Humility and the Devil

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.

St. Vincent de Paul

This is St. Vincent de Paul's feast day. I haven't written anything special about St. Vincent but I hope to remedy that deficit in the future!

Atonement Is Not Meant to Placate God

Paul wrote that "God put forward [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement" (Rom 3:25), but the atonement or expiation is not directed to God; it s not meant to satisfy or placate God. Instead, it is directed to sin, that in its being satisfied it will be eliminated. "it can be said that it is God himself, not man, who expiates sin. … The image is more like that or removing a corrosive stain or neutralizing a lethal virus than that of anger that is placated by punishment" (James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle).

Raniero Cantalamessa, The Power of the Cross

I love this image! I've never had the problem of worrying about an "angry God" but this is the perfect clarification for those who do.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I am continually surprised by how this guy nails it ... from 100 years ago.

To learn who rules over you ...

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Kevin Strom

Ouch! The ones who I'm not allowed to criticize probably wouldn't like that. But maybe they don't recognize themselves. They're too busy telling us who we should be nicer to.

Aliens and working at a fevered pitch

What you need to know before reading this: Gwedif is an alien. The narrator is human.

Gwedif pulled up to me as we walked. "I wish we had more time," he said. "This happened with Carl too. Barely time for introductions, and then off to decide the fate of our peoples. If nothing else, we've learned that you humans thrive on crisis."

"Anything worth doing is worth doing at a fevered pitch," I said.

"I don't know about that," Gwedif said. "I think the first place I'll go when I visit your planet—really visit your planet, I mean, not that little trip I took earlier—I think I'll go visit a monastery. Those people seem to have the right idea. Slow meditative spiritual contemplation."

"I think most of the monasteries these days are either making chant CDs or boutique wines," I said.

"Really?" Gwedif said. "Well, hell. What is it with you people?"

John Scalzi, Agent to the Stars

The Catholic Church and the Mood of the Age

The Catholic Church never suits the particular mood of any age, because it was made for all ages. A Catholic knows that if the Church married the mood of any age in which it lived, it would be a widow in the next age. The mark of the true Church is that it will never get on well with the passing moods of the world. "I have chosen you out of the world therefore the world hateth you" – John 15:19.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Love One Another

Our own time certainly testifies to that truth. As Jesus told us, we shouldn't be expected to be treated any differently than he was. We're reminded frequently enough of that fact but still we're surprised when it happens. At least, I know I am!

The Riddle of Fiction

The riddle of fiction comes to this: Evolution is ruthlessly utilitarian. How has the seeming luxury of fiction not been eliminated from human life?

Jonathan Gottschal, The Storytelling Animal

Jonathan Gottschall measures everything against evolution, which is the only measure he really trusts for giving scientific answers about people and story. Therefore, he isn't able to answer some of the questions he poses in his book because some things just can't be measured by science. (It's still an interesting book. You don't have to answer every question all the time.)

That was what made it entertaining when, some time later in his books, he inadvertently answered the above question with the conclusion that I, as a Catholic, already knew.

Why do stories cluster around a few big themes, and why do they hew so closely to problem structure? Why are stories this way instead of all the other ways they could be? I think that problem structure reveals a major function of storytelling. It suggests that the human mind was shaped for story, so that it could be shaped by story.

Jonathan Gottschal, The Storytelling Animal

Yep.

Literature Versus Fantasy Literature

Oftentimes fantasy literature is criticized exactly for being escapist; that it tries to create in people a feeling of another world they can go to and that distracts them from the important things they are supposed to be doing in this present world. I think there is a distinct and unpleasant whiff of the most repellent elements of Marxism and Leninism in that criticism of escape. ... It subordinates literature and it makes it a kind of propaganda, rather than a kind of art.

Michael C. Drout; Rings, Swords, and Monsters course

We don't need explanation about why I shared this do we? Preaching to the Choir, yep that's what we do here.

Jezebel's Real Sin

This highlights again what happens when our eyes are opened by experience and context and we then turn them upon something old and familiar only to see it in entirely new light. It is from Agatha Christie's memoir of trips to Syria with her archaeologist husband shortly before World War II, Come Tell Me How You Live. It's one of my favorite books.

An immense dinner materializes in next to no time, and after it, tired and comfortable, with special delicacies in honor of holiday and Mac's arrival (Turkish Delight, preserved aubergines, bars of chocolate and cigars), we sit and talk, for once of subjects other than archaeology.

We come to the question of religions generally--a very vexed question in this particular part of the world, for Syria is full of fiercely fanatical sects of all kinds, all willing to cut each other's throats for the good cause! From there we fall to discussing the story of the Good Samaritan. All the Bible and New Testament stories take on a particular reality and interest out here. They are couched in the language and ideology which we hear daily all around us, and I am often struck by the way the emphasis sometimes shifts from what one has commonly accepted. As a small instance, it came to me quite suddenly that in the story of Jezebel, it is the painting of her face the or tiring of her hair that emphasizes in puritanical Protestant surroundings what exactly a "Jezebel" stands for. But out here it is not the painting and tiring--for all virtuous women paint their faces (or tattoo them), and apply henna to their hair--it is the fact that Jezebel looked out of the window--a definitely immodest act!

A Marked Stop Brings Right Perception

Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later life which no walls nor bars could imprison, it was not remarkable that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact itself; but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions.

None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent uses of adversity.

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

I read this to Tom and he said, "That is just simply true." Yes. It is. Little Dorrit ... what a book.

Human science and God's science

Human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry web of God's science. ... Is oxygen and hydrogen the divine idea of water? There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen; it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with elemental joy.

George MacDonald

That idea of picking apart God's tapestry is so apt. Science has its own delights, but in this context it does take the wonder away from nature to think of water as molecules. It makes me think of C.S. Lewis's book Out of the Silent Planet where he pulls from the medieval mindset and makes one feel the wonder and joy and life of outer space instead of the vacuum that we learn first from modern science. It really is all about context.

Dinner with a Long Spoon

 My people tell a story about the great Ever After, one that reminds my mother of Sis. In the story, a rich and selfish man is condemned to hell, and is ushered into an endless dining hall. He sees a great banquet laid out before the assembled people there, a feast of dripping, roasted meats and savory soups and sumptuous stews. The devil's imps file down the table to pass out spoons, but the spoons are longer than the arms of the men and women gathered there. They cannot, as hard as they try, get the delicious food into their mouths, and a wailing and gnashing of teeth echoes and echoes through the great hall.

Meanwhile, in heaven, Saint Peter welcomes another new arrival, a common and generous man, into a similar great, long banquet hall. The newcomer sees another grans feast laid out before the diners assembled there. But, disconcertingly, the man sees the waiters pass out the same spoons as the ones passed out to the diners in hell, all of them too long for people to feed themselves. "How then," the crestfallen man asks Saint Peter, "can this be heaven?"

Saint Peter smiles.

"Because in heaven," he says, "we feed each other.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

This is one of my favorite stories.

She does not own a measuring cup.

She does not own a measuring cup. She does not own a measuring spoon. She cooks in dabs, and smidgens, and tads, and a measurement she mysteriously refers to as, "you know, hon, just some." In her lexicon there is "part of a handful" and "a handful" and "a real good handful," which I have come to understand is roughly a handful, part of another handful, and "some.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

The climate has never been better - for faith

"When human thinking has come to a dead end and can see no way out of its problems," sais Pastor Fritz calmly, "then the faith is able to spread its wings. The climate has never been better - for faith."

Edna Hong, Bright Valley of Love

Ain't that the truth?! Written in the 1970s and here we are again, in full blown chaos.

The children and Aunt Enid

I am sorry that the first thing you should hear about the children should be that they did not care about their Aunt Enid, but this was unfortunately the case. And if you think this was not nice of them I can only remind you that you do not know their Aunt Enid.

E. Nesbit, Wet Magic

E. Nesbit is so funny and this sense of humor is strewn through all her children's stories.

An affectionate letter from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish clergyman can receive.

His state became still worse when he received an affectionate but solemn letter from the Bishop warning him of his danger. An affectionate letter from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish clergyman can receive. Affection from one man to another is not natural in letters. A bishop never writes affectionately unless he means to reprove severely. When he calls a clergyman his "dear brother in Christ," he is sure to go on to show that the man so called is altogether unworthy of the name.

Anthony Trollope, Dr. Wortle's School

Trollope is just so funny. He understands human nature and exploits for his humorous storytelling.

To meddle in the government of society [is], so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows

Citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they disapprove of the course of government. To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows. . . . An American does not know how to converse, but he discusses; he does not discourse, but he holds forth. He always speaks to you as to an assembly.

Alexis de Toqueville

It's so interesting to see that we began as we meant to go on. And we're still obsessed with holding forth about politics to this day.

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"

The blind man said to him, "Master, I want to see."

Mark 10:51

We all relate to the blind man. It's the common condition. Where am I blind? I want to see.

But take a second and look at Jesus' question. That is considerate and gracious. It is the question God asks us, even though we don't stop to think of it. He met us more than halfway by becoming human and dying for us. And here he is, "What do you want me to do for you?"

It's a question I ponder when I begin my morning prayer. Considering the asker makes me both shed the small stuff and yet also bring the small stuff to him. He's asking. He wants to know. What will we say?

A richness for a people without riches

Soul Food

There is a reason why many black Southerners — and some white ones, like my mother — still call this kind of cooking soul food, because it transcends the pain and struggle of the everyday, a richness for a people without riches.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

We ate like we were somebody ...

"It was a hard life," she told me once, "but we ate like we were somebody a good bit of the time."

Rick Braggs, The Best Cook in the World

That's not only nourishing the body. The reality of food is used throughout the Bible to reflect God's spiritual realities. In this case, everybody is somebody worth a good meal and the love that goes into preparing it.