ninme, knowing that I left twitter months ago, sent me news of the final twitter indignity. Barbarians are seizing "potpourri of popery" as if I hadn't put the lock on that phrase with ten years of updates. Fie!
Epiphany, 2021
Happily, this was also the logic of our Christian pioneers. Whatsoever was good, true, beautiful, could be Christianized with ease, and by the convert instinct, nothing would be lost. We are, or at least we were, not an iconoclastic cult, not “puritans.” Our religion was not announced by a “cancel culture.”
I’d like to dwell on this a moment because I think that it is very, very important. The Catholic impulse is not censorious. It is to assimilate and to save. When things are purified, they are not erased. Rather they are transformed into the best of themselves.
Nor do we fear contact with uncomfortable facts. (Biological death might be an example, or grievous illness, or debilitating pain.) This is part of life, and thus of immortal life, in the Christian conception of reality, and Salvation.
Some things in this world are inarguably unpleasant; I have actually participated in a few. It is our “human condition” for the duration of our stay on earth, if not longer. The Catholic cognizance of Purgatory is – to my mind, as ever – a guarantee of our commitment to the highest realism.
Merry Christmas, Day 12!
Merry Christmas, Day 9
Books Read, 2020
Gaudete et exsultate
Professional & Devotional
Chrysostom's Homilies on Acts of the Apostles
Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer
Shakespeare
Merry Wives of Windsor
Happy New Year! ~ Merry Christmas, Day 8
To read: A piece on acedia, to help with New Year's resolutions.
Part 1 of Msgr. Pope's assessment of last year's lessons.
St. Augustine suggests if you want to heal corrupt times, you might try concentrating a bit more locally:
Bad times! Troublesome times! This men are saying. Let our lives be good; and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.