Girard and von Balthasar

From Gil Bailie at his Reflections on Faith and Culture:

A friend who knew the great Catholic theologian Henri de Lubac recalls that, late in life, de Lubac remarked that, if he were young and beginning his theological work again, he would begin with René Girard.

Read on.

Always and Forever

Pat Metheny (gt.), Christian McBride (bs.), Antonio Sanchez (dr.)

John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy--My Favorite Things

There's Parable Here - Part 2

Baptism. Water from on high (frozen). Look up and heads up! Will you listen, O man?

And Now For Something Completely Different

Cooties and Tim Hawkins on Marriage @ Creative Minority Report.

When It Rains ...

Important Prayer Concern and Daily Intention Alert: Dawn Eden's doctor wants her to have a half-thyroidectomy due to a suspicious "papillary carcinoma." Sigh.

It is said that Julian of Norwich was on her way to give a talk to a gathering of religious when her cart's wheel came off. As she struggled to fix the cart it began to rain. The rain became a storm, and soon she was covered with mud trying to hoist the cart and reattach the wheel. As lightning flashed and rain pelted her, she raised her eyes to heaven and said, "Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, is it any wonder you have so few of them?"

Keep Dawn in your prayers for peace, healing, and awareness of God's presence.

Bhutto & the Sacrificial Crises Facing Us

Commentary is swirling around the sacrificial vortex regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan today. It should cause little wonder that it should occur. The ramifications, however, are cause for grave concern. Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs gives good details surrounding the murder. Mark Gordon at Suicide of the West foresees a true corner being turned globally. Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch tells of a drastic and immediate movement of U. S. Special Forces to Pakistan. News, predictions, interventions.

From a Girardian perspective, this event indicates a furthering of the sacrificial crisis in Islam. To paraphrase Robert Hamerton-Kelly, when the sacrificial mechanism of the primitive Sacred at the heart of a culture begins to lose its "gravitational field" that it uses for social and psychological coherence, it tries to regenerate itself by increasing the number of sacrificial victims or prestige of its victims: genocide or regicide. Here is a case study of the latter.

Should we rejoice somehow that Islam is undergoing a weakening of its culture founding, culture maintaining impetus? Let me just say this: in my opinion the same process is underway at a more advanced stage of the disease in the West. Surprising?

Islam, while well ensconced in the constructs of the primitive Sacred, has constraints built in to itself in its myth, ritual, and prohibitions. We may not agree with them, find them palatable, or like the fact that Jews and Christians (and by extension, democracy) are their Model/Rival, but the culture is still reasonably strong. Procreation is a primary and attainable goal for Muslims.

The West, on the other hand, has been in free-fall for decades. Its descent into the vortex of sacrificial preparation as seen in its sin symptomology -- Girard's "crisis of distinctions" in sexual and psychological promiscuity to name only two -- was hard at work in the 1960s, resulting in the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy ("regicide"). The abortuaries keep churning out the smallest, most silent, and most vulnerable victims in the West ("genocide") that makes Carthage's child sacrificing worship of Baal Hammon and Tanit pale in comparison. Neo-pagans indeed wear very well appointed Saks clothing and Levis.

So regicide has happened today in Pakistan. It happened in Dallas also. For people who follow Christ through His Catholic Church, the "wars and rumors of war" continue unabated. And in this we find hope: we realize that Islamofascism is hardly the only source of sin and suffering for the innocent. Westerners in the culture wars, whether as promulgators of sin symptoms as "virtues" to be normalized, or as players in what Kipling called "the Great Game," are just as culpable. Perhaps more culpable, since we had the precious gift of the Gospel and are throwing it away. Yet the Church is still the rock and salvation of all who cling to Her with faith, hope, and charity, infused with God's grace through the Sacraments.

”Catholic Resistance” must look with honesty, sternness, and boldness at both fronts in the present darkness: the West as it falls painfully into post-modern neo-paganism and Islamofascism.

"I Have a Santa Claus Complex"

Peter Applebome writes on Father Groeschel in the New York Times:

Forty-five years ago, the Rev. Benedict J. Groeschel had a small idea.

Then the chaplain at the Children’s Village for troubled youths in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester County, he decided in December 1962 to take Christmas dinner, other food and a smattering of presents to the impoverished families of five children from the South Bronx and Harlem whom he worked with.

Those families mentioned others — nephews, cousins, friends who were also in need. He thought: Why not? So next year the circle widened a bit. Word spread in the neighborhood. A building superintendent or neighbor would mention other names. Each December the list continued to grow.

Before long, he realized he had begun something that couldn’t be stopped, a Christmas tradition with a regular cast of characters, a past as well as a present, one of those reminders that the more noble notions of Christmas can sometimes creep in amid the seasonal clutter of commerce, bustle and noise.

Pick your religion, the essence of the season is the enormous things that can flow from small ones — a birth among the poor in a humble stable, a day’s worth of oil that somehow burns for eight.

And so, when Father Groeschel and his crew of helpers went to the South Bronx for the 45th year on Saturday, this time with around 700 boxes of food and thousands of presents, the message was not just about the importance of service to the poor. It was also about the huge things that can come from tiny ones.

“As a psychologist, I have to say I have a Santa Claus complex,” Father Groeschel said on Friday, the calm day between the loading and delivering of the food and toys and their distribution. “But I never, ever anticipated that this would become anything like this.” Read all …

What is the origin of the Nativity Scene (creche)?

From the Catholic Educator's Resource Center:

The story of the origin of the Christmas creche rests with the very holy man, St. Francis of Assisi.
In the year 1223, St. Francis, a deacon, was visiting the town of Grecio to celebrate Christmas. Grecio was a small town built on a mountainside overlooking a beautiful valley. The people had cultivated the fertile area with vineyards. St. Francis realized that the chapel of the Franciscan hermitage would be too small to hold the congregation for Midnight Mass. So he found a niche in the rock near the town square and set up the altar. However, this Midnight Mass would be very special, unlike any other Midnight Mass.

read on

The short article ends with: Although the story is long old, the message is clear for us. Our own Nativity scenes which rest under our Christmas trees are a visible reminder of that night when our Savior was born. May we never forget to see in our hearts the little Babe of Bethlehem, who came to save us from sin. We must never forget that the wood of the manger that held Him so securely would one day give way to the wood of the cross. May we too embrace Him with all of our love as did St. Francis. To all of the readers of “Straight Answers,” I wish you a very holy Christmas.

Merry Christmas +

Fr Cantalamesa - 4th Sunday of Advent

There is something that the three readings have in common this Sunday: In each one a birth is spoken of: "Behold the Virgin will conceive and will give birth to a son and he shall be called Emmanuel, God-with-us" (first reading); "Jesus Christ ... was born from the line of David according to the flesh" (second reading); "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about ..." (Gospel). We could call it the "Sunday of births!"

We cannot avoid immediately asking: Why are so few children born in Italy and other Western countries? The principal reason for the scarcity does not have to do with economic factors. From an economic point of view, the births should increase as we move up through the levels of society, or as we move from the global South to the global North; but we know that the contrary is true.

The reason is deeper: It is the lack of hope, and the lack of what hope brings with it, namely, confidence in the future, vital drive, creativity, poetry and joie de vivre. If you wed, it is always an act of faith; bringing a child into the world is always an act of hope. Nothing can be done in the world without hope. We need hope like we need oxygen to breathe. When someone is about to faint we say, "Give them something strong to help them breathe." Something similar should be done for a person who is about to let themselves go, to give up on life: "Give them a reason for hope!" When hope is reborn in a human situation, everything looks different, even if nothing in fact has changed. Hope is a primordial force. It literally works miracles. Read all …

Happy Festivus!

H/T Instapundit

Do You C-17 What I See?

"HEY! You can't park that thing here!"

A friend from years past in my United Methodist pastoring days sent the traditional Christmas Letter along with a card. In it, he, a United Airlines 767 pilot, says that his son who was in my Confirmation classes as a youth, is now flying the C-17 (one pictured above) for the Air Force, is married, and just welcomed his second child into the world. Boy, do I feel old.

Iraq - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Prayers for Dawn

Let us all keep Dawn Eden in our prayers, especially in these waning days of Advent before the Solemnity of the Nativity. Our gal about town -- our latter-day Joan of Arc in the culture wars, really -- posted this announcement that should inspire us to lift her up in our daily intentions.

Spe Gaudentes + Joyful in Hope

Pontifical Household preacher Father Raniero Cantalamessa gives his sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Adventin the presence of Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia:

One cannot abound in hope without the power of the Holy Spirit. There is an African-American spiritual in which one just continually repeats these few words: "There is a balm in Gilead / to make the wounded whole ..." In the Old Testament, Gilead is famous for its perfumes and ointments (cf. Jeremiah 8:22). The song continues, saying: "Sometimes I feel discouraged / and think my work's in vain / But then the Holy Spirit / revives my soul again." For us, Gilead is the Church and the balm that heals is the Holy Spirit. He is the scent that Jesus has left behind, passing through this world. Read all …

Christmas in the Trenches

John McCutcheon relates the amazing events of the Christmas Truce of 1914.

A Christian Christmas in Snowy Iran

William Wedin offers a photo essay and beautiful reflection on our brothers and sisters existing and, seemingly, thriving in a snowy and festive Iran. A must view/read. [HT: Andrew Cusack]

O Holy Night

One year later, and I still think Mariah does the best version of this hymn. She owns it.

John Heard on High

Dreadnought offers a Christmas reflection.