I went to see the movie “The Lovely Bones” today. For those of you who have no idea of the plot, and who don’t want to know even the basics, I suggest you stop reading right about now.
The story is constructed around the main character, a fourteen-year-old girl who is raped and murdered. Because it wasn’t graphic, it was easier for me to watch than it might otherwise have been.
One of the things that struck me most was the way she hesitated before going with him, at some level aware that something was wrong and yet pushing that aside. I know all too well what that’s like, that feeling, and the consequences of naively believing that nothing could be wrong. How you later feel like you were so stupid, even though it’s really not your fault.
The most poignant moment, however, was the look on her face when she realized what was going on, a sick sort of terror mixed in with the feeling of pretty well knowing there’s nothing you can do.
I, of course, have never been murdered, so I can’t claim to know what that’s like. I have to admit, there were many times after what has happened that I wished I had been murdered, so as not to have had to live with it. However, after watching what the girl’s family went through, I have to say I’m glad I was not killed. As the girl says of her killer, he stole her life from her. What was taken from me was not as precious as my life, after all.
But that doesn’t make it any easier to forget.
I sometimes worry that I’m weak or a bad Christian because I can’t put these things aside, learn to forget, to leave it completely behind me. While I don’t actually feel angry (which my psychiatrist thinks is a problem btw, a ‘lack of appropriate rage’), the things that have happened still suffuse my life. So when the killer tells the girl she’s pretty, it makes me feel a little ill. And I feel deep inside of me, in that part still holding onto it, the painful recollection of things I’ve tried to lock up, hide away, and bury. Yet, like the killer, I return to these mementos in a sick fascination, an obsession that seems to make them live forever, captivated in a way that makes things repeat rather than turning me away from them.
I will never understand why people like the killer do the things that they do. I’ll never know whether or not they hurt someone on purpose or simply don’t understand that they’re hurting someone. But I do understand what it means to be caught up in the same moment, stuck within the space of a memory, and both wanting and not wanting to move beyond it.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Wholly Innocence
(however belated this post may be) The feast of the Holy Innocents celebrates the deaths of Bethlehem’s young boys at the hands of Herod’s army. They are remembered as victims of events foretold by the prophets and allowed by God, as well as martyrs. Though there is no doubt they are innocent – having committed no crime – the name does beg the question of the innocence of children in general. Is it possible for a small child, two years old and under, to sin?
I think the natural reaction is to say no. I mean, come on, babies are the epitome of innocence. Totally pure, they’d go straight to heaven when they died; no purgatory, no limbo and no hell.
(Shortly after the ‘doctrine’ of limbo was formally shelved, I was at a mission lead by Fr. Dowd where someone asked about what happens to un-baptized babies who die, whether by natural causes or otherwise. His answer was that surely, a God Who forgives our sins, surely that God has a place in His kingdom for the little ones. Whether there is or isn’t anything to forgive isn’t clear. What’s clear is that, in the face of God’s unmerited grace, being baptized into the Church determines nothing.)
But, then again, if they have no need of forgiveness – are completely innocent and free of sin – how can they be human? We’re all touched by the deficient cause, un-formed by original sin. Where that sin came from is irrelevant: what matters is that this is the way we are from the beginning to the ending of our lives. It can’t possibly be something we acquire, because then it wouldn’t be part of our nature and we would, at least for a time, be able not to sin.
But is having sin the same as sinning? I don’t know…is having life the same as living?
St. Augustine thinks of sin as wrongly directed passions. In effect, it’s turning away from God. Although we distinguish the gravity of a particular sin based on one’s consciousness and intent, I don’t think it can ever get to the point where you can say sin has not occurred. (Although…I could be completely wrong about that. I do struggle with questions about who sinned where, so maybe my opinion should be discounted.)
When someone who knows nothing about God or His existence murders a person, it doesn’t stop being a sin because he wasn’t consciously turning away from God. I think that you can turn away without knowing it, and that this turning both constitutes and is the effect of sin.
If a person’s life, and their relationship with God, begins at conception, it must be possible to actually sin from that moment onward. In fact, as I (and probably lots of others, too) well know, it takes a conscious effort to stop committing particular sins. After the Fall, our nature is vitiated so that we are always sinning and always turning away, and are always in need of forgiveness. Well, not always always, but you know what I mean. The necessary conclusion is that babies and children can – and do – sin.
Since we accept the Holy Innocents as martyrs, it would be a little awkward anyway to say that they are not capable of any degree of self-determination. After all, you can’t go around slaughtering people for the sake of the Gospel, or in order to destroy it, and call them martyrs. For one thing, they have absolutely no say in the matter and might not, in fact, regard their own deaths as glorious. For another, their deaths have absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel. Jesus did not say, ‘and thou shalt be fanatics, rampaging and killing in my Name.’ I seem to remember it being more along the lines of ‘thou shalt be persecuted for the sake of my Name, and also giving up your life for my sake guarantees an excellent future.’ Or something.
Jesus is the Gospel, and the entirety of his life is the Gospel narrative. The Holy Innocents are part of the Gospel because part of Jesus’ Messiahhood is persecution, both of himself and in his Name. Within this framework, the deaths of the Holy Innocents are martyrdoms because they testify to that Message, but only if we assume that at some level the children were accepting of their deaths. While they obviously had no choice in the fact that they died, there must have been a moment, however brief or intangible, where a conscious attitude toward that death was taken. Presumably, as is true for all martyrs, God’s grace made that state of mind - that choice - possible. Otherwise, they could not have made a sacrifice that brought glory to God.
I guess the point to all this pointless chatter of mine is to say that if they were conscious enough to have feelings and thoughts about their deaths, some degree of choice making sin possible must also have been present. And, really, I don’t see why we should have a problem saying that, even though it seems intuitively wrong. No person can ever be fully without sin. The point of the Gospel is that we come to God in love and not in innocence, and that God’s unmerited forgiveness imparts a holiness that no life could ever have on its own, however long or short, however lived or died.
I think the natural reaction is to say no. I mean, come on, babies are the epitome of innocence. Totally pure, they’d go straight to heaven when they died; no purgatory, no limbo and no hell.
(Shortly after the ‘doctrine’ of limbo was formally shelved, I was at a mission lead by Fr. Dowd where someone asked about what happens to un-baptized babies who die, whether by natural causes or otherwise. His answer was that surely, a God Who forgives our sins, surely that God has a place in His kingdom for the little ones. Whether there is or isn’t anything to forgive isn’t clear. What’s clear is that, in the face of God’s unmerited grace, being baptized into the Church determines nothing.)
But, then again, if they have no need of forgiveness – are completely innocent and free of sin – how can they be human? We’re all touched by the deficient cause, un-formed by original sin. Where that sin came from is irrelevant: what matters is that this is the way we are from the beginning to the ending of our lives. It can’t possibly be something we acquire, because then it wouldn’t be part of our nature and we would, at least for a time, be able not to sin.
But is having sin the same as sinning? I don’t know…is having life the same as living?
St. Augustine thinks of sin as wrongly directed passions. In effect, it’s turning away from God. Although we distinguish the gravity of a particular sin based on one’s consciousness and intent, I don’t think it can ever get to the point where you can say sin has not occurred. (Although…I could be completely wrong about that. I do struggle with questions about who sinned where, so maybe my opinion should be discounted.)
When someone who knows nothing about God or His existence murders a person, it doesn’t stop being a sin because he wasn’t consciously turning away from God. I think that you can turn away without knowing it, and that this turning both constitutes and is the effect of sin.
If a person’s life, and their relationship with God, begins at conception, it must be possible to actually sin from that moment onward. In fact, as I (and probably lots of others, too) well know, it takes a conscious effort to stop committing particular sins. After the Fall, our nature is vitiated so that we are always sinning and always turning away, and are always in need of forgiveness. Well, not always always, but you know what I mean. The necessary conclusion is that babies and children can – and do – sin.
Since we accept the Holy Innocents as martyrs, it would be a little awkward anyway to say that they are not capable of any degree of self-determination. After all, you can’t go around slaughtering people for the sake of the Gospel, or in order to destroy it, and call them martyrs. For one thing, they have absolutely no say in the matter and might not, in fact, regard their own deaths as glorious. For another, their deaths have absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel. Jesus did not say, ‘and thou shalt be fanatics, rampaging and killing in my Name.’ I seem to remember it being more along the lines of ‘thou shalt be persecuted for the sake of my Name, and also giving up your life for my sake guarantees an excellent future.’ Or something.
Jesus is the Gospel, and the entirety of his life is the Gospel narrative. The Holy Innocents are part of the Gospel because part of Jesus’ Messiahhood is persecution, both of himself and in his Name. Within this framework, the deaths of the Holy Innocents are martyrdoms because they testify to that Message, but only if we assume that at some level the children were accepting of their deaths. While they obviously had no choice in the fact that they died, there must have been a moment, however brief or intangible, where a conscious attitude toward that death was taken. Presumably, as is true for all martyrs, God’s grace made that state of mind - that choice - possible. Otherwise, they could not have made a sacrifice that brought glory to God.
I guess the point to all this pointless chatter of mine is to say that if they were conscious enough to have feelings and thoughts about their deaths, some degree of choice making sin possible must also have been present. And, really, I don’t see why we should have a problem saying that, even though it seems intuitively wrong. No person can ever be fully without sin. The point of the Gospel is that we come to God in love and not in innocence, and that God’s unmerited forgiveness imparts a holiness that no life could ever have on its own, however long or short, however lived or died.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Lead Me Not Into Temptation...
Especially bookstores! It’s like a kid in a candy store or something. To quote Bartok the bat, “This can only end in tears!” By which I mean buying more books, of course.
I just finished reading MacIntyre’s “The Bishop’s Man,” which took me a long time, mostly because I currently have the mental capability of Batty Koda from “FernGully.” Also, I’m noticing I seem to remember animated bats a lot. Not quite sure how I feel about that.
Anyway, I picked up the book because it won an award and I read good reviews in two separate sources. Basically, the book is about a priest whose job is to do the Bishop’s dirty work – by which I mean confronting and ‘removing,’ um, unscrupulous priests. It focuses on him, his past, and the people he meets in his new job, a relatively isolated parish in the diocese of Antigonish (that last part is a little creepy).
Although at first I found the ‘jagged’ narrative a bit annoying, jumping back and forth through time, I think ultimately it helps to both soften some of the more difficult parts and to develop his character in a way that approximates how real people would get to know him, piece by complicated piece.
If there’s one thing about this book worth taking note of, it’s that it captures the idea that nothing is simple, even the things that are. A study in how people misunderstand each other and how sometimes they understand all too well. Ultimately, because we can never fully know another person, or even ourselves, there will always be questions about what’s right and what’s wrong…who are you? The things you do: what do they mean? Who decides?
*most half-assed book review ever*
So. Book finished, need new book. Well, not really need, but I like them. I want something funny, so I’ve been looking at the Piers Anthony Xanth books, and the Terry Pratchette Discworld ones. Yes, it’s true: I am (slightly) obsessed with fantasy books – some SciFi too, like “Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep?,” aka Bladerunner, but mostly fantasy. These two series are predominately humorous. The one I just read has a rival magician vying for kingship whose talent is to make everything that can go wrong go wrong. His name is Murphy. The sad part is I didn’t realize the joke until I was almost finished reading it. *sheepishly downcast expression*
Mostly I am looking at these two authors because Raymond E. Feist, whom I LOVE, hasn’t released the second book in the Demonwar Saga, even though it’s been on his website forever. He also has a lot of other ‘forthcoming’ titles that make me feel both excited and annoyed that he never seems to stop adding to the series’ about Midkemia. The titles are all there, but the actual writing of them seems to have fallen into a black hole. Dear Mr. Feist: for the love of all things sacred, either stop ‘writing’ new books or actually write them!
I’m realizing that I’m pretty geeky…ah, well. At least I don’t have the entire Monty Python ‘Holy hand grenade of Antioch’ script memorized.
I wonder if it’s somehow evil to be so interested in books involving magic and wizards and whatnot? That “Jesus Camp” movie tells me it is, and that if Harry Potter were in the Bible they would have stoned him. Ick. I dunno: maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I wonder if it’s somehow wrong to have lots of books? Father had soooo many books – many of which he foisted on or lent to congregation members. He got so excited about them, especially new books, that not accepting the book loan would feel something like kicking a puppy. Every year during Lent he would lament the day on the D&P calendar where you were supposed to donate, like, a penny or five cents or something for every book you owned.
Yarg. This is a never-ending post, it seems, and also has no real point. Just let me get my literary shotgun and put us all out of our misery.
The End
p.s. I seem to be quite dizzy these days, which I have decided to assume is normal. Remind me not to stand up so much.
I just finished reading MacIntyre’s “The Bishop’s Man,” which took me a long time, mostly because I currently have the mental capability of Batty Koda from “FernGully.” Also, I’m noticing I seem to remember animated bats a lot. Not quite sure how I feel about that.
Anyway, I picked up the book because it won an award and I read good reviews in two separate sources. Basically, the book is about a priest whose job is to do the Bishop’s dirty work – by which I mean confronting and ‘removing,’ um, unscrupulous priests. It focuses on him, his past, and the people he meets in his new job, a relatively isolated parish in the diocese of Antigonish (that last part is a little creepy).
Although at first I found the ‘jagged’ narrative a bit annoying, jumping back and forth through time, I think ultimately it helps to both soften some of the more difficult parts and to develop his character in a way that approximates how real people would get to know him, piece by complicated piece.
If there’s one thing about this book worth taking note of, it’s that it captures the idea that nothing is simple, even the things that are. A study in how people misunderstand each other and how sometimes they understand all too well. Ultimately, because we can never fully know another person, or even ourselves, there will always be questions about what’s right and what’s wrong…who are you? The things you do: what do they mean? Who decides?
*most half-assed book review ever*
So. Book finished, need new book. Well, not really need, but I like them. I want something funny, so I’ve been looking at the Piers Anthony Xanth books, and the Terry Pratchette Discworld ones. Yes, it’s true: I am (slightly) obsessed with fantasy books – some SciFi too, like “Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep?,” aka Bladerunner, but mostly fantasy. These two series are predominately humorous. The one I just read has a rival magician vying for kingship whose talent is to make everything that can go wrong go wrong. His name is Murphy. The sad part is I didn’t realize the joke until I was almost finished reading it. *sheepishly downcast expression*
Mostly I am looking at these two authors because Raymond E. Feist, whom I LOVE, hasn’t released the second book in the Demonwar Saga, even though it’s been on his website forever. He also has a lot of other ‘forthcoming’ titles that make me feel both excited and annoyed that he never seems to stop adding to the series’ about Midkemia. The titles are all there, but the actual writing of them seems to have fallen into a black hole. Dear Mr. Feist: for the love of all things sacred, either stop ‘writing’ new books or actually write them!
I’m realizing that I’m pretty geeky…ah, well. At least I don’t have the entire Monty Python ‘Holy hand grenade of Antioch’ script memorized.
I wonder if it’s somehow evil to be so interested in books involving magic and wizards and whatnot? That “Jesus Camp” movie tells me it is, and that if Harry Potter were in the Bible they would have stoned him. Ick. I dunno: maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I wonder if it’s somehow wrong to have lots of books? Father had soooo many books – many of which he foisted on or lent to congregation members. He got so excited about them, especially new books, that not accepting the book loan would feel something like kicking a puppy. Every year during Lent he would lament the day on the D&P calendar where you were supposed to donate, like, a penny or five cents or something for every book you owned.
Yarg. This is a never-ending post, it seems, and also has no real point. Just let me get my literary shotgun and put us all out of our misery.
The End
p.s. I seem to be quite dizzy these days, which I have decided to assume is normal. Remind me not to stand up so much.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Mary, The Catholic Jew
Today is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God (alternately, it’s the naming / circumcision of Jesus, but we’ll put that aside).
In the catholic traditions, a special kind of veneration is due Mary, called hyperdulia (hyper-veneration?), as opposed to dulia, the veneration of the (other) Saints. I think this distinction was made at the Second Council of Nicea…but I’m not sure, and it doesn’t really matter. Definitely not the worship due to God, however, which makes it a little odd that the Church would replace a Christological feast with a Marian one, but I digress.
Anyway, the point of the homily today was that we tend to turn Mary into a Catholic with our devotions, and forget that she’s not a Catholic but a Jew. The point being, at least in part, that we have to stop doing that if we want to understand her.
This, of course, is absolutely true. Mary was obedient to the law – witness the naming and circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day – chosen by God and accepting of him while ‘under the law.’ In the Magnificat, she quotes the Hebrew scriptures.
What I don’t understand is why it has to be one or the other, and not both. In John’s understanding of the Gospel, Mary is the first person to declare Jesus for who he is, putting absolute faith in him when she tells the stewards to do as he tells them. Afterwards, his disciples begin to believe. She is there at the crucifixion. She is assumed into heaven, the Mother of the Church, the Queen of Heaven, closest to God of all the saints because she bore Him inside of her. Why can’t she be Christian and Jewish both? Her apparitions, some of which upheld and even demanded devotions such as the rosary, show us that her identity as Mary does not end with her death. She is the mother of all humanity. By all means, seek to become closer to Mary by understanding her Jewish life; that shouldn’t mean that we cannot understand her to be – like Jesus, who comes to fulfill the law – living both inside the Church and before it. In God, all things are possible.
Part of what’s interesting about John’s gospel, at least to me, is the role given to Mary as the person who calls forth Jesus’ first miracle, which he does only because she asks him to, against what seems to be his better judgment of his mission. The most perfect disciple, the beginning of the Church. It’s interesting that we somehow manage to maintain such a strong Marian devotion alongside an institutional church which has, for the most part, been composed entirely of men. The catholic faith is full of contradictions, especially when it comes to its Sacraments and symbols, but somehow I still wonder about this one. The Church as Sacrament…what does that mean for the churches that we have built?
But I ramble.
Part of the point of the Solemnity of Mary is a focus on the fact that she’s the actual mother of God – Theotokos, rather than God-bearer. It’s supposed to help us better understand that Jesus is fully human because we see that she did not merely carry within her some random stranger but gave his humanity to him, the humanity which redeems us. The idea that she sacrificed and gave of herself is integral to our faith, if you want to believe that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
To quote H. Em. Card. Ignace Moussa I Daoud, Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, from a speech that was given at the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2005 (you can find it and other interventions on the Vatican website):
“We receive the gift of the Eucharist from the hands of Mary also. God has disposed that, thanks to her, the Incarnation, Redemption, the Eucharist and Communion would reach us. Mary was the first to receive in her womb the Body and the Blood of Christ. The Incarnation was the first Communion of history. The first tabernacle was her immaculate heart […] before any apostle or priest it is Mary who gives Jesus to the world. Mary and the Eucharist cannot be disassociated.”
[Warning: do not consume alcohol before blogging]
In the catholic traditions, a special kind of veneration is due Mary, called hyperdulia (hyper-veneration?), as opposed to dulia, the veneration of the (other) Saints. I think this distinction was made at the Second Council of Nicea…but I’m not sure, and it doesn’t really matter. Definitely not the worship due to God, however, which makes it a little odd that the Church would replace a Christological feast with a Marian one, but I digress.
Anyway, the point of the homily today was that we tend to turn Mary into a Catholic with our devotions, and forget that she’s not a Catholic but a Jew. The point being, at least in part, that we have to stop doing that if we want to understand her.
This, of course, is absolutely true. Mary was obedient to the law – witness the naming and circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day – chosen by God and accepting of him while ‘under the law.’ In the Magnificat, she quotes the Hebrew scriptures.
What I don’t understand is why it has to be one or the other, and not both. In John’s understanding of the Gospel, Mary is the first person to declare Jesus for who he is, putting absolute faith in him when she tells the stewards to do as he tells them. Afterwards, his disciples begin to believe. She is there at the crucifixion. She is assumed into heaven, the Mother of the Church, the Queen of Heaven, closest to God of all the saints because she bore Him inside of her. Why can’t she be Christian and Jewish both? Her apparitions, some of which upheld and even demanded devotions such as the rosary, show us that her identity as Mary does not end with her death. She is the mother of all humanity. By all means, seek to become closer to Mary by understanding her Jewish life; that shouldn’t mean that we cannot understand her to be – like Jesus, who comes to fulfill the law – living both inside the Church and before it. In God, all things are possible.
Part of what’s interesting about John’s gospel, at least to me, is the role given to Mary as the person who calls forth Jesus’ first miracle, which he does only because she asks him to, against what seems to be his better judgment of his mission. The most perfect disciple, the beginning of the Church. It’s interesting that we somehow manage to maintain such a strong Marian devotion alongside an institutional church which has, for the most part, been composed entirely of men. The catholic faith is full of contradictions, especially when it comes to its Sacraments and symbols, but somehow I still wonder about this one. The Church as Sacrament…what does that mean for the churches that we have built?
But I ramble.
Part of the point of the Solemnity of Mary is a focus on the fact that she’s the actual mother of God – Theotokos, rather than God-bearer. It’s supposed to help us better understand that Jesus is fully human because we see that she did not merely carry within her some random stranger but gave his humanity to him, the humanity which redeems us. The idea that she sacrificed and gave of herself is integral to our faith, if you want to believe that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
To quote H. Em. Card. Ignace Moussa I Daoud, Prefect of the Congregation for Oriental Churches, from a speech that was given at the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2005 (you can find it and other interventions on the Vatican website):
“We receive the gift of the Eucharist from the hands of Mary also. God has disposed that, thanks to her, the Incarnation, Redemption, the Eucharist and Communion would reach us. Mary was the first to receive in her womb the Body and the Blood of Christ. The Incarnation was the first Communion of history. The first tabernacle was her immaculate heart […] before any apostle or priest it is Mary who gives Jesus to the world. Mary and the Eucharist cannot be disassociated.”
[Warning: do not consume alcohol before blogging]
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