Maggie's Farm

From Dr. Bob's The Temperature of Hell (no, it's not about "climate change"):

In our therapeutic culture, where all is tolerated but the good, the assertion that there are consequences for our behavior, either temporal, or especially eternal, is a truly noxious notion. The idea of Hell is perceived as an anachronistic anathema, promoted cynically by clergy controlling the poor, ignorant fools who follow them. Even those with a nominal belief in a deity will attest, with a pretense more wishful than wise, that a God of love would never condemn those who reject Him to Hell. In some sense–surely not that which the proponents of such pop theology intend–this may well be true. It will be, for those who enter that dark, hopeless, and agonizing eternity, not something dictated from on high by a vengeful God gleeful at our torture. It will be our own choice, fully, to reject the mercy and grace which has been offered to us without cost by Him who gave everything to draw us toward an eternal relationship, filled with unspeakable joy and peace, with Him.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible.

Photo is the Bird Dog family Bible.

Another quote from the John Rawls book review we linked this week:

What makes belief in inviolable or natural rights reasonable? It is not enough to argue that each individual possesses an inalienable inviolability because all are, as Rawls holds in both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, free and equal persons. Or that our inalienable inviolability flows from our moral capacity to form and act on rational life plans. Neither our natural freedom and equality nor our capacity to form, choose, and act on rational life plans rules out that conquest and dominion over others represents the best use of our freedom.
When all is said and done, the mature Rawls’s epic intellectual labors do not illuminate this fundamental perplexity. Indeed, those labors obscure the perplexity, even as the difficulties are diminished — though they are far from overcome — by the young Rawls’s theological doctrine. Inasmuch as it conceives of man as in but not entirely of the natural world, and possessing a spiritual dimension or soul for which he is not responsible but which is of ultimate worth and allows him to transcend determination by nature, the young Rawls’s doctrine fortifies a liberalism whose guiding thought is that of an inalienable inviolability possessed by all individuals.
Such considerations provide more than ample reason for scholars to vigorously open or reopen the question of Rawlsian liberalism’s — and the larger liberal tradition’s — religious roots. 

Another Taize chant: Veni Sancte Spiritus. I love this one. 

Anchoress reminds us that

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel (Right Judgment), Fortitude (Courage), Knowledge, Piety (Reverence) and Fear of the Lord (Awe of God).

Good gifts indeed. Who does not hunger for these?

Pentecost, marking the end of the Easter season, is next Sunday.

There isn't much Taize music on YouTube, but here is a bit of the Taize chant Bless The Lord, My Soul:

It is a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.

Anon.

Stanley Fish reviews Terry Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution. A quote:

Progress, liberalism and enlightenment — these are the watchwords of those, like Hitchens, who believe that in a modern world, religion has nothing to offer us. Don’t we discover cures for diseases every day? Doesn’t technology continually extend our powers and offer the promise of mastering nature? Who needs an outmoded, left-over medieval superstition?

Eagleton punctures the complacency of these questions when he turns the tables and applies the label of “superstition” to the idea of progress. It is a superstition — an idol or “a belief not logically related to a course of events” (American Heritage Dictionary) — because it is blind to what is now done in its name: “The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,” all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.

The lowest level of Hell, according to Dante, is reserved for those who betray their benefactors.

The Circles of Hell. h/t, Thompson's Friday Ephemera.

From a pleasantly rambling post by Dr. Bob,  Open Hands:

The walk of faith is said to be belief in the unbelievable, the fool’s way out of life’s challenges and disappointments, the easy path of cowards and knaves. It is in truth none of these things, but rather the very hardest of things: submission. It is to bend the knee; to trust when sight is dim or absent; to rely on the benevolence and wisdom of One who knows all and reject the false knowledge we tenaciously trust in our self-will, fear, and deception. If there is a God — sovereign, transcendent, just, good in ways we cannot begin to fathom, and above all passionate in His love for us — then there is nothing to do but trust, to submit, to rest. It is the Cross — in all its horrors, irrationality, agony, foolishness — and victory.

This week the church celebrates Holy Week, commemorating and meditating on that moment in history when darkness seemed triumphant, when earthly hopes were dashed, when the irrational ruled and evil gloated. In that dark moment, the glorious hopes of man haughty and triumphant were forever dashed on the stones of Golgatha; the blood of a failed prophet sealed their fate forever. Such is as true now as then; it is a timeless certainty, eternal despite all appearances to the contrary.

And so I must — we must — open our hands, and bend our knees. It is a time for prayer, for humility, for fasting, for simplification. It is time for turning over the foolishness of man and the corruption of a culture to Him who alone knows the ways of man and the wanderings of nations. We must lift up the country, its leaders; the culture; the church. It is not ours to seize nor to save. We must stand in truth, suffering what consequences we may endure.

^{Mark 16, 1-8}

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. ²Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb ³and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"

 ⁴But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

 ⁶"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

 ⁸Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Below: Dutch tulip fields from Lucianne:

Today is Holy Thursday. Our church holds a silent Seder each Holy Thursday, in remembrance of Christ's last supper.

No wine, unfortunately, but all of the traditional Seder foods.

We do not post things on this site on Good Friday because it is a day of prayer and reflection on the cross and its meaning to us.

1 Corinthians 11:23-25  ²³For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."

The Last Supper is thought to have been a Passover seder.
Da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan (c. 1498). Unfortunately, the dramatic picture began deteriorating and flaking within years of its completion. It's not a fresco.

Giotto, 1304

Luke 19: 28-40

²⁸After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹When he had come near Bethpage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” ³⁴They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” ³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

- From Vanderleun:  Let my cry come unto Thee: An Ash Wednesday Confession

- Via The Anchoress in her Ash Wednesday post:

Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, newly-named, Archbishop of New York City ...:

“Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.” -

The 40-odd days following Ash Wednesday culminating in the prayer-laden and introspective Easter Vigil are the time when all Christians focus most intently on their relationship with the living Christ, and His role in their lives and in their hearts.

I welcome Lent with hope, and excitement about discovering where this year's Lenten journey might lead. It is the gravitational center of my year. Plant roots wake up and start growing months before the spring buds begin to swell. Lent is my root-growing time.

Matthew 2:1-12

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
 6 " 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
      are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
   for out of you will come a ruler
      who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Image: Epiphany by Hieronymous Bosch, 1490

From guest poster Bruce Kesler. Thanks for the mini-series, Bruce, and your comrades here hope that you and your family had a Happy Hannukah:

My 3-year old and 8-year old sons most enjoyed this one:

Here’s Peter, Paul and Mary singing “Don’t Let The Light Go Out”:

Eight nights to enjoy jokes, sharing, and relearning the importance of defending freedom.  A great holiday tradition: Don’t Let The Light Go Out.

Lyrics here.

From Bruce Kesler:

In light of the self-righteous pomposity with which some make a bad joke of their religiosity, here’s a clip of a popular Chanukah song that shares the fun of religion:

Matthew 5:13

Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

This scripture is put into context by Sipp, (with Ginger Ale which, in my opinion, is almost as good as Ginger Beer. And the mere mention of Ginger Beer puts me in the mood for a Dark 'n Stormy.)

From Bruce Kesler:

In light of how the language of Jews has entered common usage in America:

During the first day of Hanukkah, two elderly Jewish men were sitting in a wonderful deli frequented almost exclusively by Jews in New York City. They were talking amongst themselves in Yiddish - the colorful language of Jews who came over from Eastern Europe

A Chinese waiter, only one year in New York, came up and in fluent impeccable Yiddish asked them if everything was okay and if they were enjoying the holiday.

The Jewish men were dumbfounded. “Where did he ever learn such perfect Yiddish?” they both thought. After they paid the bill they asked the restaurant manager, an old friend of theirs, “Where did our waiter learn such fabulous Yiddish?”

The manager looked around and leaned in so no one else will hear and said... “Shhhh. He thinks we're teaching him English.”

When in Israel, I told a variation of this joke to my host.  He, then, invited me to meet him for lunch the next day at the members’ club of the Tel Aviv diamond exchange.  The maitre d’ was a 6-foot tall Chinese man, who spoke in Hebrew, he being the husband of a Jewish woman diamond merchant who’d met him at the Hong Kong diamond exchange.  Israel, like the US, is a population drawn from around the world, initially speaking a polyglot of languages, but adopting a common language and culture. 

My hardworking Yiddish speaking immigrant grandparents owned a tailor store in downtown Brooklyn.  Their presser for several decades was a Black man who spoke Yiddish to the customers.  When I was a small child, he always had time for me.  I learned as much Yiddish from him as from my grandparents.  Famous books by Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish and The Joys of Yinglish, are hundreds of pages of words that many non-Jewish Americans use or hear frequently and are chock full of definitions and jokes.

A measure of the contribution to America by various ethnic groups is the degree to which its language and culture enters common usage.  There are about as many Moslems in the US as Jews, yet sadly the only Islamic word most in the US have come to know is “jihad.”

From our guest poster Bruce Kesler:

In light of the contributions of Jews to Christian celebrations of Christmas, two songs that never caught on:

-         Deck the Halls with Balls of Matzos

-         Jumpin’ around the Chanukah Bush

Some famous Christmas songs written by Jews:

White Christmas

Christmas Song

We Need A Little Christmas

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

A Holly Jolly Christmas

The Christmas Waltz

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Silver Bells

I’m Getting Nuttin’ For Christmas

Santa Baby

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Sleigh Ride

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays

Do They Know It’s Christmas (Feed The World)

The United States is the shining light on the hill to all who care for freedom and the land that has given generations of Jewish and other immigrants and refugees the sanctuary and liberties from which they’ve been allowed to heavily contribute back for the benefit of all.

Photo: Ellis Island Menorah from Levine

"Rediscovering the warmth, simplicity, amity and solidarity which are the very values of Christmas"

In light of how infectious is the ignorance and coveting with which we make excuses and create hate:

It was two days before Chanukah and Mr. Feldman, quite downcast, was trudging home. "Where will I get money to buy presents for the holiday?" he asked himself sadly, thinking of his wife and children. On the way, he passed a church, in front of which was a sign: Five Hundred Dollars Cash To Anyone Who Joins This Church Today!

Here was the solution to Feldman's problem! He went in, joined, and was given the five hundred dollars as the sign promised. That evening, at supper, he told his family how he had come by his sudden wealth. "And here's the money," he announced grandly, waving the money before them.

"Darling," said his wife, "you remember that coat you promised me three years ago? Well it's on sale at Macy's."

"How much is it?"

"Only a two hundred and fifty dollars, and it's worth at least three hundred and fifty."

Feldman peeled off five fifties and gave them to her. The son spoke up. "Pop, for a long time I've been saving up to buy one of those cool mountain bikes. I already have most of the money, but I need a little more."

"How much more?"

"One hundred and fifty dollars."

Feldman handed over the money.

"Daddy," said his teen age daughter, "next week our school is having the most important dance of the whole year. If I don't have a new dress,

I'll simply die."

"Don't die Sweetheart. How much is the dress?"

"Only a hundred dollars, Daddy dear."

Feldman handed over the remaining twenty five dollars, leaned back and grinned. "It never fails," he announced. "The minute we Gentiles have a little money, you Jews take it away from us!"

A self-absorbed child takes from others, as do adults who haven’t matured.  Instead, all our holy days are common gifts to be shared for their giving of appreciation for the blessings that enrich our lives and society.  

Matthew 18:1

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Joseph and Jesus, Guido Reni, 1635

The third in Bruce Kesler's Hannukah series for us:

.

In light of how artificial barriers among us create unnecessary divisions:

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Chanukah cards.
She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Chanukah stamps?"
The clerk says, "What denomination?"
The woman says, "Oh my God. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Orthodox, 12 Conservative, and 32 Reform."

My son’s Cub Scout subject for December is Holiday Lights.  In discussion with the 8-year olds, all of whom attend their church or synagogue’s training, it was a surprise to them that the Holy Temple in Jerusalem that the Maccabees freed and sanctified is the same that about 150-years later Mary and Joseph brought Jesus.  How can we defend or explain our common heritage when we either don’t understand it ourselves or make the efforts to even explain it to our children?

Photo: A Menorah in the Hoboken City Hall, 2007

Chanukah's Da Bomb:

From Bruce Kesler:

In light of why most holiday celebrations are directed toward children:

In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family. Tickets a mere $200 per person.
Better stick with Chanukah!

Purists decry the commercialization and simplification of holy days.  But, few among us have the interest or training to delve into the deeper meanings.  Religions have found that stressing a central theme or lesson accomplishes most, and making it enjoyable transmits the core meaning to children they can build upon and enlarge.  The central theme of Chanukah and of Christmas is that devotion to our faith takes courage that can overcome even hostile empires.

Liberal Catholicism and Liberal Protestantism at Inside Catholic, by David Carlin, author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America. He begins:

Catholic liberals (by which I mean theological liberals, not political liberals) never cease to amaze me. On the one hand, they appear to have a sincere devotion to their religion. On the other, they campaign for moral and theological changes that, if carried into effect, would tend to destroy their Church.

 

Why do I say this? Because the history of Protestantism has made it perfectly clear what happens when a Christian church turns liberal or modern. Unless a Catholic is quite unfamiliar with the sad history of liberal Protestantism, he would not call for the theological liberalization or modernization of Catholicism.

 

In America, liberal Protestantism has always had three characteristics: (1) It is an attempt to find a compromise or via media between traditional Christianity and the fashionable anti-Christianity of the day. (2) In seeking this compromise, it drops certain traditional Christian beliefs as so much excess baggage. (3) To atone, so to speak, for this weakening of doctrine, it intensifies its moral commitments.

 

Three great "moments" in the history of American liberal Protestantism illustrate what I mean here. The first was the emergence of Unitarianism in the first quarter of the 19th century. The fashionable anti-Christianity of the day was Deism -- as found, for instance, in one of the writings of Tom Paine (The Age of Reason). So Unitarianism, in pursuit of a via media, dropped the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, Original Sin, and a few other Christian doctrines. To make up for these discards, it strongly committed itself to the anti-slavery cause.

Thanks to our pal Dr. Bob for finding this. Apparently Edward Feser and Heather (who we also like very much) have been having an exciting correspondence about religion and politics.

Feser more or less begins thus:

The source of my dispute with you is the criticism that you (like Kathleen Parker and others) have been making of religion – not of this or that kind of religion, and not of this or that individual religious believer, but of religion per se – to the effect that it is irrational, and that this irrationality has something to do with its purported lack of scientific grounding.

Read the whole thing (link above).