Thursday, August 11, 2011

Pitching inside

When the Brewers play the Cards this season, there is a lot of tension to say the least. In the last series there was a well-publicized exchange of "inside pitching" involving Albert Pujolz and Ryan Braun. From what I heard, the Pujolz "inside" pitch wasn't intentional because the Brewers didn't want him on base at the time. On the other hand, Ryan Braun was hit squarely in the back, which seemed to some (like, you know, Bob Uecker), to be clearly intentional. La Russa says "Not intentional," though.

At any rate, the pitcher who hit Pujolz in the hand was clearly pitching him high and inside to spook him even if he wasn't trying to hit him.

My question: do you think pitching inside to move the batter back is ethical?

Are the sacraments magic?

One of the things that always irritated me was theologians who repeat the saying that, "the sacraments are not magic." They especially apply this to the Eucharist, emphasizing that the Consecration is not just a magic spell spoken by a magician to turn on substance into another with magical "powers," a talisman. The point seems to be that the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is not physical (accessible to the empirical sciences), but sacramental. The effect on the average believer, however, whose intellect is formed by a rationalist/materialist educational system (even at Catholic schools) is that one should put the word "real" in "real presence" in quotation marks, since in our culture the empirical is the only really real thing.

When Pope Paul VI spoke in Mysterium Fidei of the "physical" presence of Christ in the Eucharist, theologians went wild. Of course, he wasn't referring to an empirical "physical" presence, but rather physis, or nature. The fact is, the Consecration is a transformation of one (created) substance into another (divine, hypostatically united created and uncreated) substance. And it is accomplished by the utterance of an authorized representative of God (and the action of the Holy Spirit, in other words, God himself).

Still, the apparent watering-down of the "real" in real presence has not been my only objection to this statement. It was also my belief that it is really not wrong to say that the Eucharist is "magic" in the sense that it is an occurrence that is mysterious and supernatural that transcends the empirical and even the limits of created humanity, so that no theory of "symbol," no matter how accurate, can adequately explain the real presence. The Eucharist is magic in the sense that it is a numinous event; it is an exercise of divine power in our midst (the divine power is the power of love and of the cross, not of magic rings).

What helps me clarify this meaning of the word "magic" is a recent essay by John C. Wright mentioned on Mark Shea's blog. In distinguishing magic from occult in fantasy literature, Wright writes:
What is magic? We all have moments in our lives, such as meeting our true love for the first time, or seeing a beauty-haunted sunrise, or witnessing a child’s first footstep, or hearing the laughter of a young girl, or remembering a mother pulling us into her lap with a book to hear a bedtime story, or seeing a butterfly take wing in delicate splendor like a living flower, when we know, and know in a way we cannot name, that life is magical.
The springtime in the sun, the winter whiteness in the moon, everything which is not merely quotidian or dull or mundane holds a reflected glint of the silver starlight escaped of worlds beyond our own, an echo of the horns of elfland dimly blowing.
That is what the word ‘magic’ means. The real magic in real life is, at its root, a religious or mystical insight which tells us this grim world of entropy, decay, disappointment, treason, cowardice and death cannot be the whole story, the whole world there is: there is some unseen profound beneath the seen and shallow surface.
I highlighted the most important point.

This is not a power of man over the elements, but the loving, providential, supernatural power of God--the intentional immanence of the transcendent on our behalf. Magic in this sense is our memory of the mysteries which were so much more alive before the entzauberung (disenchantment) of modernity spoken of by Max Weber. That is why fantasy often relies on the medieval. We have been so conditioned by Descartes that we are like black and white t.v.s receiving blindingly color signals but unable to display them. Fortunately some writers are able to hot wire our sensitivity to "magic' in Wright's sense to help us remember that the phenomenal and the visible and the empirical is not all there is, nor is it even the most important, although it is important as a means for an incarnate being such as Man to gain access to the Invisible and, as Lewis the so-called Platonist insists, more real. Our longing for this more, this desire for the supernatural, is a constitutive part of our being--the longing Joy that Lewis mentions.

The Church insists that the invisible is more real, too, by the way. Here's a nice quote from Gaudium et Spes.
Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart,(7) awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter (GS 14)
Finally, here is what Pope Paul VI believed about the Eucharist, as expressed in his Credo of the People of God.
We believe that the Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the Sacrament of Orders, and offered by him in the name of Christ and the members of His Mystical Body, is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence.35

Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into His body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into His blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving unchanged only the properties of the bread and wine which our senses perceive. This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine,36 as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body.37

The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us.
This is the belief of the Church, to which I whole-heartedly subscribe.





Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Troll-lo-lo-lo-lo!

I noticed that a troll from The Alpha Course posted in my comments box. Alpha is a non-denominational basic Christianity course from the Evangelical Anglican tradition with charismatic leanings. It has a Catholic "version." The purpose of the trolling was to gain participation in this "Catholic" version.

I'm not in favor of using my comments box as a source of advertisement. Whatever the quality of the Alpha Course is (and I have no basis to criticize it or the faith and sincerity of those who run it), I can't say that they have endeared themselves to me by their tactics.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Alderman illustrates the Revised Roman Missal

Our friend Matt Alderman has drawn the illustrations for an edition of the Revised Roman Missal published by Liturgical Training Publications. To see examples of his work, you can click here, then click on the pen and ink illustration of the Nativity to see a slide show of some of his work.

Since I know he uses live models, I couldn't help but try to recognize some of the faces.

Nope.

Religion

Here is Clifford Geertz's definition of religion in Religion as a Cultural System, which I have just started to read:
(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.
I don't think I can argue with this. It doesn't on the face of it prejudice the question of the validity of any particular religion for or against, as far as I can tell. In other words, Catholicism can be true (even the One True Religion) and this definition can be true at the same time, because the definition doesn't address the source or authority of the system of symbols.

I'm going to finish the essay to see if his further explication seems as sympathetic as this definition. And I mean sympathetic, not neutral. There is an underlying sense (subtext) in the essay so far that metaphysics has real value.

I had never heard of Geertz before this. He is apparently very influential in the scientific study of religion.

I also like his definition of culture:
[A]n historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.
This is a very intellectual definition. Note the emphasis on concepts and meaning, rather than feeling or power.

The emphasis on concepts extends to his definition of "symbol," "any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception—the conception is the symbol's 'meaning'" Of course, a symbol can represent or express a mystery the full significance of which is beyond conception, but also not completely unavailable to conceptualization. To quote Augustine, "If you can comprehend it, it isn't God." I'm not sure yet whether Geertz allows for the transcendent mystery as the referent for "symbol," but I bet he at least leaves the door open.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Sunday morning t.v.

When I was a kid we went to Mass on Sunday morning. We also liked to watch Davey and Goliath as we got ready for Mass. Before that, however, was a program called Gospel Singing Jubilee which featured a lineup of southern gospel quartets and other singing groups (including, for instance, the Oakridge Boys!). The sound of those voices singing that theme song has lived on in my memory. I haven't heard it for probably forty years, until now when I ran across it on YouTube.
Jubilee! Jubilee!
You're invited to a Gospel Jubilee!
I always associated the show with being square and super-evangelical. The men singers had those Porter Wagner haircuts and gray suits and ties. Of course, I remember it in black and white, since we didn't have color television.

The clips I found on YouTube must be from the early seventies, which is somewhat later than when I was likely to have watched it. You can see that there was an attempt at being more "hip," with some "long" hair, side burns, and wide ties--and the funky lettering of the logo. The music is just the same, however.


The theme starts at 1:07.

Does anyone else remember this show?


In honor of the patron saint of astronomers...

...whose feast is today, I bring you the Astronomy Picture of the Day, which shows us evidence for seasonal water flows on Mars.