Oblige Them to be Fair

This week I received a survey from a Catholic organization asking what I thought about how the Catholic Church and Faith are treated by certain institutions in contemporary society. The questions were in the vein of whether the Church was being given a fair shake - e.g. is the news media fair, is the arts community fair, is the government fair, is the business community fair, are colleges and universities fair.

Those questions are fine as a conversation starter, but the survey doesn't go past them; as a result, it risks being nothing so much as a means for harvesting a list of grievances. Nobody but the aggrieved care about that.

I replied to the survey, and added the following response:

Our society has never been Catholic, and it has always been opposed to the Catholic faith. In the days when the Church was better respected, it was because Catholics were unabashedly Catholic. Today’s Catholics, however, have turned their back on their own faith and culture; small wonder that society at large shows no respect for the Catholic Church: her own children act embarrassed about her. Let Catholics shake off their lethargy, vigorously embrace their faith and religious heritage, and so oblige the Church’s opponents and critics to respect the spotless Bride of Christ.

Himself and the Tin Man

About 16 years back I arrived at work one morning to discover a suit of armor at my desk. The Tin Man belonged to my boss, who wanted to recognize me for my heroic and gallant efforts on behalf of the team and the company during a demanding and difficult project. Though just a temporary loan, the knight-in-miniature was a welcome token of appreciation.

Himself and the Tin Man

The Tin Man and I enjoyed several days of diversion together, and he was a popular conversation piece with colleagues. I did put him to work here and there, but for the most part he was just eye candy.

 

Tin Man at work: not just a pretty face

A couple of months later my celebrity status came crashing to a halt when I declined to work on an objectionable project. We were handling publications for a state agency that sponsored what was euphemistically dubbed women's reproductive health initiatives, but was really a means to promote birth control and abortion. The assignment hit my inbox, and I immediately replied to my boss that I would not work on it; I wouldn't even facilitate the work by passing it down the line to a colleague. Ah, I was the unwelcome black sheep after that; my time with the company ended in less than a year.

Did I save the lives of any unborn children through my non-participation in a shabby assignment? I can't say, but I doubt it. More importantly, I did not lose my soul over the matter.

Where is the Tin Man today?

Alleluia for Candlemas

Alleluia, alleluia. Senex Puerum portabet: Puer autem senem regebat. Alleluia.

Alleluia, alleluia. An old man was carrying a Child; but the Child was the old man's Lord. Alleluia.

Luke 2:22-32

Nine Choirs of Angels

“It is from the lowest of the nine choirs, the nearest to ourselves that the Guardian Angels are for the most part selected. God reserves to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones the honor of following His own immediate court. The Dominations from the steps of His throne preside over the government of the universe; the Virtues watch over the course of nature’s laws, the preservation of species and the movements of the heavens; the Powers hold the spirits of wickedness in subjection. The human race in its entirety, as also its great social bodies, the nations and the churches, are confided to the Principalities; while the Archangels, who preside over smaller communities, seem also to have the office of transmitting to the Angels the commands of God, together with the love and light which come down even to us from the first and highest hierarchy. Thus then, the admirable distribution of offices among the choirs of heavenly spirits terminates in the function committed to the lowest rank, the guardianship of man, for whom the universe subsists.”
– Fr. Louis Alessio

Christmas on December 25

Taylor Marshall gets into how we know that December 25 is the nativity of Christ at http://taylormarshall.com/2012/12/yes-christ-was-really-born-on-december.html

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Joyeux Noël, Vrolijk Kerstfeest, Hyvää Joulua, Wesołych Świąt, Cчастливого Рождества...

Christmas in Mosul

   
This is the Arabic letter Nun (pronounced noon). It became known in the west as the Christians were being driven out of or killed in Mosul in northern Iraq over the past several years: the ISIS aggressors would put this sign on the homes and businesses of Christians to indicate that if they remained, they would be killed.

Nun is the first letter in the name “Nazarene,” which is what some Muslims in that region call Christians. It is a pejorative term, a word of contempt. Think of it as the Arabic equivalent of the N-word.

After three years of persecution, on Christmas day 2017 the Iraqi Christians publicly celebrated Christmas in a Mosul church for the first time since ISIS was driven out.

Read more at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/christians-mosul-christianity-is-defeat-saint-pauls-a8127591.html

With prayers for Mosul.

Dodd on God

Said Bella Dodd: 

“I have learned from bitter experience that you cannot serve man unless you first serve God in sincerity and truth.”

Also:

"Communists usurp the position of the left, but when one examines them in light of what they really stand for, one sees them as the rankest kind of reactionaries and Communism as the most reactionary backward leap in the long history of social movements. It is one which seems to obliterate in one revolutionary wave two thousand years of man’s progress."