Witness To Hope - A Young Catholic's Thoughts

The End

2008-07-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

As you can tell, I don't post much on here anymore. And so, I have decided to end my blog. I will keep it up, but this will be the last post. I would like to thank everyone for reading.

But don't worry! I am still blogging! I am working with some friends on beginning a new institute, though it will be low key at first. The name is still up in the air, so the URL may eventually change, but at the moment, it is the Fides Institute for Faith and Freedom. There is a good chance this will change.

Anyways, the site is still being worked on. I am working on getting some friends to be contributors to this as well from Tertio Millennio especially. We hope that this will be a serious and reasonable contribution to public discussion. Please do check it out regularly and tell your friends.

The website is www.fidesinstitute.com

If you have any comments on the site, I would be happy to take them in.

So goodbye, God bless, and I hope to see you at my new home :).

-Harrison

Intellectual Freedom and Evolution

2008-07-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw "Expelled", a sort-of documentary put out by Ben Stein.

I will first note that many people on my facebook friends list may not like what I have to say, but I ask, if a discussion follows from this, that it be charitable, orderly, and polite.

I found the movie to be quite remarkable. I don't take everything at face value in such films because they have a point to prove and so can, even unintentionally, be very one sided. I don't think this was the case. But I don't think this movie is, per se, out to prove a point, but, I think, to hopefully open up discussion.

The issue is the notion of intelligent design and evolution. But the meta-issue, if you will, is actually intellectual freedom. If America (this is where the movie is based obviously) is a place that promotes freedom, then ought not theories have the ability and freedom to be proposed?

I think that is a fair question to ask, and I think the movie is good in showing that there isn't a discussion happening. Instead, there is power tactics being used by the prevailing view to supress the other view.

I talked with a friend of mine after the movie and I told him "you know, in the past, if an idea has lost weight, it simply falls into the dust of the history pages. No opinion is ever forced out by sheer will power, I cannot think of one example in history". I know people will throw out Galileo almost immediately. But it wasn't for his scientific views that he was repressed, though I would prefer to save this for another article.

Let us, however, take the view of heliocentrism. Once it became a proven scientific fact, the geocentric cosmology slowly whisked its way into the dust of the history books, never to be thought of as a possibility again.

This is where we get to with evolution and intelligent design. If people who hold an evolutionary view of the world are so convinced of their position, then let them have it stand the test against ID. If they are so confident in the conclusions it holds up, then they ought not to fear contrary opinions in the matter. If they are right, ID will fall into the dust of the history books with geocentrism and other such theories.

But there is a deeper issue that lies here. One of the more chilling parts of the movie is the interview with Richard Dawkins, self-appointed apologist for the evolutionary view of the world. Constantly he says he is being more frank then usual in the interview. He later says he was tricked into the interview because it was a different title at the time. Well, first, titles change ALL the time in post-production in Hollywood, that's a pretty weak claim. And besides, they are his views regardless of the movie title. But he says that ultimately, evolution has philosophical implications.

And he is right, it certainly does. This is really the issue with evolution, and with science in general. As time goes on, science is going to eventually have to deal with the fact that philosophy has a role to play to ensure that it is air-tight in its method and intelligible in its implications.

The problem that many evolutionists hold is that science ought to inform your world view, that, in a certain sense, one can say they would even say that it informs your philosophy. But this is a backwards view of science. Science is only science because of philosophy. There are certain philosophical assumptions one needs to make before entering into the scientific realm. Science assumes many things that cannot be observed by the scientific method. One of the core ones is cause and effect. An hypothesis essentially states that a certain effect is going to come about by a certain interaction of objects that is its cause. But one cannot exactly prove the nature of cause and effect. It is not measurable. So how is it that science can take the position as the formater of world views? It needs philosophy to inform it, not the other way around.

The same happens in the realm of first cause. Evolution says it cannot explain "why there is something rather then nothing" and "where everything comes from". This is not measurable according to the scientific method and therefore cannot be answered. Yet evolutionists hold the claim that there is cause and effect, and that the nature of cause and effect presume the nature of a first cause. But this first cause cannot be measured. IDers simply say "a higher form that requires no causation but is self-subsistent is the first cause". This is where the discussion ought to start, but scientists should now step out of the field of this discussion. This is not in the realm of their ability, for now we enter philosophy. Does this first cause have to be an all-powerful all-knowing God, or can it simply be the distant, un-involved First Cause of Aristotle? This is an honest question that deserves honest dialogue, one in which is outside the realm of science.

One thing that has been going on in evolutionary debate has been to determine how it is exactly life started. The problem is, scientists don't seem to truly understand cause and effect which is so central to their discussion. This is because they ought to know that there cannot be an infnite regress in causation, and that if something is to start the ball rolling on the material world, to make matter, then it has to be greater then that which it creates. But they continue down the road of infinite regress, willing to go anywhere but to God. They will go to the backs of crystals, or aliens, but one has to ask "where did the aliens come from, where did the crystals come from?" Again, this is a question they are unable to answer.

And it is not to say that evolution is wrong. I am not making any claims to that whatsoever. What I am claiming, however, is that evolution, if it desires to be respectable in its claims, must begin to understand that philosophy has a role to play. There are various forms of ID as well. I for one am unconvinced by the irreducible complexity argument. It is really, in the end, a gaps theory for science. But I am convinced that there must be a first cause. That is an intellectual assent of abstract principles outside of science because science, ultimately, cannot answer the question. How long has the Earth been here? I don't know. How long have we been here? I don't know? I would call myself to be somewhere in between. But I do continually raise greater and greater doubts with evolution because it is not able to prove anything at all. It is only able to make assumptions of what might have been based on flimsy connective claims that really fall apart quite easily. And its ability to fulfill basic philosophical criteria is increasingly weakening to the point that, if it doesn't answer these basic questions, will no longer be reasonable in any matter whatsoever.

And, in the end, evolutionists say that evolution ultimately leads to atheism, determinism, irrationality, relativism, no ethics, or anything we have come to know in Western Society. I have very good reasons to hold that as well. But I would lengthen this to unacceptable length if I were to explain that here!

-Harrison

The Accident

2008-05-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

Because I will be asked about this a lot, I figured I should just write everything out for people to read since I have been asked so much.

I was on my way to Mass on Friday morning. I was stopped at the corner of Pandora and Quadra at the red light. The light turned green, I waited a couple of seconds and then proceeded. After crossing Quadra, a cyclist hit the side of my car and fell to the ground unconscious.

It all happened REALLY REALLY fast, it is tough to put it all in words.

Firstly, I don't know much about how the man on the bike is. I think he will be ok as he was moving on the ground and as he was being put in the ambulance. If you can pray for him, his name is Diter I found out. I will probably never know how he is doing ever again because of privacy laws with medical records. But please pray for him.

After talking to a LOT of witnesses (I had about 10 surround me after I was off the phone with 911 and they all said "It was not your fault, you have no blame in this), I came to find out everything that happened. After going through the intersection, he hit the right fender just above the right front tire. He then slid up the right part of the hood and then hit my windshield and fell to the ground. I immediately stopped and went out. It was all such a blur.

I see ICBC tomorrow. The guy I was talking to on the phone sounded unsure about how to go all about this. The accident was not my fault (Cops even said I have 0% of the blame). And yet, it was not an insured vehicle that hit me. That would usually take care of repair costs. But he said he really doesn't know, it's usually a car that hits a cyclist. So I will find out tomorrow what happens there. I think I will need to keep my eyes open for a new car, because if I do have to pay for my own repairs, they would be for more then what I paid for the car.

I don't know what to say about the whole thing. In one sense, it is all still quite shocking. I have been VERY tense the past couple of days because of it. I wonder what would have happened if I did things a bit differently, if I left a bit earlier, if I had been able to see him, and so on. I know there is no value in dwelling on the past like that though, but one does wonder because one does not like to have been the one who was hit by the cyclist. You ultimately feel, regardless of if it is your fault or not, a sense of responsibility for that person.

We can just pray that he will be ok.

-Harrison

Here we go again

2008-04-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have been sick for the past 4 days, and so it has given me time to reflect on the Pope's visit a bit more then I probably would have been able to if I was well (heck, I would have been able to see almost none of it if I was well!).

1. Media

I wish the media would listen. I was watching CTV Newsnet this evening, and most of it was ok. I am getting a bit frustrated because it seems all the news bites focus just on the Pope's address of the priest sexual abuse. I have seen very little coverage of his UN speech, which was a cornerstone of his visit and his hope for engaging the world in terms of relativism and natural law. Plus, I was rather saddened by the fact that the media TOTALLY mishears things, or hears things that as they want to hear them. At the end of the story on the Pope's events for the day, the reporter mentioned how "Benedict even abandoned God in his youth in Germany". I would like to know what speech they were listening to. He was warning against societies that lose their ability to recognize the place of God in their lives and how the Nazis in Germany abandoned God when he was young, but not him. I am a bit perplexed about that to say the least.

However, from what I have heard (and from the bit I have been able to see from their website), CNN has been giving fantastic coverage of the event. I saw a 5 minute spot about Wolf Blitzer meeting the Pope with 9 other journalists. He looked absolutely giddy. He even said on the air "I almost never say this, but I was truly blessed today". Apparently the Baptist man who works for CNN was also quite moved by the Mass on Thursday.

So, there have been the ups and downs.

2. Politicization

It is typical of people wanting to put things in a box. Unfortunately, too, they are attempting to create a certain polarization. These are unfortunate. You can't really "box up" Benedict, except to say he is orthodox. Most news stories and such are attempting to show that "if the Church doesn't change her teachings, then she will lose her numbers". But that is not the message of the Church, which states that "if the people in the Church don't strive for holiness, then the Church will lose her numbers". But numbers aren't what it is about. Of course, it would be wonderful if the entire world accepted the Church, her teachings, and strived for holiness. But that's not reality. The Church's mission is to bring people to Christ, and that they live lives in pursuit of His Face.

This politicization and polarization come from the labels "conservative", "progressive", "moderate", and "liberal". First, these words refer to terms that change. That is, the terms they point to change according to the trends. For example, the "conservatives" used to be the "liberals". And people use these words for the Church in the same way. And some say that the Pope is "conserving the Deposit of Faith" and so, in that sense, is a conservative.

However, I still don't think that that is a viable label for the Pope. To conserve means to prevent a danger from happening to something, and that it can change. We don't conserve things that don't change. But both those situations are contrary to the very essence of the Church. The Church does not change, and Christ promised that the gates of Hell shall not prevail. There is nothing to conserve, because the Church's essence, by her essence, cannot change. Thus, no one can be a conservative, because there is nothing to conserve, there is only a Truth, Who is a Person, to be uplifted and brought to everyone.

And some may complain about the word "orthodoxy". It is true, it refers to right belief. But Chesterton says that orthodoxy in the Catholic view involves the entirety of our faith. As St James says "Faith without works is dead". Thus our belief, if it is right (and that is that it our faith is in the Person of Jesus Christ) means we truly live it out. Orthodoxy, then, is much more then the doctrines we hold.

3. The Pope

I was blown away by the Pope's time at Dunwoody today. First, I must say, a friend of mine who lives in New York served the Papal Mass today at St Patrick's Cathedral, he was the one holding the Missal for the Pope.

Anyways, the Pope at the Seminary, I saw there the Benedict that I know. This is not to say I haven't elsewhere. But he has seemed tired and a bit worn out these past few days, and that is to be expected of someone of 81! But today, at Dunwoody, he was electric! He was energetic, with a smile that was constantly beaming across face. He was funny, and he even did something unscripted. He was passionate, because I think for him the youth are the hope of the Church's future. He saw true hope present. He definitely fed off the crowd, and he gave a 45 minute talk to the youth! That is far longer then any other talk he has given, which tells you that this was the most important to him. I encourage EVERYONE to read it, or go to EWTN's website and watch it there (they have the whole of the Pope's trip on the web to watch). It was fantastic and out of this world. Please watch it.

-Harrison

What did he say?

2008-04-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, I have a hard time hearing the homily of Benedict XVI from his Mass at National Stadium today. The noise of bloggers complaining of horrid liturgical practices is just a tad overwhelming.

I was reading Whispers in the Loggia the other day and a rather convicting statement was made in regards to people paying attention to what the Pope had to say instead of what he wore. I think the same can go for the Masses he celebrates.

Fr. Neuhaus had a wonderful comment on EWTN. While he wondered if those planning the Liturgy had ever read any of Benedict's works, he said "but the Pope is being pastoral, knowing that he cannot allow this to get in the way of the message of Christ and the graces of the Eucharist". I think Fr. Neuhaus is dead on.

Sure, the music wasn't great. I myself am no fan of Marty Haugen's Mass of Creation. But I have come to realize "is this really the core of the Mass?" I am not denying the awesome wonder music can create. It most definitely has an essential role in the Mass. But things take time. And the important things from the Mass happened. The Pope delivered an awesome homily, and the Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated.

If people were not so busy complaining about this and that about the music, maybe they could be quiet long enough to hear the awesome message of the hope Christ brings to us. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, they would be able to understand that Christ is greater that bad liturgical practices, and that his message can come out in those settings as well.

It is important to note that Msgr. Marini has been taking a very active role in planning the Papal Liturgies. Note, however, that they allowed these things to happen. They may not be perfect, but the Pope knew that the Eucharist being celebrated was the pinnacle of the Mass, not its music. If people could start realizing that, I thik we could do a lot to grow.

The issue, in the end, is that when we are too busy complaining about bad liturgy, we are not open enough to listen to the words of Christ. This is something I have been coming to learn. This is not to say we ought not to work to have the Liturgy celebrated according to the desire of the Church, discussion is an essential means for the further promotion of proper liturgy. But we must remember that things take time. Instead of complaining, there must be work done with those who do have different liturgical views. We must remember that the Liturgy is an expression of our faith in Christ, and if our faith is true, so will be our expression. Thus the solution is not a pragmatic concern in which policies can easily change things. Rather, the issue is one of holiness. If people would have actually paid attention to what the Pope had to say today, you would have noticed that he said that this is our fundamental goal as Christians, that our hope rises in a life lived in holiness.

The Pope knows that in order for the Liturgy to be properly celebrated, there needs to be holiness first. And so, far from pragmatic concerns, the Pope is looking towards a supernatural means of bringing people to the heart of the Church. When holiness is lived, it expresses itself in everything, and the Liturgy is definitely one of those times.

-Harrison

It's Been A While

2008-04-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

But better late then never.

So I've been watching Battlestar Gallactica now for about 3 weeks and have just begun Season 2.5.

I will admit, I found the show a bit slow to start off. But where I am now, watching it in the context of the show in its entirety, I'm sure I will feel differently about that when I start the series all over again one day.

Anyways, the show is interesting because it asks questions that shows usually refuse to ask. They don't ask them because they fear that the ratings will be low. And, in a certain sense, that's probably true.

The beauty of Science Fiction, the undeniable quality it has that is lacking from any big time show is precisely the fact that it can ask the tough questions, those that are the most important and central to who we are as human beings.

The interesting thing is that the show does not attempt to just throw the questions out there. It is not some intense philosophical discussion with no plot. Rather, it does things in the manner that I know J.R.R. Tolkien would approve of. They do it in the form of myth, of, if you will, a space fairy tale. It asks the important questions, but in a way that it is central to the story as a whole. These questions do not force themselves into the plot line, but rather, they are weaved in a way that they are essential for the plot line to move on.

There are many interesting questions the show raises. Are Cylons people? Can Cylons love? There are many others as well. But the most important, and definitely the most human one, is the one that gets to the core of our humanity. It seems that the Cylons attempted to destroy mankind because they felt that they were not deserving to live. They kill each other, and, well, if you can name a bad act, man does it. They don't seem deserving of life.

So, in my opinion, the central question of the show is "what makes humanity worthy of life". After watching Resurrection Pt. 2, I think I have come to the answer. And it came with such a simple, and yet profound, display of humanity. Adama, shaken up by the death of Admiral Kane, knowing that it was almost him who ordered her death, ends it all with a kiss with President Roslin. The range of emotions is truly remarkable.

But what finally hit it for me, what finally got me the answer was that very display. What makes man worth of life is that which makes him man! Humanity is worthy of life precisely because it's human. Or, as the quotable Del Myers puts it much more precisely "Man is worthy of redemption because he is capable of it". Our strength, our weakness, the wholeness of what makes us human, that is what makes us worthy of life. We are worthy to walk this Earth precisely because of our mistakes and triumphs.

To me, that is an utterly Christian outlook of the world, because it is the core of the message. Christ comes to redeem, but He cannot redeem those who feel they have nothing to redeem. That is the trait that is different between man and they Cylons. Man is able to make mistakes, but the Cylons refuse to. Number 6 would not kill herself because it was a sin. She refused to accept her weakness. That is the true weakness, when we are unable to accept our weakness, for it is only when we accept our weakness are we able to be made strong in Christ.

-Harrison

What are we to do with Plato?

2008-01-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on how I see nominalism as being the source of most of our modern heresies.

Knowing that the event of an intellectual idea is never isolated, I pondered as to what could be the source of nominalism. It didn't just pop out of thin air. It is true, of course, that new ideas come about, some good (St Thomas' distinction between Being and Essence), and some not so good (Descartes' I think therefore I am). But they don't flow out of thin air. For example, both St Thomas and Descartes studied Aristotle extensively, they are not pulling this out of their own minds. But they both had radically different interpretations of Aristotle.

I was blessed to have some visitors with me this weekend from St Joseph's Seminary in Edmonton. Wonderful guys with a great zeal for Christ. One of them was a Platonist to the core (or so he seemed to say). I used to be there, back when I was his age (ie 2 years ago). I saw Plato as the be all end all of Philosophy. No one did it better then Plato! But this past year, I have had the opportunity to study St Thomas in more detail and to see his (and usually Aristotle's) amazing simplicity in regards to their understanding of the truth of things.

Now, I'm not denying the value and wonder of Plato with what I am about to say, but I do wonder about one theory of his. It is, unfortunately, his less elucidated theory, one which sort of baffles most philosophers. But I think there may be some weight to my attempt at an insight.

Plato believed in universals. This cannot be denied. He believed in the reality of the forms, that objective reality in which the universal really and truly exists. When we see a cup on a counter, that is a specific (and thus imperfect) instantiation of the form "Cup". What gets interesting, however, is Plato's epistemological outlook. He says that because the Forms are perfect and the instantiations are not perfect, and because we too are not perfect instantiations of various forms, we cannot truly know the essence of things. This is part of the reason he was so vague on the topic. He knew, really, that he could not speak about the Forms (and this we can attribute to his mystical outlook of reality). He knew that no matter what he said, he would not be able to grasp the true reality of a thing and thus it is never truly knowable, it is knowable only in an imperfect way. It seems too that Plato is denying that there is an intrinsic essence to each particularity that exists, instead saying that the material realm is only a particularization of the true reality.

Now, briefly, Aristotle (and St Thomas) do say that we can know the essence of things. Each particularity has its essence innately. This is what makes it both particular and universal at the same time. Epistemologically speaking, our mind "abstracts" from what we receive in our senses. We see a particular thing and are able to immediately comprehend its essence, what it is, and that it can share this nature with other particularities as well.

Now, what does this all have to do with Nominalism? Well, if we recall that, speaking simply, nominalism denies that there are essences to things and that we cannot know particular things, I think we are able to see a correlation between Plato's theory of Forms (or whatever you wish to call it) and the theory of nominalism. I do not think that Plato would fall into this heresy though, because he admits to the reality of universals, but that they are unknowable, that we can only be pointed towards the forms and discover them for ourselves. The nominalist would deny any reality that is non-material in that sense (though not necessarily deny non-material beings, which is a different matter). Plato is what I would call a "light nominalist" in that since universals can't be truly known, we have to come up with ways of identifying them according to our nature. Aristotle, though, I think, takes a much more phenomenological approach. He understands that subjective experience of universals and how we come to abstract them. He understands, really, in my opinion, the human condition. Plato is much more poetic, but Aristotle has a better grasp of the truth.

-Harrison

Love For Christ

2008-01-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

I realize as of late that I have been a tad...cynical in my writing. This has not been the case in just my writing, but in my conversations with others as well. I realized too that I was becoming rather arrogant in some of my views and, though I feel I may have the correct understanding in the position, does not mean I need to pontificate to others.

Thankfully, through a wonderful discussion I had this evening with 2 wonderful friends, I realized what the root of things was. Love for Christ. That is it. One may be tempted to say that this is it, that is all we need to comment on. And, to a certain extent, there is complete truth. Love Christ, there is nothing else, this is the Law and the Prophets in their fullness. We love Christ by adoring Him and thus also the Blessed Trinity, and we love Christ whom we find in others.

I remember telling my friends this evening about the conversion of Malcolm Muggrage to the Catholic faith. It was not intellectual arguments that persuaded him to become Catholic, but it was the example of Mother Teresa. And Mr. Muggrage was quite the atheistic marxist, so his conversion can quite rightly be considered as miraculous.

Yesterday, I recall hearing the homily of the new Bishop of Pittsburgh. He said "how much people must love God to be willing to scalp tickets to an installation!" And that was his homily, about our zeal to love God and act like it!

Then I started realizing through my conversation this evening, and reflecting briefly on things, how I have been this past week or so in my life. Am I being loving or am I being like the Pharisees.

To add it all up, the Gospels during Mass this week haven't really helped either. I have been especially on a Liturgical rant as of late. They have been all about the Pharisees saying "But it is not lawful to do such a thing". That got me wondering. I am getting all worried about licitness of things, about doing the rubrics, that I forgot about heart too.

Now, this is not to say that rubrics and law don't have their place. They do, and they are central. But when we follow them for the wrong reason, or when we insist that they must be a rubric when they're not, then we fall into danger.

Anyways, reflecting on all this made me realize that the most essential thing is holiness. Love for Christ, doing all things in the light of the face of Christ. That is the most important thing. Everything else flows out of that love. Without our love for Christ, we become hard.

This is a danger, I think, in blogs. We see how silly some positions are that we lose sight of the fact that we must be charitable and loving, thus becoming rather arrogant in our attitudes, as if we had the truth and it is our own personal property. The fact is, though, the truth is for all people. Christ loves all, regardless of what they've done, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I think that is so easy to forget, and so we become arrogant, thinking "look how right I am and how wrong you are, and, on top of that, are really stupid you are for taking that position". I think most have fallen into that attitude at one point or another.

I think we must look back on the Saints. We don't see them knocking others down. We see them knocking sin down, and rightfully so, but they don't knock the person. It is easy for us to get frustrated when people equate actions with personhood, we know it is why many people advocate for homosexuality and so on. But we don't equate actions with personhood, and yet we so easily fall into the same error, seeing the faulty position and thus presuming it is an issue inherent in their very personhood. We look at the splinter in their eye without looking at the log in our own.

But the Saints built people up. They would correct people if it was appropriate, but they loved them regardless, even in correction. We need to do more of that I think. Only when we do that, will things like Liturgy and Doctrine flow correctly. The Church is beautiful because of the order she promotes. But divisions in parishes and Dioceses happen when we fall outside that order and into the disorder of sin. How do we bring order back to Diocesan life, parish life, and, of course, our life? By loving God and neighbour with our entire selves. When we love unconditionally, then things will happen accordingly unconditionally.

I do not want those who may be reading this to think that matters of Doctrine, Liturgy, Morals, Current Issues, etc, are not worth speaking about. They very much are and must be constantly engaged.

What I warn about is manufacturing the truth. I do not say this in the ordinary sense. We must beware of coming to a deeper knowledge of the things the Church teaches on our own. When we first do not back up such a basis with love, we fall into becoming like the Sadducees and Pharisees. Work on love first, and then how you present the truth will attractive to a person regardless. That's what happened with Malcolm Muggridge, and that is what can happen to your friends and family whom you try to bring in.

People constantly complain that they never see anyone acting like a Christian. Heck, I know even I complain of that many times. I think "oh, no one ever acts like they ought to out of love. Where is the passion and deep yearning desire to promote Christ with the giving of our entire selves in others?" Then I recall that if I desire it in others, I must desire it in myself first. The best person to bring about love for Christ is when we first come to love Him with our whole selves. If you become a Saint, then so will others who encounter you, because you are living like a Christian, that is always deeply attractive when it is lived out authentically.

-Harrison

Liturgical Reflections

2008-01-20T14:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been doing a lot of side reading on the Liturgy as of late and have been quite surprised by the level of deep-seeded conflict that is in existence in the Church over the Liturgy.

There are those who take a view that is contrary to the great tradition of the Church, seeing Vatican II as the supreme council above all councils in which all previous councils are to be ignored. This, of course, is an erroneous view.

Then there are those who also see things contrary to the great tradition, though they themselves call themselves traditionalists (not a term I am a fan of frankly). They see the Church as static, as if the life of the Church is put still and is to never move one inch. This, in my opinion, is contrary to the fact that the Church is a living body with all her members from the past, present, and future. The Church is living and longing for home, for the eternal Jerusalem. That is our hope, not being stuck in one mode.

In my opinion, both these views are contrary to the true Catholic position. I know, too, that these are vastly easy over-generalizations, but I don't want to go into too much depth with them for a blog post, they are merely a means for moving forward in this discussion.

This brings me to the Liturgy because it seems that the Liturgy has been the true battle ground for a proper interpretation of Vatican II. These two positions I have just described seem to be contrary to what the documents have said and what has been the lived experienced of almost 2000 years of Catholicism

But the Liturgy has become a battleground because it is in the Liturgy that heaven and earth meet, it is in the Liturgy that the sacredness and awesomeness of God is made present to us in the most Blessed Sacrament. It is the height of the Church's prayer. All this leads to a reasonable understanding as to why it is the Liturgy that is battleground, it is where the source and summit of our faith is made present.

A couple of posts ago, I discussed briefly the hermeneutics of continuity that Benedict XVI speaks of and its importance. I have been doing some more research as of late and last night especially got an opportunity to peer into the mind of Dietrich von Hildebrand and his position on this subject.

One thing I am impressed with is his intellectual might. He is truly one of the great thinkers of the Church. I think his argument for the loss of the sacred in our society is dead on and hits the head on the nail.

What I have been surprised to see, however, is the political side of the issue. I mean to say that there was a lot going on "behind closed doors" after the council. I have read of things that unorthodox theologians would do to get things read at the council! I have read about the controversy surrounding the Concilium that was instituted after the Council in regards to the Liturgy.

I understand, I think and hope, why many people reject the Novus Ordo. We must understand, I think, that is not rejected on the level of personal preference. Seeing the political undercurrents, I have a much better grasp of where the so-called traditionalists are coming from. It is not always a reactionary position, but a well thought out one.

I, of course, do not agree with their position, that the Novus Ordo is contrary to the Church's living experience and invalid. I think this is totally erroneous.

But I do wonder about the Concilium. I wish there was more written on the subject to be honest. I have found very little useful information on it because most of the people who have written on it have been of the so-called traditionalist view point and thus very biased in their view point. I cannot be certain that what they are saying has any validity at all.

Essentially, the argument is that they had no true juridical authority over the implementation of the Novus Ordo. Many people feel that the Concilium forced a "fabricated liturgy" upon the whole Church, one that is essentially contrary to the lived tradition of the Church.

I will be honest, I think there is some validity to this perspective. When you read the comments of those who headed the Concilium, you see that they were just attempting to force their own ideological position upon the whole Church, and, to a certain extent, they were able to do so through some vague instructions that came forth from them.

Now, Benedict XVI is also someone who has been critical of the implementations of the Concilium. For me, Ratzinger is THE authority on the Liturgy. I think out of everyone out there, he is the most balanced person to refer to in regards to this.

What Ratzinger says is that the Concilium and those of like mind have forced a fabricated liturgy upon the Church, one in which is contrary to the great depth and breadth of the Church's tradition. Ratzinger understands this and sees the value of the tradition which is foundational to the entire Church.

What does this all mean though? I know I have been a bit spotty with what I am attempting to get at here, partially because many of these thoughts are new. I think, as Ratzinger has discussed numerous times, we are going to see a reform of the reform in the Church's liturgy. When one reads Sacrosanctum Concilium, they see things in there that have yet to even be realized. When you read Ratzinger's masterpiece, The Spirit of the Liturgy, you see great things that are essential for the human person in the Liturgy that have utterly disappeared. The Mass we have now can be celebrated with great reverence and beauty, but I think there is still "work to do" in this manner of implementation and I thank God for Benedict XVI who has been working at implementing such things with his new MC, Msgr. Marini. I see the Novus Ordo as the true expression of the Liturgy of the Church. But, as with many other councils, we are only just getting out of the reactionary times in which people attempt to impose their own view of the council on the world. We are starting to see, in my opinion, thanks to the beautiful Papal Masses, a proper living of the great Tradition of the Church in which the proper expression of the Liturgy is seen as the core.

Nominalism - The Source of Man's Degradation?

2008-01-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

I remember talking about this with a friend one evening and I came to some interesting conclusions that had honestly never crossed my mind before.

Many people see the degradation of man with the philosophy of Descartes. Indeed, Descartes' dualistic leanings give rise to many problems about the state of knowledge, man's experience, and thus man's attaining of knowledge.

But at least universals still exist in Descartes mind.

I think the problem is in nominalism.

Nominalism states that there is no such thing as universals, but that there are only particulars which have similarities for which we construct universal concepts for the sake of simplifying the world. In reality, however, according to the nominalist, these universals are just constructs and do not actually exist.

Why is this a problem?

I see it as a problem because it denies that which individuates man from the rest of the animals.

Man is different because he can abstract things. When we see a cup, we see not only the cup, but we are able to grasp its essence in our mind. Animals, on the other hand, are never able to go past the particular. They may be able to have the experience of a cup, but they can never know cupness, that is, the essence of what makes a cup a cup.

With nominalism, we fall into the trap of denying the theory of abstraction in which hinges man's distinguishing factor.

We thus fall into a degradation that is contrary to our nature. Why do you think relativism has come about? It has come about because we no longer believe we are able to have abstract concepts when in reality they are at the center of our life, we experience abstraction at every moment of the day.

If we are to just give a name to a particular, then we have this notion of the inability to abstract. We thus become like the rest of the animals and see things for their purely physical nature and deny the metaphysical aspect of things, which we call materialism, which is the root of consumerism and all other isms that are destroying society today.

Some people say sometimes "what's the point of discussing theories of the past?" We see here, however, that Nominalism, which is a theory from about the 12th century onwards, has had drastic implications that has denied everything in which we experience. We must equip ourselves so we can engage others to bring them to the beauty, splendor, and wonder of truth.

-Harrison

Self-Knowledge

2008-01-13T00:39:00.000-08:00

I am reading what I am already beginning to consider one of the greatest books I have ever read. It is "Transformation in Christ" by Dietrich von Hildebrand. It really is remarkable.

I am currently on chapter 3 which is self-knowledge. He quotes St Augustine who says, "could I but know Thee O Lord, and I shall know myself".

This is an interesting quote and one I think plays great relevance to the modern world.

Dr. von Hildebrand denounces self-analysis. He sees this constant looking inward as contrary to our nature but that, instead, we must continually look out of ourselves to see what is wrong, which in my opinion is deep within the tradition of the thought of JP II.

Anyways, he states that we only get to know ourself more the more we know God, as per the quote of St Augustine, and this is a position I have always held, but I just held it, I had no reason to hold it, it just seemed right.

But this book opened my eyes to come to a deeper understanding.

By experiencing God, we realize that we are created for Him to be at the center of our life. We are not supposed to look at the past or the present to figure out our problems, and we cannot look into our future experiences because they, as of yet, do not exist. To look at ourselves we are only revealed our weakness and sinfulness, we cannot depend completely on ourselves, we need redemption.

But if we come to experience God as the center of our life, our self-knowledge takes a fundamental shift. In Thomistic language, God is the Final Cause of our actions. According to both Aristotle and Thomas, the Final Cause is the cause par excellence because it gives the reason for all the other causes and for all things for all things are meant to be perfected and they are only perfected if they reach their final goal. Thus the final cause is the cause par excellence because it is the cause that gives the basis, the roots, for perfection.

Bringing this to God, we see that through our experience that we are created for God, that by coming to know God perfection is brought in us. So, by knowing God as the end of all our thoughts and actions, we experience our true purpose in life, which is to grow closer to Him. By doing so, we are fulfilling our nature and living according to our dignity as persons created in God's image and likeness.

But what does this exactly have to do with self-knowledge?

By realizing that God is at the center of our life and that we are meant for Him, that creates our raison d'etre. Through our experience of God, we experience our imperfection and grow in knowledge that we haven't quite reached the goal of perfection yet, that we have further repentance to live in our life and that we have further change to have happen. But it is central that God be at the center of our human experience for through that, and only through that, do we come to our true self understanding. For, as St Paul says, "it is no longer I that live but Christ in me". Only when Christ is the source and summit, only when Christ is the One in Whom I subsist for all assistance, only then can I become who I am called to be. I am called to be united to Christ, and I can only do that by growing to know God more. The more I know God, the more I have experienced Him and the greater my understanding becomes in what I am lacking and plead God for His mercy to rain down upon me so that I may become who He has created me to be.

-Harrison

Hermeneutics of Continuity

2008-01-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

Rocco at Whispers in the Loggia reports about the Mass of the Baptism of the Lord tomorrow at the Vatican.

Whispers in the Loggia

The interesting note is, of course, that the Pope will be celebrating Mass ad orientum. This will of course get many reactions, I am sure, by various Catholic outlets determined to ensure the Church knows what the "spirit of Vatican II" is all about.

But despite the impending negative press by people of such a view, I see it as a hopeful sign.

I love the Liturgy. I am blessed to be in a parish where the Liturgy is celebrated in solemnity and reverence. I know, too, that the general state of the Liturgy hasn't quite reached its fulfillment yet (I shouldn't say I know, but from the studying I've done, it seems the liturgy still has some "balancing out" to do).

I am very happy with Msgr. Marini as the new Papal MC. He is doing many things on a step by step basis, and is someone who seems much more within the mindset of B XVI. I too, I think, am more within the tradition of thought that BXVI proposes.

And I think the basis of this is his understanding of the hermeneutics of continuity.

Essentially, the hermeneutics of continuity is a study of the idea of continuity within the Church's 2000 year-old tradition from the perspective of which it is proposed throughout the history of thought.

Now, I think BXVI's beef is with the fact that we seemed to lose the idea of continuity in the Church, which is an attack not only on the central nature of the Church, but an attack about the effects the Incarnation has on the world. The denial of continuity for Benedict is, surprise surprise, a Christological denial. We of course know that Benedict is not a fan of the denial of Christ's importance, nor, of course, should any Catholic.

I think the tremors of afterquakes from the Council were to be expected. It is the nature of councils, and, in a certain sense, at least initially, it had to do with the excitement that is attached to the experience of a council. Everyone wants it disseminated immediately. This is where human frailty comes into the equation. The Church does things in years, not months, and so the idea of quickly implementing everything on the part of bishops and the lay people could easily be seen as a mistake.

The Council, just as all authoritative statements and decrees from the Church, must be read in the light of the Church's total experience. This is where the "spirit of Vatican II" began. They no longer look at the Church and the totality of her experience, but only what the "spirit of the council" has to say, as if the Council is the only authority in the matter of our lives. This is contrary, though, to the nature and experience of the Church.

So, the Liturgy was obviously effected by such a mindset, and, I think, the Liturgy shows us the direction of the Church, since the Liturgy is the work of God. And this is the error that has entered into our understanding of the Liturgy: It is the work and expression of man's encounter with God. In reality, though, it is the other way around. If the liturgy is the work of God, then more properly is it the expression of God's encounter with man, for it is the work which Christ has guided, and it is in the Liturgy that Christ reconciles us with the Father. Thus to speak of the human dimension of the Liturgy as primary is an essential error, it denies God's principle and primary role as the true Celebrant of the Liturgy.

This brings us to the hermeneutics of continuity. According to this study of continuity, we see that it is essential in the Church's tradition of God's seeking of her. God has constantly sought us and it is in the Liturgy that this profound encounter happens at its most perfect level. To thus take away things from the Liturgy because they are "pre-Vatican II" is contrary to the Church's experience. The way the Liturgy can be expressed, its form, can of course change over the centuries. This is part of the Church's experience and is expressed in various liturgical decrees. But to say that the Novus Ordo has no connection with the extraordinary form of the Mass and all other forms of the Mass is to be contrary to the principle and experience of continuity in the Church.

Thus, Benedict is simply affirming Christ's central role in the Church and the Church's nature. What Benedict with the help of Msgr. Marini have been doing is attempting to re-establish the centrality of continuity, because this puts Christ back into the equation. And to remedy the "spirit of Vatican II" problem, Benedict understands that there must be dialogue with the past, because the past, by virtue of Christ's Incarnation, is always able to be made present to us, in a certain sense, the past never ceases to exist, and so it is proper to have a dialogue with it so that continuity is properly expressed in all the Church says and does so that we can put Christ back at the center of our lives.

I am currently working on an essay on this topic with further and deeper research with the hopes of having it published somewhere.

-Harrison

Can The Past Be Infinite?

2007-12-11T21:48:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting conversation about the nature of time today with a friend. I also just saw a post on a blog about the possibility of the infinite nature of time. This got me thinking about things a bit, and so I would like to do a bit of philosophical exercise which may stride on into a theological exercise.

Definition of Terms

Infinite - When I use the term infinite, I use it in the Aristotelian sense. Now, Aristotle uses two possible ways in which the infinite can exist, as a potential and as an actual. Aristotle argues that an actual infinite cannot exist, but this shall not be dealt with here. My concern is with the potential infinite. A potential infinite is said to be something that is measurable, but is unable to get to the end or beginning, or both, of a set.

For example. Let us take a number set between 1 and 10. Everything within that finite set of numbers (1 and 10) is infinitely divisible. It is not possible to reach a limit in divisibility. No matter how hard you try, it will never get to an end. Once you are "within the set", it can be potentially impossible to get to the end, for there is a potentially infinite series of numbers that one would have to "cross" in order to get to one. A potential infinite is also measurable, no matter how small it is.

Time - That which is the current state of reality in the present.

Discussion

St Augustine famously said "if you ask me what time is, I don't know what it is, but if you don't ask me, then I know". He is also famous for his discourse on time. He states that the past and the future are not real, for they no longer are in existence, but have ceased to be, or have not come to be. The only time that exists is the current moment. This leads to a very interesting view of reality itself, but I shall not get into it.

My question, though, is whether or not the past can be infinite in a potential manner. If Augustine is right and it no longer exists, then the question is pointless to ask for it makes no sense to talk about a reality that is no longer in existence.

However, and this is where philosophy and theology tango, Christ brings an interesting perspective into the idea of time. The infinite (in an actual and real sense, not in a potential sense) comes into contact with the finite, all in the Incarnation. As Ratzinger says, time and eternity are united. If this is the case, that eternity and time come into one contact, then it brings a sense of the eternal into the temporal world and a sense of the temporal world into eternity. This is a logical implication of the Incarnation.

Now, that means that each moment of existence, because of the Incarnation, is touched by the eternal and so, in a certain sense, is grafted to eternity to become an ever present reality. Thus, and I hate to say this, I think Augustine is wrong in his understanding of time because of the understanding of the Incarnation. I would like to point out that I am not giving a complete description of how time and eternity (that is, all instances of time) become eternal because that involves a much deeper understanding of the Incarnation that I wish not to get into at the moment.

My point is, though, that the past takes an a certain eternal character, which means it exists forever, as an everlasting moment, just as every moment in time, because of the fact that eternity and itself have been grafted to each other. Now, this gets me into the nature of the past as at least potentially infinite.

Taking my example from the definition earlier of a finite set that has infinite divisibility, I can apply this to time. Let us say that the set of the past is the total moments from the first instance in time to the present moment. If we look within that set, there is an infinitude of moments in which we can examine, breaking them down more and more into more minute moments. Thus, since the past is nothing more then a finite set of moments, and a potential infinite can be examined within that set, it makes sense to say that the past is, in a certain sense, infinite in the order of potentiality.

-Harrison

Philosophical Geek Out!

2007-12-02T21:31:00.001-08:00

I am currently in the process of reading Aquinas' commentary on Aristotle's metaphysics. It is really an amazing piece of work and the fruit of much thinking!

I am currently on Book V, Lesson 2, in which the discussion on causation happens.

For those that don't know, there are 4 causal modes in Aristotle's Metaphysics within 2 types of causation.

The 2 types are:

1) Intrinsic Causation - That which is generated from within (will give examples of this in a bit).
2) Extrinsic Causation - That which is generated from without (will, again, give examples of this in a bit).

Within Intrinsic Causation there are 2 modes of this type that can be called causes:

1.a) Material Cause - That which gives the matter for a thing to be. For example, a bronze statue has as its material cause bronze. The bronze does not come from without the bronze, but is part of the statue itself. Therefore it is intrinsic.

1.b) Formal Cause (Sidenote, this cause is both an intrinsic and extrinsic cause). That which gives a thing the form necessary for it to be what it is. For example, the form of a statue is from within. The form is that which gives "definition" to the matter, to make the matter knowable to the intellect.

Within Extrinsic Causation there are 3 mods of this type that can be called causes:

2.a) Formal Cause - When a thing is made in the likeness of another thing and thus receives its form from that thing though it cannot be that thing. This type of formal cause is of the imitative sort. To bring us back to our statue example, though within it it has the form of statue, and, let us say, it is made to resemble John Paul II, it receives the form of "John Paul II" from John Paul II, who is exterior to the statue and thus a cause for it to be a resemblance of him.

2.b) Efficient Cause - That which brings a thing to movement or rest. For example to throw a ball is to be the efficient cause of the ball, for its accidental properties (such as placement and movement) are changing. The catcher of the ball is also an efficient cause because he is again changing the accidental properties of the ball and bringing it to rest. In another sense, Efficient Cause is that which brings a thing into being, which involves motion.

There are 4 types of the type "Efficient Cause" which Aquinas gets from Avicenna; Perfective, Dispositive, Auxiliary, and Advisory. I will not go into that for now, but the distinctions truly blow the mind away!

3.b) Final Cause - That which is the sake for why a thing is done. To bring us back to the example of the ball, the ball is thrown in order for the other person to catch it. Thus, the final cause of the ball in that action is to be caught.

Now, within Final Causation, there are 2 distinctions; ultimate end and intermediary end. This is the reason for why I posted this post. The ultimate cause is the ultimate "raison d'etre" for a thing to act. Aquinas would say that the ultimate final cause of man is to spend eternity in loving communion with God. But intermediary final causes are things that are necessary in order for the final end, the ultimate final cause, to happen.

Now, to bring it back to the ball example, it would seem to me that Aristotle and Aquinas (if I recall correctly) would argue that intermediary final causes are infinite in nature.

Let me give you an example from Math. Let us say we have the numeric distance between 1 and 2. Between that finite set is an infinite possibility of division. One could never move past 1 to 2, for they could continually go further and further down the decimal scale.

The same in our ball example. When someone throws a ball, the ultimate end is for the other to catch it. But in order for that to happen, there must be an infinite set of motions within the finite set of the throw and the catch.

This would seem to make sense since Aristotle argued that the universe is what he calls a potential infinite. It is measurable, yet without any seeming point to measure. If we went within the set of numbers between 1 and 2, we could say the same, as if there were no beginning or end, though there is, but from within the set, it would be impossible.

It is interesting how this seems to logically follow from Aristotle's theory of the 4 causes and how this shows up within his discussions later on in regards to the infinite.

-Harrison

The Principle of Non-Contradiction

2007-11-24T19:23:00.000-08:00

The Principle of Non-Contradiction is a philosophical principle that has been around for a long time. Essentially, it states that a certain claim is either true or false, it cannot be both at the same time. For example, a fire is either hot or it is not hot, it cannot be both for that goes against the nature of temperature.

I have been listening to a variety of Peter Kreeft lectures as of late and have found them fascinating. The particular reason I have found them fascinating is the extent to which he uses this philosophical principle and how the great arguments of the past have also used this to principle to make their case.

For example, take Pascal's Wager. In it Pascal gives us a reality. God either exists or does not exist. It is a logical impossibility for there to be both. Now, there are 4 possibilities from this Sic et Non.

1) God exists and you don't believe.
2) God exists and you do believe.
3) God doesn't exist and you don't believe.
4) God doesn't exist and you do believe.

Now, he says the following for each statement.

1) If God exists and you don't believe then you're in trouble because He has loved you and you have failed to return that love or to care for the fact that He exists. Bad move. You have not lived for that which you were created for.

2) Good on ya! You believed and live a life to follow Him and pursue Him passionately! This adds not only a tremendous value to your life, but to others as well. This gives your life purpose.

3) Well, you were right. But because God doesn't exist, there is no value to life anyways, so what good did it do to not believe?

4) Well, turns out you're wrong, but at least you were able to live a life that was worthy of helping others and loving them.

Now, Pascal never makes the claim that these are arguments for the existence of God. No, he says that this is simply the first step among many. But he is making a point in that, well, what does it hurt to believe? Will life be miserable because you believe in God?

Now, what interests me in this argument is the principle of non-contradiction. You take the principle of truth and falseness and see where it leads you. We see here the 4 possibilities of True and False and a decision to be made in regards to one's belief in God's existence.

Looking back now, this is essentially how the Medievals worked. Thomas Aquinas' Summa is built in this manner. He says that, for example, Theology is either a science or not a science. He shows the positions for both, and then gives you the reason for holding the true position. It is very common sensicle.

I think we have lost this principle in our lives because of skepticism. Instead of saying "the fire is either hot or not hot", we say "well, how do we know that this idea of temperature is not just a projection of our consciousness? How do I even know what temperature is, maybe it's just a social construct".

Essentially, this skepticism is bound to destroy Western Civilization and is the roots of our relativistic leanings in society.

Al-Ghazali, a Medieval Islamic philosopher, once said in regards to skeptics (for he was once one himself) "Throw a skeptic in a fire and tell them to tell you that the fire is not really fire and that the heat is not really burning their flesh". Experience, practicality, and common sense, always win in the end.

-Harrison

An Amazing Website

2007-10-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

It is called the "International Catholic University". Is the brain child of Ralph McInerny, who is a fellow at the Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas and is quite the well known Thomist. I encourage EVERYONE to check it out. Best of all, it's FREE online courses. There are some real gems in there (I am thinking especially of Janet Smith's intro the Sexual Ethics).

http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/icu3.htm

-Harrison

Christopher Hitchen's and the Impossible Question

2007-10-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

I recently listened to a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath. I would first like to say that Alister McGrath did a fantastic job and showing the reasonableness of Christianity. This debate was held by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. The debate was interesting to say the least.

One thing stood out to me in that debate and that was a question that Mr. Hitchens asks every group he talks to. He asks "can you show me a human action that is good and requires God's help, that is, a good action that cannot be done without God's help?" He follows that with "can you tell me of an evil human action that can be done in God's name." The point is simple. He seems to think that, in his view, no good action can be differentiated between the believer and the non-believer. He believes it impossible in fact and the first part of his question has never been able to be answered he states. He states that it is rather easy to come up with an answer to the second part of the question.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hitchens makes a logical leap. It is not my hope to attack his character (which seems to be so easy to be done in the Catholic blogosphere), rather, I simply wish to analyze his argument.

The problem is that Mr. Hitchens makes the presumption that every human act that is good is done out of the person's own accord without any divine help. Christian theology states that God's grace helps us in all our actions and that this grace is made available to all men (men in the sense of all human persons). Mr. Hitchens is taking the scientific route, of that which is only observable to the realm of the investigative. However, the problem is that, and Mr. Dawkins even agrees with this, it cannot be proven that God does not exist. In the end, Mr. Dawkins says, one is only dealing with probabilities. If such is the case, then, according to a true scientific method, Mr. Hitchens us not allowed to make the jump in regards to whether or not human actions are done by their own power or from the grace of God. Science deems to "wait until it is possible to observe". That, however, will not happen until one sits before the judgment seat of God. Only then will we see how God has worked through us in our lives.

I knew there was something wrong with Mr. Hitchens' question when I first heard it. I almost fell into his trap. His trap creates confusion of which the obvious easy answer for the second part creates a confusion in the individual to re-think his whole outlook on life. This brings about the easy possibility of denial based on an irrational position.

However, thanks be to God that I didn't fall into the trap. I thought to myself "well, everyone is capable of doing good acts. However, the problem enlies in the fact that we are making a presumption that the power to do that good act comes from us".

Science is unable to determine the root cause of where our ability to do the good act comes from. In fact, to determine good actions is outside the realm of science, as "good" is also something that is not scientifically observable. Finally, the act itself is the only observable thing, but the root and the moral value of the act are totally and completely unobservable.

So, Mr. Hitchens, I ask you this, show me how "the good" is observable in science, and show me, using your scientific technique (of which atheists are so fond of), how you can prove scientifically and without a doubt that your ability for doing good acts comes ultimately from you.

-Harrison

A great post on Evangelization

2007-10-08T19:37:00.001-07:00

http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2007/10/true-evangelization.html

-Harrison

An Instrument of God

2007-09-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

I am reading the new book of the letters of Mother Teresa. It is a God send, God did so much through her, and she realized that she was but His little instrument.

This affirmed something I've been praying about, how we are able to be "instruments of God".

It is first, necessary, to think about what an instrument is. An instrument (not in the musical sense only, but in any sense), is something that is used to reach a certain goal. For the sake of simplicity, I think the pencil is the best example.

In a certain sense, we are all called to be pencils in the hand of God. Sinfulness makes us pencils that are too big for God to use in His precious hand. God works with the smallest instruments for we wonder "how has He done such great things with such a small instrument". We wonder about such things all the time! We wonder at how computers are able to do so much with such tiny parts. The same is true with God. How is it that He is able to do so much with such small things?! It shows the greatness and awesomeness of His love.

So, we are called to be pencils in the hands of God. How is it, then, that we become smaller so that we can fit in His precious hands? Well, we must be shortened and scraped of all unnecessary excesses. If we have a love of self, then our pencil must thin out, all excess exterior must be stripped away. If our desire for other things is too extensive, then we must be sharpened so as to become as short as possible for God to work with us. We must become tiny instruments in His hands.

Now, God can do great work with such small pencils. He can draw a beautiful canvas of works done by His grace and love through us. We must become small to fit into His precious hands, though, in order for this to work. The smaller our pencil is, the more control He will have over us. We are able to be more attuned with His will when the excesses of pride and desires for things of the world are removed. Only then do we fit in His precious hands, tiny, insignificant, virtually nothing compared to the greatness of God. And yet, though almost nothing, it is only then that we become everything, for we become enveloped by His love shown to us by our being open to His will, which is His hands, guiding the pencil each step of the way.

But we must become small and insignificant, for it is only then that the beauty of God can be shown to the world. It is only in nothingness that we become Christ to others and are able to preach with our lives the love of God.

-Harrison

The Simplicity of Christ

2007-09-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting on many things as of late and one thing that has really touched my life profoundly is what John Paul II says is necessary to "fully realize what it means to be human".

To be human is to imitate Christ who "is the image of the invisible God". Christ reveals the Father to us, He reveals to us Who God is. Now, if the Letter of John says that "God is Love", then we have to ask ourselves where Christ shows us that God is Love in His life. There are, of course, many places, but the greatest place is on the Cross. God reveals His love to us through Christ's death on the Cross.

This is all good and dandy and easy to assent to intellectually. But how do we assent to it with our hearts? There is a joy in making an "intellectual assent" and this is a necessary step, but it is all pointless unless it causes us to desire to make the assent of our will, to say "I will live this truth in my life".

So, what is the truth that Christ reveals to us? That we are to love. And how do we love? By "dying on the Cross", by emptying ourselves for the sake of God. We say "no" to things of the world, not because they are bad, they are good! But God is better. We must make room in our souls for God, and that means taking out all the clutter that is in there. How do we take out the clutter? We take it out by dying to self.

This is a principle that is Biblical and consistent with the Tradition of the Church. Death to self is the means through which we become truly human. By emptying ourselves, we have more of our self to give to others and to give to God, and we thus also have a great glass to fill with the love of God.

I am convinced that this is essential for all Christians and especially for all Catholics to hear. Christ loves us and desires to be with us, He is giving Himself completely to us. We must, however, respond with love. The spear that pierced the side of Christ is symbolic of the wound we cause in Christ's Sacred Heart every time we deny Him and His will in our life. It is that wound that is the narrow gate to Heaven, and the only way to get there is by embracing the Cross Christ gives us so that we may serve God in all we do and so that we may come to receive more and more the love He wishes to show us.

This truly is the fullness of the Gospel "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself". This is the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, and Christ shows us this fulfillment by His death on the Cross. There is no resurrection without the Cross, and there is no Heaven without death to self.

-Harrison

Sense of the Faithful

2007-09-19T22:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note for the evening. I find that a lot of people talk about the Sense of the Faithful and how that is sufficient for a Catholic Doctrine to hold. I used to be one who fell into using such a term in my day to day speech about the Church.

However, reading a book on Dogmas of the Church by Dr. Ludwig Ott, I am noticing that "Sense of the Faithful" is not the correct terminology, but it is rather a "Sense of the Communis". In the realm of the community in this sense, in order to be one who contributes their opinion to the sense of the Communis they must be in communion with the Church and all she teaches. Thus, only those who are fully orthodox and love Christ are able to properly contribute to the sense of the communis.

This is interesting because the sense of the faithful does not carry the same weight in terminology. When we say sense of the faithful, it ends up being all those who think they believe and thus have the right to contribute their opinion to the Church and Her teachings. If this is the case, then we fall into the danger of the Church becoming Democratic, that the majority of the faithful (according to their own definition of what it means to be a "faithful") have the weight of opinion on the life and teachings of the Church.

This is, of course, a false understanding of the reality of the Church. The Church is a communion of love between those who hold and proclaim all She teaches. This is a great mystery. So, it is the sense of the communis that has all the weight when it comes to the definition of the truths of faith, and not the sense of the faithful.

-Harrison

A Eucharistic Culture

2007-09-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have to apologize for the lack of updating. I'm extremely busy and so God and work come before blogging. However, tonight, for example, I have a few free minutes and so am going to put a quick idea across.

This past weekend we were honoured with the presence of Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City and Primate of Canada. He had many things to say, including a bit about the conclave (don't worry, he did not break the seal, he just mentioned his state at the time, the awesomeness of the experience and so forth).

He made one interesting note. He said that Canada's only hope of becoming a great culture again is that it become a Eucharistic Culture. I found this to be provocative and bold statement (in a good way). Essentially, if Canada wants to be "Canada", it must rediscover its Christian heritage, to inform herself of it, and live the values and truth that she was built on, most notably in the affirmation that God is real.

I know he truly hopes for the Eucharistic Congress to be the catalyst behind a cultural renewal in our country. He really did understand that the source of change of society is to first effect the culture.

Now, the question comes of how we actually build that Eucharistic Culture. It is not easy considering we live in such a morally deprived society nowadays. However, it is possible.

I have said it again and again, but the first thing we need is Saints, holy men and women who live the life of God totally and without reserve. We need to truly encounter the reality and truth of Christ. This happens, again, first and foremost in the Eucharist, where He is truly present to us.

I found the statement that "Canada needs to become Eucharistic" very fascinating. It had never occurred to me before. This makes sense, and yet at the same time it is a very mysterious phrase, one that will be need a good deal of prayer and meditation.

-Harrison

Ice Surface Melting!!

2007-09-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=4a6499de-bf0a-49eb-9b1d-ca302e0be6e5

I love the National Post. Always gives reasonable! discussion of issues instead of being overrun with emotionalism and irrationality (*cough cough* Globe and Mail *cough cough*).

-Harrison

Jesus of Nazareth - Book Review

2007-08-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

The following is a book review I wrote for the Diocesan Messenger (the newspaper for the Victoria Diocese):
-------------------------------------

Jesus of Nazareth is a result of a lifetime of experience of Joseph Ratzinger, his “personal search for the Lord.” The fact that the book is based on his personal search that makes it so interesting, especially because the book is the work of Joseph Ratzinger the theologian, and is not a part of his magisterial authority as Pope. This leaves the book open to theological criticism, and some have taken Ratzinger up on that.

It is, however, difficult to find a point of criticism with this book. It is a book writing in a style that is beautiful, deep, and accessible. It is through this masterpiece of Christian writing that Ratzinger expresses three essential aspects to this book; it is Christological, meditative, and engaging.

The Christological aspect is perhaps the strongest, and yet most subtle, theme of the book. In the book Ratzinger discusses the intellectual background of the historical-critical method in biblical theology. He engages this method throughout the entire book by discussing who Christ is. He engages the historical-critical by affirming, in so subtle a way, that Christ is the source of history, thus attacking the historical-critical method that history is the source of Christ. This is especially affirmed in his discussion on Christ's temptation in the dessert, in which each of Christ's responses affirm that He is God, always obedient to the will of the Father.Ratzinger's “personal search for the face of the Lord” makes this book meditative because it is obviously based on years of deep personal prayer. It is this search that has created a love that is obviously sincere and deep. His reflections on the various aspects of Christ's life are profound in a way that they provide the reader with a variety of sources for contemplation in their own search for the face of the Lord. His experiences are a great addition to ours as we all journey together towards Christ.

The final aspect is that it is a book that is engaging and relevant. Ratzinger explicitly brings the Gospels to our present situations. He does not read the Gospels according to the modern situations, but rather reads the modern situations according to the Gospels. Christ, revealed to us through the Gospels, is the lens through which history is looked through. This is an essential point for Ratzinger in his affirmation of Christ as the center, source, and summit of history. He does this aspect justice par excellence.

All in all, this book is a brilliant and accessible book that all Catholics ought to read. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, this book has something for you. This book presents to us Christ, and Christ reveals to us who we are created to be, and it is through this presentation of Christ by Ratzinger that we come to a deeper understanding of the call to holiness we are all challenged to answer.

Mystery

2007-08-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have come to experience over the past few weeks that people seem to lack a sense of mystery. This is not just something that is apparent in just a select few, but really, in the end, I think we all lack that certain sense of mystery.

I will give an example. There are many times that people will ask for a reason behind a certain action. There are certain times that giving a reason is acceptable and indeed proper. However, it is not always the case that we ought to have to give an answer. There may be a valid reason, but it may just be that they ought not to be privileged to such a reason. If a Bishop moves a priest, he is not required to explain why, or if someone is not wanting to go somewhere, they do not have to always give a reason why it is they don't wish to go there if it is personal and are uncomfortable with the public knowing about such decision.

This all leads to the culture in general and, in a certain sense, the Church. A loss of mystery follows from a loss sense of Beauty. When we loose sight of what is True, Good, and Beautiful, we loose sight that we can not comprehend the True, Good, and Beautiful. This is, for example, the danger of technology. Technology makes everything accessible, tangible, explainable. Technology becomes, as Fr. de Souza said at a lecture here one evening, about technology becoming anti-sacramental.

The Sacraments are meant to be mysterious. We can have an understanding of them, but, in the end, we can never comprehend the total reality, and this is most true in the Eucharist.

This is why I believe intellectualism can go too far. St Thomas, after his mystical experience, stated that "All I have written is but straw". Intellectual pursuits are true, good, and a gift from God, we are supposed to explore that gift according to the size of the gift given. However, just as it is with the grace of freedom, the gift can be misused. We can come to worship intellectualism. Intellectual pursuits are only so good as when our lives reflect holiness. If intellectual pursuits are not bearing fruit in our souls and the souls of others, then we have to question if we are using this gift accordingly.

The danger of intellectual pursuits I find is that people tend to want to know about everything, even if you do not feel they have the right to know. It is true that we are supposed to give a reason for the hope within us, but I think we can take this pursuit too far when attampts to understand things we were never meant to understand. I think that mystery is a good thing because it leads to contemplation. Intellectual pursuits are only so good as to when they lead us to contemplate the beauty of God in a deeper and more profound way.

I may be wrong in this and would gladly accept any comments.

-Harrison

Having vs. Being

2007-08-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards "having" rather than "being", and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself. - John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, Paragraph 36.

This quote came to my mind today when our Bishop gave his homily at Mass this morning. I will first say this, his homily was probably the best homily I have ever heard and I mean that in every way. It was engaging, it had something for everyone, it spoke about the central vocation for us all, which is to holiness and to live a life of love. The most important thing, however, was that he did not stop there, but engaged us and challenged us as to how it is we are to love God, and that is something that is very important for us to hear. Oh yes, and he was also "eschatologically oriented", that is, he said that we come to know the important things in life when we meditate on our own death.

This above quote from Centesimus Annus is something that he touched on. While I was at the Tertio Millennio Seminar, I had to give a 10 minute presentation on a paragraph that I found topical and engaging and I chose paragraph 36, specifically focusing on the above quote.

It is this quote that is essential for the modern culture because it speaks to a deeply a reality that has spread itself rapidly in Western culture, that is, we are defined by what we have, not who we are.

How many people define themselves by the car they drive, the amount of money they have in the bank, how many houses they own or, in my case, how many books they have. We all have that one thing we enjoy in life that we define ourselves by. It is not to say that we can't enjoy books and cars and houses and the material things in life. But they must have a purpose. They must not be the end of things, but must be a means. The material things in the world are supposed to be a means, to help us attain Heaven. That is the point and purpose of "things".

What defines ourselves is being, that is, living in the moment according to God's will for us. We be, we exist, we experience everything all out of our love of God. Our dignity is based in who we are, not what we own. How many times people try to define themselves based on how others think about them, how they do in school, and so forth. This is not how we are made to be important, we are not made to be loved based on what we have. Rather, we are to be loved simply because we are an individual. God does not love us because of our grades, because of our money, and so forth. God loves us because we are us. It is the fact that God loves us that we want to live the call to excellence. From there, when we experience God's love, we are challenged by that experience to live the life of love as God does. We are challenged to live that more excellent way, to become excellent for the glory of God.

We do not define ourselves by what we have, we define ourselves by who we are, a human individual, loved by God's infinite love.

John Paul II, ora pro nobis.

-Harrison

More Canadian Cultural Renewal

2007-08-04T23:24:00.001-07:00

I was privileged this evening to have dinner with Fr. de Souza (writer for the National Post), Tom Mcfeely (an editor for the National Catholic Register), his wife, and some friends from College and Career.

I have had some ideas about getting people together to start brain storming on how to engage cultural renewal in Canada and Tom knew about this, so he told me to put my idea across Fr. de Souza to see what he thinks.

Fr. de Souza felt that publishing journals in the realm of First Things, for example, would be a bit too difficult to get going in Canada. In the US, it has about 40,000 subscribers and is probably the most prominent politically conservative, religiously orthodox journal in the US. Since Canada's population is only about 1/10 the size of the US, he feels it would be difficult for people, in a journal, to be able to get their readership up enough to make it a financially viable endeavor.

I will be honest that I was rather surprised to hear this. While I understand his reasoning, I do think that if things are promoted properly then people will subscribe. I am sure that it would not be difficult to get many subscribers, again, promotion is everything.

He was also a bit down, I found, on the idea of think tanks, because they need money and people seem hesitant in giving money for such things.

I think he is in principle for such endeavors, but feels that since our population is so much smaller and less religious, it would be hard to get such things off the ground.

He did say, however, what he does think would work. He said that we ought to encourage people to write for their local newspapers, so that their opinions could be heard on a local level and that, generally, editors for local papers are willing to have local writers to write on local issues as it gives the paper that local feel it wants.

He also mentioned the idea of a website in which there would be access to content and news on a regular basis. He believes that this is the best means.

I still think the other things are possible too, though, and I am going to be continuing to be bouncing ideas off of people. I do see the idea of a website being very popular and something that can give us the boost we would need to eventually get a journal off the ground.

I also had another idea but I forgot to put it past him.

-Harrison

What Ruins Society

2007-08-04T23:15:00.001-07:00

I have began writing notes on the nature of society and the impact of allowing homosexual marriages as being legal on a society at large.

This has me contemplating as I know there is various "anthropological stamps" on society as they are based on the social nature of Man. The concept I have been contemplating most is the concept of "nuptial stamp" on society, that society is in a certain sense nuptial. If it is, then nuptiality is based on the necessity of the difference of sexes, and if that is essential in the nature of a society, then homosexuality itself can never be seen as a society. At best it could be seen as a partnership, but partnerships have no legal (or social) rights to marriage.

This is all in the preliminary stages and so will require more reflection and study, specifically in the realm of social and anthropological philosophy.

What got me thinking about this is why civilizations in the past have fallen. It has been on what I call the 4 pillars of the death of a civilization, which are abortion, homosexuality, infanticide, and promiscuity/destruction of the idea of the family. All 4 are attacks on the nature of what we see society being. But why is it that these are seen as the essentials for destroying a civilization? If a civilization is destroyed, it is because the structure of society has fallen apart, so, logically, these 4 pillars of death really would be the antithesis of a free and virtuous society. And they are all inherently social. So, they must be the cause of the fall, but why is it that they have such a detrimental effect on society? This is what I hope to research, and any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.

-Harrison

The idea of Beauty in Sacramentum Caritatis

2007-08-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

I have recently begun the Pope's Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. I have found it to be an exhortation rich in theological depth and spiritual food. I recommend everyone to pick it up.

Today I began the section on the liturgy, perhaps the section I was most excited about starting. I found it interesting because of the basis of how he starts the section, first with a brief paragraph on the essential relationship between Lex Credendi and Lex Orandi, that is, the law of belief and the law of prayer. These things are essentially related with one another, and that one's orthodoxy is known by their orthopraxis and visa versa.

That was very nice to hear affirmed, but what I found even more interesting was that he began the very next paragraph with a reflection on the nature of Beauty.

Now, most people think that, when talking about Beauty, that is is spoken of in an aesthetic sense. However, that is not how the Pope is speaking about it here. He is speaking about the objective reality of Beauty, a reality in which the Liturgy participates because Beauty Himself comes to us in the Eucharist.

I found this quite interesting as he seems to be, in his usual subtle way, to be affirming the necessity of a proper comprehension of the nature of Beauty in order to have authentic liturgies. He states this because Beauty is what leads us to Love, Who is God.

By addressing this abstract idea, he is also addressing an unfortunate reality in many parishes throughout the world, that they do not resemble the idea of beauty because there is no unity in their liturgies, that their liturgical space is lacking in ornate objects to lead one to contemplate Beauty Himself, and that their is no music that leads to the contemplation of that reality as well. It is worth pondering and contemplating as I think he is touching a very serious root of the modern liturgical problems and culture, the loss of the sense of Beauty. I think that the loss of the experience of Beauty was at first cultural but what eventually got its way into the Church's practices.

And thus, it brings us back to the orthopraxis means orthodoxy statement. A loss of the idea and experience of the reality of Beauty leads to a false understanding of Church Doctrine and of the reality of Christ. It is interesting that the Pope is attacking the problem through the realm of beauty, but I am not surprised either, taking into account his writings from previous years on liturgy and beauty.

-Harrison

Intercessions

2007-08-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

I had a discussion today with my priest, and, he rightly criticized me for being a bit too self-righteous. But we did end up having a decent dialogue about the nature and purpose of intercessions.

I was looking at the Magnificat prayer book (one that I often refer to for intercessions), and found the following:

That government leaders will work to provide a just distribution of the
world's goods, remaining especially mindful of the poor.

I saw this and thought to myself "so, people are supposed to be distributed justly, interesting concept". Now, that thought may sound a bit weird to some, but, with a proper understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, it makes perfect sense.

One of the talks that Fr. Neuhaus gave us was on the idea of wealth. When reading Centissumus Annus by John Paul II, he explicitly (that is, leaves no room for error) states what is the wealth of the world, what its goods are. He states that wealth and goods are not based in material things, but in man. It is not money, or land, or technology that is the basis for our wealth, but ourselves.

Let us take an example that Fr. Neuhaus gave us. Silicon used to be absolutely worthless. It had almost no value at all. It wasn't because it was silicon that it was worthless, but rather because no one saw a purpose for it. Now, someone comes along and thinks "this would be a great thing to use in the construction of microchips". And boom, the value of silicon skyrockets. It's not because someone said "oh, silicon, based on its properties, has a value of x", but it is because someone came along and applied their gift of reason to the object and said "I can make you worth something". This is the value of wealth, man, not object.

This brings the above mentioned intercession into a greater context. Seeing that man is the source of wealth, standards of living, wealth (in the purely materialistic sense) are seen as having an endless opportunity for growth. This is the beauty of Catholic Social Doctrine. It does not say that there is a pie chart which states there is only x amount of wealth in the world, and thus that it is unfair since the rich have 80% of it, but rather the Church says there is no pie chart, but rather infinite access to opportunity.

This is why (and JP II talks about this a lot in Centissimus Annus) it is not right to send money to less developed nations. Money is not going to make them develope. Rather, what they need is access to training to see that the potential for economic prosperity is within themselves thanks to the gift of reason which God has given them. This is the true empowerment of the poor that the Church teaches.

And so, we ought to be weary when intercessory prayers are put within a box, because we must remember that the Church, in her adequate understanding of man, says that man is not constrained by a box, but only by his lack of willingness to use his reason.

-Harrison

A Problem of Language?

2007-08-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

I was having a discussion last night with my roomate. He was stating that he is going to be researching the history of the idea of a person, with concentration on the theologians of the East.

He was stating that this is a topic he's going to spend time on because of a problem in engaging the idea of person nowadays.

He stated that, when discussing the distinction between man and animals, the ability to distinguish between man and animals is lessening with an alarming rate. Why is this happening? Because of an overly emphasized empiricism. For example, people say that apes can have a sense of the idea of beauty because they stare longer at a piece of art that is beautiful then one that is ugly. Therefore, they exhibit a human characteristic and thus are not so different really, and perhaps they are indeed persons.

My roomate was arguing that we have focused too much on the idea that man is a rational being, and it is the gift of reason that distinguishes him from animals. I was completely honest with him in that I didn't agree. The problem was not the idea of man being reasonable and something that has been taking by animal behaviourilists and applied to animals. Reason is that which defines the individual. But the problem is not on the individual level, but on the level of species.

One thing that is not discussed is man as a social animal. Perhaps there has been an over-emphasis on man's individual isolation from the rest of the animal kingdom. This is why it is important to affirm mans's social aspect. This is why God said it is "not good" for man to be alone on the 6th day. This is quite strong language, considering God is constantly saying "behold, it is good". The first statement of value is that God says it is "not good". That should really stick out to anyone who reads the Bible. God saw Man as not being complete and so created a partner fitting for Adam. Man became fulfilled by being a society of persons. Then God not only said that it was good, but that is was "very good". This again should leave us food for contemplation, because it is the only time in the creation narrative that God says "very good". Man is only fulfilled by being a society of persons. Man, on the species sense, is fundamentally different from the individuals. The individuals are individuated from animals because of their ability to reason, but also to be social in a society.

This, of course, is the theological position. To bring in Genesis to the public square on the nature of animals would probably not go over too well. And so, I propose a second problem, a flight from metaphysics.

People in the modern world have taken the idea of science too far to the point that all certainty is in that which we observe through our senses. They divorece it from any idea of a universal principle, form, or what not. When you divorce metaphysics from empiricism, you divorce your ability to make your case convincingly on a universal basis. Metaphysics discuss those universals from which we derive our particulars.

And this is why I think JP II's Theology of the Body and Philosophical Anthropology are the tool to this modern epidemic. One is a theological language, exclusive to the Christian discussion and affirmation of Man, while the other is a philosophical language, based in truth and in a deep understanding and experience of the human condition, being able to engage all people, whether they are Christian or not.

This theological and philosophical idea that JP II has is unique because of its unique unitivity. It understands the principle that nothing is in the mind that is not previously perceived through the senses (a standard medieval principle and the basis of empiricism), while at the same time affirming that our empirical experiences are a mode of coming to experience something more then just the particular, but to grasp a universal. It unite empiricism and metaphysics in a proper classical method. It further unites subjectivity with objectivity.

I think the most important thing is that it affirms the idea of experience as the means of attaining knowledge, something almost every human person, I think, would agree with. However, it says that our personal experience is personal and unique to us, but that does not mean that it is not a personal and unique experience of something universal. It affirms that personal understanding of truth and says "a universal does exist, you have experienced from your indivuality, which is unique. You have experienced a universal in a unique way, thus adding to man's total understanding of that truth". In other words, it defends itself against the plague of relativism that is the result of a purely empirilistic world perspective.

-Harrison

On the Nature of Societies

2007-08-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

I received a few comments by e-mail on my post on the USCCB. Without divulging what people said to me in private, needless to say I was a bit saddened by the fact that people think that, in this case, the conference is identical with its members. This is not the case, a society, by definition, is fundamentally different from the members which make it up. The society is, if you will, its own person with its own will, rights, and dignity. It is what Maitland calls an "N + 1 Unity". It is a person unto itself which consists of n number of individuals plus itself, with its own distinctive individuality.

To understand this, there is the need to distinguish the idea of what persons are. At the core, a person is someone who is, according to St Thomas, "distinct by reason of dignity". I will not go into the history of the word persona here and now, though I encourage researching it as it is quite fascinating.

Taking this definition of a person, we have 3 categories of persons; natural, fictional, and real.

Natural Persons

Natural Persons are those who, according to Prof. Hittinger (and the entire Christian tradition), possess a unity of rational substance. That is to say, it has a substantial nature which is expressed primarily through reason. This has within itself 3 categories; Man, Angels, and God, God being the most distinct in dignity of Natural Persons because of the infinite nature of His reason.

Fictional Persons

Fictional Persons fall under the nature of the law. Virtually anything can be a fictional person. Essentially, the best way to explain this is through example. Let us take, for example, that Joe leaves his dog Spot everything in his will. Joe has every right to do this and, 10 years after writing his will, passes away. Spot now is a legal entity bearing rights and interest by virtue of law. They thus receive a legal dignity necessary to make them distinct under the eyes of the law so as to legally receive that which has been given to them under the law. This is not something they receive because of their nature, but because of the structure of the law.

Real Persons

Real persons are defined by what they are not; they are not a substantial unity nor are the a fictional creation of the law. This is the realm in which societies fall under. This comes from the Thomistic Tradition in his idea of the unity of order. Thomas states that this unity of order is not absolutely one, but that its unitive actions are fundamentally different from the actions of its parts and visa versa.

Let us take an example. Say, for example, that you have a soccer team. The action of the team is to win the game. This is only something a team can accomplish as a team, as a society of persons. The goal of the society is to win the game. However, this is distinct from the role of the individual members. The role of the goalie is to stop the ball, the defenseman to ensure the ball is away from his side of the field and so on. These are activities that are distinct to the members and do not belong to the whole. It is not the role of the entire society of the team to be a goalie.

And the same goes the other way around. It is not the role of the goalie to win the game. By the very definition of team sports, this is contrary to their purpose. Of course, the goalies goal is to win the game and he will do his part to ensure that the societal person attains its goal.

Let us, then, apply this example to what I was saying yesterday. When I am talking about the USCCB, for example, I am talking about the real person that is that society, I am not talking about its members.

Again going back to the soccer example (and taking the hardcore nature of soccer fans into effect to a certain degree), I may hate Arsenal because they beat Manchester United, but this is not going to mean I am going to hate each individual player on the team. Rather, I am referring my hate towards the real personal entity that is the society of the team Arsenal. (Qualification, I am not actually advocating hate towards any persons, real or natural!).

So, if I am talking about the USCCB , I am not talking about its members, but about the society itself. I am addressing concerns I have with the actions taken by the real person known as the USCCB. These actions are distinctive to the society and not the individual bishops. Now, there are members of the society who will take a role in ensuring that the society itself takes certain actions. I am not going to agree if it is in regards to something such as to what I posted yesterday. However, my criticism does not have anything to do with the particular members, but the unitive whole that is distinct in being and nature from its members. That is what I mean.

I could honestly post a lot more on this, but I won't because this is a very complicated (and interesting!) topic, one in which I would only too happily talk on and on about.

I also encourage checking out material by Russell Hittinger on the subject. He was my main source for this as this was his main focus in his lectures at the Tertio Millennio Seminar.

-Harrison

Conference on the Eucharist and the Family

2007-08-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a bit, but the Diocese of Victoria is putting on yet another wonderful event with yet another wonderful speaker.

On Saturday, September 15th, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Primate of Canada and Archbishop of Quebec City, will be giving a talk on the Eucharist and the Family.

It is a 1 day event, and he will also be celebrating Mass at 12:30pm on Sunday. The best part of this event is that it is FREE!! No, it's not a typo, it's the truth! So come one come all (I know I have some Vancouver readers who I know would be interested in this).

More information is available at www.edithsteinsociety.ca

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I know some of you who came out to George Weigel last year would be interested in coming, so I joyously await hearing of your coming to this :).

-Harrison

Barack Obama

2007-07-31T23:10:00.000-07:00

I had a friend from Poland e-mail me this speech from Barack Obama and he asked me some questions that he was hoping for my feedback on. The speech can be found here:

http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/060628-call_to_renewal_1/index.php

My friend asked me the following questions, which I hope I answer to his satisfaction:

What do you think of it? Is it a hijack of religious language? Is it a Trojan horse into Christian mindset? Or maybe Obama has right to formulate his opinions using religious language? And by using Christian language he is legitimizing it? Or maybe he is rather discrediting it or abusing it?

Before I get started, I would like to say that Obama is quite the rhetorician. He really knows how to speak the talk of the right while not actually buying into anything that it stands for. It is very clear that he is trying to please both sides, saying that our duty is to the progressive ideal while saying it is not fundamentally opposed to having been informed by religion. I will have to say, I can see how easy it is to be carried by his sway, but his colours showed deep down through his clever use of language in an attempt to appease all sides. In fact, I believe the following paragraph illustrates this perfectly:

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal

What do you think of it?

As I write this I am still finishing the talk. It is quite intriguing because he puts in many attractive statements, only to follow them with subtle arguments that, if one is not careful, will fall into the razzle dazzle of his smoke and light show.

What was eerie for me was that all I could think about was Fr. Elijah by Michael O'Brien. The politician who was able to convince people of all faiths that they were all right, yet in a subtle way so as they could think that they could still be who they claimed to be. It eerie how similar it was to that book as I was reading this to be completely honest. The man who would bring world peace by bringing an end to division, a division which, at its root (according to the world) is in religion. Religion is what divides, but according to Obama, it is our reason that unites.

It is weird because I read a paragraph and think to myself "right on!" only to follow it up with a "oh, I see where he's going" and quickly see the error of the original excitement. I hope to address the rest of the observations in the remainder of the questions.

Is it a hijack of religious language?

I am of the firm opinion that this speech is a definite hijack of religious language. He is using it all over the place, but that is precisely the point, he is using it. It is funny how at one point he is talking about the universality of morality, while at another point saying that some basic moral precepts are only right for some cultures and not for all.

I really am just amazed about the subtle contradictions. What I am even more amazed about is that I think he is fully aware of the contradictions, but says them because he knows that the average joe will not see these contradictions and see that progressivism and faith are actually the best of buddies and are not mutually exclusive.

One spot I noticed the hijacking to be at its height was at the following:

Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

First I thought to myself "wow, he knows Rick Warren!" After regaining my senses, I looked at this and thought "he is using religious convictions to promote ideals that are not necessarily religious." I can't remember the last time we have talked about the role of budget cuts in our attaining salvation. But that just might be my lack of exposure. He says at one point that we can't have our religious convictions influence our political decisions in matters like abortion and homosexual marriage, while at other points, such as the above quoted paragraph, he is saying we need to exercise our religious faith in the public square. This is ok, of course, because it is in line with the progressive agenda. It seems, in the end, Obama is saying that faith is ok in the public square only when it is in according with the progressive agenda, which to Obama, seems to be the true revealer of all that is true.

Is it a Trojan horse into Christian mindset?

I will be brief here. I will simply say that yes, it is a Trojan horse. He is talking about things that every religious person has a deep concern about and says to them "yes, you are right for having a deep conviction of faith". That is his way in, and he talks the language they talk, but it is through that language that he subtly moves his progressive agenda in. For example, he says "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values." He is using a language that many Christians are accustomed to, the idea of universals. But he seems to think that if it is universal, it is in conflict with religiously based morals, as if religion cannot attain an understanding of morality, unless it is the version he is touting with the progressive flag. 'Nuff said there.

Or maybe Obama has right to formulate his opinions using religious language?

Well, Obama does have the right to formulate his opinions using religious language. However, the question needs to be asked if this formulation is in accordance with truth. I think the Catholics who read my blog would say no, it is not a proper religious infusion into language. The inherent contradictions alone make it contrary to "religious-speak"! The idea that things can be universal, but also relative, and so forth. Yes, he has the right, but is he forming it right? I think he is not.

And by using Christian language he is legitimizing it? Or maybe he is rather discrediting it or abusing it?

I think the first part of this question hits the problem dead on. He is attempting to legitimate his perspective of the issues by throwing in Christian language. By speaking the language many conservatives would use, he is speaking at their level and engaging them in a way I am sure they are not used to by a progressive. Furthermore, he is quick on his feet and subtle, so it is tough to see that he has inherently wrong positions, but he is crafty enough to cover them up with statements that conservatives would like to hear.

I think, however, the second part of the question answers the remainder of the first. In the end, he is hijacking something that is not his. If he is really a relativist, who sees religion informing your public opinion only when it is in accordance with the progressive agenda, then he is definitely discrediting and abusing such a style of talking.

I would like to make one final comment. He sure liked to throw in his Catholic jab. He notes that "a majority" of Catholics practice birth control and are not opposed to the legalization of same sex marriage. First off, I would like to know how he knows that this is what the majority of Catholics do. Secondly, just because the majority does it, doesn't mean it is right. He is saying that the Bishops have to encourage their faithful to oppose birth control and same sex marriage on a personal level, but in the public sphere it can only be the progressive truth. I wonder how the heck you can encourage people to be anti-birth control privately while saying at the same time they are right for practicing it.

I think it is unfortunate that Barack fundamentally falls into so many easy errors. I think it is even more unfortunate, however, that this man has such command of the U.S. public. This man is indeed quite smart, and he knows how to use the right words to speak to the right people. But he uses those words to his advantage so that he can lure people into voting for him, , if he pulled the usual progressive lines, would usually not.

It is interesting what he is saying. He sees the conservative movement as having a control over the majority in the US and he sees that the only way to engage is to speak their language. It is a very brilliant move, I must admit. I just hope that those on the conservative side show that he really is not speaking their language at all. If only Barack could see it.

-Harrison

Environment more important then humanity, say some

2007-07-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting article on Maclean's that I read today:

http://www.macleans.ca/science/environment/article.jsp?content=20070806_108079_108079&page=1

It is discussing the nature of humanity, that the only way to save the environment (and humanity, maybe, if we're nice enough) is to stop having babies.

In fact, some would even go so far as to say "Save the world, kill yourself" (though one of course has to comment about the obvious rebuttals of "well, why haven't you done your part yet?").

Anyways, it just shocks me at what people are saying. They think that because man produces so much carbon just by breathing that he is a threat to the environment. Well, I hate to bust their bubble, but there are things on this Earth that produce far more carbon then Man. I'm not wanting to get into the environmental science issue of this article, however.

What shocks me about it is that there are people in the world who think that having more people is a bad thing. This is a direct attack on the philosophical Principle of Plenitude which states (if you take the Augustinian view of Beauty as a proper way of describing reality) that the more being there is in the created realm, the better it is. That is, a universe that is the most full is the best possible one. If man is meant to yearn for beauty, then to have a world with less of Man, then beauty is no longer an essential thing for man. I think many can agree that a world without beauty will be a world without truth and love, and that is a world, in contradiction with the last line of the article, is explicitly anti-human.

Discussion

2007-07-31T22:34:00.001-07:00

I was having dinner with a friend this evening and it was very fruitful.

One thing we were discussing was, well, the nature of discussion!

Fundamentally, we saw a problem in society that is made very present in every day life and that many people do not realize as being a serious problem.

The serious problem is the culture's unwillingness to enter into dialogue. How true this is in our day to day lives! I blame this on a current of thought that has really permeated modernity in a fierce way. It comes down to the Ockham vs. Aquinas debate of primacy of will vs. primacy of reason. When dialogue is not happening, people are not only unwilling to listen, they are unwilling to engage. When you are unwilling to engage, for whatever reason, you try and figure out a way for your point of view to be engaged. If you are unwilling to engage in an authentic way (that is, through dialogue), then the only other means you have is to impose your will. And thus you cease listening and talking, and instead shout (in a figurative manner, though even then that isn't always the case!) until you impose your will far better then those you are attempting to have a discussion with.

This is, of course, a bit of an oversimplification of the matter, but I think a matter that desperately needs our attention! We see so much the need for engaging, but engagement can only happen in dialogue.

There is a few things that must be recognized in dialogue:

A) That a dialogue means a dual logos, dual reasons, dual logics. Thus, you recognize that there are 2 points of view that do not exactly see eye to eye. But because they are based in the pursuit of truth, then there is always going to be a kernal of truth in both position.

B) A willingness to see the reasonableness of the other position. The desire on both sides, for authentic dialogue, is so that both can come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Truth.

C) Maturity is also needed. Maturity in dialogue is expressed when there is authentic listening and there is no shouting. You cannot simply say "you are wrong" or "you're so stubborn" unless you give a reason!! for that position.

I think all 3 things are lacking in our culture. Relativism is having an especially daunting effect on the nature of dialogue, for if there is no truth, then there is no reason based in truth, and thus no opportunity for dialogue. Instead, relativism brings about the idea of the survival of the fittest.

Anyways, that is just a brief reflection on the nature of dialogue. I would recommend you analyze your day to day life and see if those 3 conditions are being fulfilled in good, authentic conversations. If they're not, then a dialogue will not be flourishing.

-Harrison

Crossroads

2007-07-31T01:16:00.000-07:00

I was having some excellent conversations this evening with a couple of friends who keep me up far too late on work nights. But it really is too difficult to leave for the discussions are pure, honest, and sincere in their willingness to be open to the truth of the other side. This leads to an authentic search for truth and authentic dialogue happens. It is really a lot of fun (though I'm sure I won't be saying that when I wake up in 5 hours!)

Anyways, there was a point in my discussion tonight that I just could not let pass and had to write it down.

It was to do with Canada and Culture.

We have talked about this a couple times over the past few days, the ideas of what it means to be Canadian and if there really is something called a "Canadian Culture". If there is, why don't we know what it is, and we should go back into history and search it out. If there isn't, is it possible to create one authentically and organically 140 years after the institution of the country?

These are answers none of us have at the moment, from our conversations, and it has at least inspired me to research it at greater depth.

What really interested me, however, was that I also saw Canada being at a crossroads. There is a great hope I see for the future of Canada, and the Church plays nothing but an essential role in this. Where this is coming from is my generation. My generation has had the desire for a true expression of the human person. They have been exploring the riches of the Western Tradition to see this and have found it. Now, my generation is beginning to grow up and take an active role in society.

The question is, can what we see to be a culture worthy of the human person come out of an organic desire in a country that seems to have no unified culturally identity? I think my generation is beginning a great cultural renaissance. They are engaging all aspects of life, from the arts, the intellectual realm, the universities, politics, business, health care, etc. They see that the only way for having a robust and excelling culture is if it is rooted in a faith in God and strong moral conditions. Unfortunately, these are 2 conditions missing from the foundations of a Canadian culture at this point in history.

This just leads me to further pondering, but I will have to do that on my bed as I am passing out! Is it possible to renew a culture if we don't know what our cultural identity is? Is it possible to organically create a true cultural expression? Is there really any hope in Canada? These are important questions that I think we honestly need to ask ourselves.

The Underlining Changes

2007-07-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

I had quite an in depth conversation with some members of my parish today. It all began with the discussion of Michael Moore's new movie Sicko. I quickly gave a rebuttal against the movie, though I haven't seen it, knowing how slanted his opinions can be. One person was claiming how triumphant the movie is in giving the American system the black eye it so deserves.

I quickly said that the problem is not with the system. If we look at the system and how it works, it is actually the most efficient system. What has happened is that the culture is corrupted, and this leads to a false living of political and economic systems. I said that Americans have known for a long time that there are problems inherent in the culture at the moment. However, the problem is precisely a cultural one in which money and materials things are put in front of people. This is expressed in the day to day lives, in the political system, in the economic system, in how they treat people in their health care system.

This got us on to a huge discussion about the nature of what it means to be Canadian and how there is not a huge sense in that, in that Canadians define themselves through the via negativa, that is, through what they are not instead of what they are.

Fundamentally, what is at the root of this discussion, a point I was constantly emphasizing, is that the problems in Health Care in the US are not just a US problem. It is an expression of a problem in Western Civilization. The problem is the loss of the cultural roots in God and in a moral life. Fundamentally, the West is in a cultural crisis, not a political or economic one.

I gave them the example of Poland. Communism was taking a hold of the country, but it was Divine Providence that a Polish Pope was elected. What JP II started was a cultural renaissance, bringing back the idea of what it means to be Polish. Through this re-identification in a deeper sense of what it means to be Polish, the culture eventually expressed itself politically and economically through the fall of Communism.

This cultural need is something that the Communists saw as a threat, as did the Nazis. It is no wonder that they wanted to destroy Polish history, all that it stood for, all the literary, artistic, musical, philosophical, economic, and political achievements. These were expressions of a cultural identity. The Communists and Nazis saw these things as a danger to the formation of the totalitarian culture it was trying to impose. It is this reason they attempted to destroy their cultural roots.

During his pontificate, even after the fall of Communism, JP II saw the absolute need for a cultural revolution. He saw the deeply seeded materialistic tendencies that were overcoming the Western Countries and begged them to turn their focus on God and not themselves, for it is faith in God that man truly finds his identity.

And so we speak of the cultural crisis in various individual nations, all Western. However, if Western Civilization hopes to defend itself, I think the West itself will need a fundamental cultural revolution and reformation (reformation meaning a turning back to the form of the culture, the culture's essential nature). If the West hopes to survive, it needs to turn back to God and to the moral norms that come from such a faith.

All that we know to be Western are fundamentally rooted in Christianity, no matter how much people choose to deny it. I will give one example. The idea of personhood as we understand it today was not formalized until the 4th century discussions on the nature of the Trinity. The theologians were struggling to find a way to describe how three entities could be of one nature. They took the word persona from Latin, which was originally used to denote a mask an actor would wear, and used it as a means of explaining the Trinity. It was fully formalized in the definition we use today by Boethius as an individual substance of a rational nature. This is rooted in Christianity.

If we cut ourselves off from such roots, then what we hold to be good and true in the West will also be lost. This is why JP II and Benedict XVI have been so insistent on the inclusion of Christianity in the pre-amble to the Constitution of the European Union. Everything that the EU stands for, its democratic ideals, are rooted in Christian thought and a Christian perspective of the world. To not include Christianity in the pre-amble is to say that what the EU stands for is not Christian when in all truth it is.

Let us reclaim our civilization and reform our culture.

-Harrison

A brief observation

2007-07-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

I have just begun reading Earthly Powers by Michael Burleigh and I have been finding it incredibly enlightening. The basis of the book is the clash of religion and politics, with a focus on the period from the French Revolution to The Great War.

One thing that he notices is the idea of the State replacing the religion, providing man something to worship and find fulfillment in on Earth. This is all in the introduction and is to be expounded upon later on, but it got me thinking.

We hear all the stories about fire and brimstone from the homilies of the past, and yet it seems to have completely disappeared from the modern mentality of preaching. Whether this is good or bad is not a judgment I am going to make here and now, but simply an observation.

What Burleigh argues for is that the State offers a bringing about of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth through political and economic means, while the Church offers the Kingdom of Heaven, knowing that the only Person who can make that reality of happen is God.

Well, if we look at the trend of homiletics (I am making a semi-generalization, though I of course do know that this is not a universal at all, but simply a trend), we see that we no longer focus on the world to come, on the eschaton. Rather, we now focus on the world. It is as if fulfillment is in our grasp here and now by creating a justly ordered world in which every tear will be wiped away. It is what Voegelin called the "cult of immanency of the eschaton", that is, that the Kingdom of Heaven is present on Earth through this cultish embrace by the State.

This mentality has been felt in homiletics in which we no longer hear of the world to come because it truly is no longer at the forefront of our minds but is rather now replaced with the eschaton of the now. Now, I am of course not blaming the priests for this, but I do think it does call for reflection too.

Do we simply keep our reflections solely on the now, or do we keep our focus on the world to come. Fulfillment in this world or in the next? Which is higher? I know all good Catholics will say the latter. If it is the latter, then I believe we must re-examine our eschatonal (I am making up a word there!) orientation. We must orientate ourselves towards Heaven and the life to come, which will thus witness to this world that though peace and justice are important aspects of this world, they pale in comparison to the Kingdom of God in the world to come. Let us reclaim the eschaton.

And yet more on the Motu Proprio

2007-07-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

From this week's Catholic Register:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/3174

I found this to be a great and clear articulation of the Pope's intentions behind the subject. It is an affirmation of what has been said here on these pages as well as on many other pages.

-Harrison

Slow Day

2007-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone, I've been a bit pre-occupied today, so instead I have a couple links for you to check out:

First, at Catholic Explorers, I was asked to post about my experiences at the Tertio Millennio Seminar, you can find the write up here:

http://catholicexplorers.blogspot.com/2007/07/tertio-millennio-seminar.html

Secondly, at AugustinePoodle, you will find a great post on Biblical Translations a la Fr. Neuhaus, check it out here:

http://augustinepoodle.blogspot.com/2007/07/richard-neuhaus-on-nab.html

Also, the full post by Fr. Neuhaus can be found here:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=807

Enjoy. I'm going to relax and enjoy a good book (something stimulating) and a not so good book (at least in terms of writing style, I'm going to read some more of Harry Potter).

-Harrison

Oh CanaDUH

2007-07-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

I encourage everyone to read this article from Macleans Magazine:

http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20070723_107247_107247

This survey, to me, really speaks volumes of the intellectual crisis in Canada. While the columnist calls the idea of a "literary crisis" a tad alarmist, I am in agreement that we are in a crisis, though I wouldn't call it literary, but rather an intellectual one.

The fact that these figures are so high shows just how dis-engaged Canadian culture is. Perhaps this is why we're so polite, we simply don't know what it means to engage and thus just apologize and thank everyone for anything, not because we know why we're apologizing or saying thank you, but because it's the "tolerant" thing to do. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to engage your ideas and put them to the test of reason", "thank you for your opinion, it has given me a new perspective" (if only Joe Smith knew what perspective was!).

It is not to say that politics are the be-all end-all litmus test of our society's brain drain, but it is a good indicator. And I know what one complaint will be, "America is taking all our smart people". Well now, is America taking them, or are Canadians leaving Canada because they're fed up with the lack of engagement of the country? I would argue that if you talk to anyone, it's the latter. Let us leave America out of it. Most people are simply jealous of the many achievements America has made and so just presume that everything American is bad. Let us stop blaming people and start taking action!

Let us begin engaging people and actually giving them an education. Let us stop defining being Canadian with hockey, beer, and Tim Hortons. Materialism is not the way to defining what it means to be Canadian, let me assure you!

While I was stuck in London I met another Canadian who seemed to put his life on beer and swearing. The unfortunate thing is, however, that this is not uncommon. People in Canada do not think. I know I am making a generalized statement, because I am obviously thinking right now and giving reasons for what I am saying. But the sweeping majority simply do not care about thinking. In fact, many men actually identify with the stupid-man character on so many TV sitcoms. It has now become the status quo that if you are like the men on TV, then you are a real man. I'm sorry, but real manhood is not that, I hate to burst the bubble.

It is time to stop this cultural pacifism and start getting engaged. Perhaps we can start at a level all people can understand, though. Let us put on each box of Tim Hortons a line from the Constitution Act, or on a can of beer a name of a Prime Minister with their face. Perhaps we can still educate this country before it falls into intellectual nothingness.

-Harrison

No Faith in Reason

2007-07-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

I had a rather long e-mail discussion with someone today about how it seems that in Victoria and in Canada in general there is a certain complacency towards what the Church teaches. Many say "I believe it" but stop there and refuse to engage to come to a deeper understanding of the truths of the Church.

This seems to me to be thoroughly un-Catholic position. If you look at the great Saints, they attempted to understand God to the best that their abilities allowed. They yearned for Him and wanted to know Him to a greater extent, even those Saints who weren't as smart as the great Doctors of the Church.

What is the result of the Church in Canada? We have adapted ourselves to pacifism, fideism, and just a general desire to not engage the Church in what She teaches so that they can come to know Christ more deeply.

I am not saying that we are all called to be great intellectuals, not all are called to that. But there is a reason why the Church has always valued the Saints, because they have used their gift of reason as best they could. There is always a reason. That is the beauty of the Church. St Peter writes "Be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is within you". We must be prepared to give the reasons we are faithful to the Church and Her teachings! In fact, our faith is a reasonable faith because the Logos IS Reason! Reason became incarnate in the world, He gave meaning to the world.

Now I do not think that this pacifistic fideism is a result of the Church and Her teachings, but rather a result of the Canadian culture in which we live. There is a false view of tolerance in which relativism runs so very deep. And this creates an idea that if we are to be tolerant, we cannot subject a person's most deeply rooted beliefs to the test of reason. This leads to a lack of desire to wanting to engage our gift of reason on that front and thus on all fronts. Fundamentally, Canada has lost her faith in reason.

It is this idea that reason is primary in man that we need to rejuvenate in Canada. We need to show everyone that there is joy and beauty in desiring to know God in a deeper manner. We need to show that our faith IS reasonable. We need to reform the Universities, bring about journals to discuss public issues on the public square, we need think tanks, we need to engage the culture. We need to show the culture to beauty of reason and the joy that comes out of it. There is a reason there are not great achievements as of late in Canadian culture. When a culture loses its pride in reason, it loses its sense of beauty and excellence. When a culture does this, it begins its downward spiral towards destruction.

Look at the great Renaissance's of the Middle Ages, specifically the 9th and 12th centuries. These are times in which the gift of reason was seen as the central means for expressing man's love for beauty. It is this that created great cultural achievements. It is time for a new renaissance, a renaissance of reason. Let us not have history look at the 21st century as a time of cultural decay, but of cultural renewal in which the culture brought about a change in all aspects of society. Let us regain our faith in reason.

-Harrison

Liturgical Continuity

2007-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal. - Benedict XVI - Summorum Pontificum

I have been finding the discussion on the Motu Proprio (MP) by Benedict XVI rather interesting. I will admit to my excitment at its release while I was in Poland and eagerly read it with joy.

That being said, I think that many people have been taking the norms of the MP too far. It has been a bit to my shock to hear of many people, including many who are rather large names in the Church, now suddenly calling for it to be in place in all places, as if it ought to be the ordinary rite for the Church, as if it is holier then the Pauline expression of the Rite. This has ensued in the seemingly sudden dismissal by many people of the Paul VI missal, as if it has been decided that the Missal has been unsuccessful because of so many abuses done with that Missal.

People are expecting Bishops to implement norms so that it is in place in all parishes and getting all people to learn Latin so that they can all attend the Roman Rite according to the Missal of John XXIII. This is not what Benedict has in mind, I believe, with the MP.

The MP has been issued for 2 essential reasons. The first is expressed in his explanatory letter about the wanting to heal divisions within and outside the Church. Along in that first reason is the fact that many people are simply attached to that older expression of the Roman Rite and wishes to allow people to worship in that manner, for an older expression of the Rite is never forbidden.

The second reason is expressed in the quote from above. It is his hope, I believe, that there is a sort of "dialogue" between the 2 expressions of the Rite so that in the end the Pauline Missal, which is the ordinary expression of the Rite, can come to a true and proper expression according to the intentions of the Council Fathers and Paul VI. The Pope, in the end, sees the Missal according to Paul VI as the means for unification in which, once properly expressed and abuses cease, Parishes can live a Christian life in accordance to the Law of Prayer. Orthodoxy only comes from Orthopraxis.

So, I do hope that there is a Mass according to the Missal of John XXIII in all Dioceses around the world, so long as there is interest within that Diocese. This is not meant to be imposed on the people, as the Pope rightly expresses. I hope that there is one here in Victoria, simply because I wish to experience that Mass and see what riches it has that can still help in the organic growth of the Paul VI missal.

Finally, I would like to make one final note. It seems to me that many people want to go back to the old expression of the Rite because of the abuses that have happened over the past 40 years. This reactionary position is wrong headed according to Benedict in the explanatory letter. He says that the Pauline Missal has a theological and spiritual richness, and, like I said, this will come out througha "liturgical dialogue". You cannot say you want the Johannine Missal because the Pauline one is spiritually inferior. The Pope is saying that this is a position that is not theologically tenable.

So, I pray that the reactions will begin to slow down and that an authentic implementation of these norms will take place when necessary.

-Harrison

Retributive Justice, Self-Defense, and Just War

2007-07-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

While at Tertio Millennio, George Weigel gave an extra lecture on the just war tradition.

In that lecture, he mentioned the 6 criteria for ius ad bellum, which is Latin for Justice of War. These 6 categories are necessary to be fulfilled prior to engagement in order to justify the engagement in war. Without one category fulfilled, then it cannot be considered just.

The 6 criteria are:

1) Just Cause
2) Competent Authority
3) Right Intention
4) Reasonable Chance of Success
5) Proportionality of Ends
6) Last Resort

Criteria 1 - 3 are what are considered "Deontological", that is, one is duty bound for the sake of moral truth to fulfill them. 4 - 6 are considered "prudential" in that they are prudential judgements, that is, it is up to the competent authority or authorities to make a judgement based on the information they have whether or not these conditions can be met. There is no universal means to make the judgements for that, it is not a methematical formula that is universal, but is something that needs to be exercised once the deontological criteria are considered fulfilled.

Now, it is criteria 1 that is of particular interest for me. There are 3 possible categories that this criteria can be considered fulfilled:

a) Punishment for evil
b) Defense against aggression
c) Recapture of something wrongly taken

However, it is generally assumed by most people that the only justifiable category is (b).

I don't agree with that statement and see (c) as a justifiable category as well, depending on the seriousness of the theft of property. If Country A steals a toaster oven from Country B, I would hardly say that is justification for going to war!

However, I do have a problem with (a). I do not see punishment for evil as a justifiable category, no matter how evil the action is. This is where people will immediately ask the question of "how is it possible to justify attacking a defenseless people against a tyrant?". I do see helping defenseless people defend themselves as justifiable, but not within the category of (a).

To talk about this, I would like to make a distinction. Many people say that when someone does an evil act, they forfeit their dignity. This is true, but not in a complete sense.

It is here that a distinction in dignities needs to be made. The most basic type of dignity is the dignity based at the core of a person's being, the dignity of being the Imago Dei. This is what is called "Ontological Dignity" (a term that Fr. Williams, LC, termed. Ontology is the study of being). There are other types of dignity, though, such as moral and societal dignity. Anything that is under ontological dignity is considered to have the ability to be forfeited. This is because moral and social dignity are given to you and can be taken away. They are earned from your equals in your society.

Ontological dignity, however, is something that you receive personally from God. It is therefore something that is not in the realm of man to take away. Thus, punishment for evil, according to JP II's anthropological outlook, can never amount to taking an individual's life away, no matter how evil his actions, because of the ontological dignity that is within him and is a gift from God. He has, however, forfeited other dignities which is why a tyrant, for example, would go to jail because he no longer has the societal dignity to be a member of society.

What this is leading to is that (a) is not a justifiable category. However, the explanation for (b) can be expanded. At this moment in time it is seen in the terms of self-defense in a self-contained sort of way, that a nation can only defend itself and cannot interfere in affairs that do not concern it.

I believe, however, that (b), since it speaks only in terms of defense, can be expanded to the idea of defense on behalf of others who are not able to defend themselves. For example, the situation in Darfur could be seen as a just cause as the people need to defend themselves but are unable to and so need an outside force to defend them on their behalf. I see no contradiction in (b) fulfilling this need for action. It used to be seen that, in the case of Darfur, it would be justifiable because of the actions certain people are taking and that they need to be punished for their actions. Now it can be seen instead in the light of defense and bringing an end to an unjust situation with the only possible means (if all non-military means have been attempted of course).

That is my brief reflection on the idea. I'm also now half asleep so if something doesn't make sense it's because I was falling asleep typing this.

-Harrison

I'm Back!

2007-07-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally made it back safe and sound. I have one post I will make this evening and then will proceed with unpacking and cleaning my room (I forgot that it was fully of boxes before I left).

The plan for the evening is to get to bed early!

-Harrison

Tertio Millennio - Reflections

2007-07-19T16:50:00.001-07:00

As promised in my previous post, here are my reflections on the course.

When Mr. Weigel invited me to this course in September, I was a little blown away. I am no one special, and, truth be told, I hadn't been Catholic very long, just about 3 years at that time. But God plants purposes in things that we don't know, and I accepted the gift with great graciousness, despite my lack of being able to grasp that I was actually going to go.

I came to this Seminar with very high expectations. But I was also prepared to be dissapointed as usually when one has high expectations, they are not met nor for that matter surpassed.

I realized, however, at that opening dinner, that my expectations were going to be surpassed beyond my wildest dreams. My excitement was justified, and my hope was fulfilled, which brought me a great joy.

This fulfillment can be described in a line that Fr. Neuhaus used in his homily on the last Wednesday of the Seminar. He said, "If you come away from this seminar realizing that you know how much you don't know, then this seminar has fulfilled its goal". Indeed, I have realized how much I don't know. It is tremendously humbling. Not only in the intellectual realm either, but also in the spiritual and cultural realm as well. I know that there is a lot I don't know, and how grateful I am to know this!

Let me begin by talking about the intellectual portion of the seminar. I will have to say, I was blown away over the past 3 weeks. Deep down in my heart, I have a great yearning for these pursuits and it was amazing to be put in an environment where this can be fleshed out. Not only are the classes fun and interesting, but they are challenging, in the way that you realize you don't know, and you want to know more about how much you don't know. Every instructor gave great insights into things. More importantly, though, is that they also took a personal interest in us and were wanting and desiring to interact with us.

The second is the spiritual. A seminar in which Mass is the center part of the day is a seminar that has its heart in the right place. With pilgrimages to some of Poland's greatest shrines, starting off the day with prayer, and so on, it really makes you realize how much you don't know about the spiritual life being exposed to a rich history of Saints who have been through the trials of faith before us. It is a truly humbling experience.

Finally there is the cultural aspect. Again, this is a richly embrassed aspect of the course, it is very sacramental, very Chestertonian. And this is a good thing. It realizes that being Catholic means being social, being able to relate with one another as much as possible. It is important to build friendships, have discussions, and enjoy the gifts of God's creation.

It is in the cultural aspect that a deep reality was revealed to me, along the lines of knowing how much I don't know. Perhaps one of the greatest things that I need to work on is how to be social. I know that I don't know how to be social, at least in the ways others have been here. It is not to say I have not been social, in fact, I've been throwing myself in almost every opportunity to do so! But hearing others speak about their rich experiences of being a Catholic made me realize just how much in the beginning I am (I have only been a serious Catholic now for just over 3 and a half years). And this is good, it shows me that there is no rush in experiencing everything, because things are only beginning. I appreciate that greatly. I do wish to work on this, of course, because it is impressive to see people the likes of Brian, for example, being able to hold great and fun conversations all out of his experience of Catholicism. It is great because it is an experience of truth, so the conversation is always universal.

I would like to end, however, by saying this. Though I have been emphasizing the realization of knowing how much I don't know, there is one final thing, and perhaps this is the most important, in which I have taken away.

I have taken away that God has created me for excellence and I should settle for nothing less. This means that I am called to live a life of excellence according to my vocation and situation in life and to bring excellence out of that through the grace of God. At lunch on the last day, I was asking George about engaging deep-seeded anti-Americanism. And it was discussed quickly, but the most important thing was that he affirmed in me an observation I was making, that there are no think tanks that seriously engage government and society, there are no lobby groups that lobby for life issues in a deeply engaging way, there are no socially conservative religious journals to bring ideas to society to be engaged, there are no institutes for the training of the young generation who yearn for truth and who wish to shape society. This is all missing in Canada, at least in an engaging manner. And it made me realize (after talking to others) that it only takes one person to get the ball rolling. Whether or not that is me is a completely other question, only God knows what is in store for me. But if God gives me the opportunity to promote the Truth to the world in various forms, then I know that it is my duty to follow that call and I will follow it. I have taken away, in the end, the idea that God has created me (and everyone else) for excellence. If you live a life of excellence, it will catch on to others, and things will change, but always, in the end, by God's grace and love.

-Harrison

Thursday, July 19

2007-07-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I do have some time so here is the final update of the Tertio Millennio Seminar.

It is, at the moment, 1:30am and it has been quite the day.

The morning began with George Weigel's talk on Europe and the Crisis of Cultures. It was a good talk and largely a lot of what he says in the Cube and the Cathedral. However, it was very fascinating to hear again as I was quite enthralled with the book when I read it and so to hear to arguments that Europe's high culture has been infected with Atheistic Humanism was quite nice to hear.

After that we had the Question and Answer period with Fr. Maciej, Fr. Neuhaus, and George Weigel. It was quite nice. Most of the questions revolved around the course itself and the how they expect it to impact the students and so on and so forth. It was a nice, refreshing, and relaxing way to end the lectures. At the end we gave them a standing ovation for the excellent work they all had done, and it was well deserved indeed.

A group of us then went to Orient Express for one last meal. A side note; Orient Express is where they have a very addictive Wiener Schnitzel. We invited George to have lunch with us and it was quite nice. Fr. Neuhaus also made an appearance and it was a good and relaxing lunch. One interesting thing did happen, and it is a trend in Europe. This interesting thing was the lack of willingness on the part of the waitresses to make change. They see it as an annoyance rather then as part of their job. It was really quite funny to witness it at its extreme this afternoon.

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. Had some ironing to do, did a bit of reading, and just sat around for a while and it was quite nice.

We then headed off for the final Mass as a group, all decked out for our final dinner. It was hot and crowded, but it was centered on Christ in the Eucharist in the same Chapel where we began 18 days ago. Fr. Maciej made a note about how intensive this all has been, and indeed it has been. It is hard to believe it has all gone by so quickly.

After Mass we went for the final dinner which was delicious. Many great conversations were ensuing and many pictures (and toasts at individual tables) were happening. After the main course, it was "graduation" time. George had a bit of an anecdote about me and my being Canadian and made a wise crack about green martinis. We received his book "The Cube and the Cathedral", a certificate affirming we have done this course, as well as a nice print of our group photo and a rosary that was blessed by JP II. It was very awesome. After the professors had left, 4 of us had been asked to do impressions and so, before we left, we were getting them ready and it was a lot of fun.

We then got back to the priory for the closing party! There is a lot of beer, vodka, wine, pop, juice, and snacks and it was quite an awesome atmosphere. We began the night with what is a Tertio tradition, impressions of the faculty. I was privileged to do the impression of George Weigel, which I did get on tape, though I will hold that for myself for his sake :). There were also 2 great impressions of Fr. Neuhaus and a great impression of Steve White, who is George's assistant. There was great conversations, some dancing, and just a relaxing way to finish off the course.

The next post will be my reflections on the seminar in general. But for the daily updates, this is it. I do hope, however, that those who have discovered this blog will continue to check it out over time. I will be taking a couple days off to re-coup from it.

God bless!

-Harrison

Wednesday, July 18

2007-07-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

Today was, sadly, the last full day of lectures.

It began with a discussion on Eccumenism by Fr. Neuhaus. He had some interesting things to say about the history of eccumenism and it is very evident that this is an issue dear to his heart, and it is a great thing to have a desire for, and this was evident in his talk today.

The second talk was on Human Dignity by Fr. Williams. It was an excellent lecture, probably, in my opinion, his best. What I really enjoyed about it was the ideas that love is a requirement and prerequisite of justice and that justice can only be fulfilled with a proper understanding of love. This was all built out of JP II's anthropological personalism that was just outstanding. Essentially, without love, justice turns against itself and becomes injustice. I don't want to say too much simply because I would spend WAY too much time on this. Needless to say, it was a fabulous lecture.

After that a group of us went for lunch with Fr. Neuhaus. It was great, we discussed, largely, the idea of the Catholic University and Catholic Higher Education. He didn't stay too long, but there were great discussions before and after he left as well.

After that George Weigel offered an optional lecture on Catholic International Relations Theory which was great. The stuff he had to say about just war I think most people there had heard before. What was really great was the discussion that ensued from his lecture in which it ended up being a class discussion on Just War and the Capital Punishment for an hour and it got heated in a good way and, I think, was quite productive.

After that we had Mass and Fr. Neuhaus gave an excellent homily. He talked about our roles once this course is over, that you know you have authentically learned something when it makes you realize how little you know. He discussed the necessity of keeping in touch with each other, praying for each other, and working to act as leaders and future intellectuals and it was a very motivating homily, expressing, I think, what they hope to be the fruit of the course.

We then went for dinner where there were further discussions on the Just War and the Death Penalty and then some of us went for a drink on top of a hotel that gives a great view of the square and got to say by to Fr. Williams.

Now it's time for bed so that I can be prepared for the upcoming day. Tomorrow begins with a lecture by George Weigel on, I think, the future of Europe, followed by a Q&A period for the professors. After that some of us are going for lunch with George Weigel and then it's the closing dinner and party until the wee hours of the morning. I may or may not do an update tomorrow, depending on how much free time I have, if I don't, I'll do one on Friday evening (Pacific Time) or Saturday.

God bless!

-Harrison

Jesus of Nazereth and First Things

2007-07-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

While I was here I was discussing First Things with Fr. Williams, LC, and he brought to my attention a review of Benedict's book "Jesus of Nazereth". He warned me that it was not a good review, but decided to give it a read anyways.

For those of you who have a subscription to First Things, you can find the review here:

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6006

If you do not have a subscription, then usually you can access the journal through your local public library.

Anyways, I found this review to be particularly dissapointing because he missed the entire point of the book. I am still not finished it, but have read enough of it to get a good understanding of what Benedict is hoping to do with it, affirm the position that Christ is the focal point of history and that we look through the lense of Chrsit to have an understanding of what the Gospels and History have to say.

Anyways, below you will find the letter I wrote to the Editor of First Things.

--------------------------------

In Benedict and the Biblical Jesus, Richard B. Hays attempts to give a critical review of the Pope's book. Besides, did not the Pope say that he wanted the book to be published outside of his magisterial authority to engage in discussion?

While I am in agreement that this is a good and worthy thing to do, I believe that Richard B. Hays misses the point of the book in a grave manner.

At one point, Mr. Hays states by quoting Benedict in his desire to take his convictions of faith as the starting point for reading the texts with the aid of historical methodology. The problem, however, is what follows. Mr. Hays states that the problem with this is that this is contrary to the historical-critical method, that taking the position of faith seeking understanding is fundamentally opposed to the historical-critical method.

And it is here that Mr. Hays misses the point entirely. It appears that Mr. Hays was wanting to book to be something it was never intended to be, an engagement by a prominent Catholic theologian with modern issues in the historical-critical school, using the same principles and methods that this school uses.

Over and over he expresses his displeasure with the fact that Benedict does not address this modern issue and that modern issue in the historical-critical school. Instead, he says that Benedict is too old fashioned, dealing with problems that are out dated and have nothing to do with the modern debate.

I would like to challenge that position of Mr. Hays. I believe that Benedict does indeed address the issue of the historical-critical method, but not at the modern position. It seems, instead, that Benedict takes the same position of the neo-patristic exegete, Msgr. John McCarthy. This position is that the problem with the historical critical method is based in its roots, for it builds on presumptions and false axioms that are contrary to a proper theological approach to the Bible. This does not negate understanding the historical situation, but that is not what the historical-critical method is all about.

Instead, Benedict deals with the problem head on, but in a subtle manner, as per his style. When one reads any of his writings, it is important to see what he does not say, for it is there that his view is expressed at its fullest. He never expresses it full out, but he actually confronts the historical-critical method at its very root. The historical-critical method, in the end, states that the reason such saying or event is in the Bible is because that event or saying or action is historically determined by the circumstances said person, event, or action was in. Secondly, it denies completely that God has any role in history, as expressed even by Mr. Hays. The idea of taking the position of faith first is fundamentally contradictory to the historical-critical method. What Benedict is addressing here is the backward position of the historical critical method. This is why (to Mr. Hays' dismay), Benedict adopts a high-Johanine Christology; because Christ is the author, source, and summit of all history, and it is through the lense of faith in Christ that we are to view history, we are not to view Christ through the lense of history.

Fundamentally, the Pope does deny the validity of the historical-critical method based on the understanding that Christ is the historical event through which we view all of time and reality. This is the point that Mr. Hays missed, and this is why the book was not what he expected it to be.

Tuesday, July 17

2007-07-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone yet again.

Only 3 days left of reflections on the day.

I would also like to welcome the sudden surge of Ontario readers. I heard from Anna, the fellow Canadian in the course, that there have been some of her family reading the blog, welcome.

I also know that there are other new readers who are coming constantly and I have no clue who they are, but welcome too!

A brief sidenote, I will say that this is a blog that I usually use for social commentary, as well as philosophical and theological writings. I do wish to continue this once the course is over (so those who come here for those things, that will continue after I return). All the newcomers are more then welcome to continue to read this after the seminar is over.

This morning begain with a talk by Fr. Neuhaus on Jewish-Christian relations. He gave a historical overview of the relations and the Church's theological positions of Jews. Essentially what he said was that Christians are "grafted into" Israel and that the Church is the fulfillment of Isreal and where the fullness of God's promise is revealed, but that Jews are a part of this.

After that we had Fr. Williams on the nature of the Dignity of the Human Person. I found this discussion particularly interesting. What I appreciated most was the distinctions he made, particularly in the nature of dignity. What he said was that some ideas of dignity are received from various sorts of societies and relationships, what he called "moral dignity". There is, however, a deeper sort of dignity, what he calls "ontological dignity", that is, dignity that is inharent in man's very nature, in his very being (for those who don't know, ontology is the study of being). I found this interesting as it sparked a discussion in class as well as on the bus later today about Retributive Justice and Just War. To me, it seems that if the Church takes the position of Ontological Dignity, then the only time the death penalty is justified is in the nature of defense, based on a good grounding in philosophical anthropology. Anyways, this started off a discussion in class between Fr. Williams and George Weigel; and George, as many know, takes a position of retributive justice in that some times it is justifiable in the nature of the death penalty to satisfy justice, which I disagree with in regards to Fr. Williams' position of Ontological Dignity. Mr. Weigel thinks that by commiting certain acts man "removes his dignity", but I think this is in a moral sense and not an ontological sense. Anyways, Mr. Weigel will be discussing this tomorrow in an extra lecture about Just War and the Death Penalty (it is optional but I will definitely be there).

After that I went for lunch with some friends and Fr. Williams and we discussed a review of Pope Benedict's book in First Things. Both Fr. Williams and I are in complete agreement that this review misses the point. I know Fr. Williams is writing a response and I am going to attempt a response as well.

After lunch it was off to the Divine Mercy Shrine. It was a bit rushed again unfortunately so it was rather tough for the experience to be prayerful. Thankfully for me I had been there before, but it is another reason to go again. We had a Sister of Mercy give us a brief talk on Saint Faustina and Divine Mercy and it was quite good and, again, it was great to see the joy in her. Very inspiring.

After that we came back and we went to dinner and had a great dinner. I sat with a wonderful couple here at the seminar and Fr. Maciej and he is so approachable and great to have discussions with. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Now I am ending the evening with reading and am hoping to write my letter to the Editor for First Things later.

God bless you all!

Harrison

Monday, July 16th

2007-07-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

This morning started with my not wanting to get out of bed. I was home late last night as I am sure many read, but still managed to get up in time for the lectures and what not this morning.

Anyways, the first lecture this morning was by Fr. Williams on the nature of Human Rights. It was a good talk giving us many distinctions as to the nature of rights and which rights are fundamental, secondary, instrumental but not necessary, and so forth. I look forward to tomorrow's lecture on the Dignity of the Human Person by him.

The second lecture was by Fr. Maciej on the history of the Church and it's encounter with politics and its view of Democracy. It was much better then his other ones I found.

After that a bunch of us went for lunch at a cafeteria style restaurant. The food was ok, but it was cheap! Chicken, potatoes, a coke, and a bottle of water for abour $5 Canadian!

After that I came back and read for a while and took a nap.

We then left for the Archbishop's Residence to have Mass in the chapel there. Unfortunately Cardinal Dsiwicz is on holidays, but we were given permission to use the chapel for Mass. It is the very same chapel where JP II was ordained a priest and where he wrote so many of his writings as Archbishop and where he would pray and say Mass as Archbishop. It was quite the moving experience. People didn't want to leave to say the least.

After that was dinner at a very good restaurant and got the opportunity to sit with Fr. Neuhaus and discuss various things with him about many different issues. It was nice.

Now I just sit back and relax for the rest of the evening.

I should say too that it was EXTREMELY hot today. The high was 38 degrees Celsius, and it is supposed to be like this the rest of the week. Thankfully the Priory is made out of stone and cement, so it keeps heat out quite well and is really quite cool.

I'm going to go read for the rest of the night and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I will be going the the Divine Mercy Shrine which I am quite looking forward too, I very much enjoyed my time there last time I was here.

It is hard to believe I will be home on Friday. It has gone by so fast! But I do look forward to seeing everyone, I just hope I'll be able to recover from jet lag really quickly.

-Harrison

Sunday, July 15th

2007-07-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

So today was an incredibely relaxing day.

I started the day off with Mass at the English Parish which is only a 5 minute walk from the Priory. Fr. Williams, LC, gave an excellent homily about the need for simplicity in love in how we deal with our neighbours. After Mass I came back, changed, and went for lunch with Nick, who is a Seminarian at the North American College in Rome. It was a very nice lunch at a great Italian place here. The funny thing from lunch was that a bird pooped on my head (we were sitting outside in the square).

I came back, washed my hair, and subsequently read articles and books for about 5 hours straight, with a 20 minute nap in there. It was VERY nice. I read a review of BXVI's book Jesus of Nazereth from First Things that Fr. Williams wanted my opinion on, and, to say the least, it was a horrible review and the reviewer totally missed the point of the book.

At 7:30 I went for a glass of wine with a couple of the students and then went for dinner with Steve, Bracey, and Nick at a great restaurant here in Krakwo. Nick, Steve, and myself were out until 2am this morning discussing things and enjoying Polish beer. It was a good time.

The weather today was also really awesome, though incredibely hot, but such is life. I am now going to run to bed because I have to be up in less then 6 hours.

God bless

Harrison

Friday and Saturday

2007-07-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

I was out way too late on Friday night, so I didn't get a chance to update yesterday, so I'm going to do 2 days in one post.

Friday started off with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus discussing Centissimus Annus. He had some GREAT insights into the nature of economics. His greatest thing that really stuck out to me was his idea that economists look at economy as a pie in which the rich have most of the pie. This, however, is not the Catholic position. The Catholic position is that there is an unlimited amount of wealth to be created, and that poverty, at least in first world countries, is not a result of the rich suppressing the poor, but of lack of access to the ability to be creative in an economic context. It was very insightful.

Then we had Fr. Maciej Zieba do another talk. Again, the language barrier was a bit of an issue and it made for the lecture to seem a bit...long. However, he had again some great insights into free economy. It was amazing how this man is so very against Social-Democratic ideals. Talking to a lot of Polish people, actually (who have universal health care) are against it because they see the problems it causes and the top heavy system it creates. They wish that, at least, there could be a 2 tier system like in the UK.

Anyways, after that I took the afternoon off. There was an optional tour with the theme of "Medieval Krakow" and, though I am a hardcore Medievalist, I decided against it as I needed some time to rest. So I sat back, checked my e-mail, did a bunch of reading, and took a nap. After that we had Mass and then went out for dinner. After dinner a bunch of us went with Fr. Williams to play some pool and it was a LOT of fun. I didn't get home till almost 2am. Again, the beauty of being with a Professor is that it is ok to be out past curfew :).

This morning we left for Czestahowa at 9:15. We got there at about 12pm and had a quick lunch. I got a chance to see the Black Madonna. We had a tour guide, but it was only for about 1 hour and then we had about one hour to do our own thing. Needless to say, we didn't get very much time there which is REALLY unfortunate as I would have appreciated the opportunity to pray more there. I also needed a bit of time to run around and get some souvenirs as I had planned for that place to be a place to get some souvenirs and, well, I spent a lot of money on Religious Articles today.

After that we went to a cloistered Dominican Sisters convent for Mass in which Fr. Williams gave a great homily about trusting in God's plan and not always having to search for a reason but to just trust in God's will because He only wills what is good. After that we had dinner at the convent which was delicious and had an opportunity to talk to the Sisters through the grill (since they're cloistered). It was a great joy to see the pure joy (pure as in they really live a purity of heart that is outstading) and it is something I have never really seen before. They were laughing and making jokes all the time and it was great.

On the way back I talked with people on the bus, read something that Fr. Williams gave me to read, and just enjoyed the ride. Upon our return a group of us went to to the square to have ice cream and beer. We came back early tonight because we are all tired and were out late last night.

Tomorrow a bunch of people are going hiking to the Tetra Mountains. I have decided against this as I need to start resting up since I get back to work on the 23rd! Tomorrow I've got 2 plans; go to Mass at 10:30am and do a bit more souvenir shopping. Reading will also be included in the day, but the plan is to simply just relax and take it easy. I have a feeling that the last week is going to include a lot of nights out and so I need to prepare my body for the late nights.

Thanks for the notes everyone! I do hope to hear from you all still. It'll be nice to see you all when I get back! I can't believe I get back into Vancouver on Friday already! It has been going by way too fast. This has been very spiritually relaxing and nourishing, though it has been physically exhausting at times!

Harrison

Thursday, July 12

2007-07-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hello again.

This morning started off with the first of the lectures from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. For those who don't know who he is, he is the Editor and founder of First Things as well as a major voice in engaging the world of ideas in the public square. Anyways, today he talked about "Evangelium Vitae". I was expecting an exegesis on the encyclical, but it was more like a homily on the culture of life. It was good though, and it gave me the opportunity to listen more then to have to take notes which was really nice for a change.

In the second lecture Fr. Maciej gave a lecture on the Church's view of economy and the history of it. Again, he was a bit tough to understand, but his content was good, whatever was on the slides. I asked him about the section in Centissimus Annus with regards to Capitalism. He stated that there is a necessary reading of it as "especially" (JP II is talking to new Democracies). Especially, however, does not mean only, but that it is presumed that capitalism, in the positive sense that JP II defines it as, is a proper way of going about achieving economic ends. There was much more, but that was an interesting point I found.

After that was lunch which had to be quick so I grabbed a slice of pizza. We then went for the JP II "Death March" by George Weigel. It is the death march because it is a lot of walking all over the place. It was a nice walk and got to see some of the places that JP II was at through out his life.

After that I went back to the priory and read some more of "Theology and History" by Von Balthasaar. Then there was Mass and dinner. Dinner tonight was DELICIOUS, there was a great cheese sauce on the chicken which was just out of this world. There were a lot of great discussions about the nature of war and the role of economics in helping create greater access to health care.

After that I went and made some phone calls to people and then headed to the chapel for adoration which was wonderful. We followed that with Compline from the old breviary and was all in Latin, and we sung it all, and it was in the stalls where the brothers pray, so it was all in all great actually.

After that we went for a drink and stayed out until 1:30am (we can stay out past curfew when we're with George's assistant I think...:) ). We had many great discussions there as well.

All in all another great day, what can be expected though? And now begins the home stretch as there is now but one week left in the course...*sigh*.

Hope all is well with everyone and I would love to hear from you all!

God bless!

Harrison

I almost forgot

2007-07-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

As time goes on, I am getting more and more ideas of books to buy. The problem of coming to a seminar like this is that you are surrounded by many book lovers. You talk about a subject and you give people ideas and they give you ideas and, well, it's going to get expensive for the pocket book, but I will appreciate the insights for sure. Every new instructor we get, they have books that are published and one wants to get their hands on all of them!

Also, as I said, I will have lots of notes when I return. One thing I have been very happy about is the language that I will need to engage the public square in the future. For example, George Weigel gave yesterday a distinction between "plurality" and "pluralism" and even defined pluralism according to a true understanding of how a society with pluralities ought to interact. Anyways, it is of a great value to have and will be going over my notes over and over again I am sure. I think I mentioned it yesterday, but I am seeing why this course is brought about, to encourage the next generation to engage the public square, to have the tools necessary so that one can see how the square can be engaged in one's own country. I have ideas of how to do this for Canada, and, Annette, it has to do with what we discussed before I left. Stay tuned everyone...:)

I do think, actually, that we REALLY need think tanks and that we need to create a culture that wants think tanks around to propose ideas and engage ones we see as false. Ideas have consequences, this is why JP II was a Pope of ideas, he saw the effects of ideas on his country, and so proposed new ideas to free his people, and look what happened. So now it is just a point of figuring out how to create a desire for such think tanks...

Harrison

Wednesday, July 11th

2007-07-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.

So this morning started off with Mass which meant having to wake up a bit earlier then usual. We usual have Mass at 6pm, but had to have it at the start of the day because of our trip to the Salt Mines later on in the day. The priest was talking about work and prayer (being the feast of St Benedict today) and he ended his homily with a phrase on a plaque of a friend of his "God's coming, look busy". I thought that was pretty funny.

Anyways, after that we started our first lecture with Fr. Thomas Williams. He is the Dean of Theology at the Legionnaries of Christ University (name is skipping my mind at the moment) in Rome. He is an awesome guy. VERY personable and very smart and just very fun, we had some great conversations today. Anyways, his area of specialization is human rights. He began what he had to say about them in the first lecture today and they were pretty insightful. I know, too, that he will continue to build, that it takes a bit of time. Anyways, the more I hear Latin distinctions, it makes me realize how much I need to learn the language in its fulness. The idea that the word that is lating for "duty" is the same word for "debt" is really cool. Anyways, it will be very interesting to see what he has to say in regards to human rights.

The second lecture was alright. Fr. Maciej is a very smart man (was listed by the Communists as the 8th most dangerous intellectual in Poland). However, though I know he fully understands English, when he speaks it, it is a bit broken and so it is tough to get some serious stuff out of it. Thankfully most of the info is on the power point slides he uses so that helped. Today he talked about the nature of "ideology" and how the Church is not an ideology. It sparked a discussion among us about how much morality the State is allowed to legislate which many of us continued over lunch. Some of us then talked about the idea of the nature of beauty and a Theology of Aesthetics and how they are both essential to the nature and mission of the Church and how we have gotten away from that. My brain is getting filled with good conversations and lectures to say the least!

After that we headed to the Salt Mines. It was pretty much the same as before, but was neat to see. We then went for dinner and we had perhaps the greatest pork I have ever had. There were great conversations at the table and Fr. Williams and I were cutting down Notre Dame a lot (Meredith, one of the students, went there). It was a lot of fun.

One other thing I did today was spout off my idea about the relation between the Incarnation and God's creative act. It received a relatively great reception from the people I proposed it to and they said it was an interesting idea, so it is something I am hopefully going to continue to pursue over the next couple of years (it will take a lot of research!).

That's it for now, I am going to relax for the last small bit of the evening and read and then hit the sack. Tomorrow Fr. Neuhaus gives his first lecture and I am extremely excited for it. By the way, by Friday, I should have gone through both notepads and for the last week will probably have to resort to my spare paper that I brought with me (thanks be to God for that!).

Hope all is well with you all!

Harrison

Tuesday, July 10th

2007-07-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

Today was interesting.

Started off this morning with a talk on the Church's stance on Democracy by George Weigel and what he calls the "disentanglement of the Church", that is, the fact that the Church no longer runs temporal State affairs and that this has helped the Church. To be honest, it was a good lecture and there were many notes, but it was stuff I had heard before, though not all of it, but a lot of it.

After the coffee break there was another talk by George Weigel on 14 Theses on the Church and the State. This one was much more substantial I found and had much great content.

Listening to that lecture it made me realize more indepthly why he has this course. He sees the problem, that people are not engaging ideas. A proper tolerance (which is something I argued in my paper for the application) is meant to be an accepting of people while engaging their ideas. This is not what is happening in Canada and so our society is falling. Anyways, the point of this course (or at least one of the central ones) is to help those who are still in a position to learn to have the tools necessary to engage the culture and to see that engaging it is necessary. Things are engaged more in the US then they are in Canada and that can be clearly seen by the number of think tanks that exist in the US, while I can think of only a couple that exist in Canada. Ideas shape societies, and when Ideas aren't entering a dialogue, then it becomes basic assertion of will, which is not what Democracy is about. We need to engage the Canadian culture more, we need more think tanks and we need to renew the proper idea AND purpose of the University (that the University is a place for an exchange and growing in understanding of ideas, not a trade school).

Then we had a quick lunch and then it was off to Auschwitz. I'll be honest, I tried to get out of it, only because going there once is plenty enough. I don't really have much to say about it. After going there, I am still thinking that once was plenty, and that 2 times there is more then enough. It is a tough place to be.

That's it for today!

God bless

Harrison

Monday, July 9th

2007-07-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.

So today was another awesome day (would any day be NOT an awesome day here?).

The morning started off slow. I was really tired. It seemed a lot of walking tires you out and so, even after 8 hours of sleep, I was exhausted when I woke up and REALLY didn't want to get out of bed. But I got up anyways (yes, FJ, be surprised).

Anyways, I skipped breakfast this morning and went straight to class. Today was Prof. Hittinger's last lecture which was really sad because his lectures are outstanding, though, to say the least, quite dense (in a good way, there is a LOT of content). He talked about JP II and Social Doctrine. Essentially what he was arguing was that JP II saw the shift in the world's point of view. Before the war there was a false understanding of the State and Society, and the Church responded to that with her Social Doctrine, hence why every Pope since Leo XIII and onwards have started their pontificate with a Social Encyclical. But JP II didn't do that, he broke the trend. He started off his Pontificate with "Redemptor Hominis" - Redeemer of Man. What JP II saw was a shift in the modern problem. The biggest danger was no longer the State and societies (what Hittinger calls N+1 unities, oh, and by the way, societies are persons).

Anyways, the modern problem was now anthropological, that there was a false understanding of man that came from the enlightenment. He made a great point (one that I know I have held as well as most here) that JP II was a Pope who understood the implications of ideas. They seem abstract but they really do effect things. The Englightenment took up the Creation story from Genesis and stated that what man did to distinguish himself was not something that was given to him a priori, but was something he willed for himself. He willed to be different from the animals, it was not something universal that God gave him and this trickled all the way down to our modern times and so JP II answered that with his definition of man. This is why you can't read JP II without understanding in its fullness the Theology of the Body.

Quick sidenote, Hittinger argued that Humanae Vitae is not first and foremost about contraception, but about whether or not man has dominion over his own body. Really interesting stuff. Anyways, I talked to Hittinger after class and we were discussing a few things and he told me he had a zip drive with a couple of .PDFs on it. One is his book that is being published in September, the other is an article he published. I am still going to buy the book when it is released, but he said these 2 .PDFs have EVERYTHING he said in class and more so I am really looking forward to looking them over.

The second lecture was by George Weigel on the 2 notions of freedom and it was excellent. He got to the root, and it was an affirmation of what I was reading into when I was reading the Free Society Reader in preparation that, essentially, the modern struggle about who man is is rooted in the Ockhamist Thomistic debate of the 13th and 14th century. Thomas had a "freedom for excellence" ideal in which reason/truth are the root of God and man, while Ockham had a "freedom for indifference" idea in which will and powerful assertion of the will is primary in God and man. Again, fascinating, though I noticed traces of stuff he had to say in Victoria.

After that it was lunch and I had it by myself today. After that I came back to the priory and hung out with some of my friends for a while. We then had discussion groups which were OUTSTANDING today. We went over time and the discussion was really excellent and I really enjoyed it. I noticed most of the problems the Pope is pointing out in Centissimus Annus are really apparent in Canada and that if we want Canada to survive in is in desperate need of change.

After that was Mass in which Fr. Maciej gave a great homily about how we ought to be joyful everytime we hear the words "the Word became flesh", just like the women who touched the cloak of Christ and was in fear and trembling, we should have the fear of God in us, and that if we don't jump for joy everytime we hear this, we have something wrong and really need to change.

Dinner was good. To be honest, I didn't enjoy the food that much and so ate very little. But the discussions were great. Steve White, George Weigel's assistant, myself, Ryan, and Brian were have a great discussion about the nature of vocations in which Steve told us how he finally came to discern marriage. Excellent discussion. Then we went into the next room to see everyone singing and we stuck around for about an hour singing a bunch of songs and having just an outstanding and amazing time. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces and enjoyed the company a lot. I have some video to show upon my return.

And now I've returned from yet another excellent day to prepare for tomorrow. Tomorrow is the trip to Auschwitz in the afternoon after the 2 morning classes and a quick lunch. To be honest, not looking too forward to it, it's a pretty depressing place, but the group is going and so I will go again.

God bless you all!

-Harrison

Sunday, July 8th

2007-07-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well, today has been an AMAZING day.

First off, I woke up to a perfectly sunny day.

A group of us met up and went to St Giles Church which is a parish in town that does a Mass in English at 10:30am on Sundays here in Krakow. It ended up being what we called the "George Weigel Mass". We mean that in a good, loving sort of way. It is just that he did everything, the readings an the singing, hence it has been named the "George Weigel Mass".

After Mass we headed back to the Priory. By the way, for those of you who don't know, we are staying in the Dominican Priory here. Anyways, at 12pm we headed for the train station. Myself, 2 Poles, and 6 Americans went to take the Pope train to Kalweria Zabredowske. The first amazing thing is that they actually have a "Pope Train". It is the actual name. It is a train that takes you to the various places in and near Krakow that were important in the life of JP II. It is also a very nice train! And it only costs 6$ Canadian round trip.

Anyways, we headed to Kalweria Zabredowske and it was an amazing time. We started off with walking from the train station uphill to the Basillica. It was tiring but worth it. We got lunch and then went to walk. We went to the gift shop first because I wanted to get a map of the chapels. This is a pilgrimage spot that has 42 chapels layed out across some 8 kilometers to mark Christ's walk in His passion. It is amazing. Last time I was there, I only got to see a couple of chapels, though this time we got to see about half. It was quite wonderful. We spent 4 hours total in Kalwaria Zabredowska. After that, we began our way to the train station with a small stop for ice cream. Then we got on the train and headed back home. We got home and at 8:30pm we went for a late dinner to Da Pietro which is an excellent Italian Place in the Old Square. We had great conversations which included MANY Monty Python quotations including a thing or 2 from Faulty Towers and we left at 11pm.

Today has been the perfect Sunday. The weather was perfect, the company was great, lots of time for prayer, great food and beer and just overall relaxing, restful, and fun. We all agreed that today was just out of this world.

I hope you are all well and so forth.

God bless

Harrison

I almost forgot...

2007-07-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Krakow is celebrating its 750th Anniversary as a legally installed city. So the town is decked out in Medieval banners and Medieval displays all over the town. Needless to say, it is quite impressive. We get a tour of "Medieval Krakow" next Friday and I am really looking forward to that. It is quite the year to be here. The place is packed on the weekends too. They say there are about 10,000 people in the small old town section of Krakow at the busiets points. It is insane here at night! But it is great.

Ok, I should go to bed, it is 1:15 in the morning!

-Harrison

By the way

2007-07-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

Many people who have been to Tertio Millennio before have said that it is a life changing experience. I have, however, heard that MANY times before from people about all sorts of things and it was never the case.

However, it is the case with Tertio Millennio. It is life changing. The people here are mature, fun, holy, smart, everything you could want in a person. The entire atmosphere is one of growth and encouragement.

When we arrived for the opening remarks by George Weigel he said "congratulations. You are here because you are the future leaders of the Church and the world." He didn't say you may be, or that he hopes you will be, but that you are going to be. That is not a statement to be taken lightly and, to be frank, can only take that as from him as a judgement on us based on what he sees in us. Some, of course, will do this in smaller ways and some in more global ways, but it is the fact that he sees us all as leaders and the whole course is meant to build on a seed that he sees within us that God has planted there. It is a very humbling thing to hear, to be completely honest. But it is this principle that changes one's life because it makes you see the decisive direction as to how you can exercise this leadership. It gives you the opportunity to really get to know God more and thus to know yourself more.

That being said, for any young adult who is reading this, I highly encourage you to apply next year for the Seminar. You may get in, you may not. But it is worth a shot. They may say "you were really good but we can't get you in this year, try next year", so try it. There is just too much good stuff to not want to take advantage of such a great opportunity. Plus, when you apply, you can guarantee that your application will be read by Mr. Weigel himself. So give it a shot, it will change your life!

Harrison

Saturday, July 7th.

2007-07-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone.

Today has been one of those relaxing days, thanks be to God. Last night I relaxed with some reading and got a decent night's sleep.

The morning started off with a bus ride. We got to a small, wooden Church that was made in the 14th century and was stunning really. So that was quite nice.

After Mass it was back on the bus. After a bit of a trip we got the river (the name has skipped my mind) which is between the Tertra Mountains. It was a beautiful trip. Lots of photos were taken. We were on these small boats for about 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was beautiful and relaxing and just plain wonderful. Not too much to say, it was just beautiful and relaxing.

After the boat ride we got back on the bus and then headed to a restaurant near the river. The food was pretty good, especially the mushroom soup in the bread bowl. While we were there, they hired a renaissance choir of about 10 people to sing for us many renaissance style songs. It was absolutely gorgeous!!!

After dinner it was back on the bus and many great conversations on the way back to Krakow. I went out for a beer with many others and am now here, relaxing a bit before tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Mass at 10:30. It is a free day tomorrow, so many of us are going to Kalwaria (where there is a major Marian basillica) and Wadowice (where JP II was born) at 12pm. We are taking (and I am very serious about the name!) the "Pope Train" there. It is something new. Last time I was here you had to take a bus, but now you can get there by train. So it should be another relaxing day and we will be back in Krakow for 8pm.

That is pretty much all from here. It has been a lot of fun since last night. As I've said before, they balance 3 things quite well at the Seminar: prayer, learning, socializing. All three are essential aspects to the seminar and they are greatly balanced. It is hard to believe that tomorrow is the end of the first week of the seminar and that I have been gone for over a week now. To be quite honest, it feels like I've been gone a lot longer (in a good way though). I have enjoyed the community so much here. The young adults in this course have been especially wonderful and mature and are greatly balanced personality wise. I have been hanging out with a core of them a lot and we really enjoy each other's company a lot it seems. All in all it has just been wonderful and I am going to be very sad when it is all over because this has been what I've been searching for for so long. I will, though, embrace and enjoy every minute that is given to me.

I forgot to mention yesterday that in the course of 4 days I went through an entire pad of paper that was given us by the Tertio Millennio Seminar (when I arrived they gave us a shoulder bag, a pen, and some Tertio Millennio stationary, which will make for great souvenirs too!) So I have one more pad left and then it is onto my paper that I brought.

I am keeping you all in my prayers.

God bless

Harrison

Friday, July 6th

2007-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

Today's isn't going to be extremely exciting.

This morning we learned about the notion of love and its historical roots in the thought of JP II. There was some interesting Thomistic and Aristotelian lines of thinking about the 4 kinds of love that I hadn't heard before, as well as a very different way of going about it then C.S. Lewis does. It was by Fr. Kubczek and it was excellent as always. I will be ordering his book on the philosophical anthropology of JP II quite soon.

After that was coffee break followed by a second lecture by Prof. Hittinger on Catholic Social Doctrine. Again, it was very profound. He has a book on this stuff that I, again, will be getting. It just blew my socks off...literally. The persecutions the Church went through in the 18th and 19th century, well, I don't think Catholics know about them and about how many Catholics have actually been martyred. He likened it to the Holocaust in that it was the same course of action, a systematic and intentional extinction of Catholics. It is amazing what the Church has been through in regards to this. Also, he talks about the political nature of the Sacred Heart (it is quite fascinating) Marian apparitions, and how every encyclical a Pope has put out on the rosary has been social in nature. Quite amazing.

He also talked about the history of the idae of subsidiaridy. We talked about it in group discussion alongside the notion of private use and private property. Fascinating discussions ensued to say the least. I discussed it over with him at dinner and asked him what he thought about the state of Canadian Health Care in regards to this and he said, really, it does defy the principles. He said that yes, Health Care is a public good, but that, for reasons of better access and for incentives in order to become better at its service, some public goods are held in private. Examples are food and education. These are both public goods for everyone to have access too. But just because it is a public good does not necessitate that it ought to be held by a public agency. Imagine if the State was in charge of food and distribution! And education is provided by the state, but it is also provided privately too, though more so in the States then in Canada. So, fundamentally, you cannot use the argument that because it is a public good that it must be held in public for there are many clear examples against this.

Dinner and lunch were excellent today where, again, many awesome conversations ensued. Sometimes they're not that intellectual either, we just sit back and relax. There has been beer every day because it is so amazingly cheap here. It comes out to be about $2.50 for a half liter of beer here. We have gone out for drinks many times already over the week and it has been a great and relaxing way to end the days!

Now I am going to spend the rest of my evening tonight relaxing with a good book. We are going for a boat trip down a river in between a bunch of mountains tomorrow which should be quite nice and am looking forward to it. I will get someone else to bring their camera though, I don't trust mine.

So, all in all it has been a great opening week. Lots of great education mixed in with great conversations and a lot of fun. It has definitely confirmed my yearning for further education, this has been where I have been thriving and just enjoying it so much.

I hope all is well with everyone else!

God bless!

Harrison

A quick update

2007-07-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I have to try and be quick with this update.

Anyways, yesterday was great. We began the day with a lecture by Fr. Kubjac on the philosophical anthropology of JP II. This man is supposed to be the world's more foremost figure in the study of JP II's philosophical and theological anthropology. The lecture blew my mind! I couldn't take notes fast enough. In fact, I'm going to try and purchase a digital recorder of some sort while I'm here because the lectures are really that good!

At the end of his lecture I asked him about how JP II found that a theologian can only be a phenomenologist in a secondary sense and never a primary sense and if he could explain that. He said that, in response to people like Max Scheler, that they weren't phenomenological enough, which blew my mind. One example was that Max Scheler doesn't talk about the experience of "I will" as he though that the will was nothing truly real, but a result of emotional experiences. Amazing stuff.

In the second lecture we had Prof. Russell Hintinger. This man is a genius, seriously. He is so smart that he speaks at extremely abstract levels and was talking about the ontological nature of society. My notes explain it all and I will be more then happy to share this stuff with everyone. He really got started at getting to the route of what JP II meant by the "subjectivity of society".

For lunch we attempted to celebrate the 4th of July with the Americans by having hot dogs and hamburgers. Unless you're in England or Germany, do not try this, it will not be successful, the burger was discusting. I went off with a couple of the seminarians to have some real food and we had some great discussions and I bought a Polish Jersey fro 30 Zloties (which equates to about $10 Canadian!).

After that we had discussion groups. I didn't particpate too much in this one as it was a large discussion about the role of the EU (came out of discussing Centissimus Annus). Anyways, I don't know much about it, but do hope to read up on it one day.

In the evening we went for dinner. Followed by dinner myself and some other students joined Stephen White, George Weigel, and Prof. Hittinger for polish vodka and cigars. It was good vodka, though I think I had one shot too many. I didn't get drunk or anything that evening actually, but it hit me this morning!!!

After that Zane, myself, Brandon, and Stephen White went to a bar for a beer and discussed the seminar, lots of various topics, and an intense discussion about free will, the hierarchy of goods, and how it relates to vocation in terms of one's freedom.

Quickly today we started off with Fr. Kubjac again and it was again an amazing lecture and we had Prof. Hittinger go into the history of the Church acting and understanding "societas". It was an amazing lecture. It brought in the Cluniac Reforms and the Investiture conflict so I was especially excited! Again, too much in these lectures to be able to get across what has been said. I have used now just more then half of my first notepad that they gave me.

We had a quick lunch at a place near the Dominican Priory and then went on a tour of Wawel Castle and Cathedral, St Mary's Basillica, and a bit of the town. Was nice but a bit long and it has tired me out.

We are about to have Mass and then it is off to dinner yet again and then I think I'm just going to hang out here tonight and read and relax, no beer or vodka today!!!!

Thanks to those who have e-mailed me and hope to hear from others soon! To those who e-mailed, I will do my best to get back to you soon, now I'm off to Mass.

I guess it wasn't such a quick post after all!

God bless

Harrison

Day 2 at Tertio Millennio!

2007-07-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone.

Well, the Credit Card situation has been sorted out. It turns out the hotel double charged me for my stay!! I will be writing them a letter as it screwed up bill payments! But that is taken care of thanks be to God!!

The seminar is really amazing.

Last night was dinner at one of the oldest restaurants in Krakow in the square. It was great. Tonight was dinner at an Italian place and again was great.

Today we had 2 lectures and 1 discussion group. The 1st lecture was on the 10 impacts of JP II, the 2nd was an overview of Catholic Social Teaching, specifically JP II's contributions. Both lectures were given by George Weigel. After lunch with a bunch of American Seminarians, we had our discussion groups on the encyclical itself with Russell Hittinger. That was great also. I have 10 pages of notes from today alone! I am going to be coming back with a book of notes it seems!!!

The seminarians from the States are really awesome. I have very much enjoyed their company. There has been great discussions too! I was discussing sexual morality in marriage and its pragmatic applications with one seminarian this evening over a Polish beer and it was great! This course offers everything I have yearned for and more!

They really know how to balance time for relaxation and time for study! It is intensive, but there sure is a lot of fun! Weekends are a break from studies. Saturdays are a day trip somewhere and Sundays are absolutely free! Also, the seminarians and I are arranging to do morning, evening, and night prayer together all the days while we're here. Yes, Fr. John, be shocked! :P

Needless to say, I am enjoying myself immensely and have already taken so much from just the first day! I fear what I will take away from the rest as this is just the beginning. God is good!!

I hope all is well with everyone and would love to get e-mails from you all about what has been happening with you!

God bless!

Harrison

In Beautiful Krakow!

2007-07-02T03:56:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

Well, I have some interesting stuff that happened to me!

First, I did not fall asleep last night. I couldn't sleep. I guess I didn't adjust as well as I thought to the timezones. This is good though because the front desk never did give me the wake up call I was expecting at 4am, so it must have been the hand of providence that ensured I didn't sleep.

So I go downstairs to pay and found out that my card is declined. He tried a second time and the same thing happened again! Needless to say, I was freaking out. So I went to a bank machine, and it wouldn't let me take that amount out of my Visa card. So I took the money from my bank account and am going to have to get a hold of my parents to see if they can temporarily put $500 in my account...as this has caused great distress and no access to funds for me. God has and will provide. Weird thing is that to pay for my ticekt on the Gatwich Express, I tried my Visa and it worked! Very odd indeed. I will be making a call to my Visa company. I am not happy to say the least as I put almost all my funds on my Visa (easier to use, and cheaper). I pray that I WILL have access to them.

I have a feeling they may have put a security freeze on it for the large deposit I just made for the houses we are renting for the Eucharistic Congress.

Anyways, I get to the airport and see a MASSIVE line for baggage drop. Thankfully I got in in time, but am happy I didn't leave any later! I didn't expect that kind of line up!

So then it is through the security check. I have to give them my ticket and they take my picture for their database, I then have to put my bag through the normal x-ray thing, walk through the metal detector, get frisked, and then put my shoes through an x-ray machine! Needless to say, it makes flying rather....annoying and not worth doing.

So I got on the plane and promptly passed out. Finally, some sleep! I arrived at the Priory at about 12pm local time (3am PST). The schedule looks out of this world! Unfortunately it seems that Michale Novak is not here this year, I was looking forward to meeting him.

Tonight we start off with an opening lecture my George Weigel, followed by Mass and then dinnner at 7:30pm. I am thinking I might go hit a McDonald's or something as I haven't had anything to eat since Lunch yesterday.

So that has been my interesting day. I'm going to go get some food and take a nap!

God Bless!

Harrison

The Last Day in London

2007-07-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone.

I was rather shocked to see what happened at Glascow Airport yesterday. Thankfully, for those who were worried, my flight leaves at 7:35am tomorrow (London time) and so that means that I will be leaving at a rather slow period of time, which means it is a less busy time and thus less likely for attacks. Their threat level is at its highest level right now, meaning other attacks are imminent. This doesn't mean that they're expecting more attacks today and so forth, but over the course of the next few months. I didn't think things would be so unstable here!!

I can see why it's such a cause for attack though. London is highly dense and populated, and add to that all the tourists who are here and, needless to say, it is a prime target. It also seems that it is rather easy to immigrate here. This all adds to easy ways to getting into the country to cause attacks.

Thankfully I am alright and there is police presence everywhere! This is good. Today is going to be a "sloth day" for me. I have much reading to do for Tertio Millennio. I have got to see most of what I have wanted to see and yesterday was, frankly, a rather expensive day. Needless to say, it'll be good for me to take some time off for the sake of my wallet! I have spent about £125 here, which equals about 275 Canadian. That's a lot of money and so am just going to ease up.

Yesterday was nice. After stopping here I went to the Tube. I have realized that, really, the parts of London that one wants to see is all walkable and that one does not need to buy a tube pass. I bought one yesterday and it was just to Westminster and back to Victoria station, something I could have probably walked myself. Anyways, lesson learned there.

I have also realized that all Europeans are crazy drivers. This was something I noticed last time I was in Europe and that has been confirmed here in London. Also, every person I have been served by at the restaurants here speak English as a second language. Shows how many immigrants are here!

I went to the Globe Theater tour yesterday which was great. We got to see most of the dress rehearsal for Love's Labour's Lost. It was incredible and very well done! I contemplated going to see the show today, but, decided against it because of how much I had spent yesterday. I also went to this Star Wars exhibit. It was REALLY expensive. It was that or the London Eye and I decided to go for the exhibit partially because the eye was not working yesterday. So, for the second time, I shan't have the chance to go on the Eye. The exhibit was good, though a bit lacking in some areas. I was expecting a bit more for what I paid for, but it supplied a couple of hours of entertainment. I did lots of walking yesterday which was just great. I also had a true British meal, Italian Pizza ;). It was great. It's a chain here called Pizza Express, but it's actually a very nice place! If anyone is ever here they should go there. It was nice to just walk around and see the sights and the touristy things around here.

Went to Mass this morning at Westminster Cathedral and it was beautiful as always. I then had lunch and am now here. Also, if you're looking for a cheap substitute for lunch, though not healthy, I recommend simply getting a portion of chips and a drink, it's quite filling and is the perfect lunch snack.

Yes, London is horribly expensive, but thanks be to God I am only here for 3 days!!! I now am going to head back to the hotel and relax for the day. It is quite nice to not have to be anywhere, to just sit back, and enjoy things!

I have to wake up bright and early tomorrow at 4am...yay (notice my lack of enthusiasm). It'll be a long day tomorrow so it will be good to rest up today as tomorrow the seminar begins with a nice fancy dinner and social time till the wee hours of the morning probably.

Hope you are all well and am thinking and praying for you all.

God bless!

-Harrison

London - Friday and Saturday morning

2007-06-30T03:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, I don't know why it is, but every time I come to London (ok, so it's only been twice) there is a terror threat. The first time was the bombings and yesterday was two averted bombings. Weird weird weird...thanks be to God for the police who caught it!

Friday night was nice. I went to Mass just as it begun (I had NO clue what time it would start at!). After Mass I celebrated the Solemnity with a fancy meal at the high class restaurant known as "McDonald's". It was cheap, that's why I went there.

After that I just started walking and walking. I wanted to get to the eye. However, I begun by walking in the wrong direction and so by the time I got to the Eye of London, it was closed. I wanted to get on because it was a nice day last night and wanted on before the weather got bad. I'm going to go again in a minute here, the rain is holding up for the moment and the sun is trying to bust its way out.

I walked for about 5 hours last night, went to the hotel room and watched Law and Order and The Shield and just passed out. I have thankfully adjusted to the new time zone quite easily.

I woke up this morning, went for breakfast (it's free at the hotel) and then headed for the Cathedral again. I went there for morning prayer and Mass. It was the sung Mass and it was in Latin. It was alright, the priest kinda went through the prayers at lightning speed though. The all boys choir is BEAUTIFUL though!!! I bought a cd of theirs of hymns to Mary.

I then proceeded to the bookstore. There is not one, but TWO Catholic bookstores right next to the Cathedral. I did not spend very long in there because I knew it was dangerous territory for a guy like me. I bought books though...I bought 2 books by Edith Stein (they have the FULL set of her works in English at the Catholic Truth Society!!!!!) and Book One of the Summa Contra Gentiles (didn't have it and it was decently priced). I got a small booklet of the Mass in English and Latin for tomorrow because I will be going to Solemn Mass. At the Paulist Press store I found a book by Ratzinger on the Liturgy that I had never seen before. All these books I got I was unable to find in North America. 4 books and a little pamphlet for £44, which isn't too bad. But like I said, I got out of there FAST. Both stores, for example, had the COMPLETE WORKS of Hans Urs Von Balthasar. If I stayed, I would have walked out with too many books.

Now I'm off to do some touring. Today's events include a tour of the Globe Theater, the Eye of London, and a Star Wars Exhibit that looks really cool! I may go see a play, it depends on how tired I am. I have to put aside some time for studying too as I still have reading to finish for Tertio Millennio.

My hotel room is small, but nice, and it seems that I booked on "Hotel Row". There are hotels down the entirety of this street! It is nice though, it means it's safe.

That's all for now, more tomorrow perhaps, if not, I will update again once I'm in Krakow.

-Harrison

London!

2007-06-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I have just arrived in London. The flight was 9 and a half hours as opposed to nine because of the hold up at Heathrow. It is really amazing how they direct planes. After we landed I saw at least 6 planes queued (yes, I'm in London, so I have to use the word 'queue'). It is really quite a marvel. A bit freaky to see many planes in the air near you though. Air traffic controllers really do an amazing job!

The flight was uneventful. I got a good bit of sleep on it which made it nice and short, about 4 hours. I can thank the wine and beer for that I think. I watched one movie and that was all, Breach. It is about a FBI agent who was spying for the Russians against the US. He's Catholic. They actually portrayed the whole Catholic thing decently, you can tell he was struggling between being a good Catholic and his loyalty to his country. Not a great movie, but enjoyable. Thankfully there will be a MUCH better selection of movies on the return.

I also met up with my folks while I was in Vancouver which was nice. We visited for about 2 hours.

The weather here is cloudy, with breaks of sun, which is better then what the forecasters were giving which makes me happy. I am currently in an Internet Cafe in Heathrow Airport that is rather muggy.

I am looking forward to getting to my hotel, changing my clothes, and enjoying London. That nap on the plane should be sufficient to keep me up for the rest of the day. I figure if I walk a lot that it should wear me out by the end of the day.

My first order of business, once I'm settled, is to find out the Mass times at Westminster Cathedral. It is a Holy Day of Obligation today here in London for Sts Peter and Paul, so I am looking forward to good liturgy! :)

I think that's it for now. The plan tomorrow is a few things. I think I'm going to do those bus tours that take you all around the city. I am also going to go to Mass of course and see Spamalot, the Monty Python Musical. I am considering for Sunday to make a trip to Oxford or Cambridge...I have always wanted to see a Medieval University :)...I'm a rather big fan.

God bless and thinking of you all!

-Harrison

I'm Off

2007-06-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, I'm off today. I leave at Noon to catch the 12pm Ferry and will be meeting up with my folks on the other side to hang out with them for a few hours. My flight leaves this evening at 8:30pm via British Airways .

I arrive in London at 1:05pm London time tomorrow and will enjoy what appears to be 3 days of London in the rain...yay...it happens. I'll make sure I see a play while I'm there then at least...it's the way it is.

So I'll keep on a blogging throughout the trip and look forward to seeing you all when I return.

-Harrison

Unexpected!!

2007-06-24T20:07:00.001-07:00

I did not expect this outcome!!

http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2007-06-24_ssb.news

The question is, what will those who are in favour of same-sex unions do in reaction to this? Will there still be schism?

-Harrison

Priority of Culture

2007-06-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I had dinner at a family's house whom I try to go to whenever I can. The family is great and loving and the discussions are lively.

Well, my friend Madeleine suggested to her dad that we discuss the ideas of socialized vs. public health care, based on a discussion her and I had about a month earlier.

I was a BIT unwilling, only because the position I seem to be leaning towards is something that still requires much research so that I may form a proper opinion of such a position. I must back it up with statistics, a proper anthropology, a proper understanding of the true role of the state, and so forth. I have a base understanding of my position, but not enough to be able to dialogue about it in great detail at this moment in time. I was very happy to hear other opinions on the subject and appreciated the input into the subject I was given.

The reason I bring this up is because we all agreed on what needs to happen. Culture, not politics, is the driving force of history.

It just so happens, too, that this is a section in the book I'm reading for Tertio Millennio that I have just begun reading.

It has made me think about how the Church adapts to various political situations. She deems some political systems completely contrary to man's dignity (ie Communism and Socialism), while the rest she embraces in what they offer for a positive role in society.

It used to be that the Church was a "Church of Power" before the idea of the modern state came about. It used to be that the Church dictated where society would go based on its position of power and not on its evangelical nature to bring the Gospel to all through her example. This isn't wrong per se, it is just the political climate through which the Church had at the time.

Now, however, Democracy is a "theologically-free" system. That is to say, it is not the role of Democracy to take on a position about Who God is. Democracy can claim where its authority comes from, but that is about as far as it goes.

In this new political system, the Church adapts to it so that she can bring Christ to others.

It seems to me, that in Democracy, the political nature of things are in fact secondary to the cultural nature of things. People make political decisions only based on their cultural heritage in which they have been exposed to. They see that this cultural heritage, which ought to instill a sense of virtue and respect for man's dignity, is what forms them to be the social person they are.

So, it seems to me, that in order to bring about proper political decisions, we need to evangelize a culture of virtue to the people.

It seems to me that it is evangelization, a deeper sense and understanding of the Church as "missio", that our culture can be renewed.

The only way to do this is to challenge our culture and the way many people live their lives. We must enter into dialogue and bring ideas to the public square for dialogue and discussion. If we are able to express the reasonableness of our Christian idea of virtue, even for those who aren't Christian, then I believe we can bring a cultural, political, and, most importantly, anthropological revival to our country, in which man is seen for the greatness that God has created Him for.

How, though, do we do this? How do we enter into dialogue with the country?

I think there are many ways. It is, I think, perhaps the greatest thing our country is lacking. It is lacking an intellectual bend to itself. There are very few "think tanks" in Canada, and the Universities, in my opinion, are a sad example of intellectualism. It is ideas that create change. For example, look at Descartes and his dualism. His idea of separation of body and soul has had profound effects on culture and the way we think about the world that are still having their effects on us all today!

It is ideas, proposed through dialogue and not imposed by will, that will begin change. Yes, it is slow, but it is possible. Look at Poland, what an example of a cultural revolution that came to such great force in their understanding of who man is that they were able to make proper political action based on their cultural heritage.

So, we create those opportunities for dialogues. I think the place to start is by re-introducing the University not as training ground for employment, that is what a trade school is for, but for creating an authentic intellectual atmosphere in which all ideas are discussed for the pursuit of truth, not the pursuit of our own truth. Through a re-claiming of a proper ideal for the University, authentic dialogue can begin.

I think the same can be said for think tanks. It is through them that papers and books are written which are discussed and read in the popular media, newspapers, are analyzed by other think tanks and also make their way into the University.

I think these two things, in which an idea of a true understanding of man can be proposed, is where the culture can begin to turn around.

This, of course, is not the only means. I think the simple idea of example is key to this. The Opus Dei ideal of "sanctifying your work" is essential. Bring Christ into all that you do, so that others can experience the joy you bring, and it will help them yearn for such a joy as well. They may not accept Christ immediately or at all, but it will at least plant a seed for them to hopefully yearn to live a life of virtue based in truth and not their own will

To bring this full circle, I was discussing "Jesus of Nazareth" with Madeleine's dad last night and I said that the metaphysical conflict of the Middle Ages is still having its impact today. William of Ockham argued that what had primacy in God was His will, while St Thomas Aquinas said it is His intellect.

This is the battle that is still being hashed out today in each and every person. What defines man? How does man exercise himself in the world? Is it through the ockhamist imposition of the will, in which it is will that creates the individual to be free against other wills? Or is it the Thomistic idea that reason, and truth in which reason is based on, that helps us define who we are, in which we search for the truth and see if it is reasonable and live a life according to it?

I argue that the Thomistic view is the proper view. It is through this view that we yearn to enact our will based on Truth, which we search for through reasonable dialogue with others. Reason, and not will, is what is primary in a person. Will is the ressulting actions based on a conscientious discernment of truth.

-Harrison

CCCB and the Principle of Subsidiarity

2007-06-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

I swear, I'll stop posting at some point today!!

I am reading for Tertio Millennio right now and am reading an excellent article about the Church and its change in its stance towards Democracy over the past 150 years.

At this moment in time, I'm reading about the definition of the Principle of Subsidiarity. It is something I have pondered for a bit, and am looking for feedback.

Essentially, my question is: "Does the CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, or any conference of Catholic Bishops) defy the Principle of Subsidiarity?"

For those who don't know, essentially, the Principle of Subsidiarity is that whatever the individual can do within its community, one ought to let that individual do it. Larger organizations are only necessary when the smaller organizations (down to the organization of the one person) cannot do it themselves. For example, our Government runs the military because it is something we cannot run on an individual basis.

But this has got me wondering about the Conferences of Catholic Bishops. Essentially, the way a Bishop runs his Diocese is susceptible to the democratic (I use the term loosely here) functions of the CCCB.

This seems to circumvent the role of the Bishop, as the head of his local Church.

For example, the local Bishop is required to have the same lectionary as the rest of the Bishops in Canada. But what if the local Bishop wants a better translation (trust me, anything is better then the current one...needless to say "Catchers of People" makes me want to vomit!)? It seems that it is something he is capable of doing himself, why must he be subject to a larger bureaucracy if he is able to do so himself?

I would be interested in feedback, but it really seems to me that the Conferences of Catholic Bishops essentially are not serving the purpose they were created for. To my knowledge, the conferences were essentially created for the purpose of creating a sense of collegiality and unity (that is, fulfilling the principle of solidarity within the community of Bishops) and of creating one voice. Yet it is obvious that this is not happening, but instead has become a bureaucratic body in which the Conference makes all the decisions for the local Bishop. This seems to contradict the Principle of Subsidiarity, an essential tool in Catholic Social Thought.

I can see one objection already. "The Principle of Subsidiarity is to be applied to social circumstances only, and is not applicable to the Church". To my knowledge, however, that has never been formally defined as part of the principle.

So, I am interested to hear your feedback.

-Harrison

Upcoming Trip

2007-06-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

I would like to extend a welcome to all my friends and family who are checking out the blog for the first time.

As many may or may not know, I am going to the Tertio Millennio Seminar in Poland this summer. I leave in 8 days where I will spend the first 3 days in London and leave for Poland from England on the morning of July 2nd.

The Tertio Millennio Seminar is an opportunity for young Catholic professionals to get together to learn and discuss the implications of Catholic Social Teaching and how to apply to democracy.

It is an opportunity for older democracies (US generally, but since I'm going, Canada is also included this year!) to learn from and bear witness to the newer democracies (i.e., the old Communist countries such as Poland).

It is sounding to be one heck of a time and I am feeling blessed to be chosen to go. God is good and I thank Him for this opportunity!

Anyways, I am very excited. I will be posting on my blog while I am away about the experiences I am having there, at least as much as time will permit. So for those of you who are regulars to this blog, you will see updates from that trip on here while I'm away.

-Harrison

Interesting

2007-06-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

I was doing my daily Blog jaunt when I came across AmericanPapist's posts for the day. I was looking over his news wrap for the day, and the common thread is eerily interesting:

Check it out

Anyways, it seems that freedom of speech and the jurisdiction of the Church is being slowly impeded upon by the State. I give us 10 years max to seeing priests and deacons being jailed for their refusal to marry gay couples. So much for Democracy, we are allowing the State to grow in its totalitarian grip.

-Harrison

Books

2007-06-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I FINALLY got my book shelves moved over to my place (took over a month, but it finally happened!).

Anyways, I spent the entire night re-organizing my books. The old system I had at the Cathedral was by subject, but I have grown accustomed to my "By author" system. So they are now in a nice neat order.

What did surprise me, though, was that I needed the 4th bookshelf. I had just purchased a nice, large bookshelf from Ikea that I thought would take sufficient room of books for the old small (4 shelves only) bookshelf. Well, I was wrong. I guess I've continued accumulating books faster then I had thought.

So now my room is stuffed with bookshelves. For those who have been in my room, you'll know it's not the biggest room in the world, but I'm surrounded by what God has given to me as a great love.

My small 4 shelver is my exclusive shelf. 2 rows for books by Ratzinger, 1 row for JP II, and one row for Von Balthasaar. I know that, eventually, that bookshelf will be outgrown as I go deeper into the collections. My goal, at the moment, is to get all the writings of BXVI as he is my absolute favourite. I have almost every modern book that is in publication by him right now (save 3 that I am planning on getting upon my return). I need to, however, get his old stuff, like his doctoral dissertation and so forth.

After BXVI is complete, I do hope to grow in my collection of Edith Stein as she is someone I would like to study more in depth.

Needless to say, it has been tiring, but well worth it :).

-Harrison

Apparently Catholics are Liturgical Morons

2007-06-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

George Weigel has written an excellent article this week. There is a Bishop in the US, who is the head of the Liturgical Commission for the USCCB, who has been complaining about the soon to be new translation for the Mass in English to be released by ICEL. Anyways, the Bishop complains that "Mary and John Catholic" won't know what these new words mean because, I suppose, we are not smart enough to research this stuff.

Check it out. George Weigel at his best in my opinion.

http://www.archden.org/dcr//news.php?e=424&s=3&a=8902

Irrationality of Richard Dawkins

2007-06-20T16:12:00.001-07:00

Francis Beckwith, a recent revert to the Catholic Church, has posted an excellent article on the irrational stance of Richard Dawkins. I recommend that you check it out.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=776

-Harrison

Frustrations Part 3 - Irrational

2007-06-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

So far we have discussed the frustrations of the terms applied to religious believers as "fanatics" and "fundamentalists". The third issue I would like to now confront is the label of "irrational".

Before I get started on that, I would like to state that it seems that these are labels that can be applied to a small minority. Unfortunately, however, it seems that such terms are then labelled on all religious believers because there is a minority of them.

Now, I cannot speak for all faiths in this regard. However, Catholics, I can guarantee, are incredibely rational.

If you look at the history of Western thought, it is largely dominated and guided by the thought of Catholic greats. The first and foremost is St Augustine who guided the ideal of faith seeking understanding that has taken root and has since been a staple of Catholicism.

From there we can go into greats such as Boethius, St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, Bl. John Duns Scotus, and so on and so on. I know I'm only naming a couple, but the fact of the matter is that the list is endless.

Even in our modern times we have great thinkers like the Servant of God, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The idea that people of faith are irrational utterly confounds me to be perfectly honest. It is a result of great Catholic thinkers that we think the way we do about the world! The Empiricist ideal of "There is nothing in the mind that is not previously perceived through the senses" is essentially a scholastic principle.

Pope Benedict XVI has been confronting the idea of irrationality in religion head on. One need only read his Regensburg lecture to see this.

However, I may like to throw the challenge the opposite direction. Many claim that all religious believers are irrational because of the idea of faith in their lives.

The Pope's Regensburg lecture, however, seems to turn the table around. He is not stating that all secularists, for example, are irrational. What he is claiming, however, is that the West is losing "faith in reason".

You see, faith is an essential property to reason. I would argue that there is a hierarchy of faith. We all have faith in the world, some are more basic and less "risky" then others. The highest form of faith is of course faith in God.

However, there are lower forms of faith as well. Faith, for example, is present in reasoning. We have to have faith in Logic. That is to say, stating that "Logic is true" is an axiomatic belief we must all hold. You see, the value of "true" is a logical statement. Thus to say that logic is true, and to try and prove that through reason, would be circular because it is logic that we use to make reasonable arguments. Hence, one must accept as an axiomatic belief that "Logic is true".

Instead of people in the West saying why religious people are irrational, it seems instead, unfortunately, that many are angry at religious people. Look no futher then the writings of Richard Dawkins and company. I am yet to see reasonable argumentation in their writings. Instead, I see anger and contempt, which is unfortunate.

And so this is happening more and more as relativism and the socialist ideal of man slowly seeps its way into way man thinks of the world. Trying to convince someone who is a relativist that the Principle of Non-Contradiction is an essential principle to stand by is like pulling teeth. Because they are a relativist, they see that anything can contradict anything, because there is no universal truth.

This brings me to the absolutely frustration position of relativism. They claim that truth is relative. Following that, then, so is language. Language is built upon the nature of logic, and so if truth is relative, then logic is relative, and thus language is relative. This leaves us with no universal language in which to communicate our ideas because words can mean whatever one "feels they ought to mean". Thus, there is no way to discuss because "chair" (yes, I am using the chair example, you can tell I got a Philosophy degree) can mean "something in which someone uses to sit on and is built specifically for that person" for one person and for another can mean "a person who is sleeping". Chair can mean whatever one wants it to mean. Language becomes obsolete, and so does the human person.

This post is more of a vent against the world who claims that religious people are irrational. I ask, however, why the many in the west are irrational about things.

Faith is something that is inharent to the human character. It is not something that we can deny. For some it is simply stating "I have faith that my experiences are true", for others, such as myself, it goes deeper, to the claim that the Nicene Creed and all that follows from that is true.

I would like to end with a quote from St Anselm, one of my favourite quotes:

"I believe so that I may understand, for this too I believe, for unless I believe, I cannot understand".

-Harrison

Frustrations Part 2 - Fundamentalism

2007-06-14T23:46:00.001-07:00

So my last post ended off with my frustrations that religiously inclined people are fanatics and what that word entailed.

I would now like to focus on the next stereotype people generally use to refer to anyone who seriously practices their faith.

Fundamentalism

Unfortunately this is a word that is thrown about without many people knowing what exactly it means.

The term "fundamentalism" and "fundamentalists" emerged in the early 20th century. It is a Christian movement that tried to get "back to the source" of Christianity, basing their beliefs on the 5 "fundamentals" which is where the name comes from.

These 5 fundamentals are:

The inerrancy of scripture
Christ was born of a virgin and is Divine
One is saved by faith alone through grace alone
Christ rose from the dead
Christ's miracles and life are all true events.

The problem, however, is that the term "fundamentalist" is not used in this sense at all. In a certain sense, this is quite unfair to Christian Fundamentalists.

I am of the opinion that the fundamentalists (not all though, this is my basic experience though of many) is that there is this idea of imposition of will and lack of dialogue that is in Christian Fundamentalism that is definitely present in Jihadist Islam.

This similarity leads me to the view of what people see as fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is seen as anyone who believes in what they see as obviously false views and is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that the entire world submits to this view. This is, really, though, fanaticism as discussed in the previous post and nothing else.

However, people look at Fundamentalist Christians now and paint them as fanaticists who, if they could, would lay siege to the whole world to ensure that everyone submit to Christ to be saved.

First, that is a false perception of Fundamentalist Christians that has been tainted by a false understanding of fundamentalism that has been attached to them through Jihadist Islam.

Secondly, Fundamentalist Christians that I have known, and I can really only speak from experience here, would not be the type to kill you if they could if you would not submit to faith as they have.

This brings me now to the view that all religious people who hold views contrary to the norms of culture are fundamentalists and bad.

However, as shown in the previous post, Christians and Catholics are not fanaticists. They want to propose their truth to the world. Christianity is about proposition through the aid of reason.

I bet you if you ask anyone who labels and devout Christian as a fundamentalist, they would be prescribing the word "fanatic" over "fundamentalism".

The other big issue is that many non-Christians believe that "fundamentalists" are dangerous because they don't think and base all they believe on a literal interpretation of the Bible.

First, I would like to point out that Catholics do not take the entire Bible literally. We do not think that God created the Earth in 7 literal days.

But this leads us to a deeper, perhaps the deepest, objection to Christians in a pluralistic society. Christians, they say, are people who don't think, they lack the true use of reason.

This will bring me to the 3rd topic which I hope to write on Friday. Are Christians reasonable?

-Harrison

My Frustrations With The World

2007-06-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

Well, ask my roommate Del and he can tell you of my frustrations with the world.

Religious people are defined by the rest of the world (yes, I am creating a dichotomy and, *gasp*, division!) as "fanatics, fundamentalists, and people who are not reasonable".

I would like to address all three of these topics briefly as I believe they are incredibely false as I most definitely do not fall in any of those three categories nor does most of the Catholics I know.

Fanatics

Fanatics are seen as people who have an ideology to push. Now it is interesting what the term ideology is perceived to be. Ideas and ideologies are not the same thing. Ideologies are seen to be supreme truth that only a select know and the only way to make the rest of the world know the same truth is by supreme force on the will of others to submit to the truth of the ideology.

An idea also promotes a truth. However, it sees itself in accordance to reason and thus wishes to be thrown in the arena of ideas, in which proper dialogue according to the standards of reason occur, so that, if this idea is true, it will hold up against other ideas that would not be true and show that they are lacking certain propertie that make them claim to be in accordance to reason.

In other words, ideologies impose, ideas propose. There is no room for discourse or dialogue in ideologies, but that is the central idea in ideas.

Fanatics are people who are ideological.

I do not consider myself nor the Church in general in that camp. If people actually read what the Church has to say and what many Catholics do have to say (I can only talk from a Catholic perspective in these 3 cases), they would see that proposition is the essential nature of the Church's mission. We cannot impose our faith because that is contrary to the idea of faith.

Even when it comes to things such as abortion, we hold it to be true, but we put our idea into the realm of discourse to see if it is in accordance to reason. We believe that it has withstood the opposition of other ideas and that this is a truth that is universal and in accordance to reason. I will approach it later, but reason implies a necessity of universal truth.

Also, ideologies are not limited to religious groups (I am the first to admit there are some out there), but reading, for example, the abortion debate on Facebook has shown me that there are fanatics on the abortion side who refuse to apply their ideology to reason, but instead just yell and scream until others get fed up with them.

Parts 2 and 3 are to follow.

-Harrison

Trying to get back into the swing of things

2007-06-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

I am really trying to get the blog going up again. It is tough because I've been so busy.

My time right now has been filled with getting my fundraiser together for a young adult pilgrimage group from Victoria BC going to the Eucharistic Congress next year. I also have been studying intensely for the Tertio Millennio Seminar which begins on July 2nd. I'm only about 40% through all the reading materials. Some have been interesting, while other articles have been unfortunately a bit dissapointing. Between those 2 things, my regular work, and the extra-carriculars, I have been a busy man!

However, I am going to do my best. I hope to give constant updates while I am in Poland too for the Tertio Millennio because that is going to be 3 weeks crammed with intellectual, cultural, and spiritual stimulation, not too mention some good Polish beer!

Yet another example of Canadian "Reason"

2007-05-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a recent article that was published in our National Post.

http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=e5dad385-c1d5-4ae2-9681-8aa188f5496a&k=76351

Reading this article infuriated me, not because of its conclusion, I think it is great that there are less pregnancies among teens. However, it is the way they attempt to support, by saying that it is a contraceptive world that has brought this about. Needless to say, this article, I found, to be completely lacking in the realm of reason and so felt that it would be necessary to reply to the article by writing a letter to the Editor and this is what I wrote:

The article on Teen Pregancy in Canada is a perfect example of the logical leaps that people make, all in the name of what they believe to be is reason.

You suggest that because sex-ed and contraception is more readily available, and that teens are roughly having sex at the same rate, that therefore it is the logical conclusion that it is because of sex-ed and contraception that is leading to less pregnancies.

This is a faulty conclusion. Just because it is more available does not entail that it is the main cause of less pregnancies among teens.

You never mention once that while many teens do indeed have sex (something the article is more then willing to make known), you never mention once the increasing movement of teens embracing a life of abstinance until marriage. The article simply says, albeit vaguely, that "it (the result of less pregnancies) does not mean teens are less sexually active or routinely engaging in safer sex."

And yet, while the article is steeped with statistics to make its point look valid, it has no statistics on the result of teens having sex, it just says that they are.

I think it is unfortunate that Canada has gone so far off the track that it is no longer able to look at things in a reasonable manner, but instead cites statistics and experts for the appearance of reasonableness without applying the facts to reason itself.

-Harrison

Veluti si Deus Daretur

2007-04-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

I just began reading "Christianity and the Crisis of Culture" by BXVI (Just finished "On the Way to Jesus Christ, it is amazing, READ IT!)

Anyways, I just read the introduction and Marcello Pera, the person who wrote the introduction, comments on one of the things the Pope says. Back in the day, it was said that we should act in a way even if God did not exist, but that we must now live as if God did exist.

The former is a Pascalian view of the world...it is better to act even if God does not exist, it is a better wager.

But the Pope challenges us differently because the world has changed since the time of Pascal. The Pascalian view is no longer valid in a world that no longer believes in God. If you tell them to act even if God did not exist, they would put you to the side, because they would say that God indeed does not exist.

This new proposition being made now is fundamentally different. The challenge to the world is "Act as if God does exist". This is a more positive view of Pascalian way, but does have it's subtle differences for the better.

Mr. Pera puts the challenge that this is what we are to propose to the world, that they ought to act in a manner as if God does exist, and that this is the proposition to make to those outside the Church.

My question is, however, how is this possible? How can we convince people that this is a proper view of the world and one that is reasonable enough that one would be willing to live by it regardless of what they believed.

Please let me know what you think.

Christianity in Society

2007-04-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some reflecting lately on the role of Christianity in Society.

I have been wondering what it is that is the fundamental thing that people have problems with in Christianity. Is it the morality? Is it how we feel about the role of faith and reason? Is it our view of the dignity of the value of the human person?

I think Pope Benedict gives us a good hint in Deus Caritas Est. He states

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

People love attaching themselves to Christianity in a fuzzy sort of way. People have no problems with lofty ideas or value systems in essence really. The reason why that is is because it falls into the realm of tolerance and relativism. A value system is fine when there is no motivation for it to convince others, it is good for you, and people appreciate that. People feel nice when they have something to guide their life and their actions. It is the same with the lofty ideas. Prayer is fine when it doesn't intrude on others, when it is only personal and internal, where you and God can relate in a way that is appropriate to you only and not to others. Prayer, of course, is certainly very personal, but we know from our Christian experience that this is not the case.

You see, it is the second line of what Pope Benedict says that makes Christianity unique and unpopular. Christianity is not about values, lofty ideas, mystical experiences, at least not in and of themselves. In and of themselves they do not bring meaning to life. Instead, they just give direction, but direction and meaning are two totally different things.

What Pope Benedict is suggestion is that we have faith in a person, in Jesus Christ, in that faith, the reason for our humanity will be made clear. Our life will be given direction and meaning and purpose.

So, there is a reason why Christians get sick to their stomachs when they see books about Christianity, but only go so far as to say that Christ was a good man, but He wasn't God, and He didn't resurrect from the dead. It is simple, without the resurrection, then our faith is a dead faith, with nice ideas, but nothing convincing to it.

People have no problem saying "I like Christianity, but I can't claim Christ to be my Lord and God because He isn't, that is just too much for me". It is the truth.

I came to realize this past Triduum the true awesomeness of the Resurrection. He is not dead, He is indeed risen. Christians who are convinced of that see that Christianity is meant to inform and change their lives. It is part of their very being because they encounter the risen Christ in everything.

People don't like Christianity because they can't come to believe that Christ is truly present in the world. But He is, He is a reality to the world. And that is why people shy away from it. If one takes Christianity seriously, they have to accept the fact that Christ is alive and well and His love is being poured out to those who accept it. Christ becomes a part of their life and they come to discover Christ in their life on a day to day basis for the rest of their lives.

Those who like Christianity as an idea or a way to encounter God whom they feel transcends religion and is the same for all don't go to the extent that a Christian does. They can't get past the idea that Christ is truly risen.

Without the resurrection, our faith is dead. Thanks be to God that He is truly risen!

-Harrison

I'm Back

2007-04-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back, up and running.

I have great news to share too. I just received my acceptance letter to the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society yesterday which means I'll be going to Poland for July to learn from the greats such as George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. God has blessed me indeed, and this has been a very humbling but exciting bit of news for me :).

I hope to be posting more often once again.

-Harrison

Why Ockham isn't a Nominalist

2006-10-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

He is a terminalist. I know a LOT of people fall into the error of seeing Ockham as a nominalist...but it is impossible when one looks at his writings.

A nominalist is someone who sees a lack of universals, that it is not objective forms that give things their nature, but the words that we give them. So, a nominalist would say that when they see what most of us know of as a book, the meaning of what a book is is up to what he decides to call it. It's the word that gives meaning, it has nothing to do with the reality of the thing itself.

So, in order to over this quickly, I will give a very quick crash course in Ockham's thought.

Ockham believes in the existence of terms and believes they correspond to reality. I will start from the lower and go up to the higher level, as he has a definite hierarchy of terms.

The lowest is written terms. Written terms signify (they point one towards) spoken terms. Spoken terms signify mental terms. Now this is where people think that Ockham stops. That it is mental terms that give meaning to everything. But in fact there is one more level of terms...the term itself, that is, the idea of what the thing is. This is what is not expressible in any sort of language, whether it be written, verbal, or mental, it is pure idea. It is this idea that corresponds to reality. Thus the term as such gets its meaning only from the thing to which it corresponds to. Thus the term of what a book is, the idea of what a book is to use a different word, is only meaningful because there are actual books out in the world to correspond to. Thus there is a meaning in his language.

And multiple objects can participate (to use a platonic word) in the common idea of book. There are objective universals out there in which one can get the idea of book as the particular idea of a specific book, for example, signifies the universal idea of book, it points towards that universal idea of the book. It, in a certain sense, corresponds to that objective reality.

Any comments on this? Am I clear?

-Harrison

LibraryThing

2006-10-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help it! I had to get on this thing! Needless to say it is a great way of keeping track of one's books. I've got 2 shelves of books on there already, only 13 to go. I'm especially fond of the tagging feature. It has gotten me very excited about my book collection and helping me see what I have on my bookshelf that I have forgotten about.

Here's my profile...if you have it let me know and I'll add you to my list on librarything and check out your library.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=lindyholic

I should be posting a bit more as time goes on now...life SEEMS to be slowing down. I'm hoping to post, either tomorrow or on Saturday, a post on why Ockham is not a nominalist.

Harrison

The Intellectual Movement

2006-10-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

I've been inspired by the words of the Pope's talk at Ragensburg. And it made me think of to where we see the greatest intellectual movements in the history of man. And sure enough, they all fall within 3 great periods. The following is from an e-mail I sent to a friend...May we all embrace Faith and Reason.

When one looks back at history, one sees the greatest achievements in history in times in which Faith and Reason are embrassed in their fullest. It is interesting to note to that the great cultural movements of Western History are all surrounded with the creation of schools.

The first period is the Patristic Period...in which the great Fathers of the Church defended the True Faith not using just Faith (as many of our Protestant brothers and sisters think) but with Reason. The greatest, of course, is St Augustine who states that belief is what gives rise to a proper use of reason. As St Anselm, in the later Middle Ages states "I believe so that I may understand". Faith is, of course, first, but faith is NOT irrational, but is in fact purely rational...for the Divine Logos, the Word, the Divine Reason, Christ, came down to Earth and took on human flesh. It is in the Incarnation that Reason and Faith come together...for before Christ, we see great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle who attained great truths with the use of reason, but were not able to come to THE TRUTH without the aid of faith. Now, it is easy to note that there were no "schools" during the Patristic period...things were still too scattered, but there were great centers of thought, especially in the East. The school was in the Church, in which the great homilies were given by the greatest of Saints. It is no surprise that St Augustine is ALWAYS studied as one of the greatest minds of history. St John Chrysostom, the Golden Mouth, taught people in the setting of the Church and through his writings as well...it was not in a formalized school, but the Church existed to educate those in the faith they accepted.

The next period is the 9th century Renaissance which, in my humble opinion, begins on Christmas Night in the year 800 in which Charlemagne, Charles the Great, or, as I lovingly call him "Chuck" was crowned by the Pope as the Holy Roman Empire. This was the light that the West needed. There was no such thing as a "dark ages", for that implies a total lack of advancement. Indeed, the period between 500 and 800 AD had less achievements, but that was due to the isolation of towns. There were still great thinkers like Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius who had a great impact on thought in the Western Tradition, but I am getting off my topic here....

Chuck saw a problem. He saw lack of education in the clergy, he saw a lack of use of the gift of reason in the people in general in fact. It is thanks to Chuck that the idea of a formalized schooling system first comes into place. Chuck is responsible for the creation of the Liberal Arts...the study of Mathematics, Philosophy, Geometry and so forth, in which the Liberal Arts came under 2 titles, the Quadrivium and the Trivium (4 and 3 respectively). In order for the proper training of the priests, Chuck created the ideas of Cathedral Schools, the first VERY formal schooling system (though it MAY be possible to prove me wrong on that, but I argue for it). It is thank to him that we have Capital and minuscule letters in our alphabet and spacing in order to have a better flow on our page...there were numerous other advances as well, including an embracing of Classical thought and a re-immergance of the copying of scripts, to which we can thank for many of the books we have in our possession nowadays.

The next period is the 12th Century Renaissance, and guess which intellectual institution takes its rise from this great cultural advancement? The University. THe ideas of Law (to which the University of Bologna was so popular for), the philosophical and theological and many other traditions have their roots in the University. In fact, it's because our legal system has lost its roots in the Western idea of law (to which BXVI has been warning us so drastically about, the distancing ourselves from our Western roots) that our legal system is now in trouble, because it is so far beyond its original purpose.

The ideas about just wages, fair trade, and many other ideas we take for granted all have their roots in the 12th Century Renaissance, to which was all formed in the, you guessed it, the intellectual sphere of the University. It is there that ideas were formed and molded and put into practice. The thinkers formed the ideas for the way to live life for everyone. And this was all done in the name of truth.

In fact, the greatest common thing between these 3 periods is the fact that there was one common purpose: To discover the Truth in all things, because God who is the Logos, the Divine Reason, came into the world, and so, necessarily, there is a reason to everything in the world. By faith in the Logos, we use our reason to come to the great truths of everything.

I argue to that our society has yet to see such a remarkable and exciting time as those 3 periods. We can reach it again, if we listen to the cry of Pope Benedict, and unite ourselves in our true Western Roots, which is the Divine Logos, and thus would be able to pursue, once again, reason through the guidance of faith in the Truth, which is Christ and His Church.

-Harrison

I've been Tagged

2006-10-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged to do this, so here I go...

"If an angel could take me back in time, what five things or occasions would I like to experience?"

5 - To be in the same room as St Augustine as he wrote his Confessions
4 - To be at a class at the University of Paris in the 12th century
3 - To have been able to hear the preaching of St Francis
2 - To have a theological discussion with Bl. John Duns Scotus
1 - To be present for the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ (you can't have one without the other)

I can't really tag anyone because I don't know who else who has a blog who reads this.....

-Harrison

Latin ATMs

2006-09-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Yes...an ATM that's in Latin...

Since the Church's official language is Latin, guess what language their ATM's are?

http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/atm-in-latin.jpg

This is courtesy of Cardinal Sean's blog...a great blog worthy to check out.

-Harrison

Discovering the Catholic Way of Life Wrap Up

2006-09-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

So, the weekend is now over, and though I'm exhausted, I can't seem to be able to sleep at the moment, so this is a good time to give everyone a wrap up of the weekend's events.

Being a Director of The Edith Stein Society (www.edithsteinsociety.ca), I was quite involved in the weekend.

Friday began with dinner with George at Moxie's with some of the other directors. The dinner was good, though we were a bit quiet...I'm just trying to get used to figure out how to talk to people I don't know...definitely something to grow in :).

After dinner we went for a bit of a walk around the block at which point we made our way to the Conservatory of Music. Sat around, met up with people, and then the conference began with what it means to be a Church.

By far this was my favourite talk of the evening, in that there were 2 important keys to take away, that the Church is a communion and that it is firstly formed in the image of Mary. Amazing stuff and just awesome. We had question and answers and then that was it.

After such an awesome first session we went out to Boston Pizza which didn't work out as much as I was hoping. People still seemed to enjoy themselves, but I was hoping (and so was George after talking to him) that there would have been a bit more of an intimate atmosphere. In the future, I will hold it at the Parish Center.

I drove George back to the Hotel, had an awesome chat with him, and then went back to Boston Pizza for more hanging out, and that was Friday night.

Saturday started off with Mass and then it was the Conference again. Again, awesome stuff. George discussed the Moral Life and the Laws that Liberate. The big thing to take away again was "Morality is where God's will meets the man's will and man's will meets God's will."

It was then off to lunch which involved myself, Annette, and her cousin running around doing some final erands for the conference.

The afternoon was the role of the Church in forming society through Democracy and promoting the culture of life. I know this is George's big thing and that was very engaging as some of it was very new to me and I quite enjoyed it.

And then the conference ended and I've gotten nothing but AMAZING feedback and thank yous and thank you cards for the members of the society. All in all an awesome conference.

Saturday night involved going out for dinner in style with George. And when I say in style, I really mean it. It's one of those restaurants where your meal is small but REALLY expensive. The food was delicious, I just wish there was more...when I hear "4 oz. of prime ribs" on the menu I freak out ;).

Discussions were great and I know Georege really enjoyed the dinner as well.

I got some exciting news that evening as well.

So we were all talking at the table and very much enjoying ourselves. And I was talking for a minute and then, out of nowhere, George says "Harrison, you should come to my course in the summer"(I hope I remembered that correctly)....

I wanted to fall off my chair. Literally...I couldn't believe the words I was hearing!!

He gave me his card to e-mail him and talk to him some more about it and told me he's been very much trying to get a Canadian to go and he would very much like to see me go.

I was so joyous that evening that I could barely fall asleep. There are many MANY more people who are much more deserving then I could possibly be, and yet he asked me....I am overjoyed to say the least.

The course is the Tertio Millennio Seminar in Krakow, Poland. It's a 3 week intensive study of Catholic Social Doctrine, Catholic Culture, and, to quote George, "a lot of beer". All I have to do is pay for the flight to Poland that the Tertio Millennio Institute takes care of the rest!!! It just so happens that I have 3 weeks of holidays at work too! God is just so good.

So I was FINALLY leaving at 10:30 to drive Fr. John and Sr. Jo home (hence why I never made it to the Irish TImes Kristina, but we'll have to hang out in November when I'm at the Abbey some time that week) and as I was saying buy to George he said "we'll see you in Poland"...God is really just so good :).

I also got him to sign 3 of my books :).

So that was the weekend, a huge success...

For those who are interested in future TESS events, we'll be having a form very soon on our website so that people can sign up for an e-mail list to be kept up to date with our upcoming events.

-Harrison

Wow

2006-09-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

In the blogging world, you can't get much better then this for advertising for your society!

http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/09/from_the_emailb.html

-Harrison

Questions for George Weigel!

2006-09-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

I just thought of something...if you have questions for George Weigel, post them on the blog and I'll attempt to ask him them over the weekend and post the responses....you'll get your George Weigel exclusive!!!

There'll be some other bloggers out here this weekend so stay tuned to Western Catholic Blogs to get your review of the weekend.

It's going to be awesome!!!

-Harrison

Relationship?

2006-08-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

One thing I've reflected on the past is the use of the term "relationship" with regards to how we relate to God.

Don't get me wrong, I am not denying our relationship with God with what I am about to say, only that what we have with Him goes far beyond the idea of relationship. It includes it, but goes beyond it. Let me explain.

I am going to look at this as a hierarchy, one in which the higher involve the lower.

The lowest in the hierarchy is the idea of a simple relationship. It is a truth that we do have a relationship, but it's not the be all and all, it does not connote the reality that we live. To have a relationship with Christ only expresses love in the way of philia, in the familial type of love. We see Christ simply as a member of the family and thus have a natural affection of love towards Him. This is indeed the case, but it is not the fullness.

The next is an intimate relationship with Christ. This goes up a notch. Not only does this include everything from pure relationship, but it adds the idea of yearning. We experience Christ intimately and thus move closer towards Him and yearn for Him. This is the relationship of eros, of yearning and wanting. We see that Christ can give us truth, beauty, and happiness, and we want to accept that and ask it of Him. For the first time, we seek Christ out as the woman seesk out her love in the Song of Songs. We know that we have experienced true love, and we want more of it. But this also is not the fulfillment.

I would like to argue that we have an intimate communion with God. It involves the first two things which I already mentioned, but it is no longer a seeking, but a willing to give our entire seslves over to Christ and to conform ourselves to His will. We are no longer self-seeking, but are seeking that which pleases our beloved. Communion entails agape love, that is, love that is totally self-giving. In other words, an intimate communion with Christ is an involvement in the Trinitarian exchange of love. By giving our selves completely to Christ, we thus image the exchange of self-giving love that is a reality in the Blessed Trinity. And what is the Trinity? It is a communion of love, the most intimate. There is relationship there, and there is seeking, but it is realized fully in the self-giving of self. Eros and philia realize their true nature in the self-giving love of the Trinity.

And thus, by our giving of self to Christ, we experience that Trinitarian exchange of love in its fullness. It is something that is worked at throughout our lives as we grow closer to Christ. But Christ already gives us that foretaste through the Eucharist.

When Christ says in John 6 that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" He means it! By receiving the Eucharist, we receive that spiritual food that gives us the strength to love Christ as He loves us. What is our life? To grow in Holiness by imitating Christ? How do we imitate Christ? By being a sign of love to the world. Thus, by receiving the Eucharist, we receive the love of Christ which is the heart of our life. Without Christ's love, communicated to us through the Eucharist, indeed, we have no life, because we do not find the fulfillment of the desires of our heart in things of the world, but only in the love of Christ. But we only experience the love of Christ through the reception of Him in our lives. We receive Him in Baptism when we enter the Church, but we receive Him intimately in the Eucharist. Christ gives Hiimself to us, who are we to refuse His gift?

*sidenote* I realize that I had a post on personal and intimate relationship of Chirst, but when one prays and ponders thelogical things, one can move further on and beyond.

-Harrison

The Role of Music in Liturgy

2006-08-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but I've got too much to say, so I figured I ought to post something :).

It's about the role of music in the liturgy. It's been the fruit of discussion I've been having with many people for the past few days and so I figure I'd share it with you all, plus dilixitprior's post on George Weigel's article inspired me to finally post something.

As we all know, there is some...well....junky music out there for liturgy. Now, let me say this first, and I very much want to qualify this, that other forms of music are not bad or anything, and they can indeed be Christianized and have been in many ways, but they don't have a role in liturgical celebration. Sing praise and worship, but I find it's role in liturgy to not be fitting (I will explain this later).

So, I argue that the music we ought to sing at Mass is in accordance to that which has been part of the constant tradition of the Church. There are 2 streams of tradition in the Church with regards to music, the Eastern stream and the Western stream.

In the history of the existence of the Church, the Eastern Church's roots are probably the most visible. It's roots are the longest lasting and perhaps even the least changing from my bits and pieces of knowledge about the history of liturgical music.

The Western Church, to my knowledge (and am willing to be corrected), did not have any real musical tradition until the entrance of Gregorian Chant. It is Gregorian Chant that is the finalization of the tradition of music for Western Liturgies.

Now, people argue that the Mass has been changed in order to bring us into a more modern period. This is true, there is less or no Latin (which is fine) in order to adapt to the fact that Latin is not as accessible for people to learn as it once was as well as other changes. Some are unfortunate and will be changing to a more legitimate translation with the new Roman Missal that is due out soon. Others are accidental and will probably not change because they are not of a huge theological concern. One of these is the facing East for Mass. This has changed universally pretty much, but Ratzinger, before he was Pope, said that though this is unfortunate because of the reasons, it is such a major change that it is not something that is essential to the liturgy (he says this in Feast of Faith and Spirit of the Liturgy).

So, people argue, because the Mass has changed to bring the Church into the Modern era to make it a better tool of evangelization to the modern man, so too ought the music to change.

I argue differently, however. Yes, there has been changes in order to make the Church accessible to the modern person. The music is something that ought not to change. The reason for this is the constant tradition of the Church. As we can see, the Mass has changed throughout the history of the Church, yet it's essence has always remained. With these changes in the Mass, however, there have not been much if any, at least up until these more current days, change in the music. The church's tradition is firmly rooted in music that leads one's focus onto God.

Many people feel music that is more rock orientated and more uplifting and feel good ought to be the main course of music for mass. Chant is old school and went out with the old mass. I disagree.

The mass is not there to be noisy, it is there for silence. It is there for us to bring praise to God, to truly worship Him. This is why we were created, so that we may worship Him out of love for the love He has shown us. So, though rock orientated music (I use this only as one example) is not meant for Mass.

Now, people would immediately interject "But one of the great things the Church does is that it takes what is good from non-Christian art forms and worship and incorporate it into the life of the Church, why can we not contain praise and worship music in liturgy using this reason?"

I answer that indeed praise and worship music is good and is a sincere way of praising God, but not in liturgy. The liturgy is a community event in that we are there to grow closer to God, and, through that growing closer to God, growing closer to our neighbour. We indeed do have many ways of praising and glorifying God, but the Mass is wholy seperated from individualism but is built upon the idea of building community. And that community is not just parish based but is indeed a universal community, a communion of Saints! And so, our praise ought to be unified in a manner that leads one to silence so as to properly focus on the praising and worshiping of God.

This is why I argue in favour of the music that is more rooted in the tradition of the Church. It is something that wistands the test of time, that is always there. It leads you to a silence while singing. When I hear Gregorian Chant (I only use it as just one example) it leads me to silence and thus to a greater love fo the communial embrace God and I are having. When there is more noisy music, it is very much harder to express that silence that we yearn for because one begins to be entertained. It becomes about the parishioner and not God.

I remember on Holy Thursday this past year, our Bishop was processing through the Cathedral with the Eucharist one final time before Christ went into the tomb before His resurrection. The chant the whole time was the Pange Lingua. How beautiful it was! There was such unison and peace, there was singing, but there was silence, the great paradox of music realizing it's function in liturgy.

Now, I'm not saying all the music has to be in Latin, but it has to have the heart of the role of music in liturgy. Ratzinger and many other theologians have said this as well.

St Augustine once said that "singing is praying twice". He is right indeed, because there is the outward praise one has towards God, but there is also the interior silence, which the Catechism calls "the language of God."

One final note for now. The Mass is, as Vatican II said, ought to be accessible to all people. But it never asked for us to remove the mystery of what is happening at Mass. Singing music that focuses on emotional highs is not conducive to this spirit, it does not lead one to a sense of mystery, but to a sense of entertainment, into getting caught up into emotions, there is little room for silence.

And so, if the Mass is also to connote a sense of mystery, we ought to have music and a language that expresses this. This is why music such as Gregorian Chant is great, it leads one to the sense of mystery, the "I see the beauty in all it's uncomprehensability". There is a role a language as well, but that's another post.

Again, I am not dealing with just Gregorian Chant or Praise and Worship here, I only use them as examples because they are the two most common ones I could think of.

This is just the tip of the ice berg, but my initial thoughts on the role of music in Liturgy.

-Harrison

I'm Alive

2006-07-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Don't worry...I'll be back soon...I've just been uber busy with many things...I have many things I'd love to post about...just need life to slow down a bit :)...

Harrison

Catholic Carnival

2006-06-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

This weeks Catholic Carnival is up and yours truly is on it.

Someone from the Holy Vocations blog really wanted me to post my post on the problem of evil for this weeks carnival...so I did and am on...there's other great stuff on it so check it out.

http://jcb.pentex-net.com/archives/2006/06/catholic_carniv.html

-Harrison

I have seen great things....

2006-06-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

The Opera Philosophica and the Opera Theologica by William of Ockham is available through Franciscan Publications, hardcover and all...for $1200 US.

One day it will be mine, 17 volumes of pure intellectual goodness (except for the political theory).

Other great things I found....

John Duns Scotus: Early Oxford Lecture on Individuation

Scotus for Dunces: An Introduction to the Subtle Doctor

John Duns Scotus: Four Questions on Mary

John Duns Scotus: A Treatise on Potency and Act: Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Book IX

St Anthony of Padua: Sermons for the Easter Season

St Bonaventure: De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam

St Bonaventure: Itenerarium Mentis in Deum

St Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity

St Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ

And perhaps the best thing to come from there is the Franciscan Studies Journal, which I have use many a times for writing philosophy papers and I think I will have to begin subscribing to it because it's just amazing.

I am done with book geeking for now...

Check it out here:

http://www.sbu.edu/go/academics/franciscan-institute/publications/index.htm