Flos Carmeli

More Books Went to the

More Books

Went to the library yesterday and found a book titled Triumph. It's a history of the Catholic Church that is being heavily advertised in all of the very traditional/orthodox mags about. Picked it up to see what it might be like.

Related to the entry on Shakers, our meager library system had a copy of Ronald Knox's Enthusiasm: An Episode in the History of Religion. I'm uncertain about what the book deals with, but it may have much to do with the relgious "revivals" of the 17th and 18th century, including "The Great Awakening," about which I know relatively little.

Also among books delivered in the past couple of days was Balthasar's "Theology of Karl Barth." As if Barth isn't difficult enough on his own, we have Balthasar attempting to talk about how to engage in theological dialogue with Barth. I flipped open to a page with such a thoroughly impenetrable paragraph as to make me doubt my ability to read more than a page.

Finally--also got some books by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who is one of my favorite writers on feminism. Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life and Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South. Should make for interesting reading over the next couple of weeks.

I thought I was going to be dreadfully bored by Josef Pieper, and am pleased to report that is not the case. The book on Phaedrus is sufficiently interesting to make me consider reading the actual dialogue. I've never been a Greek Philosopher fan, I've read The Symposium and wished I hadn't, and a few scattered bits of Aristotle when I couldn't otherwise avoid it. Mostly I find philosophical reading a vast waste of energy. But there are times when something worthwhile pokes through. If one consider Aquinas philosophy (some do and some don't), he might be an exception. Even so, I recognize that my mind simply isn't bent that way--I find the puzzles of hard-core science and mathematics far more interesting than philosophical fal-de-rol. (I guess Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault will do that for you.

Book Group The Catholic Book

Book Group

The Catholic Book Group meets this morning. We'll be talking about God Among the Shakers by Suzanne Skees. It was one of the more interesting books I've read in a while. Ms. Skees has a Catholic Background. She spent some time after the birth of her third child with the Shakers of Sabbathday Lake, Maine. This is the last extant Shaker community. The Shakers seem to be a co-ed, protestant, monastic community with some really odd theological elements. (For example they consider their founder Ann Lee to be a kind of female second coming of Christ. When speaking of God they say consistently Father/Mother.)

What is most interesting is that despite the odd theological elements, the ground of being is oriented largely in the way many other Christian monastic communities are. Until reading this book, I was under the impression that the Shakers were Christian. Now, I am less certain. I suspect that there is much that is Christian, but the theology of sin and redemption seems so far removed from Christian understanding as to move them into one of the Christian spin-offs or vaguely allied movements. They strike me more as theistic Unitarians than Christians. Their belief in God is solid, down to earth, and pervasive in everything they do.

Anyway, if you're interested in history of religion or even just some aspects of American History, you'll find this book fascinating.

Our Lady of La Leche

Our Lady of La Leche

A previous post inspired my interest and I went to see if the Mission Nombre de Dios had a web-page. Indeed they do. For those interested in Catholic History, in Florida history, or in Our Lady of La Leche, this is a good start. If you're in the neighborhood sometime, it is a wonderful place to visit--very close to the Castillo de San Marcos and Old Town St. Augustine, but easy to miss if you aren't looking. I know, I overlooked it on four different trips before I finally found it.

Prayers, We Need Prayers Mr.

Prayers, We Need Prayers

Mr. Kairos Guy and his wife request prayers. Further information here. Please remember them daily. Possible intercessors--St. Gerard Majella and the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe (at least here in Florida she is often so invoked). Probably not bad to consider Our Lady of La Leche as well. Thanks to all who will help.

Recipes Abound Today Run to

Recipes Abound Today

Run to Ms. Kropp's place and find a recipe for Hot Toddy. Then, even if you're not quite over the sniffles, get a dose of the best medicine with Mr. Miller's patent recipe for dissent. Scroll down and you'll even find some proto-heavy-metal lyrics for advent songs. A heady and, methinks, a combustible mix.

A Rashomon Experience

A response to a comment below provoked this phrase. For those unaware of it Rashomon is a relatively early film by Akira Kurosawa, a master director of Japanese Cinema. (He gave us Ran, Kagemusha, Throne of Blood {a Japanese Macbeth}, The Hidden Fortress, The Seven Samurai {and its American Counterpart The Magnificent Seven} and a host of other very fine films.) Rashomon was adapted from a short Story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, often considered the finest writer of pre-war Japan, and sometimes considered the Edgar Allan Poe of Japan. The story as told in the movie centers around four different tellings of the same event from the viewpoints of four witnesses. (The recent novel by Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost does something somewhat similar but more expansive). These four different views bear very little resemblance to one another, even though all four people observed exactly the same event.

So too one of the strengths, aggravations, and joys of blogging. By reading sundry blogs, I find that I get more than one view. Often I find views notoriously annoying and shortsighted (but then, if they were to look back at my own view, should I make it public, they might claim I was so open-minded my brains spilled out somewhere along the way.) But most of the time such a diversity of viewpoint becomes a training ground for charity. One comes to realize that it is possible for very well-intentioned people to hold diverse views on a given topic and still be acting in goodwill with malice toward none. One example I can think of is when I posted a reference to some less-than-kind remarks regarding one of our Archbishops. One intrepid and very kind blogger rushed in to inform me how mistaken my view was of this man. This gentle correction forced me into looking carefully at how I formulated opinions, most particularly with respect to the hierarchy, and also forced me to see that these are not ordinary men. Yes, they are fully human, but they have, by the grace of God, been put into positions of spiritual leadership, and whatever their failings as people, as managers, even as Christians, many have come to regard them as spiritual leaders and to love them deeply for the guidance and the pastoring they bring to their office. That was simply one "Rashomon" experience among many. And I cherish each one of them because they all help me learn and teach me both charity and humility--lessons sorely needed.

So, when I reflect on this last half-year since I started blogging, I thank God for the many people who are out there helping us all to become better Christians and better Catholics. I thank God for voices like those of Fr. Keyes, C.PP.S., Ms. Knapp, Mr. White, Mr Cahill, Mr. Culbreath, Mr. da Fiesole, Mr. Gil, and many others you can find in the side-column that give me much to think about, much to reflect upon, and much to help me grow as a Christian. I thank wonderful voices like Ms. vonHuben and Mr. Miller, who help me maintain a balance and a fine charity of humor when faced with many of these overwhelming events. I thank voices like those of Mr. Abbott, Mr. Bell, Mr. Kairos, Ms. Kropp, and Ms. vonHuben again for sharing images and events that allow me to understand how others live a Christian life in family. I thank Dylan, Ms. Lewis, Mr. O'Rama, and the authors of Minute Particulars and A Catholic Point of View for their views on everything from the Arts and Poetry to current trials and victories.

My thanks to everyone who takes the time and the energy to bless us all, a community in cyberspace. I know I have been blessed and have become if not a better Catholic, at least one who understands better the ways some people react to things. I hope this has helped to make me more understanding in my everyday life. But I did want to make sure that everyone I mention in my left hand column knows how deeply I appreciate their work and their writing. And I want to encourage everyone to continue to bless us all with all that you do. God has given you the means and opportunity, and I know that I have been deeply blessed. God bless us, one and all.

A Quotation for the Day

A Quotation for the Day

"Well, what shall we hang? The holly or each other?"

Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine--The Lion in Winter

Some Observations on An Insight

Some Observations on An Insight for All Time

This from Josef Pieper.

from Enthusiasm and Divine Madness: on the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus
Josef Pieper

Thus, in the first lines of the dialogue, Plato evokes the atmosphere in which these young Athenian intellectuals live. Theirs is a world of sophisticated irreverence and detachment, of enlightened health doctrines and simultaneous depravity. And in the midst of these poisonous fumes we find. . . (p. 7)

. . .everybody. Boy, that really hit me. A better description of present time would be hard to come by. Utter irreverence, to the point where religion is considered at best an intrusion and at worst a potential threat and usurper. And what is the one crime anyone today might commit--to smoke in the presence of others or to condone or otherwise support smoking. Or, heaven forbid--to be overweight. Or not to jog in the morning. Or to eat fatty foods. We are those Athenians and we desperately need to listen to our Socrates, the one man who keeps calling for a sane, humane, and human society--our dear and beloved Pope. Viva il Papa!

Some Thoughts on the Professio

Some Thoughts on the Professio Making the Rounds

At one time I considered doing this, and after considering some well-reasoned statements pointing out why that might not be the better thing to do, I decided otherwise. I have enormous respect for those who publish this, and my heart is with them, but I think I will stand by my previous decision for a while until I have considered all manner of things that whirl about in my head and God ultimate convicts me that this is the right and proper course of action.

However, that aside, I wanted to share a reflection that many will probably consider ill-advised.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.

This is part of said professio. And I wished to add my own clarification of terminology. Not only to I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to teachings, I am also willing to lend my consent to many merely prudential judgment made in matters that I have neither time nor wherewithal to consider. When a body, such as the Bishops, in solemn assembly declare something, whether definitive teaching or no, such declaration demands my utmost respect, and I believe, if I am not willing to go through the rigorous analysis of all of the data to determine the actuality myself, my consent until such time as I do so. In other words, I may not merely gainsay the body of bishops on my own say-so. Now if a single priest or Bishop should make a pronouncement on an issue, while I still owe respect to the opinion, I do not regard it with the same deference as any pronouncement made by an assembled body.

No, I do not worship the hierarchy, but I do tend to trust the thought of many focused on a single issue more than I trust my own instincts and feelings that too often have led me astray.

Another point I wish to make is more a question. If I question interiorly whether what is taught is true or not, but give no voice to it outwardly, and when asked to reflect upon the issue from a Catholic Point of View, I say simply what the Catholic Church teaches, am I giving true consent of the will, if perhaps not of the intellect? There are points of Church teaching with which I struggle on a nearly daily basis. I trust the Church, and I pray God for the struggle to end. Nevertheless, some matters are less than settled in my perfervid brain. Am I in less than complete submission, or does my silence on the matter and the interior struggle mean that I have chosen to act and behave as though I believe even though I am uncertain? Let's take a ludicrous example--Let's say that for some reason I struggled mightily over the question of whether the Blessed Virgin was really the Immaculate Conception. But let us say that I observed the Feast Day, I taught my children and all who would listen only what the Church says and I pray for conversion to what the Church teaches. Am I acting in conformity of will and intellect or is the intellect in rebellion? And if it is in rebellion, if the intellect is not in submission, when does submission come? Must everything be absolutely settled with no recurring questions?

I guess you can see why I don't really feel capable of posting something so definitive. I state once again what I have said a great many times. The Holy Catholic Church is the universal teacher of God's will and plan for salvation. All that she teaches I hold to be true to the extent that I can, practicing it and teaching it faithfully. I refuse to be lured into dissent, having walked that path before and I struggle mightily to bring into submission those stray thoughts and notions that occasionally may arise and bring forth doubt and question. But somehow I feel I fall short of the perfect submission professed by some, and that disturbs me greatly. (The word "professed" is used not to convey doubt to indicate the intent of the person who has posted or spoke the words--I do not doubt their good will and their adherence to what they have said. It's a shame lawyerese has drained some words of their right and proper meaning so that now saying someone "professes something" is indicative of doubt about their veracity. I have not such doubts.) I have no doubt that in God's good time He will show me the truth of all of these teachings, but until then, I fear I am a terribly conflicted, but terribly hopeful soul. I do not believe however, that a company so professing can accept me as a member, and I find that regrettable (for me). I grapple with these issues and am lost before them. Fortunately, I am a subject of the Good Shepherd who will come and look for those who are lost.

My Apologies to Mr. Rothwell

My Apologies to Mr. Rothwell

At about the time I meant to add The Contrarian to my side column there were pronounced inclinations on the part of its owner to have done with blogging. Thus I did not add. However, not adding meant that while I thought about it, I made it real in my mind, and thus never did it in reality. Now I intend to make it real in fact, not merely in the castles that fill my heavy head of an evening. My sincere apologies.

Christmas Quiz This is a

Christmas Quiz

This is a toughie. I got 12 out of 15, mostly by inference. I'm hearing an average of about 8, but even my twelve resulted in tatty tinsel.

Venus's Flower Basket For the

Venus's Flower Basket

For the blogger who was seeking Venus's Flower Basket, this comment: excellent taste in invertebrates. A most lovely siliceous skeleton.

This magnificent sponge (Euplectella aspergillum) comes from the seas of Japan and the Philippines.
Information from the Natural History Museum of Florence.

Interestingly, very similar types of sponges (actually sponge skeletons) can be found preserved in rock from Cambrian age on here in the U.S. Amazing that so delicate a creature can find its way through time for us. I never seem to see the end of the riches of God's bounty and grace.

A New Carmelite Monastery Via

A New Carmelite Monastery

Via Inn at the End of the World, this website featuring the most recently erected and dedicated Carmelite Monastery in the country. My thanks to the bagpiper.

A New Blog from the

A New Blog from the Director/Manager of Project Canterbury

There's not much there yet, but if Little Gidding lives up to its progenitor's site, it will be well worth your attention. Keep an eye on it. (And who can resist the boldness of such a title?)

Something from Germany Unfortunately, I

Something from Germany

Unfortunately, I do not read German. Those of you who do might wish to visit a blog titled Credo ut intelligam. Mentions of Kairos's blog, Alexander Schmemann, and Cardinal Ratzinger suggest that this may be good Catholic blog. Let me know if so, I'd like to add it to the side column so that we can become a truly international community--even if many of us must participate through the crude aegis of web translators.

A Mere Occasional Poem

Not as bad as many, not terribly good as it stands, but worthy of work and therefore of any comment. Ignore the spacing troubles--notoriously difficult to get right in html--the indents should align just after the last character of the previous line.

On a Blossom of Hibiscus

This hibiscus flower flutters open
here in the bright sun, orange folds expand
and remind me how much good that I have
now is due to others.

                         All I have built
kingdoms of the mind unimagined in my
youth, has been sweetened by waters many
others have drawn, brightened by the sunlight,
undimmed even by my own reluctance,
fear, anger, and sheer sloth.

                         Look and see the
orange flower in open-faced surprise
rippling in the wind’s cool embrace. What joy—
being where this is a commonplace, where
every breath is a breath of the sea, where
I can hear in bird-call and in storm winds
not only the voice of nature but the
glorious chorus of all those who knew
how to teach me to see, to hear, to know.

Each bloom, each surprised face a lingering
revelation of the light that charges
everything and transforms all living things.

© 2002

Note: The poem is an acrostic and though written for an occasion, I hope transcends the event and speaks to issues beyond the isolated event.

Important Issues of the Day

Important Issues of the Day

I've had inquiries (We get letters, we get letters) as to why I do not see fit to comment on important issues of the day. Don't I care about Cardinal Law? Don't I care about Iraq? Don't I care that the Church is sliding down the slippery slope to perdition and there is but a small band of the intrepid there to haul her back up from ignominy?

I do care deeply about all of these things, and THAT is why I refrain from comment. No one would benefit from one more person airing what are substantially incontestable, nondebatable opinions. No matter what may be said in response to them, little is likely to change them. But there is another deeper reason I don't often write about these things. Ultimately they do not engage me in the way that God's beauty and power engage me. The fate of Cardinal Law is in God's hands, He will prevail. The war with Iraq (impending or otherwise) is in God's permissive and providential will--better that I pray about it than spend my time commenting on it. And ultimately, frankly, I don't believe the Church is sliding down the slippery slope to perdition. And if it were, my weak person would not be the one to save it through my own power. Christ is in control. He has promised, and I believe, that He established this Church and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it. The statement of our Lord is sufficient for me. He has promised--it will be, without question.

No one really wants to hear one more person saying something that much resembles the comments of a thousand other people. My comments on the news would neither enlighten you nor entertain you. I have nothing of any note to share in the realm of opinion on matters of the day. I am not a terribly deep and insightful thinker on these matters. Instead of asking all of these whys, the inquirers should be daily thanking God that I am not trotting out the infinitely boring drivel that would be the hallmark of any such commentary that I might share. God has blessed me with negligible political saavy and intelligence, so wisely, He leads me down different paths. From time to time I will comment elsewhere, and I am often stunned by the banality of the comment. The merciful Lord sees fit to protect you all from my political insights (for the most part).

Later Addendum: It occurred to me reading this somewhat later that some might infer from it that I look down upon all such commentary. Not at all. I think that there are deeply insightful, very interesting commentators out there, many of them noted in the column to the left. Let us just say that I am not particularly adept nor particularly charitable when I begin to comment on such things. Please do not infer that I do not enjoy the work of others. One last point--I must say that I would regard political commentary as a real chore--not the pleasurable work that I do here in spare time.

Christmas Break Reading As usual

Christmas Break Reading

As usual I haven't taken enough time off during the year and it all comes down to about two weeks at the end of the year that I fill up with potential reading (only while Boy is asleep, of course.) Today I received from the library my ambitious charting for this season--four books by Gabriel Marcel, four by Gertrude Himmelfarb, and four by Josef Pieper. I'm thinking that with Marcel I may start with Being and Having or Creative Fidelity, Himmelfarb--I've chosen On Looking into the Abyss although One Nation, Two Cultures is tempting, and the Pieper, influenced by the list of classic spiritual reading, I'll probably start with On Leisure as the Basis for Culture. Now, I'm not listing all titles here, but do you all have any other suggestion as to where to start with these? Or should I start at all?

On Sartre I've always had

On Sartre

I've always had a lot of difficult with Sartre and the atheistic existentialists as a whole. I have a remote sense of respect for Camus, a sort of lame chilly filling about Beckett (who went existentialism one better and wound up with nihilism). But this quote posted in the comment box for this post chez Kairos has once again opened my eyes to the tremendous mercies of God. As I commented in answer to this quote--at least with an Atheist, He has some faith to work with--it's the hard-and-fast agnostics that give Him the hardest time. (What would you do if your beloved didn't merely say, "Prove you love me" --hard enough in itself--but "Convince me you exist.")

And then Sartre, the prophet of unbelief, underwent a mysterious transformation. In a published dialogue with ex-Maoist Pierre Victor, Sartre confessed the impossible. He had come to believe in God. The following sentence sums up one of the oddest spiritual journeys since St. Paul's. "I do not feel," Sartre wrote, "that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, pre-figured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here, and this idea of a creating hand refers to God." [National Review, June 11, 1982. p. 677. Article by Thomas Molnar.]

- from 'Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones: Spiritual Answers to Psychological Questions', by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R. Paulist Press, 1987. Page. 30

I put it here again, because I want the reminder and I don't want to lose track of this. Thanks to the Anonymous poster who was so kind as to share this.

Piquant Observations Quote like these

Piquant Observations

Quote like these are one of the reasons I regret the vanishing for so long a time of "Inn at the End of the World." I'm glad I found it again.

As for me, my major influences have been My Man Godfrey and every other screwball comedy of the 30's and 40's. I wasted an awful lot of time waiting to be pursued by a madcap heiress.

And here I am thinking that I was the only person on Earth who anxiously awaited the appearance of My Man Godfrey, Libelled Lady and The Lady Eve on DVD.

The Reality is "Outside of

The Reality is "Outside of God, Nothing is Real"

I love the way the aphorism above can be read. It reminds me of a story by Stanislaw Lem in which a robot invents a device that can make anything beginning with a certain letter. When assigned the letter N, it sets about making all manner of "n" things--nuts, notions, nabobs, etc. Finally, winding down, it begins to make Nothing.

God is all in all. Only outside of Him is Nothing real. And it is into that nothing that our steps too willingly lead us, if our eyes are not firmly fixed on the center of reality--Jesus Christ. In Him all that is is held together. Through the thought and love of the Holy Trinity all that is exists and continues to exist. Outside of Him, NOTHING exists. And there is something so terrifying in this nothing that we cannot even really understand it.

So truly our time is well spent contemplating not the nothingness and emptiness within ourselves, not our condition of impoverishment with respect to the Divine Riches, but the richness of Love Incarnate that makes all that is and that holds together the warp and weft of reality in a tableau of magnificence that we can just barely comprehend.

A Poem for the Morning

Once again I thrust upon my unwilling audience an observation of the moment, an image caught in rapid transit. In other words a poem. Those highly allergic would be wise to skip this entry and move on. Otherwise, enjoy.

Lady of the Lake
Steven Riddle

These grey fingers rise--
the grey of morning frost,
the tendrils of vines
that will wrap around
the day--from the smooth
looking-glass of Her dark lake,
and give notice that She lives
and stirs still. She speaks
and Her voice starts as mist
and thickens to fog so dense
and deep, that when she walks
she is seen as simply shadow.
Her tread upon the ground a lambent
cold that tickles the bones
of Earth. Where She rises the sun
does not set, but human eyes
fail to see. Where she walks
a million follow in Her steps
neither knowing Her name
nor the lake from which she came.

© 2002

New Additions While I am

New Additions

While I am concerned that my list of places to visit does not extend to the edge of eternity, I have decided to add two more and reinstate one that seems to have dropped off the end of the world. Please welcome Confessions of an Accidental Choir Director, Bellocian, and Inn at the End of the World

From Project Canterbury Project Canterbury

From Project Canterbury

Project Canterbury is rapidly becoming one of my favorite sites. Odd that one can go to an ostensibly Anglican site and find the truths of the Catholic faith. But nevertheless, there it is. These articles in particular seemed usedful to the present audience.

The Effect of Reservation on Character, By the Rev. A. R. Sharpe

How to Use the Mass, By the Reverend Frank Lawrence Vernon, D.D.
Rector of St. Mark's, Philadelphia, and a nice picture of him too

Some Difficulties in the Practice of Frequent Confession and Communion Two Instructions Given in a Retreat, By Fr W. H. Longridge, SSJE

Please let me know what you think of these. I enjoyed them very much and found them wonderful food for thought and reflection.