Tremendous Trifles

2 Peter- to find the other blog

2006-11-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

St. Nicholas, hold the tiller.

2005-12-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

Consider adding to a list of pro-life prayers this short ejaculation:
“St. Nicholas, hold the tiller.”
Back home in New England, we often go to the Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette in Attleboro Massachusetts during Advent/Christmas season. The shrine is run by the La Salette Missionaries and well known to all for a display of lights. It's been there long enough to be a multi-generational family tradition, as well as serves as a reminder of a faith they may have misplaced.

One of the displays there are propped up pieces of 4′x8′ painted plywood done in a series featuring St. Nicholas. Among this series on St. Nicholas depicts the legend of how he came to be the patron of seafarers - and them praying in the midst of a storm “St. Nicholas, hold the tiller.” Due to my tendency to make mental associations, this struck me deeply. He is the patron of children. There is a doctor named George Tiller who was quite the enemy of those of us who are pro-life, performing abortions even to the third term. He's easily found in search engines.

From the moment I saw this artistic depiction of the saint and sailors, along with the short prayer, this has been one of my VERY favorites to pray.
EWTN includes this on their website:

In the West he has often been invoked by prisoners, and in the East by sailors. One legend has it that during his life-time he appeared off the coastof Lycia to some storm-tossed mariners who invoked his aid, and he brought them safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas had their "star of St.Nicholas" and wished one another safe voyages with the words, "May St. Nicholas hold the tiller."

Ancient images

2005-07-19T17:47:00.000-04:00

Since blogger has finally added this option of uploading images, I expect all sorts of artists shall finally have the opportunity of enjoying blogging.

As for me, I have a love of symbols and imagery having its source in Christ. As a Catholic, my first picture shows an early Christian depiction of He who made all. It says He is the Alpha and Omega -- He who gave His life for the life of the world, and God is life.

Perhaps one day I shall scan some brown paper with a chalk drawing in accordance with the second story in Tremendous Trifles! What a concept!

This way to the catacombs!

Worthy of admiration

2005-04-23T08:52:00.000-04:00

Although the title, as of today, links to an article I want to excerpt from, it may not be available after a time. Some years ago, Francis Xavier Van Thuan preached the spiritual exercises to the papal household during Lent. Someone comes each year for one week to do this. The future cardinal of the Catholic Church reinforced for me that there are critical, vital seeds which continuously bear a harvest, drop more seed onto the ground, bearing a harvest again. The cycle continues.

This man, in my opinion, would have made a wonderful leader for such a large people. The Lord chose to call him to Himself a few years ago. He still leads, however. May God grant him glory among those of us who abide here.

Accused:

The Communist interrogator couldn’t stand it any longer. “Admit it!” he shouted to the priest, “You’re part of a Vatican plot! You’re nothing more than an
Imperialist lackey!” But the newly appointed archbishop of Saigon, Francis
Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, answered quietly and directly, “No. I will not admit
anything of the kind.”

Thuan was placed under immediate arrest. The date was August 15, 1975, the Feast of the Assumption. For the next thirteen years, he would be imprisoned and would undergo terrible suffering in body, mind, and spirit. But God would use that ordeal to transform Thuan into an apostle of hope, a man whose life proclaimed the triumph of the gospel of Christ over the despair and confusion of atheism and materialism.

_____

For his part, Thuan decided to serve others by becoming a priest. He entered the
seminary when he was only thirteen and was deeply inspired by the holiness of
the priests who taught him there. Reading the lives of saints like Thérèse of
Lisieux, John Vianney, and Francis Xavier also fueled his growing desire to
become like Christ.

_____

What helped him, he later said, was the example of his mother, whose courageous faith gave her the strength to accept these tragedies. Before Diem’s assassination, she told Thuan, “It is in God’s hands. We should pray for his safety, but we must also be ready to accept God’s will.” Her tranquility was a tremendous witness. Thuan was also deeply devoted to another mother—the Virgin Mary. While studying in Rome in 1957, he took a trip to Lourdes, France. There he reflected on Mary’s words to St.
Bernadette: “I do not promise you joys and consolations on this earth, but rather trials and sufferings.”

_____

One day, however, Thuan had a life-changing insight. He understood that Jesus, too had appeared “useless” as he hung on the cross. But it was when he appeared the most powerless that he achieved his most “useful” accomplishment: He saved the whole human race. Thuan heard the Lord say to him: “It is me you are supposed to be following, not my work! If I will it, you will finish the work entrusted to you.” This realization “brought me a new strength that completely changed my way of thinking,” Thuan later explained. Transformed by this experience, Thuan found the grace to bring hope into hopeless situations. (at the time, he was in solitary confinement.)

______

Pope John Paul II valued Thuan’s faith and experience and appointed him to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. He eventually became its president, working on behalf of oppressed and marginalized people everywhere.
In 1999, the pope asked Thuan to preach at the annual Lenten retreat
for Vatican cardinals. Thuan spoke on the theme of hope, reminding his listeners
that part of the Church’s hope is in the communion of believers: “Here is the
novelty: the other person is not an obstacle to holiness but is the way to
holiness.” By the time Thuan was named a cardinal, in 2001, he had already been
diagnosed with cancer. After almost two years of illness, he died peacefully on
September 16, 2002. Through the witness of his life and his writings, Thuan
continues his ministry as an apostle of hope. The triumphant prayer he composed
years ago in the gloom of a prison cell marks out a path that each one of us can
follow as we put our faith in Christ: I sing of your mercy in the darkness, in
my weakness, in my annihilation. I accept my cross, and I plant it, with my own
two hands, in my heart. If you were to permit me to choose, I would change
nothing, because you are with me! I am no longer afraid, I have understood. I am
following you in your passion and in your resurrection.

Things getting ugly?

2005-04-18T19:33:00.000-04:00

If creating has greater appeal than deconstruction, there is a place where beauty and creativity are encouraged.

We can make a difference.

When the blast of war blows in our ear, and your beloved happens to decide to watch a favorite film, selecting Kostner in The Postman, tis a wonderment that there aren't more out there seeking to stir the soul. There are so many great lines in this movie.

Law One: No more killing.

Law Two: There's going to be peace.

Yes, the business we are supposed to be about is that of the Great Commandment. God send those who are able to depict it in life, in writing, in art, in love..

Holy Family

2005-03-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'm just about to finish the final details on a statue of St. Joseph, and went to look at some images of him on the net. This one of the Holy Family quite caught my attention because I quickly noticed who is looking at whom, and I found that delightful.

In this depiction, I saw Mary looking at Joseph. Joseph is looking at Jesus. Jesus is looking at His mother. This touches me.

We have a law...

2005-03-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

Due to some sort of internet overload, the original webpage linked in subject line is down. However, Yahoo maintains a cache of pages as others do. Should anyone find the list of Florida laws which have been and still are violated of interest, the link may come in handy.

In the meantime, that sentence which begins "we have a law" resounds in my mental ears. I wonder if my friend who spoke that sentence during a Passion Play we did years ago likewise has it ringing in her ears.

I am unsure whether this week, on all fronts including MN, Iraq, FL, and GA would be summed up as:

- week of irony

- week of mockery

-week of death.

The mockery and reversal of the "sentences" (pun intended) are unreal.

Gall and wine

2005-03-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

Immediately upon reading the blog linked above, there is a link to the University of Miami and the CT scan of a woman who thirsts. I have yet to read other pages at this blog, but read them I will. This CSI type blog questions the shunt in Terri's brain, and the trauma visible in the CT scan.

There is a link to the bone scan report as well, but only the report and not attendant scan and x-rays. It is my understanding, and I may be wrong about the truth of this, that upon death cremation is to take place. That circumstance would effectively stop any investigation by the Department of Children and Families since it would not have the ability to verify anything that might turn up.

This link finally gave enough information for me to locate something on how a feeding tube providing nutrition and hydration became, as of summer 1999, added to respirators or dialysis machines as life prolonging. It was not until 1999 that a feeding tube was viewed in this manner.

I did a word search at the Florida Senate for the year 1999 using the word "hydration" - oh my. Lo and behold this actually is brand new.

Meningitis is in the news again.

Tampa Bay Online has a lot of coverage, and rather a few questions.

This gives a whole new dimension to the oft said prayer:
Bless us, o Lord,
and these Thy gifts,
which we are about to receive,
from Thy bounty,
through Christ, Our Lord.
Amen.

The Pocketknife

2005-01-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

This past Christmas, as we were gathered together, all extended family, in the commotion that naturally follows a gaggle of children unwrapping presents, especially when a few of those children are young enough to be excused from taking turns, I looked up at my husband who was preparing to open one of the children's boxes with a pocketknife. "Oh, did your Dad give you a pocketknife?", I asked him. His father, sitting on my other hand, replied, "A pocketknife! Now there's a gift idea!"

What has happened to our generation, that lacks pocketknives? We grow up in a sea of metal detectors. Old high school fisticuffs are replaced with knife- and gun-fights. Weapons are to be feared, and those that would equip themselves, even legally, are suspect. Boy scouts, who forgot to take the knife out of their packs after a camping trip, are now expelled from school. Sons of hunters are subject to discipline if their fathers forget to remove their guns from the vehicle before Junior drives to school. Fingernail clippers are on the list of banned items on air lines. No matter the skill of the individual wielding a weapon these days, they are guaranteed at least one casualty: common sense. And so, we've lost the rite of passage that is the pocketknife.

Growing up, my father, and most probably yours too, was always armed with a pocketknife. It evokes a sense of self-sufficiency, preparedness, and masculinity. With the mainstream acceptance of feminist ideals, it is no wonder that these virtues, themselves, are anathema in our culture. We are now taught to rely on the State to guarantee our livelihood. Little boys are drugged with prescription medications, simply for acting like little boys in school. Men who behave like men are called chauvinists, or worse.

What has the impact been of all this emasculation? Why is it surprising that adults no longer act like adults, authority seeks to pass the buck, and individuals look to others for solutions? What will trigger our return to the roles as God intended them, and people who know how to live life?

I don't know the answers to all of these questions, but I do know that it is time for men to reclaim their masculinity, to take pride in being men, and to teach their sons to be men. It's time for women to support these men, and rest content in their "otherness", which completes our femininity. And, to initiate this revolution in my own family, my husband will be getting a pocketknife.

Cancer in the Church

2004-12-15T00:09:00.000-05:00

Peripherally related to this blog...an essay I just wrote over at my personal blog...

The Roller Coaster

2004-12-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

- GKC, Orthodoxy, Chapter 6

After a long absence, we've decided to resurrect this blog.... And to start us off again, this section of Orthodoxy has been on my mind a lot lately. I've been thinking quite a bit about the idea of heresy. While we often think of heresy as a dissenting view in the Church, the word itself comes from Greek, from the verb haireisthai, meaning to choose. Isn't that what heresy ultimately is: to choose something outside the norm of the faith, for one reason or another?

As I am considering moving from my Protestant heritage into the historic Church (Catholicism), for me the idea of heresy has gone from one of some vague errors that happened way back in Church history but couldn't possibly be a problem today--because, well, we have the Bible and we know how to interpret it--to something that is still alive and well, and something that I desperately want to avoid.

That brings me to GKC and this section of Orthodoxy. If one considers that the teachings of the historic Church are indeed "orthodoxy," which I most certainly do, then as GKC says, "it is easy to be a heretic." It is easy to be so because the "fads" of each age are so popular, seemingly so rewarding, and infinitely less demanding than to give oneself over to Christ and His Church. What I find so demanding, and I think GKC hints at this when he says that there is nothing as perilous or as exciting as orthodoxy, is that orthodoxy envelops so many different ideas, and emphasizes each one in just the right amount. If any one idea is emphasized to the detriment of others, then heresy results. For example, the Church teaches that Christ is fully God and fully man, two natures in one Person. But the Arians focused too much on Christ the human, making him into a subordinate creature, while the Docetists focused too much on Christ as divine, making his human body into an illusion. Each of these heresies really is easier to believe than orthodox Christianity, which holds the two seemingly contradictory ideas--Christ as Man and Christ as God--simultaneously and thoroughly.

We have our own heresies today--the world of the Arians and Docetists hasn't changed all that much. Today, modernism eats away at the Church from one side--eroding the particularity of the Church in a mishmash of relativism. Objective, absolute Truth is in peril. But, traditionalism snipes away from the other side--wanting to turn the clocks back to a golden age, that upon closer inspection was merely gilded. These two heresies are two sides of the same coin as well--embracing the culture versus rejecting it. Again, the orthodox Christian teaching is a balancing act--embracing the parts of the culture that do not contradict with Tradition, but rejecting the parts that would undermine it. That is a very difficult synthesis to achieve. Heresy is easy; that's why there are so many heretics, and why, sadly, there will always be tares along with the wheat in the Church.

So we orthodox Christians are in for a wild ride, constantly swerving to avoid heresy, continually evaluating our own practices and beliefs to make sure it hasn't seeped in. Come along for the ride...

Justin Martyr: Advent thoughts

2004-12-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

CHRIST'S ADVENT FORETOLD - by Justin Martyr

For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God..

And hear how it was foretold concerning those who published His doctrine and proclaimed His appearance, the above-mentioned prophet and king speaking thus by the Spirit of prophecy "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the sun hath He set His tabernacle, and he as a bridegroom going out of his chamber shall rejoice as a giant to run his course." And we have thought it right and relevant to mention some other prophetic utterances of David besides these; from which you may learn how the Spirit of prophecy exhorts men to live, and how He foretold the conspiracy which was formed against Christ by Herod the king of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and Pilate, who was your governor among them, with his soldiers; and how He should be believed on by men of every race; and how God calls Him His Son, and has declared that He will subdue all His enemies under Him; and how the devils, as much as they can, strive to escape the power of God the Father and Lord of all, and the power of Christ Himself; and how God calls all to repentance before the day of judgment comes. These things were uttered thus:
"Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful: but his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law will he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, which shall give his fruit in his season; and his leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away from the face of the earth. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine new things? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I been set by Him a King on Zion His holy hill, declaring the decree of the Lord. The Lord said to Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth as Thy possession. Thou shall herd them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shalt Thou dash them in pieces. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, all ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Embrace instruction, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the right way, when His wrath has been suddenly kindled. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."

... But our Jesus Christ, being crucified and dead, rose again, and having ascended to heaven, reigned; and by those things which were published in His name among all nations by the apostles, there is joy afforded to those who expect the immortality promised by Him.

___________

The Apostles went forth into the world, among the nations, that they may know the King of kings. The Gentiles are those of many nations, and having many kings. In this way, Jesus had prepared them to teach on the gift being offered to them. The same spirit of prophecy gave a voice to these men proclaiming the advent of the Christ; the former prophets not only spoke, but some also "lived" the prophetic message.

God still calls men to repentance, and He still uses the voice of men. Peter stood up on Pentecost, that feast of the Jews, declaring the same message heard in our time. I look again at this passage by Justin Martyr, and remember the power of God demonstrated by the Apostles even while living with Jesus, as well as after His Resurrection and Ascension.

Is it not clear that there has been an inheritance given by Christ? The heathen, those gathered from among the Gentiles, those who have been called to repentence through the Apostles and the Church, are His possession via the Church. Likewise, the very kings and judges mentioned above received teaching through the Church. Christ gave this mission to them as it is written in Matthew 28, so they taught, and baptized, and went to nations and kings. He is the King of kings.

Tradition and Democracy

2004-10-14T21:39:00.000-04:00

GKC wrote in Orthodoxy that "tradition is the democracy of the dead." What an interesting idea. When I think of democracy, I think of exclusively the living--that is, those that can vote and/or are represented in government. But am I leaving out a whole mass of people who have quite a few good things to say? Who am I to leave out thousands of years of history? Were those people much different than you or me?

I fear that we often look forward into the future without thinking about the past. What mistakes have those that came before us made? Many of them. But what do we not need to change that our ancestors did? What might we need to go back to? Where have we gone wrong?

In terms of Christianity, as a Protestant it seems like our churches are essentially devoid of history, before at best the Reformation but usually before the founding of our individual denominations or our individual church bodies. Who are we to toss aside the 1,500 years of history before the Reformation? How do we justify skipping from 90 AD and the writing of the Gospel of John, to 1517 and the nailing of the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg?

Lots of questions, not many answers. But Chesterton has forced me to think of democracy not just in terms of those who are voting alongside me in November, but in terms of the whole history of mankind. When you take that into account, your whole perspective changes.

God bless GKC

2004-10-14T16:28:00.000-04:00

The well-beloved Gilbert Keith Chesterton interested himself in a plethora of subjects, from the very ordinary and every-day to God and politics and people. Sheed and Ward published Tremendous Trifles in 1909, but it is still a most delightful collection of essays. I pay homage to the man and this book because it is one which makes men think, and a thinking man can be hard to find:)

GKC was one who didn't suffer fools gladly.

Now there's a man after my own heart.