You do not know what you are asking

Today's Gospel reading is, if you will, vintage Jesus:

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me."
He replied to him, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?"
Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions."

Someone comes to Jesus, wanting something -- or not something, but some fleeting, insignificant little nothing. They think Jesus can get it for them, because He's a can-do sort of man.

Jesus meets them right where they are: "Friend." (Douay-Rheims: "Man.") If this fellow wants to presume some sort of special relationship with Jesus, He's more than happy to reflect that relationship right back -- and to challenge his understanding! "Why do you think I'm some circuit court judge?"

But His question isn't simply rhetorical. Jesus is, in fact, Judge and Arbitrator, and He was appointed by His Father. His challenge isn't so much to reject a false understanding of Who He Is as to complete and fulfill the fuzzy impression of Him as one possessing authority.

Then He goes on to do something remarkable: He does exactly what the man asks Him to do. The man may not have realized it, and perhaps more importantly his brother may not have realized it, but Jesus' words, "Take care to guard against all greed," are not a high-minded piety, they are a warning from the Just Judge to everyone who will come before Him for judgment.

It would do little good for Jesus to render a particular judgment in the case of the two brothers, when His authority is thought to be merely human. How would they resolve the next day's dispute, when the teacher had gone on to the next town? Instead, He points out the law by which they are to live, that day and forever. Note that, even if one brother is wholly in the wrong in the matter of the inheritance, Jesus' words do not allow the other much satisfaction, as he might have if Jesus settled the case in his favor.

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Dominicana

The vocations blog for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph is afire these days, and not only with vocation news.

Recent talks at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, are also being posted. New additions are:

• Fr. John Langlois, OP, on "The Origin of the Rosary and Why We Should Pray It" (audio)
• A homily by Fr. Basil Cole, OP, on the Feast of the Archangels (audio)
• Fr. Romanus Cessario, OP, on "The Image of God and the Sacraments of the Church" (video)

This last was the first in a new series of talks to be presented at the House of Studies called, "In the Image of God, the Human Condition Today." I've seen the list of talks (though I can't find a copy online), and it's going to be a great series.

Coming up:

• October 31: The Vigil of All Saints. Readings, Night Prayer, Reliquary Procession, the Litany of the Saints, with a reception and the opportunity for confession. Starts at 7:00 p.m., but if you go, arrive early or plan on standing
• November 11: Solemn Profession of four brothers: Joseph Pius Pietrzyk, OP; Kevin Hugh Vincent Dyer, OP; Slavador John Martin Ruiz-Mayorga, OP; and John Gregory Schnakenberg, OP.
• November 12: St. Albert the Great Lecture. Dr. Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner of the University of Helsinki, will talk on "Practical Mystics -- Catherine of Siena and Her Circle of Dominican Lay Women"

In other good Dominican news, six novices recently entered the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate, which helps form members of a number of Congregations of Dominican Sisters.

Update: Another video post on the Vocations website: Brother Dominic Legge, OP, on his vocation, the Order, the Eucharist, Mary, and more.

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Why did my wife have a headache by the time dinner was over?

What kind of street is most likely to be haunted?

A boolevard.

What happened to the journalism professor who was bitten by a lycanthrope?

He turned into a who-what-when-and-werewolf.

What happened to the geography professor who was bitten by a lycanthrope?

He turned into a herewolf.

What happened to the philosophy professor who was bitten by a lycanthrope?

He turned into a whywolf.

What kind of monsters are young flies most afraid of?

Zombees.

Why do vampires hate chickens?

Because they always cross the road.

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The Ten Commandments Aren't Multiple Choice

I may have seen it pointed out before, but notice the commandments Jesus mentions to the rich young man, who affirms that he has observed them from his youth: You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother; you shall not defraud (Mark only); you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew only).

Notice the ones missing?

Yes, numbers nine and ten, too, but I'm thinking in particular of the first three, which can be summed up as, "You shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength."

Surely to get rid of everything that prevents you from following Christ is to love the LORD, your God.

Can we then read this passage as signifying a dialog between a Christian and Christ, in which the Christian asks if his love of neighbor is sufficient, and Christ calls him to a more perfect love of God? A reminder, perhaps, that we mustn't spend so much effort keeping the practical commandments that we overlook the impractical ones?

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Retelling the tale

The rich young man of the synoptic Gospels is an intriguing figure. Matthew's and Luke's parallel accounts lack a couple of notable details Mark's Gospel includes: that the man ran up and knelt down before Jesus as He was setting out on a journey; and that, when he told Jesus he had observed the commandments from his youth, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him."

Some Church Fathers take the kneeling and the "good teacher" business as attempts at flattery, corrected by Jesus' answer, "Why do you call Me good?" I wonder, though, whether Jesus would look on someone who was trying to butter Him up, or even brag about his good works, and love him.

One way to understand this may be through comparing the young man with the Pharisees mentioned earlier in the chapter:

The Pharisees approached and asked, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?" They were testing him. He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?" They replied, "Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her." But Jesus told them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment..."

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.'" He replied and said to him, "Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, "You are lacking in one thing..."

Contrasted with the Pharisees, the young man comes off looking pretty good.

Let me propose this as a non-canonical interpretation, riffing off St. Bede's suggestion that it was a desire for a clear explanation of Jesus' teaching that the Kingdom of God belongs to the childlike that caused the young man to run to Jesus in such haste:

We have in the young man an upright Jew. He has, in fact, observed all the commandments from his youth, and so expects that he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.

But then he hears Jesus preach as one having authority and not like the scribes. He begins to have doubts about what he has learned from the scribes. Jesus amends the Mosaic Law; He says whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.

What do Jesus' teachings mean for the young man? To this point, his conscience has found nothing to convict him of, but now he's not so sure he isn't missing something big, something essential.

His haste, his kneeling, show that he has determined to accept Jesus' spiritual direction. And Jesus, looking on him, sees that he is an upright man lacking only one thing, a thing the scribes would not have suggested.

The young man, then, in this telling, wasn't looking for praise or reassurance. He wanted Jesus to tell him what to do; he had faith enough in Him to believe Jesus would know.

But he did not, as he knelt in the road, have faith enough in Jesus to accept what Jesus would ask of him. Jesus went beyond the Law and made it personal: "Come, follow Me."

But the man was not looking to follow a Person, he was looking to follow a precept. He was ready to accept Jesus' word, but not to accept Jesus as the Word.

So first Jesus softens him up: "No one is good but God alone." This recalls his words to the mother of James and John, "You do not know what you are asking."

But when He lowers the boom, the man is caught unprepared. All the Gospel accounts explain it in terms of his many possessions, and of course Jesus goes on to talk of camels and needles. But perhaps in addition to, or alongside, or beneath, the lesson of wealth is a lesson of faith: If you believe Jesus is Who He is, then you will give up everything and follow Him. If not, not.

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For David



And for the puzzled or curious, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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The Church is a mystery, not a membership

In reading various responses to Rod Dreher's announcement last week, I've noticed what I think are two views of the Church current among American Roman Catholics.

The first, which I'll call "denominationalism," is something like this: Sure, the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, etc. But its function is to bring people close to Christ, and if they can get closer to Christ in another Christian denomination, more power to them.

The second, call it "anti-denominationalism," though it may just be an expression of triumphalism, sees the Church's possession of the fullness of truth as a doctrine that expresses the Church's superiority to other Christian bodies.

Both views insist on the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, but they incorrectly interpret this uniqueness in terms of the multiplicity of Christian churches, creeds, sects, and denominations.

What is missing is the practical awareness that the Church is a mystery. In the first chapter of Lumen Gentium, titled "The Mystery of the Church," the Church is called "the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery." The Catechism, in its treatment of the statement, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," has a subsection likewise called "The Mystery of the Church," in which it says:

The Church's first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men's communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race.

I think it's common to separate this thing called "the Church" that is the sacrament of unity with God and mankind from that other thing called "the Church" that is the Christian body comprising those in union with the Bishop of Rome. If the Church-that-is-a-mystery is, for practical purposes, imperceptible, then a whole host of questions lose their awkwardness and discomfort.

But that isn't what the Church teaches. The Church is "the visible plan of God's love for humanity," and she can't be visible if she is a collection of individuals whose membership in her is known to God alone.

The Catholic Church is not the pre-eminent, or most correct, or only correct, or even one true Christian denomination. The Church is not a denomination at all, and to understand her in those terms is to misunderstand her.

I might add that of course "anti-denominationalists" don't think the Church is a Christian denomination. But to the extent that they express what the Church is in terms of her not being a denomination, they are making a mistake.

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Torture roundup

I've been asked to compose a post that links to what I've written on this blog about torture.

My first post on this seems to have appeared on April 3, 2003.

Some committed Catholics have, in recent weeks, expressed the opinion that torture is acceptable under certain circumstances....

You see how far we've come.

Fourteen months later, I returned to the topic with a series of posts, beginning with Abortion for social conservatives: "Let's keep torture safe, legal, and rare.", and continuing with

• Only in cases of rape and incest terrorism
• But I know it when I see it
• A programming note
• Today's first torture post
• Today's second torture post
• Entr'acte
• Semi-proportionalist lapsism

Then, in late November 2004, came this series on an article by Linda Chavez:

• A casuistry of torture
• A fair exchange
• Exchange update

In January 2005:

• Torture. Again. Part 1
• Torture. Again. Part 2
• Torture. Again. Part 3
• Applying your method
• Where there's a will, there's an image of God
• So what is coercion of the will, anyway?

In November 2005, I went after Linda Chavez again:If they don't float, they're not witches.

In March 2006, I find Essay or multiple choice.

Which brings us to the latest go-round:

Against rule-based rules
• Torture Debate 6.0: Now With Visual Aids!
• Lines, laws, and morals
• What is torture, anyway?
• What is coercion, anyway?
• Another crack at coercion

So there you have it.

Yuck.

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What's so glorious about Pentecost?

Notice something about the Five Glorious Mysteries?

1. Jesus ^rises from the dead.
2. Jesus ^ascends into heaven.
3. The Holy Spirit _descends at Pentecost.
4. Mary is ^assumed into heaven.
5. Mary is ^crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth.

You'll have to work with me on that last one, that a coronation is a sort of raising up to a throne. But Pentecost is the only one of these that involves a downward movement, from higher to lower, away from the Throne of Glory.

"Glory" is one of those slippery concepts; St. Augustine's formula, "brilliant celebrity with praise," contains the keynotes of brightness (and hence evident and attractive) and of praise (the proper response to glory, so much so that the response of praise is also called "glory").

Pentecost is certainly something worth praising, but what makes it brilliant? Not merely the tongues of light (if it were just that, it might better be a luminous mystery). It wasn't just that the Holy Spirit descended, the way your aged relative who sucks all the air out of the room does, but that He descended upon the disciples. The disciples themselves are what became brilliant, attractive evidence of God's praiseworthiness.

And how did they become this way? Is it, we might even ask, a way that we may follow today? 1 Peter 4:10-11 might be relevant:

As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

"Gift," as we all know, is the proper name of the Holy Spirit, and the charisms He gives to each of us are given, not for our own sake, not even for the sake of the Church, but to be used to build up the Church so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Had the Holy Spirit led the disciples out into the desert for a time of fasting and prayer, Pentecost would not have been glorious. Instead, He made the disciples, St. Peter foremost, shine before the crowds in Jerusalem, testifying to Jesus, to the glory of God the Father.

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Another crack at coercion

Having read the comments on my post below and given it some more thought, let me propose this way of categorizing coercion:

• Acts ordered toward getting another person to desire something
  • Persuasion: operates in a way that cooperates with the person's inclinations
    • Argument: operates by proposing a reasonable re-evaluation of the competing desires
    • Bribery: operates by introducing positive, otherwise unrelated consequences of desiring the thing
    • Etc.
  • Coercion: operates in a way that conflicts with the person's inclinations
    • Coerceion of the intellect: operates by introducing negative, otherwise unrelated consequences of not desiring the thing
      • Moral coercion of the intellect: operates by introducing only those consequences the actor has the right and authority to introduce
      • Immoral coercion of the intellect: operates by introducing consequences the actor lacks the right or authority to introduce
    • Coercion of the will: operates by interfering with the operation of and relationship between the person's intellect and will
      • Brainwashing: operates by suppressing the operation of the person's intellect
      • Breaking the will: operates by suppressing the operation of the person's will
  • Etc.

The live question, as I see it, is distinguishing between what I've called "moral coercion of the intellect" and "immoral coercion of the inellect." (All coercion of the will is immoral, and persuasion is a different discussion.)

Before the above is dismissed as simply pushing the problem off to deciding what rights and authority the actor has, let me suggest that this is exactly what we want to do. The difference between moral and immoral coercion has to lie in something added to the generic notion of coercion; my thought is to add the rights and authority of the actor. That he is acting to get another person to desire something in a way that conflicts with the person's inclinations is no longer the focus. Rather, that becomes the intent of the act, and we can focus on the object purely in terms of his right to act and his authority over the other person. If he lacks the right or authority to perform the act, then it is immoral. If not, then intent and circumstances will determine its morality.

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Sorbet

Praise ye the Lord in his holy places: praise ye him in the firmament of his power.
Praise ye him for his mighty acts: praise ye him according to the multitude of his greatness.
Praise him with sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp.
Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs.
Praise him on high sounding cymbals: praise him on cymbals of joy:
Let every spirit praise the Lord.
Alleluia.

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What is coercion, anyway?

I speculate:

The human will is our rational appetite. It's the thing in us by which we act to get things.

The things we act to get are determined by our intellect. We apprehend things as good, as desirable, under different aspects; sleeping in and getting up, for example, are both desirable, but (for me at least) for quite different reasons. Our intellect chooses between these goods, then hands off the winning good to the will, which then sets about trying to obtain it.

This is all [my crude understanding of] standard scholastic anthropology.

Let me propose this definition of coercion: Coercion is an act whose object is to force the will to desire something the intellect does not propose to the will. (If you prefer your definitions with genera, you can add "belonging to the genus of acts that violate the integrity of the human person.")

What I like about this definition is that it doesn't include acts whose object is to cause the will to desire something the will wouldn't otherwise desire. There has been talk about how imprisonment is coercion, since the prisoner doesn't will to be imprisoned, and how aiming a gun at a criminal and telling him to freeze is a form of coercion.

I see those acts, however, as changing the circumstances according to which the intellect reaches its judgment. The criminal still apprehends not freezing as desirable, but he now also apprehends the good of not being shot.

What concerns me about this proposed definition of coercion is that it might not prove all that useful. The sorts of acts under discussion may not include many that have as their object the substitution of the coercer's will for the coerced's will. And of course, it leaves untouched the question of the morality of changing the circumstances according to which the intellect reaches its judgment.

Still, something like this might unstick one wheel on the, ah, wagon train of public discourse on the moral treatment of prisoners.

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What is torture, anyway?

In a comment below, doubting thomas invites me to offer an Aristotelian definition -- the genus and the species -- of torture.

Anyone who reads Catholic and Enjoying It! knows that the question of defining torture is not a simple one. I haven't tried to answer it myself, for a few reasons.

For one, as soon as a definition is offered, the discussion becomes one of the adequacy of the offered definition. It becomes, in other words, a linguistic exercise rather than a moral one.

For another, there seem to be a lot of people eager to apply this invalid syllogism: "Act X is not torture. Torture is not moral. Therefore, act X is moral." I think we're better off working through this fallacy as it stands before looking at whether the first premise is true. The fundamental moral principle is not, "Do good and avoid torture," it's, "Do good and avoid evil."

Nevertheless, being asked to come up with the general kind of thing torture is and the specific difference between torture and other acts that are the same general kind of thing seemed reasonable. So I took that statement from Gaudium et Spes 27:

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. [emphasis added]

And proposed this definition of torture:

Torture is an act belonging to the genus of acts that violate the integrity of the human person; its specific difference is that its object is to inflict torments on body or mind.

What surprised me with this is that, though I left off the "attempts to coerce the will itself" bit, I don't really miss it.

Just recently, I'd begun to think of torture as being of two types: one that causes pain, and one that attacks the free will. Now, though -- and coming from the position that the debate in the public square should be, not "What acts are torture?," but, "What acts are moral?" -- I think it might be possible to get somewhere with the above definition, and set aside for a time consideration of the act belonging to the genus of acts that violate the integrity of the human person, the specific difference of which is that its object is to coerce the will itself.

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Lines, laws, and morals

In a comment below, Jeff provides one version of an argument several people have made against what I've written about lines not existing:

Saying "treat people humanely" is one thing. "Saying torture is wrong," is another. They are related, but not identical. And for the latter, you simply must confront definitions. Sorry, but that means lines.

Well, no, "definitions" does not mean "lines," not in the sense I use it when I write, "There are no bright lines. There are no dim lines. There are no lines."

The lines the existence of which there is none are lines that divide a continuum into "moral" and "not moral" regions. (To this point, I haven't been intending to claim that there is no continuum for which such a line exists -- I've been thinking in terms of periods of stress for purposes of interrogation -- but it may be true in general.)

A definition doesn't draw a line on a continuum, it specifies membership in a set. The model from my previous post that goes with a definition is the disjoint sets, the red and green circles.

Now, if you draw a line on a continuum (you're really marking a point, but everyone calls it "drawing a line"), and you say, "Everything on this side of the line is permitted, everything on that side is prohibited," then what you've done is converted the continuum into the disjoint sets "permitted" and "prohibited." But you've done it as a matter of law, not as a matter of morality.

People say, "Soldiers need bright lines," and what they mean is, "Soldiers need clear rules." That's certainly true. But they also need (and are owed) morally good laws.

You can get goodness by "drawing a line" for those rules for which goodness can be, so to speak, good-enoughness. Speed limits divide speed into "legal" and "illegal," not into "safe" and "unsafe."

A speed limit can fail to be ideal in two ways. Driving at a certain speed may be legal but unsafe, or it may be illegal but safe. There are generally laws against reckless driving and such that can be used to penalize or discourage the first case. The second case -- well, nobody's too broken up about that imperfection; many or most drivers routinely drive over the speed limit, and for the most part cops don't enforce it very strictly. But no one denies that driving over the speed limit is against the law, and there's no pressing urge to change the law in order to minimize "illegal but safe" situations.

There is, however, a pressing urge to change the law in order to minimize the "illegal but moral" situations that might arise in interrogating terrorists. If you're thinking in terms of continuums and bright lines, though, "illegal but moral" and "legal but immoral" are directly linked. I'm not sure how you minimize the former without increasing the latter.

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Torture Debate 6.0: Now With Visual Aids!

We're used to asking questions of the form, "How much of action X can I do before it becomes immoral?" This assumes a moral spectrum for action X, unquestionably moral at one end and unquestionably immoral at the other. The question then, is where to draw the line:

(In fact, the question is often literally, "Where do we draw the line?")

I suggested below that this is a kind of sorites paradox. If I'm right, it's a very particular kind that doesn't depend on the vagueness of its predicate. "Heap" is a vague term. "Immoral" is not. An action is either contrary to God's will, or it isn't.

This suggests that a better model than the spectrum is the disjoint sets:

That is, we change the question from, "How much of X is moral?" to, "Is the action Y moral?", where the action we're now asking about is considered as such rather than as admitting of more or less.

I haven't thought through the process of converting from "action that admit of more or less" to "action as such." This may be unworkable in particular cases, but then I'm already convinced questions in terms of the former are unworkable in general.

Notice, though, what happens when I try to convert "making a prisoner stand for some period of time" into an action that doesn't admit of more or less. I'm not sure how to do this without importing some of the intent, making it "making a prisoner stand in order to get him to talk."

If this is the proper conversion -- note the If -- then don't I have to put "making a prisoner stand in order to get him to talk" in the red circle, which is to say in the set of immoral acts?

I'll skip the argument for answering yes to that question, and point out the interesting corollary that the "unquestionably moral end of the spectrum" turns out to be an illusion. If no one would say it's immoral to make someone stand for fifty seconds, then everyone's wrong, since it can be immoral if the intent is to get him to talk.

It seems to me the fact that most people can stand for fifty seconds without distress is immaterial to the morality of forcing them to stand during interrogation. And actually, if it doesn't cause them distress, what's the point of doing it?

(I suppose having the prisoner stand during interrogation can also be looked at as a circumstance added to the act of interrogation -- along the lines of a boss making someone stand while he chews them out -- but here I'm thinking of forced standing as the objective act.)

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Against rule-based rules

Regarding questions about "just how close you can get to the intrinsic moral evil of torture without crossing the line," Mark Shea endorses Zippy's maxim,

To merely pose the question is to already have assented at least in part to torture, to abortion, to adultery.

I'm not entirely sure the question itself is immoral, as Zippy asserts, but I'm pretty sure it's ill-posed.

To ask, "How long can we make a prisoner stand before it becomes 'torture'?," is to pose a kind of sorites paradox, akin to the old, "How many grains of wheat can we place on the floor before it becomes 'a heap'?" There's no way to answer that question; what separates acts of torture from acts that are not torture is not an infinitesimally thin line. There is no number T such that forced standing for T seconds is not torture and forced standing for T+1 seconds is torture. The question asks to define something that doesn't exist.

Let me repeat that: Questions of the form, "How long can a behavior be engaged in before it becomes torture?" have no answer. It's not just that we don't know the answer, or can't determine it, or disagree on what the answer is. It's that there is no answer. It's a nonsensical question, like, "Does blue weigh more than middle C?"

The problem is that the question also asks to define something that is needed. If we all agree it is immoral to force someone to stand for fifty straight hours, and if we all agree it is absurd to suggest it is immoral to force someone to stand for fifty straight seconds, and if we want to proscribe immoral treatment without being absurd, then we need a way to proscribe standing for fifty hours without proscribing standing for fifty seconds.

It's bad, you know, when you need something that doesn't exist.

Fortunately, in this case the need is only illusionary. We don't need laws of the form, "More than X amount of Y is illegal"; that's simply the form we've become accustomed to thinking in terms of.

Rather, as Mark suggests, we need laws that encompass virtue:

The moment we go from framing the question in terms of trying to bargain our way out of damnation and instead frame it in terms of seeking virtue, all the fog disappears. We no longer have to wonder just how close to hypothermia we can push our victim, nor how man hours they should be forced to sit in their own feces, nor if leading them on a leash crosses the line into torture. We are trying to be humane, not trying to get away with inhumanity. And you don't do that kind of stuff to people you are trying to treat humanely.

True, that means we need virtuous judges to interpret the laws. But if we don't have virtuous judges, all the laws in the world won't make our justice just.

Labels: Breaking the Rules

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True devotion to Mary

I was sent a review copy of Shrines: Images of Italian Worship, a coffee-table-type collection of photographs by Steven Rothfeld of personal shrines visible from the streets of Italy, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. Do I keep it, as a bit of distilled beauty on the bookshelf? Do I give it as a gift, since it seems to be in the gift book genre? And what do I write about a book of pictures, with just a brief introduction and a few scattered asides added by way of text, particularly when there doesn't seem to be any sample images online?

Steven Riddle shows me the way on this last question:

The theme of the book is "shrines" in the lower-case meaning of the word--personal, small devotional sites, intimate spiritual places made public so that in some small way you share your devotion with others...

And this last thought brings out one of the poignant touches of the book--these are a commonplace in Italy. Perhaps not everywhere, but they can be encountered with some frequency. Except in the more Hispanic neighborhoods near me, there is nothing like this in the American Way of devotion... We are almost embarrassed by our devotions, it seems. And we have lost the good sense of Chesterton--"if it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."

If the crafts-magazine enthusiasm of The Catholic Home left me unimpressed, looking at all these different Marian shrines left me wanting to build one of my own.

And the thought of building one of my own calls to mind Chesterton's line quoted by Steven. The shrines pictured in this book are not all things of great aesthetic beauty. Many of them are crude or artless; most have seen better days. But they are works of true devotion (and not, pace the subtitle, of worship), and it's the evidence of devotion rather than craft that makes them beautiful.

I thought it was interesting that these shrines also serve as means of devotion for passersby. People cross themselves as they pass, or commend themselves to the Virgin. In the introduction, Frances Mayes writes of buying a house in Italy that came with a shrine to Mary, to which an elderly man would bring flowers daily. The change of ownership meant nothing to him. It's a tidy example of the idea that private property is to be used for the common good, or if you prefer of the difference between right of ownership and right of use. (Mayes appreciates this, too, if not out of any particularly evident religious devotion.)

In any case, if you see a copy of Shrines, take a moment to look through it. There's a good chance someone you know will like it.

Labels: Reviews

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Don't let Zippy's flesh be devoured!

Donate to the Little Sisters of the Poor and help Zippy get rid of his gold and silver.

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Crying aloud

Ogden Chichester makes an interesting catch in Sunday's reading from James:

Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

(Emphasis mine)

You see what's being modified here, don't you? The wages themselves are crying aloud.

After quoting the list of "sins that cry out to heaven," he continues on James 5:4:

But is it being figurative? Is it being literal? I suppose in a very real sense, it's both. The Living God in His Foresight, has known these sins would take place (and when, and how often, and by whom, etc) throughout all Eternity. Consequently, He has also known they would Offend his Infinite Justice. And in that sense, that knowledge in the mind of the Sublime is the actual "crying out." Because these deeds so offend against His Will that they are like the proverbial fingernails on chalkboard. Although He never fails to take note of anything, these things He takes note of in a very special way.

I hadn't caught the "the wages...are crying aloud" construct before. It reminds me of the magic harp Jack (of beanstalk fame) steals from the giant, which called out to its master in a way that people don't ordinarily expect things they're stealing to do.

In fact, the treasure the rich store up for the last days plays quite an active role in this passage. Verse 3 says:

...your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire.

The hoarded wealth not only cries aloud, but after it corrodes, it acts as a witness for the prosecution -- and, in a particularly ghoulish image, it goes on to corrode the flesh of the rich!

Excess wealth is some nasty stuff. What sane person would keep it in his house?

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Heart and hearth

Reading a review copy of Meredith Gould's book The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions for Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day, has got me thinking about the trend in certain circles to rediscover Catholic traditions.

The book itself I can dispatch by saying I don't recommend it at all. It's a messy jumble, seemingly of whatever the author could think of to write on the various topics that come up. I can forgive the messy jumble -- I blog, after all -- but between the inaccuracies (Advent begins the Sunday after St. Andrew's Day? You pray the Glorious Mysteries "on Wednesdays and Saturdays from Easter until Advent"?) and the peculiar advice she gives (she dismisses as unreasonable the idea of buying the four volume Liturgy of the Hours, for example, while advising everyone to take an icon writing workshop), I get the sense of a great deal of enthusiasm for physical expressions of faith, but not much ordered spiritual depth.

But to the trend of reviving Catholic traditions: What is happening, it seems to me, is not so much a rediscovery of traditions as an interest in discovering any and every tradition. The Swedes do St. Lucy's wreaths? The Italians do St. Joseph's tables? The Poles bless food baskets on Holy Saturday? Great, let's do them all! Isn't that "what Catholics do"?

Well, it might be what Swedish-Polish-Italian Catholics do, if any such exist. I'm not sure it's quite true to say it's what German-Irish-American Catholics do, though.

I do like to read about these various traditions, though, and I'm not above adapting some of them to my own time and place. (Particularly the ones involving food. Particularly the foods involving fried dough.)

To the extent adopting various traditions out of a book or off the Net helps Catholics enter into the rhythms of the liturgical calendar, it's great. I'd caution against a too-dogmatic approach, as though adapting a custom to our time and place is somehow a betrayal -- you can bet the peasants who first made it a custom had no hesitation to change things around -- but my guess is there aren't too many dogmatists on, say, the question of whether anything but goose can be served on Martinmas.

Still, considering that Catholics in the United States today are, to a much greater degree than Catholics of previous generations, cut off from a rich body of cultural and spiritual traditions, we would do well to look around, and even forward, in addition to looking back, for the sort of actions and activities that will sanctify these days and those to come. Few of us live in medieval Catholic villages, and our means for achieving sanctity of heart and of hearth are not necessarily those that worked hundreds of years ago on another continent.

In particular, there aren't going to be too many venerable peasant customs of praying the Divine Office or of lectio divina, but I'll guess they will lead to living an authentic Catholic life better than any number of bonfires or cakes.

Labels: Reviews

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October is the Month of the Holy Rosary!

"It is as if every year Our Lady invited us to rediscover the beauty of this prayer, so simple and profound... I would want to invite to you, beloveds brothers and sisters, to recite the Rosary during this month in family, the communities and the parishes for the intentions of the Pope, the mission of the Church and the peace in the world."

Labels: Praying the Rosary

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October is Proust Month!

Time to pick up where you left off last Halloween.

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Unexpecting disciples

"Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him."

It isn't only the just man's words, but his whole life that says, "God will take care of me." "Because his life is not like other men's, and different are his ways" (v 15).

Figuring out how to live in the different way that says, "God will take care of me," can be tricky. To be a person of true hope -- full-bodied, theological virtue-type hope -- is hard, in part because hope is so easy to simulate.

It can be simulated by presumption, of course, if we conclude our salvation is certain by, so to speak, subtracting God out of the equation. You can't have faith in a deterministic process.

It can also be simulated by expectation. Unlike presumption, expectation isn't sinful per se, but it can confuse us into not growing in true hope.

Hope, properly speaking, is founded upon God and God alone; it is also a virtue that comes from God alone. The injunction, "Hope in God," is perhaps more true than we realize. What can properly be called "my hope" really is in God; His goodness and His power contain my hope, produce it, and provide it.

Expectation, though, is founded upon my judgment. Having considered all the information available to me, I determine the probabilities and effects of various outcomes, and so conclude what I can expect as a result. My expectation may depend on the action of another, even of God, but that dependence doesn't make it a hope. Hope is an absolute and complete dependence on another (the other must be God, or it's a foolish hope). My expectation of another depends on my evaluation of the person and the circumstances. As soon as I put something that is properly my own between me and the other, I am not talking in terms of hope.

Perhaps part of the reason most of us aren't likely to be put to a shameful death is that we don't much hope in God. We live, not in hope, but in expectation. We expect things of ourselves and of other humans, but we have learned not to expect things of God. That doesn't sound good, but I think it's the correct lesson; God has a way of doing the unexpected, and it's hard to construct expectations around that.

We're left busily expecting things today and tomorrow, and leaving all that hope in God stuff for after we're dead. A hope like that isn't likely to stir the wicked to revilement and torture.

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That's what I'm talking about!

So I was thinking, why is it always angel food cake? Is cake the only food angels eat?

And sure enough, there's angel food pie.

Even better: angel food candy!

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Happy Michaelgabrielandraphaelmas!

Have you ever heard that, if you eat a carrot just before the morning and noon Angelus bells, then you'll be able to see the angels singing the evening Angelus with you?

Well, now you have.

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Laudcast, anyone?

Lee has an excellent suggestion:

...I wish I could tune in to The Office of Readings and Lauds in real time at a real monastery or convent. I actually think that would be very welcome to many non-Catholics and a beautiful window into the life of the Church. What a beautiful way to spend a morning commute, and a beautiful way to begin the day.

Think about how much beauty the Church creates every day in her liturgies, beauty that by its nature is transient, fleeting, and continually re-created. And think how easy it is, technologically speaking, to make that beauty available to those who cannot participate directly.

Surely some monastery must be broadcasting its liturgies live over some medium...?

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When in doubt, Venn it

As a boot-licking Vatican toady, I disagree with those who say Pope Benedict XVI intended the furor caused by his quoting Emperor Manuel II Paleologus.

Some who say he intended it think it was wrong of him, and disparage him for it. We boot-licking Vatican toadies are categorically opposed to disparaging the Pope.

Others who say he intended it think it was right of him, and praise him for it. I can't see how to square this interpretation with his subsequent comments in a way that doesn't amount to him lying after the fact, and at the very least completely changing his mind from last year.

It seems to me that what Pope Benedict described in his speech (and elsewhere) is a situation like this:

Faith alone		religious violence
Reason alone		diminution of man
Faith and Reason		peaceful human flourishing

What message is the Pope sending?

A. "Dear Secularists, Let us gang up on Islam before they slit both our throats."

B. "Dear Muslims, Let us gang up on the secularists before they corrupt the whole world."

C. "To Whom It May Concern, Don't leave home without both Faith and Reason."

D. Both A and B.

E. None of the above.

My answer is, of course, C.

If the Pope is as smart as everybody who says he intended the furor says he is, then he will know better than to think he can obtain an ally in either Islam or Secularism by pointing out the faults of the other.

And though I have not religiously read every word that has fallen from his pen, none of his words I have read make me think he's keen to start a fight against either Islam or Secularism.

It seems to me that the challenges Pope Benedict issues are not martial, but intellectual. "Do you embrace Reason without Faith? Then you will be no more able to comprehend other cultures in the world than to comprehend what is in your own heart. Do you embrace Faith without Reason? Then there is nothing your co-religionists may not do in the name of your religion, including repudiate whatever you do." This is a challenge that holds true for everyone, Christians included.

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"My job is to run out the clock with style"

Orthonormal Basis draws attention to Oakland's Bishop Vigneron's Ten Rules for Handling Disagreement Like a Christian.

Let me give in to prejudice and list them this way:

Hey, Progressives:	Hey, Conservatives:	Hey, Everybody:
The Rule of Publicity: "Think with the mind of the Church."	The Rule of Legitimate Freedom: "What the Church allows is not to be disallowed."	The Rule of Charity: "Charity is primary."
The Petrine Rule: "Nobody ever built up the Church by tearing down the pope."	The Rule of Catholic Freedom: "There's something for everybody, but not everything is for everybody."	The Rule of Integrity: "To do evil in order to accomplish good is really to do evil."
The Rule of Mystery: "Not all the habits and attitudes which belong to a society governed by a representative democracy are appropriate in the Church."	The Eschatological Rule: "The victory is assured; my job is to run out the clock with style."	The Rule of Realism: "Remember that Satan is eager to corrupt my efforts to build up the Kingdom, and he's smart enough to figure out a way to do it."
		The Rule of Modesty: "Not all of my causes are God's causes."

Update: Per Gregg the Obscure's observation, Everybody now has the most rules.

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Happy World Tourism Day!

I'm not sure I knew there was a World Tourism Day, and I am sure I didn't know there was a secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization. (Personally, I'd recommend World Tourism Day be observed, not today, but on May 16.)

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First time listener

I, um, guess I'll tune in to The Catholic Channel. At some point. When they play a bad song. But that doesn't happen very often.

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It's all Google to me

One of the nice things about the Internet is that you can be learned without having to do all that pesky learning. For example:

What can I tell you about the word "'εναγκαλισ'αμηνος"? Other than the obvious stuff, I mean, like that it's the aorist inflection of "'εναγκαλ'ιζομαι," meaning "to take in one's arms"?

I can tell you that this verb appears exactly twice in the New Testament, both times in the aorist, both times in Mark, both times with Jesus as the subject and children as the object:

Taking a child he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it he said to them, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me."

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.

I note that Mark, the brisk no-nonsense Gospel, adds the embrace that Matthew omits. This is a highly personal detail that suggests to me a personal witness; embracing the child isn't strictly necessary for the doctrinal point about accepting the kingdom of God like a child, but it was something remembered and found worth passing on. The embrace turns the child from an object (literally an "it" in the NAB translation of Mark 9:36) to a subject who receives the love of Christ.

I note also that, in the second passage from Mark, where the parents merely wanted Jesus to touch their children, which the disciples thought too much, Jesus goes beyond this desire and embraces them.

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Look who's talking

It's hard to read these words and not think of the chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, plotting against Jesus:

Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.

St. Matthew, for one, seems to have picked up on the similarities.

But wait a moment. The speech in Wisdom 2 is put into the mouths of "the wicked" who didn't "count on a recompense of holiness nor discern the innocent souls' reward." The chief priests, with the scribes and ancients, were not materialists and hedonists; they (or at least most of them) believed in the resurrection of the just. And no one thinks of the Pharisees as "gather ye rosebuds while ye may" types.

Here we're faced with one of the great risks of reading Holy Scripture: one moment, you're cheering the downfall of the wicked, and the next you're realizing that the wicked is us.

Not always, maybe, and not in every way. We may not literally condemn many people to a shameful death; we may not even put people to the test that we may have proof of their gentleness and try their patience.

But if we are reproached or charged with violations of our training, do we react with self-righteousness? Do we know without reflection that the charges are false because... well, because they're directed at us?

If nothing else, this speech should teach us that being religious is no guarantee against being blind.

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Theonomy unleashed

Don't miss the blogflood, after a long drought, at A Religion of Sanity.

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Obnoxious, si

Among the questions raised by Wisdom 2 is this:

Granted that one can be obnoxious without being just, can one be just without being obnoxious?

The specific charges against "the just one" are these:

• he sets himself against the doings of the wicked (v 12)
• he reproaches them for transgressions of the law (v 12)
• he charges them with violations of their training (v 12)
• he professes to have knowledge of God (v 13)
• he styles himself a child of the LORD (v 13)
• his life is not like other men's (v 15)
• his ways are different from other men's (v 15)
• he judges the wicked debased (v 16)
• he holds aloof from their paths as from things impure (v 16)
• he calls blest the destiny of the just (v 16)
• he boasts that God is his Father (v 16)

Which of these is optional for the disciple of Christ?

Clearly all these actions must be governed by charity, but even the confrontational ones -- the reproaches, the charges -- cannot be renounced altogether, since true charity may require such actions.

But even when the Christian is not actively reproaching others, his very life may serve as a reproach; as v 14 puts it, "To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us."

So perhaps the answer is, if no one finds you obnoxious, then either you're not just or you don't know enough wicked people.

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Religious, si; obnoxious, no

Yesterday's first reading was an excerpt from a speech in Wisdom 2 in which the wicked confirm each other in their wickedness. It's an interesting progression:

1. Life's a bitch, and then you die, (vv. 1-5)
2. So laissez les bons temps rouler! (vv. 6-9)
3. What we can do, we may do, (vv. 10-11)
4. And that religious guy sure is obnoxious, (vv. 12-17)
5. So let's kill him. (vv. 17-20)

If you take this as a Signs of the Times checklist, things don't look good for obnoxious religious guys. But then, when do they?

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