"We are travelling east."

These are the last words we heard from St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)--spoken, or perhaps written, from a cattle car near Breslau. She asked a brakeman to send them to her sisters in Carmel. The words chill the flesh: We know now her destination was the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

"We are travelling east."

The words struck me forcefully, however, for they also carry another meaning. The train rolled east. The east has always been a Christian word for the dawn of Christ, the final day will dawn in the East, Christ comes from the East. We pray turned toward the East (at least, we try to).

"We are travelling east."

In the east, Edith Stein stepped through that thin veil and greeted eternity.

We are also travelling east this week--east into the darkness of the tomb. In the east, we will greet eternity.

The rituals and repetition of the Holiest Week, all in anticipation of the Brightest Week, are only a sign and shadow of the Great and Eternal Day.

"We are travelling east."

Let us travel east with our Edith, until--as she is now--we are truly there.

Have a blessed Holy Week and Triduum.

Coffee and groaning.

This kid rocks: Go over to Bad Catholic with your cup of coffee this morning, and check out "Christopher Hitchens and Groaning During Sex."

"This is my response to Christopher Hitchens: If the tastes of infinity available to us on earth — art, love, sex, and all the rest — are best unveiled through ritual and repetition, I can only conclude that the Ultimate Infinity we call Heaven will be unveiled and enjoyed through an Ultimate Ritual — and that we will pant for it."

Oh, and don't forget to say a prayer for Christopher Hitchens.

While we're sharing links... did you know you can download the Magnificat's Holy Week booklet for free? Check out this powerful collection of the prayers and liturgical readings of the Church for the next (Holy and Great) days.

Misogynist? NOT.

Let it not be said that St. Augustine was a misogynist. He thought very seriously about the place in creation of human reproduction--of the male and the female and their particular beauty. Contrary to some contemporaries--mostly Manichees--he saw the female form as a cause of rejoicing.

Now, you may read the following excerpt to your village women's studies professor. She might react vehemently, "That's just so weird and sick--who cares about reproductive organs in heaven? Some sicko, that's who. Some white guy obsessed with sex and keeping women in their place."

Ignore her. Augustine was African.

Another possible interpretation of Augustine's thoughts on women is this: Augustine thought seriously enough about male and female reproductive organs to wonder. In his wonder, he could imagine with great reverence what God could have meant when He made us male and female. Far from being perverted, Augustine was able to extract his thoughts from lust for breasts and thighs and hips in order to simply regard them as gifts. I see lots of "free women" exposing female body parts, but I sure don't see much reverence. The female body in pop culture isn't taken seriously enough to make the question, what about eternity?, even make sense.

And, when our treatment of our bodies kills all imagination and wonder, when the questions become nonsense, then we have lost our childlike joy and innocence. In a world without questions, we are old and dry and impotent.

But Augustine, that dead "white" guy, is alive, virile, and exciting. His wonder is contagious: here he is on the female body and eternity.

"Because of these sayings, 'Until we reach the perfection of manhood, the stature of the full maturity of Christ,' and 'Being shaped into the likeness of God Son', some people suppose that women will not keep their sex at the resurrection; but, they say, they will all rise again as men, since God made man out of clay, and woman out of man. For my part, I feel that theirs is the more sensible opinion who have no doubt that there will be both sexes in the resurrection. For in that life there will be no sexual lust, which is the cause of shame. For the first human beings, before their sin, 'were naked, the man and the woman, and they were not ashamed.'

"Thus while all defects will be removed from those bodies, their essential nature will be preserved. Now a woman's sex is not a defect; it is natural. And in the resurrection it will be free of the necessity of intercourse and childbirth. However, the female organs will not subserve their former use; they will be part of a new beauty, which will not excite the lust of the beholder--there will be no lust in that life--but will arouse the praises of God for his wisdom and compassion, in that he not only created out of nothing but freed from corruption that which he had created."

~City of God,XXII.17

How can I keep from singing?

And how can I keep from posting this photo from the Anchoress?

Best rally photo ever.

Hopkins in Lent: Transcience.

March weather is back. After two weeks of June warmth and sun, we are rudely awakened by a gray, cold front. A good start to the last full week of Lent.

"There’s none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth."

Something about March--perhaps its Novemberishness--makes me think of Dead Poets.

And here's Hopkins for today.

54. On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People

A Brother and Sister

O I ADMIRE and sorrow! The heart’s eye grieves Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years. A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves, And beauty’s dearest veriest vein is tears. Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast: 5 Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest In one fair fall; but, for time’s aftercast, Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest. And are they thus? The fine, the fingering beams Their young delightful hour do feature down 10 That fleeted else like day-dissolvèd dreams Or ringlet-race on burling Barrow brown. She leans on him with such contentment fond As well the sister sits, would well the wife; His looks, the soul’s own letters, see beyond, 15 Gaze on, and fall directly forth on life. But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are Of favoured make and mind and health and youth, Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star? There’s none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth. 20 There ’s none but good can bé good, both for you And what sways with you, maybe this sweet maid; None good but God—a warning wavèd to One once that was found wanting when Good weighed. Man lives that list, that leaning in the will 25 No wisdom can forecast by gauge or guess, The selfless self of self, most strange, most still, Fast furled and all foredrawn to No or Yes. Your feast of; that most in you earnest eye May but call on your banes to more carouse. 30 Worst will the best. What worm was here, we cry, To have havoc-pocked so, see, the hung-heavenward boughs? Enough: corruption was the world’s first woe. What need I strain my heart beyond my ken? O but I bear my burning witness though 35 Against the wild and wanton work of men.

The Temperament God Gave Your Kids.

I am a temperament junkie--choleric/melancholic. That's me. And (as a melancholic) having the four temperaments in mind has been a tremendous help to me in living with other people. My boss used to drive me crazy with her bubbly, outgoing craziness. Why was she always wanting to have a big party, sing loud 80's songs, and then pray all 20 decades of the Rosary with 15 kids crawling all over her? She enjoyed noise.

It turns out, she's sanguine/choleric. She has a beautiful combination of two temperaments that just rubs me the wrong way. We both like to get things done our way (choleric), but I like to do it alone (melancholic) and she likes to do it All Together in a Big Happy Family (sanguine).

But once I understood where she was coming from--her natural tendencies, her natural strengths, her natural weaknesses--we worked well together. Very, very well.

Identifying and naming can be so helpful (melancholic!).

That's why I was so excited to read The Temperament God Gave Your Kids, written by the same couple (Art and Laraine Bennett) who brought us The Temperament God Gave You.

The basic premise is that there are four natural temperaments (based on an ancient Greek tradition) that characterize human beings: the choleric, the melancholic, the sanguine, and the phlegmatic. I won't give them away: read the books.

These four temperaments each carry their own tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses (identifying people you know--and yourself--is a hilarious exercise!). Understanding our natural inclinations helps us to grow in those areas that are naturally more difficult for us.

In the same way, the Bennetts know from their own experience as parents that the temperaments can also help us understand our children and how to best help them grow in virtue and joy. Their advice is very simple (even a little redundant if you are already familiar with their first book), but it was a wonderful refresher for me at a moment when my two melancholics are being crushed to pieces by the emerging choleric temperament of their baby sister. Crushed.

Learning to coach a choleric while two sweet melancholic cry over their spilt mudpies is a challenge. This book helped me step back, not take the drama too personally, and breathe. And laugh. We are, after all, just human.

My only criticism is that the book is too short: the Bennetts did not spend much time explaining the possible blends of temperament an individual can manifest. And these blends are precisely what differentiate, say, my 100% melancholic child from her more melancholic/choleric sister.

But it's well worth the investment and the time! Read on (especially all you phlegmatics out there).

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Temperament God Gave Your Kids. They have some good resources for Lent!

Guest blogging!

I'm over at Catholic Lane today, still thinking feminine... Go post a "Yay, Philosopher Moms of the World!" comment in the box.

Have a beautiful St. Joseph's Day.