On the Altar

The Altar.
A block of stone, an ornate table of rare wood?
Temporary, permanent, ancient - what is it?

Look beyond...
the hands of a priest,
a table,
changed forever by oil and hands, a bishop's consecration.
The hands, the table... they are sacred, set apart for a holy purpose.
Set apart for God Himself.

It appears simple, a father leading his family
in a meal of prayer and thanksgiving.
Yet, it is more than a simple meal of bread and wine, shared for to be together.

The priest becomes something more.
Despite his flaws and failings, he is now In Persona Christi.
The bread and wine are now the Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity of Christ,
confected by those anointed hands on the table which has become Calvary - the Cross.

Consummatum est. This is the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Hierarchical Thoughts

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.

I am absolutely fascinated by the wording of this passage from Colossians in Latin:

Omnia per ipsum et in ipsum creata sunt,
et ipse est ante omnia,
et omnia in ipso constant.

In Latin, the words ipsum, ipso, ipse are all forms of the intensive pronoun, that can be roughly translated as "he himself." Like the difference between saying, "Fred ran an errand," and "Fred himself ran an errand," or "Fred ran an errand himself."

Given that, we can take a stab at the translation of this passage, which is found at the end of verse 16 and beginning of verse 17 in the first chapter of Collosians.

All (things) through he himself and in he himself were created,
and he himself is before all (things),
and all (things) in he himself they last/are known/exist/consist (of)/stand firm.

Again and again this use of ipso, the intensive pronoun with the antecedent of Christ, emphasizing his absolute centrality to creation itself.

His centrality is not just in our worship, or in our own lives, but in fact to everything.

This is why we evangelize.

I recall a homily my pastor gave a couple of months ago, in which he said, "We must live lives which make no sense, if God isn't real." I think he found the heart of what St. Francis meant when he said, "Evangelize always, when necessary use words."

Obviously, not all of us are given to eloquent speech, or deep thought, or graceful prose and poetry. But each and every one of us is called to live a life that makes no sense, that is not logical, that is irrational, to the eyes of the world.

Even more than that, we Catholics have the added challenge that our lives must make no sense unless the Church is true. We should be a walking question mark to all people of faith, so that knowing us, they are brought to the question, "why would they do that if the Church wasn't what it said it was?"

And why do we do all this? For the glory? For the rewards? When Archbishop Fulton Sheen was asked how many souls he had converted, he answered none. God does the conversion, he was simply open to God's call to evangelization.

We do this because it is the will of God that no one suffer the pain of hell, which is the pain of eternal separation from Him.

We do this because in every human soul there is a longing, a thirsting. Every addiction, every false idol, every faulty idealism is a search for the altar of God. Because of our fallen nature, we struggle in finding it, but it is in our very nature to struggle to find it. We evangelize with our whole lives because every person's dignity deserves nothing less that the whole and total truth.

What if today is the day the Lord is going to use your prayer before the noon meal to draw a soul to himself?

What if today is the day when your unabashed joy in the saving power of God will be the conduit of God's love into a lost heart?

Belief in God is not a "different strokes for different folks" deal. No, we do not force our beliefs upon other people, but we must be constantly living lives that reflect our belief, and call others to belief. It is not "imposing our values," it is Living in the Truth.

The First Luminous Mystery

He Who was baptized in the Jordan
The Baptism in the Jordan

Matthew 28:19

Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Christ had already followed this example, as we find at the start of his public life in Matthew 3:13-17

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, unto John, to be baptized by him. But John stayed him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfill all justice. Then he suffered him. And Jesus bing baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him: and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. And behold a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

I am reminded of an incident with St. Faustina, to whom was revealed the Divine Mercy. Our Lord told her to ask her superior to allow her to adore at midnight. She did, and was told no. He repeated this request several times, and each time she asked her superior, who denied her request. Finally, St. Faustina's superior told her not to ask her anymore.

The next time Our Lord asked her to adore Him at midnight, she replied in distress that her superior had again said no, and had ordered her not to ask again. Jesus replied that he had done this to make clear to her that he exercises his authority through his church, and that she must be obedient to her superior.

By himself being baptized "to fulfill all justice," Christ shows us the important of this as a sacrament. Though sinless, he accepted cleansing from sin, just as he would later accept their punishment.

Christ was baptized so that we could be baptized with him, anointed with him.

The Luminous Mysteries

The Luminous mysteries tell us of Jesus's earthly ministry, from his baptism to his institution of the Eucharist. They are:

1. The Baptism in the Jordan
   Qui apud Iordanem baptizatus est.
   He Who was baptized in the Jordan.
2. The Wedding at Cana
   Qui ipsum revelavit apud Canense matrimonium.
   He Who revealed Himself at the wedding feast of Cana.
3. The Proclamation of the Kingdom
   Qui Regnum Dei annuntiavit.
   He who announced the Kingdom of God.
4. The Transfiguration
   Qui transfiguratus est.
   He Who was transfigured.
5. The Institution of the Eucharist
   Qui Eucharistiam instituit.
   He Who instituted the Eucharist.

As you probably know, the luminous mysteries are a fairly recent addition to the Rosary. There have been many people in favor of their addition, and many people who believe them to be a great insult to Mary.

What I know is this:

• The Rosary is not Liturgy. While traditional and universally known, it is a devotion, and there are several variants.
• As revealed to St. Dominic, the Rosary is a means of teaching the faith. Blessed John Paul the Great's addition is to the teaching aspect.
• The luminous mysteries are and always will be optional. If you don't like them, don't say them.

What I know is that Bl. JPM said that these are five mysteries of Christ worthy of meditation. That is all I need to know, totus tuus Maria!

Mary, loving mother who tells us to do the will of your Son, pray for us!

Doing some maintenance...

Hey all. Just a heads up that I've started using a lot more custom formatting in recent posts, and I'm going to start working backwards to apply the same internal structure so that my blog is easier for me to maintain. I'm also going to be looking over older posts to make sure they still look good with the new theme for the whole blog.

I have several new posts in the queue, including a start into the Luminous mysteries of the rosary, and some discussion of Hell. Bear with me, those should be out soon. If you see typos/glitches/plain bad formatting, feel free to report it to me, musings@jebwerkz.com.

Thanks!

What's in a name? Take 2.

His name is not "Barry."

His name is not "Bo or B.O."

His name is not "Bozo."

His name is Barrack Hussein Obama.

You would do well to address him as President Obama, or Mr. President, or POTUS (President of the United States) if you're tweeting. I don't care if you don't like his policies, or even the man himself, but if you cannot muster respect for the man, then respect the office.

I do not know the president as a person, so I can't say whether or not I like him on a personal level. I could most likely have a beer with him. Our conversation would probably involve him saying a lot of nothing - because he's a politician and they're good at that - and me saying a lot of nothing - out of respect and my desire not to get at all heated.

I do know that there are very few policy decisions he has made that I approve of. I do know that I do not like his philosophy and politics, and believe that his are the politics that undermine our good. That does not give me the right to attack him on a personal level, even if it be only in the realm of caricaturizing his name.

It shames me sometimes to hold company with others of conservative mind-set, for the simple reason that during ALL 8 YEARS of the Bush administration we were fighting this name calling, and now what happens when we don't like the sitting president? We turn around and do the same damn thing.

I don't care if President Obama is a Muslim, or has been a Muslim, or has an appreciation for Islam in general, or whatever the Islamic Charge-de-jour is.

At this point, I don't care if the birth certificate is a hoax. The governor of Hawaii said it's the real deal, and let's be honest, the man only has one year left in office.

What concerns me about our sitting president is that he is a left-wing pro-abortion socialist, and I fear that his policies - while of good intent - are going to do more harm than good.

Ad hominem (to the man) attacks are considered fallacies because even if the assertion be true, it does not affect the validity of the person's argument. We are losing the culture war to relativistic socialism, and that is the front on which we must face him, and all who share his political persuasion.

Calling him names does nothing but demean ourselves.

If you can't use reason and history to assault his political and philosophical convictions, don't say anything at all.

Modes of Knowledge

I've been thinking (dangerous, I know), and I have come to the conclusion that much more important than the separation of church and state (which is poorly misunderstood at best anyway), we need the separation of Theology, Philosophy, and Science.

Before you turn me over to the inquisition, here me out. After I've explained myself, if I'm in error, correct me.

Here are three primary disciplines for the acquisition of knowledge and the literal meanings of their root words:

Theology

Words, Sayings, and Reasoning about God

Philosophy

Love of Wisdom

Science

Knowledge

For the sake of clarity, let me plainly state that truth is the goal and end of all three disciplines, and therefore their ends are God, ultimately. Moreover, as Aquinas makes plain, truth is truth, and cannot contradict truth. Therefore, if a truth is discovered via philosophy, it cannot and will not be contradicted by science. Science will not be contradicted by theology, nor by divine revelation, if it has achieved a truth. This understanding is very important.

The problem (and I believe the source of most if not all 'contradictions') is that these three disciplines seek to answer three different questions. 'Contradictions' crop up when we attempt to apply a discipline to a question it was not intended to answer. As a side note, this is why we need to return to a more balanced education system. When all you have is a calculator, the whole world begins to look like a math problem.

So, what questions are being asked? How are they being asked? Why are they being asked?

Exactly.

Let me start with philosophy; everything else has. When we approach a thing, often the first question that comes to mind is, "What on God's green earth is that thing?" I argue that this may be the most important question to be asked. How and why flow from what, and so there we start.

Philsophy, then, is the means by which we determine what a thing is. What is its kind, shape, and measure? There are many theories about the 'what,' what is reality, what are good and evil, what is a human person. But every philosophical theory does seek to answer this question. Ask a deontologist what is right, and he will tell you it is duty. Ask an aristotilean what is reality, and she will tell you form, matter, cause, and end. Ask Kant, he'll tell you it is imperative. Every philosophy starts with what a thing is.

But then, this makes sense, does it not? When in the woods and something approaches, how do you know if you are safe or not? You investigate what type of thing it is. Is it a person, or an animal. If it's an animal, is it a doe, a bear, a wolf? Knowing that it is a doe, one knows that it is proper of a doe to eat plants, not people, and so you are safe, so long as you don't spook it and get trampled.

So from that what, we move to the how, and to the sciences. Some may argue that science answers what, but what it answers is modality, not essence. By that I mean, when we ask what a thing is, intrinsically, what is the heart of the thing, part of the answer is of course what it is made of, its material cause. But while the material causes is indeed a part of the 'what' of a thing, the study of the material is a study of how it is. How does the human body work? That it does we know from observation, but how... That is the purview of science.

Science deals with the physical realm, with probabilities and inductions. Whereas previously we were concerned with the truth of the essence, we are now concerned with the truth of the cause and the matter. What conditions and events trigger something to happen, and how do we recreate it or stop it. Science opens marvelous vistas into the workings of everything from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the largest super-galactic cluster. It tells us of the intricacy of our biology, vulnerability opposed by resilience. It is the clock-maker instructing us in the mechanisms that drive the time, strike, and chime.

But it doesn't tell us why these things happen.

Theology answers why because theology seeks to know the heart of the maker. Knowing what a thing is, knowing how it is and how it works, can clue us into its purpose and its end. However - especially concerning humanity - all the science and all the philosophy in the world doesn't tell us why we're here. And since all creation is ordered to our good, and through us to God, the same goes for everything else.

It is theology which tells us of a God who, for no reason but that he willed it, created us that we might be happy with him. Our purpose and finality are God, to love him and be happy with him forever in heaven, and that is a truth we only discover when we listen to what God tells us of himself.

The fullness of theology - recall, Words, Sayings, and Reasonings about God - comes when we are in touch with the Word of God, the only-begotten second person of the trinity. Jesus doesn't tell us about the complexities of sub-atomic structure, but he is praised by it. The Word Made Flesh never explained to us how the Trinity is the prime mover, but he is glorified in Aristotle and Aquinas.

It seems that all good things come in threes. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Mother, Father, Baby Within; Past, Present, and Future; Scripture, Tradition, and Faith; Philosophy, Science, and Theology. The most stable platform is the tripod, and when we forget that and ignore a leg, we find ourselves destabilized, unbalanced.

All three are important. All three are necessary. All three must be understood and used for what they are, insofar as they are what they are - tools for the acquisition of the truth, modalities of knowledge.