#also be fr no one in the history of humanity has ever introduced themselves to you like this

[hjartasalt]

Every time I see someone making fun of neopronouns I can't help but think they aren't living in the real world. Someone using xe/xyr pronouns isn't the issue, it's these fake scenarios where you pretend to be victimised by it that are.

[troybeecham]

Fr. Troy Beecham

A Sermon, Proper 8A, 2020

Have you noticed how often a Jesus uses juxtaposition and logical contradiction in his teaching? Here are a few samples of what I mean:

• the last shall be first

• lose your life to find it

• the servant is the highest position in God’s kingdom

• the Son of Man came to serve, not to be served

These sayings of Jesus, along with the whole trajectory of his life, are a lesson in contrasting the life of faith versus the life of logic and strategy that we are shaped by through our families and cultures. The life of faith is not non-sensical; rather, it requires a complete resetting of our senses, a wholesale reorienting of our thinking and desiring, a culture that is profoundly different from the cultures of this fallen world. Jesus calls it being born again, being born from above, being born of the Holy Spirit. We have to unlearn all that we have been taught by our cultures, our philosophies, and even our families, an unlearning which will cause us to stand out, stand apart, even seem alien by those who knew us before faith blossomed in our souls. And the consequences are real.

Jesus has been teaching us the last three Sundays what it costs to be his disciple, what it costs to follow him - he even compares it to daily taking up our cross, to carry the instrument of our own earthly death wherever we go. He’s not asking for much, is he?! But he is not asking for more than what he himself gave, and he has sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to truly be his disciples, if we will allow the Holy Spirit to do his work in our lives - creating us anew, making the impossible possible, making us babes once again ready to be shaped by the love of the Father.

This path to being born again is like becoming an empty vessel so that God can pour life and love into us, filling us up to overflowing with the life of his kingdom, a kingdom that operates by rules that make no sense to the earthly mind.

Todays readings introduce us, suddenly and strikingly, to ways in which earthly senses and opinions are not only unable to deliver to us the life of his heavenly kingdom but also leave us confused about God’s desires for us.

In the first reading, Abraham hears God say “Bring your son and come to the mountain to make sacrifice and worship me.” Because he is still thinking in the logic of his culture and age, he hears God say “Bring your son to sacrifice him” because child sacrifice was common among the people of his culture and age of the world. It a terrifying, dark tale, we watch with horror as Abraham struggles with the faith that had taken hold of his soul and the darkened, earthly logic of his mind, which were warring with each other. In a last moment intervention, seeing that Abraham’s mind is still rooted in his culture so much so that he could think that God demands human sacrifice, God sends an angel to physically restrain Abraham and point out that God has provided a ram that was only steps away, but which Abraham couldn’t see through the blinders of his worldview. It is interesting to note that God never again speaks directly with Abraham again, but only through intermediaries on the spot to keep Abraham from so frighteningly misunderstanding him.

The only sacrifice that God desires and accepts is the willing sacrifice we make of ourselves as living sacrifices, becoming living, born again witnesses to the life of his kingdom, a witness that will mark us out as different, strange and dangerous, even. No wonder it is so hard for us to willingly choose the path of Jesus!

How often has “Christian culture”, individual Christians, and the Church as a whole made the mistake of Abraham because we have only yielded part of our souls to God, resisting the painful, wholesale, but absolute necessary process of being born again take place? Too many! And still the call remains from Jesus that we must be born again, completely born anew, a complete conversion of spirit and mind so that we can truly hear God and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, follow Jesus.

St. Paul writes to the Church in Rome in the second reading, pointing out just how hard it is to be born again. We are held captive to sin, to our passions and desires, to the value systems our our various cultures. We are held in slavery that only the Holy Spirit can change. Our only hope for true and lasting spiritual freedom is a two edged sword: we are born again and free to embody the desires of God, but this freedom separates us permanently from the modes of thinking impressed upon us by human and family cultures. With our natural minds we can see the chains of our bondage on full display at this moment in American history, and the rage we feel at seeing our chains. But our solutions are all based within the same culture that put us in chains! Our only hope, our only path to freedom is paradoxically to choose to die to the world and to be born again in Jesus to the culture of God’s heavenly kingdom. And the world will not congratulate us for our true freedom! Rather, our families and neighbors will either find us moldy confusing or dangerously subversive, and drive us out for not taking up the weapons of the age with them.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus promises us that we will be welcomed in the world with the same measure that any culture, family, or individual knows how to make for someone who is no longer bound by the chains they themselves either feel only vaguely or which they feel most brutally. It is a risky thing to become a living sacrifice in Jesus, to be born again, because it sets us adrift relative to the value systems of the world, especially if we are following our vocation as disciples of Jesus, going from person to person, family to family, town to town, nation to nation proclaiming the Gospel!

Yet this is our calling, our vocation as disciples of Jesus. There’s no way to soften the reality. We have tried for two thousand years to short sell the Gospel, to make it less life altering, to not become such aliens in this fallen world. We want to be nice, to work within the systems that give us privilege without having to actually take up the cross and carry it with us wherever we go - a stark sign to all who see it of the cost of freedom. Yet no matter how we try to explain it away and neuter its content, it still means what it says. Losing our life is the only way to find it. Letting go is the only way to be held securely in the bosom of God. Willingly becoming an alien is the only way to find our home and true citizenship in the kingdom of God.

May God pour out his Holy Spirit into each of us through his Son Jesus, our Risen Savior, to see us truly free and make us born again, for we surely cannot do it on our own.

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

[drbanuprakashas]

Full text of "SUPPRESSED HISTORY OF THE HORRIBLE TRUTH OF THE VACCINATION BUSINESS" . FIGHT AGAINST VACCINATION . 19TH CENTURY (1800s) "There does not exist one single fact, in all the experiments and improvements made in science, which can support the idea of vaccination. A vaccinated people will always be a sickly people, short lived and degenerate." —Dr. Alexander Wilder, MD

"Vaccination: A Medical Fallacy", vaccination literature. And if we could add to this all the suppressed facts, we would

have a mass of evidence before which no vaccinator would dare to hold up his head." —

Dr. Robert A. Gunn, MD, "Vaccination: Its Fallacies and Evils", 1882

"I have no faith in vaccination, nay, I look upon it with greatest disgust, and firmly

believe that it is often the medium of conveying many filthy and loathsome diseases

from one child to another, and it is no protection from smallpox." —Dr. William Collins,

MD, London, 1882

"Vaccination has made murder legal. Vaccination does not protect against smallpox, but

is followed by blindness and scrofula. Jennerism is the most colossal humbug which the

human race has been burdened with by FRAUD and DECEIT." —Mr. Mitchell, member

of the British House of Commons

"Of these dogmas, I believe the practice known as vaccination to be the most absurd

and most pernicious. I do not believe that a single person has ever been protected from

smallpox by it; while I know that many serious bodily evils and even deaths, have

resulted from its employment. The whole theory is founded upon assumption, contrary

to common sense and entirely opposed to all known principles of physiology. Every

physician of experience, has met with numerous cases of cutaneous eruptions,

erysipelas and syphilis, which were directly traceable to vaccination, and if these cases

could be collected and presented in one report, they would form a more terrible picture

than the worst that has ever been drawn of the horrors of smallpox." —Dr. Robert A.

Gunn, MD, Dean of the United States Medical College of New York

"Vaccination is a monstrosity, a misbegotten offspring of error and ignorance; and being

such, it should have no place in either hygiene or medicine...Believe not in vaccination,

it is a worldwide delusion, an unscientific practice, a fatal superstition with

consequences measured today by tears and sorrow without end." —Dr. Carlo Ruta,

Professor of Materia Medics at the University of Perugia, Italy, 1896

"Vaccination is a grotesque superstition." —Dr. Charles Creighton, MD, MA "Vaccination

is a gigantic delusion. It has never saved a single life. It has been the cause of so much

disease, so many deaths, such a vast amount of utterly needless and altogether

undeserved suffering, that it will be classed by the coming generation among the

greatest errors of an ignorant and prejudiced age, and its penal enforcement the foulest

blot." — Alfred R. Wallace,

LLD DUBL., DCLOXON., FRS, etc., 1895

20TH CENTURY (1900s)

"The great epidemics of deadly diseases, in animals and mankind, are caused by

vaccination." —Charles M. Higgins, "The Horrors of Vaccination: Exposed and

Illustrated", 1920

"1 believe vaccination has been the greatest delusion that has ensnared mankind in the

last three centuries. It originated in FRAUD, ignorance and error. It is unscientific and

impracticable. It has been promotive of very great evil, and I cannot accredit it any

good." —Dr. R. K. Noyse, MD, Resident Surgeon of the Boston City Hospital, "Self

Curability of Disease"

"The chief, if not the sole, cause of the monstrous increase in cancer has been

vaccination." —Dr. Robert Bell; Vice President, International Society for Cancer

Research, British Cancer Hospital, 1922

"Vaccination is the most outrageous insult that can be offered to any pure-minded man

or woman. It is the boldest and most impious attempt to mar the works of God that has

been attempted for ages. The stupid blunder of doctor-craft has wrought all the evil that

it ought, and it is time that free American citizens arise in their might and blot out the

whole

blood poisoning business." —Dr. J.M. Peebles, MD, MA, PhD, "Vaccination: A Curse

and Menace to Personal Liberty", 1900

"Cancer was practically unknown until the cowpox vaccination began to be introduced. I

have seen 200 cases of cancer, and never saw a case in an unvaccinated person." —

Dr. W.B. Clark, MD, Indiana, New York Times article, 1909

"At present, intelligent people do not have their children vaccinated, nor does the law

now compel them to. The result is not, as the Jennerians prophesied, the extermination

of the human race by smallpox; on the contrary more people are now killed by

vaccination than by smallpox." —George Bernard Shaw, 1944

"The English Ministry of Health omits to state that in 1872, when 05% of the infants born

were vaccinated, there were 19,000 deaths from smallpox in England and Wales. While

in 1925, when less than half the children born were vaccinated, there were only 6

deaths from that disease." —Dr. Eleanor McBean, PhD, ND, "The Poisoned Needle",

1957

"Vaccination causes miscarriage. A careful check showed that 47% of women who had

been vaccinated in the second or third month of pregnancy, failed to give birth to a

normal child." —

"Vaccination at Work", The Consulting Pediatrician of Lanarkshire County Council, The

Lancet (London), p.97, December 6, 1952

"My honest opinion is that vaccine is the cause of more disease and suffering than

anything I could name." —Dr. Harry R. Bybee

"Vaccination, instead of being the promised blessing to the world, has proved to be a

curse of such sweeping devastation that it has caused more death and disease than

war, pestilence, and plague combined. There is no scourge (with the possible exception

of atomic radiation) that is more destructive to our nation's health than this monument of

human deception—this slayer of the innocent—this crippler of body and brain—the

poisoned needle." —Dr. Eleanor McBean, PhD, ND, "The Poisoned Needle", 1957

"The greatest LIE ever told is that vaccines are safe and effective."—Dr. Leonard

Horowitz, MPH (Master of Public Health), DMD, MA, Harvard University graduate

21 ST CENTURY (2000s)

"The entire vaccine program is based on massive FRAUD." —Dr. Russell L Blaylock,

M.D., neurosurgeon, editorial staff of Journal of American

Physicians and Surgeons

“Vaccination is a business based on fear.” - Dr. Gerhard Buchwald, MD

"Vaccinations do not work. They don't work at all." —Dr. Lorraine Day, MD

"Vaccinations are now carried out for purely commercial reasons because they fetch

huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry. There is no scientific evidence that

vaccinations are of any benefit." —Dr. Gerhard Buchwald, MD, "Vaccination: A business

based on FEAR"

"Don't get your flu shot." —Dr. Raymond Francis, D.Sc., M.Sc., RNC, chemist, MIT

graduate

"My own personal view is that vaccines are unsafe and WORTHLESS. I will not allow

myself to be vaccinated again. Vaccines may be profitable but in my view, they are

neither safe nor effective." -Dr. Vernon Coleman, MB, ChB, DSc (Hon)

"Everyone who is vaccinated is vaccine injured—whether it shows up right away or later

in life." —Dr. Shiv Chopra, B.V.S., A.H., M.Sc., PhD, Fellow of the World Health

Organization, former senior scientist at Health Canada

"The pediatrician indoctrinates your child from birth into a lifelong dependency on

medical intervention. The first stage of indoctrination is the 'well-baby' visit. The well-

baby visit is a cherished ritual of the pediatrician that enhances their income and does

nothing constructive for your child. It's a worthless visit." —Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, MD,

board certified pediatrician

"Vaccines are the backbone of the entire Pharmaceutical Industry. If they can make

these children sick from a very early age, they become customers for life. The money

isn't really to be made in the vaccine industry. The money is made by Big Pharma with

all of the drugs that are given to treat and address all of the illnesses that are

subsequent to the side effects of vaccines."—Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, D.O. (osteopathic

medical doctor)

"Studies are increasingly pointing to the conclusion that vaccines represent a dangerous

assault to the immune system leading to autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis,

Lupus, juvenile Onset Diabetes, Fibromyalgia, and Cystic Fibrosis, as well as previously

rare disorders like brain cancer, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), childhood

leukemia, autism, and asthma."—Dr. Zoltan Rona, MD, "Natural Alternatives to

Vaccination"

'The vaccine industry is itself a FRAUD. I spent my whole career studying vaccines."—

Dr. Shiv Chopra, B.V.S., A.H., M.Sc., Ph.D., Fellow of the World Health Organization,

"Corrupt to the Core"

THE ONLY REASON FOR CONTINUED VACCINATION "The greatest danger to your

health is the doctor who practices modern medicine." —Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, MD,

board certified pediatrician

Follow the money. It will lead you to the truth. The primary reason For vaccination is the

assumption that vaccines prevent diseases. However, if historical data demonstrates

that vaccines do NOT prevent diseases, then what is the purpose of vaccination?

Moreover, you've probably heard stories of parents being coerced and bullied into

vaccinating their children and themselves at the pediatrician and doctor's offices. There

are reasons behind the coercion and bullying.

"There is a vaccination ring in England, receiving millions of the public money. It is in

their interest to favor the practice at all hazards and to falsify statistics in order to

conceal its failure and its evils. There are also armies of public vaccinators in every

large city all over Europe, who are supported from the public treasury, and every

practitioner who does not oppose the practice, derives a considerable

income from its continuance." —Dr. Robert A. Gunn, MD, "Vaccination: Its Fallacies and

Evils", 19th century

"Drug companies are not here to bring health to the population but to SCAM them on

one level for vast amounts of money." —Sir William Osier, MD, FRS, FRCP, widely

considered as the Father of Modern Medicine (1849-1919), 20th century

"Disease is more rampant because of commercial greed. When the Rockefeller-

Standard Oil crowd muscled into the drug and pharmaceutical business in such a big

way, 'scientific medicine' (if there is such a thing) was turned into a racket which

shortened many American lives from ten to twenty years." —Morris A. Beale, "The Drug

Story", 20th century

"Many doctors and some editors are making money by propagating the vaccination

curse." —Dr. Thomas Morgan, MD, "Medical Delusions", 20th century

"Vaccination is not scientific. Many of the world's greatest thinkers, scientists, statesmen

and even doctors have condemned vaccination as being a crime against humanity, a

FRAUD promoted for private gain, an insult to the race and a blot upon the name of

civilization. Yet, this treacherous practice of blood pollution, which was cradled in the lap

of ignorant savage tribes, has been adopted by, supposedly, enlightened government of

the present day and forced on the protesting population—for profit." —Dr. Eleanor

McBean, PhD, ND, 1957

"Vaccinations are now carried out for purely commercial reasons because they fetch

huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry. There is no scientific evidence that

vaccinations are of any benefit." —Dr. Gerhard Buchwald, MD, "Vaccination: A Business

Based on Fear", 21st century

"The vaccination myth is the most widespread superstition modern medicine has

managed to impose, but, being by the same token the most profitable, it will prove to be

also one of the most enduring, though there was never the slightest of scientific

evidence upholding it." —Hans Ruesch, "The Great Medical Fraud", 20th century

"Doctors are punished by insurance companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield if

doctors don't get a certain percentage of their patients to comply with the vaccination

schedule. If 63% are non-compliant, they don't receive any of their bonuses." — Robert

F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Medicine is no longer a calling. It is a downright cut throat business." —Professor Dr.

Belle Monappa Hegde, MD, 21st century

"The current medical system is designed to create chronic disease. There is no money

in being healthy." —Dr. Irvin Sahni, MD, 21st century

"The bottom line is that the medical systems are controlled by financiers in order to

serve financiers. Since you cannot serve people unless they get sick, the whole medical

system is designed to make people sicker and sicker." —Dr. Guylaine Lanctot, MD, 21st

century

"It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when their salary depends on

them not understanding it." —Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY MADE A LAW PREVENTING PEOPLE FROM

SUING THEM FOR VACCINATION DAMAGE

In 1986, US President Ronald Reagan passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury

Act (NCVIA). The act was drafted by the drug companies and shielded them from legal

liability resulting from vaccine injuries and deaths. Basically, NCVIA prevented parents

from directly suing the drug companies (vaccine makers). The parents have to file

claims in the vaccine injury court that was established through the act. About $0.75 of

every vaccine sold is used to fund the vaccine injury court. From 1986 to 2018, the court

paid over $4 billion to parents with vaccine injured children. It is estimated that the court,

due to budget constraints, dismisses about 66% of the cases, and some cases can take

up to 8 years to settle.

Furthermore, in one report US and Human Services estimated that only about 1% of

vaccine injuries are reported to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).

Most parents are unaware that the most common side effects of vaccines are allergies,

asthma, brain damage, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and death. In addition, from 1986

to 2017, the drug companies were fined nearly $25 billion—these fines were unrelated

to vaccines and most were for fraud, bribery, and false advertising.

"International bribery and corruption, fraud in the testing of drugs, criminal negligence in

the unsafe manufacture of drugs—the pharmaceutical industry has a worse record of

[ststevanofdecani]

Will Our Children Keep the Faith?                                                                                                                                                

the catastrophe of modern education

I have already written on multiple occasions of the urgent necessity of creating Orthodox parish schools in America. Our nation’s public schools have degenerated into prison-like institutions which have outlawed all mention of Truth (the Second Person of the Trinity), which forbid any public prayer to the Lord God, which teach sexual propaganda and promote infanticide to kindergarteners, which lead students to believe that they will likely be brutally massacred by their own peers, and which on top of everything else no longer even educate our children in any meaningful sense of the word at all .

The situation gets no better when it comes to so-called “higher education.” Even half a century ago, Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote the following words with sorrow:

The academic world — and these words are neither lightly nor easily spoken — has become today, in large part, a source of corruption. It is corrupting to hear or read the words of men who do not believe in truth. It is yet more corrupting to receive, in place of truth, mere learning and scholarship which, if they are presented as ends in themselves, are no more than parodies of the truth they were meant to serve, no more than a facade behind which there is no substance. It is, tragically, corrupting even to be exposed to the primary virtue still left to the academic world, the integrity of the best of its representatives —if this integrity serves, not the truth, but skeptical scholarship, and so seduces men all the more effectively to the gospel of subjectivism and unbelief this scholarship conceals. It is corrupting, finally, simply to live and work in an atmosphere totally permeated by a false conception of truth, wherein Christian Truth is seen as irrelevant to the central academic concerns, wherein even those who still believe this Truth can only sporadically make their voices heard above the skepticism promoted by the academic system. The evil, of course, lies primarily in the system itself, which is founded upon untruth, and only incidentally in the many professors whom this system permits and encourages to preach it.

a toxic culture

With each passing year it grows harder and harder for our children to keep the faith. Indeed, such a thing is now scarcely possible for a young boy or girl, especially one who has not been given the foundation and protection of a true Christian education. America’s youth culture is spiritually toxic — and that is to put it mildly. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you didn’t hear about the Teen Vogue article which taught kids how to sodomize each other “the right way” (don’t worry, the link is not to the article itself). The same publication recently put up a slideshow on its website celebrating a nine-year-old drag queen, who has been pictured holding signs so lewd that I utterly refuse to include a link. Nine years old. This is a generation whose social media app of choice, Snapchat, has recently introduced a channel dedicated solely to pornography — with of course no way for parents to block access to it.

This is a culture which, thanks to the all-consuming reality of social media and smartphones, is with our children twenty-four hours a day. It travels with them everywhere, in their purse or in their pocket. It sleeps with them in the bed at night. Like one of the ancient Sirens, it constantly calls them back to itself with flashing notification lights, gentle vibrations and soft chimes.

Given all of this (and really, I have only begun to scratch the surface), it should be no surprise at all that the youth are deserting Christianity in droves. And with this situation in view, can we honestly believe that allowing our children to be raised by the public school systems is anything other than throwing them to the wolves? As Matt Walsh writes:

If your kid is thrown into a world of deviancy and moral chaos while he’s still wearing pull ups, he will conform to it. In fact, I have never in my life met a child who is totally “in the world” — that is, completely submerged in modern culture without any parental controls or barriers in the way — and yet not of it. I don’t think such a child exists, has ever existed, or can ever exist… whenever I am accused of keeping my kids in a Bubble, it is always because I have taken some step to preserve their innocence. That is the one thing we absolutely must not do, according to society. Let the TV and the school system decide when its time for your child to stop being a child. That time, by the way, is right around their second birthday and getting younger.

parish schools: our christian duty

Yet even if we leave aside the moral filth and unspeakable depravity which characterize modern life, consider the fact that Orthodox parish schools are the historically normative reality of the Orthodox world. According to Archimandrite Vasileios of Iveron:

The Church has always covered the people with her protection, and the people are the guardian of the truth of the Church. This was why, when our people found themselves in foreign parts, they would immediately build a church and next to it a Greek (Russian, Serbian, etc.) school. That was how we lived during the Turkish occupation; that is how we live today, even as far afield as Australia. The Church helps us in freedom and in servitude, in the village and throughout the world.

But how has it possibly come about that the only place in which the Church does not help her children is here in America, the richest and most privileged nation that the world has ever known? How is it that we have abandoned them at the one moment of history in which they unquestionably need such help the most? How have we allowed ourselves to fail so colossally? Archimandrite Vasileios thunders forth the truth:

Who gave us the right — or on what basis have we assumed the right — to condemn all children in one stroke to the darkness of ignorance?

Who says — or where have we found it written — that all children are so naive and insignificant that their expectations, their thirsts, their desires and demands fit into the narrow and dingy limits set by the education given to them?

Who says that their one ambition is to become mere technicians—accessories for the continued smooth functioning of this machine which sees man as it does, which so organizes his life, which builds his cities in this way? This machine which turns man to pulp and makes a prisoner of him—of the nobility, the crown of creation?

And who says that the potentialities, the flights and desires of the human soul reach only as far as the vision, the sentimentalism or the romantic humanism of any idealistic or materialistic theory?

The ecclesial life reveals to you hidden and unexplored areas of your being which it knows about. You yourself suspected their existence, but the upbringing you received discounted them.

Why not light the torch of the child’s life now? Why not give all children the possibility of approaching these fire-bearing and God-bearing people, our Saints, so that they too become living people, spontaneous, terrible to their adversaries, fearless in the face of every danger, every threat; terrible to death itself?

At the same time they can be delicate, sensitive, a comfort to everyone who is persecuted and wounded, to every creature, to the whole creation which groans with us in travail, also awaiting to receive its freedom from the liberated children of God.

Why can we not in this way give each person the possibility of following his own way, his calling, his love? To become craftsmen, scientists, manual workers, farmers, businessmen, artists. And to feel that everything is holy, dignified, full of light, grace, and eternity — even ephemeral, small, material things — when it is blessed by God. To do all these jobs, to practice these professions, arts, and sciences as sacred obediences, as their handiwork, as a form of prayer, a way of offering and showing love for the Other.

To these beautiful and God-inspired words I have nothing to add, except this: what are we waiting for?                                                                                                                                             

Hieromonk Gabriel

[spiritualdirections]

Tolkien on Vatican II, the Development of Doctrine, ecumenism

J. R. R. Tolkien was a serious Catholic, who was in his 70s when the changes of the Second Vatican Council made the Church seem very different, especially in the liturgy. In a letter to his son Michael (#306 in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien), he complains about this a bit, before reflecting on some of the fruits of the Council, including the increased emphasis on ecumenism (Tolkien’s wife was from a Protestant family, and he lived all his life in anti-Catholic English society, as the end of the letter describes). Tolkien was raised in an orphanage run by the Birmingham Oratorians, the religious order founded by Blessed John Henry Newman a generation before Tolkien’s birth, and his reflections on how the Church changes over time show the influence of Newman’s ideas about how doctrine develops organically. 

'Trends' in the Church are .... serious, especially to those accustomed to find in it a solace and a 'pax' in times of temporal trouble, and not just another arena of strife and change. But imagine the experience of those born (as I) between the Golden and the Diamond Jubilee of Victoria. Both senses or imaginations of security have been progressively stripped away from us. Now we find ourselves nakedly confronting the will of God, as concerns ourselves and our position in Time (Vide Gandalf I 70 ['"You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."'] and III 155 ['"It is not our plan to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set."']). 'Back to normal' – political and Christian predicaments – as a Catholic professor once said to me, when I bemoaned the collapse of all my world that began just after I achieved 21 [because of World War I]. I know quite well that, to you as to me, the Church which once felt like a refuge, now often feels like a trap. There is nowhere else to go! (I wonder if this desperate feeling, the last state of loyalty hanging on, was not, even more often than is actually recorded in the Gospels, felt by Our Lord's followers in His earthly life-time?) I think there is nothing to do but to pray, for the Church, the Vicar of Christ, and for ourselves; and meanwhile to exercise the virtue of loyalty, which indeed only becomes a virtue when one is under pressure to desert it. There are, of course, various elements in the present situation, which are confused... The 'protestant' search backwards for 'simplicity' and directness – which, of course, though it contains some good or at least intelligible motives, is mistaken and indeed vain. Because 'primitive Christianity' is now and in spite of all 'research' will ever remain largely unknown; because 'primitiveness' is no guarantee of value, and is and was in great part a reflection of ignorance. Grave abuses were as much an element in Christian 'liturgical' behaviour from the beginning as now. (St Paul's strictures on eucharistic behaviour are sufficient to show this!) Still more because 'my church' was not intended by Our Lord to be static or remain in perpetual childhood; but to be a living organism (likened to a plant), which develops and changes in externals by the interaction of its bequeathed divine life and history – the particular circumstances of the world into which it is set. There is no resemblance between the 'mustard-seed' and the full-grown tree. For those living in the days of its branching growth the Tree is the thing, for the history of a living thing is part of its life, and the history of a divine thing is sacred. The wise may know that it began with a seed, but it is vain to try and dig it up, for it no longer exists, and the virtue and powers that it had now reside in the Tree. Very good: but in husbandry the authorities, the keepers of the Tree, must look after it, according to such wisdom as they possess, prune it, remove cankers, rid it of parasites, and so forth. (With trepidation, knowing how little their knowledge of growth is!) But they will certainly do harm, if they are obsessed with the desire of going back to the seed or even to the first youth of the plant when it was (as they imagine) pretty and unafflicted by evils. The other motive (now so confused with the primitivist one, even in the mind of any one of the reformers): aggiornamento: bringing up to date: that has its own grave dangers, as has been apparent throughout history. With this 'ecumenicalness' has also become confused. 

I find myself in sympathy with those developments that are strictly 'ecumenical', that is concerned with other groups or churches that call themselves (and often truly are) 'Christian'. We have prayed endlessly for Christian re-union, but it is difficult to see, if one reflects, how that could possibly begin to come about except as it has, with all its inevitable minor absurdities. An increase in 'charity' is an enormous gain. As Christians those faithful to the Vicar of Christ must put aside the resentments that as mere humans they feel – e.g. at the 'cockiness' of our new friends (esp. C[hurch] of E[ngland]). One is now often patted on the back, as a representative of a church that has seen the error of its ways, abandoned its arrogance and hauteur, and its separatism; but I have not yet met a 'protestant' who shows or expresses any realization of the reasons in this country for our attitude : ancient or modern : from torture and expropriation down to [anti-Catholic books] and all that. Has it ever been mentioned that R[oman] C[atholic]s still suffer from disabilities not even applicable to Jews? As a man whose childhood was darkened by persecution, I find this hard. But charity must cover a multitude of sins! There are dangers (of course), but a Church militant cannot afford to shut up all its soldiers in a fortress. It had as bad effects on the Maginot Line. 

I owe a great deal (and perhaps even the Church a little) to being treated, surprisingly for the time, in a more rational way. Fr Francis obtained permission for me to retain my scholarship at K[ing] E[dward's] S[chool] and continue there, and so I had the advantage of a (then) first rate school and that of a 'good Catholic home' – 'in excelsis': virtually a junior inmate of the Oratory house, which contained many learned fathers (largely 'converts'). Observance of religion was strict. Hilary [his brother] and I were supposed to, and usually did, serve Mass before getting on our bikes to go to school in New Street. So I grew up in a two-front state, symbolizable by the Oratorian Italian pronunciation of Latin, and the strictly 'philological' pronunciation at that time introduced into our Cambridge dominated school. I was even allowed to attend the Headmaster's classes on the N[ew] T[estament] (in Greek). I certainly took no 'harm', and was better equipped ultimately to make my way in a non-Catholic professional society. I became a close friend of the H[ead] M[aster] and his son, and also made the acquaintance of the Wiseman family through my friendship with Christopher Luke W. (after whom my Christopher is named). His father was one of the most delightful Christian men I have met: the great Frederick Luke W. (whom Fr Francis always referred to as The Pope of Wesley, because he was the President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference). ....

The reference to trees is a very Tolkienesque way of expressing a Newmanesque argument; it’s not surprising that the image of the mustard seed growing into a tree attracted him as a way of understanding the development of the Church. And it is a very powerful image for seeing why the Protestant desire to skip all the intervening centuries of Christian life in order to go back to some sort of primitive pristine Church [one of the goals of sola scriptura] is a false path--it’s not as if the mustard seed is the tree at its best! I like the image of the Church hierarchy as like Ents, those who take care of the tree, when he writes: “the authorities, the keepers of the Tree, must look after it, according to such wisdom as they possess, prune it, remove cankers, rid it of parasites, and so forth. (With trepidation, knowing how little their knowledge of growth is!).” 

There are many things written about Tolkien’s faith, much of it collected here.

[loyolahcmass]

Homily on iphone 8

Here is the preview of Fr. Rossi’s homily on the iphone 8:

 iPhone 8 Homily

                           “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him.”

                                                                                                   Psalm 145

 The Apple iPhone 8 was released this past Friday, September 22.

 It calls itself “a beautiful mind.”

 Scary!!!!!

__________

 iPhone 8 claims to introduce an all‑new glass design. Fine!

 It says that its camera, “the world’s most popular,” is now even better. Terrific!

 It also has “the smartest, most powerful chip ever” in the history of Smartphone Land. Sweet!

 It’s wireless charging is supposed to be “truly effortless.” Fantastic!

 And Apple declares it will provide “augmented reality experiences” never before possible. Wow!

__________

 iPhone 8 is a new generation of iPhone, we are told.

 Generation? If it’s half what it says, it may be a new species.

 We’re lucky this OS, operating system, is claiming only to be a “beautiful mind” and not “a beautiful soul!”

 Blessed, even!

__________

 The rollout of the iPhone 8 somewhat reminds me of the 2013 film “Her.”

 Especially since one of the online testimonials about the new smartphone confesses, “I am in a serious relationship with my iPhone.” 

 Hmmmmmm??????  I seriously question this person’s sanity.

__________

 In “Her,” which takes place in the not-too-distant future, we meet Theodore, a lonely, introverted man in the final stages of his divorce. 

 He is hanging onto his marriage for dear life. 

 Beyond his purely platonic relationship with a longtime friend, the married Amy, Theodore is having problems moving onto other satisfying female relationships.

__________

 When he's not working as a professional letter writer for other people, his down time is spent playing video games and occasionally hanging out with friends. 

 He decides to purchase the new “OS1,” which is advertised as “the world's first artificially intelligent operating system.” 

 "It's not just an operating system,” the ad insists, “it's a consciousness." 

 It promises to give Theodore everything he needs.

__________

 Theodore abruptly finds himself drawn in with “Samantha,” the voice behind his OS1. 

 As they start spending time together they grow closer and closer.

 Eventually, they find themselves in love. 

__________

 Having fallen in love with his OS, Theodore discovers himself dealing with feelings of both great joy and serious doubt. 

 As an OS, Samantha has a formidable intelligence that she uses to help Theodore in ways others hadn't.  

 She even helps him get his book published.

 But, how does she help him deal with his spiritual-psychological conflicts, one of which is being in love with an OS—namely “Her”?

__________

 Talk about an “augmented reality experience.”

 The OS1 in the film “Her,” and the iPhone 8 for that matter, both claim to enhance, expand, and even improve our reality.

 What are the odds of a successful relationship with either of these OSs, the Hollywood or the Silicon Valley version?

__________

 I won’t give away the ending of the film, but I’m guessing you may already be doubtful.

 At least, I hope so.

__________

 Back to reality!

 The biblical readings today talk about real human beings—us—having a real life-fulfilling relationship with a real loving God.

 That takes communicating on a regular basis with God through prayer, reflection, and having good, loving, compassionate relationships with other people.

 That entails doing something radical occasionally.

 Like putting down the cell phone, looking other people in the eye, and actually caring about what makes them tick.

__________

 Earth to Apple!!!!!!

[maxmollon]

(via Who the Fuck is Jacques Ranciere? | Critical-Theory.com)

WHO THE FUCK IS JACQUES RANCIERE?

A French critical theorist and philosophical troll in a world of ivory tower intellectualism, bourgeois academics, and Jean Baudrillard, Ranciere stands out as a kind of anti-philosopher. A University of Paris professor and former student of Louis Althusser, Ranciere has committed his intellectual project to destroying its foundations.

While that may sound a lot like Baudrillard, who wants to remind everyone that everything is simulation and nothing matters, or Nietzsche who attacks the foundations of Western metaphysics, Ranciere takes a different approach. Namely, by accusing every other philosopher of being a shitty Platonist and hating democracy.

While other philosophers deconstruct the metaphysical tradition and replace it with their own project, Ranciere’s philosophy can be summed up by “meh, people will figure it out.” And thus we present: the thought of Jacques Ranciere.

#1 “Fuck the Police” is Pretty Much his Definition of Politics

This counts.

In his “Ten Theses on Politics”, Ranciere makes a simple claim. There are two kinds of politics in the status quo, fake poser bullshit masquerading as politics and the real thing. Ranciere calls the poser politics the “politics of the police”. Ranciere calls “real” politics “dissensus.”

What the Fuck is Dissensus?

Dissensus is the process by which actors disrupt the politics of the police.

You see, the police are all about telling you what to do and where to do it. Remember that time that cop got all up in your grill for skateboarding in front of 7-11? Or, if you’re a person of color, remember that time a cop arrested you and planted drugs on you for skateboarding in front of 7-11? That’s the police order; the partitions that the police put in place for what can be seen, said and done, and where they can be done. When that cop drove away and you kept skateboarding, you totally disrupted the police partitioning of  that space (sort of).

The police says that there is nothing to see on a road, that there is nothing to do but move along. It asserts that the space of circulating is nothing other than the space of circulation. Politics, in contrast, consists in transforming this space of ‘moving-along’ into a space for the appearance of a subject: i.e., the people, the workers, the citizens: It consists in refiguring the space, of what there is to do there, what is to be seen or named therein. It is the established litigation of the perceptible. – Ten Theses on Politics

We can see how these police partitions work in the events of Occupy Wall Street.

You see, some bankers made this park on stolen native land for them to eat lunch in while they rested from robbing the world of millions of dollars with complicated derivatives and other bullshit nobody understands. When some hipsters decided they wanted to camp out on Wall Street, the police were like “GTFO bro”. And when those hipsters started camping out in Zuccoti Park and ruining those bankers lunches, the police calmly reminded the protesters that the park belonged to white people in suits.  The police reminded the protesters that if they want to take part in this “politics” business they need to vote like everyone else, or at least have some sort of “concrete demands”.  But they didn’t, so then they started pepper spraying kids.

That’s what the police order does, it tells you to take part in the fake politics – casting a ballot, going to a town hall – and tries to divest energy from what Ranciere calls real politics. After all, the Egyptian revolution didn’t start because people started sending nicely worded petitions to the government. It started when people manifested themselves in the public spaces that were once apolitical.

#2 He Doesn’t Get Along with his Colleagues

Ranciere got his first exposure by contributing to Reading Capital with his teacher Louis Althusser.

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https://www.wikiwand.com/fr/Lire_le_Capital Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In contrast to the Hegelian dialectic, which emphasized the idealist observation that human experience is dependent on the mind's perceptions, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real world conditions, in terms of class, labor, and socioeconomic interactions. - Historical materialism, also known as the materialist conception of history, is a methodology used by some communist and Marxist historiographers that focuses on human societies and their development through history, arguing that history is the result of material conditions rather than ideas. This was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the "materialist conception of history." I

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It may be surprising that a few years later Ranciere put out Althusser’s Lesson which might have well been a raging “fuck off” to his teacher and mentor. The quarrel started over the events of May ’68. While Althusser and other Marxists were asserting the importance of Marxist academia in the French student revolts, Ranciere began to break away from this traditional mode of thought. Marxist intellectuals accused the revolts of being bourgeois and undisciplined. To which Ranciere accused Marxists of being a bunch of little shits:

The underlying idea, to focus solely on the theoretical level, is not only that Marxism is learned exclusively through books, but also that it is learned only from the classics. It is that every development is a betrayal, that every application of Marxism is a deviation into pragmatism, ideology, and political manipulation. We can see quite clearly from the phrase, ‘to focus solely on the theoretical level’, that what was at stake on the practical level was the rejection of the ‘developments’ that Khrushchev, with his successors and emulators, had introduced to ‘classical’ Marxism. This was the time, for example, when it was common to teach that peaceful coexistence was the supreme form of class struggle . . . The purism of theory could not but have political effects. And that was really all that mattered: we could say everything, provided nothing that we said had practical effects. – Althusser’s Lesson

But that was just the start. Ranciere’s project became more and more defined as time went on. From a criticism of Althusser and orthodox Marxism, Ranciere’s message soon became “Philosophy – it’s a big bag of dicks.” Writing Hatred of Democracy, Ranciere attacks the Platonic tradition and ties it to practically every Marxist philosopher. He argues that everyone in the Western tradition, from Plato to Marx, wants to become a philosopher king to shovel Truth into the mouths of the blind ignorant masses. Ranciere carries this line of thought to his other books such as “Disagreement” where  he accuses every theorists of democracy of being a Platonic saboteur.

One of his most famous feuds is with fellow Althusser alumn Alain Badiou for his self-professed Platonism.

Badiou, whose goal is to revive an “egalitarian Platonism,” penned an essay about Ranciere titled “The Lessons of Jacques Ranciere: Knowledge and Power After the Storm,” whereby Badiou acknowledges that the shittiest thing he could ever to do Ranciere is agree with him:

“To speak only well of Jacques Ranciere is not an easy task, given the positions that the two of us occupy. Perhaps my constant praise might, in fact, be the worst fate that I could have in store for him. Would doing so be precisely the most underhanded way to attack him? If, for example, I were to announce that we are in agreement on a number of important points, how would he take that? Would he rather just as soon change his mind on all those points and leave me behind?” – Jacques Ranciere: History, Politics, Aesthetics

And then there’s Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard, who started his career by telling everybody to “Forget Foucault” is an academic troll par excellence. The theorists of simulation has taken Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and turned it into a nihilistic portrait of doom and despair. But Ranciere ain’t got time for that. Writing in “The Misadventures of Critical Thought” he says “theorists of simulation” (a not-so-subtle reference to Baudrillard)  are at the heart of simulation itself.

The Marxism of the denunciation of the mythologies of the commodity, the fallacies of consumer’s society and the empire of the spectacle. Forty years ago, it was supposed to unmask the machineries of domination, in order to provide the anti-capitalist fighters with new weapons. It has turned to exactly the contrary: a form of nihilist knowledge of the reign of the commodity and the spectacle, of the equivalence of anything with anything and of anything with its image

…The current disconnection between the critical procedures and any perspective of emancipation only reveals the disjunction at the heart of the critical paradigm. It may make fun of its illusions but it remains enclosed in its logic. This is why I think it is necessary to re-examine the genealogy of the concepts and procedures of that logic and the way in which it got intertwined with the logic of social emancipation.

– The Misadventures of Critical Thought

#3 He Thinks Your Professor is Worthless

It might seem ironic for a teacher to conclude “fuck smart people.” But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere makes that very claim. You see, Ranciere has been hating on philosophers from the very beginning. From his very start in Althusser’s Lesson, to Hatred of Democracy, to The Philosopher and his Poor, Ranciere is constantly accusing philosophers of proposing a capital T truth to reign down in a golden shower of truth onto ignorant masses. That makes a really compelling case for why I shouldn’t be reading Ranciere at all, and maybe just fucking up the police on my own terms.

But in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Ranciere takes teachers to task. You see, teachers are trying to make you stupid. Really stupid. Like you would be better off thinking about shit really hard instead of taking a class on something. Why does he say that?

There was this dude named Jacotot, and he was awesome. He was a French guy who went to teach in Belgium after the French Revolution. He was teaching French, but his students only spoke Flemish. He, by the way, did not speak Flemish. So doing what any responsible teacher would do, Jacotot gave them a recent version of this book Telamaque that had the French on one side of the page and the Flemish on the other side and said “figure it out.”

And they did.

Ranciere advocates this form of  “universal education” and says the traditional teacher/student model is only meant to perpetuate societal inequality and keep students in a state of stultification. Stultification – that’s a fancy word for stupid. The implications of this philosophy are A) You don’t need a teacher like Ranciere to teach you anything and B) An illiterate parent could teach their children to read by plopping a book down and saying “figure it out.”

The crazy part? This shit works, and not just around random corners of Europe where the tradition was born.

You know how your dumb ass can barely figure out how to change the settings on your Kindle? Remember that fancy college degree you spent more than $100k on? Well fuck you, because kids in Ethiopa who don’t even know what a tablet is can not only fix your settings but remove any pesky security measures while they’re at it.

You see, someone at One Laptop Per Child had the bright idea of just dumping a bunch of Motorola Zoom tablets in an Ethiopan village full of kids. The children did not speak English, which was the language loaded on the tablet, and they had never seen a computer before. Within weeks these kids were fucking wizards with the things so much so that they actually figured out how to jailbreak them.

“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.”

There’s more. These other researchers decided to give this whole universal education thing a shot and gave a bunch of molecular biology textbooks to a bunch of Tamil-speaking kids in South India. The text books were in English.

Left on their own for two months, without external help or instruction, the researchers felt that surely this task would demonstrate that ‘yes, we need teachers for certain things’ (Mitra 2010). Indeed, after two months, when Mitra asked them what they understood of molecular biology, the children confirmed that they understood nothing. What gets the biggest laugh at Mitra’s numerous talks, however, is the response of one girl from the group, who explained: ‘Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we understood nothing else.’ – Of Slumdogs and Schoolmasters – Jacotot, Ranciere and Mitra on Self-Organized Learning

When given an exam on the material, however, the kids all failed. And by failed, they averaged 30%, which is exactly 4 points lower than I scored on my high school physics final that was administered in a language I speak.

Want to Learn More About Ranciere?

If you’d like to explore the thought of Jacques Ranciere, you can read his Ten Theses on Politics for free on Scribd. You should also check out this Ranciere blog, run by Paul Bowman and Michael O’Rourke.Paul Bowman, by the way, is really into writing about the intersections of Bruce Lee and Ranciere.

[knightofbalance-13]

Weird RWBY Dialogue Episode 5+6: Rebuttle

https://rerwby.tumblr.com/post/158512834175/weird-rwby-dialogue-episode-5

I swear to god if anyone s reading this without taking a loo at the link, I will punch you in the nads!

An ad-libbed line and it’s really fucking golden

Normally I wouldn’t complain about praise but this person will go into depth why something doesn’t work and yet won’t of the same if something does, which to me shows laziness in critique so let me explain why this works: We watch for a few moments as this bird flies through the skys without music or context, on edge to see what will happen. Then BAM! Ruby rockets through it s the bird cries and Ruby calls out the line. It’s quick, unexpected and catches the viewer off guard: not a hard joke to dissect.

I wanted to complain about this, but it’s a fair setup to what Pyrrha’s powers are AND it calls back to the spear Jaune took before, so he would recognize it now. I’d even tolerate his “thank you” then, just taking issue with how it’s heard.

Why? What is there to complain about? It was a cute exchange with a bit of character in it. Plus, we’re talking about a world that defies so much logic hearing a far off “thank you” is like complaining about a mecha in Gurren Lagann for staying in the hair a second too long.

I can see Ruby putting things aside and going with the teammate thing, but she does so surprisingly quickly.

Maybe because she’s an innocent child-like teenager who doesn’t now why Weiss is defying the rules.

Feels like a half-assed way to formally show that Ruby has a Semblance.

Yes because it’s not like there wasn’t a trailer that formally showed Ruby having a Semblence or that this was obviously structured as a humorous moment.

https://rerwby.tumblr.com/post/158549430501/weird-rwby-dialogue-episode-6

I know she maybe just thinks it’s Ruby, and for good reason since Ruby would be looking for Yang first, but if that wasn’t the intention, it’s weird that she would go to Ruby’s name first.

Maybe it’s because Yang is her big sister, the place is full of Grimm, Ruby’s super nervous so she’ll attract Grimm and they lost their mother this way.

See, when I see Ruby, I don’t think red “hood.” I think red “big fucking cape” because who wears a cape even? Like even Jaune wears a hoodie, but capes are a bit rarer. Plus Ruby barely wears her hood up. This is all very ironic considering the iconic character on which she is based.

This is just rambling, a hoodie is different than a hood earnd every depiction of Red Riding Hood is depicted the same way Ruby is. This is called being selectively ignorant.

The performance of this line is cringey and so is its general existence.

Glass houses Miss “Screws up the ‘it’s a gun’ line”. Also, I found it perfectly belvable and you don’t know cringe if this is your definition of cringe. I’m versed in old anime dubs so I know cringe.

Now this is person, but I think it’s weird that Ruby said that particular thing. Why not “I wish” or something? Like I said this is just me.

This is all personal, not just this one line.

Anyway, It shows Ruby is getting fed up with Weiss by showing a more snarky side. Considering she’s descended from this world’s version of Lenoard Church, I  am not surprised.

Weiss’s response appears to come out of nowhere to me. Nothing in Ruby’s statement has to do with her being a child or strong, and the “sneak” thing might just be Weiss being a jerk, but it’s unprovoked. It’s actually a little narratively confusing since we learn another character is who actually sneaked into Beacon. Maybe that was an attempt at a red herring.

... You’re an idiot.

Weiss has been constantly referring to Ruby and treating her like a child up to this point; it is a continuation of Weiss’ insult to Ruby she is a child thus making her seem high and mighty as well as reinforcing Ruby’s pure and naïve character. The sneak thing is an extension of the insult of being called a child in which she is implying Ruby doesn’t belong at Beacon! The sneak thing is not an allusion to Jaune as the audience KNOWS Ruby got legitimately!

This is basic writing or characters and the author doesn’t get it! And they still claim to be better than the writing staff!

The delivery on Pyrrha’s line here is so awful. Like it’s the worst line read in the history of the show, I swear. This is really super unfortunate because I really liked Pyrrah’s lines in episode 4.

Yet another problem re is that WE CANNOT HEAR THE LINE! We don’t kow if it is awful and considering your hate boner for the writing staff, I’m going to assume this is just more bitching to bitch!

Implications of real-world culture blah blah blah

And that one word is a problem how? And they share a word is a problem how? And having a common pharse for misunderstanding is bad how? Not going to say? Then you’re lazy and will be treated as such.

I mean, everything here is gonna never be referenced again, but Aura being the manifestation of the soul is actually something that sticks. Is she, however, implying their souls watch out for them, or that the soul gives them a spider-sense? The scene of Ren in the forest makes this unclear.

Yeah, never referenced again..outside of the maidens...and Ozpin...and Semblances...and a god damn WoR episode DEDICTED TO THIS!

Yeah not in RWBY it doesn’t. Dark and light are never mentioned again to my knowledge, and if they were it’s been too long since they were introduced lol. Yeah there’s kind of some stuff with the Brothers Grimm Gods but the Grimm themselves have always just seemed like some chaotic force separate from good and evil.

Yeah because things thought to not to be important or essential end up being so is totally not a trope in fiction. Definitely not called “Chevok’s Gun”

Also, notice how the write says it hasn’t happened to their knowledge and immediately retcons it? Well, at least Miles stood by his work for longer than two seconds.

And again, Grimm are made by the Brother of Darkness so your point is not only invalid but shows you’re not willing to pay attention to anything you can’t bitch about.

This is just so incredibly stupid and pointless and never ever ever referenced again as a thing that even behinds to be a thing….I have no more words. Watch this scene if you don’t remember it fully. I mean it. There’s a reason you don’t. It is single-handedly the least useful scene in the show.

...

*Cracks neck and knuckles*  Let’s go:

A. This is foreshadowing for Pyrrha’s demise and her continued influence. By dying and unlocking Ruby’s power, fending off Cinder so people can survive and motivating Jaune and Ruby to evolve, Pyrrha is immortally present throughout the story. Not mater what happens, Pyrrha will always there even as everyone else dies because ehe fr influence in her passing is infinite and her ability to help others is unbound in death. This is the heart and soul of her predeseccor Kamina’s ability (Yes, THE Kamina.) In life, Kamina could help and inspire others but he was only a man and was limited. But upon dying, he became a paragon in which everyone strived towards, forever improving themselves in his name. Just like Pyrrha now.

B. Gee, talking about the human spirit is unbound and in that there  no futility even in death, I wonder who use to say that? Oh wait, I know: Monty Motherfucking OUM. This was practically his Modis Operandi, his philosophy, his motive for making RWBY in 6t6he first place. And you call his words stupid and pointless? FUCK YOU.

Jfc is this the part where Pyrrha gets super hot for Jaune? Like listen to how she says “You have a lot of it” like it makes me super uncomfortable. “Jaune your AURA is SO BIG.”

 Wow, no wonder you’re writing sucks so much, you don’t understand characters even as they are explained to you. Pyrrha outright says WHY she loves Jaune in Volume 2, Episode 7 (https://youtu.be/0-f-mGvOba8?t=3m15s)

Pyrrha: “I’ve been...blessed! By incredible talent and opportunities! I’m constantly surrounded by love and praise...But when you’re placed on a pedestal for so long, you become separated by the peple who put you up there in the first place. Everyone assumes I’m too good for them I’m on a level they can’t attain. It’s become impossible to form any kind of meaningful relationship with anybody!

That’s what I like about you (Jaune.). When I first met you, you didn’t even know my name. You treated me as anyone else. And tnaks to you, I have made friendships that will last me a lifetime. I guess...you’re te kind of guy I wish I was here with.”

The character was explained right in front of you and you couldn’t even see it. That or you’re an obnoxious prick who’ll bitch about anything related to a male character.

I take back everything, episode redeemed

Fuck you, it isn’t here.

[romancatholicreflections]

23rd February >> Father Cantalamessa’s First Lent Homily of 2018 ‘Do not be conformed to this world’ (Photo ~ Raniero Cantalamessa in the predication of the Day to pray for the care of creation CTV - OSSERVATORE ROMANO) Here is the first Lenten homily given this year by the preacher of the Pontifical Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa. * * * Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap. First Lent Sermon 2018 “DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD” (Rom 12:2) “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). In a society in which everyone feels called to transform the world or the Church, this word of God breaks in inviting people to transform themselves: “Do not be conformed to this world.” After these words we would expect to hear, “but transform it!” Instead it tells us, “Transform yourselves!” Transform the world, yes, but the world that is within you before thinking you can transform the world outside of you. This word of God, taken from the Letter to the Romans, introduces us to the spirit of Lent this year. As has been the case for some years now, we will dedicate this first meditation to a general introduction to Lent without entering into the special theme of this year, because of the absence of part of the habitual audience who are committed elsewhere for the Spiritual Exercises. Christians and the World Let us first take a look at how the ideal of detachment from the world was understood and lived out from the beginning till our day. It is always useful to take into account the experiences of the past if we want to understand the requirements for the present. In the Synoptic Gospels the word “world” (kosmos) is almost always understood in a morally neutral sense. In its spatial meaning, “world” indicates the earth and the universe (“Go into all the world”). In its temporal meaning, it indicates the present time or “age” (aion). It is with Paul, and even more with John, that the word “world” takes on a moral dimension and most often signifies the world as it became after sin and fell under the dominion of Satan, “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4). This is the meaning of “world” in Paul’s exhortation that we began with and in the almost identical exhortation of John in his First Letter: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. (1 Jn 2:15-16) Christians never lost sight of the fact that the world in itself, despite everything, is and remains God’s good creation, a creation that he loves and came to save, not to judge: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). The attitude toward the world that Jesus proposes to his disciples is contained in two prepositions: to be in the world but not of the world. “Now I am no more in the world,” he says, addressing the Father, “but they are in the world. . . . They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (Jn 17:11, 16). In the first three centuries, the disciples were quite conscious of their unique position. The “Epistle to Diognetus,” an anonymous writing at the end of the second century, describes the perception that Christians had of themselves in the world: Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. . . . They follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them [to die]. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh.[1] Let us very briefly summarize what followed. When Christianity became a religion that was tolerated and soon after even protected and favored, the tension between Christianity and the world tended inevitably to subside since the world had become—or at least was considered to be—a “Christian world.” Then we witness a double phenomenon. On the one hand, groups of people, desiring to remain the salt of the earth that did not lose its savor, fled from the world, even physically, and withdrew to the desert. Monasticism was born under the banner of a motto that goes back to the monk Arsenius: “Fuge, tace, quiesce,” “Flee, be silent, be still.”[2] At the same time, the pastors of the Church and some of the more enlightened people sought to adapt the ideal of detachment from the world for all believers, proposing not a physical but a spiritual flight from the world. St. Basil in the East and St Augustine in the West were familiar with Plato’s thinking, especially in the ascetic form it had taken with his disciple Plotinus. In this cultural atmosphere, the ideal of flight from the world was alive. It was related, however, to a flight that was vertical rather than horizontal, so to speak, a flight upward and not toward the desert. It consisted in raising oneself above the multiplicity of material things and human passions to unite oneself with what is divine, incorruptible, and eternal. The Fathers of the Church, with the Cappadocians in the lead, proposed a Christian asceticism that responded to this religious need and adopted its language without, however, ever sacrificing the values of the gospel. To start with, the flight from the world that they recommended is a work of grace more than it is human effort. The fundamental step is not at the end of the road but at its beginning, in baptism. It is therefore not reserved to a few educated people but is open to all. St. Ambrose wrote a short treatise called “Flight from the World,” addressed to all the neophytes.[3] The separation from the world that he proposes is above all affective: “Flight,” he says, “is not to depart from the earth but to remain on earth, to hold to justice and temperance, to renounce the vices in material goods, not their use.”[4] This ideal of detachment and flight from the world will, in diverse forms, accompany the whole history of Christian spirituality. A prayer in the liturgy summarizes this in the saying, “terrena despicere et amare caelestia”:“to despise earthly things and to love heavenly things.” (The same prayer in modern liturgy says: “to use with wisdom earthly things, always oriented to the heavenly goods”) The Crisis of the Ideal of “fuga mundi” Things changed in the period prior to ours. With regard to the ideal of the separation from the world, we went through, a period in which that ideal was “criticized” and looked at with suspicion. This crisis has distant roots. It begins—at least on the theoretical level—with Renaissance humanism that revived interest and enthusiasm for worldly values, at times with a pagan cast. But the decisive factor of the crisis is seen in the phenomenon of the so-called “secularization” that began in the Enlightenment and reached its peak in the twentieth century. The most evident change concerns precisely the concepts of “world” and “age.” In all of the history of Christian spirituality, the word “saeculum” has had a connotation that tended to be negative, or at least ambiguous. It meant the present age that is subject to sin, as opposed to the future age or eternity. Within a few decades, its meaning underwent a transformation until it took on a decidedly positive significance in the 1960s and 1970s. Some titles themselves of the books that emerged during those years, like The Secular Meaning of the Gospel by Paul van Buren and The Secular City by Harvey Cox, highlighted this new optimistic meaning of “saeculum” and “secular.” A “theology of secularization” was born. All of this contributed, however, to fuel an exaggerated optimism about the world for some people that does sufficiently not take into account its other face—the one which is “under the evil one” and is opposed to the spirit of Christ (see Jn 14:17). At a certain moment the traditional idea of flight “from” the world was substituted in the minds of many (including clergy and religious) with the ideal of a flight “toward” the world, that is, worldliness. In this context some of the most absurd and delusional things that have ever come under the name of “theology” have been written. The first is the idea that God himself becomes secular and worldly when he lays aside his Godhead to become man. This is the so-called “Theology of the Death of God.” There also still exists a balanced theology of secularization in which secularization is not seen as something opposed to the gospel but rather as its product. However, that is not the theology we are talking about. Someone has commented that the “theologies of secularization” referred to above were nothing but apologetic attempts meant “to furnish an ideological justification for the religious indifference in modern man”; they also fit with “the ideology that the Churches needed to justify their growing marginalization.”[5] It soon became clear that this was a blind alley. In a few years almost no one was talking about the theology of secularization, and some of its very promotors distanced themselves from it. As always, to reach the bottom of a crisis becomes an occasion for going back to the “living and eternal” word of God. Let us listen to Paul’s exhortation again: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We already know from the New Testament which world not to be conformed to: it is not the world created and loved by God and not the people in the world whom we must always go out to meet, especially the poor, the downtrodden, and the suffering. “Blending in” with this suffering and marginalized world is, paradoxically, the best way of “separating” ourselves from the world because it means going in the direction from which the world flees as much as possible. It means separating ourselves from the very principle that rules the world, self-centeredness. Let us focus for a bit on the significance of what follows: being transformed in the deep recesses of our minds. Everything in us begins in the mind, with thoughts. There is a wise maxim that says, Watch over your thoughts because they become words. Watch over your words because they become actions. Watch over your actions because they become habits. Watch over your habits because they become your character. Watch over your character because it becomes your destiny. Prior to our works, change must come, then, in our way of thinking, that is, in our faith. There are many causes at the origin of worldliness, but the principle one is the crisis of faith. In this sense the apostle’s exhortation is only repeating Christ’s exhortation at the beginning of his preaching: “Repent and believe”; repent, that is, believe! Change your way of thinking; stop thinking according to the “human way of thinking,” and start thinking according to “God’s way of thinking” (see Mt 16:23). St. Thomas Aquinas was right to say, “The first conversion consists in believing (prima conversio fit per fidem).”[6] Faith is the primary battleground between the Christian and the world. It is through faith that the Christian is no longer “of” the world. When I read the conclusions that unbelieving scientists draw from their observations of the universe and I see the vision of the world that writers and filmmakers offer us—in which God is at best reduced to a vague and subjective sense of mystery and Jesus Christ is not even taken into consideration—I feel, thanks to faith, that I belong to another world. I experience the truth of these words from Jesus: “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see!” And I remain amazed in observing how Jesus foresaw this situation and gave us the explanation ahead of time: “You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Lk 10:23, 21). The “world,” understood in its moral sense, are by definition those who refuse to believe. The sin that Jesus says the Paraclete will “convince the world” of is the sin of not having believed in him (see Jn 16:8-9). John writes, “This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith” (1 Jn 5:4). In the Letter to the Ephesians we read, You he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:1-2). The exegete Heinrich Schlier has done a penetrating analysis of this “spirit of the world” whom Paul considers the direct antagonist to the “Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:12). It plays a decisive role in public opinion…, and today it is literally the spirit “of the air” because it spreads itself electronically through the air. Schlier defines “the general spirit of the world” as the spirit of a particular period, attitude, nation or locality. . . . Indeed, it is so intense and powerful that no individual can escape it. It serves as a norm and is taken for granted. To act, think or speak against this spirit is regarded as non-sensical or even as wrong and criminal. It is “in” this spirit that men encounter the world and affairs, which means they accept the world as this spirit presents it to them . . . . It is their [spirits’] nature to interpret the universe and human existence in their own way.[7] This describes what we call an “accommodation to the spirit of the age.” That spirit operates like the legendary vampire. The vampire attacks people who are sleeping, and while he is sucking out their blood he simultaneously injects a sleep-inducing liquid into them that makes their sleep sweeter, so that they always sink into deeper sleep and he can suck out all the blood he wants. The world, however, is worse than the vampire because the vampire cannot make his prey fall asleep and can only approach those who are already asleep. The world, on the other hand, first puts people to sleep and then sucks out all their spiritual energy, injecting them with a kind of sleep-inducing liquid that makes them find sleep even sweeter. The remedy for this situation is for someone to shout in the sleeper’s ear, “Wake up!” That is what the word of God does on so many occasions and what the liturgy of the Church makes us hear again precisely at the beginning of Lent: “Awake, O sleeper” (Eph 5:14); “it is full time now for you to wake from sleep” (Rom 13:11). The Form of This World Is Passing Away But let us ask ourselves the reason that a Christian should not be conformed to the world. The reason is not ontological but eschatological. We do not need to distance ourselves from the world because matter is intrinsically evil and is an enemy of the spirit, as the Platonists and some Christians writers influenced by them thought. The reason is that, as Scripture says, “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31); “the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever” (1 Jn 2:17). All we need to do is stop for a minute and look around to be aware of the truth of these words. Life is similar to what happens on the tv screen: programs, the so-called viewing lineup, follow each other rapidly, and each one cancels out the previous one. The screen remains the same, but the programs and the images change. It is the same with us: the world remains, but we leave one after the other. Of all the names, faces, and the news that fill newspapers and news broadcasts today, what will remain of them—of all of us—in a few years or decades? Nothing at all. Let us think about what is left of the legends from 40 years ago and what will remain in 40 years from now of today’s legends and celebrities. We read in Isaiah that it will be “As when a hungry man dreams he is eating and awakes with his hunger not satisfied, or as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched” (Is 29:8). What are riches, tributes, and glory if not a dream that vanishes at daybreak? St. Augustine describes a beggar who had a very lovely dream one night. He dreamed that a substantial inheritance fell into his lap. In the dream he is clothed in beautiful robes; he is surrounded by gold and silver and is the owner of fields and vineyards. In his pride he scorns his own father and pretends not to know him. . . . But he wakes up in the morning and finds that he had been asleep.[8] Job says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return” (Job 1:21). The same thing will happen to today’s multimillionaires with their money and to the powerful who make the world tremble at their power. A human being, outside of the context of faith, is nothing but a shape created by a wave on the shore of the sea that the next wave will cancel. Today there is a new arena in which it is especially necessary not to conform ourselves to this world: images. The ancients coined this motto: “Fast from the world (nesteuein tou kosmou).”[9] We could apply that today as fasting from the images of the world. At one time fasting from food and drink was considered the most effective and required fast. That is no longer the case. Today people do such fasts for many other motives, especially to maintain a good figure. Scripture says no food is in itself unclean (cf. Mk 7:19), but many images are. They have become one of the favorite vehicles through which the world spread its anti-gospel. A hymn for Lent exhorts us, Utamur ergo parcius Let us use sparingly Verbis, cibis et potibus words, food and drink, Somno, iocis et arctius sleep and amusements. Perstemus in custodia. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.[10] To this list of things that we should use sparingly—words, food, drink, and sleep—we need to add images. Among the things that come from the world and not from the Father, St. John significantly adds, along with the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, “the lust of the eyes” (1 Jn 2:16). Let us recall how King David fell . . . . What happened to him as he looked down on the terrace of the house next door often happens today in opening up certain sites on the Internet. If sometimes we are feeling troubled by impure images, either because of our own imprudence or because of the intrusiveness of the world that forcefully thrusts its images before our eyes, let us imitate what the Israelites did in the desert when they were bitten by snakes. Instead of wasting time on fruitless regrets or trying to find excuses in our loneliness and the incomprehension of others, let us look at a crucifix and go before the Holy One. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3: 14-15). May the remedy enter where the poison entered, that is, our eyes. With these proposals suggested by Paul’s word to the Romans, and above all with the grace of God, let us begin, Venerable Fathers, brothers, and sisters, our preparation for Holy Easter. To celebrate Easter, St. Augustine said, means “to pass from this world to the Father” (Jn 13:1), that is, passing over to what does not pass away! It is necessary to pass out of the world so as not to pass away with the world. Have a Happy and Holy Lent! English Translation by Marsha Daigle Williamson [1] “From a Letter to Diognetus: The Christian in the World,” Vatican website. [2] See Selections from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Benedicta Ward (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1975), p. 14. [3] See St. Ambrose, “Flight from the World” [“De fuga saeculi”], 1, in Seven Exegetical Works, trans. Michael P. McHugh, vol. 65, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1972), 279-288; see also CSEL, 32, 2, p. 251. [4] St. Ambrose, “Isaac, or the Soul,” 3, 6, Seven Exegetical Works, p. 14. See also Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 9, 36. [5] See Claude Geffré, “Sécularisation,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 15, 1989, pp. 502ff. [6] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-IIae, q. 113, a. 4. [7] Heinrich Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961), pp. 31-32. [8] See St. Augustine, “Sermon 39,” 5, Sermons on the Old Testament 20-50, vol. 2 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1990); PL 38, 242. [9] The saying goes back to a non-canonical saying attributed to Jesus himself: “If you do not fast from the world, you will never discover the kingdom of God,” Gospel of Thomas, saying #27. See Clement of Alexandria, Stromati 111, 15 (GCS, 52, p. 242, 2); Alfred Resch, Agrapha, 48, TU, 30 (1906), p. 68. [10] Translation from the Vatican website, “Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2009.”