THIS IS A WARNING

THIS BLOG HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LINKED TO BY A PORN SITE.

No, I don't know why. Nor do I know what to do about it. But if you see any links from "topblogstories.com," AVOID

Of Learning Latin

First off, Happy Mother's Day!


One of my nerdy things is that I love the Latin language. Lingua magna est! I know, I know, I should be studying my Church Slavonic and Greek, but there's something about Latin.

So, without further ado, let me propose a few reasons why everyone should at least learn some Latin:

1. It's the base for several important languages. Spanish and French derive from Latin. English actually doesn't but it's heavily influenced by Latin. So, it's not too too unfamiliar and could be a base for learning the other Romance languages.
2. It's easier than Greek. Latin nouns do this thing called decline, meaning that they change their endings based on their role in the sentence. Greek nouns also do this, but their article (in Greek the only article is the) also declines and there are three accent marks and two breathing marks to keep track of. Latin has no articles or accent marks or breathing marks. Although textbooks seem to tend to include a macron (the bar over a letter (e.g. ā) which indicates that the letter ought to be pronounced long) to help with learning, the macra don't need to be there. Furthermore, Latin is an easy introduction to the idea of principle parts of verbs (but those require an explanation I don't have time or space for).
3. Latin was, for a time, the language of the Byzantine Empire. It was also the language of the Roman Empire, so it's both a language of the classical time and of Christendom. You can read stuff from thousands of years just by studying Latin.
4. Latin is NOT a dead language... or if it is, it's not long-dead. Part of my Latin final this past semester was translating stuff written by C.S. Lewis to St. Don Calabria in the mid-20th century. It's also making a comeback in the Latin Rite.

There are other reasons for learning Latin, but I needed a quick blog post so here it is.

Just a Story I Was Writing

This is a story I was playing around with a little bit ago. I'm not sure who they are, but I'm pretty sure the characters are on the run from some evil, anti-Christian organization in a time when Christianity is so diminished that they haven't even bothered illegalizing it. Unsure where the story is going? So am I.

    "Eek!" A high-pitched shriek of disgust rent the air in the small breakfast room. A woman pointed at a table. Similar cries of outrage and shock were uttered as people turned to look at the two culprits.
    "Disgusting!" a man shouted.
    "And to think, in front of the children!" a woman exclaimed.
    "Things like this ought to be made illegal!" came the cry.
    "And in this day and age too!"
    You can imagine the rest.
    John looked at Tony.
    "Guess it's time to bail," he said.
    "You got it," Tony replied. They grabbed the free hotel muffins they had been eating (why, I have no idea; they're like styrofoam, thought John) and hurried onto the staircase, away from all the people freaking out.
They were going to need to get out of there pretty quickly now that a fuss had been made. They always managed to show up pretty quickly afterwards. John, Tony, and Rick weren't entirely sure who they were, but they knew that their masked pursuers disliked Christians in general and them in particular even less than most people. So they were on the run. They'd been pretty sure that out here in the California backwoods they'd be able to at least get a couple days' break, but that obviously didn't happen.
    When they arrived, panting, at the thirteenth floor, John knocked on the door. It was immediately opened.
    "Aww, come on," he complained to Rick, the doorkeeper. "Why didn't you demand identification? For all you know, I was one of them."
    "I doubt that they'd knock in tone six samohlasen," came the reply. "What trouble did you get into this time?"
    "Why do you always assume we're in trouble?" Tony asked.
    "I like to go with the simplest answer that makes sense of all the facts."
    "Well, let's just say sometimes we forget that we're not home. You know, around here, you say grace and suddenly there's a good old-fashioned witch hunt going on," John said.
    "I can't take you two anywhere with me!" laughed Rick. He wished he had been there with them. Then he suddenly turned serious as there came a knock at the door. Tone 7.


I do not know when or if the sequel to this story will be written, so don't expect anything.

Secular Christian Music

Note: I here equate music and poetry, just so you know.

Two of my favorite bloggers have posted on the subject of Christian music.

Marc Barnes began at Bad Catholic, with "5 Reasons to Kill Christian Music."

Priest's Wife joined the conversation at Fear Not Little Flock with "Quit the Snark: In Defense of 'Christian' Music & Being Uncool Non-Hipsters."

Both of them make very good points.

Let me begin by saying that, like Priest's Wife, I don't have a problem with the existence of contemporary Christian music. However, some of it is just plain drivel. I wholeheartedly agree with Barnes that just because it's a song about Jesus doesn't make it a good song. Some "Jesus music" is not worth listening to, in my opinion. Especially when they get whiny.

So, there's a place for good music that is specifically Christian, just like there's a place for literature that is specifically Christian.

However, Barnes does make a good point: modern man isn't going to tune in to KLOVE and listen to a song about praising the God he doesn't believe in.

Priest's Wife also makes a good point: how much else really is there to listen to? Radio stations mix clean with unclean music all the time.

So, then, to my contribution.

What we need is a new generation of Christian singers and songwriters who will make secular Christian music. It'll be music that isn't explicitly Christian; a songwriter may never mention God at all in his songs. But it'll show.

There was originally a good bit more to this blog post, but I decided to begin a new series of blog posts involving it instead, so it's not presented here.

If Your Friend's Jumping off a Building...

Disclaimer: I make no claim at all to this being a good apologetics resource.

Let's exercise our imaginations.

Your best friend has become convinced that if he flaps his arms enough, he will be able to fly. He intends to demonstrate his newfound ability by going to the tallest building in your area, jumping off, and soaring through the sky.

In this scenario, you:

A. Tell him that you wish him well in this endeavor and attempt to convince others that he can indeed fly.
B. Sit back and relax while watching him basically commit suicide.
C. Tell him that while you personally disagree with his choice, you can't stop him, and so you hope for the best.
D. Do everything in your power to stop his foolery.

Now, let's suppose you go with option D. Obviously, your friend is probably displeased with this assault on what he believes to be his right to show off his power of flight. So, he begins accusing you of hating him because you won't let him engage in his obviously destructive behavior. Other people whom he's convinced that he can fly jump in and begin accusing you of being on a level with the Ku Klux Klan.

Does your attempt at preventing your friend from jumping off the tallest building near you to his all but certain death mean that you hate him?

Hopefully, your answer to that question was "no."

Now the thing is, from a natural law (not just a Catholic) position, we can see that homosexual acts are not good for a person. It closes sex to life, which is a big and obvious no-no. You need both the procreative and unitive for a marriage to take place. The couple must be open to life, and homosexual relations slam the door shut in life's face.

Do we then hate people with same-sex attraction because we tell them that acting on those urges is not good for them? Remember your friend about to jump off a building to his death.

Eastern or Byzantine?

We need to stop using "Eastern Catholic" and "Byzantine Catholic" interchangeably. They are NOT the same thing. "Eastern" covers a far wider range of Churches than "Byzantine." "Byzantine" is limited to those Churches whose liturgical traditions are based on those of Byzantium/Constantinople: Ukrainians, Melkites, Ruthenians, Russians, etc. "Eastern," on the other hand, has a much broader application. It includes Byzantine-Rite Churches, but it also includes other Rites and Churches: Maronites, Copts, Ethiopians, Syro-Malankara and -Malabar, Chaldeans, you get the idea. So, in order to know who we're talking about, let's be a bit more discriminatory when using "Byzantine" and "Eastern."

All Eastern Catholic Churches don't use the same Rite. We don't even all make the Sign of the Cross the same way. My Maronite friends, for example, make it the same way as the Latins (and no, the five fingers held flat are not because of laziness in theory: they are for the five wounds of Christ).

We just started a Byzantine Catholic club at Franciscan under the patronage of Bl. Theodore Romzha. It is BYZANTINE. While we welcome everyone of any Rite to join us, the focus of the club will be on the BYZANTINE Rite. It is not a generic Eastern Catholic club; rather, it is focused on the Byzantine Rite. For now, at least, that is specifically the Ruthenian usage, seeing as all the canonically Byzantine students currently in the club are from the Pittsburgh Church.

Remember: All Byzantines are Eastern, but not all Easterners are Byzantine.

The First Day

Christ is risen! Christos voskrese! Christos anesti!

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away.  In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night.  What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn. -G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man; h/t The Integrated Catholic Life