Thursday, May 4, 2017

Disarming Beauty, by Julian Carron; Chapter 6: The Religious Sense, Verification of the Faith

So begins the chapter:
Is the event of Christ capable of reawakening the self from its numbness, from its invincible boredom?
Carron quotes Pope Benedict XVI:
The crisis in Christian preaching, which we have experienced in growing proportions for a century, is based, in no small part, on the fact that the Christian answers have ignored man's questions: they [the answers] were and remain right, but because they were not developed from and within the question, they remain ineffective.
This is the problem of contemporary Catholicism in a nutshell.   I grew up in the 1960's when this issue ignited and spread through society.

One of the buzz-words of the 1960's was the word relevant.  Leaders of the younger generation
regularly questioned whether the various traditional values, customs, and institutions of society were relevant.  The media regularly asked whether the churches and traditional religion were still relevant.  After all, science, technology, and big brother would take care of all our needs, and ultimately save us, I presume.

Thought leaders of the younger generation frequently accused the older generation of hypocrisy, Many used this as an excuse to reject the ways of their parents.   Most definitely, my parents were not hypocrites.  They were deeply devout and obedient Catholics who made every effort to practice what the church taught.

This was the time of the generation gap.  In the 1960's and 1970's people of my generation started saying that they didn't get anything out of going to Mass.  I'd be shocked if anyone from my parent's generation ever explicitly thought or said such a thing to others, much less their elders.  I recall hearing my oldest sister saying to our mother that she didn't get anything out of going to Mass.  I was shocked that she had the nerve to say that to her.  I'm not sure that I would have the nerve to, but neither could I truthfully say that I didn't get anything out of Mass.  Somehow, I knew that something was going on at Mass, something bigger and deeper than I could comprehend, but something mysterious that drew me in rather than left me in the cold.

Unlike many of my peers growing up, I heard sufficient Christian witness relevant to finding meaning, purpose, and direction in life, and that is why I have adhered to the faith.  But I'm not sure that I can give a witness from within the questions that contemporary men and women ask today. 

Monday, March 27, 2017

The Good Shepherd

Do not be misled by our modern-day image of a shepherd as some sort of passive, congenial person. Shepherds led the sheep to areas where they could graze. They slept in the open fields with their flocks, in all weather, when they were far from home.  Shepherds guarded against and fought off thieves, wolves, and other dangerous predators--a shepherd's staff was not for show.  A shepherd also nurtured the sick and new-born sheep, and, when headed for home, carried those that were too young and weak to make the trip. The good shepherd was a fiercely rugged and responsible man, conditioned to hardship.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Benajmin Franklin on Learning

Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn.

-Benjamin Franklin

Friday, March 10, 2017

Quote of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Sweeping Critique of Liberal Modernity

The famous closing lines in Alasdair MacIntyre’s sweeping critique of liberal modernity, After Virtue, in which MacIntyre concludes:
A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead . . . was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another—doubtless quite different—St. Benedict.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Movie: The Shack

I saw The Shack last night after my brother and his wife gave it a rave verbal review. The story is an exploration of the mystery of why bad things happen to innocent people. Not too surprisingly, the audience was middle-aged, with significantly more women than men. I saw no teenagers. At certain points, the silence in the theater audience was as dramatic as the scene on the screen. Throughout, I heard sniffles from the woman to my left, and afterward, I overheard the woman to my right saying the movie was "Awesome." I confess that my (outwardly) stoic self came to tears several times as well. My experience of previously reading the book had been that of an awful literary style detracting from an excellent narrative. This is an uncommon case where the movie is better than the book. The problem with most movie adaptations of books is that the medium and time limit require the filmmaker to leave out much of the substantiating richness of the characters, plot, mood, and so on, from the source material. Movies also tend to downgrade stories by minimizing the role of the imagination. But The Shack gave the movie makers the opportunity to focus on the essential elements only while replacing the lousy literary style with professional cinematic storytelling. The only nitpicking negative criticism I'd make is that the Holy Spirit girl (played by a Japanese actress/model) was a bit too ethereally cold for me. I would have preferred a more sexy, or at least earthy, spiritual appeal. Theological and philosophical interpretations and meaning are above my educational grade, so I'll leave it to you to do the work of interpreting your own experience of the film.
The Rogers Ebert website gave the film only one and a half stars, calling the spiritual content pabulum. I will agree halfway--much of the spiritual content is presented as if for childish minds. But not to the point where it insulted my intelligence. However, the film's question, and exploration of an answer, of why do evil things happen to good and innocent people stands on its own.