On Rash Judgments:
(A Lenten Reflection)

We must proceed to rectify rash judgments, according to their cause. Some hearts there are so bitter and harsh by nature, that everything turns bitter under their touch; men who, in the Prophet's words, "turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth." (Amos v, 7) Such as these greatly need to be dealt with by some wise spiritual physician, for this bitterness being natural to them, it is hard to conquer; and although it be rather an imperfection than a sin, still it is very dangerous, because it gives rise to and fosters rash judgments and slander within the heart.

Others there are who are guilty of rash judgments less out of a bitter spirit than from pride, supposing to exalt their own credit by disparaging that of others. These are self-sufficient, presumptuous people, who stand so high in their own conceit that they despise all else as mean and worthless. It was the foolish Pharisee who said, "I am not as other men are." (Luke xxviii, 11)

Others, again, have not quite such overt pride, but rather a lurking little satisfaction in beholding what is wrong in others, in order to appreciate more fully what they believe to be their own superiority. This satisfaction is so well concealed, so nearly imperceptible, that it requires a clear sight to discover it, and those who experience it need that it be pointed out to them. [St Francis de Sales: From Introduction to the Devout Life Ch. XXVIII (circa 1619)]

POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION CHRISTUS VIVIT

Points to Ponder:

With a cigar like in life, you got to have some length, and some girth. [D.L. Hughley]

Will It Stick? Examining the Hot Start of the Mariners Offense

The Seattle Mariners did a complete fire sale in the off-season and were preparing to take a step back this year to jump forward in the 2020-2024 years. So far, they are profoundly performing above expectations -honestly, I never saw this coming. And since I came into this season for them with literally zero expectations, this has been a most pleasant surprise up to now.

Points to Ponder:

We should not have an 'open mind' because that means we grant plausibility to anything, however, we should have a discerning mind. [Mike Mentzer]

Points to Ponder:

It's an art to enjoy living. Cigars enable you to enjoy living. [C.G.B. Bernard]

On the Subject of Conscience and Sacramental Reception:
(A Lenten Reflection)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. With those who at sundry times and in in divers manners have concerned themselves with the subject of conscience and sacramental reception, one area that I have never quite understood in the entire debate surrounding chapter eight of Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL) is the problem not a few critics of it have with the idea of some folks who are divorced and remarried who have undergone a process of discernment with a priest who nonetheless in conscience feel they are "at peace with God" over their situation and who therefore receive communion.

Indeed, among the biggest bellyachers on AL are Catholics who in a number of other areas frequently slander, libel, denigrate, ridicule, and express contempt and/or profound disrespect for the Roman Pontiff and the last Ecumenical Council. There is no shortage of folks who do these things often (read: multiple times per day!) yet they still judge themselves as "at peace with God" and thus as fit to receive communion. The odds are pretty good that they do not accuse themselves of these sins in the confessional which means they receive unworthily themselves. They are therefore in no position morally or spiritually to judge anyone else yet they do it all the time.

Furthermore, unlike sex between divorced and remarried couples which while certainly sinful is nonetheless infrequent as a rule overall, these folks slander, libel, denigrate, ridicule, etc with far greater frequently. There is a true example of "look[ing] at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but not notic[ing] the log that is in your own eye" (cf. Matt vii,3) and yet those doing this are generally too proud to see or in any way acknowledge it. And even if they do, they inexorably make excuses for why what they did was somehow not making them unworthy of receiving communion unlike those heathen adulterers when in actuality their situation is even worse than that which they presume to pompously array themselves against.

It would seem appropriate for folks this Lent who spend their time obsessing on the matter above to honestly examine themselves and see if their attitudes really do match that of historical heretics and schismatics who also considered themselves more orthodox than thou and if they find themselves in need of repentance and conversion to do so.

THE UNKNOWNS: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier And WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home

Points to Ponder:

There is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father. [Pope Francis]

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

[Robert Frost]

Points to Ponder:

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. [Proverbs xv,1-2]

Points to Ponder:

[O]nce you decide to respond to a conspiracy theory, you have a very basic problem: the people who believe in this theory didn't reason their way into it, so it's extremely difficult to use reason to convince them that there's nothing to it. [John Hawkins (as posted to Facebook March 28, 2010)]

Points to Ponder:

A jealous ear hears all things, and the sound of grumbling does not go unheard. Beware then of useless grumbling, and keep your tongue from slander; because no secret word is without result, and a lying mouth destroys the soul. [Wisdom 1:10-11]

On Certain Pharisee Parallels Amongst the "More Faithful Than Thou" Crowd:
(A Lenten Reflection)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. With those who at sundry times and in in divers manners label themselves various ways and have a certain more faithful than thou disposition, they not infrequently get angry when others refer to such people as Pharisee-like in their behaviour. The initial reaction is understandable. However, is this claim really one without merit?

Consider this: who spends much of their time "thanking God they are not like other men" (cf. Luke xviii,11), extolling their perceived "orthodoxy" and "faithfulness", who is so concerned with "tithing the mint and ignoring weightier matters of law" (cf. Matthew xxiii,23), "straining gnats and swallowing camels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,24), etc? On Amoris Laetitia, who are like the folks who ask Pope Francis what should be done with the "people caught in adultery" (cf. John viii,3)? When it comes to the liturgy, who likes to "widen their phylactyries and lengthen their tassels" (cf. Matthew xxiii,25) so as to ensure everyone sees how "devoted" they are?

Who acts indignant as the son whose father said "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, let us feast and celebrate" (cf. Luke xv,11-32) in reference to the prodigal son? Or who acts as the day labourers who grumbled to the landowner that "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat" (cf. Matthew xx,11)? In short, who kvetch frequently about the priority of the present pope in his attempts to reach out to the lost sheep? The mentality of the Pharisees who saw in everything Jesus did somehow something wrong or undesirable because it did not conform to their own puffed up self-righteous way of looking at things is shared by these folks who do the exact same thing to Francis who similarly does not act as they think a pope should act: namely, to ego stroke people like them. It is almost as if Jesus deliberately sought to poke the Pharisees in the eye to make a point to them. Should it surprise that his Vicar might from time to time do the same thing?

Now to be clear, I am not broad brushing here. There are folks who consider themselves faithful who do not act like Pharisees. But it seems right now they are in the minority. I do not even have a problem with someone having issues with a position or two taken by a pope -indeed it would be odd to find someone who did not. But there is respectful disagreement and there is acting like a pompous blowhard braying ass about such things. There is a difference between legitimate difficulties respectfully expressed and brazenly acting as if they are the determiners of orthodoxy or that they are the ones to "formally correct" the pope or whatever rather than actually being willing to be taught by the Vicar of Christ. It is true that not every statement is of equal weight and there is room for divergent views in different areas to certain extents. But the seeming attitude of many is that if the pope has not spoken infallibly on dogma that it means something is up for grabs. I guess that means at Nicaea only the divinity of Christ was required belief and everything for the first 325 years was optional. That is not how it works and the so-called "paragons of faithful orthodoxy" should know that if they are what they claim.

I admittedly have my own issues with Pope Francis. However, I am more and more seeing his election as a needed church corrective. The idea that only some traditional or conservative outlook is orthodoxy is wrong but for two prior pontificates this is what many of these folks deluded themselves into thinking. Now we have another pope but he is a bit more liberal. And rather than presume the orthodoxy of the pope and consider that maybe God wanted him to teach them some things, they presume if the pope does not fit their preconceived mould that the problem is him instead of perhaps them and certain deficiencies in their outlook. There are those who literally engage in the idolatry of worshipping a liturgical form much the way liberals often make an idol out of uninformed and overly autonomous notions of conscience. In the political realm, folks of these temperaments too often make an idol out of their particular preferences and wrongly equate them with the faith. The faith is conservative but its also liberal: these labels really do not do it justice and attempting to look at it this way is to too thoroughly confuse the City of Man with the City of God as St. Augustine might put it.

It would seem appropriate for folks this Lent who consider themselves of a a more faithful than thou disposition (i.e. traditionalist, conservative) to honestly examine themselves and see if their attitudes really do match that of the biblical Pharisees or other figures in Jesus' parables who also considered themselves more devout than thou. 

Revisiting the Controversial Dubia:

(A Lenten Reflection)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider those who have repeatedly in social media and elsewhere agitated about the Dubia of the four cardinals and the explicit lack of an answer to it by Pope Francis. Though I addressed this matter years ago, it seems appropriate this Lent to revisit the subject anew. The core flaw of the Dubia can be summarized thusly:

• The presupposition from which the Dubia cardinals operate is that all objectively grave acts are automatically actual mortal sins. This error is reflected in the structure of the Dubia's various questions. Such an approach to moral theology is flatly contrary to centuries of Catholic understanding of what does and does not constitute an actual mortal sin. 

There are three factors that constitute an actual mortal sin. The first is the involvement of what is called objectively grave matter. However, there are two subjective factors as well. One does not by recognizing the variables which can subjectively affect an individual's culpability for a particular act ipso facto affirm that "divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live more uxorio" (cf. Dubia Q1) are automatically in all cases guilty of actual mortal sin. Nor does such recognition of the aforementioned mitigating variables potentially affecting an individual's subjective culpability for a particular act ipso facto deny "the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts" (cf. Dubia Q2), the idea that there can be "objective situations of grave habitual sin" (cf. Dubia Q3), or consequently affirm that the aforementioned mitigations "transform[s] an objectively grave act into a subjectively good or defensible choice" (cf. Dubia Q4). And of course one who recognizes the variables which can subjectively affect an individual's culpability for a particular act does not necessarily affirm some "interpretation of the role of conscience...that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms" (cf. Dubia Q5). It is not an issue of legitimizing exceptions but instead one of not painting all objectively grave situations with the same level of subjective gravity.

If an objectively grave act is not automatically a subjective actual mortal sin, then the one who committed the act does not necessarily in all cases need to avoid taking communion. As for which situations this could be applicable, that sort of discernment is for individual penitents and their confessors, not those outside the specific situation no matter whom they are.

For those who want to read more on these matters, they can see my notes located here and here. It is actually not hard to answer these questions; however, there is also the factor of expending time on them when those asking the questions will not like or accept the answers given. As Pope Francis is likely aware that most of those who push the Dubia fall into this category and therefore his direct refusal to acknowledge it is actually something that arguably is the correct approach to take.

If You Are Afraid of Public Speaking

Points to Ponder:

In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move. [Henry Rollins]

In the ground. I put into it
The winter’s accumulation of paper,
Pages I do not want to read
Again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the suns, growth of the ground,
Finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise,
have been inattentive to wonders,
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse,
of mind and body, I close the trench
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new. [Wendell Berry]

Dachau: An Overview

History of the Plague