In my last two posts we established the following: Prophecy is the province of the honest. A prophet need not be a religious, a mystic or some visionary of the distant future, but may very well be the old woman at the grocery store who tells you the Honest Truth, that you’re beautiful, a miserable human being, or whatever the Honest Truth may be. For though the Old Testament prophets often foretold the future, they were just as likely to tell... Read more
Whenever the topic of prophecy is brought up, the great and somewhat disappointing rift between the Christian and his non-Christian brother becomes apparent. The non-Christian will see thousands of Christ figures developed by hundreds different cultures over thousands of years and — taking non-Christianity as a premise — assume that Christ is merely one of many myths, a man embellished into divinity, messiah, and redeemer. The Christian — and he really can’t help it, so do excuse his behavior — would be... Read more
Pagan prophecy is sweet. Take Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, a poem written a little while before the birth of Christ about the birth of a divine child. The parallells between the mythical event — constructed by Virgil — and the historical event — the birth of Jesus — are striking. Justice returns, returns old Saturn’s reign, With a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy’s birth in whom The iron shall cease, the golden race... Read more
It’s a shame that the word “priceless” gets hurled around by jewelry stores and credit card companies with impunity, for they do great injustice to a term that — properly considered — is a slap in the face of materialism and a sword in the hand of the theist. The existence of the priceless suggests a supernatural order. Take the Pieta. It will not be sold — not for a fortune, nor for a country. It is beyond mankind’s capacity for value.... Read more
There’s an adrenaline surge available to the essayist (a “bum under the conviction that writing 1000 word segments makes him or her a productive member of society, see: Unemployed, Oddities of Evolution“), that rivals that of Bruce Wayne as he climbed out of the Lazarus Pit. It’s the thrill of an Impossible Title. I’m told that others enjoy crystal meth, car chases, the coming apocalypse, or some healthy combination of the three. The essayist gets his head-rush by waking up at 11:23, drinking... Read more
Oh dear. Matthew Inman of the marvelous web-comic, The Oatmeal, seems to have experienced that exquisite twitch all modern atheists are doomed to experience — the I-know-what’s-best-for-you-silly-religious-people-come-heed-me spasm. This particular train of thought requires the thinker ignore the vast majority of Christian belief — which is entrenched in reason — and focus solely on minority caricatures of the creationist or the wailing-out evangelical, caricatures firmly established and grounded in The Holy Internet Worldview. Having thus defined the term “religion”, the moral high ground is... Read more
I don’t think I’d make a good atheist, for dwelling within me is a strange desire to be happy. This isn’t to say atheists aren’t happy, of course. In fact, most of my atheist friends are a damn sight happier than myself. But the existence of this desire poses a problem. The desire for happiness is naturally oriented towards eternal happiness. When I am happy, I have no desire for that happiness to end. Such a thing would be inconceivable, directly... Read more
…and great timing for me, for I’m busy braving that inner circle of hell known as Tech Support for 1flesh.org, which is getting more hits than it can handle. Should we stone abortion clinicians? Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director, launched a new ministry, And Then There Were None. Check out this logic: No more abortion clinic workers. No more abortion clinics. No more abortions. Some “pro-lifers” have criticized this approach. Here’s one miss-the-point-pro-lifer: “The pro-life movement was doing just... Read more
It’s possible to believe a thing to be absolutely true, and simultaneously live like it’s absolutely false. L’example: There are billions of human beings who profess that strange doctrine of the Incarnation, and who celebrate the Christmas Day when Truth, Goodness and Beauty became Man. But of those billons, how many treat Man as a new and glorified being in whom dwells divinity? If I pass a woman on the street, and know beyond a shadow of doubt she is destined to become... Read more
I have challenge for you. Consecrate yourself to Jesus Christ through the Blessed Virgin Mary, by the way of St. Louis de Montfort. The graces, gifts and consolations attached to this “Perfect Devotion” are incredible. Not that that’s why we should consecrate ourselves through Mary, of course. We should consecrate ourselves through Mary in imitation of Christ, who humbled himself to come into the world through her, living in obedience with her. We should consecrate ourselves to her because in our devotion... Read more
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