I meant to post this last Saturday, but I was at an academic conference and I needed a few days to recuperate. Saturday was the 2-year anniversary of the launching of the blog of the Cornell Society for a Good Time. Two years may not sound too impressive, but in the world of the blogosphere an awful lot of blogs don’t make it even that long, so Deo Gratias for that, and may it live on for more years to come!

It’s interesting to look back at the early days of the Cornell Society for a Good Time, and to compare the blog then with the blog of today. Some changes I like, and others are a bit sad. For example, I miss the days when Iacobus and Ambrosius posted on a more regular basis. And, probably in large part thanks to the elusiveness of those gentlemen, the blog doesn’t have quite the jovial tone that it used to back in the day. That’s a shame, because that peculiar style of humor (which I can appreciate, but can’t easily replicate) was always a source of cheer to me on stressful or dreary days.
Continue reading

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky—
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

– Geo. Herbert

Te natiónum Præsides
Honore tollant publico,
Colant magistri, júdices,
Leges et artes exprimant.

Verúmtamen ejusmodi regnum præcipuo quodam modo et spirituale esse et ad spirituália pertinére, cum ea, quæ ex Bibliis supra protulimus, verba planíssime ostendant, tum Christus Dóminus sua agéndi ratióne confírmat. Síquidem, non una data occasióne, cum Judæi, immo vel ipsi Apóstoli, per errórem censérent, fore ut Messías pópulum in libertátem vindicáret regnumque Israël restitúret, vanam ipse opiniónem ac spem adímere et convellere ; rex a circumfusa admirántium multitúdine renuntiándus, et nomen et honórem fugiéndo latendóque detrectáre ; coram Præside romano edicere, regnum suum « de hoc mundo » non esse. Quod quidem regnum tale in evangéliis propónitur, in quod hómines pœniténtiam agéndo íngredi vero nequeant nisi per fidem et baptismum, qui etsi est ritus externus, interiórem tamen regeneratiónem signíficat atque efficit ; oppónitur unice regno Sátanæ et potestáti tenebrárum, et ab ásseclis postulat, non solum ut, abalienáto a divítiis rebusque terrenis animo, morum præferant lenitátem et esuriant sitiantque justítiam, sed étiam ut semet ipsos ábnegent et crucem suam tollant. Continue reading

Another great event for those of you in NYC. Brought to you by the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny:

Dr. John “Chuck” Chalberg has delighted audiences across the United States with his impersonations of American and British characters. The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny is pleased to host Dr. Chalberg portraying G. K. Chesterton in a one-man show.

Sunday, November 4 at 4:30 pm at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, 230 E. 90th Street, Manhatten.

The show will be followed by a Traditional Latin Missa Cantata in the church at 6:00 pm.

Continue reading

Okay, since I dedicated my last post talking about higher education, I thought with this one I’d bring my head out of the clouds and address something a little more banal, namely television. What do we think of television as a form of entertainment? How many of you have one in your houses?

For more than half of the last decade, I’ve had no regular access to television. This was more a product of circumstance than principle, but I never worried that I was missing much, because I believed — and I still do basically believe — that most television is quite boring. Even as a child I was of this opinion. My parents allowed us to watch some educational television (we particularly loved Square One and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?), but they didn’t let us watch cartoons. This rule was relaxed when I was visiting cousins or sleeping over at a friend’s house… but I found, on those occasions, that few things were more odious to me than spending four hours on a Saturday morning in front of the tube. The shows just seemed so dull and stupid. I’d ask my friends: couldn’t we go outside? Play a game? Disappointingly, they generally declined.
Continue reading

Modern Image and Catholic Truth
Saturday, November 17
Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel
230 E. 90th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues) New York City
Saturday, November 17, 2007
9:00 A.M – 4:00 P.M.

Modern man has a positive image of himself that has been shaped and very effectively propagandized since the time of the Renaissance. In three conferences between November and May, the Roman Forum’s Modern Image and Catholic Truth series will explore the gap between this image and the true predicament in which the individual and contemporary society now find themselves trapped.

Part One: The Sleep of Reason

Modernity speaks of the eighteenth century Enlightenment as the “Age of Reason”. But proponents of the Enlightenment were often dubious about the ability of the human mind to understand man and nature and more interested in limiting the scope of rational activity than increasing it. Continue reading

We’ve returned once again to an exciting season of year! No, I’m not going to be writing about football again… I’m talking about Application Season. For anyone thinking about entering an academic institution next year (either as an undergraduate, graduate student, or faculty member) now is the time for laying your plans. Actually, as anyone who’s done it knows, applications mostly involve a series of painful jobs: fretting about different programs, agonizing over personal essays, and begging letters of recommendation from people who, well, seemed to like you. As anxious as this time is for anyone, serious Catholics have an additional reason to be worried, because the academic world is not famous for being positive about the Catholic faith.

I thought it might be worthwhile to open a thread about the concerns of Catholics considering applications to graduate school. My main reason for focusing on grad school (as opposed to college or the academic job market) is because it’s the area that I’m best qualified to speak to, being myself a Catholic graduate student at a major research university. And, in fact, all the members of the Cornell Society for a Good Time either are, or have recently been, Catholic graduate students. So this is a subject we ought to know something about.

Continue reading

Today the Doctor and I were driving around campus and we found a fire truck parked outside the Catholic center (which has a chapel, with the Blessed Sacrament reserved inside.) It didn’t look as though anything was actually burning down, but it got me speculating about something that I think was covered in my catechesis, but that I can’t now remember. What are you supposed to do if the Blessed Sacrament needs to be rescued from some sort of danger and there’s no available priest?

If it’s a question of rescuing the Body of Christ from a fire or a collapsing building, I guess you’d probably just pick up the ciborum and carry it outside. And bring it over to the nearest Catholic church, I suppose, though I’d only want to surrender such a thing to an actual priest if possible.
Continue reading

I woke up late this morning and, seeing that we were having a dry spell on the blog, decided I’d better write something. Appropriately enough, the thing that was most on my mind today was the vice of sloth.

Sloth is one of the “traditional” seven deadly sins, but it makes no explicit appearance in the Ten Commandments. My missal’s Examination of Conscience says nothing about it, but it nonetheless comes up periodically in my confessions, and when I confess to general sloth, this generally means something like: “I can’t think of anything very bad that I’ve done, Father, but I sure don’t feel like I’ve been especially good.” I find it hard, in the confessional, to find words to express my general mediocrity. But talking about sloth is sometimes a good way to start.
Continue reading

If the sun ceased to rise, says St. Bernard, how could the world become other than a chaos of darkness and horror? And applying his question to Mary, he repeats it: “Take away the sun, and where will the day be? Take away Mary, and what will be left but the darkest night?” (Tolle corpus hoc solare, ubi dies? Tolle Mariam, quid nisi densissimae tenebrae relinquentur?)

When a soul loses devotion to Mary, it is immediatley enveloped in darkness, and in that darkness of which the Holy Ghost speaks in the Psalms: “Thou has appointed darkness, and it is night; in it shall all the beasts of the woods go about.” When the light of heaven ceases to shine in a soul, all is darkness and it becomes the haunt of devils and of every sin. St. Anselm says that “if anyone is disregarded and contemned by Mary, he is necessarily lost” (omnis a te aversus et a te despectus necesse est ut intereat); and therefore we may with reason exclaim, Woe to those who despise its light! that is to say, all who despise devotion to Mary.

St. Francis Borgia always doubted the perseverance of those in whom he did not find particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin. On one occasion he questioned some novices as to the saints towards whom they had special devotion, and perceiving some who had it not towards Mary, he instantly warned the master of novices, and desired him to keep a more attentive watch over these unfortunate young men, who all, as he had feared, lost their vocations and renounced the religious state.

Continue reading