Quote For the Week

The devil's rage against the Church is as great as it is because it is not able to achieve anything against her.


--- Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary for Today. Trans. Robert Nowell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 11.

Tolkien on Scandal in the Church

"'Scandal' at most is an occassion of temptation -- as indecency is to lust, which it does not make about arouses. It is convenient because it turns our eyes away from ourselves and our faults to find a scape-goat. But the act of will of faith is not a single moment of final decision: it is a permanent indefinitely repeated act > state which must go on -- so we pray for 'final perseverance.' The temptation to 'unbelief' (which really means rejection of Our Lord and His claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily and severely shall we be 'scandalized' by others. I think I am as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the 'scandals', both of clergy and laity. I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for some would mean leaving the allegiance of Our Lord) for any such reason: I should leave because I did not believe, and should not believe any more, even if I had never met any one in orders who was not both wise and saintly."

--- Letter 250, to Michael Tolkien. In The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981).

Vladimir Solovyov Quote

Those who feel horrified at the thought that the Spirit of Christ acts through men who do not believe in Him, are wrong even from the dogmatic point of view. When an unbelieving priest correctly celebrates the liturgy, Christ is present in the sacrament in spite of the celebrant's unbelief and unworthiness, for the sake of the people who need it. If the Spirit of Christ can act through an unbelieving priest in a sacrament of the Church, why can it not act in history through unbelieving agents, especially when the believers drive it away? The Spirit bloweth where it listeth. Its enemies may well serve it. Christ who has commanded us to love our enemies can certainly not only love them Himself but also know how to use them for His work. And nominal Christians who pride themselves on having the same kind of faith as the devils should call to mind another thing in the Gospel -- the story of two apostles, Judas Iscariot and Thomas. Judas greeted Christ with words and with a kiss. Thomas declared his unbelief in Him to His face. But Judas betrayed Christ and 'went and hanged himself,' and Thomas remained an apostle and died for Christ.

--- Vladimir Solovyov, “The Collapse of the Mediaeval World-Conception,” pp. 60 – 71 in A Solovyov Anthology. Trans. Natalie Duddington (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), 70.

Owen Barfield Quote

"A work of art, then, is characterized, not by the absence of distinct parts, on the contrary, by the greatest possible distinctness and self-sufficiency of its parts -- provided only that we do not think of them as mutually impenetrable. It is equally clear that interpenetration is a quality which the parts possess, not as mere objects, but precisely as being (a) wholes in themselves and (b) 'parts' of the same whole. They interpenetrate and are pro tanto inseparable, not because the whole is a formless waste, but because the hole has form, and that form enters into each of them. Can we therefore go further and affirm that the ideal organic relation of the part to the whole is a sort of identity of the one with the other? That, in musical terms, ideal counterpoint is fugue -- where the whole melody is found again in each part? Now, according to Soloviev, this is or ought to be true of human society -- that the whole of which individual men are the 'parts.' Not only man in general, but each individual man 'may become all' (he says), as he lives and learns to do away with that inward boundary which severs him from the rest.

"And again: the ideal 'person, or embodiment of the idea, is only an individualization of the all-oneness, which is indivisibly present in each of its individualizations.' Thus, in the 'all-one-idea' realized, the part is the whole, not by merger, but by the contrary by intensive development of its true individuality or part-ness. Or rather the whole is the part; for, whereas when we think abstractly about being, as in the process of logic and classification, the whole is predicated of the part, so that we say, 'A horse is a quadruped,' in the actual process of being, the order is reversed, and the race or archetype is the species or individual -- because it gives it being. "

---- Owen Barfield, "Form in Art and Society," in The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1977), 221-2.

Henri de Lubac Quote

You may say: You paint the Church in fine colors, you behold it in its ideal form, such as it should be, such as God desires it to be--such as it is in your dreams....

To which I answer: No. I depict her--far from well indeed--such as she is in her mystery, that is to say, in her most real reality--but as faith sees her. I do not deny the ills of various orders, the moral order or any other, which at all times have affected her, which affect her today in each one of us. Indeed, I affirm them, I proclaim them, I declare the paradox and scandal to which they give rise and which are inherent in her very constitution.

As for describing these ills in detail, exhibiting these wounds, that would contribute nothing to our knowledge of the mystery of the Church. That must be left, then, in so far as their particular task demands it, either to historians, to deal with the past, or to preachers to deal with the present, if they think it useful, or to investigators, "sociologists" or other reformers. Much more should it be left to good spiritual advisers--they are not in the habit of shouting aloud in the main squares. Anything else would only be facile scandal-mongering and ill-considered criticism.

And then, the Church is all of us. So she is I as well. By what right should I leave myself out of the picture? Now, I have no desire to make a public confession.

--Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), Paradoxes of Faith, translated by Ernest Beaumont (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 233-234. This selection comes from de Lubac's Nouveaux Paradoxes (1955). I have altered the translation of pronouns referring to the Church in order to capture better de Lubac's own approach towards the Church.

Alexander Men Quote

Today's world crisis shows that there is no future for hostility, or defensive isolationism, or eclecticism, but that dialogue can be fruitful for all participants. The followers of the religions of the world have something to say to mankind. Christianity brings the gospels, its service, its love. Of course, it is not so easy to learn tolerance and openness while remaining true to one's fundamental principles. Christians, though, have never thought that spiritual life was an easy matter, but rather an ascetic and heroic deed. The whole earth now needs this deed. On the eve of the two thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the Christian church, the world has reached a critical frontier. That is why dialogue has become not a luxury for intellectuals but a necessity of life.

---Alexander Men, "Christianity: The Universal Vision," in Christianity For the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Elizabeth Roberts and Ann Shukman (New York: Continuum, 1996).

Charles Williams Quote

The central mystery of the Mass has been at all times the subject of dream and speculation, of theology and devotion. If it is the centre of Christian life, it is also and therefore, the centre of all life -- anyhow on this planet, and perhaps everywhere. For the mystery of the Redemption -- of which this is the sign and means -- lies close to the mystery of Creation. The Sacrifice of the Crucifixion was the unmaking of all life that it should be remade after the great original pattern; a deliberate unmaking instead of an inevitable decay. So far as chaos could come again upon a world in which God was immanent, so far in that darkness it came; wounding and overwhelming the Sacred Body, inclosing and darkening the Sacred Spirit within. It is the nature of Omnipotence always to be able to endure more and to go farther than the utmost that can be brought against him; and perhaps this is the nature of the last Judgement, that He leaves to every man the choice of dealings with Him. If a man will shape his life upon a basis of pride and anger, then he shall find a greater pride and anger in God; if he is covetous and robs others, God shall be covetous and rob him; if he is full of love, then God shall be full of love. The Mass is an invisible communication, not only of redemption but also of creation and judgement: it is an absorption of the communicant in his degree into eternity. It is therefore above all things the relation between his own soul and Love with which the lover is concerned; and though he passes into the mystery by the channels which Love has prepared, Love itself issues therefrom in all his terrible strength along the channels which the lover has prepared.


--Charles Williams, Outlines of Romantic Theology (Berkley, California: Apocryphile Press, 2005), 43.

William Morris Quote

That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilized people act as if it were none, and in doing so are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.

--The Beauty of Life.

George MacDonald Quote

How could He be Father, who creating, would not make provision, would not keep room for the babbled prayers of His children? Is His perfection a mechanical one? Has He Himself no room for choice -- therefore can give none? There must be a Godlike region of choice as there is a human, however little we may be able to conceive it.

George MacDonald, "Man's Difficulty Concerning Prayer."

Charles Williams Quote

Sunday I will be driving back home, and next week I plan to write one or two new posts and to continue some old conversations. To keep things moving here, I decided to give a rather interesting quote from Charles Williams:

There is, in especial, one law of literary criticism which is of use -- the law of emptying the words. Everyone who has studied great verse knows how necessary is the effort to clear the mind of our own second-hand attribution of meanings to words in order that the poet may fill them with his meanings. No less care is needed in reading the Bible. Some form of course, each word must retain, some shape and general direction. But its general colour is, naturally, only learnt from its use throughout. This has to be discovered. As a fact words such as 'faith', 'pardon', or 'glory' are taken with meanings borrowed from the common-place of everyday; comparatively few readers set to work to find out what the Bible means by them. The word 'love' has suffered even more heavily. The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, and not that our meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.

--- Charles Williams. He Came Down From Heaven (Berkeley, California: The Apocryphile Press, 2005), p.15.

John Ruskin Quote

This week is a busy week for me. I have grading to do. I have caught some sort of cold or flu. I have Christmas shopping to do yet. But I still have time for the quote of the week:

Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily. 'Thy kingdom come.' Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and say 'he takes God's name in vain.' But there's a twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain, than that. It is to ask God for what we don't want. He doesn't like that sort of prayer. If you don't want a thing, don't ask for it: such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can mock Him with: the soldiers striking Him on the head with the reed was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it. And to work for it, you must know what it is; we have all prayed for it many a day without thinking.
--- John Ruskin, The Crown of the Wild Olive, Lecture I.3.

Father Thomas Hopko On Liturgy

Quote of the week:

To explain the liturgy is like trying to explain a poem: if the meaning the poem is carrying could be completely explained, the poem wouldn't have been written in the first place. The written liturgy, like a genuine poem, is a term of reference; the real experience is beyond words. So I would say that the words and the rituals aren't necessarily our teachers. They are the means of access to the teacher. The teacher is the lived experience. In that sense, the liturgy is ultimately silent.

--- Thomas Hopko in Speaking Of Silence: Christians and Buddhists in Dialogue. Ed. Susan Szpakowski (Halifax: Vajradhatu Publications, 2005), 127.

G.K. Chesterton Quote

Because my fellow bloggers and I have been occupied of late, the blog has been rather silent. This might happen throughout the life of the blog.

While I might prefer other means to keep the place active, nonetheless I thought something I could do, or at least try out to see if it works well, is to post an interesting quote on the blog once a week, and see what kinds of dialogue and discussion it could produce. This time, I am writing a bit of commentary to the quote; in the future, such will not always be the case.

This week, we will have for our first quote a text from G.K. Chesterton's Utopia of the Usurers, and one I find highly appropriate as a response to the sad news out of Australia this week, where therapeutic cloning has now been legalized.

In prophetic discernment, G.K. Chesterton stated:

"The key fact in the new development of plutocracy is that it will use its own blunder as an excuse for further crimes. Everywhere the very completeness of the impoverishment will be made a reason for the enslavement; though the men who impoverished were the same who enslaved. It is as if a highwayman not only took away a gentleman's horse and all his money, but then handed him over to the police for tramping without visible means of subsistence. And the most monstrous feature in this enormous meanness may be noted in the plutocratic appeal to science, or, rather, to the pseudo-science that they call Eugenics."

Alas, for the love of money we will create life; for the love of money we will destroy life. For the love of money we will say that destroying a large amount of life helps life; because after all, the dead do not speak. Only the most perverted of minds can feel it is moral to have an "improvement of life" for a few who speak at the expense of-- and the skulls of-- the many.

While the eugenics of the past was based upon treating humans as breeding stock and allowing only some groups to breed (those who were judged to have the best genes), the new eugenics seeks to create such breeding programs on a massive scale, only to kill those whom they create. They need those with bad genes to live, while the good to die; so that those who hold the good can and will sustain the life of a depraved, parasitical diseased lot.

Good Christian, Be Free In Christ!

In the story of the Grand Inquisitor (found within The Brother's Karamazov), Dostoevsky imagines a meeting between Torquemada and Jesus Christ. While one can dispute his understanding of Torquemada, the words could be put in the mouth of the present secular state, and they would be just as effective.

Today, many Christians are willing to turn aside from the Gospel of Life and the way of Jesus Christ for the sake of imagined security. Instead of praying for their enemies, they seek vengeance; they are willing to become the monster they seek to overcome.

Can any words be more prophetic than these?

Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to blame for their not knowing it?-speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will submit once more, and then it will be once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou didst lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death.

The very ones who tell us terrorists desire to take away our freedoms are the same ones who tell us our freedoms must be taken away in order to be secure. Who is it that hates our freedom? Safe, you might be, locked away as a child in a padded cell. But don’t tell me one is free just because they are allowed to play with a few scattered toys placed in their tiny room.