the feast days that are relevent to today's headlines

St Stephen, the first martyr was a deacon: They did the charitable activity of the early church so that the apostles could preach.

And today, we read of medical workers being killed for giving out polio vaccine.

St Thomas Becket was killed for opposing the king, who wanted to make the church an arm of the monarchy.

Similar things happening today, as China tears down the crosses and harasses churches that refuse to join their government run church groups.

The holy Innocents are the children killed by Herod who worried that the child born might take his place.
Nowadays, of course, we only allow mothers to kill children in the womb who might inconvenience their parents...and the elites are starting to push infanticide to get rid of those who manage to get born but are handicapped.

Yes, I left out John the Apostle. He didn't get killed. But he had visions of the apocolypse, so would fit nicely in with the hysterics.

Cynical analysis of modern scholars

 the gospels resemble life in small rural third world villages today, and the experts never worked in such areas.

Even the "miracles" can be seen today. Most of which are coincidence, but a few are probably real. I saw a few in Africa: most "coincidences" (Like the 3 pound baby who went apeneic and pulseless despite CPR and medicine, so I ordered her baptized, at which she gasped and never had any more problems, indeed she went home (which in Africa is a miracle in itself, since few premies under 4 pounds lived). Father chastized me for doing this (the mom was one of the few pagans in the area, where 80 percent were Christian)

Another case was a case of liver failure, bilirubin 30. He also recovered after a prayer service and baptism, and no medicine except routine hydration IV to keep him from dying.

A third was a man with a case of status epilepticus, who recovered without brain damage after three days of being in a constant seizure. He was a Christian and thanked God in church the following Sunday.

All three of these have "scientific" explanations. But for those involved, they were miraculous.

Sigh

headsup Blackfive

Merry Christmas sort of

Joy is making a delivery in Manila, which means our help will not be able to enjoy Christmas with their families.

Presumably she can ignore the feast since she became a bible believing christian at a church where Ruby's worship dancing is more important than little things like being with family or celebrating Jesus' birth by worshipping (For us the family feast is tonite, although we did go to Emie's last night).

Lolo was up all night wheezing, so I don't dare go to church and let him alone. We have one maid who went home for Christmas and the cook usually goes with me to church (yes, I'm paranoid about being safe). But no one to watch him, and I don't feel he should be left alone.

Chano was up with the family for the noche buena...I refused to join them, since I needed my sleep...also, since this feast is traditionally celebrated by families AFTER they went to midnight mass, and no one went to mass, I thought the whole thing was exaggerated... And of course Lolo was exhausted after Emie's party.

Chano and Ruby will go with Joy to Manila, probably because if he stayed here he'd party all day with friends. Of course, he's a lapsed methodist, and tell you the truth if I had his mother (a religious nut) I'd be an atheist and reject God too. And now he has to cope with a pentecostal wife at church meetings all the time and her church lady friends. All very nice people who tithe to the last mint leaf, as one sardonic Jewish carpenter quipped. Not like that tax collector catholic sinners there in the back (who they want to convert).

Newsweek magazine has an "expose" of the bible that has all the anti catholic lies about that book that have been around ever since the reformers decided they knew more than the early church fathers, i.e. that it was chosen for political reasons by constantine, that it is inaccurate, etc. Ironically, this protestant professor points out that the Newsweek article is inaccurate according to modern bible studies, except of course in the PC Jesus seminar types who are not considered experts except the Mainstream media

but a lot of those lies are still thrown by protestants against catholics here, who often don't know enough about church history to refute them. Their meme: the early church believed what we believe, and only those evil Catholics with Constantine decided to make an evil church to control everyone and filled it with paganism like Mary and the saints, so they are not just wrong but evil, goes the cliche.

Nope, Mary was big by Iraneus' time and the saints got big when the martyrs were prayed to about the same time. Ditto for a lot of other things.

So I figure it is blowback by the stupid against the protestant "reformers" and serves them right.

Yes, I am feeling bitchy again.

And talking about hypocrites Drudge does it again with a photo of the US protests: this one showing cops, including two black cops, arresting white "demonstrators". Yes, it has nothing to do with black lives, it has to do with feeling superior to the common folks. It's like the 1960's, where the kids from rich suburban homes demonstrated to prove their superiority against those of us who worked for a living, stayed sober, and tried to be faithful to our spouses.

The American "elites" don't know anyone who is a cop, or anyone in the military, or anyone who goes to church and is so gauche to actually believe anything.

So what does all this have to do with "peace on earth good will to men"?

Nothing. I'm just complaining as usual. If I don't watch it I will become a bitter old lady.

Yet the presence of the Christ child means that the world has changed, and there is a small candle of hope for those of us curmudgeons who try our best to do the right thing.

Isn't it ironic that in a year when Hollywood decides to ignore the classical mythological stories of Noah and Moses in order to blacken their reputations, and when "christians" hail B movies like "god's not dead" (no, his bible quoting arguments didn't convince me: We catholics use natural law and philosophy to back the bible when talking to non believers) and Heaven is for real (nice story, and the movie was a lot better than the book, but again not much "there" there....) as if they were breakthroughs, that two very Catholic movies from the fringe were made in plain sight and ignored by both sides? St Vincent, with Bill Murray as the drunken old man who helps all he meets, and the British film Calvary, full of anti catholic tirades being thrown against a good priest, have classic Catholic themes of redemption, but no one seemed to notice.

See Greeley's books on the Catholic sensibility, with the idea that God presents himself all the time.

from a review:

Catholics live in an enchanted world: a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are merely hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility that inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation. The world of the Catholic is haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of Grace. In this fascinating discussion of what is unique about the Catholic worldview and culture and what distinguishes it from Protestantism, Andrew Greeley--one of the most popular and prolific authors writing today--examines the religious imagination that shapes Catholics' lives. 
In a lively and engaging narrative, Greeley discusses the central themes of Catholic culture: Sacrament, Salvation, Community, Festival, Structure, Erotic Desire, and the Mother Love of God. Ranging widely from Bernini to Scorsese, Greeley distills these themes from the high arts of Catholic culture and asks: Do these values really influence people's lives? Using international survey data, he shows the counterintuitive ways in which Catholics are defined. He goes on to root these behaviors in the Catholic imagination. 

Ditto for the Tolkien phenomenum:

I was listening to a podcast which contrasted CSLewis' protestant idea of God bursting into one's life with Tolkien's Catholic God of the quiet coincidences who can be discovered in the beauty of Lorien and in fellowship at a party and in sacrifice.

So anyway: Lolo is now up and I have to get him to breakfast.

And a Merry Christmas to all of you too.

The Pope vs the Bureaucrats

The back story to the last 40 years of Catholicism is the fight of the bureaucrats and the "reformer" types vs the Pope.

These guys often just wanted power and money (and for some to sleep with those lovely swiss guard types) but according conspiracy sites and prophecies by the truly holy, some were trying to reform the church into a social rather than religious organization, which will merge with the one world order as a universal church.

A lot of this is money, of course, and murky: It doesn't take a conpsiracy type to notice the Masonic lodge in the bureaucrats who milked the Vatican bank dry and resulted in one banker from hanging himself off a bridge in London. (The conspiracy types however say that John Paul number one was poisoned by them to stop him from shutting him down).(and one Andrew Greeley novel mentions that the Chicago bishop made the fall guy was naive and that they never did clean the place up, or find where the money was).

So when John Paul II took over, he realized that he could not fight them, or even do needed church reforms (which would get "filed" accidentally in the trash can). So he did what he could. He traveled around the world inspiring people, especially in World Youth Days, where a new generation of priests and nuns were inspired. Even the US press laments that the "reform" priests and nuns are elderly, and the new ones are very "conservative" (read Catholic christians, devoted to Jesus, not a socialist utopia and giving out psychological advice about not feeling guilty about your sin instead of preaching repentence)

Catholics (like the Chinese) take a long term view of these things, and realize that if you throw everyone out, you end up with a schism. (e.g. Luther might have stayed in if he hadn't been egged on by the local princes who coveted the land, and if the Pope had been more sympathetic).

So the idea is the regrow the roots and let the rotten branches die before you cut them off.

Some people think Benedict took over the pedophile crisis because the bureaucrats were hiding a lot of it, and he met a lot of opposition, both with (gay) bishops and the Vatican. Those not in the know think he was part of the scheme, but those really in the know acknowledge he tried, but only criticize him for not doing enough.

Ah, but when a pope resigns, the new guy can change things. Hence a resignation.

And this Pope is cleaning house: Cardinal Pell is finding money hidden all over the place.

And the latest scandal: The large Franciscan order lost a whole bunch of money somewhere.

This doesn't count all the money paid out for scandals (most of which are real, some of which are scams. In one Pennsylvania diocese where I worked, several priests got away with it, but one man sued and won. It was an open secret that he was a con man who met the priest in a Pittsburgh gay bar and had an affair when he was of age, but he and  his mom persuaded his younger brother to say the brother was abused at age 15. It was a lie, everyone in the diocese knew it was a lie, but the jury figured the diocese was guilty in a lot of other cases that never went to court, so voted them a bunch of money).

So today's Drudgereport and the BBC report on the latest battle of the Pope vs the bureaucrats.

BBC:

Addressing the Curia on Monday, Pope Francis said some power-hungry clerics were guilty of "cold-bloodedly killing the reputation of their own colleagues and brothers"....
The Pope also launched a clean-up of the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). The IOR has long had a poor reputation, after a succession of scandals.

alas, the bad news in this is that the local bishop's conferences are full of the same types, and much of the diocese bureaucrats are also the same type, including a lot of nuns who believe in new age feminism and "the chuch of what's happening now".

In the USA, the central bishop's bureaurcracy is more liberal than the Democratic party, and many diocese lack priests because the sister psychologist who screened the applicants decided they were too "rigid" if they prayed or didn't approve of wimmenpriests. However, the openly gays got in.

Is this being fixed? Reports are that yes it is, at least in some diocese, and the present day feud with the nuns who are dancing in front of their guru and evolving to a higher power are waiting to see if Francis approves. The rest of the nuns got a "too bad but we love you" report, meaning the Vatican will wait for them to die off. (The church has had these problems before, usually every 200 years there is a die off of orders, with those staying alive reforming themselves or new orders taking their place.).

Ah, but in another 100 years, things may be better.

Or we will all be worshipping like our ancestors, or even modern day Christians in persecuted lands: in house churches (China and Saudi Arabia) or in the fields (Russia), keeping the faith alive with "the idol in the box" (Japan) or by saying the rosary (Ireland).

He's coming

Author Brian Sibley posted this poem on his blog, by RSThomas.

The Coming

And God held in his hand
A small globe.  Look he said.
The son looked.  Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour.  The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
                On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky.  Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs.  The son watched
Them.  Let me go there, he said.

mindfulness?

Mindfulness is actually a variation on deep concentration aka self hypnosis.

It is a psychological state, and not everyone can do it deeply. Indeed, a significant percentage of folks who do it are deeply suggestable. so why are they proposing it for patients as a value free treatment?

It is related to the deep concentration one gets when watching a film (but not a movie on tv, where there are distractions) or engaged in playing music or making art, or reading a book in a quiet place, or saying the rosary in a quiet room. It opens the deeper psychological self in some people to enhance creativity.

But it can be a spiritual thing. Indeed, the prayer of quiet or the Jesus prayer does the same thing. As Father Dubet on EWTN points out , the buddhist mindfulness goes into oneself, but Christian prayer is supposed to be spontaneous, not forced, and occur when one is praying or reading the bible, and has Jesus, not self, as the object of the meditation.

If one believes in a reality beyond the material, there is a danger of not just finding God or a good angel, but of finding a demon disguised as an angel. This also could mean finding the evil in one's deeper self:
Or, as one sci fi movie put it: Meeting the demons of the id.

I used self hypnosis for cigarette control, but refused to hypnotize one man...I sensed he was holding in something dangerous, and that hypnosis might open the door...later it turned out he was full of anger at his father, and got a bit violent when given prozac, which allowed his anger to surface. Psychotherapy can do this also. People think psychological manipulation has no "side effects" but this is not true, especially in the ten percent of the population who are easily hypnotized and easily suggestible even when not under hypnosis.... One is reminded of the hypnosis experiments of Freud, or when a professor lacked a patient to use for his students hypnotized one of the cooks, who was then manipulated into all sorts of conversion reactions and insanity from his suggestions.

So they are now pushing mindfulness as psychological treatment for depression.

Fine.

But unless they do a double blind study of maybe having the patients pray in a rosary group I'll be sceptical.

One reason I hate the modern sitting in a circle holding hands and praying is that you end up not concentrating on God. In a rosary group, or praying the office in common, you concentrate on God.

And don't get me started on psychological group therapy where you are supposed to tell all your secrets. We were forced into this in medical school and I usually told lies and when possible arranged for the nurses to page me out for an "emergency" because my inner self was simply not any of their business.