Healing

I'm reading a book by Fr. Harvey which is quite extensive. I won't go into details, but I wanted to point out something interesting.

He distinguishes between two types of healings: spiritual and pyschological. This might seem obvious but interesting nonetheless.

1. Spiritual healing- a response to the grace of God. Depending on the grace of Jesus, and becoming personally intimite with Him. Living in the eternal Word etc.

2. Pyschologcial healing- a restoration to wholeness and sanity. An absence of emotional, mental or sexual disorders.

The Church teaches that we must be spiritually healed (not sinning purposefully) but we are not obligated (although Im sure the church would encourage it) to be pyschologically healed.

Example: the church can say it is a sin to get drunk, but they cannot say it is a sin to have the desires/temptations/struggles to get drunk.

As I said, the church (I assume) would highly reccomend full and complete healing but there is a distinction. The author noted that some saints were spiritually whole but were "tormeneted with compulsive tempations" which would indicate a lack of complete pyschological connection and integration.

Executive Order

Obama reversed the Mexico City Policy on Jan 23rd. The MCP was an agreement, signed by Regan in 1981, reversed by Clinton in 91 and re-instated by Bush, that forbade NGO's (non governmetnal org.) that provide health services, to use U.S. Federal funding for abortions.

Now, in the developing countries, health clinics will be using our tax money to encourage and perform abortions.

Obama is doing exactly what many people feared. The genocide is beginning. I'm sick to my stomach.

Will the Bishops please do something about this!

I am completely disturbed by Nancy Pelosi's remarks regarding the inclusion of funding, hundreds of millions, for "family planning" to states as part of the $800 billion economic stimulus plan.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/01/pelosi-defends.html

"The family planning services reduce cost," Pelosi said, "One of the elements of this package is assistance to the states. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

"So no apologies for that?" I asked her.

"No apologies. No," Pelosi said. "And this is a, to stimulate the economy, is an economic recovery package and as we put it forth we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. Believe it or not, they're the right thing to do but they also stimulate the economy."

She's blatantly saying that we sterilize the poor because they're a burden to society. We also know that family planning services include abortion and that contraception leads to more abortions, so why not just kill the poor because they cost too much for the states. And somehow they're trying to play this off as "economic stimulus". This same logic supports euthanasia for the sick and disabled. Is she not promoting eugenics? God help us.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Following the Pope

Pope asks young Catholics to use technology to share their faith By Cindy WoodenCatholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI asked young Catholics to use their computers, Facebook accounts, blogs and Internet video posts to share with their peers the joy of faith in Christ."Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm," the pope told young people in his message for the 2009 celebration of World Communications Day.

Miles Caritas is a response to this...yes, yes?????????????????????

Thoughts on an Empty Stomach

I'm very hungry.
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Kenny, first let me say that I think I mis-used the word depraved. I think the other ones I used (lonely, alienated, (i forget completely)) are more accurate. I guess I meant he was deprived now that I think about it more. He wasn't evil, but he was deprived of a certain sense of peace and a certain sense of personhood. I felt he was deprived of an equilebrium and sense of belonging- which is very important.

The narrative was a bit tedious in a way, but I loved the story. It took some getting used to. I loved his little step-brother (the one who admits his sins so honestly and has great devotion to the church and to God) and I like, as I said before, his perspective on things.

As the story went along, and as I finished the book, I realized how many people in this world are lonely (root word of lonely: is to "to long for") alienated, disconnected and dis-integrated prime conditions for an addict! It is sad and hopeless but real.

It's interesting because the past few books I've read have all taken place in the South (The Firm: Mephis, The Moviegoer: New Orleans, and now, The Adventures of Huck Finn: Mississippi River and surrounding states). Makes me feel cold up here, but that ain't no matter.
---

This is a great article.
http://www.godspy.com/magazine/redeemed/

"Alcoholics and addicts know this kind of thing about themselves, which is why, in spite of their other myriad shortcomings, they tend to be the funniest, and often oddly spiritual people on earth. Of course I would think that being one myself. In fact, I have a theory that’ll all addiction is, at bottom, a search for God.

Think about it: the blackout--a crude form of mystical union; the willingness to sacrifice reputation, family, money, health, one’s very life—a twisted martyrdom. Sometimes I think anyone as drawn as I am to suffering would have had to become a Catholic. But truly, it’s a gift to have seen the depths to which I’ll fall, the extent to which I’ll compromise myself, the lengths to which I’m willing to go to avoid God. The problem with avoiding God is that next thing I know, I’ve latched onto something outside myself, established a substitute God; and he, she, or it is holding me in complete bondage. To me, the fall doesn’t mean I’m bad (though in one way I actually am pretty bad) and that God hates me. It means I’m broken and I need help. "

in america

i think he also specifically says "im even in love with your unborn child"

as for binx, why do you say he's depraved? was that your final analysis of his character?

Life, Vitality and Light

The U.S. Bishops have declared today a day of penance and fasting for the intentions of the Dignity of the Human Person- especially the unborn- and the right to life. I have an advantage because I have a soar throat so I can't each much anyway.

Fasting and penance is a great way to "pump God's grace through the world". It's also good to conquer things that need conquering.

Again in today's gospel Jesus continues to heal people and bring them back to life. A great witness to the pro-life movement is that we live in full vitality and the fullness of life. Jesus is the way the truth and the life.

Remember the movie, In America...
Guy 1:
"Im in love with your wife, Im in love with your kids, Im in love with you, Im in love with anything that lives"

Guy 2: "your dying" (just realizing)

"Lively up yourselves"
-Bob Marley

Moviegoer

Actually, after finishing the novel, I realized that the character I described in my previous post is much more cynical, desperate, isolated, alienated, depraved and lonely then I am-although not by much. Maybe we share some outlooks, but I think we are uniquely different.

Lord of the Dance, the MovieGoer and Mystery

Today's gospel is awesome. The pharisees are being legalistic and abrasive- as usual. (There is some of this in all of us, no?) The Lord rebuke's them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." This is a great passage, it brings us back to the divinity of God. Jesus is God and is our savior. Why be concerned with trivial matters when the Lamb of God is among us?

For me, this is a mystery. This whole thing is a mystery. Sometimes, I step back and say, "what the heck am I doing". But to emrace the mystery is to emrbace humanity, because even things we know for sure can be mysteries. I cannot conquer the world, but I can dive into this mystery before me.
--
Upon a reccolected state of reading prose, I have found that the Narrator in Walker Percy's MovieGoer, and I, look at certain things, namely: time, atmosphere, seasons, dispositions, relationship between climate, time of day and cultural situations and human emotions, the same.

"Yes it is true. We used to talk a bit about psychological make-ups and the effect of glands on our dismal dark behavior"
-Percy


"As for hobbies, people with stimulating hobbies suffer from the most noxious of despairs since they are tranquilized in their despair. I muse along as quietly as a ghost. Instead of trying to sleep I try to fathom the mystery of this suburb at dawn"
-Percy

Amazing, no?

Doubt

I recommend the movie Doubt to those that havent seen it. There are at least four spectacular acting performances (I think Meryl Streep might even outdo Philip Seymore Hoffman) and the drama gets incredibly powerful several times throughout the movie.

I dont want to give away the ending but a recurring theme throughout the movie is how "pursuing wrongdoing brings you away from God". By "pursuing wrongdoing" I mean seeking out an injustice in order to bring it to light and have it resolved. Im not sure if Im forcing something that isnt there, and this may only be distantly related, but this makes me think of Christ being "abandoned" by His Father on the Cross when pursuing us in our sin, and his cry of "Abba, Abba, why have you forsaken me?" As Gil Bailie says, "Our God is a God-forsaken God".

Brendan, you mentioned the Psalms as portraying the central human drama of falling away and returning to God. Would you also say that the Psalms are meant to develop in us a sense of the hidden presence of God at all times, even when we have strayed from God and feel forsaken by him? Christ's cry on the cross was itself a recitation of a Psalm, and a revelation of God's presence even in these times of darkness and alienation from God. Doubt portrays such a darkness intensely, but by revealing the abyss of human sin, the movie gives a sense of how far we as a people must be from true goodness, holiness and purity, and therefore leaves you filled with awe.

First Things...

1. Brendan- Good recent posts. I agree, the Liturgy is amazing. The Liturgy of the Hours has been growing on me to, especially since a lot of the church is praying it together. I had a chance to go to the Extraordinary Classical Roman Rite Today (aka, traditional latin mass). It was beautiful. I interviewed the priest afterwards which was also quite inspiring.

2. Fr. Herald saw our blog?? That's funny because there are some odd posts. I think the majority of it is good, but there is some nonsense here and there, mostly the fault of me...!! I love his affirmation though, I can dig it.

Peace
DP

Liturgy

Recently I've really grown to appreciate the Liturgy of the Church. By Liturgy I mean the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as well as the Liturgy of the Hours. There are several aspects that I love. The seasons: throughout the year the different liturgical seasons keep us engaged and focused on different aspects of the spiritual life. Even the ordinary season is much more that just ordinary; it's extraordinary. It seems that there is always a feastday of a fascinating saint to learn about and to pray to for intercessions. There's always someone or something to celebrate (besides the obvious gifts of the Eucharist and Scripture). We are a Church of celebrations and joy.
The content: Especially in the Liturgy of the Hours. The psalms are filled with such raw human emotions that they speak loudly to me. There's a cycle of falling away from God and the pain that that causes, a realization of this pain, a coming back to God, and God always renewing the covenant. This seems to be the basic human drama. It's amazing how the Church put the texts of each hour and day so perfectly to connect the passages and their meanings.
Entering In: The Liturgy is the primary means of entering into the Mystical Body of Christ. The universality of the Liturgy fascinates me. The whole Church is in harmony as we pray together. I really feel myself entering into something Other. I find myself centering my whole person around the Liturgy, it's pulling me in. It's my lifeblood. The more I enter in, the more I desire.

Brendan

Our first quotable endorsement

Finally got a chance to check out your blog. It's a fascinating collection of "hip" and "holy!"

- Fr. Herald Joseph Brock, CFR

Hip but not hipster. And fascinating!

Humility and Article from Fr. Hardon

Great article from Fr. Hardon on Chastity and the Eucharist
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Chastity/Chastity_005.htm

My thoughts:

Humility: The acknowledgment of who you are before God. In order to be humble we must know ourselves. Primarily as sons of the Father. Second, we must know our strengths and weaknesses and we must glorify Him in both. Through our God given strengths we must be used as an instrument of grace for others and through our weaknesses we must allow God to transform us more and more in His likeness.

Recently I've been thanking God for my struggles with lust and drinking and my other weaknesses because I have experienced a taste of the transformation that I've allowed/participated in. By the grace of God I have been sober for 6 months now and I know that it is in no way my doing. It has to be God who has given me the grace to change; I tried it on my own and it didn't work. Thus, it is even in our weaknesses that we can glorify the Father. My weaknesses also remind me of how much I truly depend on Jesus. For this I am thankful because I have a tendency to think that I can do it all on my own. It is in our humility, our recognition of who we are before God that we can give Him the Glory that is due. We must strive to know ourselves more fully to practice the virtue of humility. It is in our powerlessness and brokeness that we must surrender and be transformed and it is in our strengths that we must be used as an instument of grace for others.

oh one day at a time for sure, i myself got not a wink of sleep last night...here are some lyric selections:


There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in a vicious race
And children cry for the man who has
A real big heart and a father's grace

I don't mean to seem like I care about
material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

-my girls


Let's leave the sound of the heat for the sound of the rain
It's easy to sleep when it wets my brain
It covers my rest with a saccharine sheen
Kissing the wind through my window screen
But restless is causeless and I cannot hide
So much of my mind that it spills outside
Do you wanna go stroll down a financial street?
Our clothes might get soaked
But the buildings sleep

And there's no one pushing for a place
As we enter at an easy pace
And I want to walk around with you
And I want to walk around with you

-summertime clothes

Response to Kenny

Kenny:

"Night (or animal collective) hold no terror for me"
"I shall walk in the shadow of death, but fear no collective"
-Psalms


Pro's:
1. They have cool professions, like geologist and carpenter
2. The guys name is Panda, like me
3. They liked the grateful dead

Con's:
1. Ive had a bit too much coffee and am feeling jittery
2. My fingers were freezing when operating my car this morning

Conclusion: One day at at time!

Peace
DP

maybe this innocent info will make you a little less terrified of the band:

Panda, Tare (Dave Portner, 26), programmer Geologist (Brian Weitz, 26) and guitarist Deakin (Josh Dibb, 27) got together when they were in high school in the mid-Nineties. Drawn together by a shared love of Pavement, the Grateful Dead and horror-movie soundtracks, the kids started making music in their families' suburban Baltimore basements.

For Animal Collective's early shows, the electronic-folk foursome wore surreal furry costumes onstage -- but it wasn't just an arty affectation. "It's a way of not being self-conscious," says drummer Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox, 27), who is still very uncomfortable in large crowds.

"The music has a lot to do with love and loving in our lives in the past year," says Panda. "The others have serious girlfriends. I got married a year ago, and we've got a baby."

...Deakin, who is also a carpenter, shuttles between New York and Baltimore; Panda lives with his wife and son in Lisbon, Portugal. But the foursome still finds time to write and record. Says Deakin, "For us, playing music together is happiness."

merton a collective fan?

good question. if you remember 7 storey mountain, he was really into jazz before he had his conversion. he talks highly about gregorian chant and this kind of music, but i also read that later in his life when he would leave the monastery to meet other religious leaders and zen masters he would take this chance to hit the jazz clubs.

now, you might say that animal collective isn't jazz, but merton constantly sought out and showed a special love for the heterodox (when it had great value), which he constantly presented brilliantly in its special freshness. merton had the flexibility of mind to appreciate and put in its place anything of value, whether it be orthodox or something in the avante garde. i think you can safely say that jazz was the avante garde of that time. whether we enjoy the music or not, we know that there is something in jazz that will last and stand the test of time, even though it was avante garde at the time (which was not long ago). if there is something of value to be grasped in animal collective's rich freshness, there is no crime in its enjoyment. i think merton especially would not argue with this, and would have the daring intellect and imagination to give it a shot.

Animal Collection

Kenny...

Interesting stuff...I dont get the part about the pianos...

--
Alternate View:

I found this commentary from the Fr. Gabriel Amorth, Chieff Exorcist of Rome...

"Animal collective is really just a demonic onslought of musical toxins...we can only hope those who listen to it will do the liver cleansing diet when the show is over...but, as I said, we can only hope..."

Kenny: Would Thomas Merton Like AC???

psychadelically shifting textures and moods, soon to be released

this may be a little off-topic, but Animal Collective, a previous New Yorker Magazine band of the year, is about to release a new album: "Merriweather Post Pavillon". It looks like a treat.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/10/29/animal-collective-preview-trippy-merriweather-post-pavilion/

you know the bands good when it can inspire prose like these

"Merriweather is the soundtrack for the ultimate hippie/ambient tribal dance party, a giddy, freewheeling, psychedelic beast of an album, full of big beats, trippy drones and glistening synths dancing around the band’s rich, reverb-drenched, fugue-like vocal layers."

or, later...

"While tracks like the low-key “No More Runnin’ ” are more conventionally song-oriented, the focus here is on constantly shifting textures and moods, like the central riff of “Daily Routine,” which sounds like a bowling ball being thrown for a strike across the keys of an organ, or the moment on “Guys Eyes” that suggests nothing so much as a backwards loop of a piano being dropped from the roof of a monastery. "

How you can tell what kind of roof that piano is being dropped off of by this sound is, im sure, a mystery only the revelation that this album will be can reveal.

Guys,

This is an incredible article. It touches on a lot of things we have all been discussing over the past few months. It highlights some thinkers and writers we like and it talks about the influences on a Catholic writers. It is well worth your time to read. I loved it. It is about 4-5 pages typed but I couldn't email it because it wouldn't attach.

Enjoy.

--
Catholic writers will have their emotions
as well as intellects shaped by regular, non-cynical exposure to the Christian heritage.

What Makes a Catholic writer?
By Robert F. Gotcher

• I was recently skimming the chapter in Walker Percy's The Message in the Bottle called "Symbol as Need." I was struck by the high level of discourse he was able to achieve. He speaks of Suzanne Langer and St. Thomas with a familiarity that belies his lack of formal philosophical training. From Pilgrim in the Ruins, which I read years ago, I know he spent the 1950s studying semiot­ics and aesthetics mostly on his own, but it is clear he wasn't a dilettante. I think this is why his novels are so good. He has thought deeply and systematically about the things he is try­ing to present in the novels-and from a faith perspective. It is amazing also how he can present these ideas for the popular reader not only in his novels but in, for instance, Lost in the Cosmos.
Percy was only one (and an isolated one at that) of an astounding cluster of great writers
and thinkers who graced the twentieth cen­tury. Between 1920 and 1960, after the first phase of the Modernist crisis was over, there was a Catholic intellectual revival, encom­passing the work of people ranging from Frank Sheed to Sigrid Undset. It is perplexing that with such a storehouse of genius, after the Council things went to heck in a hand basket, to the chagrin of many (but unfortunately not all) of those who were the main players in the revival. How does one explain (without refer­ring to Genesis 3, as one of my friends does when I ask him this kind of question) how such marvelous work bore so little obvious fruit in the dominant "intellectual" work after the Council? Perhaps we could blame it on bad ICEL translations. But then you'd have to explain how the ICEL translation could be so bad in the first place-and survive for 45 years! Romanitas, I guess.



Among the great names one associates with the pre-conciliar renaissance are, in alphabetical order: Karl Adam, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hilaire Belloc, Robert Hugh Benson, George Bernanos, Maurice Blondel, Louis Bouyer, Odo Casel, G.K. Chesterton, Walter Ciszek, Paul Claudel, Yves Congar, Frederick Copleston, Jean Danielou, Henri Daniel-Rops, Christopher Dawson, Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Shusaku Endo, Josemaria Escriva, Paul Hardy Furfey, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Etienne Gilson, Aelred Graham, Leonce de Grandmaison, Graham Greene, Romano Guardini, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Caryll Houselander, Pope John XXIII, Johannes Jorgensen, Charles Journet, Russell Kirk, Ronald Knox, Maxi­milian Kolbe, Ignace Lepp, Henri de Lubac, Gabriel Marcel, Jacques Maritain, Raissa Maritain, Thomas Merton, John Courtney Murray, Flannery O'Connor, Pope Paul VI, Anton Pegis, Charles Peguy, Walker Percy, Josef Pieper, Johannes Quasten, Hugo Rah­ner, Karl Rahner, Max Scheler, Edith Stein, Karl Stem, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sigrid Undset, Maisie Ward, Eve­lyn Waugh, Frank Sheed, Fulton Sheen and Hubert von Zeller.

Since the Council there continue to be great names, some of whom began writing prior to the Council, such as: Mortimer Adler, Loren­zo Albacete, Jude Dougherty, Avery Dulles, Luigi Giussani, Mary Ann Glendon, Benedict Groeschel, James Hitchcock, Russell Hitting­er, John Hardon, Stanley Jaki, Pope John Paul II, Walter Kasper, Peter Kreeft, William May, Ralph Mclnerny, Marshall McLuhan, Mal­colm Muggeridge, Richard John Neuhaus, Aidan Nichols, Marie-Dominique Philippe, Miriam Pollard, Jessica Powers, Joseph Car­dinal Ratzinger (Benedict XV!), James Schall, David Schindler, Christoph Schonborn, E.F. Schumacher, Janet Smith, Robert Sokolowski, George Weigel, Robert Wilken and John C.H. Wu. However, many of these names are still from the older generation, formed before the Council. What about my generation? Where are the O'Connors and de Lubacs among us? Is our debut still to come?

Sometimes it seems that in the realms of fiction and non-fiction writing our genera­tion lacks the kind of clear, deep, rhetorically rich writing that we associate with the pre­conciliar revival. Often what we get is either simplistic apologetic, the kind of sentimen­tality that Flannery O'Connor decried, or an at least artistic, if not thematic, compromise with the nihilism of post-modernity-in the name of being mature in one's faith or engag­ing in dialogue with the world. This last one sometimes results in an imitation of acerbic, vicious, invective-laden "humor" that marks a world of discourse dominated by talk radio and cable news networks. Walker Percy has imitated that style himself, of course, in Lost in the Cosmos, but certainly he is satirizing the very approach and ultimately pointing to its inherent destructiveness. My question is: can the Church in America produce a Percy or Tolkien these days?


The answer to a certain extent depends on the kind of intellectual formation con­temporary Catholics receive or pursue. What influences from the Catholic experience, often lacking in post-conciliar Catholicism, contribute to that intangible quality that one notices in the work of Guardini, O'Connor, Newman, Houselander, etc.? What kind of intellectual formation do we need to empha­size, and is it perhaps now being emphasized in some sections of the home-school move­ment and some of the new Catholic colleges? I believe there are five important components to an intellectual formation that will foster a new springtime in literary Catholicism. I will also mention a sixth of a different sort at the end.

Sacred Scripture

Familiarity with Scripture, both Old Testa­ment and New, helps shape a writer's perspec­tive and worldview. For a truly Catholic writer this story is his story. Anything he writes will in some sense fit into the overarching biblical narrative. The very phrases and cadence of the psalms and the Gospels will be engraved in his memory and color how he writes, even when he is addressing non-religious subjects.

He will approach all reality from the per­spective of a biblical world view. When he writes about human passions, he will sound a Pauline note. When he writes about the rela­tionship between men and women, the reader will be abl~ to detect the very biblical theol­ogy of the body; when he writes about social justice, the moral evaluation will instinctively be that of the law and the prophets. Even when he writes about human sin, tragedy and failure there will be an unwritten "but" sensed by the reader pointing to redemption. This reflexive sensitivity can only be acquired by regular, deep meditation on the sacred text over many years. To the extent that a writer moves away from a grounding in Scripture, he runs the risk of losing the connection between his words and the Word.

Much of the Catholic familiarity with the Bible has come through participation in the liturgy. That is why the texts of the psalms have a great influence on Catholic literature. I believe it is harder to have a distinctive Cath­olic literary culture now that we don't have just one translation of the Bible. The Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims translation based on it served as a formation of the mind. Think of the many quotations from the Vulgate in the writings of Thomas Merton, mostly taken from the liturgy.

Latin

Knowledge of Latin, whether acquired through formal training or absorbed through exposure to the liturgy, shapes the way Catho­lic writers think and shapes their intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities. Latin, of course, has a myriad of values for any writer. Practi­cally, of course, it helps one immensely with English vocabulary and grammar. It also helps one think more clearly. Christopher Derrick, in Escape from Skepticism, says, "There is no better way of causing a schoolboy to attend to the exact meaning of a word or a sentence: there is no better education in the difference between saying what you mean and uttering vague sounds which more or less suggest the sort of thing you have in mind" (p. 93).
Derrick admits that Russian might also have this effect, as would Greek. Latin, how­ever, has the advantage of connecting the Catholic writer to the great stream of Western literature, both pagan and especially Chris­tian. It also is the language of Western theolo­gy and liturgy. At the very least, knowledge of Latin frees us from the oppression of dynamic equivalence because we can find out what the liturgical texts says ourselves. And there is the ability to read Cicero's masterpiece, De Amicitia in its original language!



St. Thomas

The modified realism of Aristotle is the ether of the Catholic literary universe, even if it was received indirectly through memoriza­tion of the Baltimore Catechism. But most of the greats had significant direct exposure to his thought, from Thomas Merton to Walker Percy to Jacques Maritain. What we gain from St. Thomas is a resounding, yet discern­ing affirmation of the value of the world-an incarnational, sacramental worldview. The cosmos is not just a shadow of something greater beyond, but in fact is itself the portal and eventual participant in what is to come. That is the biblical proposition that Aris­totelianism modified by the doctrine of the Creator helps us withstand against a Platonic denigration of matter and a modem Cartesian dualism.

Also, the doctrine of St. Thomas is at the heart of modem Catholic social teachings. It is no mistake that Leo XIll's two most impor­tant encyclicals are one on the renewal of studies of the Angelic Doctor (Aetemi patris) and one that inaugurates modern Catholic social teaching (Rerum novarum). The second would have been impossible without the ideas of the first.

Not that St. Thomas is the be-all and end- all of Catholic intellectual formation. The res­sourcement movement of the twentieth cen­tury reminded us about how important it is to know the Church fathers (Greek and Latin) in order to have a fully Catholic understanding of the faith. Yet, and I hesitate to say this, even though I know intellectually that the Eastern Church Fathers are every bit as Catholic as, say, Frank Sheed, I don'tfeel them as Catho­lic in the same way as I do St. Thomas. I'm especially struck by the impact that Aquinas (and scholasticism in general) has had on the texture, so to speak, of Western Christian literature. There is a post-Aquinas way of being Catholic that has the feel of an inno­vation of sorts. Both Dante and St. John of the Cross rely heavily on Thomistic cosmol­ogy and anthropology. I assume this is kind of a development, but I can understand to a certain extent how the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics would be suspicious. They prefer writers that still feel like the old guys. Maybe Henri de Lubac et alia were trying to recover that feel, but we should also remember that de Lubac considered himself a faithful disciple of St. Thomas-and considered St. Thomas faithful to the patristic witness, both Greek and Latin. I also think that the legacy of John Paul II will have the same kind of transforma­tional impact on the feel of Western Catholi­cism that Aquinas did. If I wrote this article in a hundred years I'd probably include his theology of the body as a sixth point.

The Liturgy

The rhythm, texture, images, phrases, themes and attitudes of the liturgy and the liturgical year give a Catholic writer an infi­nite well of inspiration. We can learn much from living again the Christmas Cycle and the Paschal Cycle, as well as the lives of the saints, especially the martyrs, and the Marian and Christo logical feasts.

It first of all helps the writer stay in tune with nature. This of course is truer in the Northern Hemisphere and was truer when cel­ebrations such as Ember Days and Rogation days were still in effect. It was also truer when fasting and abstinence were a significant way to enter into the liturgical life.

A Catholic writer, from Graham Greene to Teilhard de Chardin, is Eucharistic-attuned to the sacrificial nature of the cross and to the participation of the believer and ultimately all the world in that sacrifice. Who can say how significant it is for their humility and perspec­tive that so many Catholic writers spent so much time on their knees before the Blessed Sacrament-and that so many modern-day Catholics refuse to get on their knees before anyone or anything? Let us hope that once we pass this era of painful reform the renewed liturgy will continue to be such a factor in the formation of Catholic culture.

Two thousand years of cultural history

A Catholic writer needs not only his intel­lect to be formed, but also his affective fac­ulties. The best Catholic writers will have tasted widely and deeply of the fruits of artis­tic greats of the past, including spiritual clas­sics and theology as well as poetry, fiction, art, music and architecture. Has the modern Catholic writer drunk deeply of St. Bene­dict, Juliana of Norwich, Thomas a Kempis, chant, Palestrina, Mozart, the great basilicas and sculptures, Giotto and Byzantine icons, Dante, and Chaucer? Or is his artistic sensibil­ity being formed by [fill in your least favorite guitar-based "liturgical" music artist here) and the Bauhaus? Shakespeare himself may have been significantly Catholic in his approach to reality and therefor:e a worthy source of inspi­ration for a Catholic ethos, although Kenneth Clarke, who wrote Civilization, numbers him among the cynical pessimists of the late Renaissance. I'm sure great Catholic writing is possible without a lot of cultural familiarity, but it certainly is easier if one immerses him­self in the tradition. And that exposure has to be free of post-modem irony and cynicism.

Christopher Dawson, in The Crisis of Western Civilization, considered a retrieval of the Catholic cultural heritage a prerequi­site for the survival of what is good in Western Civilization. He advocated Catholic studies programs such as the one that flourishes at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Programs such as the School of Architecture at Notre Dame are attempting to retrieve the cultural tradition for contemporary projects, without sliding into archaism.

Catholic writers will have their emotions as well as intellects shaped by regular, non­cynical exposure to the Christian heritage of the past. Young writers who spend more time reading modern authors, watching movies dripping with post-modern ridicule and nihil­ism and listening to angry rock music than exploring the great spiritual and artistic past will stunt their ability to connect their work to the tradition.

The Blessed Virgin Mary

I am not numbering this one because I consider it a distinctive kind of point, a devo­tional as well as an intellectual one. Whatever their personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the great writers of the pre-conciliar revival grew up in an atmosphere of great Marian enthusiasm and were at least indirect­ly influenced by it. If von Balthasar and the Catechism of the Catholic Church are right­that the Marian dimension of the Church has priority over the Petrine-then the closer one unites oneself to Mary at the foot of the Cross, receiving the blood and water from the side of Christ, the more one's literary work will be connected with the great work of salvation. In Rosarium Virginis Mariae John Paul II points out that "among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduceus to a profound knowledge of his mystery better than his Mother" (14). To be devoted to her and to meditate with her on the mysteries of her son cannot help but sharPen the intellect and fine-tune the affective faculties.

Many commentators have noted the pro­found influence that the image of Mary had on Tolkien's conception of women in the Lord of the Rings, especially Galadriel. One of the weaknesses of the movie, perhaps the result of being directed by a non-Catholic, is that Galadriel is turned from a "heavenly" mother into a kind of chthonic witch. When Thomas Merton died one of the objects in his posses­sion was a Holy Rosary. He attributed his vocation to Our Lady of Caridad del Cobre.

Many people will criticize modem Catho­lic educational institutions that are trying to ground young people in the things I mention above. They will accuse Thomas Aquinas Col­lege or the University of St. Thomas' Catholic studies program of being isolationist, elitist, sectarian or too monastic. A friend of mine who graduated from TAC makes the point that the modem academy itself is isolationist. That is, it is hermetically sealed against direct and non-dismissive exposure to the great Western, Catholic tradition. While dialogue with the world requires some knowledge and familiar­ity with the contemporary ways of the world, a clear and perceptive literary presentation of what is really going on requires one to have a fuller and broader worldview, one that is in accord with reality as such and that comes from a center outside of and healthier than our post-modem culture of death. This can best be acquired through a thorough grounding in the Catholic heritage.

I was once accused (sympathetically) of being hopelessly Catholic. I took it as the compliment that it was intended to be and attribute any value that such identification has in me to my familiarity and intentional immersion in the Bible, the Latin language, St. Thomas, the liturgy, two thousand years of cultural history and especially devotion to Mary learned at the grotto of the university named after her. The great Catholic writers are hopelessly Catholic, as well (although they are much better writers than I am). They can't help but infuse every sentence with the sensibility of the tradition as absorbed through exposure to scripture, language, phi­losophy, theology, liturgy, art and poetry .•

Dr. Robert F Gotcher is associate professor of systematic studies at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corner, Wis. He received his Ph.D. from Marquette University in 2002. He teaches introduction to theology, mystery of God, theological anthropology, life principles and human sexuality to seminarians at Sacred Heart. His publications focus on family issues, lay spirituality and the Second Vatican Council. He is involved in the secular Franciscan order.
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Paradoxes

Gospel Paradoxes have become a big theme in my life. This one is not exactly scriptural but I think its Trinitarian at its core...


For the sake of the paradox I am going to define independance as spiritual freedom.

To have independence, we must be dependant (on God of course)!


Happy New Year Miles...

just wanted to pass on Brendan's recomendation to watch these clips of Fr. Baron's cultural commentary...I really liked the one on Dylan too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF0JNwud9K0&feature=channel