Poems and Poetry

“It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember somehow those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life. It became customary for these Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow’s Eve to let the damned know that they were not forgotten. In Ireland, then, all the dead came to be remembered. This, however, is still not exactly like our celebration of Halloween.

In a recent discussion with Pansy Moss, I said that I would try to post some research on divorce and domestic violence that specifically refutes certain commonly accepted “facts”. Due to lack of time my own comments will be brief. With respect to divorce, Dr. Steven Baskerville writeshere in Catholic World Report:

“Arizona State University psychologist Sanford Braver has shown that at least two-thirds of American divorces are initiated by women. Moreover, few of these divorces involve grounds such as desertion, adultery, or violence. The reasons most often given are ‘growing apart’ or ‘not feeling loved or appreciated.’ Other studies have reached similar conclusions. The proportion of divorces initiated by women climbed to more than 70 percent when no-fault divorce was introduced, according to Margaret Brinig of the University of Iowa and Douglas Allen of Simon Fraser University. Mothers ‘are more likely to instigate separation, despite a deep attachment to their children and the evidence that many divorces harm children.’”

I’ll bet that most of you think an increasing Gross National Product is a good thing for the country. Or maybe you don’t, and you’ve come to realize that GNP stands for Going Nowhere Prettyfast. Anyway, considering how GNP figures are calculated, it is clear that GNP may well be inversely proportional to national quality of life from a Catholic perspective:

Although contradiction, complexity, and paradox await anyone bold enough to make sweeping generalizations about the generations, a sober assessment of our present circumstances requires that we make them. Richard Weaver traces the slow decline of the West to the nominalism of William of Occam in the 13th century, and perhaps he is right. But in our time the pace of generational decline has been staggering and begs for more of an explanation than Weaver proposes.

The main event of the 20th century is this: the Greatest Generation failed to pass the baton.

“The child who has been exposed from his earliest years to good classical music, and has seen his soul being developed by it, will not be nearly as tempted by the crude rhythm and message of rock and other contemporary forms of pseudo-music as someone who has grown up without a musical education. Such a musical education, as several of the Optina Elders have said, refines the soul and prepares it for the reception of spiritual impressions.

The child who has been educated in good literature, drama, and poetry and has felt their effect on his soul — that is, has really enjoyed them — will not easily become an addict of contemporary movies and television programs and cheap novels that devastate the soul and take it away from the Christian path.

Is this finally the last straw? Are EWTN and the History Channel really worth risking the slightest exposure of your children to such images as you accidently hit Fox News on the remote?

I’m with Mr. Aaron Wolf, who says it is long past time to smash your television here:

“There is an invader in your home, and it sits like a god in your living room, in the place of the family hearth. It may hurt your vision, cause brain cells to die, and even keep you from reading a good book. But the worse thing about it is that it is an ambassador for the Culture of Death, a ‘big, bright, green pleasure machine’ whose goal is to introduce you and keep you attached to the world which hated Christ and against which Judgment is coming. It is impossible to shield yourself or your children from all evil (since we are born with Original Sin) but that does not mean that we should leave a 26-inch window into Hell open in the living room …”

“The story is told of Cardinal Kaspar, who heads the Vatican Congregation for Dialogue with other religions. He recently attended a Greek Orthodox service. Some of you may know that their services go on for a very long time. Afterwards the celebrant said to him, ‘I hope that you were not bored’. The Cardinal replied, ‘no, not at all’. ‘It did not go on too long for you then? Perhaps you think we might modernise it or make it simpler’, the celebrant asked. ‘No’, replied the Cardinal. ‘It should stay exactly as it is. It is very beautiful’. So the celebrant said, ’so why did you do all that you have done to your Mass then’? And it is quite true of course, that many people now look towards the east to recover that sense of the mysterious and spiritual in a religion that has sometimes been stripped bare to its essentials and sometimes even beyond. That’s why we need the traditional liturgy…”

The submission of wives to their husbands has got to be one of the least popular teachings of the Catholic Church today — and the case can be made that the Catholic Church isn’t teaching this today at all. The folks at Heart, Mind, and Strength are busy finessing this doctrine into oblivion where it shall die the Death of a Thousand Nuances. For instance, Greg Popcak writes:

“BUT, when the man stops listening to the voice of God speaking through the needs of his wife and children, he becomes not a leader, but a despot. And obedience to such a husband would not be Christian obedience, but rather, idolatry … A husband can only claim authority to the degree that he is aware of the specific needs God has written on the heart of his wife and children and spends his days finding godly ways those needs can be fulfilled.”

How disappointing. To appease his anti-Catholic critics, it appears that Mel Gibson has decided to depart from the Gospels where the Jews are shown in a less than favorable light see. :

“Paul Lauer, marketing director for Gibson’s Icon Productions company, said Gibson has edited the film to show more ’sympathetic’ Jewish characters who were not calling for Jesus to be crucified. ‘We believe we have softened the story compared to the way the Gospel has told it,’ Lauer said in an interview. He pointed to Matthew 27:25, in which the Jewish mob calls for Jesus’ blood ‘to be on us and on our children.’ ‘That’s in the Gospel,’ he said. ‘It’s not in our film.’”

“Time to calibrate your gaydar, because Bravo’s ‘Boy Meets Boy’ (Tuesdays at 9 p.m.) is finally here. America’s first gay dating show isn’t just a dating show, you see. It’s a sexual shell game in which a mix of gay and straight suitors compete for ‘one exceptional gay man’ and, oh yeah, a secret cash prize. Of course James, The Exceptional Gay Man (TEGM), doesn’t know that half the men are straight — boy, won’t it be a hoot when he finds out? — which makes his earnest enthusiasm for his role as the gay bachelor all the more heartbreaking.”

At the bidding of a friend, I am reading Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson. The night before last I came across this astonishing passage:

“Then he waited for communications, and they came, so soft and delicate, passing like shadows, that his will sweated blood and tears in the effort to catch and fix them and correspond. . . .

Here’s my take on The Passion of The Christ. There is no subject more worthy of meditation. There is no event more important in the history of the world. Mel Gibson’s movie, I predict, I pray, will convert thousands. It is not in the least anti-Semitic, except to those who believe the Gospels and the Christian Faith are inherently anti-Semitic.

With that said … I am very reluctant to give unqualified support to any theatrical depiction of Christ. Some of the Eastern Orthodox claim that a theatrical portrayal of Christ is against their canon law. I don’t know, but I would not be surprised. How could a movie, a play, not diminish the reality of Christ in the mind’s eye? He was — He is — the incarnate God. GOD! Can any film possibly do Him justice?