Dear Papa

Today I saw Pope Benedict XVI!

He was offering Mass in St. Peter's for people involved in the New Evangelization, which is this movement to bring back Catholicism to places that have been Catholic but are loosing the Faith. Through some connecitons, I and some fellow students were able to go to the Mass and get seats toward the front, right on the edge of hte aisle. Since we were on the edge of the aisle, we saw Pope Benedict when he processed to the alter for Mass, only an arm's reach away.

I had spent yesterday afternoon writing a letter to Papa, and as he went by, I was able to give it to one of his guards. So the guard will give him my letter, if he has not already given it to him!

From my seat, I could see the entire Mass and see the Pope concecrate the host and wine. After the Mass, the Pope processed back down the aisle, and for the trillionth of a second, he looked at me.

Afterwards we went into the Piazza and prayed the Angelus with the Pope, and the Pope spoke short messages in different languages. The message in english was about the necessity of fulfilling our duties.

I wish there is more I could say, but beyond the bare facts of the event, nothing can be expressed with mere words.

Papa, we love you and pray for you with all our hearts!

Man and Woman

A few months ago I was talking to one of the Senior guys at TMC. The conversation came to be about boyhood and manhood. He said that he thought that manhood was about Gentle Strength. He said he thought that Jesus' Crowning with Thorns was an example of this~ Jesus possessing the power of God, yet allowing Himself be treated like scum. His strength was not so shallow that it exploded constantly from Him, like a tyrant. And He was not so weak that He could not have defended Himself.

I suggested that maybe womanhood is about Strong Gentleness. Mary, for example, is incredibly strong, the way she handles all that she must suffer. But her strength is never without gentleness. She is never pushy, never demanding of people. But neither is her gentleness, which defines her as being feminine, without strength. Consider her conversation with Christ, when she spoke with gentleness fortified with strength.

Man and Woman: Each is beautiful; each is powerful; neither can survive without the other.

On the Christmas Epistle Reading

At Midnight Christmas Mass a passage from Titus was read (Titus 2:11-14). I found it interesting because of its mirror-like structure.

The grace of God our Savior has appeared to all man, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works. These things speak, and exhort, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

"God our Savior" mirrors "Christ Jesus our Lord." Like bookends, these two phrases state and echo the connection between God and man. These phrases communicate an essential aspect of the Judao-Christian God who, unlike the deities of other religions, has a deep love for His creation. He is not just 'God' or 'Jesus Christ'. He is 'our Savior' and 'our Lord'. God's deep love is shown in His dedication to His creation, which is shown most in the life Jesus (and the birth of Jesus is a most important moment in that life) and which is also shown in the heart of this passage.

"instructing us" mirrors "these things speak, and exhort." What Jesus has told us, we are to tell others. The Good News was fist preached to the Jews, but it is not supposed to stop there. So St. Paul tells Titus what he has learned, that Titus might tell others, and then what st. Paul wrote may edify us to communicate to still more people. Like all good things, the Good News is open and growing.

"denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world" mirrors "all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works". The first speaks of us actively leading virtuous lives. The second speaks of us being made clean, that is, passively receiving what is being done to us. The first is in the context of obeying what Christ has instructed us and in hope of His second coming. The second is in the context of being redeemed. As the second one explains, Jesus has cleaned us of our sins that we may be acceptable to Him by pursuing good works. The first exhorts us to live up to our redemption: to do what Christ has given us the grace to do. For this purpose Christ came to earth and was born amongst us.

"looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory" mirrors "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us". Here it is as if we are living amongst mirrors. For we are to look forward to the future, but the means by which we look to the future is nothing else than the past.

"God and our Savior Jesus Christ" calls us back to the beginning and end of this passage. And as God is the center of all the Universe, so His name lies at the center of this passage. In these few words we find a small echo of the incarnation. For first God revealed Himself as a single being, 'God' or 'Yahweh'. Then the Prophets proclaimed to the Jews the coming of a Savior. Next, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to have a son and name Him Jesus. Finally, Jesus' followers recognized that He was the promised one, that He was the Christ.

This passage is like concentric circles. In the heart of this passage we find God. Next outside of that we find the mission of Christ's life accomplished and our own lives in the context of His redemption. Then outside of that we see the essence of Jesus' mission and how we are to live according to all that He has done for us, actively leading lives in accord with all He has done for us. Then outside of that we discover that as Christ has taught us, so we are to teach others. The Passion does not stop with the Jews or with the first converts but extends to all peoples of all countries and all ages. And finally we find again the name of God.

We see in the first instance of God's name that 'Savior' is connected with 'God'. In the second instance, 'Lord' is connected with 'Christ Jesus'. This shows a melding of two views of God. He is not just our eternal ruler and Lord, nor is He just a Savior who turned up once long ago. Rather, both roles are of the same Almighty Creator.


Although this passage doesn't seem very appropriate for Christmas, it in fact leads us deeply into the heart of what Christmas means.

Surrounded by the name of God which reveals who He is, this passage leads us from
the proclamation of the Good News (as the angels sang to the shepherds)
to the essence of why Christ was born on Christmas day- to redeem us that we may live virtuously and reach heaven to be with Him.
We see Christmas in the context of the entire plan for the redemption of mankind.
From there this passage leads us to Calvary where Christ gave Himself to redeem us; and because of our redemption, we live in the hope of our redeemer's promised return.
Now we see our lives and those of all mankind in the context of our redemption.
And at the heart we again find the name of God,
as it gradually reveals more and more of who He is.

Christ, Abraham, and Malchizedek: A Parallel

For Theology Class I have to read chapters 1-28 of Genesis by tomorrow (so I should be reading, not posting, actually, but anyway...). In chapter 14, verses 11-20 I found this very interesting parallel.

So basically there's all these kings (I skimmed that part with all their long unpronouncable names) and some sort of war, and kings charging through lands full of bituman pits (?). And these kings come charging through Sodom and Gomorah, plundering and looting as they go. Abraham finds out and gathers up his army of a big whopping 318 and goes and rescues the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorah since his relatives- Lot and his family- live there.

After the dust clears, the king of Sodom, Abraham, and the King of Salem meet in the Valley of Shaveh. And the King of Salem is Melchizedek, the priest who offers bread and wine.

The parallel I found was that Melchizedeck and Abraham are both Christ like figures. As you probably know, Sodom and Gomorah were not the most clean and righteous of cities. But Abraham goes and rescues all the inhabitants, not just his family. That's how Christ is. He spoke especially among the Jews, but salvation is not limited to them. No, it is extended to all people, even the most sinful and wretched.

And then we have the prefigurement of the Eucharist. Malchikedek offers the sacrafice of bread and wine even with the king of perverse Sodom right there. Judas was present at the last supper, and Jesus does not confine the sacrament of the Eucharist to only a select perfect few.

And just the other day I found out that there is significance in the number 72 when Jesus sends out 72 disciples to preach. At that time it was thought that there were 72 nations, indicating that Jesus is not confining His good news to just one nation, the Jews. No, Christs wants, through His disciples, all people to come to know Him. Christ came to save all mankind.

'Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshipd him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of hte Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."'

Wisdom Chapter 6

You can find Wisdom Chapter 6 online here.

Keeping Wisdom's laws->Love-> desire of discipline-> Wisdom -> incorruptibly-> God

Of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Self-control is the seventh. By self-control of the desire of discipline, we control our tendencies toward sin and keep our desire for goodness pure. As it is explained n chapters 1 ad 4, Wisdom cones to those who are good and pure. It is by love that we persevere in disciplining ourselves, for out of love of God and of what is good and of other people, we restrain ourselves from doing thoughtless and reckless things. Restraining ourselves from doing stupid things, keeping our desires pure, and acting accordingly is nothing less than living by Wisdom's laws. Living thus is living virtuously, which leads to heaven. So by desiring discipline, and keeping that desire alive and pure with love, and living according to it we receive Wisdom, the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this way we reach heaven where we will be forever united with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of Wisdom can be found here.

Although verses 3-15 are told from the point of view of wicked people, it is very truthful. Two things I find particularly insightful:
1) The connection between understanding and God. The minds of the wicked were clouded with sin so that they could not understand why the good were living as they were. As chapter 1 says, sin separates us from God, leaving us without wisdom, for "wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul." (1:4) This makes sense especially if the definition of wisdom is "the taste for goodness" as st. Bernard of Clairveiux said. For if one is in love with sins, one's 'tastes' are so askew that one cannot recognize goodness, and if one did 'taste' goodness, it would seem putrid. Catholic Masses always begin with the confiteor so that we may understand the wisdom spoken to us in the readings and Gospel and the living wisdom within us that is the Eucharist.
2) The lack of legacy. The good people have a legacy without going to any special effort to make a legacy. For when good things are done, they are good because they are done in God who is eternal. The wicked, however, leave no legacy, for there is no life except in God. And God draws even greater good from evil, so that everything that is wicked is eclipsed by God's goodness.
This chapter concludes with the destruction of the unwise, for not only are they unwise, but they are unwise because they are sinful and have rejected God.

Ascent and Prostrate

While hiking through the mountains as orientation for TMC last week, I thought of how all people seem to have a deep desire to ascend. We desire to strive,to go beyond limits, to soar and be unbonded. Perhaps that's why we climb mountains. It's like the mentality of the Tower of Babel wasn't just those people at that time. It is all of us always. And we are constantly building little Towers of Babel in our lives to be like ladders to carry us up. I think God has implanted this desire in us, as something curiously human, something to take us up to heaven where all that is human will be fulfilled in His magnificent glory. This desire then is a good and pure passion, and it drives us to seek purification and ascention from all that is muddied with sin and evilness. If sin is the lack of good, then sinning is lacking goodness. And if we are made to BE good, then sinning is ceasing, to some degree, to BE. Every time we sin we die a little.

Then during Mass that evening, kneeling on rock, it occured to me that it is when we lower ourselves that we become most human. It is when we cast ourselves down that we are entirely human, for it is then that everything in us in univocally in accord with what we are: lowly, helpless creatures before our awesome God. I think of when the priest prostrates himself at the Tres Ores on Good Friday- that is the true image of humanity. And every Tridentine Mass begins with the priest kneeling and begging God for forgiveness and to accept his prayers. And when we confess out sins, and when we recieve Christ in the Eucharist, we kneel.

It is when we cast ourselves down, accepting the patheticness of our fallen human state that God can elevate us. Only Christ could ascend, for He is God. Even the sinless Virgin Mary was carried into heaven- assumed. We cannot take ourselves up, but we can humble ourselves to accept God's help. So when we truly and sincerely cast ourselves down before God, kneel with all our hearts, and admit of the burden of our sins and our flaws- then God can lift our flaws and carry us up to Himself.

The next day I was really tired, and it was an even bigger mountain we were climbing, and then we had to climb all the way back down again, so my prayer was, "Lord what strength I have is in You. Carry me up, then help me back down again."

Wisdom Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of Wisdom can be found here.

I find it very interesting that it is in matters of chastity that the good prove their goodness and in death that the good are blessed. Humans have a spectacularly deep longing for union, given to us by God so that we will thirst for Him and seek Him. The ultimate union is between God and us in heaven. God gives us Himself to unite us to Himself on earth in the Eucharist.
And He gives union with friends, parents, sibling, and primarily with one's spouse to be like peices of heaven on earth so that we can help each other get to heaven. It is in living virtuously in these unions that we attain to the Ultimate Union, so that our passage to God - death - becomes a blessed thing. But those who distort and pervert the God-given unions with family and spouse defile themselves so that they cannot enter into the Ultimate Union with God forever in heaven. So it is very imprtant to be chaste; for as verse 11 and 12 say, perversion changes one's understanding so taht one's mind is twisted. Jesus said, "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God." (St. Matthew 5:8)

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.

Wisdom Chapter 2

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

Here is summarized the mentality of wicked people. Whether or not the righteous man really is disgusted by them, the wicked people perceive disgust. The wicked seek to avoid the truth. People who do not live in accord with the truth naturally want to avoid it and are even afraid of it because the truth necessitates reform, which means admits one's deeds are sinful and then not sinning. The righteous, as disgusted as they may act toward the wicked, are still a painful contradiction to all the wicked tell themselves is true. So the wicked wish to exterminate the righteous. As if by exterminating the ones who live by the truth they may exterminate the truth. It seems that in many complicated situations if one wants to know the truth, one has only to look to those who have been killed.













The photos are of Blessed Miguel Pro's martyrdom.

What is Wisdom?

A priest at my church gave a homily several weeks ago in which he said that someone had said wisdom was the taste for goodness. That phrase got locked in my brain and now I'm searching for the original definition and who originally said it.
What I have found is Old Testament-St. David, St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and a lot of common sense wisdom from my mother. You can read the full article here. The specific words I googled are high-lighted.
St. David says in Psalm 118:66: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge." After reading the book of Wisdom by David's son Solomon, I think those three things pretty much sum up what wisdom is. Wisdom, being a good thing, naturally has goodness as a part of it. Discipline, as is explained in chapter 6 of the Book of Wisdom, leads to Wisdom and it helps us to be willing to follow Wisdom's laws, which leads us to heaven, our final destination. From the beginning of recorded thought, with Socrates and Aristotle and what not, Wisdom has been seen as a step up from knowledge, thought different philosophers have defined this 'step up' differently. My mother has said that the step up is the ability to use knowledge for the good of other people. I think my mother is very close to the truth; her idea combines all three elements stated by David: knowledge- a thing of our intellects, put into our action- that would entail discipline, for the good of others.
St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux give some sensory language to their understanding of what wisdom is. The version of the Bible which St. Augustine used had the word 'sweetness' instead of 'goodness' in Psalm 118:66. So St. Augustine read 'Teach me sweetness...' From this he realized the necessity of experiencing the sweetness of Christ before being able to handle the hardships of following Christ. My mother often compared the spiritual adventure to God handing us a bowl of candy. Day by day He removes more of the candy till there is an empty bowl; that is when He asks us to follow Him for His sake, that our love be purely centered on Him and not on anything else. St. Bernard of Clairvaux adds to this concept when he says, "where there is love there is found not labor but flavor." St. Bernard sees wisdom as that which makes the journey sweet and makes the soul able to taste what it is meant to taste. "When wisdom enters it renders dull the carnal sense, purifies the intellect, heals and restores the palate of the heart. So that now, having a healthy palate, it has a taste for the good." This makes a tone of sense when considered in the light of how Christ compared heaven to a feast and in the light of the Eucharist.

"To taste and see that the Lord is sweet- that is wisdom." So wrote St. Bernard. So wisdom then is a taste for what is good (for the Lord is the ultimate good) (When Plato wrote of The Good, he had a beginning grip of the concept of one, benevolent God.) Let us complete this view of wisdom, which looks on wisdom in terms of taste, by seeing how knowledge and discipline fit in.
Knowledge fits in if it is the right kind of knowledge. The right kind would be that which leads us to the Lord and so helps us to reach that for which we hunger and thirst. In the Litany of the Holy Spirit, one line is "Holy Spirit, grant us the only necessary knowledge." (Wisdom, btw, is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.) St. Bernard wrote: "[The milk of contemplative prayer is better] than the wine of worldly knowledge which, to be sure, is inebriating, but with curiosity, not with charity. It fills us up but does not nourish; it puffs up but does not edify, it replenishes but gives no strength."
Discipline fits in because it is through discipline that we persevere and trust in our spiritual adventure. Discipline gives us the strength to keep going and to realize, beyond our pain, that it is sweet to seek for the Lord. Discipline gives us the ability to not question but to trust the Lord to lead us to Himself. If we can discipline our rebellion and our impatience and our curiosity to know about everything now, then we can persevere till death.

Wisdom Chapter 1

My spiritual director suggested I read from the Bible every morning. So I have been, kind of. Anyway, after I read I write my thoughts, and I thought I might share them.
So here is the link to chapter 1, Douay-Rheims translation.
And here are my thoughts on Wisdom Chapter 1:

There is discord between what is good, simple, and alive and what is evil, complex, and seeking death. The first part of this chapter speaks of how people who are good and simple are aided by God. Simplicity is often considered a sign of foolishness, yet in the context of serving God (and not one's self) it is good. It makes on e open to Him and willing to accept Him and admit we need Him.
The second part is all about the corruption of the unjust and how God does not help them. God is almost too polite, the way He lets us push Him away. But that's how love is - it accepts and knows when it is unaccepted.
Finally, this chapter speaks of destruction versus how God made us to exist. It often takes incredible strength to be OK with existing, and again simplicity helps. Sometimes the answers to life's questions seem too simple or short, and it feels like one must keep looking for more, but that only adds unwanted complications. It takes resignation to be simple, because it means being more reliant on God. But as the first part of the chapter says, it is with simplicity that we find God and in simplicity that He aids us.

Ethos and Eros

I have 20 minutes before my apointment for internet is over; I'm at the library since the internet at home crashed. ok, 19 minutes now. Here's what I have to share with you:

Ethos and Eros are two types of love. Love, as I've said before, is wanting the best for someone and being willing to sacrifice to give that person the best.

Ethos. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. But who the heck wants to sacrifice for an enemy? This is when we need God. He loves all of His creatures, and we can only love those who are hard to love when we love with His love. God's love for us and our love of God is called agape. When we let agape spill out of us and share it with our fellow-humans, that is ethos. Ethos should be at the foundation of every relationship, from spouse to annoying naighbor (but don't look to me as an example of it).

Eros. This is the love between lovers and spouses. With this love the two aspire to God. I think it is like when you touch the one you love you are both reaching out together and touching God. Eros can get pretty darn perverted when it does not have agape as its example and ethos as its foundation,so it must be fused with agape. (Again, don't look to me as an example.)

So I am posting this to encourage myself and all of you to find love in God and so love others with the love of God. I pray we all are in heaven together someday where all the labours of loving our neighbors and (as of now future) spouses will be fulfilled in the satisfying overwhelming love of God. For ethos and eros are both like stairs to climb. Their foundation is agape and they reach to agape.

For more on this, read Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI and The Love that Satisfies by Christopher West.
Hope you liked this post!

Truth 2- Post in progress

1 Two types of truth and their relation to each other:
In a post I did back on December 2, 2009, I talked about how truth is the correspondence of reason and reality. There 2 types of truth: truths of reason and truths of faith. Both are reasonable. The difference is that the first WE can figure out with our reasons, the second we can't figure out with our reasons, so we have to take them by faith. They follow God's reasoning. Also, one helps the other. The Catechism talks about the relationship between these types of truth in paragraph #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

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.

So reason helps faith and faith helps reason.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 Difficulty of Finding Truths of Reason
(This is from Humanis Generis by Pope Pius x11 which is quoted in the Catechism here.)
Truths of Reason are not easy to discover. The Truths of reason that have to do with God and His relationship to us are particularly hard for three main reasons, as Pope Pius XII says in his encyclical Humani Generis:

"Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things."

1. These truths cannot be sensed. Jesus was present on earth about 2000 years ago, and the Eucharist is present with us now, but none of this makes any sense (no pun intended) if you do not even believe in a God. And the existence of God and His relationship to us is not something we can sense.

"If they [these truths of reason about God and His relation to us] are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation."

2. They demand self-surrender and self-sacrifice. Having a God means having someone you have to bow to. And many if not all people do not like, in fact, detest, bowing to anyone (Example #1: me).

"The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin."

3. Senses, imagination, and evil passions have a tendency to get in the way of the reason. An example of how the senses get in the way is the man in Letter 1 of Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. On the verge of a spiritual discovery, the man is driven by 'his demon' and hunger out of where he thinking into the street, where he sets aside his thoughts as silly compared to what he senses, which he calls "real life". An example of imagination getting in the way is me during Speech class last semester. An example of evil passions getting in the way is how sins against purity especially cloud the mind. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." ~St. Matthew 5:8 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

"So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful."

3 Truth and Truthfulness
Truth, in the strict sense, is a concept in our intellects. We can't see it or hear it or taste truth (We can see and hear things which are true, for example, reading the Bible or catechism, and we can taste something that is true, for example, the Eucharist, but we can not see, hear, or taste truth, just things that are true.). Rather than sensing truth, we understand truth with our intellects via reason and faith. 'God is the Truth' refers to truth's utter source Who IS the very things of which He is the source. For example, "My words are true."
Truthfulness is the quality of being true. It is when one's actions, especially one's words, line up with what is true. For example, "I am being truthful."

"To be truthful is to act and think in agreement with what is reasonable and real, especially by not misrepresenting reality in our words."~ From the essay I wrote- 'Rediscovering Love' for TMC's Faith and Reason Essay Scholarship.

Our understanding of truth has meaning and fulfillment when our lives are truthful.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

4 Relationship of Truth and Intellect
While part 1 classified 2 types of truth by their source, there are three ways to classify truth by its relationship to the intellect. The intellect is the reason. It is the faculty of the mind which thinks; it is the part I am using now, even though it is 12:30 am. So, the three types of truth according to relationship to intellect (quotes from Pocket Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., definition of Truth):

Logical Truth:

"In logical truth, the mind is conformed or in agreement with things outside of the mind, either in assenting to what is or in denying what is not. Its opposite is error."

When the mind is in tune with what is outside of it. When we know what is and know what isn't and accept that as true. The opposite is error, when a person is mistaken about what is or isn't. For Example, it is logically true that you are reading this. It is an error that you are not on a computer.

Metaphysical Truth:

In metaphysical or ontological truth, things conform with the mind. This in primary conformity, when something corresponds to the idea of its maker, and it is secondary conformity when something in intelligible and therefore true to anyone who knows it.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with first causes and sources. So metaphysical truth has to to do with things according tot heir source. When the things outside of the mind conform to the mind. This happens on two levels: 1) When something matches up to the idea of its maker (its maker is its source). 2) When something is understandable, so it is true to anyone who knows it. When the reality of what is made makes sense to someone's reason: a correspondence of reality and reason. For Example, this post is metaphysically true because it is turning out according to my plan. It is metaphysically true to you if you can understand it.

Moral Truth:

In moral truth, what is said conforms with what is on one's mind. This is truthfulness and its opposite is falsehood.

When what we say matches what we are thinking. This is truthfulness. the opposite is falsehood, when you tell a lie. For Example, this post is morally true because it aligns with what I believe.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Two Properties/Qualities of Truth:
(I think 'properties' is the right word).
Truth is Universal. That means that no matter where you are, from on the computer reading this post to on the 10,056th planet, what's true is true.
Truth is Eternal. That means that no matter when you lived, from today to the year 10,056, what's true is true.
These properties are a big help when it comes to sharing the truth. The truth is the easiest thing to communicate because while things like status and historical era and culture are different for people, the truth is not different and it does not change.
These properties of universal and eternal are evident in this quote:

"Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective opinions and impressions, allows them to move beyond cultural and historical limitations to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the 'logos' of love: this is the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity." ~Introduction to 'Caritas in Veritate' by Pope Benedict XVI

Truth allows us to move beyond cultural and historical limitations. Because Truth is beyond those limitations. Because truth is not a human invention. It is divine. God is the Truth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 Truth's Universality and Eternity as shown by the Intellect
In other words, the relationship between the two properties of truth and the strict sense of truth as a concept in the intellect (which we know via faith and reason).

So the concept of truth is in our intellects, and with that in mind we can see that if there seems to be change in truth, it is not in the truth itself, but in the intellect.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologica, in answer to the question



7 Relativity and Truth
Now, there is a screwy idea out there that truth is when two people agree on something. That is watering truth down so that it is the slave of perception. Say two color- blind people looked at my blog and thought the themes were pink or green, but the truth would be that it's mostly brown. Or consider back when people thought the world was flat. Plenty of people agreed that it was flat, but that didn't make it true that it was flat. The world is round is round is round. Truth doesn't change just because we don't know what is true.
Truth doesn't change? Really? Well, what about the truth that I'm typing right now. In half an hour that will change to I am eating dinner. But it is still and will always be true for all people in all ages that at 7:37pm on April 26 2010 the person known as philosopher was typing a brainstorm post about truth on her blog, 'Cogito et Scribo'.

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."

All Virtues Essentially Come From Love

All virtues come from love. We can know this for two reasons:
1. God is Love, and God is the source of all things. Everything which comes directly from Him thus directly comes from love.
2. Goodness is a reflection of the ultimate good being, who is God. Virtues are good habits- that is, they are a way of acting, thinking, and speaking in a way that consistently reflects God. And since God is love, then reflecting God consistently is loving.

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.