Ash Wednesday: Asking help from the Mater.

A friend sent this quote from Edith Stein's Essays on Woman. I thought it a fitting help for the first day of Lent, when the fast is new and fresh and terrible.

"Mary is the most perfect symbol of the Church because she is its prefigurement and origin. She is also a unique organ of the Church, that organ from which the entire Mystical Body, even the Head itself, was formed. She might be called, and happily so, the heart of the Church in order to indicate her central and vital position in it. The terms body, head, and heart are of course simply metaphors.But their meaning, nevertheless, is somehow absolutely real. There is a distinctive coherence between head and heart, and they certainly play an essential role in the human body; all other organs and limbs are dependent on them for their existence and function. Just as certainly, through her unique relation with Christ, Mary must have a real--that means here a mystic--relationship with the other members of the Church. This relationship extends far above that of the other members in intensity, nature, and importance; it is analogous to the relationship which a mother has with her children, a relationship surpassing that which the children have amongst themselves. The title of Mary as our mother is not merely symbolic. Mary is our mother in the most real and lofty sense, a sense which surpasses that of earthly maternity. She begot our life of grace for us because she offered up her entire being, body and soul, as the Mother of God.

That is why an intimate bond exists between Mary and ourselves. She loves us, she knows us, she exerts herself to bring each one of us into the closest possible relationship with the Lord--that which we are above all supposed to be. Of course, this is true for all humanity, but most particularly for women. The maternity and bride hood of the Virgo-Mater is continued, so to speak, in their maternity, natural and supernatural, and in their life as brides of Christ. And just as the heart sustains the other organs of woman's body and makes it possible for them to function, so we may genuinely believe there is just such a collaboration of Mary with every woman wherever that woman is fulfilling her vocation as woman; just so, there is a collaboration of Mary with us in all works of the Church. But just as grace cannot achieve its work in souls unless they open themselves to it in free decision, so also Mary cannot function fully as a mother if people do not entrust themselves to her. Those women who wish to fulfill their feminine vocations in one of several ways will most surely succeed in their goals if they not only keep the ideal of the Virgo-Mater before their eyes and strive to form themselves according to her image but if they also entrust themselves to her guidance and place themselves completely under her care. She herself can form in her own image those who belong to her.

p. 240-241

Booklist 2011.

2011 was not a great year for reading, but here are the real standouts. I did a lot of re-reading, which is always a little like coming home to find a good friend waiting.

The best book I read is actually not yet in print. Wait for it! But here are the highlights--in no particular order--of what money can buy.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy -- So maybe a mom suffering from postpartum depression should not spend three days in the bleak midwinter reading Cormac McCarthy (he also wrote No Country for Old Men, of movie fame). This novel is, however, just fabulous. Set after some un-named apocalypse in the near future, it is the story not of the rape of nature or even of the worst in man, but of the very best. Written by a man often described as a nihilist, it is anything but nihilistic. He is dark, but he is not dark about nothing. I loved it.

Arise from Darkness, Benedict Groeschel -- After reading McCarthy, this was absolutely necessary.

Catherine of Siena,

Sigrid Undset -- Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy is possibly my favorite fiction of all time (Brideshead Revisited is the possible rival). I was so excited to discover that she wrote a biography of Catherine of Siena, the peculiar mystic who ordered popes around. Undset is a master class in medieval thought, customs, and imagination, and she brings all of her skill to her work. She is not afraid to offer natural explanations for some of the phenomena surrounding Catherine, but never dismisses the supernatural either.

The Rage Against God, Peter Hitchins -- Christopher Hitchins' less famous, but possibly more interesting, brother. The book is less a point-by-point argument against atheism than it is a painting. Peter Hitchins draws a sketch for us of his life behind the Iron Curtain and his own encounters with a world without God. It's ugly, and you suddenly see--with the eye of the artist--the suddenness with which the world can change. Worth a gander.

Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy Sayers -- I re-read all of the Sayers mysteries during my battle out of depression last winter. In the dark hours, I would read and read and read her whimsical prose. Perhaps I was being obsessive, but it worked. And, aside from its therapeutic qualities, her fiction is wonderful, grown-up brain candy. Busman's Honeymoon is my favorite: It has to be one of the best treatments of sex in modern fiction. It's real and beautiful without glossing over the humor of the conjugal act. She maintains a perfect modesty without being prudish in the least. Oh, and it's a great mystery. You learn a lot of Donne while having a lot of fun. (Oh, that was bad.)

Doomsday Book, Connie Willis -- I read this on Melanie's recommendation. I haven't read science fiction since high school, but I enjoyed the novel enormously. The basic story involves time travel, exchanging deadly viruses across centuries, medieval Oxfordshire, and the bubonic plague. Anything set in England, 1348, is bound to be slightly nauseating. I am grateful for Purell and soap on a deeper level.

And that's the Best of 2011. The Booklist for 2012 is already much longer--I'm feeling ambitious as per usual during Christmas vacation. If you have any suggestions, please send them this way.

Happy reading!

Miriam and a postcard from the volcano.

Yesterday, the Scientist Dad stayed home from the university so that I could go meet with a priest for spiritual direction and Confession. It was blessed.

This afternoon, as I sliced red peppers and whisked together the curry, 3-year-old Bella queried:

"Miwiam, why dost (she really says dost) Mummy have to go to Kerfeshun?"

The Mother Superior responded, "Well, Belly, sometimes Mommy is a Bad Catholic. So, she has to go and tell the priest, who is really Jesus just for a minute, that she was a Bad Catholic. Then she is a Good Catholic again, until she does something else bad. Then, if she wants to be a Good Catholics again, she has to go back and tell Father."

Yes. That just about sums it up. It's simple. Baptism: We are all good Catholics. We get lazy, we drift, we fall asleep on the watch, we sin. Bad Catholics. The fix is simple: if we want to be good again, we just tell father.

I loved the "if," which reminds me:

I'm finishing Lucy Beckett's A Postcard from the Volcano, a fabulous crash course in 20th-century history, the Western canon, and... well, all of Western philosophy. (I have raved about her In the Light of Christ, a more formal introduction to the canon.) Not to give it away, but one of the main characters, originally a convert to Catholicism, ends up spending three years without the sacraments. He attends Mass, sitting in the back row, but never reconciles with the Church. In effect, a Bad Catholic.

Max's dearest friend, Adam, questions him: Why has he stayed away so long? His affair had ended, his 18 months of the lusts of the world had ended, tragically in an abortion. Why had he not confessed, been absolved, and returned home? Max's answer is poignant.

During his time of "real life," in the world of sex, drugs, and jazz (no rock 'n' roll in pre-War Germany), he had found himself feeling alive, feeling unhappy, but electric. His lover would tell him, "You're not really a Prussian bureaucrat who only likes Brahms. You just look like one, talk like one, work like one. Take it all off with your clothes." And he did. He even felt relief when she had the abortion--although he also immediately left her--just because he wouldn't be tied down to her forever.

He tells Adam he is uncertain now--after it all--of who he is, what he believes, even of God's interest in him. Confession seems too certain, Mass only a fragment of his self. How can he confess a sin he enjoyed, a sin that he felt relief at?

Adam listens--and this is good--but then brings Max back to the simplicity: "Now listen to me. Eros is the only sickness for which we volunteer. You are anwerable for what happened between you and Eva, in a way that she's not, or not yet--no one knows... Your reaction to the abortion shows that you know [there was hardly any connexion between you]. It also shows that you understand the self-indulgence, the distance rom God, of the whole thing. You understood this all along. The fact that Eva didn't understand helped you to hide from the fact that you did."

Adam continues, "What I would like you to do is this. Tomorrow is Sunday. The village Mass is at nine. Come with me half an hour early and make your confession to Father Stanislaw. He's a good man--not that it matters what he's like. Tell him the simple facts. Be given absolution. be given Communion. Pray for your child. Pray for Eva. And for me."

And that is what they do. Then Max takes the train back to Breslau and realizes that he can once again play Bach. "Adam had restored him to a place where the truth was steady."

That's what Confession does. The sloth of sin and the the grime of accumulated falls make the world spin. Reality is unsteady. Was it really so bad? Did I even mess up? Does God really care?

The only clarification is in absolution. When you want to be a Good Catholic again, after you fight through all that grime and grasp the rock, the light breaks through.

I can play Bach again.

Miriam has the instinct, if her vocabulary is a little reminiscent of the 1950's CCD teacher. Mommy was, for a little while, a Good Catholic again. And I found that the truth was steady.

Come to think of it, I think Miriam's ready for her own First Confession. Next month.

Image source.

Great books, great source.

Eighth Day Books' printed catalogue is in itself a source of great insights and fodder for blog posts. The little bookstore in Kansas has as its mission to offer "an eccentric community of books based on this organizing principle: if a book—be it literary, scientific, historical, or theological—sheds light on ultimate questions in an excellent way, then it's a worthy candidate for inclusion in our catalog.

"Reality doesn't divide itself into "religious" and "literary" and "secular" spheres, so we don't either. We're convinced that all truths are related and every truth, if we pay attention rightly, directs our gaze toward God. One of our customers found us "eclectic but orthodox." We like that."

They manage to be eclectic without crossing the fine line between ecumenism and syncretism. I want to read everything they print.

For example, here is a little-known, 131-page book by Orthodox layman Jean-Claudet Larchet, The Theology of Illness. The bookstore's blurb-writer for the printed catalogue (how do I get that job?) begins:

"... Larchet makes a bold pronouncement, possibly even startling: 'There is no question that people today have far fewer resources than their ancestors did to deal with the entire problem [of physical illness].' While he accedes that modern medicine has acquired extraordinary skill in diagnosis, therapy and prevention, its treatment of the body addresses only our biology and not our spirituality. As strange as it sounds, being deprived of illness actually limits our means of dealing with death, doing little to help us assume the redemptive powers of suffering and humility."

Come to think of it, I don't know when I'll have time to read 131 pages. But a snippet like that will keep me thinking for a week. At least.

Image Source.

My man.

The Art of Manliness seems to be making a comeback in the margins of the Interweb. You can find, hidden in cyberspace, all sortsof blogs dedicated to the revival of such skills as classy tattoos, shaving with a badger bristle brush, and holding the door for the ladies (or just women, if ladies are in short supply). It's a subculture, and it's pretty cute.

One Catholic blog is devoted to Castiglione’s “sprezzatura,” sometimes translated as "noncholance," as outlined in his Renaissance work The Art of the Courtier. Castiglione writes that the true gentleman exudes this quality: I have found quite a universal rule which in this matter seems to me valid above all other, and in all human affairs whether in word or deed: and that is to avoid affectation in every way possible as though it were some rough and dangerous reef; and (to pronounce a new word perhaps) to practice in all thing a certain sprezzatura [nonchalance], so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it..."

I'm thinking that, from a lady's point of view, YES. There is something irresistable in the man who performs in a seemingly effortless way--appearing unpretentious and at ease in al things. This is true, I believe, about men I don't particularly like for other reasons, e.g., Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy. Is it sprezzatura that makes most male comics funnier than the women (Seriously. I'd watch Bill Cosby over Lucille Ball any day.)?

Thanks to a dear friend from long ago, I have a brief list of qualities in the true courtier. A guy can hardly exhibit the sprezzatura and still be a jerk, a dawdler, or a coward around the ladies. What think you?

Swift. This is not to say the masculine male is hasty, but rather that he doesn't Muck About. In romantic parlance, that means, "If you're going to marry the girl, ask her. If you're not, stop dating her."

Adroit, but Humble. It takes a person of considerable talent to not only court the lady, land the job, start the business, father the children, and hold the door, but also to do so with an effortlessness and humility that inspire others to seek their best.

Friend. He never fails to greet people with a smile and is ever ready to assist in times of sadness, confusion, or celebration. For those of us who know the Man personally, it is no understatement to call his friendship one of life’s privileges. And he's attentive to his mom.

Poised. While he always looks dapper, it is his grace of bearing and personal presence that truly reflect his inner self and make the stronger impression. In a time when many mistake accoutrements for the source of personal style, he reminds us that how we carry ourselves is just as (if not more) important.

Patron. His pursuits of objective truths through scientific study support his appreciation (and support) for endeavors in the arts and humanities, which—as he often reminds us—also speak to deep truths about humanity and God.

A whole man. Recognizing that we only know Truth insofar as we practice Truth, he is unabashedly devout, drawn to the Truth by the timeless “lens of Beauty” and the admiration of goodness. That worldview compels him to be actively involved in his country as a citizen and as a witness to the gift of all life.

Thank you to the men who are these things to us.

Baby worship...

"THE two facts which attract almost every normal person to children are, first, that they are very serious, and, secondly, that they are in consequence very happy. They are jolly with the completeness which is possible only in the absence of humour. The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea."

G.K. Cheserton, "The Defendant"

Love, power, and Hans.

I've been thinking a lot lately about love and how to communicate love. One of the biggest catalysts has been the debate over same-sex marriage in New York: I think the debate points to some disagreements so fundamental that we, as a society, have lost the ability to even have this debate. And so, there is no debate: There is, in the end, only power.

But power is not credible. Power is not satisfying, I believe, even to the one who holds it. Love alone is credible, and as a civilization I believe we have lost who love is: the true, the good, and the beautiful.

And, hey! I've read books about love... So here, with a few revisions is a re-post of my analysis of the third chapter of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Love Alone is Credible.

Hans presents two approaches to speaking of the love of God.

Eros. First, we can begin to think in terms of personalism: One person cannot presume to master intellectually another person's gift of love. I can't break down my husband's love empirically or even explain it in terms of his "humanity"--the minute I do, I lose him.

Beauty. The second approach to love is through beauty. "In the experiences of extraordinary beauty--whether in nature or in art--we are able to grasp a phenomenon in its distinctiveness that otherwise remains veiled. We encounter something we could not have invented, but which is nevertheless deeply compelling. It satisfies us in a way we could not have satisfied ourselves.

These two approaches are, of course, just "signs." Von Balthasar emphasizes that, unlike a piece of art, God's love is not something "produced," nor does it exist in order to "fill my need." But both eros and beauty come together and are transcended by God's revelation of his love.

Divine love replaces human love as "agape"; divine beauty is "glory." Von Balthasar insists that both terms are needed for us to perceive that majesty of divine love: because it is beauty, it possesses an authority. When this authority shows itself, it demands our obedience; we long to be obedient when we see it, because it is at once so glorious and so intimate.

He has a beautiful little meditation on authority in the middle of the chapter--addressing the authority of the ecclesial office (bishops), the Scriptures, and the "living proclamation of the Word." All three, he says, are "merely word." They do not take on flesh until God himself takes on flesh: "The sole authority is the Son, who interprets the Father in the Holy Spirit as divine Love."

The authorities we obey here on earth have authority in obedience to Christ's mission. They--the Church--"prepare man to perceive the manifestation of God's love and to give it its due." This is a lovely way to think about Church authority and all the "rules" and doctrines; they have authority insofar as they exist to prepare us to see God face-to-face.

Von Balthasar leaves us with a warning: We must interpret Christian revelation "either wholly in terms of the self-glorification of absolute love or else we simply fail to understand it."

Receiving the beauty of love--the glorious majesty of God--requires the eyes of faith, eyes that neither presume too much nor shrug with false simplicity.

Teresa, Avila, and Joy.

Today, the Church celebrates the life of St. Teresa of Avila, dear to my heart. Her Autobiography ranks right up there with Augustine's Confessions, with the added bonus that, hey!, she's female. I just love this quote from Butler's Lives, because it sums up so perfectly why we love her:

"THE HUMBLE relation which St. Teresa has left us of her own life, in obedience to her confessors, is the delight of devout persons, not on account of the revelations and visions there recorded, but because in it are laid down the most perfect maxims by which a soul is conducted in the paths of obedience, humility, and self-denial, and especially of prayer and an interior life."

That's right. It's not the Teresa of Bernini (see above), but rather the Teresa of the second image (below), the only known contemporary portrait (can someone tell me who painted it, please?). The second Teresa has thick eyebrows and looks a little stern, as though she's repeated herself several times already today. But her eyes are raised, looking up, in a practical expectation that her Spouse will visit her in prayer. She is one real woman, this Teresa.

According to Butler and "Herself" (I love the English title for the Penguin translation), she repeatedly fell from great religious fervor into a sort of unreflective, lukewarm faith.

"Who ought not always to tremble for himself, and excite himself by humility and holy fear to watch continually with the utmost attention over his own heart, to apply himself with his whole strength to all his duties, and with the greatest earnestness to call in Omnipotence to his assistance, since this holy virgin, after receiving so many favours from God, fell again from her fervour and devotion? Her prudence and other amiable qualifications gained her the esteem of all who knew her. An affectionate and grateful disposition inclined her to make an obliging return to the civilities which others showed her. And, finding herself agreeable to company, she began to take delight in it, by which she lost that love of retirement which is the soul of a religious or interior life, and in which she had been accustomed to spend almost her whole time in prayer and pious reading."

Yes. I tremble.

For twenty-freakin' years, she struggled with true devotion to God:

"Yet for a long time she continued still to pursue her amusements of worldly dissipation, and receiving visits at the grate, as if she had a mind to reconcile two contraries, which are so much at enmity with one another; a spiritual life and sensual pastimes, or the spirit of God and that of the world. The use she made of prayer made her see these faults; yet she had not courage to follow God perfectly, or entirely to renounce secular company. Describing the situation of her divided soul at that time, she says that she neither enjoyed the sweetness of God, nor the satisfactions of the world; for amidst her amusements, the remembrance of what she owed to God gave her pain; and whilst she was conversing with God in prayer, worldly inclinations and attachments disturbed her."

That means this mammoth of a mother saint was almost forty when she finally said "yes" to God with her whole heart.

"After twenty years thus spent in the imperfect exercise of prayer, and, with many defects, the saint found a happy change in her soul. One day, going into the oratory, seeing a picture of our Saviour covered with wounds in his passion, she was exceedingly moved, so that she thought her very heart was ready to burst. Casting herself down near the picture, and pouring forth a flood of tears, she earnestly besought our Lord to strengthen her, that she might never more offend him."

And He heard her prayer.

May it be so for us all.

St. Teresa, pray for us.

My Top 5 (I mean, 6!) Guys.

I had so much fun contemplating my top 5 gals last week, that for the past few nights Ana and I have turned our thoughts to compiling another list: the top 5 men in my formation. This one was much harder, both because Ana decided to start sleeping for seven hours (less quiet time to contemplate) and because there are so many men around. It's raining men! I had to allow for one more, since... who can choose between priests and who can possibly not include the Pope? So, in no particular order, here's what I came up with:

The Top 6 Men in my Formation (minus Super-formators Jesus Christ the King of Glory, Todd, and my father)

1. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. The late, great Neuhaus was probably the first Catholic intellectual I really got to know well. I started reading his Public Square early on in high school and devoured his books and longer articles in college. His political thought in particular (for example, see American Babylon) helped me to navigate the perils of formative years spent in Washington, DC. His meditations on death--told with reverence and wit--and the irreplaceability of each human life are challenging as well as supremely hopeful and comforting. And finally, the group of people he gathered around himself so as to make their thought available and present to the Church in America has in turn provided endless riches in all things Catholic (and simply Christian). A Chestertonian, into-the-breach-men, sort of love for God and the Church. At his death, I felt I had lost my grandfather.

2. Sheldon Vanauken. This is one odd duck, but A Severe Mercy, which I read at least twice yearly through high school and college, probably formed my understanding of human love and suffering more than any other book (aside from Jane Austen's novels). It is the story of his devotion to the beloved Davy and their conversion to Christianity; it ends with her early death from cancer and his grief. Although he himself was an unfinished work at the time he wrote, his language and poetry taught me what to look for in a man's love: it is only a gateway for divine love.

3. John Paul II. Well, duh. I can't even begin. So, I'll let this piece from the opening of Veritatis Splendor speak for him:

"Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens everyone" (Jn1:9), people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" (Eph 5:8), and are made holy by "obedience to the truth" (1 Pet 1:22)."

He was (and is) what he preached, and we saw the Truth in him with our very own eyes. Joyful obedience. Fervent devotion. Total gift of self. These were all the phrases he embodied. He is now a dear friend, bringing many of my petitions before the Father for me.

4. C.S. Lewis. He's always been there. From the Narnia books in my childhood, through the Abolition of Man and Surprised By Joy, Until We Have Faces and The Space Trilogy--everything I read of his clarified and articulated the truths of orthodoxy for me. I would say his writings were my first foray into logic and philosophy in high school. He, along with Neuhaus and Chesterton, set the standard for clear thinking tethered happily to reality.

5. Fr. Robert Schlageter, OFM. For twelve years, he was the chaplain at the Catholic University of America and helped transform so many young lives. I listened to his preaching--always gentle--and received his admonishment in Confession for four years. He grew more bold in proclaiming Christ as time wore on--more bold and more loving--and he always encouraged me in pro-life work (even when it was hardly the glamorous or acceptable thing). Urban legend has it that he would find porno VHS's in boys dorm rooms and make the lads smash them up then and there.

6. Fr. Dennis Billy, CSsR. A dear friend of my father's from college, and now a dear friend of the family. We were blessed to have him at our wedding, as well as for a little private Pre-Cana at Mt. St. Alphonsus. He told us, "The world puts a lot of pressure on young married couples. Put your trust in Christ, and He will be your foundation." He was right. He gave me a blessing once right in the middle of a crowded restaurant. A priest for the Lord.

Honorable Mentions (oh, so many!)

~Evelyn Waugh

~GK Chesterton

~Blaise Pascal

~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

~St. Augustine

My Top 5 Gals.

There was a super-cool meme going around last week: Your Top 5 Catholic Devotions.Because of the summer virus, I never got around to it. But often in the wee hours, I play around with my own "Top 5" lists. This one has been revised numerous times and will continue to shift, but here's my best shot at

The Top 5 Women in My Formation (minus Super-Formators Mom and the Blessed Virgin--that's too easy!

(If you want to play, please leave your top 5 in the comments box, or post them on your own blog and link back here. You can use your awesome mother or the Sweet Mother of God; I just had to limit myself!)

1. Elisabeth Elliot. A Protestant missionary whose first husband, Jim Elliot, was martyred in the Amazon jungle in 1956, Elisabeth Elliot was probably the biggest influence on my young, pre-Catholic spiritual life. As an eleven-year-old, I devoured her Shadow of the Almighty and Through Gates of Splendour, both of which cover the story of Jim and his companions, as well as A Chance to Die. The zeal for God and His Word made an enormous impression on me and encouraged a lasting love of the Christ who "calls us apart" and asks us to pay the price for His Crown. Passion and Purity, when I was about 13, confirmed in me a love of the Christian sexual ethic that I still believe saved me endless heartbreak in high school.

2. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross). Where to begin? I think I encountered her in my senior year of high school, as I was deciding to major in philosophy. At the time, I was sure I would become a nun, and her story captivated me. Because of her, I wanted to study phenomenology, the meaning of which I couldn't (and still can't) really grasp. Again, she was a woman of total integrity. Like Elliot, she believed that a life worth living was a life totally given over--no half measures. At first, she was convinced this meant a total devotion to philosophy, which led her inexorably to a total devotion to Truth, which she suddenly found was a Person, was Love. Since I was now Catholic, I needed someone who went beyond Elliot and Stein provided this for me. She continues to challenge me each day, even though I did not follow her footsteps into the convent.

3. Sr. Anna Wray, OP. No link available here! Sr. Anna, who I mentioned in the last post, showed up during my first week at Catholic University. I had never had a friend before of my own age who loved Christ (and was a total dork about philosophy). She was flame. She began a weekly adoration hour of praise music, followed by a short sermon from the friars, silent prayer, and Confession. She was also my dearest friend. We discerned together, prayed together, fasted together, and I listened to her talk philosophy (I couldn't always follow her). She, soon joined by many other young women, taught me that we cannot do this alone. Total gift of self is not just something I can do all by myself. I need the example of those holier and more zealous than I. "Losing" her to the convent was a wrenching experience, but also one of the most beautiful gifts I ever could give to God (and it made room for Todd!).

4. Therese of Lisieux. Ah, Therese. It's been a long, long road. When I first read Story of a Soul in high school, I was a little befuddled and even turned off. She was so ... drippy. But she has a habit of hanging onto one. A friend and I later joked that, instead of being our "Little Flower," Therese was our "Little Weed." I started to pray for her help in early college and entrusted Todd's conversion to her. It was highly effective. The woman pulled no punches, even sending me numerous snowstorms (she loved snow) and roses on various and appropriate occasions. I began reading her autobiography yearly, and ever since have been completely hooked on her Little Way.

5. Laura Ingalls Wilder. I had to dig back into the early childhood influences, since Miriam is almost to this point in her little life. It was a close call with Little Women, but the Little House (so many "littles"!) books certainly influenced both my imagination and hopes for the future. I couldn't imagine a memory or play without some reference to life on a farm, in the woods, on the prairie, or in a family. Charles and Caroline's marriage was so beautiful to me, as was the children's love of learning and the hard work of daily life. Surely that had something to do with where I am today.

Runners-Up (because I can't stop!)

~ Clare of Assisi

~ Mother Angelica

~ Kari Beckman

~ Ann Hartle

~ gosh, there are so many more ...

Comforts for a sick philosopher:

"The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above." ~GK Chesterton, The Revival of Philosophy

If, after completing your education, you feel you still in any way reduce life to the "practical," you vote based on the "progressive" or the "evolution of civilization," or you measure happiness in terms of "efficiency," it's time to hit the books.

Hey, I knew that guy!

So far, summer reading in NH has included Magnificat, back-issues of National Review, and Gut Check, by Tarek Saab, of The Apprentice fame. The subtitle is "Confronting love, work, and manhood in your twenties"--and that pretty much does no justice whatsoever to Saab's message. This is less a self-help book for young men than a Confessions.

Saab tells his story of conversion from the ego-centric hedonism of his college years (though I'm afraid his exploits are tame compared to most) to a muscular understanding of what it takes to be a man for God in our current American culture. The story is also the spring-board for reflections on the particular pressures our culture places on young men in the workplace and the perpetual-adolescence malaise in social settings.

Saab's thoughtfulness and the breadth of his sources of inspiration (he quotes Pope Pius XII, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Fulton Sheen, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton, to name a few) are truly impressive, but most of all his deep humility. His peace and joy have been hard-won.

The book is well-worth a read (and well-worth buying a few copies for dissemination among your male friends!). And, hey! I knew that guy at CUA briefly and superficially through Campus Ministry--it's glorious to read that he has become, indeed, a better human being than I! Onward to Christ, Tarek, alleluia.

At the end of the year

November always brings out the Slav in me. The year is drawing to a close, the earth is gathering itself for sleep, and darkness falls early and suddenly. It's all a bit melancholy but also strong and wise. Czeslaw Milosz is among my favorite Slavs--a poet every melancholic and philosopher should know. He won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, back when that meant something.

This is from his later notebooks, titled "A Mirrored Gallery."

Pure beauty, benediction: you are all I gathered
From a life that was bitter and confused,
In which I learned about evil, my own and not my own.
Wonder kept seizing me, and I recall only wonder,
Risings of the sun over endless green, a universe
Of grasses, and flowers, opening to the first light,
Blue outline of the mountains and a hosanna shout.
I asked, how many times, is this the truth of the earth?
How can laments and curses by turned into hymns?
What makes you need to pretend, when you know better?
But the lips praised on their own, on their own the feet ran;
The heart beat strongly; and the tongue proclaimed its adoration.

And why all this ardor if death is so close?
Do you expect to hear and see and feel there?

And I have lived a life that makes me feel unable
To bring myself to write an accusation.
Joy would spurt in amid the lamentation.
So what, if, in a minute I must close the book:
Life's sweet, but it might be pleasant not to have to look.

~Czeslaw Milosz, "A Mirrored Gallery," in New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

PD James

I just finished The Children of Men, by PD James. It's quite a read--good, fast, full of suspense, and philosophically interesting. The premise is brilliant: what would happen if human beings simply lost the ability to procreate? Her descriptions of a world with no children (the book opens with the death of the youngest human alive, a 25-year old) are eerie. Her predictions of subsequent human behavior are fascinating. And the story itself is pretty good, even if the end leaves you unsatisfied.

The most interesting part for me was that she confronts the relationship between sexual intercourse and children with a genuine curiosity: what would we do if... In other words, she's not writing the book to warn us or frighten us (although she does a good job of it). I think she sincerely just wants to look at the question.

Her answer is this: when procreation is no longer a possibility, the result is ugly. Both men and women (and here she's right on) lose pleasure in sex and, thus, desire. The youngest generation feels an increasing sense of entitlement, a lack of interest in honest work, and a general lethargy that results in deadly amusements. Middle-aged women substitute dolls, cats, and dogs for the children they cannot bear. Priorities are put on security, physical comfort, and contentment rather than on courage, the arts, contemplation, and the high adventure of love. The intensity of reality has become too painful for human beings to consider: extinction, helplessness, joylessness.

There is a redeeming element, however, that makes the book bearable. James's description of the (apparently) miraculous birth of one child gives every reader new eyes with which to view the world, infants, and themselves.

It's worth a read.

A movie was made not too long that apparently wasn't bad (although some plot and character details were changed). Here's an excellent review. But James's language mustn't be missed.

On happiness and the human thing

The following piece by Miss Christine Neulieb (aka, "Jacques") is simply brilliant and is part of an ongoing blog discussion at Dave's on hedonism. I'm wiped from wedding parties in VT, so here's the quote entire.

Another Topic (warning: philosophy ahead!) (by Jacques)

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

"Sinners are all alike; only saints attain true individuality." -- G.K. Chesterton (and that's a rough paraphrase, sorry.)

There's definitely a tension between those two ideas, but I don’t think they conflict. I think they’re two sides of the same coin.

The Tolstoy quote is very anti-relativist. A relativist would say things like "well, this [e.g. living chastely] is right for me, but who am I to say whether it will make you happy? Everyone has to do whatever floats their own boat!" If you don’t want to be a relativist, you have to admit that because we are all human, what makes us all happy is the same thing. We can describe it, give a name to it: virtue. If all human beings share a common nature, then it must be the case that we share a common moral code, that murder and rape and so on are wrong for everyone and not just for some people, depending on the circumstances.

The reason every unhappy family (or person) is unhappy in its (his) own way is because virtue makes up one complete whole. You need all the virtues to be truly happy. Thus, if someone is truly happy, we can reliably expect to find in him all the virtues, but if he is unhappy, he might be missing any number of things. One person might be unhappy because of lust, another because of greed, another because of envy and sloth combined...

I would only disagree with Tolstoy if he means his statement to imply that happy families are boring, and only unhappy ones make interesting subjects for fiction. I don’t think Tolstoy would say that, but there are plenty of people around who would. It’s such a modern idea, that it’s only worth writing about [messed] up people, because goodness is boring. In actual fact, goodness is much more difficult to describe, because it’s rarer and more creative. Epic, as a genre, is more difficult than the modern novel because it describes heroes, while the novel describes people just like us, and it’s a lot harder to make your reader believe a hero than it is to make him believe someone who’s like people he meets every day. Very few people can actually predict what a wholly virtuous person would do in circumstances X or Y, because they confuse virtue with decency, or repression, or any one of a million other things that it isn’t. Flannery O’Connor said she only wrote about twisted people because she wasn’t a good enough writer to capture the reality of good people.

What virtue is, is the full and complete flowering of a human personality, and as such it cannot help but be interesting. Chesterton is describing that other side of the coin. Yes, we all share a common nature, but it is also true that, as St. Therese said, "souls are as different as faces," and somehow we become more individual, not less, when we develop in virtue. The cardinal virtues are the same for everyone – prudence, justice, temperance, courage – but what they look like realized in a teacher is subtly different from what they look like in an accountant; what they look like in Dick is subtly different from what they look like in Jane. Goodness is not generic: it is the same for all men and yet unique to each individual. That is one of the greatest tensions, one of the greatest paradoxes, of the Christian life.

It's true each sinner may have his own preferred set of sins, but let's be honest, in this fallen world there are a lot more of us sinners than there are saints, and so sanctity is just for that reason surprising. We are barely even aware of what God could do with us, were he to bring us to the fulfillment of what our natures can be. We cling to our faults in the erroneous belief that they make us individual, distinguishing us from others, but that belief only means we have not begun to scratch the surface of who we are. We fear that if we became wholly virtuous, overcoming all our faults, we would be just like everyone else, but we fail to realize that evil is only the privation of good, that a vice is a lack of something rather than a real thing in itself, and that what distinguishes us as individuals ought to be positive and not merely negative. It is far better to be defined by strengths than by weaknesses.

Whew, this post is getting long, and I still feel like I'm articulating myself poorly. I think I just realized that this topic might be a little bigger than my blog can handle...

Thank you, Jacques, for the thoughts. You may be studying Plato, but--whoa!--that was some hefty Aristotle! Much love, etc., the Philosopher Mom et alia.

Sokolowski on faith and reason

The God of Faith and Reason is actually better than Pieper's chapter for reading about what Christian faith does for reason. It's marvelous and a not-so-hard read.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

If you've noticed my love of Lucy Beckett, this will not be a surprise. Here's a link to all the Hans Urs von Balthasar you could ever want (and more!).

Whatever side you take in the discussion on Christ's descent into Hell (that's a raging battle), you must acknowledge Balthasar as one of the greatest theologians of the 20th-century.

He worked under the well-reasoned conviction that Truth is one with the Good and the Beautiful. All three of which are personally interested in you. I especially like the title of one of the articles on this website: "Love Alone is Believable." So true, so true.

A summer reading suggestion

If you haven't read Nectar in a Sieve, it's a wondrous time. Sorrowful, yes, easy read, yes, beautiful--in full! It was recommended by the Feminine Genius, who has an eye for such things, and is a true picture of lovely womanhood.

If you read it in high school, read it again. It gets better with age.

Like a fine wine. (Sorry, I couldn't resist...)

Great Books Reading Guide

I was just talking to another mom about reading lists for summertime. This book, Invitation to the Classics, is a fun and beautiful read. It has brief synopsises (synopses?) of "the books you've always wanted to read," including Plato, Aristotle, Chaucer, Dante, Thomas More, Thomas Aquinas, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, T.S. Eliot.... they're all there! You don't even have to read the originals! (That's a half-joke.)

It's a good investment for anyone who plans to homeschool her children, as well.

A superlative Sunday something

I've just found this link to a great

"Introduction to Philosophy for Young People."

Now, you needn't be young to enjoy these essays--they're relatively brief and provide a good overview of some basic philosophical topics from Aristotle, Plato, and Thomas.