Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Friday, December 31, 2010
1:35 AM
Tonight marks the beginning of the year of Our Lord, 2011. Or to some it may only be the eleventh day of Nivôse, and if you do not celebrate the solemnity of the Virgin Mary, you might still celebrate clay, as tomorrow is its festive day in the calendar of the French Republic.
However wrong the thinkers of the 'Enlightenment' may have been, their clarity of their words, the stunning quality of their rhetoric, and the rational consistency of their principles are a thing to be admired. While in today's world we are dominated by dullards void of even catchy phrases who adhere to the unimpressive creed of the PC Church, the people of that powdered, stockinged era at least heard men debate with confident appeals to reason, men who dared to pursue truth, and when they thought they had their quarry, would proclaim the news with virile certainty.
Even though they were murderers, usurpers, irreverent, and hypocritical, I must applaud the French Revolutionaries for having the intellectual honesty to create a new calendar when they ousted God from their nation's government. The godless of today however merely wish to change the initials AD without doing the work of writing their own calendar. One need merely visit this page or this page or even this page to see that there is no separate calendar for CE proponents apart of AD proponents. My pronouncements are of course no great import either to those who revere authority, as I have none, nor to those who don't, but I call this sort of appropriatation laziness.
The argument that our world is global, ergo one should not offend non-Christians by referring to the years as either His or before His time on Earth is disingenuous. I do not worship the god Thor, but the name Thursday does not offend me, anymore than the other days of the week do. I do not believe in a two-faced god called Janus, but I shall not sulk tomorrow when the first page of my calendar confronts me with the name 'January.' The existence of previous forms of belief do not threaten me as a Catholic; why do secularists find them so threatening? Alas, pursuing that line of thought would veer into the mucky domain of the ad hominem, so let us maintain our course.
Perhaps there is something in the argument that a more universal system of dating is needed, a geopolitical one. Fair enough. But the BCE/CE system is not such a new system. It is still based on the Gregorian calendar! While some may deny that this is an attempt to deliberately distance the remnants of Christendom from Christ, the underhandedness of textbook authors proves otherwise.
Experts admit that Era Vulgaris and Anno Domini amount to the same dating system, CE's proponents in education often assert that the BCE/CE system is different from the BC/AD system. I remember cracking open a high school history book to be informed that Christ was born in either 5 BCE or 6 BCE without so much as a footnote explaining that the same discrepancy exists within BC/AD.
With no logic to support such 'scholarly' pettishness, one can only conclude that it is indeed deliberate propaganda. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that one should not attempt to inculcate children against the beliefs of their parents, even if the parents are not Catholic. The atheists and agnostics today (at least the political ones in publishing) seem not to be as liberal-minded as the Angelic Doctor, seeing that they often flout not only parental convictions, but even the conventions of anthropology. See Carol Delaney's (an anthropologist) pronouncement below:
But our calendar, itself, relates to a specific history. The Western calendar, which for all intents and purposes has become the world calendar...dates from the year of Christ's birth. It is--insert current year--AD (Anno Domini, in the year of Our Lord). Some people have begun to use CE (common era) instead of AD as a more "politically correct" form...I find CE a euphemism because the common era still begins with Christ's birth and, thus, conceals the political implications.
(Carol Lowery Delaney, Investigating Culture: An Experiential Introduction to Anthropology)
Enough wishful thinking, please. These are the facts: the Gregorian calendar was instituted by a man named Gregory, who believed as the head of a Church of millions that a new era began when the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. If one wants a calendar for Era Vulgaris, one will have to make such a calendar and define what he means by 'Vulgaris.' Intellectual honesty entails either swallowing 2011 AD or perhaps cheerily wishing someone the beginning of a pleasant décade 11 tomorrow, though for some reason, I just don't see too many being eager to celebrate the latter occasion.
Happy New Year's Day!
Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!
Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!
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Friday, January 1, 2010
I make it a point never to make New Year's resolutions concerning diet and exercise. In fact, that's a resolution in and of itself. But there is a greater one, that I have tried to resolve upon, but am still praying for the disposition to will it. I asked for it last year, and this year I ask for it again.
Previously published on 31/12/2007 at foolishnessntears.blog.com.
Even as we rejoice on the feast of the Holy Family, we are asked to reflect on what is often called the second sorrow of Mary. For the only human that has ever loved God perfectly, sorrow came swiftly on the wings of her joy. It touched her first at the prophecy of Simeon: ‘“And thy own heart a sword shall pierce, that the thoughts of many may be laid bare.”’ (Luke 2: 35), and again, when Joseph roused her from sleep to say they must flee for the Christ Child’s Life:
And after the Magi were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: Arise, and take the Child and his mother, and fly into Egypt : and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy Him. Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt: and he was there until the death of Herod: That it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called My Son. (Matt 2: 13-15)
This world constantly presses one to choose between spiritual and corporeal good, but it is hardest to see this burden forced on those one loves. A mother does not wish her child either to suffer or to do evil, and she is most pained when her beloved must choose between the two. In Second Maccabaeus (7: 1-30), a mother had to watch as her seven sons chose between the Law of Moses and their lives, before she followed them in death. Many Faithful mothers had to endure the same under the Roman persecution.
Yet, even in ages of peace, one cannot escape sacrifice. In one of the storybooks I read to my eleven-year old, Korean English students, the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, was briefly mentioned, and all the children wanted to know how the tragedy happened. Having slightly explained the ‘how’ of the tragedy, I pointed out the dangers of all discoveries or explorations, technical, medical, etc.
‘Each time an astronaut goes on a shuttle, he must say to himself: “I might die.” He knows this.’ Seeing their expressions I had to ask, ‘Do you think you would ever choose a job like this?’ Adamant negatives echoed about the room, until my eye fell on Alice, one of the particularly sweet and intelligent students.
‘What do you think Alice ?’ She raised her head, which had been thoughtfully bent, and said firmly, ‘Yes, I would. Because even I die, my work helps future peoples to live a better life.’ Tears ran down my face, and my heart swelled in admiration. In a way, all my students are my babies, whom I would wish always to protect. Looking into Alice ’s earnest face, I saw a soul—precious to me—that would allow her mortal life to be extinguished for the sake of the good. That night I prayed she would never have to make this sacrifice, but that she would always be willing to. A fearful intention to lay at the feet of God.
I always thought it odd that the fourth joyful mystery of the rosary, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was also the first true sorrow of Mary. How fittingly it is called a ‘mystery’, for the enigma called the heart rejoiced in Joseph and Mary at the third recognition of the Child, but it was joined with the bitterest truth. The lesson accompanying the mystery is also fitting: I desire a spirit of sacrifice.
Previously published on 31/12/2007 at foolishnessntears.blog.com.
Even as we rejoice on the feast of the Holy Family, we are asked to reflect on what is often called the second sorrow of Mary. For the only human that has ever loved God perfectly, sorrow came swiftly on the wings of her joy. It touched her first at the prophecy of Simeon: ‘“And thy own heart a sword shall pierce, that the thoughts of many may be laid bare.”’ (Luke 2: 35), and again, when Joseph roused her from sleep to say they must flee for the Christ Child’s Life:
And after the Magi were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: Arise, and take the Child and his mother, and fly into Egypt : and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the Child to destroy Him. Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt: and he was there until the death of Herod: That it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called My Son. (Matt 2: 13-15)
This world constantly presses one to choose between spiritual and corporeal good, but it is hardest to see this burden forced on those one loves. A mother does not wish her child either to suffer or to do evil, and she is most pained when her beloved must choose between the two. In Second Maccabaeus (7: 1-30), a mother had to watch as her seven sons chose between the Law of Moses and their lives, before she followed them in death. Many Faithful mothers had to endure the same under the Roman persecution.
Yet, even in ages of peace, one cannot escape sacrifice. In one of the storybooks I read to my eleven-year old, Korean English students, the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, was briefly mentioned, and all the children wanted to know how the tragedy happened. Having slightly explained the ‘how’ of the tragedy, I pointed out the dangers of all discoveries or explorations, technical, medical, etc.
‘Each time an astronaut goes on a shuttle, he must say to himself: “I might die.” He knows this.’ Seeing their expressions I had to ask, ‘Do you think you would ever choose a job like this?’ Adamant negatives echoed about the room, until my eye fell on Alice, one of the particularly sweet and intelligent students.
‘What do you think Alice ?’ She raised her head, which had been thoughtfully bent, and said firmly, ‘Yes, I would. Because even I die, my work helps future peoples to live a better life.’ Tears ran down my face, and my heart swelled in admiration. In a way, all my students are my babies, whom I would wish always to protect. Looking into Alice ’s earnest face, I saw a soul—precious to me—that would allow her mortal life to be extinguished for the sake of the good. That night I prayed she would never have to make this sacrifice, but that she would always be willing to. A fearful intention to lay at the feet of God.
I always thought it odd that the fourth joyful mystery of the rosary, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was also the first true sorrow of Mary. How fittingly it is called a ‘mystery’, for the enigma called the heart rejoiced in Joseph and Mary at the third recognition of the Child, but it was joined with the bitterest truth. The lesson accompanying the mystery is also fitting: I desire a spirit of sacrifice.
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About Me
- Jacobitess
- Warsaw, Poland
- Domine, spero quia mundum vicisti. Lord, I trust that Thou hast overcome the world. Panie, ufam, żeś pokonał świat.