Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 305

The Failures of Newman

Fr Peter Cornwell was the vicar of St Mary's--the University Church at Oxford during my time there. He resigned, like Newman before him, to become a Catholic, and was one of the first married former Anglican priests in England.



Cornwell writes here on the failures and disappointments that Newman experienced in the Catholic Church. If you are not at once thrilled with the Catholic Church and find it all heavy going and difficult. Take heart. The great Newman was misunderstood, blocked, ostracized and undermined whenever he tried to do anything in the Catholic Church.



So take heart. What did you expect--a bed of roses or a crown of thorns?

New Feature

I am gradually combining some of the features of my website with this blog. One of the features is my articles archive. A list in the left sidebar will categorize the articles, and when you click on the title you will be taken to a new page with a list of articles.



Most of the articles will be free, some will be longer articles which were chapters in books to which I contributed. Others will be shorter articles bundled together to make a longer, unified piece which you will be able to download as a .pdf file for a small fee.



Think of them as 1. a short free article 2. an inexpensive pamphlet 4. a slightly more expensive booklet.



All of them are available for you to copy, duplicate, re-post and share.



The first category of articles is now posted: My Conversion Stories.

Money and Sex

That headline got your attention didn't it?



This week we have witnessed jubilation in pro life ranks about Komen's decision to withdraw funding from Planned Parenthood. Then jubilation turned to lamentation when Komen seemed to reverse their decision. Now there is recrimination, bitter and angry words being dished out towards Planned Parenthood and the liberals in the media and politics who seem to have pressured Komen to reverse their decision.



Planned Parenthood and their supporters are being blamed for a 'mafia like shakedown' of Komen. The politicians behind Planned Parenthood are being blamed for pressuring Komen. The pro aborts are accused of lying and scheming and planning to close Komen down for good.



Much talk on both sides has been blathered about "saving women's lives", "women's health", "serving women and curing breast cancer."



Fuhgeddaboudit. It's about money and sex. Lots of money and lots of sex.



If it was about saving women's lives, then we would all listen to the increasing voices reminding us that birth control pills cause breast cancer and we'd stop prescribing birth control pills. But if we stopped prescribing birth control pills we would not be able to have "free love" any more. Furthermore, the hugely profitable business of supplying birth control pills would take a hit.



So much talk about saving women's lives, but if we wanted to save women's lives and improve women's health we would stop abortion because abortion hurts women physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. But if we stopped abortion we would not have the solution to our "free love" when the contraception doesn't work. Furthermore, abortion is big business. There are lots of people employed in the abortion industry. They'd lose their jobs and their incomes.



Has anyone also noticed how much money is involved in the "women's health charities"? Millions of dollars flow in and around and through both Komen and Planned Parenthood. Charity is big business, and it's hard work getting all those donations, all that government funding, and keeping the money flowing. Politicians have to be lobbied. Fat cats have to be schmoozed. Expensive publicity campaigns have to be undertaken. Expensive fund raising events have to be organized. There are plenty of jobs in the charitable industry, and plenty of people who want to build a safe barn for their cash cow.



Now don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of saving women's lives and improving women's health. But that is not the real priority for the worldlings. The first priority is to get as much sex and money as possible as soon as possible and to keep both as long as possible. Every technology and propaganda tool will be used to 'correct' any problems (like a pregnancy, an unwanted marriage or a sexually transmitted disease) that come from the indulgence in sex and hoarding of money. Every power, position and force will be used to preserve the flow of money and sex, and any person or movement that threatens either the money or the sex will be met with all the snarling fury of a cornered beast.



The "women's health" racket is just that--a racket. I reckon the best way to improve women's lives is to encourage the family. The woman's life I want to improve the most is the life of my wife, my mother, my sister, my daughter and their friends. Not only do I want to improve their life materially, and look after their health and welfare with them, but I want them to improve their lives and health and welfare. The first way to encourage the family is to encourage men to take responsibility for their actions, and to work with the woman they love to build a solid family unit which gives the woman and her children the health, welfare, security and happiness they need.



The other way to improve women's lives and women's health is to encourage chastity--and by this I don't mean to blame women for promiscuity. It takes two to tango. If men and women were committed to life long faithfulness in marriage and no sex outside marriage, then the health, welfare, self esteem and happiness of women would take a quantum leap forward.



But all of this would mean that we would all have to put up with having less money and less sex. We'd have to be monogamous and faithful and self disciplined. Men would have to respect and honor women for more than just sex. Women would have to learn to please men in other ways than just flopping down to give them sex. Both men and women would have to learn how to behave with self control, dignity and self respect. Marriage takes hard work. We would have to learn more about love and less about sex. We'd have to learn how to make sacrifices and live for someone other than ourselves.



If we did this, then both men and women would be happier and healthier-- and in the long run they'd probably also have more money and a better sex life.

Two Articles Elsewhere

You may have noticed that this week my blogging is somewhat sporadic. That's because I am guest blogger for the Anchoress. I'm also asked increasingly for articles for other websites and blogs. So I am churning out the stuff. It's just being spread a bit more thinly.



So...knowing how you just long to hang on every word that comes out of my tapping fingers, check out this new piece for Crisis. Falling for Lotso criticizes our love affair with everything plastic, and  here is a piece for Integrated Catholic Life on the healing rosary. Enjoy!

Song for Simeon

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and
The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;
The stubborn season has made stand.
My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.
Dust in sunlight and memory in corners
Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have taken and given honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.

Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children's children
When the time of sorrow is come ?
They will take to the goat's path, and the fox's home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel's consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word,
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints' stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.

(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
Let thy servant depart,
Having seen thy salvation.




by T.S.Eliot

The Crescat on Hugging Nuns

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The Current State of the CofE

The Daily Telegraph reports here on the controversies facing the Church of England. Read it here.[image error]

Mrs Brady on Monasteries

Ricky you must be exhausted! Digging so many holes to plant my azaleas! Why don't you come up on the porch and have a couple of hot dogs? I put some of my home made chili on top and there's some baked beans I've had in the crock pot all morning. There, now you just sit down and I'll bring you some iced tea. Pull the table out. Gus--shoo! I declare, that cat will just climb up anywhere! When you want him he won't come. When you don't want him he just hangs around being a nuisance.



Here you are. There's more where that came from if you're hungry. I know what you mean dear about the monks at the Abbey. I'm so glad you went there for a visit, but I never thought you'd go back so often! I'm so pleased you like it there. Isn't Father Joe something? Eighty three and still going strong. Of course it's fine to talk to me about your future. You're a junior in college. If you're not thinking and worrying about your future you ought to be, and let me tell you. The fact that you don't know what you should do with your life is a good sign. I'm always rather worried about those boys who go off to college to get a business degree and never give anything else a second thought. They end up living an unexamined life and then after they've been successful and got everything they think they wanted they go crazy and run off with some silly blonde and get a wig and a sports car. Never mind. We won't think about them.



I think you might have a vocation, and why be ashamed of it? If I were your age and a boy I'd be very attracted to the monastery. My Henry was you know. He was much like you. Loved reading and being quiet. Why, when Henry first came back from the monastery he was just beside himself with excitment. I remember him joking about the silence saying, "Mother, I can't think of anything better than to have my own room, a big library, a nice church to worship in and think of it! They actually don't want me to do small talk!"



You're like that aren't you? It's alright to be that way. Henry would have made a good monk. Well, he never made it you know? God had other plans for Henry. I'll tell you all about it one day, but it was very sad, and I was just beside myself when I got the news. It was a dark time, but I pulled through. That's the way it is when you have faith. God doesn't always take you out of the problems, but he always take you through them.



I think you should give it a try Ricky. Go to the monastery and see that they make of you. Don't worry about loving it too much. If it seems attractive to you, then God is drawing you. He doesn't call you to do something you don't want to do--not at first anyway. It's like marriage. Don't get married if you don't want to, but if you want to get married and do get married, then there will be a time when you wished you hadn't.



I expect it's the same in the monastery. You want to do it, then once you've done it you wished you hadn't, and that's when the real fun begins. You know what Fr. Joe says, "We don't call it the monastery. We call it the moanastery..." But he doesn't really mean it. He loves being a monk, and if you go over there he'll look after you I'm sure.



Now, let's not talk anymore about it. There's work to be done here, and when you're finished I'll drive you back to the college, and I don't know about you, but I'll be ready for a strawberry milkshake and the drive in on the way back...[image error]

Wasps Chalices and Pesky Critters

Here's a post about what the priest should do if a nasty stinging insect flies into the chalice after the consecration...

Monks and Nuns in the Temple?

Who were Simeon and Anna--the old folks in the temple? Jump over the The Anchoress where I'm guest blogging this week to read some fascinating speculation about who they were.