Where's Alexander When You Need Him?

Ethicist Margaret Hogan to speak on “Gordian knot” of abortion

She is using the metaphor to describe the complexities of the issue. But I think the analogy becomes better when you recall how the real Gordian knot was dealt with. Sounds about right to me.

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Belloc, 1936

"It is worth noting, by the way, that the most sentimental people, who are loudest against the right to wage a just war, or execute a criminal, are just the people who are most likely to be in favor of 'putting incurables out of their pain', which the commandment against murder emphatically forbids."

Hilaire Belloc, 1936
"Characters of the Reformation"

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The Only Story that Matters

While watching an episode tonight of A&E’s adaptations of Forester’s “Horatio Hornblower”, I took note of a particular character: a government official, introduced to us as pompous, blustery, and accustomed to getting his own way.

Eventually, through lack of crew, this government official is forced to work. He is assigned to be the cook’s mate. To make a long story short, our vain and coddled official learns to appreciate the value of hard work and service to his comrades, and emerges from the adventure a much more likable man.

My first reaction to this story was that is was uninspired. Of course the grouchy old fellow would be converted by those unimpeachable spiritual medicines: hard work and service. An old story, told a million times, and tiresomely predictable.

My first reaction was wrong.

What could the alternative have been? Did I really prefer a story I which the corrupt are incorrigible? The basic plot – the story of a flawed man who is brought bye events to his senses, and then develops character and virtue – must be the story of every one of our lives, inasmuch as our lives can be considered successful. For we all start out just like that man – flawed, sinful, selfish – and by the end we must be either reformed heroes, or else we must remain as unrepentant villains forever.

Now literary criticism still has a place. Any conversion of characters ought to still be believable in great, mature stories. But the story itself, of the seemingly unsalvageable selfish character turning his ways around, is not only a perfectly legitimate story, it is in the end the only truly great story, the only story that really matters.

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Daily Greek Lesson

The headline of this article caught my eye: "Dutch Gym to Introduce 'Naked Sunday'"

Apparently it will be a day when the self-titled "naturists" can exercise au naturel. The headline caught my eye because of the juxtaposition of the words "gym" and "naked". Those out there who know any Greek will recognize that the root word of gymnasium is the Greek word for "naked", γυμνός (gymnos). The Greeks -- the first to build gymnasia -- exercised and competed in athletics in the nude.

Not that I agree with this gym's policy, but if you know any Greek, it is a bit redundant to say that there are people who are gymnos at a gymnasium.

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Forget the Bombs. What About Decency?

...is all I keep thinking about this. Sure, prosecute them on hoax charges if you like. But aren't there some sort of public decency laws that would apply to the friendly, courteous gesture the character is demonstrating?

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Marriage and Priesthood

The greatest problem facing society today is the destruction of marriage and families. And yet one of the greatest problems facing the Church today is also the lack of committed celibate ministers. A paradox? Not really. One can see that the root of both problems is the same: selfishness, an unwillingness to give of oneself entirely to one state forever. A divorcé or a man who refuses to marry his mistress is unwilling to commit to just one person for the rest of his life. A priest who agitates for married clergy does the same. He does not want to be loyal to just one bride. People say they are for the married priesthood. So am I. A priest should be married, and his bride should be the Church.

A tree needs both a trunk and leaves. If the trunk tries to be like the leaves, and the leaves try to be like the trunk, the tree is in poor health. A green and weak trunk cannot support the weight of the tree; leaves that are dry and hard will fall off and are useless.

Likewise with the body of Christ. It is differentiated into different organs. We all have unique and distinct roles to play. Egalitarianism which confuses equality with sameness will only produce a formless lump. A body is composed of unique, different systems – but all the bacteria in a blob growing on trash are the same.

Turning the clergy into married families just like the ones they are supposed to be serving weakens their position. Legs and the arms can only serve one another if they are different from one another. Man and woman can only produce life because they are different from one another. A rainbow is only a rainbow if each color is unadulterated.

An old tool in the devil’s sack of tricks is to make us so enamored of the beauty of another’s vocation that we do not appreciate the beauty of our own, and thus do not fulfill our duty. The grass is always greener, as they say. A director leading a band will plead for the tubas to play deep strong notes, like elephants plodding along. He’ll also ask the piccolos to be airy and light like fairies. A piccolo player in the orchestra may love the way the tuba complements the notes he plays on his piccolo, but if he does not commit fully to playing his own part as best he can, and instead tries to play the tuba on his own tiny instrument, the beauty he enjoys will be destroyed.

Let’s not try to get the clergy to imitate the vocation of the married. Doing so will dilute and adulterate their call of complete devotion to the Church. Let them be free to skip about the world like the piccolos, without worldly concerns to hinder their service. Let their one concern be for the Church. And let families grow like stout trees with deep roots. Let them be like steady bass notes in the symphony of life. Together these different vocations serve unique roles in the Body of Christ.

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Big Brother is nervous...

...about homeschooling.

Don't forget that the Church insists on the right of parents to educate their children:

The family therefore holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth.

Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri

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The Gift of Fear

Some thoughts from Douglas McManaman on "The Gift of Fear":

"But it was during these years that I began to realize just what a gift the fear of God really is, even the very rudiments of servile fear. For these kids were already involved in some of the worst crimes, and they were committed to a criminal lifestyle, but they had no fear of divine repercussion."

There is a saying in philosophy: everything is received according to the mode of the receiver. When some souls have hardened themselves completely to the call of God's love, it may be fear of His punishment that will break their hardness and form the cracks through which grace can seep.

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Health and Consequences

I saw an ad for the American Heart Association today:

“Eat right. Exercise. Don’t smoke – and live.”

Hate to break it to them, but if you do all that, what’s actually going to happen is that you will die just like everyone else. Sure, you might be healthier – you certainly will be less healthy if you eat poorly, don’t exercise, and smoke like a chimney – but you might still become gravely unhealthy anyway, and you most definitely will still die.

Taking care of our bodies is a responsibility; but health was made for man, not man for health; and that in the end death comes anyway. In light of that inevitability, spiritual health is far more important. So my advice is,

"Eat Christ's Body. Pray. Don't Sin -- and live forever."


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Technical, once again...

(Forgive this apparently blank space... it actually serves a purpose as I set up this blog's format.)