Lives, and Songs, and Prayers Half Done

Fragments
by Anna Jane Granniss

A broken song — It had dropped apart
Just as it left the singer's heart,
And was never whispered upon the air,
Only breathed into the vague "Somewhere".

A broken prayer — Only half said
By a tired child at his trundle bed;
While asking Jesus his soul to keep,
With parted lips, he fell fast asleep.

A broken life — Hardly half told
When it dropped the burden it could not hold —
Of these lives, and songs, and prayers half done,
God gathers the fragments every one.

Isaac of Nineveh for Lent XVIII

But why should we count up the many things that prove the holy angels' love for us, and their special care for the righteous? For just as big brothers do for their little ones, so do they look after us. All these things come to pass so as to assure every man how 'nigh the Lord is unto all that call upon Him in truth,' and how much provision He manifests toward those who have devoted themselves to pleasing Him, and who follow Him with pure hearts.

Homily 5 (p. 159).

Parvus Catechismus Catholicorum

This post is partly just for my own benefit, although others might find it of some use. I help out with a confirmation class on Wednesday nights; a person more poorly suited to relating with teenagers than myself I can hardly imagine, but I seem to have one advantage over a great many people, namely, that I'm actually willing to help at it if help is needed. If that sounds a bit acidic, it is; if there's anything that I've learned from this and other cases in which I've helped out with a ministry, it is that Catholics are much better at demanding that things be done than they are at helping to get them done. In any case, we've had some difficulty with the fact that we have a very diverse parish and we can't assume anything about what the students actually know about Christianity. So ever since we realized this, we've had to go back to basics: Bible stories, Ten Commandments, and the like. And in the same spirit, I dug up a translation of St. Peter Canisius's old catechism for children, the Parvus Catechismus. The translation is nicely accurate, but the catechism was written for the catechesis of nine- to fourteen-year-olds, and the translation choices are not always what I would have chosen for handing over to a typical child of this age. So I really need to go back to the Latin original, and due to the wonders of the Internet, it turns out there's a handy one available in the Latin with a facing German translation, at the Internet Archive. Thus I put it here so I can easily find it again.

Isaac of Nineveh for Lent XVII

Whenever you wish to make a beginning in some good work, first prepare yourself for the temptations that will come upon you, and do not doubt the truth. For it is the enemy's custom, whenever he sees a man beginning a good mode of life with fervent faith, to confront him with diverse and fearful temptations, so that he should be afraid, his good intention should be chilled, and he should lack the fervor to undertake that God-pleasing work.

Homily 5 (pp. 155-156).

Filial Obligations

There is a good article at the IEP by Brynn Welch on filial obligations. Welch identifies several theories of filial obligation: that it arises from debt to our parents, from friendship with our parents, from gratitude to our parents, from reciprocity with regard to the goods specific to the parent-child relationship, from gratitude over such specific goods. One thing that I think would have strengthened the discussion is the recognition that perhaps we have lots of different kinds of filial obligations.

Take Aquinas, for instance. Aquinas thinks that children owe their parents a debt. (It is not what Aquinas calls a legal debt, which is what is assumed in what Welch calls Debt Theory, but what he calls a moral debt, which is a looser term.) But what we owe them are things like gratitude and respect. Aquinas is also an Aristotelian, though, and thus he thinks that parents and children are friends (one of Aristotle's paradigmatic examples of friendship is friendship between mother and child). And I doubt Aquinas is really unique here; the categories are too broad here, and the assumption that all our filial obligations are of only one type, required by the critical examinations of each theory, seems very controvertible.

Indeed, the parent-child relationship itself seems to be more of a family of relationships than a single relationship: a parent gives a child life, educates the child, plays with the child, is the confidant of the child, provides goods for the child, plans for the child, and so forth. In each case the parent has the role of parent and the child has the role of child, but the ways the two relate are very different. Each way of relating, though, seems to raise different questions with regard to obligation.

Two Poem Drafts

Third Week of Lent

A burning bush in desert grows,
infused with bright auroral gold;
it burns the world with heaven's grace,
reflecting truth from God's own face,
yet does not burn from ceaseless fire.

The ash is falling from the clouds,
the flame is burning bright and clear,
and though I be but mortal clay,
I hope like glimmer sparking day
to rise myself like glowing dawn.

Undine

Undine undying, undo your charm,
untie the bonds that may work us harm;
in depths all unending, on deep dreaming sand,
deny us not, undine, the help of your hand.

Radio Greats: Stranger in Town (The Family Theater)

Many of the great programs of the Golden Age of Radio have their distinctive characteristics, but The Family Theater is unique even among the most unique. Broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System, it had no commercial sponsor at all, and yet it ran for ten years and managed to pull in some of the best actors and actresses of the day. The writing is also excellent -- they do a brilliant mix of serious and funny.

It was also an explicitly religious program. While there were lots of religious programs on radio, some of which were significant -- one of them, Unshackled!, is the only Golden Age program still running -- none of them had the significance of The Family Theater, which was the religious program almost everyone would have at least known about. Part of the reason is in the name: it was a program designed for the family to gather around to hear, and it did very well at providing material for that demographic. And its influence was considerable. It was, for instance, The Family Theater that popularized the saying, "The family that prays together, stays together."

The Family Theater was the brainchild of Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., commonly known as The Rosary Priest because of his Rosary Crusades designed to promote praying the Rosary. Fr. Peyton had quite a knack for media; he is easily one of the most significant figures in mass media in the mid-twentieth century.

There are lots of excellent of episodes of The Family Theater -- they did such a wide range stories, everything from The Little Prince to serial dramas to humorous little stand-alones to historicals to Moby Dick that you can find good versions of almost any kind of story you might like. It would be hard to choose a best one. The one I've selected out for this post is the one I've heard most recently. It is a quirky little stand-alone, an idea piece; it builds slowly but cleverly to a double punchline, one serious and one joking. There's not much action, but the interaction between the main characters, Danny (played by Raymond Burr, best known for his television role as Perry Mason) and Eve (played by Virginia Gregg, one of the greatest radio actresses of all time), is charming and interesting -- you never know the next direction it will go. The host is Eleanor Powell, who had been an extremely popular actress in the 1930s.

You can listen to "Stranger in Town" at My Old Radio.

Isaac of Nineveh for Lent XVI

There is no need for us to roam about heaven and earth in quest of God, or to send forth our minds into diverse places in search of Him. Therefore, purify your soul, O man, and drive away from you all cares which concern things outside your nature, and shroud your soul's perceptions and movements with the veil of chastity and humility: by this means you will discover Him that is within you, since 'mysteries are revealed to the humble' (Sir. 3:19).

Homily 4 (pp. 148-149)

Neither Cloud nor Wind-borne

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

A useful reflection for Lent, I think, which is in great measure about not hiding things under glittering veils and masks.

Isaac of Nineveh for Lent XV

This world is the course of the contest and the arena of the courses. This time is the time of combat; and there is no law laid down in the field of combat and in the time of contest. That is to say, the King lays no limit on His warriors until the contest is finished and all men are brought to the gate of the King of kings, where each is examined whether he persevered in the contest and refused to admit defeat, or turned his back. For it oftentimes happens that a man who is altogether useless, who, because of his lack of training, is constantly pierced and thrown down, who is feeble at all times, suddenly seizes the banner from the hands of the mighty warriors, the sons of the giants, and makes his name famous....For this reason, no man should despair; only, let us not be negligent in prayer, nor be slothful to beseech the Lord for succor.

Homily 70 (p. 490).

William Wallace, OP (1918-2015)

Fr. William Wallace died on March 3, at age 96. Fr. Wallace was a very important, and occasionally controversial, historian and philosopher of science. He taught at the University of Maryland. Among his notable publications:

The Scientific Methodology of Theodoric of Freiberg: A Case Study of the Relationship Between Science and Philosophy. (1959)

Galileo's Early Notebooks: The Physical Questions: A Translation from the Latin, with Historical and Paleographical Commentary. (1977)

Prelude to Galileo: Essays on Medieval and Sixteenth-Century Sources of Galileo's Thought. (1981)

Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science. (1984)

Galileo, the Jesuits and the Medieval Aristotle. (1991)

Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof: The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. (1992)

Galileo's Logical Treatises: A Translation, With Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Latin Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. (1992)

The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis. (1996)

When I was in grad school, I heard an interesting talk by him on the history of measurement, namely, the development of 'per'. That is, how do we get from measuring things in terms like "five miles in an hour" to saying that someone is going, right now, "five miles per hour"? Or, to put it in other terms, we all know what the unit "mile" is, and what the unit "hour" is, but what is the unit "mile per hour"? The latter kind of unit is actually surprisingly late. For a very long time people resisted the notion that these hybrid units were proper units; they were very often taken to be calculating conveniences rather than measures of anything real.

His conclusions were sometimes controversial, but his work is absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the thought of Galileo. His major work, The Modeling of Nature, is also essential reading for anyone interested in broadly scholastic and Aristotelian approaches to science and the natural world.



(The above video is a preview of a course he taught through International Catholic University, based on The Modeling of Nature and his summary reference work, The Elements of Philosophy; you can see the quite developed and informative notes for the course as well.

Isaac of Nineveh for Lent XIV

Read often and insatiably the books of the teachers of the Church on divine providence, for they lead the mind to discern the order in God's creatures and His actions, give it strength, and by their subtleness they prepare it to acquire luminous perceptions and guide it in purity toward the understanding of God's creatures. Read also the Gospels, which God ordained for knowledge for the whole world, that you may find provisions for your journey in the might of God's providence for every generation, and that your mind may plunge deeply into wonder at Him.

Homily 4 (p. 146).