"Love Sacrifice, Love the Cross, Love Pain." Seriously?

Today is the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei.

Although I am not now nor ever have been a member of Opus Dei, I'm definitely a fan (both of Opus Dei and its founder).

When looking at some of St. Josemaria's writings a few years ago, I came across this counsel:

Love sacrifice; it is a fountain of interior life. Love the Cross, which is an altar of sacrifice. Love pain, until you drink, as Christ did, the very dregs of the chalice.

This is one of those pieces of advice that illustrates with absolutely clarity why, in the midst of our world, really and truly following Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate alternative lifestyle — and, yea, the only one worth living.

As shocking as it sounds, we are indeed called to love sacrifice, to love pain — in short, to love suffering — for in doing so, we unite ourselves to Jesus.

Let's be honest: the notion that we should not only tolerate suffering but actually embrace it and love it sounds, well, crazy. And not just crazy, mind you, but über-crazy.

That is, until we remind ourselves about that whole "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" thing.

Jesus loved; so too must we love if we want to be like Him.

Jesus served; so too must we serve if we want to be like Him.

Jesus suffered pain and humiliation; so too must we suffer pain and humiliation if we want to be like Him.

When I first read those words of St. Josemaria, they particularly struck me because I had just recently finished reading The Soul of the Apostolate. Therein, the author, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, lists nine "levels" of the interior life, ranging from "hardened in sin" to "complete sanctity". The latter, he says, have an "ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations".

At this point in my life, I cannot say I have an ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations. But, please God, some day I will.

And, please God, some day we all will.

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least"

A few years ago a friend of mine told me that he had recently started reading the Fathers of the Church, which, he said, made him feel like "the great slacker of the world."

I had a similar feeling as I read The Soul of the Apostolate a few years back.

This is the effect that good spiritual reading ought to have on us. From it, we learn from holy people (that is, people who are fiercely serious about loving God and one another, along with the Church, Scripture, and Tradition, who are indefatigably committed to prayer and the Sacraments, and who know a thing or two about self-mastery thanks to regular and rigorous penance and mortification) what, with God's grace, we are capable of, and what He put us on this earth to do.

Good spiritual reading also reminds of our own pathetic brokenness, and how far we presently are from reaching a point anywhere close to that reached by the spiritual masters whose works we read.

Sure, no one likes to be reminded of his faults and imperfections, but we periodically need to remind ourselves (or have someone else remind us) of how not-so-good we are, lest we get a little too comfortable with ourselves and become -- God forbid -- proud.

With this in mind, consider these words of Servant of God Dorothy Day, whose death 31 years ago was commemorated yesterday:

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

These words are as good a reality check as any we're likely to come across today. We would all do well to look deep within ourselves and honestly ask:

How much do I really love God?

My Two-Year Old Is Smarter Than Your Two-Year Old

Last night I caught him reading Prince Caspian:



Quite the precocious lad, he.

It's No Coincidence That the Ring Is Destroyed on March 25

What with today's being the feast of the Annunciation, I figured it would be as good a day as any to post an excerpt from this article by the ever interesting Joseph Pearce, who explains why, despite the persistent protestations of some skeptics, The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work — which, I suppose, is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, since Tolkien himself said LotR is, you know, "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work."

If, however, Christ is never mentioned by name in The Lord of the Rings, how can we discern his invisible presence?

The most obvious parallel between Tolkien's myth and the Christian truth it reflects so faithfully is in the nature of the quest which constitutes the principal animus of Tolkien's story. The journey of Frodo and Sam into the very heart of Mordor in order to destroy, or unmake, the Ring in the fires of Mt. Doom is emblematic of the Christian's imitation of Christ in carrying the cross of sin.

At its most profound level, The Lord of the Rings is a sublimely mystical passion play. The carrying of the ring — the emblem of sin — is the carrying of the cross. This is the ultimate applicability of The Lord of the Rings — that we have to lose our life in order to gain it; that unless we die we cannot live; that we must all take up our cross and follow him.

All of this would be deducible from the story itself but Tolkien makes the parallel even more explicit. "I should say," he wrote, explaining the final climactic moments on Mt. Doom, "that within the mode of the story [it] exemplifies (an aspect of) the familiar words: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.'"

As if this were not enough to silence those skeptics who obstinately refuse to acknowledge the overriding Christian dimension in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien makes it even more unmistakable, and unavoidable, in the fact that the climactic attempt to destroy the ring, and in consequence the Dark Lord who had forged it, occurred on "the twenty-fifth of March."

The significance of this date will not escape the attention of Catholic scholars, though it is certainly overlooked all too often by Tolkien's non-Christian admirers. Tom Shippey, an Anglo-Saxon scholar and Tolkien expert, states in his book, The Road to Middle Earth, that in "Anglo-Saxon belief, and in European popular tradition both before and after that, March 25 is the date of the Crucifixion." It is also, of course, the Feast of the Annunciation, the celebration of the absolute center of all history as the moment when God himself became incarnate as man.

A Catholic and an Oxford don, Tolkien was well aware of the significance of "the twenty-fifth of March." It signified the way in which God had "unmade" the Fall, which, like the Ring, had brought humanity under the sway of "the Shadow." If the ring that the hero wants "unmade" at the culmination of Tolkien's quest is the "one ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them," the Fall was the "one sin to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them." On March 25, the one sin, like the one ring, had been "unmade," destroying the power of the Dark Lord.

Experts, Shmexperts

If you've ever thought that the word "expert" is bandied about way too much, and that many of the people who are commonly regarded as experts are, uh, well, not experts, you're right:

To read the factoids David Freedman rattles off in his book Wrong is terrifying. He begins by writing that about two-thirds of the findings published in the top medical journals are refuted within a few years. It gets worse. As much as 90% of physicians' medical knowledge has been found to be substantially or completely wrong. In fact, there is a 1 in 12 chance that a doctor's diagnosis will be so wrong that it causes the patient significant harm. And it's not just medicine. Economists have found that all studies published in economics journals are likely to be wrong. Professionally prepared tax returns are more likely to contain significant errors than self-prepared returns. Half of all newspaper articles contain at least one factual error. So why, then, do we blindly follow experts?

Because that's what a Herd of Independent Thinkers does.

What Books Do You Own?

JivinJ links to a WaPo profile of Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List in which Jason Horowitz writes:

Dannenfelser, wearing a striped beige jacket and a necklace of silver spheres, came out of her small office, where books about the importance of women in the life of Pope John Paul II ("Wojtyla's Women") and an anti-Democratic screed ("The Party of Death") sat in a short bookcase.

I do not wish to discuss here the merits of either book mentioned (in part because I haven't read them).

But it seems odd that this detail even warrants a mention. What's the implication? Is it that if someone has a book in her bookcase, that she therefore presumably agrees with all (or at least most) of the arguments its author makes therein?

Personally, I think that when someone owns a book, it means that person owns a book, and any further extrapolation by someone else is made at his own peril.

15 in 15

Because of the ironclad Someone On Facebook Tagged Me rule, I'm now obliged to do the following:

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. [List] [f]ifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

That said:

1. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. Dante's Inferno
4. The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind by Dr. Bernard Nathanson
5. Father Elijah by Michael O'Brien
6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
7. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
8. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
9. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
10. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
11. The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
12. The Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn
13. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard

Good Advice

I mentioned last week that I recently finished reading The Soul of the Apostolate. If I had to sum up in one sentence what I took away from it, it's this:

Do not neglect prayer.

The following excerpt is probably my favorite, and is surely one I will revisit often in my schlep toward holiness:

Now for a man in the active life to give up his meditation is tantamount to throwing down his arms at the feet of the enemy. “Short of a miracle,” says St. Alphonsus, “a man who does not practice mental prayer will end up in mortal sin.” And St. Vincent de Paul tells us: “A man without mental prayer is not good for anything; he cannot even renounce the slightest thing. ‘It is merely the life of an animal.’” Some authors quote St. Theresa as having said: “Without mental prayer a person soon becomes either a brute or a devil. If you do not practice mental prayer, you don’t need any devil to throw you into hell, you throw yourself in there of your own accord. On the contrary, give me the greatest of all sinners; if he practices mental prayer, be it only for fifteen minutes every day, he will be converted. If he perseveres in it, his eternal salvation is assured.” The experience of priests and religious vowed to active works is enough to establish that an apostolic worker who, under pretext of being too busy or too tired, or else out of repugnance, or laziness, or some illusion, is too easily brought to cut down his meditation to ten or fifteen minutes instead of binding himself to half an hour’s serious mental prayer from which he might draw plenty of energy and drive for his day’s work, will inevitably fall into tepidity of the will.

In this stage, it is no longer a matter of avoiding imperfections. His soul is crawling with venial sins. The ever growing impossibility of vigilance over his heart makes most of these faults pass unnoticed by his conscience. The soul has disposed itself in such a manner that it cannot and will not see. How will such a one fight against things which he no longer regards as defects?

"Love Sacrifice, Love the Cross, Love Pain"

As today is the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva (the founder of Opus Dei), I've been looking for quotes from him to post on Facebook throughout the day as a way of exposing more people to his great writings (and ultimately, one hopes, to help bring them to a deeper relationship with Our Lord and His Church).

Here is one counsel of his I came across today for the first time:

Love sacrifice; it is a fountain of interior life. Love the Cross, which is an altar of sacrifice. Love pain, until you drink, as Christ did, the very dregs of the chalice.

This is one of those pieces of advice that illustrates with absolutely clarity why, in the midst of our world, really and truly following Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate alternative lifestyle—and, yea, the only one worth living.

As shocking as it sounds, we are indeed called to love pain, for in doing so we unite ourselves to Jesus.

Jesus loved; so too must we love if we want to be like Him. Jesus served; so too must we serve if we want to be like Him. Jesus suffered pain and humiliation; so too must we suffer pain and humiliation if we want to be like Him.

These words of St. Josemaria particularly struck me because I just recently finished reading The Soul of the Apostolate (which, btw, I highly recommend). Therein, the author, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, lists nine "levels" of the interior life, ranging from "hardened in sin" to "complete sanctity". The latter, he says, have an "ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations".

At this point in my life, I cannot say I have an ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations. But, please God, some day I will.

And, please God, some day we all will.

[Cross-posted at Catholic Dads]

Bad Writing

Molly alerted me earlier this week to this site that gives advice on how to write bad fiction.

One tip, "Thou shalt commit no plot", prompted me to call to mind the ironic "Notice" Mark Twain posts at the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Interestingly enough, it was also this week that I first learned (HT: Mark Shea) of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, whose 2008 results were just released:

An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

And boy, there are some gems. Here is but one, which won Grand Panjandrum's Special Award—whatever that is:

Upon discovering that Miles Black, the famous phrenologist from Yorkshire was going to take up yodeling to lonely goats in Bali, James White decided to balance four planks of wood on a beer keg and call it an abstract work of art in the style of a famous fourteenth-century architect, just going to prove that people will read any old garbage if they think there will be a good pun at the end of it.

The rest of the winners, runner-ups runners-up, honorable mentions, etc., are here.

Utter Stupidity

Those who favor banning books like Huck Finn must be gleeful at this news:

Some bureaucrats at the Wilmette Park District are so aghast at the language in a planned production of the musical Ragtime that they've cancelled the show.

I'm not sure what upsets me more: that, or the fact that the ninnies actually tried to get permission to change the script.

Now, the only experience I have as an actor was in high school and community theater productions, but even a one-time amateur like me knows you simply Can't. Do. That.

(Interestingly enough, the same is true of the liturgical rubrics. Just as a priest has no right to change the prayers at Mass, so too an actor or director has no right to change the words of a play.)

I wonder how often the company that owns Ragtime's rights receives such transparently stupid requests.

Shakespeare Fans, Lick Your Chops

There's a humdinger of a bargain currently on Amazon: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library) (Hardcover) for only $60 [!].

[HT: Remy via Matt Yonke]

I Don't Read Books Much Anymore

Over the course of my adult life, I've had innumerable conversations that go something like this:

Interlocutor: Have you read [Name of a Particular Book]?

Me: That's the one by [Name of Said Particular Book's Author], right?

OR:

Me: That's the one about [Very General Plot Summary of Said Particular Book], right?

Interlocutor: Yeah — have you read it?

Me: No.

Interlocutor: [With much gusto] Oh, it's great! You've gotta read it...

As I have remarked previously on this blog, I love to read — not entirely unlike Burgess Meredith's character in one of the most famous episodes of The Twilight Zone.

But since Jocelyn and I started having kids, I have precious little time for personal reading.

It must have been with guys like me in mind that University of Paris professor Pierre Bayard wrote How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.

The problem is, of course: When would I have time to read it?

I've already read this review — written, ironically (or rather, not ironically, come to think of it), by someone who hasn't had time to read it either.

That'll have to do, I guess.

Now I'm able to talk about How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.

[HT: Mark Shea]