St. Jerome in His Study

In the relaunch I decided to upgrade the look of the blog. The pictures top and left are from Albrecht Durer's woodcut, "St Jerome in his study." St. Jerome's epithet for Vigilantius is the reason for the URL "dormitantius," and that sleepiness is nicely echoed in the sleeping lion and dog in my new header. As for the castanets, I don't think Jerome used them. At this point in the picture's action, all the animals might have heard was a little grumbling on St. Jerome's part. And so it goes.

As for the symbolism, the skull, cross on the table, and Jerome's head are in a line - death and resurrection. The lion is part of an ancient hagiography - St. Jerome, like Aesop, took a thorn from a lion's paw so the lion stuck around in gratitude (doing odd jobs, according to one source). Leonardo da Vinci also did a beautiful, but unfinished, picture of St. Jerome with a resting lion. The dog is an image of loyalty. The gourd in the upper right is a symbol of courage in the face of controversy (and Jerome had courage, and he sure was involved in controversy!)

The Old Man and the Sea

It is one of those books that reads better when you are an adult than when you are a child.

As an adult you have experienced the long, long hours of waiting. You have been alone long enough to appreciate talking to yourself to pass the time. I wonder if kids can even relate to Santiago. Most have no silence at all.

I listened to Donald Sutherland do the Audible version. It was very good. Sutherland's voice was perfect for the tempo of the book, and helped me to appreciate that the tempo was not too slow -- it was just right.

And I dunno... I read through the Cliffs notes for the book just now (my son is doing a paper), and I just don't see the overtly religious references. There were a few, to be sure, but Santiago's Cuban culture would have been full of them in 1951. To write a book of an old Cuban man would have been untrue in its essence if the religious references were absent. Not that we don't see that a lot these days, though....

For nothing is impossible with God.

I've been using a new Magnificat subscription since December. It is helpful for personal prayer since it has morning and evening prayers and the readings for daily Mass, as well as some good spiritual reading and saint stories.

The intercessions it suggests for each day are sometimes difficult to pray. Occasionally they seem almost impossible. Here are the ones I found most difficult this week. If I am ever at a point where I can pray these without reservation, it will be proof of the miraculous.

Lord, you have told us to love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors, as Christ prayed for his tormentors from the cross. And so we dare to pray:

R; Lord, have mercy.

Give peace to those who have destroyed our peace; - we pray: R.

Grant love to those who have refused us love; - we pray: R.

Protect from injury those who have done us injury; - we pray: R.

Grant success to those who have competed with us to our loss; - we pray: R.

Give prosperity to those who have taken what was ours; - we pray: R.

The perfect gift for new parents

"Benderbound.com" brings you this interesting product:

What To Expect The First Year handcrafted to include a hidden 250 ml swing top glass flask imported from Italy. Behind the flask we've inlaid handmade decorative paper imported from Nepal. All first time parents will thank you. All of them!

They will custom-cut the books of your choice! Think of the possibilities!

Orestes Brownson on Education

Old people may read children’s books, and find recreation in them; but they are unprofitable reading for children. It is a damage for children to have thought [ideas] made easy for them. The earlier their intellects are taxed, and the harder they are obliged to struggle to find some meaning in what they read the better for them. - Orestes Brownson

Relaunching

Now is an acceptable time to relaunch. Naptime is over.

George's warning

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, says the three pillars of a successfully governed country are unity, religion, and morality. But regarding the last two he warns:

'And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.'

Some things you just can't post on Facebook...

I'm reading Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone for a Philosphy of Religion class. Kant is a stinker, an anti-theist, but his work is very thought-provoking for this particular theist.

For example, he pooh-poohs Original Sin, because he says men are perfectly free to be moral or immoral, and a precondition of original sin would deny men the opportunity of true freedom.

So that brings me to a question I'd never considered about culpability. In Catholic doctrine, in order for man to be culpable of sin, he has to be aware that he's sinning. For a man to be guilty of a mortal sin, three conditions have to be met:

(1) it has to be a grave matter,
(2) he has to be free to do it, to give full consent of the will, and
(3) he has to know it's a sin, and choose to do it anyway after sufficient reflection.

If conditions (2) and (3) aren't met, it's still wrong, but one isn't guilty... sort of like when you run over a squirrel. You feel terribly bad about it, but you know it wasn't your fault.

In contrast to a mortal sin, Original Sin knows nothing about conditions (2) and (3). We are condemned and we are not free. We had no choice in the matter. This doesn't seem right that we should be condemned for mortal sins and original sin both; logic seems to deny that Original Sin should affect us. We should only be accountable for our own (plenteous) wrongdoings.

For there is "no one who does good, no, not one" (Ps. 14:1-3, Ps 53:1-3, Prov. 20:9, Romans 3:10-12, 23). But ontologically, how has this fact, that we do in fact tend to sin even though we don't want to (Rom. 7:15). How is this to be explained? I'm still reading Kant to find out his solution. I doubt he'd arrive at the other illogical part of the equation, that Baptism erases Original Sin, also through no work of our own, and regardless of our free will.

I'm sure much better arguments can be made for the weird dichotomy between original and mortal sin, which both result in blackest darkness reserved forever (Jude 1:13). I found something in Bonhoeffer which reminded me of the corporate/communal nature of sin and salvation, and he refers to the philosopher Max Scheler. That's probably the ticket to the problem of inherited sin for which one is not personally, privately culpable.

Better alternative to Bloglines

I was using Bloglines to subscribe to the list of blogs I like. I found the RSS feed through my webbrowser (Safari) to be much easier to use. It took a little bit of time to transfer all my feeds, but now, first and foremost, I don't have to deal with ANY obnoxious ads; second, I don't have to click to an external page to notice that one of the blogs has an update; third, there is a button to look at all the updates simultaneously. This way, I can see what's new at Pioneer Woman, at Our Lady of Good Remedy, at June Cleaver After a Six Pack, and Sister Mary Martha, all at the same time!

What I haven't figured out, though, is how to save my massive bookmark collection when my poor computer kicks the bucket. I have an external hard drive to save files, but I haven't figured out how to save stuff from the web... at least, not easily.