Matthew Monday: Accommodating the Plague

Just as everyone in the whole world, we have been forced to accommodate to the coronavirus that has permeated the entire world.  One of these days we’ll get the true story of what happened in China to start this monstrosity, but the world has now had to live with a lot of trouble and sorrow.  Frankly, and I hope this isn’t too political, President Trump has done a superb job in containing the situation, coordinating the resources of the country to combat it, and rallying the country to fight it.  I’ll also put in a good word for New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who I really don’t care for.  But he’s done a good job too.

Now two or three weeks into the infiltration of the United States, New York City has become the epicenter for the country.  We’re currently somewhere around 40,000 people testing positive and about a 1000 deaths here to date, and the full brunt of this is still a couple of weeks away.  Everything is shut down.  Grocery stores are about the only thing open.  Matthew has been “teleschooling” for the past three weeks, and I have been teleworking for the past two.  For me it hasn’t been too difficult.  I have email and we have teleconferences where we’re all hooked up by our cell phones.  Some things require a physical get-together but we just put those things off until there is a day we can finally meet in person.  As I’ve been saying, schedules are the same for everybody and are of a secondary concern.  The whole world has slipped schedule. 

I’ve been doing most of the shopping both for us and my mother.  Except for a doctor’s appointment, my mother has been banished to the home.  She is not allowed out.  I wore a mask and nursing gloves to go shopping the other day for the first time in my life.  I used to make fun of people who did that until now.  NYC is the epicenter as you may have heard.  But what you may not have heard, Staten Island, which is the part of NYC that I live in, has the second highest infect rate in the country.  Strangely enough New Orleans has the highest.

Matthew seems to have thrived under these conditions.  He gets assignments from his teacher the evening before.  He reads and hands in responses to the assignments the next morning.  He tells me to wake him before 8 AM.  We go to “work” together, me in my study, he at the dining room table.  He sits in front of his Chrome Book with his school books on the side and does his assignments.  He scoring the best grades of the year on his tests.  On one of his math tests he got 36/36 correct.  He’s gotten really good grades on his other tests too.  The lesson I take away from this is that he does better without the socializing.  He’s such a gregarious kid that his fraternizing makes him lose focus.  Here’s a picture of him at the dining room table.

Thank God we got him that Chrome Book for Christmas.  He wanted one and it was truly an inspiration.

All in all it feels like we're in a horror movie.  I keep waiting for the walking dead to ring the doorbell. 

Keep safe.  Our hospitals are packed.  Right now the heroes are the doctors and nurses fighting to save the lives of those in emergency rooms and ICU. From what I’m reading it’s really hell here in the NY hospitals right now. That’s not to say that it’s not bad elsewhere.  It's bad out there and we're heading into the peak of the situation. 

Lord save us from this plague.  Now we can all say we lived through a Biblical plague.  ;)

Faith Filled Friday: Love is Had Only by Loving by St. Catherine of Siena

This is from a letter of St. Catherine’s as quoted in the March 2020 edition of Magnificat.  It is taken from Susan Noffke’s translation, Volume 1, but I do not know who St. Catherine is addressing.  The bold are my editorial addition to highlight key sentences.

In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and of gentle Mary.  I Caterina, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, am writing to you in his precious blood.  I long to see you clothed in the garment of blazing charity…But you will say to me, “Since I have no such love, and without it I am powerless, how can I get it?”  I will tell you.  Love is had only by loving.  If you want love, you must begin by loving.  Once you want it, you must open the eye of your understanding to see where and how love is to be found.  And you will find it within your very self.  How?  When you recognize your nothingness.  And once you see that of yourself you do not even exist, you will recognize and appreciate that God is the source of your existence and of every favor above and beyond that existence—God’s graces and gifts both temporal and spiritual.  So everything we have, everything we discover within ourselves, is indeed the gift of God’s boundless goodness and charity. 

This discovery and sight of our Creator’s tremendous goodness to us makes us rise to such growth of love and desire that we count as nothing ourselves and the world and all the world’s pleasures.  This doesn’t surprise me, because this is love’s way, that when we see ourselves loved we love in return.  And because we love, we would rather die than offend the one we love.  We are fed in love’s fire because we realize how loved we are when we see that we ourselves were the soil and the rock that held the standard of the most holy cross.  For you know very well that neither earth nor rock could have held the cross, nor could cross or nails have held God’s Only Begotten Son, had not love held him fast.  So God’s love for our souls was the rock and the nails that held him fast.

There’s an intentional circularity I think in her thought here.  We exist only because of God’s love, and through that love, love dwells in us, and that love for us is what made God sacrifice His only son, and that sacrifice on Calvary could exist because love was in us to love Him back.  In engineering we call this a feedback loop.  God loves us, we love God, and love magnifies, not diminishes.  

Gospel of John, Part 1

We are reading the Gospel of John at the Catholic Thought Book Club at Goodreads and these are my posts and comments.

For me the Gospel of John is so magnificent I don’t know where to start with my comments. I could spend a week with every chapter, so I can’t imagine I will not get all my thoughts in.

A number of things can be pointed out up front. As everyone probably knows, John’s Gospel is different from the other three. The other three are called the Synoptic Gospels because of their similarity. In one way or another, either from deriving from each other or from shared material (I believe more from shared material than each other) the other three incorporate very similar material but more importantly have a very similar narrative structure. Their narrative structure is a slow unfolding of the nature of Christ as Christ and His disciples progress to the crucifixion. The synoptics, outside of the infancy narratives, have a one’s year time for the narrative to complete.

The Gospel of John, on the other hand, takes three years’ time from Jesus’ ministry to the crucifixion, and he goes back and forth from Jerusalem to the Galilee or the general north. And while in the synotptics there is a gradual unfolding of Christ as Son of God, in John it is told up front and repeated in different variations throughout. In the opening line we are told that Jesus is God and He was there from the beginning of time. I’ll get to that amazing prologue in a bit, but with John there is no initial ambiguity. It doesn’t climax to an awareness. If you consider narrative point of view, the synoptics look at Jesus from the apostles’ point of view, and their ignorance is illumined as time goes on. The point of view in John is from a narrator who is fully knowledgeable of Christ’s identity. It is still an apostle relating the story, but the story is filled in with revelation that came afterward. The story is told from a man who knew Jesus, may not have been fully aware of His nature at the time Jesus was with them bodily, but has had time to reflect and understand and indeed perhaps receive divine inspiration who Christ is.

And so John’s Gospel is not constructed so much a narrative but as a lyric poem. Each stanza is an enlightenment rather than a progression. Other than the climatic crucifixion, there is no reason why one incident comes before another. There is no reason why the Nicodemus exchange comes before the lady at the well exchange or either comes for the raising of Lazarus incident. Each chapter in John is a sort of stanza in a poem which can be reordered because it’s lyrical and not narrative, that is held together by sequence of time.

This raises an interesting question. Was John aware of the other Gospels before he wrote his? I can see an argument for either. We know indisputably John came after the other three. We know the other three relied on similar source material and perhaps each other, though we can argue as to who came first. But why wouldn’t John also have that same source material or even the other Gospels? Why are there no parables in John’s Gospel, especially since the parables seem to be Christ’s very teaching method? Why does John expand the ministry to three years—which seems so much more realistic to me—than consolidate into one year? Why does John skip the infancy narrative but locates Christ’s origin to God’s eternity? One could argue that all of these points lead one to John working independent of the synoptics, but one could also argue that because John is so different and that surely he would have known something of the synoptic material that he is consciously writing to be different than the synoptics. I could see John saying that the story in the synpotics has been done but I have something more to say. I think this is where I fall on this.

So if it’s not narrative that holds Johns’ Gospel to a form, then what holds it? The short answer is revelatory incidents, which culminate into the “signs” of Jesus’ divinity, discourse, which explains the theological point of the signs, and interweaving imagery that crystalizes Christ’s divine nature. There are rhetorical flourishes such as the “I am” statements which repeat to provide lyrical form. For me John’s Gospel is a masterpiece in writing. It’s my favorite of the Gospels.

Madeleine Commented:

I think, for me anyway, the major difference between John and the rest is John's special relationship with Jesus, a deep transcendent friendship that while Peter openly recognized Jesus' divinity in that passage we read on Matthew, John seems to have been in on it all along. I think John was the most mystically inclined, and the one who received the vision in Revelations. He refers to himself as "the one who Jesus loved"--a strange phrase because we know he loved them all, even Judas, And he was the only one of the twelve who follows the way of the cross all the way to the end, along with the two Marys and other women mentioned, the only one who was not martyred, perhaps for that reason.

My Reply:

There is a special relationship between John and Jesus. I'm going to try to focus and identify what the nature is of that relationship. You think John knows all along of Christ's divinity? I don't think we get a moment of epiphany, so there has to be a point where it dawns on John. My gut feel right now is that John realizes Christ's nature in retrospect. Certainly after the resurrection.

I should point out that John's Gospel was probably written some fifty or more years after the crucifixion. John has had a lot of time to think it through and perhaps even receive personal revelation.

Kerstin commented:

Manny wrote: "I could see John saying that the story in the synpotics has been done but I have something more to say. I think this is where I fall on this."

Me too. John probably understood Jesus on a more intuitive level than the other apostles we have writings of.

My Reply:

Also, I don't know if it's me, but I sense a certain rancor against the other apostles. Perhaps rancor is too strong a word. Maybe a slight grudge. John seems to be excluded by the Peter and Paul in the building of the Church. Except for a brief reference at the beginning of Acts of the Apostles he disappears. Did he go his own way? Or was he ignored? The other apostles also mostly disappear too but John was central in Jesus' ministry. He was the one who didn't abandon Christ. He was the one Christ handed His mother over to. He was the "beloved" disciple. And yet he fades away after Pentecost. While he gives Peter the privilege of primary, he does seem to poke at him in this Gospel. We'll see as Peter comes up.

Music Tuesday: St. Patrick's Breastplate

I haven’t had a Music Tuesday post in a while.  What better day than today, March 17^th, St. Patrick’s Day, to post a musical version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate.  Whether St. Patrick actually wrote it, I’m not exactly sure, but it goes back deep into Irish roots. 

First here’s the prayer:

St. Patrick's Breastplate.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

of the Creator of creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,

Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,

Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,

Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of cherubim,

In the obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In the prayers of patriarchs,

In the predictions of prophets,

In the preaching of apostles,

In the faith of confessors,

In the innocence of holy virgins,

In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through

The strength of heaven,

The light of the sun,

The radiance of the moon,

The splendor of fire,

The speed of lightning,

The swiftness of wind,

The depth of the sea,

The stability of the earth,

The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through

God's strength to pilot me,

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptation of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

afar and near.

I summon today

All these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel and merciless power

that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul;

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

We should add "Christ to shield me today against unseen viruses."

Here’s a musical version by David Ruis.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  

2020 Plans

The first quarter is almost over and I haven’t even laid out my reading plans for the year.  Let me quickly outline them.

Like last year I’m going to remain humble and not get too wrapped up in plans I cannot fulfill.  The long term read selected for the Catholic Thought Book Club is St. Augustine’s City of God.  A long term read is one in which we select a large book, one that will be too tiresome in one straight through read, break it up into manageable parts, read a part, go on to other reads, return to that read for another part, and repeat that until it is finished.  We have already read the first quarter of City of God, chapters one through five.

Our next read will be St, Frances de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life.  Beyond that, I have no idea what will be nominated and selected.  All I can estimate is that the book club will read at least another three books before the year is out.

My parish book club is reading Bishop Robert Barron’s Catholicism.  We will finish that up in the spring and we will select another book for the fall.

I would like to read St. Catherine of Siena’s Catholic classic, The Dialogue.  I am currently reading and should finish this year, The Divine Office for Dodos by Madeline Pecora Nugent to fully understand how to pray the Divine Office.

The secular books I plan to read will be the fourth book of Ford Madox Ford’s Last Post, which is the fourth book from his tetralogy, Parade’s End.  I have read the other three works, one book per year.  I will finally complete the series.  I plan to read Stendhal’s novel The Red and the Black and D.H. Lawrence’s novella.  I have started and plan to complete Rod Dreher’s personal memoir, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem. 

I plan to continue to read through the Bible.  The Old Testament books up next are Baruch, Ezekiel, and Daniel.  From the New Testament all I have left is Revelation.  I plan to read Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation in both the King James Version (KJV) and the Revised Standard Version (RSV) translations.  The Book of Baruch is not included in Protestant Bibles.  To supplement my understanding of Revelations, I plan to read Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: Revelation by Peter S. Williamson.

I will continue to try to read two short works per month, and read the next novel in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, Prince Caspian.

Notable Quote: On the Love of Books

“Aren’t we blessed, we who love books?”

―Frances Maureen Richardson

First of all, you’re probably wondering who is Frances Maureen Richardson?  I would be shocked if you had heard of her.  She’s a friend of mine, a woman in my book club, and a woman who in her senior years wrote and published her first and only novel.  The novel is called Not All of Me is Dust.  It’s really a fine novel.  Twenty reviews on Amazon and all gave it five stars, and other than a couple of friends she has no idea who those reviewers are.  You can read about her book here.  

Second, I was searching for a quote on the love of books, and I could do no better than her quote.  I have about a nine quotes on my Goodreads page on the love of books, and Frances’ quote stands out.  I was the one who actually identified it as a quote.  We were going back and forth discussing a particular book—I don’t even recall which one—and in the joy of discussion she blurted it out.  I seem to have an ear for picking up memorable quotes.  I spent years rummaging through Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations before the internet existed, and I think you develop an ear for what makes a good quote.  Do people still have Bartlett’s on their bookshelves any longer? 

The moment Frances put that quote down I knew it was memorable.  I instantly uploaded into the Goodreads quotes data base and selected it to put on my quotes page.  For those not familiar with Goodreads, each member gets to have a personal Quotes page of meaningful quotes.  A list of personal favorite quotes really explains a person’s interest, characterizes their life in a particular way, helps define their identity.  Out of the sixty-one quotes on My Quotes page, a nine deal with reading.  So I wanted to take one to post on.  

Here are the other quotes on reading I have identified:

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” -Earnest Hemingway

 “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”  -Marcus Tullius Cicero

That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death!  Listen to them!” -Connie Willis

A good book is an event in my life.” -Stendhal

 “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” -Jorge Luis Borges

 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Jane Austen

 “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”  -J.D. Salinger

 “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”  -Mortimer J. Adler

###

I would have to say that a good deal of my life revolves around reading books.  Why is that?  After all I’m busy as heck.  I’m a full time engineer, I have a family with a ten year old son, I chauffeur my eighty-six year old mother around, I have a house that requires repairs, and yet I spend hours and hours reading.  The quotes I posted above hint at this.  Reading is a sort of joy, an experience in itself, one that might reshape your life, a connection—emotional, mental, spiritual—that one makes with an author, or with a time and place, or with an entire culture and civilization.  One is absorbed metaphysically into a story, into a situation, into characters, into values, into their problems and challenges and muddles and dilemmas and afflictions.  We are transferred into a different journey and existence.  How much poorer we would be without reading, at least for me. 

So all of my quotes above are profound in their own way.  But Frances’ quote sums it all up.  I am blessed to love reading and to love books.  There is no better way to say it.

How about you?  Is there a particular quote on books or reading that you think worthy?  Perhaps I can add it to my quotes page.