Brutally Honest

Christ is risen, Chavez... not so much

Despite Google's in your face attempt to make this day about something else, the fact remains that this is the day commemorating the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the promise of life that resurrection brings to those who believe.

It's not about Chavez, despite the best efforts of the idiots at Google.  It's not about coloring eggs and certainly not about the bunny.  It's about, as today's Collect relays, Him who conquers death and Who unlocks for us the path to eternity.

Alleluia!  He is risen, He is risen indeed.

"No one answered"

I love this piece from Elizabeth Scalia for many reasons, the largest being how well she engages those who think they have Pope Francis figured out:

Having just gone to confession after mass this morning, it was not my intention to get into a little tiff with a media outlet on Twitter, but being who I am, I couldn’t let it go when I saw one of those lazy, thoughtless sneers cross my timeline, to the effect that Pope Francis (good guy) was refusing to stay in (bad guy) “Pope Benedict’s luxurious apartments.”

I needed to disabuse the writer of the notion that Pope Benedict owned anything, including a “luxurious apartment” but that the papal apartment in the Vatican was simply that — the apartment of whoever happens to be pope, used by every pope since 1906, until now. Francis has chosen not to use it, and that’s perfectly fine, but I find myself objecting strenuously when I see people trying to use Francis’ simple tastes as a kind of hammer against his predecessors. “See,” they imply, “he’s a good, humble pope who is united to the poor, not like all of those other wasteful, pampered popes who didn’t care about the poor, before him.”

They would pretend that before this month, the poor weren’t on the church’s radar, or the pope’s. To what purpose? Well, mostly to warp a narrative and foment the easiest sort of hate, which is hate rooted in empty cynicism and ignorance.

I asked some of those who engaged me on twitter whether they would soon be divesting themselves of all luxuries, since owning luxuries, or pretty things, or well-made things is insensitive to the poor.

No one answered.

Since they seemed to feel strongly that as long as the poor exist, a person in leadershipshould set his tent among them, resisting luxuries or comforts for himself, I asked whether they thought the American President should forego a round of golf, or an expensive dinner, or a “luxury” vacation, for as long as there are people in his country struggling to get by.

No one answered.

I didn’t bother asking whether — since simplicity is now admirable and finer things are not — they would be surrendering their Starbucks coffee for a humble cup of Folgers, each morning.

I didn’t ask because, being a coffee snob, myself, I already know the answer. In a world of rampant materialism and fading prosperity, Pope Francis’ example of simplicity is already challenging me in my own not-extravagant life, and he’s challenging others, too. Eventually, those carrying on about how admirable a model he is for the rest of us will — unless they have no consciences to prick — find themselves roiled by our pope’s humble tastes, because they’ll either have to address their own consumption or face a truth about themselves that they can currently hide beneath righteous moralizing.

She's only getting warmed up.

Humble yourself and read the rest.

 

Percussionists are kewl... particularly in kilts...

I'm fond of guys who can play the snare as my youngest son had mad skills in high school and into college and hearing them play takes me back so what follows, via Deacon Greg, puts a big smile on my face:

Murph The Protector

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen

Needs plans for tonight? Look no further than a documentary about a true American hero - Navy Seal LT. Michael Murphy.

Check listings here for a theater near you.

More at Blackfive.

That is all. You’re welcome.

"It's the secular world that's obsessed with sex"

Heather King reacts to the notion, coming from a respected friend, that Catholics should stick to helping the poor and should shut up about sex:

Having been raised in the Church and long since fallen away, my friend can't possibly see, for example, why anyone of nominal intelligence, and the Church, would not counsel every woman in the world to get birth control. If women where in charge of the Church, she is sure THEY would change the "law"...

How can you tell people you have been saved from the abyss and thus live in state of insane bizarre grace and that you offer up your sexuality out of love? That to manage and control human creation, to the lover of Christ, seems monstrous? That when we say "I believe in God" we are really saying, "I view life as a gift, not as a possession"...

It's the secular world that's obsessed with sex. It's the secular world that has divorced sex from life. In my sixteen years in the Church I have never heard a single homily in which the priest exhorted the congregation that birth control is wrong, extramarital sex is wrong, being gay is wrong, gay sex is wrong. I've hardly heard those things mentioned. I have heard countless homilies about mercy, sacrifice, our longing hearts, our brokenness, our stumbling search to learn how to love.

Dorothy Day could be a champion of the poor partly because she left the love of her life and offered her whole self to God. St. Maximilian Kolbe offering himself up to starve in the place of another at Auschwitz was on a continuum with his celibacy. St. Francis of Assisi could speak to the birds because his entire procreative urge was ordered to Christ.

So it's not a matter of being right on social justice and wrong on sex (nor of celibacy being a higher calling than marriage): it's a matter of the ground of existence, whatever our station in life, being love.

Outstanding stuff... but it was at the end of the post where I was most grabbed.  There, Heather had embedded the following video and I was struck by the joy in the faces of these women, women the culture ridicules, women the culture thinks are oppressed, women most women would find garishly outdated.

Watch it... and notice for yourselves.

"Is he going to change the Church’s teaching...?"

Fr.Z was in St. Peter's square yesterday and wrote this moving piece:

He came out without all the trappings of office. He looked downward, almost to his feet, which is consistent with what I recall of this man of few words. I had the sense that he was, rightly, terrified.

In a few words he had people praying… people want to pray, you know, when there is a certain trumpet, certain voice to lead… praying for Benedict. And he began to pray…

Our Father…

The crowds took him up.

Hail Mary…

And that’s when I broke down.

Glory be to the Father….

He called for silence… he imposed a ready voluntary silence… which must preceed any undertaking.

Silence in St. Peter’s Square during the first words of the Pope. Silence.

I don’t know what to expect from this new Pope of ours. He reached out in a a definitive way to the old Pope, Benedict. Later we learned in a press conference that Francis called Benedict before appearing on the balcony and that he will visit him tomorrow/today/ He reached out in a definitive way to the Romans, for this is now his diocese. He reached out to a great many who are yearning for a strong but simple message.

And part of that message was silence.

Here is a man who, as head of the Jesuits in Argentina, helped to stave off Liberation Theoolgy by keeping his province under control. He lived in an apartment rather than the episcopal palace and rode public transportation. He has lived with one lung most of his life. He kept the priests of the place out of political strife. He cooked and cleaned for himself and took care of a disabled Jesuit brother. He is now “Francis”.

“Francis”, I thought.

I suspected that he was invoking Francis of Assisi for his simplicity and evangelical witness. But there is also Francis Xavier, the mighty Jesuit missionary.

Either way, neither saint was a pastel picture or statue. They were both as hard as nails and willing to die in their service of the Church. Think of Francis Xavier and the conversions and baptisms in Asia. Think of Francis of Assisi, who went for a face off with the Sultan during the Crusades and so impressed him that he survived with praises.

Personally, I worry about a Jesuit Pope, not because he might be Jesuitical. I suspect there are a lot of liberal, slightly Catholic Jesuits spinning this election like doomed Grimm’s figures, bizzarely working gold into straw. I worry a bit because there is an old adage that good Jesuits and good liturgical worship are almost like matter and anti-matter. Rare is the Jesuit who is also a good liturgist.

But, in the balance…. will this Pope turn back Benedict’s vision? No.

Is he going to change the Church’s teaching on homosexual sex? No.

Is he going to change the Church’s teaching on contraception? No.

Is he going the change… change… change…? No.

I suspect that, as a nearly complete outsider regarding the Roman Curia, he will begin to tred with tiny steps. But the Curia will be walking on eggshells around this unknown force in their midst. The house needs purification. I think he will undertake it, but perhaps not with heads on pikes along the Via della Conciliazione.

Read the whole thing. 

American flyover

If you've got 5 minutes, take a ride over America via CGI Airlines.  Pretty cool:

Via Maggie's Farm.

Atheism explained

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen

Even I have to admit this is pretty good.

Swiped from AmericanDigest. 

Rand Paul should give Americans hope

The country was promised hope and change by this administration in a mantra that became as stale as month old bread.

Rand Paul has resurrected a hope in me that there are still politicians willing to go the extra mile and stand up against Obama, Holder and their minions

After 13 hours of filibuster in the Senate, he steps down from the podium with eloquence and humor.

Hats off to the man.  May more like him find their backbones in this country.

"3 Steps Catholics can use to beat the press"

Dr. Gregory Popcak is someone I linked to a few days ago when I found a piece that was touching and poignant and relevant to Pope Benedict's departure.

Yesterday I found another Popcak piece via a link from a friend on Facebook and loved it.  In it he details how Catholics (and others of faith frankly) should react to the incessant attempts by the media to turn Catholicism (or the faith) into something it isn't:

Here are 3 Steps Catholics can use to beat the press. 

Step 1:  Firmly/Respectfully Reset the Conversation.

Step 2:  Ask Leading Questions (i.e., Interview them.)

Step 3:  Establish the Real Agenda (i.e., Give ‘em Jesus.)

Now you can't do the piece justice by excerpting only a portion of it but allow me to whet your appetites and excerpt Step 3:

Step 3:  Establish the Real Agenda

You: Exactly!  Excellent!  You’re offended because in every one of the instances you cite, the Church behaved like the world instead of the Church.  You’re absolutely right to be offended too, because it’s the Church’s job to look as little like the world as possible so that we can tweak your conscience, make you think twice, get under yourskin.  We MUST be different because we, quite literally, are called to irritate the hellout of the world.   The more the Church does any of the things you want it to do, the less it functions as Church and the more it becomes some benign social club.  But be honest.  You’d love that wouldn’t you?  Because you’re tired of the Church making you think twice about questions you can barely stand to think once about.

Reporter:  That’s ridiculous!

You:  Is it?  How often do you think about the babies crushed by abortion?  How often do you think about human slavery?  About the rights of immigrants to not be unjustly spearated from their families?  About women being prescribed drugs that are giving them cancer and poisoning the environment?  How much do you care about the epidemic of people using other people?  Do you know the names of the homeless guy you passed on the way to work?  How much time did you spend feeding the hungry last week?  Caring for the sick and dying?  Visiting the prisons?  Teaching the ignorant?  Comforting the afflicted?  The Church does all that and more exactlybecause it does not want to look anything like your world.  There is nothing in your world that we want.  There is nothing your world can offer us.  Well, I take that back. There is exactly one thing that the Church wants from your world.

Reporter:  What’s that?

You:  (Suddenly calm.  Serious.  Very intentional) We would very much like to claim your soul for Jesus Christ–and the souls of your friends and family and listeners.  We would love for you to join us. After this interview, would you pray with me?

Reporter:  Well, that’s about all the time we have….

And That’s a Wrap.

But isn't a wrap for you dear reader.  Go read the whole thing.  It's awesome.

And trust me when I suggest that you make the good Doctor a regular read.  I'm taking my own advice and adding him to the blog roll.