“Let me introduce myself: I’m Adolf Hitler”

Remember all that talk about ‘Death Panels’ and how it was over the top hyperbole?

Watch this Radio Free Europe Video on ‘post-natal abortion’ of the physically and mentally disabled in Russia. (Sorry, can’t embed the video here)

Wisdom from the monastery

Here’s some interesting advice from the Trappist monks near Rochester NY on how we might use the economic recession to lead us into conversion.

Dom Eudes advises people to use the recession to “get freer of values that are propagated by a sick society” — materialistic, short-term goals that make people unsettled, even anxious at the first thought that those goals might disappear.

[snip]

“Recession is a disaster,” he continued, “if you think making this life as pleasant as possible is what it’s all about. I would tell the readers of America to stop and to look at life in light of their deepest values, not the values that assault them from television.

How porn hijacks the male brain

Graphically illustrated over at Patrick Madrid’s blog.

Leaving it all on the field

All the hype and analysis leading up to this Sunday’s Super Bowl has me comparing my life as a follower of Jesus to playing football.  So evenly matched are the Colts and the Saints that, ‘on paper,’ it seems that this year’s game has the potential to be one of the truly great Super Bowl games.  When history does produce one of those rare games that results in an epic battle between well-matched opponents**, you sometimes hear the phrase “he left it all on the field” to describe to a player’s performance.  This refers to a player exhausting every ounce of his mental and physical energy in his desire to win the championship.  He attempts to make every stride his fastest, every jump his highest, every block his hardest and most effective.  He maintains his concentration despite late-game fatigue, and focuses like a laser on the football.  At the end of the game, he is totally drained, completely spent physically and emotionally.

And so I ask myself:

When was the last time that I entered into a time of personal prayer with that level of earnest desire to deepen my relationship with God?

When was the last time I “left it all on the field” in my effort to seek personal intimacy with my Lord?

When was the last time I left a period of prayer drained emotionally?

When was the last time I left a period of prayer totally spent physically?

**I’m old enough to remember vividly such an effort in 1981 by San Diego’s Tight End Kellen Winslow in the Chargers 41-38 overtime playoff victory over Miami, when he caught 13 passes for 166 yards and blocked a field goal with four seconds to play to send the game into overtime.

Seems like it was just Christmas

The Ignatian Spirituality blog is already posting a selection of resources for Lent. They didn’t even wait until Shrovetide began!

A prophet in his home town

It’s less than a year until the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (“At the Beginning of the New Millennium”).  In it, he challenges us with this:

…is it not the Church’s task to reflect the light of Christ in every historical period, to make his face shine also before the generations of the new millennium?
Our witness, however, would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated his face.
.                                                                                             — NMI, n. 16

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is an especially fertile passage for contemplating the face of Christ.  Here are some of the ‘faces of Christ’ that I found:

• 1 – the face of Christ upon whom all eyes were fixed
  2 – the face of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit
  3 – the  face of Christ declaring truth
  4 – the face of Christ secure in the knowledge that the Father was “well pleased” with him (cf. Lk 3:22)
  5 – the face of Christ confident in his role as Son of God
  6 – the face of Christ faithfully revealing his mission
  7 – the face of Christ desiring that his people would embrace this news of their long-awaited restoration
  8 – the face of Christ hopeful that his people would recognize and accept their Messiah
  9 – the face of Christ sensing the doubt arising in the hearts of his hearers
  10 – the face of Christ recognizing the dissipation of their acceptance of him
  11 – the face of Christ hearing the doubt expressed verbally by some in the assembly
  12 – the face of Christ aligning himself with the great prophets rejected by Israel
  13 – the face of Christ delivering the hard word
  14 – the face of Christ reminding the people of how, when their ancestors were unfaithful, blessings were instead sent to Gentiles
  15 – the face of Christ being subjected to the anger and abuse of the crowd
  16 – the face of Christ being forced out of the city
  17 – the face of Christ devoid of even the slightest desire to return violence for violence, passing through the angry mob unharmed

A Catholic unfamiliar with Jewish law might not realize that when the mob “led him to the brow of the hill…to hurl him down headlong,” they intended to stone him to death, and this was just the initial step in that process.  This is explained by Henri Daniel-Rops in his book “Daily Life in the Time of Jesus“:

…the condemned man was to be taken to a cliff the ‘height of two men’ and one of the accusers was to throw him down backwards, obviously to stun him by the fall or to break his back; it was only after this that the stones were to be thrown, and the first was to be aimed at his heart.

Msgr Romano Guardini, commenting on this Gospel passage in his book “The Lord,” makes the following observation:

At the bottom of the human heart, side by side with longing for the eternal source and fulfillment of all things, lurks resistance to that source:  elementary sin in its lair.  Seldom does it confront holiness openly; almost always it strikes at the bearer of holiness: at the prophet, the apostle, the saint, the confirmed believer.  Such people do irritate.  Something in us finds the very presence of one dedicated to God unbearable.  We revolt against him, ‘justifying’ our distaste with his shortcomings (naturally, there are always shortcomings) or with his sins.  How could such a person be a bearer of sanctity!  Or perhaps it is only his weaknesses (which from our dour viewpoint of rejection immediately swell perniciously), or his eccentricities that are so maddening – nothing is more trying than the eccentricities of a saint!  In short, the fact that he is a human, finite being is too much to bear……And the sharpest criticism, the most impatient rejection of holiness is always to be found in the prophet’s own home.

In “Praying the Gospels,” Fr Lovasik includes these sentiments in his prayer based upon this passage of Sacred Scripture:

I can imagine what Your Heart feels as you are seized and led away to death through the streets of Your home town by those who were Your neighbors and townsmen, and to whom You had surely shown much kindness…Teach me to be patient in bearing the disappointments caused by my own friends. 

Bp Serratelli — Part 2

Last week I posted the first installment of an article on family life from Bp Serratelli’s weekly column.  The concluding episode is now available.

For husbands, fathers and sons…

…an article by Mike Aquilina (link on right sidebar) via Happy Catholic in which he honors — and shares lessons learned from — his father and grandfather.

Syracuse

One month from today our brethren in Syracuse will be gathering for their annual Men’s Conference.  Last year’s talks by Rick Santorum and Fr Stan Fortuna can be heard here.

The prayer of the poor in spirit

Six of the seven Offices of the Church’s “Liturgy of the Hours” begin with this form of the invocation found in Psalm 70:2

God, come to my assistance;
      Lord, make haste to help me.

John Cassian, in his Conference Ten (“On Prayer”), extols the efficaciousness of this verse for our prayer life.  He begins with this:  (see the very bottom of Page 132 here)

To keep the thought of God always in your mind you must cling totally to this formula for piety: ‘Come to my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue.’

It is not without good reason that this verse has been chosen from the whole of Scripture as a device.

He exposes the wealth and value of this Scriptural entreaty over the next few pages, and begins the conclusion of his consideration of this verse with these two paragraphs: (starting at the bottom of Page 135)

Our prayer for rescue in bad times and for protection against pride in good times should be founded on this verse.  The thought of this verse should be turning unceasingly in your heart.  Never cease to recite it in whatever task or service or journey you find yourself.  Think upon it as you sleep, as you eat, as you submit to the most basic demands of nature.  This heartfelt thought will prove to be a formula of salvation for you.  Not only will it protect you against all devilish attack, but it will purify you from the stain of all earthly sin and will lead you on to the contemplation of the unseen and the heavenly and to that fiery urgency of prayer which is indescribable and which is experienced by very few.  Sleep should come upon you as you meditate on this verse until as a result of your habit of resorting to its words you get in the habit of repeating them even in your slumbers.

This verse should be the first thing to occur to you when you wake up.  It should precede all your thoughts as you keep vigil.  It should take you over as you rise from your bed and go to kneel.  After this it should accompany you in all your works and deeds.  It should be at your side at all times.  Following the precept of Moses, you will think upon it ‘as you sit at home or walk along your way’ (Dt 6:7), as you sleep or when you get up.  You will write it upon the threshold and gateway of your mouth, you will place it on the wall of your house and in the inner sanctum of your heart.  It will be a continuous prayer, an endless refrain when you bow down in prostration and when you rise up to do all the necessary things of life.

Please pray now

I came across the following in our blog stats just now:

These are the search terms people used when clicking into our blog.   Whoever found us on that last search needs help. 

Today

Search	Views
divine mercy	4
guardian of the redeemer	2
“guardian of the redeemer”	1
divine mercy image	1
clinic in st.thomas that do aborshion	1

There is a mother and child in great need of grace right now.  I’d ask that you take a moment right now, and pray.  Pray hard.

Meet the Ashley CMF group

Here’s a pic from this morning’s gathering of the Catholic men’s fellowship group that meets at St Leo’s parish hall in Ashley every Saturday at 7:30:

Clockwise from the left:  Christian, Fr Robert Kelleher, Jim, John, Pat, Joe, Miguel, Jay & Jeff.

New participants are always welcome!

Changes in family life

Here the first installment of a two-part article by Paterson NJ’s Bishop Serratelli, in which he discusses the downward spiral of family life in America.  What interested me was his description of a recent archaeological find:

Just four days before Christmas 2009, a Israeli archaeologists announced their discovery of a dwelling in Nazareth from the time of Jesus.
(…)
Yardena Alexandre, excavations director at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that the dwelling and older discoveries of nearby tombs in burial caves suggest that Nazareth was an out-of-the-way village. It consisted of about 50 houses situated on four acres. The Jews living here were by no means wealthy. The absence of any remains of glass vessels or imported products shows that the people lived simple lives. The presence of clay and chalk vessels used by Jews at the time to ensure the purity of the food and water kept inside the vessels suggest the family was observant of Jewish tradition.

Simplicity of life.

I’m eager to see what he’ll say in Part 2.

Virtual March for Life

Can’t Get to Washington today?  No problem, join the virtual march for life with 69,700 other marchers as of this writing.

Psalm 74

During morning prayers today when I first opened up my Bible It fell open to Psalm 74: Plea for help in time of national humiliation. How appropriate.

Threnody for the Innocents

In his Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis posits that the original language — that of the angels — is music.  Peter Kreeft continues the theme saying that language one step fallen from music is poetry, one further step is prose, one further step is mathematics.  Music has the power to convey much much more than ‘mere words.’

In thinking about tomorrow’s march for life, I was reminded of the movie Children of Men.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it as a very moving pro life movie.

It shows a world not too different from our own where for mysterious reasons, women are no longer able to become pregnant.  As the world ponders the cause from pollution and disease to God’s judgement, society devolves into a true nihilism, fully exploring what Josef Pieper outlines in theory in ‘Leisure: The Basis of Culture’ .    Anyway, I thought that there are books, images, and movies that try to convey the nightmare of abortion; but I’m not aware of equally powerful music written for the purpose.  And when I say music, I don’t mean lyrics.  Maybe the problem is that so many modern art music composers are very very liberal in their politics and philosophies.  That’s a shame, and another story.  So I thought I would comb my back catalogue and find some ‘classical’ music that really conveys the emotional impact the pro life movement is trying to spare us from.   This is not music to celebrate heroism or in most cases even hope.  It is the musical counterpart of ‘The Silent Scream’ and the Truth Trucks.  A word of caution, much of the music I reccomend here is very difficult to listen to, both because of the subject matter, but also because much of it is of a post modern composition.

A good place to start is the soundtrack from the film ‘Children of Men’.  Just about every piece will do, starting with the very hard to bear ‘Threnody of the Victims of  Hiroshima’ by Kryzstoff Penderecki.    The piece—perhaps as a nod to John cage originally called 8′37″ . Penderecki later said “It existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way.” When he heard an actual performance, “I was struck by the emotional charge of the work…I searched for associations and, in the end, I decided to dedicate it to the Hiroshima victims”. The piece tends to leave an impression both solemn and catastrophic, earning its classification as a threnody. Since the piece was not commissioned for Hiroshima specifically, I think it serves equally well for the 40 million aborted since Roe v Wade.  Also of special note on this album are several compositions by John Tavener, including ‘Mother and Child’, ‘Song of the Angel’, ‘Fragments of a Prayer’, and ‘Mother of God Here I Stand.’

Another album that musically chronicles tragic and violent loss is ‘Black Angels’ by the Kronos Quartet.  The liner notes for ‘Doom A. Sigh’tell that the composer was writing an elegy to the innocent martyrs shot during the communist takeover of Romania.  In the background you can hear the folk recording of two Romanian women crying while trying to sing an elegy.  Periodically the instruments produce sounds like gunshots.  Other notable works on this album are the Spen in Alium by Thomas Tallis, eponymous Black Angels ; and Shotakovich’s haunting Quartet no 8.  Dmitri Shostakovich once said after a perofrmance of it that he wished he could write a piece of music for every individual who was murdered by Josef Stalin.

Another good album as a whole is Dark Wood by solo Cellist David Darling.  The entire album is one piece in several movements.  It is a masterful work of brooding ultimately ending in cautious hope.  At points throughout you if you listen close you can hear the Cellist (Darling himself) breathing heavy with the effort of playing the cello (although not, I think, in this example).

Finally, if we as a nation don’t correct our course on the dignity of all human life, we have this to face:

von Speyr on Familiarity

I was writing a letter to a friend on my thoughts about the TLM (see post from last week).  I came across this quote from Adrienne von Speyr which helped to illuminate my feelings rather succinctly.

To get used to things means merely to rob them of their deeper meaning.  Here is an example: your Sunday best was once an ornament, but later you began using it for everyday wear.  All it does now is perform a service; it no longer adorns you.

Waiting for the Giant

I just heard what has got to be one of the more interesting chance meetings in history. Recent history anyway. Well, let’s just leave it as interesting.

Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre the Giant to school.

Gotta wonder how those conversations went. “Samuel, why aren’t you driving the car?”

Wisdom from Wells

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

H.G. Wells, “The Outline of History” (1920)

I think that’s a pretty concise redux of the 20th Century, or even between the bookends of

How Obama hinders MLK’s dream

The election of an African American president sends a powerful and historic message that what was previously unthinkable can become reality.
(……)
The battle for equal rights has reached a major milestone, but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of full equality remains just a dream as long as unborn children continue to be treated no better than property.
(……)
President-elect Obama has promised actions that will only increase the number of abortions.

               —- Dr Alveda King (niece of Dr Martin Luther King)
                         November 11, 2008