MPFS: A Great Organization, Makes Me Proud

Russia in Bad Shape: China May be Worse

Great: more riots in China feared since more than 20 million out-of-work "migrant workers" continue to create social unrest. I can't think of a better word than "create", though it is hard to see that they are truly creating the mess that is China today.

Have I said it is going to get worse before it gets worse lately?

Thank G-d for, well, G-d.

Children of Hope

HT: Children of Hope Adore

Who Cares About Heaven?

If a thing makes no difference, it is a waste of time to think about it. We should begin, then, with the question: What difference does Heaven make to earth, to now, to our lives?

Only the difference between hope and despair in the end, between two totally different visions of life; between "chance or the dance". At death we find out which vision is true: does it all go down the drain in the end, or are all the loose threads finally tied together into a gloriously perfect tapestry? Do the tangled paths through the forest of life lead to the golden castle or over the cliff and into the abyss? Is death a door or a hole?

To medieval Christendom, it was the world beyond the world that made all the difference in the world to this world. The Heaven beyond the sun made the earth "under the sun" something more than "vanity of vanities". Earth was Heaven's womb, Heaven's nursery, Heaven's dress rehearsal. Heaven was the meaning of the earth. Nietzsche had not yet popularized the serpent's tempting alternative: "You are the meaning of the earth." Kant had not yet disseminated "the poison of subjectivism" by his "Copernican revolution in philosophy", in which the human mind does not discover truth but makes it, like the divine mind. Descartes had not yet replaced the divine I AM with the human "I think, therefore I am" as the "Archimedean point", had not yet replaced theocentrism with anthropocentrism. Medieval man was still his Father's child, however prodigal, and his world was meaningful because it was "my Father's world" and he believed his Father's promise to take him home after death.

This confidence towards death gave him a confidence towards life, for life's road led somewhere. The Heavenly mansion at the end of the earthly pilgrimage made a tremendous difference to the road itself. Signs and images of Heavenly glory were strewn all over his earthly path. The "signs" were (1) nature and (2) Scripture, God's two books, (3) general providence, and (4) special miracles. (The word translated "miracle" in the New Testament [sëmeion] literally means "sign".) The images surrounded him like the hills surrounding the Holy City. They, too, pointed to Heaven. For instance, the images of saints in medieval statuary were seen not merely as material images of the human but as human images of the divine, windows onto God. They were not merely stone shaped into men and women but men and women shaped into gods and goddesses. Lesser images too were designed to reflect Heavenly glory: kings and queens, heraldry and courtesy and ceremony, authority and obedience—these were not just practical socio-economic inventions but steps in the Cosmic Dance, links in the Great Chain of Being, rungs on Jacob's ladder, earthly reflections of Heaven. Distinctively premodern words like glory, majesty, splendor, triumph, awe, honor—these were more than words; they were lived experiences. More, they were experienced realities.

The glory has departed. We moderns have lost much of medieval Christendom's faith in Heaven because we have lost its hope of Heaven, and we have lost its hope of Heaven because we have lost its love of Heaven. And we have lost its love of Heaven because we have lost its sense of Heavenly glory.

Medieval imagery (which is almost totally biblical imagery) of light, jewels, stars, candles, trumpets, and angels no longer fits our ranch-style, supermarket world. Pathetic modern substitutes of fluffy clouds, sexless cherubs, harps and metal halos (not halos of light) presided over by a stuffy divine Chairman of the Bored are a joke, not a glory. Even more modern, more up-to-date substitutes—Heaven as a comfortable feeling of peace and kindness, sweetness and light, and God as a vague grandfatherly benevolence, a senile philanthropist—are even more insipid.

Our pictures of Heaven simply do not move us; they are not moving pictures. It is this aesthetic failure rather than intellectual or moral failures in our pictures of Heaven and of God that threatens faith most potently today. Our pictures of Heaven are dull, platitudinous and syrupy; therefore, so is our faith, our hope, and our love of Heaven.

It is surely a Satanic triumph of the first order to have taken the fascination out of a doctrine that must be either a fascinating lie or a fascinating fact. Even if people think of Heaven as a fascinating lie, they are at least fascinated with it, and that can spur further thinking, which can lead to belief. But if it's dull, it doesn't matter whether it's a dull lie or a dull truth. Dullness, not doubt, is the strongest enemy of faith, just as indifference, not hate, is the strongest enemy of love.

It is Heaven and Hell that put bite into the Christian vision of life on earth, just as playing for high stakes puts bite into a game or a war or a courtship. Hell is part of the vision too: the height of the mountain is appreciated from the depth of the valley, and for winning to be high drama, losing must be possible. For salvation to be "good news", there must be "bad news" to be saved from. If all of life's roads lead to the same place, it makes no ultimate difference which road we choose. But if they lead to opposite places, to infinite bliss or infinite misery, unimaginable glory or unimaginable tragedy, if the spirit has roads as really and objectively different as the body's roads and the mind's roads, and if these roads lead to destinations as really and objectively different as two different cities or two different mathematical conclusions—why, then life is a life-or-death affair, a razor's edge, and our choice of roads is infinitely important.

We no longer live habitually in this medieval mental landscape. If we are typically modern, we live in ennui; we are bored, jaded, cynical, flat, and burnt out. When the skies roll back like a scroll and the angelic trump sounds, many will simply yawn and say, "Pretty good special effects, but the plot's too traditional." If we were not so bored and empty, we would not have to stimulate ourselves with increasing dosages of sex and violence—or just constant busyness. Here we are in the most fantastic fun and games factory ever invented—modern technological society—and we are bored, like a spoiled rich kid in a mansion surrounded by a thousand expensive toys. Medieval people by comparison were like peasants in toyless hovels—and they were fascinated. Occasions for awe and wonder seemed to abound: birth and death and love and light and darkness and wind and sea and fire and sunrise and star and tree and bird and human mind—and God and Heaven. But all these things have not changed, we have. The universe has not become empty and we, full; it has remained full and we have become empty, insensitive to its fullness, cold hearted.

Yet even in this cold heart a strange fire kindles at times—something from another dimension, another kind of excitement—when we dare to open the issue of Heaven, the issue of meeting God, with the mind and heart together. Like Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, we experience the shock of the dead coming to life.

C.S. Lewis: "You have had a shock like that before, in connection with smaller matters—when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the shock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. "Look out!" we cry, "It's alive!" And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself if I could—and proceed no further with Christianity. An "impersonal God"—well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness inside our own heads—better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power that we can tap-best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband—that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ("Man's search for God"!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that!"

When it does come to that, we feel a strange burning in the heart, like the disciples on the road to Emmaeus. Ancient, sleeping hopes and fears rise like giants from their graves. The horizons of our comfortable little four-dimensional universe crack, and over them arises an enormous bliss and its equally enormous absence. Heaven and Hell—suppose, just suppose it were really, really true! What difference would that make?

I think we know.

- Peter Kreeft

Veteran's Day Post

Sorry I didn't know to post this on Veteran's Day.
Take some time to read it. I just finished.
It made me cry.

Unexpected Meditation XXII

The mystery is not that our desires are so universal and all-consuming, although by this, we know we are alive and are being driven by something beyond us. Nor is it just that we have so little time, even if we are allotted the full span of four score years.

The mystery is rather that some things do satisfy us. And because of this, we begin to suspect that there is a real connection between ourselves and the world, neither of which we made, that there is a satisfaction for what is infinite in us.

Hope: Prayer & Contemplation

Another blogger summarizes some points on prayer and contemplation from the Holy Father's encyclical, Spe Salvi, here. Her post repays a careful, reflective reading.

Most Men

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Some have the courage to follow their hearts.

One More Reason to Lose Hope

Why?

Been Thinking About How Hard MY Life Is . . .

Only God is Man's True Hope

The Universe is Ruled by a Person

By Carrie Gress

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2007 - Man's true hope, firm in the face of all disappointments, can only be God, and that it is him, and not the laws of matter that rule the universe, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this in his encyclical "Spe Salvi" (Saved in Hope), released today. The title refers to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, 8:24: "For in hope we were saved."

"Day by day," the Holy Father explained, "man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes.

"When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further."

Redemption

To understand hope, the Pontiff said, one must start with an understanding of Christian salvation. Redemption "is not simply a given."

He continued: "Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: The present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey."

Benedict XVI said that "man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of 'redemption' which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love."

The Pope added: "If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then -- only then -- is man 'redeemed,' whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances.

"It is not the elemental spirits of the universe, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love -- a Person.

"And if we know this Person and he knows us, then truly the inexorable power of material elements no longer has the last word; we are not slaves of the universe and of its laws, we are free."

"Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God -- God who has loved us and who continues to love us 'to the end,' until all 'is accomplished,'" emphasized the Pontiff.

True life

"Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves," said Benedict XVI. "It is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is life itself and love itself, then we are in life. Then we 'live.'

"Our relationship with God is established through communion with Jesus -- we cannot achieve it alone or from our own resources alone."

"The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life," said the Pontiff. "We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else.

"This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope.

"His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect."

"His love," added the Holy Father, "is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: A life that is 'truly' life."

A Paradox of Time: Already and Not Yet

Duc in altum (Lk 5:4)

Every year it seems to get worse. The Christmas songs and decorations begin their commercial assault earlier and earlier. This year the yuletide ads began well before Thanksgiving. And there is no escape. The songs repeat themselves everywhere until the shopping mall sounds like one continuous DecktheRudolphSantaWeWishYouFalalala. The decorations become more absurd, having less and less to do with Christ. Ironically, once Christmas actually arrives, these decorations and songs will be pushed aside to make room for the next marketable holiday. And on that day we Catholics will only just begin our Christmas celebration. But for the time being, we must practice patience. We still have some spiritual preparation to go through. Although we already have it on our minds, Christmas has not yet arrived.

Already and not yet. This paradox of time characterizes the Catholic faith in general and Advent in particular. We must preserve both together, not eliminating either one: both already and not yet. This paradox means, first, that Christ has already come and redeemed us. Even now we possess his life through the sacraments. He has already won the battle between good and evil. At the same time, however, we are not yet there. We can still fall away from His grace. We can render his victory meaningless for ourselves. Although we already have one foot in heaven, we must remain vigilant because we are not yet there.

This paradox helps us to understand Catholic worship. At one and the same time the Mass looks to the past (already) and the future (not yet). In the past we find our Lord’s death and resurrection, the saving events of our faith. In the future we look “in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” The Mass brings this two moments together in one celebration. It makes present our Lord’s Sacrifice as we await His return in glory. And that provides the template for all Catholic prayer. In our conversation with God we thank him for what he has already done and beg his help for what is not yet accomplished.

The theological virtue of hope rests on this union of already and not yet. Hope regards the fulfillment of a promise as both already accomplished and not yet fully realized. Hope fails if this paradox is eliminated in one direction or another. If we forget the already — that is, the promises Christ made and the graces he won for us — then we will not have any basis for hope and fall into despair. If, on the other hand, we forget the not yet and foolishly conclude that Christ’s promises require no cooperation or effort on our part, then we become presumptuous and will face the Lord ill-prepared for eternity.

All of this helps us to understand Advent better, because it is a season about the past, the future, and the hope that they bring. As the prayers for the First Sunday of Advent make clear, we are looking in two directions: to the already and not yet. We recall our Lord’s first coming to better prepare for his second. He came once in humility and meekness to save the world. He will come again in power and glory to judge the world. How we receive him at his first coming determines how we will be received by him at his second.

Which brings us back to what we should be about at this time of year. It is not yet Christmas. But we should already be preparing. These weeks given to us before Christmas are for the spiritual preparation necessary to receive the Christ child. Let us stir up in our hearts an awareness of our need for him and the desire to bring him our worship when at last he arrives.

— Rev. Paul Scalia

Hope for Heaven II

The merest savage dancing madly about the entrails of a disemboweled turkey in obscene search of God is surely a more sympathetic figure than some fussy-minded, post-Christian shopper, looking for turkey drumsticks under a cellophane wrapper amid the plastic perfections of a suburban supermarket. At least the savage is in search of authentic liberation from sin and death . . .

It is this terrible craving of the pagan soul for reassurance about its own essential immortality - the possibility of real purification from sin and iniquity; the aboriginal, consuming hunger for wholeness, for atonement with itself and God, the world, and others - that fundamentally describes the persisting, immemorial conditions for the very existence of religion itself.

It is a word, incidentally, which comes from the Latin, meaning to bind oneself back, or to be bound to some source or origin in being . . . religare, a word which necessarily implies some recognition of contingency, of dependency upon grace, upon God.

And so, there is something profoundly healthy about paganism: it is, for all its grotesquerie, at least a human thing, i.e., an expression quintessentially human and honest because it begins with belief. Man is a being born to believe and no pagan soul can abide the absence of God's presence from the world. The pagan is driven thus to hollow the whole universe to ensure that the sacred not disappear; that all the significant moments of a man's life - birth, marriage, coming of age, death - be invested with numinous importance. Paganism is a natural and good and eminently human impulse, which for all its distortions and abuse is worth defending because here, at least, is something to which human hope might anchor its energy and idealism, riveted upon some future state of real and lasting happiness. In short, because it is healthy and human enough to hope for Heaven, paganism is something we can build upon, a thing God's grace may perfect, even unto glory. - Dr. Regis Martin

Hope for Heaven

Heaven's a nice place, no doubt, but nobody seems in a great rush to get there, the human race having lost, in Monsignor Knox's phrase, all relish for eternity.