Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Brilliance of Pope Benedict XVI
As Catholic and Moral Theologian, George Weigel, recently noted on C-SPAN's In Depth, the man who is Pope Benedict XVI is a brilliant thinker, philosopher, and theologian. In addition, Weigel noted how on during their first interview, then Cardinal Ratzinger, would answer questions in complete paragraphs with an amazing clarity.
I have been enamored by Pope Benedict XVI's thinking as well through reading some of his past works, (Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Handing Down the Faith in an Age of Disbelief and The Yes of Jesus Christ), while marveling at how courageously he proclaims Christ's Gospel in a world that often misportrays, misinterprets, or mocks the love, truth, and forgiveness that is Christ's message.
I recently combed through the Pope's Homily At the Pauline Year Inauguration, and found the following passages especially insightful:
I have been enamored by Pope Benedict XVI's thinking as well through reading some of his past works, (Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Handing Down the Faith in an Age of Disbelief and The Yes of Jesus Christ), while marveling at how courageously he proclaims Christ's Gospel in a world that often misportrays, misinterprets, or mocks the love, truth, and forgiveness that is Christ's message.
I recently combed through the Pope's Homily At the Pauline Year Inauguration, and found the following passages especially insightful:
The Source of Life For Christians is Christ and His Love:
In the Letter to the Galatians, he has given us a very personal profession of faith, in which he opens his heart to the readers of all times and reveals what is the most profound source of his life: "I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me." All that Paul does starts from this center. His faith is the experience of being loved by Jesus Christ in a totally personal way; it is awareness of the fact that Christ faced death not for something anonymous, but for love of him, of Paul, and that, risen, Christ still loves him, has given himself for him. His faith is having been captured by the love of Jesus Christ, a love that affects him in his innermost being and transforms him. His faith is not a theory, an option about God or the world. His faith is the impact of the love of God on his heart. So, this faith itself is love of Jesus Christ.
...
On Paul's Complete Commitment to Proclaiming the Gospel:
The truth was too great for him to be ready to sacrifice it in view of an external success. The truth he had experienced in his encounter with the Risen One merited for him struggle, persecution, and suffering. However, what motivated him in the depth of his being was being loved by Jesus Christ and the desire to transmit this love to others. Paul was someone able to love, and all his work and suffering is explained from this center.
...
Christ's Commitment to Proclaiming Christ As a Source of True Freedom:
The concepts underlying his proclamation can only be understood on the basis of this. Let us take only one of his key words: freedom. The experience of being loved to the end by Christ opened his eyes about truth and the path of human existence; that experience embraced everything. Paul was free as a man loved by God that, in virtue of God, was able to love together with him. This love is now the "law" of his life and, precisely thus, was the freedom of his life. He speaks and acts, moved by the responsibility of love; he is free, and given that he is one who loves, he lives totally in the responsibility of this love and does not take freedom as a pretext for pleasure and egoism. He who loves Christ as Paul loved him, can truly do what he wills, because his love is united to the will of Christ and, therefore, to the will of God, because his will is anchored in truth and because his will is no longer simply his will, arbiter of his autonomous I, but is integrated in the freedom of God and from it receives the path to follow.
...
On Christ's Will for Unity in the Body of Christ:
He addresses us with these words, at this moment, not just Paul but the Lord himself: "How were you able to lacerate my Body?" Before the face of Christ, this question becomes at the same time an urgent appeal: Bring us together again from all our divisions. Make this again a reality today: There is only one bread; therefore, we, despite being many, are only one body.
...
On The Importance of the Eucharist as The Heart of the Church:
Christ attracts us continually to his Body, he builds his Body from the Eucharistic center, which for Paul is the center of Christian existence, in virtue of which all, as well as each individual can experience in a totally personal way: "He has loved me and given himself up for me."
...
The Call To Suffering of Christian In a World That That They Are 'In But Not Of':
The task of proclamation and the call to suffering for Christ are inseparably together. The call to be teacher of the Gentiles is at the same time and intrinsically a call to suffering in communion with Christ, who has redeemed us through his passion. In a world in which lying is powerful, truth is paid for with suffering. He who wishes to avoid suffering, to keep it far from himself, will have pushed away life itself and its grandeur; he cannot be a servant of truth and thus a servant of faith. There is no love without suffering, without the suffering of denying ourselves, of the transformation and purification of the "I" for true freedom.
Wherever there is nothing worth suffering for, life itself also loses its value. The Eucharist -- center of our Christian being -- is based on the sacrifice of Jesus for us; it was born from the suffering of the love that found its culmination on the cross. We live from this love that gives itself. This gives us the courage and strength to suffer with Christ and for him, thus knowing that precisely in this way our life becomes great, mature and true.
Word of The Day: Physiognomy
As I was reading Pope Benedict XVI's recent Homily at the Pauline Inauguration, I stumbled upon a word that I never knew existed, and thus, the "Word of the Day" feature on St. Stephen's Gate was born. Will it be truly daily? No. Will it even be a regular feature of this blog? Undetermined. All that I do know is that physiognomy is a word with a meaning, and I now know it.
physiognomy
physiognomy
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Another One of My Favorites: Coldplay's Clocks
I fully recognize that a large plurality of people groan when they hear the repetitive piano opening of this song on the radio or when they are out at the bar with friends. Despite Clocks dominating the airplay of adult contemporary and alternative rock radio stations, I am still addicted to its hypnotic piano and Chris Martin's vocals.
This is one of those songs that I love to drive aggressively to, and it puts me in an excellent state-of-mind when I am going out for a night on the town with friends. There's something about the song that makes me feel sophisticated as if I should be exclusively wearing black and driving a pitch black sports car.
This is one of those songs that I love to drive aggressively to, and it puts me in an excellent state-of-mind when I am going out for a night on the town with friends. There's something about the song that makes me feel sophisticated as if I should be exclusively wearing black and driving a pitch black sports car.
One of My Favorite Songs: Ben Harper's Ground On Down
Whenever I'm in the mood to fire myself up to go teach, coach, or just refocus myself on life's daily requirements, this is the song that I listen to. Ben Harper's lyrics, vocals, and music all reflect the same intensity. This song seems to boldly express his essential convictions with an angry/regret-filled sentiment squeezed in. Maybe that's too much musical criticism, and I should simply say that it's a damn good song that gets me motivated throughout my day:
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Another Song I Love: When the Stars Go Blue performed by Bono with The Corrs Live in Dublin
I recognize that this song, When the Stars Go Blue, was originally written and performed by singer/songwriter Ryan Adams, but some artists cover a song and it becomes theirs. I believe this is such an instance. Much like how Jimi Hendrix is associated with All Along the Watchtower, whereas many fans of the song would be surprised to know that Bob Dylan wrote and sang the song originally. Ryan Adams version is much more stripped down-as is his style, and this is much more romantic in the more elaborate musical layers and in the male-female duet format.
I had forgotten about this song until you tube decided to bring it to my attention through the wonderful search function--you never know what you're going to get.
I had forgotten about this song until you tube decided to bring it to my attention through the wonderful search function--you never know what you're going to get.
Cool: U2 and John Mayer Simultaneously
My favorite album of all time is U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. As I was you-tubing around looking for various songs off that album, I stumbled upon this "mashup" of U2's Waiting on A Moment You Can't Get Of spliced together with John Mayer's Waiting On the World To Change.
Personally, I like each individual song on its own, but this siamese twin experiment is an interesting interplay between the different melodies, lyrics, and vocals with songs that certainly complement each other in their upbeat music and uplifting lyrics. Does the artist who 'invited' U2 and Mr. Mayer to collaborate against their will, pull it off? Take a look-see/listen, and let me know what you think.
Personally, I like each individual song on its own, but this siamese twin experiment is an interesting interplay between the different melodies, lyrics, and vocals with songs that certainly complement each other in their upbeat music and uplifting lyrics. Does the artist who 'invited' U2 and Mr. Mayer to collaborate against their will, pull it off? Take a look-see/listen, and let me know what you think.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The 24/7 Newscycle Run Amok: 'Something is Happening in Haiti"
This parody makes me happy on so many different levels:
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Links For Thought: Tim Russert, Media Misperceptions, and McCain-Palin
What I'm Reading: George Weigel's Against the Grain
The Catholic theologian and moral theologian George Weigel has released a new collection of essays called, Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace. Not only do I appreciate Weigel's clear analysis of current events through the prism of morality as conceived by the Roman Catholic Church, but his writing demonstrates a clarity of thought that makes him an excellent teacher.
As an orthodox Catholic (commonly and misguidedly referred to as 'conservative'), I have learned an awful lot about Catholic dogma, doctrine, and the beauty that is the mystery of the Christ's Body as articulated in such works as Letters to a Young Catholic, and, probably one of the books that I learned the most about my faith from, The Truth of Catholicism: Inside the Essential Teachings and Controversies of the Church Today. I actually think that the later book is a much more effective explanation of the Catholic faith in light of the modern American culture's gross caricature of the Church as an authoritarian institution that imposes its 'outdated' and stodgy views about humanity and human sexuality on believers and non-believers alike.
Weigel's The Cube and the Cathedral has been a very useful prism through which to understand the Transatlantic rift between Western Europe's relativistic values contrasted with the United States' weakened commitment to Judeo-Christian values, however masked by words such as ethics, justice, and equality within the public square. Along with Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power, this books have been invaluable as lenses through which to understand the handwringing, angst, and furor that many European elites express with American foreign policy, politics, economic policy, and culture.
Last, through Goldberg's impressive work as well as Pipes' judgmental assessment of communism, I have tried to understand how communism and socialism have appealed to society elites throughout the Western world from the late-19th century to the present. This is where I find Dostoyevsky's classic to be so satisfying as the speaker in his novel lacerates Raskolnikov's contention that God's laws can be ignored and supplanted by what the "Supermen" within a society, who know better than the masses, desire.
The following excerpt comes from an essay entitled Two Ideas of Freedom from George Weigel's collection of essays called Against the Grain:
the human condition-precisely by manufacturing or The first wake-up call came in the aftermath of the dramatic advances in genetics, including the decryption of the human genome, and the biotechnologies this new knowledge rapidly spawned. Suddenly, Francis Fukuyama's image of the "end of history" seemed overrun by Aldous Huxley's "brave new world". Human beings, it became clear would soon have the capacity to remanufactureremanufacturing human beings. The new tyranny on the horizon was not the jackbooted totalitarian state of Orwell's 1984; that was the tyranny that had haunted our dreams during what Jeane Kirkpatrick once aptly described as the "Fifty-Five Years' Emergency"-the civilizational crisis that ran from Hitler's military re-occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Rather, the new and ominous possibility on the near-term horizon was something quite different: the mindlessly pleasurable, thoroughly dehumanized, and massively coercive dystopia of Huxley's brilliant imagination". ( Weigel, 169)
The book that really got me thinking about the chaotic atmosphere within the public square in the United States was Peter Kreeft's Back to Virtue that discusses fundamental morals that Judeo-Christians have held for milennia, and how these morals can fill the vacuum within modern life.
As an orthodox Catholic (commonly and misguidedly referred to as 'conservative'), I have learned an awful lot about Catholic dogma, doctrine, and the beauty that is the mystery of the Christ's Body as articulated in such works as Letters to a Young Catholic, and, probably one of the books that I learned the most about my faith from, The Truth of Catholicism: Inside the Essential Teachings and Controversies of the Church Today. I actually think that the later book is a much more effective explanation of the Catholic faith in light of the modern American culture's gross caricature of the Church as an authoritarian institution that imposes its 'outdated' and stodgy views about humanity and human sexuality on believers and non-believers alike.
Weigel's The Cube and the Cathedral has been a very useful prism through which to understand the Transatlantic rift between Western Europe's relativistic values contrasted with the United States' weakened commitment to Judeo-Christian values, however masked by words such as ethics, justice, and equality within the public square. Along with Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power, this books have been invaluable as lenses through which to understand the handwringing, angst, and furor that many European elites express with American foreign policy, politics, economic policy, and culture.
I have been reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, George Weigel's Against the Grain, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, concurrently with Richard Pipes' Communism. My book choices often follow whatever subconscious interests percolate within my head. I am fascinated with the idea of reestablishing ideals of natural law within American society in order to find common ground in which to have a dialogue about the moral issues that impact American society-home and at abroad. In addition, I am interested in the evolution of moral relativism's appeal within Western Europe and the United States and the corrosive effect it has had on the institutions from the family to schools and how this has made the totalitarian temptation more widely sought.
Last, through Goldberg's impressive work as well as Pipes' judgmental assessment of communism, I have tried to understand how communism and socialism have appealed to society elites throughout the Western world from the late-19th century to the present. This is where I find Dostoyevsky's classic to be so satisfying as the speaker in his novel lacerates Raskolnikov's contention that God's laws can be ignored and supplanted by what the "Supermen" within a society, who know better than the masses, desire.
The following excerpt comes from an essay entitled Two Ideas of Freedom from George Weigel's collection of essays called Against the Grain:
the human condition-precisely by manufacturing or The first wake-up call came in the aftermath of the dramatic advances in genetics, including the decryption of the human genome, and the biotechnologies this new knowledge rapidly spawned. Suddenly, Francis Fukuyama's image of the "end of history" seemed overrun by Aldous Huxley's "brave new world". Human beings, it became clear would soon have the capacity to remanufactureremanufacturing human beings. The new tyranny on the horizon was not the jackbooted totalitarian state of Orwell's 1984; that was the tyranny that had haunted our dreams during what Jeane Kirkpatrick once aptly described as the "Fifty-Five Years' Emergency"-the civilizational crisis that ran from Hitler's military re-occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Rather, the new and ominous possibility on the near-term horizon was something quite different: the mindlessly pleasurable, thoroughly dehumanized, and massively coercive dystopia of Huxley's brilliant imagination". ( Weigel, 169)
The book that really got me thinking about the chaotic atmosphere within the public square in the United States was Peter Kreeft's Back to Virtue that discusses fundamental morals that Judeo-Christians have held for milennia, and how these morals can fill the vacuum within modern life.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
An Awesome Soccer Commercial: Nike Takes It To The Next Level
The first time that I saw this commercial, I was sure that it was just the new standard being set for the adrenalized, late-20-somethings, early 30-something men playing competitive sports at the local municipal park, while reliving the athleticism that they left behind with their high school physiques. I fully expected the "competitors" to walk to the nearest pickup truck where a cooler of Budweiser cans on ice were waiting for slow-motion consumption.
Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see the first-person, Cloverfield effect, used for good purposes in a fast-paced soccer commercial. I don't know if the ad persuades me to purchase Nike apparel, but it certainly makes me want to throw my Adidas soccer cleats on, and go play a competitive game of soccer.
Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see the first-person, Cloverfield effect, used for good purposes in a fast-paced soccer commercial. I don't know if the ad persuades me to purchase Nike apparel, but it certainly makes me want to throw my Adidas soccer cleats on, and go play a competitive game of soccer.
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