Gallery II ~ My Dad

IN THIS SECOND GALLERY POST, I WOULD LIKE TO SHINE THE SPOTLIGHT ON MY DAD, IN HONOR OF HIS BIRTHDAY TO DAY (AND NAME SAINT FEAST DAY LAST THURSDAY, AS I RECALL)...

The drawing above is of Blessed Cardinal Newman, recently beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. It was done with charcoal from a photograph of Cardinal Newman.

Below is an oil painting of St. Bernadette. Dad worked on it for years. My mom and my brothers and I would come down to Dad's studio in the basement after he had spent all night awake painting and study the painting. Sometimes it was hard to tell what he had worked on all night, but other times it quite caught our breath away. my brothers and I refer to this painting as 'Dad's masterpeice'.




My dad has gone and still goes to several art clubs where artists will get together to paint a model. This is one his best from those sessions.

And here is the link to Dad's blog where you can find photoes of some more of his work: http://http://runartist.wordpress.com/

Feel free to comment on my Dad's blog!

Wisdom Chaper 3

Here are my thoughts on the 3rd chapter of Wisdom, which can be found here.

Picking up where the last chapter left off with speaking of the good man's martyrdom, this chapter begins by showing that death is not a miserable thing for good people. While chapter 2 begins with evil people's despair at death, chapter 3 begins with how the good need not fear death at all; in fact, for the good, death is good.

Tolkien writes of death in the Silmarillion, chapter 1:
"It is one with this gift of freedom that t he children of Men dwell only a short space int eh world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon [...] But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world [...]. Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar [...] But Melkor (the most evil god) has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope."

Verse 9 is very insightful of human nature and how humans react to God. There is a definite connection between understanding truth and trusting God; the more one trusts what God has revealed and trusts Him rather than questioning everything, the more one can learn and discover the answers to the questions we all naturally have about what God has revealed to us. And loyalty in love definitely leads to rest, not just in love of God but in all relationships. For the more and the longer one loves, the more that love becomes a habit and part of one's essence. Such love is stable and persevering; the loved one can rest in its certainty.

The wicked shall be punished by their own devices. For sin involves a selfish turning inward of one's focus; so the consequences of sin fall like a poorly built structure collapsing in on itself. Those who believe in abortion and contraception will probably be defeated, if by nothing else, than by there eventually being no one left alive to continue their side of the war.

The rest of the chapter states the consequences of rejecting wisdom. Basically, without wisdom, you're life will be pathetic. Wisdom, with discipline, gives happiness. It makes your hope worthwhile, your labors fruitful, and your words profitable. So with wisdom, your thoughts, words and actions have merit.

Thomas More College

Well, guess who got accepted to Thomas More College last month? And whose essay for T.M. C.'s Faith and Reason essay contest won them quite a large piece of their tuition covered?







Those who want to can spend two weeks in Oxford...










All Full Time students spend one semester of their sophomore year in Rome...




























Here is the link to Thomas More College's website, where I got these photos.

Please pray for me that everything continues to work out as well as it has so far.

Why the Catholic Church Has No Women Priests

That is the name of a speech I wrote for the speech class I am taking. I think it came out well, and since it is such an often asked question, I thought I'd type here the answer I gave in my speech:

A question about the Catholic Church that has come up in recent times is why the Catholic Church does not ordain women priests. The Church is often considered sexist for this. I researched the writing of Pope John Paul II, who was Pope from 1978 to 2005. His Address to General Audiences on July 27, 1994 and his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis especially discuss this question.

I think this question needs to be addressed because just as we need to know what is going on politically, we should also know what is happening when it comes to religion. Whether we belong to one religion or another, or even believe in a God at all, we all come in contact with people of many beliefs everyday. By knowing what is going on religiously, especially in such a big and often controversial religion as the Catholic Church, we can know what beliefs are effecting people we come in contact with, and so we can better understand how their beliefs will effect us. So, in this speech -blog post-, I will explain the Catholic Church's reasons for not ordaining women priests and then I will explain why this is not sexist.

The reason, essentially, is that Jesus did not chose any women to be Apostles. The apostles were the twelve followers which Christ specifically chose. At the Last Supper Jesus gave the Apostles the power of celebrating the Eucharist in His name. After His resurrection He gave them the power of forgiving sins. Jesus also gave His Apostles the mission of evangelization. Celebrating the Eucharist, forgiving sins, and evangelization are the essence of the priesthood. So Jesus gave the powers of priesthood to the Apostles, who were all men, and to no one else.

The Church has no power to change what Jesus did. Rather, the Church has the mission of continuing and spreading what Christ did. So since Jesus only gave the priesthood to men, then the Church does likewise, preserving what Jesus did. The priest continues what Christ did by representing Christ to the people. As Christ is a man, so must the priest be.

Jesus was not sexist in choosing only men, nor was He forced to choose only men because of the mentality toward women at His time. I found out from a Jewish friend that there was at Christ's time a group of men call the 'Essenes' who lived in the dessert and thought that it was impure to associate with women. Jesus went against this and any such view of women by allowing and welcoming women to follow Him. He talked openly with women, and even stood up for an adulteress against the people who would have killed her for adultery. God also chose to honor a woman above all His creation by giving this woman, Mary, the distinction of being the Mother of Christ and caring for Jesus as He grew up. Mothers have this added honor of being like Mary, hte Mother of God. So Jesus did not deny women anything, but gave them a differnt role.

That is why hte Catholic Church has no women priests. Ina nutshell, Jesus chose only men to give the priesthood to. Because of how Jesus was against distorted views of women, we know He made this choice freely. And the Church continues what Jesus did.

ART III ~The Problem of Beauty

There are two posts already on my blog that deal directly with art: 'What is Art?' and 'Art Is.....?' I am now going to continue my discussions of art, dealing with this question: in the first post I said, "Beauty and Truth are far from always agreeing. But in art they are shown as sisters." Then, in my second post I had a huge quote from the CCC, and one of the things it says is: "Truth is beautiful in itself." The problem is, are truth and beauty opposed or is truth beautiful in itself?
As always, the best place to start is to define our terms. Truth is a correspondence of reason and reality. Beauty is... And this is where we run into problems. As we all may attest, I am sure, the wonders of creation lead us to consider the greater wondrousness of the Creator.

3 [...]let them know how much the Lord of them (fire, wind, stars, the sun, etc.) is more beautiful than they: for the first author of beauty made all those things. 4 Or if they admired their power and their effects, let them understand by them, that he that made them, is mightier than they: 5 For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby. ~Wisdom 13:3-5

And that is the closest thing I know to an actual definition of 'beauty'.
So, beauty was made by God with the purpose of showing by it His own beauty, and so reveal Himself. In human works, beauty has the mission of showing some truth. In creation, beauty has the mission of showing the Truth.
We observe beauty through two things: the mind and the senses. As it says in the definition of beauty at dictionary.com, 'The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.' (emphasis added) This is where the whole problem of defining beauty comes up, I think. Because when we think of what is beautiful, we tend to think of things like this:


Or like this: Rapsodia Romania (op.2) by George Enescu
These are all beauties that reach to the senses, and can lead us higher than the senses ever will be able to. It was in thinking of these sensual beauties only that I wrote that beauty and truth were often opposed. I was thinking along the lines of, 'A lie may sound perfectly marvelous, but it isn't true. It may be true that someone is dead, but that isn't beautiful.' And so I cam e to the conclusion that beauty and truth are often opposed. If the only sort of beauties that existed were the sensual kind, then I am right.
However, there are also things which are beautiful, and whose beauty only the intellect can grasp, things which may even repel the senses. For example, suffering and death. How can they beautiful? Although it seems almost impossible to see these as beautiful, they are, because they can lead one closer to God.
As the senses have 5 faculties, so the mind has 5. One of these is the intellect, which has the ability to sense what is beautiful, even of the senses cannot or will not. Consider again the definition from dictionary.com: 'The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.' (emphasis added) One cannot see, hear, taste, feel, or smell truthfulness. But one can sense when what they see, hear, or feel is true- with the intellect's sense for what is good, true and beautiful.
So, now that we have explored what beauty is and how truth and beauty can be opposed of one is only thinking of sensual beauties, let us find how they correspond, when thinking of both sensual and intellectual beauties.
As Wisdom 13:3-5 shows us, sensual beauties that are created by God, such as fire,wind, stars, and the sun, can and should lead us to God. Thus they correspond to Truth. Sensual beauties made by man- clothes, paintings, sculptures- are an imitations of the created; others like photos and videos are ways of holding the created from the changes of time. These can lead us, indirectly, to the Creator. The purer they are of sin, the more they do this.
Intellectual beauties, both created and made, correspond with truth and the Truth because God is beautiful. We know God is beautiful because, as said in Wisdom 13:3-5, the beauties of earth reflect that. If He were not beautiful, He would not be able to have made anything beautiful. Also, all that is the best is in Him, so if there is beauty in creation (there is), then He is the most beautiful (He is). (There is a slight distinction I will make before going on: the beauties of the earth are a means for us to reach Him, mentally and actually. The beauty of God is an end to be contemplated and enjoyed here and forever in heaven.)
Now, God is beautiful and God is Truth. As He is all perfect, there cannot be anything contradicting in Him, so his beauty and Truth must perfectly be in agreement. Thus, the Truth is in itself beautiful. Going down now in thought, from greatest to least, we may conclude that the more a thing is like God, the more it is true, the more it is beautiful, and the more these two qualities agree and compliment each other. And the less a thing is like God, the more sinful and low, the less it is true and beautiful, and the less these agree.
Specifically, on the example I gave of an intellectual beauty- death. Death is the way that, because of sin, we have to pass through to get to heaven. But the end of all things, God, has purified and made holy our only means of actually reaching and being with Him eternally in His full glory. So, death not only has beauty in that is a way to the greatest beauty; it now is a beauty in itself, a sanctified way, and when we go through it we are following in the footsteps of God.
Finally, if even death, the greatest effect of sin- ugliness and lies- can and has been sanctified and so made good and holy and true and beautiful, then we can know that truth and beauty are not opposed. When they seem opposed, it is probably because one of them is either lacking or impure, or our senses intellects are dulled and warped by sin and so we cannot see or think correctly.
And now, I big thanks to you, my reader, for having read that humongously long post!

Divine Love

"To every existing thing God wills some good. Hence, since to love any thing is nothing else than to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists" ~St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

.......As Fr. Hardon puts is, love is "to will good to someone." (Pocket Catholic Dictionary, definition of 'Love')
.......Pope Benedict elaborates further as he says in the Introduction of Caritas in Veritate, "To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it."
.......So God loves us and thus wills good to us and wants to give us that good. What is the best for us? Nothing less than God's love. Because God loves us he wants what is best for us, and what is best for us is His love, so He loves us, so He wants the best for us... Divine love is both the gift and the reason for giving. Moreover, it is the giver Himself.
.......In the light of this, all love between humans falls into place as a reflection of God's love. Human love is inspired by Divine love. "All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically." (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate). Not only do people naturally want to love in response to the love of God, it is our mission to love. "As the objects of God's love, men and women become subjects of charity; they are called to make themselves instruments of grace so as to pour forth God's charity and to weave networks of charity." (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)
.......A proverb states, "Love elicits a response." So God's love elicits two responses: the one above, that we love one another and that we love Him. It is only by loving God and being open to the love He wishes to pour upon us (and that we need) that we are able to fully love others. For often, our love falls short. It is not enough. By opening ourselves to God's love, we can think, say, and do what is needed with love, though it is not our own. Consider this passage from The Jeweler's Shop by Pope John Paul II in which one of the characters is speaking of the marriage of a friend which had almost completely broken and is now slowly recovering:

"The cause lies in the past. The error resides simply there . The thing is that love carries people away like an absolute, although it lacks absolute dimensions. But acting under illusion, they do not try to connect that love with the Love that has such dimensions. They do not even feel the need, blinded as they are not so much by the force of their emotions as by lack of humility. They lack humility toward what love must be in its true essence. The more aware they are of it, the smaller the danger. Otherwise the danger is great: love will not stand the pressure of reality."

And the more we are open to God's love, the more our own grows. Because of God's love, we can transcend our weaknesses. God's love gives us the opportunity for an eternity in heaven, so it gives us a purpose for living now. "Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope" (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)

"Charity is love received and given. It is "grace" (charis). Its source is the wellspring of the Father's love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. it is Creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. John 13:1) and "poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom 5:5)."
(Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)

.......To consider further what love is, I have compiled this list of what charity is and is not, according to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's' essay entitled Charity:

Charity
IS NOT...........................................IS
In emotions.................................In the will
Spasmodic....................Habit, Commandable
Contract..................................Relationship
From man or ................Supernatural, from God
anything sensual.........................................................
Picky about who ........................Wills to love
deserves to be loved...........everyone for God's sake
Isolated, countable acts................................Good habit
Occasionally good..................Growing and eternal virtue
A contract.............................A supernatural relationship
.......................................with God and neighbor
According to merit.................Loves the sinner,
..........................................hates the sin
Changed by ...........................................Eternal
and with time............................................................

.......The best place to learn what Love is is in the Bible, especially St. Paul's passage in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. My advice when you read it is, 'Since you have probably heard this a hundred times before, try to read it now with fresh ears and an inquisitive mind.'
.......Let us now conclude this discussion of Divine Love with another quote from The Jeweler's Shop:

...."Sometimes human love seems too short for love. At other times it is, however, the other way around: human love seems too short in relation to existence-or rather, too trivial. At any rate, every person has at his disposal an existance and a Love. The problem is: Hos to build a sensible structuree from it?
....But this structure must never be inward-looking. It must be open in such a way that on the one hand it embraces other people, whole on the other it always reflects the absolute Existence and Love; it must always, in some way, reflect them."

Descartes III - Radical Doubt and Faith

Descartes (1596-1650) invented and used a method called 'Radical Doubt' with the goal of finding 'true ideas', or clear truths. The rules of this method are:
1. Never immediately accept anything as true. Question all ideas.
2. Break ideas down into smaller pieces.
3. Do all reasoning in order, from simplest to most complex.
4. Omit no ideas. Take everything into consideration and enumerate everything.

Lately I've been talking to one of the librarians at the public library, and she is Jewish. I've also been communicating to a fellow blogger who is Jewish. They both say that the central core premise of their beliefs is to not accept anything anyone tells you until you have questioned it, analyzed it, thought about it, and were sure it made sense.

Sound similar, don't they? And it sounds like a great way of going about things and shifting out the truth from all the lies we get shoved in our face every day. But, if reason is all there is to finding the truth, why does the Catholic Church put so much emphasis on faith? If we can use our reasons well, what need have we of faith? God gave us brains, didn't He? Are we supposed to just let ourselves be spoon fed what a bunch of priests and bishops and the Pope say? And then believe it just because they said it?

This is my answer to those questions:
If I try to reach the truth, and I decide to take this premise of always questioning everything before accepting anything as true and of using only my reason, I am putting faith in my reason. I am putting immense trust in one, limited faculty of my mind that is just as fallen as my every other faculty because I am human. And on what grounds? What reason have I to put faith in my reason? My reason can even tell me that since it is limited it cannot take me unguided and alone to the truth which we all seek.

Consider what would happen if everyone used only their own reasoning to find the truth: no one would agree or come to any conclusions. Everyone would have pieces of the truth, arguments would constantly break out, and everything- morals, principles, etc.- would become relative. (sounds sort of like today, doesn't it?) Truth, however, by its very nature, is universal and eternal.

Furthermore, I can use my reason to find that God is so beyond my comprehension that I cannot reach Him through human reason alone. Then, I can use my reason to find that since He is all-loving, He would not have abandoned His creatures on earth with nothing but their reasons to guide them to Him. God would reveal truths about Himself, truths which help us reach Him by believing in them, though such truths surpass our reason's ability to comprehend.

The more our reason is lit by the light of faith, the more we may understand what we believe in, and the more we understand, the more deeply we believe and love what we know by faith. And what we know by reason and believe in by faith become tightly and wondrously bound.

Finally, belief is not based on how much sense the believed-in thing makes. Rather, we believe in truths beyond our comprehension beyond God told us. We believe for the authority of the person (or Divine Person) who told us.

Once again I refer to my favorite source:

156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived".28 So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit."²⁹ Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".³⁰

157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives."³¹ "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."³²

158 "Faith seeks understanding":³³ it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"³⁴ to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."³⁵ In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."³⁶

159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."³⁷ "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."³⁸

---------------------------------------
28 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008.
29 Dei Filius 3:DS 3009.
30 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008-3010; Cf. Mk 16 20; Heb 2:4.
31 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,171,5,obj.3.
32 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro vita sua (London: Longman, 1878) 239.
33 St. Anselm, Prosl. prooem.:PL 153,225A.
34 Eph 1:18.
35 DV 5.
36 St. Augustine, Sermo 43,7,9:PL 38,257-258.
37 Dei Filius 4:DS 3017.
38 GS 36 § 1.

Punishment of God

Sometimes it seems as if God is a punishing being, and when I read a fellow blogger's view, I decided it was time to do some research into what my religion says of God's punishments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

The Commandments [...] express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative. It is the acknowledgment and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving.

So, we obey the Commandments, the morals given us by God because we are His, and it is our way of honoring and paying homage to God.
Consider also the quote, "Love elicits a response". Because God loves us, He gives us commandments and morals by which to live well and reach heaven. This love elicits our response in two ways. 1. Loving Him back (the 1st Commandment: "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other god besides Me.") 2. Obeying Him. (the 2nd - 10th Commandments) The first way causes the second way, and the second reinforces and demonstrates the first.
Therefore, when He is punishing us, He is punishing us for making Him second in our hearts. He is also punishing us for extending this misdirected love/hate into our actions, which effect others.

What Does One Owe To One's Parents?

I was talking with a friend earlier today about duty and parents- what one owes to their parents, what is obligatory, what is done out of love, etc. I thought I'd post these from the Catechism of the Catholic Church for my friend:

2199 The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

2215 Respect for parents (filial piety) derives from gratitude toward those who, by the gift of life, their love and their work, have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow in stature, wisdom, and grace. "With all your heart honor your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?"¹⁹

2216 Filial respect is shown by true docility and obedience. "My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching. . . . When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you."²⁰ "A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke."²¹

The catechism goes on after 2216 to say a lot more about the duties of grown children. Here is the link to further reading on this:

The catechism of the Catholic Church on duty, love, and parents.

Our Economy and the Real Causes

I here have in crude cartoons and captions my view on the economic situation.


1. Ideal Situation: With children and the elderly and some other groups, there are a little more consumers than workers. Of course, workers are also consumers.




2. But then, there came along the abortion
and the contraceptive and the spendomaniac
and the debt, and all of a sudden, there
weren't enough consumers and the
consumers there were weren't spending.

3.The number of consumers kept shrinking. So the number of workers kept shrinking. Because not all co nsumers are workers, but all workers are consumers. And when there's no one to buy, what demand is there to fulfill and who has money to pay workers, who in turn have no money to buy. Because there aren't enough of them to create a demand.

4. There are not that many children. There are not enough consumers.
If someone is not a worker, what are they? Are they unworkers?
Because there are not enough consumers.
Because there are spendomaniacs and debts
and there is the contraceptive and the abortion.

here is a much more informed video on this topic

you are lovely

this is one of those poems when you find something really great to listen to and then just go with it- turn it into words. ( I know a certain person doesn't like poetry without meter, but whatever. I suppose there's probably really good music without a time signature.)

~The music is Waterfall by John Schmidt~


you are lovely
listen to the water
falling
as if it were
raining
strongly for you
you are lovely
and I
I know not what to think
only to hold you
not let you fall
away like the
water