Arimathea

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Religion

The human animal is the worshipping animal. Toward the divine, we have a need to pray, to sacrifice, to offer up, and to praise. From the spirit dances of primitive animism to the rational contemplation of philosophical paganism, from the ethical code of the rabbis to the theological vision of the scholastics, from the sprinkled blood (the origin of blessing) of temple cults to helping the poor in simple Christian charity, men need to relate the immanent and the transcendent -- they see their particular lives in time and space transfigured and transfused with meaning unbounded by human things. Religion is this aspect of human life where the everyday and worldly intersects with the ultimate and divine. Is this an accident of human evolution, or is it a racial neurosis brought upon us as conscious beings who live in the shadow of our own death? Is it a reflection of the divine order, where creatures naturally orient themselves toward their source? Has God revealed himself to us, as the Christians claim? In this realm, I shall try to delve into such questions as an Orthodox Christian who ever pesters God with "Why?"

Liturgy

The work of the people

Wednesday, February 1, A.D. 2012

Western Mass

The Bovina Bloviator posted a disturbing video last summer of a Western themed mass in Austria—Western as in cowboys and barbeques: “The Catholic Church in Austria: Defining Deviancy Downward” Here is the Gloria.TV coverage of the event and of the controversy:

Cardinal Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, evidently supported the event which occurred previous years despite protests to the Cardinal. Here is Gloria.TV’s coverage of the “mass” in A.D. 2010. From what I have been able to find online, the protests finally worked to get the mass cancelled last summer. One wonders, however, why such an abomination was ever considered or allowed.

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, February 1, A.D. 2012
LiturgyRoman Catholicism • (2) CommentsPermalink

Tuesday, April 19, A.D. 2011

The Effects of Liturgical Corruption

I hope that everyone is having blessed holy week.

Last month, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf commented on an article by Louis Verrecchio who wonders about the connection between the liturgical woes of the Roman Church following the Second Vatican Council and the widespread moral confusion and apostasy among the children of that community. You may read Fr. John’s “Did liturgical optionitis and degraded liturgy lead to dissent about morality?” and Mr. Verrecchio’s piece at the Catholic News Agency, “Liturgy’s effect on gay ‘marriage’ debate.”

The Christian experience of two millennia has vouchesafed the trustworthiness of the principle lex orandi, lex credendi. If we destroy one, the other will follow in its ruin.

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, April 19, A.D. 2011
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Sunday, December 12, A.D. 2010

Development within the Church

One of the arguments that Protestants, papists, and the Orthodox have involves the way we see doctrinal, canonical, liturgical, and practical development in the Church. Certain extreme Protestants reject the whole Christian experience outside (and thus after) scripture. Protestants of another stripe wish to reinvent their religion in every generation by following the passing fads of the world. Papists accuse the Orthodox of being stuck in antiquity, late antiquity, the Middle Ages, or whenever it suits them to locate us, thinking that the Orthodox emphasis on continuity stifles the Spirit (and not only the Zeitgeist). The Orthodox accuse Westerners of casually disregarding precedent and of exalting contemporary authority over the consensus of our forefathers who, in the Orthodox view, inherited and passed along the apostolic faith.

These are broad accusations, and all of them are somewhat unfair—although I have met several Protestants who fit the “reinvent your own personal wheel” caricature rather well. Should they even qualify as Protestants, though? There cannot be Christianity without truth claims. Yet, the rest are not wholly accurate. Even the most ardent sola scripturist holds onto much of the Christian tradition without admitting as much. He makes many unprincipled exceptions to his model of authority, though he remains ignorant of his inconsistency. Were he aware, he would be forced to entertain heresies that he cannot stand or to give up his rather unscriptural doctrine of sola scriptura. Moreover, there are many riches of Western and Eastern reflection on the history of the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity among the people of God. Cardinal Newman was not the only man to wonder what development means in the Church.

Orthodox doctrine and practice are quite ancient, and yet there have been changes. Most of the interesting changes involved great controversies that were the defining theological and political issues of their time. They came about because the challenge of heresy or misunderstanding became acute and the Church had to make explicit what Christians before held latent. An in depth discussion of Trinitarian theology did not occupy Christians’ attention due to philosophical musings at churchmen’s leisure. Rather, it happened because Arius explored a possible way of thinking about the Trinity within a certain philosophical world view, and it struck a significant number of Christians as wrong. The controversy ensued, mutating often through the years into one of ecclesial and imperial politics and of narrow personal interests of some figures involved. The result, however, was a deeper intellectual understanding of what the deposit of faith entails.

Other changes happened slowly and sometimes unnoticed. The development of monasticism institutionalized the prophetic witness of individual ascetics—a change that profoundly influenced world history. Yet, one could argue that the monastic, ascetic ethos goes back to the Hebrew prophets and never departed the Abrahamic tradition. The rise of female monastics probably led to the disappearance of deaconesses. Monasticism’s growth in importance surely contributed to the celibate episcopacy.

There are some changes, though, that occurred due to what I call existential logic. Sometimes, life lived, and the resulting culture of a community wherein life is lived in a certain way, embrace countless principles and values that people hold without necessarily reflecting upon them. Human beings, despite all their fallacies and convenient exceptions to principles, remain logical agents who like consistency and intelligibility in life. Men tend toward undoing contradictions in their thought, values, and actions; they also tend to assimilate new ideas and experiences into their overall understanding and experience of the world. This is existential logic.

A Christian community lives—or aspires to live—the gospel, and as such it tends to develop a Christian culture. Diversity exists across Christendom, but there are certain themes that become dominant in a culture of a converted people. The existential logic of those who live their life in the Church transforms their pagan, pre-Christian ways and leads toward the “baptism” of many practices. A good deal of popular piety expresses this transformative aspect of the faith.

Last week in the “Paradox of the Hebrews,” I suggested that the increase in Hebraic obedience to God that Gibbon considered might be due to group maturation. Eventually, the lessons of the people are going to sink in. I think that existential logic might be responsible for this, as well. The longer the Hebrews lived under the Mosaic law, the more they absorbed the lessons of that law and developed a complete culture in harmony with that law. During the forty years in the wilderness, the Hebrews may have had Moses and the visible presence of the Lord with them night and day, but they were still a rather paganized people whose way of life had been shaped by living among the Egyptians for generations. Long after the age of the prophets, Pharisees preached to what seemed a much more obedient and observant population. One may ask if the impressive work of rabbinical legal scholarship could have come to be in the desert? It is unlikely. The Hebrews had to mature. Of course, men always sin, err, and transgress their own principles, but they fall short less often when there are strong communal supports that nourish the beliefs and practices of their people.

Anyway, I think of existential logic when I hear primitivist challenges from certain “Bible Protestants.” These folks dismiss anything that is not mentioned explicitly, at least to a clarity and full elaboration sufficient for their liking, in Holy Writ. If these chaps stopped and considered existential logic, a lot of what they find objectionable would make sense to them. Why do we honor the Theotokos in the particular ways that we do? It is simple. Consider who she is and what she does in salvation history. Then, traditional Christian practice through the ages makes sense. Why do we revere the holy vessels that are used for the Eucharistic service? I do not know the history of such practice, but I doubt that there were many canons in the first and second centuries about those vessels. Yet, when you consider what the Eucharist is, these practices make sense. It is for this reason that the apostolic age in the first century should not be the definitive model in all ways for Christians today. A community must live its way of life for some time, and then changes occur that reflect the fundamental truths and values of that community.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, December 12, A.D. 2010
OrthodoxyLiturgyPatristicsScripturePaganismProtestantismRabbinical JudaismRoman Catholicism • (0) CommentsPermalink

Monday, November 8, A.D. 2010

Clerical Celibacy

I found an interesting article yesterday on Orthodox Answers: “Clerical Celibacy,” by Fr. Laurence Cleenewerck. Fr. Laurence notes the movement in the Roman Church to defend the apostolic origin of clerical celibacy, and then he reviews the history and reasons underlying clerical celibacy in the East and in the West. It is relatively brief, given the subject matter, and quite informative. Most interesting to me was the parallel that early Christians saw between the ordained ranks of the new covenant and the Levitical system. The development of Christian doctrine and vocabulary seem to unfold quite dramatically within the scriptural imagination.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, November 8, A.D. 2010
OrthodoxyLiturgyPatristicsSaintsScriptureEcumenismNon-ChalcedonianismRoman Catholicism • (0) CommentsPermalink

Monday, June 28, A.D. 2010

Bad Vestments

Last week, I discovered a funny site that showcases absurd vestment choices, primarily in the Anglican communion. Laugh, cry, and indulge in sectarian pride and bigotry with Bad Vestments.

Some of the vestment styles that the blogger finds egregious are not too bad, but most are horrible. In viewing them, one wonders who thought that such was a good idea. Remember that a chain of bad decisions had to have existed, from the tailor to the parish purchaser to the person wearing the vestments. However, it is not that surprising in the case of the Anglicans. If your religion has lost its collective mind, then appropriate liturgical fashion sense ought to deteriorate soon, as well.

Also, I find many Anglican “clerics” to look rather creepy. This may not be fair, but on looks alone would you trust this man with your children?

It seems as if this fellow, Mr. Duncan, is one of the decent Episcopalian leaders who wishes for his sect to remain Christian, more or less. Yet, I find the look a bit pervy. Perhaps, my Eastern bias is too strong; I prefer bishops to look like Santa Claus or wizards. For instance, compare this Anglican “bishop,”

to one of our own, the late Archbishop Micah of Yaroslavl,

Who looks more like an heir to the apostles?

Getting back to Bad Vestments, you will enjoy the site, with its amazingly atrocious finds and its irreverent commentary. I particularly like this stole story:

This is an example of a good vestment idea that wasn’t brought off particularly well. The dove and the fire are perfectly fine representations of the Holy Spirit. Just don’t have the dove flying toward the fire on one side and absent in the other.

It reminds me of one of my favorite t shirt designs:

Perhaps, the E.C.U.S.A. could incorporate the design into vestments and thereby raise awareness of roadway duckling fatalities.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, June 28, A.D. 2010
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Sunday, September 20, A.D. 2009

Sanctus

I have witnessed Roman and Orthodox liturgies in many languages and in many lands. The one part of the liturgy that is always done well is the Sanctus.

Holy, holy, holy
Lord of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!

I do not know the terms for the various parts of the liturgy. I therefore do not know if the Sanctus is considered part of the Anaphora or some other section. If it is a part, the entire Anaphora, and especially the Sanctus, is probably my favorite part of the liturgy. I do not normally sing, but sometimes I cannot help myself starting with “A mercy of peace; a sacrifice of praise!”

It is amazing that even in Roman Novus Ordo parishes that typically butcher the mass, they still sing this section soberly and beautifully. It is as if all the corruption in the world cannot taint its splendor. I do not know if liturgical Protestants have kept it well, but the Romans have managed to do so.

The only other thing that American papists have safeguarded appropriately is when their priests pray, “Through him, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.” Most of the time, this beautiful pray compels our thoughts to the holy and sublime.

Of course, it is a shame that only a small portion of the modern Roman mass remains, liturgically, quality guaranteed. Yet, with horrid songs like “One Bread, One Body,” what can one expect? I just looked up that wretched, awful, saccharine, Benji soundtrack treacle posing as a hymn, and it figures that a Jesuit—John Foley—composed the anti-tune in A.D. 1978. His Wikipedia article also notes that he wrote “The Cry of the Poor” the same year. I have never heard that song, but I already know that I hate it. Awful, awful, awful silly Jesuits and the madness that they have wrought!

This entry is about the majestic Sanctus, however. It does its job of directing our minds to the transcendent. Here is the hymn in Greek and in Latin.

Ἅγιος , ἅγιος , ἅγιος
Κύριος Σαβαώθ
πλήρης ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ τῆς δόξης σου,
ὡσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις.
Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου.
Ὡσαννὰ ὁ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, September 20, A.D. 2009
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Sunday, February 22, A.D. 2009

Religion Blogs

As much of a natural Luddite that I may be, I love the internet. I remember the days when an answer to an obscure question might require hours of research at the city’s main library. Now, one can find such information online in less than a minute. Of course, such “old-fashioned” skills are useful, and the ease of online research may have some unfortunate consequences for the new generation. Nonetheless, I feel fortunate to have lived in both eras.

One of the more interesting opportunities that the world wide web affords us is the ability to encounter various points of view so easily. In the “real world” meetings places of classrooms, cafés, train cars, youth hostel lounges, and church meals, it takes a considerable amount of time investment to discover people who share certain interests and to build up a relationship so that such matters can be discussed. The internet facilitates this process, though the depersonalized medium has its own shortcomings. For example, many folks feel free to behave like arses in ways that they would not so act among flesh and blood associations. Still, the phenomena of discussion groups, blogs, and alternative news sites are quite exciting.

In tribute to this new medium, today and tomorrow I am offering some sites that I find interesting. You may enjoy them, too. On this Lord’s day, I offer some sites that focus mainly on religion, though with commentary about society at large, while tomorrow’s entry will concern sites about truth more generally. Besides these, I recommend my “blogroll” offerings in the left column of each subject area, as well.

Orthodox sites:

Ad Orientem
American Orthodox Institute
Energetic Procession
Glory to God for All Things
Journey to Orthodoxy
Living Theology
The Ochlophobist
Orrologion
Orthodoxy Today
Paradosis
Pravoslavie
Theandros
Two Natures

Roman Catholic sites:

Ignatius Insight
Inside Catholic
Thomas Peters’ American Papist
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s What Does the Prayer Really Say?

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, February 22, A.D. 2009
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Friday, January 30, A.D. 2009

The Contrast of Orthodox Worship

Yesterday, in “Calvinism Redux,” I addressed some concerns by commentator Jack soi-disant the Ripper about Calvinism. In this post, I would like to field his questions about Christian worship.

In the comments section of “Steve Harvey and Dionysian Protestantism,” Jack writes:

Also, what exactly about the crowd makes you believe that they have swung too far the other direction than Calvinists? It seems that you are ascribing a moral standard to a matter of personal preference: Joseph would like his worship services to be slightly more active than the Calvinists, and slightly more subdued than the Pentecostals. “Greek Orthodoxy Rocks!”

Jack accuses me of making my personal taste the litmus test for correct worship. As a personal accusation, it demands a somewhat personal answer. With regard to such, Jack has the causality backward. My personal preference for a “worship style” was not a factor at all in my conversion to Orthodoxy. To be blunt, I did not really care for worship at all. Having been nourished in a Calvinist culture, I was not interested much in worship. I wanted truth. I rejected the religious traditions of my ancestors because I believed, based on the evidence that I considered, that they had corrupted the gospel of Christ. My conversion was completely intellectual in origin and in substance. I remember quite clearly an episode where I was walking on campus with an Orthodox priest, having a discussion about the faith. I had just visited his parish, and he wanted to know what I thought of the worship. I told him that it was fine, but that I was not very interested in worship. It was not what drove me. He laughed and said that many people convert because of the worship. He then somewhat scolded me and said that being an Orthodox Christian was mostly about worship. The central Christian act is worship. I acknowledged the truth of such—in the abstract. Of course, I reasoned, it is proper that the object of man’s attention is the highest possible object—namely, God. Thus, in agreeing with the priest, I continued to disagree with him without realizing it. It was only after several years in the Church that I came to see what others see immediately. The pagan emissaries who visited Constantinople knew that they witnessed heaven on earth when they attended the divine liturgy in the great Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. For they were pagans. I had been largely raised according to Calvin’s instructions, and the splendor was mostly lost on me. I loved beauty, and I loved order, but I did not grasp the transcendent quality of liturgical worship. Having finally experienced it, I cannot dismiss it as a personal preference.

Orthodox worship, like Orthodox doctrine, is not a casually suggested preferred option for the faithful. Its form is the way that it is for the salvation of souls. The way that Christians worship God echoes the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the days lived with the savior by the apostles themselves. Its organic evolution over the centuries reflects the wisdom and sanctity of generations of saints having lived, prayed, and worshiped God in the light of Christ’s resurrection. Like the rule of faith, the rule of worship exists for a reason. It is the proper diet for the soul for its orientation toward the eternal God.

Hence, Orthodoxy “doesn’t rock” because it is my personal preference. Rather, it has become my personal preference because I have come to see how its doxological regimen best trains our souls to relate to God. “Slightly more active than the Calvinists, and slightly more subdued than the Pentecostals” has nothing to do with it. They are not primary realities between which we must find a mean. Rather, they are both far removed distortions of the ancient Christian manner of worshiping God. With the latter, worship lacks measure and control. Emotions are ever poor guides in life, and connecting spirituality with emotion opens up a path toward dangerous and demonic delusions. You may know of Pentecostals whose religious life manically swings high and low, as they trust their fragile psychological states to be accurate measures of their spiritual progress—of their “blessedness.” Such is a recipe for prelest and despair.

With the former, worship devolves into an intellectual act. Calvinists historically have attempted to remove all non-cognitive aspects of worship from their services and from their architecture. The sermon became the central act of a Christian service; instead of the holy mysteries, Calvinists receive unending catechesis. High walls were built around family enclosures so that the congregants could only hear the preacher’s words. Visual representations of Christ, the saints, and the holy stories were banned and destroyed in iconoclastic fits. The body no longer was useful for such cerebral work. Only the voice—and mostly the voice of the preacher—was allowed to excel in its natural talents to glorify God. I suspect that many crusty preachers in their secular academic robes—note well the relevant fact that Calvin did not wear vestments to his services but rather his university robe—considered hymns a condescension to human weakness. What perversity—but how fitting a perversion for the new Cartesian modern man of only mind and will. Whereas the Christian temples of East and West testify of God the creator, maker of heaven and earth and of all that is therein, whereas they celebrate in color, in glass, and in stone the providence of God throughout history, from Adam unto our very days, whereas the worship performed in them addresses men as bodies, souls, and spirits, Calvinism reduces the Word to words and worship to harsh Sunday school lessons.

I reject worship that rejects man and his nature. Jack asks if it is “possible to strive for an authentic faith, spurn the cultural draw of ‘social morality,’ and yet still resist a charismatic form of worship?” Of course, such is possible. The ancient prescription for the Christian life aims for such a goal.

If Nietzsche is correct in his understanding of the human need for what he calls the Apollonian and the Dionysian, then I can see reflected in the Christian tradition that complementary meeting of the two. In Christian worship, the Apollonian element is unmistakable. Christian hymnography is intelligible; it speaks to our mind as well as to the lower parts of the soul. It is controlled. It is balanced. It is sober. It reflects the ancient insistence on apatheia—the tranquility of the soul, unmoved by the passions, ready and prepared to hear and to respond to the truth of God.

At the same time, the Dionysian element exists in Christian worship. Besides the Dionysian quality of Russian church bell ringing, the tonal system in the Church has meditative trance-inducing qualities. The rhythm of the chant subdues the soul as a lullaby. For instance, the Cherubic Hymn is marvellously worded, set, and placed. As the sabbath is made for man, so are worshipping conventions of the Church divinely designed to treat our diseased souls. The joy and the sorrow of the music (sometimes simultaneously, as during Holy Week) affect the passions and force them to coalesce around the message that the mind intellects and that the heart understands. Moreover, the oneness of the Christian community—the unity of Christ’s body—the unity of Christ himself—as symbolized in the Eucharistic act, is the fulfillment of all Dionysian longing.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, January 30, A.D. 2009
OrthodoxyLiturgyProtestantism • (1) CommentsPermalink

Sunday, November 16, A.D. 2008

Bad Children in Church

Before I get to the topic at hand, let me congratulate anyone from the O.C.A. on the election of their new Metropolitan Jonah. Andrew sent me an e-mail earlier in the week to let me know about it, though he prefaced the letter with an apology; he did not want to give me the same impression that he received from his Latin friends with their flurry of “Habemus Papam” e-mails upon the election of Benedict XVI.

Andrew, I have worked with papists. I know many papists. Papists have been friends of mine. Andrew, you are no papist.

I have nothing contemplative or edifying to offer today; rather, I wish to complain about unruly children in the liturgy. I know that children are self-absorbed, irrational, foolish, appetite-driven humans in the making. I know that they are “our future,” and I know that Christ told his disciples to suffer the little ones to come to him. I do not have any problem with children walking around during the service or doing their little squirmy dances. I actually find well-behaved kids rather endearing, with their exaggerated signs of the cross, attempts at singing, and sloppy kisses.

However, it is one thing to welcome children into the temple and quite another to allow them to act like monsters. There are two fathers at the parish where I go who refuse to control their children. Both men seem very cordial and polite, but their kids disrespect the services and their fathers. One father has a boy, probably seven years old, who hangs off of his dad and torments the poor man throughout the liturgy. He grabs his father, fishes through his father’s back pockets, throws himself on the floor, and sometimes even mocks the services. The other father has two small children, a boy around five and a girl around three years old. The girl today was awful. She kept on throwing temper tantrums, whining, hitting her brother, smacking her father, stamping her feet on the ground, and generally acting like a vicious little ogre. At one point, her father tried to take away a blanket that she was using to hit her brother, and she pulled back, shouted no (in that vile bratty tone), and hit her father. When she wasn’t doing violence to her father or brother, she was whimpering in that blood-curdling fake cry to gain sympathy and attention, and her foolish father obliged. Like Pavlov’s dog, you cannot reward such behavior without reinforcing and encouraging it.

The whole time, I was trying to pay attention to the liturgy, but, as you can imagine, my attention was diverted to the little goblin at my feet. I can just hear some of you now—“Oh, if you had kids, you would understand”—no, I do not accept this empty argument. I have worked with kids for most of my life, and I see the results of poor child-rearing every day. Besides, there are scores of parents with well-behaved children who do not act in such a manner in the liturgy. They may twirl or wander around the floor or get uncomfortably close to burning themselves on candles, but they are generally orderly children. For children to act in such an unacceptable manner as the three kids previously mentioned, their parents must have long abdicated responsibility in maintaining order.

Both of these men mentioned appear as gentle souls. When their kids act up, they try to soothe them, hold them, and attend to them. Occasionally, the first father will straighten his boy by his shoulders out of desperation, though it never achieves more than a minute’s break from incivility. I think that they are sparing the rod and spoiling their micro-brats.

It is clear that the children are totally unaware of how their actions are disrupting everyone around them. I do not blame the children for that; awareness of others and of their needs is an attribute of maturity that even many adults do not have. However, the fathers are rudely allowing their kids to be a nuisance instead of trying to drill into their heads that their behavior is affecting others negatively. As they cannot control their kids, I was tempted several times today to lower myself to the little girl and tell her that she was acting inappropriately in church. I suppose that our Dr. Spock Dad might get annoyed—it has become fashionable for Americans to get offended when an adult corrects their children when they refuse to do it themselves. Everyone is entitled to be an arse, it seems, and that unalienable right is bestowed upon the youngest among us.

One of my co-workers and I have proposed a new public service campaign, “Have you beaten your kids today?” Stickers could be given out in governmental offices. “The more you know” commercials could be aired, detailing the practical benefits of beating misbehaving children. We could even get another ribbon for people to wear—blush red—the color of whipped booty flesh. People just do not beat their children enough anymore, when it ought to be a regular feature of child rearing. The Left has ruined pedagogy—with their concerns about violence and egalitarianism. Act like your child is a fully reared, rational, mature human being, and you set your child up to be despicable . . . in the meantime, he will become a dreadful little tyrant with a shrill piercing yell and an unconstrained will.

It is sentimentalist nonsense that holds that children are innocent angelic beacons of kindness and virtue. Augustine was more correct; even in the unreasonable demands of babes, one can see the fall. Without self-discipline, without reason’s command over the appetites, without a cultivated habit of considering others’ needs and wants, man is a monster. Yet, children are such men; they need the dictates of their parents to guide them and to mold them into rational beings who have been trained to work against their innate selfishness and self-absorption. Rousseau was wrong; such a process does not happen on its own. Left to their own devices, without guidance, most children develop little tyrants in their souls—spoiled brats who grow up to be insufferable selfish manipulating dragons.

I do not deny that there is such a thing as child abuse, but the West has gone much too far in the opposite direction. Some children have innate dispositions to please others or to do well. A verbal correction is all that is needed for such children. Others need consistent firm corrections, lest they unravel to the extent of the little demon in ribbons next to me today. Once they reach such a nadir, you have to bust their behinds—each and every time. Consistency is important—kids need to know how to behave and what the consequences will be when they do not behave well.

I understand that these fathers might worry about what such corrections might do to their children’s perceptions of the services. One does not want his children to resent being at church. Yet, if kids know what is expected of them generally, it would not become an issue for the liturgy. Beat them at home so that they behave in the grocery store, at the zoo, and in church. It is painful to smack your children, but think of it as an investment . . .

I lived in fear of my mother as a child. I think that such was probably a good thing. Parents should not be their kids’ pals; they should be their loving overlords. It is more important for your child to be good than to be pleased at any given moment; so, do what is necessary. As unpleasant as it might be, temporary pain, or deprivation (of goods such as toys or fun time), or whatever works may be the price for cultivating decent people later on.

Only somewhat related, in that children are like puppies who need good training, here is a Shiba Inu puppy cam:

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Yes, they are adorable. Is this how parents see their wretched little spawn? Is this why they won’t correct them? News flash: puppies sometimes need newspaper swats, too.

Posted by Joseph on Sunday, November 16, A.D. 2008
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