Praying for 'This Generation'

When our Lord describes his generation, what simile does He use? He says in Luke 7,32:

"To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, `We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.'"

And that was only His generation. Or, was it only His generation? Elsewhere in Matthew 12, 39b-45, He describes the plight of a man who believes he can, on his own, whisk clean his "house" of evil spirits:

"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nin'eveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here ... "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none. Then he says, `I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and brings with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation."

Gil Bailie posits that what our Lord means by "this generation" is "business as usual" in terms of how culture is always generated among fallen human beings, the taxonomy of which is most clearly spelled out by René Girard's mimetic theory, a worthy tool in the hands of the Church's Magisterium. (For example, cf. especially the work and homiletics of Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap.)

"This generation" is what Satan offers our Lord during His temptations in the wilderness (Mtt 4,8ff).

The staggering thing is to be living and moving and having our being as people who affirm Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church among leaders of nations, industry, and global policy who are plainly and willfully citizens of "this generation." They cannot begin to accept the beliefs of the Church's deposit of faith, the Magisterium, and lordship of Jesus Christ. And so, they are like the cleaner of the evil spirit; like children in the marketplace - all cleaned up and so blindly naive to the realities of Satan in their lives, their thinking, their politics and policies.

Good reason to pray during this season of Lent. Very good reason. And very good reason to join in-arms in Marian chivalry in this godless age in need of the hope and glory our Lord offers.

Ho Ho René

Romanus (Randy Coleman-Riese) over at Reflections on Faith and Culture has posted a Girardian Christmas Card. Enjoy.

The Trinity - Part 5

From Gil Bailie - click on this link to listen to part 5 of The Trinity.

Patriarchal Structures of Oppression: The Father



John W. Dixon: “Christians stubbornly clung to their language even when it could be said they didn't really understand it. Now when we are about to acquire the intellectual means for understanding the terminology, a failure of nerve has set in and we are abandoning the terminology." (e.g. Hell, judgment, the Trinity, the Father...)

Every Great Actor

Me and Orson Welles

Welles: "You really are a God created actor Richard. These aren’t just words for I recognize the look."


Richard: "The look?"


Welles: “The bone-deep understanding that your life is so utterly without meaning that simply to survive you have to reinvent yourself. Because if people can’t find you, they can’t dislike you. You see, if I can be Brutus tonight – I mean, really be him from the inside out – then for ninety minutes I get this miraculous reprieve from being myself. That’s what you see in every great actor’s eyes, you know.”



This short scene jumped out at me. We really are like actors (of course in denial) desiring to play the role of someone else. Think about it... Read this great paper from our friend and mentor Gil Bailie, THE SUBJECT OF GAUDIUM ET SPES RECLAIMING A CHRISTOCENTRIC ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

Is it not time to surrender and let Christ be your life? Col 3:4

Our Sins Weigh Us Down - The more so as we try to rely on 'this world' for Success

Psalm 39

Set me free from all my sins,

do not make me the taunt of the fool.

I was silent, not opening my lips,

because this was all your doing.

Take away your scourge from me.

I am crushed by the blows of your hand.

You punish man's sins and correct him;

like the moth you devour all he treasures.

Mortal man is no more than a breath;

O Lord, hear my prayer.

O Lord, turn your ear to my cry.

Do not be deaf to my tears.

In your house I am a passing guest,

a pilgrim, like all my fathers.

Look away that I may breathe again

before I depart to be no more.

Glory to the Father...

My heart was pierced by these words in this morning's meditation.  Words, sometime phrases, ring loud and I am struck; found guilty. 

taunt:  variant of tempter

Do not make of me the tempter of the fools: reaping what I sow; abuse on God and those near...

And what I am finding of late...?  Unbelief, attempting to rest in the flesh, thinking it a stong-hold yet built in sand or rocky ground; putting 'faith' in worldly 'success' models as I would curse circumstances and let out a torrent flood of anger and bitter words thus energizing the enemy.  Psalm 39 is a Psalm of David and it is a prayer for relief from persecutors as much as anything.  Sometimes, the enemy is elusive and we are our own enemies. Of Psalm 39, Matthew Henry writes,

There is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature; but it is to be found in the Lord, and in communion with him; to him we should be driven by our disappointments. If the world be nothing but vanity, may God deliver us from having or seeking our portion in it. When creature-confidences fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust in. We may see a good God doing all, and ordering all events concerning us; and a good man, for that reason, says nothing against it. He desires the pardoning of his sin, and the preventing of his shame. We must both watch and pray against sin. When under the correcting hand of the Lord, we must look to God himself for relief, not to any other. Our ways and our doings bring us into trouble, and we are beaten with a rod of our own making. What a poor thing is beauty! and what fools are those that are proud of it, when it will certainly, and may quickly, be consumed!

I must remind myself that it is NOT 'the road to success' but the way-of-the-cross that leads to Christ, The Kingdom of God and self-substantiation. (Link here to a previous post.)

In a reflection on the Gospel of John Gil Bailie says:

"Christ replaces the world as a source of self-substantiation. The world used to be your source of self-substantiation and Jesus says that he is robbing it of its power to substantiate either itself or you. Slowly but surely it will loose its power to substantiate itself and to substantiate those who participate in it. If you want self-substantiation you have to go to the source and the only source of self-substantiation is God..."

The more I try to justify myself within the framework of what this world maps as 'success' the more I heap burning hot coals upon my head - festering in resentment and anger.  Oh Lord I pray, set me free from all my sins, do not make me the taunt of the fool.

Bailie Honored in Berkeley

Congratulations are in order for our friend, mentor, and all round good fellow, Gil Bailie, who was recently inducted into the College of Fellows of the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley, California. Already earning a Doctor of Jurisprudence, from what I understand, does not mean one gets to call oneself "Dr. So and so." So we may now refer to Gil freely as "Dr. Bailie" - and high time, too. Bravo!

The Mass'keteers hope that the Dominican establishment made sure that Gil (a) has his own [numbered] parking space, (b) arm chair by the fire in the Fellows' Lounge, and (c) key to the sauna and weight room.

We Wish Many Joyous Moments for Gil & Kathleen

The Mass'keteers wish Gil and Kathleen many wonderful blessings on their marriage May 8th.

When my wife Ann and I tied the knot and now Gil and Kathleen I can't help but recall the image of love flowing.  (I insert my notes from Gil Bailie's taped lecture commentary series on Canto XXXI of The Divine Comedy Vol. II: Purgatory:)

The four Virtues said to Virgil, “Look deep, look well. However your eyes may smart, we have led you now before those emeralds from which Love’s shot his arrows through your heart.” They had led him to the transfigured Beatrice, who he had known in his youth.

Dante continues, “A thousand burning passions, every passion – every one hotter than any flame, held my eyes fixed on the lucent eyes she held fixed on the griffin.” So she is not looking at him, she is looking at Christ. (Christ is manifested in this pageant as the griffin, the figure that is part lion and part eagle. And the griffin represents for Dante the two natures of Christ, the divine and human nature.)

Dante says, “Like sunlight in the glass the two-fold creature shown from the deep reflection in her eyes.” So he looked into her eyes and he saw the reflection as in a mirror of Christ.

(108 – 126 from Mark Musa translation)

“It is us to lead you to her eyes. The other three, who see more deeply, will instruct your sight, as you bathe in her gaze of joyful light,” they sang to me; then they accompanied me up to the griffin’s breast, while Beatrice now faced us from the center of the cart.

“Look deeply, look with all your sight,” they said, “for now you stand before those emeralds from which Love once shot loving darts at you.”

A thousand yearning flames of my desire held my eyes fixed upon those brilliant eyes that held the griffin fixed within their range. Like sunlight in a mirror, shining back, I saw the twofold creature in her eyes, reflecting its two natures, separately.

Imagine, reader, how amazed I was to see the creature standing there unchanged, yet, in its image, changing constantly…

116. now you stand before those emeralds: Beatrice’s eyes are green, symbolizing Hope. Here we are presented with a clear indication of Beatrice’s two interconnected roles in the poem. The pilgrim is reminded first of the Beatrice of the “a thousand yearning flames of my desire,” the woman whose love should have sufficed to teach him to aspire to the Ultimate Good. But when he actually does look into Beatrice’s eyes, the Pilgrim sees the image of the griffin. One of Beatrice’s other roles, then, is that of Revelation. The mystery of Christ’s dual nature is still beyond the Pilgrim’s understanding, and so, allegorically, he is as yet unable to gaze directly at the griffin, the symbol of those two natures. But he can begin to comprehend through Beatrice’s (Revelation’s) green eyes.

122. I saw the twofold creature in her eyes: The Pilgrim encounters in Beatrice’s eyes, as in a mirror, the mystery of Christ’s dual nature. The words of Paul (1 Cor. 13:12) come to mind: “We see now through a mirror in an obscure way (darkly).” Just as Christ is both God and man in one, and at the same time, so he is represented by the griffin, which is part eagle and part lion. The Pilgrim can “see” the two natures of the beast imaged in Beatrice’s eyes, but he cannot comprehend their oneness; hence the natures are visible to him only alternately (“separately,”) and not simultaneously. He can only marvel at the mysteriousness of oneness by describing an image that changed natures (from eagle to lion and back again) while the creature itself remains unchanged.

Gratitude for the Greatest Gift

We send out our congratulations to our mentor and friend, Gil Bailie on his recent announcement.

Gratitude for the Greatest Gift - Jean-Francois Millet "The Angelus"

". . . You touch the door and the road straightens behind you.

It is now. It has all come true."

William Stafford

You Know that God is at Work...

Gil Bailie tells of a visiting priest from Cape Town, South Africa who gave a homily that included the following:

“You know that God is at work when you are unlovable and you still get loved: when you have done something unforgiveable and you get forgiven: and you are untrustworthy you are trusted anyway.”

He went on to say that this is what God does and what Christians have to do is to imitate God - that is we have to love the unlovable; forgive the unforgiveable; and trust the untrustworthy.

From: “Let This Mind Be in You” tape series on conversion by Gil Bailie.

Remembering that receiving the Eucharist we are incorporated into the work of Christ in history

Pondering Divine Mercy Sunday (and terms like mercy & forgiveness, and the other key element, hearing the cock-crow) I am brought back to a favorite Gil Bailie session, Entering the Biblical Story at the Eucharistic Table . (Make sure to link and read the entire transcript.) 

It is very important to remember Jesus didn’t say, ‘take this and figure it out.’ He said, ‘take it and eat it.’ There is a huge mystery in the Eucharist, but it is I think, the mystery of our induction into the body of Christ - into the communion of saints – into the work of Christ in history...

For much of my presentation so far I have talked about story, recovering the story in scriptural terms, and of course we have to do that. But there is this place where we actually enter the story. We don’t just learn the story, and say the story, but we become actors in the story; we begin to perform the story. And I don’t think we should be too self-conscious about that kind of language. Refer to the unbelievable central passage from Paul, “I live now not I, but Christ lives in me.” We have to take that at face value. One has to say about that what Flannery O’Connor said about the Eucharist, if it is just a symbol, the hell with it. It is not just a symbol. Christians are here to be incorporated into the work of Christ in history...

We are called to bring forgiveness into the world, being there with people who are suffering from their own unforgivenness and being simply an agent in the presence of whom people can begin to feel forgiveness. Forgiveness is a great mystery; it is not some sanctimonious thing that somebody who has it gives to somebody else. It is a spirit that infects us – it always has an infecting agent. There is always somebody who brings it in and introduces it into a situation of unforgivenness, and it is our Eucharistic responsibility to be about that business. In order to be able to be about such business, we have to experience the kenosis (meaning: a self-emptying) of Christian discipleship. So we take our lives, and this is our supreme privilege, we must not see this as some kind of melodramatic act of renunciation, it is the source of our freedom, to take our lives, thank God for them because it is a gift to us, and break them or let them be broken and give them away. And then, Jesus says, “do THIS in memory of me.” Do what? Do this in memory of me. Not just the gesture, of course we do the gesture; of course the Real Presence, but when Jesus says, do THIS, He is talking of something much more vast then that. He means doing that which the gesture represents – being Christ in the world.

I think that is what drinking the cup is all about, so that sins might be forgiven; so that the knot might be broken; so that the animosity might be absorbed or dispersed; so that the healing and forgiveness might be brought into this situation where unforgivenness is about to get the upper hand...  It is at the Eucharistic table that we receive this gift and are nourished for the journey to go back out into the world and be Eucharistic people, be Christ to the world, absorbing that unforgivenness and being people who are not there on their own, but rather people who are saying with Paul, I live now not I, but Christ lives in me.

Quote from Violence Unveiled by Gil Bailie Chapter 11

Christ came so directly from silence into the word . . . that the whole world between silence and language — the world of mythology — was exploded and bereft of its significance and value. The characters in the world of myth now became demons stealing language from man and using it to cast demonic spells. Until the birth of Christ they were the leaders of men, but now they became the mis-leaders, the seducers, of men.[i] Max Picard


[i] Max Picard, The World of Silence, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1988), p. 89.

All these sayings are hard; who can accept them?

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"

April 9, 2010
Friday in the Octave of Easter

Acts 4:8-12
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered them, “Leaders of the people and elders: If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved, then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed.  He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”


I am thinking at Mass this morning, listening to the readings as I do each morning, here is another one of those statements we hear - only to wave it off as we are drenched in the dictatorship of relativism.  As Athos pointed out: "Without a working knowledge of mimetic theory, it is nearly impossible to extricate one's thoughts and feelings from the ..." shrill of the maddening crowd which not only is stuck in the swirling vortex of victimization, it is also caught up in the spell of relativism.  On virtually every page of a newspaper or soundwave from your favorite talk show scandal is the norm and we don't even recognize it...

From René Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World:

For us, as for those who first heard the Gospel, the stone rejected by the builders has become the permanent stumbling block. By refusing to listen to what is being said to us, we are creating a fearsome destiny for ourselves. And there is no one, except ourselves, who can be held responsible.


Christ plays this role for all who remain scandalized by the wisdom embodied in the text. His role, though understandable, is paradoxical, since he offers not the slightest hold to any form of rivalry or mimetic interference. There is no acquisitive desire in him. As a consequence, any will that is really turned toward Jesus will not meet with the slightest of obstacles. His yolk is easy and his burden is light. With him, we run no risk of getting caught up in the evil opposition between doubles. (pp. 429-430)

From René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning:

The phrase "Scandal must come" (see Matt. 18:7) has nothing to do with either ancient fatalism or scientific determinism. Taken individually, human beings are not necessarily given over to mimetic rivalries, but by virtue of the great number of individuals they contain, human communities cannot escape them. When the first scandal occurs, it gives birth to others, and the result is mimetic crises, which spread without ceasing and become worse and worse. (I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, pp. 16-18)

From René Girard's The Girard Reader:

All those who join a belligerent crowd act more or less (similar ...). They all transfer their private scandals to some public target. Men become so burdened with scandals that they desperately, if unconsciously, seek the public substitutes upon whom to unburden themselves. As they become more numerous, the target's attractiveness as a target increases, and the process becomes irresistible.


The notion of scandal bridges the gap between individual and collective violence. The mobility of scandals, their tendency to unite around a common victim, provides a mediation, a communication between the two levels.

The violent unanimity of the Passion results from a massive transference of scandals, a snowballing so powerful that its effects become inescapable. (The Girard Reader, pp. 199-200)

From Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads:

To dispense with sacrificial systems without accepting greater moral and religious responsibility is to follow Cain down a dark road that, ... (p. 139)
According to this Gospel, the only viable alternative to living in witless complicity with the father of lies is to live in conscious conformity with the “heavenly Father” which Jesus’ life made visible. (p. 225)

These references that I have included in this post and the many others that are on our sidebar can help you grasp what is going on in the world today and why so many sayings of Jesus were truly hard.  There is a real anthropological reason for the sayings and we are just beginning to have the intellectual tools to apply to them.  Don't settle for the shallow and slanderous rhetoric of mainstream media - rather challenge the "system" and pick up one of these books.  But whatever you do be about deepening your religious sensibilities finding your way back to church.  As John W. Dixon, Jr. proclaimed, "Christians stubbornly clung to their language even when it could be said they really didn’t understand it. (And the sad thing is that, now when we are about to acquire the intellectual means for understanding the terminology, a failure of nerve has set in and many Christians are abandoning the terminology.)  Please, let us not be abandoning the only cornerstone for which our salvation rests.

Memory Cloud or as in Greek mythology - the Muses - which are the daughters of Memory

"Memory is a funny thing, I think that we feel that it gives us our humanity in a great sense because when we cannot remember we feel as though we have lost not only those specific ideas about what came before or who we loved but we have lost certainly a part of ourselves." - Judith G. Levy

How true...

I can't help but remember, from Violence Unveiled by Gil Bailie that interestingly enough the biblical word "truth" is formed using Greek mythology. "Truth" translates the biblical Greek word "alethia." Alethia is a compound word composed of "a" (which means "not" in Greek) and "lethe" (which means "forgotten, hidden, or concealed" in Greek). Truth, then, literally means "that which is not hidden" or "that which is not forgotten."

"In Greek mythology the Muses are the daughters of Memory (Mnemosyne). The Muses make it possible to remember the past fondly or heroically, but they do so with fog filters."
from Violence Unveiled by Gil Bailie p 33. (link on the above quote to read more on MYTH from Bailie's book)

Not to deprive us all of "warm & fuzzy" fond memories, but what is at the heart of these concepts of memory - alethia - truth - "stop forgetting"? What and how are we, humanity, forgetting?

"... myth and the associated structures of what Girard calls the primitive sacred... make it possible to participate in, observe, or recollect certain violent events without having to actually witness them in any morally significant sense." p 35.

Hummm... hopefully you might want to delve into this a bit further. If so, check out the links and books we highlight in our sidebar.

Soufflé of Doom or Élan of Hope

As even CNN begins to acknowledge that political correctness in the Army contributed to the 13(/14) deaths at Fort Hood, I recalled that friend and mentor, Gil Bailie, recently cited a New York Post story about terrorists in New York: They were filled with rage and wanted to take it out on what they considered the source of all problems in America - the Jews.

The naïveté of everyone educated in the sacred halls of multiculturalism "knows" that humans are not stained with Original Sin. I heard a PhD in Education bemoan not long ago the way that textbooks betray our ethnic and cultural bias in the way they refer, for example, to Native Americans as "savages". Of course, the sentiment not to victimize is admirable, but to ignore the fact that Native Americans were members of the fallen human race and, therefore, ipso facto, as savage as, say the Meso-American Aztecs and Mayans and Clockwork Orange urban youth of today's Paris and London, is as dangerous as a branch of the military ignoring the warning signs of a Army psychiatrist who emailed jihadists overseas to say he was looking forward to seeing them in Paradise and - by the way - when is it permissible to slaughter innocents?

The time is rapidly approaching when two things will become manifestly apparent: first, that those who become "filled with rage" are the problem. And, secondly, we cannot "pussy-foot" around them in feeble, limp-wristed attempts "not to offend" them, but rather call them accountable for their uncontrolled lack of impulse control and immature bent to violent and inappropriate tantrums.

True political correctness is recognizing where the true problem lies. René Girard's mimetic theory and the wisdom to "think with the Church" - sentire cum ecclesia - in discerning truth, goodness, and beauty, as well as disordered passions, fruits of the flesh, and egregious evil is the pathway to survival for humanity.

Anything less, including and inescapably a soufflé of multiculturalism and elitist naïveté, bode only doom.

There is more to a good story...maybe it's time we go deeper

DISCLAIMER: I was going to post a bit shorter version of this in the comment section of the post but decided otherwise, I pray you find it (at least somewhat) on target.

Read the wonderful post by Athos Munson-I'm Not Buying It

I would point out a couple things that may be missed in a quick read. First of all Munson's non-response upon being shocked by her husband can be seen in a mimetic way where she refused to be placed in rivalry and becoming a mimetic double. In fact all the way through she was practicing excellent skills at avoiding the usual human instinct to succumb to doubling. (Learn more about mimesis, mimetic rivalry, doubles and more by checking out one of our many links to René Girard in articles and books in our side bar.)

Second I throw out a question: could this scenario happen if it were not grounded in a Christian influence even though the author of the article mentions no connection and in fact Munson and her family may not be Christians, we do not know. But it is time we stopped and observed the structure of things, particularly when the things we are observing have potential for conflict, rivalry and violence (and certainly a time like a separation and/or divorce is a prime example). Though the author may have some of the indicators in error and self-pride can never (at least in the way the article presents pride as self constituted) be listed as a true ingredient for love and peace, we may however read into Laura Munson and her relationship with her husband and family God’s grace. As in Step 2 of AA we must acknowledge that there is something greater here and allow that Power (that "influence" - that Christian influence) to work.

My third remark is from the outside looking in - does it still benefit society, marriage, culture and life to NOT identify the markings of Christianity? Many generations have been raised on some such version of ‘LITE’ where they simply have no clue to the religious significance to their life and consequently their numbness to violence is growing at an alarming rate. As our mentor and friend Gil Bailie wrote: We must "discover or re-discover the deeper anthropological, moral, and religious significance of the New Testament, and to assess its staggering historical ramifications - - - - - " - - - NOT only in the global but in particular our personal lives. Laura Munson gives us a great version of one person who didn't succumb to the impulse of human rivalry, conflict and violence at a very intimate setting.

Hocus Pocus

Matthew Archbold points out an essential illusion of today's faltering western culture:

The NY Times is doing a victory lap over the blogosphere today:

For the most part, the traditional news outlets lead and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours, according to a new computer analysis of news articles and commentary on the Web during the last three months of the 2008 presidential campaign.

The finding was one of several in a study that Internet experts say is the first time the Web has been used to track — and try to measure — the news cycle, the process by which information becomes news, competes for attention and fades.

This is laughable because the media is ahead of the blogs only in what they choose to cover.

For example, look at the recent quotes that came to light concerning Obama's Science Czar John Holdren who endorsed mass sterilizations and forced abortions in a book he wrote in 1977. Those comments were discovered not by one reporter on a staff of hundreds on a large metropolitan newspaper. Those comments were discovered by a guy who runs a blog called Zombietime. And Holdren's comments launched 4,000 blog posts over the next three days. But not one mainstream media organization has looked into these comments.

So on this story, the blogosphere is uhmm...three days ahead of the MSM. And counting ... More >>>

What Archbold outlines (and Michelle Malkin, too - see the link) is the collusion that is part and parcel of today's out-of-control swinging pendulum of what Saint Paul calls "party spirit." Should you ever get a chance to listen to Gil Bailie's reflections on Dante's Inferno, I highly recommend his in-depth discussion of this particular circle of hell. (Sadly, Mr. Bailie's present Emmaus Road Initiative does not allow his greatest skill for such in-depth ruminations.)

René Girard has studied this phenomenon extensively - the "problem of the doubles" - and future generations will stand amazed at the way two-party politics in the United States of America foiled what was left of old Christendom.

In these meantimes, "Prez I Wun" in his hubris is the magician of magicians, the master of the sacred prestidigitation of collusion. I have never seen his better (sic.).

Nevertheless, the Holy Father has once again left us a trail of bread crumbs (Panis Angelicus), but it takes saints - and the aspiring saintly ones (wink, wink) - to strive, to struggle, to follow this trail far from the maddening crowd (would Thomas Hardy know this? I'll leave that to you to decide), and maybe fail miserably in the effort.

But you know what? I'll take that failure over the collusion smoke and mirrors of the MSM, Wall Street, and the Republic and Democratic parties. Any day.

Fr Baron refers to Girard and the unveiling of scapegoating violence

We must keep reminding folks who come visiting that we have a "must read" Girardian side bar. Please scroll over and check out these books and further down are some links to great articles that explain and go into detail about scapegoating violence and mimetic theory.

Here are 2 Girard books and 1 from our friend and mentor Gil Bailie:

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

The Girard Reader

Violence Unveiled

This is serious stuff but if you are serious about the bible you must be serious about the violence it unveils. The bible reveals Love in as much as it unveils our violence.

Only the composed person is really someone

Quote from Romano Guardini:

"Silence overcomes noise and talk. Composure is the victory over distractions and unrest. Only the composed person is really someone."

Because of our restlessness, confusion, and disorder,

"we do not yet really exist as persons -- at least not persons God can address expecting a fitting response."

As the Kingdom breaks in and shatters the old mythic structures, with their passing we lose the structures that made it possible for us to experience certain cultural and psychological stability.

We're coming unglued. The gospel is the source for us as it shows us the way to another kind of selfhood, a selfhood that doesn't include an entity called the self in our modern day understanding, but a discipleship self - a self that cannot be distinguished entirely from the God who is the ground of its being.

If these old structures pass without some compensating shifts on our part, then the world will suffer from the very violence that these sacred systems existed to ward off. - "The Poetry of Truth: Reflections on the Gospel of Luke" by Gil Bailie: Tape 9 end of side B

Bailie, Emmaus Road Initiative, BXVI

Gil Bailie, friend and mentor, continues his invaluable work in speaking engagements across the United States this month. Catch his May Emmaus Road Initiative talk at a venue near you.

Gil posts this powerful talk given by Pope Benedict at the Holocaust Museum - a most worthwhile 7 minute investment of your time.

It's one of life's simple joys to be able to support a friend, educator, and brother in Christ like Gil Bailie.

In these times where do you get your substantiation - your validation?

Click on Link to view movie!
http://www.acknowledgmentmovie.com/


"Who I am makes a difference" project. Truly awesome! And I love what is behind the love of this project. But have we ever really stopped to ponder the need for it.

I would imagine that in your local "news" paper you have seen such headlines: Suicide Rate Increasing In US or like in my paper today, Tough times have suicides on the rise in McLean Co. Programs like Who I am Makes a Difference are great yet for me they do not get to the 'cross' of the matter?  Is this not an issue of self-substantiation?

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My favorite poster is hanging in my office, the title of it is, "Road to Success". To the best of my ability searching the background of the poster I came up with a published date of October 1913 by The Etude Magazine - An Issue of the Inspiration, Uplift and Ideals.

(to enlarge picture right click on it and select Open Link)

In this poster there is, at least from a worldly sense, for seekers of success, a pretty realistic image of the difficulty of obtaining success. This goes well with the etymology of the word and title of the magazine, 'etude' - along with it meaning 'a short composition for a solo instrument; intended as an exercise or to demonstrate technical virtuosity' it is derived from the French étude, from Old French estudie, which is the study or the application of the mind to the acquisition of knowledge.

As a graduate of a couple "leadership" programs to me this poster represents the world view of modernism and its concept of achieving success or validation. I have also come to see it as a parody of Christ's version of substantiation: abide in me and I will abide in you.

Gil Bailie helps us to get underneath the entire validation or substantiation crisis especially when we are striving for substantiation void of conversion, desperately clinging to structures which the Paraclete is gradually deconstructing.

It is really the Paraclete which is at work in the world. And if you don’t believe it just pick up tomorrow’s paper and see how it deconstructs the sacrificial ruse – what happens to societies who try to live after the sacrificial ruse has been deconstructed without a conversion experience is that they fall into chaos. The only alternative to the sacrificial system in terms of civility and sanity is conversion.

Jesus prays on behalf of his disciples, while still in the flesh John:17.11, “I am in the world no longer;…” So when he says, I am in the world no longer, what does he mean? He is not talking about the earth, nor is he talking about the flesh – he is talking about being in that ordered cosmos, which is the mythologized world of conventional culture. He says that he is in it no longer.

And then he continues as he is talking to God, “I have passed your word onto them and as a result the world hates them because they belong to the world no more. I am not asking you to remove them from the world but to protect them from the evil one – from the accuser. They do not belong to the world anymore than I belong to the world but they are still in it,” he says. This is the Johannine formula for where we are – it is like Paul, we are in it but not of it. This is where the anthropological reading leads directly into the spiritual reading. The Johannine’s Jesus says, "I am the true vine, my father is the vine dresser” and you are the branches.

In other words, if I am no longer at home in the culture world – if I can no longer derive my sense of social significance – psychological grounding, all the rest of it, for my social consensus – where then do I go to get it?

“I am the vine, my father is the vine dresser” and you are the branches.

This is the new world we belong to. Christ replaces the world as a source of self-substantiation. The world used to be your source of self-substantiation and Jesus says that he is robbing it of its power to substantiate either itself or you. Slowly but surely it will loose its power to substantiate itself and to substantiate those who participate in it. If you want self-substantiation you have to go to the source and the only source of self-substantiation is God – there is no way to get to God directly – you go through a mediator and Jesus will be the mediator – you can now ground yourself in Jesus. You live in me and I will live in you – this sounds so esoteric and so mystic in a way – ‘I live in you and you live in me’ – but it is absolutely practical. And it has to be seen in terms of the juxtaposition of the collapse of the conventional, social world, and its participants to substantiate itself.

Jesus says to make your home – you have to have a home – you have to be at home somewhere for you don’t belong to the world anymore – make your home in me and I will make my home in you. Abide in me and I will abide in you and then you will have some grounding. - from "A Light Shone into the Darkness - Reflections on the Gospel of John" - by Gil Bailie
(tape 10 end of side B)

Lord help us to be instruments, back to being grounded in the inspiration of YOUR WILL and help us be a source that verifies and loves everyone we meet and to spread YOUR LOVE wherever we go.