Powerful Words

from abortion survivor and pro-life activist Gianna Jessen



Check out the last sentence: "It is the mercy of God that sustains you--even when you hate him."

Hat Tip: Louise of Purcell's Chicken Voluntary.

Wilkommen in Amerika, Heilige Vater!

HT: Shrine of the Holy Whapping.

Rights for Chickens but Not for Monks

Well, I was looking for something to blog about, and sure enough I found it. On the front page of this week's Catholic Miscellany, my diocesan newspaper, I found this story:

The monks at Mepkin Abbey [Moncks Corner, SC] have started the search for a new way to support themselves once their popular egg production business comes to an end.

In December the abbey announced it would begin phasing out the 56 year-old business, citing pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals over treatment of chickens as one of the reasons. Public protests and a threatened boycott by PETA that started in summer 2007 put unwanted pressure on the Trappist monks and interfered with their quiet life of prayer and work.

The story goes on to point out that "Sales averaging nine million eggs a year have generated around $140,000, which is about 60 percent of the abbey's annual income, according to figures released by Abbot Stan Gumula."

So a monastery that has supported itself for close to 60 years by selling eggs now has to sacrifice 60 percent of its annual income to satisfy a bunch of animal-rights wackos who espouse opinions contrary to Catholic teaching, historical fact, and plain common sense?

PETA, you may be aware, is that fine, upstanding bunch of Scripture scholars who promote the idea that Jesus was a vegetarian. I'm distressed to see that one of the ecumenical team of clergymen employed to promote this view is Father John Dear, a Jesuit. Father Dear (no pun intended) and his cohorts have to employ some verbal tap-dancing to get around the fact that the only miracle recorded in all four gospels involves Jesus feeding more than 5,000 people--with fish. The whole idea that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, which would have involved eating lamb, poses similar difficulties. They insist that Jesus didn't eat the Passover lamb, but they provide no persuasive evidence for this. They discount the accounts of post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus which specifically state that Jesus ate fish in the disciples' presence. Their reason? "Most biblical scholars" or "many biblical scholars" don't believe these events really took place. It's enough to make you think that the purpose of a "biblical scholar" these days is to make you believe that nothing in the Bible actually happened.

When I read about PETA and similar animal rights groups, I'm reminded of G. K. Chesterton's observation about the maniac who "is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity." PETA's one idea, that they carry to maniacal extremes is that animals should be treated compassionately--according to their standard of compassion--and they're willing to oppose anybody who doesn't live up to that standard.

No sane, humane person is in favor of cruelty to animals. If PETA had legitimate concerns about the treatment of the chickens, did PETA representatives even attempt to meet with representatives of the abbey to discuss the issue? I don't get that impression. Someone from PETA faxed the abbot (They couldn't even bother to send him a letter?) in February 2007. The promotional materials PETA distributed openly accuse the abbey of lying to the press and public about its treatment of the chickens. It sounds as if PETA threatened protests and boycotts almost immediately.

Well, I hope they're happy. They got what they wanted. But if you ask me, it's PETA, not the monks who have "egg on their face" this time.

Good Friday

O my dying Jesus, I kiss devoutly the cross on which Thou didst die for love of me. I have merited by my sins to die a miserable death, but Thy death is my hope. Ah, by the merits of Thy death, give me grace to die, embracing Thy feet and burning with love of Thee. I commit my soul into Thy hands. I love Thee with my whole heart; I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt.

---Stations of the Cross by St. Alphonsus Ligouri

Text and illustration, courtesy of Fisheaters.com

Adoration Meditation

Last night I completed my first ever hour of silent Eucharistic Adoration following the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper. I wish I could say that I was transformed by holy zeal for the Eucharist and that my attention was rapt as I contemplated the awesome reality of Jesus Christ, really present, body, blood, soul, and divinity under the species of bread and wine. I wish I could say that I didn't almost nod off three or four times (now I see why Jesus warned and begged the disciples not to fall asleep as they prayed with him in the Garden of Gethsemane that night). I wish I could say that my mind didn't wander to my latest fiction project or to what I wanted for dinner or whatever other silly, vapid thoughts filled my head. Christ's warning about the dangers of being lukewarm (Rev. 3:15-16) flashed through my brain, and I would snap back to attention--until the next time. I tried to pray, honest! I wish I could say it was a transcendent spiritual experience. If it wasn't, whose fault was that?

Mine.

I'm not a particularly extravagant or public sinner. I'm not an ax murderer, a child molester, or a drug dealer. I daresay, however, that if you were to run through the old list of Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Lust, Avarice, and Gluttony, I can think of a few occasions where I'd have to plead guilty to each. My sins tend to be quieter and more garden-variety: giving in to selfishness, arrogance, laziness, and pettiness; indulging in unkind thoughts and words about others; being to quick to take offense, too long to hold a grudge, and too slow to forgive; visiting websites that are best avoided, if you catch my drift. In short, being a mediocre sinner and an even more mediocre Christian.

And yet, I thought, isn't that one of the paradoxes of Easter? That the Lord of the Universe, the Creator of All That Is--entered into his creation, became part of it, struggled with it and for it, and transformed it through his suffering, death, and resurrection--all for the sake of a little nebbish like me. In that suffering he experienced everything that his creatures can experience, including hunger, thirst, fear, rejection, failure, abandonment, and a humiliating, painful, and public death. God himself offered to die for my sake, to atone for all those sins great and small, that keep me from loving him and knowing him as I should--as I want to. God didn't come into the world to reward us for being perfect little ladies and gentlemen who always ate our vegetables, said please and thank you, and had our ducks in a row. No:

For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.

Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.

But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

(Romans 5:6-8)

Graham Greene put it this way in his brilliant novel The Power and the Glory:

Man was so limited he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died; the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death. It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or children or a civilisation--it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.

I am one of those half-hearted and corrupt people, but Christ still reaches out to me--from the cross and from the altar at every Mass. I cannot possibly deserve such an invitation or be worthy of such a tremendous gift, but I can accept it with faith and gratitude and take the advice of the psalmist: " Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Ps. 94:8, Douay-Rheims Version).

Mmmm . . . Beeeer . . . Sanctified!

A blessing for beer from the Rituale Romanum:

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hat Tips: Thomas Peters at American Papist, via D. G. D. Davidson at Sci-Fi Catholic.

To Boldly Go Where No Pope Has Gone Before

The Curt Jester has photographs and commentary on the altar furnishings that will be used when Pope Benedict visits Washington, D.C. later this year. Here's the design:



CJ says they look to him as if they might be appropriate for a certain 23rd-century starship captain, much beloved around these parts. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Successor of Peter, The Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, the Vicar of Christ, The Servant of the Servants of God:


His Holiness, Pope Kirk I

Commenting on the general look of the chairs and ambo, CJ asks: "Maybe IKEA is now designing liturgical furniture?"

After visiting one parish in particular, I might be inclined to think so. The altar and ambo have a distinctly minimalist butcher-block look to them. You have to use a magnifying glass to find the Stations of the Cross, and when I asked where the Tabernacle was, my guide pointed down a side hall. If I were Pope Kirk, I'd order a full spread of phasers and photon torpedoes on the place and start over.