Thursday, June 30, 2016

Genesis 14

bram is forced (not for the last time) to rescue Lot, who has gotten himself tangled up in the politics of the region and chosen the losing side. Blood is always thicker than water. Your family members are God's personal assignment for you while you are on this Earth. You should do your best to bless them, help them, put up with their failures and cultivate good relationships with them. Abram risked everything, formed up an army of three-hundred-some odd men, going up (probably outnumbered) against the armies of five kings, all to save Lot his nephew.

We also see that Abram tithes to the Christ-like Melchisedek, who offers bread and wine to God, foreshadowing the Eucharist, blesses Abram on God's behalf, and offers blessing to God himself. In all this we see the prefigurement of Jesus, if not, as some theologians speculate, a manifestation of Jesus himself before the Incarnation.

But should Christians tithe? No. The Catechism is very clear that every Christian should give what they can. Tithing was a part of the old covenant, and like Seventh Day Adventists who abstain from cheeseburgers for religious reasons, demanding people adhere to them is not in keeping with the spirit of the gospel, or the interpretation of the Catholic Church. See Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2043: "The faithful are obliged to help with the needs of the Church, each according to his own ability."

Paul has similar advice:

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. -2 Cor 9:6-8 (Set to Music for Memorization Purposes)

We should also consider Jesus words at the Sermon on the Mount:
23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister[a]has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister,[b] and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court[c] with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. -Matthew 5:23-26 (Set to music for Memorization Purposes)
Some take this merely as a command not to hold grudges, but I believe the mention of the grudge in conjunction with giving money to the Temple, and the next precept which is also about money you owe makes it fairly likely the "grudge" discussed is monetary in nature, and so the lesson to be learned is, don't be giving large sums to the Church until you're out of debt yourself. Focus on getting out of debt, then you can give to others.

In refusing to take anything from the King of Sodom, as we will learn, a thoroughly evil and wicked kingdom that God will take care of epically, Abram sets an example for us: don't have any business dealings with others or even profit from situations where you're dealing with evil men. It's not worth it. Take care of what you need to take care of to satisfy justice, then go home.



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RCIA: My Experience, My Critique

ne of the most annoying parts of becoming Catholic was RCIA, or Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (for the uninitiated). I was glad to do it, having come to the conclusion that I should from my historical and theological reading. But at the same time, I felt that the entire tone was wrong.

The leader said to us on the first day, and this is very nearly verbatim, "No matter what tradition you come from, whether you're Baptist, or Lutheran or Whatever, you'll always be Baptist, you'll always be Lutheran. We just want to broaden your experience and welcome you." Now there is a real truth that vaguely resembles this statement, in that, all that which is good in Lutheranism, Baptist Religion, and Whateverism, is preserved and perfected in the Catholic Church.

Yet the manner in which this person communicated made me fear that that is not what the speaker meant to convey. Rather, what I got out of the message was a Relativist critique of the very things that drew me into that classroom in the first place. I didn't want to be a Lutheran or associated with that brand any longer because I came to the conclusion that Lutheranism is false. I  wanted an affirmation of all the things that Catholicism offers that other religions, and Christian heresies do not: the Presence of Christ's Body, Soul and Divinity in the Elements of Communion, the salvation offered by the sacrament of Reconciliation, the trust that we have in the Teaching of the Church, which has never been subtracted from, but only enriched over time. (When you think of it, that is a very good reason to believe Christianity and Catholicism in particular are true, given the improbability that over twenty centuries the Church has never universally defined anything that was later redefined to be false. It seems fairly implausible given how fickle Man is, and how fashions change.)

The problem, I believe, is that RCIA has become little more than a mechanism for one to bring their Protestant spouse or spouse-to-be into the Catholic Church, for reasons of social convenience. After all, one would not say, " No matter what tradition you come from, whether you're Atheist or Agnostic or Whatever, you'll always be an Atheist, you'll always be an Agnostic. We just want to broaden your experience and welcome you." Unlikely.

And indeed, I believe there is good in the Atheist perspective (usually distorted and disfigured by their habitual mockery and pride) that Christian heretics and even many Catholics today lack. You should not uncritically accept something to be true just because it feels right. Your feelings can lead you astray. You are a rational being, and God doesn't want you to be blind, but as an informed person to willingly accept him as the ruler of Creation and of your life. Atheists reject blind faith. But blind faith is no Faith at all.

The Reason and Faith are the two wings on which the human spirit rises up to God, as Pope St. John Paul the Great said while he dwelt among us. As I've written here before, Jesus was disappointed in Thomas' doubt not because Thomas was unwilling to set aside his rationality: "Dead men don't rise from the dead. Jesus is dead, therefore he cannot have visited us." Jesus was disappointed primarily because Thomas had seen Jesus' miracles, knew his character, and yet could not take the rational step beyond his five senses, using the sense of Reason drawing of the evidence he already had of Jesus' character, to conclude that what the other disciples told him must be true. The eyes of faith are the eyes of logic, the eyes that recognize a pattern and move beyond what they see with their eyes, the mere objects, to what is behind the mere objects or confirmed facts and underlies them. How do you know your mother loves you? Can you deduce it? Can you prove it in a step-wise fashion that would satisfy a mathematician? No. Of course not. But the pattern of nurturing behavior and care that your mother has (hopefully) taken to raise you and provide for your needs leads you toward the conclusion, the inference, that your mother does indeed love you. Faith in God is the same way. But we have given up the ground of Reason, of reasonableness, to atheists and agnostics in exchange for a weak and irrational feel-good religion.

In short, we have lost the drive and motivation for evangelization. We have lost the conviction--must we call it Triumphalism? Isn't it just common sense?--that when people hold mutually exclusive positions, one or both of them must be wrong.

Catholics in America, and increasingly abroad, have lost their confidence that the Church is Right, and her opponents are wrong. And that's why we're dying. That's why there are so few vocations: people don't really believe that being called means anything. That's why there are so many divorces in the Church: the marriage no longer felt right. And that's why there are so few educated Catholics in existence: contraception was what felt like the right thing to do, given our desire to keep up with the Joneses and maintain our standard of living.

Incidentally, the African priest who led the RCIA class I was in was great. He was much more diplomatic than I, but he did not surrender the Truth in the name of Diplomacy. His teaching made the class bearable, although he only taught a few of the lessons over the several-week course. I wish RCIA would become a break-away point where people of many different backgrounds could be convinced and convicted that they need to join, not because they were in love with Mary Sue, but because they are and will always be in love with Jesus Christ.



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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Genesis 13

eading this chapter, I am reminded of the legendary (but true) meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the founders of the two most influential orders in medieval history. They met in order to see if they could join forces and combine their orders. But they determined it was better that they remain separate, since their methods and spiritualities were so different.

So, sometimes, it is necessary to part ways even with one's kindred in order to prosper and receive God's call. It is interesting that only after Abram separates from Lot does God give him the promise that his descendants would be numerous as the grains of dust.

Looking at it from Lot's perspective, however, I have to ask myself, shouldn't I have said to Abram: "No, brother. Take my possessions, and let me be as a slave to you, but do not depart from me. For the Lord is with you." Sometimes if you just go with the flow, you're going to miss out and even fall. Sometimes, you have to be insistent. The eventual fate of Lot and his family shows he probably would have been better off had he abandoned whatever worldly possessions he needed to to stick with Abram.



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An Analogy

nyone who has seriously studied any musical instrument (including the human voice) knows the value of a metronome. It is human nature to slow down for more difficult pieces of music even if the music does not say ritard, slow down. Because sometimes the music is difficult enough that it is next to impossible for a musician of ordinary skill to get it right the first time. Instead, we practice it over and over again with the artificial spots where we slow down in order to get the notes right, but in the process we lose the timing. If left uncorrected, this can cause the entire piece to sound disjointed, slowing down and speeding up at inappropriate times.


I would argue that we can draw two analogies. The first analogy is that living our lives without using scripture as a guide is like practicing a difficult piece of music without a metronome. The second analogy is that interpreting scripture without considering the reflection and inspiration of the Catholic Church on the text is like practicing a difficult piece of music without a metronome.

The metronome can be as annoying as all get out. I have literally yelled out at my metronome (which looks similar to the one pictured above: I can't stand those ugly digital things.) when I've been trying to get a either a complicated rhythm down or get it up to tempo. It sometimes even feels like I am correct, and it is the metronome that is losing or gaining time.

Martin Luther at his trial in Worms, Germany:


Unless I am convicted [convinced] of error by the testimony of Scripture or (since I put no trust in the unsupported authority of Pope or councils, since it is plain that they have often erred and often contradicted themselves) by manifest reasoning, I stand convicted [convinced] by the Scriptures to which I have appealed, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, I cannot and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, nor open to us.

One might as well say, unless I am convinced by the notes on the page of music I am studying, or by my internal sense of rhythm that I am out of tempo,  since I put no trust in metronomes or audiences, since it is well known that mechanical devices have failed before and audiences have had poor taste, I will not alter the way I am playing the music.

Just as the metronome is unnatural in its mechanical adherence to pendulum motion independent of the stresses and anxieties of the moment, so the reflection of the Church is unnaturally protected by God, even as Jesus Christ said to his Apostles while he lived and was personally present on this Earth:


But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. -John 16:7-13

But was Jesus speaking to the Apostles only? Not at all, for speaking of the same Spirit that would come to them, earlier in the fourteenth chapter of John He says to them:

“If you love me, keep my commands. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. 

Forever. Absolute. Independent of time and its ravages and strains. The true Church of Jesus guides the people of God into all the truth, for all time after Jesus. Only the Catholic Church can lay claim to having been there, teaching the same message without subtraction, but only with further explanation, answering the people's questions as they arise, from the time of Jesus Christ to the present.

The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament. As the Doctors of the Chruch debate the true nature of the Eucharist, true Body and Blood of Our Lord, in the background, to the Left, we observe a Church under construction. The Church of God is being guided to the correct interpretation regarding each new question about what Jesus' Gospel and will for Christians is.
This guiding, like the metronome's guiding, is unnatural. Unlike the metronome, it is  not only unnatural, it is supernatural. Indeed, my metronome may break if I drop it enough times, and fail to keep time, but as the Holy Spirit guides the Church, he is independent of all shocks and destruction. Kingdoms may fall, and individual parishes and Christian communities may fall into heresy. But God has promised to guide Christians with one teaching, forever. Therefore, I believe in one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church. I believe in the crystallization of the Church's teaching, as it has been recorded in Scripture. And I accept my dependence on that which is outside myself.





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Sunday, June 26, 2016

Genesis 12







istory does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, said Mark Twain. We shall see the same pattern in the Bible, as the sons of Abram adopt the same strategy as Abram himself, fleeing into Egypt to escape destruction during a famine later in Genesis. After Abram, Joseph will be cast into slavery only to be exalted, and 400 years later the theme will be recapitulated, as all of Israel is in slavery to be exalted over the Egyptians defeated by YHWH in the red sea.


Sarai is also placed in a kind of slavery endangering God's plan when she is taken into Pharaoh's harem, putting her in danger of being made Pharaoh's wife and bearing his children rather than taking her place as an ancestor of the Messiah, and the Mother of the whole Jewish people. But she is saved by God afflicting the Egyptians with plagues, just as Joseph will be delivered from imprisonment by his ability to predict Seven years of famine in Egypt, and just as the nation of Israel would be delivered on account of the ten plagues.

Just as Abram receives riches at the hands of Pharaoh but loses that which is most dear to him, so Israel will for a time be favored in Egypt, and even after leaving, will desire the "meat pots" of Egypt while wandering in the desert. Yet the wealth of the Egyptians in exchange for doing the will of God is always a bad exchange. Israel must be free, and her destiny is to serve YHWH in the Promised Land.

In this beautiful woman Sarai, we may also recognize a type of Mary the Mother of Our Lord. Just as Sarai was not to be defiled by intercourse with Pharaoh, miraculously spared from the Egyptian king who would have destroyed the sanctity of her union with Abram, so the Virgin Mary is undefiled, unharmed by King Herod's attempt to destroy her and her promised child, spared likewise miraculously. In their names we may also see a similarity, for Sarai means "quarrelsome", which would later be elevated to Sarah, "princess" in Hebrew, Mary means "bitterness", but the bitterness of Mary's earthly life would be used by God to incarnate his son into the World, that his son might know the bitterness of poverty, but likewise Mary will be elevated to be the Queen of Heaven, true Mother of God.

We too are called to a fairer country than this in which we sojourn. No pleasure on Earth, no honors and no merely temporal reward should ever be able to call us away from our true reward at the end of a natural virtuous life, the Promised Land of Heaven, united with our Lord Messiah.




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Immortality through Science Inherently Evil?

n the Old Testament reading today, God tells Elijah that he wants him to anoint a successor, essentially telling him that he will die, and God needs someone else to continue the work.

This brings up an interesting question. No doubt having recently reread the Genesis 3 account of man's fall and how the Tree of Life was denied him, the question is made more pressing. If you could indefinitely prolong your life by means, for example, of replacing your used up organs with synthetic ones, cleaning out the gunk of oxidized, misfolded or glycosylated proteins from your body's natural cells that would otherwise eventually kill you, would it be inherently morally wrong to do so?

I suspect the answer is Yes. God has limited man's years on Earth as a mercy to Man, and it is not right to take that Mercy away. The real impending nature of death, its inevitability, gives urgency to Life, and causes us to approach our lives with vigor.

Accepting one's death, and the reality that we are only a small part of God's plan for the salvation of this world is perhaps the final test of Faith, the final dying to the flesh that the Spirit may live on and rise up to God. So now to die is gain, but to live is Christ.

But since organ transplants are already performed that prolong people's lives, the question is, where would you draw the line? I'll leave that one to the Vatican.




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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Genesis 11

ere again we see the importance of continuity with the end of the eleventh Chapter giving us an account of the Main Man of Genesis, Abraham, or Abram for now, and his origins as a true son of Noah, from the line blessed by Noah, Shem. First though, the account of the tower of Babel bears some mentioning. 

Doesn't God sound like a jerk when he says, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech” ? I mean, come on God, all they want to do is build a big tower! Why are You being such a killjoy?

But I think the key verse in order to understand is "This is only the beginning of what they will do." When you think on it, that's a pretty ominous prediction. Imagine a World where Herod the King of Judaea or a man similar to him was king over the whole World. How then could God incarnate the Christ through a natural birth without him being destroyed? True, the Roman Empire stretched across the Western world, but the different customs and languages of the peoples ensured that the Romans used the existing rulers of the people as their proxies, which allowed the Holy Family to escape into another foreign jurisdiction when Herod tried to destroy the Christ child. The multiplicity of nations was an important part of God's plan, to allow him the freedom to intervene subtly in human events, and to ensure that no evil empire could take over the whole world. 

Tall towers gave a tactical advantage to those who had them in their cities. Someone with a tall enough tower would, according to a Jewish flat-earth cosmology, be able to see out over the whole Earth. They would be able to shoot arrows and throw rocks down on immediate attackers, making an attack difficult. 

It is also interesting that the architects of Babel decided to use bricks instead of stone for their city, and tar instead of mortar. The very use of "instead of" suggests that there was something wrong with their creation even in its physical conception. They used the wrong ingredients. Furthermore, if we do a word search on the term "Brick" or "Bricks" we find 15 references: The first occurs here in Genesis. Nine of them are in reference to the bricks the enslaved Israelites were forced to make for Pharaoh in the book of Exodus and Judith 5:11. In 2 Samuel 12:31 David enslaves the Ammonites and forces them to make bricks among other things. Isaiah 9:10 says “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” Isaiah 65:3 describes Israel as "a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks." Ezekiel 4:1, God has Ezekiel portray the siege of Jerusalem on a brick as a punishment from God. Nahum 3:14 is addressed to the Ninevites, mocking them, telling them to "take hold of the brick mold," although it will not avail them to avert the destruction that God has appointed against their wickedness. 

So, bricks in the Bible, aside from their mention as the material used to make the tower of Babel, are associated with slavery, inferior work, idolatry, and God's divine punishment. By making these associations, we can get a better idea of what was wrong with Babel, and the connotations that may have been drawn in the minds of the original audience when they were told that the masters of Babel used brick instead of stone.

I recently read a delightful fantasy novel by one of my favorite Catholic authors, John C. Wright, called Somewhither. In it he has his protagonist accidentally fall through an inter-dimensional gateway, landing him in a World where the languages were never confused, and the forces of the Tower of Babel rule over the whole Earth. It's quite a dystopia, with the people living under a horribly oppressive police state and most people in one or another kind of abject slavery.

So we can be confident God knew what he was doing in diminishing the power of man yet again (after keeping him mortal by kicking him out of Eden, destroying the Nephilim with the flood, and limiting man's years to 120) by confusing the languages, because man is too evil to be trusted with power, and moreover since every good thing comes from God, it is completely His right to take goods away that are misused. What might look like the caprice of a malevolent deity is the intricate fabric of a master plan for salvation.



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Friday, June 24, 2016

Gestures for Mass

s it wrong that I am disturbed that the congregation I worship with when I am in Ormond Beach, as I was this past weekend, almost uniformly does not bow at the appropriate time during the Creed? Does that make me judgmental? Is there anything wrong with being judgmental? God knows as I do that I fail to live up to the high standards of my religion. But it seems such a small thing to bow when you should. Why is it so often neglected in North America?





Entrance Rites
Make the sign of the cross with holy water (a sign of baptism) upon entering the church.
Genuflect toward the tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament and the Altar of Sacrifice before entering the pew. (If there is no tabernacle in the sanctuary, or it is not visible, bow deeply, from the waist, toward the altar before entering the pew.)
Kneel upon entering the pew for private prayer before Mass begins.
Stand for the entrance procession.
Bow when the crucifix, a visible symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, passes you in the procession. (If there is a bishop, bow when he passes, as a sign of recognition that he represents the authority of the Church and of Christ as shepherd of the flock.)
Remain standing for the entrance rites. Make the sign of the cross with the priest at the beginning of Mass.
Strike your breast at the “mea culpa(s)” (“through my fault”) in the Confiteor.
Bow and make the sign of the cross when the priest says “May Almighty God have mercy…”
Bow your head when you say “Lord, have mercy” during the Kyrie.
If there is a Rite of Sprinkling (Asperges), make the sign of the cross when the priest sprinkles water from the aspergillum in your direction.
Throughout the Mass, bow your head at every mention of the name of Jesus and every time the Doxology [“Glory be”] is spoken or sung. Also when asking the Lord to receive our prayer.
Gloria: bow your head at the name of Jesus. (“Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son…”, “You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ…” )
Liturgy of the Word
Sit for the Scripture readings.
Stand for the Gospel at the Alleluia verse.
When the priest announces the Gospel, trace a cross with the thumb on head, lips and heart. This gesture is a form of prayer for the presence of the Word of God in one’s mind, upon one’s lips, and in one’s heart.
Sit for the homily.
Creed: Stand; bow your head at name of Jesus; on most Sundays bow during the Incarnatus (“by the power of the Holy Spirit … and was made man”); on the solemnities of Christmas and the Annunciation all genuflect at this moment.
Make the sign of the Cross at the conclusion of the Creed at the words “I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Liturgy of the Eucharist
Sit during the offertory.
Stand as the priest says “Pray brethren that my sacrifice and yours…” and remain standing to respond, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands…”
If incense is used, the congregation bows toward the thurifer when he bows to the congregation both before and after he has incensed them.
The congregation remains standing until the end of the Sanctus (“Holy, holy”), when they kneel for the entire Eucharistic Prayer.
At the moment of the Consecration of each element, bow the head and say silently “My Lord and my God”, acknowledging the Presence of Christ on the altar. These are the words of Saint Thomas when he realized that it was truly Christ who stood before him (John 20:28). Jesus responded, “Because you have seen me, you believed. Blessed are they that do not see and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
Stand at the priest’s invitation to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Reverently fold your hands and bow your head as you pray the Lord’s Prayer.
Remain standing to exchange the sign of peace, if the invitation is made. (The sign of peace may be either a handshake or a bow of the head towards those nearest you, accompanied by the words “Peace be with you”.)
In reciting (or singing) the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God…”), strike the breast at the words “Have mercy upon us”.
Kneel at the end of the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God…”).
Bow your head and strike your breast as you say, Domine non sum dignus... (Lord, I am not worthy...)
Reception of Communion
Leave the pew (without genuflecting) and walk reverently toward the altar, with hands folded in prayer.
Make a gesture of reverence as you approach the priest in procession to receive Communion. If you are kneeling at the Communion rail, no additional gesture is made before receiving.
You may receive the host either on the tongue or in the hand.
If the former, open your mouth and extend your tongue, so the priest can place the Host properly. If the latter, place one hand over the other hand, palms open, to receive the Host. With the lower hand, take the Host and reverently place it in your mouth. (See Holy See’s 1985 directives).
If you are carrying a child, it is much less awkward to receive on the tongue.
If you also receive from the chalice, make the same gesture of reverence when you approach the minister to receive.
Make the sign of the cross after you have received Communion.
Kneel in prayer when you return to your pew after Communion, until the priest sits down, or until he says “Let us pray”. (GIRM 160 American adaptation says that people may “stand, sit or kneel”.)
Conclusion of Mass
Stand for the concluding prayers.
Make the sign of the cross at the final blessing, as the priest invokes the Trinity.
Remain standing until all ministers have processed out. (If there is a recessional, bow in reverence to the crucifix as it passes by.)
If there is a hymn for the recessional, remain standing in your pew until it concludes. If there is no concluding hymn, remain in your pew until all the ministers have gone out of the main body of the church.
After the Mass is concluded, you may kneel for a private prayer of thanksgiving.
Genuflect reverently toward the Blessed Sacrament and the Altar of Sacrifice as you leave the pew, and leave the nave (main body) of the church in silence.
Make the sign of the cross with holy water as you leave the church, a reminder of our baptismal obligation to carry Christ’s Gospel into the world.

Genesis 10

he genealogies of the Bible meant a lot more to the ancient Jews than they do to many modern Christian readers who tend to skim through them. The genealogies gave them a sense of belonging and continuity with the past. Their mission was to continue the genealogy. Among them lived the ancestors of the Messiah promised in Genesis 3, or perhaps even the Messiah himself.

Genesis most likely preserves for us the oral tradition of their origins, tracing back to the first man. It also seems noteworthy that in this genealogy are the ancestors of the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Ninevites and other traditional enemies of the Israelites. By recording them as distant cousins, the Jewish scriptures affirm that all people are made in God's image, whereas other cultures might treat other races as subhuman, justifying their subjugation or annihilation. Like the fact that both male and female are created in God's image in Genesis 1 and 2, affirming the dignity of the woman; Genesis 10 affirms that all tribes are the sons of Adam and possess the divine image, capable of being brought into the covenant with God as the prophets would foretell.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Genesis 9

t's strange that Noah, righteous man that he was, who walked before God blameless, was capable of becoming drunk. I have heard in homilies before that Noah was a drunk, but I see no evidence in the text that Noah's drunkenness was habitual. Only on one occasion did he drink too much. 

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that Noah's planting the first vineyard was a fulfillment of his father Lamech's prophecy over him: "Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands." Wine is not inherently evil. It is intended by God to be a good thing, to lighten the heart and provide the emotional atmosphere for enjoyment. Jesus turned water into wine, which provides the material for some truly hilarious Southern Baptist exegesis (or more accurately, introgesis) on the text, if you've never heard an "It was actually grape juice, not wine" homily.

Wine is not evil. But like all goods, it can be twisted into evil by carelessness or lack of proper ordering of goods in a man's heart. We don't know exactly why Noah became drunk, but we can take this as a warning to avoid the near occasions of sin in our own lives. Because if Noah, a man of intense faith and perseverance, even in the face of ridicule and dishonor, who loved God and was alone in all the earth loyal to God, could become drunk, any of us are susceptible to fall according to our personal faults.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Portent

In your smile I see the Joy that brought the Universe forth.
Your eyes are deep wells that teach me to contemplate the Infinite.
Your hair is long and beautiful, O my love, whom I sought, but no more.
For God is teaching me to do without.
His Faith demands a Faithfulness I have not yet known.
Love that endures all things, suffers all things. Patience in tears.

So I wait for you, my Lord, to fulfill the reality these shadows dimly reveal.



Genesis 8

he Eleventh and final Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh contains the account of Utnapishtim, which is very similar to the Noah account though distorted with polytheism and pride. It can be found here. In comparing the accounts, I do not believe like some that ancient Judaism and Catholicism are just two religions among many, or that the Utnapishtim myth demonstrates that the Bible is just a load of false myths. Rather, I believe that either the events really occurred, and the Bible tells a literally accurate story, as would seem to be the case based on archaeological evidence of a large ark they have found near Mt. Ararat; or the Jews took the Babylonian myth, itself a half-remembered story from their ancestors, and used it as the vehicle to tell the truth about the living God: God always keeps his promises, he has complete control over all of nature, and he will protect his chosen people.

I also find it interesting that the dove seems to be more central to the Bible story than in the Gilgamesh epic in which a dove, raven and swallow are released. Like in the Gilgamesh epic, the raven is released and does not come back to Noah. But in the Gilgamesh epic, the raven is released last, with the dove and a swallow having been released, but forced to return since they can find nowhere to live elsewhere.

The Genesis story is more interesting because although the raven is sent out first (presumably when the flood waters are higher) it does not return, but the dove does return to Noah, since it cannot find a place to rest. The second time it returns to Noah with an olive branch, and being sent out a third time, the dove does not return, but remains on the Earth.

Mystically, I think we may understand  that the dove represents the Holy Spirit, and the three primary stages of Salvation History.

In the first phase, God sent out the Holy Spirit to the Jewish people, by giving them the Law of Moses, the prophets and all of the salvific events of the Old Testament. But the Jews failed to keep the covenant and rejected God's Spirit. Thus the dove flies back to God, represented by Noah.

The second time, the dove returns to Noah with an olive leaf. In the ancient world, we know that Olives represented royalty (Kings were anointed with olive oil.), peace and victory. This second sending of the Holy Spirit represents the Incarnation of Christ, accomplished by the Holy Spirit's overshadowing of the Virgin Mary. Through this event, God would accomplish peace for his people, victory against sin and the devil, and the divine kingship of Jesus Christ, confirmed at the Crucifixion, "Jesus King of the Jews."

Finally, Jesus told the disciples that he had to leave them so that the Spirit could come down. When Noah sends the Spirit the third time, it does not come back, but remains upon the Earth. Similarly the Holy Spirit remains in the hearts of those who are Baptized and in a state of Grace, not having committed mortal sin. The Sacraments keep the Spirit blazing in our souls, representing God's gift of spiritual Life that has returned to counteract the death that drowned the world through human sin.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Genesis 7

y destroying the whole world, God foreshadowed the kind of sacrifice he asks of Christians through the baptismal covenant. The Christian does not live for himself and foregoes the pleasures of the earthly world, its turbulent tides that are ultimately deadly for the embracing ark of the Church, which is why many traditional churches' roofs are intentionally designed to look like the ribbing of a ship. The ark is lifesaving, but it can also feel confining, stuffy, perhaps Noah's greatest complaint may have been the stench of all those animals. Still, the realization must ultimately be that no life is perfect. There is a price to pay for everything. And the price of eternal life is 40 days and 40 nights in this valley of tears.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Is Christianity a Communal or Personal Religion? Yes.

nce upon a time there was a wonderful God sitting on his throne amidst a great light whose expression was of magnificent beauty, glory and power. 

Around the throne were countless people enjoying his presence and worshipping him with songs and praise. But one of that number noticed that every now and again God gave him a wink

At first he thought it must be an illusion but it happened again and again. 

Finally, one day the crowd moved and drifted about in such a way that he came very close to God. Then again he saw the wink and the look straight at him, justhim amongst all those others, and he heard a whisper: Hey, come round the back after that last show, if you can spare the time.  

Well of course he did go. So after the last performance that night, round the back there was this God waiting. 

Hallo, God said, come up here to my little hill overlooking the sea, I would like you to come and sit with me on my lawn and Daisy patch. We can have a cup of tea together and a pipe and look at the view. 

I love to take my costume off at the end of the day and relax. Although I have all that worship and praise, there are times when I like to get away from it all and be quiet. I like to come here and look at the sea on a lovely day, with the mountains beyond and the feeling of this little garden up here on the hill. 

For although I have so many beautiful children to look after and enjoy, and although they say such nice things about me and serve me in every sort of way... I get so lonely. 

You see, I don't have many friends

No one recognises me after the show when my make-up is off. I have to be like you saw me, for they all expect it of me; but I am more delighted than you can imagine that you have come here with me so that we can sit together and I can show you this small garden and the view from my heart. 

From the Conclusion to A Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle (1974)

What I feel Arkle fails to realize is the nature of God as Community (He is Trinity), and so the throngs worshipping Him take up his nature in the act of communal worship. Still, I think there is something here. Alongside our pursuit of God through communal worship, the personal nature of Catholic religion is just as integral, independent of any other human being--like the faithfulness of Elijah when he thought all the rest of Israel had succumbed to Baal worship, still he chose to follow God's commands. Our love for God must be independent, with its own inner life.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Genesis 6

ow I knew that we might come up against potentially heretical notions if I went long enough, and my thought today may be heretical, but if it is, I ask the Church's forgiveness, because in writing I only seek to know and love God and help others to do the same by exploring God's Word (Jesus Christ) and God's word (Scripture and sacred tradition). I am by no means infallible or adverse to posting corrections when it is made clear to me I have gone off the rails. What follows is partly a speculation and not presented dogmatically.

We hear in Genesis 6 that God was "sorry" that he had made mankind, so wicked had they become. One wonders, given the current state of affairs in international and American national politics, what on Earth they could have done to upset God more than we ourselves have--then again, it is by no means certain that we ourselves are not even more wicked collectively, since God promised he would not destroy the world by water again, and many disasters have struck us, man-made and otherwise, lately.

This "sorry"ness is often described as an anthropomorphism by theologians, for God is a spirit and is incapable of being sorry for anything, because He exists outside of time and space. Yet I wonder if indeed God could be literally sorry, because He incarnated himself into the World through His Son. Furthermore, it has been speculated that Jesus came down upon the Earth either as theophanies or even in his incarnated form. Time and space do not bound God in the same way that it bounds created beings. As we know from Revelation, Jesus Christ was "slain from the foundation of the World." If his death is an event that encompasses all of time, might it not also be true that his incarnation stretches through all of time, although causally brought about by the Ever-virgin Mary in a particular time and place? And if this is the case, might not God literally grieve, through the person of the Son, over the Creation that had misused the gift of free will given to them?

At any rate, only through Jesus Christ can man understand the Father, by receiving the Holy Spirit which proceeds from both. By incarnating, Jesus brings the human into the divine sphere, makes that which is corruptible eternal, and theopomorphizes fallen humankind.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Genesis 4 Recap

uck would have it that I seem to have deleted my entry on Genesis 4. So, for my own sake I want to go over what I remember from the entry 2 days ago.

We focused on Lamech, the grandson of the murderer Cain, who went doubly wrong, first by being the first recorded polygamist, and second by following in his grandfather's footsteps and committing the second recorded homicide in scripture.

I also noted that in both cases Lamech appears to deceive himself. In the first case of bigamy, he paints his lust for two women with the title "marriage" although such a marriage is a sham, since real marriage was intended from the beginning to be between one man and one woman. Secondly, he calls his murder a kind of "vengeance" and claims that Cain took "vengeance" on Abel, when in fact, he murdered him out of jealousy. Thus evil often tries to create false justifications for itself.

We see in Lamech a man ruled by his passions: lust and wrath, and blinded to his sin and the sin of his grandfather.  

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Genesis 5

ere in Genesis 5 we meet another Lamech, this one of the line of Seth, the father of Noah. According to some research I read, Lamech may have originally meant "to make low". This is actually rather fascinating, since we can see how it might well apply to both characters. Lamech of Cain made humanity lower by being the first polygamist and second recorded murderer, and he also "laid low" his victim. On the other hand, Lamech of the line of Seth may have been called this due to righteous humility. He appears to know the Lord, YHWH, and passes on this knowledge to his son, Noah. Lamech shows humility through his prophecy over Noah: "Out of the ground that YHWH has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” 

Lamech appears to accept that God has cursed the Earth, calling him by his proper name,YHWH. But he senses that his child is different, that somehow, Noah will be a deliverance from the curse that God has placed upon the land. 

Lamech's prophecy had two fulfillments. On the one hand, God would use Noah to help him propagate the human race while destroying the rest of it and restoring the land to its pre-cursed state. On the other hand, Noah was the first recorded wine-maker. Thus the inebriation from alcohol and relief it gives from toil when celebrating may be seen as another fulfillment of Lamech's words.

But turning back to the flood as it concerns Lamech's prophecy, I suppose life is often this way. We have our plans, but God has a greater one. Lamech probably didn't imagine, and would have been scared out of his mind if he knew how God would bring his prophecy over Noah to pass. Nevertheless, his prophecy over Noah was true, and Noah helped to lift the curse of God from the land, by propagating the human race into the new age spared from the wickedness of his own generation.

Lamech lived 595 years after Noah was born. And the flood waters came when Noah was 600 as we learn in the next chapter, which means that Lamech missed the flood by 5 years. This might remind us that sometimes death is a mercy from God, nor is natural death something to be hated or feared. For those who are righteous, death is truly the mercy of God, for which reason God blocked Adam and Eve from the tree of life in Chapter 2. For to live forever in sinfulness would be to be doomed to corruption and to live without hope of being united with God in heaven. As St. Paul also says, "To live is Christ, but to die is gain." Christians need not fear death, but should consider it deliverance from the toils of our hands, into the land of rest. 

Sunday, June 12, 2016

The Jihad Came to My City

It’s Here.

I woke this morning to the news that the Islamic Jihad has finally come to Orlando, FL, my home city where I live. Actually, when I awoke all that was known was that someone had shot up a bar downtown. Only as I was coming out of Mass and going to breakfast did I learn that the perpetrator was an Islamic terrorist and perpetrated the most deadly mass shooting in American History.
52 people were taken to local hospitals, and over 50 have been reported dead. There was briefly a hostage situation before the terrorist was dispatched. Hailing from Port St. Lucie, another Floridian city to the Southeast, Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen, was reported to be wearing a suicide vest when he attacked the night club. The danger is over. For now.
This all happened about three miles from where I live.

Reflection

I am still in shock that this has happened so close to my home, but I cannot say I am intellectually surprised. Western Civilization is under attack by two very different forces: Those of Islam on the one hand (no, not militant Islam, just Islam), and on the other hand, the Secularist “progressives” of the Left. Between these two forces, each of them a heresy of Christianity, we the men of the West face a great challenge, to our way of life and to the Christian religion.
Islam is a Christian heresy, since it involves the sons of Abraham, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the One True Almighty God, but reorganizes them into a system devoid of the concepts of divine Grace, or of Man being drawn up to God through the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, revealed to us through Scripture and the Church’s sacramental graces. Islam emphasizes divine justice and God’s majesty to the detriment of God’s mercy. “Neither then do I judge thee,” said our Lord to the woman who according to later Christian tradition washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair in thanks for the sins he forgave. Islam, historically,  knows no such mercy. The lawbreakers, those who bring chaos to the world, must be put into submission to the unfathomable Will of God, by conquest and Jihad.
Likewise, Secularism is a Christian heresy, indeed it is the flip side of Islam. For while Islam does away with divine Grace, and the forgiveness of sins (which is impossible without the Incarnation of Our Lord), Secularism declares that there are no sins to forgive, and denies the existence of any transcendent Justice. Secularism denies human responsibility for sin, instead blaming the evils of society upon man’s environment and education. While the Secularists have imbibed the Christian virtue of Mercy from their religious fathers against whom they rebelled, they possess no good reason to uphold this virtue, for they too reject the incarnation of God into our world as Jesus of Nazareth. Love is nothing more than misdirected sexual instinct, any personal sacrifice is an illusion. While Islam is the enemy from without, slaying our citizens with obvious malice, Secularism is the enemy within, slaying the unborn and now the elderly and sick through euthanasia, denying the intrinsic dignity of the human person.
There are nice Muslims, and there are nice Secularists, but Islam and Secularism are both poisonous ideologies dangerous to and incompatible with Western Civilization. The tendency of each is to stamp out freedom of thought, Christian worship, and the unity of the human with the divine. 
We must pray for the renewal of our land, that God will have mercy upon us and upon the sins of the whole world.
“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” -1 Chron 7:14