Showing posts with label Satan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Satan. Show all posts
Saturday, October 1, 2011
2:48 AM
Dum praeliarétur Míchael Archángelus cum dracóne, audíta est vox dicéntium: Salus Deo nostro. Allelúia.
There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad. But for a long while they sang only each alone...for each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened, they came to deeper understanding, increased in unison and harmony.
And it came to pass that Ilúvatar called together all the Ainur and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them things greater and more wonderful than he had yet revealed...
Then Ilúvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts, and devices, if he will. But I will sit and heaken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song...'
Now the Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men...And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces...Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness...But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therin, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place...And of these Melkor was the chief, even as he was in the beginning the greatest of the Ainur...And he feigned...that he desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of Ilúvatar...But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men..to be a master over other wills.
But Manwë was the brother of Melkor in the mind of Ilúvatar, and he was the chief instrument of the second theme that Ilúvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor...And Manwë said unto Melkor: 'This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here no less than thou.'
Then Ilúvatar said to them: 'Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts, and devices, if he will. But I will sit and heaken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song...'
Now the Children of Ilúvatar are Elves and Men...And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces...Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness...But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the Children of Ilúvatar arise therin, then many of the most mighty among them bent all their thought and their desire towards that place...And of these Melkor was the chief, even as he was in the beginning the greatest of the Ainur...And he feigned...that he desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of Ilúvatar...But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men..to be a master over other wills.
But Manwë was the brother of Melkor in the mind of Ilúvatar, and he was the chief instrument of the second theme that Ilúvatar had raised up against the discord of Melkor...And Manwë said unto Melkor: 'This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here no less than thou.'
J.R.R. Tolkien, Silmarillon: Ainulindalë
Was Tolkien--whilst uttering the truth of a creed that is several millennia old--correct about the interest that non-material beings take in the affairs of man?
Seventeen years ago, after waking from a dream with eyes moistened in feverish distress, I could not go back to sleep. I thought of waking up someone to talk to, but my sisters sleeping peacefully in the other beds beside me would not have understood my troubles. I thought of Momma and Daddy, but I was the only child in my family that had never returned to my parents' bed after physically outgrowing it. What a strange thing it would be to go back to them at ten years of age. So I lay, clutching the quilt and looking up through the cracks of the blinds covering the window by my bed. The moon was peering down at me, looking very much like a reaper's sickle.
Seventeen years ago, after waking from a dream with eyes moistened in feverish distress, I could not go back to sleep. I thought of waking up someone to talk to, but my sisters sleeping peacefully in the other beds beside me would not have understood my troubles. I thought of Momma and Daddy, but I was the only child in my family that had never returned to my parents' bed after physically outgrowing it. What a strange thing it would be to go back to them at ten years of age. So I lay, clutching the quilt and looking up through the cracks of the blinds covering the window by my bed. The moon was peering down at me, looking very much like a reaper's sickle.
I began pondering whether the Grim Reaper was holy or evil. Though I perceived his duty as morbid, was he not merely a servant? When Scrooge had pleaded with the frightening spectre of Christmas Future, he had said: 'Good Spirit, your nature intercedes for me and pities me...'
Does it? I asked the moon. I thought of the dream again. Earlier that day I had been watching a science programme, likely merely to enjoy the beautiful images of space they afforded. However, I had listened to the staid, learned men on the show as well, and their talk of black holes had made its mark. This final stage of a star's life impressed upon me so vividly, that that night I dreamt I had been floated within and without the cosmos, hand in hand with some being (at first, I thought my guardian angel), that took me to the event horizon of a dead star that was slowly swallowing up the universe into its compressed nothingness.
I had tried to look away, but the guide clamped its hand about my jaw and forced me to stare as everything spindled comically into the black hole. To see such once majestic things as stars and planets stretched to resemble a wet, flopping noodle made the image more repugnant. The creature with me, who had grown morally ambiguous, did not speak. I did not know if it enjoyed the display or not. There was no voice at all, but if the emotions pressing upon me from the void had been vocalized, they would have run thus:
...never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die...
'Ah, no!' I at last said tearfully, and turned away. I felt myself in bed again, real tears in my eyes and with the consciousness that I had spoken aloud.
As I lay fretting, staring at the indigo of space through the pale blinds and the black lace of tree branches, I thought of the factual scientists so indifferently propounding on these scenarios. They were wrong. Whatever was wise or erudite about the sages speaking on such matters, they had no right to be calm in the face of the destruction of things that were. In spite of their ambitions, they ought to have known they could never reduce existence to the amoral system of rules that had no greater interest in men than in the barbs of a sparrow's wing.
Let the empirical scientists be content with their theories reigning 'for the most part', for they shall never obtain the dominion of 'always.' That is a leap of intuition, yes, but one that most of the world have made. The reason is simple: there can be no evil actions without an actor, and the presence of so much evil in the world--moral and physical--demands the existence of agents, for only creatures with volition are not bound absolutely by laws. Hence, there will never be a science of their deeds. Any attempt at such a discipline would itself be superstition.
Now superstition in the literal sense is never wrong. It is but 'standing over a thing in awe and amazement.' Even if the premise of scientism--that all can be reduced to an inanimate, empirical cause--were correct, the mind of man will likely never achieve that exalted state of knowledge. Dana Scully may say, 'Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it,' but that is a statement of faith, not reason, and even if it is true, it is not true simply. The sage and the peasant both do many things in a certain only because those methods have worked in the past. There need not be any rational synthesis to justify their procedures. They stand in awe of the forces of the created world and often find themselves more likely to rely on precedent than pure logic.
And David consulted the Lord: Shall I go up against the Philistines, and wilt thou deliver them into my hands? He answered: Go not up against them, but fetch a compass behind them, and thou shalt come upon them over against the pear trees. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one going in the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou join battle ( II Samuel V:23-24)
The above is but one of many instances where a spiritual agent acts upon the material order, in this case, after God's own design. It is almost maddening if one concedes that angels are (based upon the teachings of the Church Fathers) the direct operators of the universe. That must be why men most directly exposed to the physical elements--e.g., sailors and farmers--are often so superstitious. Long acquaintance with mysterious cause and devastating effect has served to humble them rather than puff them up. Their empirical experience has also occasionally shown them that things may behave not merely unpredictably, but even contrary to natural laws.
...never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die...
'Ah, no!' I at last said tearfully, and turned away. I felt myself in bed again, real tears in my eyes and with the consciousness that I had spoken aloud.
As I lay fretting, staring at the indigo of space through the pale blinds and the black lace of tree branches, I thought of the factual scientists so indifferently propounding on these scenarios. They were wrong. Whatever was wise or erudite about the sages speaking on such matters, they had no right to be calm in the face of the destruction of things that were. In spite of their ambitions, they ought to have known they could never reduce existence to the amoral system of rules that had no greater interest in men than in the barbs of a sparrow's wing.
Let the empirical scientists be content with their theories reigning 'for the most part', for they shall never obtain the dominion of 'always.' That is a leap of intuition, yes, but one that most of the world have made. The reason is simple: there can be no evil actions without an actor, and the presence of so much evil in the world--moral and physical--demands the existence of agents, for only creatures with volition are not bound absolutely by laws. Hence, there will never be a science of their deeds. Any attempt at such a discipline would itself be superstition.
Now superstition in the literal sense is never wrong. It is but 'standing over a thing in awe and amazement.' Even if the premise of scientism--that all can be reduced to an inanimate, empirical cause--were correct, the mind of man will likely never achieve that exalted state of knowledge. Dana Scully may say, 'Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it,' but that is a statement of faith, not reason, and even if it is true, it is not true simply. The sage and the peasant both do many things in a certain only because those methods have worked in the past. There need not be any rational synthesis to justify their procedures. They stand in awe of the forces of the created world and often find themselves more likely to rely on precedent than pure logic.
And David consulted the Lord: Shall I go up against the Philistines, and wilt thou deliver them into my hands? He answered: Go not up against them, but fetch a compass behind them, and thou shalt come upon them over against the pear trees. And when thou shalt hear the sound of one going in the tops of the pear trees, then shalt thou join battle ( II Samuel V:23-24)
The above is but one of many instances where a spiritual agent acts upon the material order, in this case, after God's own design. It is almost maddening if one concedes that angels are (based upon the teachings of the Church Fathers) the direct operators of the universe. That must be why men most directly exposed to the physical elements--e.g., sailors and farmers--are often so superstitious. Long acquaintance with mysterious cause and devastating effect has served to humble them rather than puff them up. Their empirical experience has also occasionally shown them that things may behave not merely unpredictably, but even contrary to natural laws.
Here the learned may shake their heads. Why is men so anthropocentric? Why would beings of such incredible understanding and power be so engrossed with the affairs of one world? With the actions of fragile, fallibe creatures that eat, sweat, and defecate? It seems beneath their dignity, as if they were like those bored Greek gods that could not even let the Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans have a footrace on the plains of Ilium without interfering.
However, the learned who espouse such a view seem not to have noticed they are asking a question regarding motive. They ignore the fact that motives belong only to individuals and they may be enmeshed with all sorts of forces outside the realm of logic: 'The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.'
Have we, as children of men, not stood on peaked mountain balds, inhaling the rarefied air around us until we were giddy with its thinness? Or have we not gazed with heartbreak on radiant sunsets illuminating slender lunar crescents? Have we not occasionally wandered from the common path of the forest into a mossy glen embued with a fae mist? Whatever form the natural raptures we have known took, we have had them. And what did we want in those places of such transcendent splendour? Did we not want the wind, the peaks, the sun, the colours, or even the moss to speak to us? To feel some return of our love from the beloved object? What would have delighted us more than if a nymph or god were to arise from the essence of these things and offer us some acknowledgement? Aye, as beautiful as inanimate things are, sentient things shall always be best.
Angels know that even better than we do, and are less likely to prefer a mountain to man for its bulk than man is himself:
...And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness...
Or as Chesterton put it: 'One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.' The will of the stupidest, shallowest human being is more interesting than the wheel of the universe.
It should not surprise us then how the Church has taught us to approach the Prince of the Heavenly Host, as our tender guardian, rather than a demanding sergeant frowning on our material limitations. In the Old Rite, his name comes third in the Public Confession. At the end of Mass, his prayer immediately follows Our Lady's. His dominion holds over clement hospitals as well as militant hosts. Why?
Angels, we must remember, are individuated according to function. What is their function? Their intellectual grasp of God, whether it is employed to praise or to blaspheme. When the mighty seraphim, the Bearer of Light, set himself up as equal to God, the first being to denounce this outrageous pride was the one defined by his humility and awe. He was the seraphim who rose up and, naming himself, thundered:
That is his thought; that is his being. It is only reasonable that this eternal person takes the greatest interest in how his battle against Satan plays out in temporal affairs, and being so humble, will not scorn the war on any scale. He shall certainly not remain inactive where his nemesis is prowling.
It should not surprise us then how the Church has taught us to approach the Prince of the Heavenly Host, as our tender guardian, rather than a demanding sergeant frowning on our material limitations. In the Old Rite, his name comes third in the Public Confession. At the end of Mass, his prayer immediately follows Our Lady's. His dominion holds over clement hospitals as well as militant hosts. Why?
Angels, we must remember, are individuated according to function. What is their function? Their intellectual grasp of God, whether it is employed to praise or to blaspheme. When the mighty seraphim, the Bearer of Light, set himself up as equal to God, the first being to denounce this outrageous pride was the one defined by his humility and awe. He was the seraphim who rose up and, naming himself, thundered:
'Mi ke El?'
Who is like God?
Sáncte Míchael Archángele, defénde nos in proélio, cóntra nequítiam et insídias diáboli ésto prćsídium. Ímperet ílli Déus, súpplices deprecámur: tuque, prínceps milítić cɶléstis, Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos, qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in múndo, divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde.
Ámen
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Monday, May 16, 2011
'They are not innocents selected at random by passing demons. Most have made a deal with the Devil. Only later do they become aware of the Devil's asking price.'
_Father Malachi Martin
For some reason I have always had a most sensitive fear concerning those strong, spiritual beings that chose to hate the Good, True, and Beautiful. To be reassured as to what they can and cannot do is why an impressionable teenager was allowed by her mother to read parts of a work on exorcism, Malachi Martin's Hostage to the Devil. What set this account apart is that, even though he is a talented and bewitching author, Father Malachy does not write in a lurid or sensational fashion concerning battles with the demons. In fact, it was because of this committment to speak the truth for God's sake and not for Mammon's, that he refused David Berkowitz's offer to write that monster's biography--forever sealing that particular portal of evil into the realm of man.
There is a lesson in that refusal which every writer should heed. When it comes to evil, one should not say enough to fascinate readers with the glamour of thrills and danger that prompt so many to watch horrific films or read frightening books. Yet, for the sake of the sceptical who possess a healthy immunity to the morbid fascination of incubi and succubi, occasionally a word should be dropped to ripple their apathy.
Yesterday was a beautiful day--the weather's masters tinting the spring foliage deep green against pewter skies, spraying everything with the gloss of a gentle rain, and studding every roadside or path with blossoms of lilac of every hue, from ruddy violet to icy lavender to pearl white. I was on my way to an afternoon Mass in a village outside of Warsaw. I was entering the church by the back door, having just dipped my fingers in holy water, and was adjusting my veil in the vestibule before the sacristy when I heard a harsh, shrill scream coming from within the church.
I stood in shock; a flurry of possibilities suggested themselves to me, when I heard another scream, this one in intelligible German. I turned and the parish priest beckoned to me from the sacristy. I was informed that Mass would begin in half an hour at the usual time, but at the present moment, an exorcism was taking place.
I hastily went outside to wait, standing at the back of the church, as near to the tabernacle as I could be, and began my prayers. It is my usual wont to think of Christ in the tabernacle as the vulnerable Lover. That day, I saw Him as the commanding Lord. Disturbed as I was, it was impossible to fear in that situation, which only revealed how impotent evil is against the Holy of holies. Glancing at the lustrous leaves of the wet lilac bushes, and inhaling the flowers' scent, I remembered that this was His world--even this world of matter. And it is this realm, as well as that of Heaven, that the serpent hates.
When the patients of the exorcist left (they had of course come of their own accord and asked for the exorcisms themselves) the exorcist himself was exhausted. At Mass, the congregation was asked to offer their Communions up for the ongoing effort of freeing the two people that had come to the church for help.
If you can spare a prayer, remember that an exorcist is always in need. After two heart attacks, Father Malachi Martin had this to say of such holy work:
'Every exorcism takes something out of you that cannot be put back. The demon goes, but it carries a part of you away with it. A little of the exorcist dies each time. It's a permanent mental fight against a powerful, dangerous enemy.'
Let us all remember in our daily toils and pains, which all too often render existence rather mundane, that in many places on this globe, a consecrated man enters into a very dark place, and for the sake of one who has thrown so many graces away, offers himself--trusting in God's protection--as hostage to the Devil.
There is a lesson in that refusal which every writer should heed. When it comes to evil, one should not say enough to fascinate readers with the glamour of thrills and danger that prompt so many to watch horrific films or read frightening books. Yet, for the sake of the sceptical who possess a healthy immunity to the morbid fascination of incubi and succubi, occasionally a word should be dropped to ripple their apathy.
Yesterday was a beautiful day--the weather's masters tinting the spring foliage deep green against pewter skies, spraying everything with the gloss of a gentle rain, and studding every roadside or path with blossoms of lilac of every hue, from ruddy violet to icy lavender to pearl white. I was on my way to an afternoon Mass in a village outside of Warsaw. I was entering the church by the back door, having just dipped my fingers in holy water, and was adjusting my veil in the vestibule before the sacristy when I heard a harsh, shrill scream coming from within the church.
I stood in shock; a flurry of possibilities suggested themselves to me, when I heard another scream, this one in intelligible German. I turned and the parish priest beckoned to me from the sacristy. I was informed that Mass would begin in half an hour at the usual time, but at the present moment, an exorcism was taking place.
I hastily went outside to wait, standing at the back of the church, as near to the tabernacle as I could be, and began my prayers. It is my usual wont to think of Christ in the tabernacle as the vulnerable Lover. That day, I saw Him as the commanding Lord. Disturbed as I was, it was impossible to fear in that situation, which only revealed how impotent evil is against the Holy of holies. Glancing at the lustrous leaves of the wet lilac bushes, and inhaling the flowers' scent, I remembered that this was His world--even this world of matter. And it is this realm, as well as that of Heaven, that the serpent hates.
When the patients of the exorcist left (they had of course come of their own accord and asked for the exorcisms themselves) the exorcist himself was exhausted. At Mass, the congregation was asked to offer their Communions up for the ongoing effort of freeing the two people that had come to the church for help.
If you can spare a prayer, remember that an exorcist is always in need. After two heart attacks, Father Malachi Martin had this to say of such holy work:
'Every exorcism takes something out of you that cannot be put back. The demon goes, but it carries a part of you away with it. A little of the exorcist dies each time. It's a permanent mental fight against a powerful, dangerous enemy.'
Let us all remember in our daily toils and pains, which all too often render existence rather mundane, that in many places on this globe, a consecrated man enters into a very dark place, and for the sake of one who has thrown so many graces away, offers himself--trusting in God's protection--as hostage to the Devil.
Monday, April 11, 2011
No one who loves Paradise Lost has ever been able to show me any worth in that work. Was it beautifully written? Yes, and Nazis were well dressed. But poetry is meant to illumine as well as to delight, and the occasionally mad ramblings of Blake and the thoroughly bitter words of Pullman show clearly that the fruit of Milton's tree is indeed death.
There is no way of knowing if Milton would be pleased by his legacy or not. I usually respect the author's word by taking him to mean what he says; I also, as a rule, credit him with gaining the result from his readers that he intended. In Milton's case, those two things contradict one another.
Concerning what the author said, Milton hated the Roman Catholic Church. Like many Puritans, he despised her beauty, her learning, her history, and all her great works, as well as her popery and dogma. One way to discredit a thing one hates is to link it with that which everyone hates. If a roommate wishes me to stop playing Wagner in my room, then she is likely to say: 'You know he was Hitler's favourite composer, right?' And the mention of that murderer's name does make it difficult for me to roll my eyes at her lack of taste.
So if one loves heroic ideals, splendour in dress and architecture, admires personal ambition which leads to excellence, or any other thing produced from the womb of the Earth, then it isn't a horrible strategy to say such things have their roots in Hell itself.
There is one problem, Milton was so contra natura that what he called evil, any other man (without his religious bias) would call good. And these natural goods, for natural men, overpowered even the taint of diabolic association. The superbly opulent, glittering conclave of the demons in his Paradise Lost, garbed in crimson like cardinals and uttering heroic speeches, their will to strive for greatness even in the face of the impossible, even Satan's unrequited infatuation with Eve, all serve to seduce the souls reading Milton's work. I have never met a soul who did not sympathize with Prometheus against Zeus. Putting the devil in the former's place therefore does not seem like sound pedagogy for Puritan doctrine.
Perhaps this early confusion of sympathies was intended by Milton, who intended to dispel it by the coming of the angels and God, making the reader ashamed of his earlier, wordly attachment. But Milton's God is unlikable and even unimpressive. His angels are dull, promiscuous creatures (though they still manage to blush), and one finishes the book still considering Satan to be the tragic hero.
Dante showed in his immemorial poetry that the Non Serviam of Lucifer buried the rebel as a prisoner of ice in
his own Hell, drooling and munching the bodies of traitors. He is pathetic, isolated, and hateful for all eternity. The Non Serviam of Milton's Satan may have earned him banishment from Heaven, but it is the kind of noble banishment reflected in the lyrics of Bonnie Dundee:And awa tae the hills, tae the lee and the rocks
Ere I own a userper I'll couch with the fox
So tremble false whigs in the mid'st o' yer glee
For ye've no seen the last o' my bonnets and me
Like the noble Jacobites, the pious White Russians, or Joss Whedon's iron-willed Browncoats, the fallen angels of Milton may say the same of what they fought for as Malcolm Reynolds said of his cause:
'May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.'
Was Milton so obtuse concerning human nature as to believe his Satan would not be the victor in the hearts of his readers? Or was he truly, as Blake said, '...of the devil's party without knowing it'?
We have Milton then to thank for rendering that insane, baleful utterance, Non Serviam, a courageous thing to say in the eyes of those who do not adore God. Last Friday such a phrase emerged again (with cataclysmic import) in the media.
A powerful man was given the opportunity to repent for his former misdeeds, to take a stand for the weak and helpless, and to do so without losing any more face that he had already lost amongst his former admirers. He could easily have blamed a majority that forced his hand; he was not asked to perform an act of sacrificial heroism. No Calvary was waiting for him if he had done the right thing.
Instead, this vitaphobic shell of a statesman stood his ground for the most brutal evil of our 'civilized' age: the murder of a child to protect her parents' right to indulge their sexuality. While sewing his own nation's soil with salt, he simultaneously rubbed it into the wounds of those who care. The money for these murders would still come out of their hard-pressed pockets.
Of course, not being an eloquent or poetic man, the American President did not quote Lucifer at the endgame. He put it far more simply.
But when Boehner later asked for the elimination of funds for Title X -- spending for women's health and family planning organizations that also provide abortion services, the aide said the president flatly refused.http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/09/6439868-obama-to-boehner-on-title-x-cuts-nope-zero-
The president replied, "Nope. Zero."
Boehner continued to push to discuss the funds, the aide recalled.
The President repeated: "Nope. Zero."
"'John, this is it,'" the aide described the president as saying. "'This is it, John."
There was a long pause as no one spoke in the Oval Office spoke. [sic]
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- Jacobitess
- Warsaw, Poland
- Domine, spero quia mundum vicisti. Lord, I trust that Thou hast overcome the world. Panie, ufam, żeś pokonał świat.