St. Damaus of Rome, Bishop, (384)
Saints Fuscian, Victoricus, and Gentian, Martyrs, (unknown)
St. Daniel the Stylite, Monk, (493)
From The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams which I picked up from Why Pullman Killing God is no Bad Thing:
I read the books and the plays as a sort of thought experiment: this is, after all, an alternative world, or set of worlds. What would the Church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed, and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny. For Pullman, the Church evidently looks like this most of the time; it isn’t surprising that the only God in view is the Authority.
…
But this should not be read as a way of wriggling out of Pullman’s challenges to institutional religion. I end where I started. If the Authority is not God, why has the historic Church so often behaved as if it did indeed exist to protect a mortal and finite God? What would a church life look like that actually expressed the reality of a divine freedom enabling human freedom?
A modern French Christian writer spoke about “purification by atheism” – meaning faith needed to be reminded regularly of the gods in which it should not believe. I think Pullman and Wright do this very effectively for the believer. I hope too that for the non-believing spectator, the question may somehow be raised of what exactly the God is in whom they don’t believe.
Amen.
I ran across a blog called GodBeGone.
Looking at the writing there I drew an immediate comparison to the recent controversy over the Golden Compass movie.
Fr. Martin Fox pegged the objections to the movie in his article: Golden Compass author: ‘My books are about killing God.’
In it he says
Parents can’t always keep up with popular culture—”and when a movie is promoted as a fun adventure, featuring children riding enchanted polar bears, all in time for the Christmas season, what’s not to like?
Unfortunately, the film’s makers have an agenda. The film is based on the works of author Phil Pullman, who has written a series of entertaining stories called “His Dark Materials.” In his own words: “‘I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,’ says Pullman. ‘Mr. Lewis [C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia] would think I was doing the devil’s work'” (from the Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2001). And, “I’ve been surprised by how little criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak…. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God” (from the Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 13, 2003)…
I read a review of the Golden Compass in The Atlantic, aptly titled How Hollywood Saved God.
That’s true in that Hollywood watered it down so as to make it meaningless.
Substitute any characters in the movie – plug Saint Francis in here or Bing Crosby in there, and we’d all be singing White Christmas as we process to church with little animals at our side.
Mr. Pullman got ripped off big time. Hollywood took his book and turned it into a movie that was 99% fluff and little substance. So much for the strength of his convictions standing before the all powerful Hollywood money machine.
What I was most struck by as I read through the Atlantic review and the GodBeGone blog was the lack of reasoned argument and scholastic integrity from the “there is no God” folks.
…and isn’t that it.
I fully agree with people’s right to believe or disbelieve as they see fit. I am confident enough that Jesus Christ and the Holy Church can stand up in any reasoned argument, but these folks rarely bother with reasoned argument.
Mr. Pullman is just repeating a mantra made up by someone else. He’s offering his literary skills as a mouth piece for that mantra without any real study of the points-of-view involved
Any debate or discussion that relies on unstudied diatribes (Mr. Pullman going off on the crusades, witch hunts, blah blah) and the repetition of accusations as a substitute for reasoned argument or scholastic integrity is meaningless. In the GodBeGone blog you find repeated shots at God through the improper use of the English language (let’s not capitalize Jesus or Christianity or anything else we find silly because, well that’ll get ’em).
Consider the historical parallels.
If we repeatedly accuse a group of folks of all sorts of bad things, supporting such with horrible literature, twisted history, and bad scholarship, and we use language in such a way as to make them inhuman (don’t capitalize their names – they’re not human anyway), don’t we set them up for inhumane treatment, concentration camps?
Scholarship takes more than sound bites. It takes more than blog entries. It takes time, study, an understanding of the core beliefs of your opponent, unadulterated by fluff and histrionics.
As the Young Fogey might point out, tolerant conservatism does not demand that you believe what I believe, nor does it force my beliefs upon you. It does demand that we be gentlemen about the process and that you respect my rights equally, including my right to be treated humanely and to profess my beliefs.
So have at it. Tell me how wrong I am.
St. Miltiades of Rome, Bishop and Martyr, (314)
St. Eulalia (Merida), Virgin and Martyr, (304)
St. Gregory III of Rome, Bishop, (741)
Well here’s a new one!
I was going to order a few Christmas gift baskets for relatives and friends. In the past I had purchased some items from a French on-line merchant BienManager, French Gourmet Food and Gifts.
On background, their website notes that they are located in Lozere, in the center of France. They work with 200 producers that match traditional know-how and produce quality products.
They also note that they deliver worldwide.
Because of past purchases I am on their E-mail list. I very much enjoyed what I had purchased, and true to their marketing the quality and variety were excellent.
The marketing E-mail I received from them a few weeks back had some very nice looking baskets with just the right things for the folks on my Christmas gift list.
I went to their website, filled my shopping cart and behold – they do not ship to the United States.
If I lived in Andorra, Gabon, Mayotte, the Gilbert Islands, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Tuvalu, Equatorial Guinea, Poland or any one of 115 countries I could buy their stuff. But no U.S. of A.?
Well, perhaps it was a website error.
I wrote to the company and received a very speedy reply from Mme. Aurelie Verlaguet advising me that even though they have an FDA registration number they can no longer ship to the United States due to the Patriot Act.
Past deliveries were unnecessarily delayed because of Patriot Act requirements and as such they could no longer guarantee the quality of the products they shipped here.
Sad really. I wrote back to Mme. Verlaguet to express my regret, not only that I could no longer engage in open commerce with a reputable company, but that our “involvement” in the crazy politics of the Middle East has brought about such problems.
I guess that free trade and international commerce only apply if you’re rich enough to take your corporate jet to the store, or rather, you import the stuff yourself and take yet another cut from the consumer.
A little humor – for the next encounter with someone who has a “My boss is a Jewish carpenter” bumper-sticker.
St. Leocadia, Virgin and Martyr, (304)
Saints Hipparchus and Companions, Martyrs, (297)
St. Gorgonia, Matron, (372)
On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
As we look about the world we see little more than the bad.
We see evil, poverty, despair, ruthlessness, greed, lust, envy, sloth. It looks like the seven deadly sins on steroids. Evil seems to be pumped up.
Then we look at our lowly Church.
It is small. A couple hundred congregants here, forty or fifty somewhere else.
We see fewer children in church, more elderly. Almost no one present on weekdays or Holy Days of obligation, fewer and fewer on Sundays.
We wonder, how can the Holy Church survive against the ways of the world? How can the Holy Church compete against basketball, baseball, football, soccer, late night partying, or exhaustion from work? How can the truth – which can only be found in the teaching of Jesus Christ as passed down through the Church – compete against a society where people would rather find their own way, their own truth, their own definitions?
Whenever we feel a bit glum, depressed, and whenever we feel our hope is fading, think of Jesse.
Brothers and sisters,
Literally, the stump of Jesse is Jesse’s inability to produce.
His line of descendants was dying off. Jesse’s line was dried up and had lain dormant for 600 years. There was no holy king descended from David on Israel’s throne, only a pawn of Rome.
The king was an Edomite, a convert to Judaism, and a Hellenist at heart. He was corrupt and cruel. He literally killed off the Hasmonean Dynasty and after Jesus’ birth tried to kill off the last shoot from Jesse, the heir to David’s throne.
The Jews of that day certainly could empathize with the way we feel.
They saw people working on their own terms. The Chief Priests and Pharisees laid burdens on people, and as Jesus said, they themselves will not move them with their finger. Holiness was in short supply, and truth – as Pilate said – Truth, what does that mean?
When John showed up and said:
—Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!—
Could anyone possibly have believed him? Would anyone jump up and say that they were going to be victorious. Wouldn’t your average normal Israelite, and especially their leaders, think John either insane or subversive?
Brothers and sisters,
What most people missed was that the shoot did sprout, and that shoot is the Lord, the promised Messiah and Son of God.
By lineage Jesus came as the son of David. In reality He came as true God and true man. He is the promised one who changes everything.
We get all warm and fuzzy when we hear about lions and lambs, children and vipers. Those phrases are symbolic of how Jesus’ coming changed the world.
So when we look at the world and feel hope slipping we must remember that the the world has been changed in Jesus’ coming and that the Holy Church lives. It lives even in the face of the world because it is holy. It is filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims every truth necessary for salvation.
It lives in the promise Jesus gave:
—lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
Those who enter the doors of the Holy Church through baptism are made its sons and daughters and are grafted onto the vine, the Body of Christ.
As the Body of Christ the Holy Church lives, grows, and maintains hope. She is true to who she is.
The Holy Church lives as the beacon of the one, true, holy, and universal faith, taught without compromise or error.
Friends,
Our message is one and it is subversive.
The world does not want to hear that there is one truth, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those tied to the world would rather live in the lonely desperation of crafting their own system of belief, or adopting any one that might be convient at the moment. The world does not want to play by the rules of a God who would die for it. The world balks at saying:
`We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’
The world does not want to face the one who Isaiah described as follows:
Not by appearance shall he judge,—¨
nor by hearsay shall he decide,—¨
but he shall judge the poor with justice,—¨
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.—¨
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,—¨
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.—¨
Justice shall be the band around his waist,—¨
and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.—¨
Jesus has come!
In this Advent season we recall that the would is filled with hopelessness. We stand against that hopelessness. We are here to celebrate our hope and to prepare ourselves, members of His Holy Church, to carry out His mission.
Go out there today and every day going forward. Tell of our hope.
Tell everyone you meet, I am a Catholic, a child of the Holy Church, committed to be a servant of God, His adopted son, his adopted daughter. Regardless of looks, regardless of appearances, regardless of the world’s direction, the truth is simply this – Jesus has come and has given us the truth. The Church lives this and I intend to live it. Join me at St. Paul in saying:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Amen.
Solemnity of the Conception of the B.V.M.
St. Romaric, Abbot, (653)
St. Budoc, Abbot, (6th century)
St. Ambrose of Milan, Bishop and Martyr, (397)
St. Euthychian of Rome, Bishop, (283)
St. Athenodorus of Mesopotamia, Martyr, (304)