I spent New Year’s Eve watching the documentary about the Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery while fireworks boomed off in the distance. It was wonderful. Other than singing the chants of the liturgy, the monks are only allowed to talk during the occasional outdoor recreation. They were discussing a hand washing routine, and some were questioning whether it was of any use. After some debate, one monk said that their entire way of life was a symbol; if there seemed to be a problem, they should examine themselves, not the symbols. Prayer is the pathway to God, and noise & distraction obscure the path. Silence is not a lack of noise, but rather something positive, an unlimited potential that connects us directly to God. Noise is not a possibility at all, but a limitation to something constricting & useless; it is the deprivation of silence. I want more silence in my life. Maybe this will become a tradition.
Monks with Brooms
Those cats were Kung Fu fighting. Not really fast as lightning, though. I’m surprised the whole place wasn’t struck by divine wrath & burnt to the ground. I don’t know anything about the relationship between the Armenians & the Greeks, but I don’t have to. This sort of thing should be impossible for anyone calling themselves a disciple of Jesus Christ. Msgr. Charles Pope has a good discussion of this & his personal experiences with the Greeks at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem here. In my discussions with non-believers, I find that the worldly, sinful, & scandalous behavior of Christians is at or near the top of the list of reasons they give for not believing. The hatred that was and continues to be promulgated at the Church of the Nativity was not of God.
Kim Kardashian’s Not-a-Wedding
Just another log on the funeral pyre of marriage as instituted by God and upheld by natural law, at least in the West. If a validly-contracted marriage between one man & one woman isn’t permanent & exclusive, there’s no need to bother with it at all, other than as a facade for whatever personal meanings people wish to fill its empty husk. Unfortunately, this is not a “you-do-what-you-want-&-I’ll-do-what-I-want” sort of thing: marriage & the family are the building blocks of society. As marriage goes, society goes. Is going? Gone? Maybe not completely just yet. We often forget the carnage done to families & the individual souls that are at stake. The Church has the burden to remind humanity the forgotten truths of the marriage vow, despite individual Catholics’ own complicity in this crime of humanity. I feel a terrible burden to teaching these hard truths to my 6th grade kids; I know that failed marriages & fatherless families are already a part of their lives. I wish they could see how evil & destructive all of this is & that they would be the generation to finally stand & say, “Not us!”
Pro life Victories
Somehow, despite the utter moral failing of America (see above), there seems to be an increase in the understanding that babies in the womb are still babies, therefore deserving of love & care due any child. I think science has helped us here – images of children in the womb show them as little persons with fingers & toes, not the “blobs of tissue” that we’ve been told they were for so long by the abortion establishment. Did you know a baby’s heart begin beating after just 21 days or so? That’s incredible! I think most of us would say something with a beating heart of its own was a living being. And most intelligent people would note that this being is not a developing toaster, or an ostrich, or a Tonka truck, but a human being. The science speaks for itself; the abortion community has itself conceded this point, & shifted the argument to that the rights of the mother to be unencumbered as mothers trump those of their unborn children.
There have been a great number of pro-life victories around the country in state legislatures this past year: implementing high(er) information & medical standards on facilities, closing down those that don’t comply, & even prosecuting negligent & abusive abortionists (what a statement!). This is wonderful, because it isn’t just an elite few that have forced its view on the masses - which is how the permissive laws were enacted originally - but a real grassroots movement of ordinary people who believe that babies are good & it isn’t right to kill them; nor is there a dreamed-up right to kill them. Be aware, though, that there is already a rising tide of back lash amongst the “reproductive rights” brigade, and we are in for a lengthy legal & cultural battle which will demand our stamina & resources. These groups are viciously determined & have deep pockets. We already see this with the health insurance mandates that seem purpose designed to stab at the heart of Catholic institutions. We also need to be on the lookout for flank attacks by some wacky strains of environmentalist for whom humans are as lice on the beautiful head of mother earth – the fewer the better. But the good news is that every human being by the fact of being alive themselves innately knows the value of human life, and this, ultimately, will win the day. Unlike “reproductive rights,” the right to live is not granted or repealed by presidents, legislators, courts, or public opinion, but by God.
Wishing all a blessed 2012!
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