tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84834803802452573122024-02-19T00:57:27.436-08:00Valley of Vision"Beauty will save the world"
DostoevskyMatthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-11113185974241084232020-05-04T14:39:00.002-07:002023-03-02T11:15:00.290-08:00End Times<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYvD5CsSYMObe72sGyjUDpgK8EGTcvB_aCQ-V1m9KRCXzFPwzn_gT4lydwqhbgdP9-gpED_86Ui_yobbsdVSDPv4DS4zWeMeDIHc3OnbBDOC45L-Wqp_GG7la9LOpB-87WnsC0KgSmva_OM3XPLQdqSIUTudlLkq7C6YFeTx38XVRV5qXkU18UglSIw/s400/gill%208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYvD5CsSYMObe72sGyjUDpgK8EGTcvB_aCQ-V1m9KRCXzFPwzn_gT4lydwqhbgdP9-gpED_86Ui_yobbsdVSDPv4DS4zWeMeDIHc3OnbBDOC45L-Wqp_GG7la9LOpB-87WnsC0KgSmva_OM3XPLQdqSIUTudlLkq7C6YFeTx38XVRV5qXkU18UglSIw/s320/gill%208.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<i><b>But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape. But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him.</b></i><br />
<i><b>1 Thessalonians 5 </b></i><br />
<br />
<br />
Christians have always been fighting a battle against the world the flesh and the devil. This should not be a depressing bit of news , because it is central to the Gospel. Where the world teaches us to doubt, Christ teaches us to have faith, where the world teaches us to despair, Christ gives us hope, where the world teaches to love only self, Christ puts true charity into our hearts so we can love God and neighbour.<br />
<br />
We put on the armour of Christ and take up the sword of the spirit and go out into battle. The enemy is both within and without, as Peter and Paul remind us: <br />
<br />
St Peter says "Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”<br />
<br />
And St Paul says: "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."<br />
<br />
As to the method of the fight, it is important as St Paul says above that we 'pray unceasingly' that we do not fall asleep.<br />
<br />
But we fight a new and seemingly more dread battle against an enemy who seems implacable in this modern age. One reason for this is that we are living at the end of Christian civilization, at least in Europe. We can no longer rely on the culture around us to share the values we have as Christians. Even the word 'values' itself reveals the relativism which has penetrated to the heart of our thinking. What I value is relative to me and thus cannot be relied on as a universal moral good.<br />
<br />
And as the culture goes, so do we. We who were born after the great revolution of the 1960s are more infected than ever with sensuality, pride, sloth, arrogance and so on, because the world itself has wholeheartedly embraced these things. Individuals can only do so much when the whole community is going in a different direction. It is then that we can learn from the early Church, facing incredible persecution amidst a heathen culture. The new heathenism is worse, as someone once said, because the old heathens had never known Christ, whereas the new ones have knowingly rejected him.<br />
<br />
Just as we must carefully guard what we eat in an age when highly processed high-carb food is ubiquitous, so we must also guard what we consume in a spiritual sense from the culture around us. Many of us are rediscovering the importance, especially against the background of the coronavirus, of what Michael Pollen calls "Real food, mainly plants, in sensible portions". So we should also be rediscovering from the treasury of our Christian culture those real staples that nourished us for hundreds of years.<br />
<br />
There are so many fronts on which to fight the battle. The enemy is many-headed like the hydra. Padre Pio, said of the demons of the air: "There are so many that if they were capable of assuming a form as tiny as a grain of sand, they would block out the sun. Be attentive – for when the enemy is silent it means he is preparing another plan.’”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-17597333118440181122020-03-29T14:00:00.000-07:002020-03-29T14:00:18.649-07:00Tempest"Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak." Matt 26:41-43<br />
<br />
<br />
"For it is written: As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." Romans 14:11<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Have we crowned the serpent rather than bent the knee to Christ the King? Indeed we have, and we are paying for it. The current events are so clearly a chastisement that to hear Catholics deny this is just astonishing. Has rationalism so penetrated the Faith, and blind technocratic optimism so taken the place of our awareness of sin and the need for our own personal reparation that we do not know how to read the signs of the times? Sin is not an individual thing which only affects individuals. It affects us as a body. We have forgotten this, or attempted to bury the knowledge of it. Part of the greatness of Fyodor Dostoevsky is his understanding of this. “In sinning,” Dostoevsky wrote in Demons, “each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilty for another’s sin. There is no isolated sin.”.<br />
<br />
This corporate nature of sin is revealed in the paralysing effects it has on the goods of community. Without a doubt we are witnessing the echo of this paralysis in the closing down of our institutions and countries because of a silent and invisible enemy.<br />
<br />
Catholic prophecy points quite decisively to certain events which must occur before the end times. Our Lady has come countless times to warn us of the chastisement that awaits if we persist in sin. Many many times over the last 200 years in many different places her message has been the same - repentance, reparation for our own and others' sins, and praying the rosary. At perhaps her most publicly significant apparition, Fatima, she showed a vision of hell to the three children and said that many souls go there because of sins of impurity. She said she wanted to establish in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart, and for Russia to be consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart. She said that Russia would 'spread its errors throughout the world', and the consecration would be the antidote to the spread of this poison.<br />
<br />
Well, the errors have spread, and our nations and societies become progressively more paralysed by sin. The tempest blows and the boat is tossed about and we cry out. We can do small things; consecrate ourselves and our families to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and nations are also doing this, realising that Christ must reign, or we shall build a kingdom of darkness and thus condemn ourselves and our societies to a spiritual death.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-38325000698501648482018-10-26T05:19:00.002-07:002018-10-26T05:23:00.935-07:00How To Transform Catholic Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHEkDuo9E-cgxwno6jrAtE5rCXQNsAWpwMQIDvUIUC_HEV6iDD1bVaTNSUx9_xQkrHbASBIUbCnhEXCgDNBjLRe7P7mUrvYKu6AUx_uIjwL8kM68tQb27bAZBmaUCWUiYSnzUdmRxq8j7/s1600/peachey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="308" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHEkDuo9E-cgxwno6jrAtE5rCXQNsAWpwMQIDvUIUC_HEV6iDD1bVaTNSUx9_xQkrHbASBIUbCnhEXCgDNBjLRe7P7mUrvYKu6AUx_uIjwL8kM68tQb27bAZBmaUCWUiYSnzUdmRxq8j7/s400/peachey.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div>
<br />
Recommended reading for Catholic educators, this book is very much in the vein of Stratford Caldecott's excellent books such as Beauty in the Word. The emphasis is on *how* to transform Catholic education, so the books have suggestions on how to implement the Catholic vision. I think Peachey is especially strong here when he talks about work, using people like Josef Pieper and E. F. Schumacher to argue for the Catholic school as oasis of leisure in the middle of a desert of utilitarian and positivist ideology!<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-59423929579767516052018-05-26T01:54:00.001-07:002018-05-26T01:54:12.071-07:00The Serpent Returns“In the war of ideas, it's the crudest & most simplified ideology that wins. During our own lifetimes we have seen great & highly civilized countries becoming infected by epidemics of ideological insanity, & whole populations being destroyed for the sake of some irrational slogan.” Christopher Dawson<br /><br /><br />1500 years ago St Patrick drove the serpent out of Ireland. The country was the warm beating heart of Christendom. Its people generous and devout and kind. Many might wonder if the serpent has returned now that Ireland has voted to repeal the 8th amendment. In ‘Goodbye to Catholic Ireland’ Mary Kenny explains how the vote to protect the unborn in 1983 was seen as part of the natural pro-natalist character of the Irish people. If anyone wondered how you change the fundamental character of a people within a generation the answer is now obvious. You help the economy to enjoy all the benefits of full consumer capitalism a la the Celtic Tiger, and you flood the media with liberal globalist propaganda. It helps also to have a Church utterly bereft of moral authority both because of historical child sexual abuse by members of the priesthood, and because it has itself embraced a relativist pluralism that no longer has the courage to proclaim the truth of Christ.<br /><br /><br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-11729385084577175702018-01-28T09:32:00.000-08:002018-03-18T14:34:46.809-07:00Tempest Part One“The Watchman he lay dreaming<br /><br />Of all things that can be<br /><br />He dreamed the Titanic was sinking<br /><br />Into the deep blue sea”<br /><br /><br /><br />I recently heard the new releases of Bob Dylan’s ‘Born-Again’ era output (roughly 79-83), and realised in what should perhaps be a bit of a ‘duh’ moment, that whilst the overtly confessional Christianity of those records has faded, his output certainly from the early 90s onwards, has been more or less informed in its more transcendent moments by the Christian mythos, which does not mean that every good thing he’s written since then shows signs of this, but a close listening to the best of it certainly confirms the thesis.<br /><br />I realise this is actually against a lot of the received wisdom - a recent Guardian article about the film of the Born-again years ‘Trouble No More’ basically says he had 3 years of going weird then forgot about all that Christian stuff. That suits the Guardian narrative. It’s also nonsense.<br /><br />I would argue that a work like ‘Tempest’ from the 2012 album of the same name is a powerful meditation on the last judgement, revelation, faith and the creative act which itself is entirely incomprehensible outside of the Biblical tradition which informs it through and through.<br /><br /><br />In this song Dylan references perhaps a key figure from his own song mythos, the Watchman. The song All Along the Watchtower, which Dylan plays at the end of every live show, is itself a Biblically inspired fragment whose sudden abrupt ending and haunting wordplay present us with an apocalyptic scenario. “The hour is getting late” reminds us that the end is approaching. The two riders approaching and the Lords on the Watchtower echo a passage from Isaiah 21:5-9:<br /><br />“Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.<br />For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.<br />And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:<br />And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:<br />And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.”<br /><br /><br /><br />But whilst the earlier work clearly uses Biblical imagery to create an imaginative environment which acts as a foil to the ‘false talk’ of the joker and the thief, the perspective is still very much a negative one - a rejection of the falsity of modernity in line with ‘Gates of Eden’, but unable to envision an alternative. ‘The wind began to howl’, and in the face of this approaching tempest they remain mute.<br /><br /><br /><br />On the other hand, in ‘Tempest’ 44 years later, Dylan fleshes out this skeletal narrative with straightforwardly Christian imagery and he does it masterfully. I believe it’s his best work of the last 20 years. I have to add a caveat here: he does reweave an older song to make this one - it is of course a traditional folk standard - The Titanic, a version was recorded by the Carter Family. But that version is more straightforwardly moralistic, less mysterious, than Bob’s, even though there is a moral core to Bob’s version.<br /><br /><br /><br />Before we get to the repetition of the Watchman imagery, I want to mention a few key themes. First, we’ve already seen that All Along the Watchtower envisions an apocalyptic scenario. Here we are taken deeper into the meaning of apocalypse - a Greek word meaning ‘unveiling’. This is evident in the way the veils are lifted and truth is seen in all sorts of ways in this song. But most directly:<br /><br /><br /><br />The veil was torn asunder<br /><br />'Tween the hours of twelve and one<br /><br />No change, no sudden wonder<br /><br />Could undo what had been done<br /><br /><br /><br />Or the Captain reading the Book of Revelation in the gloom, his cup filling with tears. Or take this passage:<br /><br /><br /><br />Brother rose up 'gainst brother<br /><br />In every circumstance<br /><br />They fought and slaughtered each other<br /><br />In a deadly dance<br /><br /><br /><br />We can see from these passages why Dylan is interested in the Titanic story: it provides a narrative universe within which to explore the question of imminent doom, judgement and the meaning of one’s actions in the light of eternity. In Matthew 10 we find:<br /><br /><br /><br />“<i>The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.</i><br /><br /><i><br /></i><br /><i>And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come.</i><br /><br /><i><br /></i><br /><i>Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops</i>. “<br /><br /><br /><br />Dylan alludes to the end times throughout the song, but those times are not considered from a distance but rather seem suddenly all about us - who can deny that part of the horror of the imagery of brother slaughtering brother derives from its familiarity to us from the events of the last century?<br /><br /><br /><br />“<i>Nothing is covered that shall not be revealed</i>”<br /><br /><br /><br />In Tempest, the Watchman is asleep. This is a delightfully comic image which helps to drive the tragedy. The Watchman had one job, and failed. But also the Watchman stands for all those who are appointed, either through their official position, or through their own work, guardians of culture, morality and reason, those whose job is to ‘stay awake and watch’:<br /><br /><br /><br />(Matt 24:42: “<i>Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. Therefore be ye also ready: for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.</i>”).<br /><br /><br /><br />They have succumbed to the forces of the unconscious. And as a result the people are also dragged down into the dark depths. What are the consequences for an age when those whose mission is to be guardians and prophets have failed in their duty? The agony of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane also contains warnings. Discovering his disciples asleep when he returns he says to them “Could you not stay awake and watch with me for even one hour?” The chief mark of the modern age is the choice to anaesthetise and to numb, to fall asleep rather than bear the burden of being awake in the spirit.<br /><br /><br /><br />As Deacon Lawrence tells us in<a href="http://deaconlawrence.org/index.php/2017/11/12/niggle-communion-saints/" target="_blank"> this post</a> on 'Leaf by Niggle' "Throughout His ministry Jesus reminds us of the importance of preparing for the Kingdom that is to come." So, like Tolkien in Leaf by Niggle, Dylan also takes on this task - he becomes the Watchman, and in his dreamlike vision of the sinking Titanic he alerts us to the truth.<br /><br /><br /><br />Which is partly the reason why the Watchman's dreams are telling him the truth - he dreams the Titanic is sinking! Normally our dreams are odd fantasies. This inversion of normality adds to the sense of doom and foreboding. The Watchman is trying to tell people in his dream but can’t get the message across.<br /><br /><br /><br />Some of the most moving moments of the song derive from the actions of the people on the ship. In part 2 I will look at them in more detail.<br /><br /><br /><br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-41674027987982138912018-01-11T11:13:00.001-08:002018-01-11T11:39:38.709-08:00Concern“We’re all really worried about you” an old friend recently told me in a message. What had happened? Had I contracted a nasty disease? No. Had I developed mental health issues and become depressed? Not as far as I’m aware. Had I suddenly expressed a desire to give up everything and run off to Rio with some woman of easy virtue I’d met in Ipswich or somewhere? Definitely not.<br /><br />What had happened was that since I’d become a father and returned to the Church I had started to try and live and witness to my faith in a more solid way. I had started to openly express the view on social media that abortion was wrong. For simply asking for arguments on Facebook to support the view that abortion was wrong, for an A Level revision guide I was writing, I was told by one old friend they were going to ‘stage an intervention’ (presumably akin to the drug addict ones where they gather round and confront you with your addiction) on me. Another person (not someone I’ve ever liked to be honest) called me a nasty bigot and said that my revision guide was probably shit. Others (Australians so we’ll cut them some slack) started commenting about the sex abuse scandal in the Church and essentially said I had no right to an opinion on such matters as I had never been pregnant. “Don’t like it, don’t do it” she said, like that was an argument. A lot of people got very inflamed.<br /><br />Which is odd. If you have no right to an opinion about something unless you’ve actually undergone it, then most people have no right to an opinion on anything. Or perhaps they meant it in the soft sense that you are not allowed to have an opinion on something unless you can potentially experience it. Now it seems fair that I am very ill-qualified to talk about the experience of racism against black people in England. I would hesitate to pay much attention to something I said on that. But I could still extrapolate from that to make a general moral point about racism. Equally, I am never going to actually experience having a baby within me which I don’t want, but it is absurd to think that because of this I cannot discuss the morality of abortion. In fact, I would have even more claim than this anyway, as I someday may have contributed 50% of the genetic make up of the being whose life is in question. <br /><br />I’m actually still smiling at the absurdity of “don’t like it, don’t do it” as an argument for anything other than not going on a scary rollercoaster, or eating a particularly hot chilli. It amply illustrates the emotivism which underlies most of what passes for moral discussion now. Either there are some things which we believe it is possible to say ‘you should do this’ or ‘you shouldn’t do this’, or we just cannot talk about what ‘should’ happen at all, in which case, my Australian friend needs to quit telling me I shouldn’t be allowed to have an opinion on abortion.<br /><br />So if you say “we’re all really worried about you”, what you should really say is “we’re sorry you appear to have gone backward and rejected the only sane position on this issue - there is nothing to discuss until you fall back into line with our view - and until then I will express my arrogance and disdain for your bigotry as concern for you”. That would be much more honest.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-11423105386650411902017-11-02T05:01:00.002-07:002017-11-02T05:02:10.876-07:00The Philokalia<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtGj99YFYnIT2iNTSzRT6jsVQFoKlgXOt4DziGLQ_3Pu1nZSCJ6PX9b6bl3CNP7L_zczUtdishP3N8maFEqX1p04V_uT3vRr0-xJNgqEPIveYab-MgxF8uP10gVo-b25omInIvbBS7QL0E/s1600/painting-136-1351357450_b_zps88b3vrwm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtGj99YFYnIT2iNTSzRT6jsVQFoKlgXOt4DziGLQ_3Pu1nZSCJ6PX9b6bl3CNP7L_zczUtdishP3N8maFEqX1p04V_uT3vRr0-xJNgqEPIveYab-MgxF8uP10gVo-b25omInIvbBS7QL0E/s1600/painting-136-1351357450_b_zps88b3vrwm.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background: white; color: black;">"If our intellect is inexperienced in the art of watchfulness it at once begins to entertain whatever impassioned fantasy appears in it, and plies it with illicit questions and responds to it illicitly. Then our own thoughts are conjoined to the demonic fantasy, which waxes and burgeons until it appears lovely and delectable to the welcoming and despoiled intellect. The intellect then is deceived in much the same way as lambs when a stray dog comes into the field in which they happen to be: <em><span style="border-image: none; border: 1pt currentColor; font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;">in their innocence they often run towards the dog as though it were their mother, and their only profit in coming near it is that they pick up something of its stench and foulness</span></em>. In the same way our thoughts run ignorantly after demonic fantasies that appear in our intellect and, as I said, the two join together and one can see them plotting to destroy the city of Troy like Agamemnon and Menelaus. For they plot together the course of action they must take in order to bring about, in practice and by means of the body, that purpose which the demons have persuaded them is sweet and delectable. In this Way sins are produced in the soul: and hence the need to bring out into the open what is in our hearts. "<u></u><u></u></span>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-26804257417920024282017-09-28T07:57:00.001-07:002017-09-28T07:57:20.769-07:00Knowing What We Don't Know<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a phrase often attributed to Socrates in which
he says </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">"I know that I know nothing"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Usually this is interpreted as having the wisdom to realise
one's own lack of knowledge. It is not necessarily a quality teachers are known
for - after all, we are meant to be masters of our subject, but I want to argue
that the best teachers exemplify this attitude in the practice of their craft.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let's call the above-mentioned wisdom 'epistemic
humility'. It is surely a very good quality for a teacher to cultivate.
Keats called for the poet to be in a state of 'negative capability' -
"that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts,
without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”. I think the teacher can
learn a bit from the poet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Take for instance the way in which a little knowledge
can bewitch you and stop you asking some fundamental questions which might
impact on the learning in a lesson. You may then think 'all I have to do is
impart this knowledge and the job is done'. This Gradgrindian approach can
destroy and disenchant the learning process for the student. I have
been astonished at how much teaching the EPQ has put me out of my comfort zone
- I cannot 'spoon feed' the student the information they need; I cannot suggest
or lead them at all - and yet I have seen the genuine excitement in them when
they realise they really can explore their chosen topic how they like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We need to get some of this enchantment and wonder in the
learning process back. A target-driven culture is not best suited to generating
this kind of attitude towards learning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Do targets act as that totalising force mentioned
earlier? How might we cultivate an epistemic humility about students?
Clearly, having expectations and goals for students is important, but what kind
of goals, and how central to the education process do we make them? Some
consider that target-setting in the way it is currently done is
counter-productive - there are so many factors which influence these results
that they are a blunt tool when it comes to measuring learning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Abraham Maslow said "It is tempting, if the only tool
you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." Reductive
philosophies generate reductive methods - and these in turn produce students
unlikely to be fulfilling their true potential as human beings. If we ask the
question of what is knowledge for, or what is learning for, then we find that
there have been traditional answers much richer and fuller than we are
currently used to seeing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Catholic perspective on education takes into account the
spiritual realities and forces that come into play when the parent and other
educators seek to help the student flourish in the best way possible. If this
responsibility is taken seriously, it puts the Catholic school entirely at odds
with most of the rest of modern schooling in the West. The thoroughgoing
utilitarian and atomistic spirit of modern education needs to be viewed with
suspicion by the Catholic school. In The Way of Beauty, Stratford Caldecott
argues that Catholic institutions can draw on the Classical tradition of the
Trivium, in which Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were studied.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Caldecott argues that when the ultimate goal of the human
being is to grow towards the True, the Beautiful and the Good, this
produces an educational vision rooted in a profound wonder and humility, a
sense that we are on a journey together in which no-one has all the answers,
but in which all are seekers after a common good, a pearl of great price. That
sounds like wisdom to me.</span><br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-43364624124262054152017-07-16T13:15:00.001-07:002017-07-16T14:06:30.317-07:00Why I Am Not A Liberal (and why that does not necessarily mean I am a bigot)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhq0su73sRBDgnAfQoRWprpjclog9SdaQZ2mrtnOJKf4QuXUpCOeJfe5FjhmJXGYFUaztP38gn0mybnERb3NPVeh9H5vcKdNsJiWWkf24Jo28GGn8aGdyzcZw9eQJor-qm-7TS_wiJKdt/s1600/IMG_2499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="353" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhq0su73sRBDgnAfQoRWprpjclog9SdaQZ2mrtnOJKf4QuXUpCOeJfe5FjhmJXGYFUaztP38gn0mybnERb3NPVeh9H5vcKdNsJiWWkf24Jo28GGn8aGdyzcZw9eQJor-qm-7TS_wiJKdt/s320/IMG_2499.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In response to previous conversations both on and offline I've decided to write up what I see as some of the key problems with liberalism. As the dominant political and moral ideology of modernity, liberalism underlies most of the things we take for granted in the West, such as individualism, freedom of speech, the concept of rights and duties, and even colours the way we view such things as freedom itself. Therefore, in criticising liberalism I am not aligning myself with a viewpoint either left or right on the political spectrum: it should be obvious to even the most casual observer of modern politics that liberalism, and neo-liberal economics, has been the underlying assumption of parties across the political spectrum for the last 30 years.<br />
<br />
By criticising liberalism it should be obvious some of the things I am not doing. Firstly, I am not making judgements on individuals - that should go without saying. We have to be able to evaluate and compare different world views and say what we think their shortcomings are without fear of hurting people's feelings. If you personally feel uncomfortable because your worldview is under scrutiny - and as a theist in a predominantly atheistic society, I am very familiar with this - then you need to find out what underpins your view and try to defend it rationally, or at least point out where you view the criticism of liberalism to fail.<br />
<br />
As it turns out, in modern discourse we are used to having mutually clashing but ultimately unresolvable differences of opinions on political and ethical issues, and this is actually one of the ways in which the liberal assumption of relativism actually undermines such discourse.<br />
<br />
Secondly, and again it should go without saying, I am not aligning myself with 'alt-right' or nationalist views - such views may share with mine a fundamental suspicion of modern liberalism, but in their obsessions with race and identity and their hope in demotic solutions to societal problems they are actually the mirror of the far left they claim to despise. As a Catholic Integralist (explanation later), I am as incapable of subscribing to such views as I would be to a Marxist philosophy. <br />
<br />
Finally, in doing this critique I am well aware of the problems with talking about a general 'liberalism' without being more specific. There is of course a big difference between classical liberalism in the tradition of Locke, and more modern forms of liberalism. But here's the thing. When you take the starting point of the Enlightenment project out of which liberalism grew you are accepting a narrative whereby the older forms of religious and ethical decision-making were 'rolled back' to create a 'neutral' public space within which rational discourse was the sole arbiter. Religious and ethical issues are then relegated to the private sphere, and could make no public claim on others. Inevitably, earlier forms of liberalism which were still strongly grounded in Christian ethical frameworks had more robust defences of things like virtue etc., but as time went on these key elements eroded away - liberalism got 'thinner'. This development was inevitable in the light of the founding assumptions of the Enlightenment project. Today it leads to absurdities like Japanese sex robots.<br />
<br />
So what are the key problems with modern liberalism? Three:<br />
1. The key value of tolerance<br />
2. The myth of Progress<br />
3. The idea of freedom as 'freedom-from'<br />
<br />
1. In conversation with liberals and in my own research I can find no higher liberal value than tolerance. I guess it goes with equality, but I would argue it is more fundamental than equality. If you are astute you will notice that tolerance is actually a key Christian principle. Jesus said 'judge not, lest ye be judged', the emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in parables like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son is clear. Whether Christians have always lived up to these principles in practice is a different matter. But tolerance here is tolerance of the person, not tolerance of sin. Christians have always recognised the importance of 'love the sinner, hate the sin'. In other words the Christian principle of tolerance only makes sense within the wider framework of Christian ethics in which humans are fundamentally flawed, and can do nothing without God's grace. In which God is a just but merciful judge. <br />
<br />
What liberalism has done is strip away this framework and keep the bare principle of tolerance. 'Do what you will, as long as it harms no-one'. This is nowhere more keenly felt than in the area of sexual ethics. On this simple principle, the use of child sex robots is incapable of condemnation. Liberalism alone cannot tell you what to think about such cases, other than - 'hey man, what he does in the privacy of his own bedroom is up to him'.<br />
<br />
So my main reason tolerance is a problematic value is that it is too negative to have any real moral force, and it relies on profoundly flawed utilitarian principles. What we need is a much more robust 'thicker' moral framework which doesn't view morality simply in terms of whether people have maximised pleasure and minimised pain.<br />
<br />
Ok then, you might say, liberal traditions don't just go on bare principles of tolerance but also compassion, equality, etc. My problem here is that these are essentially imports from the religious background out of which liberalism grew, shorn of all their transcendent trappings. Why treat people compassionately? Because humans are fundamentally valuable. Why are humans fundamentally valuable? Because they're human. Hang on, you've just begged the question. That's not a reason, simply an assertion. It's not even wrong. <br />
<br />
Ok, so there's a deeper problem going on here. Someone more eloquent than me will have to uncover it; here is a passage from a modern classic which explores this question called After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre:<br />
<br />
"My own critique of liberalism derives from a judgement that the best type of human life, that in which the tradition of the virtues is most adequately embodied, is lived by those engaged in constructing and sustaining forms of community directed towards the shared achievement of those common goods without which the ultimate human good cannot be achieved. Liberal political societies are characteristically committed to denying any place for a determinate conception of the human good in their public discourse, let alone allowing that their common life should be grounded in such a conception. On the dominant liberal view, government is to be neutral as between rival conceptions of the human good, yet in fact what liberalism promotes is a kind of institutional order that is inimical to the construction and sustaining of the types of communal relationship required for the best kind of human life. <br />
<br />
This critique of liberalism should not be interpreted as a sign of any sympathy on my part for contemporary conservatism. That conservatism is in too many ways a mirror image of the liberalism that it professedly opposes. Its commitment to a way of life structured by a free market economy is a commitment to an individualism as corrosive as that of liberalism. And where liberalism by permissive legal enactments has tried to use the power of the modern state to transform social relationships, conservatism by prohibitive legal enactments now tries to use that same power for its own coercive purposes."<br />
<br />
2. I guess it might be possible to be a liberal without being a progressive, but I'm not quite sure how that would work. Modern liberalism is profoundly wedded to the ideal of progressivism. We are moving away from a dark, superstitious past, to a bright, rational future. Yes, we may have blips like Trump, but we will triumph in the end. This is the liberal myth of progress. It's not too hard to see how the Enlightenment project gave birth to this myth. In rejecting religious golden ages in the past, they projected their golden age into the future, thus modernity was born. I know of no better pin prick to the absurd balloon of this optimism than the words of Theodor Adorno: "Progress, seen clearly, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb."<br />
<br />
3. The third problem with liberalism is perhaps the deepest. It is where it makes a decisive break from its Christian background. This is the view of freedom as 'freedom-from' things, as opposed to the traditional and Christian view of freedom as 'freedom to effortlessly choose the good'. On the liberal view freedom is merely the absence of external coercion - liberation from the chains of whatever happens to be the oppressor.<br />
<br />
Reverend Jacques Philippe wrote in his phenomenal work Interior Freedom, “To achieve true interior freedom we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on… the situations that really make us grow are precisely those that we do not control.” <br />
<br />
It is by training ourselves to accept these limitations, external and internal, that we achieve freedom - when we do this, our inner peace and calm cannot be affected by whatever situation we are in - we can freely choose to do the good. Mere absence of coercion is never going to be enough to guarantee that someone can do this. <br />
<br />
An analogy for this is when we learn a skill such as riding a bike, or drawing, or playing a musical instrument. We don't just pick up the flute and start playing it like a maestro first lesson, we have to discipline ourselves over time, and subject ourselves to the authority of another to learn it. Then one day we pick it up, and we are truly free in our playing. <br />
<br />
So, I hope to have shown why I cannot embrace liberalism. Not because I'm some nasty bigot or just like Donald Trump Jr (!), but because I find it philosophically incoherent and thin. A Catholic Integralist believes that ethical and political decisions cannot be based on an individualist, relativist world view, and that they must appeal to notions of virtue, robust definitions of the common good defended in the public square, and a view of the world that is sacramental, in which the inherent worth of the individual is down to their creation in the imago dei, the free and loving gift of a creator God. <br />
<br />
Two excellent books which explore these questions are After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre and The Politics of Virtue by Adrian Pabst and John Milbank.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-87710454050510514512017-04-04T08:26:00.002-07:002020-04-09T11:37:15.272-07:00There and Back Again: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to New Age Wiccan and Back to Mother Church<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHferk-Jse3Vy9H5nG5SNLNiQ-VYOIEX9RcM_-_HVY8EwI92pKiLgYNLfy-OBjP9FfXqzQEDcJLjZLR2wU1h6bOkrRMdk0l2aXCU2i1tVD24zG9skIamFAvlQT4EZTC-OcbzxFajK8wGqu/s1600/Institute-Christ-King-Limerick-768x576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHferk-Jse3Vy9H5nG5SNLNiQ-VYOIEX9RcM_-_HVY8EwI92pKiLgYNLfy-OBjP9FfXqzQEDcJLjZLR2wU1h6bOkrRMdk0l2aXCU2i1tVD24zG9skIamFAvlQT4EZTC-OcbzxFajK8wGqu/s640/Institute-Christ-King-Limerick-768x576.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This was originally going to be a talk on my reversion to the faith. I have been inspired by Roger Buck, whose book on the New Age can be found here:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-book-on-church-and-new-age.html">http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-book-on-church-and-new-age.html</a><br />
<br />
I am not a convert to the faith, I was baptised and brought
up a Catholic, but I did spend a long time away from the Church, searching for
things I thought Christianity did not have. This talk is not meant to be a
complete rejection of any beliefs outside of Catholicism - after all the Church
says we should reject 'nothing of what is true and good in other faiths'. One
way of looking at this story is through the experience of someone like St
Augustine. He tells of being brought up a Catholic by his mother Monica, his
rejection of that faith and his embrace of dualist philosophies such as
Manicheanism, and his final return to the Church in his book the Confessions. I
might dare to say that my story is similar, but without the saintliness on my
part! My reasons for embracing the Catholic faith are also like Augustine's.<br />
<br />
So I stopped going to church shortly after my confirmation, at around the age
of 15. This was inevitable for many reasons. The key one, one which I don't
like to admit, was probably apathy. People may tell you they have left the
Church because of dissent, because they disagree on principle with some of its
teachings. This is usually a convenient cover story for the more basic truth -
they can't be bothered to carry on going to Mass on Sunday. All around, people
are getting on with their lives and enjoying themselves without ever thinking
about church or God or any of that stuff. This is especially true for teenage
boys and especially if their own dads don't go to church. Mine didn't go. I saw
old women mainly at church, and unconsciously absorbed the message that church
is, like flower-arranging and coffee mornings, something genteel old ladies do.
The outside pressures are strong as well, the 'anglosphere' we live and breathe
through media and upbringing strongly rejects the mystery, rejects the
supernatural. I'll say more about that in a minute. Perhaps for me as well,
friends were key - most of them had not been brought up as church-going
Catholics, and they had non-religious parents. Through them I also started
taking drugs at about the same age that I stopped going to church. Later on we
would go to raves and places like Glastonbury, where I would whole-heartedly
embrace a 'hippie' ideology, hedonistic and relativistic.<br />
<br />
But at that stage I was still educating myself outside of my school education.
I loved books and loved reading. I read anything I could get my hands on.
Unfortunately, some of the things I read were very dangerous for someone of
that age to read before their conscience and intellectual formation has
properly happened. I was intellectually pretentious, and often had a sense that
my school education was leaving important things out. I tried to substitute
this lack with these morally dubious books.<br />
<br />
For me what seemed lacking in
my Catholic education was twofold. First, the faith seemed as purged as it
could be of any non-rational elements. There are many reasons for this. Some
people, especially some leaders in the Church, think that if young people are
going to embrace the faith, they must be 'approached on their own level'. Most
of the teenagers I teach are put off by this patronising attitude. If something
is difficult and mysterious, let it be presented like that - I know that as a
young person I liked the challenge of difficult and mysterious things, and part
of the reason I left the Church was because it had none of this challenge. It
also seemed to me that if those who were meant to be teaching the faith had
little more to say about it than what you would find in a humanitarian or
humanist mission statement, I couldn't see why they bothered. Secular
enthusiasm for humanity is not core Christianity, contrary to what some Church
leaders would have you believe.<br />
<br />
Secondly, what remained of the mystery of the faith was presented to me as a
goal, but without any real presentation of the way you could reach that goal.
So, we would find out about beliefs in heaven, hell and purgatory, and learn
that heaven consists in the beatific vision of God which the saints enjoy, but
there would be no discussion of types of prayer or meditation, things which no
saint can do without; no practical instruction in what you might call the
technology of the faith. The Catholic Church has developed some amazing tools
but they are very little heard of. Even the most famous ones such as the rosary
are more talked about than used. No one ever taught me to pray the rosary
growing up in the faith. And yet this spiritual weapon is one that I could not
be without now.<br />
<br />
So here we are - an intellectually curious, slightly rebellious 15-year-old who
is searching for meaningful world views, preferably ones different from those
dull ones he was brought up with. I got my hands on some books, in fact I had
been reading books like these for a few years by the time I was 15. We have:<br />
<br />
Magick by Aleister Crowley<br />
The White Goddess by Robert Graves<br />
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche<br />
Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud<br />
The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins<br />
Psychology and Alchemy by Carl Jung<br />
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore<br />
Allen Ginsberg poetry<br />
William Blake poetry<br />
Eastern Religious works: Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Diamond Sutra<br />
<br />
You can see here a selection of things my teenage self had found to read. Apart
from the Nietzsche and the Freud, it is all grounded in some sense of the
divine or supernatural, but even those two are about different ways of looking
at religion. I clearly was searching around for a coherent religious worldview,
just as long as it wasn't the Catholic one of my upbringing.<br />
<br />
So what is wrong with these books? Well, the most clearly purely evil one is
the Crowley one. If you know anything about him, he was an occultist and
magician who describes in the book ways of summoning demons and spirits as well
as describing in detail the paraphernalia required to cast a magic circle, do
invocations, create spells and so on. The most dangerous thing you can do here
is to dismiss this as nonsense. I am convinced of the reality of the spiritual
world, partly because I and people I know have come into contact with the
reality of the spiritual forces of evil. It is a very dangerous thing to mess
about with occult realities, and as C S Lewis said, the greatest trick the
devil ever played was convincing people he didn't exist.<br />
<br />
So that book comes with a special warning, but the other books are all dubious
mainly because without rigorous Catholic intellectual formation, they could
lead you into error regarding key truths such as the nature of grace, the
personal reality of the Holy Trinity, the Catholic understanding of virtue and
many other things. What had really happened was, to paraphrase G K Chesterton,
when I stopped believing in something, I didn't believe in nothing; I believed
in anything. My philosophy was a mish-mash of eastern religious thought,
magical and divinatory techniques, and relativism. In other words, I very much
subscribed to a philosophy known as the New Age.<br />
<br />
I can see looking back on this that the main causes underlying this 'straying
from home, being lost in a far country' were down to a faculty that many of us
feel is rather mysterious, yet which plays a major role in everything we do:
the imagination.<br />
<br />
I am sure that the main reason I turned elsewhere for truth is that my
imagination was not fed in my childhood faith. Cardinal Newman said that where
belief falters it is above all because 'the imagination is against us'. I will
say that in the New Age I found things to feed my imagination. It was seduced
from its natural goal which is to be an aid to contemplation and moral virtue,
and it went searching for forbidden fruit. The analogy which springs to mind is
if you were to have a balanced, nutritious meal, say a roast dinner with lots
of vegetables put in front of you, and instead you ignore it and go to the chicken
shop for some spicy wings and fries. You know the other meal is bad for you,
but that is part of the thrill of eating it!<br />
<br />
So as I said before, the erosion of what is called the sacramental in the
Church, that is those things which body forth the invisible divine gift of
God's grace, such as adoration of the blessed sacrament and so on, the erosion
of these opportunities for time with God both within the church and in the
wider culture, leave the imagination seeking sustenance elsewhere. The
imagination is like a stomach, it has to be fed. Take away the healthy balanced
meal, and it will have to go and get the chicken wings.<br />
<br />
So what is the New Age? It would be easier to characterise it in terms of some
beliefs it involves. Here is a by no means exhaustive list:<br />
<br />
Nature worship/pantheism, Wicca, Paganism<br />
Earth mysteries/ley lines<br />
Divination - astrology/tarot/ouija boards<br />
Grail mysteries - Arthurian romance/Celtic mythology<br />
Occult groups - Masonry/Rosicrucians/Theosophy<br />
Dualist beliefs - Gnosticism/Eastern religions/Taoism<br />
Alchemy/Magic<br />
Yoga/Meditation<br />
Angels/Faeries/Devas<br />
'Alternative' stories of Christ - Gnostic Gospels/Mary Magdalene theories (Dan
Brown territory)<br />
Pre-Christian Britain - Stonehenge/Avebury/Glastonbury as centres of learning<br />
Goddess worship - as a religion more in balance with nature and thus superior
to patriarchal dominator religions which do violence to nature<br />
<br />
So what's wrong with all this stuff?<br />
Well, it's by no means all entirely devoid of merit. If it had no truth or
value at all in it, people would not seek out and believe it. It is actually
the mixture of truth and falsity that is so dangerous in it.<br />
<br />
Some positives are:</div>
<ul>
<li>It is about questions of truth and meaning - these systems do give meaning to
people's lives</li>
<li>People like myself who sincerely search for truth in these areas should not be
mocked, but asked to examine in more depth the assumptions of their beliefs</li>
<li>As Catholics we can see that if Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, then
he is in some sense present in some of these beliefs in a similar way that
belief in the one true God is present in Plato's Form of the Good.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Take for instance the New Age fascination with Angels. The Church has a highly
developed angelology in which there are nine different hierarchies of angels
and a long tradition of belief in and prayer to them. Angels are depicted
throughout Christian art, and it is unusual indeed for medieval churches to be
without statues of them. Catholics even believe in a personal guardian angel
unique to each human. New-agers love all this. It appeals to the desire for
direct experience unmediated by institutions which is at the heart of so much
of their worldview.<br />
<br />
In fact, I think this one fact is the key to those who follow the New Age -
they are not happy with second-hand experience - they want to see and feel the
divine reality for themselves. This is understandable. But it also makes them
like doubting Thomas - unable to believe until he puts his hands in Christ's
wounds. Christ said happy are those who are unable to do this and yet still
believe and this is the reality of faith - assent to the reality of things
unseen. For that you need a Church.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the New Age Thomases can fall into serious error regarding the
spiritual world. By their insistence on personal experience they actually
attempt to substitute the reality of grace with human effort of the will. They
acknowledge spiritual realities but instead of placing themselves in right
relation to these realities through prayer and works of charity, they attempt
to get those realities to work for them. Attempting to manipulate the spiritual
world for your own benefit is called magic. It the oldest evil, given to us by
the serpent in the garden of Eden.<br />
<br />
Such evil takes place when the sin of pride works on us. It can happen to New
Agers and it can happen to those in the Church. You can tell the prideful
nothing they do not already know. They are so concerned with their own personal
quest for truth, that they forget about everyone else. What is great about the
Church is that no-one can go on for very long being a Catholic before they see
the wrongness of this position. We have two great antidotes to the sin of pride
- Jesus and Mary.<br />
<br />
Mary's humility was the very thing which enabled her to be the 'handmaiden of
the Lord', Jesus 'humbled himself, even unto death'. At the heart of the
Catholic faith is the cross, the Way of all believers, dying to self. Even our
sacraments are there to promote this humility. Think of the self-discernment
and humility you need to have to go and confess your sins to another human
being. You would have to be a master of self-deception to go on sincerely
studying and trying to follow the Catholic faith and at the same time being
full of pride.<br />
<br />
The New Age does not have this protection. In fact, the New Age studiously
avoids these parts of the faith, even though it talks a lot about Jesus. Jesus,
lover of Mary Magdalene; Jesus speaker of wisdom from the East (Gnostic
Gospels); Jesus, founder of a royal bloodline; even Jesus the Buddhist, or
Jesus the Zen Master, or Jesus the mythical Corn-God, but never Jesus the
Messiah, True God and True Man, Jesus who died a criminal's death and rose
again for our salvation.<br />
<br />
Why not? Pride. The promise of the New Age is essentially the promise of the
serpent ; "ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil". It is
salvation without the cross, what Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace.<br />
<br />
The serpent, then, that ancient and cunning creature, does much of his work
through glamour. We mistake apparent goods for real goods, apparent goods are
much more 'right here and now' whereas real goods require patience, sacrifice
and effort to accomplish and attain. Why bother going to church and praying and
doing everyday tasks humbly and charitably when we can gain 'enlightenment' by
being 'who we really are' contemplating ourselves. So the serpent tends to
affirm us in our own laziness and short-sightedness. Much easier to be a
Goddess-worshipper and criticise organised religion or patriarchy for the
hang-ups and problems of the modern world, than it is try and love the dejected
and degraded products of the modern world.<br />
<br />
The promise of the serpent contrasts with the promise of the Blessed Virgin.
This is sometimes known as the Proto-Evangelion, or the Good News before the
Gospel, in Genesis 3:15 God speaks to Satan:<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between
your seed and her seed. She shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait
for her heel.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The woman is the New Eve, Mary who is often depicted with
the serpent under her feet, for in Revelation 12 it describes the ‘Woman
clothed with the sun’ and the great red dragon at her feet waiting to devour
her son when she gives birth to him. The triumph of Mary – she shall crush the
serpent’s head – was repeated by Our Lady herself when she appeared to the
children at Fatima in Portugal 100 years ago next month. <br />
<br />
Have no doubt, the modern world is doing everything it can to forestall this
triumph, the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary and the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. Pray the rosary. Our Lady specifically asked at Fatima that we
pray the rosary. It has great power against evil.<br />
<br />
I could have floundered around in the New Age a lot longer - who knows I might
still be there now. A few things happened though which you might call
providential. I like to see it as evidence of God's grace, gently calling me
away from error.<br />
<br />
First, those books I mentioned I had read as a teenager weren't the only ones I
read. I loved fantasy books, and at about 8 or 9 I read the Chronicles of
Narnia by C S Lewis, starting with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Famously, those books presented a world absolutely steeped in the Christian
vision, with Aslan the lion representing Christ, sacrificed by the white witch.<br />
<br />
These were quickly followed by the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, by J R R
Tolkien, a friend of Lewis. The Christianity in these books was less evident
but in some ways far more powerful. They are not straightforward allegories but
through their narrative they convey themes of death and afterlife, virtue,
humility and sacrifice, all central Christian themes.<br />
<br />
These works as it were, 'baptised my imagination', they were doing their work
at a level beyond my normal awareness, acting like spiritual enzymes on my imagination
to stimulate certain connections and reactions. I believe that in spite of the
rather large amount of dubious material I read, and my overall lack of
formation in the faith, alongside a depleted sacramental life, and a larger
culture that tended to value only the rational and the material, that God used
these books to help bring me back to the faith eventually.<br />
<br />
For instance, one of the key elements of LotR is the humility of the hobbits,
esp Sam, Frodo's companion. Tolkien uses Sam's humility and Frodo's compassion
to ultimately bring about the destruction of the Ring, but they do not
accomplish this by their own efforts, in fact, the moment of destruction of the
ring is actually the moment in which it seems the greatest darkness has come to
the world of Middle Earth, when Frodo gives up his quest and Gollum seizes the
Ring. By a fateful turn, this leads to its destruction, but it doesn't happen
by Frodo's hand. This illustrates the saving reality of grace, working above
human effort.<br />
<br />
This episode at the heart of LotR is also an example of what Tolkien called
'eucatastrophe' the sudden turn to joy at the darkest of hours. It is no
accident that Tolkien, in his calendar of Middle Earth, had this event occur on
March 25th - a date in our world which used to be known as Lady Day, or the
Feast of the Annunciation. Here is Mary's Yes to God upon which our salvation
depends.<br />
<br />
But it would take me a long time to realise that there was any effect on me
from these books, and they could not have worked all alone. Other things
happened, in which I more consciously formulated an intellectual position on
Catholicism. At first I held it at arm's length because I believed that the
Church was outdated and had misrepresented who the real Jesus was. In other
words, I absorbed all those ancient prejudices that have been doing the rounds
since the Reformation. It took me a while to educate myself out of them. If you
are one of those people who has seen a few YouTube videos on atheism or watched
Stephen Fry or Richard Dawkins talking about religion and now think you know
that the Church and all organised religion is a load of nonsense, I beg you to
seek out other things. Look up the Magis Centre on YouTube for instance -
Robert Spitzer - I can guarantee it will give you some serious things to think
about.<br />
<br />
Anyway, one of the things which happened is I read a book called Meditations on
the Tarot when I was at university studying theology. The book seemed to be
another New Age book on divination, but instead it turned out to be the single
most powerful defence of Catholic tradition and orthodoxy that I have ever
found outside of the magisterium of the Church itself. I had got a certain way
down the road of Christianity but stayed outside the Church, my main
inspiration was Carl Jung, who seemed to do justice to spiritual realities, but
who himself was never an orthodox believer in God.<br />
<br />
Then I read this book and I knew I had to confront some of the most
uncomfortable things about the Catholic faith. Christ had really died and really
risen again in a physical body? Christ was really present in the Blessed
Sacrament? Mary had been immaculately conceived? We were going to be judged at
the end of time and given resurrection bodies? There was no salvation outside
the Church? These were very uncomfortable questions. Modern liberal churches
avoid them, and secular humanists openly mock them. The book presents all these
teachings amongst a vast variety of wisdom from different traditions and does
the amazing task of baptising all that is good in the 'New Age', bringing it
into the Church and at the same time not compromising one iota of scripture or
tradition.<br />
<br />
Some other reasons, far more pragmatic for my return to the faith were getting
married and having children. Although I returned to the church about 11-12
years ago, it was only when my daughter was born three years ago that I really
understood the beauty of God's gift of life to us - everything is gift - we can
earn none of it, and it is all the result of God's overflowing generosity and
love.<br />
<br />
I want to talk now about the main 'reasons' why I believe. By reasons, I don't
really mean dry rational arguments for God. I am talking about how Catholicism
seems to me the only coherent option for a person as combination of body, soul
and spirit to hold. Intellectual coherence is one important part of that, the
end goal of desire is another.<br />
<br />
The first reason I have already touched on, and that is the unsatisfactory or
partial nature of truth in all other belief systems. As we have looked at this
partial truth of the New Age, I want to look at the other major modern
worldview which has perhaps an even slimmer slice of the truth, that of secular
humanism or atheism.<br />
<br />
At a very basic level, one of the key things which helped me go back across more
easily to the faith was when I realised the superior coherence of the theistic
worldview (belief in a personal God) compared with the atheistic worldview.<br />
<br />
Modern atheistic or secular humanism is built on two major tenets or
assumptions; materialism and atomism/individualism.<br />
<br />
The first belief - materialism is impossible to hold without
self-contradiction. Materialists believe humans and indeed everything else are
just more or less complex arrangements of matter. It is agreed upon by almost
every materialist that free will is essentially an illusion, and consciousness
is just a 'neat bunch of tricks' (Daniel Dennett's phrase). This means that
although I feel myself to be a thinking, choosing being, with an inner life,
this is just the result of being on the receiving end of the complex set of
neural activities in my brain. I am a meat machine. But if that is the case,
why should I believe you when you tell me this? After all, you are also a meat
machine, no freer to hold the belief in materialism than I am to hold a belief
in God. Your belief in materialism is just the by-product of the neural
activity in your brain. Materialism is self-defeating because it cannot account
for this intentionality and purposiveness of human beings.<br />
<br />
Therefore, one of the key assumptions of secular humanists can be dispensed
with. What they normally claim in defence is the unfeasibly powerful predictive
ability of the natural sciences, which function by eliminating any non-material
element from the equation, and the undoubted advances in medicine and
technology which have arisen from this predictive ability of science. These
should, they say, offset any purely philosophical problems with materialism,
and anyway, philosophy is just word play really, science is the real deal. This
belief that science can justify itself is called scientism. It is also
indefensible on the very simple grounds that even the most basic version of the
scientific method is founded on certain philosophical assumptions or principles
which are not themselves capable of scientific proof or testing.<br />
<br />
The other principle behind secular humanism is the principle behind liberalism
- that of individualism. The individual should be free to decide for themselves
to do whatever they want, there are no bonds of tradition or duty or family and
freedom is simply the absence of obstacles in the path of this individual
self-expression. In more classical versions of liberal humanism reason would
play a large role in providing constraints on this, but in modern times it seems
even reason gets pushed to one side.<br />
<br />
It seems to me if you combine people's general tendency to weakness of will and
blindness to their own faults with these principles you get a system of atomistic particles in which the masses of humanity are absolutely vulnerable to manipulation by powerful and amoral corporations and governments.</div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
I have tried to show that no-one can do without a belief system, and that no
belief system is neutral in value. The only thing we can do is to differentiate
superior or inferior belief systems. Why is the theistic worldview superior to
the atheistic one? For the reasons I have just shown, which are negative, but
also for two positive reasons.</span>
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
Firstly, the arguments which are often called natural theology are
intellectually defensible. Things such as the design argument or the argument
from beauty. I have no time to go into these here. Richard Swinburne has a
'cumulative case' argument in which theism becomes statistically higher than
chance and is argued as an inference to the best explanation to the current
state of the universe. Keith Ward and John Lennox, Oxford professors of
philosophy and mathematics are worth seeking out - you can find them proposing
such arguments on YouTube. So theism for me is rational. But no-one ever just
believes in God on purely rational grounds. For me, my faith is something in
which I am called to give and go beyond my own comfort zone certainly, but it
is also something which nourishes the soul life within me. And for this you
need more than a rational argument.</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
I spoke before about the importance of feeding one's imagination on good
things. It is interesting to note S T Coleridge's definition of imagination at
this point:</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
Imagination - 'a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation
in the infinite I AM'</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
By the infinite I Am he means something like the 'mind of God'. Coleridge also
said 'never could the eye have beheld the sun, had not its own essence been
sunlike'. We can see here that our imagination's true task is to enable us to
conform ourselves to the divine reality. We can become 'sub-creators' in
everything we do. There is thus an inbuilt capacity within human nature to
relate to God. But, and this is really where I want to come back to Augustine,
because of fallen human nature, that potential is frustrated. Now there is a
tendency in us to try and make other things fulfill this need. Created things
become a substitute for God, but do not satisfy. And the more we pursue them,
the deeper in sin we mire ourselves, but Augustine tells us this sin is the
loss of God - it is not guilt but grief, it is a yearning for home. He says:</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
"You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they
rest in you."</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
Humanity is destined to remain incomplete in its present existence. Its hopes
and longings will remain just that. Augustine talks of this sense of longing
and how it should lead us to God throughout the Confessions:</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
"[I am] groaning with inexpressible groanings on my wanderer's path, and
remembering Jerusalem with my heart lifted up toward it - Jerusalem my home
land, Jerusalem my mother."</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
The thing that keeps me in the Church is its acknowledgment of our brokenness
as human beings, our incompleteness and vulnerability, and it is this
interpretation that it puts on longing that for me provides absolute
confirmation of its truth. I know that whenever I begin to place created things
in the place where God should be, I distance myself from my true home. It is
only when I can practice 'poverty of spirit' through prayer and worship, that I
can begin to get a glimpse of that far country that is my home land, and then
that longing begins again, both sweet and painful.</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
One final thing - the glimpses of that other country that I am offered in the
liturgy and the sacraments of the Church are there not just to remind me of my
own fallen state. They are there to make me part of Christ's body. My salvation
can never be an individual thing - it has to be part of a corporate action.
This was never possible whilst I dabbled in the New Age. It lacks this corporal
element, this use of the physical - bread, wine, oil, water. But these things
are not arbitrary signs - they embody in a special way the saving action of
Christ. If I were to be cut off from them I would diminish as a human being,
and I would fall back into error.</span><br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-92101972512564723812017-02-24T07:26:00.001-08:002017-02-25T06:01:00.420-08:00LMS Chairman: New book on the Faith and the New AgeAn excellent article by Joseph Shaw which examines the New Age and Catholic faith, whilst also pointing to the way the Catholic faith could heal the modern obsession with the sensual and hedonistic: <br />
<br />
"<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Dorian Gray was fascinated by what he saw, and in real life many of Wilde’s ‘decadent’ friends, and eventually Wilde himself, converted to Catholicism, which could give them what their sensuality could not give them. The explanation is that in their sensuality they were not seeking just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pleasure,</i> they were seeking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">meaning,</i> and furthermore they were seeking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spiritual realities manifested in created things</i>. This is what they found in the Mass and in the Church."</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.lmschairman.org/2017/02/new-book-on-faith-and-new-age.html#more">LMS Chairman: New book on the Faith and the New Age#more</a>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-1422523757089181152016-06-15T07:18:00.000-07:002016-06-15T07:18:00.016-07:00Freedom and the Death of God<b>Pope Benedict:</b><br />
<br />
"I remain in the Church because only the Church's faith saves man. That sounds very traditional, dogmatic and unreal, but it is meant quite soberly and realistically. In our world of compulsions and frustrations the longing for salvation has awakened with hurricane force. The efforts of Freud and Jung are just attempts to give redemption to the unredeemed. Marcuse, Adorno and Habermas continue in their own way, from different starting points, to seek and proclaim salvation. In the background stands Marx, and his question too, is the question of salvation. The more liberated, powerful and enlightened man becomes, the more the longing for salvation gnaws at him, the less free he finds himself. The common element in the efforts of Marx, Freud and Marcuse is that they look for salvation by striving for a world that is delivered from suffering, sickness and need.<br />
<br />
A world free of dominion, suffering and injustice has become the great slogan of our generation; the stormy protests of the young are aimed at this promise, and the resentments of the old rage against the fact that is has not been fulfilled, that there is still dominion, injustice and suffering. To fight against suffering and injustice in the world is indeed a thoroughly Christian impulse. But the notion that one can produce a world without suffering through social reform, through the abolition of government and the legal order, and the desire to achieve that here and now are symptoms of false doctrine, of a profound misunderstanding of human nature.<br />
<br />
Inequality of ownership and power, to tell the truth, are not the only causes of suffering in this world. And suffering is not just the burden that man should throw off: someone who tries to do that must flee into the illusory world of drugs so as to destroy himself in earnest and arrive at reality through the conflict.<br />
<br />
A human being always sees only as much as he loves...there is also the clear-sightedness of denial and hatred. But they can only see what is suited to them: the negative...without a certain measure of love, one finds nothing....One thing ought to be clear: Real love is neither static nor uncritical. If there is any possibility at all of changing another human being for the better, then it is only be loving him and slowly helping him change from what he is into what he can be.<br />
<br />
Prayer is hope in action...true reason is contained in prayer, which is why it is possible to hope: we can come into contact with the Lord of the world, He listens to us and we can listen to Him...the truly great thing in Christianity, which does not dispense one from small daily things, but must not be concealed by them either, is this ability to come into contact with God."<br />
<br />
<b>Nietzsche:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
THE MADMAN<br />
-Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed<br />
<br />
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.<br />
<br />
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."<br />
<br />
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"<br />
<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-80015246756493974892016-05-27T08:08:00.001-07:002016-05-27T08:08:36.057-07:00Ratzinger on politics and praxis<p dir="ltr">Reading Pope emeritus Benedict XVI on Europe and politics is like breathing fresh clear mountain air after living in a smoggy city. </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBf2Q6ZLVVqPPXUdEy0BLwbfGAG_uT7YgmnE5z9WGHW7m7usayE6c5tOJmGAkqu6avJqXHzDl5Bn7DqARtHP78QzvHo42_QM-s-9QNKBpgYlLYrQAGBxfRfwwDGionssvQ2-4jP2heZgZ2/s1600/Collage%2525202016-05-27%25252016_01_29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBf2Q6ZLVVqPPXUdEy0BLwbfGAG_uT7YgmnE5z9WGHW7m7usayE6c5tOJmGAkqu6avJqXHzDl5Bn7DqARtHP78QzvHo42_QM-s-9QNKBpgYlLYrQAGBxfRfwwDGionssvQ2-4jP2heZgZ2/s640/Collage%2525202016-05-27%25252016_01_29.jpg"> </a> </div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-65776468576871896952016-05-17T13:13:00.001-07:002016-05-17T13:13:06.862-07:00Finding Happiness<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8gRJddZ4w" target="_blank">Watching this great talk from Fr. Robert J Spitzer</a> on finding happiness is worth thousands of self-help books!Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-31065026579571750662016-02-14T11:47:00.001-08:002016-02-14T11:47:28.107-08:00Lenten Reflection Part 1: Introduction to Praying The Sorrowful MysteriesI hope here to draw out some of the ways in which the first three of the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary can be fruitful in drawing you into a closer relationship with Christ. These mysteries are profound sources of healing and refreshment if entered into in the right spirit.<br />
<br />
My method will be to use the mystical tradition of the Church to draw out the depth of the three sets of mysteries. Traditionally the mystical path has three stages; first the Illuminative, then the Purgative, and finally the Unitive stage. These three stages correspond with the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. This ascent to God proceeds firstly through the natural graces by which the soul is initially fed by God when it begins on the spiritual path. These correspond to the earthly events of the incarnation and birth of Christ. Secondly, however, the soul begins to experience a certain dryness in prayer, and God seems to be withdrawing his graces. The enthusiasm which accompanied the beginner on the path has gone, and the soul has entered its 'dark night' of which St. John of the Cross speaks so eloquently. But this is a necessary path, because by withdrawing the more 'sensual' spiritual delights of prayer, God trains the seeker in pure faith, purging the will so that it may attain to the things of the spirit with more surety. This corresponds to the Sorrowful mysteries, and my aim here is to show how the events of Jesus' suffering and death can be a guide to our own path of salvation. Finally, when we have passed through the 'narrow gate', we are given some 'glory'. The Glorious Mysteries are stages of the Unitive path of the mystics, by which we ourselves can become 'Christ-for-others' in the world. In reality, these stages are perhaps not so linear - we are working on different aspects of them at different times. But one thing is clear - we will certainly not able to 'get some glory' (as Father Lazarus El-Antony puts it) until we have begun a life of prayer and entered with our whole being on the Way of Purgation represented by the Sorrowful mysteries. After all, didn't Christ say<br />
<br />
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it."<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cjk9EQEGqPdzlGGAT_uEQcQNgW9eKz19rQj-5eE0Xu8wjJvUhGln_v-vgFFkO5nBeR8JoXLvYclw-iIYXJUc4RpatrTDErxSkJHvia0OQsN3aKdH7bRfxKelpi89LpFaN3QBpd5JTkO9/s1600/IMG_20151130_215819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cjk9EQEGqPdzlGGAT_uEQcQNgW9eKz19rQj-5eE0Xu8wjJvUhGln_v-vgFFkO5nBeR8JoXLvYclw-iIYXJUc4RpatrTDErxSkJHvia0OQsN3aKdH7bRfxKelpi89LpFaN3QBpd5JTkO9/s400/IMG_20151130_215819.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u><b>Introduction: Memory, Will and Imagination</b></u></div>
<br />
The soul of every human being could be said to be a composite of memory, will and imagination. These three faculties need to be present if man is made in the image and likeness of God. The memory is our connection to the image, the will and imagination are the ways in which we can restore the likeness of God in our souls. Irenaeus said when we fell we lost the likeness but retained the image.<br />
<br />
So memory, will and imagination are the keys to our theosis (participation in the life of God), but like all things in this fallen world, they can be misused. For example, an imagination darkened by worldliness, made impure by luxury and lust, sullied with self-indulgence, cannot attain the chastity necessary to be a light of joy to others. When we seek to privately take pleasure or use another as a tool to that pleasure we begin to destroy our natural capacity to freely participate selflessly in the joys around us. We bend our perception to our desire, and we make the world in our own image. Soon we tire of this image, and so we create more and more exotic images to substitute for the Real, but this is a fruitless quest, ending only in despair. No-one illustrates this better than Dante in the Inferno, as Charles Williams shows here:<br />
<br />
<i>[Talking of the lovers Paolo and Francesca]...each of the lovers had delight in the image of the other, and both of them had a mutual delight in their love. Their mutual lussuria indulged this. But lussuria cannot in fast stop there; the mutual indulgence is bound too soon to become two separate single indulgences....; they set up in the human organism a hunger for them which , from being mutual, becomes single. An appetite for the use of this Image prevails; this is Gluttony and this is the next circle of hell (VI).</i><br />
<i><br /></i>The true end of imagination is beauty, which is Being as rejoiced in. The true end of memory is truth, which is Being as the unity known by the intellect, and the true end of will is goodness, which is Being as loved.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>The Sorrowful Mysteries: Taking up your cross</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The Sorrowful mysteries represent a way of purgation, by which we may learn to die to ourselves. If we don't die to ourselves before the separation of actual death occurs, the 'sting of death' will not be avoided. The separation of death will only be a thing to be feared if we have not made this<i> ecstasis</i>, this journey out of ourselves, first.<br />
<br />
Stratford Caldecott puts it like this:<br />
<br />
"It seems to me that death is not merely an absence of life, but its essence lies in a process of separation. Soul is separated from body, and the parts of the soul and the body from each other. It is the dissolution of wholeness and unity that we face when we face our own death. As for life, it is that which unites, binding many parts into a single whole. As such, it is memory, understanding and love to which we must look for the secret of life. <i><b>When Christians speak of immortality, we are referring to the existence we receive when God remembers, understands, and loves us.</b></i> And in our own love for others is revealed that interior dimension through which we ourselves are renewed and resurrected. In fact all experience, when carefully attended to, arouses this sense of an interior."<br />
<br />
St. Paul says, "For then we shall know, even as we are known", which means that God's knowledge of us becomes our knowledge of Him, and it is in this knowing (or sharing in the divine life which is really the trinitarian mutual gift-relation of God) that we are immortal, or rather it is in this remembrance, this understanding and this love, that we exist eternally. And clearly no false or sinful part of ourselves will be taken up in this knowing, which is why we begin the rosary now, and we make it a constant weapon in the spiritual battle against the tendencies of vice which we find within and around us.<br />
<br />
The Sorrowful mysteries, as realities which have the effect of being like 'spiritual enzymes' in our souls - promoting the fermentation by which everyday 'water' can be turned into 'spiritual wine', provide the necessary bitterness or astringency to temper our sensual natures. To turn our memory, will and understanding from the world of sense into the dark night by which it may find itself finally loosed from slavery.<br />
<br />
<b><u>The first Sorrowful Mystery: The Agony in the Garden</u></b>.<br />
The spiritual fruit is the aligning of the will with that of the Father. So this mystery concerns the will. Our will is very underdeveloped when we can do whatever we want. Most people know this from experience - as soon as we get some time where we have the freedom from work to begin all those projects we always said we would, we fritter it, and end up frustrated. This is why the vow of obedience is so important. Obedience is almost completely reviled in the modern age, when the misuse of power is so widespread. But obedience, the handing over of one's autonomy to a higher centre, ie the basis of hierarchy, is an integral part of the universe. Without it we have no basis by which to value anything. Why do seekers after truth in the East search for a guru? To find someone to be obedient to. We have one Master, the Lord, and we do not need to search for Him far and wide.<br />
<br />
In this mystery Christ retires to a secluded olive grove outside Jerusalem. It is night and he brings only Peter, James and John. That they cannot stay awake and pray with him tells us something about the will. The faculties such as the intellect and understanding, the reasoning faculties, can only help us so much. At some point we have to relinquish them, and go into the darkness with pure intention alone. We must constantly make our intention pure through prayer, fasting and confession, and the purity and one-pointedness of our intention will bring us through the night of agony.<br />
<br />
When you pray this mystery try to imagine the great intensity of Jesus' prayer that night in the garden. Try to feel the great struggle by which we stay awake to the spirit, by which we pray and mean 'Thy will be done'. If we truly pray this what earthly kingdom can prevail against it?<br />
<br />
The Glorious mystery that corresponds to this is the Resurrection - the will's purification through obedience results in faith.<br />
<br />
Part Two coming soon: The second Sorrowful Mystery: The Scourging at the Pillar. The spiritual fruit is the purification of the imagination.<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-40531777224485355032016-01-31T04:04:00.000-08:002016-01-31T04:04:09.157-08:00WorryI heard someone say recently that they were going to try and give up worry for Lent. I think that's admirable but doubt it's possible. If you are by nature a worrier like myself then you will know how insidious worry can be, how it can creep up on you at 4am, how it's always really there. I'm sure I'm not alone in developing certain techniques as a worrier to try and minimise it, such as making sure I get physical outdoor exercise everyday, having a daily prayer routine (eg. saying the rosary), having creative work to throw yourself into, trying to avoid spending time on any absorbing media which might add to the worry (eg. reading certain newspapers), trying to be organised and developing a pragmatic attitude - get on with the things you can do, and forget about the things you have no control over.<br />
<br />
I think that last one is really key, and that is where faith comes in and can make a difference to worry. Really, many worries boil down to an experience of complete helplessness in the face of events or life-situations over which we have no control. Worry is like a kind of superstition - we think if we worry about something we can exert some kind of indirect influence over it. But as Christ said:<br />
<br />
"Which of you, by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?"<br />
<br />
In fact the whole passage in the Sermon on the Mount on worry is one of the most beautiful passages in scripture in my opinion. We cannot help worrying I think, but we can minimise it by being open to receiving the grace of God's help in prayer, by being open to sharing in others' good fortune even if our own lives seem dark and full of trouble.<br />
<br />
<i>Do Not Worry</i><br />
<i>25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-89797126501008004752016-01-09T06:13:00.000-08:002016-01-09T06:13:16.741-08:00Paolo and FrancescaI'm posting here a fairly lengthy section of Charles Williams book on Dante, The Figure of Beatrice. It is an extremely perceptive account of how the soul first begins the downward steps to sin, based on the first circles of hell from Dante's Inferno.<br />
<br />
The Year of Mercy called by the Pope which began on 8th Dec 2015 has the admirable aim of bringing more of us back into the loving embrace of God's forgiveness. There has been much talk of 'journeying' with the sinner, of pastoral outreach, and penitential pathways. I think we are also invited this year to take a clear look at the circumstances of sin, for it is sin that ultimately can put the supreme obstacle between us and God's mercy. If this were not the case there would be no need for Christ's salvific action, for the Sacraments, or the Church.<br />
<br />
Here we are introduced to the first choice that the soul makes in hell, which is a choice of the imagination. We are invited to see how gradual and excusable the path to sin seems, how innocently and blamelessly we might be tempted to see ourselves as we start on a path that will lead to our damnation. How important it is to be awake in the spirit, understanding that we are constantly making choices between good and evil, even just in small lazinesses and through the thoughts and desires that we entertain, and those we reject. A solid education in the human condition, in how flawed and wretched we are or can be, is not something the Church should flinch from, knowing how little the modern world likes to hear such things. It is the supremely merciful thing to do to confront the soul with the reality of its choices, and where those choices will lead.<br />
<br />
If anyone is qualified to talk about the way Dante describes the dalliance of the soul with 'lussuria' or indulgence, sexual infidelity etc, it is Charles Williams. By all accounts an odd, charismatic man, he was a fine theologian, and his understanding of Dante impressed many, including Dorothy Sayers, who translated and annotated the Inferno. But his personal life was highly unusual to say the least, and whilst married, he carried on many romantic liaisons with women. I won't go into that here, but I believe the passage I have reproduced is evidence of the way in which:<br />
<br />
<i>Williams, as his interest in Dante grew and as he began to publish on the great poet, began to present him as he had “very seldom” been understood before: “as a poet among poets, creating . . . ‘an accurate image of actual experience.’” (<a href="https://gratefultothedead.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/dorothy-sayers-on-romantic-theology-in-dante-alighieri-and-charles-williams/" target="_blank">from this excellent blog post)</a></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkuQZ-ggvjZtSoyO4k2DUxHKArYx4gQOSPLLsWXPly-FZDfPy-z2oDbIFgcPuKT9a35s62EcJIFD0x-6QuNcjJO9WxaNLpc6_-4K7JhquC7dEKTZ8_Dmc-8BvzqR8QmL1tZNRhJvtxv3Aq/s1600/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Francesca_Da_Rimini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkuQZ-ggvjZtSoyO4k2DUxHKArYx4gQOSPLLsWXPly-FZDfPy-z2oDbIFgcPuKT9a35s62EcJIFD0x-6QuNcjJO9WxaNLpc6_-4K7JhquC7dEKTZ8_Dmc-8BvzqR8QmL1tZNRhJvtxv3Aq/s400/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Francesca_Da_Rimini.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
From the Figure of Beatrice, by Charles Williams:<br />
<br />
"they come to the circle where the lecherous are tossed on a storm. This is the place of what is probably the most famous episode in the whole <i>Commedia</i>, the episode of Paolo and Francesca - which is always quoted as an example of Dante's tenderness. So, no doubt, it is, but it is not here for that reason, nor even for the more important reason of poetically lightening the monotonous gloom of hell. It has a much more important place; it presents the first tender, passionate, and half-excusable consent of the soul to sin.<br />
<br />
Up to this point (<i>Inf. V</i>) the Imagination has been in suspense; it has not chosen- whether from a shameful shrinking from choice into a spiritual cosiness, or from its not being confronted with this religious choice. It is now shown as choosing, and the choice is made as plausible as it possibly can be, Francesca's description of how she and Paolo read together, how in that reading their eyes sometimes met and their colour changed, how they came to the moment when Lancelot kissed Guinevere; how<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>la bocca mi bacio tutto tremante-</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
'he who shall never be divided from me kissed my mouth all trembling; the book was a pander, and he who wrote it; that day we read no more': Francesca's description of Love itself, with a certain reminiscence of Dante's own poem, 'Love and the gentle heart', for she says : 'Love, which quickly knows itself in the gentle heart....Love which excuses no loved one from loving....Love does not yet abandon me'- all this heightens comprehension until Dante himself sighs to think 'how many sweet thoughts, how great a desire, brought them to this dolorous state'. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
What indeed was the sin? It was a forbidden love? yes, but Dante (in the place he gives it in the <i>Commedia</i>) does not leave it at that. He so manages the very description, he so heightens the excuse, <i><b>that the excuse reveals itself precisely as the sin</b></i>. [italics mine]. The old name for lechery was <i>luxuria</i>; <i>lussuria</i> is the word Virgil uses of this circle, and it is <i>lussuria</i>, luxury, indulgence, self-yielding, which is the sin, and the opening out of hell. The persistent parleying with the occasion of sin, the sweet prolonged laziness of love, is the first surrender of the soul to hell - small but certain. The formal sin here is the adultery of the two lovers; the poetic sin is their shrinking from the adult love demanded of them, and their refusal of the opportunity of glory. Hell, in Dante, is in the shape of a funnel, and a funnel is exactly what hell is; and this moment of the lovers' yielding is the imagination swept around the inner edge of the funnel. Here all is still good except the very good itself; all is still valuable except value itself; 'il ben dell' intelletto' quivers and a little disintegrates. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The adultery here is only the outer mark; the sin is a sin possible to all lovers, married or unmarried, adulterous or marital. It is a sin especially dangerous to Romantics, so much so that its essence has often been taken to be a mark of Romanticism. But this, if we allow Dante and Wordsworth to be true Romantics, it hardly is; it is much more the sign of the pseudo-Romantic- in life even more than in letters. At the Francescan moment the delay and the deceit have only begun; therefore their punishment- say their choice- has in it all the good they chose as well as all the evil. Their love is as changeless as the storm. A consolation lingers with them through the infinite 'forever'. So in the poem; and could the soft delaying indulgence of the soul so delay perpetually, the imagination and the will might also be content to lose heaven for <i>that.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It cannot; it has entered hell. It has, as the two poets, following their own way of discovery, so well see, to lose gradually what good was still left to it. In the Francescan moment each of the lovers had delight in the image of the other, and both of them had a mutual delight in their love. Their mutual <i>lussuria</i> indulged this. But <i>lussuria</i> cannot in fast stop there; the mutual indulgence is bound too soon to become two separate single indulgences. It is true that <i>lussuria</i> is to be distinguished from the <i>sollagia</i> of the <i>Convivio</i>. <i>Sollagia</i>, with all the rest of Pleasantness, is a moral duty - to oneself as to the other; eros itself is in that sense not only permissible but must be enjoined. It is part of our 'honourable estate' - of nobility - to amuse and be amused; the <i>Convivio </i>is in that sense a commentary on the words used in the marriage rite according to the use of the Church of England. But when the <i>sollagia </i>dominate, they become <i>lussuria</i>; they set up in the human organism a hunger for them which , from being mutual, becomes single. An appetite for the use of this Image prevails; this is Gluttony and this is the next circle of hell (VI).</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The souls lie there under a foul and heavy rain, and below the claws of an Organism of hell, Cerberus, who deafeningly barks and sharply tears them for ever. They lie turning restlessly from side to side to shield themselves as they may. The stinking earth is more difficult lying than Francesca's bed, though if anyone were to discern a sexual interpretation in this circle, I do not know that he need be contradicted. Dante was writing about sex as well as all the rest. This is the result of prolonged incontinence, incontinence of mind as well as body; gluttony of delicacies as of vulgarities, of quality as well as quantity. The fatal development of sin in the soul might all be read in terms of gluttony as well as lechery. Over-indulgence, culpable delay, the beginning of perversion, is the same with whatever kind of flesh. Or mind or spirit.</div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-72691580560185012052016-01-06T07:16:00.003-08:002016-01-06T07:16:47.091-08:00Divination and Catholicism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLd_mdZPrOxFL7xoNPADTc5O8uGWa2_Un8dqItRl4ORRfmZU3dct-nH2Nh6zZmm3qUQeeGU2aYThMouX0aJGqmWdf11D5Yt4JgeFJVbE4ZcfPae1-iPQQQ2wKP95pLVZGvT5Lh7Clcs9NR/s1600/Epiphany-8-640x416.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLd_mdZPrOxFL7xoNPADTc5O8uGWa2_Un8dqItRl4ORRfmZU3dct-nH2Nh6zZmm3qUQeeGU2aYThMouX0aJGqmWdf11D5Yt4JgeFJVbE4ZcfPae1-iPQQQ2wKP95pLVZGvT5Lh7Clcs9NR/s400/Epiphany-8-640x416.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
One thing we can learn from the story of the three magi (Remembered and celebrated as the Feast of the Epiphany) is that astrology can lead to Christ, which was eloquently pointed out in my parish priest, Fr. Sean Finnegan's sermon on Sunday. He explained that we can see what are called types of the dying and rising god in mythologies across the world. These 'types' are prefigurings of Christ, who as C S Lewis said was the 'true myth' - all the other dying and rising gods had never claimed to inhabit actual historical time and space, the world of the mundane.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The learned, such as the three magi, Persian astrologers, would always have been able to study lore and the wisdom of the heavens (which is the stuff of myth), and been able to get an 'inkling' of this truth - the truth of Christ. Just as the Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, so the pagan wise men would have been able to study the signs which pointed to the cosmos-transforming moment of the incarnation and birth of the Christ child. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That the study of the stars can lead to knowledge and wisdom is also evident from Psalm 19, which says:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.</i></div>
<div>
<i>Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.</i></div>
<div>
<i>There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.</i></div>
<div>
<i>Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.</i></div>
</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
In Christian thought the creation is the work of the Logos, or Word of God, by which everything is set into harmony and given order. Indeed the word cosmos implies an ordered harmonious system. The heavens are the clearest place to look for the language of the Word which orders all, being as they are the domain of cyclical and regular movements of planets and stars. A horoscope, or birth chart, is simply a map of the movements of these heavenly bodies from a position on the Earth, or the intersection of time and space in a certain moment.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Whatever the 'star' was which the magi followed, whether it was an exceptionally bright conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn with Regulus, the star of Kings in the constellation of Leo, or some other less predictable phenomenon, doesn't matter too much - what we need to see is that the coming of the Christ not only utterly changed the world from that moment onwards, but also redeemed time past, and with it the cultures that inhabited those past times. That does not mean that any belief of any culture is equally valid or true, but that what truths pre-Christian cultures were able to discern can be 'taken up' into the Christian framework. In other words, it is possible and indeed necessary to 'baptise' what is true in pagan cultures.<br />
<br />
I<a href="http://www.secondspring.co.uk/articles/scaldecott21.htm" target="_blank">n an excellent essay on esoteric Christianity Stratford Caldecott notes</a>:<br />
<br />
<i>"A Jesuit contemporary of de Lubac’s puts the case more strongly: "It is partly because contemporary Christianity has failed to recognize the value, both immanent and transcendent, of the great symbols which are so prolific in its tradition and ritual that the human psyche is today possessed by so many demons and tempted to look elsewhere for symbols which can nourish it. It is not betrayal of the affirmations of the faith for the theologian to explore this dimension of religious symbolism, which has been too much neglected hitherto, and to accept in this matter the assistance of mythologists and psychologists."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
Why then does the Church condemn astrology? As a system of divination, it is seen as an attempt to take on power that does not belong to one's self, so that one may be like God - ie. the promise of the serpent. In this sense astrology and divination can be tools of the heresy of gnosticism, which is to revel in an endless spiritual search on an intellectual level, thinking that one is possessed of all the answers, to which the common people are not party. It is thus world-denying and body-denying, as well as elitist. Divination can give us this false sense of power over fate, and can stop us from relying on the will of God, but rather helps to build up our own wills.<br />
<br />
If astrology does not lead to Christ it leads to the Devil. In the letter The Hanged Man, of Valentin Tomberg's Meditations on the Tarot, he talks about the 'zodiacalised will'. This is the will which has cut off its own inclinations and allowed the will of the heavens to work through it. It is only in this sense that astrology can be baptised. There is a Christian gnosis, as Balthasar writes:<br />
<br />
"the gnostic Christian does not outgrow the proclamation of the Church, but in the kerygma he finds, revealing himself, the Logos, who, in the most comprehensive sense, ‘enlightens’ the believer ever more clearly and, indeed, draws him, as John was drawn, to his breast ever more intimately and unites him interiorly with himself.... What is here involved is, therefore, nothing other than the turning of faith to its own interior authenticity, as faith in a proposition (‘belief that Christ’) becomes faith in a person (‘faith in Christ’).... Truly to find the Father in the Son is to open up the sphere of absolute trinitarian truth, and of the knowledge in which we grow more deeply the more we entrust ourselves to the Son in faith and allow ourselves to be drawn into his innermost disposition. Christ turns to men, and says: ‘I give you the Logos, the gnosis of God; I give myself wholly to you. For I am he, and this is what God wills."<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-47188302315308157022015-12-19T05:53:00.002-08:002015-12-19T06:22:25.536-08:00Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection<div dir="ltr">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1HgcNsctypSYaQcN52hD-8HyGlCIiKC5fHmQeMOGDCWeubwDk3bqaK-5ms88Vt1AwGC4aBrdxcX3QyspAVudKEPQ64-Hqljp1-wqkZLqKW5MBoKmt-3N16DX8I3Th6qXnseHbdpcKrC1/s1600/20151208_183825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1HgcNsctypSYaQcN52hD-8HyGlCIiKC5fHmQeMOGDCWeubwDk3bqaK-5ms88Vt1AwGC4aBrdxcX3QyspAVudKEPQ64-Hqljp1-wqkZLqKW5MBoKmt-3N16DX8I3Th6qXnseHbdpcKrC1/s400/20151208_183825.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Fathers and teachers, I ponder, "what is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite existence, immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was given on his coming to earth the power of saying, "I am and I am love." Once, only once, there was given him a moment of active <i>living</i> love, and for that was earthly life given him, and with it times and seasons. And that happy creature rejected the priceless gift, prized it and loved it not, scorned it and remained callous. Such a one having left the earth, sees Abraham's bosom and talks with Abraham as we are told in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds heaven and can go up to the Lord. But that is just his torment, to rise up to the Lord without ever having loved, to be brought close to those who have loved when he has despised their love. For he sees clearly and says to himself, "Now I have understanding, and though I now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my love, for my earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come even with a drop of living water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to cool the fiery thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now, though I despised it on earth: there is no more life for me and will be no more time! Even though I would gladly give my life for others, it can never be, for that life is passed which can be sacrificed for love, and now there is a gulf fixed between that life and this existence."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
From 'The Russian Monk'; Book VI of the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
A friend of mine recently told me of the deep sense of gratitude he experienced in relation to the actions of doctors and nurses who cared for his daughter when she had an illness. When he reflected on this he realised that it was possible to experience greater depths of thankfulness than he had previously imagined, or perhaps it was something in the nature of the gratitude he felt which seemed an almost numinous response to a gift he was powerless to give himself. After all the word gratitude stems from gratis, free. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In On Fairy Stories, Tolkien mentions that one of the purposes of fantasy is refreshment, to remake the world anew, so that it can offer itself back to you as the gift that it is, freed from the shackles of your own weariness of perception.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And thus fantasy, in essence myth, has a great moral element - it can enable us to see the world as gift and thus put us in right relation to the giver. And if we are also of the giver then we must be gift also, for others. A great sense of gratitude can pervade us when we really understand this, and also a great zeal to pour ourselves out for others, to be like the giver ourselves. If, like the rich man, we go through life not understanding this, how great a sadness that will be.</div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-21482453154990847072015-12-19T03:15:00.002-08:002015-12-20T00:32:14.160-08:00Of Maps Old and New Part Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINSTsOSwpGzU6xxmZyLNpvzSpz9MquIKAiUamOHZW1c9Ah3vQFpEDMiRcmq7XpLVYAzmNkQ6SgaFPpuME-DBrctNmI-7Zqm4-YyTbTWAlhADU_KE4KHlY-Wluhho3FS9P6q8T7Wt1volS/s1600/FB_IMG_1446315418872.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINSTsOSwpGzU6xxmZyLNpvzSpz9MquIKAiUamOHZW1c9Ah3vQFpEDMiRcmq7XpLVYAzmNkQ6SgaFPpuME-DBrctNmI-7Zqm4-YyTbTWAlhADU_KE4KHlY-Wluhho3FS9P6q8T7Wt1volS/s400/FB_IMG_1446315418872.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=8424" target="_blank">Charles Salvo posts</a> that it is not possible for moderns to be naively and unconsciously 'Traditional', comparing the retro tastes of the modern hipster who opts for vinyl, pipe and formalwear to our own predicament:<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"The millenial is acting ironically. He makes a conscious decision to reject the contemporary option; it is not a habit, but rather an acquired taste.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We are in an analogous position. The world of our fathers no longer exists, so we can't absorb that worldview automatically without thinking about it much. Quite the contrary, we are faced with a choice since the worldview of the modern world totally surrounds us. Hence, we can no longer be naive, but rather we need to know exactly why we adopt one worldview while rejecting its alternatives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For the innocent man, the will follows the intellect which was formed by family, society and church. The man of experience needs to consciously create."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In my last post, I tried to articulate some of the issues surrounding the choice of worldviews, or maps, but only hinted at why someone might reject the modern map (or maps), and adopt an alternative 'traditional' one. Of course the classic study on this is A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, in which he brings out the character of some of the different versions of these worldviews.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I mentioned the book The Gentle Traditionalist by Roger Buck, which articulates the argument for the orthodox Catholic worldview beautifully. But one major stumbling block that some may have with this is just that problem discussed above - that people like myself and Roger Buck are really just 'spiritual hipsters', choosing an outdated and retrogressive worldview just because it goes against the mainstream - we're just trying to be cool!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In one sense this is a definite danger. I want to point out <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2015/12/the-other-benedict-option.html" target="_blank">here this excellent article about the 'Benedict Option', which both outlines this temptation, and gives the remedy</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The 'turn inwards' is the problem here. In declaring the world dangerous and pagan, and advocating a return to a monasticism and asceticism in Catholic communities which homeschool etc., the Benedict Option could tend towards a world-denying gnosticism, which would be to ignore the fact that, as the article above says, being Catholic is always a 'being-for-the-world'. </div>
<div>
<br />
So the spectre of the gnostic heresy still haunts the Christian - it is the subtlest error to fall into. The only way to guard against it is to remember Christ's injunction to take up your cross and follow Him. And He will always lead you out of yourself and towards the other. That's when you realise your cross is also the cross of others.<br />
<br />
Edit: Roger Buck has pointed out that whilst the Christian life should be oriented towards the other, some are called to live apart from the world, and even those who work in the world need solitude in order to pray. The exemplar here is Christ who went away into the lonely places in order to pray, but the monastic element of Christianity has been fundamental to it. Valentin Tomberg said "Just as a fish needs water to breathe, so the monk needs the solitude of the cell".<br />
<br />
Equally, the image on my post perhaps shows the absurdity of thinking you can change a culture from within; being in the world but not of it is the phrase that is usually used to describe the attitude I would want to emulate.<br />
. </div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-89302290174585816292015-12-17T23:20:00.001-08:002015-12-20T00:12:22.391-08:00Old and New Maps<div dir="ltr">
The map is not the terrain. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But, the map <i>is</i> essential to negotiate the terrain. Given that no map can include everything, or it wouldn't be a map, some judgement would have to be made about what should go on it and what should be left off.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
That judgement can often be to a large extent determined by the largely unconscious attitudes of the culture within which it is made.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
F E Schumacher, in A Guide for the Perplexed, recounts the experience when in Leningrad, of looking for churches which he could see in front of him, but were not on his map. The authorities did not include 'living churches' on the map, only ones which had become museums. He likens this to the maps of life and knowledge given him at school and university which had virtually nothing on them of the things that seemed to him of the greatest importance to the conduct of his life. He began to suspect the soundness of the maps. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The claim (is it even that? More an assumption) that all the maps made post-1968, or 1917, or 1789 are better by virtue of being more complete, or more faithful representations of reality, or having fewer errors than the old maps, is so widespread and accepted as to be a truism. But this could only be true if it were possible for maps to completely correspond to reality at some future point. But this is never possible; we have already seen that every map relies on a judgement of what should and should not be included. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
So no map just is the terrain, all maps are a symbolic way of describing the terrain, which will vary depending on what you want to achieve in that terrain. If you just want to get across it in as quick a time as possible, then your map is going to look very different from someone who wanted to spend time walking and enjoying scenic spots in it.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
It is possible here to say: Yes, these maps do rely on judgements, but our judgements are more rational, they have greater warrant than the judgements that created the old maps. At this point we have come to a metaphysical claim, because such judgements can never be based solely on empirical observation. They are obviously prior to such observation.<br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
If this point can be admitted by the modern 'secular' mind (which I have found it very rarely able to do), then usually the move is made to point to the peculiarly effective predictive power and usefulness of the modern map. And there is little doubt that many of the advances in material conditions of life for millions around the world, in medicine and in fairer conditions of living can fairly be said to be based on the effectiveness of the modern map.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But actually this tells us nothing about whether the judgement, the frame of reference within which the facts are embedded, is coherent or superior to the older frame of reference. All it tells us is that we have devised a map which, by narrowing its focus, and excluding many things which once were thought necessary to be included, and by a general process of flattening, has brought a kind of intense ability to predict and alter material conditions.<br />
<br />
Indeed, the key feature of such a map is that its very effectiveness in this material direction creates a kind of inability on the part of the map-reader to perceive that they are actually using a map, and a belief that they are just negotiating reality 'as it is', neutrally, with no need for anything else. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Actually, that 'neutral' map-that-is-no-map is aimed at getting us to some fairly specific places quickly. As such, it can say with Laplace: "God? We have no need of that hypothesis." </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Which brings me to the story told in Roger Buck's book, The Gentle Traditionalist. The book is a dialogue between two people with different maps, and as such is an excellent imaginative exposition of what I have been trying to say here, as well as so much more. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In the book, we are shown the poverty and incoherence of much of the 'Enlightenment' map, and given a tour of the richness of the traditional map. We are treated to some great moments, one of my favourites being a visit from Rigid Dorkins, and his encounter with the Gentle Traditionalist, who ends up reciting 'St. Patrick's Breastplate' (a prayer for spiritual protection) to heal a 'breach' resulting from the visit!</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
It really is through stories like this that justice can be done to the truth of the old maps. Tolkien, Belloc and Chesterton knew this, so does Roger Buck!</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I'll finish with a quick story of my own - I am teaching the topic Myth and Symbol to my A Level class and I was trying to explain that whilst myth did not necessarily convey facts, it still conveyed 'truths' at some level. I explained that poetry and prose did something similar, and that great truths could be learnt about human nature through the study of literature. I had thought this uncontroversial, but some students thought I was wrong, and that no 'truth' could be conveyed in this way. They were not to be persuaded through much argument. This alone should be evidence enough of the power of the modern map-that-is-no-map.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Edit: I perhaps should say that the student thought that stories, myths and poetry could be meaningful, but unless they contained facts they could not convey truths! I could say many things to this but I think this image is eloquent:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgor7p5hgaf5A7Bp3AryqiTPyQDN7Xy7UNarRM_ZOWclp296q-6-9_pzsQoSA16AicvzV83mtr2AcYwsY0ab2lk5LCuI9sY5vSuYDdSt-6dBFSOFvVqw8wP6L3VI1esq9RSvu7anDCBfeAJ/s1600/12360318_10208611354261752_7709038534808558839_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgor7p5hgaf5A7Bp3AryqiTPyQDN7Xy7UNarRM_ZOWclp296q-6-9_pzsQoSA16AicvzV83mtr2AcYwsY0ab2lk5LCuI9sY5vSuYDdSt-6dBFSOFvVqw8wP6L3VI1esq9RSvu7anDCBfeAJ/s400/12360318_10208611354261752_7709038534808558839_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-26433199255358212512015-12-07T14:53:00.001-08:002015-12-07T14:53:06.696-08:00Stepping out of the Night<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirlHLTvTZmfldpyhhdTIm2f5svjaEq9B3GHmq1I8WEmwNYd2kCyXLvsOQ0dqmQ9J8J7l4tIduY3H926Ict1GXXdEHjOWBvU8KLJl8KQUE_zJOsSxXtJAwolYll0PmZ-ZzrJIUHYjGyuaOA/s1600/fabriano-adoration-magi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirlHLTvTZmfldpyhhdTIm2f5svjaEq9B3GHmq1I8WEmwNYd2kCyXLvsOQ0dqmQ9J8J7l4tIduY3H926Ict1GXXdEHjOWBvU8KLJl8KQUE_zJOsSxXtJAwolYll0PmZ-ZzrJIUHYjGyuaOA/s400/fabriano-adoration-magi.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i>What is Advent? Many answers can be given. We can grumble and say that it is nothing but a pretext for hectic activity and commercialism, prettified with sentimental cliches in which people stopped believing ages ago. In many cases this may be true, but it is not the whole picture. </i><br />
<i>We can say the reverse, that Advent is a time when, in the midst of an unbelieving world, something of the luminous quality of this lost faith is still perceptible, like a visual echo. Just as stars are visible long after they have become extinct, since their erstwhile light is still on its way to us, so this mystery frequently offers some warmth and hope even to those who are no longer able to believe in it.</i><br />
<i>We can say that Advent is a time when old customs live again, for instance, in the singing of carols that takes place all over the country. In the melodies and words of these carols, something of the simplicity, imagination and glad strength of the faith of our forefathers makes itself heard in our age, bringing consolation and encouraging us to have another go at that faith which could make people so glad in such hard times</i>.<br />
<br />
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, <i>Seek That Which Is Above</i><br />
<br />
One evening last week I went to the local supermarket with my family. As we walked in we could hear the sound of carol singers, the local Rotary Club, who do it every year. My daughter pulled me over to them, intrigued by the singing. We sat down at a table to listen, and I was handed a pamphlet by one of the singers and invited to join in as they sang Hark The Herald Angels Sing.<br />
<br />
As we sang I became aware of the song as something wonderfully, unapologetically subversive and incongruous in those surroundings. The lyrics lay it on thick:<br />
<br />
Christ, by highest heav'n adored:<br />
Christ, the everlasting Lord;<br />
Late in time behold him come,<br />
Offspring of the favoured one.<br />
Veil'd in flesh, the Godhead see;<br />
Hail, th'incarnate Deity<br />
<br />
and later<br />
<br />
Hail! the heav'n born Prince of peace!<br />
Hail! the Son of Righteousness!<br />
Light and life to all he brings,<br />
Risen with healing in his wings<br />
Mild he lays his glory by,<br />
Born that man no more may die:<br />
Born to raise the sons of earth,<br />
Born to give them second birth.<br />
Hark! the herald angels sing,<br />
"Glory to the newborn King!"<br />
<br />
The 'glad strength of the faith of our forefathers' came through to me as I sang, and I allowed the full cognitive dissonance of the situation to hit home - the scandal of God made flesh, the unveiled theophany of the Godhead, on a Tuesday evening in a Waitrose in Surrey.<br />
<br />
When another, deeper reality breaks through into the transience and paleness of this world, it brings consolation and awakens the memory of the heart which looks to the star of hope. This advent, it is good to clear away extraneous things, so that you may listen more clearly with the ears of the heart.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-15608508848614788612015-10-30T11:40:00.001-07:002015-10-30T11:40:04.262-07:00All Saints<p dir="ltr">All Saints</p>
<p dir="ltr">The paired feasts of All Saints and All Souls begin the month of November during which the Church encourages us to meditate on the fact that here on earth we have no abiding city. Which is a posh way of saying that our life here on earth is rather like a railway waiting room: sufficient, I suppose, for a while, but growing increasingly uncomfortable as the time goes on, what with old age, arthritis &c. This is for the very good reason that a waiting room is for waitng in, not for living in. And if we set about making ourselves too much at home here (to stretch the analogy stll further), we might well fnd that when the train comes, we will be so hampered by the baggage we have accumulated that we end up missing the train.<br>
The point I want to make is that this world is not our home, and it is a good idea to keep our bags packed and not make ourselves too comfortable. We keep before our minds the fact that we are only here in order to catch the train—if we get the train, we have achieved the point of being here. If not, then not.<br>
Saints and Holy Souls are there to remind us of those who have gone before us. Saints represent those who have already reached the fnal destnation, of whom we may have known many who have never been formally canonized, and Holy Souls represent those who are firmly on the train, assured of their arrival, but have not yet got there, having too much of the waitng-room still around them.<br>
Now clearly Purgatory is, somewhat like the train, only an analogy. There is no ‘place’ as such, but it is what we call a ‘state’. What we mean is that we retain all our individuality and personality after death, and that individuality and personality carries an awful lot of baggage, as every one of us knows. There must be few who die as saints; our excess weight is going to have to be exercised off (changing analogy again) before we can be reckoned as saints. Which is why I find the analogy of a gym quite useful: going to a gym is a good and fruitul exercise which we can entirely see the point of since it makes us better and happier, even if people say ‘no pain, no gain’. I think Purgatory must be like that: Newman wrote of the purifcaton of Purgatory as a pain that the Holy Souls ‘joy to undergo’. And if we are prepared to undergo the unpleasantness of Ryanair to get to our holiday destnation, we might possibly begin to see something of the point of Purgatory.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Fr. Sean Finnegan</p>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-61654586733376639312015-08-14T15:12:00.001-07:002015-08-14T15:12:26.075-07:00The Seed of Our Glorified Bodies<div dir="ltr">
"This thing is the strongest of all powers, the force of all forces, for it overcometh every subtle thing and doth penetrate every solid substance"<br />
The Emerald Table<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3K4TcAlJVp6S7xM6PDIJooU_6-2-Web2V9Boegqca6rDUoCBEpLSNIMnE-b2tvtIDq3YtowSSdiA7Yhnse4ZdviDJZObGl4n7a3qNLarQpaiP2FgfJUCIAQ5R80PI9W119rc1oovCw3-L/s1600/CKi94sQWUAAfQ37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3K4TcAlJVp6S7xM6PDIJooU_6-2-Web2V9Boegqca6rDUoCBEpLSNIMnE-b2tvtIDq3YtowSSdiA7Yhnse4ZdviDJZObGl4n7a3qNLarQpaiP2FgfJUCIAQ5R80PI9W119rc1oovCw3-L/s640/CKi94sQWUAAfQ37.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
"Now it is easy to say that "eating of the flesh of Christ," is a figurative way of describing faith in Christ. But such a method of dealing with the words of Holy Scripture is really to empty them of their divine force. This spiritual eating, this feeding upon Christ, is the best result of faith, the highest energy of faith, but it is not faith itself. To eat is to take that into ourselves which we can assimilate as the support of of life. The phrase "to eat the flesh of Christ" expresses therefore, as perhaps no other language could express, the great truth that Christians are made partakers of the human nature of their Lord, which is united in one person to the divine nature, that He imparts to us now, and that we can receive into our own manhood, something of His manhood, which may be the seed, so to speak, of the glorified bodies in which we shall hereafter behold Him. Faith, if I may so express it, in its more general sense, leaves us outside Christ trusting in Him; but the crowning act of faith incorporates us into Christ."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Bishop Westcott, Revelation of the Father.<br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<a href="http://www.newmanlectures.co.uk/newman-blog/2015/8/10/eating-of-the-flesh-of-christ">http://www.newmanlectures.co.uk/newman-blog/2015/8/10/eating-of-the-flesh-of-christ</a></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The central action of the Mass - the crowning point - is the sacrifice of Christ re-presented in the Eucharist. We are taken up into the salvific action of Christ by partaking in this.<br />
<br />
The feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, coming as it does in mid-August, is associated in this country (pre-Reformation, obviously) with the harvest. Indeed, in some of the Marian shrines, for instance in Sudbury, Suffolk there was in medieval times a procession on this feast with Mary called Our Lady of the Harvest. It started at the Benedictine priory of St. Bartholomew, from there the statue of Our Lady was carried through the town, surrounded by flags and banners, and accompanied by crowds bearing sheaves of corn. It was an event of great importance.<br />
<br />
This procession and others like it embody the intimate connection between Our Lady and Christ. They point to the mystical significance of Our Lady seen in her title as Ark of the Covenant, in that she is the Sacred Vessel in which Christ is carried. She must then be also in some sense there wherever the Church is, given its Sacramental nature.<br />
<br />
In partaking of the Eucharist, we become that which we consume - the Eastern Church calls this Theosis - a becoming like God. As Bishop Westcott has it "we can receive into our own manhood, something of His manhood, which may be the seed, so to speak, of the glorified bodies in which we shall hereafter behold Him". These glorified bodies must be in some sense the same as that in which Mary was assumed into Heaven, the difference being that she, being the Immaculate Conception, received that body before birth, whereas we will receive it after death. <a href="http://www.meditationsonthetarot.com/meditation-on-the-immaculate-conception" target="_blank">As this website has it:</a><br />
<br />
"While Mary was “full of grace” from the beginning, we are likewise called to be full of grace; this is theosis. This is confirmed in Mary as the Queen of Heaven. For us, it is something to be achieved. For that she is our model."<br />
<br />
So Mary's assumption is in one sense a foretaste of our own future glory.<br />
St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast it is today, had this to say about Mary<br />
"The Father gave her his Son, the Son came down into her virginal womb to become her child; in her the Holy Spirit miraculously fashioned the body of Jesus and made her soul his own dwelling place, penetrating her whole being such an ineffable manner that the expression “Spouse of the Holy Spirit” is far from adequate to express the life of the Spirit in her and through her. In Jesus there are two natures, divine and human, but one single Person who is God; here on the contrary we have two natures and two persons, the Holy Spirit and the Immaculata, but united in a union that defies all human expression."<br />
<br />
In us too, there can be two persons; ourselves and the Holy Spirit reflected in us - that is what theosis is. This occurs through a process of purification of will through prayer and penance: we too can give birth to the logos in our own soul. As Tomberg says this occurs through perception of that which is above and reaction to that which is perceived ('childbirth'). My soul must become polished as a mirror without a single flaw, so that it can adequately reflect the heavenly glory. The process by which this is done is called by various names, but they all are essentially a way of purgation, of dying to self.<br />
<br />
I now reproduce here the words of Valentin Tomberg regarding Hermeticism and Our Lady, as it has a bearing on our topic. (Hermeticism guards the communal soul of all true culture - Hermeticists listen to the beating heart of the spiritual life of humanity):<br />
<br />
"One meets the Blessed Virgin inevitably when one attains a certain intensity of spiritual aspiration, when this aspiration is authentic and pure. The very fact of having attained a spiritual sphere which comprises a certain degree of intensity and purity of intention puts you in the presence of the Blessed Virgin. This meeting belongs to a certain "sphere"—i.e. to a certain degree of intensity and purity of spiritual aspiration —of spiritual experience, just as the experience of having a mother belongs naturally to human family life on earth. It is therefore as "natural" for the spiritual domain as the fact of having a mother is natural in the domain of one's terrestrial family. The difference is that on earth one can certainly be motherless, whilst in the realm of the spiritual this can never happen.<br />
Therefore, the thesis that I am advancing with one hundred per cent conviction is that every Hermeticist who truly seeks authentic spiritual reality will sooner or later meet the Blessed Virgin. This meeting signifies, apart from the illumination and consolation that it comprises, protection against a very serious spiritual danger. For he who advances in the sense of depth and height in the "domain of the invisible" one day arrives at the sphere known by esotericists as the "sphere of mirages" or the "zone of illusion". This zone surrounds the earth as a belt of illusory mirages. It is this zone which the prophets and the Apocalypse designate "Babylon". The soul and the queen of this zone is in fact Babylon, the great prostitute, who is the adversary of the Virgin. Now, one cannot pass by this zone without being enveloped by perfect purity. One cannot traverse it without the protection of the "mantle of the Blessed Virgin"— the mantle which was an object of worship and of a special cult in Russia (Pokrov Presvyatyya Bogoroditsy —"Mantle of the Very Holy Mother of God"). It<br />
is therefore the protection of this "mantle" which is absolutely necessary in order to be able to traverse the "sphere of mirages" without falling prey to the influence of its illusions."<br />
<br />
<a href="https://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/our-ladys-veil-two-tales/" target="_blank">Here are two tales about the precious veil </a>of Our Lady kept in Chartres cathedral. Let us pray for the protection of the mantle of the Blessed Virgin.<br />
<br />
Now the mantle or the veil represents the capacity to separate oneself from the cacophony of moods, prejudices and desires surrounding you, in order to listen to and understand the hierarchical harmony of the spheres. Without this capacity, there would be no ability to worship at all.<br />
<br />
Last Sunday I heard two sermons. One was in church. It was a powerful exposition on the sanctity of the Eucharist, explaining that in the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle we approach heaven - the church is a liminal place - we must metaphorically take off our shoes when we enter. We must metaphorically (or even literally!) put on our veil so that we can adequately hear and understand the heavenly hierarchy.<br />
<br />
I heard another sermon, or perhaps mission statement, when I got home. We had Frozen (the Disney film) on DVD, and it had got to the famous scene with Elsa singing Let It Go. She sang out bitterly in a kind of desperate parody of true joy to not worry about what others say, don't worry about tradition, do what you want, be free, let it go. Have a look at some of the lyrics:<br />
<br />
Don't let them in,<br />
don't let them see<br />
Be the good girl you always have to be<br />
Conceal, don't feel,<br />
don't let them know<br />
Well now they know<br />
<br />
It's time to see what I can do<br />
To test the limits and break through<br />
No right, no wrong, no rules for me,<br />
I'm free!<br />
<br />
I'm never going back, the past is in the past<br />
<br />
Let it go, let it go<br />
And I'll rise like the break of dawn<br />
Let it go, let it go<br />
That perfect girl is gone<br />
<br />
Flattened, horizontal, anti-traditional (supposedly) clear-eyed, but really cynical, egotistic, amoral - do I need to go on? The reverse of the model held up to us in the figure of Our Lady.<br />
<br />
The progressive, secular world vision gets hammered in at an early age. But don't worry - the Woman clothed with the Sun will crush the Serpent's head under her heel.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8483480380245257312.post-87007944760444578512015-08-14T12:04:00.000-07:002015-08-14T12:04:01.055-07:00Values in a Time of Upheaval<div style="text-align: left;">
The following is an excerpt from Values in a Time of Upheaval, a collection of essays by (as he was then) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. I think the section on politics and morality is fascinating, as it illuminates some of the discussions I have seen recently on the conflict between tradition and liberal progressive ideals. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
VALUES IN A TIME OF UPHEAVAL</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
PART 1: WHAT RULES SHOULD GUIDE OUR CONDUCT? POLITICS AND MORALITY<br />
<br />
<br />
Politicians of all parties take it for granted today that they must promise changes—naturally, changes for the better. The once mythical radiance of the word “revolution” has faded in our days, but far-reaching reforms are demanded and promised all the more insistently. This must surely mean that there exists in modern society a deep and prevailing sense of dissatisfaction precisely in those places where prosperity and freedom have attained hitherto unknown heights. The world is experienced as hard to bear. It must become better. And it seems that the task of politics is to bring this about. So since the general consensus is that the essential task of politics is to improve the world, indeed to usher in a new world, it is easy to understand why the word “conservative” has become disreputable and why scarcely anyone views lightly the prospect of being called conservative, for it appears that what we must do is not preserve the status quo but overcome it.<br />
<br />
TWO VISIONS OF THE POLITICAL TASK:<br />
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD OR THE PRESERVATION OF ITS ORDER<br />
<br />
This fundamental orientation in the modern conception of politics (indeed, of life in general) is in clear contrast to the views of earlier periods, which considered the great task of political activity to be precisely the preservation and defense of the existing order, warding off threats against it. Here, a small linguistic observation may shed light on this matter.<br />
<br />
When Christians in the Roman world were looking for a word that could express succinctly and comprehensibly what Jesus Christ meant to them, they discounted the phrase conservator mundi (“conserver of the world”), used in Rome to indicate the essential task and highest service performed in human society. The Christians could not apply this exact title to their Redeemer, nor did they wish to do so, since it was inappropriate as a translation of the words “Messiah / Christ” or as a designation of the Savior of the world. From the perspective of the Roman Empire, the preservation of the ordered structure of the empire against all dangers from within and without had to necessarily be regarded as the most important task of all, because this empire embodied a sphere of peace and law in which it was possible for people to live in security and dignity. And, as a matter of fact, Christians—even as early as the apostolic generation—were aware of the high value of this guarantee of law and peace that the Roman Empire gave them. In view of the looming chaos heralded by the mass migration of peoples, the Church Fathers too were most certainly interested in the survival of the empire, its legal guarantees, and its, peaceful order.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Christians could not simply want everything to remain exactly as it was. The book of Revelation, which certainly stands on the periphery of the New Testament with its view of the empire, nevertheless made it clear to everyone that there were things that must not be preserved, things that had to be changed. When Christ was called salvator rather than conservator, this had nothing to do with revolutionary political ideas. Yet it did point to the limitations of a mere praxis of preservation and showed a dimension of human existence that went beyond the political functions of maintaining peace and social order.<br />
<br />
Let us attempt to move from this snapshot of one way of understanding the essential task of politics onto a rather more fundamental level. Behind the alternative that we have glimpsed somewhat unclearly in the antithesis between the titles conservator and salvator, we can in fact discern two different visions of what political and ethical conduct can and ought to do. Here it is not only the relationship between politics and morality that is viewed differently but also the interlocking of politics, religion, and morality.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, we have the static vision that aims to conserve. It is seen perhaps most clearly in the Chinese understanding of the universe: the ordering of heaven, which always remains the same, prescribes the standards for behavior on earth too. This is the Tao, the law of existence and reality that human beings must recognize and that must govern their conduct. The Tao is both a cosmic and an ethical law. It guarantees the harmony between heaven and earth and, thus, also harmony in political and social life. Disorder, the disturbance of peace, and chaos arise where people resist the Tao, living in disregard of it or even opposition to it. In response to such disturbances and destructions of societal life, the Tao must be reestablished so that the world can once again be livable. The vital issue is to remain aware of the constant ordering of things or to return to it if it has been abandoned.<br />
<br />
The Indian concept of dharma expresses something similar. This term designates cosmic as well as ethical and social ordering to which human beings must adapt if life is to be led aright. Buddhism relativized this vision—which is at the same time cosmic, political, and religious—by declaring the entire world to be a cycle of suffering; salvation is not to be sought in the cosmos but by departing from it. But Buddhism did not create any new political vision, since the endeavor to attain salvation is nonworldly, orientated to nirvana. No new models are proposed for the world as such.<br />
<br />
The faith of Israel takes a different path. In the covenant with Noah it does indeed recognize something akin to a cosmic ordering and the promise that this will be maintained. But for the faith of Israel itself, the orientation to the future becomes ever clearer. It is not that which abides perpetually, a “today” that is always the same, that is seen as the sphere of salvation, but rather a “tomorrow,” the future that has not yet arrived. The book of Daniel, probably written in the course of the second century before Christ, presents two great theological visions of history that were to play a very significant role in the further development of political and religious thinking. In the second chapter, we have the vision of the statue that is part gold, part silver, part iron, and, finally, part clay. These four elements symbolize a succession of four kingdoms, all of which are ultimately crushed by a stone that, untouched by human hands, breaks off from a mountain and grinds everything completely to dust so that the wind carries off all that remains, and no trace of the kingdoms can be found. The stone now becomes a high mountain and fills all the earth—the symbol of a kingdom that the God of heaven and earth will establish and that will never pass away (2:44). In the seventh chapter of the same book, the sequence of the kingdoms is depicted in a perhaps even more impressive image as the succession of four animals who are finally judged by God, portrayed as the “Ancient of Days.” The four animals—the four mighty empires of world history—had emerged from the sea, which is a metaphor for the power of death to pose a forceful threat to life. But after the judgment comes the human being (the “son of man”) from heaven, to whom all peoples, nations, and languages will be handed over to form a kingdom that is eternal and imperishable, never to pass.<br />
<br />
While the eternal orderings of the cosmos play a role in the conceptions of the Tao and dharma, the idea of “history” is wholly absent. In the here and now, however, “history” is perceived as a genuine reality that is not reducible to the cosmos. With this anthropological and dynamic reality, which had never been glimpsed in an earlier period, “history” offers a completely different vision. It is clear that such an idea of a historical sequence of kingdoms as gluttonous animals in more and more terrible forms could not have developed in one of the dominant peoples. Rather, it presupposes for its sociological driving force a people that is itself threatened by the greed of these animals and that has also experienced a succession of powers that called into question its very right to existence. This vision belongs to the oppressed, who are on the lookout for a turning point in history and cannot have any desire for the preservation of the status quo. In Daniel’s vision, the turning point of history is not the work of political or military activity, for the quite simple reason that the human forces necessary for the task do not exist. It is only through God’s intervention that things are changed: the stone that destroys the kingdoms is detached from a mountain “by no human hand” (2:34). The Church Fathers read this as a mysterious prediction of the birth of Jesus from the Virgin, which was the work of God’s power alone. In Christ they see the stone that ultimately becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth.<br />
<br />
The cosmic visions simply see the Tao or dharma as the power of the divine, as the “divine” itself. But the new element now is not only the appearance of the reality of a “history” that is not reducible to the cosmos, but also this third element—which is also the first, namely, an active God in whom the oppressed put their hope. We see as early as the books of Maccabees, roughly datable to the same period as Daniel’s visions, that the human person must also take God’s cause into his own hand by means of political and military action. In parts of the Qumran literature the merging of theological hope and human action becomes even clearer. Later on, the struggle of Bar Kochba signifies an unambiguous politicization of messianism: to bring about the turning point in history, God makes use of a “messiah” whom he commissions and empowers to bring in the new order of things by means of active political and military conduct. The “sacred empire” of the Christians, in both its Byzantine and its Latin variants, could not adopt such ideas, nor did it wish to do so. Rather, the primary aim was, again, the preservation of the order of the world, now explained in Christian terms. At the same time, they believed that they were now living in the sixth age of the world, its old age, and that one day the other world would come. This, God’s eighth day, was already running alongside history and would one day definitively replace it.<br />
<br />
THE REBIRTH OF APOCALYPTICISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY<br />
<br />
Apocalypticism—with its refusal to accept the dominant powers of the world and its hope for healing through the overthrow of those powers—never disappeared completely. It reemerged, independent from religion or in opposition to it, from the eighteenth century onward. We encounter its radical form in Marxism, which can be said to follow Daniel to the extent that it offers a negative evaluation of all previous history as a story of oppression and presupposes as its sociological subjects the class of the exploited, both the industrial workers who long enjoyed very few rights and the dependent agricultural laborers. In a remarkable transposition, the reasons for which have not yet been sufficiently reflected on, Marxism became increasingly the religion of the intellectuals, while reforms gave the workers rights that made revolution—that great breaking away from the contemporary form of history—irrelevant. Workers no longer needed the stone that would destroy the kingdoms; they set their hopes rather on Daniel’s other image, that of the lion that was set upright on its feet like a human being and received a human heart (7:4). Reform replaced revolution: if the lion has been given a human heart and has laid aside its feral character, then one can live with it. In the world of the intellectuals, most of whom were well off, the rejection of reform became all the louder, and revolution increasingly took on a divine quality. They demanded something completely new; reality as it was evoked a strange feeling of surfeit (and here too we might profitably reflect on the reasons for this feeling).<br />
<br />
After all the disappointments prompted in recent years by the collapse of “real socialism,” positivism and relativism have now undeniably gained the upper hand. In place of Utopian dreams and ideals, today we find a pragmatism that is determined to extract from the world the maximum satisfaction possible. This, however, does not make it pointless to consider once again the characteristics of the secular messianism that appeared on the world stage in Marxism, because it still leads a ghostly existence deep in the souls of many people, and it has the potential to emerge again and again in new forms.<br />
<br />
The foundation of this new conception of history rests, on the one hand, on the doctrine of evolution, transferred to the historical sphere, and, on the other hand (linked with that), on a Hegelian belief in progress. The connection to the doctrine of evolution means that history is seen in biologic, indeed in materialistic and deterministic terms: it has its laws and its course, which can be resisted but not ultimately thwarted. Evolution has replaced God here. “God” now means development, progress. But this progress—here Hegel makes his appearance—is realized in dialectical changes; in the last analysis, it too is understood in deterministic terms. The final dialectical move is the leap from the history of oppression into the definitive history of salvation—to employ Daniel’s language, we might call this the step from the animals to the “son of man.”<br />
<br />
The kingdom of the “son of man” is now called the “classless society.” Although the dialectical leaps occur of necessity, like events in nature, they are made concrete through political means. The political equivalent to the dialectical leap is revolution, which is a concept antithetical to that of reform. One must reject the idea of reform, because it suggests that the animal has been given a human heart, and one need no longer fight against it. Reforms destroy revolutionary enthusiasm, and this is why they are opposed to the inherent logic of history. They are “involution” instead of evolution and, hence, ultimately the enemies of progress. Revolution and Utopia—the anticipation that reaches out to grasp the perfect world—belong together. They are the concrete form taken by this new political and secular messianism. The future is an idol that devours the present; revolution is an idol that obstructs all rational political activity aimed at the genuine amelioration of the world. The theological vision of Daniel, indeed of apocalypticism in general, has been transmuted into something at once secular and mythical, since these two fundamental political ideas—revolution and Utopia—present a thoroughly antirational myth when they are combined with evolution and dialectics. Demythologization is urgently needed so that politics can carry on its business in a genuinely rational way.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15758556902359096640noreply@blogger.com0