No Safe Harbor on Gulf Coast; Human Blood Tests Show Dangerous Levels of Toxic Exposure

September 7th, 2010

Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water — they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media’s attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, the situation continues to deteriorate.

The use of the Corexit dispersant 9500 and the highly toxic 9527 by BP, with the approval and assistance of the US Coast Guard and EPA, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Never before has such a huge quantity of the toxic compound been used anywhere on the planet. Most countries including NATO allies ban it’s use and will only grant approval as a last resort after other methods have failed. Britain has banned its use altogether. The NOAA provided extensive information summarizing other nation’s policies in regards to Corexit after Senator Barbara Mikulski demanded the information from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional hearings in July. While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/no-safe-harbor-on-gulf-co_b_698338.html

Related article at Washington Post: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/

Posted in A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, Science & Tech, Terror Update | No Comments »

struggling on by the grace of Christ

September 7th, 2010

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Jaime_Huguet_001.jpg

Jaume Huguet

Adoration of the Magi, 1464.


The other gospel writers say that when Jesus was in the Jordan the Spirit descended on him as a dove; Luke says it was while he was praying that this happened. The others say Jesus climbed the mountain and was transfigured; Luke says that this happened while he was praying. The others say that Jesus died on the cross; Luke says that even when he was dying he was praying for the people who were killing him. The others say that Jesus chose twelve disciples; Luke says it was after he had spent a night in prayer that he chose them…. You could go on and on.

You would be surprised, if you looked around, at the number of people who spend the night – or part of the night – in prayer. Traditionally monks got up to pray in the middle of the night, but now you sometimes hear of lay people who do so. Night – especially on a mountain – seems the perfect setting for prayer. All the noise of day has died away, the world seems vast because we cannot see the contours of things so clearly, and darkness itself is deeply peaceful when we don’t project our fears on it. Though darkness is vast, it is also strangely intimate, because you can’t see, but only feel, the distance. The senses are not battered, and so we feel more alert, more alive. We can only imagine what passed in the soul of Jesus as he prayed all night on the mountain top.

Then when day came he chose Judas Iscariot as one of his apostles! Did he make a mistake? We wouldn’t dare to say such a thing. Then there must be another meaning. The one who told the story of the tares among the wheat would have forgiven him, as he forgave Peter, had he just waited. The Church is not a community of perfect people but a community of sinners who struggle on by the grace of Christ.

Posted in Jesus the Christ Is The Center of All Things, Repentance and Renewal, THE WORD HAS BECOME FLESH, The Bread of Life, The Danger Of Being Cut Off From Grace, The Existential Reality of Faith, The Gifts and Fruits of the Hoy Spirit, The Hound of Heaven, The New Temple, The answer to every question is Jesus!, Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven, What Is It To Be "Born Again"?, You are of more value than many sparrows. | No Comments »

The Wisdom of Christ Crucified. Savior of the World

September 5th, 2010

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_100.jpg

Salvator Mundi, an unfinished oil painting on wood, reveals Dürer’s highly detailed preparatory drawing.

“For what man can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord wills? For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likely to fail, for a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind. We can hardly guess at what is on earth, and what is at hand we find with labor; but who has traced out what is in the heavens? Who has learned thy counsel, unless thou hast given wisdom and sent thy holy Spirit from on high? And thus the paths of those on earth were set right, and men were taught what pleases thee, and were saved by wisdom.” Wisdom 9:13-18

Literal translation can often sound absurd. Commentators rush to explain that the Semitic expression “hate father and mother” does not actually mean that in English. It means “to love less.” So why do English translations still say “hate”?

The translator is a traitor, the Italians say: traduttore traditore. You can betray the original sense by going beyond it, or by not going as far as it. Either way there is a risk. I suppose translators of the New Testament feel that it would be a worse betrayal to water down the meaning of what Jesus said. You cannot ignore that word ‘hate’; it forces you to think.

Discipleship, it implies, is deeper than family ties. Jesus is not just saying, “Love me more.” He is saying that it is not just a matter of degree; it is sometimes either/or. To translate every choice into a matter of degree is to avoid choice. If we were to refuse to put our whole weight on one foot we could never walk. But this is just what we often try to do in other parts of our life: we vacillate and in the end we stay where we have always been.

“To another Jesus said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead.’” (Luke 9:59). Apparently it does not mean that his father had died; it means that the man wanted to stay at home until his father died. He was mapping out his future; he would get around to discipleship later on. But Jesus made discipleship a matter of immediate urgency.

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” The cross stands for stark choice. Its very shape suggests contradiction. Jesus has the right to ask us to carry our cross because he carried his, and was broken by it. It was the Pharisees, not he, who liked to “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; while they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Mt 23:4). Our life’s crosses will not look like his, but they will have the same logic – or rather (the opposite of logic) contradiction. It was prophesied about him that he would be a sign of contradiction (Luke 2:34); it is from this sign that we have our identity as Christians.

Perhaps we have been too much at pains to make our faith reasonable and intelligible. Were we to succeed, we would have turned it into a philosophy, a theory about life. St Paul tried the way of plausibility and found it false. This set him on his path. “The Jews demand signs,” he wrote, “and the Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:22-23). It is not a religion of smooth continuity, it is a tragic religion. In the end, the clever answer has to be wrong, because it doesn’t have the depth of paradox, it doesn’t have the wisdom of Christ crucified.

Readings:

Posted in Jesus - The Lamb of God, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus is your best friend, Jesus the Christ Is The Center of All Things, Jesus: the Gate, Jesus: the Light | No Comments »

A Proposed Solution to the NYC Mosque Debate

September 3rd, 2010

I’ve been thinking a great deal about this Mosque issue and I believe that I have arrived at a rational and meaningful resolution that gives an opportunity for the builders and promoters of the project to demonstrate their goodwill. It is really very simple.

Every year, millions of Muslims perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca walking seven times around the Kaaba and more than 13 million people visit Mecca annually. This is, obviously, the holiest site in Islam. Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (“ the Sacred Mosque”) is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca, it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while offering daily prayers and, let me say again, this is Islam’s holiest place. The mosque is also known as the Grand Mosque. I will get back to the relevance of this Mosque to my proposal in a moment.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Masjid-al-haram.jpg

Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām Coordinates: 21°25′19″N 39°49′34″E / 21.422°N 39.826°E

Here is some background for those of you who have not been following this ongoing debate: American Muslim Imam Feisal Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, secured approval to establish what they are calling Park51. It would serve as both a cultural center and a mosque for Muslims in New York City.

Despite the fact that city officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have given their blessings to the project — and the fact that Muslims have already been meeting in that location for more than a year — it has incurred the criticism and outrage of many Americans throughout the country.

As a writer at FOX Forum points out:

The unseen hand of journalism manipulating American democracy is no longer unseen, nor is it as effective as it once was. But that hasn’t stopped the media from trying its best.

The Associated Press “Standards Center” issued a “staff advisory on covering New York City mosque” on Aug. 19 as just one piece of that spin. “We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘ground zero mosque’ or ‘mosque at ground zero’ on all platforms.”

Since that spin memo, finding the term “Ground Zero Mosque” on network news is all but impossible. Before the memo came out, journalists like ABC’s David Kerley were allowed to use it. On Aug. 15, there was Kerley talking about Obama “trying to steer through the treacherous waters of the Ground Zero Mosque” debate. “Early Today” host Lynn Berry talked about the “Ground Zero Mosque controversy.” Other reporters echoed the term.

But AP had to choose sides. To the great spinmeisters in that organization, a building near the World Trade Center that was actually damaged in the attack isn’t at Ground Zero. Had AP headquarters been in that building, you can bet they would have covered their own damage like it had been Ground Zero. It’s the terminology game reporters and editors play. Lefty terms like “pro-choice” are OK, but don’t dare say “pro-life.” Conservatives can be “far right” but try finding liberals who are “far left.”

That’s just one of the games journalists play. They can’t claim the mosque opposition is “bigoted” if Muslims oppose it as well, so those voices are almost never heard on network broadcasts. In the past month, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows intereviewed Muslims 10 times for their mosque stories. Nine of those interviewed supported the mosque. Only one Muslim opponent was quoted. Other critics, such as the first Muslim Miss USA and the director of Al-Arabiya, a popular Arab-language news station, were ignored. They would have interfered with the prearranged news agenda. So would showing the hateful person who cursed out an anti-mosque protester who had survived the Holocaust.

That’s a consistent theme. The controversial imam who is pushing the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a “moderate” who wants only peace and even “eulogized Daniel Pearl.” His questionable funding, a refusal to call Hamas a terror group and his many controversial statements largely get a pass in the “news media.” Remember, this is the man who said: “the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.”

If Rauf were a tea party supporter and blasting Obama, his views would lead the evening news.

To many Americans, Ground Zero is sacred and building a mosque is a slap in the face to the families and memories of the people who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In this sense, there is an equivalency between “ the Sacred Mosque” in Mecca and “Ground Zero” in New York City and therein lies the source of my proposal.

Let’s have a quid pro quo that is acceptable to both sides of this issue and at the same time visibly displays the reality of the position that Islam and by association Moslems in general are “tolerant” of other religions.

As the Islamic Cultural Center ( which also incudes a Mosque for Islamic worship) is being built at “GROUND ZERO” let us simultaneously and contingently build a Christian Cultural Center ( which also includes a Cathedral for Christian worship) in Mecca in the approximate vicinity of “ the Sacred Mosque”. WHAT IS A BETTER WAY TO OBJECTIVELY PROVE GOOD FAITH AND GOOD INTENTIONS ON THE PART OF Muslim Imam Feisal Rauf and his wife AND ALL OTHER SPOKESMEN FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION NOT ONLY IN AMERICA BUT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

After all, wouldn’t it be the height of hypocrisy for someone to be disingenuous to the point of using our own American traditions based on the Western understanding of natural law and a Judeo-Christian cultural framework against us to achieve their goals? Isn’t that something only a very clever enemy would do because the afore mentioned foundations of our world mean nothing to them!

The ball is in your court Imam Feisal Rauf. You can take the first significant step toward a clarity of understanding between our cultures or you can show us another, a darker persona, the true face of Islam.

Related post: The Mosque http://honorofgod.org/blog3/?p=3870


Tags:
Posted in A Critical Mind, A New Beginning, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, MSM Bias, The Dictatorship of Relativism, The Existential Reality of Faith, The Historical Reality of Faith, The Importance of Strategic Thinking, The Mosque Debate, Unintended Consequences, We Are All Pharisees To Some Degree, We Remember and Honor Our Comrades | No Comments »

To have a past and a future

September 2nd, 2010

How important to come to the end of your resources!  “Jesus allowed pitch darkness to sweep over my soul,” wrote St Thérèse of Lisieux.  “I wish I could express what I feel, but it is impossible.  One must have travelled through the same sunless tunnel to understand how dark it is…. There is…a wall which towers to the sky and hides the stars.”  Her next words were (how amazing!), “I have never before felt so strongly how gentle and merciful God is.  He sent me this heavy cross just at the time when I was strong enough to bear it…. Nothing now hinders me…. I no longer want anything except to love until I die of love.  I am free and fear nothing.”

A French biographer of St Thérèse said it was characteristic of her to be always at the end of her resources.  It is because she always gave everything she had.  She never had anything up her sleeve: no tricks, no escapes, no clever explanations, no blaming, no postponing…. She remained always fully present and vulnerable to experience.  That is why God could give her so much.

“We worked hard all night and caught nothing,” said Peter in today’s reading.  Peter was quite often at the end of his resources.  He had given up everything to follow Jesus.  It didn’t matter that all he gave up was a boat and a few nets; it was everything he had.  It is not these (or any material possession) that would hold him back, but his reliance on them.  He had had the courage to come to the end of his resources.  Later he would be dragged even further beyond.  The man he followed would be killed, and having nothing else to do he would go back to fishing; but that terrible night too he would catch nothing (Jn 21:3).  He would be without a past and without a future.  That must have been like St Thérèse’s wall reaching up to the sky and letting in no light.  But for them both, it was the moment of recognition: “It is the Lord!” (Jn 21:7).

Posted in A Judeo-Christian Culture, THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST, The Bread of Life, The Deer's Cry, The answer to every question is Jesus! | No Comments »

The Household of God

August 29th, 2010

The economic system that operated in Palestine in the time of Jesus was a patron/client system. People were born into a ‘place’ in the system, and the way to hold or improve that place was to cultivate the patronage of someone a little higher up in the pecking order. This system was based on an assumption of inequality among people. In the hope of getting some slight perk from their patrons, the poor had to grovel before them, cap in hand, and learn flattery. This system never quite dies out, and when we get even a whiff of it today it brings out the killer instinct in us. It is terrible to think that in most parts of the world, for most of human history, it has been the normal way.

In the first part of today’s reading Jesus seems to go along with it. Go sit in the lowest place, he says, but with your eye on a higher place; try to attract by a false humility. But he was only playing with the system, fine-tuning it, before throwing it away. And throw it away he did. “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” People are to be valued for what they are, and not for their usefulness to you. This is not a false self-serving condescension, but an awareness that we are all useless servants and that God is patron of us all equally.

“Those people are worth a lot of money,” someone said of a rich couple. “No,” said someone else, “they have a lot of money.” The point is taken: human beings are not worth a penny, because they are priceless. Their intrinsic worth cannot be expressed in financial terms. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed for life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).

I was once in a house that was valued at five million dollars (I knew the cabinet-maker who had installed the kitchen presses, and the wealthy family hadn’t yet moved in). It was the most vulgar and tasteless interior I have ever seen. In fact there was no interior at all: it was all somehow outward; it was made to impress, and the effect was a feeling of desolation. Every object there seemed chosen for its price, not for itself. If this is what happens to things, imagine what happens to people when they are seen in purely monetary terms.

The word ‘economics’ comes from the Greek ‘oikos’ (house) and ‘nomos’ (law). You could say it means housekeeping. It is not about individuals accumulating as much as they can; it is about the ‘household’, the community. There is a related word, ‘oikodome’ (building), a favorite word of St Paul’s. He calls his own work a service to the ‘oikodome’ of Christ (2 Corinthians 13:10). In a later letter he (or someone of his school) pulled out all the stops with this word ‘oikos’ and the image of building: ‘You are no longer strangers and aliens but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (Eph 2:19-22). The message is that we are not menials cow-towing to a patron and edging up to a better place at the table; we are part of one another, we are of ‘the household of God.’

Posted in A Day of Rest, A Judeo-Christian Culture, Anawim, Converting the Culture of Death, Jesus the Christ Is The Center of All Things, The New Temple, The Rich Young Man, The Suffering Poor, The Supremacy of Grace | No Comments »

Jacopo della Quercia

August 29th, 2010

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Madonna_of_Humility_by_della_Quercia.jpg

Madonna of Humility, marble, dated to c. 1400,

in the National Gallery of Art

Main works

  • An equestrian wooden statue for the funeral of Azzo Ubaldini (1400 ?)
  • (? ) Madonna on top of the Piccolomini altar in the Siena cathedral (1397–1400)
  • Virgin and Child (Silvestri Madonna) (1403) – Marble, height 210 cm, Cathedral of Ferrara
  • St. Maurelius )c. 1403) – Cathedral of Ferrara.
  • the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto (c. 1406) -Cathedral of Lucca
  • Fonte Gaia (1408–1419) – Siena
  • Virtue (1409–19) – Marble, height 135 cm, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
  • Hope (1409–19) – Marble, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
  • Acca Laurentia (1414–19) – Marble, height 162 cm, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
  • Rhea Sylvia (1414–19) – Marble, height 160 cm, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
  • Annunciation, Virgin and Gabriel – Collegiata di San Gimignano
  • polyptych on the Trenta family altar (1422) – Basilica di San Frediano, Lucca
  • Porta Magna (1425) – Basilica di San Petronio, Bologna
  • Fountain, panels and statuette of John the Baptist (1427) – Baptistry of Siena’s cathedral.

Jacopo was born (it is said) at Quercia Grossa, near Siena, 1374; died 20 October, 1438. His father, a goldsmith, taught him design. When about sixteen he made an equestrian wooden statue for the funeral of Azzo Ubaldini; he is believed to have left Siena soon after this, owing to party strife and disturbances. In 1401 he reappeared in Florence, a competitor for the gates of S. Giovanni (assigned to Ghiberti); in 1408 he executed in Ferrara various sculptures, notably the Madonna of the Pomegranate. One of his most exquisite work, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, second wife of Paolo Guinigi, in the Cathedral of Lucca dates about 1413. The Gothic altar-piece at S Frediano, Lucca, with figures of Our Lady and saints (c. 1416) is by him. He spent ten years on his Fonte Gaia, in the Piazza del Campo, Siena; it has figures of Our Lady and of the theological and cardinal virtues, reliefs of the creation of man and expulsion from paradise, and various water-spouting animal forms. The fountain was restored by Tito Sarocchi in 1868. Also in Siena (Baptistery of S. Giovanni) is the font made from Jacopo’s designs (1417-30). The surmounting statuette, the Baptist, the marble reliefs of the Prophets, and one of the six bronze-gilt panels (Zacharias led out of the Temple) are from his hand. A very important work is the great doorway of S. Petronio, Bologna, with fifteen bas-reliefs from Genesis (1425-38). Raphael and Michelangelo are both indebted to these sculptures. In the ambulatory of S. Giacomo, Bologna, is the monument of Antonio Bentivoglio (d. 1435). The mandorla of the Assumption, Sta Maria del Fiore, Florence, has been claimed for Jacopo, but modern authorities give it to Nanni del Banco. The forms of Jacopa are highly tactile, graceful, and animated.

Posted in Renaissance Art | No Comments »

Who’s the Greatest?

August 29th, 2010

WHO’S THE GREATEST?
Isidore Clarke O.P.
Twenty-Second Sunday of the Year
29th August 2010

fr Isidore Clarke suggests that we learn to laugh at ourselves.

At a formal meal, seating arrangements are important. Usually the most distinguished guests sit at the top of the table. To avoid the embarrassing situation described in today’s Gospel a wise host will decide the order of precedence beforehand.

Here Jesus makes fun of those pretentious people who scrambled for the most prestigious places, only to be demoted lower on the arrival of someone of greater importance. How ridiculous would the status-seeker then appear! All would have had a good laugh — except the butt of Christ’s observation! Beware, Jesus must be getting at you and me, whenever we have an inflated idea of our own importance!

But Jesus wasn’t interested in table etiquette, nor in helping us to avoid public humiliation! Still less is he urging a false humility in the hope that people, recognising our true worth, will give us a more prestigious place. Such a person would simply be a crafty status seeker — far worse than someone who simply grabbed the best seat.

This meal, like all the others in the Gospels, anticipated the heavenly banquet. Here Jesus is telling us that we are not the ones to decide which position we deserve. Our very presence at the heavenly banquet is God’s gift. None of us deserves this. He will overturn our sense of priorities and will give the highest places to those whom the worldly consider to be the least important.

The meal described in today’s Gospel provides an interlude on Christ’s journey to Jerusalem and the cross.That context gives special force to the folly of being status seekers.

Jesus himself came to serve, not to be served. While Adam fell through his pride leading him to strive to become equal to Almighty God, the Son of God emptied himself of the glory which was his by right. Jesus became humble and obedient, even to death on the cross. The God of glory became despised and rejected. And yet it was precisely in his lowliness that Jesus revealed his true greatness. On the cross he showed the power and generosity of his love for his heavenly Father and for us sinners. Jesus, who lowered himself to become the least, was raised to become the first in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The crucified Christ shows us where our true greatness lies. Not in the honour or status we may bestow on ourselves, but in following Jesus along the way of the cross. Like him, we are called to serve, rather than be served, to give of ourselves, rather than grab for ourselves. Sometimes that will be costly, painful and humiliating. But, with the grace of God, this will bring out the very best in us. And God will give us a place of honour at his heavenly banquet.

We Christians could easily make the mistake of thinking that this parable was directed at the Pharisees alone. If so, we should remember that the disciples were forever bickering among themselves as to which of them was the greatest. The sons of Zebedee even sought privileged positions in the Kingdom.

The full meaning of this parable is brought home forcefully in the light of the Last Supper. As Jesus and the apostles celebrated the salvation God had brought to his people in the past, Christ committed himself to saving the world through his death on the cross. While he was preparing to be brought low, his followers were striving to exalt themselves. They started arguing as to which of them was the greatest — immediately after Jesus had celebrated the first Eucharist and had prophesied that one of them would betray him. What a dreadful, frightening irony! This should warn all who are too full of their own importance. Possibly any one of us!

Certainly we should take God very seriously. But let’s be able to laugh at ourselves and our ridiculous posturing. That’s far better than God and other people despising us as pretentious fools! Rather than our instinctively thinking we’re the greatest, we should humbly recognise the dignity and worth of other people — and leave the ranking to God.

Readings:

Posted in TORCH - Dominican Site, The Order Of Preachers, The answer to every question is Jesus! | No Comments »

AUGUSTINE THE GREATEST, AUGUSTINE THE LEAST

August 28th, 2010

MATTHEW 25:14-30

A man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

That’s how the business world operates. How could this have anything to do with the world of the spirit? And this on the feast of St Augustine, the Doctor of Grace! The business world is only about ‘outer things’ – property – but the spiritual world has to include also ‘inner things’. How could the same rules apply?

To say that the spiritual world is all ‘gift’ is to say the truth. But to say no more would be to make it a purely passive thing. In reality we know that nothing deep or ‘inner’ can ever be given to us without our effort. You would love to give your knowledge of, say, a foreign language to someone you love, but it cannot be done without their labor. How much more your understanding, your wisdom, your experience? Even God’s gifts, poured out without measure, cannot really become mine unless I interiorize them myself. Struggle is part of the spiritual life, even though it remains true that everything is gift. And it’s a fact of experience (not a policy statement of a company) that the more I have the more I will receive. The more I know the more I am capable of knowing; the more I love the more I am capable of loving; the more I pray the more I am able to pray…. And likewise the less.

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the image at: romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_arch…

For it was not fit that His creature should blush at the work of his Creator; but by a just punishment the disobedience of the members was the retribution to the disobedience of the first man, for which disobedience they blushed when they covered with fig-leaves those shameful parts which previously were not shameful.
(…) As, therefore, they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused, that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but immediately took care to cover them; did not they–he in the open, she in the hidden impulse–perceive those members to be disobedient to the choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly suffered, because they themselves also were not obedient to their Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion over those members by which children were to be procreated.

– Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.31-32

Augustine’s ecclesiology was fully developed in City of God. There he conceives of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom, ruled by love, which will ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are self-indulgent and ruled by pride. Augustine followed Cyprian in teaching that the bishops of the church are the successors of the Apostles. Cf. Marius Mercator Lib. subnot.in verb. Iul. Praef., 2,3; PL 48,111 /v.5-13/; Bonner, Gerald. Rufinus of Syria and African Pelagianism. pp. 35(X). in: Idem (1987). God’s Decree and Man’s Destiny. London: Variorum Reprints. pp. 31–47 (X).

In addition, he believed in papal supremacy. “Carthage was also near the countries over the sea, and distinguished by illustrious renown, so that it had a bishop of more than ordinary influence, who could afford to disregard a number of conspiring enemies because he saw himself joined by letters of communion to the Roman Church, in which the supremacy of an apostolic chair has always flourished” Letter 43 Chapter

At sixteen Augustine moved to Carthage where again he was plagued by this “wretched sin”:

There seethed all around me a cauldron of lawless loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and I hated safety… To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness.

– Confessions 3.1.1

For Augustine, the evil was not in the sexual act itself, but rather in the emotions that typically accompany it. In On Christian Doctrine Augustine contrasts love and lust:

By love I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy God on his own account and to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbour on account of God, and by lust I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbour and any corporeal thing not on account of God.

– 3.37

Here we can see the theoretical resolution of the struggle documented in Confessions: that proper love exercises a denial of selfish pleasure and the subjugation of corporeal desire to God.

To the pious virgins raped during the sack of Rome, he writes, “Truth, another’s lust cannot pollute thee.” Chastity is “a virtue of the mind, and is not lost by rape, but is lost by the intention of sin, even if unperformed.”[76]

Augustine viewed erections themselves as involuntary: at times, without intention, the body stirs on its own, insistent; at other times, it leaves a straining lover in the lurch. Augustine of Hippo, City of God, 14.17

In short, Augustine’s life experience led him to consider lust to be one of the most grievous sins, and a serious obstacle to the virtuous life.

Augustine did not develop an independent mariology, but his statements on Mary surpass in number and depths those of other early writers. De Sacra Virginitate, 18. The Virgin Mary “conceived as virgin, gave birth as virgin and stayed virgin forever” De Sacra Virginitate, 6,6, 191.Even before the Council of Ephesus, he defended the ever Virgin Mary as the mother of God, who, because of her virginity, is full of grace. She was free of any temporal sin.

Augustine’s concept of original sin was expounded in his works against the Pelagians. However, St. Thomas Aquinas took much of Augustine’s theology while creating his own unique synthesis of Greek and Christian thought after the widespread rediscovery of the work of Aristotle. Augustine’s doctrine of grace found eloquent expression in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux.

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