FRIDAY POTPOURRI: BUT IS IT ART: MORE THAN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

So the beautiful is not just matter of taste but a transcendental.  There are things that are fascinating, innovative, novel and maybe even pretty and which draws one in.  But does that make it beautiful?  

Beauty is more than personal taste.  Beauty is beauty by its nature.  It is Truth and the Good made visible.  Thomas Aquinas adds these characteristics: integrity, due proportion and claritas.  It is something that draws one in.  It is also admirable: when one stands before that which is beautiful it is more than being attracted, it is being awed and enveloped, it is being inspired deeper into truth and goodness.

A few decades ago a Supreme Court Justice (Potter Stewart) in rendering a decision on hard core pornography side stepped defining it, a thing which he found very difficult to do, by saying, “I know it when I see it.”  But is it entirely subjective?  No, there are elements that must be present.  Is it entirely objective?  No, there are things that seem to have all of the right elements but just, somehow, fail.  Can someone be coached into seeing the beauty of something that at first did not strike them as beautiful?  Well, yes.  It may be called developing good taste.  Can one be fooled?  Oh, definitely.  Can something be beautiful without me seeing the beauty in it?  Yes.  Etc.

Like the building up of a good culture, could it be that beauty needs the collective experience of “the many” and time to be declared truly so?  (This helps rid us of the bias against, "I don't like the color blue," or "Anything to do with this politically correct topic/style is tops with me.)  Are critics and experts just pretty good predictors who have a step up on weathermen but who, similarly, are at times spectacularly wrong?  Could a ten million dollar “work of art” today be thrown in the ash heap of the future along with the thought, “What were they thinking?”  I think so.  

Beware of the prophet that declares something beautiful too out of the norm and pressures you to follow suit (but be open to skeptically considering) and don’t be too quick to jump on board declaring something long thought to be beautiful to be destroyed because what might only be fashion has influenced us too much.  Beauty doesn’t get to be beauty simply because someone says so.  But a lot of human beings over a long period of times certainly have a defining voice.

All of which makes judging art more difficult (but not completely impossible either.)  So the next question is, “Are art and beauty permanently joined at the hip?  Does a work need to be beautiful in order to be art?”

YOU ALWAYS SAY MORE THAN YOU INTEND TO REVEAL

There is a saying that goes, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”  When a person is not careful about their speech they can end up revealing much more than they intend.  It is part of the “why” behind the Gospel injunction to always be truthful and speak that which is Good, True and Beautiful.

Take today’s Gospel for example.  Jesus drives out a mute demon and his detractors say, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”  In their carelessness in denouncing Jesus, they inadvertently bring Him some credence.  Notice that they didn’t say, “Nothing happened.”  Clearly something happened and they needed a way to discount it and so ascribed the miraculous thing they witnessed as being evil.

So first they inadvertently give great testimony to something that they themselves witnessed.  Then they reveal something about themselves in turn.  Jesus explains the weak logic of their argument and then says, “Those who are not with me are against me.”  Who is He?  God.  If one are not with God, with whom else can one be?  There is a lot of things being revealed here though an attempted deception.

Something similar happened in the local newspaper recently.  In a letter to the editor this week entitled, “Stop the Hatred,” the author rallied against what she saw as growing division in the United States.  She wrote, “If you are an anti-Semite, racist or whatever else, bigotry is an equal opportunity killer.”  What is interesting here is that she takes a group of people (who by and large are clearly in the wrong from a Christian point of view) and separates them from the rest of the “good people” (My words, not hers) and then sort of sets up this “we good people” pointing that the “bad people” and berating them.  “What these bigots don’t realize . . .”  (To whom is she speaking?  People who who are not bigots?  Wouldn’t they already know this?)  While I agree with her premise that if we allow hatred of any group, we may, one day, find ourselves on the wrong end of the stick, her method for getting there is not to engage those whom she may desire to convert to a more loving stance, but to put them in a group and denounce them and inadvertently becomes, at least somewhat, what she hates.

In another interesting article in the Beacon Journal this past Saturday entitled, “Planned Parenthood funding cut.”  The subtitle was, “Federal Appeals Court upholds laws ending flow of state dollars to abortion providers.”  The title and much of the writing is an enormous reversal of language normally used in the public media.  There was no mention of “abortion foes” (as opposed “Pro-Life Advocates” that those who promote life would prefer to be called) or the masking of abortion by the writer as “women’s health care” and in describing an abortion procedure the baby is referred to as a fetus not a mass of cells.   

Is this, too, starting to reveal a change in popular culture?  Only time will tell.  It was only one article.  But it was published and makes one wonder what truths it may be revealing.

WHY WASN'T THE PERFUME SOLD AND THE MONEY USED TO FEED THE POOR?

Starting Easter Monday, St. Sebastian church will be closed weekdays for restoration.  Someone might rightly ask, “Why drop this amount of change on a building?” and list any number of worthwhile causes were the resources might be spent.  It is a good question to ask and one not to be taken lightly. 

At the center of a Catholic community is not a thing (building of otherwise) or a theology or philosophy or any thought or thing.  It is a Person: Jesus Christ.  And not a center where Jesus is remembered or merely in some way mysteriously present in a people or proclamation.  According to our 2,000 years of belief, Jesus is present substantially, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearance of bread.  He is present to us just as He was 2,000 years ago when John the Baptist pointed to Him and said, “Behold!  The Lamb of God!” 

The epicenter then - the very core of our parish can be found in the tabernacle - in the Sacred Species.  You can find this in the most conspicuous spot in the most conspicuous building on our campus.  There is no mistaking this from the clues given by our art and architecture.  

As a result, this is where a large number of (mostly) local residents voluntarily gather at least once a week to discuss what it is to be human, what it is to be good men, good women, what it is to be a good citizen, to hear and be sent out on mission to form Western Culture.  It is no academic exercise.  It is a duty to which we are expected to respond the benefits of which are for more than ourselves but for the good of all, particularly the most oppressed or disenfranchised.

Its doors are open to all.  Its beauty is even for those who have no funds to support it.  It is all done voluntarily and not just for the good of itself but, as it sees itself, for the good of the whole world.

Such noble gems of intentions are of course enshrined in a beautiful space.  The center of our source of beauty, goodness, and of truth is reflected in the space in which it is nurtured.  The idea is not to have a building that stands out beautifully in a less-than-beautiful world, but to inspire the world to be as beautiful.

DAZZLE ME

I pray for wonder.

God is so awesome.  But we are so accustomed to HIs awesomeness.  And just as it is a terrible thing to grow accustomed to evil, it is even more egregious to allow the glorious to grow common.

So pray and fight against it.

One way to do this is through beauty.  Beauty grabs your mind and heart in a vice grip and says, “Wait a minute!  Consider me!”  And instead of fighting against it like we might a dissertation or street preacher, we are utterly helpless, at least for a moment, before true beauty.

The other day I was sitting in the a side chair of our sanctuary praying my Liturgy of the Hours and reviewing my homily before Mass when a server came out to put something on the credence table.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him look, do a double take, and then just stand and stare at a painting we put in our sanctuary for lent.  

As you saw yesterday, St. Sebastian is in another periodical because of the art generated at the parish.  Nobody asked for a printout of my last homily (which was brilliant and erudite by the way), but they did an article on a painting and because of it I was able to also talk about some truths of the faith.

I think about the time we were on tour with the choir and they began to warm up in the parking lot of a church in which they were about to perform.  People paused in their touring about and stopped and listened.  Had I been simply extolling the virtues of beauty my bet is I would catch fewer people and held on to them for a shorter period.

As Fr. Benedict Groeschel would say, “It is ultimately beauty that will save us.”  You cannot win anyone over if you do not first have their attention.  You won’t get anybody’s attention if you don’t have something beautiful.  Beauty does not come out of a catalogue of mass produced articles.  People are looking for a unique, beautiful voice.  How are you going to give it to them?

I pray for wonder.

FRIDAY POTOURRI: IT'S ABOUT US.

Lumen Fidei chapter 3

 

There is a lot of truth that we accept that is simply handed to us.  If I tell you that I typed this post on my computer and posted it, though you have no way (or even if you did you wouldn’t bother) of testing and knowing for fact the veracity of this supposed truth, you would most likely accept it for any number of reasons.  We also accept all sorts of other things because we are part of the community of man.  We receive our name.  We know a spoon is called a spoon and not a dump truck.  Community stores this collective knowledge and passes it on.  That is why we are Church and not a collection of “Me and Jesus” people.

 

We are most Church when we celebrate the sacraments and follow the teaching of our Church, which is kept safe for us through apostolic succession and Tradition.  When we step outside of these things we run the risk of losing truth (or truth becoming relative) and the unity of man (and man with God) is in jeopardy.

 

If this intrigues you, I invite you to read the whole thing which is much deeper than this little synopsis. 

CAN YOU BELIEVE ThE POPE DID THAT?

It amazes me when people are SURE FIRE about something about which they have no real means to know if it is true or not.  It amazes me even more when somebody points out to ME that I am adamant about something about which I have no real means to know if it is true or not.  We act on our prejudices and assumptions often unawares.

 

For example, a Grand Jury decided recently in a controversial police shooting that the officer was acting correctly.  A huge swath of people including much of my news sources have jumped on the band wagon condemning the police officer, police departments, and the justice system none of whom were there, attended the trial, or knew the people involved.  So sure, where there is smoke there is fire, but how can they be so sure in direct condemnation?

 

Today people have absolute ideas about the pope, what he said, what he meant, what he did, what his intentions are, and these are largely gleaned from blurbs from newspaper articles that are more interested in stirring up brouhaha than giving a fair, balanced, and full reports.  It doesn’t help the matter that our diocesan newspaper does little to counterman this.

 

Recently, Catholics in Akron were given two deeper glimpses into what is going on with our pope.  The first was Fr. Haydu, International Director of the Friends of the Vatican Museums, who said the reason many practicing Catholics are bristling at some of the things that come from the lips of our pontiff (assuming that it is being reported correctly) are missing out on the idea that they are not his audience.  We are the 99 sheep that he is allowing priests, bishops, and cardinals to tend and he is going after the 1 lost sheep.  That is his target audience.  And we can be like the prodigal son’s brother upset with the dad not giving him the fatted calf. 

 

The second opportunity was Mr. John Allen, senior correspondent to the Vatican for CNN.  He cautioned us about the media’s focus on a rift between the pope and the American bishops.  This will be exaggerated as we prepare to greet him in Philadelphia next year.  While there are certainly some bishops that do not agree with Pope Francis, there have been contingencies of bishops that did not like Benedict or John Paul II or any pope in history.  Today it is being highlighted and being made to seem larger or more important than it is.

 

Another caution he offered was buying into the “Benedict bad, Francis good” mentality.  Many of the things Pope Francis is (rightly) getting great credit for was also done by Benedict (though nobody knows of it) or are initiatives begun by Benedict and being implemented by Francis.

 

These are just two examples (and not very flushed out owing to the limited space of a post in this blog) but they point to something about which we need to remember: Don’t believe everything you hear.  Just because it is in writing does not mean that it is true.  If something sounds overly controversial to you, we have means to look into it more deeply.  John Allen’s articles are always considered excellently done.  You may find it HERE.  Or you may check out the Vatican websites themselves as well as other reputable Catholic sites.

 

We can be much more in the know.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: OPIUM IS THE OPIATE OF THE MASSES

Chapter 2 of Lumen Fidei

 

“Christianity is the opiate of the masses!” or so said Karl Marx and it is absolutely true if faith is not wedded to truth.  If faith is not wedded to truth than it is no better than a sit com on TV that allows us to forget our worries and be happy for a little spell. 

 

But true faith is all about truth.  Today’s Catholic cannot lose sight of this.  On the one hand there are those who only believe in things that can be measured, viewed, and reproduced.  At the other end of the spectrum are those who only hold to what is true for the individual (it’s true for me even if it isn’t true for you.)  But there is a deeper understanding of truth that lies in humanity’s memory.  It grounds faith and far from being a hard dictator, is something that brings us freedom when properly understood.

 

If we do not think of freedom as something that we possess, then we can engage others in faith.  Truth is rather something that possess us and therefore we can walk with others who have are on a sincere search for truth and faith.  It is this truth and faith for which all sincere seekers are looking.

ATHEISTS MAKE BETTER THEISTS THAN YOU THINK

The opposite of faith is not atheism just as the opposite of love is not hate.

 

Take this example of hate as opposed to love; In this awful scene, the character played by Glen Close is spilling vile hatred on her father.  (It is disturbing.  If you don’t want to watch it simply know this – she went to see him on his death bed to tell him she hates him and will never forgive him.)

 

Even though she obviously hates him she is still in relationship with him.  It is a sick relationship, but she is still connected to this man she despises.  She feels a need to communicate.  What happened in the past matters to her.  What he thinks and feels matters to her.  And when she leaves the room he still has control over (will still have control over her after he dies!)  It may be a sick relationship, but it is a relationship.  And though we would hardly call any aspect of this love, it is not the opposite of it yet.

 

The true opposite of love is indifference.  With indifference there is no relationship, there is no caring how the other person feels or thinks.  There is no control over the other person (positive or negative) because there is no type of connection at all.  It is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. 

 

In like manner, atheism is not the opposite of faith.  (There are many types of atheism so this is speaking rather broadly.)  There are atheists that spend their energy fighting notions of God, which puts them in relationship with Him unwittingly.  There are atheists who build their moral construct on viewing the world by observing it and seeing how it seems to operate at its best, which brings us to Natural Law, which ipso facto brings order and intelligence to the universe which brings us to God.  There are atheists who rely solely on science, which often leads him to faith.  Let us suppose that he relies on the theory of the Big Bang as the birth of the universe (put forth by a Catholic priest by the way.)  It still explains nothing.  What caused the big bang?  Why should there be energy as opposed to not?  Why should there be matter as opposed to not?  In the end (or in the beginning) the whole thing is established on faith of things that are completely un-provable.

 

The relationship with (or to) God may not be a healthy one (from a Christian perspective) and the faith in SOMETHING that gives order or was a first cause may be materialistic in nature but it is still faith. 

 

The true opposite of faith is thinking that the world and all that it is in it is a complete fluke of nature.  Life has no meaning.  The existence of the cosmos has no meaning.  This whole conversation would ultimately have no point.  Truth is non-existent.  There is nothing cognitive outside of ourselves (and even that may be an illusion) and when humanity passes away it won’t matter.  The universe will continue to go on and there will be nothing to mourn the passing of man or all of his works and thoughts.  It wouldn’t mean any more if we had just been rocks.  So eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.

 

But let one tiny ray of order, meaning, or the holding of something that cannot be proven, then there is a relationship with something that most people call God no matter how flimsy.  Catholics may not think it a healthy relationship.  But it is one.  And therefore not the opposite of faith.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: FREEZE FRAME

Dei Verbum paragraph 12

 

A mother, seeing her son make an ugly face at one of his friends pulled him aside and said, “Son, I want to tell you a story about a little boy who always made faces like the one you made.  One day his face froze that way and he was looked on as ugly by everybody.  Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”

 

The little boy thought about it for a moment and said, “Okay, I’ll go play with him for a while if he doesn’t have any friends because of his face.”

 

Writings, stories, and the like are subject to interpretation and occasionally we can divine the wrong message; the author intends one thing, the listener receives another.  (Just ask a priest how often that happens with his homilies.)  Scripture is no less susceptible to this.  Though it is God speaking to us, He is speaking to us through human authors.  If we want to understand what Scripture is really saying we must first determine the medium that the author is using.  The Bible is not a book.  It is a collection of books – a small library containing books on poetry, history, stories, parables, music, and the whole lot.  A parable cannot be read in the same way that a book on history is read.  And sometimes history was recorded in a different (but no less accurate way) than modern history is recorded.

 

That being said, even though the Bible is many books, there must be unity among them.  The message must be consistent from beginning to end.  And interpretation of the Scripture (held firmly in check by Sacred Tradition among Catholics) must be consistent from first century to last.  This is where the Church plays a vital role in interpreting Scripture.  And by “Church” we do not mean three old men in Rome as the common fancy makes it out to be.  Chesterton would refer to it as the democracy of the dead.  It is the understood experience of the faith beginning with Apostles, the early Church Fathers, the lived faith of 2,000 years of Catholics, and how Catholics live the faith around the world.  It will not be the case that Holy Spirit will suddenly tell the pope that it’s now Okay to have same sex marriage or that baptism should only be performed on adults.  That is not the experience of the Church going back 2,000 years.  To be able to do that as many Churches do, would be to say what was truth in 1592 is not true in 2004.  It would be just as logical to say what is true at 2:00PM on Wednesday is not true on Thursday at 6:24AM.  Truth is either truth or it is not.  Modern culture says truth is subjective.  (But then is it truth?)  The Catholic Church holds that truth is always truth and it is universal (or it is not truth.)

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: IS THIS TITLE TRUE OR MERELY CLEVER?

Dei Verbum paragraph 10

 

What do you say when someone says that they no longer believe in the doctrines of the Church?  How do you respond when someone says that they are Catholic but they don’t believe in what “those bishops” say? 

 

Gee, that’s too bad?

 

Good for thinking for yourself?

 

The question is, “What are doctrines anyway?”  They are not the rules that club leaders get to make.  They are the result of two millennia of the study of Scripture and Tradition.  The magisterium may make binding pronouncements that are binding on the whole Church, but they may make up nothing.  They are at the service of, they are the slaves of Scripture and Tradition.  They have a limited set of tools and may make a limited set of products (doctrines.)  In this, though they may get all dressed up in fancy clothes and stand in the sanctuary, they are truly servants to the greater Church.  They may (in their official capacity) only pass on truth to those willing to listen.

 

Granted, they are sometimes better at stating it than at others, but it is their job as servant leaders.

 

So here’s how it works:  We have Sacred Scripture.  We have Sacred Tradition.  These two pillars support the Church.  They inform, strengthen, and guide each other.  They are the jewels from which crowns are woven.  They began to take clearer shape in the first centuries of the Church through the practice and teachings of the Church Fathers.  Nothing that Scripture and Tradition has taught us and held as truth may change.  What was taught definitively in the year 200 is still taught in the year 2000.  Over the course of centuries these truths may be defined more clearly, but they may never contradict what went before.  As Chesterton was fond of pointing out, if we say that truth changes, that what was true in the Middle Ages is not true today, we might as well say what is true today may not be true on Tuesday next at 3:15PM. 

 

So doctrine is a result of the study of that which is true.  For Catholics, doctrine is truth defined.  It is in this Truth that bishop, priest, deacon, religious, and lay persons are united.  That is the hallmark of Catholic Christianity and should not be discarded casually.

WITH NO ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS

Truth?  What is truth?

 

Real?  What is real?

 

Last night we were sitting out on the loggia watching the storm come in and discussing matters of faith.  We have candles out on the loggia that are spring loaded; that is, the candle is inside a tube and a spring at the bottom pushes the candle up so that can burn all the way down to the nub while all the time always “looking like” a new candle recently lit.

 

We do a lot of things that look or sound like we are doing the “real” thing.  Depending on the parish at which you worship you may have fake bells in the tower, an electronic organ made to sound like a pipe organ, fake pillars made out of plaster, art printed by machine and made to look like a painting, faux marble, silk flowers, electronic candles, acetate vestments, and occasionally canned homilies.  Does it matter?  What is the value of “real?”

 

I once had a book (that has since been lost) talking about such things.  It even railed against followers on candles because it obstructed the view of the glow of the candle in the wax at the top of stick and prevented the natural dripping of bee’s wax.  I don’t know if I would go quite that far but I like the direction in which the author was looking.

 

Having only fake experience of things is every bit as barbaric as having only seen artificial night.  Most people have never seen a true night sky undimmed by light pollution.  Few moderns have an idea of the beauty and majesty of the Milky Way or the fascination of seeing a satellite pass quickly by with the naked eye.  The total experience of a true night sky absolutely jammed packed with starts only comes from pictures, planetariums, and Star Trek movies.  These take the place of real and “real” becomes the interesting second of our primary experience.  “You know, you can really see it much better at the planetarium.” 

 

There are four paths to God; the One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.  “Real” art is true, is good, and is beautiful particularly when it is connected to the Eucharist and when it is touched by the genius of the human hand or the action of the elements.  Therefore is it not good to come as closely as we can to that which is most elemental such as air actually passing through a pipe to create a pipe organ sound, fire that produces the light of what we want to label a candle, a bell that rings out what we call “the bells,” flowers that don’t grow dusty and faded before they grow unusable, a painting that is unique to an artist who produced it and can’t be found in every parish church that you might stop into, to have a place that is not “virtual” out of convenience or cost as much as possible as clever as the virtual might be, so as to be in closer proximity to that which is real, True, Good, and Beautiful? 

 

There is something here difficult to articulate and one either gets it or they don’t.  And obtaining it is sometimes easier to achieve than others.  And it can go too far.  But the less we live with artificial as real, the closer we live in truth.

 

COMPLETELY UNRELATED TOPIC:  Which is why I hate aluminum siding.  There is always an attempt to make it look like wood.  It is not wood.  It doesn’t look like wood.  So why not make aluminum siding look like aluminum siding.  What great and interesting thing can it do that perhaps we can’t do with wood?  Could we come up with new designs and applications so instead of looking like an artificial wooden house, it could look like a beautiful aluminum house?

 

*sigh*

 

Does anybody out there feel this way?

STRAW MEN

A few assignments ago the parish in which I was ministering was part of a local ecumenical council.  All the local Christian Churches joined together in order to try to create some positive events for the community.  There was one Church, however, that was viciously anti-Catholic.  Actually, I don’t think that they were intentionally anti-Catholic, but they were.  Their tag line was that they loved Catholics and knew that they were going to hell, and so it was their sworn duty to do everything they could to convert us.  This included sneaking into the parish church and leaving tracks that looked very Catholic on the cover but inside taught why Catholicism was so bad.  As a result they were asked not to return to the group.

 

Now, I actually do not have a problem with somebody who thinks they have something better going on and invite people to their church instead of the Catholic Church (even though I think they are wrong.)  But I have a difficult problem with the great amount of Churches that misrepresent the Church, then denounce the misrepresentation, and then say, “So join us, because we are not that evil Church.”  I can’t get over how often this is the case.  It is common even in my local area with such mega churches such as Grace and The Chapel, large non-denominationals that boast such a large percentage of their congregations are former Catholics, who feel they have to misrepresent the Church in order to refute her.  Even when they use the Catechism, it is a common practice to use selective passages out of context to make their point.  That is not saying much for someone who believes they have truth and want to convince somebody to join them.  So much for trusting in the Holy Spirit. 

 

On the one hand it is our fault for not teaching our people better.  On the other hand, hurray for us for if the majority of their congregations are made up of ex-Catholics, WHERE DO THEY THINK THEY WERE FIRST INTRODUCED TO JESUS AND ARE STILL FEELING MOVED TO FOLLOW HIM albeit in a breakaway Church?  It is a shame (and not entirely their fault) that former Catholics rely on such sources to tell them what their (former) Church taught them instead of really looking into it – and there are plenty of ways to do so.

 

Thinking about it recently I came to the conclusion that if were not Catholic, I would not be Protestant.  If it were not for the Eucharist in the way that the Catholic Church believes it, I don’t think I would buy into the whole Christian experiment.  I would probably be Jewish.  But as it is, there is the Eucharist.  And I cannot fathom anybody who has been properly catechized in it, and who believed it, would leave the Church for anything no matter how justified they felt.  In fact, most people I talk to concerning their reasons for leaving the Church have nothing to do with such things.  They site better music, better community, better extra-praise services offered by the church and as such, searching for a Church becomes like looking for a good gym – a place that offers things I want rather than an honest search for truth.

THIS TITLE MAY OR MAY NOT BE CORRECT

“I hate to say I told you so.”

Nobody likes the guy that says this – the guy that always takes such joy in being “right.”  You darn well he does not hate to say it and that makes it all the more annoying.

 

Keeping that in mind I can agree with what one local worship leader said recently, “I get very nervous when people start saying they know what is right.  People need to decide for themselves who and what they should vote for.”  The “right thing” can be somewhat subjective.  And perhaps I get a little nervous but to tell the truth, I want someone to have convictions.  I want someone to stand up and say, “I believe this and intend on acting on it and I believe you should also.”  To say, “Well, this is right for me, but maybe it isn’t right for everyone,” is akin to saying I don’t really think that it is right in the first place.  What we get nervous about is the person who believes they are right but will not engage the conversation.  Bumper sticker arguments are bandied around like ping pong balls never really affecting the person they are hitting.

 

But there is a difference between being right and discussing truth.  It is true that not everybody has the same idea concerning truth.  But a faith should be very clear about what faith is or it really doesn’t have anything to say.  Nobody should be blindly influenced by an institution (indeed the Catholic teaching is that each person should look into matters and be informed beginning with not only what by WHY the Church teaches as she does) but that does not mean that institution should not speak out boldly.  I don’t need an institution to say, “I don’t know, what do you think?”  I can do that at home with my buddies.  Give me back my $20 for Valuetime Cheese curls to eat while we debate thank you.

 

Institutions form because they believe in something.  In the case of the Catholic Church it fundamentally believes in the absolute value, dignity, and sacredness of all human life from conception until natural death, in freedom of religion, in marriage being constituted of one man and one woman, and so forth.  So even in an election year, I have no qualms about her speaking her mind in these matters.  She may not be able to tell me what button to push, chad to punch, or circle to fill in, but she can guide me in what she thinks is truth.  If she doesn’t, she is miserably failing in her role in society and become nothing more than a mirror, reflecting back you your own image and saying, “You’re the fairest of them all.”

 

It the height of silliness to want a Church to tell you that you are right in whatever you think.  What is useful is a Church that tells us we may be wrong when we think we are right.

SIR, WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR RECEIPT IN THE BAG OR SQUISHED DOWN BETWEEN THE SEATS IN YOUR CAR?

I was listening to something on the car radio yesterday and desperately wanted to write it down so that I would remember. I found a pen readily enough but nowhere (whilst I was driving – only try that at home kids) could I find a piece of paper. Reaching down between the seats I snatch up (among other things) an old receipt from a pizza parlor in New York that already had a bunch of things scribbled on it. Well, I might as well get some of those scribbling out of the way and so here are a few of them.

This was written by John Updike and was read on the show Prairie Home Companion. Scribbled on my note was “Updyke (sic) Why miss church?” After a little surfing I found what had piqued my interested that day. Here is “Going to Church.”

"There was a time when I wondered why more people did not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what could be more delightful, more unexpected than to enter a
venerable and lavishly scaled building kept warm and clean for us one or two hours a week and to sit and stand in unison and sing and recite creeds and petitions that are like paths worn smooth in the raw terrain of our hearts? To listen, or not listen, as a poorly paid but resplendently robed man strives to console us with scraps of ancient epistles and halting accounts, hopelessly compromised by words, of those intimations of divine joy that are like pain in that, their instant gone, the mind cannot remember or believe them; to witness the windows donated by departed patrons and the altar flowers arranged by withdrawn hands and the whole considered spectacle lustrous beneath its patina of inheritance; to pay, for all this, no more than we are moved to give—surely in all democracy there is nothing like it. Indeed, it is the most available democratic experience. We vote less than once a year. Only in church and at the polls are we actually given our supposed value, the soul-unit of one, with its noumenal arithmetic of equality: one equals one equals one."

The second scribbled note was, “Trumpet – Taps!” I had left a graveyard (this was in Chicago) where we had just buried a relative. He served in the air force during WWII. As such he was afforded a military funeral. There was an honor guard, the folding and presenting of the flag, and the gun salute. Then a man picked up a trumpet to play taps.

Now, I’ve been at such events when all that was available was a boom box, a man would break from formation, bend over like one of those “Lady working in her garden” cut outs that were so popular in the 90s while trying to find the button that said, “PLAY.” Later they installed a big red button on the side of the chapel that a lady would go up and punch like the “Emergency Stop” button in a machine shop and a recorded trumpeter would sound.

Well, here we were again at a cemetery. The man went and picked up his trumpet. I remember thinking it an odd looking instrument – something between a flugelhorn and a bugle. He fiddled with the bell in a very military and professional manner for a moment and then put the instrument to his lips. It sounded a bit off to me but I marked it up to being a rather unique instrument . The man did not seem to be breathing very deeply for someone playing a trumpet-like instrument. In fact, he was breathing IN as sound was coming OUT. And what was that odd mute in the bell of his instrument? That was no mute! It was a speaker!

I know I’ve written about this before but when do we get to the point when we say, “You know what? We don’t have the talent to do this for real so we will skip this part of the ceremony? (Let’s not restrict this playing taps but apply it even to the Mass.) Many people would argue that no one can tell the difference between a real organ or fake one, real bells or fake bells, an actual organist or a prerecorded one, electric candles or real ones, real masonry or plastic, etc. But how far is too far? If we are going artificial should we be bold about it and not try to play as if it were real? Should we at least be genuine in our artificiality? Did man every have this problem before?

And why does it bother me so – and not others?

More receipt notes some other day! God bless.

EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL IN ITS OWN WAY (IS IT?)

Beauty, if it is truly to be thought so, must be wedded to some truth. Beauty without truth will ultimately fail to satisfy. If you should be lost in the woods that is absolutely full of rabbits which you are able to catch and eat to your satisfaction, you will ultimately starve to death because rabbit meat is too lean to sustain life. If something is beautiful but reflects no truth, it may attract our eye but it will ultimately fail to feed our souls and nourish us and give us life.

The truth of the piece may not be immediately apparent. Sr. Wendy came to the Cleveland Museum of Art to produce an audio tour of her favorite pieces. One little amazing piece was a small, heavy, brass bear, not so much in the shape of an actual bear but looking much more like an infant’s plastic chew toy of a bear (though a very well done chew toy.) She described the piece as a weight used to hold down the corner of a mat on which an official would sit during official business (I forget both the year and the province.) First she reminded us of people’s natural affinity for bears. We do find them fascinating. On the one hand there is the sheer power and awesomeness of these beasts of the wild which strikes in us some amount of respect and fear. If we encounter a bear in the woods (or in our kitchen) the natural reaction would be to flee.

On the other hand they are so attractive. They look soft and their fur draws us in to want to touch them. As they lumber and eat berries our minds turn to the overstuffed plush toys that we had as children. At the zoo we watch them play in the water or snuggle with their young ones and are moved to say, “Look! Awwwwwwe!” Such is our attraction to bears. Respect and attraction. Fear and awe. Beauty and strength amidst a certain comfortable frumpiness.

Then there is the little brass bear at the edge of the mat of the government official who sits squat, enduring some presentation by someone with more breath than actual information burning away the precious minutes of life that God has given him. He looks down and sees the bear perhaps at his right knee. For a moment he is brought to mind of our affinity for bears and he reaches out his hand and places it on the bear’s head and for a moment is relieved if the pain of the meeting.

I did not do Sr. Wendy’s talk justice – not nearly. By the time she finished her telling of the story I was foolishly near tears so much truth and beauty came melding together. Beauty must take us somewhere. And that somewhere must be part of the truth of the universe – of God – of what it is to be human – or it is something else - a technique – or even ugliness.

A couple of people asked about faces and what attracts us to them. One scientific study says that balance and symmetry does it. Well, sure, that is what attracts us to a particular face. We are drawn in. But each of us have experienced meeting something who truly looks beautiful but once we start talking to the person or getting to know them deeply and finding some ugliness discover that the beauty of their face can no longer attract us – or if it does we keep looking for something good – some truth convinced that some beauty MUST be backed up with some substance. Or perhaps there is someone whose looks at first turned you off, but after getting to know the person find that they now appear beautiful to you. This is far different from the initial attraction.

That is the attraction or pornography. A person is attracted to the beauty of the bodies that they view. There is no learning more deeply about the person. The mind can fill in the perfect personality. So the person being viewed can be kept beautiful in the mind of the person but it is a false beauty. As John Paul said the problem with pornography is not that it reveals too much, it is that it reveals too little. True beauty desires to lead us somewhere. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” says John Keats.

True beauty is a finger that points beyond itself. If it does not, it may be attractive (and empty,) but should not be thought beautiful from the “ism” through which we wish to evaluate it. It may be that we have failed to see through it and our “ism” requires us to search more deeply. And finally, if it is to be truly beautiful it must lead us to something great.

A FRESH VOICE - GUEST BLOGGER PART II

This is Part II of a 2 part series by seminarian Patrick Schultz

In the anthropocentric worldview, to be free is to wield the hammer of creativity and by sheer exercise of the will, sculpt oneself and one’s world as he or she sees fit. There is no notion that our choices should conform to our nature and promote our end, simply because modernity denies that we have a nature to conform to or an end to actualize. Herein lies the difference: to consider all of reality as devoid of intrinsic natures and indwelling ends is to see all being as malleable and moldable according to our whims, including the human person. If man is not endowed with a nature and an end, then all is permissible, and more importantly, everything is right. In a “Hakuna-matata”—no worries—fashion, whatever a person chooses, he is right; no one can object. You cannot go wrong within this framework. Why? Because if the supra-material causality of spirit is illusory, then there are no intrinsic natures in nature; likewise, if there is no transcendent spiritual dimension, then there is no God. If there is no God, then there is no grounding for morality, for good, for evil, for right, for wrong, for anything. If, as Nietzsche contends, “God is dead,” then all concepts of anything absolute dissipate. Without a lawgiver, law is a farce. The voice that speaks categorically in our heads, the voice of conscience that whispers those “ought’s,” is an illusion that can and should be ignored. The anthropocentric worldview is a slow asphyxiation. As Flannery O’Connor once remarked, it is a noxious gas that is breeding the moral sense out of certain segments of humanity, much like the wings have been bred off certain types of chickens. Our culture is being bred to believe in nothing, or better yet, that everything is permissible.

Although I doubt the woman on the plane was aware of what she was implying, her question was brimming over with this destructive worldview. I am here to affirm the opposite, and I will spend the rest of my life spreading the gospel of the theocentric worldview. Seminarians, postulants, novices, and all those earnestly seeking God, are looked on by the culture as misguided idealists who are throwing their lives away. And that is the crux of it. We are throwing our lives away. There is a theo-logic inaccessible to human reason that confounds modern sensibilities: for each one of us, we find ourselves by losing ourselves; we gain everything by losing everything; we become fully alive when we die to self. The Church declares that man, made in the image and likeness of God, “is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes 24). To actualize our freedom for excellence is to recognize this sublime truth: it is by giving that we receive. It is through a willed dispossession of self that one fully comes to life.

So, what on earth would make me want to be a priest, especially in this day and age? The answer is simple: I want to respond to Him who loved me first. Just as He gave himself completely to me out of love, so too I wish to give myself completely to him. The only appropriate response to love is love itself. Out of love I was formed, and out of that same love and creativity, I am held in existence from moment to moment. At each and every second of my existence, I stand over the precipice of non-being, and yet God continues to choose me, and wills me to be. In light of such an unfathomable, magnanimous gift, how could I not respond by laying my life down, and giving my all? I do not desire to be used as a means to further God’s ends, as many moderns would interpret; I desire to cooperate willfully in the theo-drama that we are all a part of. I want to be, like all the great saints, one who enrolls in the school of silence, and says everyday: “Here I am, Lord. I long to do your will.”