The Saint Thomas More Society of Boston College has taped its last two meetings and hopes to continue doing so into the future. The audio is fine, but the camera is on a tripod and no one makes sure that it is focused. However, the two talks are worth listening to.
Father Dan Hennessey of the vocation office spoke on 3-10-08
Father Peter Grover OMV spoke on 3-17-08 on Lent
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Christ: Way, Truth, and Life
I apologize for my lack of recent posts. Activity has been slow on campus. However, I have had some thoughts recently that need to be expressed.
I recently loaned a book to a priest friend which explained rubrics for adoration more fully. We had an e-mail exchange in which I said,
It was such a striking contrast to a conversation I had just the week prior about the liturgy, in which my interlocutor expressed the view that all that matters was whether or not the Mass was valid. Everything after that was superfluous rules. He was, in particular, interested in rejecting papal legislation of Church music. He is right when he says they can become superfluous rules, but it’s rare that such a case occurs. I don’t know many people who get worked up over priests having to work with what they have. I do know people who are upset by priests who for no reason other than personal preference make the liturgy their own creation, not vesting properly, changing words, and subjecting the laity, who have a right to Mass according to the Church’s rubrics, to the worst form of clericalism. I highly recommend an article which I once read in Saint Austin Review “The Importance of the Liturgy and Liturgical Form” by Shawn Tribe.
This apathy towards proper liturgy seems to stem from failing to put an emphasis on Christ as Truth. Christian living has become about good feelings and not about Truth. But wasn’t it our Holy Father who said that, "Truth without love is cold; love without truth is empty." How many times do people take the time to study their faith and check to see if they are living in accordance with true doctrine? I am not saying everyone should have a theology degree, but it seems to me that every Catholic should be trying to understand what the Church teaches and why. This must be done in a two-fold manner: the first is in prayer, particularly Eucharistic adoration, and the second is through study.
A disregard for Truth could stem from a lack of love of Christ. Imagine this situation: someone comes to you and says that you did something that hurt someone you love deeply. This is something you continue to do. Would the normal reaction be to try and understand or to commit the act more, assuming that your gut was right? Clearly, true love demands that you cease committing the act and try to come to an understanding. Obviously, sometimes one must decide that the act must be done and that the beloved is wrong, but this can only happen after much study.
We live in an age that forgets that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He leads to the Father; He gives the fullness of Life, and He cares about Truth because He Is It. We must return to an authentic study of catechesis in our parishes and among the people of God if we want to increase devotion beyond, to quote Cardinal Sean, a mere “me and Jesus and the warm fuzzies” spirituality.
I recently loaned a book to a priest friend which explained rubrics for adoration more fully. We had an e-mail exchange in which I said,
I'm glad it was helpful. I find the introduction most beautiful. The liturgy is really my passion. I really believe that liturgy done well brings us into intimacy with our Lord and teaches us the faith (lex orandi, lex credendi). When the proper balance between reverence and solemnity on one side and inculturation on the other is achieved, people will be deeply attracted to the faith. Sometimes I really struggle on campus where it can be hard to find liturgy celebrated according to the rubrics of the Church. I know it's justified as trying to reach people, and this is certainly a noble endeavor, but sometimes we go too far. What I'm trying to say is, I think it's great that you ordered a copy. It is an incredible book with many insights.
It was such a striking contrast to a conversation I had just the week prior about the liturgy, in which my interlocutor expressed the view that all that matters was whether or not the Mass was valid. Everything after that was superfluous rules. He was, in particular, interested in rejecting papal legislation of Church music. He is right when he says they can become superfluous rules, but it’s rare that such a case occurs. I don’t know many people who get worked up over priests having to work with what they have. I do know people who are upset by priests who for no reason other than personal preference make the liturgy their own creation, not vesting properly, changing words, and subjecting the laity, who have a right to Mass according to the Church’s rubrics, to the worst form of clericalism. I highly recommend an article which I once read in Saint Austin Review “The Importance of the Liturgy and Liturgical Form” by Shawn Tribe.
This apathy towards proper liturgy seems to stem from failing to put an emphasis on Christ as Truth. Christian living has become about good feelings and not about Truth. But wasn’t it our Holy Father who said that, "Truth without love is cold; love without truth is empty." How many times do people take the time to study their faith and check to see if they are living in accordance with true doctrine? I am not saying everyone should have a theology degree, but it seems to me that every Catholic should be trying to understand what the Church teaches and why. This must be done in a two-fold manner: the first is in prayer, particularly Eucharistic adoration, and the second is through study.
A disregard for Truth could stem from a lack of love of Christ. Imagine this situation: someone comes to you and says that you did something that hurt someone you love deeply. This is something you continue to do. Would the normal reaction be to try and understand or to commit the act more, assuming that your gut was right? Clearly, true love demands that you cease committing the act and try to come to an understanding. Obviously, sometimes one must decide that the act must be done and that the beloved is wrong, but this can only happen after much study.
We live in an age that forgets that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He leads to the Father; He gives the fullness of Life, and He cares about Truth because He Is It. We must return to an authentic study of catechesis in our parishes and among the people of God if we want to increase devotion beyond, to quote Cardinal Sean, a mere “me and Jesus and the warm fuzzies” spirituality.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Eucharistic Congress
Various people in Boston are planning a Eucharistic Congress for college students and young adults for the weekend of March 28. Check out the website and register for the event.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Providence and Sin
Recently, a friend of mine came up to me and asked me a question. She had told me that over the weekend a friend had approached her and expressed his doubts about Church teaching on non-marital sexual intercourse. Specifically, he felt that intercourse was acceptable once the couple was in love. I have posted on this topic before in my essay “The Church Makes True Love Possible.” I do not intend to address the matter again her, but I will simply state that those who want to know more should get a free copy of “Marriage and the Eucharist” by Christopher West from the Mary Foundation and his book The Good News About Sex and Marriage.
What I want to address is one of the other things she told me he said. She told me that he said something like, “If sex before marriage is wrong, then why does God allow conception to occur in this context?” (The argument is a non-sequitur and easily can be shown to be one using this reductio ad absurdum. If that argument logically follows, then the same could be said for adultery, which also results on occasion in conception.) She told him that God can allow good to come from sin. He rejected that good could come from sin.
Let’s look at his position for a moment. I think that his position really undermines God’s providence. Take as an example the problem of evil. People who struggle with the problem of evil constantly ask, “How could God let something like the Holocaust (Shoah) happen?” Sometimes people give the lame answer that God gave us free will and He doesn’t interfere in our affairs. While true, I say this is lame because God most certainly does interfere in our affairs when He wants. A look at a crucifix shows us He greatly desires to bring us back to Himself through entering into our lives. Do we forget that even today every saint canonized requires one miraculous healing performed by God through the saint’s intercession? God most certainly could have prevented the Holocaust. If doing so is beyond His normal course of action, then many verses in Scripture become meaningless. Psalm 91 says that we will be safe under God’s wings and not to fear the terror of the night. Psalm 27 asks of whom should we be afraid, since God is at our side. So the answer to the Holocaust question is that suffering has meaning. It is redemptive. God was in Auschwitz with those suffering. Maybe we don’t understand the meaning, but the meaning is there.
This is not to say that God supports sin. Think on a smaller scale about a car crash. If someone gets drunk, goes for a ride, and kills someone, in no way is God pleased in the action of sinner, the driver. He, did, however, bring about His ends through the sinner. He used the car crash to take the life of an innocent (in this situation) bystander. Another example would be if I turned to the person sitting on my left and in anger punched him. God could have stopped me from punching him. The anger in my heart could have been the sin without having hit my neighbor. However, God, in His providence, used my punch. In no way has God been in favor of my sin. Using the previous aforementioned reduction ad absurdum, does this make murder part of God’s will? God’s will is the death of the person and He brings it about through murder. This is illogical, as murder is clearly sinful.)
In the same way, God, in His providence, brings about His will, in this case conception, through sinful means without supporting the sinful means. This means that that even though intercourse before marriage can result in conception, it is not morally acceptable. We are not to make any judgments on the people who commit this sin or on those who are conceived in this manner. However, we cannot condone the act for the sake of people’s feelings either because we do in fact know it to be wrong. We must be sensitive to their feelings but remain dedicated to the truth and out of love tell them the truth so that they repent, not to condemn them, but to save them and straighten out their relationship with God.
What I want to address is one of the other things she told me he said. She told me that he said something like, “If sex before marriage is wrong, then why does God allow conception to occur in this context?” (The argument is a non-sequitur and easily can be shown to be one using this reductio ad absurdum. If that argument logically follows, then the same could be said for adultery, which also results on occasion in conception.) She told him that God can allow good to come from sin. He rejected that good could come from sin.
Let’s look at his position for a moment. I think that his position really undermines God’s providence. Take as an example the problem of evil. People who struggle with the problem of evil constantly ask, “How could God let something like the Holocaust (Shoah) happen?” Sometimes people give the lame answer that God gave us free will and He doesn’t interfere in our affairs. While true, I say this is lame because God most certainly does interfere in our affairs when He wants. A look at a crucifix shows us He greatly desires to bring us back to Himself through entering into our lives. Do we forget that even today every saint canonized requires one miraculous healing performed by God through the saint’s intercession? God most certainly could have prevented the Holocaust. If doing so is beyond His normal course of action, then many verses in Scripture become meaningless. Psalm 91 says that we will be safe under God’s wings and not to fear the terror of the night. Psalm 27 asks of whom should we be afraid, since God is at our side. So the answer to the Holocaust question is that suffering has meaning. It is redemptive. God was in Auschwitz with those suffering. Maybe we don’t understand the meaning, but the meaning is there.
This is not to say that God supports sin. Think on a smaller scale about a car crash. If someone gets drunk, goes for a ride, and kills someone, in no way is God pleased in the action of sinner, the driver. He, did, however, bring about His ends through the sinner. He used the car crash to take the life of an innocent (in this situation) bystander. Another example would be if I turned to the person sitting on my left and in anger punched him. God could have stopped me from punching him. The anger in my heart could have been the sin without having hit my neighbor. However, God, in His providence, used my punch. In no way has God been in favor of my sin. Using the previous aforementioned reduction ad absurdum, does this make murder part of God’s will? God’s will is the death of the person and He brings it about through murder. This is illogical, as murder is clearly sinful.)
In the same way, God, in His providence, brings about His will, in this case conception, through sinful means without supporting the sinful means. This means that that even though intercourse before marriage can result in conception, it is not morally acceptable. We are not to make any judgments on the people who commit this sin or on those who are conceived in this manner. However, we cannot condone the act for the sake of people’s feelings either because we do in fact know it to be wrong. We must be sensitive to their feelings but remain dedicated to the truth and out of love tell them the truth so that they repent, not to condemn them, but to save them and straighten out their relationship with God.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Links to All Posts Related to The Vagina Monologues
Here is a listing of all the posts related to The Vagina Monologues:
The original post
What is the purpose of The Vagina Monologues
Contra Letters in Support of The Vagina Monologues
Gloria Steinem's Introduction
Ensler's Introduction
"Hair" and Questions
"The Flood"
Periods
My Essay: "The Church Makes True Love Possible"
"The Vagina Workshop"
"Because He Liked To Look At It"
"My Vagina Was My Village"
"My Angry Vagina"
"The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could"
Various Scenes
Through the End
The original post
What is the purpose of The Vagina Monologues
Contra Letters in Support of The Vagina Monologues
Gloria Steinem's Introduction
Ensler's Introduction
"Hair" and Questions
"The Flood"
Periods
My Essay: "The Church Makes True Love Possible"
"The Vagina Workshop"
"Because He Liked To Look At It"
"My Vagina Was My Village"
"My Angry Vagina"
"The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could"
Various Scenes
Through the End
Through the End
This post intends to take us from where we left off, “The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy” through the end of the The Vagina Monologues.
This scene is about a lesbian who used to be a tax-lawyer but now is paid to make women moan. By definition (she sleeps with other women for money), she is a prostitute.
She begins by saying, “I do not see them (women and vaginas) as separate things.” This error has been discussed here before. The entire scene is a defense of moaning. There’s nothing wrong with moaning, unless you happen to be waking people up doing it. There is something wrong with lesbian sexual intercourse, and that is not discussed here. The speaker also has a problem with those who don’t moan. “No, I pushed her further, all the way to her power moan”
I want to comment her on orgasms. It is truly sad that many women do not experience pleasure during intercourse. An orgasm within the context of intercourse is a good thing. What we must opposed are using the ends to justify the means, for example, allowing lesbian sexual intercourse in order to achieve an orgasm.
After the scene, Ensler tells us that the woman it was based on didn’t think it was her story. She liked the scene, but it was not her. Ensler interviews her again.
The woman glorifies lesbian sexual intercourse, even though it is disordered and sinful. A plethora of articles on this topic are available here. The interview is a very graphic description of how the woman has lesbian sexual intercourse.
The last scene is on birth, and it didn’t contain anything controversial, in my mind.
This scene is about a lesbian who used to be a tax-lawyer but now is paid to make women moan. By definition (she sleeps with other women for money), she is a prostitute.
She begins by saying, “I do not see them (women and vaginas) as separate things.” This error has been discussed here before. The entire scene is a defense of moaning. There’s nothing wrong with moaning, unless you happen to be waking people up doing it. There is something wrong with lesbian sexual intercourse, and that is not discussed here. The speaker also has a problem with those who don’t moan. “No, I pushed her further, all the way to her power moan”
I want to comment her on orgasms. It is truly sad that many women do not experience pleasure during intercourse. An orgasm within the context of intercourse is a good thing. What we must opposed are using the ends to justify the means, for example, allowing lesbian sexual intercourse in order to achieve an orgasm.
After the scene, Ensler tells us that the woman it was based on didn’t think it was her story. She liked the scene, but it was not her. Ensler interviews her again.
The woman glorifies lesbian sexual intercourse, even though it is disordered and sinful. A plethora of articles on this topic are available here. The interview is a very graphic description of how the woman has lesbian sexual intercourse.
The last scene is on birth, and it didn’t contain anything controversial, in my mind.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Various Scenes
For the sake of time, I am going to skip over a couple of sections which are not controversial, in my opinion, to get to the one known as “Reclaiming C*nt.”
The scene is about saying the word many times so that it is no longer offensive. It is desensitizing. Two years ago while discussing this entire play with a girl who supports the continued performance on our campus. She said at one point, “There is nothing offensive in the show.” Later in our talk, I dropped the c word. She flipped out. Apparently, even after seeing the show, the word remains offensive. There is no real reason for Ensler’s effort to change perception about this word. Some feminists want to reclaim it and so that it won’t have power over them. I don’t think Italian-Americans have tried to reclaim wop. I don’t think they ever will try it. Why do feminists?
The next scene is one in which Ensler asks more of those ridiculous questions about anthropomorphizing vaginas. This time she asks a six-year old.
The scene is about saying the word many times so that it is no longer offensive. It is desensitizing. Two years ago while discussing this entire play with a girl who supports the continued performance on our campus. She said at one point, “There is nothing offensive in the show.” Later in our talk, I dropped the c word. She flipped out. Apparently, even after seeing the show, the word remains offensive. There is no real reason for Ensler’s effort to change perception about this word. Some feminists want to reclaim it and so that it won’t have power over them. I don’t think Italian-Americans have tried to reclaim wop. I don’t think they ever will try it. Why do feminists?
The next scene is one in which Ensler asks more of those ridiculous questions about anthropomorphizing vaginas. This time she asks a six-year old.
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