The Arrow's Path

 We had another good question in the queue this morning: Why do people look at religion or treat the word like its dirty or a bad thing? I often see the accusation, "You follow a religion" followed up with "I follow Christ". Um....Jesus followed a religion. He was a devout Jew. He founded a religion - Christianity. So... why the argument?   I think there are multiple things going on here that you are alluding to in greater culture. There is a trend, particularly in the West in the post-Christendom world, for certain groups to disdain of organized religion. There are various reasons why that has evolved. Some of it is intentionally malicious, some of it is political. Some of it, I think, is legitimately grounded in heart felt reaction against things the Church teaches that don't jive with what the modern world wants to hear and some of it is reaction against bad things that have been done in the name of the Church.   I think we do have to acknowledge bo...

 I had a question posed: I have a question about the modern, updated translation we say in Mass. My daughter graduated French immersion high school and attended Mass in French often at her Catholic school. That was before the new translation (eg: "under my roof"; "and with your spirit"; etc). She's been attending English Mass in the 15 years since high school. She attended a French Mass today and noticed the Our Father was changed from when she was at high school. The French equivalent of "lead us not into temptation" now translates as "let us not fall into temptation". I've been asked by newcomers before why God would ever lead us into temptation such that we have to pray for it in the Lord's prayer, but this French translation seems more fitting. What the the original Greek say?   My response: The word to your specific question is πειρασμόν (phonetically in English: peirasmon ). The word is an interesting choice in Greek because it...

People often ask why I continue to moderate an online forum for Catholic Converts. Does it ever get old? Actually, this is one of the major reasons we long term admins of online Converts groups continue doing this year after year. (It's certainly not for the salary ). It is always fun to see this time of the year roll around and the real the joy that people have at finally being received into the arms of Mother Church. After the newness and the honeymoon wears off and you start getting into the nitty gritty of everyday life in the Church, it's easy to lose that sense of joy and wonder that new converts bring to the table. It's not so much that you necessarily get disillusioned (though that can happen-I mean we are all sinners after all, and the Church is not yet fully perfected). It's more that you just get into the routine of going to Mass, Lenten fish frys, etc. You meet new people in the Church, yes, but it's very easy to ghetto yourself all with other C...

 This presenter is truly a great practical historian:

So, it was my birthday yesterday. I have historically not really celebrated my own birthday that much. It was just not really a thing when I was growing. Maybe when you turned a consequential number like 16 or something, but I think we had enough Calvinist in us that birthdays were kind of viewed as exercises in narcissism, and so were not quite discouraged but certainly something that was usually only for little kids. "Dignified people did not have birthday parties." At least that's what I remember from my childhood.  I tell this to people, and they are often horrified. By that I mean they physically recoil when I regale them with this story, like I had been horribly abused as a child or else I was an escapee from some weird 'reject modernity' cult like in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village . ( The Village often got panned when it came out, but I thought his last really good thought provoking film before he lost his mind and completely forgot how to direct.) I...

This has been a very strange Easter. Indeed, a very strange Lent/Holy Week season as a whole, at least for me personally. In fact, I am inclined to quote Mr. Beaver when Lucy asks what has become of Aslan when he disappears without saying goodbye after their coronation in Narnia, "One moment you will see him, and another you won't...For after all, Aslan is not a tame lion." That quote more or less sums up my journey to and through Easter. I have to admit, I was spiritually struggling a bit for most of Lent. It was not quite a season of spiritual desolation like is talked about in Jesuit theology. It was more of a Jimmy Carter style malaise. I could not seem to break into the spirit of the season. I just really wanted nothing to do with Lent this year, and I have no idea why exactly. It was not laziness nor barrenness nor some sort of spiritual attack. It was just like sometimes when Christmas rolls around and you just don't really want to put up a tree or do any of th...

Ents are a mythological creatures, living trees that walk and talk. They are slow but wise beyond time and wisdom. The most famous is Treebeard, a creature in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels. Tolkien claimed to have invented the creatures for his writings, but the idea of the wisdom of trees and their personification goes back in many forest cultures for 1000s of years. In fact, the word "Ent" was not coined by Tolkien, but came from his extensive knowledge of Old English. The Old English word ent or eoten , meant "giant." So, one can immediately follow Tolkien's brilliant imagination in fusing the word "ent" with an ancient giant tree from various strands of mythology. From my own background, a Cherokee word for tree is tlu-gv (pronounced (t)'SLU Gah)-the opening "t" sound is almost silent (It is kind of slurred in). In Cherokee syllabary the letters are ᏡᎬ. I prefaced that sentence with "a Cherokee word..." because...

To think I knew Father Malcolm when he was still blondish and his homilies lulled people to sleep in Cambridge chapels...

I had to help read the Passion narrative yesterday. It was a dramatic reading (almost old school radio broadcast style) of Luke's Gospel. The priest and my wife were the other readers along with myself. In the Catholic and usually the Anglican (though not always) traditions, usually the Gospel is read only by the Priest, or if there is one, a Deacon. The one exception is Palm Sunday when there can be a more dramatic reading with parts. The Priest still reads the Jesus part, but you can have other narrators at the priest's discretion. While I have been the narrator before on previous Palm Sundays, I had never actually joint-lectored (read) the same Bible reading with my wife together before either in a public liturgy. We have both lectored at the same service a few times, but she would do one reading, and I would do the other one. So, that was an added bit of nuance.  Also for context, we visited the Holy Land a few months ago. I had been to the Holy Land once before about 12 ye...

This is why I love history. 98% of the time , historical records can be drier than dirt. Every so often you stumble upon something hysterically funny.  I found this gem from John Adams' personal diary (see second paragraph): the time Ben Franklin mansplained long enough about air flow until John Adams got tired of arguing about it and fell asleep... You can't make this stuff up .

I had a follow up question on a previous blog post that I would also like to respond to: I'm wondering you thoughts on music. I stopped listening to secular music because in the past it was a gateway "drug" for me that lead to bad choices. Now I only listen to classical or hymns or Gregorian chants. But my spouse says that the music he likes leads him to heaven. However the music he plays to me sounds depressing and brings up memories for me that aren't so great. I'm not looking to win an argument but doesn't music provide a gateway to hell with lack of a better word? Or is secular music ok and even heavenly? Thanks! Music does have a singular power that is somewhat unique to other forms of beauty and art. I am partially expanding a comment I made on here a few weeks ago, but have continued to think about because it is a topic that has interested me for a long time. Music is something well grounded in Natural Law. Natural Law being that idea that Go...

As most people who follow political cultural trends, you have probably heard about the marketing debacle of the latest Disney cinema film that came out a few weeks ago (as of this writing.) The film was a live action remake of the classic Snow White. Long story short, the major actress playing Snow White has been very wokey blokey in public appearances about how they were remaking Snow White to appeal to some weird, twisted Feminist tastes. She's largely been doing this for over a year, doubling down on the stupid numerous times, which gave conservatives plenty of time and ammo to howl over the film and Disney for well over a year before the film was even released.  Disney's official response to all this has been very interesting. While they haven't publicly thrown their title actress for the film under the bus, they have been quietly walking back some of her more outlandish political comments. They apparently toned down the official public release party. I would characteri...