Blog by-the-Sea

St. Hildegard of Bingen and St. John of Avila to Be Named Doctors of the Church in October

2012-05-27T20:22:50-07:00

I am quite pleased that Pope Benedict XVI announced today that St. John of Avila and St. Hildegard of Bingen will be declared doctors of the Church on October 7, 2012!

I visited the present day Abbey of St. Hildegard in Germany several years ago and really enjoyed Bingen, Eibingen and the whole area around Mainz. I have written about St. Hildegard a few times in this blog, including a short biography and a post about snow in her writings (something I associate with her partly because it snowed unexpectedly on the day I visited the Abbey of St. Hildegard).

I also once mentioned St. John of Avila, in connection with his role in the Church's approval of St. Teresa of Avila's book of her life in 1568. When I wrote that post, the book I was quoting from did not yet exist in English translation. That book, by French author Jean-Jacques Antier, has been available in English translation for several years now under the title St. Teresa of Avila: God Alone Suffices.

There are articles about the Holy Father's message and announcement at today's Regina Caeli at Asia News and Catholic News Agency.

A New Webpage for Resources on St. John of the Cross

2012-01-14T18:30:31-08:00

Father José Luis Ferroni, O.C.D., has set up a new web page for his students in an 18-hour course on St. John of the Cross in Spain. The site is still being created. The class begins in March. It was created as a blog orientated in the field of Church History, so most of the resources are historical. Several linked sources are in Spanish, and a few are in English, French, German, or Italian. Here is a link to the website:

Historia Eclesiastica: Biografia de Juan de la Crux

For example, the site includes a bibliography of books about St. John of the Cross, several pages long. To reach it, click on "Biografía bibliografíca general". Most of the books listed in that bibliography are in Spanish, but it also includes such things as Bruno de Jesus Marie's Saint Jean de la Croix (a classic French biography considered to be one of the best) and Bede of the Trinity's Discalced Carmelite Printed Official Texts in English.

One of the links, "Index Theologicus", has a search feature for articles, including theological and historical articles, among others. The connection to the National Library of Spain connects not only with manuscripts on line but also with 15th to 18th century documents from Spain's national archives. The archive documents from around the1700´s are blocked printed and can be easily read. Some of these documents regard Carmelites.

Another of the online databases linked from the new site is Gallica. I had never seen the Gallica site before. Through the "search" box at the top of the page (or an advanced search feature you can open), it is possible to access entire books to read online, download, or e-mail to yourself. Searching there for books on St. John of the Cross, I found many references in Spanish and at least a couple of 19th century books in French.

I tried to figure out if I could send one of them to my kindle, but there is no link for that. The e-mail feature just e-mails a link to the book on the Gallica website. Fiddling with the page for a while, I figured out that I could in fact download a 209 page book in pdf format for personal use. (I had to check a box for that in French, by the way, but I suppose most people could figure out that is what it means). I have some sort of program that converts pdf documents to kindle, but I doubt that it will work with 19th century books printed in italic script. And I can e-mail pdf documents to my Kindle, which is probably the better option, although I have to pay amazon something for the e-mail at that size. The book I selected is Gonzalve Valée's Saint Jean de la Croix, sa vie, sa doctrine (St. John of the Cross, His Life, His Doctrine).

Well, I probably should just hold it on my laptop for a while until I get to it. I already have Bruno's biography in paper, which I have been meaning to get to for a while. And I have another book on St. John of the Cross by Father Paschasius Heriz, O.C.D., from 1919 (in English), which I found online a while back and was able to send to my laptop's Kindle but not the one I carry around with me to read. That ought to keep me busy for a while . . . .

"Like a Fire": A New Pipe Organ in an 11th Century Church

2011-02-24T20:10:37-08:00

Danish Pipe organ composer Frederik Magle recorded a 2-CD set of improvisations on a new pipe organ at the 11th century Jorlunde Church near Copenhagen. The church's regular organist brought in the composer to help with the organ design process. Here is a YouTube video sent to me yesterday by the composer. What a delightful surprise! Magle is Protestant, baptized and raised in the Danish national church. Writing about the two days of improvisation for the recording, he described the experience as one of being "completely and utterly withdrawn from the world outside (while outside the church walls, the worst snowstorm in many years raged - making the real world itself seem like a fantasy in many ways."

Also, there is more information about the organ on the composer's website.

Doing Some Housekeeping on the Blog

2011-01-25T19:18:43-08:00

I am doing some editing here and there on the archived posts and pages. In some cases, I am correcting odd characters that show up since Typepad had a major update a year ago. In others, I am updating links that no longer work. Although I have not added much new recently, I want the information posted in the past to remain accessible. If you notice a particular post or area that needs attention, please feel free to send an e-mail drawing it to my attention. Thank you.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:04:35-08:00

Wishing everyone a joyful Christmas!

Advent Calendars

2010-11-27T18:24:24-08:00

I have added the links to online advent calendars to the sidebar as usual. I added just a few new ones to the list and checked the links. A Blessed Advent to all who pass this way.

Taking a break from blogging - will be back

2010-11-08T13:13:04-08:00

Hello. I've had a couple of people ask me if I'm okay since I have not posted anything recently, so I thought I should say something.

I have been taking a break from blogging. All is well.

I still want to finish the series that I started on St. Teresa of Avila's dove metaphor. When I last blogged on that, there were a few more books that I wanted to read to make sure that I know what I am talking about when I write about the metaphors of flight in the higher mansions. So it will take a bit more work before I am ready to finish that series.

I might have some time between now and January to get some of that done, but that will depend on my workload at the office. Of course, that has to come first.

I still look at comments and reply to the occasional comment that I receive on older posts. The e-mail link still works, and I do read e-mails. There are probably one or two people still waiting for an e-mail response, but I try to get to them from time to time.

The Mystery of the Trinity Found in Creation: Reflections on an Oil Spill

2010-05-29T19:22:06-07:00

My thoughts recently have been with the oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the efforts to stop the flow and protect the environment. I have had a lot of thoughts, ranging from technical interest to social justice and the environment to Biblical descriptions of the "last days".

For this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, one of the things on my mind is the working of the entire Trinity in Creation.

I mentioned it in a post a couple of years ago, called Nature, Contemplation and the Beauty of God.

The Apostle’s Creed affirms the role of God the Father almighty as “Creator of heaven and earth,” a role that can be seen in the first verse of Genesis, and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) 279. God the Son and the Holy Spirit were also active in creation, so that the mystery of the Trinity is found in it (CCC 290 to 292).

Jesus, the Word of God, was the mediator of creation, as John 1:3 says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” Colossians 1:15 call him “the first-born of all creation,” and Colossians 1:16-17 says of Him:

“For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all thing, and in him all things hold together.”

The latter phrase, that in Christ all things hold together, suggests a universal presence of Christ as creator in creation in the present.

God’s role in creation is such that St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans 8:18-23 envisions all of creation groaning for the glory to be revealed in the redemption when all things will be made new:

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

The CCC explains this in sections 1046-1047:

“For the cosmos, Revelation affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and man:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God . . . in hope because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. . . . We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
“The visible universe, then, is itself destined to be transformed, 'so that the world itself, restored to its original state, facing no further obstacles, should be at the service of the just,' sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ.”

I'm not always sure how to pray about today's disaster. Surely, we know that the earth is groaning for redemption. We too long to see the face of God in the new heaven and the new earth. But we are stewards of the earth, responsible for how we care for it, as long as we are in this life. The Holy Father wrote his Message for this year's World Day of Peace on the topic If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. He wrote of our responsibility:

"The environment must be seen as God’s gift to all people, and the use we make of it entails a shared responsibility for all humanity, especially the poor and future generations. I also observed that whenever nature, and human beings in particular, are seen merely as products of chance or an evolutionary determinism, our overall sense of responsibility wanes. On the other hand, seeing creation as God’s gift to humanity helps us understand our vocation and worth as human beings. With the Psalmist, we can exclaim with wonder: 'When I look at your heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you have established; what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?' (Ps 8:4-5). Contemplating the beauty of creation inspires us to recognize the love of the Creator, that Love which 'moves the sun and the other stars'"

Surely we look at the ocean, the gulf, and the marshes with wonder at the work of God's hands, seeing in them God's love. What we cannot do, in looking at the disaster in the Gulf, is to use it to doubt God's love. Creation groans, the Gulf and marshes groan for redemption, when they will be made new through God's love, just as we long for our own redemption when we will be freed from the effects of evil on our bodies, our hearts, and our minds, and we will be made new.

This past week, I have also thought about a book my mother read when I was in high school, World Aflame by Billy Graham. My Southern Baptist mother was a great fan of Billy Graham. This week, I looked at his chapter on the last days, and I was happy to see how much his writing about how we should approach such a time coincided with my own view now. Here is part of what he wrote on "Signs of the End" that I liked and thought helpful to living through the present situation:

"For the Christian, all is not hopeless unless his affections are centered on the things of this world. If you have been living a life dedicated to God, laying up treasures in heaven, with your affections on things above, then you have no cause for despair and discouragement. This could be the hour before the dawn when Christ shall return. . . .

"Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing" (Matthew 24:46). Some people have the idea that if Christ is coming, then why must we carry on? Why not quit working and watch? This was one of the problems of the Thessalonians to whom Paul wrote to affirm that Christ was coming. He explained some of the details of the last days, and he urged them to get to work. The hope of the coming of Christ should make us work all the harder so that we shall "not be ashamed before him at his coming" (1 John 2:28)."

Detachment: That is the word that I would use now to describe centering one's affections on things of God and not on the things of this world. It is "detachment", that Catholic concept of contemplatives, that Billy Graham described as that quality that would enable a Christian to live through the last days without cause for despair and discouragement. Whether we are now looking at such a scenario, or just a terrible disaster that the world will get beyond in time, detachment from worldly things is one quality that will help us to live through it without despair.

Fortitude: The virtue of persistence and mastery over terror comes to mind in thinking of one who would carry on with work and not be distracted by the temptation to drop what we are doing and watch the disaster unfold. So much of the time, over the last few days especially, I have stared at the live video feed of the blowout preventer at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, watching while the engineers tried to fill the well with drilling mud to stop the flow of oil. How easily I am distracted by disaster! Yet, in the Early Church when Christians thought they might be facing the final days, St. Paul told them they should work all the harder. "Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ." (Col. 3:23-24). It is more easily said than done, for me in particular, but it is what the Early Church was told to do, and what we should be doing too.

So I have thought of the earth as holy ground, as God's creation, and I have wondered how easily I could cut back on my use of fuel. I have written a fair amount in this blog about the ocean as metaphor for spiritual things, and about birds as metaphors. Now my thoughts are on the ocean, the birds, the sea creatures and the life in the marshes as holy in their own right. And I think back again to a song I learned when I was a child, "This Is My Father's World." I used a few of its verses in a post that I wrote during Lent, and now the tune comes back to mind for some of the same verses, and for one of the other ones:

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

This is my Father’s world, dreaming, I see His face.
I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry, “The Lord is in this place.”
This is my Father’s world, from the shining courts above,
The Beloved One, His Only Son,
Came—a pledge of deathless love.

This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.

And so I pray. I am not always sure how to pray. I remember something I was taught about prayer years ago, that we do not need to tell God what to do. In the Mass, we hold out our hands and the priest places the Body of Christ in our hands, and we do not know how it works, but we know it does. In prayer, we hold out a situation, a person, a need to God, and we are with God for that person, that situation, and we do not know how prayer works, but we know it does. We sit in God's presence, casting all of our cares on Him for He cares for us (I Peter 5:7), and leave them there at His feet. And we say, "Thy will be done." And perhaps we add, "Maranatha" -- Lord, come quickly, as we long for the new heaven and the new earth that are the only way in which the earth and our own lives will be fully healed.

A blessed Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity to you all on this week-end so much in need.

Vatican Information Service Blog

2010-04-12T08:19:09-07:00

Vatican Information Service announced its new blog on Friday. The VIS Blog, on Blogspot, includes the news stories and press releases posted by Vatican Information Service on its Vatican website. It allows for comments, allows readers to click a box indicating how interesting they thought a particular post is, and has an e-mail feature for sending a VIS post to a friend.

The VIS Blog archives go all the way back to 1999. That is a wonderful feature, since it will be much easier to find a VIS article from the past, and easier to post permanent links to them in other blogs. There are categories for the Pope's activities and celebrations, papal trips, and General Audiences, among others. That blog will be a great resource for finding information about the Pope and the Vatican.

Knights of Columbus Novena for the Pope Begins Today

2010-04-11T20:43:01-07:00

The Knights of Columbus have a Novena for Pope Benedict XVI that begins today. You can read the prayer on the Knights of Columbus website. The same web page offers the prayer as a printable prayer card (6 per page), along with links to Cardinal Levada's statement on the New York Times and the Pope, the Knights of Columbus Supreme Chaplain's statement, and an article by Father Thomas Brundage, JCL, then-presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, giving his first-person account of the church trial of Fr. Lawrence Murphy.

Let Us Not Be Distracted from the Beauty of the Resurrection Light

2010-04-04T08:00:51-07:00

It seems like it happens every year, right before Easter: There is one attack or another against Christianity. A few years ago, right before Easter, there was a wave of headlines about the supposed finding of the tomb of Jesus. This year, it took the form of an attack on Pope Benedict XVI.

Here we go again. When the mainstream media pick this time of the year to launch an attack against Christianity, I generally think it is best to just ignore it. It can take the form of a media frenzy with reports blown out of proportion, trying to capitalize on the additional attention that Christians give to their faith at this time of the year.

At best, it takes the mind off of Christ, the penitence of Lent, His Passion and His Resurrection, at a time of year when that is where the focus of our faith should be. At worst, it runs the risk of dissuading some people from coming into full communion with the Catholic Church when baptisms and confirmations are concentrated at the Easter Vigil. I suppose there might have been some wishful thinking in that regard in the comment made by Rowan Williams in an interview suggesting that the Pope had lost all credibility because of the Irish sex abuse scandal. It surely must have caught the attention of Anglo-Catholics now considering whether they will become Catholics.

But the Catholic faith is deeper than that. It survived through centuries of papal controversies in the Middle Ages, and perhaps we should remember that the holy people in Christianity are the saints and not the clergy; the powerful people are those who pray and not those who vote; and our faith is rooted in the eternal Trinity and not in the latest headlines.

Of course some of those headlines were outrageous. What would you expect? It's Easter, and a lot of the mainstream media has no remaining respect for Christianity as a whole, and for Christians in particular. That is all the more the case, I have no doubt, because of the recent pro-life opposition to the U.S. health care bill, and the roll that is likely to play in upcoming elections to unseat many of the Democratic politicians who supported a health care bill that did not do enough to protect life.

As wrong as clergy sex abuse truly is, the timing and the tone of much of the reporting ought not to outrage us so much as clue us in to its roots in a political and moral anti-Catholic bias. It is Satan tempting during Lent, tempting us to turn our eyes away from the Lord and the beauty of our Lenten modesty, the beauty of Holy Week, the beauty of the Church's turning from the darkness of Gethsemane to the splendor of Easter light.

Don't turn away from beauty to the soiled ugliness of the press. Its ugliness is a witness to its destiny. What in nature is beautiful is healthy, and what is ugly inevitably reflects decay and death. Look toward the beauty of the Easter sunrise and desire to see the Face of Christ our Lord.

Thomas Peters writes, "What was the point of this attack? To discredit the public moral witness of the Church, that 'inconvenient voice' of truth in our time." I think he is correct in that analysis. Read his American Papist blog post on the subject. Christopher Blosser has a round-up about it at The Benedict Blog.

The Holy Father needs our prayers and our support, as does the Church as a whole. We need to defend our Church and the Papacy in the public square. But let us not be distracted into the political fray so much that it turns our eyes away from the face of God.

A blessed Easter to you all.

Image: The Resurrection by Pieter Lastman, 1612.

E-Mail Congress Now about Health Reform

2010-03-20T08:55:31-07:00

The USCCB has strongly supported the need for healthcare reform, while objecting to two problems with the Senate bill now before the House of Representatives with some proposed modifications. A September 16, 2010 press release explains the two key problems with the Senate bill that have led a strongly pro-reform USCCB to object to this bill. They are (1) the remaining abortion funding in the bill and (2) its lack of coverage for many people who will remain without insurance.

A page on the USCCB website offers resources concerning health reform. The NCHLA has an easy form to enable all to e-mail Congress now to oppose abortion funding in the health care bill.

The House of Representatives is planning to vote on Sunday. According to news articles of this morning, those who oppose the protections contained in the Stupak amendment say that they are confident, as of today, that they will have the votes to pass the Senate bill together with its remaining avenues for funding abortion. Rep. Bart Stupak has canceled a news conference scheduled for this morning, without a new time set for it. Seven democrats who previously voted pro-life have reportedly switched sides, but it is still not clear what happened. There are also reports that several liberal Democrats, unhappy with Pelosi's negotiations with Stupak, left a meeting with her grim faced last night. See here and here.

If you have not yet voiced your support for the USCCB's position to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on this issue, now is the time to do so.

I walk a desert lone . . . God makes His glory known.

2010-03-07T07:34:46-08:00

This is my Father’s world,
dreaming, I see His face.
 I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry,
“The Lord is in this place.
” This is my Father’s world,
from the shining courts above, 
The Beloved One, His Only Son, 
Came—a pledge of deathless love.

This is my Father’s world,
should my heart be ever sad?
 The lord is King—let the heavens ring.
God reigns—let the earth be glad. 
This is my Father’s world.
Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
 No place but is holy ground.

This is my Father’s world.
I walk a desert lone. 
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze
God makes His glory known. 
This is my Father’s world,
a wanderer I may roam 
Whate’er my lot, it matters not, 
My heart is still at home.

Photo: A dry riverbed on the floor of Bryce Canyone National Park, 1993.

Words from the hymn "This Is My Father's World" by Maltbie B. Babcock
Cyberhymnal

Alter Christus: Video for the Year of Priests

2010-03-04T07:00:15-08:00

See related videos for French, Spanish, Italian and German versions of this video from the Congregation for the Clergy and HM Television. The videos are about the role of the priest, related to the Year of Priests and St. John Vianney. For more information see EUK Mamie Foundation. Hat tip Le Petit Placide.

PBS Series on the Flight of the Butterfly

2010-01-29T13:52:37-08:00

The PBS television series Nova just aired an episode called The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies. It can be viewed piece by piece online, and can be ordered by DVD. It might be of interest to people for its insights into the flight of butterflies, used as imagery for the spiritual life in St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle. I post it here in the "Dove" category for its interest to an ongoing series I am writing about her flight imagery, including the dove and butterfly.

Here are a couple of her references to the flight of the butterfly, which is a subject I will get to shortly in that series:

"Later on we will speak of the little butterfly, which is never still, for it can find no true repose, yet always fertile, doing good both to itself and others." Fifth Mansion, Chapter IV.

"It seems as if we had deserted the little dove for a long time, but this is not the case, for these past trials cause her to take a far higher flight." Sixth Mansion, Chapter II.

"These sublime favours leave the soul so desirous of fully enjoying Him Who has bestowed them that life becomes a painful though delicious torture, and death is ardently longed for. Such a one often implores God with tears to take her from this exile where everything she sees wearies her. Solitude alone brings great alleviation for a time, but soon her grief returns and yet she cannot bear to be without it. In short, this poor little butterfly can find no lasting rest. So tender is her love that at the slightest provocation it flames forth and the soul takes flight. . . . O poor little butterfly! chained by so many fetters that stop thee from flying where thou wouldst!" Sixth Mansion, Chapter VI

"Perhaps when St. Paul said, ‘He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, ’he meant this sovereign marriage, which presupposes His Majesty’s having been joined to the soul by union. The same Apostle says: ‘To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ This, I think, might here be uttered by the soul, for now the little butterfly of which I spoke dies with supreme joy, for Christ is her life." Seventh Mansion, Chapter II

(All quotations from Interior Castle are from the translation of the Benedictines of Stanbrook online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library.)

In the PBS series, Chapter II, the narrator describes the the butterfly's difficulties in flight, given its physical characteristics, and yet Monarch butterflies can make a 2,000 mile journey from Canada to Mexico. David Gibo of the University of Toronto explains that they do this partly by soaring in thermals, where the air, warmed by the ground, carries them higher:

"Butterflies are the worst possible body form for trying to make a long distance migration. They're simply a bad design. Every time they flap their wings they're using energy at least 20 times the rate than when they're not flapping it, so they're just burning their fuel up at a great rate, much like, say, a helicopter might. And so they have to compensate for their inadequacies by soaring.

"Soaring is gliding in rising air, much like I'm doing right now. The sun heats the ground, the ground heats the air above it. As the air heats, it expands and becomes lighter and begins to rise, and pretty soon you have a column of rising air. That's a thermal. Under good conditions you can maintain the altitude you're at or even gain altitude. A more helpful maneuver is to circle in it. And you see hawks doing this and vultures doing this all the time, circling the thermal, staying within it. And this seems like a wonderful free ride, and it is. Soaring is the key to them getting to Mexico."

Later in the show, the narrator explains that after the butterflies mate and the female lays 300 to 400 eggs, the parents will die.