Phenakistoscopes and other distractions cause backups or worse when traffic is heavy. Use phenakistoscopes responsibly, and put them away during rush hour.Dr. Boli earns my sincere thanks for introducing me to the phenakistoscope, of which I was ignorant until now. I will promptly acquire one so that I may then put it away at the regulated times.
The Chinese government and people are very much displeased with the Journal's decision to publish Rebiya Kadeer's "The Real Story of the Uighur Riots" (op-ed, July 8), which is full of political lies and separatist rhetoric that are schemed to mislead the American public.Honestly, after such an opening paragraph that is chock full of its own sort of rhetoric, one simply sits back and prepares to enjoy the show. It was spectacular I must admit. I do encourage you to go read the lengthy missive which is designed to leave one standing at attention, singing the Chinese anthem.
[Tyler Cowden's article, Vaticanomics: The Holy Father Tackles Globalization, does not examine the encyclical in-depth as much as to expose Cowden's own lack of intellectual development.As I say, there will be no living with me now!
One is always wise to consider the source and the intended results of a work before excoriating them. Cowden apparently did neither. True enough, Pope Benedict XVI did not set forth the tightly focused global economic plan that Cowden apparently was awaiting as a blueprint for a better future.] True to his master's calling (that would be Jesus Christ, in case Cowden needs a refresher), Pope Benedict instead is calling for a change in men's hearts and minds so that they themselves may reflect their inward spiritual growth outward for positive change in their own societies. This is the goal that has always been set forth for every Christian. Likewise Cowden's sneers about China and India being ignored show his lack of understanding that the pope holds these goals for "all men of good will," meaning the entire world.
Jesus did not preach against slavery or the Roman government's economic plan, and then put forth a blueprint for men to achieve economic gains. He was after something more ethereal and infinitely more precious, men's hearts and souls. Thus Pope Benedict follows in Jesus' footsteps in his encyclical. It is both sad and telling that Cowden expected otherwise. He would do well to read and reflect upon Father Sirico's editorial, "The Pope on Love in Truth," in your own publication, which reminds those who need it that "to this pope's mind, there is no just or moral system without just and moral people."
"Brave and courageous" ... I do not think that means what he thinks it means. Taking the easy way out would be my assessment.The couple's children said Tuesday that the couple died "peacefully and under circumstances of their own choosing" on Friday at a Zurich clinic run by the group Dignitas.
"After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems," said a statement from the couple's son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca.
The statement said Downes, who became Sir Edward when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991, had become almost blind and increasingly deaf. His wife, a former dancer, choreographer and television producer, had devoted years to working as his assistant. British newspapers reported that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Dignitas founder Ludwig A. Minelli said he could not confirm the deaths due to confidentiality rules.
Downes' manager, Jonathan Groves, said he was shocked by the couple's deaths, but called their decision "typically brave and courageous."
Reading the Bible should be a form of prayer. The Bible should be read in God's presence and as the unfolding of His mind. It is not just a book, but God's love letter to you. It is God's revelation, God's mind, operating through your mind and your reading, so your reading is your response to His mind and will. Reading it is aligning your mind and will with God's; therefore it is a fulfillment of the prayer "Thy will be done," which is the most basic and essential key to achieving our whole purpose on earth: holiness and happiness. I challenge every reader to give a good excuse (to God, not to me, or even just to yourself) for not putting aside fifteen minutes a day to use this fundamental aid to fulfilling the meaning of your life.
Both prayer and Bible reading are ways of listening to God. They should blend: our prayer should be biblical and our Bible reading prayerful.
In Catholic theology, the Bible is sacramental: it is a sign that is an occasion for grace. The Bible fits the two classic definitions of a sacrament: (1) a visible sign instituted by Christ to give grace and (2) a sign that effects what it signifies. However, unlike the seven sacraments, it does not work ex opere operato; it does not give grace by itself, but is dependent on our use of it. ...
Though it is not a sacrament, it has power. Its power comes from two wills, God's and ours. It is the Spirit's sword (Eph 6:17) that cuts our very being apart (Heb 4:12), though we must give it an opening by exposing our minds and hearts and wills to its cutting edge. When we do that, God's Kingdom comes to earth. For it first comes to that tiny but crucially important bit of earth that is your mind and will. Then it transforms your life, which your mind and will control. Then, through your life, your world.You Can Understand the Bible by Peter Kreeft
This was one of the texts used in the famous debate about the relationship of sun to earth in the Galileo case. But as the basis of that whole argument lay a misunderstanding by theologians of the day as regards the nature of the sacred texts. St. Augustine and St. Thomas had already explained the salvific meaning of Holy Writ, a teaching which Leo XIII ws later to sum up in these words: "The sacred writers, or better said, 'the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not seek to teach men those things (the knowledge of the nature of visible realities) that were of no consequence for their eternal salvation' (St. Augustine, De Gen, ad litt., 2, 9, 20); therefore, the sacred writers, while carrying out something much greater than an investigation of nature, sometimes describe objects and speak about them [...] as the language of the times demanded [...]. Since in ordinary discourse what is given to the sense is normally spoken of first, the sacred writer (as the Angelic Doctor has noted) 'addresses what appears to the senses' (Summa theologiae, I, q. 70, a.1, ad 3), that is, he takes account first of what God himself, in speaking to men, expressed in human terms in order to make himself understood by them" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, EB 121).
"The Lord hearkened to the voice of a man" (v. 14). What is really noteworthy is not so muchthe sun's standing still as the fact that God should vary his way of working to obey the words of a man. Meditating on this passage, St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori comments: "It comes as a surprise to hear that God obeyed Joshua when he ordered the sun to stand still on its circuit [...]. but it comes as a greater shock to see how with a few words from the priest God himself descends to the altars and to where ever he is called, putting himself in the priest's hands every time he is called upon to do so" (Notes for Preaching, 1, 1, 3).Joshua 10:13-14
The Navarre Bible, Joshua - Kings
Tradition and Revolution (cont'd.)Yet true contemplation is not arrived at by an effort of the mind. On the contrary, a man could easily lose his way in the forest of technical details which concern a professional theologian. But God gives true theologians a hunger born of humility, which cannot be satisfied with formulas and arguments, and which looks for something closer to God than analogy can bring you.
This serene hunger of the spirit penetrates the surface of words and goes beyond the human formulation of mysteries and seeks, in the humiliation of silence, intellectual solitude and interior poverty, the gift of a supernatural apprehension which words cannot truly signify.
Beyond the labor of argument it finds rest in faith and beneath the noise of discourse it apprehends the Truth, not in distinct and clear-cut definitions but in the limpid obscurity of a single intuition that unites all dogmas in one simple Light, shining into the soul directly from God's eternity, without the medium of created concept, without the intervention of symbols or of language or the likenesses of material things.
Here the Truth is One Whom we not only know and possess but by Whom we are known and possessed. Here theology ceases to be a body of abstractions and becomes a Living Reality Who is God Himself. And He reveals Himself to us in our total gift of our lives to Him. Here the light of truth is not something that exists for our intellect but One in Whom and for Whom all minds and spirits exist, and theology does not truly begin to be theology until we have transcended the language and separate concepts of theologians.
That is why St. Thomas put the Summa Theologica aside in weariness before it was finished, saying that it was "all straw."
And yet when the contemplative returns from the depths of his simple experience of God and attempts to communicate it to men, he necessarily comes once again under the control of the theologian and his language is bound to strive after the clarity and distinctness and accuracy that canalize Catholic tradition.
Therefore beware of the contemplative who says that theology is all straw before he has ever bothered to read any.New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
And then after walking all day through a golden haze of humid warmth that gathered about him like fine wet fleece, Valentine came to a great ridge of outcropping white stone overlooking the city of Pidruid. It was the provincial capital, sprawling and splendid, the biggest city he had come upon since-since?-the biggest in a long while of wandering, at any rate.That's the beginning of this classic fantasy ... which I have reviewed for SFFaudio. Whether you choose to read or listen, it is not to be missed.
There he halted, finding a seat at the edge of the soft, crumbling white ridge, digging his booted feet into the flaking ragged stone, and he sat there staring down at Pidruid, blinking as though newly out of sleep. On this summer day twilight was still some hours away, and the sun hung high to the southwest beyond Pidruid, out over the Great Sea. I will rest here for a while, Valentine thought, and then I will go down into Pidruid and find lodging for the night.
As he rested he heard pebbles tumbling past him from a higher point on the ridge. Unhurriedly he looked back the way he had come. A young herdsman had appeared, a boy with straw-colored hair and a freckled face, leading a train of fifteen or twenty mounts down the hill road. They were fat sleek purple-skinned beasts, obviously well looked after. The boy’s own mount looked older and less plump, a wise and toughened creature.
“Hoy!” he called down to Valentine. “Where are you bound?”
“Pidruid. And you?”
“The same. Bringing these mounts to market. Thirsty work it is, too. Do you have wine?”
“Some,” Valentine said. He tapped the flask at his hip, where a fiercer man might wear a weapon. “Good red mid-country wine. I’ll be sorry to see the last of it.”
So I'm thinkin' we're looking at more catechesis, whether done through our reading, scripture studies as a group, seeking guidance of spiritual directors, or more along those lines. There are many ways to learn to appreciate and understand the Church's teachings. It is incumbent upon us to pursue them.Tradition and Revolution (cont'd.)The first step to contemplation is faith; and faith begins with an assent to Christ teaching through His Church; fides ex auditu, qui vos ausit, me audit. "He that heareth you, heareth Me." And "faith cometh by hearing."
It is not the dry formula of a dogmatic definition by itself that pours light into the mind of a Catholic contemplative, but the assent to the content of that definition deepens and broadens into a vital, personal and incommunicable penetration of the supernatural truth which it expresses -- an understanding that is a gift of the Holy Ghost and which merges into the Wisdom of love, to possess Truth in its infinite Substance, God Himself.
The dogmas of the Catholic faith are not merely symbols or vague rationalizations which we accept as arbitrary points of stimulation around which good moral actions many form or develop -- still less is it true that any idea would serve just as well as those that have been defined, any old pious thought would foment this vague moral life in our souls. The dogmas defined and taught by the Church have a very precise, positive and definite meaning which those who have the grace to do so must explore and penetrate if they would live an integral spiritual life. For the understanding of dogma is the proximate and ordinary way to contemplation.
Everybody who can do so ought to acquire something of a theologians' accuracy and sharpness in appreciating a true sense of dogma. Every Christian ought to have as deep a comprehension of his belief as his state will allow him. And this means that every one ought to breathe the clean atmosphere of orthodox tradition and be able to explain his belief in correct terminology -- and terminology with a content of genuine ideas.New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
Val Con yos'Phelium, Clan Korval, future Delm and Second Speaker, was just doing a routine mission on some backwater planet in the middle of the universe when his life changed. After completing his mission, he encountered a small spitfire of a woman and saved her life, for which she promptly repaid him by bashing his head in. When Val Con woke up, the spitfire dumped him, but Val Con was intrigued, so he followed her and saved her life again. Now Miri Robertson, whose life he had saved twice, was forced to deal with Val Con, honor demanded it. She was intrigued by Val Con, whom she nicknamed "Tough Guy", but definitely didn't want a partner. As a former mercenary and bodyguard, she could handle herself and, as a target for the powerful Juntavas crime ring, she couldn't trust anyone...In order, the books I'm reading are:However, both Val Con and Miri, both of whom were used to working alone, soon found that they worked well as partners, at least they would if Miri would stop trying to ditch Val Con at every opportunity. Val Con knew that Miri was something special, she made him feel things that he hadn't felt in years, she made him feel alive again. Miri didn't know what was wrong with Val Con, but she knew it had something to do with what he called The Loop, some kind of brain implant that gave him the odds of success on every mission/action he made. As they grew closer together, both Val Con and Miri realized that the Department of the Interior, who had trained Val Con as an agent, must have some ulterior motive in plan. But in order to find out what it was, they had to stay alive...
We will hear more about where faithful adherence to the Church's dogma takes us in contemplation in Part IV.Tradition and Revolution (cont'd.)The notion of dogma terrifies men who do not understand the Church. They cannot conceive that a religious doctrine may be clothed in a clear, definite and authoritative statement without at once becoming static, rigid and inert and losing all its vitality. In their frantic anxiety to escape from any such conception they take refuge in a system of beliefs that is vague and fluid, a system in which truths pass like mists and waver and vary like shadows. They make their own personal selection of ghosts, in this pale, indefinite twilight of the mind. They take good care never to bring these abstractions out into the full brightness of the sun for fear of a full view of their unsubstantiality.
They favor the Catholic mystics with a sort of sympathetic regard, for they believe that these rare men somehow reached the summit of contemplation in defiance of Catholic dogma. Their deep union with God is supposed to have been an escape from the teaching authority of the Church, and an implicit protest against it.
But the truth is that the saints arrived at the deepest and most vital and also the most individual and personal knowledge of God precisely because of the church's teaching authority, precisely through the tradition that it is guarded and fostered by that authority.New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
Those people who claim to approach Christ whilst leaving his Church to one side, and even causing her harm, may one day get the same surprise as Saint Paul did when he was on his way to Damascus; I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. (Acts 9:5). And, the Venerable Bede reflects that He does not say "why are you persecuting my members, but why are you persecuting me?" For He is still affronted in his Body, which is the Church. Paul did not know until that moment that to persecute the Church was to persecute Jesus himself. when he speaks about the Church later on, he does so in words that describe her as the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), or simply as Christ (1 Cor 1:13); and he describes the faithful as members of Christ's Body (Rom 12:5). It is not possible to love, follow or listen to Christ, without loving, following or listening to the Church, because she is the presence, at once sacramental and mysterious, of Our Lord, who prolongs his saving mission in the world to the very end of time.In Conversation with God - Vol. 4 - Ordinary Time, Weeks 13-23
In Part III Merton will move on to discussing Catholic dogma.Tradition and Revolution (cont'd.)A revolution is supposed to be a change that turns everything completely around. But the ideology of political revolution will never change anything except appearances. There will be violence, and power will pass from one party to another, but when the smoke clears and the bodies of all the dead men are underground, the situation will be essentially the same as it was before: there will be a minority of strong men in power exploiting all the others for their own ends. There will be the same greed and cruelty and lust and ambition and avarice and hypocrisy as before.
For the revolutions of men change nothing. The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in Christian tradition, renewing our participation in the Life that is the Light of men.
To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of dead, human conservatism that tends to form around the Church the way barnacles gather on the hull of a ship, all this talk of dynamism sounds foolish.
Each individual Christian and each new age of the Church has to make this rediscovery, this return to the source of Christian life.
It demands a fundamental act of renunciation that accepts the necessity of starting out on the way to God under the guidance of other men. This acceptance can be paid for only by sacrifice, and ultimately only a gift of God can teach us the difference between the dry outer crust of formality which the Church sometimes acquires from the human natures that compose it, and the living inner current of Divine Life which is the only real Catholic tradition.New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
