Poems and Poetry

Jihad Watch provides more clues pertaining to the Armanious family murders:

“The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity — or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur’an 3:28: ‘Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful — he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah — except in self-defense.’
Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the ‘converted’ men and willingly let them in to their home. That’s why there was no sign of forced entry. Then the ‘converted’ Muslims did their grisly work.

The greatly inspiring but now defunct Caelum et Terra journal was, for a time, the pre-eminent “crunchy Catholic” magazine in the English language. In a new blog by the same name, a former editor of the journal describes the C & T vision thus:

“Let me just free-associate for a moment: our vision was (and is) mystical, contemplative, distributist, agrarian, sacramental, ecumenical, aesthetic, traditionalist, and progressive. Note the last two: there are significant political differences among us, but we all believe that the Catholic faith is simultaneously the most conservative and the most revolutionary force on earth. And we agree that there really is a culture of death growing in the world, and that Christianity naturally tends toward the development of a culture of life.”

This grisly murder here has Islamic terror written all over it.

Hossam Armanious, 47, who along with his wife and two daughters was found stabbed to death in his Jersey City home early Friday, would regularly debate religion in a Middle Eastern chat room, one source said.
Armanious, an Egyptian Christian, was well known for expressing his Coptic beliefs and engaging in fiery back-and-forth with Muslims on the Web site paltalk.com.

He “had the reputation for being one of the most outspoken Egyptian Christians,” said the source, who had close ties to the family.

Incredible, isn’t it, that we have so long forgotten our most ruthless and persistent enemy. It is certainly time to act. America is no place for the violence and barbarism of the Mohammedan religion. Perhaps an amendment to the Constitution is in order …

Seattle Catholic today links to this article by Fr. Hugh Thwaites, S.J. here:

“When people forget about Original Sin, they are unaware of the chronic weakness of our intellect and wills, and of our chronic tendency to slide into error and sin. Our faith needs a frequent input of doctrinally nourishing liturgy if it is to stay pure. The traditional rite of Mass provided this. The new rite does not.

There is nothing wrong with the new rite. Rome cannot feed her children with poison. But the new rite of Mass does not give us what we need. Michael Davies’ analogy is helpful here. If a doctor tells a couple that their child need milk every day, and they give the child only water, the child may not live. There is nothing wrong with water. But if the child needs milk, water may not be enough.

Mark Butterworth has some interesting comments on “success”:

“Michael Medved read extracts from portions of his new book, Right Turns, which didn’t make the cut and were edited out. One section had to do with his success as a teenager at selling encyclopedias. He ended the chapter with a brief homily on the key to any success in America was the ability to sell or promote your ideas, your product, your gifts and to close the sale. The most important aspect after all.

He mentioned that people who were too shy or reluctant to sell end up in a pool of self-pity …”

Similar sentiment is reproduced on the VDARE site (not recommended):

A Waverly Concert Christmas is absolutely the best Christmas / New Year recording ever. A rare and priceless treasure, I tell you truly. Play it all year ’round, each time leaving behind modernity and all its pomps and works and ways.

I think I’ve figured it out. The religion of the masses, that is. It is Comfort. All the strange and seemingly disconnected ideologies, from vegetarianism to pacifism to socialism to fascism to capitalism to environmentalism and all the rest, the common denominator is Comfort – that is, Comfort for the elect, whomever or whatever the elect happens to be.

Pulling into the driveway one evening, I knew my 8-year-old daughter had country in her genes:

Yesterday I put up an entry suggesting that the tsunami and divine chastisement may not be completely unrelated. It was really the continuation of a discussion on Amy Welborn’s blog, and that context was important. The connection between earthly calamities and the divine will is certainly worth discussing, but after reading one more account of the disaster yesterday — something about beaches full of children being swept out to sea — it occurred to me that I’m not really up to the task.

My love and tender one are you
My sweet and lovely son are you
You are my love and darling you
Unworthy, I of you

Your mild and gentle eyes proclaim
The loving heart with which you came
A tender helpless tiny babe
With boundless gifts of grace

King of Kings, most holy one
Gone the sun eternal one
You are my God and helpless son
High ruler of mankind

My love and tender one are you
My sweet and lovely son are you
You are my love and darling you
Unworthy, I of you

Merry Christmas

“To most men loneliness is a doom. It is imposed upon the criminal as the heaviest of punishments; carried to extremes we know it will drive him mad; nothing seems to unman a man as the loneliness of a prison cell. Even for those who are not criminals, nothing so wrings pity from a human heart as the sight of another who is utterly alone. Loneliness to men is the very ghost of life, dogging their steps, haunting them at every turn, from which they are always trying to escape. It cannot be fought, it cannot be avoided, yet there is nothing many more dread for themselves, or see with more concern in others.

Men — especially married men — should refrain from dreaming about a Perfect Wife. The wife God gave you is perfect for you: that should be enough. Nevertheless, if I had to describe the Perfect Wife, her characteristics would look like this …

First and foremost, the perfect wife will be a Catholic who is serious about pursuing holiness. She’ll make frequent use of the Sacrament of Penance and will get the children to a mid-week Mass whenever possible.

The perfect wife will also be feminine. In the immortal words of Rogers and Hammerstein, she’ll be a “girly, womanly, female, feminine dame”. She’ll be neither “frumpy” nor “flashy” in her dress and conduct, but simple and elegant. She’ll wear her hair and her skirts long enough to be pretty.

I was going to title this post “Schism and Mental Illness” because my latest encounters with schismatic trads have left me wondering if there isn’t some kind of intrinsic link. For instance, why is it that every schismatic I meet wants to be my spiritual director? I have a spiritual director, thank you. The last straw was when one such fellow, clearly no saint, finally got around to telling me that his own suffering (much of it self-inflicted) is really for the salvation of other sinners like me. He wanted me to thank him, I suppose.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Charles de Nunzio has entered the company of traditionalist bloggers with his provocative Annals of the 9th Crusade. He is a serious and careful writer to whom the frivolity of blogging must not come easy. Neverthless, you won’t want to miss his early entries. See especially his comments on the cultural import of The Passion of the Christ.

Michael Brendan Dougherty, another talented writer and friend, has launched a new online magazine called The New Fugitive (now defunct!). His essay “How I Became a Paleo-Conservative” should be required reading for every American male under thirty.