Prayers, Please

A long-time sister-friend from my Protestant pastoring days, Kathi, has felt the pull that Chesterton describes (below) upon a person by the Catholic Church. She has recently accepted a full-time office position at a Catholic Church. Please keep her and her family in prayer as she discerns God's call and will for her. Thanks!

Chesterton: “...Truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion ... The moment men cease to pull against [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair ... When he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside.”

Day - by - Day from the Magnificat

Thanks to Doctors of the Catholic Church

Putting Our Hand to the Plow

For the man of the world, life is but a space to be got over as slowly as possible, by the pleasantest road; but the Christian does not regard it in such a light. He knows that every man is the vicar or Jesus Christ, to labor by the sacrifice of himself for the redemption of humanity; and that in the plan of this great work each has a place, marked out eternally, which he is fee to accept or refuse.

He knows that if he voluntarily deserts this place which Providence offers to him in the ranks of useful beings, it well be transferred to a better than he, and that he him himself will be abandoned to his own guidance in the wide and short way of egotism. These thoughts occupy the Christian to whom his predestination is not yet revealed; and, convinced that the surest way to ascertain it is to desire to accomplish it, whatever it may be, he keeps himself ever ready to accept the appointments of God’s will.

He despises none of the functions necessary for the Christian republic, because in all may be found three things on which depends their real value – the will of God which imposes them, the good which results from their faithful exercise, and the devotedness of heart of which they are confided. He even believes firmly that the less honored are not the less high, and that the crown of the saints never comes more directly from heaven than upon a poor man’s head, grown gray in the accepted humiliation of a laborious calling. Little does it matter to him, then, where God may appoint his place; it suffices for him to know that its is his will.

- Father Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire ( + 1861) was a great Dominican preacher who refounded the Order of Preachers in France after the French Revolution.


He (the Christian) knows that every man is the vicar of Jesus Christ. WOW! From the CCC, "vicar" means one who stands in for or acts for another. I love that and a different way of saying - we are to be Christ for one another.

Evan Almighty - The Meaning of the Flood

"...lot of people didn't get the point of the story. They think it is about God's wrath and anger...they love it when God gets angry... "

"...sounds like an opportunity. If someone prays for patience, do you think that God gives them patience or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If one prays for courage does God give them courage or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for the family to be closer do you think God actually wants them to have warm fuzzy feelings or does He give them opportunities to love each other?" -- Al Mighty

This scene didn't make any the trailers yet I thought it was perfect to play here in our blog.

Two Thumbs Up. Going in, I had a good feeling about this movie yet at the same time I had braced myself for disappointment. We were NOT disappointed as we walked out of the theater with smiles and, and well, joy. Great family movie. Morgan Freeman is great in the role of God.

Ronald Knox on God's Love Incarnate

Ronald Knox (1888-1957) was (another) convert to the Catholic Church, and one for whom C. S. Lewis had great admiration. After their first meeting, they "both afterward expressed their delight with the other. Each was witty, humorous, very widely read; each had an unobtrusive but profound Christian faith. They had much to say to each other, and it was a pity that Monsignor Knox left Oxford and that they had few further opportunities to meet." Lewis went so far as to describe Knox "as possibly the wittiest man in Europe." [Pearce, 269]

Great wit and humor aside, Ronald Knox struggled with doubts himself and never stopped seeking ways to present the faith that would help others, too, in plain and simple ways. Here he finds evidence of Jesus' divinity in the ordinariness of Our Lord's life:

He came, and the world missed the portents of his coming. The stars could not keep the secret, they blurted it out to the wise men, their cronies; the angels could not keep the secret, they sang it to the shepherds over the fields of Bethlehem. But the world, the world of fashion and intelligence, was looking the other way. What, after all, was there for it to see? A baby, crying at its mother's breast; a boy working in a carpenter's shop; a street-corner orator, producing a nine-days wonder among the fisher-folk at Capharnaum; a discredited popular leader, ignominiously put to death; a corpse lying in a tomb -- and this was God! He rose again, but in doing so he showed himself to none but a handful of chosen witnesses; the world looked to find, him, and he was gone.

Would you know that Jesus Christ is divine? Then see how he imitates, in his humanity, the reticence of the God who created the world and left it to forget him, the God who rules the world, yet rules it imperceptibly; and recognize, in the masterpiece of the Incarnation, the touch of the same artist's brush. [Pastoral Sermons, 326-327]

Knox wanted also for persons to begin to comprehend the mysterium tremendum of God's universal love for all, and for each:

You pass through the streets as you go to your daily work, and see all those thousands of your fellow beings -- faces hardened by money-getting, faces impudent with the affectation of vice, faces vacant with frivolity, faces lined with despair -- and it seems to you impossible that each one of those faces, with so little recognition in it of a divine vocation or an eternal destiny, can yet represent a soul for which God cares. And yet he does care, if theology is to mean anything; cares for this one as he cares for Zaccheus, cares for that one as he cared for Mary Magdalen, cares for that one as he cared for the penitent thief.

All these millions of souls, and he cares for each, thirsts for each. And then suddenly you think of your own soul, only one among all those millions, and among all those millions so little distinguishable by really vivid faith, by really generous love, by real intimacy with the things of eternity; can it really be, you ask yourself, that he cares for me? [PS, 303]

I highly recommend Milton Walsh's fine book to you, Ronald Knox as Apologist – Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed. Cheers +

ChesterBelloc Mandate - Distributism 102

The ChesterBelloc Mandate is an online archive of distributist materials. This site was created for the novice or the researcher interested in the subject, whether sympathetic or not. By the by, Bertrand Russell coined the conjoined names of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc -- "ChesterBelloc" -- to refer to the united front these two great friends presented to an obstinate and faithless world of modernity and atheism. (We could use them today; Gilbert and Hilaire, pray for us.)

One may want to begin here for a definition of Distributism.

Piccadilly Circus & Perspicacity

Good catch, Scotland Yard. What ho!

There Are Crowds, and Then There Are Crowds

A post by Mark Daniels that is worth reading all the way through. The power of crowds and the power of prayer.

via Instapundit

Speaking of Catholic Youth Ministry

Check out Life Teen. Here is one of their videos geared toward relationships and the Bible.


Testimony to the power of scripture in the lives of teenagers and young adults. Great video!

Steubenville On The Bayou

Steubenville On The Bayou 2007 begins today, see link. Nothing quite like the inflamed heart of the young. So if you are anywhere in the south and happen to hear shouts of adoration it is probably coming from Steubenville, LA.

Only Muslim Mobs, or ALL Mobs?

All Mobs
"Baron Bodissey" of the Gates of Vienna, looks at Islam from the perspective of how individuals act and react versus groups and mobs.

This is a vitally important area of research, and one that mimetic theory takes a special interest in. I commented in the Baron's post, linked above, but I want to share my comment here as well:

FWP wrote: as harmless as individual Muslims might seem, in any sort of concentration they become mob-minded and dangerous to others.

How true. But why? And is this observation applicable only to Muslims in mobs?

A popularizer of Girard's mimetic theory, Gil Bailie (author of Violence Unveiled) said this about a sad incident in a Japanese school:

What is going on in a situation like that (a Japanese school boy was bullied, stuffed head-first into a rolled up gym mat, and suffocated) is hard to sum up quickly, but I think we could say this about it:

It is a form of social rejuvenation at the expense of the victim; the recreation of the esprit de corps of a community at the expense of a victim, which has both social and psychological effects. It produces both social and psychological conviction. The etymology of that word (conviction) reminds us that it happened with a victim. It is a form – what we would call a largely unconscious one – of regenerating social and psychological stability at the expense of a victim. And the question is, Can we do it otherwise?

Because of the Crucifixion, we can’t do it that way any more. The Crucifixion has made those who it influenced, it has exposed the gears and pulleys of this (sacrificial) system such that it has crippled them. It has awakened an empathy for the victim of such things so that we can’t do it any more. Those people who are even tangentially exposed to the Crucifixion and its cultural effects can’t do it that way any more. That does not mean we won’t keep trying to do it, but our efforts will be increasingly disastrous. [End of Bailie quotation]

The degree to which human are influenced by the Gospel, at the heart of which stands the Cross of Jesus Christ, will impact the degree to which we will be able to live civilly and sanely without resorting to the accusatory, satanic rule of the mob. The degree to which we continue to lean on the ways and means of these satanic powers and principalities will impact the degree to which we can preach in such a way so as to help others move away from the scapegoating mechanics of crowds and power.

We stand at a critical juncture in human history, at which many powers are jostling and crowding for stances of control of the destiny of our cultural destiny. We need to remember that Our Lord spoke in simple parables about the difference little things, small things can make: a little yeast in the bread; a candle burning in the darkness shedding great light in a household; a few talents that are multiplied; grains of wheat that fall on good soil.

Each of our decisions help move and create a niche for God's in-breaking Kingdom if they originate in the grace-infused, supernatural theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. And, like Jesus before the crowd demanding the stoning of the woman taken in adultery [Jn 8,1-11], we, too, can stoop-yet-stay with the victim of the crowd/mob. Maybe -- just maybe -- they'll begin to drop their stones and walk away, too.

"Let the Dead Bury Their Dead"

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Pontifical Household Preacher, speaks to this Sunday's Gospel reading (Luke 9:51-62) using the Holy Father's book here.

The Divine 'No' - Zeffirelli's St Francis

Because Some Images Are Just Too Good to Pass Up

via Hugh Hewitt

See What Can Happen in 40 Days

http://www.40daysforlife.com/splash.cfm

Dramatically reduce abortions in your community... Mobilize hundreds of new pro-life volunteers... Help post-abortive women find healing... Generate prominent pro-life news coverage... Make LIFE the most important issue in elections... Copyright © 2007 40 Days For Life.

Franciscan Peace - Video and Plug for a Retreat

Songs performed by John Michael Talbot.

Beginning in the late 1960s with Mason Proffit pioneering the Country Rock that became the mainstay of modern Country Music, John Michael went on to be part of the more radical founding generation of the newly forming Christian Contemporary Music in 1976.

In addition to John's music, writing, and teaching ministries, he and the Brothers and Sisters of Charity operate an agricultural mission in Nicaragua, provide major assistance to Mercy Corps, maintain a free medical clinic and engage in itinerant ministry locally, and operate The Little Portion Retreat and Training Center. He is also the founder and President of CAM, the Catholic Association of Musicians, an organization dedicated to the support and nurturing of Catholic musicians.

Check out the Little Portions Hermitage - a great place for a retreat, guided or individual. From their website:

The Brothers and Sisters of Charity, a Public Association of the Faithful, was founded by John Michael Talbot in 1980. We are a Catholic-based covenant community of celibate brothers, celibate sisters, and families, called as a
monastic spiritual family into deep live relationships with and in Jesus Christ... We share common work and recreation areas while retaining appropriate separate cloistered areas for each expression...

Most of the work we do at the Little Portion Hermitage consists of gardening, care of livestock, office work, cooking, cleaning and maintenance of the grounds and buildings. Part of our life deals with the manual tasks of making the community as self-sufficient as possible. Each brother or sister may also choose to spend a few hours a week doing some ministry in the nearby towns. Our local outreaches include manning our Little Flower Clinic; ministering at our Little Portion Retreat and Training Center, which is run mostly by local domestic members but with some involvement from the monastic community; and meeting various other needs of the local populations that come to our attention from time to time. Another ministry of ours is giving tours and simply being a loving presence to the hundreds of “pilgrims” who come to visit the hermitage every year.

JMT has a very nice series of instrument music listed under "Pathways" that I really love.

Live Free, Your Majesty?

The Queen Sees New Willis Movie ...
…and tries a new, more personal approach to security.

Tehran Burning

hmmm

Hope something comes of it.

via Pajamas Media

Sin Taking Advantage of the Law - Again

Sacred Scripture, the Word of God, as the Church teaches, is always about the work of freeing people from slavery to sin and death. This slavery, so well thematized in the work of René Girard, is inextricably bound up with Satan whom Our Lord himself designates as a “murderer and a liar from the beginning” [John 8]. I have given a quick rundown of how the primitive sacred lays the sacrificial foundations for fallen, human culture in "Summer Thoughts" (below) and elsewhere (Cf. 'Mimetic Theory' in sidebar), so I won’t go into it again now (Porthos: “Whew!”).

What is too important now not to do is to expose yet another way the primitive sacred has skittered, roach-like out of the light of Christ in our day. Secular materialists are churning out books on atheism that sell like hot-cakes, so appeal to the Divine for approval of violence is silenced in the west. That should be good news, and it is! But ... the satanic primitive sacred slips under a different rock of sanction. What is left if one cannot get approval for one’s brutality from one’s deity? Why, what worked so well in the 20th century, of course: government and law.

It’s an old recipe: Saint Paul pronounced it telling us that sin took advantage of the Law [Romans 7,8].

So, today a German pastor is sentence for merely making a comment against abortion. Massachusetts, a state that used to know something about fighting governmental tyranny, won’t allow people to vote regarding a key element of the new expression of the primitive sacred, literally degenerate sexuality. And the central government of the Sudan allows systematic rape and murder in Darfur (The Koran and the government say it’s okay – double whammy - a billion Muslims can't be wrong).

What do all three of these examples have in common? Sin taking advantage of the Law – something extremely difficult to see as evil, because we depend on law to keep the peace and order of society. But it is happening. Now.

And the sinful same ol’ same ol’ slithers out of sight again. But only for the time being. The Holy Spirit is opening the eyes of many who will not this snake get away with enslaving and murdering again. But what damage, what death, what destruction will take place under the mantle of the Law in the mean time?

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Americans United (?) in Fighting Secular Fundamentalism

This article is not too long so I will wait patiently while you read it before preceding.

Done reading?

I don't get too wrapped up in "pending disaster" predictions, however I think there are a couple interesting aspects to the article that I want to draw out.

Rabbi Lapin is the founder and leader of Toward Tradition - a ground-breaking coalition of Jews, Christians and other Americans united in fighting secular fundamentalism and promoting traditional, faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government, the rule of law, representative democracy, free markets, a strong military, and a moral public culture.

The creation of an alliance of people with differing backgrounds and traditions is something to look at. What is their 'gathering' principle? What model of coming together are they fashioning themselves after? Don't misunderstand, I think in this case they may answers these questions in a very favorable light to our way of thinking. If this is a good working model of 'coming together' then I hope others can copy their method...

And then this following quote needs to be held up for all to meditate on -- and each of us should delve deep inside to touch our own core belief of end times.

"The secular world view will generate an end of time picture of hopelessness and doom and by contrast a Biblical world view of both Jews and Christians shows an end of time picture that, while it may have its turbulent threshold, is a time of some kind of unimaginable solution to all human problems."

Many of us get caught up in "turbulent threshold" paranoia and we don't allow the "unimaginable solutions to all human problems" to wash over those fears. Kind of reminds me of a story Gil Bailie has told:

I remember reading, back in the 80’s when they were building nuclear weapons as fast as they could, there was this woman arrested for pouring blood on a nuclear warhead. She was interviewed while the nuclear build up was going just as fast as it could, the interviewer said, “Don’t you despair? Here you are serving 18 months for that, meanwhile these warheads are coming off the assembly line as fast as they can?” “Oh no,” she said, “the victory over evil was accomplished at the Cross my task is to live in the light of the victory.” Isn't that something?

I think that Rabbi Lapin's remarks should not be taken for granted nor tossed aside. My first question regarding their 'gathering principle' should be examined, particularly from a Girardian perspective to see if at its center there is a victim.

But there is something very special going on when a group can move peacefully beyond the dialogue (initial stage) with members of other faith traditions and venture to the next level of discernment together so that each feels safe to explore their end of times picture. Along this path of exploration a group will find that each faith tradition will be able to help the other, but the absolute key to helping foster a safe meeting place is the holding onto this end of times picture of "unimaginable solutions to all human problems," as Rabbi Lapin puts it -- or as the Christian in the above story says, "the victory having already been won." The Judeo-Christian tradition is vital for this process. And it is a Girardian anthropology that will help ground the group in the knowledge that it is our violence - not God's that has to be undone.

The wrath of God is forgiveness - problem is that we just don't want to believe it.