The Astrolabe and the Cosmic Symphony

Tom Wujec of Autodesk delivers here an awesome TEDtalk on the medieval astrolabe and its use of stereographic projection. Please take a moment to listen to what he has to say about it!



I have been learning about the astrolabe in recent months and enjoying it immensely. The more I learn, the more I wish the astrolabe were still in common use.  There are several reasons why I think the astrolabe is quite possibly one of the coolest pieces of technology ever created:

First, the astrolabe, being an instrument that captures the movement of the sun and stars, provides for the user a window into the very operation of the cosmos as well as (and this is most important) the user's proper place in the cosmic order.  This is to say that it orients the user toward something bigger without giving the user the illusion of domination or control.  Sounds lofty, doesn't it? We're not used to thinking of technology in that way today.  Modern technology tends not to have the same focus or intent and also can create unhealthy dependencies (on electricity, oil, consumption of natural resources, etc...) that further separate us from the function of the natural world in which we live.

Second, the astrolabe is an instrument that has been used devoutly and faithfully for centuries, transcending cultural and religious boundaries. It has allowed different cultures and religious groups, including Jews, Muslims, and Christians, to share practical knowledge with one another.

Finally, the astrolabe is, quite simply, a stunningly beautiful work of art.  Each culture and maker has sought to create these instruments with deep precision and beauty, reflecting a profound respect for the instrument and what it does.

Use it wisely, my friends.

The Hobbit's Guide to the Spiritual Life

My wife and I went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the movie theater yesterday. My wife is a diehard fan of Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien. Unlike CS Lewis, who was influenced by Tolkien, Tolkien's writing is more subtly imbued with deep Catholic themes pertaining to things like beauty, goodness, truth, evil, human and divine will, sin and redemption, and sacrifice and grace. Who could've expected that an author could produce novels so thoroughly Catholic yet able to also be enjoyed by generations of believers and non-believers alike? Growing up, many of my friends who were most devoted to Tolkien were also atheists. I think it's because Tolkien had a genius for telling stories by relating them to the common human experience, very similar to the way in which the ancient myths were communicated and passed down from antiquity.

Br. Patrick Mary Briscoe, OP, of the Eastern Dominican Province has written a good article exploring some of these themes in The Hobbit.

The world of The Hobbit is not a world of random chance where anything goes; in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The Hobbit tells the classic adventure story, the kind of story ordinary people naturally crave. The trademark of such a tale—a story which appeals to every person’s desire for truth, goodness, and beauty—is the dramatic difference between good and evil. In such a story good vanquishes evil, beauty conquers the repulsive, and characters rise to the challenges placed before them to fulfill their destinies. Within such a story, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins does not have to grapple with an existentialist crisis, nor carry the burden of creating his own meaning in light of the perceived absurdity of the world. Far from being an isolated and angst-ridden protagonist from Sartre’s Nausea, Bilbo joins Gandalf and the dwarves on a quest that has every appearance of being directed by providence itself.

Br. Patrick then explores the protagonist Bilbo Baggins and his heroic journey and what his character traits mean for the spiritual life. Read the whole article!

Restoring the Altar Rail

Deacon Greg Kandra, who (I suspect) would not identify himself as a "radical traditionalist", offers some thoughts on the restoration of the altar rail in Catholic churches. He's now in favor of it. Here's what he says:

Okay. I've changed my mind. It's time to bring back the altar rail.

Hey, I'm as surprised as anyone else that I feel this way.

Two years ago, I rhapsodized on the Feast of Corpus Christi on the theology behind standing to receive communion, and defended it. And why not? I've received that way for most of my adult life; I even remember the Latin church's experiment with intinction back in the '70s. Standing and in-the-hand always seemed to me sensible, practical and—with proper catechesis—appropriate.

But now, after several years of standing on the other side of the ciborium—first as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, now as a deacon—and watching what goes on, I've had about enough.

Deacon Greg's thinking on the subject reflects my own. At one time, I was a diehard proponent of standing to receive communion. And I did believe that stripping out altar rails was something the Second Vatican Council wanted us to do (it wasn't). It took several years of service as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion (aka "Eucharistic Minister") for me to change my mind. Today, I find that more churches are coming to the realization that it was a mistake to take the altar rail out of churches in the wake of the Council. There are churches in Houston where I live who actively use their altar rails. There are other churches around the country who are actually installing new altar rails for active use. (See here and here for a couple of examples). I never thought I would live to see a trend to restore the use of some things that were hastily done away with. It may not be on a large scale, but the times are definitely changing in this regard.

Kandra continues:

The fact is, we fumbling humans need external reminders—whether smells and bells, or postures and gestures—to reinforce what we are doing, direct our attention, and make us get over ourselves. Receiving communion is about something above us, and beyond us. It should transcend what we normally do. But what does it say about the state of our worship and our reception of the Eucharist that it has begun to resemble a trip to the DMV?

His observations are spot on. The altar rail is an architectural detail that developed largely in the West, and as this article points out, its roots can be traced back to the way the earliest Christians worshipped; this is a point of commonality with the East. The altar rail serves a deeply symbolic as well as practical purpose in liturgical worship. I'll be exploring some of this in future posts.

Let me conclude with some additional thoughts by Deacon Greg:

Can kneeling to receive on the tongue help alleviate some of this? Well, it can't hurt. And for this reason: to step up to a communion rail, and kneel, and receive on the tongue, is an act of utter and unabashed humility. In that posture to receive the Body of Christ, you become less so that you can then become more. It requires a submission of will and clear knowledge of what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what is about to happen to you.

Frankly, we should not only be humbled, but intimidated enough to ask ourselves if we are really spiritually ready to partake of the sacrament. Kneeling means you can't just go up and receive without knowing how it's properly done. It demands not only a sense of focus and purpose, but also something else, something that has eluded our worship for two generations.

It demands a sense of the sacred. It challenges us to kneel before wonder, and bow before grace. It insists that we not only fully understand what is happening, but that we fully appreciate the breathtaking generosity behind it. It asks us to be mindful of what "Eucharist" really means: thanksgiving.

It's time to bring back the altar rail.

Atheism and Fundamentalism

In recent news, theoretical physicist Peter Higgs (of Higgs boson fame) lashed out at biologist Richard Dawkins, accusing Dawkins of fundamentalism. From the article:

"What Dawkins does too often is to concentrate his attack on fundamentalists. But there are many believers who are just not fundamentalists," Higgs said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. "Fundamentalism is another problem. I mean, Dawkins in a way is almost a fundamentalist himself, of another kind."

He agreed with some of Dawkins' thoughts on the unfortunate consequences that have resulted from religious belief, but he was unhappy with the evolutionary biologist's approach to dealing with believers and said he agreed with those who found Dawkins' approach "embarrassing".

Dawkins has, in the past, rejected this designation, but in some ways, I suspect Dawkins doesn't understand what the accusation means. That leads me to a related point concerning biblical interpretation.

Catholic Mark Shea is fond of saying, "Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist". The reasons underlying this saying are manifold, and while I'm sure it isn't universally applicable to all atheists, I have often found a trend when debating Internet Atheists that they will insist on holding Catholics to an incredibly rigid interpretation of Scripture. It seems that in most cases, their knowledge of the biblical interpretation had not advanced beyond 8th grade Sunday School, if that. Any suggestion that Scripture is not perspicuous, that it requires an authoritative reading that actually may encompass many levels of interpretation, in consort with an equally authoritative Tradition going back (at least) 2000 years, is simply brushed aside as being irrelevant. For them, it's nothing compared to, as one thread commenter put it, the "idiosyncratic beliefs of Bill and Ted's Excellent Bible Shack, whose teachings go back to last Tuesday."

Mass is Boring?

Love the Holy Mass!

Courtesy of CatholicMemes.com

Pro Life Ireland

Ireland's pro-life legal system has been in the news lately as there have been attempts in recent weeks to change the law. Much of this was motivated by the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar. Pro-life youth, led (unsurprisingly) by young women, are fighting back to keep Ireland abortion free and ensure that all women have the best medical care possible.

St. Ambrose: to the Sacred Altar of Christ!

(... a repost from July, 2007...)



From St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries, Ch. VIII, circa 387 A.D.:

Fresh from the [baptismal] waters and resplendent in these garments, God's holy people hasten to the altar of Christ, saying:

I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.

They have sloughed off the old skin of error, their youth renewed like an eagle's, and they make haste to approach that heavenly banquet. They come and, seeing the sacred altar prepared, cry out:

You have prepared a table in my sight.

David puts these words into their mouths:

The Lord is my shepherd and nothing will be lacking to me. He has set me down there in a place of pasture. He has brought me beside refreshing water.

Further on, we read:

For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I shall not be afraid of evils, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff have given me comfort. You have prepared in my sight a table against those who afflict me. You have made my head rich in oil, and your cup, which exhilarates, how excellent it is.

... It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers and they were fed with daily food from heaven. And so it is written:

Man ate the bread of angels.

Yet those who ate that bread all died in the desert. But the food that you receive, that living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it will never die, for it is the body of Christ.

Consider now which is the more excellent: the bread of angels or the flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body that gives life. The first was manna from heaven, the second is above the heavens. One was of heaven, the other is of the Lord of the heavens; one subject to corruption if it was kept till the morrow, the other free from all corruption, for if anyone tastes of it with reverence he will be incapable of corruption. For our fathers, water flowed from the rock; for you, blood flows from Christ. Water satisfied their thirst for a time; blood cleanses you for ever. The Jew drinks and still thirsts, but when you drink you will be incapable of thirst. What happened in symbol is now fulfilled in reality.

If what you marvel at is a shadow, how great is the reality whose very shadow you marvel at. Listen to this, which shows that what happened in the time of our fathers was but a shadow.

They drank, it is written, from the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. All this took place as a symbol for us.

You know now what is more excellent: light is preferable to its shadow, reality to its symbol, the body of the Giver to the manna he gave from heaven.

What a gift we have in Christ!

TEDx Iconography

Classically trained iconographer, Lynette Hull, draws fascinating parallels between contemporary and ancient "icons" in this TEDx talk:

The Reason for the Season: Theosis

A repost of something I wrote a couple of years ago that can never be repeated enough. Why is the fullness of the incarnation of God becoming flesh important?

Eric Sammons has a fine post about deification ("theosis" in the East) as being the whole point of Christmas.  St. Peter asserts (2 Peter 1:4) that in Jesus Christ, God has enabled us to become "partakers in the divine nature".  That is why God assumed our humanity in Jesus Christ: so that we might come to share in His divinity.  Indeed, through grace via the sacramental life, God makes us sharers in His own divine life.  We receive divine sonship, becoming God's own sons and daughters.  The fullness of salvation will entail being completely united to Him.  Eric writes, quoting from the Catechism:

The Son of God shares in our human nature so that we can share in his divine nature. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, drawing from Scripture and the Catholic Tradition, emphasizes this connection between God becoming man and our being made like God:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4): “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939) “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” (St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4) (CCC 460)

Too often we look at Heaven as just a really great earth: we eat whatever we want, we hang out with whoever we want and we never get sick or hurt. But Heaven is less about what we do and more about what we become. When we enter into Heaven we are transformed into a new creation: while keeping our human nature we participate in the divine nature.

Well said.  As Eric has said, we must not read the wrong idea into this notion of deification. It is not a confusion of humanity and divinity, such as one might find in the Eastern non-Christian religions. It is also not as Mormons might suggest: We do not become beings with our own divine nature or ability. What we become is solely dependent upon the one true God, for the divine life in which we partake is His. I am reminded of one of the sermons of one of my favorite Dominican mystics, Johannes Tauler, who preached:

What God has in himself by nature, that he now imparts to the soul by grace, the divine being, unnamed and without form or manner of existence that we can express.  And now everything that is done in that soul God himself does, acting, knowing, loving, praising, enjoying, all of which the soul has and does as if it were a passive instrument of God's activity.  One can no more speak of this state clearly than he can speak clearly of the divine life itself.  To men and angels it is far too high for expression.

I wish you all a very blessed Christmas season!

The Problem of Scientism

Fr. Robert Barron does a great job briefly explaining the proper (and good) role of science with respect to contingent realities as well as the existence of God. Science must be pursued because our ability to reason goes hand-in-hand with the intelligibility that imbues the natural world. However, science and the scientific method cannot be used to evaluate qualitatively different types of reality. This is the error of Scientism, and it baffles me that seemingly intelligent and reasonable people keep making this mistake.

Father of the Big Bang

The BBC has a story on Fr. Georges Lemaitre and his theory of the Big Bang.

Few theories could claim to have a more fundamental status than Big Bang Theory. This is now humanity's best attempt at explaining how we got here: A Theory of Everything. This much is widely known and Big Bang Theory is now one of the most recognisable scientific brands in the world. What's less well known is that the man who first proposed the theory was not only an accomplished physicist, he was also a Catholic priest. Father Georges Lemaitre wore his clerical collar while teaching physics, and not at Oxford, Cambridge or MIT but at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. It was this unassuming Catholic priest in an academic backwater who has changed the way we look at the origins of the universe. His story also challenges the assumption that science and religion are always in conflict. William Crawley introduces us to the "Father" of the Big Bang.

Listen to the actual story at BBC.

SpaceX Dragon Highlight Reel

From the Deeps of Time blog:

SpaceX has released a “highlight reel” of its recent mission to the International Space Station. On May 25th, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule became the first private spacecraft to enter orbit and dock to the International Space Station, transferring cargo and proving the concept of commercial space operation in conjunction with the ISS platform in orbit. Now, the company has produced and released a video showing the key events of that mission.

Key events in the video include:

May 22: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft into orbit from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
May 23: Dragon orbited Earth as it traveled toward the International Space Station.
May 24: Dragon’s sensors and flight systems were subjected to a series of tests to determine if the vehicle was ready to attach to the space station.
May 25: NASA gave Dragon the GO to attempt berthing with the station. Dragon approached. It was successfully captured by the station’s robotic arm.
May 26: US astronaut Don Pettit opened Dragon’s hatch and the astronauts entered.
May 31: After six days at the International Space Station, Dragon departed for its return to Earth, carrying a load of cargo for NASA. SpaceX completed its historic mission when Dragon splashed down safely in the Pacific.

NFP Week at St. Mark's

Last week, the pastor of my former university parish of St. Mark's (Santa Barbara, CA) posted a blog post encouraging parishioners to read and study Humanae Vitae:

This week, the Catholic Church in the United States celebrates NFP week, or Natural Family Panning Week. Lately, we have heard much about artificial contraception due to the federal government’s HHS new “contraceptive mandate.” This new mandate requires all employers to pay for contraceptive coverage, even abortifacient chemical contraceptives. Not all Catholic realize what is at stake regarding the HHS mandate and their religious freedom. Yes, religious liberty is indeed at stake. But, what is more alarming to me is that many within our Church do not even stop to consider why the Catholic Church has steadfastly maintained its position on human life and the immorality of artificial means of contraception. As we celebrate Natural Family Planning Awareness week, let’s take some time to explore and perhaps invite others to consider the why factor and the great YES of Church teaching on the protection of all human life and of the Sacrament of Marriage.

This Wednesday, we celebrate the 44th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope Paul VI’s seminal encyclical letter Humanae Vitae or “On Human Life.” I invite our parishioners to read or re-read this document as a starting point to reconsider the Church’s teaching on the beauty and sanctity of human life.

Hooray for St. Mark's! Today, St. Mark's offers regular confession, eucharistic adoration (which I tried and failed to establish when I was there), and they even have a Latin Schola Cantorum.

The Higgs Boson and Harmony in Nature

In an interview on Vatican Radio, Fr. Gabriele Gionti, a Jesuit theoretical physicist with the Vatican Observatory, comments on the discovery of the Higgs boson:

“The fact that we see this harmony in nature, like the harmony that is in the Higgs particle, the fact that we now have a mechanism and a particle that is able to explain how to give mass to other particles, is not against the fact hat there is a benevolent God who created the Universe”, says Theoretical Physicist and Italian Jesuit Fr. Gabriele Gionti of the Vatican Observatory.

Two CERN laboratories, working independently of each other to avoid bias, found the new particle in the mass region of around 125-126 Gigaelectronvolts (GeV). According to Fr. Gionti: “this discovery could mean the Standard Model is correct”. This is a theory that identifies the building blocks for matter and the particles that convey fundamental forces. The Higgs boson is believed to exist in an invisible, ubiquitous field created by the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. When some particles encounter the Higgs, they slow down and acquire mass, according to the theory. Others, such as particles of light, encounter no obstacle.

Read/Listen to the interview.

Distributism in 10 minutes

In his college level speech class, Colin Kovarik gave a rather brilliant introduction to Distributist economics:

Naturally, Kovarik only scratches the surface, there is so much that can be gleaned from this. What I like about it is that this is a perfectly grass roots way to share and discuss Distributist ideas in an environment in which there can be and ought to be a free exchange of ideas.

Faith and Reason, Revisited

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 159:

Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.

All venerable disciplines of science are simply a recognition that the universe and the natural world are intelligible and rational.

A Lutheran Pastor Looks at Humanae Vitae

Rev. Russell E. Saltzman writes in First Things magazine a reflection on Pope Paul VI's extraordinary encyclical, Humanae Vitae:

Lutherans—before the dichotomous split between classicists and progressives—once had a rich pastoral and theological perspective on marriage. From a certain reading of the Lutheran confessions, marriage may be regarded as a sacrament, though not cited among the chief sacraments. It was viewed as a Christian vocation initiated in baptism, as calling and gift and obligation. The married couple sought to do in their home what the Church seeks to do in the world: Make the reality of redemption evident in the lives they touch and nurture. As I read Humanae Vitae, that’s not far from Paul VI.

Read the whole thing.

Collect for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today, our pastor preached on the theology expressed by rich Collect for today's liturgy (13th Sunday in Ordinary Time). If you recall, the Collect was formerly referred to as the "Opening Prayer" in the former translation of the missal. This particular prayer is a beautiful reflection on Truth vs. Error and Light vs. Darkness; the light of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which transforms us by grace, making us adopted sons and daughters of God versus the stifling darkness of error when we separate ourselves from that Truth:

O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.

Compare this new translation of the prayer with the older translation that we used to pray:

Father, you call your children to walk in the light of Christ. Free us from darkness and keep us in the radiance of your truth.

Certainly, the older translation is technically true, okay, but it reads like something that has been gutted of its theological profundity. And, of course, the omission of that striking word, error.

Creation and Humility

Great article from the Dominicana blog:

If you are like me and grew up attending religious education classes of some sort, you may have come across the line, “If God stopped thinking about you at any instant, you would immediately disappear; you would cease to exist.” What a terrifying thought to offer the inquisitive mind of a child! The suggestion seems to be that, on occasion, either through forgetfulness or malice, God annihilates some unfortunate person or persons. But this is not true; God doesn’t even annihilate demons or the damned, much less unsuspecting third graders.

Of course, the remark is well meant, and, properly understood, it is a vivid reminder of a profound metaphysical truth, namely, that we all depend on God for both our coming to be and our preservation in being. Indeed, meditating on this truth can help us to grow in wisdom and humility, whether we are third graders or thirty-somethings.

For some reason, it seems easy for people to accept the notion that they have their origin in God, but the fact that they are preserved in existence by God at every moment never crosses their minds. The key idea here is that God’s act of creation is not a one-time event, but rather extends through time. Since God is universal cause of all things, anything that exists not only has its origin in God, but also its conservation in being. God alone exists necessarily; God alone cannot not exist. All other beings exist contingently; they might not have existed, and they depend upon God, the Necessary Being, for their continuance in existence.

Continue reading...

Excommunication: A Restorative Measure

Over at the National Catholic Register, Dominican Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P., discusses the history of excommunication and its effectiveness as a restorative measure in the life of the church today.

The Church takes this extreme measure only after all other efforts to correct a person have failed. It should not be treated lightly. Some have viewed it as a way to bring errant Catholics (including Catholic politicians) into line. Though its intent is always to restore the offenders to truth and communion, its extreme nature often makes it unlikely that such a thing may occur. Failing reconciliation, excommunication can serve as a clear statement to the faithful of the serious nature of our moral doctrine.

Read the whole article.

It's Okay to Oppose Heresy

Fr. Robert Barron addresses a very sticky topic that is so very relevant today:


The fact is that we all have a right to act, debate, and indeed vote according to our conscience, which may be (and ought to be) informed by our religious beliefs. It's OK in the United States of America to stand for something with conviction, even if that conviction is religiously motivated. Those who suggest otherwise are simply being disingenuous. They may disagree with the ideas we express, but they can't disagree with the principle upon which we act. This is why we have a public square in which questions can be argued and debated.

Wicked Prayer Book For Sale

The blog of Loome Theological Booksellers reports that they have for sale an edition of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1638) known as the "Wicked Prayer Book". This is because of a typographical error in Psalm 37:29 which declares, “The righteous shall be punished”, as seen here:

Purchase the book for $1500.00 at Loome!

Yves Congar and Vatican II

I liked this article by Fr. Robert Barron about Cardinal Yves Congar's experience of the Second Vatican Council:

One of the most theologically fascinating and just plain entertaining books I've read in a long time is Yves Congar's My Journal of the Council.

Catholics of a certain age will recognize the name, but I'm afraid that most Catholics under the age of 50 might be entirely unaware of the massive contribution made by Congar, a Dominican priest and certainly one of the three or four most important Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. After a tumultuous intellectual career, during which he was, by turns, lionized, vilified, exiled and silenced, Congar found himself, at the age of 58, a peritus or theological expert at the Second Vatican Council...

During the entire course of the Council, from October 1962 to December 1965, Congar kept a meticulous journal of the proceedings, which includes not only detailed accounts of the interventions by various bishops and Cardinals, but also extremely perceptive commentaries on the key personalities and the main theological currents of the Council. Several times as I read through the journal, I laughed out loud at Congar's pointed assessments of some of the players: "a bore," "useless," "talks too much." But what most comes through is -- if I can risk employing an overused and ambiguous phrase -- "the spirit of the Council," by which I mean those seminal ideas and attitudes that found expression in the discussions, debates and texts of Vatican II.

In the pages of Congar's journal we hear of a church that should be more evangelical and open to the Word of God, of the dangers of clerical triumphalism, of the universal call to holiness, of a liturgy that awakens the active participation of the faithful, of the need for the church to engage the modern world, etc. Attending meeting after meeting and engaging in endless conversations with bishops and theologians, Congar was indefatigably propagating these ideas, which we now take to be commonplace and the permanent achievement of Vatican II.

Read the whole thing!

The Pope's Electric Car

A new car for "The Green Pope":


Hopefully an electric popemobile will be in the near future.

Also, for further reading for those interested in the pope's environmental concerns, check out this article from Dr. Jeff Mirus at CatholicCulture.org. The Green Pope's Dilemma:

... The right view of environmentalism both derives from and nourishes a proper vision of the human person. Pope Benedict made precisely this point in his great social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. In the most general terms, his argument is as follows:

The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation. (48)

Thus the Pope stresses that we must guard against two errors:

Nature is greater than man: The neo-pantheistic attitude which finds a kind of salvation in nature is misguided because the human person has a supernatural destiny which nature is destined to help him to achieve.

Nature is raw material to be manipulated: Nature “is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a ‘grammar’ which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation.” Without this understanding, we do violence to all of nature, including the nature of man himself.

But these two mistakes are culturally systemic. Therefore, the dilemma faced by Pope Benedict—who is commonly nicknamed the “green” pope for his interest in environmental stewardship—is how to communicate a constructive attitude toward both man and nature without having every environmental discussion co-opted either by the pantheists or the technocrats.

Read the whole article.

Discovery at the Mamertino Jail in Rome

Interesting brief video from Rome Reports on the Mamertino jail in Rome. The Mamertino jail is where, according to tradition, the apostles Peter and Paul were imprisoned while in Rome. Artwork and an underground water spring have been discovered there yielding some interesting clues to the history of the place:


The report suggests:

Given this discovery [of the water spring], there is greater probability that this was the place where St. Peter was imprisoned. According to Christian tradition, his jailors became disciples and he baptized them with water from a well that emerged after making the sign of the cross on the ground.

This same water helped create these caverns located more than 12 feet underground in a place difficult to bear..

The Real Vatican II Liturgical Reform

Great featurette from CNS Vatican Report featuring Benedictine Fr. Jeremy Driscoll clearly up a few of the myths regarding the liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council:


It never ceases to amaze me how much confusion there is about the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. I knew a Ph.D. student once who was convinced that Vatican II "hadn't been implemented" because churches still had kneelers! Clearly this student had never bothered to study what the Council actually taught with regard to the liturgy. Of course, all of the conciliar documents are online. Why don't people just read the Council's document on liturgical reform, Sacrosanctum Concilium? It is manifestly clear to me that Pope Benedict XVI is the one who is actually bringing about the full blossoming of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council.

Memories of RMS Queen Mary

Cyril on the Divine Nature

From a commentary on the gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop (d. 444 AD).
(Lib. 11, 11: PG 74, 559-562)

There is also another way of showing that we are made one by sharing in the Holy Spirit. If we have given up our worldly way of life and submitted once for all to the laws of the Spirit, it must surely be obvious to everyone that by repudiating, in a sense, our own life, and taking on the supernatural likeness of the Holy Spirit, who is united to us, our nature is transformed so that we are no longer merely men, but also sons of God, spiritual men, by reason of the share we have received in the divine nature. We are all one, therefore, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are in mind and holiness, we are one through our communion in the sacred flesh of Christ, and through our sharing in the one Holy Spirit.

Corpus Christi in Rome

A brief video of the solemn procession for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI. This is quite a procession!

As Venus Transits the Sun

As Venus transits the Sun, June 5th, 2012
Image credit NASA/JAXA/Lockheed-Martin

Sometimes it is as though the praise of God filled with world; as if it went out to and enfolded all creation, as for instance in the Psalms of creation or in the response which those songs have found in the hearts of God-enraptured people such as St. Francis of Assisi. … This is not a fairy-tale approach to nature in which the sun and the moon, the trees, and so forth are personalized and given voices with which to sing the praise of God; it is an inspired poetic rendering of the idea that the sun and the moon and all created things are a mirror of God’s glory because, as His creation, they reflect something of His nature. In so doing, they praise Him by their very existence. They themselves know nothing of it, but man does; he can think himself into their silent song of praise; he can voice it on their behalf, offer it up to God and thus act as the spokesman of creation.

- Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying

Courtesy of the Deeps of Time blog...

Mystical Poetry Contest

Pretty neat! From CNA. As I've affirmed before, mystical theology is best expressed through poetry and prayer. If you're so inclined!

A Madrid-based Catholic foundation has launched its 32nd annual contest for the Fernando Rielo Worldwide Prize for Mystical Poetry.

The theme of the poems “should express the spiritual values of man in their deepest religious significance,” said contest organizers.

Fernando Rielo, a Spaniard who lived from 1923-2004, was a mystical poet, philosopher, author, and metaphysician. He also founded religious congregation in 1959 known as the Idente Missionaries of Christ the Redeemer.

The rules of the contest, which are posted on the foundation’s website, allow the submission of unpublished poems in Spanish or English, or translated into one of the two languages. The winner of the contest will receive a cash award of seven thousand euros, approximately $8,800, and a special publication of his or her poem.

Submissions must include a cover including the title of the work, the name of the author, his or her address, email and telephone number. The jury may also select a group of submitted poems to be included in a collection published by the foundation.

The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2012. For more information, visit: www.rielo.com.

Un Corrido de Los Cristeros: El martes me fusilan

A ballad of the Cristeros, sung by Vincente Fernandez (in honor of those who died defending religious freedom in Mexico during the Mexican Cristero War and persecution of the Catholic Church by the Mexican revolutionary government in the 1920s.



English translation of the lyrics:

At six on Tuesday morning,
they will shoot me
for believing in the eternal God
and the great Lady of Guadalupe.

A holy card of Jesus
they found in my sombrero;
Thus, I was sentenced to die
because I am a Cristero.

And for this I will be shot,
at six on Tuesday morning.
My useless body, they will end
But never, never my soul will they bend.

I'd tell my tormentors
that I wanted to be crucified;
And once crucified
Ask them to use their rifles.

Goodbye sierras of Jalisco,
Michoacan and Guanajuato,
where the government fought
but always left running away.

They will grab me, kneeling,
while worshiping Jesus Christ.
They know that there will be no defense
In this blessed site.

I am a peasant by inheritance,
by birth, Jalisciense;
I have no other God than Christ
For He gave me my life.

By killing me, they will not kill
my belief in the eternal God;
Many die in the fight
but many others are born to fight.

That's why they'll shoot me
at six on Tuesday morning.

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

Rome's Marian Street Shrines

These simple Marian shrines are scattered throughout the city of Rome, some in the oddest of places. We walked past a few of them when we were in Rome a year and a half ago.

Stalin? Really?

Christopher Blosser observes that some in the Occupy movements sport T-shirts with famous Communist leaders, including mass murderer Joseph Stalin. When I was in college, there were a few people who self-identified as communists, but they were pretty easily brushed off. However, in 2012, there are more people in the country who self-identify as socialists and communists, and I find that prospect puzzling and frightening. It is certainly good that many more of us today are able to see the flaws and abuses of unrestricted capitalism, but far from countering these abuses, socialism is really the flip-side of the same oppressive coin. And communism, by far, is a great evil. I have no words to describe those who hail Joseph Stalin as their personal folk hero. Those who do not listen to history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Are there alternatives to capitalism and socialism? Yes. Among them, practical Distributism.

X Files Spirituality?

The ever illustrious Mark Shea recently wrote a very good post criticizing the popular Catholic site Spirit Daily. Spirit Daily is so obsessed with esoteric spirituality, constantly seeking after alleged apparitions and secret apocalyptic prophecies, that the essentials of the Catholic faith fall by the wayside. This has become so bad that the website even recently featured a story with the following headline: "GRIPPING NEW BOOK DETAILS ALLEGED APPARITIONS AND PROPHECIES OF PAGAN BOY IN DEEP AFRICA". Shea writes (emphasis mine):

the Church discourages us from seeking out pagan prophets because they are, you know, pagan. (Not that God cannot reveal himself to a pagan, of course. But when he does so it is to refer the pagan to Jesus Christ in his Church–NOT TO SEND BELIEVERS IN JESUS CHRIST RUNNING AFTER PAGAN PROPHETS.) But, Spirit Daily being Spirit Daily, the emphasis is not so much on the common sense teaching of the magisterial Church as it is on a sort of indiscriminate hankering for the spooky, the signs and wonders of whatever dubious provenance, and the murky shadowy area of what I call “X Files spirituality”.

"X Files Spirituality" - I love that description. Shea goes on:

It’s not bad to acknowledge [Catholic mysticism], particularly in an age where both hyper-rationalists *and* some species of Catholic are deeply hostile to the mystical element of the faith. But there is a right and a wrong way to be open to the mystical and there is something unhealthy about cultivating a habit of running after this stuff as the central part of your spiritual diet while exercising what is often an astonishingly bad sense of discernment. God calls us to grow up into mature Christians who are formed by the ordinary common life, worship and teaching of Christ in his Church. When your *primary* diet of spiritual things comes not from the ordinary magisterial teaching of the Church, the liturgy, the virtues, and the works of mercy, but from the latest rumor about what some dodgy apparition like Medjugorje says (and Spirit Daily is *huge* on Medjugorje and other dodgy unapproved “apparitions”) or what some alleged apparition to some alleged “pagan prophet” in “deep Africa’ says, you are treading on very thin ice. What often happens in such cases is that the “seer” or the apparition or the “sign” winds up taking the place of the Church’s teaching, with typically pernicious results.

Shea is absolutely right. A few months ago, I wrote about our pilgrimage to Fatima (here and here) and how different the atmosphere in Fatima is from all of the hype about the mysterious Third Secret or ridiculous accusations on the part of some that Pope Benedict XVI, Bl. John Paul II, and others, lied to cover it up. These folks are always on the search for the latest in Catholic esoterica, running after the most ludicrous rumors, and willingly and knowingly tossing the beautiful and powerful teachings of our Catholic Faith into the trash-bin. This is not the sign of a mature faith in Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of history.

This is not to say that God does not work miracles or signs and wonders, but these things are done so that we might believe and develop a mature faith. John 20:24-29:

Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.