so feel free to make your thoughts known, if you have any.

I am now considering pursuing a degree in architecture (the secondary intent of the Novena) and putting my energy toward, at some point, the building of a large and beautiful church (the primary intent). I will explain more about the latter later, but I just wanted to put those out.

The world we live in is one which has come to an abhorence of slowness. Everything needs to be fast, from fast food to quick check out lines to ATMs to e-mail. There is very little in the way of silence or the desire to take things slow.

In a personal attempt to reverse that within me, I have taken up the hobby (or rather, art) of letter writing. I don't mean e-mail, but hand written, snail-mail letters. I am writing them to anyone who would receive them, from friends living, literally, just down the street, to relatives who live on the far end of the country.

The beauty of the letter is multi-faceted. First, it forces me to take the time to write. Where I can type somewhere in the range of seventy words a minute, I can only write about twenty. Editing is also more difficult, forcing me to think ahead more.

Secondly, the communication is not instantaneous. We are so used to in this day of cell-phones and instant messaging to, well, instant messages. Sending a letter takes a couple of days, meaning the information is not hot-button. The written word has a naturally more relaxed feel.

Furthermore, letters take time to read. When you receive a letter you must ingest the words and make your way through the author's handwriting. In addition, you can return to what you have read, something largely impossible with phone conversation and mostly pointless with the way we write e-mails these days.

In addition, letters allow for a unique form of dialogue. Where conversational dialogue is quick give and take, letters demand the writer to take his time in responding, forcing thought to proceed action which will, in many cases, keep people from saying stupid things we don't really want to say (the ones we do want to say, well . . . ).

Finally, letters are doccuments and thus endure. They can be saved for future generations, for a smart point they make, or just a comment that makes the receiver laugh. Their tactile nature also makes for a unique reading experience because they can be carried, folded, crinkled, pocketed, re-read, tossed about, and otherwise enjoyed.

Tune into the next post for a discussion of the Lord's Prayer (well, part of the Lord's Prayer, a couple of words, anyway . . . it has to do with the Our Father. Trust me). This one will hopefully be sooner than a week and a half.

Novena

2007-02-09T09:42:00.000-08:00

In any of you have been counting, you might have noticed that today is the last day of the novena despite the fact that I said it was going to Sunday.

Turns out the Novenas are started the day after Ascension Thursday and finishe the day before Pentecost Sunday, so I started mine a day early. It does not really matter, 'cause it is still a novena, but I just wanted to clear up any confusion (if there was any. I have a feeling nobody was counting).

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Obtain for us the graces necessary to see God's will and those required that we may perform his will, no matter our fears or apprehensions, and pray that we may come to love the Lord's will more and more.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Consumerism

2007-02-08T16:52:00.000-08:00

As promised, by reflections on American consumerism.

I recently got a job at a local department store and have spent way too many hours there (all of them working). It has given me an opportunity to see first hand how Americans use their money.

Two days ago while I was working checkout I watched the number of people who picked up either drinks or candies on their way into the lanes. Probably one out of ever five people purchased at least one or the other, yet none of them had the intent to buy it (about half the time the person backtracks in order to pick up the goods). Why are people so flippant with their money as to purchase way over-priced (twenty ounces for $1.19) drinks?

A recent article in the loval paper discussed the success of High-Definition TVs in America and it quoted a consumer anthropologist (apparently they do exist) who said that Americans define themselves by what they buy. This seems obvious in retrospect, but I had never considered it before. If you don't have the best clothing, jewelry, cars, TVS, cell phones, etc. then you are looked down upon. It is far worse in America to be poor than to be a prostitute.

As of this moment, I have no real response to this anti-poverty mentality other than to say we should try and do without. Can you really go for one day a week without purchasing anything? Do you have to get a full meal everytime you go to a restaurant? (It seems that the only Americans who are close to leaving in intentional poverty are the college students, and most of them are only doing it so they can get more money in the long run). I'll probably post more on this as it develops.

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

By your holy example lead us to a poverty of spirit so that we may more fully come to the will of God in our lives.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Dogmatic

2007-02-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

I was going to talk about consumerims today, but you are spared that lecture until tomorrow.

Several months ago I was angry/upset at a Catholic friend for doing somthing not very Catholic and the statement was made by this friend that: "New converts are often very dogmatic," implying that other Catholics are not dogmatic.

I'm sorry, a non-dogmatic Catholic is known as an Anglican.

At some point in the creation of the Protestant (and American) ideal the idea that dogma is bad was born. This idealogy suggested that a unwielding belief in something was damaging to the true Christian ideal (of course, every Protestant is - or was - dogmatic about the Trinity, but they never worried about that). The very phrase dogmatic has gained negative connotations, suggesting a belief that is unduely harsh and rigid.

The thing about dogma is that is must be rigid. If one could bend dogma when the situation was convenient, it would be little more than a preffered idea, rather than God's idea. To relax on dogma is to relax on holiness.

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

May you pray that we are guided forever to the full understanding of God's light and interecdede that we may never turn from his path.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Personal Prison

2007-02-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

I wanted to offer today's post as a prayer for those who believe they have no other options.

In many parts of society, people have constructed a worldview that limits what one can do, forcing those of lesser wills (and many of those of greater) into an undesired path. For example, secular society says that the best response to unplanned pregnancy is abortion, and the second best is being a single mom. It almost ignores giving a child up for adoption, and the idea of the parents marrying for the sake of their child is considered absurd (if considered at all).

There are many such examples, spanning all the reaches of life. There are millions every day who feel they have no other options and do what they do not wish to, simply because no one has offered them an out.

With God, there are always options, if nothing more than the freedom of Christ and his power to endure whatever must be done. Let us today remember those who feel trapped and pray the receive the light to see Christ's hope for them.

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Pray for us that we may be given the insight of God and intercede for us so that the path of others is not forced on us against the better will of the Father.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Love

2007-02-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

While I was on campus today I saw a poster promoting the week of Valentine's Day as "Safe Love Week" with such enlightening and instructive things as "Condom Bingo."

Somehow your society has shifted romantic love (eros) from a emotion to a thing you do. You no longer really fall in love, rather you make love. As such, love has become simply another aspect of a person, something all people will experience and therefore should be enjoyed as much as possible and, in the short term, the most effective way to 'enjoy' love is through sex.

This shift has caused the pathetic masculine statement: "if you loved me you would sleep with me," and, in many ways the equally pathetic (though better in moral ways) statement: "if you loved me you would marry me." Both these statements reveals an immaturity, specifically in the understanding of what love should be. Sex is, outside of marriage, one of the most base things man can do, and to use it as a guage if love is stupid. Does a prostitute love you because you have had sex with them?

On the other hand, the equation that love must result in marriage is a different sort of bastardization of love, forcing it toward a natrually eros-centered existence. The claim that true love must result in marriage is an attack on both the single life and the final end of life, for in heaven there will be no marriage.

This topic is very much bottomless, and I will probably review it more as Valentine's Day approaches (I choose to not call it St. Valentine's Day because the love-holiday is specifically secular).

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

May we, by your intercessions, be brought more fully into the love of God. May your prayers lead us to the full understanding of the Lord's will and may you obtain for us the graces necessary to perform this will.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Dreams and Discord

2007-02-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Today, oddly enough, I will be talking about a dream I had last night, not so much for the content of the dream as the thoughts it inspired afterward.

The basic premise was that I was with a group of FOCUS people doing something (with a suffecient quantity of dream ambiguity) and there was someone in the group (the person in question being a creation of the dreamstate) who was not trusted by the others (I can't rightly remember why, if there was a why).

This mistrust continued to build throughout, expanding from the one person to others involved, until people started fighting each other refusing to do anything together. In the end it seemed as if everything was falling apart.

In many ways this is the way mistrust works. It is contagious and harsh, building off itself. If you can't trust one person you know, why should you expect to be able to trust anyone you do not know. The mistrust can then spread from that one person to other people you know by virtue of uncertainty.

Mistrust is a shadowy issue, for the trustworthyness of a person is not visible on their bodies, but hidden in their souls. Glancing at someone, even knowing them for a while, cannot tell you how trustworthy they are. You must entrust something to them and see how they respond, and that is a very vulnerable action, something you would not like to do unless you trust someone, throwing the whole thing into a loop.

In the end, the only way to trust someone is to trust God first, and place trust in others as an extension of that first unshakable trust. It is not foolproof, but it is also not foolhardy.

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Intercede for us in the heavenly realm that we may be guided to do the fullest will of God, both now and forever.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Novena

2007-02-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

I can't think of anything new to post, so I'm just throwing up day three of the Novena:

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Pray that we may be guided into the fullness of the Father's will and that all our actions may bring him greater glory.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Mea Culpa

2007-02-02T08:24:00.000-08:00

So I need to make a clarification based on multiple people's responses to multiple posts.

When I write something that is about the internal life, specifically about what constitutes sin, I do not write it for someone in particular. I cannot ever say whether someone is in mortal sin, and I can rarely say if someone is in sin (because even involuntary sin is still venial sin, that is a judgement call one can make). As such, my writings are designes as, at most, guides to suggest how one might examine one's self.

What this means is that if you felt yourself attacked in my blog, it was not intentional. I might have been attacking a situation you are in, think yourself in, or appear to be in, but much of the time I probably did not even know of the situation (sometimes I do, and sometimes that knowledge begins a thought process that results in a post, but most of the time those post look nothing like the original situation).

If, for example, I post about people gossiping and you do, I am probably not writing directly to you but it applies to you. On the same hand (if I can use that phrase) people might think you gossip a lot and have said so, but you do not believe it to be gossip. I am likewise not writing to you but it may or may not apply to you, depending on whether or not those other people are correct. But I am not making the judgement on whether they are or not.

My goal is to be as broad and focused as possible, writing posts that can reach a variety of people but engage a single issue and drive it home. Because of this, my posts will apply to situations in people lives, often things they do not want to think about and often things they are harrassed about. My goal is neither to harrass nor point fingers, but just to present my understanding of an issue, which very well might be wrong in the end.

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Guide us with your prayers and lead us into a full understandig of the great will God has in store for us and by your prayers may we never stray from what is right.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Femininity and Novena

2007-02-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

The promised novena will come after a brief reflection on my thoughts from this day.

This coming friday the FOCUS ladies are having a girl's 'Spa Night' and being all feminine (the guys are watching war movies and burping a lot). For some reason I was thinking about this and began to think about a friend of mine who has generally positioned herself as the non-feminine type. While this is her norm, she slips into feminity on occassion, suggesting that perhaps her demenour is not so fixed.

There are two incorrect responses to feminity (or masculinity, but I personaly have so far seen less problems in the this area): either an annihilation of feminity or the use of feminity as a power or weapon.

The annihilation of feminity is the idea that woman and men should be identical. There should be no distinction between the genders so that there is perfect equality. It would do us good to remember "male and female he created them," that feminity is a gift from God.

The use of feminity as a power is more subtle and thus probably more dangerous. I have a orthodox Catholic friend who has told me, on multiple occassions, that she believes it good for her to use her 'feminine wiles' (her term, not mine) to get things. She has said that if flirting will get her a better deal, she has absolutely no qualms about doing it. I mention this because it shows just how subtle this can be. It can coexist with a viable Catholicism and remain largely unnoticed, yet it is truly dameging to a person. The primary problem with feminity as a power is that it turns the essence of being female into an external object, something which is used to an end, its good being made subserviant to the lusts of man (not all flirting is necessarily lust filled, but flirting with a stranger is naturaly inclined giving the stranger unchaste thoughts).

John Paul the Great has a bit to say about Women.

Novena

I am going to pray the following Novena until a week from Sunday for discernment for all, and specifically discernment on a project for me. I am not going to mention the project until after these nine days. I decided to start the Novena today because they were originally prayers said from Ascension Thursday until Pentecost, and seeing as there is no close Ascension Thursday I decided to use an ordinary one. The selection of the Novena is based on the unmentioned project (because I did not find a specific Novena on discernemnt).

Noven to St. Benedict

Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Please pray that all people properly discern God's will and help us to find the paths which we are too take.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.

Foundations and Poem

2007-01-31T21:47:00.000-08:00

So lately I've been thinking about discernement (as is probably apparent to anyone who has read two or three entries on this blog) and how one determines the will of God. While I am still uncertain in many ways as to how to determine the will of God one thing is clear:

In hoc cognoscent omnes quia mei discipuli estis si dilectionem habueritis ad invicem.

This is John 13:35 in Latin (I just like other languages). It is where Jesus says that "they [the world] will know you are Christians by your love."

This means that Christianity is revealed by the fruits it produces. If you do not love, you are not, in essence, Christian. If we take this a step further we understand that God's relations to actions is revealed, at least partially, by the fruit that action revealed. This is to say that if a certain action causes you to start spending more time in adoration, it is probably a good thing (as long as your time spent is not some sort of counterbalance). Likewise, if your choice makes you spend less time in adoration, it is probably a bad thing (I will not say definitely, for there are few definites).

To clarify a little more, if your time is no longer spent with God because of a simple unability to spend the time (school, work, etc.) it is not inherently evil. But Mother Teresa said (and the other saints agree), in essence, "the more you do the more you must pray;" so when your activities take away from God time, it is probably bad.

The following is a poem I wrote over the weekend. It is a little long, but if you don't read it scroll down to the bottom of the page because there is a little more I'd like all those who read this blog to read.

To Pick and Choose

And sayeth the teacher
unto those, rapt in attention
captured by his words spun
in finery and confusion,
words of no rock dressed
in the arts of Rome
and played against the timeless light,
darkness wrapped in man’s frivolity,
those thoughts loosed by wild freedom
“My words speak fresh light
on ancient thoughts and brighten
their dust filled ways with
that all-cleaning river of science,
washing away archaic truths
and broken dogmas of the past.”
Nodding faces and renewed thoughts
greeted this earthly pronunciation
renouncing the foundation of the world
for the fickle reaches of philosophy
and the wild ends of belief.
“It is the mind of man which
empowers the open advancement of
man’s greatest achievement: that which
has slain the baseless roots of power.”
And so speaketh he against the words as new
as the foundation of the world
with words as ancient as
the young man’s destructive birth.
Threw he then the first stone
shattering the great edifices of glass,
raining colored sand about
the gloried forms on knees and stone
Those outside cheered this brave soul,
this mighty man against the machine,
for the strides he took in the name
of liberty from all form and reason,
but those beneath the glass took
notice not of this first heckler
for he was nothing new in the world
but a mad meander, the waves
from that ancient storm which touched
not the boat but rocked the sea.
And buffets he the world’s waters
tumbling man and thought against
that still strong barque and
wakes the sleeping master
who soon strives against the storm
and breaks flat the wild reaches
of ancient powers and reawakens
the eternal spring of theat long golden earth.

Many of us are currently discerning the priesthood, religious life, marriage, and profession, and I thought I'd help out. Starting tomorrow I am going to be praying a Novena (not sure which one yet) for a better understanding of God's will. This also applies to a major project I am considering undertaking (not the biggest I've ever thought of, that definitely goes to the fleet of star ships) and whether it is God's plan.

I'd like to invite all of you to pray along with me. I will be posting the prayers for each day here so that you can just log in and pray.

A Brief Introduction to the Formation of Protestant Denominations

2007-01-30T20:28:00.000-08:00

After much study, I have compiled this work as an examination of how Protestant denominations determine dogma and doctrine. Where did the rather interesting ideas of absolute predestination (God chooses who goes to heaven and who goes to hell) or Dispensationalism (parts of the Bible are on valid at certain dispensations, or times) come from?

At first, one starts with the Catholic Church, it being the only Church from which to start. A reformer examines the Church and chooses that which does not belong. He picks out purgatory, the True Presence, and the Sacrament of Penance. He now has a Christian dogma with a couple very large holes in it, something that is not very presentable. So he shakes it around a little and the dogma settles. As it does, it of course looses its former shape and many given truths are either lost or no longer fit into the sheme and are thus disposed of.

Of course, this process is repeated with the reformers of the new church, and so on, each picking out what they don't like, shaking the truth, and scrying what settles. Occasionally, truths lost in a prior settling are rediscovered and reinserted, but someone later inevitable removes them again, creating a vicious cycle of re-creation, the invention of the thousand denominations, all born out a little settling of the Truth.

The Mass and Marriage

2007-01-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

Today I was thinking about the Mass and came to the conclusion that it is, in many ways, like a marriage.

Beyond the obvious one that they're both sacraments, one big one stuck out: you spend your entire life getting to know it. That is to say, the Mass is so complicated, so layered, that you can discover something new about it everyday for the rest of your life. Likewise, you can (and probably will) discover something new about your spouse all the time. It is an encouraging thought that some wells will never run dry.

As long as I'm talking about marriage (sort of) I am going to back track and make mention of another part of romance, or rather one's response to romance. We are, of course, to pray for our relationships, but too often it seems we spend our energy either praying on the one we are in or would like to be in (once again, my primary source is the masculine gender, and so this may or may not apply to you ladies). Instead, it seems to me, we should be offering prayer up for "My future wife/husband" (please select the correct gender to counterpart your own). This prayer takes away from the constant internal work of praying that "girl X" will start liking you and instead tells God "if girl X starts liking me I'll be happy but I'll be happier if my future wife is the one liking me" (of course, girl X may be the future wife in question, which would just compound the happiness).

Keep in my, God always has the best spouse for you in mind. It can't do any good to force the issue with the girl you think is cute when God has other ideas.

Romancing the Stone

2007-01-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well, okay, so there's no stone. This is more about romance itself.

I've recently talked to a couple of friends about their romances (or lack there of) and have done a little thinking about it myself (as it is required to be married, and that seems the direction God is sending me, etc.) and have reached a conclusion of sorts.

I believe there are two positive ways a guy can go about romancing a lady: either he can ask her on a date and then be a wonderful man for her, or he can win her heart before he ever even hints at a date.

I have been unable to come up with anything better about the former and thus would like to talk on the latter. When a man goes through the effort to win a woman's heart before he even knows if she would consider dating him (and thus before he knows if he could actually win her heart) he is presenting a much more selfless love. He pours out his energy on her because he sees her value, not because he knows she is going to return his affection. She in turn gets to see that he is serious about her and she knows he is not going to be a flake in any relationship they have.

What do you guys think? Specifically, what do you ladies think? Is this a valid presentation of how a romance should go or did I miss something important?

And this is now officially my second longest blog on blogger with 46 entries (click on the view profile button to see the others).

The Three Converts

2007-01-24T19:49:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I was thinking about converts to the Church and decided they generally fall into three categories: those who follow, those who wake, and those you strive. This three categories may also be applied to reverts, though they are generally of the thrid more than the first two.

Those Who Follow: These are the converts who enter the Church because their spouse, spouse to be, or rather important loved one is Catholic and either the loved one or the loved one's family desires the person to convert. They are generally characterized by a half-hearted interest in the Church, seeing it as little more than either a concession to their loved one or a way to get good with them. They are the most likely not to be seen at Mass.

Those who Wake: These converts, like Those Who Follow, begin their exploration/RCIA of the Church for reasons of love or kinship, but during their exploration they actually find the Church (mainly because they were actually looking). These are the ones who go to weekly Mass and see the Church as she truly is, wishing to be part of her.

Those Who Strive: These are the people who come into the Church because they see what she is independent of loved ones. They often begin their exploration because a friend/lover(in the most chaste way)/etc. is a strong Catholic, though just as many discover the Church through random means. Unlike Those Who Wake, when they finally decide to approach the Church they already know who she is and are willing to, if not convert, come very close. These are the people who attend daily Mass on a fairly regular basis and could be called the 'crazy converts.' Their faith is almost absurdly visible and they are the converts most noticed.

These are, of course, charactetures to a degree, but they are, in my experience, fairly accurate. There is a little blending of the groups, particularly between Wake and Strive, as those in the former can move into the power of the latter and some of the latter simply slide back, either from lack of will or lack of time (though in many cases those with lack of time tend to push themselves even farther into the 'absurd' category).

Nemo est plus gravis quam vita

2007-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

When I planned this post yesterday I tried to come up with something to say about abortion that has not been said a thousand times before. It is difficult, because many of the important thoughts have long since been stated, restated, and stated again. There is, however, a new argument rising which must be countered.

A recent editorial was discussing the abortion issue and said something to the effect of "whether or not an unborn child [the author used fetus but I won't] has a right to life does not matter, for the child does not have a right to the mother's womb" (my emphasis). This steps in and attempts to undercut the primary pro-life argument, claiming that the mother has a right to remove a child from her womb just because the child is there.

This reveals the fundamental horror of the abortive mindset. This worldview subjegates life to everything and anything, from convenienve to cost. It does not value existence at all beyond the one who is thinking.

To counter this, America and the world must remember that nothing is more important than life (this post's title, albeit in English instead of Latin). There can be no abortion debate at all if everyone agrees life is of the utmost priority. Until then, we cannot win the abortion debate. Simple as that.

Further Reflections

2007-01-21T13:41:00.000-08:00

I lot of different ideas and thoughts were bantered around last night (see previous post), but two struck me more severely and I would like to mention them here.

As we were talking about my conversion, Fr. Eric said something quite interesting: "There are Catholics and non-Catholics, but there are no non-Protestants." I think this shows two things: first, that the validity of the Church is recognized in our language, and second, that there is something inherent in the unity of the Catholic Church that does not exist in the 'unity' of the Protestant ones.

Most, if not all, Protestants will argue that the unity of Christ's Church is only in a spiritual sense, that there is not supposed (or at least does not need) to be a visible body. Yet in even their daily language they make no attempt to present the Church as one invisible body. If one truly believed that the present state of unity was proper to the Church, the phrase non-Protestant would be just as meaningful as non-Christian or non-Catholic, yet before last night I had never heard it used.

The second thing is probably the more profound and more painful (in that it reflects the more visceral pain of man). As we were talking about the call to vocation and how people have responded to it he said "You can ruin your vocation." He did not mean just that if we refused to listen to God we could miss our vocation but we could, in a single action, ruin any real chance we had at our vocation, namely through getting someone pregnant.

Unless both parties are willing to give the child up for adoption, pregnancy essentially forces marriage were God may have desired a celibate life. Father even mentioned one person he had heard of who was very strongly interested in the possibility of the priesthood before he got someone (I'm assuming a girlfriend, but I don't know) pregnant and now they are married and he probably ruined his vocation.

This is, for me, probably the most powerful statement against sexual immorality. It is often too easy to fall into the "I'll do this and go to confession later" mindset, but with pregnancy there is no going back. The sin can be forgiven, but a new life has been brought into existence, a life that will never be gone. Sex creates a powerful effect, like dominoes, and has far reaching effects that we may never know. This act then not only destroys the proper application of sexuality, but can destroy the wondrous life God had planned for someone, forcing them to live through a vocation they were never called to.

Vocation Information

2007-01-20T22:06:00.000-08:00

I tried to make the title rhyme, but it's really only a half rhyme.

I had dinner this evening with Fr. Eric Gilbaugh, one of the diosceses priests in charge of vocations. We talked for a couple of hours and he summed it up as follows: that I was "responsibly open" to the priesthood but was not being called to the priesthood.

I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out exactly how this changes things. In the end, there are two differences: I am not going to be actively looking at seminary (this may change if God decides to call me) and am I not going to let worries about the priesthood get involved in a realtionship (not that I'm involved in a relationship at the moment, but since it seems God is calling me to marriage that is going to happen at some point. It's a sort-of prerequisite).

All in all, this means little change except peace of mind. It's nice getting to talk to someone for a while about something and having them agree, quite independently, with the conclusion you thought you reached earlier.

So this officially closes my posts on vocation unless something major comes up.

Pax Christi

Trust

2007-01-17T11:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I learned that I friend had lied to me in some major ways. I used to be very close to this person and for a long time thought that there was no one I would trust more. This was not, however, the first lie, thought it might have been the biggest and it really hurt. I thought at a certain point being lied to stops hurting, but I have not reached that point. All I could do for a while was pray Hail Marys and sing the "Ubi Charitas" (it know it with a very elegiac melody which fit my mood while the words were encouraging to bring me from the funk).

O God, let my heart break for sin
And not just that which I let in
But that which from others go
The burden all have come to know.

Let my soul and being cry out
Beyond all the specter of doubt
To mourn and strongly weep
That all souls your trusting keep.

And may my wound long endure
So that I in time would be sure
That sin is death and darkest doom
That fades all flower and ruins bloom.

May they learn, who in sin but die
And die again in the unfather’s lie,
To come up and die now with you
Who is but light and death most true.

I believe one of the worst things we can do is lie to each other. While the big lies are painful and quickly destroy a friendship from the inside out, the small lies are often more damaging in the broad scope. I have suffered both, and while it were the big lies that killed friendships, the small lies have made my life the most difficult.

One of my closest friends for a couple of years had problems with small lies. They were simple things, not doing something which was promised, or telling two versions of the same story to make everyone happy, and I hardly noticed them. Only later, after talking with my mom about it, did I realize how often I was lied to and how used to it I was. It reached the point where I could not trust anything I was told by this person and had to call to validate whether or not something was actually going to happen. This then translated into further friendships. I still have a tendency to assume people I meet will not be trustworthy in the little things and I expect them to fail to uphold their obligations.

So often we miss the power of the small things. When Christ told us he who is trustworthy in the little things will be given bigger, this is in many ways what he was referring to. If you cannot tell the truth in little things, then no one will look to you in the big things and you will have no effect on the world. When all else falls to pieces, do not lie, and it can be rebuilt.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation

2007-01-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

The Sacrament of Penance is one of the most maligned of the seven gifts God gave his Church. It is the secret Sacrament, held behind closed doors where the words spoken are never released. But what is it, beyond the confession of sins? So often people fail to see that there is far more to this sacrament.

First off, the Sacrament of Penance is the little fire, the small flame next to purgatory's inferno. It cleanses not all the penealty of sin, but some, and the penitent steps forth from the confessional a little lighter. Purgatory is that last gate, the final hall which removes all impurities and confessions is its preperation. In fact, we might go so far as to call confession the Sacrament of the End Things. It involves a revelation of all sin, a purging of that sin, a purification, and an admitance into the friendship of God. Where as the End Things this encompasses all of ones existence, the Sacrament of Penance only reaches as far back as its last occurence, in essence.

The little fire of Penance is just as purifying as purgatory's, only on a smaller scale, little by little burning away the dross that clutters our souls, testing the metal beneath. Reconciliation is a taste of purgatory, a little example of the ultimate purifing force and ones acceptance of the Sacrament parallels ones acceptance of purgatory. If you frequent confession, it is likely you will endure purgatory; but if you hide from confession, going only when necessary (the precept for once a year) then it is likely you will avoid purgatory. Unfortunately, the only effective way to do that is to enter the unquenching fire.

I have come, in recent months, to gain a great appreciation for confession. It is not, as many people claim, a place of guilt, but rather a place to let the loose the guilt. Reconciliation is just that, the reconciling of man, not just to God, but to his fellow men. It is in confession that I loose my hold on sin and God looses sin's hold on me. The beautiful thing about this sacrament is that there is nothing, beyond one's self, that can hold a Catholic back from confession. No demands but contrition are placed upon the penitent and all the joys of heaven are waiting on just the other side.

On 'Reflections while Walking in a Protestant Library'

2007-01-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

When I wrote my first reflection, I was intending it to be the only one. The more I thought about it, however, the more stuff I came up with. There was a sixth reflection which I can't remember now. Que triste.

Seeing as Christ, Hear us (my current project on the Litany of the Sacred Heart) is going nowhere I think I'm going to try and transform these reflections into a full length work. The goal is to examine, in primarily philosophical ways, the relation between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches and how that works its way into culture, particularly in America.

The United States is the only nation that has been Protestant (at least in name) for its existence. Other nations have been officially Protestant, but all have either started out as Catholic or had no real Protestant majority. The United States is therefore largely unique and to understand how she plays in the world one needs to understand her relation with the other Christian nations.

My scope my grow or shrink from this prospectus, but I primarily intend to expand each of my entries into a full chapter and create any new chapters that I see necessary as I go.

The Fifth Reflection from a Protestant Church Library

2007-01-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

or The Fictional God

So called 'Christian Fiction' is an almost purely Protestant phenomenon. While it is true many devout Catholics have written works of fiction (J.R.R. Tolkien, Flannery O'Connor, G.K. Chesterton, etc.) the stories these people write are never classified as 'Christian Fiction.' On the flip side, it is the rare devout Protestant who writes a work of fiction which is not, for the most part, explicitly Christian. Almost half the books within the Protestant Library were works of Christian Fiction, with maybe a half dozen fiction works that were not implicitly Christian. Why thi dichotomy?

Christian Fiction is, essentially, works of fiction which are overtly about God and how faith in him helps people solve their problems. Sometimes this will manifest itself as nothing more than a romance novel where one member of the couple has to get right with God before their relationship works, or it might go so far as to make supernatural conflicts between God and the Devil to be the center of the work. Sometimes if the work is particularly good it will be picked up by a mainstream publisher, but usually they are restricted to Christian publishing companies.

Because Protestantism has rejected anything outside of the Bible, their foundational worldview must be based on their interpretation of that single book. As such, what they can know as true is very limited, shrinking in turn their worldview. They have very little true philosophy and a limited understanding of the Church in the world. Protestants know the Church is in the world, but they feel to see the deep connections the world must have to the Church, the Pillar and Foundation of Truth.

Because of this, Protestants can only really relate to the world via the visible faith of people. Churches, in the Protestant sense, come and go, but Sola Fida remains. As the churches fade out, their world view fades away, and the only part that endures is that which is fairly explicit within the Bible. Thus Protestant fiction must be about that which endures and the only way to present that is through explicitly Christian characters. Even most Protestant written works of the Fantastic involve an essentially Christian God transposed to another world.

The Catholic idea of the world, on the other hand, involves a philosophical belief that, what ever happens, their is a certain foundation to the world which never changes, a core philosphy if you will. Because of this, Flannery O'Connor could write dozens of stories and novels that are very Catholic and yet almost never mention God or his Church. The characters within her world, their responses to their situations, and the situations themselves reveal the Catholic understanding of the world.

Likewise, J.R.R. Tolkien makes almost no reference to religion throughout the entire Lord of the Rings, yet he claims the work is "fundamentally religions and Catholic." It is not the presence of God which makes it Catholic, but the presence of the world God made, obeying the natural and supernatural laws he placed in it. Tolkien refered to history as "a long defeat," understanding that our world, just like Middle-Earth, will not improve despite the victories we win, but will eventually be remade in the new heaven and new earth.

Catholic fiction, because of its understanding of the world, is not forced to present itself in the guise of being simply 'Christian.' It is a univiersal fiction, capable of speaking to people of all creeds, understanding that there is more to the world than dreamed of in Protestant philosophies.

Reflections from a Protestant Library the Fourth

2006-12-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

or Muting History

Protestants have an interesting relation with history. They know it has happened and they see its effect on the past world, yet the often pretend it does not matter in the present life, that everything they do is static and is done the way it always was.

Within the aforementioned library, there were two varieties of history books. The first were biographies, generally about 'great reformers' such as Martin Luther. As history, these are lacking, sense they attempt to great the person as a hero when they often were not and are regularly concerned with presenting them as people who moved the clock backwards, an historic impossibility.

The second category of historical works were those on the early Church, generally collections of documents written prior to five hundred. These seem to exist in a sort of statis, being important documents to any claim of historical Christianity but impossible to reconcile with most distinctly Protestant beliefs.

Within Protestant churches, particularly those over a hundred years old, people constantly work to protect the 'way things were,' the history of the individual church. Things are done in a certain way because "that is how they are done," which is, of course, quite different than tradition. Protestants desire the nobility of age withou actually claiming to be old.

The only two important points in history to most Protestants (especially Evangelicals) are the present and the Apostolic Church of the first century. Everything in between was simply the passing of time with no change to the Church. True worship is identical to that of the first century except in every way its changed.

There are only to ways to understand the link between the first and twenty-first century Church: either they should be completely identical, for Christ founded a Church that could not change, or the latter should have evolved in a holy and productive way, becoming closer to true Christian worship.

Trust me, we won't have power-point in heaven.

Being the Third Part of Reflections from a Protestant Library

2006-12-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

or The Two Christianities

Very often people, particularly 'intellectuals' in the United States and Northern Europe forget that Christianity is not currently united and that there are two distinct camps of Christian thought. I see this most often when discussions of the intellectual nature of Christianity come up. Most 'intellectuals' deride Christians as 'dogmatic' and 'unthinking.' They accuse Christians of simple doing whatever the Book tells them to do.

This is, in many ways, Protestantism. In the aforementioned library, every other book seemed to be entitled something along the lines of The Real Meaning of the Old Testament or More Hard Sayings of the Old Testament, etc. Everything was centered around using the Bible (or the history that surrounded the writing of the Bible) to talk about the Bible. The works are, in many ways, self-reflexive and unable to draw any true conclusions for they refuse to acknowledge that not all Truth is in the Bible.

The Catholic position, of course, accepts that there is Truth outside the Bible, namely in the Magistarium. More than that, however, Catholics understand that Truth can be understood beyond simply that which is related to the Church. That is to say, logic and reasoning both are valids ways of examing Truth. The idea that the Enlightenment was a rebirth of reason is completely absurd. Reason was one of the foundations of Catholic thought, especially present in the person of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Likewise, the Catholic Church is in now way anti-science. For a thousand years the greatest discoveries were made by Catholic Scientists and still today many important things are learned by orthodox Catholics. The 'fight' of science and religion (espicially in the realm of creationism/evolution) is not being fought by Catholics, but by Protestants, but anti-Religion polemics fail to even consider a distinction.

The world has failed to grasp what Catholic means and this is simply another occasion when Catholics get lumped together with other groups to their own detriement.

Further Reflections from a Protestant Library

2006-12-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

or Veritas est non Tacitas

As I walked around the aforementioned library, I began to dwell on the relation of Protestant and Catholic thought, primarily in the realm of what makes the Church. To Protestants, any group who believes in the trinity and has the Bible as their rule of faith is part of the church, while Catholics hold the Church must remain in communion with itself; that is, for a individual church to be part of the Church it must agree on all important issues with every other church and be aligned vertically with them beneath Christ.

Therefore, it is easy to see why Catholics do not consider Protestants as being in full communion with the Church. How Protestants see Catholics is a more complicated matter and the one which occupied my thought.

Some Protestants find reason to believe that Catholics cannot be Christians for they have added too much to the Bible (everyone ads something to the Bible. The Apostles did not drive cars to church, much less even have an independent church building). These, however, are not our concern at the moment. We are much more interested in the Protestants who believe Catholics are Christians.

In growing numbers Protestants are realizing that not only are Catholics Christians, they are often among the most holy of Christians. In 1973 almost no Protestants even noticed Roe v. Wade, but the Catholic Pro-Life groups (which were, and are, also concerned with contraception) were immediately in opposition. Still today some of the most adament Pro-Lifers are Catholic and many Protestants get their first exposure to true Catholicism through them.

The growing concensus is that Catholicism is a perfectly valid understanding of Christianity. This, however, cannot be the end of those thoughts. If Catholicism is a valid Christian thought, then it must be the only valid Christian thought, for it claims Christ himself appears in every Mass. If he doesn't, then Catholicism is false, but many have already learned it to be true enough, in which case it must all be true, and Christ truly is present in the Eucharist.

What is happening is that Protestants come to understand the Catholic Church as being truly Christian. They then come to realize that they cannot accept Catholicism as a possible truth without accepting it as the revealed truth of God and they make the step to Rome.

We do not need to disprove all the differences between Catholics and Protestants, rather we simple need to break down the walls that say Catholics are not Christian. Once here, wisdom and knowledge will do the rest. We may still need to take up certain issues, but we do not need to conquer an entire system. Truth is on our side, and it is not silent.

Reflections While Walking in a Protestant Library

2006-12-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

or Protestant Intellectual Dishonesty

This Sunday morning I found myself wandering alone through the Library at my families Evangelical Church. I first entered there as it was the one place I could go to pray the Rosary undisturbed (as the rest of the people in the church would probably frown on me doing that there). After finishing my rosary I began to look through the books on the shelves and two caught my eye.

The first was entitled "Heroes of Christianity," listing a variety of famous Christians from St. Paul to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. What I found interesting was that St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis, and others of that time were mixed with the so-called proto-reformers. The entry on St. Thomas (not that this book ever referred to them as saints except when calling Justin Martyr just that -- Martyr) went so far as to say that he was a genius but much of what he wrote clashed with later beliefs, essentially saying the reformes picked through the Summa and took what they liked. And, like with most Protestants, their entry suggested Bonhoeffer was the only Christian to suffer in the Nazi's Camp, conveniently ignoring people such as St. Maximiliun Kolbe.

The second book was far more interesting. Foxe's Book of Martyrs was written by a man rather unhappy with the Catholic Church. He went to great lengths to prove the Church spent a thousand years persecuting all the real Christians until Martin Luther nailed his wonderful 95 thesis on the Cathedral door and was miraculously saved (by a bunch of rebellios princes who didn't want to be obsequious to the Holy Roman Emporer).

One entry was particularly sad and revealed a lot about the Intellectual Dishonesty that has characterized a lot of Protestantism. The work was chronological, with seventy plus percent dealing with post refromation. Prior to then, he listed the general persecutions but also had a couple of really weird entries. The most absurd was his listing as the Albigenisians as 'reformed Christians' who just wanted to live the pure life Rome was denying to everyone. He spends half a sentence on the Dominicans and Franciscans, then jumps into the Albigenisian
Crusade.

The largest problem? The Albigenisians were Dualist, believing in a good and bad god. Thus they held all matter as evil and believed the primary goal of life was to end it. Thus the enforced suicide, turning it into murder. Men and woman would take the cult's one sacrament, the consolamentum, then their friends would make sure they commited suicide so as not to fall back into sin. This usually involved them keeping the person away from food, even if they wanted it. Of course, they sometimes smothered them with a pillow, just to be quick.

If they were the proto-reformers, that would be a great reason to flee the reformed Church. As it is, they were nothing alike and simply serve those who are intelectually dishonest and offer another example of evil papist persecution. Sadly, this book is still in print and has, in fact, gone under recent revisions adding to it, but not changing any anti-Catholic tripe.

Catholic for the Holidays

2006-12-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

Christmas is an interesting season, much like a full moon, for when Christmas comes about, one sees many were-Catholics.

Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, become very Catholic during the season of Advent. The following is a partial list of their 'Catholicy' traits:

Having an actual season, Advent;
Using candles, particularly on Advent Wreaths;
Putting up statues of Saints, especially Sts. Mary and Joseph;
Singing in Latin (Gloria in excelsis);
Singing to Mary (Mary Did you Know);
Attending church on a non-Sunday;

There are more I haven't listed. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have yet to come up with a reason for it being Christmas. It is apparent even Evangelical Bible-Onlys cannot live without the sacramental nature of the Church, but why it breaks free so fully only durinig Christmas is beyond me. As far as I know, only the liturgical Prostestant churches do anything for Good Friday, one of the top three most important days of Christianity (probably third after Easter and Christmas - contrary to popular opinion, Easter is more important than Christmas).

Somehow Christmas still lends itself naturally to a long liturgical season. Now to convince them to do it for the other eleven months . . .

Charitas

2006-12-16T12:55:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been thinking about the idea of love (more in the range of agape than eros) and how it applies to our everday existence. We are to practice Charity at all times and be people of love, loving even those who are unlovable.

In the same way, we must also those who are lovable. The Church, both locally and universally, must be founded on love. If we gather together every Sunday and the love of God is not visible among us both before and afterwards, then something is wrong.

This reminds me of an ancient Latin hymn: "Ubi Charitas, et amore; Ubi Charitas, Deus Ibi est." Where is charity and love, there God is.

Love is the presence of God among us. When we show love to one another we live our Christian vocation. God is revealed more fully to others through the selfless love we exhibit. To claim a the auspices of Christianity without partaking in Love is absurd. It is little more than saying "I think God should be around but I will not work toward that end."

Deus Charitas Est.

To Weaken the Church

2006-12-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

How could we (if we were aimed at such a goal) harm the Catholic Church? What would be the most effective way to damage her?

I ask this question because it offers a unique glimpse into the workings of the Church and her strength. If we know the way to destroy something, we know that something's strength (You truly harm something by taking away that which is its strength, rather than hitting at any weaknesses).

The simplest and probably most effective way one could actually harm the Church would be to destroy all the books. This seems a bit counterintuitive, at least by the world's perception of the Church, yet it strikes at the power of the Catholic Church.

The one subject which has spawned more written works than any other is Christ and his Church. For a thousand years all great works were Chritological, from Augustine to Dante. A great fatih has been laid into the very foundations of our culture and the only way one could truly weaken it would be to remove that foundation.

Society today is very much trying to do this, driving man away from books and toward film, TV, and the internet. Because these mediums have not grown under Catholic auspices, they are foundations of another culture, the culture of death, essentially. If we wish to strengthen the Church here, we have two options: either draw people back to the written word or infuse the visual culture with a Catholic world view.

We can recreate this world. We just need to put some effort into it.

Dual Post

2006-12-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Head on over to just another day of Catholic pondering for the 97th Catholic Carnival and you might see a familiar face (not that many of you have seen my face, nor that my face is actually in any way connected with the post, just that it seemed like a nice turn of phrase, or phrase, or something).

Many of you know K. For those of you who don't, she's a fellow blogger who is having a tough time in life. Let's just say if things keep going as they are she's only going to need a layover in purgatory.

She recently put up a post about yet more problems and one of the lines caught my attention. She talked about people who truly listen when we have problems, not just sitting by and tuning out while we rant.

It seems to me that would be a good definition of a friend. I would hold a conversation with most anyone about The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien but if we started discussing, say, glacial moraines (I did almost have that conversation) I would begin to tune out a lot of people. Some I would pay attention to still because there is a certain degree of friendship which makes their conversation interesting and engaging even though I can say maybe three things about moraines.

My prime example of this was J. When ever you talked with him he would always engage you and be interested in what you had to say. He would not simply appear interested, but there would be an honest connection and he would remember what you discussed. He was (probably still is, but he's know many miles away) always willing to talk and made a great listener.

So my goal is to someday emmulate him, though it's a long road. If any of you want to help, feel free to chat with me about moraines. And make me listen.

The Church and the Fantastic

2006-12-11T14:27:00.000-08:00

As many of you may or may not know (I'm pretty sure the preceeding sentence means nothing), I am both a writer, and studier, of Fantastic Literature with a particular emphasis on J.R.R. Tolkien (in the area of study. I can't write Tolkien, as I am not Tolkien).

I have recently noticed something very interesting about the creation of Christian Fantasy. The good works of Christian Fantastic Literature are those that are Fantasy that happens to be Christian and not Christian Fantasy.

Tolkien said "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so, at first, but consciously in the revision" (Letters 216-17). When discussing the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis said "[e]very thing began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnicent lion" and not with an allegory in mind (Of Other Worlds 36).

My own writing has worked much in the same way. Recently I was working on an intentionally pagan mythology with which to stand against a 'Christian' history when I began to notice distinct Christian themes, particularly in the divine figure of Peritaduhr, who protects man and is their advocate. The mythology is still clearly pagan (four levels of gods, the value of cunning, etc.) but it has a Christocentric feel to it.

On the flip side, some of the worst works of Fantasy I have ever read have been Christian Allegory written with the Allegory as the soul purpose of existence. In the collection of essays mentioned before Lewis discusses how all stories should both entertain and teach and a lot of Christian Fantasies I have seen fail on the first count because they are trying so hard for the second. If no one enjoys reading a work, they will not do it.

To answer the first part of my unasked question: these works are Christian because an honostly Christian author (one who desires to be a Christian) can write nothing else. One exalts what one believes and a Christian will present a Christian world view in his writing. The degree to which it is effective depends on his skill as a writer and formation as a Christian, but it will always end up being Christian. If they heroes are all admiriably pagan then the author truly does not believe Christianity to be a better way, for no admiriable true pagan can be born of a truly Christian mind.

The second half of the question is answered thus: good Christian Fictions are good because Christianity is the ends and not the means. What I mean is that the Christian thought occupies the story, not the other way around. If I want to write something in which Christianity is the means, I can do so, but I ought to call it a devotional or theology. One should not try and confuse a story into a collection of Christian thought and call it fiction. Rather, Christian thought fleshes out and fulfills an older ready viable story.

Middle-Earth is Christian because Tolkien was. The Christian must tell a Christian story.

Not so far

2006-12-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

This morning my distinctly Protestant sister was reading the list of Church's Christmas Schedules released by the local paper, she made a comment to my cousin when she was on the Reformed Churches. There are four Reformed Churches in the valley and she read off the names of the pastors. All the names were Dutch.

She asked, essentially, "If this was the real church, wouldn't they diversify more?" She then qualified it with the statement that "it wasn't wrong, but . . ."

Even essentially anti-Catholics find that the national character of churches is wrong, but they remain part of those national churches.

Where has this been hiding?

2006-12-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

Gregorian chant and sacred choral music. Both eastern and western. On the internet. And Free.

I am now addicted.

Enjoy.

The Two Views

2006-12-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a movie with a couple of friends, neither of whom are even remotely Christian, yet I found both to be more entertaining and more pure than many of the Christians I have previously associated with. Reflecting on this, I have come to the Two Views of the Pagan (I just wanted to use that word. I simply mean those who do not consider themselves Christian).

The non-Christian is either hedonistic or noble. The hedonistic pagan is the one who has no qualms about how much he lives in the world. Curse words mean nothing to him and he would sleep with anything that moves.

The Noble pagan, on the other hand, had a Christian intellect if not a Christian belief. He understands the sacred nature of words and sex, and abuses neither. While he does not necessarily follow Christian morality, he understands the basic principles and his life works around them. With the existence of birth-control, most of the visible moral problems of premarital-sex go away, so even that can fit validly into the noble's pagan moral scheme. It may not seem to be Christian, but it is more Christian than many Christians.

These designations are of course crude and sterotypical, but by defining the two ends one definres the fullness of the spectrum as well. These can also apply to Christians, though generally the dichotomy is less severe.

Why do I get the feeling that G.K. Chesterton probably already worked all of this out and I just haven't read about it yet?

Irony

2006-12-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

The on-campus group dedicated to preventing sexual abuse is putting on a production of "The Vagina Monologues."

Somehow I doubt that a show which degrades the sacredness and value of sex is likely to diminish the cases of sexual violence. Most cases of sexual abuse, from what I've seen, descend from a misunderstanding of sex, where it becomes something innocent and natural. Once that degredation is complete, there is nothing to keep someone form using sex for their own aims. The line between 'fun' and abuse is thingly drawn and sometimes annihilated all together.

As G.K. Chesterton said, "the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing become soaked and sodden with sex." Remove the holiness from the sex act and everybody is doing it. Once everybody is doing it, it becomes common property. Common property cannot be regulated, thus making sexual abuse one of many ways to get pleasure, nothing particularly wrong, at least in the eyes of the perpetrator.

If we truly wish to take back the night, we must first take back sex. To take back sex we must take back love. To take back love, we must take back marriage. To take back marriage we must come back to the Church.

Pain

2006-11-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday I was sitting in Mass, looking at the crucifix and the following thought came to me: "Would I be willing to take others pain?" Would I be willing to simply trade my health and well-being for someone elses pain so that they would not have to suffer it? That is what Christ did and so that is what I ought to do, yet could I?

I came to the conclusion that I would like to, but if it actually came down to it, I don't know if I could do it.

Why are we afraid of pain? It seems like so much of our energy is spent avoiding pain, which in many ways is pointless. I'm not saying we should give up on painkillers, but pain will come, no matter how hard we try and avoid it. American popular culture is building the idea that pain must always be avoided, yet that is an impossibility that itself leads to greater pain.

Newsworthy News

2006-11-26T14:52:00.000-08:00

This is a rather encouraging article:

Bishops Stand Firm on Birth Control

It is not encouraging because of its subject (I knew that already) but because of the manner in which it says it. The author spends no effort attacking the Church. Rather, he seems to talk only about the issues people have missed. My favorite quote:

"But Catholic Church teaching doesn't change based on statistics, even if that teaching is ignored for a couple of generations."

In many ways it is less about birth control per se and more about the idea of the teaching authority of the Church, that the Bishops and the Church teach the same thing for generations.

The article also includes quotes from Christopher West of the Theology of the Body Institute, probably the best known name in America about TotB.

What was particularly stunning was the lack of refutal of the Church's position. The only 'negative' quote came from a professor of moral theology who simply said that people have already made up their minds and will not change them. No source was brought into to show how the Church is harming the world.

Overall, I was very surprised by this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, carried by the Washington Post. It is a wonderfully simply explanation of the workings of the Magisterium, at least on this side of the pond.

The Failure of Ecumenicalism

2006-11-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

I just returned from an Ecumenical thanksgiving service at the local United Methodist Church (which got me wondering there was a local Divided Methodist Church somewhere). I was not going to go on my own steam, but my cousin was playing in a bell choir performing there. I did not expect a very wonderful experience and I was not dissapointed.

Ecumenicalism as we now know it has failed. It attempts to not offend anyone and succeeds, as most parts of modern culture, in saying absolutely nothing. Rather ecumenicalism should attempt to offend anyone.

The purpose of ecumenicalism cannot be do make everyone enjoy everyone elses company, for the only way to do that is to silence all the parties involved. It must therefore be an attempt to bring back together the separated elements of Christianity. The only way to do this is to dialogue. Soft and worthless comunication make all people soft and worthless. Truly speaking what we believe is the only way to draw people together, if not in union, then in truth.

Veritas est non Tacitas. Truth is not silent. In silence no Truth can be spoken, and as such modern ecumenicalism fails to move toward Christ, who is the Truth itself.

Courage and Saints

2006-11-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

This morning as I was praying the Rosary, I came to an interesting discovery. Christ had the courage and humility that, when he was crowned with a poor excuse for his royalty, he did not protest. We should do likewise. If ever the world treats us with less than we deserve (the award goes to someone else, no one realizes our brilliance, etc.) we should do little more than accept it. Who needs the world's praise anyway?

I also found to an interesting way to examine the idea of vocation. Which vocation would be the most effective at making you a saint? Imagine in seventy years you are dead and canonized. What would you be known for? Is is for living a religious life, or is it as part of a family? I have the feeling this question can greatly simplify parts of the discernment process.

Popes

2006-11-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

So I came to an interesting conclusion a moment ago: it is the Europeans and Americans who are clamoring for an African Pope. As far as I know, the Africans are perfectly content with a European Pope, but the Europeans can't handle it.

It would seem to be that the problem then is not with a wilingness for diversity, but rather the European abhorence of colonization and any sort of elevation of a white man above a black man.

Just a thought.

Updates or lack there of

2006-11-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

So the whole KofC thing went off quiet well, though one of the guys who was supposed to join slept through the whole thing (it was @ 2 in the afternoon, so he has no excuse). I am no officially a card carrying Knight as well as a card-carrying Catholic. Which reminds me, I need to print off more cards.

And a brief mention of the discernment thing: I talked with Fr. V for an hour last week, and he's going to give my number to some other priests to call me. I don't know much one way or the other, but I did realize much of what appealed to me about the priesthood was the same sort of thing that appeals to me about being a cop: namely that I had an authority.

Often I would think "if I was a priest I would do this, or do that," because that is how I thought they should be done. A lot of it was a pride issue.

I have a feeling everything I am writing today is incoherent, so I apologize if it is, and if it isn't, ignore this message.

New Subtitle

2006-10-29T21:53:00.000-08:00

I suppose I could re-subtitle my blog "In studio Deorum proposito" (pardon my poor Latin -- I did spend half an hour working on this).

On next Monday I am getting initiated/addmitted/whatever into the Knights. I don't know all that it entails, or even where it is. I'm supposed to know more in the coming week. We'll see.

I'm going to start meeting with Fr. Val to discuss the discernment process for either the priesthood or monkhood (it's a word know). I don't really know if if God's calling me that way or toward married life, but I know he is calling me to take a more active role of discernment. We'll meet occassionally and just discuss things. Right at the moment I think everyother though is "priethood," "married life," "priest hood," "married life," etc. We'll see where it goes.

Anyway, pray for me and we'll see where this goes.

What if this worked . . .

2006-10-28T00:31:00.000-07:00

So I have a theory and how to turn a flagging/heterodox/problematic parisch around. It's simple, but I have a feeling it would work. It would require slight alteration to certain systems, but I think it could be done.

When the priest is due for a transfer move him out and bring in three monks, one who is a priest. Each and everyday they celebrate Mass together, and each and everyday they hold Liturgy of the Hours. Once a week they hold a Tridentine Liturgy. All of these are open to the parishiners and interested public. The monks spend some of their time outside the church, getting to know the population, inviting them to church.

I have a feeling that one by one the people would come, first those who fished for orthodoxy, then the curious, and soon the other Catholics, and even the non-Catholics, for three people truly living the church would shine like a beacon in the dark mist of secularism.

Sources

2006-10-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

So I'm doing research on the Renaissance for a book I'm writing. The only problem is our school library has a total of three books about the Renaissance itself.

Believe me. I counted.

I started reading one of those books. I got about five pages in before getting bored and flipping to the front. It was part of a history series. As I read the list of other books, I decided I couldn't use it a source, given one fact. The book on the Catholic Church was written by Hans Küng. Somehow I didn't trust the accuracy of anyone who would ask a heretical, nigh excommunicated pseudo-theologian to write a work of history.

Which brings me to my actual point: there are people out there who read Hans Küng's work and believe it an accurate representation of the Church. Likewise, there are people who read A Woman Rides the Beast and find it accurate (Dave Hunt is one of the most virulent anti-Catholics still around. Of course, his sister converted to the Church, so that tells you something). How do we go about reinforcing the truth, particularly when our authors claim to be Catholic, and in some cases have received holy orders?

I really only have the question here, though if I develop a good answer I'll post it later. If you develop a good answer yourself, feel free to comment.

Pushing

2006-10-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

So God decided to push me a little bit today.

First, however, a little background for those of you who don't know me.

I read. A lot. When I entered the Church I studied apologetics religiously (pun fully intended) and gained an incredibly thorough understanding of the Catholic/Protestant dichotomy. I also happen to remember almost everything I read, so I have these arguments readily available.

Today God told me "That's good. Now I want you to do more."

A friend of mine (a former Catholic) informed me she recently broke up with her fiancee and had a miscarriage. She then said that "It was nice being a Christian, because there was something there when the grief hit, something to fall back on." She went on to say she has nothing and it hurts a lot. She was pretty clear that she was not planning on returning to the fold anytime soon (though I did say we'd always be glad to have her back), but she is seeking.

It seems God is now desiring me to study the arguments for the faith from the outside, to open a door to those who have rejected Christianity in any form. I think this is going ot be tough, but I have a feeling it will have good results.

Please pray for me, but more importantly for my friend and all those who have left the faith.

The Bible

2006-10-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

I mentioned my Biblical Foundations of Literature class earlier, but I failed to note that it has a blog.

Some of the stuff there probably only makes sense to those in the class, but a lot of what I'm writing could be place here as well, though it is generally far more oriented toward the Bible and its origins (the class seems to be more about the Bible as literature then the Bible as foundation of Western literature, but meh). Feel free to read and comment.

Hypocrisy

2006-10-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

So in a talk with K-- today she mentioned a letter she received from a friend of hers, explaning why she (the friend, not K--) was not a Chrisitian, despite believing in Christ (or some such like that). One of her reasons listed was the hypocrisy in the Church, which got me thinking.

If hypocrisy is simple saying one thing and doing another, anyone trying to support a moral system will inherently be a hypocrite, because we are imperfect people. Hypocrisy then loses all meaning.

Really, though, hypocrisy means telling people to do one thing while not even trying to hold your self to it. If I told someone not to have sex before marriage yet I was living with a girlfriend, that would be hypocrisy. If, however, I made one mistake in a similar situation, that would not quite be hypocrisy, because I was trying to live but what I proclaimed.

And that, really, is what it comes down too. We need to strive to live the life we proclaim, ere we become false prophets, speaking our own doom.

"Work for your salvation with fear and trembling." Hypocrisy is born when we do not even try.

Saint of the Day

2006-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

For lack of a better post (and since I have Bible study and game night coming I have no time to develop something better) we have "Saint of the Day!" (duh da da dah!)

St. Meinhard was one of the first missionaries to the Latvian people. He founded a Church and became the first bishop of Ikskile (and of Latvia) in 1186. He is also known as the apostle of Latvia.

A dilema, as it were

2006-10-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived on campus three years ago, I met up with some friends from highschool and some of their friends I did not know. This core group was made up mostly of Protestants (of which I was one at the time) and provided a fairly solid Christian background for me.

Over the past couple of years, however, the demographics of this group has changed. A few members of the core are still around, but the breakdown is something like 4 non-Christian couples, 6 non-Christian singles, 1 Christian couple (one is Catholic, though to a varying degree, the other is interested) and three Christian singles. Comes down to: 14 non-Christians, 5 Christians.

So my problem is this: I don't feel myself necissariyl being edified by this group, as a whole. I don't want to completly leave them hanging, but I'm not sure I can, in good conscience, place myself regularly within their meeting.

On the flip side, some of them are interested in the Church, and I am really their only presence to them of Her.

What I'm probably going to do (unless I get a better idea) is decrease my time with them and increase the amount of time I hang out with Catholics. Course, I need you guys to hang out with me in return (it's a two way street here).

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant (as it were), its just been bothering me the last couple of days.

KOFC

2006-10-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

So today, while waiting for a friend, I read every bulletin board at Holy Rosary. Twice. During that process the local Grand Knight of the Knight's of Columbus saw me reading their board and later approached me. We talked for a few minutes and he gave me the sign up information.

Now I just have to figure out if this is what God wants. Seems like a good way to get established with a fairly orthodox Catholic Group that exists all across America.

So that's my news for the day (probably more for the month cause I don't talk about myself here).

The Bible

2006-10-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

So I posted earlier about how, as Catholics, we don't have to worry about if we have the right Bible. Something else came to me yesterday.

Over the past two hundred years, historical criticism has been providing new interpretations of many of the Bible stories, particularly in Genisis. Many of these stories are decent explanations of what the story means, and could conceivable damage someones faith, particularly by inspiring certain heresies.

Once again, as a Catholic, I need not worry. I know the Church has correctly interpreted the meaning of the stories, and no new theory can supplant my belief. I don't need to fight misinterpretations to find who is 'most right' because the Vicar of Christ has provided the answer for me.

Limbo

2006-10-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

So I can't help but think that the most media outlets fail to do any reasearch. What. So. Ever. when talking about the Church. All the responses to the discussion of Limbo show they have an amateur understanding of the concept which I could correct in one sentence.

"Limbo is not doctrine and therefore was never officially the teaching of the Catholic Church."

Done. No "Pope trying to win hearts and minds. . ." or "Pope changing Church teaching . . ." etc.

We just don't know what happens to unbaptized babies, so unless the Church condemns it, feel free to believe in Limbo. I, however, don't like it, so I'm going with trusting the mercy of God.

Oh, and I have a feeling the Radical Traditionalist/Sedevacantist (not much difference twixt the two) will have a field day with this one, making the same mistakes the media did.

Bible and Authority

2006-09-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've done a lot of thinking lately about the Bible, since I am in a class called "Biblical Foundations of Literature," and have come to reinforce a previous conclusion I made.

Protestants always make a big issue out of who wrote the Bible, when it was written, etc. in order to show its infallibility and absolute inerrency, given that it is the foundation of their faith. But to a Catholic, the who doesn't really matter (in a few cases it does, but for the most part it can play second fiddle).

Why? Because we have an authority telling us this is the Bible as we know it. The men who wrote the Bible may have written in completely differently, but they way it has come to the Church is the way God wants it. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should even consider the Bible to have undergone changes before the Church, but even if someone could conclusively prove the Bible is completely different than what it was, the Authority of the Church still tells us what we have is the Bible God wanted us to have.

Irony

2006-09-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

So has anyone else realized the Muslims (at least the more radical ones) lack a sense of irony?

Papa Ratzi: "Any violence and terror in the name of Mohommad is evil and against true religion."

Radical Muslims: "What! We will commit violence and terror to show you that Muslim's aren't evil."

So I'm paraphrasing a little, but you get the gist. If Muslim's wanted to show us there isn't any evil in Islam they might try actually not burning things and killing people. I'm not sure I can really contribute anything particularly special to this incident, as every last blogger has been talking about it over and over again, but I couldn't just ignore it.

Genesis 1-11

2006-09-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

So Genesis 1-11. These chapters get a lot of flack, particularly from scientist who say they prove the Bible wrong since they give the world such a short creation (of course, one may be forgetting that God can do whatever he darn well pleases, being God and all). There is also a lot of complaining by Traditional Catholics and Fundamentalists of any sort who say since the Bible is infallible the world cannot be over 6,000 years old.

What does the Church say? Not much of anything. One is allowed to believe the young world or the old world hypothosis. There are, however, certain fundamental truths that all Catholics are required to believe: that God created one man and one woman (whether by the dust of the ground or through evolution) and at one moment installed them with a soul. They were perfect and then fell through some means (most likely sexual temptation).

Jimmy Akin talks about this some here, specifically speaking on the flood narrative.

Practically Catholic

2006-07-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

In a vain attempt to create more interesting matter on this blog I present for you the next thing in music: Practically Catholic.

Practically Catholic's self-titled first album had a popular indie following and soon moved to the mainstream with Freeze Dried Nuns. This was followed the next year by Faux Catholic. There break to stardom came with their massively popular album Plenary Overindulgence two years later.
The following year, however, the band split up, due to "irrevocable creative differences." They are all friendly with each other and plan to spend time promoting their music, though not together. Most of the members have suggested they will persue solo albums.

Enough Priests?

2006-07-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

The supposed 'Priest shortage' is probably the liberals favorite rallying cry for married and female priests. They say that since we clearly don't have enough celibate men to go around, we should just open our nets and gather the rest of the world. While we're at it, we might as well invite Anglican priests to help, given that their ordination will be just as valid as the women's (and some of them will be women). They say that giving these people the priesthood will help an otherwise unbearable situation.

A couple of facts, however, give lie to their statements:
-In 1843 the diocese of Pittsburg had 12,000 members and 6 priests.
-In 1826 New York had 30,000 Catholics and 6 priests.
-In 1818 Baltimore had 100,000 Catholics and 52 priests.

It does not take a mathematician (which I am not) to do a little division: Pittsburg, 1 priest for 2,000 people; New York, 1 priest for 5,000 people; Baltimore, 1 priest for 2,000 people.

Yet these diocese not only survived but thrived, soon gaining many more priests and becoming the center of American Catholicism. And it would be well to note that they did it with celibate male priests.

"Just the facts."

May the Lord be with You

2006-06-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Originally I was planning to post something of note here once every couple of days. In the week leading up to the creation of this journal I thought of at least three things to post. In the week leading out, I thought of nothing.

However, I have recently come across a fun little movie via Splendor of Truth.

Duel of the Seminarians.

I did something remotely similar, in my Protestant days, but while watching this movie I realized I forgot the light-glares with the lightsabers. Ah, the life of a once-film-student-always-film-geek.

Of Flags and Crosses

2006-06-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

This evening I was at an 8th grade celebration (apparently 8th grade is not important enough for a 'graduation' but still needs a celebration) and it opened with one of the students singing the National Anthem. As one the audience rose, hats were removed, hands were placed over hearts, and all eyes turned to the Flag on the back wall.

As I watched this, I thought back to something I recently heard from Jimmy Akin, that when society does away with religion, they replace it with something secular. In this case, the flag replaces the cross.

The church I attend does not have kneelers (originally the building was only a Neumann center and after it became a church it was still used for multiple purposes and thus does not have pews) and so most of the parishioners do not kneel. It is not that they are unable to kneel (the parish is mostly younger), but through various means it has become standard not to kneel, but rather bow whenever the priest genuflects.

What saddens me is that the audience at the celebration was showing more reverence to the American flag then most of my fellow parishioners show to the Body and Blood of our Lord. In 1146 St. Bernard preached a sermon in France so empassioned that everyone was chanting "The Cross! The Cross!" If one could have such passion for the Cross, imagine the passion for our Blessed Savior.

Imagine a single parish that had the passion that the average American has for the flag, and that parish could change the world. Will change the world.

The Unity of All Romes

2006-06-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

So the title of this blog is a little odd. It will make sense in time, if everything works out as planned.

This is my Catholic Blog. I will be posting my thoughts, ideas, curiosities, and other random things from time to time. Currently, I am looking for better ways to get the name out, as I have no idea how to publicize a blog. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to make them (of course, the lack of anyone would be a direct resuly of a lack of publicity, which is highly problematic, but I'll get over it with enough therapy).

Any and all comments will be appreciated.