Rogate!

From the same book, The Soul of the Apostolate, I read a couple of stories of holy priests, both brilliant preachers, who each did seemingly "extraordinary" prayers and penances before their engagement commenced: a Father Lacordaire spent a long time before giving homilies and had himself scourged upon returning from the pulpit, while a Father Monsabre, was known to say all 15 decades of the Rosary on his knees before speaking at Notre Dame. When asked, he reportedly said that he was taking his "last dose of tonic".

Like many saints before them, these people have discovered the 'secret' to their 'success', in this case, in doing the apostolate of Christ, is to be found "at the foot of the Cross". Dom Chautard further added, that the Apostles were not asked to go to school in Athens, nor to study in Rome under the Caesars on how to conquer and govern empiers. Techniques of organization and fundraising and church-building and putting up school were not mentioned either. Only one thing is necessary: "Rogate" (Pray ye!).

Another modern apostle echoed the same sentiment, this time while encouraging us to have recourse to the Author of Grace Himself in the Blessed Sacrament:

It is impossible in human language to exaggerate the importance of being in a chapel or church before the Blessed Sacrament as often and for as long as our duties and state of life allow.

What I am expressing is not a pious practice or a luxury of the spiritual life. I am talking about its essence. Those who believe what I am saying and act on their belief are in possession of the greatest treasure available to man in this valley of tears. As by now thousands of saintly men and women have testified from experience, this is somewhere near the key to holiness. For this reason, I strongly recommend that each of us make a resolution -- no matter how much the decision may cost us -- to make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved at least once a month or, if possible, once a week, and if we have the grace and our vocation in life permits it, even several times a week. Think of the empty hours that people spend weekly before the television screen -- an average I am told of some twenty hours per man, woman and child in America.

Someone may object, "But you are talking about mystics or saints, and I am neither. I am just an ordinary Catholic trying to save my soul." My reply: there can be no ordinary Catholics today, not with the revolution through which society is passing and the convulsion in the Church on every level. The Church today needs strong Catholics, wise Catholics, Catholics who are not swayed by public opinion or afraid to stand up for the truth. She needs Catholics who are willing to suffer for their convictions and, if need be, shed their blood for the Faith."

Read Fr Hardon's article here and an excerpt of The Soul of the Apostolate here.

Review: Victory Over Vice

A little over a week over reading this book, I am convinced of the need of doing deeper examination of conscience, and how many ordinary situations we find ourselves in, can be occasions of sins—out of either malice or weaknesses.

To kick off Advent, here are the seven vices he mentioned, and what to keep in mind in our fight to prevail over them:

1. Anger
   

   Here, as I wrote earlier, he mentioned that anger is not strictly a sin, and that rightly, it is a response to injustice. But it becomes a sin of lacking in charity, especially when we overlook the quality of mercy in dealing with the weaknesses of others.
   

   Point to remember: that we are ignorant, hence there is room for mercy. If we have perfect knowledge, we have no excuse for our faults, thus we'd be condemned.
   



2. Envy
   

   Here, he gave the example of an extreme case of envy—where our lack of charity once again may raise indignance instead of joy upon the eleventh hour salvation of a sinner, such as that of the good thief crucified next to Jesus.
   

   To remember: mercy, once more!
   



3. Pride
   

   Surely anyone who has had experience with the proud will bear witness to the truth of this statement: if my own eternal salvation were conditioned upon saving the soul of one self-wise man who prided himself on his learning, or one hundred of the most morally corrupt men and women of the streets, I'd choose the easier task of converting the hundred. Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of with armor, no shell could ever pierce it.

   And a strong poignant warning:

   Self-praise devours merit; and those who have done good things to be seen by men, and who trumpet their philanthropies in the marketplaces, will one day hear the saddest words of tongue or pen: "Thou hast already had thy reward." (Matthew 6:2)



4. Sloth
   

   Heaven is a city on a hill. Hence, we cannot coast into it; we have to climb. Those who are too lazy to mount can miss its capture as well as the evil who refuse to seek it. Let no one think he can be totally indifferent to God in this life and suddenly develop a capacity for Him at the moment of death.

   'Nuff said.
   



5. Lust

   Here the bishop invited us to look at Christ broken on the cross. There is a higher Love there that demands the surrender of the lower. He portrayed Mary, refugium peccatorum, as a mother whom all of us should contemplate before we do anything that can make our mothers ashamed.
   



6. Gluttony

   Labor for things that endure. He showed the distinction between the fasting and dieting:

   The Church fasts; the world diets. The Christian fasts not for the sake of the body, but for the sake of the soul; the pagan fasts not for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of the body.
   ...
   Darwin tells us in his autobiography that, in his love for the biological, he lost all the taste he once had for poetry and music, and he regretted the loss all the days of his life. Nothing so much dulls the capacity for the spiritual as excessive dedication to the material.

   
   


7. Covetousness
   

   On this matter, he had something to say to both the rich and the poor:
   

   To the poor:

   [Covetousness] once was monopolized by the avaricious rich; now it is shared by the envious poor. Because a man has no money in his pockets is no proof that he is not covetous; he may be involuntarily poor with a passion for wealth far in excess of those who possess.
   ...
   There are very few disinterested lovers of the poor today; most of their so-called champions do not love the poor as much as they hate the rich. They hate all the rich, but they love only those poor who will help them attain their wicked ends.
   

   
   

   To the rich:

   [He] is a fallen man, because of a bad exchange; he might have had Heaven through his generosity but he has only the earth. He could have kept his soul but he sold it for material things.
   ...
   When a man loves wealth inordinately, he and it grow together like a tree pushing itself in growth through the crevices of a rock. Death to such a man is a painful wrench, because of his cose identification with the material. He has everything to live for, nothing to die for. He becomes at death the most destitute and despoiled beggar in the universe, for he has nothing he can take with him.
   

   And these, about eternity:

   That disproportion between the infinite and the finite is the cause of disappointment. We have eternity in our heart, but time on our hands. The soul demands a heaven, and we get only an earth. Our eyes look up to the mountains, but they rest only on the plains.
   ...
   Everything is disappointing except the redemptive love of our Lord. You can go on acquiring things, but you will be poor until your soul is filled with the love of Him who died on the cross for you.

   
   

I found so many insights to the human heart that it is impossible to leave this book! I think I'll make it a point to read this book again and again, especially during Advent and Lenten seasons. It'd also make a good gift for anyone this Advent.

Happy Advent to all!

Pride & Sloth

Continuing with Fulton Sheen's Victory over Vice, the good archbishop has this to say about Pride:

Surely anyone who has had experience with the proud will bear witness to the truth of this statement: if my own eternal salvation were conditioned upon saving the soul of one self-wise man who prided himself on his learning, or one hundred of the most morally corrupt men and women of the streets, I'd choose the easier task of converting the hundred. Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of with armor, no shell could ever pierce it.

-- Victory over Vice, Fulton J Sheen.

On a related note, pride is sometimes manifest in refusal to serve; thinking that the one asking that service of us is not 'worthy' or 'beneath us'. "If God Himself, or the President, or the Pope asks me, then and only then I would do it." From another chapter ("Sloth"), this time about our laziness to work for Heaven, he wrote this:

Heaven is a city on a hill. Hence, we cannot coast into it; we have to climb. Those who are too lazy to mount can miss its capture as well as the evil who refuse to seek it. Let no one think he can be totally indifferent to God in this life and suddenly develop a capacity for Him at the moment of death.

Where will the capacity for Him come from if we have neglected it on earth? A man cannot suddenly walk into a lecture room on higher mathematics and be thrilled with equations if all during life he neglected to develop a taste for mathematics. And a heaven of divine truth, righteousness and justice would be a hell to those who never studiously cultivated those virtues here below. Heaven is only for those who work for Heaven.

Similarly, if we have refused to serve our brothers and sisters throughout our life, it will be inconceivable that we suddenly develop a capacity to serve God in Heaven...

Preparing for Advent: Victory Over Vice

I'm currently reading a book by the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, titled "Victory over Vice". It is a slim volume, and it lists the Seven Deadly™ sins —Anger, Envy, Lust, Pride, Gluttony, Sloth and Covetousness — and how to prevail over them.

The book began with "Anger", starting by clarifying that anger is not actually a sin, because rightly, it is a response to injustice. But the good bishop went on to explore the various causes of anger and various contexts that often self-righteously gave rise to unholy anger. He went on to discuss the many occasions where anger become occasions of uncharitability because we human are so blind to our own faults and therefore, wont to show mercy.

I'm right now reading the chapter on Envy. It is another gem. The bishop uses the example of the two thieves crucified next to Jesus, to show how envy led one to perdition and another to salvation. These two chapters have been extremely useful for my own examination of conscience.

I'll write again when I finish the book. It is highly recommended, and I personally will use this book in preparation for Advent.

Path to happiness: the school of Mary

I'm currently reading this incredibly clear and inspiring book by George Weigel called "Letters to a Young Catholic". A dear friend had recommended it to me some years back, but I'm just recently discovering this gem.

Since I haven't finished reading, I'll just provide an excerpt from two chapters. The whole book aims to invite the reader to explore the richness of the Catholic faith and to invite us to contemplate and respond to our vocation; that call that each Christian receives from God. Weigel drew the example of St Peter and Our Lady in their discovery and the living of their faith.

In the example of St Peter, we are shown that faith in Jesus Christ starts as an encounter with Truth. And such is the quality of Truth that it demands we stake everything for its sake (vitam impendere vero).

One of the most important truths .. is this: the truth of faith is something that seizes us, not something of our own discovery (still less, our invention). The Peter who was led from Galilee to Rome did not make the journey because of something he had discovered and wanted to explore to satisfy his curiosity. Peter went from the security of his modest Galilean fishing business to the dangerous (and ultimately lethal) center of the Roman Empire because he had been seized by the truth, the truth he had met in the person of Jesus.
(p 27)
Being seized by the truth is not cost-free. "You have received without pay, give without pay," Jesus tells his new disciples, including Peter (Matt 10:8). In Peter's case, the call to give away the truth that had seized and transformed his life eventually cost him his life. And that, too, is a truth to be pondered: faith in Jesus Christ cost him his life. And that, too, is a truth to be pondered: faith in Jesus Christ costs not just something, but everything. It demands all of us, not just a part of us.
...
Peter, who has been given his new name because he is to be the rock on which the Church rests, is being told, gently but firmly, that his love for Christ is not going to be an easy thing. His love is not going to be a matter if "fulfilling" himself. His love must be a pouring out of himself, and in that self-emptying he will find his fulfillment—if not in terms that the world usually understands as "fulfillment." In abandoning any sense of his autonomy, in binding himself to feed the lambs and sheep of the Lord's flock, Peter will find his true freedom. In giving himself away, he will find himself. Freely you have received, freely you must give—if the gift is to continue to live in you.
(p 28)

Weigel also drew on the example of Mary, who remains a paragon of victory through self-giving and commitment, especially for our generation, who have seen the wreckage of 'modern loves' and have every excuse not to trust nor commit.

The first of the rosary's "mysteries" - the Annunciation - takes us back to Mary's fiat and reminds us that Mary as the first of disciples is also the pattern of Christian vocation. The Gospel tells us that Mary found the angel's greeting "troubling". And why not? But Mary's response amid her fears and doubts - Mary's fiat - vindicates the angel's greeting, that she is "full of grace". Mary doesn't' negotiate. She doesn't ask for a prematernal contract, unlike today's couples with their prenuptial agreements. Mary doesn't have an exit strategy. Mary doesn't "keep her options open." In fear and trembling, but with confidence in God's saving purposes, she gives the answer: fiat. Let it be. I am the Lord's servant and the Lord will provide.
(p 60)
...
"Keeping your options open" is not the path to happiness, wholeness - or holiness. That's an important Marian insight from the New Testament for every generation but perhaps especially for yours. We've all heard, time and again, that yours is a generation short on trust? If so, it's not hard to understand why. You've seen the wreckage caused by the sexual revolution and its dissolution of trust between men and women, both within marriage and outside of it. You've seen public officials betray their oath of office, and priests and bishops betray the vows they swore to Christ and the Church at ordination. You've seen teachers and professors betray the truth because of expediency, cowardice or an addiction to political correctness. If yours is a generation that finds it hard to trust and thus hard to "commit", that's understandable. But not persuasive.
(p 61)

He then next shows that despite our cynical propensity towards commitment, we are also drawn to figures which embodies commitment, like our Pope John Paul II of happy memory. How'd he do it? How did a priest from a Nazi-occupied and Communist-oppressed country manage to overcome the darkness that would naturally engulf anyone exposed to such suffering, to give himself totally? Weigel says, Mary is John Paul II's teacher.

Perhaps this 'trust deficit' is one of the reasons why so many young people found Pope John Paul II such a compelling figure. Here was commitment embodied in an irresistible way... Unlike popular culture, the Pope didn't pander to you - he challenged you: never settle for less than the greatness of soul that God has made it possible for you to live, because of Christ. At the same time, he demonstrated with his life that he asked of you nothing that he had not made, no struggle that he had not struggled through.

How could he do this? I think he gave the answer at Czestochowa, the great Polish shrine of the Black Madonna, Poland's most famous Marian icon in 1979. There, John Paul said, quite simply, "I am a man of great trust; I learned to be one here." I learned to trust here, in prayer before this image of Mary that draws us into the mystery of Mary's special role in the salvation history—which is the world's history, read in its true depth. I learned to trust, not in 'options' or 'exit strategies' but in the mother who always points us toward her son, toward the Christ who never fails in his promises.

That's why the inclusion of the wedding feast at Cana in the New Luminous Mysteries of the rosary is another invitation to think and pray about your vocation. Every Catholic, every Christian, has a vocation— a unique something that only you can do in the providence of God. That, too, can be disturbing thought until we recognize that that same providence will mercifully, repair and make straight whatever false steps we take in living out our vocational commitments. "Do whatever he tells you" That is Mary's message to us, as well as to the servants at the wedding feast in Cana. "Do whatever he tells you" is Mary's gentle invitation to make her fiat your own. Don't look for an exit strategy. Live in trust, not in calculation; stake everything on Christ.

In his embrace, to which Mary points us, you'll find the path to happiness, wholeness and holiness that you will never find by keeping your options open.

And all these, are just from the first few chapters! I'll continue writing as I progress through the book.

I think I'm in love...

Last night I just finished reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. This is the 2nd book by Greene that I picked up (the first was Brighton Rock—which somehow didn't evoke much from me) and I'm so blown away I think I'm in love... *_*

I'm in love with Greene's characters, and most of all, I'm in love with God, the God that loved unconditionally. His characters started out as the rest of us; selfish beings in quest for happiness which they saw could only be in the realm of the world, but an encounter with Grace in the most unexpected ways left them no other way but to believe Him, and Sarah became a saint in Greene's world.

The questions Greene's characters asked articulated most seekers' questions, doubts, anger at their own helplessness, as well as fear that God might really exist. The struggles and the pain Greene described felt so real and evoked strong memories of our own times of struggle when I could remember being close to 'hating' the Omnipotent being for not fulfiling my wishes (I couldn't bear to write "I H*** G**" here and now; such a profanity the thought has become to me...) Yet perhaps it is because I'm not trapped in a loveless marriage, nor have I had a stormy affair, that I could not believe one could get that angry at life, at God, and so much despair!

Somehow two of Greene's novels I've read so far gave me a sense that the author himself is angry at God, angry that God exists, but his own reason forced him to begrudgingly acknowledge that He exists and finally, like his characters, succumbed to His Grace.

Wow.

I picked up another one Greene's novels this time; I'm about to read The Heart of the Matter, it's a little too overwhelming to write about it now. I think I may write about them when I'm done with this one.

Feynman: Not quite an atheist?

Since my short trip back home over Lunar New Year, it has been unbelievably busy! I managed to get off work in time to slip into the library yesterday before it closed at 9, and read a little more of Feynman's The Meaning of it All. I've had this book for 7 years now, and it's amazing how much reading I've zipped through and not paid attention to. This book is a compilation of three lectures Feynman gave, and as of this writing, I'm just starting to re-read the 3rd lecture titled "This Unscientific Age". More than anything, these lectures gave insight onto the man himself.

"In case you are beginning to believe some of the things I said [before] are true because I am a scientist and [according to the brochure that you get] I won some awards and so forth, instead of looking at the ideas themselves and judging them directly—in other words, you see, you have some feeling towards authority—I will get rid of that tonight."

Now, if he were alive today, I'd imagine Feynman to be a disarmingly charming old professor whose POV regarding science & religion I don't agree with, but someone who pick his words so clearly, so precisely, so scientifically that you find no tempers would fly because the discussions are so intensely intellectual. Encouraged by his own words, I'm going to explore several ideas he spoke in the earlier lectures and my own responses to them.

The first lecture is titled "The Uncertainty of Science". This is where Feynman said those famous words my friend Albert quoted before:

"Scientists are used to dealing with doubts and uncertainty. All scientific knowledge is uncertain. This experience with doubt and uncertainty is important. ... I believe that to solve any problem that has never been solved before, you have to leave the door to the unknown ajar. You have to permit the possibility that you do not have it exactly right."

While as a student I wholeheartedly agree with this statement (and personally attest that doubt is required to practice any good science), I wonder whether one can really go through life with a complete uncertainty in everything (and the effects thereof subscribing to this thinking). Sure we are surrounded by uncertain things: economic trends, natural disasters, difficult choices; but I can go on each day because I know certain things are certain, and one of them is my belief that God is.

In fact, historians and Catholic thinkers would say that the belief in God who systematically made a highly ordered Nature spurred the development of modern science in the Western world into a systematic, sustainable inquiry system. The quest to discover the 'Grand Blueprint' is preceded by the belief that there is a Grand Blueprint.

I might have misread Feynman's intention somewhat when he said that there are different degrees of certainty in science, and that one can never be sure of anything. Feynman described the experience of contemplating the universe as one that is replete with mystery and majesty. One may be forgiven for thinking of him as a deeply religious man from this passage:

"It is a great adventure to contemplate the Universe, beyond man, ... When this objective view is finally attained, the mystery and the majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting."

See what I mean? ;) I could have been reading an encyclical... from his choice of words!

And he went on to say: "Some will tell me that I have just described a religious experience". Yet Feynman seemed to view institutionalized religion (or the Church, an alternative term which he used interchangeably) as a shallow system of beliefs fit only to regulate morality. (He categorized the influence of religion on three things: the metaphysical, the ethical, and the inspirational; and concluded that since religion is often wrong when it comes to the facts of Nature, it naturally reduced its authority and its power to inspire. However, moral ethics is quite independent from science, he declared). Feynman was also deeply distrustful of absolute beliefs:

"Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true."

Perhaps also, his own experience of religion ('the Church') has been limited to just that, describing a hypothetical young man's journey to the loss of faith:

"The size of universe is very impressive, with us on a tiny particle that whirls around the sun. That's one sun amongst a hundred thousand million suns in this galaxy. Can the rest be just a scaffolding for His creation? ... these scientific views end in awe and mystery, ... but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate... the young man's religious experience is of such a kind that he finds the religion of his church inadequate to describe, to encompass that kind of experience. The God of the Church isn't big enough."

For one with such an appreciation for the mystery of Nature and of life, Feynman seemed incredibly pessimistic in the view that we may never reach any Truth. If I were a scientist, pursuit of Truth as a route to the pursuit of God is the ultimate motivation. Along the way, naturally doubt is required in order to 'improve the situation'. However, if one is told that whatever you do it will never make you reach the Truth, why then should I keep pursuing my enquiries? Personally I think Feynman isn't quite the atheist he claimed to be!

A friend of mine, after taking a class on quantum physics, did not quite like Feynman's "school of thought" in theoretical physics (as if there's room for philosophy in science!), saying that it tends to 'break' rather than 'unify', something which I could well understand—given his conviction that the more specific the rule, the more powerful it is. I cannot help but to feel that this path of inquiry he chose is sadly pessimistic; sure his contribution on QED is hugely important, but there is an too much emphasis on matter that the scientific laws Feynman helped discover/formulate are highly specific, and reductionist, though not to an absurd degree as some math axioms I've encountered :p

Look at the time... and this writing only responds to his first and the religious view of his second lecture... I'll continue when I finish re-reading the book.

Victory of Reason: yet another thread in the "War that Wasn't"

Zenit carries an article about Rodney Stark's new book: "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success"

I came across the same idea that Thomas E Woods' wrote in How Catholic Church Built Western Civilization in Stark's defense of his thesis:

Christianity sees God as a rational being and the universe as created by him. Thus, a rational structure awaits human comprehension. And rising to the challenge have been theologians in the Catholic Church, who over the centuries engaged in careful reasoning that led to the development of Christian doctrine. Leading thinkers such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Stark explains, celebrated the use of reason as a means to gain insight into divine intentions.

Perhaps the idea that Christian theology fosters the "transmission of faith in progress into technical and organization innovations" isn't as unique amongst historians of science and Church... it's just ol' uninformed me :)

Full link here

Science & Religion: A War that wasn't

A lucid article about the illusion of battle between science & religion. Good to read this after Thomas Woods' book. Plus, he mentioned (Blessed?) Nicolaus Steno!

Comments on "How the Catholic Church built Western civilization"

This is not quite a book review!

I'm still currently reading this book; it has been a wonderful book so far, though its treatment of major issues is a little superficial. I'd have liked to read more details. Perhaps with a longer time at hand, Professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. would have made a thorough historical treatise not unlike Harry Crocker's "Triumph". However I'm writing this short note just so that I don't forget a few threads I'd like to research deeper.

In particular, the chapters on "Church and University" & "Church and Science" made it clear that so many prominent scientists were inspired by their faith; and it is no coincidence he pointed out that some luminaries have been monks and priests. What I find incredible is that I've never heard of them! Sure one's heard of a few famous Catholic scientists like Mendeleev and Pasteur. But Fr. Nicolas Zucchi (inventor of the reflecting telescope, who took one to Kepler)? Fr. Macelwane of the field of seismology? Fr. Boscovich who wrote Theory of Natural Philosophy? Fr. Athanasius Kircher? The Jesuit Seismological Service? Perhaps my involvement in science doesn't go deep in those areas, and neither is, I suspect, the average college grad's general knowledge about the history of science. Yet the contrast between the magnitude of their contribution and the relatively scarce credit due to them is so stark.

The Church suffered from an unsavory and wholly unjustified reputation for repression of science. The author spent a large part at the beginning of this chapter just 'clarifying' the Galileo scandal! Few modern-day high school or even college grads are aware of the Church's role in 'depersonalization' of nature, modernizing the approach to enquiry and establishing a discipline called science. I find it extremely interesting that the author made a causal link that the Christian worldview of the ordered, mechanical universe having an intelligent Creator who has the 'complete creative freedom' and yet chose to create a universe that is 'rational, predicatable and intelligible', has inspired science:

(Page 80-81):

[This approach] avoids two potential errors. First, it cautions against speculation about the physical universe that is divorced from experience.
...
Second, it implies that the universe that God created is intelligible and orderly, since God possesses the raw power to bring about randomness and lawlessness in the physical world. (and yet did not!)

and also on page 76, where the author quoted Fr. Stanley Jaki, a historian of science who wrote Science and Creation, that science has suffered a 'stillbirth' in non-Christian 7 'great cultures': Arabic, Babylonian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu and Maya, precisely because of the lack of conducive worldview that made 'formal and sustained scientific enquiry' such a success in Christian Europe—that is, one where the universe is seen as the work of a Creator who 'has endowed [it] with consistent physical laws', in contrast with the view of universe as having 'spirit' and will of its own, 'dominated by a pantheon of deities' who naturally, do not encourage observation and exploration of a regular pattern at work.

Being ethnically Chinese, reading this statement has a profound effect on me. As far as Chinese goes, it only comes to my look. My grandfathers came to Indonesia; both were from the merchant folk, and there's precious scant, if any, worldview prevalent in the family. There is a pantheon of gods, of course, coupled with a strong belief in fate and luck, and science (or pursue of natural philosophy) is nowhere in the picture.

It's getting late, but reading these chapters have definitely stirred a thread of thought.. more on this later.

On the Languor of Youth

Some weeks ago, I wrote I was in the midst of reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and in particular, quoted his memorable phrase "The Languor of Youth". I have since finished reading the book once, and I don't know what to feel about it. On one side, I am happy for the Flytes, that having gone through their life trials, they find solace in the Church again. On another side, Waugh painted a very bleak picture of pre- and post-WWII England.

I was browsing the old posts of Enbrethiliel's blog, and found a post on how the infamous gay-icon poster-child literary-genius Oscar Wilde was Catholic. No, I'm not trying to claim any famous persona for the Church; rather I was inspired reading a story of his lifelong relationship with the Church. Death-bed conversions have long fascinated and touched me, God literally snatched them from the jaws of hell! As I read the account of Wilde's last days, I could imagine the desperation and the depth of remorse from one who had wasted an entire lifetime not being in communion.

When my grandmother came to visit me for two weeks, slowed down by high blood pressure, high blood triglycerine, and once fractured hip, I observed how much her life has changed. I began to look at my own life, sometimes moments wasted in languor, taking for granted that tomorrow will come, and tomorrow my task will get done. When youth is gone, to see the sun rising tomorrow is no longer a guarantee. Each task carries an urgency that had nothing to do with its own nature, but an urgency that is borne out of perceived limited time one has to carry it out. Isn't our life too short to be wasted in youthful languor?

Tomorrow is a brand new day, and working in the field of the Lord, there is not a moment to lose!

Books galore!

Last week has been a biblio-philic week for me, I read 5 books!
Right now I'm reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, having encountered its mention in some blogs recently and finding it available at a local library.

I don't have anything to say about Brideshead yet, having made it only a third of it, but I did find something interesting in Chapter IV:

The languor of Youth — how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth — all save this — come and go with use through life. These things are a part of life itself; but languor — the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding — that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.

Speaking of languor, it reminds me of all the time I have sequestered reading those many books I read last week:
GK Chesterton's St Thomas Aquinas, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, Far Side of the World, and Reverse of the Medal, and Gayle Lynds' Masquerade.

Back to work!