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| well done, citizens of the state of maine. you have defended something worth defending. thanks to your efforts, the family, for the moment, is a bit safer.
democracy: 31 (number of states who have voted not to allow gay "marriage")
homosexuality: 0 (number of states who have voted to allow gay "marriage")
s'pose the numbers speak for themselves.
only 19 states to go.. keep on goin' america!
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| that tobacco is nasty.
tried a cigar. it wasn't enjoyable in any way. didn't smell too good. didn't taste too good. was carcinogenic. there just isn't anything at all to desire about the stuff. i can't imagine why anyone would smoke it habitually. how completely retarded.
in texas, some planned parenthood director watched an ultrasound video of a baby being aborted, and subsequently resigned her office. said she experienced a spiritual conversion, and now feels free of guilt. so there you have it. abortion, like tobacco, is nasty. well.. abortion is definitely far nastier lol. at least smokers choose to kill themselves. but either way.. no good, no good.
but i have eggnog! i've met a pretty large number of people who dislike eggnog. and i don't see why. i think it's delicious. to me, it's just the cherry on top of the holiday season. it's kind of like coca-cola to me. things i drink when i need them. they're somehow reassuring. like maybe the world has problems. a lot of problems. but there's still something good in it. all the problems are so incredibly complicated. but some things are just brilliant despite being ridiculously simple. for me, one such thing is certain beverages, eggnog being one of them. not always of course. i'd never drink it in the summer. but there's a certain wintery ambiance that it just complements beautifully. so i'm glad that i have some now.
today i was able to articulate one of my beliefs. the reality of the Christian situation can be summarized as thus:
Christ has saved me, though i do not deserve it.
that's a very important sentence, i think, to take in as a whole. it seems that a great many modernists like to concentrate on only the first part of it, "Christ has saved me," paying no mind to their own personal lack of worthiness. they go around being arrogant and thinking they don't NEED to have a penitential attitude, they don't NEED to pray and ask for forgiveness or to follows the commandments of the Lord, because Christ has washed away their sins and that's all there is to it. conversely, other groups of Christians ignore the first part and remember only "i do not deserve it." they allow themselves not a drop of mirth, only constantly mourning the sinful tendency of man. they do not partake in any pleasures for fear of losing themselves to worldly vices. what's essential to remember is that both of those approaches neglect an essential half of the whole picture. it's true that we don't deserve to be saved, but we are anyway. it's true that we are saved, but we can never take that for granted. we have to always remember both sides of the coin. it's not a coin if it's missing one. you have to take both.
today we made progress. of some sort, anyway. i'm not sure what's going to happen. in fact, i'm about as clueless as possible. but today... well, something seemed good. peaceful. resolved, even. though there is still a great deal of suspension. for some reason, now there's that much less. and i'm glad of it.
the universe swirls about the earth.
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| is a completely valid Mass. it is a good thing. the Eucharist is consecrated there. God's Word is preached there. it can be done very irreverently, and it can also be done very reverently. it was never supposed to be done irreverently, but that's another story. point is, when done properly and reverently, with the proper attention to and interpretation of the rubrics, it is good.
but that being said... it's a little.. off.
i dunno. i went to my first Latin Novus Ordo yesterday for the Solemn Feast of All Saints. and they were very reverent about it. much attention paid to detail. no Communion on the hand, prayers said facing the altar and away from the people, plenty of incense. the readings were all in english. there was no modern music, it was chant (which is actually what brought me there in the first place, but that too is another story, and one i don't much feel like telling). but i still felt rather strange about the whole thing. i mean it was definitely a lot better than the english version, and i was glad to see that at least the Latin versions of the prayers are in many ways much closer to those of the Tridentine Mass. the english translation really is a pretty horrible job lol. but there was so much sitting down. so little kneeling. it was so loud. there was never any silence. even in the Latin version, done very reverently, the spirit of the Novus Ordo is just lacking something. i realize that now. and now that the Missa Cantata is gone from my parish, i realize how much it really meant to me. i realize how precious that celebration really is. and more than that, what it meant to me personally. that Mass was free from corruption. that Mass was the very embodiment of what the Roman Church really is. i need that Mass.
in other news, today in philosophy we had to write about what distinguishes humans from animals. at one time it was believed that logic was the distinguishing factor. but now we know that some animals can reason at very basic levels. they can even communicate through sounds at a very basic level. and the professor said that "there's no doubt that humans are animals."
i think it's tragic that even at a Catholic school, people think this way. it's true that a man has an animal element to his composition. but men also have souls. animals don't. men can love their Creator, whereas animals cannot even know their Creator. they cannot even imagine Him. indeed, they cannot imagine at all. there is no evidence that animals have the power of abstraction, and plenty of evidence that they do not. they draw no meaning from music. birds can sing, but they do not write songs. elephants can be trained to paint, but they do not compose their own works. and on a very shallow level, images and songs are also simply physical phenomena. the arrangement of pigment. the vibration of sound waves. but from these logically insignificant phenomena, men draw meaning. music means something to men. art means something to men. not to animals. and WHY does it mean something to men? there's no scientific explanation for it. evolution cannot explain it. there's nothing to suggest why certain songs or paintings strike up certain meanings within us. this is purely abstract; purely metaphysical. animals cannot experience it because they are only physical. they have no immortal souls. they can't understand symbols.
it really is ridiculous to suggest that humans are merely animal.
the world, myself emphatically included, needs the Tridentine Mass.
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| that the SSPX is a schismatic group. disobedient, certainly, and in some ways undesirably malicious, yes. but considering Archbishop Lefebvre's intentions, especially those which i have just described as undesirably malicious, there can be no doubt that he perceived his disobedient actions as absolutely necessary for the survival of the Catholic Faith. therefore he cannot possibly have been subject to latae sententiae excommunication. neither he, nor the Bishops he consecrated, nor any priest or laity of the SSPX are or ever have been excommunicated for their affiliation with the Society. this i believe.
i'm not sure i agree that without his actions the Catholic Church would have fallen. but i am certain that much of its priceless authenticity would have been permanently lost. i do not believe that the Tridentine Mass would be celebrated today had he not so valiantly clung to it. for this reason i am grateful for the SSPX.
May Holy Roman Church preserve us in vitam aeternam.
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| i don't know. i was doing well for a few days there.
tonight i was thirsty, so i went to walmart to buy water. cafeteria was closed so my only other option was vending machines or sink water. which wouldn't have worked too well because i didn't have a cup. so i went to walmart and got four gallons of water, a beer mug with which to drink it (because that's so much more manly than some stupid cup), some spoons, a bowl, and a box of total. man that bowl is the best $1.25 i've ever invested in dinnerware. (tonight was the only time i've ever invested in dinnerware.) it is black and kind of large and rather sturdy. such a good bowl. anyway, successful trip.
in the parking lot i was approached by a man who asked me for a ride. he was with a girl. my roommate was there also. he looked like he was in his twenties. i declined his request. he tried to persuade me. i apologized and still declined. then we started to drive back and it began to rain.
perhaps i'm too nice, but i felt bad for that guy. felt like a jerk leaving him to walk home in the rain. it's not like he had a terribly long way to go. his destination was actually on the way back. but i dunno. maybe he had a gun and wanted to steal my car or something ridiculous like that. it's not the best part of town over here, you know. seems like chances are, he really was just a typical guy, who for some reason was at walmart with his girl and did not want to have to walk home. i don't think it was unwise to refuse. but i still feel bad for him.
in other news... i ordered some latin-learning materials online. oh goody.
in more important other news, it seems like the Latin Mass near me may be close to its end. my pastor, who only says the Novus Ordo, showed up for the first time at the Latin Mass this past sunday and gave the homily. it was about the parish. talked about new buildings for the school a bit. talked about everybody within the parish getting along, basically. apparently there's been a great deal more drama than i had realized between the NO people and the TLM people. basically the pastor doesn't want to give the priest that actually says the TLM the power that he needs to celebrate it correctly. said priest has consequently requested to say only one Missa Cantata a month, and in addition will now be saying some NO Masses as well. which really upsets me a lot. a few things could come of this. the TLM may now be performed at a much lower standard most of the time, which would cause the disinterest of the parishioners and, the way i see it, ultimately the loss of the TLM at that parish. or, the parishioners could miss it so much that they would actually speak up about it, at which point the pastor would probably inform everyone's favorite priest of the situation, and he would probably in turn negotiate for more control over what goes on at the TLM. or, and this is ridiculously unlikely... things could decline a little bit when the new priest starts saying the TLM most of the time, and then it could just stay like that forever, with nobody doing anything about it but for some reason continuing to attend. i think it's a long shot to hope for something good to come of it. but hey, you never know... i'll be praying at least...
i'm coming to enjoy solitude, yet at the same time, to appreciate good company... how interesting.
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