There comes a point for those who do the Office of Readings where one has to read Psalm 135 (136). It is a long psalm, so long that the one psalm alone takes up all three readings of psalms in the Office of Readings. Furthermore, every second line in the psalm is a repetition of “for [God’s] love is everlasting”. When I first saw what was on the cards for the Office, my first reaction was to moan. “Not this... Read more
Conform. That is the catchcry of a lot of Christians of varying stripes nowadays. Fidelity to the tradition is now often framed – and even more often, obnoxiously – in terms of a conformity to a supposed universal standard of fidelity, usually framed in terms of outward observance in worship, or accepting certain positions that are deemed indispensable to the observance of the tradition. It is a trend that is accentuated by two things in bourgeois culture. The first is... Read more
At a recent retreat, someone said that eternity begins at your baptism. He also said that, in spite of this, many Christians live life as though they are in a waiting room, counting the empty units of time one by one, hoping for eternity to suddenly eternity interrupt the flow. In the mental image we have, this interruption will register as a major life event, before disappearing under the relentless flow of the mundane present. Such a conception of eternity... Read more
At a seminar on zombies (yes, I am still on the promotional path for the Redeeming Flesh) at the University of Queensland, I made a mention of Catherine Pickstock’s analysis of the metaphysics of “necrophilia”. Immortality, Pickstock said in her After Writing, was the result of sequestering death from a sterile zone of “life”. With this sequestering came also a constant vigilance against the signs of ageing, such that a whole culture became an enlarged jar of skin cream. Extrapolating from this point,... Read more
In 1975, long before the age of social media, an experiment was conducted at Stanford University. The experiment first provided a false impression regarding a person’s ability to distinguish real suicide notes from fake ones, and the candidates were subsequently presented in the face of the facts. The experiment found that, even when presented with the correct factual evidence, the candidates stuck with their conviction their initial impressions overrode the veracity of the facts. This phenomenon, known as “confirmation... Read more
The John Paul II Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Tracey Rowland, recently launched my little book Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus at a launch event at the University in May. While many might be sick to death of hearing me incessantly speak about the book, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to hear someone else speak of it (Artur Rosman of Cosmos in the Lost has mentioned... Read more
A few years ago, I posted on the possibility of giving an epistemological twist on the idea of Mary as the icon of discipleship. There I hinted that part of her iconography is demonstrated in her life as a way of knowing, particularly as the Church’s journey to the eschaton enters a postmodern phase. Over the next 5 years, the post had developed into a seminar paper, and later a conference paper at a conference on Mariology entitled Mariology at the Beginning... Read more
From a reader: There seems to be a fine line and a big difference between being orthodox and being a dick. Some of the nicest people I have come across in a parish are taken up in the kumbaya industrial complex, while some of the most orthodox people I have known have made it a point to make obnoxity the proof of their orthodoxy. Granted, there are great variations between these two poles. Some of the most pleasant people I... Read more
The centrefold of a 2011 edition of Sydney’s short-lived tabloid, mX, featured a report concerning the vast sums with which an assortment of celebrities insured their various body parts. Some statistics included Mariah Carey insuring her legs for US $1billion as an accompaniment to an ad campaign by the razor manufacturing corporation, Gillette. Another included Ugly Betty actress America Ferrera, who insured her teeth for US$10 million as part of an ad campaign for a tooth whitening brand. Another,... Read more
Who is Servant of God Takashi Nagai? Read more
The Divine Wedgie
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