Giants, standing on the shoulders of dwarves

I've been reading a lot about salvation history, or really, the theology of history. In that, there are discussions about the modernist tendency to obliterate all forms of history and to elevate the personal and the subjective into truths that do not take the "Great Conversation" across centuries and millenia into account. A modernist believes that today is the only thing that matters, and is not interested at all in skills, philosophies, or the social tendencies of the past.

So in the past two days I've seen two evidences of this. The first was... the push to eliminate teaching cursive handwriting in public schools. Yeah, it seems like it doesn't follow, but cursive handwriting is a way to connect with people of a generation or two ago. A kid who can't read cursive can't read a note from their grandmother, can't read World War II memorabilia from further back in their family, can't read early American documents. My oldest took an American History course where he had to evaluate original source documents and synthesize an essay response, and some of the documents were facsimiles, often handwritten. WIthout being able to read cursive, the modern student is cut off from generations before him. He's forced to rely on someone else's interpretation of history.

The second instance was a discussion I overheard about funerals and memorial services. The majority of women in this discussion did not see any need to have a memorial or a marker for survivors to visit. Many wanted ashes scattered, or just stashed somewhere, regardless of the wishes of the loved ones they would leave behind. I thought of a friend of mine who recently took her family on a trip planned around her and her husband's ancestral burial places. They went from German church to German church to photograph the headstones and to relive some family history. A hundred years from now, the odd person curiously attached to history will search their ancestors and come to the late 20th century and find a sudden blank screen where their ancestors' burial records would have been. This generation seems less and less inclined to see any importance in history, in continuing history into the future, or to see any kinship with the past. 

There's that idea that we are dwarves, standing on the shoulders of giants. That phrase lives on to some extent in the ethereal yet imperial world of scientific and technological advances, but for most moderns, the phrase seems to be reversed. Moderns make themselves to be the giants, standing on the mere shoulders of the dwarves that preceded us in literature, philosophy, politics, music, and art.

A dream of an abomination of desolation

I had a dream that I was in a big cathedral preparing myself for mass. It looked like everyone was disorganized, and they didn't have an accompanist or properly trained altar servers. No one lit the candles, so I asked one of my sons to go up there and help, but he resisted because there were plenty of people around the altar. As it turned out, there was no priest available so they began a communion service with the Hosts already consecrated. I thought that was odd for a cathedral, but I stayed, even though I was very disappointed. The communion service turned into a faux mass that was complete chaos. The two women who were presiding had dark purple vestments that were bedazzled with sequins. A man came up to the altar, dressed in regular clothes and he joined in by yelling and shaking his cane at the congregation, "Women are the heart of the Church!" Other people came up near the altar to use it as a bully pulpit, shouting their preferences in general cacophony. People were reaching into the tabernacle, waving the Body of Christ around, creating their own liturgies on the fly. I and other people started leaving. I saw that a relative who had left the Church but who had come one more time to give it a try, was also leaving in disgust, and I knew that he could never be convinced again to return. 

I attempted to leave but at every doorway of this magnificent cathedral, Eastern Orthodox priests blocked the way. They all held up the Body of Christ, but when they saw me they said they couldn't give the children's bread to dogs. I told them that I just wanted to leave, but they wouldn't let me out. At one door an Orthodox priest actually would let me receive the Body of Christ, and I told him no, thank you, that's not why I was approaching them. He let me leave the sanctuary, but I was still stuck inside the building. I turned to a side altar to pray for reparation but it was too noisy. People were throwing toys and clothing for poor people at the altar, making prayer impossible. I looked again to the main altar in the church and saw what looked like order restored. It was an Orthodox priest I saw, saying mass in relative tranquility, but it was a curiously androgynous person in the proper-looking vestments. Whether it was St. Paul's version of androgyny (Gal 3:28) or St. John's (Rev 3:16) I couldn't tell, and I was too tired to decide whether to give in.

I lost track of my family. I tried to call them on my phone and found my phone was full of text messages. One of the messages was a note of thanks from someone who had appreciated my presence at church for the past few years, saying that I had helped them, and reading this I felt terribly torn that I could never come again, and yet I couldn't get out, I couldn't find my family, and that this was no church anymore, just a circus in the building in which the Mass used to be celebrated.

Now for an attempt at analysis:

I think the Orthodox blocking the doors were representatives of what we share with the Orthodox that is holy and true and continuous with Jesus' own will, and they were keeping me from throwing away the ancient and historical faith because of the modern distortion. They were telling me to stick it out, that the Church has seen worse trials than this. They were forbidding me the Eucharist because they were keeping the proper historic distinctions, but the one priest who did offer me the Host was a symbol of mercy. (I think this part of my dream was based on Canon 844, which isn't exactly relevant, but sometimes dreams are irrational!)

The man who brandished his cane and said that women were the heart of the church was both right and wrong. Jesus is the head of the Church and the Holy Spirit is its soul. Women have historically been vitally important in the Church and irreplaceable. Mary is queen of the apostles (and priests, by extension), and women followed Jesus in his trials more faithfully than his apostles did. And yet the women were not vital because of the power they yielded, but because of their service. Service does not mean the same thing as wearing a microphone before an audience in bedazzled robes, drawing attention to self rather than to Christ. The purple robes with sequins were a paradox: the penitential color was completely undermined, and purple took on the secular, royal symbolism. 

This dream, I'm sure, is attributable to both the German Bishops' recent statement about women deacons and the recent act of blasphemous feminists in Belgium. 

Prayer evolution: thanksgiving, petition, praise.

Fr. Charles Pope wrote a great meditation on prayer in preparation for his homily on the readings today, the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Jer 23:1-6, Ps 23:1-6, Eph 2:13-18, Mark 6:30-34). Focusing mainly on the gospel reading and Jesus' example of prayer, Fr. Pope broke it down to four lessons, but the first and foremost was that prayer should be filled with praise and thanksgiving. Go to the site linked above for the rest of his beautiful post.

One of the things I came to understand at Steubenville Atlanta last weekend is that prayer should involve more praise. In fact, that should be the main emphasis in our communication with God. The mass is a great example of the emphasis of praise in communal prayer, and that's a great model for personal prayer. We see the emphasis on praise also in the book of Psalms -- that magnificent handbook for prayer. Even the laments have elements of praise!

For a period of time I would only pray prayers of thanksgiving, but those prayers were not exactly words of praise. Putting myself in a position of dependence, I decided that to be thankful was to be trustful, and "thy will be done" meant that God already knew what was best for me, so I shouldn't ask Him for anything besides what He already had planned. Eventually I came to see that though my intention was good, this was not a biblical way to pray. Jesus' exemplary prayer to His Father did in fact include petitions, and he asked for specific things in the prayers he made public. So I also added petitions to my prayers.

Petitions are not sufficient, either. Even if we ask God to do His will, we are not glorifying Him. The emphasis is on ourselves. Too often my own prayers are reduced to either petitions, no matter how well-meaning (Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts...) or prayers of thanksgiving (Thank You, Lord, there are my keys!).

As for praise, I have to confess that I don't do a lot of glorifying God in private prayer, but I think that is a mistake. A priest speaker at Steubenville said that he learned to praise God even in his private prayer, and it made a lot of difference in his personal prayer life. So now, I'm working on praise, and I'm turning more to the psalms (Ps. 96) and the liturgy (Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Hosts...) for help. A.M.D.G.

"The longest distance you will ever travel"

I was a chaperone at LifeTeen Steubenville Atlanta last weekend. It was a great weekend that made me reconsider some things.

I started my master's in theology for several reasons, but the main reason is to do remedial Faith Formation -- CCD -- for Catholic adults. When I was younger, I got a big, big dose of "Jesus Loves You," but until our exceptional high school program, I didn't get much else. Our religious education, in the 1970's, was heavy on feelings and experimental textbooks that tried to make the faith real. We did small group sharing. We did crafts. We talked about loving our neighbor. But we didn't so much know what made Christians different from compassionate agnostics. In the mad dash away from the pedantic, soul-less Baltimore Catechism, we rushed too often into a stripped-down, watered-down Christian message that was too frail to be sustained. Somewhere in the mid-90's I felt gyped.

Though I knew Jesus loved me, I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly. Catholic spirituality in the 70's and 80's was pretty amorphous. The heart drove the experience, and the brain rode along in the back seat, staring absently out the window, focusing on this or that trend -- Thomas Merton, Anthony de Mello, Glory & Praise songbooks, Taize' -- and then leaving them, good or bad, as we passed mindlessly to each next thing.

The Lord had established a relationship with me that was strong, though, and He brought me to some of the great Doctors of the Church -- Augustine and Aquinas, and later Jerome and John Chrysostom. I learned to go beyond the readings at Mass and to first skim, and then read, the Scriptures. I found friends who had been brought to the new Catechism, and we began to stumble along together, blind leading the blind through the immense riches of the Holy Spirit working through the centuries since the contemporaries of Jesus first learned that He loved them, too.

Thanks to the internet and John Paul II, things began to turn around for a lot of us. I shed the charismatic renewal for something I felt was blessedly more substantive. "Jesus Loves You" was not enough to sustain us through the intellectual challenges of college. How many of us became agnostics and atheists, how many more claimed to be "spiritual, not religious"? I vowed to pan for the nuggets of ratio to shore up the lagging fides of the Catholics of my generation. Faith and reason are supposed to go together, but one of them was lacking.

As I said, the weekend at Steubenville Atlanta was a great one. But the main message was "Jesus Loves You," just like the old days. They didn't teach doctrinal minutiae. Bibles stayed in our slingbags. The songs were simple and repetitious. But no! this was a substantive, spirit-filled weekend. We did not read from the catechism, but the confession lines were staggering. The Bibles were not opened, but the scriptures were constant and central. Adoration was prime time both nights, whereas in my youth, Christians in community were emphasized above Christ as Eucharist. During the 70's the exodus of priests and religious was a travesty; during this conference, there was an "altar call" of sorts for aspiring priests and religious, and an astonishing number advanced to the stage. 2,800 participants were told that Jesus loves them, and all but a handful of those 2,800 wept in joyful realization, and some of them for the very first time. It was like they, all Catholic, had never met Him before. Though they had consumed Him since the second grade, in this conference He consumed them. It was not that they had never heard it; it was that they had never listened so well. Their heads knew, but their hearts were finally kneaded and pliable enough to receive.

And so with that mantra, "Jesus Loves You," the seeds of faith were deliberately planted by the Lifeteen/Steubenville program into rich, black soil. The LifeTeen website connects each teen to a Bible Geek,  the catechism, and a huge support group, all so necessary because letting the heart drive is more counter-cultural now than it has ever been in history. One of the speakers said on Friday night that the longest distance you will ever travel is the distance between your head and your heart. The first and most important thing for each Christian to realize is that Jesus Loves Us. The second thing is to learn to love him back with both heart and mind (and soul and strength). I think this LifeTeen thing is something like a legit short cut between the heart and mind. All the best of the heart and spirit of Vatican II, with all the reason and substance of Vatican II's blossoming in recent decades... I give it two thumbs way up -- one from the mind, and the other from the heart.

"Muslim World Faces Devastating Fertility Decline"

From the article from the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, using UN figures:

... in terms of relative fertility decline, “the estimated population-weighted average for Muslim-majority areas as a whole was -41 percent over these three decades.” They show that “22 Muslim-majority countries and territories were estimated to have undergone fertility declines of 50 percent or more during those three decades--ten of them by 60 percent or more. For both Iran and the Maldives, the declines in total fertility rates over those 30 years were estimated to exceed 70 percent.” ... 

The UN population projections will have to follow suit. In 2000, the UN projected 102 million Yemenis by the year 2050. This estimate was reduced to 62 million ten years later.

I'm going to take what is probably an unpopular stand on this, and argue that it is actually devastating, though some people I know and love might be cheering. Let's look at the pros and cons.

First, why fewer Muslims might be seen as a good thing:

1. There are violent aspects of Islam, even in the Koran. Most average Muslims are silent on this, and seem to give tacit approval to the violence.

2. The Muslim world treats women badly.

3. Muslims believe in jihad, and target Jews, among others, in their attempt to control the world.

4. Muslims persecute and kill Christians.

5. Muslims pose a threat to American peace and lives.

Now, why the decrease in Muslim population should not be considered a good thing:

1. Though there are violent aspects of Islam, there are also violent aspects of Christianity as well. Westboro Baptist Church claims to be Christian, and interprets the Bible to read that God hates homosexuals. This distortion of Christianity, as often as it is in the news, is not the truth of the Gospel. Historically, Christians and Muslims have proven to be violent.

2. The Vatican II Constitution, Lumen Gentium, at article 16, reminds us that Muslims are monotheists and spiritual descendants of Abraham. Though Christians and Muslims each believe the other is gravely mistaken, we do share certain truths in common, and we should pray for their salvation as long as they live, and for their hearts to be open to hear the truth of Christ:

But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.

3. Because Muslims are monotheists, they are actually co-belligerents with Christians and Jews against atheist and agnostic philosophies. They are actually closer to us, and less destructive to the Christian faith, than atheism is. Yes, Muslim extremists are more destructive to life in this world, but atheist philosophies are more destructive to life in the next, and ultimately that matters more. Atheism is more insidious, more attractive to "modernist" sensibilties, and easier to fall into than any religion.

4. Though Muslims have license to treat women badly, not all do. This is a fascinating article about women in Muslim societies. But if women are reduced to sterile sex objects, their likelihood of being treated badly will increase. Divorcing the sex act from its natural result can itself be destructive, and it deprives women of the joy of children... a comfort they would have had even if their husbands did not love them enough to treat them well.

5. Lastly, let us Catholics be consistent. Pope Paul VII wrote in Humanae Vitae, Para. 11, that every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. The Catechism goes on to explain, in paragraphs 2331-2335, that male and female are each created in the image and likeness of God, and their sexuality is a reflection of God's power, tenderness, and creativity. Paragraphs 2360-2363 repeats the sentiments of Humanae Vitae about the twofold end of marriage in fidelity and mutual self-giving. So not only will women be treated worse, as I suggested in #4 above, but it will reduce the potential for unity in Muslim marriage in the future. That will not bode well for Muslim society, which is already crumbling under the weight of illiteracy, poverty, and extremism.

I'd like to propose a correlation between the decrease of stability and size of the Muslim family and the degradation of Muslim culture in the past thirty years. In medieval times, Muslims were innovative philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, and physicians. Their academic atrophy began long enough ago that other issues were greater factors than the current fertility decline, but as for now, the decline, though it may cause some to sigh with relief at the prospect of less extremist Muslim terrorists, it should give us Christians pause as well. In thirty more years, what world religions and cultures will remain, and how destructive will the increasingly popular secular culture be on religion in general? How will secular-minded modernization impact religious standards of morality and culture? May God heal our divisions, bring all to the fullness of Truth in His precious divine Son, and bring us all to everlasting life in His Kingdom, "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." 1 Col 19-20.

Money Talks. Wives of money talk, too.

Melinda Gates is in London this week, spearheading a “groundbreaking summit” during which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with the British government, will launch a $4-billion effort to deliver “family planning” devices to 120 million women by the year 2020. On the basis of feeble yet predictable justifications – surprising only because they survived her “soul–searching” – International Family Planning has become her top priority. Not “population control,” mind you, or some other term that might make it sound coercive or imperialistic or anything like that. ....

 Melinda Gates gets the microphone because she married a guy who became fantastically rich. She is a moral authority because of her wealth. Not even in this capitalist country's wildest excesses of industrialists of the gilded age did the very wealthy claim to have authority over anything except owning and spending their money. They were philanthropists, but they were not moral philosophers. They talked about what good they could or should do with their own money, but not about the moral decisions that others should make, nor why they should make them. Women like Laura Rockefeller did not "spearhead groundbreaking summits" in the moral sphere.

This is a sign of the times, but it is not a good one. Women, of course, are entirely capable of spearheading groundbreaking summits, but their authority should not stem from their personal wealth. I find it disturbing that people are interested in what she has to say solely because she is married to Bill Gates. Let her give away her money, even for charities that contradict her Church. But when she, one of the wealthiest women of the world, promotes birth control to limit the population of the poorest -- well, it doesn't seem too much like irony.

It seems like it would be better for this philanthropist's wife to spend her money on herself instead, and if she can't enable the poor to help themselves out of their state, at least allow them to the only wealth they can enjoy: their children. In the cultures of poorer countries, barrenness is a shame, and a family is not only a reliable social safety net, but a blessing. The problem isn't many children, but the poverty that prohibits them from thriving.

German court outlaws religious circumcision

Article here.

I can't believe Germany went there. And with the US waffling on the issue, and some European countries on the fence about the issue, who knows what other Jewish discrimination will follow, unchecked by the Allies which were once incensed at such a thing?

This kind of thing could only come about with gross neglect of history in German schools. As it turns out, Half of German Teenagers 'Don't Know Hitler Was a Dictator'.

There you have it.