The Dark Night

Ad vesperum demoratur fletus, ad matutinum laetitia. Psalm 30

On How to Cultivate Virtue

Those who wish to live a spiritual life must not fancy that they can make progress in virtue unless they first apply themselves to gaining peace of mind and conscience. Jesus christ loves to rest in a pure and tranquil conscience, a fact that is easy to understand.

-Bl. Henry Suso, O.P.

Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart



So I finally had an opportunity to visit Houston's marvelous new Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart today. My wife had already seen it twice for various activities. We were there today for the archdiocesan mass for the Feast of St. Josemaría Escrivá. If there are any of y'all who haven't visited it yet, I would encourage you to check it out!

From the co-cathedral website:

A cathedral is the principal church where the bishop presides over a diocese and celebrates worship with and for the Christian community. As such, the diocesan cathedral is the mother Church of the entire diocese. The word cathedral is derived from the fact that this church houses the bishop’s chair - the cathedra - the symbol of the bishop’s teaching authority in the diocese.

The new Co-Cathedral of Galveston-Houston is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, symbolizing the invitation to experience His love through the mystery of His death and resurrection. To all, His invitation is to enter into a personal relationship with Him, to be nourished with holy presence.

In the architectural design of our new co-cathedral, one can find great meaning and inspiration. The height of the structure is a powerful image of transcendence – a reminder for us to fix our gaze on heaven, where our spirits can rise above their earthly existence and be nourished in the hope of God’s love for humanity. The ascending height of the Co-Cathedral answers our human longing to be in communion with God who from on high showers His love and peace upon us. The anchoring weight of stone and marble signifies God’s imminence, His presence and work here on earth.

I found the cathedral to be quite sublime. Traditional, yet modern. Not quite like the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles :)

Last week, we also had a chance to visit the newly renovated Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, CA. I found that to be quite impressive.

St. Dominic and the Year of St. Paul

The Holy Father has just now opened the Pauline Year on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The Dominican Nuns over at Moniales OP naturally celebrate the significance of this for all Dominicans based on the history of the Order of Preachers:

The Holy Father's decision to celebrate the 2000th birthday of St. Paul with a Jubilee Year can only be met with joy by Dominicans! Both St. Peter and Paul (can anyone separate them?) played a special part in the founding of the Order of Preachers. As St. Dominic was beginning the Order he had the following vision:

Once when the servant of God, Dominic, was at Rome in the Basilica of St. Peter, where he was praying fervently in God's sight for the preservation and growth of his Order, which the right hand of God had raised up through him, he saw the glorious princes, Peter and Paul, coming toward him in a sudden vision wrought by the power of God. Peter, who was first, seemed to be handing him a staff, and Paul a book. Then they spoke these words: "Go and preach, because you have been chosen by God for this work." And then, in a moment of time, he seemed to see all his children dispersed through the world and going two by two preaching the word of God to the people.

Later, Pope Innocent III when hesitating to give approval to this new Order, had a vision or a dream of St. Dominic holding up the Lateran Basilica (the official Basilica of the Pope). This vision is also attributed to St. Francis and is more commonly known. In any event, statues of these 2 great saints take their place on either side of St. Peter's Square!

St. Josemaría Escrivá and the Early Church

Mike Aquilina has some good observations, echoed from a post from last year, about the influence of the Fathers of the Early Church on St. Josemaría Escrivá and the spirituality of Opus Dei.

His is a decidedly modern spirit, but he conceived it as a retrieval of the way of the “early Christians” (his preferred term). Opus Dei was, he said, “as old as the Gospel and, like the Gospel, ever new.” He often cited the authority of the Church Fathers. A quick scan of his books online at EscrivaWorks yields many passages from Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, Ambrose, Justin Martyr, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Jerome, lots and lots from John Chrysostom and Gregory the Great, and dozens from Augustine.

These early Christians were not mere ornaments on his pet project. His vocation was itself a return to the sources — the pre-Nicene sources of the life and labor of ordinary, faithful Christians. The journalist John L. Allen, in his book on Opus Dei, described just how radical St. Josemaria’s vision was: “The idea of priests and laity, men and women, all part of one organic whole, sharing the same vocation and carrying out the same apostolic tasks, has not been part of the Catholic tradition, at least since the early centuries.”

Remembering St. Josemaría Escrivá, Founder of Opus Dei

Today we observe the memorial of St. Josemaría Escrivá, a man who has helped me enormously in my everyday spiritual life. He preached a point the world today most certainly needs to hear, a point brought home and emphasized in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council: that the call to holiness is universal and applicable to every human being, you and me. And it is achievable by way of the unfolding of God's grace in the ordinary work of our everyday lives.

From Passionately Loving the World:

On the contrary, you must understand now, more clearly, that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.

St. Josemaría Escrivá taught there is something divine in the ordinary human activities of our day, and in the ordinary human connections we make with each other. And grace helps us to see and to live...

From Christ Is Passing By:

Let's not deceive ourselves: in our life we will find vigor and victory and depression and defeat. This has always been true of the earthly pilgrimage of Christians, even of those we venerate on the altars. Don't you remember Peter, Augustine, and Francis? I have never liked biographies of saints which naively -- but also with a lack of sound doctrine -- present their deeds as if they had been confirmed in grace from birth. No. The true life stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray.

Pray for us, St. Josemaría Escrivá.

Born at 24 weeks...

I was in California last week, and during our time there, we attended a rally on the steps of the Capitol Building in Sacramento to protest the 33 million in state taxpayer money that is included in the state budget for abortion services. We rallied for this funding to instead be used in a way that actually helps women, children, the poor, the jobless, the homeless, etc.

During the rally, a man spoke with excitement about how, in 1984, his child was born prematurely at 24 weeks (6 months) and survived. His child was only 2.1 lbs and is now 24 years old.

I had read about children being born as early as 20 weeks and surviving, but keep in mind that the law will allow you to terminate the life of your child well beyond 20 or even 24 weeks in the womb. Our definition of "viability" is changing everyday, thanks to advancements in medicine and advancements within the field of fetology.

Are you listening, Barack Obama?

Let your prayer come from a humble heart...

St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, from his treatise On the Lord's Prayer (written 252 AD) from the Office of Readings for Sunday, June 15th:

Let our speech and our petition be kept under discipline when we pray, and let us preserve quietness and modesty – for, remember, we are standing in God’s sight. We must please God’s eyes both with the movements of our body and with the way we use our voices. For just as a shameless man will be noisy with his cries, so it is fitting for the modest to pray in a moderate way.

Furthermore, the Lord has taught us to pray in secret, in hidden and remote places, in our own bed-chambers – and this is most suitable for faith, since it shows us that God is everywhere and hears and sees everything, and in the fulness of his majesty is present even in hidden and secret places, as it is written I am a God close at hand and not a God far off. If a man hides himself in secret places, will I not see him? Do I not fill the whole of heaven and earth?, and, again, The eyes of God are everywhere, they see good and evil alike.

When we meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with God’s priest, we should remember our modesty and discipline, not to broadcast our prayers at the tops of our voices, nor to throw before God, with undisciplined long-windedness, a petition that would be better made with more modesty: for after all God does not listen to the voice but to the heart, and he who sees our thoughts should not be pestered by our voices, as the Lord proves when he says: Why do you think evil in your hearts? – or again, All the churches shall know that it is I who test your motives and your thoughts.

In the first book of the Kings, Hannah, who is a type of the Church, observes that she prays to God not with loud petitions but silently and modestly within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with hidden prayer but with manifest faith. She spoke not with her voice but with her heart, because she knew that that is how God hears, and she received what she sought because she asked for it with belief. The divine Scripture asserts this when it says: She spoke in her heart, and her lips moved, and her voice was not audible; and God listened to her. And we read in the Psalms: Speak in your hearts and in your beds, and be pierced. Again, the Holy Spirit teaches the same things through Jeremiah, saying: But it is in the heart that you should be worshipped, O Lord.

Beloved brethren, let the worshipper not forget how the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the temple – not with his eyes boldly raised up to heaven, nor with hands held up in pride; but beating his breast and confessing the sins within, he implored the help of the divine mercy. While the Pharisee was pleased with himself, it was the publican who deserved to be sanctified, since he placed his hope of salvation not in his confidence of innocence – since no-one is innocent – but he prayed, humbly confessing his sins, and he who pardons the humble heard his prayer.

3000 Assyrians welcomed into Full Communion

This has been on a few blogs. Courtesy of Mike Aquilina:

3,000 Assyrians Received into the Catholic Church

The Chaldean Catholic Diocese of St. Peter and Paul has formally received into its fold those members of the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese who, under the leadership of Mar Bawai Soro (pictured above), had asked to be reconciled with the Catholic Church last January 17, 2008.

One bishop (Mar Bawai himself), six priests, 30+ deacons and subdeacons and an estimated 3,000 faithful were received into full communion during liturgical celebrations for the Feast of Pentecost. The announcement by the Chaldean Catholic Church can be found here.

Mar Bawai Soro has long advocated the Primacy of the See of Rome. On November 2, 2005, he presented to the Synod of Bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East (of which he was a bishop at that time) a paper entitled "The Position of the Church of the East Theological Tradition on the Questions of Church Unity and Full Communion"...

Five days later, Mar Bawai was suspended by the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church. The story behind this, as well as the full text of the paper on papal primacy that Mar Bawai had presented to the Synod, can be found here.

Following upon his suspension, Mar Bawai and the clergy and faithful who had remained loyal to him formed the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese, then proceeded to draw ever closer to the Catholic Church through the Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate. How fitting that they finally came home on Pentecost Sunday. Deo Gratias!

The Assyrian Church of the East is linked to the Nestorian Schism in 431 AD after the Council of Ephesus. There has been a lot of development over the last few years between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Church of Rome.

The Fellowship of the Holy Fallout

Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.

Courtesy of the Planet of the Apes Wiki. If you're a PotA fanatic, you will recognize this little sect of mutants (introduced to us in the 1st sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

The Fellowship of the Holy Fallout was a religious congregation of telepathic mutants who lived beneath the ruins of New York City in the latter half of the 40th century. Like their followers, the members of the Fellowship were descended from a long line of mutated humans, whose origins dated back to the late 20th century. Following an ape uprising in 1991, the human controlled governments of Earth waged war with one another – a war which devastated significant parts of the population, and caused drastic geological upheaval.

Survivors of the nuclear holocaust were forced to seek shelter in the ruins of cities contaminated with atomic radiation. The exposure to this radiation caused severe genetic defects – defects which were passed down through the generations, forcing select groups of mankind to evolve into a new subspecies of mutant. Two-thousand years later, many of these mutant descendents began to develop advanced telepathic abilities. Whether these mental endowments were borne as a side-effect of their mutation is still a matter of speculation.

By the late 40th century, a coalition of mutants established a settlement for themselves in the ruins of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. They had acquired a weapon of mass destruction – a surviving relic from Humanity’s downfall. This was a Doomsday device known as the Alpha-Omega Bomb. Declaring the weapon as the "Divine Bomb", this congregation of mutants became known as the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout. In their culture, the Alpha-Omega Bomb represented not only a unifying characteristic of their lifestyle, but of their origins as well. They believed that God spoke to them through the weapon. They placed the missile, as well as its accompanying launch controls, at the nave of their altar in the cathedral.

Well, I would say not that God spoke through the bomb, but that the bomb itself was their god. Otherwise, why profess, Glory be to the Bomb...?

The Translation of St. Dominic

On this day is commemorated the first translation of the remains of St. Dominic on May 24th, 1233. From the letters of Blessed Jordan of Saxony:

But then the wonderful day dawned to celebrate the transfer of the remains of this illustrious doctor. The venerable archbishop of Ravenna and a large number of bishops and prelates were present, as well as a vast multitude of people from different regions who were giving remarkable witness by their devotion. Present also was the militia of Bologna, who would not allow this most holy body to be removed from their care. The anxious brothers stood about; the timid grew pale and prayed and, although they had nothing to fear, they were seized with misgivings. They feared that the body of Saint Dominic, which had laid lain in a mean tomb exposed to the elements, would be found eaten by worms and giving off a foul odor, a circumstance that would diminish the devotion of such important persons. The bishops approached devoutly, the workers applied their tools, and the stone that had been firmly cemented to the sepulcher was removed. Inside the tomb was the wooden coffin, just as it had been placed there by the venerable Pope Gregory when he was bishop of Ostia. A small opening was visible in the coffin.

As soon as the stone was taken away a wonderful odor poured out from the opening and its fragrance caused astonishment among those present. They were amazed and overcome with wonder at this strange event. Everyone shed tears and feelings of joy, of fear and of hope rose in all hearts. These extraordinary occurrences moved all who smelt the sweetness of this wonderful scent. We ourselves have also smelt the sweetness of this perfume and we bear witness to what we have seen and smelt.

Dominican Pilgrimage to Walsingham



The English Dominican Studentate blog has pictures from their annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Arian vs. Aryan

From Mike Aquilina:

There’s an urban legend making the rounds about Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States. The story goes that Vice-President Cheney asked the pontiff what he’s been reading. The Holy Father replied that he’s been researching “the Arian heresy.” Cheney, thinking the pope meant “Aryan,” said, “That must be interesting for you, since you lived through it. And Benedict responded, “I’m old, but I’m not that old.”

It’s a funny story, and I’m told it appeared in the London Times. But I’m afraid I couldn’t find confirmation anywhere on the Web.

So I went over the head of the World Wide Web and sought out an expert: the political scientist Dr. Joseph Heim of California University of Pennsylvania. And Joe put me on to the likely source. Cheney wasn’t the political figure; it was Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. And Boris didn’t flub the historical facts quite as badly as the urban-legendary Cheney; the media did.

Visit Mike's blog to read the rest of the story.

The Dominican Rite in Ventura, CA



Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. of the Dominican Liturgy blog comments on some photos taken of the celebration of the Dominican Rite liturgy at Mission San Buenaventura in Ventura, CA. This is also cross-posted at the New Liturgical Movement blog. The photos were taken by the Roamin' Catholic.

Wonderful! When I lived in Santa Barbara, I would occasionally visit Mission San Buenaventura for their Sunday celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (yes, in spite of my being a more Reform of the Reform minded Catholic). But it was only now, after I left the state, that I discover that Fr. Paul K. Raftery, O.P., chaplain at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, had begun offering the occasional mass in the glorious Dominican Rite!

Analogy of Being, again

So while I, of course, did not attend the Analogy of Being Theological Symposium last month, which provided a forum for discussion on the subject of the analogy of being (analogia entis), I have discovered that both Joel and Matt did attend it.

Joel, a professor of philosophy at La Salle University, describes the conference:

... I think there was a fruitful convergence between conversation partners on the fundamentally christological character of the analogia entis. Söhngen and Balthasar, in particular, give a more strongly christological reading of the analogy, placing it within the context of the analogia fidei, as explicating the logic of Nicaea and Chalcedon, a christological trend one might discern as well in the later Przywara.

Matt, a former Wheaton and Princeton Seminary graduate, describes his interest in the analogia entis in an earlier post on his blog in which he looks at Bonaventure, Karl Barth, and Pope Benedict XVI:

... because of its heyday in the Medieval world, the analogia entis is best articulated by Medieval theologians such as Bonaventure:

"All created things of the sensible world lead the mind of the contemplator and wise man to eternal God... They are the shades, the resonances, the pictures of that efficient, exemplifying, and ordering art; they are the tracks, simulacra, and spectacles; they are divinely given signs set before us for the purpose of seeing God. They are exemplifications set before our still unrefined and sense-oriented minds, so that by the sensible things which they see they might be transferred to the intelligible which they cannot see, as if by signs to the signified" (Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, 2.11, as quoted p. 165).

For those pleased by the preceding passage, it may surprise you that the analogia entis comes under severe Protestant attack. Why? Because of the dangers of abuse.

[20th century Protestant theologian Karl Barth] called the analogia entis the "invention of the antichrist". I imagine he did so because of its potential to obscure the mediating role that belongs to Christ alone. Instead Barth proposed the analogia fidei, (the "analogy of faith"), meaning the only link between ourselves and God is one of faith in Christ, recalling of course the Reformation's sola fide. In so doing, Barth burned all bridges but one, remembering that there is "one mediator" and "one foundation."

And in this Barth was right.

But consider the words of Pope Benedict in his recent Regensburg address, which, were they paying attention might have upset world Barthians as much as Muslims:

"The faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason, there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf" (9/12/06).

Benedict, speaking for the largest Christian tradition on the globe, makes three essential moves that when properly understood reasonably alleviates the fear of abusing the analogy of being:

1. First, he recalls the words of the Fourth Lateran Council ("maior dissimulitudo in tanta similitudine"), explaining that the church has for quite some time been on record saying that the world's dissimilarity to God is somewhat greater than the similarity to God. Woops - did I say somewhat? I misquoted. Let me start again: He said "unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness." This is, after all, a fallen world. Anyone therefore fearing that the analogia entis obscures God's transcendence, or leaves no room for apophatic (negative) theology, needs to run by Benedict's statement again.

2. Secondly, in words that could be addressed directly to postmodern reductionists, Benedict shows that the analogia entis is important because it's easy to overdose on negative theology (a danger especially near to wounded ex-evangelicals on a positivist hangover who just discovered that negative theology exists). Benedict says that "God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism," by which I take him to mean that the analogia entis safeguards us from the dangers of mysticism and subjectivism, thereby indirectly securing the essential benefits of both.

3. Finally, and most importantly, Benedict explains that the analogia entis is related to the logos - the ordering principle by which God created all that is. And this logos is none other than the Logos, Jesus Christ. The reason the analogy of being makes sense, even after God has definitively revealed himself in Jesus Christ, is because Christ is the one "through whom all things were made" and in whom "all things hold together." Therefore to contemplate an analogy between the being of the created world and the being of God is, properly understood, not something done independently of the Logos, Jesus Christ.

So, who'll it be? Bonaventure, Barth or Benedict? I'll take 'em all, the Barthian insight being wonderfully framed by the wider perspectives of Bonaventure and Benedict. All shed important light on an enormous truth. What cannot be accepted is Barth's (or Luther's) hyperbolic desertions of large swaths of the tradition...

This is quite a fair treatment. As for myself, I am no theologian, and so my exposure to the depths of the analogia entis vs. analogia fidei discussion has been far more limited, though I agree with the general perception that there are strands of prejudice in some treatments of the subject I have read. While they were enjoying themselves at this conference, I was pondering the analogia while navigating through pages of generated assembly code. Now, who's up for some beer?

Whether to tear down the gate...

From the inimitable G.K. Chesterton:

IN the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.

There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion. We might even say that he is seeing things in a nightmare. This principle applies to a thousand things, to trifles as well as true institutions, to convention as well as to conviction.

From his essay, The Drift from Domesticity, available in The Thing.

Science and Eternal Things

Some interesting thoughts by the Thomist:

Al-Ghazali said that one does more harm to a doctrine by defending it with a method not suited to it, than by attacking it with a method suited to it. A perfect example of such a harmful defense is the ID movement, or any other movement that might try to find God or intelligence through science.

What we now call science is a method that deals with things insofar as they can be made proportionate to our intelligence. Science only accepts accounts that can be reduced to things we create: numerals, graphs, meters, grams, seconds, equation/variable-based mathematics. Because we are understanding the world in relation to things which owe their existence to our own will, it’s no surprise that we gain more and more power over things as science advances. If you understand something only so far as it conforms to something you control, then the extent of your understanding will stay close to the extent of your control.

So how well do you think God or intelligence can be understood by this method? The bare fact that both are free makes them impervious to the kind of reduction that science demands. So far as we expect understanding to be proportionate to control, can you “understand” anything about anyone? Well, yes, but only to the extent that they are not free- so to what extent does this apply to God?

One of the constantly recurring themes in perennial philosophy is that the eternal things are hard to know. The reason for this difficulty is always the same: eternal things are not proportionate to our intelligence. In Aristotle’s terms, we stand to God, the soul, and the angelic universe like the eye of a bat stands to the sun; in Plato’s terms, we are as a man who’s lived his whole life in a cave stands to the noonday sun. This is not to say we can’t know these things- everyone who knows how hard they are only says thisbecause he knows them- but it takes a while to acclamate oneself to the sight of the higher things. One can’t simply expect to drag people out of the cave in a day. For like reasons, a public debate with the cave-dwellers won’t get very far. How do you depict the sun with shadow-puppets?

In Plato’s terms, science is one of the most wonderful and edifying shows that the cave has ever put on. It has provided more corruptible (falsifible) knowledge than the world has ever known. It has provided more power and material comfort than human beings have found in anything else. Like church stained-glass, science is the closest that most people ever get to a sight of the eternal things.

Musica Sacra: The Symphonic Organ

Concert this Friday evening at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Sugar Land, part of the ongoing Musica Sacra concert series.

Presented by organist/music director Gregory Hamilton, featuring the Toccata and Fugue in d minor of Bach. Also, music of Franck, Wood and Others.

Friday May 2nd 7:30pm!

Admission free!!

The Jesuits on the Moon

Did you know there are Jesuits on the moon? Well, sorta. A lot of folks don't know, but today there are at least 38 craters on the moon named after Jesuit priests, all of whom were renowned scientists and astronomers. Some craters were named more recently, but as many as 35 can be traced back more than 350 years. One of the earliest records we have of these craters is a 17th century selenograph, which shows the location many of the craters.

The late Joseph MacDonnell, S.J. of Fairfield University describes the selenograph and how 35 of the names came to be:

Since 1645 selenographers had named at least 40 craters to honor Jesuits, but 5 have been renamed since then. Some of the craters are on the far side of the moon. When looking at the moon these craters can be located by eye when noting their position relative to the large Copernicus (O) crater with the distinctive "crater steaks" radiating from it like the stem of an orange.


At the entrance to the Smithsonian's Moon exhibit is a large copy of one of the earliest (1651) selenographs. This map, taken from a Jesuit book Almagestum novum, was composed by the Jesuit astronomers Riccioli and Grimaldi and across the top is written: "Neither do men inhabit the moon nor do souls migrate there".

It is the best known of all selenographs and has been used by most scholars for lunar nomenclature for three centuries. During these centuries astronomers took turns naming and renaming craters which resulted in conflicting lunar maps. In 1922 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) was formed, and eventually eliminated these conflicts and codified all lunar objects: 35 of the 40 Jesuit names survived to be listed in the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) catalog which identifies about 1600 points on the moon's surface.

And why were their names used to identify the craters in the first place? MacDonnell continues:

It would be a mistake to think that the Jesuit names are on selenographs only because other Jesuits put them there. Rather it was a convergence of astronomers' opinions over three centuries: map makers before and after Riccioli confirmed the decisions again and again that these 40 men deserved this honor. This is not surprising. Recent histories emphasize the enormous influence Jesuits had not only on mathematics but on the other developing sciences such as astronomy. Historians of science always listed a surprisingly large number of Jesuits among the greatest scientists and mathematicians of all time. They were at the cutting edge of the sciences. For instance, by the time of the suppression in 1773, of the world's 130 astronomy observatories, 30 were operated by Jesuits. Furthermore Jesuit names are still being added to the list by the I. A. U.

And just who are these Jesuits? Well, among them is the great Christopher Clavius, who was the main architect of the Gregorian Calendar and inspired mathematicians like Leibniz. Also among them is Matteo Ricci, and also Francesco Grimaldi, who inspired Isaac Newton in the study of optics.

Of course, you can view detailed information and images of these craters on-line, courtesy of The-Moon Wiki.

St. Catherine of Siena

Today is the glorious feast of St. Catherine of Siena (Catherine Benincasa), Lay Dominican, Virgin, and Doctor of the Church. Born in Siena, Italy in 1347, she played a very influential role in Church history.

From a letter of St. Catherine to the novices of the Dominican Order at Santa Maria de Monte Oliveto:

Have confidence! You shall find the source of charity in the side of the crucified Christ. I wish you to establish yourselves there and make a dwelling there for yourselves. Rise up then with great and burning desire. Approach, enter and remain in this sweet dwelling. No demon or any other creature can take this grace from you or hinder you from reaching your end, namely, that you should come to see and taste God. I say no more. Abide in the holy and sweet love of God. Love, love one another.

Holy Catherine, pray for me.

The Church, spread throughout the whole world...

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, from Book 1, Ch. 10 of Against Heresies:

The Church, though dispersed through out the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one," and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send "spiritual wickednesses," and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same.

For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shines everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Doctor Who, Season 4

Season 4 of the second series of Doctor Who is now airing on the SciFi Channel, currently featuring the 10th incarnation of The Doctor. From the first episode, entitled Voyage of the Damned:

Mr. Copper: So Great Britain is part of Europea and just across the British Channel you've got Great France and Great Germany?
The Doctor: No, no it's just France and Germany; only Britain is Great.
Mr. Copper: And they're all at war with the continent of Hamerica.
The Doctor: No, well, not yet. Ah, you could argue that one.

Which proves that for even for the distant, alien race of the Time Lords, Britain is still the center of the known universe.

Good bye, Holy Father

I'm out of breath in attempting to keep up with the pope's amazing visit with us here in the United States, which has been so full and rich. I will need some time to spend reviewing his homilies and speeches, which are all quite substantial. The theme of his visit was Christ, Our Hope - a message desperately needed by the Church in America -- a real message of freedom in holiness, that can only be found in Christ. True liberation.

From his homily at mass today:

True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. "In his will is our peace".

He was also careful to underscore his role as Bishop of Rome, Successor to Peter the Apostle, with which visible unity is important. From his message at the ecumenical gathering:

Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called “prophetic actions” that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of “local options”. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia - communion with the Church in every age - is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23).

Faced with these difficulties, we must first recall that the unity of the Church flows from the perfect oneness of the Trinitarian God. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus prayed to his Father that his disciples might be one, “just as you are in me and I am in you” (Jn 17:21). This passage reflects the unwavering conviction of the early Christian community that its unity was both caused by, and is reflective of, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This, in turn, suggests that the internal cohesion of believers was based on the sound integrity of their doctrinal confession (cf. 1 Tim 1:3-11). Throughout the New Testament, we find that the Apostles were repeatedly called to give an account for their faith to both Gentiles (cf. Acts 17:16-34) and Jews (cf. Acts 4:5-22; 5:27-42). The core of their argument was always the historical fact of Jesus’s bodily resurrection from the tomb (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30). The ultimate effectiveness of their preaching did not depend on “lofty words” or “human wisdom” (1 Cor 2:13), but rather on the work of the Spirit (Eph 3:5) who confirmed the authoritative witness of the Apostles (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-11). The nucleus of Paul’s preaching and that of the early Church was none other than Jesus Christ, and “him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). But this proclamation had to be guaranteed by the purity of normative doctrine expressed in creedal formulae - symbola - which articulated the essence of the Christian faith and constituted the foundation for the unity of the baptized (cf. 1 Cor 15:3-5; Gal 1:6-9; Unitatis Redintegratio, 2).

My dear friends, the power of the kerygma has lost none of its internal dynamism. Yet we must ask ourselves whether its full force has not been attenuated by a relativistic approach to Christian doctrine similar to that found in secular ideologies, which, in alleging that science alone is “objective”, relegate religion entirely to the subjective sphere of individual feeling. Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind. This does not mean, however, that the “knowable” is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of “personal experience”.

For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes. The result is seen in the continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living.

Thank you, Holy Father

The Evolution of Video Game Music

Excellent story yesterday from NPR's All Things Considered.

In May 2004, a composer named Nobuo Uematsu joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a single performance of his most famous work. The show sold out in three days. In fact, there was almost a riot at the box office when people couldn't get tickets.

What was the music? Uematsu's soundtrack for the popular video game Final Fantasy.

I would suggest listening to the story online. About 12 minutes.

Analogy of Being Theological Symposium

The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Anti-Christ, or the Wisdom of God?

The Dominican Province of St. Joseph vocations blog posts a few pictures from last weekend's symposium, which was held at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in D.C. Having pictures isn't quite the same as actually being there, but I'll take it I guess. Did anybody go? We could have our own symposium over beer.

Let Jesus Christ be Sung in Unity

I meant to post this during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Ignatius of Antioch, who was also a reputed disciple of John, the Apostle, became bishop of Antioch (in what was Syria, in the East) after the death of Evodius, around the year 68 AD. Ignatius served until his martyrdom, which is placed sometime just after the end of the 1st century. Toward the end of his life, he wrote extensively concerning the life and growth of the Church at the turn of the 1st century. He commented most beautifully on the necessity of Christian unity in beautiful metaphor and literary style.

From Chapters 3-5 of his Letter to the Church at Ephesus:

I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person. For though I am bound for the name [of Christ], I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as fellow-disciples with me. For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that you would all run together in accordance with the will of God. For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the [manifested] will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds [of the earth], are so by the will of Jesus Christ.

Wherefore it is fitting that you should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also you do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that you are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus you may always enjoy communion with God.

For if I in this brief space of time, have enjoyed such fellowship with your bishop — I mean not of a mere human, but of a spiritual nature — how much more do I reckon you happy who are so joined to him as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and as Jesus Christ is to the Father, that so all things may agree in unity! Let no man deceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two possesses such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole Church! He, therefore, that does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride, and condemned himself. For it is written, "God resists the proud." Let us be careful, then, not to set ourselves in opposition to the bishop, in order that we may be subject to God.

Ignatius of Antioch was certainly not a Johnny Come Lately to the Christian scene, as one who might have sought to undermine the Gospel he received from the mouths of apostles themselves. In fact, Ignatius offered his life for the faith he received and lived and inspired countless others by his witness.

St. Vincent Ferrer

Today we remember Vincent Ferrer, O.P. (1350-1419), itinerant preacher and author of On the Spiritual Life, a spiritual treatise. Being a traveler and a preacher of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), he writes extensively in letters about the various heretical factions he stumbles across in certain regions on his travels hither and thither as well as his observations, in no uncertain terms, I should add.

From a letter of St. Vincent Ferrer to John of Puinoix, Master of the Order of Preachers (From the Dominican Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours):

After thirteen continuous months in Lombardy, I went to Savoy, where I have been for five months. Prelates and several rulers of the area have asked for me and it is with great emotion that I have already visited four dioceses here, namely, Sion, Aosta, Tarantaise, Maurienne and Grenoble, all of which are important centers in Savoy. I am going around preaching in the towns, villages and castles to the extent that seems best. At the moment I am in the diocese of Geneva.

Among other aberrations, I have found one very widespread error that has infected these parts: every year on the day after Corpus Christi, confraternities gather in solemn assembly under the title of "the holy rising sun." My confreres, the Friars Minor, other religious and even the parish priests have told me that they did not dare to preach or to say anything against this error out of fear, for they would be threatened with death and their offerings and alms would be taken away. I now address this error in particular by preaching daily, the Lord aiding and confirming what I say, and it has been effectively uprooted. These people, who now come to me, are overcome with sorrow when they learn how far they have wandered from the faith. When by the grace of God this error has been completely uprooted, I plan to go to the diocese of Lausanne, where they publicly worship the sun as a god -- especially the country folk -- by offering the sun their morning prayers and by reverencing it. The bishop of Lausanne himself made a journey of two or three days to see me and humbly beg that I would visit his diocese, where there are many valleys of heretics within Allemania and Savoy. This I promised to do. I have heard that the heretics of those valleys are very daring and bold, but I am confident in the accustomed mercy of God and I intend to go there and preach during the coming Lent. However, let it happen according to the heavenly plan.

The charism of St. Dominic is certainly evident in his writing, as earlier he observes:

I discovered that a principle reason for heresies and errors in these places was a lack of preaching. As I correctly perceived from the inhabitants there, thirty years had elapsed during which no one had preached to them but the Waldensian heretics, who would come to them twice a year from Apuleia.

A solid witness is what our world most certainly needs today, to "preach the truth in love" according to our particular state in life, and to constantly remind ourselves of what we preach as well and live it out.

Houston Cathedral Dedication

The dedication of our new Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston will be this Wednesday, April 2nd at noon. For television coverage details (or to watch on-line), check out KTRK-Channel 13, which will broadcast the entire ceremony. You might just see someone you know! (although I'm quite sure you won't see me, as I won't be there!)

Speeches...

I just returned from serving as a judge for a middle-school speech competition in the area sponsored by a local organization. I had never judged competitions at this level -- it was an interesting experience :) These kids nowadays are a lot more ambitious than I was when I was in junior high!

Holy Week at the Dominican House of Studies

Tenebrae 2008 on Spy Wednesday



More videos, audio, and photos from Holy Week and Easter at the Dominican House of Studies courtesy of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph Vocations Blog.

The Holy Father and Easter Vigil

Padre Z. discusses the contents of the Holy Father's Easter Vigil homily, in which, among many other things of significance, the Holy Father gives some theological starting points for liturgy and even worship ad orientem. Fr. Z. prefaces the Holy Father's remarks:

I have been maintaining that the Holy Father has a program, a vision for the Church. He is trying to revitalize our Catholic identity. I often refer to his "Marshall Plan", as I call it, for the Church. Just as Europe was devastated after the war and needed rebuilding, the Church and our identity as Catholics has been devastated over the last 40 or so years. We need rebuilding. For Benedict, liturgy is the key. It is the "tip of the spear" so to speak. Change our approach to liturgy and you change everything.

One of the most devastating changes after the Council was the widespread abandonment of ad orientem worship. Authors like Klaus Gamber, for whom Papa Ratzinger has such great respect, thought that changing our altars around was perhaps the most damaging change in the post-Conciliar reform. Sadly, the destruction of ad orientem worship was based on misuse of scholarship, surely, but most on ideological choices rooted in a hermeneutic of rupture and a ecclesiology which was little in harmony with our Catholic faith. The results for Catholic worship were viciously corrosive.

Pope Benedict has long written of the meaning and need for ad orientem worship. In practical terms he knows that we cannot force abrupt changes. We must be gentle in reintroducing it.

However, as we have been watching him during the last year or so reintroducing many traditional elements our Roman Rite into the full view of the world, including ad orientem worship in the Sistine Chapel, I think we can say that he thinks the time has come for more decisive moves.

Fr. Z is referring primarily, though not exclusively, to this section of the Holy Father's homily, which is particularly significant:

In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: “Conversi ad Dominum” – turn now towards the Lord. This meant in the first place that they would turn towards the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ returning, whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucharist. Where this was not possible, for some reason, they would at least turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or towards the Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards the Lord. Fundamentally, this involved an interior event; "conversion", the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and thus towards the living God, towards the true light. Linked with this, then, was the other exclamation that still today, before the Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community of the faithful: “Sursum corda” – “Lift up your hearts”, high above the tangled web of our concerns, desires, anxieties and thoughtlessness – “Lift up your hearts, your inner selves!” In both exclamations we are summoned, as it were, to a renewal of our Baptism: "Conversi ad Dominum" – we must distance ourselves ever anew from taking false paths, onto which we stray so often in our thoughts and actions. We must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must allow our hearts to be withdrawn from the force of gravity, which pulls them down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love. At this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the power of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in the right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen.

Amen! But that said, be sure to read the homily in its entirety!

O felix culpa!

O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est!
O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!

O truly necessary sin of Adam, which the death of Christ has blotted out!
O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!

The sublime contradiction, part of the Easter Exsultet - it strikes me now as it did when it was sung during the Easter Vigil in 1997 at which I was baptized and received into the Church. Only this year, hearing it sung in Latin was particularly haunting to me. How can I explain it?

Christus surrexit! Surrexit vere!

Before the Printing Press

Dr. Richard Nokes, professor of medieval literature at Troy University, makes some points on the state of education, religion, and functional literacy prior the advent of the printing press and the various modern myths that folks (particularly college students) love to believe. Would modern education (to the non-wealthy, non-clergy), widespread, functional literacy, or even Protestantism as we know it today have been possible without the printing press?

Holy Week in San Antonio

Well, part of it, at least. We actually just got back from San Antonio with my in-laws. The trip was short, but awesome. Among the many places we visited was the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower, staffed by the Discalced Carmelite Friars, as well as the missions. We also sought out a couple of Painted Churches on the way there. Texas is cool!

Now, we observe the sacred Triduum going into Easter.

Chesterton and the "Paradoxy" of Orthodoxy

Carl Olson reflects in an older article on how he was influenced by the sixth chapter of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, which is titled "Paradoxes of Christianity."

[Chesterton] examined various challenges to Christianity, noting, "It was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons." His observations are just as illuminating today as they were one hundred years ago—perhaps even more so—for they outline the flawed nature of the biases of skeptics and scoffers, and are therefore of no small assistance to anyone defending Christianity in today's hostile public square.

The first contradictory criticism is that Christianity is "a thing of inhuman gloom" and "purely pessimistic and opposed to life". In contemporary terms: Christianity is allegedly repressive, dysfunctional, and depressing. In the words of Ted Turner, Christianity is a "religion for losers." Such is the mantra of the sexually "liberated," who see any restraint upon their libido as the work of a self-loathing and prudish Church. This portrayal of Christianity is such regular fare it hardly needs to be pointed out.

And yet, Chesterton continues, Christianity was also mocked because it "comforted men with a fictitious providence" and was " a fool's paradise." Don't you know, muses the enlightened "free thinker", that Christianity enslaves by promising heavenly bliss and eternal glory, when in fact life is a series of random biological accidents without any purpose, direction, or meaning? Ah, so who is really depressing and pessimistic? "The very man who denounced Christianity for pessimism," Chesterton notes, "was himself a pessimist." It is demeaning, say some critics, to speak of "sin"; far better to believe that man is an animal with little or no control over his lusts and passions, which are simply products of genetics and environment.