If you have a Google account....

...and if you like this blog, and you haven't already done so, please sign up as a "follower" with Google Friend Connect. You can find the link, and the list of current "followers," by scrolling down the sidebar. Thanks!

Note also that I've added a number of things, the most recent of which is the Dominican seal just to the right in the sidebar. It links to the Dominican Laity chapter of which I am a novice member. Anybody in Central New York who's interested, the contact info is all there.

Get PAID to GIVE

Anybody know anything about this? Get PAID to GIVE. It looks legit and was recommended to me by a trustworthy woman who runs a retreat center. But this is the Internet. Clever scams abound.

Assumptions

The most important assumption to note today is that of the Mother of God into heaven. Among Eastern Christians, that reality is known as the "Dormition" of the Theotokos (depicted left). As the paradigmatic instance of what we are all meant to become, Mary helps to bring about what we are to become. Her very person is sacramental to a degree no other human person's is. Even so, and as the now-hoary title of this blog is meant to suggest, human life itself is sacramental. The basic goodness of what we are helps to constitute, and to bring about, the goodness of what we are meant to be. I often forget that. And so I've decided to resume blogging by reminding everybody of it.

In its basic goodness, human life expresses the divine goodness, which has no need of it. But precisely because it has no need of its human signification, divine goodness is fittingly expressed by the creation into which it overflows. Rational creatures, such as ourselves, enhance that expression by appreciating and responding to it. That's what divine "glory" is. By becoming what we are created to be, we give God glory. In prayer, I've learned once again that this blog is a means for me to become that and give God glory. That's why I've picked today to resume blogging after eight months of silence.

With that resolution, I can now proceed on several other assumptions. For example, this summer I finally joined the lay wing of the Dominican order as a novice. For several years I had hesitated to do so, sincerely believing such a move would be hypocritical. Joining a religious order, even as a mere tertiary, means acknowledging a charism and taking on a mission. That requires resolving to preach Christ by deeds as well as words. And though I have preached Christ with my lips and keyboard, I have not done so successfully with my life. But my confrères persuaded me that, if I wholeheartedly desire to become whatever it is I am meant to be, God will give the increase. I now proceed on that assumption.

Another assumption is that many of my online friends and acquaintances will be willing to follow me again. I hope that's a safe assumption. A few weeks ago, I warned my Facebook friends that I would switch to Google+ for my social networking. I do not regret that decision; I find Facebook annoying for any number of reasons, and am impressed with G+'s implementation of sharing as well as with its integration with other Google services I use, including this one. I am still allowed to invite people; if you're a friend and not on G+ already, please let me know either on my Facebook wall or by email, and I'll get you here.

Finally, you may safely assume that this blog will see many changes in format and usage over the next few months. The online world is moving fast, and I strive to move with it.

Back with new posts

For those who would notice, I hereby announce that this blog is back. I decided to suspend it during my 6-month research/writing contract with First Things in New York, which ended with the month of February. The experience was productive and, for the most part, gratifying. I'm particularly grateful to Jody Bottum, the editor-in-chief, for having given me the chance to help him out. Now I have many reasons to resume blogging under my own name. I do so with the help of Christopher Blosser, Catholic blogger extraordinaire, who will occasionally contribute and cross-post. He has my thanks for getting the new comment system and layout operational.

I still blog on occasion elsewhere. Recently, I posted at What's Wrong with the World on the recent media feeding-frenzy over the Pope's occasionally real and largely imaginary failure to be aggressive enough in removing abusers from the priesthood. Yesterday I posted about the doctrine of limbo over at First Thoughts. If any of my returning and new readers have comments about those two posts, please make them here, under this post. Since Sacramentum Vitae will once again become my primary blogging venue, I need to build traffic again. But expect to see much cross-posting too. Also, I comment frequently at Called to Communion, whose work and authors I greatly admire. To those interested in Protestant-Catholic dialogue, I cannot recommend C2C highly enough.

Grateful to God for the new friends and connections I've made, I remain in New York looking for new work and preparing for a new career in counseling. I'll have more to say, and ask, about that in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, though times are tough once again, I know that I am loved, watched over, and led by the One who is the beginning and end of all things. He sends people into my life often to show me how. That is why I cannot I resume blogging here without thanking the many readers who have supported me in every way possible over the past few years. I will continue doing what I can to justify your faith in me.

Moving to NYC!

I got the job I interviewed for last Wednesday in New York, and am very excited about it. Since I don't know yet whether my boss would approve my publicizing the job here, or even my continuing to blog on my own, I shall say no more for the time being. But I want to thank my "vast readership," both here and at What's Wrong with the World, for their encouragement and support. God bless you all!

An important trip

I'll be offline for a few days as I travel to New York City for an important job interview. Please keep me in your prayers.

That group thing again

Many of my readers know that I used to be a co-author of the blog Pontifications, founded and edited by Fr. Al Kimel, which shut down in the summer of 2007. I loved that role for many reasons, one of which was that writing for a well-trafficked group blog afforded me the kind of visibility I need if I am to regain the professional status I once had. Last October, I founded Philosophia Perennis as a group blog for Catholic philosophers; yet, for spiritual reasons, I found I had to reduce my blogging in general for the next several months, posting occasionally only here. For the last few months I've been able to pick up my pace, mainly here, while making a few major posts at PP. Now, by divine providence, I have been accepted to become a co-author at the conservative-Christian blog What's Wrong with the World, which gets several times the traffic of either this blog or PP. So, for the time being, my posting will be mostly there, with cross-posts here and at PP.

My first major post at W4 went up this evening and is entitled "ID, the God of the gaps, and Metaphysics." I will cross-post it at PP tomorrow.

What Do the Readings Really Say?

That is the title of one of the two new blogs created by the St. Louis Bertrand Chapter of the Dominican Laity of the Province of St. Joseph. (Caveat: we've already checked with Fr. Zuhlsdorf, so please don't tell us to.) I have done the first post, on today's Gospel reading in the ordinary form of the Roman Rite, entitled Why doesn't God heal all the faithful?

May all be duly edified.

News, notes, and a heads-up

1. Amy Welborn's husband, Michael Dubruiel, has died unexpectedly. She and their children need your prayers. Amy has also asked those who can to show their support by buying his books. Googling him will get you a nice Amazon list.

2. Last night, I attended Lemoyne College's annual Loyola Lecture in Syracuse, NY. Given by Mark Massa, a Jesuit theologian from Fordham, its title and theme was: "A More Evangelical Catholicism? Catholic Identity in the 21st Century." I was interested in attending because I know and admire Fr. Jay Scott Newman, a convert and parish priest in the South, whose robust adult-education efforts are combined under the umbrella of what he justly calls The Center for Evangelical Catholicism. (It's right down the road from Bob Jones University.) Two things about Massa's talk turned out to be what I expected, and one turned out to be a delightful surprise.

First, his diagnosis of the American Catholic Church's difficulties in handing on the faith to the young, especially young adults, was devastatingly accurate. Most of Massa's prescriptions were spot on too. I found little I could disagree with, and I hope he publishes the talk soon as an article. It deserves wide circulation.

Second, it soon become evident that Massa is a middle-of-the-road Jesuit, which today means that his theology is too liberal. (He actually thinks the question of women's ordination is and ought to be open. Sigh.) He and Fr. Newman, whose bent is more conservative, would probably disagree about many things. But as I opined in the Q&A, a conversation between them about the nature and necessity of "evangelical" Catholicism would be most interesting. Each of them would probably find it incomprehensible that I agree with both of them about said topic. Such is a very small instance of the ironies with which the Catholic Church in the US abounds.

Third, Massa interlarded his rich material with a number of jokes that elicited a few real belly laughs, from me and others. I needed that. Spreading the joy, here's a sampling:

*** Georgetown University started out aspiring to be the Catholic Harvard. It ended up as the secular Notre Dame.

*** Just sitting at Mass won't make you into a saint any more than just sitting in the garage will make you into a car.

*** When a ding-a-ling gets ordained, what the Church gets is an ordained ding-a-ling.

3. My previous post, "Which contest is worth pissing in?", was premised on a misapprehension. I had thought that the Facebook thread out of which it grew was visible to anybody on the Internet, so that no special difficulty would arise from my bringing the conversation—or at least my part of it—into the blogosphere. That turns out to have been false. The initiator of the original "note" and thread, whom I criticized sharply in my post, had made the note and thread visible only to Facebook members whom he invited to the discussion. He had reasons of his own for doing things that way, and I ran ignorantly roughshod over them. I've already apologized to him privately.

Accordingly, I shall delete the post tomorrow while saving the combox discussion and emailing it to anyone who cares enough about it to request a copy of it. I shall then rewrite the post both to respect people's privacy and to focus more attention on the doctrinal questions raised by "the theology of the body."

Back to the grindstone

Thanks to all who've expressed concern about me. I've been spending the last few months looking for full-time work and doing occasional day labor. For reasons well known to those who know me well, I do not have the luxury of time; if I did, I'd be off to DC or Rome to earn a papal licentiate in theology, which would take about a year-and-a-half. So I suspended blogging for the duration, on the assumption that I would not have too much difficulty landing the sort of job I held for the last several years. For reasons understandable to anybody who follows the news, that assumption has proven incorrect; despite a number of interviews and promising leads, nothing has so far materialized. Yet I've decided to resume blogging anyway, on the principle that the Lord expects my abilities to be used in his service.

Spiritually, the break has been fruitful. I have not succumbed to depression, my congenital danger; indeed, I've come to realize that it had become too close and old a friend. I'm done with that because I believe God dismissed her. Instead, I have received a greater outpouring of love and support, from true old friends as well as new acquaintances, than I ever thought possible. I cannot and do not want to sing for my own pity party, because people do care and help. The Spirit is at work. Amid and often through my daily struggles, the Lord has been making clear to me that it's time to trust him completely and just do the things he created me to do. That's why I'm back. The rest will take care of itself. "Seek ye first..."

There's been much to ponder in what's termed "current events." Often, the mega-event unfolding through them does so without being noticed as such. I get the sense in prayer that what's happening in the world today is a clearing of the field for a truly decisive struggle between good and evil. The clearing process is most evident in the worldwide economic recession, which is a deserved crisis of trust, and in bioethics.

I do not believe that the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency will arrest the process; indeed, his ascendancy is part of it. Like the complicity of the German people in the Holocaust, his stand on abortion is atrocious because it does not, will not, recognize the atrocity. To hear him tell it, the moral question is beyond his pay grade. The atrocity will be held in check, if at all, only because the Democrats have failed to gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But whether Obama gets FOCA through Congress or not, this country stands under judgment. His election showed that the majority of the American people, including the majority of Catholics, cared more about their money and about getting past Bush than about the ongoing holocaust that their false conception of liberty has licensed.

The economic crisis is simply the unravelling of illusions that were sustained by the same sort of greed. As usual when a financial panic has set in, the new fear is as irrational as the old greed; so now we have a downward spiral rather than an inflating bubble. Eons ago, paper money was backed by gold that the government was presumed to have; now it is backed only by trust that people, and above all the government, will pay their debts with the same selfsame paper, or even with just computer bytes representing that paper. When that trust is diminished by real events such as the foreclosure fiasco, money is not lent, capital does not move, jobs are lost instead of created. I believe that the trust will not be fully regained. And I believe so not because I am ignorant of business cycles, in which booms alternate with busts; I believe so because I believe that God will no longer permit business as usual.

Humanity is killing its children and poisoning the planet at an unprecedented rate. The West, with its moral and spiritual decadence, faces a fanatical enemy dedicated to destroying it---not just in two active theaters of war, but in as many ways and places as they can. Above all, however, we are proceeding with the "abolition of man" himself. 

Britain and other countries now see nothing wrong with creating human beings for the express purpose of harvesting their cells for the benefit of others. Legally, such human beings can be altered and killed at will. The rot hasn't set in quite as far here; but it's only a matter of time, especially with the Democrats in charge. And it's only the latest symptom of the underlying disease.

First it was eugenics, which got a bad name because the Nazis practiced it; now it's back, in the form of "pre-natal screening," which will be ubiquitous within the lifetime of baby-boomers. And the ball's been rollin' for a while. Widespread contraception created the general impression that sex and procreation need have nothing to do with each other. That has been gradually destroying not only sexual morality in general but marriage in particular, which is why homosexual liaisons can be regarded as marriage, which they aren't. Then, artificial reproduction not only reinforced that separation but made it possible to treat children as commodities. With IVF, embryonic stem-cell research, and now pre-natal screening, that's exactly what we have. When sexuality becomes a commodity for the mainstream culture, our children are not far behind. And when that happens, it's a sign that we have surrendered completely to our own appetites.

One term for this is 'moral relativism'. Hving reduced morality to prejudice, policy, and will-to-power, we are left with nothing by which to evaluate our appetites. In that case, we are ruled simply by the appetites of the most powerful among us, and have no appeal against them other than our own. It's the law of the jungle all over again. C.S. Lewis termed that terminus "the abolition of man"---the title of one of the most prophetic books of modern times.

But I do not believe that God will let things reach that terminus. Humanity is not a mere evolutionary experiment doomed to self-destruct. Each of us, rather, is conceived by God in love, even when our human parents did not conceive us in love; each of us is destined to eternal life, bodily as well as spiritual, in fellowship with the Triune Love. That is why one of those Persons was sent to die and rise for us: to reach into the very depths of our wretched sinfulness, and of the suffering brought on by sin, so as to lift us into a share in the divine nature itself.  A God who wants that for us, and can do his own will, won't let us completely ruin the earth, and re-bestialize ourselves in the process, before the Great Restoration.

In the meantime, please pray that I soon get the job God wants me to have.

My new blogging venue

If all goes as planned and prayed, this will be my last post at this blog. I have launched a new blog at Wordpress called Philosophia Perennis. I shall be posting there from now on.

The new blog-in-the-making is a group blog with Catholic philosophers as the authors. Several of my friends, erstwhile colleagues, and would-be colleagues have already agreed to come on board and contribute. But as the idea for this blog originated with me, the chief responsibility for administering it has fallen to me.

I'm making the shift for three reasons. First, I don't have time to post here as often as I'd like to, and doing a group blog with like-minded friends and colleagues would enable me to intersperse the posts I can manage with those of others I trust. Second, the new blog will in due course expose my readers to a wider array of talent and personality than just my own. Finally, the focus of the new blog is likely to be more academic and less personal than this blog's, and that's exactly what I need for the sake of facilitating my eventual return to academia.

I thought it peculiarly appropriate to launch the new blog on the liturgical feast day of St. Augustine, who was a philosopher before he became a Catholic. Once he underwent his conversion, a process so eloquently documented in that classic of Western literature known as his Confessions, Augustine adopted a different set of priorities for his thought. He became a Catholic first, a theologian second, and a philosopher—well, he gradually abandoned philosophical inquiry for its own sake. He prayed, he preached, he meditated, he theologized; but philosophizing for its own sake, he came to suspect, was something only pagans did.

Some philosophers think that meant he ceased to be a philosopher; some believers think he didn't leave philosophy nearly far enough behind. On my own account as a Catholic, I'd say that I do philosophy for the sake of understanding myself, the world, even God better than I would if I didn't do philosophy. I know by long experience that studying philosophy in depth, and constructing serious philosophical arguments which do not require any divinely revealed truth as premises, is an excellent discipline even for committed believers.

That good philosophy is intrinsically valuable remains so even for those of us who believe that, in the final analysis, our response to divine revelation and grace, as manifest in how we are thereby transformed as persons, is far more important than philosophy as an academic discipline. Divine revelation is for everybody, after all—as is philosophy in the original sense of the Greek term, which means "love of wisdom." Everybody who comes to love God and neighbor comes to love wisdom too. But philosophizing in a systematic way is for the (relatively) few. I think most of my contributors at the new blog would agree with that. Of course they would have qualifications to add, and probably wouldn't say it the way I have, but that's a philosopher for you. We wouldn't have it any other way.

It's been a great three-year run, and I am grateful to all of you for making this blog as useful and interesting as it's been. See you all over there. Thanks especially to Jesus Christ, my Alpha and Omega, for heeding his Mother's intercession on my behalf.

By popular demand: a filioque category

Two readers have suggested that I create a category, or what Blogger calls a "label," for all of my posts dedicated to the filioque issue. By my standards, that's popular demand. I have met it by creating a label you can find in the list in the sidebar.

Pray for work

Friends, I'll be away this weekend for a job interview. This is important to me. I believe the wind of the Spirit is at my back. A couple of my friends in Communion and Liberation need suitable work too. Please weigh in with St. Joseph along with us. I'll be back Monday.

Display issues

Dear readers, I had to remove the lush graphical background of this blog because changes Blogger made to the XML elements of the template were incompatible with it and thus ruined the post display in Firefox and Safari. All the other content remains.

I'm hoping that my IT guru can take time from his busy schedule to figure out how to restore the old background compatibly with the new Blogger layout.

Housekeeping notes

1. Blogger has just introduced changes to the XML code in the base template I use for this blog. As a result, the display in Firefox and Safari is very bad. But it's still fine in Internet Explorer. I urge Firefox and Safari users to open the blog in an IE tab until the problems can be worked out.

2. One new feature I've adopted myself: at the end of each post is a Haloscan link inviting people to rate the post. Please avail yourself of it. Feedback is always important.

3. There are many topics on my list that I want to and can write about. What prevents me from posting more these days is the absurd unpredictability of my job schedule. It throws off not only my outside activities but, even more importantly, my sleep. So, every day I apply for other jobs. Please pray that I get something soon with a regular schedule. Much hinges on it.

Thanks to all for hanging in there with me!

An imaginary pope, the ladies, and Free Republic

I direct your attention to a very interesting little article about the authority of Rome's teaching on women's ordination by traditional Anglican priest John Hunwicke who, I note, has a credible scholarly background. It supports the argument of my own published article on "The Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium" (see the sidebar under the heading "Articles of Mine"). I welcome your comments.

Hat tip to Fr. Robert Hart for alerting me to Hunwicke's piece. Several more hat tips are indicated. Even though the blog to which Fr. Hart posts, The Continuum, is on my roll and this blog is on their roll, I first learned of his post by perusing the religion forum at Free Republic. I was there in turn because I had been alerted by John of Ad Orientem, in the combox to my post on "The Concept of the Intrinsically Evil," to a long discussion of that post of mine at Free Republic—a reputedly "conservative" site, even though I find the main thing I have in common with most self-described "conservatives" is an aversion to what is now called "liberalism" in America, which itself isn't very liberal...but that's another story. The FR discussion took place because a fellow with the handle 'Huber', whom I know to be one of my more-or-less regular readers, posted my post there. (Thanks!) Although few of the comments were positive, I can only wish for the same amount of discussion here when I post on moral philosophy or theology, on the principle that all publicity is good publicity. Usually, the posts of mine that draw the most discussion are those on ecclesiology, and much of that discussion is of the why-my-church-is-better-than-your-church variety. For that, I have mostly myself to blame.

That said, it's time for another "Development and Negation" piece. Fr. Al Kimel has reminded me that, since the Pope published Spe Salvi a month ago, there's been a lot of discusson of Church teaching on purgatory, purification, punishment, and indulgences, sparked mainly by his intriguing observations thereon in §44-§48. In certain quarters of the blogosphere, it is claimed that the CCC's explanation of the doctrine on indulgences contradicts the traditional teaching of the Church. I have even heard it said that the Pope himself does so in SS. It's all bosh, of course. Stay tuned for why.

Two ab-fab Web sites

Thanks to a couple of my readers with their own blogs, I've come upon two sites that make me drool. They are must-bookmarks.

With hat tip to Dr. Phil Blosser, I first note Biblia Clerus, courtesy of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy. With uncharacteristic hyperbole, Jonathan Prejean calls it the "Best. Website. Ever." What's so great about it is that it brings together many resources that Catholic controversialists on the Web need to have at their fingertips. That includes Denzinger, which I haven't found anywhere else online. (If you have to ask what that is, you probably don't need it; if you don't have to ask, you'll be like a kid in a candy store). The Bible section too is worth paying for, but don't tell that to the Vatican.

The other is the main site for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Brandon Watson of Siris calls it "hands down, the best religious website I've ever come across." From an aesthetic standpoint, I must agree. Whoever they engaged to build and maintain that site deserves more than they're probably getting. It has plenty of resources for non-Orthodox too.

Christmas thanks to two special bloggers

Before all gets lost in the Christmas rush, I want to take this opportunity to thank Mark Shea and Scott Carson for their public fundraising appeals on my behalf. I did not ask them to do that, and as I've said before, I never even intended such an appeal myself. But I was spontaneously given a much-needed birthday and Christmas present all the same by my friends in the blogosphere. Some I have already thanked, in that earlier post and/or by e-mail. But those guys deserve special mention. Merry Christmas, gentlemen.

With God's gifts comes the responsibility to use them to the full. Such is my pledge of gratitude to my cyber-colleagues. Please pray that the scope God grants me for using his gifts continues to increase. If I can earn a living again teaching the most important truths of all, I won't get desperate enough to cause others to pass the hat.

Humbled

Dear readers:

I have been stunned and humbled by the outpouring of support I have received in response to my previous post, which I had not even intended as a fundraising appeal. Its purpose was to be honest with my readers about my feelings and intentions at the time; my plan was to confine my begging to family and old friends and work to earn the difference between that yield and what I needed. Some of that work is underway, as it should be. Yet the response I got here, which represented a real sacrifice for many, was a manifestation of God's bounteous and unmerited grace. For that, I am deeply grateful. I have individually thanked those donors whose names I know; those who have preferred to remain anonymous deserve more thanks than I can tender here.

I now appreciate more than ever that my true work is the sort of thing I do on this blog. I hope to earn a living at it someday soon, at a level of performance for which my training and background have prepared me. My request is that you include that intention in your prayer. In the meantime, I shall resume substantive posting today in honor of the Immaculata and in service to you.

Deo gratias et omnibus.

Time out

Just letting my vast readership know that this shall be my last post for a while. Why?

My older daughter just had a baby; mother and child, they tell me, are healthy and happy. But as of now I cannot give them anything besides a card with my blessing. I am plagued with car problems I cannot afford to solve. I can't drive the car, can't get it through inspection, and can't even renew my registration until I pay the non-trivial county tax on it, which is a joke since the car is almost worthless as it is. In its present condition I can't sell it, and I lack the wherewithal to replace it unless I sell it. Only by my boss's indulgence with company vehicles do I have any wheels at all—which, she knows, helps to keep me in a job I have been striving earnestly for months to replace. So at the moment my supplemental income opportunities are limited to paid possibilities online. C'est la vie.

I wish I could present all this as noble suffering for Christ, but at bottom it's just the due penalty for my errors. I just don't pay enough attention to temporalities until I'm forced to. Now I am forced to. It's obvious what I have to do, and it's going to take a lot to do it, including but not limited to more fervent prayer. Blogging about anything important demands time and energy I just can't spare right now.

Thanks to all of you for your support. Blogging has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me, and I trust this blog has been mostly that for you, my good readers. I shall return after due work, prayer, and success.