29 November 2010
27 November 2010
26 November 2010
21 November 2010
In Father Z's own words, posted today on his blog:
"In the older, traditional calendar there is no special liturgy for this Sunday. This is a poignant way to point toward the seamless cycle of the Church’s representation of the mysteries of salvation. In the newer calendar we are focused also on the end times in the Feast of Christ the king.
We simultaneously long for the Second Coming of the Lord – that is what Advent is about, by the way, the Second Coming in glory and judgment – and we dread it. Early Christians prayed with longing “Come! Lord, Come!” In later centuries the sense of longing was replaced with sober realization of what we will endure on the day of His Coming.
Both of these attitudes can help us in our own day to be concerned with joyful sobriety, sober joy, about the meeting we will have with the Lord when He comes. Do not forget that the last day of your life is going to be an anticipation of the Second Coming. As Augustine wrote: Qualis in die isto quisque moritur, talis in die illo iudicabitur (ep. 199.2).
In death your life will be laid bare. In the Second Coming itself, the Lord will lay bare all things. That which we have endured in life with patient perseverance and sometime suffering shall be given explanations.
St. Augustine explained that the Lord’s judgments are obscure to us now, but later they will be made clear. Justice in this life is imperfect. In the life to come it will be perfected.
All that which He has permitted to happen now, will be given reasons and explanations and we will finally see the perfect justice even behind what now is hidden and challenging.
The Church’s year presents us anew with the unchanging mysteries of our salvation. But year year we are a little different and closer to the moment when the Lord’s hidden justice and judgments will be revealed. Do not be content to leave yourself straying on your life’s path toward your judgment with the knowledge of your saving Faith as it was when you were fresh from catechism as a child. Some people do. Do not leave yourself cold on the this path without the warming effect of works of mercy.
Live in sober joy, or joyful sobriety about the state of your soul even as you follow your mapway toward the Coming Lord through our Holy Church’s mysterious years of waiting."
15 November 2010
12 November 2010
No Sheeples Here: Sometime They'll Give A War And Nobody Will Come
Skillful wordsmith, gleeful humorist, devotee of the female form, master of the comma, friend—these are but a few of the descriptives I attach to Smitty of The Other McCain.
I would not swap the favor of kings for the friendship of Chris “Smitty” Smith. I have “known” Smitty for two of the three-and-a-half years I’ve been blogging. I remember reaching out to Smitty when No Sheeples Here was a fledgling site.
Countless times, Smitty and Stacy linked to this blog and helped to drive traffic my way. I owe both gentlemen a great debt for helping to grow my readership.
Often, there would be an email in my inbox from Smitty with an idea for a Photoshop™. Smitty’s sense of humor and his deft use of words would bring a delightful and humorous twist to a story that was breaking on the Intertoobs.
In Cogadh No Sìth Smitty writes, “I hold orders to activate in mid-November and report to Kabul, Afghanistan in time for Christmas. Bandwidth and latitude for skylarking online will not exist until the end of 2011.”
It is difficult for me imagine The Other McCain being bereft of Smitty’s postings.
Smitty is a tender soul. A little over a year ago I received one of those emails from him that I mentioned above. In it, he asked if I would create a graphic in remembrance of LCDR Robert Randolph Elseth for Project 2996.
In his post for September 11, 2009 he wrote of Elseth:
The Crown of Life Bob wore,Invisible yet ever present:Worthy of Christian striving.The unfathomable Will of God,Placing him in the PentagonOn that day is joyous and bitter.Calling him home so soonImmortalizes his memoryWithout hugs for the remaining.Though my wife would object,At the time, I, a bachelor,Would have cheerfully traded places.Did you get that? He would have cheerfully traded places with Bob on that horrible day when the Pentagon was attacked on September 11, 2001. You can almost visualize the tears rolling down Smitty’s face. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.”
Smitty is a man of faith. For his impending deployment, Psalms 18:32-36 seems most appropriate:
“It is God who arms me with strength, And makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places. He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great. You enlarged my path under me, So my feet did not slip.”
Smitty is a patriot. For us he reminds, “And that the attitude that must be presented to the enemies of liberty; Taliban in Afghanistan, or Progressives closer to home. Thinking you stupid, they will continue to say that you ‘vote against your own interest’, and turn down their bread-and-circus substitutes for Liberty. Liberty ain’t cheap, and rejecting Progressivism may resemble pain for a while. That’s not pain. That’s Socialist weakness leaving the country, and don’t let these liars sell you otherwise. Stand and deliver, the way a Progressive cannot, for, at heart, modern Progressivism is a synonym for cowardice.”
Give the enemy hell while you are in country, Smitty. We will wait right here for you in prayer and thoughts of friendship and thankfulness that men of courage fight so that we may live in freedom. Godspeed.
02 November 2010
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