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.

Primitive Sacred and Oil on the Water

Mark Steyn lets fly with King Barack the Verbose.

One of the most salient and fascinating features of René Girard's mimetic theory is that it dispels the common - and wrong - notions that we humans (a) think for ourselves and (b) left behind all the mumbo-jumbo of our primitive ancestors who did things like ritual sacrifice of first-born children. Wrong on both counts, says mimetic theory.

We are hugely influenced by the desires of others and, therefore, at the whim of those who know this about ourselves and take advantage of it. Think Madison Avenue. Think all those sales flyers that fall out of your Sunday newspaper. Think about going to work, or to a class reunion, or to a dinner party wearing what is hanging in the never-touched recesses of your closet. Why is that? Not because you care what people think, surely.

The Gospel has indeed been hard at work in history freeing us from many of the superstitions of what Girard calls "the primitive sacred." But as the Gospel in general and the teachings of the Catholic Church in particular are abandoned and rejected, the pagan rises again. And one of the most prominent elements of the primitive sacred is the king/priest/shaman figure; i.e., one vested with the aura of the sacred. How that figure accrues this aura and power is important, but for now just realized that the vacuum created by the secular West's rejection of the Christian faith has opened the realm of this sacred human figure once again.

Enter Barack Obama. The adulation and "leg-tingling" of Chris Matthew, the Obots on street corners before the election, the fawning free-ride by the MSM (now showing a few signs of waking up and smelling the coffee grounds) all smack of the mystification of the primitive sacred's legendary divine figure come alive again.

Enter the Gulf of Mexico oil-spill disaster. Nothing seemingly can stop it. Not technology. Not bureaucrats' posturing and grand-standing. And NOT the king/priest/shaman of the Last Self-Help Administration.

His divine status, it would seem, cannot cap this catastrophic act of nature, and, while he is clearly not to blame for it, he clearly cannot do anything to stop it. His post-modern version of the primitive sacred leader - the only alternative to the Church's more realistic understanding of fallen, fallible human nature (even the Pope goes to Confession) - is beginning to look oil-soaked and - hmm - less than divine.

If ever there was a wake-up call from Heaven, in my opinion, this Gulf of Mexico fiasco is one. What shall it be? A modern recrudescence of the primitive sacred? Or a return to sanity in Catholic truth?

Is anyone else asking - or answering - this question?

Tea Parties, Mimetic Rivals, and Hope

From a mimetic theory point of view, it was predictable that the tea party phenomenon occur. With the election to the presidency of the United States of the most leftist, progressivist, pro-abortion, socialist-like, and oligarchical candidate imaginable, there was an inevitability to the rise of the tea party movement.

Some, wrongly, want to accuse the tea party folk of having surreptitious racist motives. This is nearly as Procrustean an accusation as, say, the New Atheists' accusation that anyone who does not view reality like them solely through the empirical method criteria are "dim".

Mimetic theory posits the "problem of the doubles" in all conventional cultural structures. One might assume that a Democrat president in the Oval Office would find his "model/rival" across the aisle in Congress in the form of Republicans. The problem with this assumption is that there is an increasing awareness that in actuality there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Hence, the inevitability of the tea party phenomenon: a structurally authentic "double" had to arise in the mimetic swirl, and it has.

Is this a good sign? Not really. I place no hopes in the tea party uprisings, at least no hope for it to help bring about a renewed and vital Christendom. At best, it may like Pentheus in Euripides' play The Bacchae, put the clamps on the skid into the sacrificial vortex for a while. The neo-pagan resurgence coupled with the Scimitar's demographic victory in the West seem all too preponderant in force and scope for the largely middle to older-aged tea party folk.

That does not mean, however, there is no hope. Rather, it means that unless you want to have your hopes dashed once again, you had best place hope - and faith and charity - on sources of true transcendence still availing us, even in these darkening ages.

Eternal Laws Aren't 'Voted' On

Appearances are Deceptive

There may come a pivotal moment today prior to the vote on the health care bill when each voting member of the House of Representatives will hear a clarion call to turn back from the brink. The United States Bishops have pleaded, Do not pass this pro-abortion health care bill.

You see, our Bishops do not follow mere "party" platforms. They are concerned for not only the unborn who will be imperiled by the passage of the bill, although that is the reason they do not support this bill.

Our Bishops are concerned for the souls of lawmakers, of Americans, and the eternal consequences of supporting a health care bill that will endorse and underwrite a mortal sin.

As uncouth as that may sound, the eternal salvation of souls is a bottom line concern here. The spirit of the age may mitigate against such concern, but Mother Church never stops caring about the consequences of our decisions and actions. The Ten Commandments still stand. The Beatitudes still stand. The Precepts of the Church still stand. Our Lord says the Law still stands (Mt 5,17f). The weight of glory, as C. S. Lewis said, is a ponderous thing. And willful - if ignorant - human pride can indeed preclude our ability to enter into the Beatific Vision.

Pray for lawmakers and their souls today.

Renaming Freedom, Excluding Religion

The Resistance - "Hey, like my new header, meshugas?"

(ht: Spirit of Moscow)

George Weigel spoke recently at an international symposium honoring Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger. One thing he said was, "Intolerance in the name of 'tolerance' must be named for what it is and publicly condemned. To deny religiously-informed moral argument a place in the public square is intolerant and anti-democratic." To read his entire address, go here.

It does not take a particularly keen observer to see the grim outline of what is happening in the United States of America under the current administration and their allies in the legislative branch of government. Weigel limns it well.

We are simply seeing the relegation of religious values to the interior of places of worship. This would include the values of the Scimitar, but as René Girard has shown so clearly (and the New Testament long before him) politicians fear crowds and power; a trait so-called "progressivists" share with the Scimitar, structurally speaking. For now, the loud-mouth rantings of the Scimitar are allowed, as long as demographics stay below a tipping point.

But it is obvious that leftist progressives want to exclude the Judeo-Christian voice in general and the magisterium of the Catholic Church in particular from public forum, and they will go to no extreme to make certain this happens. The exceptions, of course, are the Catholic-in-name-only types, those who violate the Church's teachings and leadership as progressivist allies. These will be paraded like loyal lap-dogs, shining examples of the "right kind" (wink wink) of religious thinking.

But for those who are loyal to Mother Church, like the babushkas of Soviet Russian, we are free to "hold" our religious beliefs so long as they do not attempt to intrude into serious social policy. Just sweep the streets, go to church, and keep very quiet.

This is the new "tolerance". This is the new "freedom". Welcome to the late, great American reformation.

P. S. - By the way, the babushkas won (cf. above).

The Best Lie

C. S. Lewis once sagely noted, "The best lie is the one closest to the truth." That is why this is so important for us to observe, condemn, and pray about.

The proposed health care reform is a conundrum shrouded in complexity wrapped in obfuscation, just the way the leftists and the Administration want it. It purports to be "compassionate", but maintains the language that Rep. Stupak condemns. Abortion equals fewer Americans for whom health care will be needed.

Pray like there is no working, and work like there is no praying. Ora et labora.

Priorities

H.L. Mencken is famously quoted as having said, "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it." I'm lousy at reading persons' motives, actually. What I am dependable about, however, is a hobbit-like love for all things small, human proportioned, and non-centralized.

Nearly every Enlightenment-driven project to "save humanity" in the violent, old twentieth century - from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Hitler to Pol Pot - all functioned with an ostensible motive of wanting to "save humanity." Each and every one of them ended not only badly, but disastrously in terms of loss of human life. Particularly in one stood in the way of such mere human efforts to "save humanity."

Note well: when the Second Great Commandment of Our Lord (..."and [love] your neighbor as yourself") is sundered from the First Great Commandment ("You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength"), things end badly.

Again, I do not pretend to understand or fathom his motives, but our Last Self-Help Administration president has noticeable, ostensible distaste for all things Judeo-Christian, which is to say, the ancestral voice of the West.

But it is here and only here that the continuity of keeping together those Two Great Commandments (Mk 12,30-31) is to be found in world history. And an United States without this spiritual continuity has no guarantee - absolutely none - that the perpetrators of heinous atrocities listed above will not again rise. Only this time with the finest motives, say, to provide health care for all; unless you aren't born yet, then you have no rights whatsoever. Not even to be born.

Finally, again I do not question I Wun's motives; they may be completely sincere. I question what has always happened when done the way he he is trying to do it and sans outward honoring Our Lord and the biblical Tradition that alone keeps together the revealed Mandate:

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be yours as well."

- Mtt 6,33

Escalation to the Extremes

As René Girard recently writes in Battling to the End, when one member of a model/rival warring relationship is settling into a defensive posture (the dominant 'model'), that partner sets the terms of the battle and "escalation to extremes." The lesser partner (the 'rival') is forced to move against its foe-partner in terms dictated by the former's defenses.

The dominant partner may enact a faux ignorance of its rival's actions and even a feigned ignorance of the rivalry altogether. Its rival is, thus, forced to enact any and all measures not only to be noticed, but, in the words of Robert Hamerton-Kelly,

It wishes not only to imitate the other, nor merely to possess itself in the other, but to destroy the other as the place where the self is alienated to itself.

In this quest, the rival will change the terms of discourse (don't forget; the Scimitar was founded on this model/rival template). But the model will act remarkably stupid and seemingly blind to the obvious. Even when the "escalation to extremes" reaches the level of sacrificial denouement.

WILL the escalation continue? Girard is convinced of it, and fears for the world of humanity. And apparently, the dominant model partner is beginning to think so, too.

But under current leadership from the Last Self-Help Administration, it is unlikely that any actions other than functional dhimmitude, academical indifference, and puer-senex tendencies will be seen for the foreseeable future.

It Worked in Cambridge

For the record: Victor Davis Hanson - As Predictable as Clockwork — the Obama Three-step.

Scott Brown - A Cyrus of Persia Moment

While some Catholic sources see the recent and sizable election of Scott Brown to the senatorial seat of the late Edward Kennedy a victory for pro-life forces, others are more hesitant.

My take is that Senator-elect Brown is a bit of a Cyrus of Persia event for the weary warriors for the culture of life. Yes - God raised up Cyrus to issue his Edict of Restoration and allow the exilic Jews to return to Israel - a source of great rejoicing, and truly God's working in the warp and weft of human history. Yes - God shoved a spoke in the wheels of the out-of-control "health care reform," replete with on-demand abortuarial services - a source of great rejoicing, too, and truly God's will.

But the estimable Senator-elect Brown has yet to prove his personal worthiness, both as a patrician and as a culture of life proponent. I have seen too many upright souls become seduced by the power and glory of public office on Capitol Hill - let alone the overwhelming temptation to sell-out to the highest bidder and offer libations to the great god, $Mammon$.

Time will tell about Scott Brown; best to be pessimistic, keep praying, and, we hope, be pleasantly surprised. It is safer than the other way round.

What is a Scott Brown Republican

Or, as Hadley Arkes puts it, There should be no illusion that Scott Brown, right now, understands or accepts the moral premises of the pro-life movement.

Put no trust in princes ( Ps 146). Dante puts politician Julius Caesar in limbo, but those who betray public trust with fraud much further down - circle eight, Bolgia 5, immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals.

Forgive the lack of trust, but I have none regarding the two-party system. And, by the way, I am not a right-winger. This is a Marxian, secularist designation. I am a Catholic, and a pope's man. But, just in case you might think I condone the Last Self-Help Administration's American reformation, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- Lord Acton

Trusting in Princes

Do you believe that this is the answer to prayer? Really?

Personally, I put no trust in princes (Ps 146). I believe renewal of vision comes solely like this, one person, one heart, one soul at a time.

Through me the way into the suffering city

On this eve of Christmas Eve, a sense of foreboding prevails among those who know what will be ram-rodded .. er, voted upon tomorrow on Capitol Hill. It is something so immense, so huge and hubris-filled, like King Herod and Caesar to the tenth power, that one can almost hear Stalin whispering, How many divisions does the Pope have?

In fact, it has a similar feeling tone as when this blunder (?) happened.

While Dante put defrauders of the commonweal in a particularly nasty circle of hell, the political elite who are accomplishing this piece of legislation are feeling a grand sense of pleasure and self-righteousness. Eternal reward or punishment by their standards of judgment are far removed from the Magisterium of the Church, even for rather higher-ups in the legislative society for mutual self-admiration.

They were elected. They enjoy the greatest power and glory afforded leaders in the free world. They are "progressive"; surely they know better than any reactionary ecclesiastical sticks-in-the-mud who flaunt Catholic truth, faith, and morals.

Right? Right?

Gnostic American Reformation

You've probably seen it elsewhere, but here is Robert Samuelson's "A Parody of Leadership," a scathing indictment of not only the boondoggle of "health care reform" replete with taxpayer-supported abortuarial "health services" for women, but the leadership of our commander-in-chief.

While the liberal-elite's holy grail is "universal coverage," the bill will fall short of this, by Samuelson's estimation, and a great deal more besides.

The question is: why? Why the rush, why the clandestine still-of-the-night votes, the hundreds of millions of dollars to buy votes, the reckless idiocy?

Let's stop to think a moment of where our president came from. Has he ever worked in the private sector (does the university setting count? you choose), managed a business, worked beyond politics, paid employees and allotted benefits to them?

He's a sharp fellow, brilliant mind, shrewd politician. But all he knows is hand-me-downs the likes of which he is now working pall mall to provide for every American citizen.

It's a pipe dream. (Look how well it worked in Detroit.) It is a denial of the realities of human nature and anthropology. It is an affirmation of romantic Gnosticism and every absurdity of "let's all just hold hands and get along" ideology-driven secularism known to-date.

America. It's just about too late. Wake up.

Baa, Mr. President, Baa

Our president is a man of rare qualities and abilities. If one notices, one never sees him contradict claims that he is carrying out a reformation of the United States of America. It is a reformation away from the norms and mores what used to be called the "silent majority." Today, the mandarins of hope and change do not consider it a silent majority, but a helpless if not hapless majority.

It is majority that does not know what is good for it. Or, rather, its values, faith, morals, and goals do not stand in the way of the agenda being laid out for it by the oligarchs presently in power, the president being the chief exemplar of this reformation. They are ignorable because they are, in the president and his ilk's estimation, ignorant of a progressive future known by the elite, and, therefore, must be superseded because and in spite of their sheepish foolishness.

What he, the president, does not know is that the majority of Americans are indeed sheep, and willingly admit it. They will, in fact, admit that our president is also a sheep. The profoundly large electorate has not forgotten that from the most powerful commander-in-chief on Pennsylvania Avenue to the short-order chef in Adams Morgan all have an absolute and irrevocable need for a Good Shepherd.

The wisdom of this majority of Americans runs deeper in the collective psyche of the Christian West than the commander-in-chief will either admit or presuppose in the progressive agenda he propounds and is pounding into legislation. The taxation of the American majority to pay for abortion murder of unborn Americans is probably the most tell-tale ritual of the dumb-as-a-sheep agenda.

Good Shepherd, forgive our leaders for veering so far into the culture of death. Forgive us for electing them into power. Come help us, your sheep and our president who needs shearing. Amen.

Passive-Aggresivity

How well do I remember: this is called passive-aggresivity. Taunting. Provoking. YOU feel what I refuse to feel in myself, but I will see it in you and feel "fulfilled".

You have to get up very early in the morning with a passive-aggressive. Psychodramas prevail in their lives. Enjoy the next few years, America. You voted for him.

Chattering Class Folly

For the record: The Anchoress - Elizabeth Scalia - quotes Mark Shea on MSM follies, common sense worthy of G. K. Chesterton, and the balderdash of the agenda to take America into a down-leftward death spiral in this must read post.

George Isn't Sleeping Here

Cardinal George on the Last Self-Help Administration:

Puer, Puer, Pitiful Me

A question: Do you happen to think this is entirely appropriate psychological discernment (the fellow is a practicing psychotherapist) or scapegoating? Or, would you put your money on something in between? Why? Explain.

Not to put a kink in your ruminations, but here's why an increasing number of Americans do not believe that he believes what he says.

Jack Webb Schools I Wun

Huge ht: The Anchoress