Vita Bella Blog

2010-10-13T07:30:00.003-07:00

Why ROMAnce? Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Why ROMAnce?

“Mushy” Theology?

(or Why Do the Regular Folks[1] Get Theology Faster and Better than the Academics Anymore?)

Part 2

Set to the folk music of your preferred nationality. by J.P.F.M.

n part i of Why ROMAnce? we basically established that “dissecting” Mary[2] from the Holy Spirit[3] ends—always ends—in Gnostic-flavored tears. “[W]hat God has united a man must not divide.”[4] Seriously. And hopefully we also were able to read into it that theologians who’ll sell truth down the river for cheap, trendy human approval ought really to be shunned, pitied and, wherever possible, loudly, clearly and unapologetically denounced.[5] In Part II we are going to leave Dr. Scott Hahn alone for awhile[6] so that we may speak of actually another uninspiring attempt at Gnosticesque “dissection,” only this time the fission is between God’s Word[7] and that Word’s Bride the Church[8]. In other words, we are going to expose for all to see what is really behind the masks of the markedly Protèstant Christian “Bible Alone” and “Bible First” attitudes, why the latter is just more of the same as the former[9] and how they, too, if followed far enough, end irrevocably in spiritual death.

But first a word of common sense, friends: never let a man[10] who makes a habit of expressing his “grave misgivings” about “reason”[11] become the center of attention, but, oh dear, particularly when that attention is religious in nature. Here’s why I say this: you may be damn sure the “reason” he’s questioning is not his own but everyone else’s: the Magisterium’s first, the faithful’s second and then invariably that of his followers. Whatever abuses he may decry he will live to be ten times the abuser; whatever reforms he may champion you may be very sure he is a ready-made cult personality and a consumer of persons, truly a demon in human clothing—this is what history shows us. No one who questions reason, whatever his intention, is capable of valuing the freedom that is essential—yes, I said “essential”—to our calling to be sons in the Son.

So firstly, what in Gahanna does reformation[12] mean?[13] Reform can mean two deeply opposite things: renewal or revolution. Notice how renewal is challenging my heart in light of the Faith whilst revolution is what the implacable wolves of humanity agitate for. Anyone who has a problem with the Church’s traditions, doctrines and even authority, for the good of his soul but firstly perhaps his mind, had better start by challenging himself with those very things he diagnoses the Church with: When you point your finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you. You’d basically better be Jesus—or someone equally innocent—if you’re going to replace Jesus’ earthly vicar. If Reformer X cannot do this—cannot claim to have a higher moral standard than what he decries—you can bank on his being neurotic, sociopathic, psychopathic or psychotic. If this principle for finger-pointing we all grew up knowing holds true for everyday human dealings, how much more with the Church’s Apostolic Teaching Office? So-called “tradition fatigue” and “doctrine fatigue,” as people used to know, say far more about an individual’s mental state than they do about the value of traditions or doctrines. Reform that is refinement, revival and renewal never—but I do mean never—call for chucking[14] traditions but in going to the sources of the traditions to see whence they stem and renewing them to the spirit of their founders! Jesus called for something morally higher but also more freeing than the version of Mosaic law the Jews were largely living. Everything but sin! That’s Catholicism!

Yet I’m sorry to report that Reformers X, Y and Zwingli have taken the polar opposite stance from the aforementioned, lowering the moral bar and the sense of freedom with it, on the excuse that we’re somehow irreparably corrupt and we’re better off as sheep to some tyrannical religious dictator who is truly an unflattering caricature of Jesus. The paranoid schizophrenic revolutionary—who doesn’t believe in miracles or holiness, not really—thinks nothing of leaping to the conclusion that everyone except him is to blame, that corruption is latent, waiting to pounce, in every gesture, intellectualization and object of religious outgrowth. All is darkness to him. He projects this fundamentally gloom-based, darkness-based spirituality[15] of “total corruption” onto Jesus. So I’ll not tire of saying it: “If, then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!”[16]. But this Buddhist-like hapless neurosis[17] of the soul really sums up the history of the Protesters[18] of Christianity: it is—if it is anything—it is the religion of endless whining and scrutinizing and ultimate gloom—eternally skeptical of culture and history—spurning the Church Jesus founded and soon reaching out in their full-blown despair toward Masonry, nationalism and eventually Jung for that cultural and mystical angle they just can’t seem to contrive convincingly outside the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Undoubtedly what I describe is the modern Prodigal Son. We should deal with Christian Protesters pretty much the way Jesus dealt with Samaritans. And here’s a chunk of irony: in pretending to loathe culture, the Protester-Revolutionary is unconsciously demonstrating his repressed contempt for Faith as well as Scripture. In contrast, the sane man realizes that traditions, even when done in rote, far from being somehow insidious or pernicious or needing blind abolition, have this crazy property to hold something over for any saint who may come along and resonate with it, and in every age saints do just this, out of the woodwork, unexpected, uninvited and always unprecedented.

In their unmasked essence—irony alert—in their unmasked essence “Bible Alone” and “Bible First” antidoxies do not so much demolish[19] Sacred Tradition and Magisterium as they do Sacred Scripture. What do I mean by this? When Catholics hear[20] the Scriptures in their full “grandness” and context and thematically arranged and authoritatively sermonized, we first hear who said or wrote it to whom, because it matters to us that some dude addressed some dude or dudes in God’s name bearing God’s Word to them within time and space, not the ever-crass and exploitative “God said it” approach that always transmits a human agenda and accordingly never succeeds in sending the full impact of God’s message into the heart’s deepest chambers, echoing in the whole being in its sane, functional, common sense, transformed, radiantly transfigured, incarnational glory as God originally intended: “Your words, Lord, are spirit and life.” The Muslims and the Mormons[21] tell their followers that an angel gave extrabiblical texts to a prophet.[22] The meaning of such objectively sordid movements, the unifying meaning of the very real foregoing tenets, eludes those who seek for meaning because, obviously, both Islam and Mormonism[23] are philosophically nominalist, fideist and probably any -ist provided it reject[24] reason. Moormonism is a religion not of passive-aggressive whining like many of the lesser Christian cults[25] but of mystical impatience[26], and the only difference here is of degrees. What promptly fills the void left by the balls-to-the-wall “simplification” of Catholic liturgy by Protesters is Masonic liturgy coming in the back door, so that, though by the light of day Christian Protesters merely do “less liturgy” than Catholics, I am afraid the light of the stars will show you that this is really not the case, the only difference being which master their more elaborate, intentional liturgy serves. Yet I digress.

The Christian Protester’s M.O. for reading Sacred Scripture fits right in with the Muslim stereotype of Christians and Jews as “People of the Book”[27]. It is the difference between “As it is written…”[28] vs. “Thus says the Lord God…”[29] or “In those days…”[30]. Ever wonder why Luther’s “Bible” “arbitrarily” reverted to the Jewish canon rather than the Christian one? Friend, nothing is arbitrary. Two words: Masonic duke. So in vain do Christian Protesters boast of “honoring God’s Word,” not because most of them neither eat the Body nor drink the Blood of God’s Word made Flesh, but even just simply because their ostensibly xenophobia-based paranoia of more universal, or Catholic, Christianity has driven them to reducing[31] Scripture’s content. You read correctly: Christian Protesters are denied access to God’s whole word whereas the Catholic Church kept the whole Bible open and universally available[32] in their churches before Luther ever got the mechanical presses running! For Luther’s revision of and even worse interpretation of Scripture there is simply (a) no precedent in Ancient Christianity and (b) no good motive. What Christian Protestism is rooted in is Masonry and nationalism. Where Masonry in the Enlightenment had its own brand of dubious human primitivism[33], it had in the Reformation[34] its manufactured history of Christian primitivism[35] totally disconnected from the teachings of the New Testament and Early Church Fathers. Reinventing history and editing the Bible—more drastically as the “reform” itself came to be “reformed” until there was nothing but Quietism and Neopaganism remaining—was to become a tradition in Christian Protesters’ cults to where even the Traditional Doctrine of Christ’s divinity and the Blessed Trinity becomes “extrabiblical”[36]. You hear these “Christian” theologians talking but you’re really hearing the voice of Freemasonry[37] in disguise.

But Jesus is not the only victim here whom these doctrinal extremes tear asunder. The Holy Spirit is also clapped in irons. Fortunately “Bible Alone” is culturally unsustainable because it is just so very anticultural, so incurably suspicious[38] of culture. Eventually the severed laity are pining for prophecy. They want the Holy Spirit let loose again. You know, magic is everywhere and God is everywhere and only Masonic nationalist imperialism bullies us into forgetting[39] this, tearing them from us and from one another where the Church gave us them all as Sacraments. And, hey, I’ll just say it: what are we to think of “Christians” who practice circumcision? What in Hades is this if not blatant syncretism, friends—in other words, playing fast and loose with God? He who artificially limits Catholic ceremony is openly inviting in Masonic ceremony, because ceremony is essential to culture. He who artificially limits Catholic orthodoxy is openly espousing Masonic antidoxy[40] to bridge the gap. He who artificially limits the Sacraments is on the road to inviting another Light in who is far more cunning than man, in his infinite insolence, could have ever dreamt. For there is One who clarifies and One who distorts. There is One who abounds and One who starves. There is One who invites and One who invades. There is One who creates and One who destroys. This is just the way of things. So go ahead: ask a Christian Protester why he treats the Bible with an “As it is written…” hermeneutic as though it were the Unholy Qu’rān or the Book of Mormon, why he disdains history in favor of sectarian pettiness.

“Bible Alone” is nothing but a busted barstool. What do I mean by this? The Church that, according to history, Jesus originally started has a three-pronged system of leadership: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Sacred Magisterium. The same undeniably wise Trinitarian balance was employed in U.S. governance with its checks and balances: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. “Bible Alone” is nothing but a busted barstool. A one-legged seat doesn’t give a man much repose. “And so, in anger, I swore that not one would reach the place of rest I had for them”[41].

This brings us to the too familiar “Catholic Lay Evangelist”[42], the Catholic who revels in poking fun at other[43] Catholics for not knowing every piddling detail of the Bible[44] and setting themselves up as saviors for a hemorrhaging Church, but oddly never stressing the Sacraments or the Early Church Fathers or the Church Doctors and their indispensable Biblical commentaries. I guess to the man[45] with a hammer everything looks like a nail. But you know the type. Self-styled “Catholic Lay Evangelists” who were ostensibly too creepy to get a real job teaching C.C.D. and are clearly too Johnny-One-Note for radio and too culturally color-blind and tone-deaf to make an honest living, so they latch onto misguided parishes and browbeat the adult laity there into mental resignation, passive-aggression and eventual death. There’s one in every city. Meh, men who study and lecture on the Bible as a spiritless text are not Christians, and there’s an end of it.

Here’s a hint. The Protester’s wet dream is that Catholics forget to think. The Protester’s worst nightmare is that Catholics learn to be meek and humble like Jesus.

As one remedy for the most salient ails here outlined I want to warmly recommend[46] the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom: that is, the Byzantine Rite Catholic liturgy. If you really want more Jewry in your worship, that’s where you start: with the Jews who accepted Christ, not like Luther conspiring with those who rejected Him or with the Masons who borrow their apostasy from another “king of the Jews,” you could say a less shining “son of David,” King Solomon.

(Friend and chat with me at http://www.facebook.com/jpandmcg)

[1] As you read this bear in mind: I actually intended it to be colloquial and not academic since I deem academia’s tendency toward apathy and smugness to be the root of the problem. (I think I have always thought this way but hidden it for the sake of good manners.) I think, upon reflection, that I’d rather make a positive difference than get an honorary degree. But I will try to spruce up the image; I intend on reading it on YouTube with simple imagery and music. That's always been more my bag. As has been suggested I might have started with what rings sound about Dr. Hahn's theology, or at any rate his anthropology, but I mention it and we’re rolling. But note that I do not intend on speaking to the people but merely lending my voice to common sense against tone-deaf academic bullying.

[2] Mary being beloved, feminine.

[3] The Spirit being Lover, masculine.

[4] Mark 10:9 (J.B.) Gee, that’s such a no-brainer! I’ll never know how we milked four pages out of that little duh-hey-no-kidding bit.

[5] But again this, like theology, requires that we be transformed by the humility of Jesus.

[6] Kinda…

[7] Being Jesus and also Sacred Scripture.

[8] Being Sacred Tradition and also Magisterium.

[9] Being marinated in Masonic [i.e. Satanic] spirit.

[10] Be he “Catholic” or whatever!

[11] Here I’d really like us to take a moment to remember that heresy is not falsehood but the exaggeration of a truth to the eclipse of all others. That remind you of anyone? That’s why “______ Alone” is already a heresy. This is theology 101 at most. So already you can see that the issues is far more psychological than theological here.

[12] Which I will henceforth term reform since I’ve had it with those who derive all their pomp from senseless syllables and if I must suffer them will not be party to indulging these outcroppings of acute mental illness disguised as “biblical religion.”

[13] Long paragraph alert! Mental knots galore to untie!

[14] I.e. destruction

[15] Psychology?

[16] Matt. 6:23 (J.B.)

[17] Over all theological points whose cumulative absurdity can only be a reflection of out-and-out madness.

[18] Since an increasing number seems to protest the term Protèstant (as they are liable to protest the label of Calvinist, Puritan and God knows even Congregationalist) we’ll use the, in all cases, way clearer term Protester.

[19] They simply recreate their own (in their image and likeness invariably).

[20] Since Jesus’ Ascension (and up until the late Nineteenth Century), to hear the Word is more customary than to read it, not to mention that that’s the way they were clearly intended to be taken.

[21] Each analogous to the other, each an innovation on Christianity but far closer in spirit to Masonry (i.e. Satanism) and theocracy than even most Christian Protesters.

[22] Oh, and by the way, they tell them, Jesus is not God, you can have several wives, your next life will be one of raw dominance over others if you play your cards right and your clerics are the only legitimate heirs to all political and financial powers.

[23] And note that he who acquiesces to Mormonism simply is intellectually ill-equipped to understand what’s wrong with Islam.

[24] Compellingly analogous to how, for Masons, pluralism and Neopaganism are just positive-sounding masks to hide a negative animus toward orthodoxy (in the vast majority of cases today it is Jewish orthodoxy and Catholic orthodoxy).

[25] Which Catholics just classify as Christian Protèstantism for sane simplicity’s sake.

[26] Giving room for full-blown chauvinism.

[27] Rather than, say, “People of the Word.”

[28] By whom? By God? By an angel? By a demon? And yes, it matters.

[29] “Hæc dicit Dominus Deus…”

[30] “In diebus illis…”

[31] And only after having taken out the parts that most condemned their Masonic and nationalist agenda—then printing and distributing copies!

[32] All thanks to her “presses of flesh,” also called monks.

[33] A thinly veiled minimalism in the name of “archeology”; this later brought us “historical Jesus” gibberish.

[34] Notice the pattern of needlessly long words they use for the movements the Masons spawn?

[35] A thinly veiled minimalism in the name of “Bible Alone” (which, taken at its word, is the most ironic contradiction of “Faith Alone” and “Grace Alone” any apologist could ever ask for!)

[36] And by implication unnecessary or false.

[37] So much for “Bible Alone” and “Bible First” having any pretense to being Christian principles.

[38] A distinctly Masonic, nationalistic (read Nazi) attitude.

[39] This they do so they can play God and hog all the enchantment for themselves.

[40] Disguised variously as pluralism and Neopaganism.

[41] Ps. 95:11; Heb. 3:11, 4:3b (J.B.)

[42] That is, the Scribe in this age of the Holy Spirit, also reminding me of Eucharistic Minister (or Ministress).

[43] Often, as I have witnessed first-hand, practicing on his parents—the utter perversion of it!

[44] These always focus mostly on the Old Testament like their Protester Judaizer predecessors. They do this not so much for knowledge (let alone holiness) as in a spirit of “beating the Protèstant Christians at their own (Masonic) game,” which (a) I thought the Knights of Columbus already had sewn up and (b) is fine as the personal mission of an angry adolescent but can never account for the whole life of the Church any more than this “praise ’n worship” competitive complex (see LifeTeen!) can.

[45] Provided he keep the Lives of the Saints at arm’s length.

[46] To all Catholics, and by extension everyone.

2010-10-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Why ROMAnce? Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If the web has taken away

Your ability attention to pay

You need not worry nor have fear;

We’re also on YouTube: just click here.

Why ROMAnce?

“Mushy” Theology?

(or Why Do the Regular Folks[1] Get Theology Faster and Better than the Academics Anymore?)

Part 1

Set to the folk music of your preferred nationality. by J.P.F.M.

r. scott hahn[2], in his book First Comes Love[3], irrefutably proclaimed himself fully human[4] by painting himself into a corner when he portrayed the Holy Spirit as feminine.[5] Oops! It looks like he’s made it a habit to project earthly paradigms of family onto God rather than transcend them and try to understand them in light of God. That’s one[6] big boo-boo! But let us humor Dr. Scott as we further scrutinize the surprising causes and ghastly effects of such a train of thought. First, however, I am going to set my thesis on some very specific, wholesome tracks. This is not, nor has it ever been, a discussion on whether God possesses certain attributes one may see in woman—God, as any fool can tell you, possesses in their perfection all attributes that may be called “good”—but whether God is essentially Protagonist or Recipient, Active or Passive, Creator[7] or Creature, God or Goddess, in the simplest linguistic terms[8] He or She. What’s at issue here is nothing short of whether Christianity is simply latent Neopaganism or truly Something New.[9]

The very suggestion may be absurdist, way on the outer fringes of Yin-Yang-go-Gnostic, to a well-informed[10] Catholic. But also, in this post-Christian, post-family, post-humanist, post-democratic—yes and post-academic—society, we must also be sensitive to how, to a majority, misleading it is as well. Dr. Hahn needs so badly to view the Trinity as Family[11], I fear to do so he projects the earthly family onto God rather than to transcend and refine his understanding of Family in God as a good theologian always ought! To attempt to subject the highest thing to the second-highest thing is a breach of hierarchy perhaps comparable to Lucifer’s “declaration of independence.” To avoid this, we are to think as God thinks, which is why true theology[12] is always the product of a fair amount of humility[13]. In one sense, “mystical theology”[14] is a category to which I object because all true theology had darn-well better be mystical lest it be merely the Church in the West reveling in the tin sound of its own voice, vainly linking trend unto trend and continuing to alienate the East and the rest of the world. It is really a sort of spiritual autism that’s to blame here. All true theology requires humility, which means receptivity, a derivative or byproduct or overflow of childlike—that is, blunt, stark and abrupt—admission of one’s dismal unknowing.[15] This is how it goes, folks: until man confesses his fogginess all remains foggy to him! As the only real Master in history put it, “If, then, the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!”[16]. This is what’s wrong with modern theology[17].

This reminds me of the one thing I liked about Dr. Hahn: his emphasis on covenant not as contract[18] only but as familial bond[19]. Even following his logic, though, Dr. Hahn has evidently not considered that man knows of no covenant between God and God. Just another random reason why we can’t see the Trinity as “Father, Son and Mother,” just another crutch for those who want for common sense.

Disclaimer #1. Divine Family. Yes, the Trinity is “Family”[20]. At the same time, what does it mean that God chose to require[21] Mary to re-familiarize[22] Himself with erstwhile alienated humans by literally, physically, materially, right-down-to-earth wedding Her and literally, physically, materially, right-down-to-earth begetting[23] Jesus. For anyone who may not have noticed yet, this is of the utmost centrality to Christianity, to Catholicism, to orthodoxy, to the One and Only Faith!

The Trinity is indeed a “Community” and a “Family”—above and beyond our material archetypes thereof. But God, without question or qualification, is He[24], God is He who acts, God is the Supreme Protagonist always and everywhere, in time and in eternity, not merely Male but archetypically and radically Male! God is Masculinity’s Heart and Soul, its Very Epitome, quite literally its Father, Son and Spirit!…Just to drive the point home, compared to God Arnold Schwarzenegger is a “girly-man”! I am well aware how the Church of late has defined the Holy Spirit’s gender by not defining the Holy Spirit’s gender as I am also aware of a veritable myriad of Masonic trends launched in the wake of Vatican II[25]. For just one example, just look at what most of the U.S. Catholic lay establishment thinks ecumenism or liturgical reform or catechesis means! I hardly have to tell you that they’re in a whole ’nother galaxy from you and me.

To think otherwise—go ahead and jot this down—to think otherwise is to mistake God for either a subject of God’s or of an enemy of God’s. God is He. God the Father is He. God the Son is He. And oh yes God the Holy Spirit is a trillion percent He. To be crude about it, those of us who manage our greed and ambition well enough to put job security second can clearly see there is no other tenable theological position! I mean all power-trips aside, fellas.

Disclaimer #2. Earthy family[26]. The family[27] is far from the worst thing over which one may obsess. It is the very building block of society. It is the domestic Church. The cell. The atom[28]. The family is the first school, the first catechesis. “Preschool” and “prechurch,” so to say. As such, the father of the family has a Jesus-like character and role[29]. Only in patterning Jesus is the lover truly a lover[30] and the father a father. Hence the father is the head of the household by both nature and supernature. The mother of the family has a Marian[31] character and role. The family is sacred as a reflection[32] of God, of the Trinity, of the Holy Family. St. Joseph, patron of fathers, is also the patron of the family and also of the Universal Church.

We have all heard[33] that the Holy Spirit is really the love between the Father and the Son, a love that creates a Tertiary Person. Yet this is redundant because God is love. Please oh please, just stick to the Creed of St. Athanasius.

In closing, I just can’t emphasize this enough. Whatever we may have yet to learn about the Blessed Trinity we do know this much: the Holy Trinity is certainly not Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. God is not a Yin-Yang as Scott Hahn suggests[34]. Heck no. God is not some androgynous Zen. God is not some “balance,” some “happy medium[35].” Don’t tell me you know what is right with Christianity while you clearly don’t know what is wrong with Hinduism.

God is the Center of the Universe. God is the Star. God is the King. God is the Source. God is Personal. So God absolutely cannot be the balance of Protagonist and Recipient, Active and Passive, Creator and Creature, He and She—or Good and Evil—any more than Catholicism is the Occult. The main difference is: decent theology just universally makes sense pretty much right away—just sort of falls together[36] and clicks into place —though over time it becomes more deeply personal, human, incarnational!—whereas Occult philosophy is elitist, cultish, cliquish, opaque, cryptic, ugly, creepy, esoteric, dependent on darkness[37] and tightly knit enclaves—and consciously so!—and over time it becomes more deeply mechanical, inhuman, disincarnational! Cabala Jews have always mixed in with the larger Jewish population, and Gnostic Christians have always mixed in with the larger Christian population. That’s what we call “darnel growing with wheat”[38]. Thing is, for the Occultist God can be whatever I concoct from mixing and matching obscure traditions and literalizing[39] out-of-context writings of high mysticism because He’s always evolving anyways: I think nothing of using the patrimony to suit my legacy because I have made my heart too crusty and hard for it to be of any spiritual benefit to me! All esotericists have an appeal to reason—a cold, dead, alien sort of reason—but never to common sense and heck never to love. See, Jesus told the woman[40] at the well, “God is Spirit.” While linguistically Spirit may be neuter or feminine, that doesn’t mean that the word spirit means neuter, much less feminine[41]. Spirit does not mean timid or nebulous or even passive[42]. Spirit is the realest thing there is! Spirit is rock-solid. Spirit is as definite, as sharp, as cutting as it gets! Make no mistake about it: you can break your teeth on spirit. Don’t go the way of the Gnostic heretics, for goodness’ sake! We are in an age of cults and psychoanalysis when everyone is hog-wild for matriarchy, sexual license and “finding my feminine side” whatever the he!! that means in esoteria.

So let me elucidate one simple and all-surpassing mystery. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. Mary humbled herself before the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit embraced Mary in a way that marital relations do not even approach. The marriage bed is but a shadow, a first glance into this. What the Holy Spirit and Mary shared—and eternally share—can only be fully known in the Apocalypse[43] when the grotesque gulf between our mortality and God’s eternity is abolished, when this insufferable and unnatural curtain Original Sin created is lifted. For our current condition it is just too intimate, too divine, too intense. Perhaps all we need know now is that this was how our Precious Savior came into the world. The Holy Spirit is in no way, shape or form feminine. The Holy Spirit is in every way, shape and form Masculine. This is not some theologian’s Catholicism. You can keep that mush. This is you and my Catholicism.

- Israel[44] is Beloved of God the Father[45], Who is Lover.

- The Church[46] is Beloved of God the Son[47], Who is Lover.

- Mary is Beloved of God the Holy Spirit Who is Lover.

Now you begin to view what “God is Love” means? Quite simply, it means all that it can…times infinity! From this Love all light and life and love flow. This, we all know darn well, is the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel, the Catechism and everything of any spiritual or temporal benefit. Love! Love passionately! Love intensely! Love with utter abandon! Love God and love neighbor! “Love and be loved”[48]. “Love and do as you will”[49]. That’s all there was, all there is and all there ever shall be!

In closing, dearly beloved, God is the Star of the show or He is nothing. Salvation is romance or it is nothing. It is enlightenment that kills the romance. My advice? Choose your theologians savvily or not at all, and base your choice on comprehensiveness and integrity, not on slimy, shifty debate skills. Any theologian who can do a 180° on a dime is not worth one red cent and should instead try the world of politics. You can’t build your life on illusions. Why is it trendy academics with their minds in the gutter can never grasp this but regular folks have no problem? I honestly have to go take a shower now.

For an end to all cults, blackmail and flattery. For true spiritual freedom as Sons of God. Let this be our prayer. Rank and file Catholics, if you aren’t all totally amped, you don’t know what it is we defend or what we face.

(Friend and chat with me at http://www.facebook.com/jpandmcg)

[2] For whose own good I dedicate this article. I am giving Dr. Hahn the benefit of the doubt, assuming his mistake is honest, that he is in no way one of the academics (I say “academics” rather than “intellectuals,” lest you think it’s just “liberals”: those who listen to “liberals,” to confess a character flaw, I would have a harder time pitying since they really seem so earnestly barreling toward slavery) practiced in deceit who religiously sugar-coat poison and booby-trap the spiritual truth.

[3] On the “Unam Sanctam Catholicam” Blog Dr. Hahn both categorically disowns and passionately defends this view of the Holy Spirit as feminine or androgynous in nature (in essence saying, I don’t believe this, but if I did here are all the citations to support such an esoteric doctrine which I’ve spent the better part of my nights researching and compiling (evidence which cannot be as compelling as I wish you to believe since I started out by disclaiming this position): http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2009/09/scott-hahns-maternal-spirit-compared-to.html, to which the layman could pithily reply, What is it you’re trying so hard both to say and not to say? To add insult to injury Hahn cites a feminist who doesn’t want the Holy Spirit to be feminine. I hardly know where to go with that cheap-shot. Suffice to say, that’s just the sort of idiots he’s told himself you and I are.

[4] Good news for those rare Catholics who didn’t fall prey to the New Clericalism (Laicism?) and don’t hold him as any god or guru.

[5] In his exaggerated/distorted “God as Family” fixation.

[6] Or two, depending who’s counting.

[7] Veni Creator Spiritus!

[8] Ostensibly a reflection of the simplicity of the concepts they describe!

[9] Note well that were this the case “spiritual warfare” would be meaningless hype, a non-issue, and we should be obliged to concede that the dizzyingly unreasoned movements spawned by Darwin and Jung would be just and good because we would have no God but a Goddess.

[10] And perhaps more importantly well-rounded.

[11] A longing whose preconscious roots in Hahn we won’t here illustrate, suffice to say Pope John Paul II filled the role of unwitting enabler.

[12] True theology being the exclusive property of the poor in spirit!

[13] As the reader may suspect, that’s humility rightly understood, not to be confused with neurosis, etc.

[14] I also object to the category “Christology” (“Christian theology?”) since all true theology is Christocentric.

[15] Self-deception is rather fascinating. Contrary to this childlike thinking Jesus and common sense in one accord beg of us, there is solipsism, that bastard child of narcissism (which I guess is what I mean about “spiritual autism”), in which anything I can construct rationally becomes my truth. For instance, taking off of a theme in G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy I can believe everyone else is a reptilian drone conspiring against me, the only surviving human, and have it only be reinforced whenever anyone tries to reassure me, since that’s exactly what they’d do were they conspiring. Or I can believe that everyone else is jealous of me and have it be reinforced whenever anyone contemptfully balks at the idea because that’s exactly what they’d do were they jealous. Or I can believe everyone else is stupider than me and have it be reinforced whenever anyone disagrees with me because that’s exactly what they’d do were they stupider to try and hide their stupidity. Or you could tell yourself that I somehow enjoy laying Hahn’s crackpot theories out flat and only have that reinforced whenever I say “I don’t enjoy it; this is for his own good” because that’s exactly what your father said when he administered discipline. Wait…that might be a more difficult delusion to construct.

[16] Matt. 6:23, Jerusalem Bible (J.B.).

[17] This, notably, is why seasoned Catholics, without being anti-intellectual necessarily, harbor a healthy suspicion of professional theologians. Yet nowadays I find myself trying to convert Catholics back to their own common sense, saying words to the effect of, “Just because you thought you smelled a rat doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” No wonder Dr. Hahn (and Catholics in general) has such trouble knowing where to place Mary, what the heck Her role in Salvation was! You can construct Salvation History without taking the Mary’s role fully into account[17] but it will always be grotesque because you’ll be eternally searching for a Cosmic Mother, a role only Mary can fill without any need for hair-brained distortions. I sincerely wish these oppressively obtuse theologians could learn from their mistakes, but it seems that’s just a part of my larger—and also among my fellow-Catholics rarer—wish that His kingdom may really come and also not tarry. “Maranatha!” “Come quickly!” Yet, sure, I’m the idealist of the crowd. Such sophistry and bunk covering festering wounds!

[18] Which it absolutely must be.

[19] Which makes it all the more a contract, but anyhow.

[20] I place “Family” in quotes not because I don’t really mean it but because I mean more than what we mean by “family.” I should probably, for the same reason, place quotes around “He” when I say “God is He.”

[21] Analogously to how man deigns to need woman even though she is objectively weaker (something the Holy Spirit is not) and physically lesser (a word that need only mean smaller).

[22] To spiritually beget!

[23] Which He does eternally but also did within time and space at the moment of the Annunciation/Incarnation (literally, Embodiment). I‑n‑c‑a‑r‑n‑a‑t‑i‑o‑n, get it? It means what it says, which also means we don’t need to B.S. (or for that matter D.D.) our way into knowing (personally) God (Persons)! It’s simple, guys. And if I can get it you freaking can! I don’t want a degree or a cult following. I want for you to get this life-transforming truth! It’s far too wonderful to hog for myself. Any theologian who actually knows his stuff knows this to be the case and will be driven to share the intimacy, the romance of it all. If he doesn’t, you can pray for his soul. No true theologian can possibly abide boring people with their nauseating circumlocutions. Theologians who don’t get to the point are like those bad commercials you know are just there to mislead you. You’re a child of God. It’s okay to be finicky. God knows we’re all ape sh¡t fuddy-duddy enough about all the ostensibly pointless things in life, why the he!! not theology? We’re so deathly afraid to be ourselves in this country, to be real. There’s nothing at all to be afraid of: honesty is part of the cure! Is it any wonder, though, why decent theology creeps us out so, why we can’t stomach solid food? Why “redemptive suffering” has become a phrase we repeat over and over and over in hopes of unlocking its “hidden meaning.” There is no hidden meaning! Redemptive suffering is suffering! Let’s face it! Why we torture the soul so the body can be all nice an’ comfy is more than I can fathom, though it would explain the near-manic apathy. Our problem is, we’re a band of spiritual crack addicts—yes, I said it—bad theology may be likened to drug commerce!

[24] El, if you’ll pardon the Hebrew-Spanish pun.

[25] Masonry and the New Age being, for all intents and purposes, what those poor fools mean who tyrannically lecture the orthodox on the “spirit of Vatican II.”

[26] Or, to you and me, just family.

[27] Speaking for normal circumstances here.

[28] Or whatever particle is smallest.

[29] Priestly, prophetic and kingly.

[30] I told you it was mushy!

[31] I.e. lowly servanthood coupled with endless exaltation and queenship. Don’t you just viscerally want to praise your mother but never feel you could do it adequately?

[32] Usually a dim one.

[33] Too often for my liking.

[34] Doubtless inadvertently.

[35] Pun intended.

[36] We term this uncanny integration with the divine “grace.”

[37] “But this is your hour; this is the reign of darkness.” (Luke 22:53, J.B.)

[38] Cf. Matt. 13:24 ff. (darnel a.k.a. tares, chaff [weeds]).

[39] Or ought I have said materializing?

[40] Since only women seemed to get Him. You know the men were all, “Duh, what's He talking about?” “Duh, I don't know. Hey, I've got a brilliant idea: let's try settling who’ll be top dog.” “Duh, good idea. Dibs!” Jesus entrusted the Church to men not because they have any sense or special gifts whatsoever—the Church is certainly not called to prize physical strength—but merely because they resemble God.

[41] I know this because I speak fluent Spanish. There are certain Spanish nouns (like persona) that function as feminine but can just as easily refer to a man as to a woman.

[42] Apologies to all the weak (Weakland?) priests out there.

[43] Rendered in Latin revelation, meaning unveiling.

[44] The Tribe of Jacob.

[45] YHWH.

[46] Which is as visibly united as Israel or an abomination.

[47] Jeshua.

[48] St. Francis of Assisi.

[49] St. Augustine of Hippo.

2010-09-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

What it's like having Asperger's Syndrome.

Just imagine you're completely clueless about the people you're talking to. It's like you're insulated from society (through overexposure to reality) and while you have certain very commendable certainties you totally don't get people: you're genuinely socially clueless. Your mind is a rogue adventurer that has got everything "important" figured out...except today. Aspies have been the best scientists in world history (those who survive the bullies of childhood and the bullshit of adulthood that is) for that exact reason: we simply don't do politics or warfare! Asperger's Syndrome is routinely mistaken not only for Attention Deficit Disorder but as well (albeit less formally) for heroin addiction, mental retardation, homosexuality, sociopathy and worse...often producing these things in the Aspie through the power of suggestion because of how desperate Aspies can become for acceptance. However painful the stigma of such labels may be at least we're labeled somehow, we "fit in" finally, we're not such a mystery. Frankly this is the coward's path, but that's just this blogster's opinion. We Aspies definitely can alarm people without ever trying. In my case I think I've even had to do some work in setting the record straight in my own mind that alarm and awkwardness is not a positive emotion because I had actually mistaken it for positive excitement in others until finally it would boil over and lo and behold I was just dealing with small minds trying to defend their narrow world, their bubble, a very icky (and sticky) situation. Aspies would have a much easier time if people just accepted reality as it is rather than having to shallowly, hastily label everything. Aspies live in a more intense, arguably more real world than the oft shallow society at large. If that's a "disability" I must frankly confess to not minding it that much.

2010-09-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

What Mexicans mean about the future.

Right up there with machismo in common Spanglish parlance is mañana. But like machismo, mañana is routinely misunderstood. Mexican Spanish has many ways of expressing the future for which there is no meaningful translation in U.S. English. Words like futuramente (futurely?) and phrases like en un futuro (in a future?) defy translation. It may be argued that healthier societies never get too specific about the future. There is a humanistic wisdom there that goes right over the head of the industrialist. Yeah.

2010-09-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

What Jesus had to say about peacemaking and meekness.

Jesus said, "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." He also said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." These are some major clues as to what the imitation of Christ and transformation into Christ in order to become the Father's sons in the Son consists in. The Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience (obedience being at the heart of it!) are simply bywords for the overarching "Evangelical Counsel": become God the Father's child! In the two Gospel quotes the Son of God is saying that, if we would be like him sons (also consequently heirs and, yes, soldiers, but decidedly not in the physical sense) to Father-God, we have to be peacemakers, which means being meek rather than rowdy, which is our (fallen) nature. To that end Jesus even tells us to ask for anything so we can take out our rowdiness on the Father and not on our siblings. You would almost get the impression that the world's thugs aren't obeying Jesus nor are they imitating Jesus very closely. But note: we're not to be doormats to thugs but instruments of God (as St. Francis prayed, "Make me a channel [also instrument] of your peace," and Mary has even been called the "Reed of God") which implies yielding power and wielding principle, not the other way around. What happens is this: most people seek their stability in worldliness, but he who yields to God is truly rock-solid. That may be ironic or paradoxical or Alice-in-Wonderlandish. It's also 100% the case. Jesus says to his inner circle of Apostles, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Jesus teaches a peace that starts from within and is affirmative, rather than some secular notion of nonviolence which is linguistically a negative value and by its pathological approach only seems to this blogster to encourage the very thing it condemns.