Clean Comedy

The friars in Australia have told me about Brian Regan.

Here is a segment on men and women:

And  a little military humor:

And just to see if you can breathe through it:

The Armor of God and Guarding the Heart

I have been reflecting lately on the notion of Dom Chautard concerning that aspect of the interior life that is Englished in his book “custody of the heart.”  Perhaps a more militant way of translating this notion in modern English would be “guarding the heart.”

It is the duty of a knight to guard and protect, and we often associate this role with his perennial preoccupation with the Damsel in Distress.  Elsewhere I have noted that the Blessed Virgin is the personification of the Damsel in Distress–not so much because She is helpless, which She is not, nor is that an essential quality of any such damsel, but because She personifies everything true, good and beautiful.  She does this precisely at the foot of the cross as the personification of the Bride of Christ and as Mother and exemplar of the Church.  Ultimately the Christian Knight must be at Her service.

But the curious fact is that the knight, while an image of Christ, the Bridegroom and Savior, is first of all a sinner and one who must identify with the needy Bride as much as any woman should.  This is not to say that the knight must become a woman spiritually, but that his masculinity need not be threatened by whole-hearted honesty about his dependence on God.

In fact, nothing could be more important.  In order to stand fast in the breach that has been blasted in the wall of the City of God, Our Lady’s knight must first repair the breach in his own heart.  How can a knight defend the City of God, how can he fight for the honor of the Immaculate Heart and guard it from the dishonor of the heathens, if he has not first mastered the art of guarding his own heart?  In fact, there is nothing more urgent than the attention we pay to our own vulnerabilities.

To this end, I would like to associate the notion of Dom Chautard with that of St. Paul concerning the Armor of God.

Cell Phones in Church

Got to hand it to those Presbyterians. Notice that last remark about shoes and shirts. I grew up in California. Makes perfect sense.

My posting this is a bit ironic, since the alarm on my phone went off this morning during Lauds and instead of turning the alarm off I hit snooze, so it went off again an minute later. Bad friar.

Hat tip to Brian.

Just Say No

Breakthrough Study:  Learning to Say “No” to yourself is a key to success.

I guess child psychology has come around full swing.  On second though, perhaps, not quite.  We have not gotten around to identifying certain choices as “bad” yet.  What is the word?  O yes, “inappropriate.”

Catholics used to call this “mortification,” which is a sound psychological habit elevated by grace and supernatural motivation.  But we guilty Catholics, what do we know?

The new apologists would tell us that God is like a marshmallow.

Some TOB Updates

During my discussions of the topic of prudery on The Linde, Lauretta found a quote from Christopher Derick in which he makes the claim that the paschal candle is, in fact, a phallic symbol.  I mention this because in one of my posts I noted that, while Christopher West quotes Derrick’s Sex and Sacredness as supporting this theory, the quote he actually uses says nothing about the candle.  In any case, there is still no magisterial or patristic evidence for this assertion and I still maintain that it is a baseless invention.

I have also updated the compendium with my latest contribution.

The Knights of Christ

My last full day in Fatima, Father Peter, Father Andre, Fra Solanus and a local Fatima friend of the friars, Leo Madigan had an opportunity to visit the Convento de Cristo, a very imposing Knights Templar Castle less than an hour away from Fatima.  In 1319, few years after the papal suppression of the Templars, the knights were re-founded in Portugal as the Knights of Christ, and retained possession of the monastery fortress.

The Templar Church architecture is very notable.  The original construction of the Church was round to which a later rectangular nave was added.  This pattern is seen also in the Church of the Temple in London and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambrige, and all of these examples are based on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the focus of the whole crusading spirit.

Tomar Ceiling

Tomar Sword Belt Tower

Tomar Sword Belt

Charola

Refectory Pulpit

Aqueduct Station

Window Seat Window

Tomar Church

Aqueduct

At the Aqueduct Station

Manueline Window

Tomar Church Nave

Tomar Tower

Church Pulpit

Aqueduct Panorama

A Subtle Dragon

When I posted last I was poking around a little on Anthony Esolen’s page in the Touchstone archives and found an excellent article on the Quest called “The Lovely Dragon of Choice: The Freedom Not to Be Free.” I think I will make it the topic for discussion at tomorrow night’s men’s discussion group meeting in Griswold.

I recommend a careful reading of the piece. It is worth reading twice.

What I took away from it is the way in which the “Dragon of Choice” has insinuated itself, not only into the hearts of those who consciously purvey the culture of death, but also into the hearts of those who wish to be the champions of life. In fact, life itself is a quest full of adventure, something that is dissolved by calculation and cleverness. Esolen pegs “Modern Man,” and by that I mean not the “other guys” but all of us:

Modern man is afraid of the quest, and is not particularly fond of hunger and cliffs, either. He will not see that the very point of an adventure is that you cannot plan it. And to be in quest of the Holy Grail—that is, the mystery of Christ made manifest in our world under the humble appearances of bread and wine—is to be prepared for the appearance, sudden and awful, even on a bare rock and when one’s stomach knots with hunger, of the ineffable God.

Debriefing

Heading back to my old hideout for almost a week.  I need to get out of here.

I leave you with some good news from Doug Barry, a.k.a. Radix.  He is making some real progress on his Camp Gargano.

I have also come into contact with a group much like ours called Fraternus.  Check it out.  I will have more on this later.

Please also take a look at my last post on Our Lady and masculinity.

And last, but not least, a demented cat lover.

I’m sure you can find something to chew on while I am away.

Smashing Dragons

Since I am in an apocalyptic mood I thought it would be nice to have some more war, but let’s brighten things up a bit at the same time. Don’t worry, I won’t ignore the multi-headed devourer that threatens our existence, I just think that the Woman Clothed with the Sun might shed some light on what we should do in our predicament.  Forgive me for not being quite as lugubrious as usual.

Just read something interesting on Our Lady of Guadalupe:

The Image of Christ in the accidents of bread, and the image of Mary in the accidents of flowers, but with this lovable difference, that in Christ’s sacrament the accidents of bread appear, and not the image, and in Mary’s sacrament the image appears and the accidents of flowers disappear.

Father Juan de San Miguel, SJ preached these words in 1671 during the consecration of a side chapel of the Mexico City Cathedral dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I can only assume that the context of the remarks would indicate that he is speaking metaphorically.  He certainly is not saying that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a “sacrament” in the proper sense of the term.  Nevertheless, a comparison with the Eucharist is valid.

The whole point of the continuous miracle of the tilma, which is comparable to the perduring miracle of the Real Presence of the Eucharist, is to reassure the members of the Church Militant that the Woman Clothed with the Sun is really with us and is ready to manifest that presence in power and victory.  John Paul the II made the central thought of his Marian encyclical “the role of Mary in the mystery of Christ and on her active and exemplary presence in the life of the Church.” That active and exemplary presence is going to bring the red dragon to the mat.  Just you wait.

Father Juan notes the ostensible difference between sacramental transubstantiation and the miracle of the tilma.  Jesus hides himself under the accidents of bread and wine in order to exercise our faith and to assume a form by which we partake of Him as our food.  Mary sheds the accidents of the flowers in order to manifest herself as the Woman Clothed with the Sun.  In the Eucharist we humble ourselves through faith and reverence.  Through the lesser charismatic grace of the tilma we are given an extraordinary sign of Our Lady’s presence and reason for confidence in the midst of conflict.

This was precisely the case historically when Our Lady appeared in Mexico.  The power of hell had been unleashed in Mexico through a diabolical religion and through the vices of the Conquistadors.  God had his way through the Woman Clothed with the Sun.

Soon the novena in preparation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception will begin and within its octave we will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  These are times in which we need unwavering confidence.  Make or renew an act of consecration to Our Lady.

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe also saw the connection between the Eucharist and the power of the Immaculate Conception:

We want Her to think, to speak and to act through us. We desire to belong to the Immaculate to the extent that nothing will remain in us that is not Her, so that we may be annihilated in Her, transubstantiated into Her, changed into Her, that She alone remains, so that we may be as much Hers as She is God’s. She belongs to God, having become His Mother. And we want to become the mother who would give the life of the Immaculate to every heart that exists and to those that will still come into existence. That is the M.I.–to bring Her into every heart, to give Her life to every heart. Thus entering these hearts and taking full possession of them, She may give birth to sweet Jesus, who is God, that He might grow in them in age and perfection.

If Father Juan looks to an extraordinary sign to find the presence of the Woman Clothed with the Sun. St. Maximilian looks to our own transformation which is a matter of constant effort at purification through prayer and penance (annihilation) and the power of God through Our Lady (transubstantiation).

It’s the consecration, stupid.  Our Lady at Fatima told us this when the whole contemporary mess got started.  When are we going to figure this thing out?

Politcians and Paternalism

It’s a bit ironic that the liberal party of self-governance and civil liberty has served us up a celebrity for a president whose cult of personality has permitted him to exercise an unprecedented kind of political paternalism. He has looked upon his candidacy as a “teachable moment,” and upon his victory in the Democratic primary as an event which restored “his faith in America,” as though the electorate owed him some kind of proof of its loyalty. Now he is putting forward this preposterous mandatory civilian security service, banking on the power of his creepy personality cult.

It’s not that Obama is altogether a phenomenon unto himself. This has been coming on for a long time. Why have we ever cared what celebrities think? Our thought processes have been formed by American Idol, and now we bow down before the empty suites that we have neatly arranged for our own destruction.

I am not one to complain about patriarchy, but the icon of a father is not a red, white and blue Obama, looking down from his perch of wisdom upon his needy children. No the real icon of a father is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.

One of the earliest images of Our Lord used in the history of the Church is that of the Good Shepherd. In the catacombs of Rome, Our Lord was portrayed as a beardless young man who carried a lamb on his shoulders, calling to mind the parable of the lost sheep. It is a beautiful image, but it is only half the story. In the Gospels the Good Shepherd according to Our Lord is the one who lays down his life for his sheep. The Roman fresco of the Good Shepherd illustrates the paternal solicitude of Christ for the weak and the needy, His personal attention to the individual who is hurting, but Our Lord Himself applies the title of Good Shepherd to the one who stands up to the wolves to protect His sheep from death and himself is torn to shreds in the process.

I once saw a child’s crayon drawing of the Good Shepherd of Jesus wielding a spiked club, standing between the wolves and his sheep, and bleeding from the hands where He has been bitten by the wolves.  That’s Our Lord on the Cross.

Why don’t we have leaders like this? Because we don’t want them. Heaven forbid that we admit that we are weak and needy. Far be it from us to allow ourselves to be led by someone who has our best interests at heart, based on a commitment to the truth of Christ. Instead we throw our babies to the wolves and thank the lupine divinity for being delivered from the responsibility to care for them.