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Meme Christmas

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Mulier Fortis tagged me with this meme.

  1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. As a kid I was pretty good at wrapping and use to create my own custom bows. Though I did end up having to wrap presents for everyone else
  2. Real tree or artificial? Sometime real, sometimes artificial
  3. When do you put up the tree? After thanksgiving I put up my Advent tree. Yeah Advent Tree which mysteriously turns into a Christmas tree on the 3rd week of Advent.
  4. When do you take the tree down? Feast of the Epiphany.
  5. Do you like eggnog? Never tried it.
  6. Favourite gift received as a child? A cassette player.
  7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes.
  8. Hardest person to buy for? Jesus, it’s his birthday after all. What do you buy for the person who made everything. Thinking about this though maybe I should buy him something I like, that way if he doesn’t show up to pick up his present I can use it till he picks it up.
  9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? As a kid I hated getting clothes.
  10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Snail mail.
  11. Favourite Christmas Movie? I am not good at picking just one favourite. "It’s a wonderful Life" is probably it. Though I also love "Elf" and "A Christmas Story." Plus I guess "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie since it takes place during Christmas. Though the problem with Christmas movies is that they are basically movies that take place at Christmas, but are not about Christmas itself. I am still waiting for a truly good Nativity story on the level of "The Passion of the Christ" which I watch every year on Good Friday. From the reviews I had read of "A Nativity Story", which I will probably watch this year, show it was not up to the quality artistic retelling I want.

    Almost every movie that gets made for this time of year has the message "don’t be selfish and spend time with family." While the message itself is good, we need to spend time with our family and the Holy Family. The trend in Hollywood movies released for Christmas in the last several years such as "Christmas with the Kranks"
    are only getting worse.

  12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? No set date other than being prior to Christmas.
  13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No.
  14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Candy canes.
  15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored lights for all of you clear light heretics!
  16. Favourite Christmas song? Like I said I am not good at picking just one favourite. It would have to be something like "The Boar’s Head Carol", "Hark the Herald Angel’s sing", "The first Noel." I pretty much love most traditional Christmas carols – you know the ones that actually mention Christ.
  17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home. My worst Christmas was one at sea.
  18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Probably not without getting some mixed up with The Seven Dwarfs.
  19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.
  20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning. When my kids were younger they got to open one on Christmas Eve.
  21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? That it ends. Other than that it would be the war against Christmas.
  22. Best thing about this time of year? Celebrating the Incarnation. Okay that was the first pious thought that popped into my head. There is just so much to love about this time of year where even though the popular culture does it best to suppress it, they can’t totally suppress that we are celebrating the birth of the Messiah. As hard as they try to turn this into a generic unspecified holiday season, they are still not quite effective. After all a major step in my conversion was because secular radio stations stopped playing traditional Christmas carols and I was chased into the realm of Protestant radio to find the songs I loved since I was an atheist child.
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Book Review

Priestblock 25487

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I am always delighted to receive a book by Zaccheus Press because I know without a doubt it will be excellent. They publish fine books that are really classics and when I receive their latest I put it at the top of my pile to read. Priestblock 25487 –
A Memoir of Dachau was written by Father Jean Bernard who was a priest from Luxemburg who was arrested by the Nazi (for what he never knew) and placed into Dachau. After the invasion of Luxemburg which was a predominant Catholic country many priest were arrested since they were seen as being too patriotic and as leaders of their communities.

In Dachau the priests and other clergy were separated from the general population and placed in their own barracks. At times they were treated better or worse than the other prisoners and when they were treated better it was done to isolate them and to provoke envy. Many are aware of the stories of Catholics such as Saint Maxmillian Kolbe and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who both died at Auschwitz and Blessed Titus Bradsma who died at Daschau where this book takes place. But normally we only have the details of the ends of their lives in the concentration camp and not the daily details.

Reading this book the phrase "The Banality of Evil" coined by Hannah Arendt kept ringing through my head. The details of daily life which mostly grew from bad to worst are chronicled in such a fashion that as much as is humanly possible you really start to see what life in these circumstance was like. The casual violence of the camp guards and the prisoners serving as capos is so hard to fathom. Even the camp photographer who took pictures as the prisoners first came placed a spike in a spring-loaded chair to hurt and to surprise prisoners as they sat down for their photographs. This type of cruel behavior was the norm and not the exception. We might like to think that they managed to find the most cruel human beings to work at such camps, but the reality is how the culture of these camps so easily corrupted those in it. This was a true culture of death and we can see the effects that the current culture of death also has towards human lives.

One of the things best communicated in the book was the constant hunger of the prisoners. Even reading the words it is hard to imagine people living on such small rations and then performing the labor that they did. His description of seeing a Dandelion in a field and his plans to pull it up and eat it can give you some idea about the hunger Prisoners were watched constantly and the guards generally would not let them try to eat anything they might find. He tracked the Dandelion for a couple of days looking for an opportunity to pluck it up which he finally did. But he also knew that several other prisoners were trying to do the same. At one point you read of his joy of receiving just a spoonful of soup. Many people simply did not survive these conditions or became so weak that they were just gassed.

Father Jean Bernard is quite frank about conditions and his own behavior. He doesn’t sugar-coated anything to make himself look better, though you quite easily see his life of faith and the simple joys in quite mundane things. Especially poignant is his description of when they were able to get a hold of a Eucharistic host after they had been denied Mass for quite awhile. At first they had allowed Mass but this privilege was soon removed. The Germans often took out punishments on the priests in response to criticisms by the Vatican of the Nazi’s and by actions of the German and other Bishops. When the camp guards noticed that prisoners would try to be around a chapel that held the Eucharist – they painted the windows black.

Quite beautiful is his description of friendships with people he knew before and come to know in the camp. The extreme difficulties of both hunger and physical ailments and how the prisoners would sacrifice to help each other out is quite amazing. Prisoners who already were living on a diet that barely sub stained them would give bread or other food to those who were in even more desperate need. In the midst of such cruelty there was also so much love.

I highly recommend this book and while it might seem more like Lenten than Advent fare it is still a good, but at times difficult, read.

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Vocations

A vocations program sure to be fruitful

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

John Allen Jr. in today’s daily column.

As part of a broad initiative to promote Eucharistic adoration, the Vaticans Congregation for Clergy is proposing that religious women spiritually adopt priests through prayer before the Eucharist, and, more generally, that Catholics from every corner of the world spend time before the Eucharist to pray for vocations to the priesthood in an era of priest shortages.

Concretely, the Congregation for Clergy is proposing that each diocese appoint a priest whose full-time job would be to promote Eucharistic adoration, and that special Eucharistic shrines be created that would resemble the well-known Marian shrines that dot the Catholic world.

Eucharistic adoration is a practice in which the Blessed Sacrament, meaning a consecrated host believed to be the Body of Christ, is exposed publicly for prayer and adoration. When this adoration is carried out continuously 24 hours a day, the practice is known as perpetual adoration.

The congregation also suggests that parishes, dioceses and religious orders seek donors to fund the construction of these shrines, as well as to pay for monstrances (a decorated vessel containing the consecrated host), liturgical vestments, and educational materials explaining the purpose of the devotion.

The congregation asks that Eucharistic adoration be introduced in parishes, seminaries, religious houses and other Catholic facilities. Bishops are requested to fill out a form indicating their intention to cooperate.

Consecrated women in particular are urged to “spiritually adopt priests in order to help them with their self-offering, prayer and penance” by engaging in Eucharistic adoration, following the example, Vatican officials say, of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The proposals come in a letter to all the bishops of the world, along with an accompanying leaflet outlining the project, to be released tomorrow, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The letter is signed by Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, and Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, the congregations secretary.

Hummes says the idea is to stress the ontological link between the Eucharist and the priesthood, as well as the special maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each priest. The initiative is styled as a response to a call from Pope Benedict XVI in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, released last February as the concluding document from the October 2005 Synod on the Eucharist. In that text, Benedict urged wider practice of Eucharistic adoration.

This is a great initiative and the obvious one, but it seems so often in diocesan vocations programs one that is missing. I love the idea of having someone dedicated to the promotion of Eucharistic Adoration in a diocese. Eucharistic Adoration is back on the rise, though it would be great for more parishes to offer it more frequently or even to have perpetual adoration especially under the guiding connection of the Eucharist in the priesthood. The spiritual adoption of priests by women’s religious is also nothing new as is evident by the practice of the Missionaries of Charity, Saint Therese, and many others throughout history, but it is something that needs once again to be emphasized and to be put back into wider practice. I think we should also spiritually adopt seminarians within our diocese.

One thing I find odd about John Allen’s Jr. column this time is his thinking that he has to explain Eucharist Adoration and what a monstrance is. This isn’t exactly an obscure part of Catholic teaching or practice. Though I guess maybe he knows better the audience of the National Catholic Reporter.

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Punditry

The speech

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

With all the talk today of Mitt Romney’s "Faith and America" speech and the reference to JFK’s speech I decided to actually read the JFK speech
to the Southern Baptist Leaders in 1960. Wow what an overrated speech that was and it is quite horrid in parts with it’s modern view of Church/State separation that is quite rigid. It was interesting to read that JFK was opposed to having an ambassador to the Vatican and in fact it wasn’t till President Reagan that we had an ambassador to the Holy See. It is certainly not a speech that religious conservatives today would much like, but maybe it had helped him with borderline anti-Catholics. Though I think the funniest thing in hindsight is the idea of JFK being beholden to the Catholic Church in any way in the first place.

Mitt Romney’s speech on the other hand concentrates mostly on faith in public life and not his own faith for the most part and in fact he only mentions Mormons once. His view of church and state separation is much better than JFK’s and closer to what the founders actually intended.

…”We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

…”There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

” I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings.

Interesting remarks about the Catholic Mass. He must not have been to Mass at the Church John Kerry attends in Boston. Though if I were a Lutheran I think I would be miffed at Mitt. I don’t think "confident independence" is going to be a advertising motto for Lutheran churches anytime soon. "You look confidently independent. Are you a Lutheran per chance?"

…"Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.

With Mormonism such a statement is more important considering that their current "prophet" can receive new revelation as has happened in the past. Maybe one day they will have one on caffeine to help out Starbucks in Utah. But if you believe in this Mormon doctrine where new revelation can contradict older ones than saying that this could have no influence on presidential decisions is to say he is not a faithful Mormon. JFK’s at least said he would step down in some theoretical case his faith conflicted with his presidency. But the purpose of this speech in the first place is to satisfy those who are concerned about his being a Mormon and it is not surprising he takes this tack, but I don’t think it helps his credibility by saying so and his credibility is already his major liability.

Jimmy Akin is not impressed with the speech and mentions how Romney wants to have it both ways. I agree with Jimmy on how the "Religious test" was misrepresented from the Constitution. Voters certainly can have a religious test in making their decisions. If a candidate was part of some doomsday cult than surely you can knock him out of contention just for that.

His speech is just too generic on faith in public life and has little to do with him as a Mormon. He obviously perceived his Mormonism as a problem to be addressed, but this speech doesn’t do it. For me there are a lot more issues I am concerned about with Mitt Romney than his Mormonism.

I heard Donny Osmond the other day in a interview he did that included a defense of Mormonism where he talked about believing what the Council of Nicea said which he thought took place sometime in the 900’s. And here I thought Mormons held that the Church became corrupted pretty much right away. Though you always do have to wonder just how much Mormons really know about their faith and its distinctive from Christianity. Those Latter Day Saint commercials constantly on TV never seem to mention Polytheism or the name of the planet God the Father came from.

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Pro-life

Whatever you do to the least of them

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Once again Commonweal is trying to have it both ways. The recent statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) concerning the morality of removing feeding tubes from patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) is being attacked for not fitting the traditional criteria in their opinion. Yes now Commonweal want to appeal to tradition and this time their can be no doctrinal development. Someone how they are able to take in developments by Pope John Paul II on the death penalty, but can’t take in his view on artificial nutrition.

But mainly their whole argument is false in saying that "appears to contradict the traditional criteria used to determine whether a particular medical treatment is ordinary and proportionate and therefore obligatory, or extraordinary and disproportionate and therefore optional." The statement by the CDF does no such thing. The CDF is not contradicting or eliminating these terms, they are simply saying that artificial nutrition and hydration for those diagnosed as PVS should can not be denied.

Somehow also progressives who can get totally behind moral relativity can’t seem to understand that due to medical progress that what once was extraordinary and disproportionate can become ordinary and proportionate. Yes progressives can’t get a handle on progress. They have no problem with artificial birth control, but draw the line at artificial nutrition.

Whether patients who are incapable of feeding themselves and will never regain consciousness can be said to be dying is part of the moral conundrum surrounding PVS.

Though of course they don’t mention that the mistaken diagnosis of PVS is quite high and the there has even been progress with some medicines to bring people back to consciousness. Regardless though someone’s current state of consciousness does not remove their human dignity or the duty of those who care for them to give them food and water.

As Sulmasy notes, most people’s reaction to the prospect of being kept alive in a condition like Terri Schiavo’s is one of horror. That moral instinct has long been recognized in Catholic teaching, as has the distinction between removing feeding tubes from someone in PVS, thus allowing him to die, and intending his death.

So I guess peoples reactions is much more important than a moral imperative to feed those who are sick. Peoples reaction to the thought of quadriplegic is also one of horror – so lets kill them to. So much for "For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink." and "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me." Amen I say to the editors of Commonweal by pulling the proverbial plug from the least of them you are doing it to Him.

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Punditry

Blogger slams slam

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

As a blogger who sees lots and lots of headlines through various sources there is one thing I would love to do. I wish I could write a search and replace macro virus that would go through all of the various news organization style guides and make some changes.

Headline writers are just getting too lazy. One word I especially see used way too much is "slam" or "slams" Apparently everyday somebody is slamming something. In fact later generations if they go by news sources will be convinced that at one point there was an Pope who took the name of Slams since so many headlines say Pope Slams this and Pope Slams that. Though it isn’t just the pope who gets the slam treatment, it is used throughout all headlines on just about any topic.

In almost all cases slam can be replaced with "disagree" or "criticizes." I guess those words just aren’t as sexy for headline writers. But surely people get desensitized to always using slam and it will be less likely to catch your eyes.

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News

Divorce – bad for the environment

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Divorce is not just a family matter. It exacts a serious toll on the environment by boosting the energy and water consumption of those who used to live together, according to a study by two Michigan State University researchers.

The analysis found that cohabiting couples and families around the globe use resources more efficiently than households that have split up. The researchers calculated that in 2005, divorced American households used between 42 and 61 percent more resources per person than before they separated, spending 46 percent more per person on electricity and 56 percent more on water.
Article

They needed a study for this? Think of the time and money they could have saved if they knew the aphorism "Two can live cheaper than one." Couples can announce to their environmentally conscience parents "We have good news. We are going to be combining water and electric bills."

This line of thought though can also be used to justify "shacking up" that they would be environmentally irresponsible if they didn’t shack up.

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Punditry

New Lie Cinema

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

A reader sent me a sample of how New Line Cinema is deceptively using a review from the USSCB’s Office for Film & Broadcasting.

First it is dishonest to say that it is the USSCB that said this, but that is the least of the problem.

The part they put in quotes does not actually exist in the review. They have cobbled it together from two different sections of the review.

Whatever author Pullman’s putative motives in writing the story, writer-director Chris Weitz’s film, taken purely on its own cinematic terms, can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism.

and

To the extent, moreover, that Lyra and her allies are taking a stand on behalf of free will in opposition to the coercive force of the Magisterium, they are of course acting entirely in harmony with Catholic teaching.

They didn’t even do a Maureen Down and put in ellipses.

I sent off some emails to New Line Cinema’s Press Contacts, though I doubt if I will get a reply.

Though I also do wonder how non-Catholics might see the endorsement and if if it a negative in their case?

Update: New Line Cinema emailed me back with this reply “We have been alerted yesterday about this matter and we have changed the text — it takes 24 hours for the online change and it will happen sometime today –.” So if anybody sees the new text of the ad let me know what it is.

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Book Review

The Listening Heart

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

One of the cool things about getting some books to review is that I often receive books I probably would never have read otherwise. There are just so many books that I want to read that reading triage can be quite difficult. The Listening Heart: Vocation And the Crisis of Modern Culture by A.J. Conyers is a book that I more-than-likely not known about or read, but I am glad that I did. One great thing abut reading some books is that you are introduced more deeply in a subject you might not have thought too much about and are able to tap into the experience and thoughts of someone who has done this.

This book is a critique of modern culture and how it is that the loss of the sense of vocation has contributed to problems. He uses vocation in the wider sense of being called and not in the sense of what he refers to as "monastic vocations" or how Catholics would use the term also referring to marriage and the single life. The loss of God in culture of course results in a loss of the sense of vocation. Going through history he aptly shows how this disconnect of loss of vocation, that we are called from something outside ourselves, has damaged culture. Radical individualism is one of the fallouts from the so-called enlightenment that has infected everyone. Christians who should know that they are called often fall for this individualism. I have often thought how absurd the idea of the self-made man is, yet it is one we usually accept without question.

Much of his critique of modern culture rings true to me and I especially enjoyed his chapters on distraction and attention that really highlighted for me some of the problems and especially how modern culture is a distracted one. We live in a culture that often talks about community, connectedness, social networking, etc where very little true community actually exists and where we elevate acquaintances to friends and have very few true friends. It is also interesting how he displays how this loss of vocation results in everything being seen in terms of power and how the modern interpretation of tolerance leads to this.

A.J. Conyers who died in 2004 of cancer was a theology professor at Baylor University and he finished this book just before he died. There is a Protestant perspective in part of what he writes, but he frequently refers to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other Catholic theologians and he also often refers to the writings of Flannery O’Connor in this work. The subject matter of the book and the critique is a Christian perspective and one that does not suffer from church/denomination divides.

I consider a good book as one that helps you to see something you didn’t see before or to see something more clearly. By that definition this is certainly a good book.

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