After all the weighty discussion of the past few days, a fun post seemed appropriate. Video of an Oratorian father singing a Slovakian folk song and more pictures below the break. This cabaret took place the Saturday before last, was to raise money for the parish’s youth choir, and was billed as “not for children … but not adult entertainment!”

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After all the weighty discussion of the past few days, a fun post seemed appropriate. Video of an Oratorian father singing a Slovakian folk song and more pictures below the break. This cabaret took place the Saturday before last, was to raise money for the parish’s youth choir, and was billed as “not for children … but not adult entertainment!”

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Ernest Hemingway converted to Roman Catholicism at some point in his life, although the precise date is disputed. He certainly belonged to the Church when he married according to her rites in the 1920s. Here is a, well, rather lurid account of his reason for converting (warning: it verges on the immodest). Not the sort of stuff that Marcus Grodi would have on his show, but interesting nonetheless.

While Hemingway did not lead an exemplary life (whether in his personal morals or his political activities), according to the second article link, Catholicism was in fact an undercurrent in his work. He continued to do his Easter duty, at least, and he received a Catholic Requiem Mass since he was ruled to have been mentally deranged at the time of his suicide.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis
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Ernest Hemingway converted to Roman Catholicism at some point in his life, although the precise date is disputed. He certainly belonged to the Church when he married according to her rites in the 1920s. Here is a, well, rather lurid account of his reason for converting (warning: it verges on the immodest). Not the sort of stuff that Marcus Grodi would have on his show, but interesting nonetheless.

While Hemingway did not lead an exemplary life (whether in his personal morals or his political activities), according to the second article link, Catholicism was in fact an undercurrent in his work. He continued to do his Easter duty, at least, and he received a Catholic Requiem Mass since he was ruled to have been mentally deranged at the time of his suicide.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis
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I have in mind a more complete critique of the approach taken by Prof. White, but I thought it would be well to respond particularly to a couple of his errors.

Muslims and God
The first regards the accusation of Heresy on the part of our Pope for claiming that Muslims worship the one true God. I simply fail to see this claim as heretical. At worst, it could be misleading; but to be heretical, it would have to be made stronger: stated as, “Christians worship Allah, the God of the Muslims.” That would be a profound error. But with care, we can easily distinguish Benedict’s claim from the erroneous one. We believe as Catholics that natural reason leads to the belief in God — one, single Prime Mover. On a Catholic understanding of Faith, then, belief in God is a rational and philosophical belief: a pre-theological one, not requiring Faith, considered as a Virtue. Thus Muslims, like Christians and any monotheists, believe in the same one God. Muslims err in believing false revelation about God, and their worship and prayers are consequently malformed and evil. But presuming a good will and invincible ignorance among at least some of them, their worshipful acts, insofar as they are not particular to the erroneous aspects of the islamic creed, are directed towards the one and only God, whom even they recognize as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The Divine response to these, at best, ill-formed prayers and actions must be considered in a balance of justice, compassion, and charity. They do not know the God to whom they pray, even though they think they do. But nonetheless, since God is One, it is to God that they direct their prayers.


Electricity
It may seem a minor point, but I think it vital to rebut such claims as Dr. White makes regarding the modern dependence upon Electricity in modern civilization and its putative connection to the Satanic. This sort of thinking must be rebuked and rejected. Certainly, dependence is a foundational fact about our technological civilization; but dependence is simply a fact of civilization itself. Once a man becomes a baker and another man a soldier and a third man a tool-maker, each has given up autonomy for specialization and reliance upon others. Electicity is not magic, but a natural, if much continued, extension of this same specialization necessary to civilization. God wrote the laws of electrodynamics that allow us, wonderfully, to turn the heat of burning coal or gas into electric currents; the same physical law, written by God, that gives us light itself compels the existence of electricity. It would have been equally true in an unfallen world as it is in our fallen world.

Indoor plumbing, garbage-collection, and grocery stores are in the same regime of human organization as the production of electricity is; in some way, we are more dependent on them, since God gives us light in the day without fail, but running water takes large-scale human agency to guarantee and the production of food enough for us requires long-term planning and stable farming conditions. So though I’d not call his a crackpot theory, his claim is a paranoid and shallow one, reflecting an incautious and unreflective stance towards the cooperation of grace, nature, and human cooperation.
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It is perhaps the first bit of wisdom I have gleaned from aging rather than from wit, reading, or conversation: that the particular paths of our life are not infinitely variable, and are instead closely guided and guarded by grace.

It’s a common feeling in our day that, in the breadth of the span of human life, one should be able to “do it all:” that a complete life is one in which every taste has been had, every desired experience partaken of, every vista beheld. And while the obvious error of this approach to life is its deemphasis on obedience to God’s designs for you, it also errs in its mistaken optimism regarding the infinite opportunities that life supposedly offers. There are many opportunities, sure to say, but in choosing one thing rather than another at each point we sequentially close off the many opportunities might have been in the taking of those proffered. This is a truism that should be embraced; for though to many it may seem a sad fact of limitation, it is actually a quite freeing realization.

What occasioned this more abstract discussion was a thought about music. The functionally infinite variety of music that has been composed and produced is an amazing fact. For professionals, it is a trove to be explored as widely as possible. But for most of us, the exposure we will have to the great and good works of musical art are limited by time and opportunity. Even with the ready availability of recordings of such music, we will buy and listen to this album, rather than another, on the basis of an unfathomable stream of contingencies: who we know, where we go, what is being played by our local symphony the Sunday we happen to attend.

For we who are also amateur musicians, this should occasion a secondary consideration. What a humbling and, to this musician of modest ability, almost frightening thought: that we should be the instrument, or the player, who should render a piece of great music for other people who may only hear it that one time. It is possible that, of a Sunday, the rendition of the Salve, Regina that our modest Schola sings will be the only time a visitor in the congregation will ever hear that marvelous text, or the particular chant mode in which we sing it that day. Or again, consider the organist a-practicing, alone in a grand or modest Church, when a penitent or confused modern stumbles along. His practice-time, studdering attempts to bring to life a Bach Chorale may be the backdrop that pushes the wary young man deciding whether he should kneel, giving himself over grace; or he could drive him away, never to return. Even the simple fact that that same music, the great performances of which stir my soul even in memory, maybe be rendered to another through my humble artistry is stunning.

Yet it ought not to discourage us, but to call us forward to greater trust in grace and providence. As sad as it would be to think that mine should be the only voice a particular man should hear render a great Marian or Eucharistic hymn, far sadder is the thought that the same man might pass all his years in this vale of tears without ever having the chance to hear even a poor offering of that divine music.

And returning to the abstraction in which I began, recognition of this particularity of performance should inform all of our lives. God asks that we give every moment of every day to Him, living and loving as He does. For if we may be the only instrument of mere music to reach some soul, how much more urgent that we should seize each opportunity to show Christ to the same person who fleets across our path. Let us strive to keep this thought ever before us in our prayers and our lives, so that we may each day be instruments of God’s grace.
go to main page

It is perhaps the first bit of wisdom I have gleaned from aging rather than from wit, reading, or conversation: that the particular paths of our life are not infinitely variable, and are instead closely guided and guarded by grace.

It’s a common feeling in our day that, in the breadth of the span of human life, one should be able to “do it all:” that a complete life is one in which every taste has been had, every desired experience partaken of, every vista beheld. And while the obvious error of this approach to life is its deemphasis on obedience to God’s designs for you, it also errs in its mistaken optimism regarding the infinite opportunities that life supposedly offers. There are many opportunities, sure to say, but in choosing one thing rather than another at each point we sequentially close off the many opportunities might have been in the taking of those proffered. This is a truism that should be embraced; for though to many it may seem a sad fact of limitation, it is actually a quite freeing realization.

What occasioned this more abstract discussion was a thought about music. The functionally infinite variety of music that has been composed and produced is an amazing fact. For professionals, it is a trove to be explored as widely as possible. But for most of us, the exposure we will have to the great and good works of musical art are limited by time and opportunity. Even with the ready availability of recordings of such music, we will buy and listen to this album, rather than another, on the basis of an unfathomable stream of contingencies: who we know, where we go, what is being played by our local symphony the Sunday we happen to attend.

For we who are also amateur musicians, this should occasion a secondary consideration. What a humbling and, to this musician of modest ability, almost frightening thought: that we should be the instrument, or the player, who should render a piece of great music for other people who may only hear it that one time. It is possible that, of a Sunday, the rendition of the Salve, Regina that our modest Schola sings will be the only time a visitor in the congregation will ever hear that marvelous text, or the particular chant mode in which we sing it that day. Or again, consider the organist a-practicing, alone in a grand or modest Church, when a penitent or confused modern stumbles along. His practice-time, studdering attempts to bring to life a Bach Chorale may be the backdrop that pushes the wary young man deciding whether he should kneel, giving himself over grace; or he could drive him away, never to return. Even the simple fact that that same music, the great performances of which stir my soul even in memory, maybe be rendered to another through my humble artistry is stunning.

Yet it ought not to discourage us, but to call us forward to greater trust in grace and providence. As sad as it would be to think that mine should be the only voice a particular man should hear render a great Marian or Eucharistic hymn, far sadder is the thought that the same man might pass all his years in this vale of tears without ever having the chance to hear even a poor offering of that divine music.

And returning to the abstraction in which I began, recognition of this particularity of performance should inform all of our lives. God asks that we give every moment of every day to Him, living and loving as He does. For if we may be the only instrument of mere music to reach some soul, how much more urgent that we should seize each opportunity to show Christ to the same person who fleets across our path. Let us strive to keep this thought ever before us in our prayers and our lives, so that we may each day be instruments of God’s grace.
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First off, I can’t quite make sense of David Allen White’s reaction to Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address and the aftermath. While I agree with White that Benedict may well have been surprised by the reaction to his remarks - it doesn’t seem Benedict’s character deliberately to incite riots around the world - I don’t agree that Benedict’s remarks were thereby “foolhardy.” Though Benedict didn’t anticipate the reaction of the Muslim world, he spoke the truth nonetheless.

Certainly as a traditionalist Catholic, I was cheering the way in which the quotation from the Byzantine emperor stuck it straight to the Mohammedans. Then, the worldwide reaction only confirmed what the emperor had said (quoted by Benedict). What a great object lesson! “See, children, if we say these few words in an obscure speech (aside: the rest of which the raving street Muslims are too ignorant to understand), they’ll have this HUGE reaction!” And lo and behold, this is what we saw.
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Another light and fun post suggested by Catherina Dallasensis: were you aware that the only psychological system ever approved by traditional Catholic teaching is the categorization of one’s Temperament? It can be quite helpful in one’s personal and spiritual life to know what sort of vices and errors — as well as virtues and benefits — you may be temperamentally inclined towards. Are you Sanguine (as is this author), or perhaps Melancholic, Phlegmatic, or Choleric? It’s a useful categorization scheme and its deep roots in history save it from simply becoming another form of the sort of pop psychological nonsense so common today.

The only downside is that the only free and complete temperament test online is available only here, through CatholicMatch.com, a Catholic dating service. One need not pay or engage their services to take the test, but they do request rather a lot of personal info.

On the other hand, visiting this site gave me, at least, the distinct surprise of discovering that Michael S. Rose, of Goodbye! Good Men fame, has a regular dating advice and social analysis column for the Catholic Match magazine! My favorite was an article on Catholic small talk.

Another light and fun post suggested by Catherina Dallasensis: were you aware that the only psychological system ever approved by traditional Catholic teaching is the categorization of one’s Temperament? It can be quite helpful in one’s personal and spiritual life to know what sort of vices and errors — as well as virtues and benefits — you may be temperamentally inclined towards. Are you Sanguine (as is this author), or perhaps Melancholic, Phlegmatic, or Choleric? It’s a useful categorization scheme and its deep roots in history save it from simply becoming another form of the sort of pop psychological nonsense so common today.

The only downside is that the only free and complete temperament test online is available only here, through CatholicMatch.com, a Catholic dating service. One need not pay or engage their services to take the test, but they do request rather a lot of personal info.

On the other hand, visiting this site gave me, at least, the distinct surprise of discovering that Michael S. Rose, of Goodbye! Good Men fame, has a regular dating advice and social analysis column for the Catholic Match magazine! My favorite was an article on Catholic small talk.