A little medieval English Christmas

This'll do y'all good.

Maddy Pryor will forever remind me of my Anglican friends in Halifax, some of the best Christians and most fun humans I've ever come across. Wacky, sherry-sipping, Ancient Greek-speaking, Boethius-reading, hymn-singin Christian loons, to a man.




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I appear to be losing my mind... had it here a second ago...

I think it's in the sofa cushions, which is probably where my sensus fidelium got to.



Was just reading Chris's new thing at the Remnant on ... that document... and suddenly a song started playing in my head with a voice...

The JOY of the NEW Church reaches out in JOY! to the glorious newness of the NEW and JOYful world!

No more sourpuss "doctrine" or "discipline". Frownyface! Eh?

No no no! We must attract the world! Embrace the world as brothers in JOY!



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When is a parable not a parable?

When it's a historical documentation of something that really happened. Something we usually call "the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes" or sometimes the "feeding of the 5000". Something that didn't have anything to do with "sharing". [Hint: it was a prefigurement of something... something important...]

(1:56) "The parable of the loaves and fishes teaches us exactly this; that if there is a will, what we have never ends."

Err... what?

Slip of the tongue, perhaps?

No, it's a reading from a prepared text that someone, presumably someone Catholic, has written and proofed.

This "loaves n'fishes = sharing n'caring" business is one old, wrinkly dried up chestnut from the apostates...err... I mean "liberal Catholics", intended to desacralise the Faith, deny the existence of miracles and possibly even reduce Christ Himself to a kind of humanistic mind-reader. This notion was first invented by a German Protestant named Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976) who popularized it in order to deny the reality of miracles as supernatural events and ultimately the Divine nature of Christ.

Here it is described by someone on Catholic Answers, not exactly a bastion of "crypto-lefabvrianism".

One Sunday I visited a parish in another city and learned something new. The multiplication of loaves didn’t really happen. The greedy people following Jesus in the wilderness had loaves and fishes stuffed up under their robes. The disciples didn’t know about this surplus of hidden food, but this parish priest did!

Although the priest said he was taught in seminary that Jesus kept pulling bread and fish out of the basket, he learned the real truth from the natives in Mexico. They taught him that the Gospel writers misunderstood what really happened. What really happened is that Jesus preached to the crowd about caring and sharing and they responded by bringing out food from under their robes that they had been hiding from each other. Once everyone learned how to share, there was plenty for everyone with twelve basketfuls left over.

Sound familiar?

"Psst... Holy Father, real Catholics believe that was a real miracle, and always have."



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The Credo of Uncertainty

Let's do a little compare and contrast, shall we? (HT and thanks for hints, tips and links to Elliot)

“In me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men.”

St. Ignatius Loyola.

“[In the] quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions — that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Uncertainty is in every true discernment that is open to finding confirmation in spiritual consolation"

Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ, Bishop of Rome.


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The Catechism of the Catholic Church places willful or "voluntary doubt" under the category of human actions that are opposed to the First Commandment and opposed to the virtue of Faith.

2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith" as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations. Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.

2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity.

If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

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The Catechism of the Council of Trent, (called the Roman Catechism), Article 1:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth..."

– The meaning of the above words is this: I believe with certainty, and without a shadow of doubt profess my belief in God the Father… with the greatest ardour and piety I tend towards Him, as the supreme and most perfect good. …

The word believe does not here mean to think, to suppose, lo be of opinion; but… it expresses the deepest conviction, by which the mind gives a firm and unhesitating assent to God revealing His mysterious truths. …

The knowledge derived through faith must not be considered less certain because its objects are not seen; for the divine light by which we know them, although it does not render them evident, yet suffers us not to doubt them. …

[W]hen God commands us to believe He does not propose to us to search into His divine judgments, or inquire into their reason and cause, but demands an unchangeable faith, by which the mind rests content in the knowledge of eternal truth. And … since it would argue arrogance and presumption to disbelieve the word of a grave and sensible man affirming anything as true, … how rash and foolish are those, who, hearing the words of God Himself, demand reasons for His heavenly and saving doctrines? Faith, therefore, must exclude not only all doubt, but all desire for demonstration. …

We should be satisfied with the assurance and certitude which faith gives us that we have been taught these truths by God Himself, to doubt whose word is the extreme of folly and misery.

"Spiritual blindness"... Could it not be said that a succinct description of the entire Post Conciliar Church would be that its leadership, with rare exceptions, has willfully cultivated this voluntary doubt? And the new regime, Novusordoism (for short) is the religion of doubt?

If we are to take the warning in the last sentence from the CCC above literally, how can we come to any other conclusion than that a man has come to the throne of Peter, formed from the start of his priesthood in this new religion of doubt, who is now evangelising it from the bulliest pulpit in the world?

And I think it is significant beyond all measure that the catechism (and the Fathers and Doctors given as support of the assertion) have identified this cultivation of willful doubt as an offence against the first, the real "greatest commandment". Novusordoism is a religion in which the only certainty allowed about God and divine Will is doubt.

About the supremacy and rights of Man it allows not the slightest doubt... leaving the situation we have now; the Church as a social service agency at the disposal of and for the promotion of humanistic and naturalistic goals.

I do see why this kind of nonsense from the pope and others who preach it is appealing to modern people. They have all been thoroughly trained by the certainty that there can be no certainty that they don't even see the contradiction any more, and more importantly, don't see how such internally contradictory nonsense harms them.

The other day, in response to something I'd posted, I got the following comment from a man whom I know to be intelligent and sincere in his Catholicism, into which he has recently been received: "Some things cannot be made clear in the binary way you suggest, Hilary. The Truth is infinitely more than a set of black and white propositions on a piece of paper." ... and he thought that this was perfectly acceptable and sensible. He is a product of our times and as such has been cultivated in this nonsense all his life by schools, the media and other muddled people.

More importantly, he went through his entire RCIA programme with it all intact and unchallenged. It simply never occurs to anyone that an assertion like, "we can't know what's true" is not only complete bosh, but self-refuting, logically contradictory bosh. As well as bosh that will damage your ability to think clearly about anything and ultimately to hold to the Faith that will save your soul.

It is, in short, demonic, Satanic bosh.



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Feel my pain

Occasionally we have to deal with complaints that it's all "negativity" and bad news. "Can't you write about happy things? Pope Francis just wants everyone to cheer up."

Aristotle said that there isn't any drama without conflict. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch said, "Murder your darlings". Frankly, bad news is the only good news. I really only like bad news. For the same reason I like spicy food and gummy sours and whiskey.

Every year, I'm asked to write something warm and cuddly for Christmas, and it's always a huge struggle. How do you make it not boring if it's all happy n' nice n' sweet n' stuff? Blech.

I'm off sweets and if you want to cheer up, go watch cat videos.



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"A clever theologian, a good theologian."

With so many items to choose from on the ongoing freak-out smorgasbord that is our new pope, it can be hard to remember which appetisers were the first to catch one's attention.

I don't know if I'm the only cranky Catholic left in the world who remembers what kind of man Walter Kasper is. When I was going through the painful Traddification process he was my first Curial Hate. Him and Roger "the Church has two faces" Etchegaray. Shows I was destined to Trad. It never was about the smells and bells for me. It was always about the prerogatives of God and the Church's rights in the public sphere.

After what must have been a vexing exile, gnashing his gap-teeth and plotting his revenge on all things Ratzingerian - the Dol Guldur years, one might say - Kasper the Friendly Ecumenist is back, and in style these days. One of the "signal-men" on the loggia that unforgettable evening, Kasper has been maintaining a pretty high profile in the old town ever since. It seems he's back and revving up the Black Tower's engines...

Oh Lord, do not I hate them that hate thee? I count them mine enemies...

Magister:

The letter gave official stature to the thesis upheld by Ratzinger in the dispute that opposed him to his fellow German theologian, later a cardinal, Walter Kasper.

Kasper was defending the simultaneous origin of the universal Church and the particular Churches, and saw at work in Ratzinger "an attempt at the theological restoration of Roman centralism." While Ratzinger criticized Kasper for reducing the Church to a sociological construction, endangering the unity of the Church and the ministry of the pope in particular.

The dispute between the two cardinal theologians continued until 2001, with a last exchange of jabs in the magazine of the New York Jesuits, "America."

But after he became pope, Ratzinger reiterated his thesis in the post-synodal apostolic exhortation "Ecclesia in Medio Oriente" of 2012:

"The universal Church is a reality which precedes the particular Churches, which are born in and through the universal Church. This truth is faithfully reflected in Catholic teaching, especially that of the Second Vatican Council. It leads to an understanding of the hierarchical dimension of ecclesial communion and allows the rich and legitimate diversity of the particular Churches constantly to develop within that unity in which particular gifts can become an authentic source of enrichment for the universality of the Church."

And Bergoglio? Once he was elected to the chair of Peter, he immediately gave the impression of wanting a more collegial governance of the Church.

And at his first Angelus in Saint Peter's Square, on March 17, he told the crowd that he had read with profit a book by Cardinal Kasper, "a clever theologian, a good theologian."

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Now, here's some Led Zeppelin, apropos of nothing whatever...


Ah, the comparative innocence... Never thought we'd all long for the halcyon and care-free 1970s, didja?



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They'd have a job of work ahead of them in Rome, I can tell you!

But wait a second...

Isn't it the feminists who are busy flying all over Europe and taking their boobs out and swinging them around for all the world to see?

To make some kind of... ummm... point, I guess... about, err... the patriarchy ...

or something...

It's so hard to keep score these days. My lefty decoder ring must be in the sofa cushions...

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Oh wait, it's Sweden. 'Nuff said.



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Shush!! Stop for a second...!

Listen!

Do you hear that?

That faint popping sound...

Ahhh, yes, I recognise it...

It's the sound of feminists' heads exploding in Spain.



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Sweeter than honey

In an effort to encourage myself to read more books (and less Buzzfeed) here's some good bits from something I've been reading lately.

Do you ever read the Psalms? Ever come across those bits where the writer says things like "Your law, O Lord, is sweeter than honeycomb," and think it's a little weird? Well, I didn't. Those are among my favourite bits because I knew exactly what it meant instinctively. I've spent the last 15 years or so looking closely at what the world looks like when it abandons the Law of God, (that I like to call "The Real" at this 'blog) and it has been getting more and more obvious that the Pslamist wasn't just kissing up to God, he was just saying that the world without God's law is a cesspit of cruelty and horror.

The other day, I read C.S. Lewis more or less describing that same thing in Reflections on the Psalms.

"Sweeter than honey" Ps. 119:

One can well understand this being said of God's mercies, God's visitations, His attributes. But what the poet is actually talking about is God's law, His commands; His "rulings". What is being compared to gold and honey is those "statutes" which we are told "rejoice the heart"...

This was to me at first very mysterious. "Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery" I can understand that a man can , and must, respect these "statutes" and try to obey them, and assent to them in his heart. But it is very hard to find how they can be, so to speak, delicious, how they exhilarate"...

But the Divine Law is really an expression of the Divine Mind, and a world ordered according to it is a thing greatly to be desired:

What should a man do but try to reproduce it, so far as possible, in his daily life? His "delight" is in those statutes; to study them is like finding treasure, they affect him like music, are his "songs" they taste like honey, they are better than silver and gold. As one's eyes are more and more opened, one sees more and more in them, and it excites wonder. This is not priggery nor even scrupulosity; it is the language of a man ravished by moral beauty. If we cannot at all share in his experience, we shall be the losers....

For there were other roads which lacked "truth". The Jews had as their immediate neighbours close to them in race as well as in position, Pagans of the worst kind. Pagans whose religion was marked by none of that beauty or (sometimes) wisdom which we can find among the Greeks. That background made the "beauty" or "sweetness" of the Law more visible...When a Jew... looked upon those worships - when he thought of sacred prostitution, sacred sodomy, and the babies thrown into the fire for Moloch - his own Law, as he turned back to it, must have shone with an extraordinary radiance. Sweeter than honey; or if that metaphor does not suit us who have not such a sweet tooth, let us say like mountain water, or like fresh air after a dungeon, like sanity after a nightmare.

And here is something interesting, Lewis issuing a clear warning, that should be even more pertinent to us today:

In so far as this idea of the Law's beauty, sweetness or preciousness, arose from the contrast of the surrounding Paganisms, we may soon find occasion to recover it. Christians increasingly live on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions and their tides come further up the beach every time. None of these new ways is yet so filthy or cruel as some Semitic Paganism. But many of them ignore all individual rights and are already cruel enough. Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept, some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and "sweet reasonableness" of the Christian ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted.

Reflections on the Psalms, 1961



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Fun with St. Thomas

This from a Thomistic scholar acquaintance:

Anticipating her fiery demise at the stake, [N] has offered objections to the idea of roasting marshmallows at the immolation of heretics (and enemies of the state).

Therefore:

A "Question"

"Whether it is fitting to roast marshmallows at the pyre of a burning heretic."

Objection 1. It seems that it is not fitting to roast marshmallows at the pyre of a burning heretic. For the "stench" of heresy, being repugnant to the taste of faithful Christians, might ruin the delicate savour of the marshmallows. Therefore...

Objection 2. Further, the "savour" of heresy, adding a delicate nuance to the flavour of the s'mores, would seem to approach to cannibalism. But cannibalism is contrary not only to natural law, but also to Divine Law. Therefore...

Objection 3. Further, the Lord rejoiceth not in the death of a sinner. Neither, therefore, should Christians rejoice in the death of a sinner. But s'mores being a delight to the senses, are proper to rejoicing. Therefore...

Theology nerds...



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