Being in the Form of a Quest: What Is Life?

Praying for the Tragedy in New Orleans

2005-09-03T16:36:00.000+10:00

I must say that this week has been quite harrowing in terms of watching the news from New Orleans. My wife and I travelled through that region nearly twenty-five years ago and my daughters have always dreamed of visiting the "Big Easy". Our colleagues have expressed great distress at the loss of life and the degredation of so many lives. Both my wife and I work in the health field and we are concerned about the future of the people, the city and the society. Our Rosaries are always offered for our Lady's intentions and we know that her intentions include the southern United States. We pray that this situation will lead to a long term good for all the people of the United States and the world. We especially pray that the most vulnerable people in society will be valued for their own sake and the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Michael, defend us!

The image above can be found at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Thanks for Your Prayers!

2005-09-03T16:32:00.000+10:00

I would like to thank people for their prayers and concern. I am still recovering from the surgery, but things are getting better every day. This is in no small part do to your prayers and the intersession of the Venerable Edel Quinn (Legion of Mary). I had hoped to be more active earlier with my blogging. But, as ever, I have been more optimistic about what I can achieve bodily than is warranted. So, it will be a somewhat slower return to both reading and writing.

Your Prayers Are Welcome

2005-07-25T19:48:00.000+10:00

I'm afraid that work commitments and poor health will make blogging a hit or miss affair over the next few weeks. For anyone stopping by during that time, your prayers would be most welcome. I'll certainly be trying to visit my favourite sites for stimulating thoughts. And, I may get a few of my own thoughts up on the site.

Pieper and the Health Promoting Fear of the Lord

2005-07-20T05:46:00.000+10:00

I often talk with Catholics who have been infected with a strange malady. They have come to fear the fear of the Lord. They seem to avoid it in all of the conversations and, especially, their liturgical expression. If asked, they will suggest that fear and guilt are outmoded in modern religion. I often wonder if modern religion removes the fear of wild animals, such as a pride of lions, as well. Of course, there is something more fearful than lions and other wild animals--ourselves in our own pride. In any case, Josef Pieper, as usually, puts it very well:

Christian theology is far from denying the fearful element in human existence. Equally, a Christian rule of life will never teach that we should not or must not be afraid of the fear-inducing. As Christians, however, we concern ourselves with the ordo timoris, the relative importance of different kinds of fear; we reflect on what might be truly and ultimately fearful; we take care not to fear things that are not truly and ultimately fearful, and to fear things that are. The ultimate fearful reality, however, is none other than the possibility that we may sever ourselves, willingly and culpably, from the very source of our being. The possibility of incurring guilt is the ultimate existential threat for every person. It is this ever-present fearful possibility of culpabale separation from our source of being to which the fear of the Lord is the adequate response. Human guilt is the ultimate fear-inducing reality; no one could ever be prepared to accept and endure "with dignity" such a fearful thing. This dimension of fear attaches to every human existence as a very real possibility, and even the saints are no exception. No "heroism" whatsoever is able to conquer this dimension, this fear; on the contrary: such fear is the premise for all true heroism. Fear of the Lord--as real fear--must be lived and endured until the final "safety" of eternal life is reached. If courage keeps us from loving our life in such a way as to cause us to lose it--then we understand that fear of the Lord, namely, the fear of losing eternal life, is the foundation of all Christian courage. We have to realize, however, that fear of the Lord is but the lesser converse of trusting love of the Lord. St. Augustine says it: we fear what our love runs away from.

Pieper, J. (1989) "Courage Does Not Exclude Fear." Josef Pieper: An Anthology. San Francisco: Ignatius, pp 70-71.

Augustine and Thought Experiments

2005-07-19T19:04:00.000+10:00

Fr. Tom Daly, a Jesuit friend, likes to try to get people to pay attention to what is going on both around and within them. At a recent conference that had all the big commentators on thinking such as Edward De Bono, he presented a session on the science of thinking. Tom, who is eighty, with great alacrity ran the very large audience through a series of exercises--he is a Jesuit after all.

Where people had the most trouble catching on to what was going on related to paying attention to themselves. For instance, Tom might clap his hands and ask what is present when I clap my hands? Most people quickly say a clap, a sound. Someone would then correctly abstract and say, "Something heard." After that, someone was likely to suggest that hearing is present as well. I've watched Tom do this and know that it can take some time for people to catch on to the next bit. He might have to coax them, "What else is here?" "OH, someone hearing!" That last insight almost comes as a shock to many in the audience. How could they have overlooked that bit of data? There is a heard (the sensed), there is hearing (the sense) and there is someone hearing (the sense-er). There is also the known, the knowing and the knower. There is an intelligence that puts this all together and there is a judgment that affirms that this is truly the case. There is also a someone is who responsible for acting, in the most excellent manner possible, on the truth for the good of all.

Augustine in the third chapter of Book Five of his Confessions writes, "They do not know Christ, who is the Way and the Word of God, by which you created all the things which they number and count, the very men who count them, the senses by which they are aware of what they count, and the intelligence by which they count them." If people cannot realise themselves as present, it is not surprising that they cannot surmise the God who is present to all, always and everywhere. Yet, when people do realise that there is a intelligible connection between the heard, the hearing and the hearer, they often start. They express very visible signs of being startled. For some, this starts them thinking things through more thoroughly.

For instance, the following question is raised: why is it that anything that is indeed is intelligble? Or, why is it the case that anything that can be must be intelligible? If "it" lacks intelligibility, "it" is a surd. While I might think it does, in fact, a surd does not exist. Yet, "it" can diminish something that does exist. "It" can certainly diminish the intelligence of the intelligent being who believes that "it" exists when "it" does not.

I like this book in the Confessions (as well as many others). Augustine realised that the whole teaching of the Manichees was bogus because they could not get their science right. However, I don't think that Augustine fully realised what happened in his twenty-ninth year. At least his writing did not realise the fullest expression of his insights. He too quickly moved to criticising the pride of the mathematicians and scientists who had correctly calculated the movement of the stars and planets (well at least calculated well enough--more on this later). While he has a point (that I'll return to), he seems to miss a point as well.

Since they were wrong about concrete and verifiable events, he realised that the Manichees might be wrong about their more speculative assertions. Because they could not provide a coherent account of their understandings about that which is seen, the plausibility of all their assertions was called into question, if not refuted. He hoped that the highly reputed Faustus might be able to explain the discrepancies between the Manichees and the mathematicians and scientists. Faustus, for all his eloquence could not. Augustine, a man of intelligence, required an intelligent answer to the apparent lack of coherence of the Manichean system of thought. He required it because of his trust in the intellibility of the concrete reality that surrounded him as accounted for adequately by the mathematicians and "true" scientists whose books he had read as a civilised man. He was set free from the "snare" of the Manichees because no intelligent explanation could or would be given--their system was absurd.

If you cannot give a fully intelligent explanation for what I can see, how can I trust that you have a grasp of what I cannot see? That is the question addressed to the speculative theologian. It was a question that brought down a whole system of thought backed by the Church in the West. It turned the world upside down--there was truly a revolution--Christians were put in the place of the Manichees. The theologian ignores, at his or her peril, the fact of a culture where people are at leisure to pursue questions of truth to be answered by science and its methods, as well as questions of truth raised by the givenness of the Christ event. Yet, as Augustine well understood, there is a fateful question to be asked of the mathematician and the scientist: If you cannot give an intelligent explanation concerning the source of what I cannot see but can grasp with my intelligence (the intellibility of all that is), why should I accept your dismissal of an intelligent Creator?

Both scientists and theologians are people who may allow their pride to blind them to the relevant data that is given. Something can and must be done about this. But, that is a matter for other posts.

Let No Man Put Assunder: Honouring the Marriage of Aggiornamento and Ressourcement

2005-07-18T20:26:00.000+10:00

For nearly three decades, Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger balanced, or complemented each other in a remarkable and fecund manner. One was Thomistic in orientation. The other Augustinian. I believe that both orientations are important to the survival of Catholicism in our times. Or, at least Catholicism as a potent witness to the Triune God who redeems a fallen, yet still marvelous, humanity through the humility of the Incarnation and Cross, as well as the glory of a Resurrection and Ascension that climaxes in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost upon Mary, the Apostles and the other disciples gathered in prayer. We need a capacity to theologically address both the world-at-large as it explores realities unimagined by Christians a thousand years ago and the communities that continue to faithfully witness to those realities which were the "natural" habitus of such Christians and which are a sign of contradiction to the religious, moral and aesthetic waywardness of the world-at-large both within and without the contemporary Church.

While examining the development of doctrine and the Vatican Council's insistance "that every group and every period should advance in the understanding, knowledge, and wisdom, by which the doctrine with the same meaning was to apprehended ever more fully," Lonergan reaffirmed the truth of interpretation as identity and continuity. In the following quotation from Insight, the reader should note that Lonergan speaks of both the authoritative pronouncements that the faithful should subject themselves to and the "definitive pronouncements that the Church itself cannot contradict." This passage is quoted from page 740 of the Epilogue of the 1983 edition of Insight published by Darton, Longman and Todd in London:

...As true interpretations, so also Catholic teaching presents the same doctrine and the same meaning through a diversity of conceptualizations and expressions. As true interpretation has to mount to a universal viewpoint, so the Church takes advantage of the philosophia perennis and its expansion into a speculative theology. As there is a difference between interpretation adapted to particular audiences or particular times and the interpretation from the universal viewpoint, so also the Church distinguishes between authoritative pronouncements that call for dutiful submission and definitive pronouncements that the Church itself cannot contradict. As historical interpretation may be based simply on a historical sense or may operate in the light of the universal viewpoint, so too the non-theological interpreter may recapture the mentality for which the books of the Old and New Testament were written or the spirit of the age in which a heresy arose and was condemned, but the theological interpreter has to operate from the firmer and broader base that includes the theologically transformed universal viewpoint; and so it is that in a pre-eminent and unique manner the dogmatic decision is, and the technical thesis of the dogmatic theologian can be, the true interpretation of Scriptural texts, patristic teaching, and traditional utterances.

Three Hail Marys for Faith, Hope and Charity ala Lonergan

2005-07-18T19:28:00.000+10:00

While we must seek to understand and engage the realities of the world in which we live as responsible citizens with all those of good will, there is a profound sense in which something more is required of us as Catholics. While the rosary is often ignored and even mocked at times by "modern" Catholics, there is a profound wisdom that is developed by its prayful recitation in the light of both the issues of our lives and the light of the Gospel scenes that it draws upon. For the Kingdom is not ultimately of this world, or so Jesus informed Pilate. In an address that he delivered in 1966 to a meeting of the Canon Law Society of America, Lonergan offers this reflection at its conclusion:

If human historical process is such a compound of progress and decline, then its redemption would be effected by faith, hope and charity. For the evils of the situation and the enmities they engender would only be perpetuated by an even-handed justice: charity alone can wipe the slate clean. The determinism and pressures of every kind, resulting from the cumulative surd of unintelligent policies and actions, can be withstood only through a hope that is transcendent and so does not depend on any human prop. Finally, only within the context of higher truths accepted on faith can human intelligence and reasonableness be liberated from the charge of irrelevance to the realities produced by human waywardness (Insight, chap. XX).

This analysis fits in with scriptural doctrine, which understands suffering and dealth as a result of sin yet inculcates the transforming power of Christ, who in himself and in us changes suffering and death into the means of attaining resurrection and glory.

Lonergan, B. (1974) "The transition from a classicist world-view to historical-mindedness" In A Second Collection. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p 8.

Engaging the Civitas Diaboli, the Power of Evil

2005-07-16T14:28:00.000+10:00

The following is from an article written by Christoph Schonborn, O.P., when he was Auxiliary Bishop of Vienna:

It is not because of the nature of human society that conflicts between Church and world keep on erupting. Cardinal Journet speaks, with Augustine, of a third reality, of which people do not like to speak today: the civitas diaboli, the power of evil. Although no period of history has known such a massive number of external manifestations of evil as our century, an astonishing blindness exists on this topic. Here the Council speaks clearly:

A hard struggle against the powers of darkness runs through the entire history of mankind, a struggle that began already at the beginning of the world and, according to the words of the Lord (Matthew 24:13; 13:24-30, 36-43), will endure until the last day. The individual man, drawn into this struggle, must continuously struggle to take his decision in favor of the good, and it is only with great efforts, with the help of God's grace, that he can attain his own inner unity.

Let us attempt to draw some conclusions in the light of this clarification-which is certainly not comfortable, but is thereby all the more healthy.

1. It must be said, against all utopias, that there is no paradise on earth. We are here only as pilgrims; the goal of our life is not here, but "there," in God's eternal kingdom. The provisional character of all earthly realizations, even the greatest and most beautiful, is something we must never forget. Perfect justice, total peace, and completely successful identity do not exist in this life. To accept this frees politics from the compulsion to bring about the impossible by forcible means; it frees society from the penetrating critic who wants everything to be perfect, already here and now.

2. Against all resignation, however, it must also be said that (relative) joy, (relative) success, and (relative) justice can and should exist in this life. For the Christian, heaven is already on earth, in a certain sense. For where in this time, with all its provisional character, he attempts to create space for love, to lend a voice to justice, to live peace, there-even in the midst of great deficiencies and miseries-something of heaven can already be sensed on earth.

3. Against all utopias of the left, and against all resignation of the right, the Christian knows that the decisive struggle is not a class struggle nor a struggle for existence, but the continuous struggle against the power of evil, against the forces of pride, of arrogance, of hatred, through which "the prince of this world" (John 12:31) builds up his kingdom and his lordship, and which are the ultimate source of all injustice and all evil. The Gospel speaks here with an unsurpassable clarity. The victory over the power of evil can be won only through sacrifice and renunciation. No one can be spared from suffering, or from death, which sets a boundary to all our striving. If we become aware once more that we are given a short time in which to fight this struggle, and if we never forget that we are to find and to take the path to eternal life in this brief time span of our life, but can also fail to take this path or lose it, then we shall "make the best use of the time" (Ephesians 5:16), knowing how serious time is, and we shall live sober, righteous, and pious lives in the present world" (Titus 2:12).

True responsibility for life here on earth is generated only by the hope in life after death. But the opposite is likewise true: only responsibility for eternal life give the right joy in this life. Responsibility for life after death generates the genuine hope for this life here on earth. "The Hope of Heaven, the Hope of Earth," First Things (April 1995), pp 36-38

A Canticle from the Friday Morning Prayer of the Third Week

2005-07-15T11:03:00.000+10:00

LAMENT OF THE PEOPLE IN TIME OF FAMINE AND WAR

Jer. 14:17-21

Let my eyes run down with tears night and day,
and let them not cease,
for the virgin daughter of my people is smitten
with a great wound
with a very grievous blow.

If I go out into the field,
behold, those slain by the sword!
And if I enter the city,
behold, the diseases of famine!
For both prophet and priest ply
their trade through the land,
and have no knowledge.

Have you utterly rejected Judah?
Does your soul loathe Sion?
Why have you smitten us
so that there is no healing for us?

We looked for peace,
but no good came;
for a time of healing,
but behold, terror.

We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord,
and the iniquity of our fathers,
for we have sinned against you.
Do not spurn us, for your name's sake,
do not dishonour your glorious throne;
remember and do not break your covenant with us.

Is It The Fury of Some or The Faith of the Many That We Fear?

2005-07-15T10:25:00.000+10:00

With each new terrorist attack we rightly weep. We weep for the loss of life and innocence. Do we also smuggle a fear in with our weeping? Not the fear that this might happen to us or our loved ones. That seems more than reasonable. In a sense, I am not wondering if this is a fear that our way of life is threatened. I suspect that it is something deeper. Perhaps our deepest fear is not related to the fury of some. Could it be a fear that the faith of the many peaceable Muslims might expose our failures.

If we examine the situation dispassionately, we cannot fail to observe empirically western society's vast abdication of its ancestral beliefs and morals. In doing so, we may have foreclosed on our futures. It seems that this may be what the Muslim world has already observed and is now acting upon either peaceably or militantly. This appears to have been the opinion of Pope Benedict when he was interviewed by Peter Seewald in the mid-1990s:

This is actually the feeling today of the Muslim world: The Western countries are no longer capable of preaching a message of morality but have only know-how to offer the world. The Christian religion has abdicated; it really no longer exists as a religion; the Christians no longer have a morality or a faith; all that's left are a few remains of some modern ideas of enlightenment; we have the religion that stands the test.

So the Muslims now have the consciousness that in reality Islam has remained in the end as the more vigorous religion and that they have something to say to the world, indeed, are the essential religious force of the future. Before, the sharia and all those things had already left the scene, in a sense; now there is a new pride. Thus a new zest, a new intensity about wanting to live Islam has awakened. This is its great power: We have a moral message that has existed without interruption since the prophets, and we will tell the world how to live it, whereas the Christians certainly can't. We must naturally come to terms with this inner power of Islam, which facinates even academic circles. Salt of the Earth (1996) San Francisco: Ignatius Press, p 246.

Coming to terms with this inner power will require a vast examin de conscience and of consciousness by the members of western society. Fear can be the beginning wisdom. For this to be so, fear must be turned into an acceptance of the truth and the humility of repentance. Also, penance certainly will be required of us. What are we willing to give up? And, more importantly, what new ways are we willing to live with and for each other?

Who is the Real Enemy? Or, Where is Your Rosary?

2005-07-14T20:26:00.000+10:00

There used to be a comic strip in the USA that had a character called Pogo. Pogo was an alligator who lived in a swamp in the south eastern part of the States. I can only remember one cell; but, it was certainly memorable. Pogo discovers a disconcerting truth that I'll paraphrase slightly, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

I love books published by Ignatius Press. It's not just the content. The covers are glorious. They are very iconic. And, the books are very well made. But, content counts for something. I have been daydreaming through IP's latest catalogue struggling with avarice. If I had the funds, I probably wouldn't buy everthing. However, it would be a close run thing. One item that caught my eye was Fr. Jonathan Robinson's, Spiritual Combat Revisited. Let me reproduce the advertising text:

Fr. Robinson revitalizes Lorenzo Scupoli's classic, Spiritual Combat, so that contemporary Catholics can rediscover the spiritual wisdom of this rich work. Focusing on the life of prayer and personal reform and renewal, it confronts modern culture with the challenge of spiritual combat, testing the mettle of Catholics by calling us to live an interior life for and with God.

I wonder if all the folks who are fearfully looking at their neighbour for signs of danger have considered how dangerous they themselves might be? We seem worried that secularists or religious fundamentalists will dominate us and take away our way of life. Perhaps they will. If they do, it will because we failed to drill in the only form of combat that will change the face of the planet for good. I sometimes think that the tables have turned. We seem to be within our walked cities and the tribes with their trumpets are marching around our walls. We can sit and wait. Or, we can actively do something about it--we can pray and convert our own manner of living (ala St. Benedict).

I cannot resist one last quote from Dr. Alexis Carrel this week. It is from his small book on prayer that was published in English towards the end of the 1940's after his death. Another version of the material had been published in the Reader's Digest during the war in 1940.

It must be remembered, that man cannot without danger behave according to his whim. To succeed, life must be led following invariable rules which depend on its very structure. We run a grave risk when we allow to die in ourselves some fundamental activity, whether it be of the physiological, intellectual or spiritual order. For example, the neglect of the development of the muscles, of the bodily frame and of the non-rational activities of the spirit among certain intellectuals is as disastrous as the atrophy of the intelligence and of the moral sense among certain athletes. There are innumerable examples of prolific and strong families which produce only degenerates or die out, after the disappearance of ancestral beliefs and the cult of honour. We have learnt from hard experience that the loss of the moral sense and of the sense of the holy in the majority of the active elements of a nation leads to the downfall of that nation and its subjection to the foreigner...From all the evidence, the suppression of mental activities required by nature is incompatible with the fulfilment of life

In practice, the moral and religious activities are bound together. The moral sense vanishes soon after the sense of the holy. Man has not succeeded in building, as Socrates desired, a moral system independent of all religious doctrine. Societies in which the need for prayer has disappeared are generally not far from degeneracy. That is why all civilised peoples--unbelievers as well as believers--must be concerned with this grave problem of the development of every basic activity of which the human being is capable. Prayer (1949) New York: Morehouse-Gorham, pp 47-49.

Suffering is a Litmus Test for World-views

2005-07-14T12:34:00.000+10:00

One of the things that worries me about much modern spirituality both inside and outside of the Catholic tradition is the failure to take suffering seriously. It is almost completely avoided in the "new age" spiritualities that even fail to take evil into account adequately. Within the Catholic tradition it is often either evaded or trivialised. It is trivialised when it is merely turned into a "practice" or technique of personal holiness separated from our life with others. It is evaded when we fail to accept it either passively or actively. Passively, we fail to act in any manner that might cause us to suffer--even acting for the good. Actively, we spend our time and material resources cocooning ourselves from the reality of suffering and death. It shows up in our lack of concern, not only for the sufferings of others, but also for our failure to acknowledge how our fear driven habits often limit the possibilities of others living more fully human lives (e.g., fear of immigrants). Mary is there to help us. So are the other Saints. Let us imitate and call upon them. We shouldn't let the modern defection from facing suffering and death give us the false sense that this is what the faithful have always believed and done.

Here is what Pope Benedict said at a Communion and Liberation meeting in Rimini fifteen years ago:

The fortuitous majorities that may form here or there in the Church do not decide their and our path: they, the saints, are the true, the normative majority by which we orient ourselves. Let us adhere to them; they translate the divine into the human, eternity into time; they teach us what it is to be human; and they never abandon even us in our pain and solitude; indeed, they accompany us at the hour of our death.

Here we touch upon a very important point. A world-view that is incapable of giving even pain meaning and value is good for nothing. It falls short precisely at the hour of the most serious crisis of existence. Those who have nothing to say about suffering except that we must fight against it are deceiving us. It is, of course, necessary to do everything one can to lessen the suffering of the innocent and to limit pain. But there is no human life without suffering, and he who is incapable of accepting suffering is refusing himself the purifications that alone allow us to reach maturity. In communion with Christ, pain becomes meaningful, not only for myself, as a process of ablatio in which God purges me of the dross that conceals his image, but beyond me, for the whole, so that we can all say with Saint Paul: "But now I rejoice in my sufferings for you and so complete in my flesh what is still lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church" (Col 1:24). Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (1996) San Francisco: Ignatius Press, pp 154-155.

An Online Copy of the Book Mentioned in the Next Post

2005-07-11T15:33:00.000+10:00

An online copy of the book, Reflections on Life, by Alexis Carrel can be found here at Catholic Culture.

The Rev. Stanley L. Jaki has a very important paper on Carrel by way of background here.

Faultlines in France and Japan

2005-07-11T14:17:00.000+10:00

I won't go into it in detail here and now. But, I have felt for most of my adult life that, as far as any future viable civilization goes, there are two important fault lines of which we need to be cognisant . Perhaps it is just the faded memory of a potted history of Christendom centred in Charlemagne's dominion and prepared for by Julius Cesear's conquest of Gaul. Perhaps it is the monumental fact of 7 December 1941 and the plaintive singing of Madame Butterfly that has haunted my life through my earliest memories of records and conversations of parents and grandparents. In any case, it seems to me that we must explore these faultlines more adequately. They indicate tectonic plates of opposition. Are they contradictories or contraries? If contradictories, we need to choose one side or another. If contraries, we must hold the two poles in a negotated and fruitful tension. Descartes or Pascal? Frederic Le Play and Emile Durkheim? Emile Zola (right about Dreyfus and wrong about Lourdes) and/or J.K. Huysmans (wrong about Dreyfus and right about Lourdes)? I won't outline Japan at the moment. Suffice to say that I believe the faultlines of modern civilization and its choices run there as well.

In 1950, Anne Carrel published her husband's last musings in Reflexions sur la Conduite de la Vie. They were translated by Antonia White (The Hound and the Falcon: The story of reconversion to the Catholic Faith) and published by Hamish Hamilton (London) in 1952 as Reflections on Life. [The english translation of the book can be read here on line, just follow the prompts at the end of the page]. Like Fr. Giusanni (the founder of Communion and Liberation), Alexis Carrel was concerned about giving the young pathways forward in a civilization that was threatening to fall apart. I have copied Anne Carrel's introduction from pages 7 to 9 below:

THE SPIRIT bloweth where it listeth. It is folly for anyone not animated by its breath to express his thoughts in public; it is liable to result in total misunderstanding between the presumptuous person and those whom he addresses. Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to explain to men of good will the circumstances which induced Carrel to write this book.

When France was invaded, he was in New York where he had been sent on a Government Mission. Nothing forced him to return; he was among his dearest friends, those who understood this thought and admired his work.

Nevertheless, as in 1914, he felt the call of his country as imperative; he sacrificed everything to it and came back.

He wanted to find for himself what the people needed, and to remedy, with all the knowledge at his command, the defects he perceived in the young people of France, but which distance prevented him from judging accurately.

No sooner had he arrived than he became aware of the great moral, physical and physiological confusion which, combined with undernourishment, was undermining a section of the people and threatening their ruin.

After a fierce inner struggle, his mind was made up. He would not return, even temporarily, to America where it would have been easy for him to carry on with the plans for his final work. That work was the child of his thought and, thanks to the disciples whom he would have trained, should have survived him and achieved the aim he had set himself.

For him, indeed, the 'science of man' differed at all points from the classical science: each of which only envisaged one particular aspect of the human being and artificially dissected him in order to study only his component parts. Carrel's conception tended towards a total synthesis which would use all the available material and integrate it into a higher knowledge. Man was to be apprehended as a whole, in the totality of his physiological, mental and spiritual functions.

He would have wished to confide this work to a small group of men of the highest calibre who would be set apart from the ordinary contingencies of life. They would live in an atmosphere of calm which would allow them to concentrate themselves into a genuine 'collective brain'. This would have been the converging point of all the work put at his disposal by a method which Carrel described as 'collective thought'. [Bernard Lonergan has proposed a way of doing just this in his method for synthesizing 'functional specialisations'.]

As a Frenchman, it was in France that he believed he ought to attempt the realization of this plan. The 'French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems' was the preliminary sketch. With the help of young people whom he wished to train according to his methods and without taking into account the obstacles and the terrible difficulties he met at every step, he undertook this superhuman task which drove him to his death.

Although extremely depressed by the fact of the Occupation and, like all his compatriots, deprived of all comforts and weakened by undernourishment, he set himself resolutely to work. He would work with his legs wrapped in a blanket in an effort to fight the cold which he feared so much.

He hoped to live some years more in order to bring the task, whose outlines he could clearly distinguish, to fruition. God did not permit it. In spite of the moral support of friends who remained faithful to the end and who surrounded him with sincere affection, his heart was too exhausted. Mortally wounded by the calumnies of certain envious people, it could not resist the malice of those who caused his death. [General Eisenhower personally ordered the liberating troops to rescue Carrel from those who falsely accused him of being a collaborator in revenge for his principled stance during the occupation.]

He accepted it with full knowledge and with the serenity of a Christian. In his tireless activity, he had resolved to pass on his knowledge to his 'neighbour' before he died. He would have called this book The Conduct of Life.

Had he lived a few months longer, this book, begun before the war and written entirely by his own hand, would have been differently presented. [For instance, it would have probably been more clear about his acceptance of the whole of Catholic truth before his death.] It is composed of material assembled by him and destined to be sifted, polished and completed before being set out in that precise and living language of which he had the secret.

In such conditions, why let this work appear? For five years I debated the question with myself and others. I was overwhelmed with contradictory advice. But my own conclusion is that I have no right to keep his last counsels only for my personal comfort.

These last reflections, though incomplete, are addressed above all to those who wish to continue and develop the ideas sketched in these chapters. They will understand that the premature death of Alexis Carrel prevented him from giving this 'Testament' the finish to which he had accustomed us.

My hope resides in the young who were the object of his preoccupation and his affection. Some among them will feel the truth contained in these pages, unfinished as they are.

They will help them in difficult times to push open those doors behind which a useful, perhaps even a happy life awaits them. One part of his aim will have been achieved.

In this hope, I launch his 'ship' on the wide ocean, hoping that she will find a good harbour though the pilot is no longer at her helm.

'A Dieu vat...'
5th November 1949

ANNE CARREL

Celebrating St. Benedict

2005-07-11T09:20:00.000+10:00

The icon of St. Benedict can be found here.

It probably goes without saying that St. Benedict has to be one of the greatest "success" stories of the Church. Yet, he could not have known that when he began to develop a way of preferring Christ to all created things. Of course, in preferring Christ first, he found the love that allows us to encounter and embrace all of creation with tender regard and gentle action. What is absolutely astounding is that he suggested a way that was not extremist in practice. And, yet it takes us to the extreme in our lives--it leads us to holiness and peace in a person and a community. His way is about a prayerful cultivating of the humility (humus--groundedness, openness) needed to be fruitful in our obedience (attentiveness to being in both its fullness and concreteness), our stability (gathering together what should be conserved because it is determined to be really real: good, beautiful, true), and our continuous conversion of the manner of our lives (conforming ourselves as agents in the world more completely to the values of the Gospel and the person of Jesus Christ). All of this is to be done in community, in communication with and before others.

From the beginning of the Prologue of the Rule of Saint Benedict (1981, OSB, Collegeville, MN, pp 15-16):

Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up on your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.

First of all, every time you begin a good work, you must pray to him most earnestly to bring it to perfection. In his goodness, he has already counted us as his son, and therefore we should never grieve him by our evil actions. With his good gifts which are in us, we must obey him at all times that he may never become the angry father who disinherits his sons, nor the dread lord, enraged by our sins, who punishes us forever as worthless servants for refusing to follow him to glory.

Let us get up then, at long last, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep (Rom 13:11). Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts (Ps 94 [95]:8). And again: You that have ears to hear, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches (Rev 2:7). And what does he say? Come and listen to me, sons; I will teach you the fear of the Lord (Ps33[34]:12). Run while you have the light of life, that the darkness of death may not overtake you (John 12:35).

More information about the Benedictine way can be found here.

With Great Humility (Ha), I Have to Admit, The Shortest Personality Test is Pretty Spot On

2005-07-11T09:14:00.000+10:00

You are dignified, spiritual, and wise.
Always unsatisfied, you constantly try to better yourself.
You are also a seeker of knowledge and often buried in books.

You tend to be philosophical, looking for the big picture in life.
You dream of inner peace for yourself, your friends, and the world.
A good friend, you always give of yourself first.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

1. The Importance of Paying Attention Correctly, as Emphasised by Christian Meditation

2005-07-09T22:16:00.000+10:00

From Alexis Carrel (1936) Man the Unknown, p. 107:

Physiological activities must remain outside the field of consciousness. They are disturbed when we turn our attention toward them. Thus, psycho-analysis, in directing the mind of the patient upon himself, may aggravate his state of unbalance. Instead of indulging in self-analysis, it is better to escape from oneself through an effort that does not scatter the mind. When our activity is set toward a precise end, our mental and organic functions become completely harmonized. The unification of the desires, the application of the mind to a single purpose, produce a sort of inner peace. Man integrates himself by meditation, just as by action. But he should not be content with contemplating the beauty of the ocean, of the mountains, and of the clouds, the masterpieces of the artists and the poets, and the majestic constructions of philosophical thought, the mathematical formulas which express natural laws. He must also be the soul which strives to attain a moral ideal, searches for light in the darkness of this world, marches forward along the mystic way, and renounces itself in order to apprehend the invisible substratum of the universe.

Alexis Carrel (Public Domain)

Further information about Carrel, a nobel laureate in medicine (1912) and the first surgeon to successfully suture blood vessels, can be found here.

2. The Physical and Mental Effects of Christian Meditation and Contemplation

2005-07-09T22:04:00.000+10:00

From Alexis Carrel (1936) Man the Unknown, pp. 107-108:

The unification of the activities of consciousness leads to greater harmony of organic and mental functions. In the communities where moral sense and intelligence are simultaneously developed, nervous and nutritive diseases, criminality, and insanity are rare. In such groups, the individual is happier. But when psychological activities become more intense and specialized, they may bring about certain disturbances of the health. Those who pursue moral, scientific, or religious ideals do not seek physiological security or longevity. To those ideals they sacrifice themselves. It seems also that certain states of consciousness determine true pathological changes. Most of the great mystics have endured physiological and mental suffering, at least during a part of their life. Moreover, contemplation may be accompanied by nervous phenomena resembling those of hysteria and clairvoyance. In the history of the saints, one reads descriptions of ecstasies, thought transmission, visions of events happening at a distance, and even levitations. According to the testimony of their companions, several of the Christian mystics have manifested is strange phenomenon. The subject, absorbed in his prayer, totally unconscious of the outside world, gently rises above the ground. But it has not been possible so far to bring these extraordinary facts into the field of scientific observation. [They remain facts, or at least data, none the less. See, Thurston, H. (1952) The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (Edited by Crehan, J.H.), London: Burns Oates. Both Thurston and Crehan were Jesuits. ]

3. Spiritual Activities and Miraculous Anatomical/Physiological Change

2005-07-09T21:54:00.000+10:00

From Alexis Carrel (1936) Man the Unknown, pp. 108-109:

Certain spiritual activities may cause anatomical as well as functional modifications of the tissues and the organs. These organic phenomena are observed in various circumstances, among them being the state of prayer. Prayer should be understood, not as merely mechanical recitation of formulas, but as a mystical elevation, an absorption of consciousness in the contemplation of a principle both permeating and transcending our world. Such a psychological state is not intellectual. It is incomprehensible to philosophers and scientists, and inaccessible to them [as such]. But the simple seem to feel God as easily as the heat of the sun or the kindness of a friend. The prayer which is followed by organic effects is of a special nature. First, it is entirely disinterested. Man offers himself to God. He stands before Him like the canvas before the painter or the marble before the sculptor. At the same time, he asks for His grace, exposes his needs and those of his brothers in suffering. Generally, the patient who is cured is not praying for himself. But for another. Such a type of prayer demands complete renunciation--that is, a higher form of asceticism. The modest, the ignorant, and the poor are more capable of this self-denial than the rich and the intellectual. When it possesses such characteristics, prayer may set in motion a strange phenomenon, the miracle.

4. The Significance of Prayer at Lourdes--Thank you, Immaculata

2005-07-09T21:41:00.000+10:00

From Alexis Carrel (1936) Man the Unknown, pp. 109-110:

In all countries, at all times, people have believed in the existence of miracles, in the more or less rapid healing of the sick at places of pilgrimage, at certain sanctuaries [see footnote to this sentence in next post, #5]. But after the great impetus of science during the nineteenth century, such belief completely disappeared. It was generally admitted, not only that miracles did not exist, but that they could not exist. As the laws of thermodynamics make perpetual motion impossible, physiological laws oppose miracles. Such is still the attitude of most physiologists and physicians. However, in view of the facts observed during the last fifty years this attitude cannot be sustained. The most important cases of miraculous healing have been recorded by the Medical Bureau of Lourdes. Our present conception of the influence of prayer upon pathological lesions is based upon the observation of patients who have been cured almost instantaneously of various affections, such as peritoneal tuberculosis, cold abscesses, osteitis, suppurating wounds, lupus, and cancer. The process of healing changes little from one individual to another. Often, an acute pain. Then a sudden sensation of being cured. In a few seconds, a few minutes, at the most a few hours, wounds are cicatrized, pathological symptoms disappear, appetite returns. Sometimes functional disorders vanish before the anatomical lesions are repaired. The skeletal deformations of Pott's disease, the cancerous glands, may still persist two or three days after the healing of the main lesions. The miracle is chiefly characterized by an extreme acceleration of the processes of organic repair. There is no doubt that the rate of cicatrization of the anatomical defects is much greater than the normal one. The only condition indispensable to the occurrence of the phenomenon is prayer. But there is no need for the patient himself to pray, or even to have any religious faith. It is sufficient that someone around him be in a state of prayer. Such facts are of profound significance. They show the reality of certain relations, of still unknown nature, between psychological and organic processes. They prove the objective importance of the spiritual activities, which hygienists, physicians, educators, and sociologists have almost neglected to study. They open to man a new world.

5. The Scientific Salience of Lourdes--Again, thank you Immaculata

2005-07-09T21:06:00.000+10:00

From Alexis Carrel (1936) Man the Unknown, footnote, p. 109:

Miraculous cures seldom occur. Despite their small number, they prove the existence of organic and mental processes that we do not know. They show that certain mystic states, such as that of prayer, have definite effects. They are stubborn, irreducible facts, which must be taken into account. The author knows that miracles are as far from scientific orthodoxy as mysticity. The investigation of such phenomena is still more delicate than that of telepathy and clairvoyance. But science has to explore the entire field of reality. He has attempted to learn the characteristics of this mode of healing, as well as of the ordinary modes. He began this study in 1902, at a time when the documents were scarce, when it was difficult for a young doctor, and dangerous for his future career, to become interested in such a subject. To-day, any physician can observe the patients brought to Lourdes, and examine the records kept in the Medical Bureau. Lourdes is the centre of an International Medical Association, composed of many members. There is a slowly growing literature about miraculous healing. Physicians are becoming more interested in these extraordinary facts. Several cases have been reported at the Medical Society of Bordeaux by professors of the medical school of the university and other eminent physicians. The Committee on Medicine and Religion of the New York Academy of Medicine, presided over by Dr. F. Peterson, has recently sent to Lourdes one of its embers in order to begin a study of this important subject.

Alexis Carrel (Public Domain)

Further information about Carrel, a nobel laureate in medicine (1912) and the first surgeon to successfully suture blood vessels, can be found here.

This May Be Why I Live In Australia

2005-07-07T10:35:00.000+10:00

You Are 22% American

You're as American as Key Lime Tofu Pie
Otherwise known as un-American!
You belong in Cairo or Paris...
Get out fast - before you end up in Gitmo!

How American Are You?

I actually belong in Melbourne. It is the final line that I find repellent.

Please note: I've replaced the reclining young lady of the original with an image of Jesus' sermon on the mountain from this site.

Learn Your Latin Prayers Here!

2005-07-05T09:22:00.000+10:00

Michael Martin has done us all (at least those whose Latin is more than a little rusty) a great service. His

(Treasury of Latin Prayers)

is likely to be an important watering hole for many of us as Pope Benedict balances the vernacular and the ecclesial languages for mass.

Stretching Towards Being with Mary

2005-07-05T09:13:00.000+10:00

From the Pope

From the Homily of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, on May 26, 2005

“Our [Eucharistic] procession finishes in front of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in the encounter with Our Lady, called by the dear Pope John Paul II, ‘Woman of the Eucharist.’ Mary, Mother of the Lord, truly teaches us what entering into communion with Christ is: Mary offered her own flesh, her own blood to Jesus and became a living tent of the Word, allowing herself to be penetrated by his presence in body and spirit. Let us pray to her, our holy Mother, so that she may help us to open our entire being, always more, to Christ's presence; so that she may help us to follow him faithfully, day after day, on the streets of our life. Amen.”

Pope Benedict XVI

You may read the whole homily in Internet, at:

www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_XVI/homilies

The above was taken from the July Intentions and Formation material (here) for the Militia Immaculata (St. Max Kolbe).

[I love St. Mary Major! What a treasure.]

The Wisdom of Alexis Carrel on Moral Beauty

2005-07-04T18:27:00.000+10:00

Alex Carrel is likely to be referred to in my posts for the next little while. I'm reading his work careful in relation to my doctoral work. He was born in France in 1873 and died there in 1944. The years in between were remarkable for many reasons. For one thing he was a Nobel-Prize winner in medicine (1912). For another his documentation of two miracles at Lourdes decades eventually led to his return to the Catholic Church in later life. What I'm going to quote at length in this post was published in Australia in 1936. Carrel hadn't made his final reconciliation with the Church. However, he was willing to defend the quest for religious truth as strongly as he defended any other exploration for truth. For a French scientist this was dangerous, even when he was working in America.

The definition of good and evil is based both on reason and on the immemorial experience of humanity. It is related to basic necessities of individual and social life. However, it is somewhat arbitrary. But at each epoch and each country it should be very clearly defined and identical for all classes of individuals. The good is equivalent to justice, charity, beauty. The evil, to selfishness, meanness, ugliness. In modern civilization, the theoretical rules of conduct are based upon the remains of Christian morals. No one obeys them. Modern man has rejected all discipline of his appetites. However, biological and industrial morals have no practical value, because they are artificial and take into consideration only one aspect of the human being. They ignore some of our most essential activities. They do not give to man an armour strong enough to protect him against his own inherent vices.

In order to keep his mental and organic balance, man must impose upon himself an inner rule. The state can thrust legality upon people by force. But not morality. Everyone should realize the necessity of selecting the right and avoiding the wrong, of submitting himself to such necessity by an effort of his own will. The Roman Catholic Church, in its deep understanding of human psychology, has given to moral activities a far higher place than to intellectual ones. The men honoured by her above all others, are neither the leaders of nations, the men of science, nor the philosophers. They are the saints--that is, those who are virtuous in a heroic manner. When we watch the inhabitants of the new city, we fully understand the practical necessity of moral sense. Intelligence, will power, and morality are very closely related. But moral sense is more important than intelligence. When it disappears from a nation the whole social structure slowly commences to crumble away. In biological research, we have not given so far to moral activities the importance that they deserve. Moral sense must be studied in as positive a manner as intelligence. Such a study is certainly difficult. But the many aspects of this sense in individuals and groups of individuals can easily be discerned. It is also possible to analyse the physiological, psychological, and social effects of morals. Of course such researches cannot be undertaken in a laboratory. Field work is indispensable. There are still to-day many human communities which show the various characteristics of moral sense, and the results of its absence or of its presence in different degrees. Without any doubt, moral activities are located within the domain of scientific observation.

In modern civilizations individuals whose conduct is inspired by a moral ideal are very seldom encountered. However, such individuals do exist. We cannot help noticing their aspect when we meet them. Moral beauty is an exceptional and very striking phenomenon. He who has contemplated it but once never forgets its aspect. This form of beauty is far more impressive than the beauty of nature and of science. It gives to those who possess its divine gifts, a strange, an inexplicable power. It increases the strength of intellect. It establishes peace among men. Much more than science, art, and religious rites, moral beauty is the basis of civilization. (Carrel, A., 1936, Man the Unknown, Sydney: Angus and Roberson, pp 95-96.)

Stretching and Prayer

2005-07-04T12:11:00.000+10:00

Prayer is such a mysterious activity. It is both the simplest and most profound act in which we can engage. It is a deed of pure being for human beings. It is related to knowing in both the biblical and epistemological sense of that word. In one sense, knowing is achieved by truthful and intimate participation with an other. In another sense, knowing and enacting the truth is fostered through prayer to another.

Lonergan suggested that knowing and enacting the truth occurs as we attend to what is real, gain insights into the intelligibility that we attend to intellegently, reasonably evaluate our insights in the light of our fuller understanding of how things are, and enact a response to our reasonable knowledge of reality in the light of our values.

There are enablers and barriers to being attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible.

For instance, to be truly attentive requires that we be open to the whole of reality and not only the bits in which we take pleasure. This often requires courage to remain confident in our selves in the face of all others. Attending requires that we literally make a stretch (tending) beyond ourselves. For most of us, this stretching is easier if it is towards what we desire. I have watched children stretch precariously across an open space seeking to grasp something that they wanted. I have rarely seen the same effort made and the same risks taken for that which another wants.

To know requires that we first attend. But, attending requires that we first desire. Knowing arises from an eros for reality. To know fully means to desire fully. It, therefore, seems important to pray for an eros for the whole of being.

Instead, we seem to be easily satisfied with a commodifiable portion of being that is easily and compulsively grasped. We are often like monkeys grasping the morsel in a jar who, then, find themselves entrapped by their restricted desire. We seem to lack confidence in who we are as human beings. We hear the call to desire all things in Christ merely as the external want of another (partner, parent, priest, public) rather than our own deepest longing.

I pray for courage in myself and others, that we might be bold enough to desire all things in Jesus Christ who has made all things. I pray that we are bold enough to desire this One who has made all things new through an unrestricted desire for us that led Him to the Cross. I pray that we might have the largeness of heart to participate in His being stretched out on the Cross, so that we might be united in tending to one another's truest desires for the Kingdom.

The image of the crucifixion by Dionissius in the late 15th-early 16th century can be found at this site at Auburn University.

Lost in Space...A Metaphor

2005-07-03T12:02:00.000+10:00

I was talking with a colleague and friend the other day about the larger issues of culture and their influence on young people. Both of us work to try to improve the likelihood that young people at risk will stay in secondary schools to gain their education and enhance their ability to gain employment and further training. I was trying to explain, from a Catholic point of view, what the changes of the twentieth century are like for me. The metaphor that seemed to make sense to both of us was the movie, Lost in Space.

The movie was based on a television series (here) that was popular in the US in the 1960's. That series seemed to follow many of the plot lines of the B grade adventure movies of the 1950s (yes, I do have a vague memory of these). Those lines went something like this:

Someone discovers something significant that leads to an adventure. That person and their friends and associates set out on the adventure. Among the party is a finagler (fainaiguer) who really distains everyone in the group and the group as a whole. As the group moves towards the prize, something happens that distracts them. This is often a danger to one member that keeps all the members occupied while the cheater grabs the prize in triumph. The usurper spurns the group and seeks to "return" on his or her own. Invariably, the cheat discovers that he or she has needed and continues to need the group to survive, much less keep the prize. At this point, there are a number of denouements: pride prevents him or her from acceding to the group and the cheater dies, the cheater must lose the prize to be saved and the whole group loses the material prize but not the "spiritual", the prize is surrendered to the group which then often gives it back to those from whom it was taken and everyone goes free, the prize is surrendered to the group which successfully "returns" and shares the spoils, and so forth.

It seems to me that many moderns are like the finagler. They despise and disprize the past and the people of the past. They forget that they are where they are now because of the centuries of intellectual and spiritual work that has preceeded (compare Pope Benedict's discussion of the development of the concept of the person). They also despise the representatives of that continuing community. They snatch at the prize, claim it for themselves and, then, seek to "return" without the community, unless it's members are willing to become fellow finaglers. They focus on the small prize in their hands and forget the larger treasure of the community and its history, wisdom, grace and forgiveness.

To be a finagler is to seek to cheat in a game where the rules have been stated and accepted by all ostensibly. The biggest cheat is to make up the rules as you go and without reference to the history of the game. In fact, it is to insist that there is no other game around and that there never really was for the people in the know. It seems to me that this has always been the basis of heresies and schisms.

What is frightening is the dramatic cultural change that has occured over the last fifty years. In the 1950s and 1960s everyone knew that characters like Dr. Zachary Smith were evil and in the employ of the enemy. Now, with rare exception on the television, there are no real enemies except our own friends and families who unduly constrain us (and those who say that there are enemies); Dr. Zachary Smith is the enlightened one and the model for modern "self-interested" living; and, the Robinsons and Major West are a pathological social group to be gotten rid of as soon as possible lest others be infected by loyalty, courage and decency (regard for the dignity of each person, including those like Dr. Zachary Smith--well Major West wasn't perfect on this point, but at least he was willing to be persuaded by love for the others).

How Wonderful!

2005-06-29T19:37:00.000+10:00

Here is Vernon Johnson's preface (pp 9-10) to Dom Francis Izard's, OSB, The Meaning of Lourdes (see previous posting) which was published in 1938 by the Catholic Book Club of 111 Charing Cross Road (lovely spot for the romantic reader), London.

Throughout the non-Catholic world the name "Lourdes" is mainly connected with the miracles of physical healing which, for the last half century, have been repreatedly occuring in the little town which lies at the foot of the Pyrenees and is called by that name. Most of those, however, outside the Catholic Church have but a vague idea of what those miracles really consist in. The most general opinioin is that they are simply faith healing, the result of suggestion upon neurotic patients, and so forth.

This book, written by a Benedictine [go Benedict!] monk who was a member of the medical profession before he entered the Benedictine Order, should serve to dispose of the delusions. For this little book shows clearly that the miracles of Lourdes can in no wise be explained as merely functional or psychological, but are healings of organic disease which cannot be explained on any natural basis.

In any case, for the Catholic, these miracles of physical healing, wonderful as indeed they are, are by no means the main blessing that flows from the Grotto of Our Lady at Lourdes. There is something which the Church prizes infinitely more, and that is the miracles of supernatural grace which occur in the souls of those who come hoping for physical healing, but do not receive it...

...The miracle of supernatural grace is this: that souls come, weary and worn out with their pain, hardly able to make the journey because of the sufferings that it involves, often resenting their sickness and asking why God has afflicted them thus, a burden to themselves and often a burden to those who bring them.

And then they arrive at the Shrine; and there, at the Grotto of Our Lady, in company with other sick patients from other parts of the world, they receive a definite grace--a miracle of healing, not of the body, but of the soul. Their attitude towards their sickness is completely changed. Instead of resenting their affliction, they find it transformed into the greatest blessing. So far from returning disappointed and depressed at the prospect of continued suffering, they now regard their affliction as the greatest possible blessing and are over-whelmed with gratitude that they should be chosen to suffer and so to enter more intimately than any others into the passion of Our Blessed Lord and the suffering of His holy Mother.

Their pain becomes, for them, a most blessed instrument by which they can obtain graces and blessings for other souls. They learn that the apostolate of suffering is the most powerful apostolate of all.

This spiritual transformation of the soul through pain is the greatest of all the miracles that spring from Lourdes and it is the one which is least understood by the world outside [and, by we "modern" Catholics it would seem].

How Bizarre!

2005-06-29T19:30:00.000+10:00

Having just made my last quick post, I sat down to read before meditating. I had received a used book in the post today by Dom Francis Izard, OSB, The Meaning of Lourdes. I opened it up and discovered an Invoice indicating that the book had been the August 1939 selection for the Catholic Book Club. Who was the recipient? The Right Honourable J.A. Lyons, Prime Minister of Australia, The Lodge, Canberra, Australia. In fact, J.A. Lyons, a Tasmanian, had been the PM from 1932 to 1939. In case you are wondering, the book cost 2 Pounds 6 and the postage was 6 shillings...the publisher requested: Will American and Colonial members kindly remit in English sterling, and note that in many countries the postage rate is now 1 1/2 d for each 1/2 oz. (d = pence)

Still Marking Time...

2005-06-29T19:17:00.000+10:00

I am cheating right now. No, the marking is done for the day. But, I had told myself that I would have to restrict my blogging during this week. I don't want it to interfer with family and meditation time....but, I couldn't help but do a quick run through the bookmarked blogs. Looks like there will be a great deal of good reading for the holidays. Until then, Immaculata, pray for me.

Our Lady of Pertetual Help

2005-06-26T16:23:00.000+10:00

Wonderful mass today at the Cathedral. The girls and I went to the solemn mass and had a lazy lunch before heading home...we were going to see the Dutch Masters at the National Gallery...but too many people as the exihibition has just opened. We've decided to order tickets throught he mail.

One of the great things about mass at the Catheral is being able to pray before a very well written icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Her feast day is tomorrow.

Also, Fr. Paul Glynn has written a very moving book about Lourdes, Fatima and Knock. He did so with the intent of helping non-believers and "wobbly" believers accept that miracles are a sign of God's love for us and a call to holiness. It is published by the Marist Fathers here in Australia and by Ignatius Press. The title is: Healing Fire of Christ.

There are CD and cassett versions of the book as well. All three can be ordered here. Well over half a million dollars has been raised for developing countries through the sale of Fr. Glynn's books.

Hope to have a chance to post some beautiful icons of Polish saints tomorrow. They were written by Marek Czarnecki in Connecticut (spelling?).

It just depends on the marking which continues all of next week before some time off.

Oh, we looked for a copy of Shakespeare's the Tempest for Mesodotter, the costumer/set designer, at a bookshop in town. I wandered to the religious section and was at first surprised so to see the large number of books on Christianity. Then, I was heart sick. Apart from a few old standards like those by C.S. Lewis, most of the books were by "heretics" and "near-heretics" or they were yet more about Dan Brown's book. This included an "Idiots Guide to the Magdalene". I nearly wept that people can only get such crap and that any interesting idea can get into print if it will sell. Freedom is just another word for everything to lose, if you are not wiser than the charlatans.

How to Make a Good Confession

2005-06-23T07:49:00.000+10:00

A little while ago, I left a comment on another blog about a very good book relating to confession. Originally written by Fr. John A. Kane during the Second World War, it has been more recently republished in two different editions by Sophia Institute Press. The latest is titled: How to Make a Good Confession: A pocket guide to reconciliation with God.

To give some idea of the power of the writing and the passion of the author for the topic, let me provide an extended quote:

Man can, by mortal sin, also frustrate the effect of Christ's Passion and death. He can void the life of grace and all its consequences, which the Savior bought for us so dearly. The direct results of the soul's correspondence with grace are the thrilling joy and the yearning for spiritual progress, which seize the soul in the eternal embrace of divine love and make it the habitation of its God, for "if anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him" [John 14.23]. Also a result of the soul's correspondence with grace is the life of grace itself, which adorns the soul with ravishing beauty in virtue of its most intimate union with God. All this, sin blights, crushes, and stills. Sin in its deadly evil is the great enemy of the Cross of Christ, opposing the designs of His eternal pity, robbing the soul of the fruit of His sufferings, and trampling underfoot His Precious Blood...In every true penitent, as the realization of these effects deepens, the appreciation of divine forgiveness intensifies, repentance, man's real life, develops, impelling him to forsake sin and to imitate more closely Him who delivered Himself for sinners. (pp. 29-30)

Amen.

Speaking of ressourcement....

2005-06-21T17:51:00.000+10:00

Here is a very good blog resource for ressourcement: la nouvelle theologie.

"Ressourcement" and "Aggiornamento": A reflection on Lonergan's Functional Specialisations

2005-06-20T20:51:00.000+10:00

I won't have time to really explore this idea for a while. But, I wanted to start to get its "line and length" as one would say in Cricket. It occured to me the other night that Lonergan's functional specialisations (Method in Theology) lends itself to an understanding of ressourcement and aggiornamento that is rather like the idea of a dialectic of contraries (not contradictions) mentioned in an earlier post. Both are needed to correct each other. They must be held in a dynamic tension. To neglect one or the other is to drift towards inauthenticity as a person, community or society.

Lonergan developed his eight functional specialisations by reflecting on the four "levels" of consciousness that lead us to concretely knowing being and doing. They can be expressed as precepts: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable and be responsible, all the while being adventurous and open in our loving (for the Spirit has been poured out into our hearts). Lonergan recognised that these levels can be engaged from the bottom up and the top down. Creativity and differentiation move "upward". And, healing (grace) and integration move "downward".

I'll try to be a bit more concrete. On the upward side we first research the data giving it our undistracted attention. We, thereby, gain insights into the data. The various insights and interpretations will be more or less correct and reasonable people will investigate the histories of the development these interpretations to discover which demonstrate sufficient familiarity with and mastery over their subject matter to be deemed fully argued positions. But, not all positions can be accommodated authentically. Some are truly contradictory: holding to one is a denial of the other. It becomes necessary to engage in dialectics to decide responsibly for one or another. This decision will be based implicitly on our values and commitments. According to Hegel, and he showed great wisdom on this point, if we are seekers after truth, the position (higher viewpoint) we take should be able to account for those that we reject. For me, this seems to delimit, to some degree at least, the concept of ressourcement.

What, then, is aggiornamento? If ressourcement means returning to and evaluating the various sources of our present horizons, aggiornamento means taking a stand today on the values revealed in our choosing in the functional specialisation of dialectics. We make this stand to enable us to move from this time and place into the future. We move into this future, with the truth that we have recovered, for a purpose. We do so to expand the horizon of being in which we humans do what we are called to do authentically. As Christians are we not to be about our Father's business? And, is not our Father's business the glory of the Kingdom? Does not God's reign extend to all creation and are we not called to be stewards of this creation?

Then, in this day we should explicitly clarify for ourselves the values (fundamental orientation towards the good) which are to be our foundations (responsible). Upon these foundations we teach each other the truth we are discovering about being and doing today in the light of what has been (and, always will be in the three-fold Mystery). These doctrines (reasonable) will need to be woven into cogent and coherent systems of (intelligent) thought about action that can adequately inform (and, often challenge) the various other patterns of consciousness that are the fabric of our contemporary lives (aesthetic, intellectual, practical, mystical, and so forth). Finally, there is a need for communications: These systematised doctrines must be attended to and enacted by those who would live authentically both within the community of believers and beyond.

The image of Rublev's Holy Trinity can be found at this site at Auburn University.

Get on your marking!

2005-06-20T18:51:00.000+10:00

Up to my eyeballs in marking papers at the end of the semester. Two more weeks and then some holidays. It truly amazes me how some people were able to write so many thoughtful and insightful letters in the past and to maintain such marvelous journals. I wonder what John Paul's papers will reveal about his thoughts and concerns. Anyway, I just get cramps writing corrections and advice.

Yet, by the time he was executed at the age of 47, Kolbe apparently wrote 10,000 letters and energetically advanced the Lord's work through modern media and good old fashion charity. Towards the end of his life, he did it with only part of a good lung. Of course, he did it in the strength of the Lord and for the love of God and humanity. Mary was always there to support, encourage and guide him; even in death.

The image of St. Maximilian Kolbe was obtain from here. Information about his life can be found here and here. (Note the material is provided by the same person on these two sites.)

Every Picture Tells a Story, Story

2005-06-19T23:05:00.000+10:00

An artist friend of mine reproduced the San Damiano cross for the small Franciscan parish that my family was once associated with while living overseas for a few years. The reproduction was faithful in every detail to the original, except my friend had painted well known members of this parish in place of the originals. I always found that moving. I think it had something to do with the reality of the Communion of the Saints and I often think of that when praying the rosary (because a reproduction of the original hangs on our wall). Mulling over my earlier posting and acknowledging the fact that I keep tripping over St. Maximilian Kolbe everywhere I turn these days, this visual and prayer is probably an appropriate way to end the day.

PRAYER BEFORE A CRUCIFIX

St. Francis of Assisi

We adore you,
Lord Jesus Christ,
here and in all your
churches in the whole world,
and we bless you,
because by your holy cross
you have redeemed the world.

You can find an excellent commentary on the San Damiano Cross at this site which is where the image and the prayer originated.

Quo Vadis

2005-06-19T16:55:00.000+10:00

Quo Vadis

Very interesting Blog.

Foundations for living

2005-06-19T11:41:00.000+10:00

While being in the form of God,
he did not consider equality with God,
something to be grasped;
But, made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being found in human likeness.
And, being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became
obedient to death; even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him;
and, given him a name above all names.
So that, at the name of Jesus,
every knee shall bow--
in heaven, on earth and under the earth--
and every tongue confess:
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to give glory to God the Father.
Philippians 2.6-11

And, for what are the foundations? Verse five says:

Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus. (NEB).

And, verses twelve and thirteen continue:

So you too, my friends, must be obedient, as always; even more, now that I am away, than when I was with you. You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose. (NEB).

The image of the the icon, Christ's Descent into Limbo and Chosen Saints, can be found at this Auburn University site.

Why This Title for a Blog?

2005-06-18T17:09:00.000+10:00

I am amazed at how often Ratzinger's (now Pope Benedict the 16th of course) writings provide clear examples of what Lonergan and Voegelin were talking about. Others often tell me that they have come to share this view as well.

For instance, many people have trouble understanding or getting the relevance of Lonergan's use the term dialectic. At times he is talking about contradictories that require us to say yes to one or the other of two positions, but not both. At other times, he is speaking of contraries: linked but opposing tendencies that require maintaining to capture a deeper reality. To explore the growth or decline of a person, a tradition or a society, Lonergan proposed that there are three dialectics to be examined: the dialectic of the person, community and history.

Pope Benedict discusses just such a pair of opposites in his Introduction to Christianity (2004:230):

Anyone at all familiar with these two great historical forms of Christian self-comprehension will certainly not be tempted to try his hand at a simplifying synthesis. The two fundamental structural forms of "Incarnation" theology and "Cross" theology reveal polarities that cannot be surmounted and combined in a neat synthesis without the loss of the crucial points in each; they must remain present as polarities that mutually correct each other and only by complementing each other point toward the whole. Nevertheless, our reflections may perhaps have given us a glimpse of that ultimate unity which makes these polarities possible and prevents them from falling apart as contradictions. For we have found that the being of Christ ("Incarnation" theology!) is actualitas, stepping beyond oneself, the exodus of going out from self; it is, not a being that rests in itself, but the act of being sent, of being son, of serving. Conversely, this "doing" is not just "doing" but "being"; it reaches down into the depths of being and coincides with it. This being is exodus, transformation. So at this point a properly understood Christology of being and of the Incarnation must pass over into the theology of the Cross and become one with it; conversely, a theology of the Cross that gives its full measure must pass over into the Christology of the Son and of being. [Emphasis in the original.]

Hence, the title of this blog.

The Main Thing I Like About These Tests is the Pretty Pics

2005-06-18T16:57:00.000+10:00

You Are From Mercury

You are talkative, clever, and knowledgeable - and it shows.
You probably never leave home without your cell phone!
You're witty, expressive, and aware of everything going on around you.
You love learning, playing, and taking in all of what life has to offer.
Be careful not to talk your friends' ears off, and temper your need to know everything.

What Planet Are You From?

The funny thing about being an introvert is that you can learn to successfully wander through the extroverted world and, yet, still rather sit at home reading a good book while you drink your bourbon and coke. By the way, what does thinking a great date is dinner and a movie have to do with taking your cell phone with you?

Three movies about trust, betrayal and misunderstanding

2005-06-18T16:17:00.000+10:00

I was rather impressed by this adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play, Lady Windermere's Fan. We had a couple of awful moments early in the movie in terms of special effects. But, the movie turned out to be a wonderful tale filled with a very Catholic vision of life. Of course, always the memorable repartee. We all had a great dinner on the sidewalk at the European next to the Princess Theatre afterwards.

This is an oft overlooked work of Hitchcock. It is very explicitly Catholic in orientation. In fact, it had to be shot in Montreal because it required a believable Catholic worldview to hold it together. It is doubtful that the film could be remade today with the same impact. The plot line requires that the police detective act with rare scepticism regarding the veracity of the priest, the prosecutor act with great cynicism regarding to honour of the priest, and the audience's expectation that the confessional seal cannot be broken be fulfilled. How the world has changed in the last 50 years.

[Potential spoiler in the last line.] Wonderful cinematography! (Oscar nominated.) However, as my youngest (Neodotter) said, "Boy, the dialogue is pretty corny!" Yet, the story line does translate. When great evil is opposed by a collective force working for the good, the person and his or her legitimate need for love can be overlooked--the good side then becomes distorted and sterile. I've often been told that the Yin and Yang symbol, when correctly depicted, has a small drop of the opposite within each of the major lobes to remind us of this. Very non-hollywood ending, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in that regard.

So Gerald Augustinus and I have at least one thing in common beyond orthodoxy

2005-06-16T19:39:00.000+10:00

INTJ - "Mastermind". Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hang in there Gerald. If it's your calling in life, you will find a worthy wife. Proverbs 31. My wife and I have recently celebrated our 25th anniversary.

Gerald Augustinus' site is here.

I Actually Don't Think That This is Funny!

2005-06-16T19:18:00.000+10:00

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Besides making you wonder about the accuracy of the test (there is a disclaimer), the caption makes you wonder about the decency of the people who have promoted the scheme.

I guess this is the End!

2005-06-16T18:22:00.000+10:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Ok, how do I put the best spin on this? Hmmmm...
Rogue = Do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
Wanderer = The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
River of Life = The water that I shall give will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life.
Searching = Ask and it will be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you.
Shadow self = I said, "I will rise and go the rounds of the city, through the streets and the squares, seeking my true love."

International Men's Health Week

2005-06-15T16:19:00.000+10:00

I'm just taking a moment to check out the sites quickly before heading out again tonight. It's International Men's Health Week and I'm out on the circuit talking to groups across the state. It has been an interesting ten years of growth in the industry that has changed from seeing men viewed as problems to be solved to being partners in promoting values and visions that are health enhancing. Our work hasn't denied that men sometimes cause problems for others and themselves. It also recognises that they can be more or less successful in the ways that they handle their problems. But, men remain people with promise none-the-less.

The picture above is from our New South Wales mates at the Men's Health Information and Resource Centre who are hosting an International Men's Health Week page here. We are putting on the 6th National Men's Health Conference here in Melbourne in October and information about the conference can be obtained here. The National Conferences started here in Melbourne in 1995. This is the tenth anniversary celebration! The 4th National Indigenous Male Health Convention will be held the same week and we are working in partnership (WARNING: The Indigenous conference is men's business--so men only.)

My mate at Mensline, Terry Melvin, just told me last night that the Federal goverment has funded their program to the tune of $12 M (Oz) for the next four years...their motto is: No shame, no blame, no guilt trips. Given that more than 2100 Australian men are likely to commit suicide this year, it's good that there is someone there for them on the line. (www.menslineaus.org.au)

Thanks for the Handball

2005-06-15T16:11:00.000+10:00

Thanks to Being! Or Nothingness for the handball to my blog. And, for the other help as well...sorry couldn't find a copy of the book you're looking for...Abebooks (www.abebooks.com) came up with a blank for the English version.

Good News and Bad for Victorians

2005-06-13T11:48:00.000+10:00

The good news:
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, George Cardinal Pell is on the Queen's Birthday Honours List as a Victorian even though he is serving as the Archbishop of Sydney. The Rev. Tim Costello, a Baptist minister, is as well. Pity THE Magpie (Collingwood Football Club) supporter (McGuire) is there too...oh, well...it was all for a good cause.

The bad news (sort of...OK, Not!):
This is traditionally the beginning of the skiing season in Victoria. However, this year there is no snow. That's because of the rain! It has been sorely needed across the southeast of Australia (actually, throughout most of the country). There is a positive correlation between inadequate seasonal rainfall and suicides in rural Australia.

It Is Never Easy To Rise Early

2005-06-13T00:00:00.000+10:00

It's hard to get up early on most days around here.
But, holidays [Queen's Birthday] are when we are the worst for prayer. I've just got the last one home.
Great free medieval web graphics here.

When Will I Make the Call?

2005-06-12T17:21:00.000+10:00

Last year, when in Rome for a few days, I had the opportunity to make my confession at St. Peter’s Basilica on a Sunday morning. My eldest had warned me to be sure to head to the Vatican Museum first thing to beat the crowds. But, upon arriving, I felt compelled to enter the Basilica to attend Mass. However, there was the matter of reconciliation first—I had had more than a few bad thoughts (no gestures on that trip) about baggage handlers and ticket agents at that point.

After assigning my penance, the priest gently asked me to remember to pray for more priests. At first I thought he meant for Rome. Since Roman collars seemed to be in evidence everywhere, I was a little puzzled. Then, dense as I was, I realised that he was talking about the Church-at-large.

While standing for hours by myself in a very long (and, twelve-abroad) line of people hoping to see the temporal treasures of the Church for free, I kept pondering its spiritual treasures. They seemed to be as unequally distributed throughout the world as the temporal. And, I thought that probably had a great deal to do with our failure, in some countries, to take our faith seriously enough. We reap what we sow, as the Semitic saying goes.

Last night I left a comment (see below) on Amy Welborn’s site in reference to the topic of “Japanese women dancing around the tomb of Jesus Christ.” It’s not surprising that people got confused in Japan with the absence of clergy for nearly 300 years. England suffered without adequate support for a lesser time and Catholics seem to still struggle to re-establish their influence there. Then, there is the recent report from Azerbaijan of a large number of people who have waited their whole lives for the Sacraments. My earlier conclusion doesn’t seem to hold up in these cases—or, at least, so I thought at first.

At Mass this morning, the text for the Gospel (Mt.9.36-10.8) struck me and has stayed throughout the day: And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.” [My emphasis.]

The image that haunts me is this: if the people without priests today really were harassed and dejected sheep in some field, someone would have called the RSPCA* quick smart. They would have demanded that something be done immediately. Or, if the sheep were on a “live” container ship, in Australia someone would put out the call and would have organised a massive protest against such “barbarism”.

(I’m not inclined to believe that it HAS to be barbaric. But, we have had nasty cases with equipment breakdowns, and delays—in some cases caused, in part, by the protests.)

Back to my main point: I must admit that I am ashamed that my typical response to the possibility of fewer priests has been, “I can always drive a little further.” Most folks in Azerbaijan probably don’t have cars. And, I wonder why it has taken so long for “us” to get to them. The walls were torn down a long time ago.

It is, of course, quite a shock to realise that it might have something to do with my attitude. So, I have decided that I had better take Mother Theresa’s advice and change it—So, please excuse me, I’ve got a call to make.

*Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

“The Christian story in Japan is a rather tragic one and it is not surprising that there are strange mixtures of ritual and cult. For instance the 26 Urakami Martyrs (Nagasaki) were tortured to death for their faith (fostered by the Jesuits) and refusal to recant. Their families waited generations (nearly 300 years) as "hidden Christians" for the return of priests who would not be married, who would venerate Mary's statue, and who would obey "Papa-sama" in Rome. Within ninety years, the renewed Catholic community in Nagasaki would almost be wiped out and their Cathedral destroyed by the second nuclear bomb dropped on human beings. Fr. Paul Glynn who has a book at Ignatius (The Healing Fire of Christ) has written two inspiring books about these Christians: A Song for Nagasaki (with a forward by Stan Arneil a Catholic survivor of the Burma-Thailand Railway who started the community credit union movement in Oz) and The Smile of the Ragpicker. Fr. Glynn is a Marist Father as was his brother Tony. Fr. Tony Glynn did much to create a spirit of reconciliation between Japan and Australia after the war. Anthony Field (Glenn (?) of the Wiggles) plays Tony in a movie (has recommended status by the Japanese Ministry of Education) made to commemorate Tony's life and mission: The Railroad of Love.”

With Training Wheels Fastened and Pedals Pumping

2005-06-11T18:17:00.000+10:00

I have been reading a number of blogs regularly now for some time. So, I thought, "Why not have a go at this myself?" (Too much time and energy required seems a frequent sentiment.) So, here I go with training wheels fastened and pedals pumping.

I swapped out a bad power supply from my youngest daughter's computer earlier today. I substituted a long overdo replacement that had finally arrived this afternoon. So, she (the daughter) is back madly creating web-sites for her friends, manipulating digital photos for her artwork, and making documentaries for her course.

I humbly proffered a suggestion that she might host my blog on her domain. She very quietly and gently suggested that I might want to check out other options such as Blogspot. I suppose that she was seeking to avoid the intergenerational misunderstandings that often arise in such circumstances.

I learned my first non-agricultural trade by repairing electronic equipment in the Navy. Yet, that was in the dark ages before personal computers and the Internet. So, it has taken a couple of hours of fiddling around to get something organised and up. Now I feel like a young man again: All dressed up and no where to go!

Actually, I do feel like a young boy sending out his first CQ on a ham radio set. You hold your breath as you stumble over your own call sign hoping that the old hands don't laugh at your shaky hand on the telegraph key. So, here goes the first post out into the ether. Then, I'm off to do some reading and thinking while I enjoy the second half of the Queen's Birthday long weekend. (That will give the other Australians some idea of my location.)

The morning was spent in Eucharistic Adoration, prayer and browsing in the bookstore after ferrying the eldest daughter into the city for work. Her employers called and wanted her in an hour earlier than usual. The public transporation doesn't run very punctually that early and the job pays for the studio space and the bills. You can't afford to lose paid employment these days. I had an early lunch at a great little Italian cafe with the middle daughter and one of her friends as they took a break from their theatre work.

My wife has been out with her sister for the day at a rally for the refugees and mandatory detainees. She had shown me the Amnesty International newsletter announcing the death of its founder, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Apparently, his religious beliefs and background were not mentioned. It is so easy to forget how things, good and bad, begin.

Rehabilitating our memories seems to be important for being truly ourselves with others. Yet, as our recent Journey of Healing activities in the community remind us, this is not easy. Some hurts don't go away quickly. Instead, they just go deep down into the dark recesses of our souls. There truly be monsters there.

For those of you outside of Oz, some leaders in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have suggested we change National Sorry Day to Journey of Healing to commemorate the Stolen Generations. This refers to the children forcibly taken from their families and raised in white households from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Of course, some folks don't think that this ever happened. The rest of us just wish it hadn't. We are sorry that it did. Just as we are sorry for the loss of life in the First World War and the captivity and death of so many service men and women in the Second World War.

Oddly, when the prisoners of war from Changi and the Burma-Thailand Railway (and elsewhere) returned, they were told, "Best you forget." Act like it didn't happen; certainly, never talk about it. The terrible toll that that advice has caused in terms of loss of health and well-being among the service personnel, their children and even their grandchildren has been well documented by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

It's important for the generations to be able to remember together lest they fall apart alone.