Here is something to read...

I never read Daniel Mitsui's blog until today, when Amy Welborn mentioned it, and I went off to take a look. On it I found this essay, which is quite interesting. Definitely worth a read.

If his background weren't all black, I would give points for the visuals on his blog, too. He has a good eye for art and architecture, if only the text weren't on that eye-straining black background.

You know, there is an art magazine that does a great job of using a black ground for almost everything, though. FMR, out of Italy, is probably the most beautiful art magazine out there. It also comes with good articles, which is something totally absent from the mainstream "watch the fads of the 'avant-garde'" magazines that clutter up the American art scene (the worst being ArtWeek, a monthly (!) rag out of that center of culture, San Jose, that somehow still survives, even though it neither interesting nor good).

Praying for the Dead, Purgatory, and Praying for Death

Obviously today is the day that we pray for the Church Suffering, the souls who will eventually attain the Beatific Vision, yet must undergo the torments necessary to preserve justice and to free them from attachment to sins.

If you have ever watched a cooking pot be made kosher, you will get some idea of what these souls are going through. The pot is thoroughly gone over with a blowtorch so that any trace amounts of traif are incinerated.

So, yes, you repented of whatever sin you did, but there is still a part of you that remembers with fondness how fun it was. Get ready for a scorcher...

Until...

Someone prays for you.

The worst pain on Earth is easier than the lightest pain in Purgatory (which Fr. Zak reminded us of yesterday - did I mention what a great priest Fr. Zak is? How often do you hear of such things at St. Spaceships?), so it is entirely fit to pray for people to die repented of their sins and cleansed of their attachment to those sins. Ultimately we are praying for the people to be what they were created to be, which is, quite frankly, awesome almost to the point of being beyond our fallen comprehension or even imagination.

So, we pray for people to have a happy death. We never want to be like Hamlet, who refrained from killing his uncle after his uncle went to confession, because he wanted to send him to Hell. We may have enemies. If we are doing something right, we will certainly have enemies. We must pray for them to have a happy death.

If our enemies are also enemies of the common good, we may even ask for God to grant them a happy death a little sooner, as well. In fact, I can think of no better thing for a person than to have a good confession, receive a plenary indulgence, and then to die before having a chance to muck it all up again.

So, if you want to do a good turn, pray for the dear departed. Pray for the not-so-dear departed. And pray that R.D. repents of his sins, embraces the Catholic Church, receives absolution and a plenary indulgence, and returns to the embrace of Our Lord post haste. Amen.

My Solution....

Reading this makes me think that the obvious solution is just to not translate it. Why cause all of this worry over translations into a liturgically ugly language anyway? I am not entirely convinced that He came to save the Saxons anyway, so why bother with their language in liturgy?

Yes, I am kidding. As much as I find Anlgo culture reprehensible, the Angloes are people in need of salvation, and capable of being saved. Shucks, I don't even think that they should be kept as slaves. At least not forever.

Read this for a laugh...

Well, we have baseball tickets and I have a deadline for a story today, so don't expect too much until tomorrow, but something I did on a procrastination break this morning was to catch up on Secret Agent Man. This, while now slightly out of date, is still quite funny.

Oh yes, One more...

Speaking of Mattie Fox, for those of you who don't read A Saintly Salmagundi, you might not know that "Rev. Dr." Fox (tee hee hee hee), has published his "reflections" on the election of Benedict XVI. It starts out crazy and quickly degenerates. Wait until you get to the CIA stuff. At some point Mattie and Malachi Martin are going to run into each other. I won't say where, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

Of course the comings and goings of Matt Fox are a local story here in Oakland. He runs a storefront church/ashram/university downtown, very close to the beautiful Oakland Paramount Theater. His techno-cosmic rave "masses" are quite popular among the boomers who want to think of themselves as au courant. Giggle. Titter. Giggle.

Oh yeah, to answer his last question: No.

Great Rhetoric, But the Theology!

If you have been following the dialog between Steven Riddle and myself regarding my rather dim view of Puritans, please make sure that you read this excellent post.

I agree strongly with Steven's assessment of Edwards's command of the language. In fact his description reminds me of another great poet who wrote demonic works about the nature of God (more times than not, I get the feeling that Milton is actually rooting for the Devil in Paradise Lost), not to mention the beautiful poetry found in the writings of the false prophet Mohammed! I am not so quick to give Edwards a theological pass for his conclusion.

First, the beginning clearly states that God hates the sinner. It is powerful language, and I admire the rhetorical skill, but theologically this is an abominable view of the relation between the Creator and a humanity He made in his Own image. Also, the almost Catholic invitation at the end for repentance rings a bit hollow. Edwards was still a Calvinist. The damned are damned because God wants them to be damned. That is what follows from the opening passages. The end of the sermon strikes me as softening up the crowd for the basket passing.

However, Steven has done a great job in writing about this, as he usually does, so go read it and may the conversation continue!

Old Oligarch has a good one here...

The Old Oligarch is one of the blogs that I like to read. The author, who goes by a nome de plume, teches theology and is also a gun aficionado, holds his liquor, as they said in the good old days, and writes quite well. I highly recommend his blog, and am adding it to the links list.

In this post he writes about the need for lay theologians to be on call, ready for the pastoral dimension of their work that they did not think they were signing up for. He makes some outstanding observations about the many people out there who thirst for knowledge, and have no one to turn to. It is not really so surprising that garbage like The Da Vinci Code can be so popular, as people want to learn, and this stuff comes along pretending to offer the knowledge they seek, and they do not have the academic tools needed to verify (or they are too lazy, or a mixture of both is at play) what is offered.

A very interesting post.

Now Hear This!

Just a brief lunchtime screed about funerals:

I just read on Gerard's Blog about the rarity of priests wearing black vestments at funerals. It also makes me think of the typical "instant canonization" homilies that are so common in the average funeral these days.

So, if any of you happen to be around when they are burying me, you might want to warn the priest that he had better: wear black vestments, preach about Purgatory and Hell, make sure that someone chants the ENTIRE sequence Dies Irae.

I hate happy go-lucky sunshine funerals. They are supposed to make everyone feel better, but I think they fail in that they ignore the real grief and sense of loss that everyone feels. Also, if Purgatory, Hell, and Confession are not mentioned, a terrific catechetical opportunity is lost, especially if the deceased is young. I am not being ghoulish, but we all tend to live like we will have plenty of time.

Oh, I should go to confession, but, well, it's such a nice day, maybe I'll make it next Saturday. Well, maybe you will, and maybe you will be killed as you drunkenly plow into the highway divider, taking a family of 5 down with you. Then where will you be? Not in any place you want to be in! But if you had gone to confession, restored your life in a state of Grace, you might have been better able to resist that fourth martini!

Hmmm. I seem to be sounding more like my grandmother, but there is a good point there.

And it is not a point being made enough from the pulpit (pulpit?!? When was the last time you were preached to from a pulpit?).

Back to my pork sandwich.

Triumphalism

Remember, we must love the Anglicans as individuals. They are in communion with the Druid of Canterbury for any number of reasons, culpable and non. When we attack the institution of the Church of England or its Franchises in the former colonies, we must NEVER attack the members. We do not want to see the Church of England crumble into dust as any sort of proof of our righteousness (we still have to answer for a number of our own bishops, whose fall, in that they are validly ordained, is even more outrageous), rather we want the Church of England to crumble FOR THE SAKE OF the Anglicans themselves.

Now, Steven Riddle has made a good point that the refugees from HMS Canterbury may head to the error of Evangelical Protestantism (or be disgusted by the hypocricy of the C of E and drift into paganisms, Mohammedanism, Communism, pansexualism, whatever). However, they are already doing this. England is frightfully secular and Koran-infested.

One could point out that France, Italy, Spain, all of these Catholic nations are merely following along, and one would be absolutely correct. So we cannot sit back and point fingers. Our work is cut out for us. We must re-evangelize our own communities, then go out and spread the Gospel to the Nations (more on this in the context of Modern Art later).

Furthermore, I think it is better for the Anglicans to leave an idolatrous and heretical sect (who really do worship simple bread and wine) for a sect that is simply heretical. At least the Evangelicals are committed to preaching the Gospel (insofar as they can understand it).

I have to say I sometimes surprise myself with the vehemence of my anti-Canterbury position. Especially as a traditionally-minded (but not Radical Traditionalist) Catholic, I admire the sense of the beautiful found in the Oxford Movement, for instance, the dignity of their ceremonies. I love much of the literature that has come from C of E members (with the exception of most of C.S. Lewis, who I find mind-numbingly awful); I even like their anthems and carol services, and all of that. But when taken from the context of valid sacraments, these things become dark and dangerous.

Even as I applaud the Church of England's efforts at spreading the Gospel in Africa and India, I recognize that its day as a missionary sect is over and it is time to pray for it to close shop and for the Anglicans to follow Ven. Cardinal Newman home to Rome. But I do not pray for this to simply happen. I pray for the strength, guidance, clarity, etc. to do my part in drawing these people to the True Church!

So, with that, here is the little bit of Triumphalism as promised in the title! Thinking of the High Church Anglicans always makes me think of this great line from Brideshead Revisited:

"Beware of Anglo-Catholics - they're all sodomites with unpleasant accents."

St Ignatius

I mentioned St. Ignatius Loyola the other evening to a friend who has a, shall we say, more Preacherly disposition. He looks at me and says, "oh, the bald, stupid guy?" Well, I received and email from this friend and he apparently did not get struck by lightning yesterday on the feast of St. Ignatius, so I guess we can chalk that up to Divine Mercy.