Pope Benedict the Fourteenth on Lent

Dymphna gets the hat tip for this great summary of Lent. Except I think she meant to write Benedict XIV rather than XI. (Dang Roman Numberals.)

The observance of Lent is the very badge of Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should men grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.

Here's another source of the quote.

Pope Benedict the Fourteenth shouldn't be confused with our recent B16. And, speaking of Princes of Darkness, never confuse either with Benedict IX (the ninth) who was probably one of the worst human beings ever let alone one of the worst popes.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Dr. Taylor Marshall, probably one of the best Catholic Apologists out there, argues for December 25 as the actual day of Christ's birthday. All the arguments are great and well-reasoned, and his replies to arguments that the date was simply chosen are courteous. Here's the most common sense of them all:

 

Sacred Tradition also confirms December 25 as the birthday of the Son of God. The source of this ancient tradition is the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. Ask any mother about the birth of her children. She will not only give you the date of the birth, but she will be able to rattle off the time, the location, the weather, the weight of the baby, the length of the baby, and a number of other details. I’m the father of six blessed children, and while I sometimes forget these details—mea maxima culpa—my wife never does. You see, mothers never forget the details surrounding the births of their babies. 

 

Now ask yourself: Would the Blessed Virgin Mary ever forget the birth of her Son Jesus Christ who was conceived without human seed, proclaimed by angels, born in a miraculous way, and visited by Magi? She knew from the moment of His incarnation in her stainless womb that He was the Son of God and Messiah. Would she ever forget that day?

 

Next, ask yourself: Would the Apostles be interested in hearing Mary tell the story? Of course they would. Do you think the holy Apostle who wrote, “And the Word was made flesh,” was not interested in the minute details of His birth? Even when I walk around with our seven-month-old son, people always ask “How old is he?” or “When was he born?” Don’t you think people asked this question of Mary? 

 

So the exact birth date (December 25) and the time (midnight) would have been known in the first century. Moreover, the Apostles would have asked about it and would have, no doubt, commemorated the blessed event that both Saint Matthew and Saint Luke chronicle for us. In summary, it is completely reasonable to state that the early Christians both knew and commemorated the birth of Christ. Their source would have been His Immaculate Mother. 

Dale Ahlquist Talks

From the Cleveland Right to Life newsletter.

Week of October 3rd 2014

Dale Ahlquist, EWTN host Dale Ahlquist, host of EWTN's "G.K.Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense" and president of the American Chesterton Society, will be giving two local presentations:: "Chesterton's Saints: St. Francis of Assisi & Thomas Aquinas" Saturday, October 4th @ 6pm St. Dominic Parish Hall, 77 Lucius Ave., Youngstown, OH  Admission: $5 (incl. light refreshments: wine, cheese, etc.) "G.K. Chesterton & Lepanto: The Epic of Catholic History" Sunday, October 5th @ 2:30pm  Padre Pio Academy, 12920 Madison Ave., Lakewood, OH  Admission: Free

I've heard Ahlquist speak before--he's good. I'm planning to attend the one at Padre Pio Academy on Sunday at 2:30pm. (Where my kids attend school.)

Here's the location on Google maps.

The smart brother

My brother—the smart one in the family—has a book out, Almost Pioneers. Basically he found a diary written by a Wyoming homesteader in the early 20th century named Laura Gibson Smith and he edited it and published it with tons of footnotes explaining what things were like back then and stuff that someone like me has no clue about and someone with a Ph.D. in American history does. It's an intriguing read, and I'm enjoying it. I think Oengus would like it since he lives out in one o' them big states way out there.

Here's the description from the back: A wonderful peek into the lives of a couple who tried the wide open West as homesteaders and a wry look back at their ineptitude amid the pioneer bravado of the era.

Sheep Chaps and Mexican Equivalents

I've been doing some historical study on the town in which I live. The fact always mentioned about North Olmsted is the famous bus line which was the oldest transit system in the nation until it was gobbled up by Cleveland's RTA in 2005. What I didn't know was that the mayor at the time of its founding was a chap who was more famous for writing western novels, Charles Alden Seltzer. I'm not a big fan of reading westerns, although in general I like western films, so I'd never heard of the man through that connection. He's most famous for being the father of Louis B. Seltzer, erstwhile editor of the now-defunct Cleveland Press.

I found a short auto-biographical piece online which served to endear Mr. Seltzer to me. His writing is quirky and self-deprecatory with dead-pan dry humor. I don't know of whom that reminds me. Here's part:

I have no regular working hours, but I try my best to turn out at least two full-length serials each year. I still try to make an occasional trip to the West. I like to go over the old ranges. I do not like to have any one refer to Western stories as "wild and woolly," because, while I concede that the West was wild, it never became woolly until the advent of the sheep -- and that was after I lived there. I never saw a pair of sheep chaps; I never heard a cowhand call another "cowboy," "cow-puncher" or "waddie." "Hand," or "rider," or "cowhand" was the radius of the terminology as applied to the regular ranch employee. "Straw-boss," "wrangler," "buster," "range-boss" were others -- all understandable and universal in the Southwest. To be sure, there were Mexican equivalents used.

I have made some trips into the country which I have written about in Gone North. Fishing, hunting and observing. My hobbies are hunting, fishing, trap shooting, pistol practice and politics. I have broken ninety-two out of a possible hundred clay targets. In a pistol shoot in competition -- with a thirty-eight Colt -- at twenty yards I have made a ninety-one and a quarter per cent target. Last November I rang the bell in North Olmstead politics by being elected mayor of the town -- and I am now serving my sentence. North Olmstead is a suburban town on the edge of Cleveland and has a population of twenty-five hundred people and by the end of my two-year term I expect they will all join in chasing me out of town.

I have been married thirty-five years. Five children. One girl married, one at home. One boy Louis B., is editor of the Cleveland Press; another, Robert M., is a star reporter; the third is an advertising man. I am grateful that they did not attempt to follow in their father's footsteps.

Is he stone-cold serious with that sheep remark or what? Fortunately for Charles Seltzer, Zane Grey and other western writer guys, they were allowed to pass on to the Great Dude Ranch in the Sky before the advent of Brokeback Mountain.


Maybe I'll pick of one of the man's novels one of these days and read it with some sipping whiskey out in the shade of yonder tree grove, jes' south of the western sheep pasture.

Pikkumatti's Comment

Pikkumatti's comment deserves a post of it's own.

I was wondering what it is about Dreher that gets all of our danders up. Pauli's blog is relatively quiet, but then we have a Dreher-related post and blammy.

And then Pauli nails it. It isn't so much that the crunchy One left our Church -- that happens all the time. It isn't so much that he is a conservative poser -- we've got plenty of those around, esp. in Congress.

It is that he poses as a conservative somewhat-Orthodox Christian to the non-believing or fringe-believing "intellectual" world (think Franklin the pagan), and trashes the Church in front of them. (Ditto for conservative issues, but that hits a duller nerve.)

As I wrote back at the time of the Great Orthodox Conversion, it was as though he tossed a stink bomb into a party that he just left. And then called a crowd outside the house to watch the mayhem through the windows. We couldn't help but defend the Church, but to the outsiders, that defense couldn't help but appear ungracious at the least.

And the pagans et al think that Dreher himself plus the harsh words of the defenders are what the Church is all about. Either we are snobs who claim to care about Truth but will change our views for issue-convenience (Dreher) or we are just a bunch of touchy nutcases.

As Pauli said, we appear as believers in a system with no internal logic. And that unfair and incorrect appearance is not only annoying, but in fact is the deepest cut -- made by someone who should know better. That is what gets to me about him, anyway.

I think that's a good summary of what infuriates the infuriated.

Another reader remarked on the phenomenon of Rod Dreher being the one topic causing the most comments on the blog. That was about a year ago. I laughed at the time, and I still do. Although I don't post things merely for the sake of comments, it's obvious that comments―among other indicators―serve to demonstrate the interest level on the topic being blogged. But here's something else interesting to note. Over the last few days, a good portion of the hits on my humble blog have been coming from a google search of "dreher neuhaus", so it's not just the usual suspects driving up the interest level, outsiders―those not involved in the original discussions―are interested in this topic, too.

Also, I suppose I should find someone to blame for using a big nasty bowling word in said comment section. Well, I was watching this and this along with other Steeler-related material which might account for a spike in testosterone levels. This is not to mention 4-hours of Jack Bauer to kick-off the week. But it's possible that I'm just a crude human being who's prone to crudeness now and then. So let that be a lesson to me.

BTW, Tom, the Ravens are going down, mutha.



Update: To be fair, not everything that goes on over here makes Christianity look good to all people either, and maybe I ought to think about cleaning up my act a bit (burrrp.)

Gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple

Today is the 145th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, so here it is for all y'all.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Dylan Meets the Beatles

What really happened, man.

"The Church Remains"

Here's a good interview with Cardinal Orti from Inside the Vatican regarding the Spanish Civil War. Recently there was a beatification of 498 martyrs from the religious persecution under the Republican (i.e, Stalinist) government of 1930s Spain. Over 10,000 people were killed for being Roman Catholic during that time, both lay and religious. I sent the link to Jonah Goldberg, maybe he'll comment on it in the LF Blog which I've been a little lax in keeping up with. Here's how the interview concludes:

Interviewer: Socialist, Communist and Masonic parties are in power in Spain nowadays. They see the Church in the same way as the Republicans who tried to destroy her 70 years ago. Needless to say, nobody kills priests and nuns or burns religious buildings, but the Church is perceived as a hindrance to the real progress of Spain and the whole of mankind, as an institution to marginalize and reduce to silence, being the holder of a conservative vision of man, an ideological adversary. Zapatero seems to be willing to create a new world, a new man in Spain.

VICENTE CARCEL ORTI: This is typical of all left-wing totalitarian regimes. Stalin too intended to create a new man; so did Pol Pot. Freedom is at risk in Spain, as the state is trying to interfere with people's private lives, to impose a given way of life, to decide how they must bring up their children, etc. It is not enough for laws to be passed by a parliament to be right. As there is only one voice to defend man's good, attempts are being made to hush it. Yet, whilst politicians are voted into and out of power, the Church remains.

"Dispose the day, bro"

Happy St. Crispin's Day, all y'all.

Barone Contrasts Latest UAW Strike with Previous in 1970

Here. His conclusion:

It turns out that market competition punishes those firms whose costs are out of line with others. It also produces better value for consumers, as today's cars are far superior in quality to the clunkers of 1970. And it can make things better for workers, as well. The reason the UAW demanded 30-and-out in 1970 was that workers hated their assembly-line jobs. Newer manufacturing techniques, pioneered by Japanese firms, give workers more autonomy and responsibility -- and more job satisfaction. The business model of 1970 is history. But most of us are better off today.

To the disparaging "clunkers", I prefer the more affectionate moniker "land yachts".


Also the article kind of reminds me of that Yaz tune "Goodbye Seventies". Nothing like dating myself, totally.