Month: October 2006

Jack-o-Maul

SDG again with more Halloween pumpkin guest-blogging — this time real photos of an actual pumpkin that I (SDG, not Jimmy) decorated at a company picnic this year.

It’s not exactly a jack-o-lantern, because it’s not carved and therefore you couldn’t put a candle in it. So I called it "Jack-o-Maul" (as opposed to "Maul-o-lantern" or "Darth-o-lantern").

Some specifications:

  • Horns/Nose: carved carrots (affixed with toothpicks)
  • Face paint: Sharpies (black & red)
  • Teeth/Whites of eyes: Wite-out
  • Eyes: Grape halves, straight pins
  • Arms: Mr. Potato Head
  • Lightsaber: Tinker Toys

GET A CLOSER LOOK.

The Jack-o-lantern From Hell

SDG here with some Halloween jack-o-lantern art guest-blogging.

Every year at Halloween I (SDG, not Jimmy) carve a jack-o-lantern. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes it’s just… strange.

We take pictures every year, but when I went to look for the pictures for what I consider my most interesting jack-o-lantern to date, I was disappointed to find that they seem to be missing.

However, all is not lost. Inspired by Jimmy’s earlier post about virtual jack-o-lantern carving, I’ve done a quick virtual mockup of my best memory of what the jack-o-lantern looked like.

Again, this is not a photo, just a down-and-dirty Photoshop mockup, but I did really carve this design (more or less; I’m sure it’s not exactly the same), about seven or eight years ago.

I called it "The Hierarchy of Hell," because the inspiration was C. S. Lewis’s imaginative depiction of hell in The Screwtape Letters as a society in which everyone seeks to devour everyone else.

"The Hierarchy of Hell" depicts four concentric heads, each devouring and/or being devoured by others.

After carving "The Hierarchy of Hell," I discovered that my jack-o-lantern had an unexpected but eerily fitting "performance art" aspect: As the pumpkin began to shrivel and decompose, the #2 head slowly began to withdraw into the maw of the largest head, while the mouth of the largest head slowly began to "close" on the other heads!

By the time I finally went to throw the thing away, it had collapsed into a mouldering heap — and when I went to pick it up, it fell apart completely — and there on the ground where the base of the pumpkin had been was the clearly recognizable ruins of the three inner faces, long since fallen back against the floor of the pumpkin, grimacing up at me.

I have to tell you, I felt I had come a lot closer to portraying the reality of hell than I ever meant to!

P.S. I’ll follow up this post with another with some real photos of a pumpkin I decorated (as opposed to carved) at a company picnic this year.

Appearance On The Hugh Hewitt Show

CHT to American Papist for providing a link to where folks can hear my recent appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show.

HERE’S THE LINK.

The segment with me starts a little bit after the 10 minute mark. You can just drag the indicator to the 10 minute mark if you want to get there in a hurry.

Also, thanks to American Papist for identifing the "party cardinal" in his wicked awesome logo (i.e., the one doing the cool, hip finger move). According to AmP:

I thought everyone would like to know that the grooving prelate is Franciszek Cardinal Macharski,
Archbishop-emeritus of Krakow, Poland. The Cardinal, apparently, has a
tendency of hamming it up for the cameras and that day he was in fine
form.

Hmmm. . . . Hugh described me as "Catholic blogger extraordinaire." I should add that to an endorsements element in the margin or something.

CDW On Purification Of Vessels

The following is the text of the letter sent by Francis Cardinal Arinze to Bishop William Skylstad, president of the USCCB, concerning the liturgical change in America such that extraordinary ministers will no longer be permitted to purify the vessels used at Mass.

CONGREGATIO CULTO DIVINO ET DISCIPLINA SACRAMENTORUM

Prot. n. 468/05/L

Rome, 12 October 2006

Your Excellency,

I refer to your letters of 9 March 2005 and 7 March 2006, in which, in the name of the Conference of Bishops of which you are President, you requested a renewal of the indult for extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion to purify the sacred vessels after Mass, where there are not enough priests or deacons to purify a large number of chalices that might be used at Mass.

I have put the whole matter before the Holy Father in an audience which he granted me on 9 June 2006, and received instructions to reply as follows:

1. There is no doubt that "the sign of Communion is more complete when given under both kinds, since in that form the sign of the Eucharistic meal appears more clearly" (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 240; Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 390).

2. Sometimes, however, the high number of communicants may render it inadvisable for everyone to drink from the chalice (cf. Redemptionis Sacramentum, no. 102). intinction with reception on the tongue always and everywhere remains a legitimate option, by virtue of the general liturgical law of the Roman Rite.

3. Catechesis of the people is important regarding the teaching of the Council of Trent that Christ is fully present under each of the species. Communion under the species of the bread alone, as a consequence, makes it possible to receive all the fruit of Eucharistic grace (cf. Denzinger-Schônmetzer, no. 1729; General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 11, 282). "For pastoral reasons", therefore, "this manner of receiving Communion has been legitimately established as the most common form in the Latin rite" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 390).

4. Paragraph 279 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal directs that the sacred vessels are to be purified by the priest, the deacon or an instituted acolyte. The status of this text as legislation has recently been clarified by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. It does not seem feasible, therefore, for the Congregation to grant the requested indult from this directive in the general law of the Latin Church.

5. This letter is therefore a request to the members of the Bishops’ Conference of the United Status of America to prepare the necessary explanations and catechetical materials for your clergy and people so that henceforth the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 279, as found in the editio typicatia of the Roman Missal, will be observed throughout its territories.

With the expression of my esteem and fraternal greetings, I remain, Your Excellency,

Devotedly yours in Christ,

+Francis Cardinal Arinze
Prefect

Monsignor Mario Marini
Under-Secretary

A Halloween Question

A reader writes:

I thought this question would have a nice spooky element for Halloween. In St. Liguori’s Glories of Mary, the author relates some fantastic stories:

Moreover, Pelbart says that in his time, when the emperor Sigismund was crossing the Alps with his army, a voice was heard coming from a skeleton asking for a confessor and declaring that the Mother of God, for whom he had a great devotion when a soldier, had obtained permission for him to live on in those bones until he had been able to confess his sins. The man made his confession and then died.

And:

…in the town of Aragorn there lived a young lady named Alexandra. She belonged to the nobility and, being very beautiful, was loved very much by two young men. One day, out of jealousy over Alexandra, the two youths quarreled and killed each other in a duel. Their parents were very much angered by this and, considering that the poor young girl was the cause of so much harm, they killed her too. They cut off her head and threw her into a well. A few days later, when Saint Dominic happened to be passing by the spot, he was inspired by the Lord to go to the well and call down: "Alexandra, come up!" With that, the head of the dead girl appeared, settled on the edge of the well, and begged Saint Dominic to hear her confession…the saint heard her confession and gave her Holy Communion.

My instinct is that these stories fall under pious legend. Can they really square with Church teachings regarding last things and death being the cut off point for repentence? Also, should a head, absent a digestive system, really receive Holy Communion?

While nice for Halloween, such stories are best regarded as the pious legends, at least absent further evidence for them. Stories of this type reflect the way the Christian imagination has shaped the folklore of Europe and infused it with Christian values.

That being said, God is omnipotent, and if he wants to do miracles like the ones reported in these stories, he certainly can.

As to how such events, if they really occurred, would square with Catholic teaching, the following things occur to me:

1) While the rule that death is the closure of our time to repent is one that we must regard as absolute, not promising ourselves a chance to repent afterwards, God might nevertheless make exceptions to it. It is hard to see how this would happen if, as is commonly taught, our wills become fixed on good or evil at the moment of death, but perhaps God can preserve the fluidity of the will even after death. We don’t have a clear idea about why our wills become fixed–why being discarnate would cause that to happen and why they don’t become re-fluid once we are resurrected–so it may be possible for God to preserve this kind of free will in a person who has died.

2) It is also possible that the individuals in question might not really be dead . . . just mostly dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.

But with mostly dead you might, for example, be able to get in a quick confession. So, it not being logically impossible (so far as I can tell) to have what appears to be a skeleton still having a bit of life or (even more clealry) a detached head that’s still alive (just watch The Brain That Woudn’t Die if you don’t believe me!), God could presumably allow these individuals to stay alive long enough to receive the sacraments.

3) As to receiving Communion with no digestive system–well, we’re already pretty far into the miraculous here. I mean, not only does the severed head have no digestive system, it doesn’t have the key parts of its circulatory and respiratory system either. In other words: No heart. No lungs. So what’s pumping and oxygenating the blood? And where are the vocal cords getting the air needed for speech to make the confession? If God is able to miraculously compensate for the absence of these bodily systems, I’m sure he can miraculously compensate for the absence of the digestive system, too.

Therefore, if I were St. Dominic and a severed head wanted me to hear its confession and give it Communion, I would seriously entertain the request.

4) BTW, in addition to the possibility that these people were somehow still alive, the possibility also should be considered that we’re dealing with some kind of spiritual echo or snakeskin phenomenon, where what is producing the phenomenon is not actually the person in question but a remnant of the person.

THAT’S SOMETHING WE’VE CONSIDERED HERE BEFORE ON THE BLOG.

AND THAT FOLKS HAVE COMMENTED ON.

GodBlogCon 2006: A Brief After Action Report

Last Thursday through Saturday I was at GodBlogCon 2006, hosted at Biola University in La Mirada, California (that’s in the L.A. area). I found the confab very stimulating, and I met a bunch of really enthusiastic, passionate folks concerned about using blogs to promote Christian faith and values.

Speakers and attendees came from Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic backgrounds. I was the only Catholic among the speakers, though I was not the only Catholic blogger in attendance. I’ll be telling you about some of them in coming weeks. After attending the event, I decided to do a series featuring individual bloggers I met and talk about their blogs. They’re an interesting bunch of folks.

One thing I thought I’d mention now was something that some folks queried about last week, which was whether I’d encounter anti-Catholicism at the event.

The short answer is: I didn’t. Not any.

No attempt was made to marginalize me. In fact, I was a little startled at how much my opinion was asked for, particularly in a break-out session where I planned simply to listen and not say much if anything. Not only was I treated very respectfully by everyone there, but the convention organizers went out of their way to make the point that they are interested in having greater Catholic involvement in the future.

What was most gratifying, though, was the way some of the speakers expressed themselves on Catholic matters. In talking to the audience, which was largely Evangelical, there were matter-of-fact references to "John Paul the Great" and "Benedict" and they way the two are able to articulate the "culture of life," with the unstated but clear assumption that these men are important leaders to which the audience should pay attention and appreciate. It was another illustration for me of how the pope today serves as a moral leader even for Christians who are not part of the Catholic Church.

It was an energizing event for me as a blogger, and the convention got some wheels turning in my mind about some topics I should blog on in the future.

I don’t want to make this post over-long, though, so I’ll close by sharing with you a photograph I took of a mural that is painted on one of the buildings on campus. Photography never seems to capture just how impressive something like this is when you turn a corner and see it for the first time, the original is quite striking.

It also contains elements of symbolism. I am informed, for example, that the shadows are meant to evoke the Trinity, and the pages of the Bible are the same color as Jesus’ skin tone, reflecting the duality of the Incarnate and written Word of God.

Jesus_mural