Sunday Meditation: Thinking About Faith

The women's day of reflection which I attended yesterday focused on the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Of all the virtues these three let us reach out and touch the hand of God. All the other virtues support these three which take the prominent place in the hierarchy of virtues.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Happy Happy Church! 
(Trains in the Sky)

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a British author made famous in the modern era from the Peanuts cartoon character, Snoopy, and his eternal quest to write a book beginning with Bulwer-Lytton’s classic opening, “It was a dark and stormy night.” 

"The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels - that is, one which is deliberately bad."

Below are a few bad first sentences from books in the religion category.

PAPAL AUDIENCE SERIES: "Planes and Trains and Acrobats" - Riding his magic carpet made of steel across the Vatican sky over St Peter's (because he no longer trusted Boeing 747's Shepherd One) the pope, in his best Arlo Guthrie impersonation, sang, "Good morning, TLM Catholics, how are ya?" then in a sinister voice said, "Have you not heard the news that before the day is done, one more feckless rigid doctrine will have faded like a bad dream into the disappearing Catholic Church?" but suddenly his train fell from the sky crashing into Santa Marta where the numerous scantily-clad Vatican acrobats were housed.

The New All-Encompassing Divine Presence

Earth is now Planet Sodom and Gomorrah. There are millions of homosexual pride images on the Internet. Every country in the world participates. The homosexual goal is to extinguish the Catholic Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and procreation of children from existing. Is our faith worth dying for? If so, we need to be prepared to die because behind the smiling faces of pride flag waving homosexuals is the evil face of Satan and he hates us because we belong to Christ.

But if any man shall not fall down and adore, he shall
the same hour be cast into a furnace of burning fire.
Daniel 3:6

King of the Swamp

I'm now the...you know...thing

King of the Swamp

with apologies to Roger Miller

President for sale or rent
Lobbying for fifty cents
Soon no phone, no pool, no pets,
We won’t even have cigarettes
Ah, but two hours of lobbying
Buys a heap of real Communism 
He’s a man of means, by no means
He’s King of the Swamp 

Third world midnight coup
Destination: Covid flu
He’s an old worn out suit and shoes 

Swimming naked in infested fescue
He makes Chinese deals, we have found 

Gathering his millions underground
He’s a holy and devout Cath-o-lic

While we're all evil deplorable hicks
He’s King of the Swamp

He knows every flunkie – they’re all the same
He knows all of the children and all of their names
He knows every handout in every town
And every lock that ain't locked down 

He can't stand fences except his own

Like the one around Capitol's military zone

He’s King of the Swamp

"Catholic mitres look funny". Meanwhile not a word of criticism about these.

Good News for Chocoholics!

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but after a heart attack, a little chocolate every week can help keep the grim reaper at bay. Now the question is which brand has the best medicinal qualities? I'm partial to Ghiradelli - especially dark chocolate with raspberry filling. Lindt is good too. They have a great hazelnut chocolate bar. But for an absolutely incomparable treat check out The Toffee House. I'm sure the variety with dark chocolate must be good for the heart! It's also a great way to say I love you to someone special. Like fine wine, it should be taken in small quantities and savored.

The Church has fast days and feast days. Fast and pray with all your heart on days of penance, and feast with joy on special days like tomorrow - the Feast of the Assumption. I never tire of sharing Hilaire Belloc's philosophy - "Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there's music and laughter and good red wine." Break out the Merlot and the chocolate for Mary's feast day! And praise God for His goodness. He could have made eating just an instinct for survival, but he has made all our appetities pleasurable. The challenge to our fallen nature is satisfying those appetites according to His wonderful will which brings about true joy. When we make our satisfaction the goal, however, they make us sick, literally.

"The Hijacking of L'Osservatore Romano"

Marielena Montesino de Stuart makes the case for a new editor for the Vatican newspaper here and here.

Shakespeare Was a Catholic!

Although no one really knows when Shakespeare's birthday is, it's celebrated this week on April 23rd. Recent scholarship on the bard has presented pretty convincing evidence that he was a recusant Catholic, i.e., refusing to participate in the state religion established by Elizabeth and paying for it through fines and other measures.

Henry VIII wasn't nearly as bold as Elizabeth, his illegitimate daughter by Anne Boleyn. He only made himself head of the Church. She authorized the complete destruction of the Mass including draconian persecution to force the English people to accept the bastardized version. The Shakespeare family (sometimes spelled Shakspere or Shackspeare) resisted. There is significant evidence that Shakespeare's father, John, and his mother were recusants their entire lives. William's daughter Susanna was also a recusant and it was to Susanna that he left his London property that was a house filled with priests holes and used for illegal Masses. A few years after Shakespeare's death a support beam in the house collapsed during Mass and about 90 people out of a congregation of some 300 were killed.

I'm reading Joseph Pierce's book, The Quest for Shakespeare, which is loaded with evidence that the Bard of Avon was faithful to Rome throughout his entire life. Pierce quotes a summary of evidence from scholar Hugh Ross Williamson that points to Shakespeare's Catholicism.

There are in [Shakespeare's] life, some certainties, some probabilities and some possibilities. It is certain that both his parents were open Catholics who suffered on account of their faith, so that the probability is that...he was brought up as any other cild would be in a devout Catholic home. If he went to school at five, it is certain that his first schoolmaster was a Catholic. It is also certain that from the age of seven to eleven he was taught by a Catholic who eventually became a priest and that among his schoolfellows was one who became both priest and martyr. If he remained at school till he was fifteen, his last master was a Catholic, whose younger brother was also a martyr. It is certain that he was married by a Catholic priest.

It is certain that, by reason of the Shakespeares' relationship with the great Catholic "cousinage" in the Midlands...he was affected by the Somerville plot and possibly on account of it left Stratford. It is certain that the object of his literary attack, Sir Thomas Lucy, was the chief persecutor of Catholics in Stratford. It is possible that Lucy ordered his imprisonment.

It is certain that his patron, Southampton, was a Catholic. It is probable that the martyr and poet, Robert Southwell, dedicated a volume of his religious poems to Shakespeare and it is possible that this influenced The Rape of Lucrece.

In London we have no record, from the parish "token" books, that Shakespeare ever attended an Anglican service, though the signatures of his friends and associates are there. On the other hand, we know that at some period he went to lodge in a family diplomatically immune from the penalties of non-attendance at church. We have no record, among his poems, of any mourning poem for Elizabeth I or praise of James I, such as his contemporaries profusely indulged in; this may be because no Catholics was likely to celebrate a persecuting monarch. His plays, however they are regarded, afford evidence of his understanding of Catholicism and, when considered carefully in their setting, suggest sympathy with it. It is possible that he owned a copy of Hall's Chronicle which he annotated in the Catholic sense: in any case, his bias in the historical plays is Catholic. It is certain that he was said to have "died a Papist" by an early writer and he was mentioned for his Papistry by Speed [John Speed, Protestant historian] during his own lifetime. We know that he bought, towards the end of his life, a notorious center of Catholic activity in London and installed in it a known and practising Catholic, who also witnessed his will.

What does all this amount to? Obviously there is not the same kind of "proof" that Shakespeare was a Catholic as there is that Cardinal Newman was a Catholic. But there is sufficient evidence on which to base a verdict.

I confess to being a Shakespeare fanatic. I've read the theories that the plays were written by Christoper Marlowe, Ben Johnson, Edward deVere, Roger Bacon -- but I'm convinced that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. My next book is going to be Clare Asquith's, Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. If you like who-dunnits, this real-life mystery story is riveting.