a passing thought about passing

Commencement time is here and once again the odd quirks of college life--the passionately held beliefs, the experimentation, the bad haircuts--evaporate.  Colleges has long since transformed summer into additional instructional and operational sessions, but it's still worth remembering the cyclical celebration of passing time.   John Cuddeback, in a larger post on Christian good-byes, adds this:
As a professor in a college community of several hundred people, I have had ample opportunity for reflection upon saying goodbye. Every May the students with whom I have shared a life for four years effectively vanish into thin air. Sure some of them stay in touch, and come back and visit. But fundamentally, that group of roughly ninety people, some of whom I have really come to know and love—sharing trials, tears, and triumphs—leaves never to return.

My eldest daughter has herself ‘gone off’ to college—that was rough, and the rest will probably follow in succession. When I watch fathers give away their daughters in marriage, I have to fight back my own tears. I hope I won’t need to be resuscitated at my daughters’ weddings.

So I am learning to say goodbye. And it is a skill that I would do well to learn better.

Read the rest of it here.

The big good-bye, the one for all the money, is of course death.  Cuddeback recognizes this and takes the opportunity to contribute an insightful disagreement with C. S. Lewis' adage that "Christians never say good-bye."  In fact, Cuddeback suggests, Christians do say good-bye and the ways in which they do then assures that such partings are not, ultimately, final. 

College graduations, much more mundane, are final.  The students can't come back as they once were. The telos of college education--liberal, professional, or technical--will be discussed in future posts.  For now, though, it seems appropriate to recognize that educators hope that their students, once they've encountered this 'minor' finality of graduation, carry something with them.

not the same thing

Getting ready for the Albany diocese's 2014 Spring Enrichment...and yes, Spiritual Diabetes will play a role.  In that mind, googling "spiritual diabetes" also brought up this blog combining spiritual and diabetic discourses.  Goldstein seems to seek spiritual remedies and/or therapies for those suffering from diabetes.  Here is another example of somebody combining "sweet," "sugar," and "spiritual" language.  While using similar terms (at least at first), those blogs pursues an agenda quite different from this one.  As stated earlier, this blog uses diabetes as a discursive and analytic metaphor.  I don't pretend to address the physical realities confronting those combating diabetes--type I or type II.  Those are very real problems, and I am *not* seeking to add to the burdens of those suffering.  (Nor, it should be clear, is Goldstein.)

Our nation's--and, really, our planet's--diabetes epidemic, though, prompt questions about spiritual consumption and 'exercise.'  Just as the type II diabetic can no longer convert the energy already present in the bloodstream, the spiritual diabetic sits awash in spiritual energy...but can't properly convert it.  The resulting 'high blood sugar' in this spiritual version becomes an unslakable thirst for more and more spiritual consumption...which in turn only exacerbates the original problem.  Signs of this, it seems to me, are the various expressions of rock-sure supremacy of one's views or, in the secular framework, assurance of purely secular solutions to situations which clearly involve spiritual perspectives.  These damaging absolutisms are counterbalanced by the broader Christian, and specifically Roman Catholic, tradition.  These, obviously, involve absolute perspectives--Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine, etc.--but these appear within a spiritual "work-out" framework that juxtaposes human frailty/tragedy with divine knowledge and mercy.  Make no mistake, though, Christians--and certainly Roman Catholics--can suffer from spiritual diabetes, just as they suffer from the physical form.

polyvalent separation and inclusive inclusion

So much to do but just yesterday an example that the Gospel, and with that the Church, navigate the waters while human pretensions and errors fall away on either side.  What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of the world (John 1:3b-5)

OK, some Facebook friends expressed dismay over the CDF's castigation of the LCWR's recognition of Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ. Friend #1:  "Well, that's some bull***t. Everyone go buy more of Johnson's books immediately." <<edited version!>>  Somebody posted musings about Pope Francis' view of Johnson, to which Friend #2 posted:  "
Does this pontiff's honeymoon ever end? He reiterated full-bodied support for Ex Corde and all the Catholic Identify jive-ass mantras in speech not long ago...coulda been reading verbatim from the Benny-Wotyla playbook. Nary a word on this from 'progressive' Catholic media..."

Translation:  Pope Francis is way more conservative than anybody is willing to say, and [the one posting] doesn't like it.

H/T to those FB friends--they know who they are


OK, insert here a blog post about the distance between Pope Francis and the media perspectives thereof.  

Then consider this:  last September the Catholic News Service posted a video about the dual canonization's announcement.  Check out the YouTube combox reactions recently!  Views range from those unhinged about the clergy sexual abuse scandal:

Whatever!...two old creepy men, head of the biggest pedophile ring in history get canonized? They do nothing for humanity. Do you forget this church supported Adolf Hitler's Nazi's and do you forget the dark ages where they also murdered millions? They bless wars, promote wars they do not promote peace but promote hatred and lies.

Earlier somebody else suspected a deeper problem:

John Paul II, Woytila was not the legitimate Pope, but a jewish infiltrator. The real Pope was Gregory XVII (the former cardinal Joseph Siri) at the time when JPII was `elected`. John Paul II has hijacked the holy see, persecuted the real Catholic church and the real Pope just as Nero did in his cruelty. He is the antiPope of the New world order universal religion. Funded and supported by jewry, the most cruel enemy of Catholicism, he can be compared to Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ by a kiss. never in the world would the real Church declare this deceiver a saint. But he is the hero of the new world order guided by Antichrist´s spirit. His damned soul has descended into hell.

Do not interpret this blog as endorsing these views!  Antisemitic sedevacantism and postmodern, ahistorical sexual nihilism must be seen and combated as the gnostic sins that they are.  Second, nor should good ol' fashioned liberal American Catholicism (although truth be told, both of my FB friends mentioned above really don't consider themselves Catholic anymore) be confused with the outer rim territories that are conspiracy theories.  Liberal Catholicism has its problems, but those are of a different kind and character than the likes of sedevacantism.

That being said, notice the shared target:  the broader Roman Catholic tradition that continues to churn along.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  That's because it won't.  We do need to be honest:  in several instances the Church's members have done quite a good job helping the darkness accomplish precisely that.  It's this humanity and holiness that in part perhaps fosters such a broad spectrum of rejection.  And yet the Church possesses and celebrates a vision that includes all, even the active deniers:

Only in freedom can man direct himself toward goodness. Our contemporaries make much of this freedom and pursue it eagerly; and rightly to be sure. Often however they foster it perversely as a license for doing whatever pleases them, even if it is evil. For its part, authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain "under the control of his own decisions,"(12) so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure. 

Gaudium et Spes #17

dual canonization

More thoughts on Sunday's dual canonization.

waterboard bong hits for Jesus

*sigh* where to begin...falling down the logic tree, hitting every branch as we go....

Sarah Palin equates water-boarding with baptism.  <<cue the AFLAC duck>>

Now before any more, confession time:  I voted for McCain/Palin in 2008.  I don't regret the choice of McCain for president, but Palin?  You betcha.  She demonstrated her inability to provide executive-branch leadership when she resigned her office as Alaska's governor prior to completing her first term.  Since then she glorified in her self-lit spotlight (to quote Collective Soul's great song), calling Pope Francis a liberal among other questionable statements.  (Earlier SD assessment here)  Write it off as ignorance or whatever, but this time her words now place her beyond the pale of Christian discourse.  "Waterboarding is baptism" ranks up there with double-speak classics like "We had to destroy this village in order to save it." 

OTOH, Palin used to be helpful when it came to uncovering the violent antipathies of the feminist Left.  Holy Cow, is there anybody they hate more?  At one level I get it;  Amanda Marcotte says and writes some awful things, but it's also clear that Marcotte also gins up her rhetoric to ignite controversy.  Palin, well, at least early on it seemed that she was hated for being herself.

Back to baptizing through torture:  absolutely not.  I'd ask "Who came up with that awful idea?" but, as indicated above, there are plenty reading to point fingers.  And as Rod Dreher shows, there are plenty of other Christians reading and willing to administer the sacrament.  Deacon Greg Kandra compiles the appropriate church documents here.  Among everything else helpful here, I appreciate Deacon Greg's citation of St John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor (1993) which in turn...cites Gaudium et Spes 27 !!! (see footnote #132)  #gospeloflife #consistentlifeethic Even waterboarding, which it seems tries actually to circumvent the criticisms of torture by leaving no lasting physical damage, nevertheless remains torture.  The momentary pain and panic it relies upon deny the Creator's handiwork in the person being tortured.  Furthermore, the torturer thus casts himself as God-like and possibly even replaces God with himself. 

Spiritual Diabetes sales pitch:  If you accept that argument, have you seen what we offering in regard to abortion? Or capital punishment?  These work on the same principles and since you accept in one location, why not all?  All three deny the intrinsic dignity of the human person. Thus the Church acknowledges the Gospel standing apart from both extremes--Palin and Marcotte--and anybody else using "life" to obscure, excuse, and even praise various kinds of violence.

while you're waiting...

consider the wit and humor of Eye of the Tiber.  A site/blog that makes the Internet worthwhile with spot-on humor about Catholicism's encounter with the modern world.  "Breaking Catholic News So You Don't Have To"...but often it makes more sense some of the actual news sources.  EOTT takes on papal canonizations, liturgical innovations, Pope Francis popularity, and the rights and roles of Catholics in the public square.  And you will laugh.

And when you're done there, don't stop but proceed straight to The Lutheran Satire on YouTube.  The St Patrick's bad analogies, Mormon missionaries, Westboro Church, and contemporary worship videos are particularly funny.   "That's Modalism, Patrick!"  H/T a former student now an evangelical pastor who sent me this criticism of Joel Osteen's theology.

It takes a sharp, orthodox theological mind and a good, subtle sense of humor to execute this sort of stuff and these accomplish it so effortlessly.  So so good.  On that note, G. K. Chesterton concluded Orthodoxy (1908): 

"Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian....There was something that [Jesus] hid from all men when He wnet up a mountain to pray.  There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great to God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."

Just before that, Chesterton: "by [Christianity's] creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small."  Yep, that's pretty much it--and so we should laugh a little at our human pretensions.  We are not God and remembering that allows us to understand that whatever oppresses us isn't God, either.

at the corner of John XXIII and Pius X

Wow, one month and so much to blog about.  It'll happen...eventually.  Grateful for all of you ("all y'all" as we'd say back home) for keeping in touch.  Among the topics to be investigated:
*  Bishop Edward Scharfenberger's installation on April 10 as Albany's 10th bishop
*  my rediscovery of Jesus Christ Superstar 
*  And yesterday's "Day of Four Popes" -- the canonizations of St. John XXIII and St. John Paul II


On that last note, a couple teasers....
*  Angelo Roncalli was ordained to the priesthood in 1904 in Rome and, just days later, met Pope St. Pius X.  The meeting and Pius' legacy always remained with Roncalli;  even as pope John frequently quoted Pius X approvingly. This intersection--surely not coincidental--between the two men who both served as Archbishop of Venice and Bishop of Rome should figure more prominently than it has.  There's one place in Rome where you'll always reminded since you literally stand at the intersection of John XXIII and Pius X.

*And amid all the dual canonization furor, Kathryn Fernandez contributes a helpful reminder that sometimes a special day just doesn't come together.  I think Kathryn's comments provide a neat foil to both the hagiographies and the equally vocal (but numerically smaller) accounts questioning the rush to canonize either Wojtyla, Roncalli, or both.  Her words also attest to our continual need for grace.  God's mercy and love fuels the Church, not our good intentions, warm feelings, or (self) righteous anger.  Augustinian, not Pelagian.

Kathryn includes this photo:

Down at the bottom...that clump of trees?  That's the intersection of John XXIII and Pius X. Notice how the crowd reaches even there (around the corner, view completely obstructed)....and beyond.  Don't be surprised when our convenient readings of Catholic history become, upon further consideration, more not less complicated.