 |
 |
| Photina n., An issue of water from the earth; a spring; a fountain. v.intr., To rise to the surface, ready to flow; to rise or surge from an inner source. v.tr., To pour forth. adj., In a satisfactory condition; right or proper. interj., Used to introduce a remark, resume a narrative, or fill a pause during conversation; used to express surprise.dictionary.com |
|
|
Saturday, February 01, 2003 Peace, be still is an appropriate message for today... Thanks to Karen Hall of Disordered Affections for posting links to information about the people who perished in the explosion of space shuttle Columbia this morning. posted by Heidi | 1.2.03 Today's Gospel is Mark's account of Jesus calming the wind and the waves, saying, "Peace, be still." The image that I chose is a painting titled Peace, Be Still by He Qi, a contemporary Chinese artist and a professor at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary. posted by Heidi | 1.2.03 Friday, January 31, 2003 Today is the feast of St. Giovanni Melchior Bosco (that is, St. John Bosco, Don Bosco). Priest and founder of the Salesians, his work with children was extraordinary. Unfortunately, Don Bosco lived too recently for his writings to be widely available online. You can buy translations of some of his writings, including his autobiography, Memoirs of the Oratory, and even more books written about him from Salesiana Publishers. A bit is available online, however: An introduction to Don Bosco's "Preventive Method." You can also take a look at the fruit of his work. The image that I chose for today is a portrait of Don Bosco. Photographs of him are also available. posted by Heidi | 31.1.03 Thursday, January 30, 2003 Sean Roberts, a fellow catechumen (or candidate) over at Swimming the Tiber has an interesting discussion of infant baptism based on a discussion in his RCIA class. At the end of it he raised a few questions, two of which I'm going to tackle: * A related question that Augustine asked of Jerome, on the origin of the soul and original sin (Jerome's answer is, I think, no longer extant), is whether our souls were made by God before the end of creation or at the moment of conception. The issue being that if our souls were created at the moment of our conception, that means God created our souls WITH original sin, which would seem to contradict what we know of God's nature. Ok, that's more of statement, and it's unfair to demand answers to questions that puzzled Augustine. * Some of the debate seems to center around mercy vs. justice. It would be merciful to receive unbaptized babies into heaven, but I'm not sure it would be 'just'. So, how can God be both infinitely merciful and infinitely just? I don't deny that he is both those things, rather, I just don't know how it 'works'. Okay. Issue one: If our souls were created at the moment of our conception, that means God created our souls WITH original sin, which would seem to contradict what we know of God's nature. I think the better way to address the issue would be to say that God allows the transmission of original sin to take place. Original sin is the crack in something that was designed to be whole. What does the Catechism say about original sin? How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".[293] By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.[294] It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act. Although it is proper to each individual,[295] original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle. (CCC 404-405) -Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. -The personal sin that Adam and Eve committed affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. -The transmission of original sin is a mystery. -Original sin is "contracted," not "committed," it is a state, not an act. -The state of original sin is the state of being deprived of original holiness and justice. -It does not have the character of a personal fault. As an act entirely not contingent upon anything else, an act completely arbitrary, the creation of a soul with original sin would contradict what we know of God's infinitely loving nature. That perspective leaves out the cause of original sin, however--the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. In God's infinite love, justice, and desire for us to freely choose Him, it would be outside of His nature for Him to simply countermand the decision that Adam and Eve had made in choosing themselves over Him. Man established himself as the center of his universe, usurping the place of God, and God, in His awesome humility, allowed that decision to stand until such time as He sent His Son, His only-begotten Son, to be killed by us...and rise again. I'm sure that Satan thought that he had nearly won humanity when God allowed the transmission of original sin to take place. How could they run, these children, crippled by the sins of their first parents more surely than any born with difficulties related to parental drug use or neglect? But little did the Evil One understand that this minor victory would make God's love and mercy shine that much more brightly--how humiliating to the Father of Lies that God's Church would be built of sinners washed in the blood of the One he longed to destroy! Issue Two: It would be merciful to receive unbaptized babies into heaven, but I'm not sure it would be 'just'. So, how can God be both infinitely merciful and infinitely just? First of all, Jeanetta does point out the possibility of Limbo (roughly equivalent to Paradise before the Fall), which is where small-t tradition has consigned unbaptized babies for a long time. However, taking for the moment the possibility of unbaptized babies being received into heaven, how could it happen? The short answer is that God's justice does not depend on our works. As Sean himself points out, the Catechism says: God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments (CCC 1257). God's justice does not ultimately depend on our works--even on the administration of the sacrament of Baptism--but on the merits of Christ's saving death on the cross. We don't know the ways and means of God, especially His actions outside of time. Given that, we don't know whether these children are, upon their death, confronted with the choice that they did not have the opportunity to make during their short lives. We do know, however, that all demands made by God's justice were perfectly fulfilled in Christ's death, and it is only through our participation in that through grace that we make it anywhere. posted by Heidi | 30.1.03 Choosing an image for today was substantially more difficult than I expected it to be. I finally settled on a painting by Paul McMillan, an artist in New York, titled Ethereal Lamp. Today's Gospel is the words of Jesus to His disciples: And He said to them, "Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear." And He said to them, "Take heed what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." I had chosen the painting for its image of a lamp, but after I chose it, I realized that it ties in another part of the reading in a somewhat humorous way--the cochlea is a part of the ear that is shaped like a chambered nautilus... If any man has ears to hear, let him hear... posted by Heidi | 30.1.03 Wednesday, January 29, 2003 Road to Rome, Part XI Before I begin this post, here are links to the other parts of my story: Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI sidenote Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part X contains my turning point and concludes: And two hours later on this, the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul (discovered later), I was in Detroit being turned down for a lease in the interest of "truth," on the grounds that I was studying at a Catholic institution. I was planning on moving to Detroit in the fall. The one remaining hurdle was finding someplace to live in the neighborhood that I wanted to live in--I already had roommates lined up. This one remaining hurdle was rapidly diminishing because I'd been in contact with a couple who owned a duplex and wanted to rent out the half that they didn't live in. It sounded ideal--exactly where we wanted to live, in great shape, three bedrooms, wood floors, fully finished attic, and the rent was exactly what we were looking for. This particular Saturday, June 29th, I was driving down to Detroit to go to a block party in the neighborhood--I already knew most people who would be there, and I'd been looking forward to it. After the afternoon's paradigm shift (see Part X), though, even more than that I was just looking forward to time in the car by myself, away from everyone, to think on the way to Detroit. At some point I turned the radio on to listen to the area Catholic station, hoping that whatever was on would shed some more light on the events of the afternoon. I was a bit disappointed to hear the familiar voices of Ralph Martin and Peter Herbeck discussing the necessity of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ within the context of Catholicism. That was old news... I arrived in Detroit and shortly thereafter got into a conversation with a wonderful woman whom I'd contacted when I started looking for someplace to rent in the neighborhood. She hadn't had anything available at the time, but she'd gotten me in contact with the couple who owned the duplex. She was a little bit surprised that I hadn't yet had an opportunity to meet with them or see the place, and seemed like she was about to say something more about it, but then our conversation veered off in a different direction. She was again about to say something more about it when she realized that the woman (I'll call her Mrs. Duplex) was not only at the block party, but was coming over to us. She introduced us, whereupon Mrs. Duplex immediately launched into an interview of me. Her third sentence (after ascertaining where I was currently living) was to apologize for sounding like she was interviewing me, and then, that having been taken care of, she dove in with even more vigor. Where was I working? Commuting? Et cetera. Then... She'd heard that I was studying? Where? At Sacred Heart Seminary? Isn't that Catholic? Are you Catholic? No? Then why are you studying at a Catholic institution when you don't believe what they believe? What about the truth? And I realized that these were no longer simply curious, friendly questions. It was probably the strangest position I've ever been in to be trying to defend my attending a Catholic institution as a Protestant (a decision I'd made in very good conscience) when my Protestantism was, as of that afternoon, shakier than my attendance of a Catholic school. Yet I was not far enough into the decision to be able to respond to "Why are you attending a Catholic school if you're not Catholic?" by saying Because I am becoming Catholic. I couldn't remember the old arguments, and I didn't yet have the new ones. So I could just stand there, throwing a few words together sometimes, but largely helpless against the onslaught. And I realized that Mr. Duplex was standing on my other side, just watching, curiously unemotional. Among the things I said, I said that I wanted to learn about Catholic theology from a Catholic institution. Why don't you learn about it from Protestants who were Catholic and have seen the light? (Because I am becoming Catholic...) Because, honestly, most of the Protestants who used to be Catholic whom I've encountered really didn't have a full understanding of the faith and doctrines of the Catholic Church (...they wouldn't have left if they did). Then it came out (from Mrs. Duplex, as Mr. Duplex stood there), that Mr. Duplex had been raised in the Catholic Church and that something had happened to him in the context of the church that had utterly turned him against Catholicism, and she had married him (both middle-age) just a few years before. Works, works, works, she said. Her in-laws were not yet saved (they were still Catholic), and she and her husband were trying to save them. Catholics don't understand that you need to have a relationship with Christ. She had to slow down a bit when I related what I'd been listening to from Ralph Martin and Peter Herbeck on my drive in. Nevertheless, in the interests of truth, she was not sure that she and her husband could, in good conscience, rent to someone who was so adamantly pursuing something contrary to the truth (and add to that that one of my prospective roommates was Catholic--she didn't find out that the other one was dating a Catholic...). She and her husband would pray about it. She would let me know. I urged them to pray, saying that regardless, I knew that God had a plan in the midst of this, that His will would be done. And they left--she was obviously a bit flustered because she ended up liking me as a person while being dead set against me on principle (little did she know...). The wonderful woman I'd been talking with earlier apologized profusely. She'd been about to warn me--and it had been too late. Not that I would have concealed anything had I been prepared... Something had happened to Mr. Duplex in the Catholic Church, she said, but it could have happened in any church. My impression of his strange detachment during the conversation had been accurate--he'd been a virtual hermit (for psychological, not religious reasons) for a couple years and was only just beginning to move out of that. Mrs. Duplex had been unaware of the depth of Mr. Duplex's difficulties when she'd married him, and she was engaged in a heroic struggle to salvage herself, Mr. Duplex, and their marriage. More than anything, they were (and are) people to be prayed for and pitied. I knew that if they didn't rent to me that I would be fully within my rights to pursue the issue on grounds of religious discrimination. And I had absolutely no interest in doing so. They didn't need that--they needed love from me. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness to the truth, gentleness, and self-control, not vindictiveness. Sheltered WASP I might be, but I had never been in the presence of discrimination, religious, racial, or otherwise, that blatant--directed at me or anyone else--despite living in Detroit for fifteen months and having a large population of Catholic friends. And here it was directed at me on the very afternoon that I'd made the decision to investigate Catholicism. It was clear to me that if that was an attempt to redirect my course, it wasn't from God--an attempt at redirection that episode certainly was, but it wasn't from Him, particularly because I felt His peace and His love for this couple so overwhelmingly as I stood there largely defenseless. Two weeks later I was at an Ecumenical Youth Congress... posted by Heidi | 29.1.03 I've added the week's countries from the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle to my blog, to the right. The Ecumenical Prayer Cycle was developed by the World Council of Churches, an organization that I feel rather ambivalent about generally. I like the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle, however, because it takes one around the world through the course of a year, praying for a different set of countries each week. The country links that I've included are links to the CIA World Factbook, which contains a map, the flag, a brief background of the country, and geographic, demographic, and governmental information. I've latched onto this as a way to deal with my own deficiencies in geography and larger-scale intercession in one fell swoop. When I first came across it, my reaction was that it would be a great tool to use as a homeschooling parent (which I am definitely not at the moment, but would like to be some day). Following on the heels of that was the recognition that my life is not likely to get less complicated as time goes on--quite the contrary--so if I had any desire to adopt this "some day," I might as well do it today, otherwise it would likely not happen. So there it is. posted by Heidi | 29.1.03 The Gospel for today was St. Mark's account of the Parable of the Sower. The image I chose is Vincent Van Gogh's painting Sower with Setting Sun. If you click on the painting, you can see that the birds of the parable are included in the painting... posted by Heidi | 29.1.03 Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, Dominican, and Doctor of the Church. The image that I chose is a painting by the Italian artist Sasetta titled Saint Thomas Before the Crucifix. It is a painting of an episode in which St. Thomas Aquinas was praying before a crucifix and a voice came from it saying to him, Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have? "None other than Thyself, Lord," was St. Thomas's reply. You can check out his writings in an extensive bibliography of his work (complete with Latin sources). A Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas Grant, O merciful God, that I may ardently desire, prudently investigate, truthfully perceive, and perfectly fulfill those things which are pleasing to Thee, to the praise and glory of Thy name. O my God, put order in my life: Grant that I may know what Thou demandest of me, and that I may do it in a manner fitting and useful to my soul. Grant, O Lord my God, that I may not fail Thee in prosperity or adversity, that when things go well, I may not be proud, and when things go wrong, I may not be depressed. May I rejoice in nothing except what leads to Thee, nor be saddened except by what leads away from Thee. May I not seek to please anyone, nor fear to displease anyone except Thee. May all transitory things seem worthless to me, O Lord, and all eternal things dear to me. May every joy without Thee weary me, and may I desire nothing beside Thee. May work done for Thee, O Lord, delight me; may all repose without Thee be wearisome to me. Grant me, O my God, that I direct my heart to Thee; and in failure grieve constantly with the purpose to amend. Make me, O Lord my God, obedient without complaint, poor without dejection, chaste without corruption, patient without murmuring, humble without pretence, cheerful without dissipation, serious without sternness, quick-minded without frivolity, fearful of Thee without despair, truthful without duplicity. Make me devoted to good works without presumption, ready to correct my neighbour without arrogance, and to edify him by word and example without hypocrisy. Give me, O Lord God, an ever watchful heart, which no overcurious speculation may lead away from Thee; a noble heart, which no unworthy affection may draw downwards; a right heart, which no wrong intention may turn aside; a firm heart, which no tribulation may break; a free heart, which no vehement affection may claim. Bestow on me, O Lord my God, an understanding that knows Thee, diligence in seeking Thee, wisdom in finding Thee, a manner of acting that pleases Thee, perseverance in confidently awaiting Thee, and confidence in embracing Thee at last. Grant that I may suffer Thy punishments here through penance, make use of Thy gifts on the way through grace, and partake of Thy joys in the glory of heaven: Who livest and reignest God, forever and ever. Amen. posted by Heidi | 28.1.03 Monday, January 27, 2003 Today is the feast of St. Angela Merici, foundress of the Ursulines. The image is a portrait of St. Angela Merici. Quotes from St. Angela Merici: Let our first refuge be ever at the feet of Jesus. Exercise pleasantness toward all, taking great care that what you have commanded may never be done by reason of force. For God has given free will to everyone, and therefore never forces anyone - but only indicates, calls, and persuades. Do now, do now, what you will wish to have done when your moment comes to die. posted by Heidi | 27.1.03 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||
|
|||||
