Some thoughts on the necessity of genuine theological education...

As it happens I've recently started Blessed John Henry Newman's Idea of a University for my personal reading, both to celebrate his recent beatification and to consider such a brilliant, Catholic mind's meditations on the subject of university education, theology, and the relation between the two (the subject being peculiarly pertinent to me, obviously).  So imagine my delight at discovering this passage not forty pages into the work:

"I cannot so construct my definition of the subject-matter of University Knowledge, and so draw my boundary lines around it, as to include therein the other sciences commonly studied at Universities, and to exclude the science of Religion. For instance, are we to limit our idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of our senses? then we exclude ethics; by intuition? we exclude history; by testimony? we exclude metaphysics; by abstract reasoning? we exclude physics. Is not the being of a God reported to us by testimony, handed down by history, inferred by an inductive process, brought home to us by metaphysical necessity, urged on us by the suggestions of our conscience? It is a truth in the natural order, as well as in the supernatural. So much for its origin; and, when obtained, what is it worth? Is it a great truth or a small one? Is it a comprehensive truth? Say that no other religious idea whatever were given but it, and you have enough to fill the mind; you have at once a whole dogmatic system. The word "God" is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inexhaustibly various, from the vastness and the simplicity of its meaning. Admit a God, and you introduce among the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable. How can we investigate any part of any order of Knowledge, and stop short of that which enters into every order? All true principles run over with it, all phenomena converge to it; it is truly the First and the Last. In word indeed, and in idea, it is easy enough to divide Knowledge into human and divine, secular and religious, and to lay down that we will address ourselves to the one without interfering with the other; but it is impossible in fact. Granting that divine truth differs in kind from human, so do human truths differ in kind one from another. If the knowledge of the Creator is in a different order from knowledge of the creature, so, in like manner, metaphysical science is in a different order from physical, physics from history, history from ethics. You will soon break up into fragments the whole circle of secular knowledge, if you begin the mutilation with divine."

Thomas Storck of the Distributist Review...

...posts a spectacular column on how the left/right spectrum locks Catholics into operating under a philosophical framework alien to that of the Church.

But what does one do with something like the prolife movement? Is it of the Right or the Left? Since it defends the most elemental rights of a defenseless part of the population, the unborn, a grave issue of social justice, one would think that it was a cause 6f the Left. But it is linked in the perceptions of many with the Right because it opposes something considered necessary for sexual freedom by those on the libertine Left. So it looks for allies and spokesmen among those on the Right and unwittingly becomes even more linked with the entire right-wing program. But the prolife movement cannot really be classed on the American/Lockean spectrum, because it is not Lockean. It is not really interested in obtaining material benefits for anyone, as if it supported the right to life only of those who would grow up to be successful. Its concerns arise from an elemental recognition of injustice.

Mark Shea on servile versus pious fear

Mark Shea writes an impressive piece on the right and wrong sorts of fear to keep around.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch on heretics:

From his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans:

"I guard you beforehand from those beasts in the shape of men, whom you must not only not receive, but, if it be possible, not even meet with; only you must pray to God for them, if by any means they may be brought to repentance, which, however, will be very difficult. Yet Jesus Christ, who is our true life, has the power of [effecting] this."

Portentuous news from Germany

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, (now once again a predominantly Catholic nation, albeit by the relatively slim margin of 0.5 million adherents, as I recently learned) has stated in no uncertain terms that multiculturalism has failed in Germany:

"'We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here,' said the chancellor." 

Month of the Rosary

Following the Crescat and Ink in commemoration of the Month of the Rosary, allow me to share with you one of my two Rosaries, made for me by a fellow Catholic of the finest example:

Contra solascripturism

Abbot Joseph over at Word Incarnate writes an excellent post on the relationship between the Church and scripture, quoted below:

"So we have to realize that the Church is not based on the Bible, but rather the Bible is based on the Church.  The Bible is the fruit of the Church’s life and testimony; it was produced by the Church, and the books that are contained in it were recognized and declared by the Church to be the word of God. In the first century or two of Christianity, many other writings were held to be of equal value to what are today the recognized Scriptures, and they were read along with them in the liturgical assemblies.  But by the Church’s authority, granted by the Holy Spirit, these other writings were deemed not to have the level of divine inspiration required to be accepted as the word of God.

 (That is why it is the height of arrogance for an individual like Martin Luther to think he could personally decide which books are Scripture and which are not, for he eliminated seven books from the Old Testament.  It is an inadequate excuse to say he simply decided it was better to use the Hebrew canon than the Greek Septuagint: the whole Christian Church for 1500 years accepted the Septuagint canon of the Old Testament as the word of God, and virtually all the citations from the Old Testament that are found in the New Testament are from the Septuagint.  How could he possibly think he had the authority to cast out the word of God?  Was the version of the Old Testament used by the writers of the Gospels not good enough for him?  He also tried to remove the Epistle of St James from the New Testament, since it didn’t agree with his own theology—which in his opinion evidently meant it couldn’t possibly be the word of God—but thank God no one tolerated that particular folly.)"

On Frequent Communion

I wittingly continue my unwittingly-commenced series on the Blessed Sacrament with today's column from The Catholic Thing, an excellent piece on the recent history and present circumstances of frequent Communion.

Our Lady of Victory and the Battle of Lepanto

Our Lady of Victory, pray for us!

Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, also called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory.  First instituted by Pope Pius V, the feast commemorates Our Blessed Mother's role in Christendom's victory at the Battle of Lepanto.  Facing the Ottoman Empire's advancing fleet, the Holy League (including Spain, Venice, the Papal States, Genoa, and the Knights Hospitaller) defended Rome from invasion on this day in 1571.  But the heavenly host, too, was with the earthly host of Christendom: that same day, while Christian fleet engaged Muslim, Pope Pius V offered a Rosary procession for the defense of Christendom.  It was for this victory, given in answer by Our Blessed Mother, that Pope Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory: the victory which won the protection of Christendom for so many centuries.

To commemorate the feast, I'd like to share with you the poem by G. K. Chesterton named after the battle:

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,

The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,

That once went singing southward when all the world was young.

In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,

Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

Don John of Austria is going to the war,

Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold

In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,

Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,

Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,

Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,

Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain--hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria

Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,

His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.

He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,

And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring

Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii,

Multiplex of wing and eye,

Whose strong obedience broke the sky

When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,

From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea

Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,

On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,

Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;

They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--

They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.

And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,

And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,

For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,

Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know

The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:

It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

Sudden and still--hurrah!

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria

Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift

And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;

The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,--

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,

Trumpet that sayeth ha!

    Domino gloria!

Don John of Austria

Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck

(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,

He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey

Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,

And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,

But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--

Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah!

Don John of Austria

Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)

The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,

The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,

They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,

And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung

The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on

Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell

Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,

And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--

(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,

Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,

Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,

Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,

Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Vivat Hispania!

Domino Gloria!

Don John of Austria

Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

The Catholic Thing...

...comments on the possible outcome of the November elections in relation to sanctity-of-life issues.

An interesting contrast

Consider the differences in the following two articles on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Professor Robert Edwards, one of the developers of in-vitro fertilization: the first from the Associated Press, the second from the Catholic News Agency.

Consider also the marked difference in tone and erudition present in the comment sections of the two articles.

Food for thought.

Blessing of the Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman Chapel at the London Oratory

Image courtesy of Standing on My Head (along with a link to the full gallery).  What a grand sight!  Let's pray that, under the guidance and encouragement of the Holy Father, true beauty may be restored to the Liturgy.  Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, pray for us!

Another great blog post

Just thought I'd share another excellent blog post, this one over at Salvation is an Adventure (yes, I'll admit the blog title definitely caught my eye immediately) concerning the rejection of Christ's love.

Mark Shea on C. S. Lewis and Canonization

Mark Shea has written a wonderful article on the nature and purpose of canonization, in particular relation to C. S. Lewis and the work he did in the name of Christ.

"Canonization is not intended to say that saints are in Heaven but nobody else is.  Rather it is intended to say, 'This person shows us how to fully incarnate the life of Jesus in union with the Catholic Church, in which the fullness of the revelation subsists.'"

The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Today marks the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron of animals and founder of the Order of Friars Minor.  Interestingly, he was the first to create a Nativity crèche, using live animals to more readily encourage active devotion.  It occurred to me at some point this morning that I've yet to read G. K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, and that I should probably amend that soon...

Incidentally, the priest who celebrated Mass today at the local parish I visit off-campus looked very much to me like Richard Burton in the role of Thomas à Becket.  I'll leave the rest to your imaginations.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

Timeliness strikes again!

I just happened upon a blog (Standing on My Head) which has captured my attention with another quotation from Tolkien on the Blessed Sacrament, one which has struck a rather acute note with me:

"The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)"

The Blessed Sacrament...

Tomorrow morning's Mass will mark the commissioning of new students to assist with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in various roles-- myself as a sacristan, altar server, and extraordinary minister (it's been a busy week).  In light of the last  item of the list, you can imagine how timely I found the following quote, which I came across at the Catholic Education Resource Center after it first caught my eye some months ago:

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth. . . by. . . which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained and take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

It's still more fitting in light of the fact that I'm currently making my way through the latter half of our good man Tolkien's The Two Towers.  They're certainly words worth bearing in mind as I both learn to distribute the Blessed Sacrament and continue my reading of The Lord of the Rings.

Welcome!

Greetings, reader!  Seeing as you've come across this blog, I suppose the least I owe you is an explanation of how we both got to this point.  Along the way, I might even begin to understand what it is I'm attempting here.  So far as I can tell, our story begins several months ago, in the middle of the summer, when the idea of starting some sort of blog first struck me-- not so very forcefully, as you can tell, or I might have actually acted on it then.  As it happens it took the promptings of good advice-- of the sort no sane man would ever fail to heed-- to bring the idea to the forefront of my mind once again, a little more forcefully this time.  And since, on this occasion at least, I numbered among the sane, it did not take much longer for this webpage to appear.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help us very much with the matter of this blog's purpose, something I suppose I'd better make at least relatively clear if I hope to keep your eyes on this page for long.  For that, the blog description up above will be of some help to us: in the main, this blog is simply the collected (organized is another matter entirely) thoughts of a Roman Catholic presently embroiled in his undergraduate education.  To explain the reasoning behind such a task I defer to the Holy Father's Introduction to Christianity, which describes an insight that has become all the more readily apparent to me over time: that within the Church as much as without, our time this side of death is meant to be a lifelong conversion, a task that must be taken up anew each morning and in each of our acts and decisions.

You could then say, I suppose, that this blog is meant to outline one instance of that "lifelong conversion," in the hope of bettering its day to day outcome; and to invite you, for so long as you please, to share the journey along with your own thoughts and observations.