Rendering unto Caesar.

"And know it now: the senate have concluded

To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar."

~Brutus, Julius Caesar, Act II, sc. ii

I am not wont to post breaking news, but here it is. I am afraid, however, that, unlike Julius Caesar, our own Caesar will not reject the crown the Senate offers.

Archbishop Dolan expressed his hope only this morning that the Congress would be able to help--and now that avenue seems to be closing. There are the courts, and there is always, always fidelity to prayer.

You may check here to see how your Senators voted.

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Senators Politicize and Gut First Amendment

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 1, 2012 Contact: Joshua Mercer Phone: (312) 945-8683 Email: mercer@catholicvote.org

Senators Politicize and Gut First Amendment Catholic Voters Look to November to Restore Rights

CHICAGO – CatholicVote.org President Brian Burch issued the following statement following today’s vote on the Blunt Amendment in the United States Senate:

“Voters across America watched today as a majority of the United States Senate voted to gut the First Amendment of our Constitution by failing to protect the religious freedom of all Americans.

“Today’s vote was in response to a controversy the Obama administration chose to create. The President and his Secretary of Health and Human Services have divided the country with an unprecedented assault on our first freedom – the right to believe – by forcing every American to pay for medicines and procedures that millions of Americans find morally objectionable. And now a majority of the United States Senate has chosen to affirm this assault on people of faith, endangering all those served by religiously affiliated organizations.

“Make no mistake, this mandate is unconstitutional and will be overturned by the courts or by the American people by electing a majority of Senators who will stand up for religious liberty.

“We call upon all voters of faith, and all citizens who believe in freedom to hold accountable every Senator who voted against the First Amendment today.”

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!

Visions of Judgment

With the end of the Church year upon us, HG Wells' short story "A Vision of Judgment" seemed appropriate--both to the liturgy and the general malaise settling over the political candidates and their constituents alike.

Wells is not (disclaimer!) attempting to communicate facts about the End Times, nor is he attempting to formulate new and heretical doctrine about the nature of God and the new heavens and new earth.

The point of the story is that evil is banal. Sin is boring. The narrator arrives at the Day of Judgment and sees everyone: Darwin and Henry VIII make an appearance, as does his publisher. The first man to be judged is lifted up onto God's palm and ordered to tell all of creation his sins. He does so:

I was a king," said the little figure, "a great king, and I was lustful
and proud and cruel. I made wars, I devastated countries, I built palaces,
and the mortar was the blood of men. Hear, O God, the witnesses against
me, calling to you for vengeance. Hundreds and thousands of witnesses." He
waved his hands towards us. "And worse! I took a prophet--one of your
prophets----"

"One of my prophets," said the Lord God.

"And because he would not bow to me, I tortured him for four days and
nights, and in the end he died. I did more, O God, I blasphemed. I robbed
you of your honours----"

"Robbed me of my honours," said the Lord God.

"I caused myself to be worshipped in your stead. No evil was there but I
practised it; no cruelty wherewith I did not stain my soul. And at last
you smote me, O God!"

God raised his eyebrows slightly.

"And I was slain in battle. And so I stand before you, meet for your
nethermost Hell! Out of your greatness daring no lies, daring no pleas,
but telling the truth of my iniquities before all mankind."

He ceased. His face I saw distinctly, and it seemed to me white and
terrible and proud and strangely noble. I thought of Milton's Satan.

God asks whether all this is true. The Angel Gabriel answers that, well, yes. In a manner of speaking, all this is true. But then he goes on to tell the true story: The king had a bad stomach, he ate too much... the Angel reads out all the little, stupid sins and weaknesses that destroy "the dignity of defiance."

The king who imagined himself a great individual, unmatched in his accomplishments (evil though they were), was in fact not unlike the hairy prophet he tortured and killed. An upset stomach tempts us to rage. An embarrassing belch tempts us to imagine our importance offended. And on and on.

By the end of the litany, shame overcomes the little king.

The Wicked Man on God's hand began to dance and weep. Suddenly shame overcame him. He made a wild rush to jump off the ball of God's little finger, but God stopped him by a dexterous turn of the wrist. Then he made a rush for the gap between hand and thumb, but the thumb closed. And all the while the angel went on reading--reading. The Wicked Man rushed to and fro across God's palm, and then suddenly turned about and fled up the sleeve of God.

The whole story is really a treat. I should like to read it to my children--once they have reached the rhetorical stage. It is good to laugh at sin, especially when the evils of the world seem to weigh us down and the hours are long and dark in the night.

We are all as infants before God, before judgment. We can't even distinguish our selves from others by rebellion. There is nothing new under the sun.

There is only home. We only need the sense to run toward it.

Image source.

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.

If you came this way.

Here is Eliot for Thursday. Ten years ago, I was studying in England and coping with being abroad for 9/11. I will always think of England as "the end of the world" and of Eliot as my voice of those days.

From "Little Gidding," No. 4 of 'Four Quartets'

"I. .... There are other places

Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always."

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.

The Cypresses in Spain

"Spain is a peculiar country... In every instance what is characteristis is a tendency toward the instinctive, toward the individualistic, and toward the anarchic. Spaniards follow men better than they follow ideas, which are judgued not by their content, but by the men who embody them. This accounts for the incelmency of personal relationships, the small respect for laws; this, too, is what causes our periodic civil wars." ~Jose Maria Gironella, 1954, Note for the American Edition

The Cypresses Believe in God surely ranks with the greatest historical epics--Doctor Zhivago is the most common comparison--as well as with the deepest explorations of the human heart--nearing (but not equalling) Brothers Karamazov. Its ambitious blueprint is a maze of politics, coming-of-age stories, ideologies, explorations of faith and morlas, and anthropology: it attempts to chronicle, through the eyes of a single family in eastern Spain, the onset of the Spanish Civil War. Coming in at about 800 pages, it seems at the last too short.

Starting in 1931, Gironella follows the Alvear family from 1931--a time of relative peace and prosperity--to 1936, immediately after the first violent outbreaks of the war. In that time, the three children grow up influenced by the various ideals clashing around them, but most of all by the deep love and faith of their parents. From the very first, Gironella makes clear that the experience of family is the implacable factor in every human person's life story. As the world beings to fragment around them, their family in the little apartment on the Rambla becomes the heart of the story: "The inner life of the flat was festive, and all the doors had to be closed to create an atmosphere of intimacy. If one of them was carelessly left open, all the clocks in the city could be heard; nevertheless, the Alvears knew that in a fistful of space they could create an intimate and impregnable world of their own."

Ignacio, the eldest son, is the protagonist of the story, however, and in his heart plays out the mighty struggles of the opposing sides of the revolution. As Gironella leads us through Ignacio's youth, we can begin to tease out the why's, not only of the civil war, but also of the disintegration of any society into violence. How can human beings living so close and happily together in a few short years devolve into hatred? How can "the Church" end up on the side of fascism in any situation? As Ignacio's confusion and convictions grow, so does our understanding of the human condition.

The very last scenes of the novel describe the nights of terror inflicted on the Church and fascists by communist/anarchist leaders. Men, women, and children are gunned down in the darkness by their neighbors; sisters who haven't left their convents in decades are led out to be stripped and slaughtered. In all this chaos, however, Gironella is at pains to insist on this truth: The contentions of this world are passing away. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

That he does so in the most natural, unforced manner possible places this book on the top of my shelf. There is no pretention or preaching--his characters are real, he sympathizes clearly with every side he protrays. In the end, he allows the True, the Good, and the Beautiful to speak for itself.

Carmen Elgazu, the Alvears' mother, speaks poignantly its message. The city's head policeman, Julio, has visited them in the wake of a bombing that left a nun dead, much to the joy of the "Left." He feigns indifference to the edict forbidding any religious symbol or prayer at her funeral. Carmen Elgazu replies:

"You know better than we do what is going on. They are doing everything they can to banish the name of God. That's all they concern themselves about, and to accomplish it they seek the support of anybody, even the anarchists.... To them a cassok or a crucifix is deadly as poison. Mother of God! They could not be more mistaken. Without religion, there is only hatred. Religion is the only brake, even though you don't think so... A family gathered together, as we are here, is old-fashioned, out-of-date. One should do like ... they do abroad. It's all so distressing. Because it is so useless, you know. They won't accomplish a thing. Do they think they've hurt the nun? She's where she wanted to be. Listen carefully to what I'm saying to you, Julio. They can fight God, but they'll lose... They have their work cut out for them. Nor should they think they've won because they see us weeping. They can burn down as many churches as they like. They can forbid crosses at funerals, and altar boys; but they'll never be able to stop us from praying here"--she pointed to her breast--"and that's what counts."

The Tears of God

I came to Fr. Benedict Groeschel's latest book, The Tears of God, with a bias. I don't think I shall ever recover from the depth and incisive rhetoric of David B. Hart's Doors of the Sea, his examination and refutation of Christian attempts to rationalize human suffering and catastrophe. Nothing, I assumed, could top that.

But my bias was soon overcome, for Groeschel has neither written a theological examination of suffering nor attempted to explain philosophically the Christian world view on the non-being of evil. Instead, he has written a book for those who are experiencing catastrophe themselves or are close to those experiencing it. Since we will all suffer at some point, he also explicitly recommends it for those preparing their hearts for that moment.

He has written the book as one entirely immersed in that point of view which Hart so perfectly articulates.: "We Christians are not obliged (and perhaps not even allowed) to look upon [catastrophe] and to attempt to console ourselves or others with vacuous cant about the ultimate meaning or purpose residing in all misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation. Our faith is in a God who has come to resuce his creation from ... the empitness and waste of death [and] the forces ... that shatter liing souls (Hart, 101)." In perfect unison with Hart, Groeschel gives experiential witness to the fact that God himself has willingly suffered catastrophe and to the fact that this matters in our lives.

The Tears of God is eminently practical (Groeschel is a trained psychologist), leading the reader through the experience of catastrophe and the steps of sorrow that follow. He uses anecdotes from the attacks on the World Trade Center, the genocide in Rwanda, and--most predominantly--survivors of the Shoah and World War II to illustrate his points. More than illustrations, however, these living examples of grief offer hope to those of us suffering now. They have "come through the fire" and cleaved to the cross of Christ. In their relationship with a God who suffers with them, they find the strength to continue and even rebuild lives that were seemingly destroyed.

Groeschel urges his readers to meditate on heaven, especially as described in Revelation 21 and 22: "I read these chapters very often because that's where I'm going, and I await the coming of the Lord." His simple faith and (oddly enough) forceful humility on this point is particularly moving, considering our cultural tendency to suppress the thought of death or the end times. Groeschel, in contrast, finds them most comforting in times of great pain.

In the second half of the book, Groeschel's voice disappears. He has collected (and in some cases written) prayers for times of catastrophe--for murder victims, suicides, those who themselves have caused catastrophes, the seriously ill, imminent death, natural disaster victims. He also includes an anthology of Scripture quotations and some spiritual essays for private reading.

The overall result is a brief, but insightful, handbook for those who suffer. It takes only a few hours to read Groeschel's own thoughts, but the reader may return repeatedly to the prayers and meditations. It is a beautiful resource, a love letter to those who share in Christ's unending Passion.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book Reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Tears of God.

Home by another way.

Happy feast of the Epiphany. This one's for Maica.

The Wise Men

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where me can pray,
The way is all so very plain
The we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore,
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labrynthine lore,
We are the three Wise Men of yore,
And we know all things but the truth.

We have gone round and round the hill,
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served mad gods, naming still
The Furies and Eumenides.

The gods of violence take the veil
Of visions and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly... it has hailed and snowed...
With voices low and lanterns lit,
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much to plain to say.

THe Child that was ere worlds begun --
(... We need but walk a little way ...
We need but see a latch undone...)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
The strange old house that is our own,
Where tricks of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly; humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star,
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain,
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes
For God himself is born again
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.

~GK Chesterton

Thanks to MAGNIFICAT.

Campion

I just finished reading Evelyn Waugh's biography of St. Edmund Campion (thanking God for vacation reading time!). It's simply astonishing to my coddled little suburban American brain: the starkness of the choices with which those men and women were faced, the tenacity of their faith, the joy of their suffering. All my mental gymnastics attempting to make the Church palatable or respectable (or even sufferable) to those I meet seem vapid. Campion and his fellow priests knew the difference between making Christ attractive and making Him into a tapioca pudding.

Christ is attractive because He spoke the truth about the human condition, provided the remedy, and gave a Church to guard that truth and remedy. And He died so we would know this: God does not change according to our comfort zones. Great joy in that. And great trembling!

It's a great read: Waugh makes the biography into a cross between a novel, a history, and literary appreciation (of Campion's letters and works).

Love poem for every woman.

The first book of Scripture to capture my heart--rather than my head--was the Song of Songs. In college, with the usual glee of the naughtily orthodox co-ed, I loved to insist to the Muslim student downstairs that the Christian Bible contained erotic poetry. And it does.

The last few days of Advent remind me of the Song of Songs--the intense longing and waiting for "I-know-not-what." (Those blessed enough to have been virgin brides know what I mean.) That physical longing for something as yet unseen is the visible side of our hearts' deepest longing for our Creator--an experience to ponder in our hearts as we wait for Christ and, ultimately, for heaven.

So, I was delighted to open up my copy of First Things to find this poem. What every husband wishes he could write for his wife--a beautiful interplay of the days waiting for marriage and the days waiting for heaven-with-her.

Ghazal to the One

Sun's bliss, leaf shadows, a honeyed breeze--
The world as he would have it be for you,

Your faithful, humble, and obedient servant,
One who has no other goddess before you.

The Name, the Guest, the Beloved are all one,
And he, vouchsafed that vision once, bows down before you.

The blessing of friends, the gratitude of children,
The work of your hands--a table spread before you.

A fantasy he blushes to mention: the desire
to rearrange time since and time before you.

Another not so foolish--he'll wait for you
When he reaches that riverbank, as he supposes, before you.

~Robert Mezey

God is not a tapioca pudding.

If he were a pudding--vast, spiritual pudding in the sky--then

deep ecology
abortion
infanticide
the contraceptive mentality
bestial aggression
and power politics

would all be natural and therefore justifiable in at least some cases.

But he is not. He took a human face.

Ballad of Chesterton

If you have not read The Ballad of the White Horse recently, you really must. I was feeling grim after deleting a nasty "you hypocrite" comment from the blog (that'll teach me to comment on politics!), but remembered to pick up this epic poem from our dearest GKC.

The reason it is such a timely piece lies in Chesterton's gloriously timeless theme: that the small conflicts of states and sovereigns are piece and puzzle of the great struggle between good and evil, the beautiful and corrupt, the pagan and the true faith.

Book III, when Alfred comes to the camp of the pagan Danes in disguise, is my favorite. He listens to the Danish King Guthrum's song of the heart without hope:

For he sang of a wheel returning,
And the mire trod back to mire,
And how red hells and golden heavens
Are castles in the fire.

It is good to sit where good tales go,
To sit as our fathers sat;
But the hour shall comes after his youth,
When a man shall know not tales but truth,
And his heart shall fail thereat.

When he shall read what is written
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods.

The pagan heart--the heart without Christ--is fiery, noble, beautiful, and, as Chesterton sings it, "half-witted." Its world turns endlessly along without a goal beyond immediate conquest, immediate gratification. (So, why does Guthrum's sadness remind me of TLC's "What Not To Wear"?)

And then Alfred strikes up the harp:

When God put man in a garden
He girt him with a sword,
And sent him forth a free knight
That might betray his lord;

He brake Him and betrayed Him,
And fast and far he fell,
Till you and I may stretch our necks
And burn our beards in hell...

When the Danes laugh at this Englishman and ask why he still sings when they have destroyed his land, Alfred sings on:

Here is my answer then.

That on you is fallen a shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame...

Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within...

For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God's death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.

It is good to raise my eyes up out of the current political mire. Chesterton articulates so well the hearts of men without God and brings me back to the One Thing Necessary: that God hath blessed creation with his own death. And life.

Reading the Classics

Thanks to Melanie B. over at The Wine-Dark Sea for this link. "Nancy Drew and the Wine-Dark Sea" explains the value of classical literature--and the inanity of most children's literature. A good motivation to continue your brave fight for truth, goodness, and beauty!

why fiction

A visiting friend and I recently had a discussion about fiction and its place in the life of wisdom. Of course, we didn't use such a lofty thesis statement, but that was the gist of it.

Why should we read things like Brideshead Revisited, Silence, A Man in Full, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Love in the Ruins, The Lord of the Rings, Kristin Lavransdatter, or even... Love in the Time of Cholera? If time is short, shouldn't we be almost exclusively reading the Catechism, the Bible, or various devotional works?

I'd like to think about this question sincerely, because there was a time in my life when all I wanted to read were works by saints or works on points of doctrine or ideas. There's nothing wrong with these seasons of life, so long as we do not absolutize them for ourselves or others.

The place of fiction and, in particular, modern fiction in the life of lovers of wisdom--philosophers!--has to do with knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, and knowledge of God.

The most important thing to remember is that all truth is one, and ultimately is found only in union with God. This does not mean, however, that only art or literature explicitly devoted to God speaks truth. As Augustine wrote, the human heart by nature groans and aches for God alone--all human works, however broken or disgusting, can give expression to this desire and thus to the fulfillment of this desire.

We should be reading the great works of modern fiction (amen, time is short, so skip the trash unless you're on a brain-vacation!) and helping our of-age children to do the same. We should read fiction because it speaks the language a whole dimension of ourselves that perhaps the Summa Theologica does not: the imagination, the will, the heart. It engages our intellect, too, in a new way: Rather than an analysis of a problem, it invites the reader to inhabit the questions at hand. If holiness or viciousness are only fully grasped in an encounter with a living person who is either holy or vicious, then fiction can draw us ore closely to a lived experience of these realities.

We should be reading modern fiction because we are moderns. Even more than that, we are post-moderns. It does not do for us to stop with the Greeks, the Medieval poets, Dante, or even Shakespeare. The reality is that, for us and our children, the world is a different place now than it was in 1900. I am glad I had to read 1984, Farenheit 451, In Cold Blood, Ordinary People, and even... ugh... Catcher in the Rye. I am even more glad that my 20th-century reading list did not end with high school but went on to include the works listed at the top of this page--and many more.

In reading the works of modern authors, we listen to the voice of our immediate companions on earth. We hear the influence of Nietzsche, WWI and WWII, the Cold War, the sexual revolution, the loss of confidence in natural science, the loss of so much. We also see the ongoing thirst for truth, beauty, and goodness--and the unlikely moments in which these are found in our own context. We learn to speak the language that those around us speak. This is the only way we ourselves can grasp the truth of our condition: in order, creatures, humans, moderns.

Now, truth is sometimes depressing. Especially Ray Bradbury's fiction. Ugh. Tom Wolfe is no walk in the sunshine, either. But they articulate and paint for our souls images, allegories, and stories from which Christ himself does not shrink. Neither should we. All truth is one; all truth is of God.

So, I'd like to see some curriculums including these works of fiction: teaching children to be modern Catholics--in the world, not of it. Able to speak the language of the modern world without receiving its despair. Having been taught to do so, they will know joy and hope all the more deeply.

Perfect television

The BBC adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (1981) is simply exquisite. You must see it. Rent it on Netflix and watch the episodes at your leisure--no need to swallow the seven hours whole!

You might also read the book, I suppose... (That's intended wryly.) It is one of greatest pieces of fiction in English of the 20th century. In my humble opinion. For me, it articulated all my hopes for and frustrations with that singular thing: the human condition.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a series of reflections on the characters. It's based on the film, but can be enjoyed by anyone who has read the book as well. And it may just incite you to pick up a copy.

TS Eliot on education and the arts

Have you ever lamented the decline of the arts in our culture? Have you ever looked at the proliferation of, um, trash in Border's bookstores and wondered, "Whence?" "Wherefore?" "Foresooth!?"

Listen to TS Eliot:

"You cannot expect continuity and coherence in literature and the arts, unless you have a certain uniformity of culture, expressed in education by a settled, though not rigid agreement as to what everyone should know to some degree, and a positive distinction--however undemocratic it may sound--between the educated and the uneducated. I observed in America, that with a very high level of intelligence among undergraduates, progress was impeded by the fact that one could never assume that any two, unless they had been at the same school ... had studied the same subjects or read the same books, though the number of subjects in which they had been instructed was surprising ... In a negative liberal society you have no agreement as to there being any body of knowledge which any educated person should have acquired at any particular stage: the idea of wisdom disappears, and you get sporadic and unrelated experimentation."

~Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society

Happily, there are a number of concurrent and related experiments going on around our nation now, in the form the the classical homeschool and private academy curricula. I wonder, however, what the outcome will be.

Are the children of the public schools going to become Eliot's "uncritical and illiterate mob" that digs into any scintillating piece of writing/TV/cinema that comes their way? Do the children given the gift of classical education sequester themselves in a community--provincial and isolated--of "educated"? How to bridge the gap?

Of course, there will always be the odd ducks: the "mob members" who actually seek wisdom, the "educated" who graduate and never ask another question (is that so odd?).

But my heart bleeds to perceive that Eliot's rallying cry has been heard by so few, themselves fragmented, torn by disagreement, and isolated.

One final poem for November: Rilke

A last, melancholy salute to the end of the year. Advent begins at sundown tomorrow--the waiting hope of a new year. But here is Rilke, the end of his Eighth Elegy.

"And we: spectators, always, everywhere,
facing all this, never the beyond.
It overfills us. We arrange it. It falls apart.
We arrange it again, and fall apart ourselves.

Who has turned us around like this, so that
whatever we do, we find ourselves in the attitude
of someone going away? Just as that person
on the last hill, which shows him his whole valley
one last time, turns, stops, lingers--,
so we live, forever taking our leave."

~Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), The Eighth Elegy, in The Essential Rilke