REVIEW: Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel by Michael O’Brien

Posted on 14 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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I recently finished reading Voyage to Alpha Centauri by Michael D. O’Brien. (UK LINK HERE)

I hope he writes in this genre again!

This novel deals with an expedition in the future aboard a massive, city-like ship the Kosmos to a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. The main protagonist is a Noble prize winning physicist from the SW USA Neil de Hoyos. As one of the main contributors to the technology that makes the ship possible, he is a passenger with hundreds of other scientists and crew. The future setting is that of extreme totalitarianism, anti-Christian, post-Christian statist control. I don’t doubt that this is where O’Brien fears we are headed. He has worked with this context before. In any event, De Hoyos and his colleagues buck the system about Kosmos and have problems during their voyage.

The voyage itself slowly reveals itself to be another manifestation of our perennial struggle against the age old Enemy of mankind, the father of lies, the serpent.

I don’t want to offer any spoilers, and therefore I will make this a bit sketchy.

It is interesting that O’Brien has moved into science fiction. He has written about quite a few different contexts, contemporary and historical, but this is new for him and he did a fine job of it. The technology plays a role in the thrust of the narrative, as if it were a character: an important character. Moreover, the work is deeply Catholic and theological, even though there is very little that is overtly Catholic in the first part. It is Catholic in its worldview rather than in its surface trappings.

You might call this book “theological sci-fi”.

O’Brien is deeply concerned about human freedom and our dignity as images of God. Thus, in his books he often explores the problems caused by the expanding and encroaching State and about the evil, truly diabolical evil, that lurks behind attacks on human dignity. He is also convinced that we need to have clear archetypes and symbols, that evil should be recognizable as evil and good as good. This is something he has written about in reference to children’s literature in his A Landscape With Dragons: The Battle For Your Child’s Mind, which I recommend warmly for parents of young children and educators.

You will encounter in Voyage some leitmotifs which – if you are paying attention – will enrich your reading. O’Brien often works with symbols as motifs. Once you figure out his style, you’ll start picking them up pretty quickly.

From my reading of O’Brien over the years, I believe he has a strong mystical streak. Therefore, even as you might sometimes wish that he had a more aggressive editor, his books reward patience.

I wholeheartedly recommend Voyage.

I am tempted to have a discussion thread here, but I don’t want to offer spoilers. There are some twists and turns which I don’t want to ruin.

Posted in Look! Up in the sky!, REVIEWS, The Coming Storm, The Drill | Tagged Michael P. O'Brien, Voyage to Alpha Centauri
18 Comments

The Goldfinch

Posted on 14 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A while ago I was in New York City and I visited, eagerly, the Frick Gallery to see an exhibition of paintings from the Mauritshuis which is making its way around the world: Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis. Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring was on view.

However, as interesting as Girl was – I was amused to learn that, during a cleaning, a supposed highlight on the pearl turned out to be a stray flake of something and not Vermeer’s intention at all – I was even more interested in Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch.

You know of my interest in what I call “Christological goldfinches” in Italian painting.

I saw today at The History Blog an entry about the Frick exhibit and the Girl and the Goldfinch.

There I learned of a novel which features The Goldfinch, namely, by Donna Tartt.

Apparently people are flying and flocking like finches to see the fine feathered feature in numbers as great as those who come to view the Girl with the pearl. They do so, it seems, from their interest in the books. You may also know about the novel and the movie about the Girl.

Here is something from the blog entry:

The Goldfinch‘s charm has been more than evident to curators and fans of the Dutch Golden Age for centuries, of course. That’s why it’s included in what is basically a greatest hits exhibition. The petite piece, about the size of a piece of A4 paper, is a trompe l’oeil, a painting that creates the deliberate illusion of reality. A goldfinch stands on a feedbox, a delicate chain tethering him to the spot, against a whitewashed wall with crumbling bits of plaster. The shadows cast by the box are at a fairly steep upward angle and we see the box’s semicircular perches from below, suggesting Fabritius planned the piece for display relatively high on a wall.

Fabritius’ confident, smooth brushstrokes create an incredibly lifelike bird despite the lack of precision photorealistic detail. He learned from the best, studying under no less of a master than Rembrandt in the early 1640s in Amsterdam. You can see Rembrandt’s influence in the splash of yellow in the bird’s wing. Fabritius laid the yellow on thick and then scratched it while it was still wet using the butt of his brush. The scratch exposed the underlying layer of black. This is a technique Rembrandt taught him.

The overall look of the painting, however, is a departure from Fabritius’ early work in Amsterdam. Fabritius was 28 years old when he moved to Delft in 1650 and over time, he moved on from Rembrandt’s dark palette and atmospheric lighting to the brighter scenes and homier subjects of the Delft school of artists. Johannes Vermeer was influenced by this approach (he may have even been an actual student of Carel Fabritius, but the evidence for this is very thin).

Unfortunately Fabritius’ great artistry was severed shortly after he painted The Goldfinch. On October 12, 1654, a gunpowder magazine in Delft exploded, destroying a quarter of the city. Fabritius was killed at the age of 32. His studio was reduced to rumble and most of his paintings were lost. Only a dozen or so of his paintings are known to survive today. It’s possible that The Goldfinch was a witness to this tragedy. When the Mauritshuis restored it in 2003, they found microscopic damage to the surface. It may have been rescued from the rubble.

The Goldfinch, Girl with a Pearl Earring and the rest of the treasures will be on display at the Frick through January 19th, so you have no time to lose if you want to see the exhibition before it leaves the country. There is one more international stop of the tour in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna from February 8th until May 25th, and then the group returns to The Hague in time where they will be installed in the newly renovated Mauritshuis in time for its grand re-opening on June 27th.

I admit that my last trip to NYC was timed partly with this exhibit in mind. I am a fan of Vermeer and of other Dutch masters. The Frick has 3 Vermeer and the Met 5. With the arrival of the Girl with the pearl, there was a serious concentration of Vermeer in NYC. Also on display was a mighty find vanitas painting by one of my faves, Pieter Claesz.

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged Carel Fabritius, Frick Gallery, goldfinch, Pieter Claesz, The Goldfinch, Vermeer
10 Comments

NEWS FLASH! SUN RISES AT DAWN!

Posted on 14 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

How ridiculous are things getting in the wake of The Francis Effect™?

Here is a headline from Reuters. I really hope that the otherwise bright Phil Pullella didn’t impose this:

Pope, in nod to conservatives, calls abortion ‘horrific’

What a shocker! The Pope is against abortion!

But wait. There’s more. Someone at Reuters figured out that this was absurd. They revised the headline to:

“Pope, after conservatives’ criticism, calls abortion “horrific”

Hang on. Isn’t this worse?

Posted in Francis | Tagged Philip Pullella, Reuters, The Francis Effect
26 Comments

NY Common Core sends students to sex quiz page

Posted on 13 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

For all you supports of The First Gay President’s administration and for all of those Catholic entities out there who have bought into Common Core, from Breitbart:

NEW YORK COMMON CORE WEBSITE SENT STUDENTS TO SEX QUIZ PAGE

*The following article contains graphic, sexually explicit terms.
While lawmakers in New York State are considering delaying the Common Core standards initiative because of its disastrous rollout, new problems with the academic standards are now drawing intense criticism.
Carol Burris, New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year, reports at Valerie Strauss’s Washington Post blog that Anna Shah, the mother of a kindergarten student, discovered highly offensive materials on the Student Services Page of the Engage NY Common Core materials site. When Shah reported her discovery to NYSED, the page was taken down, though the link had reportedly been active since October of 2012.
The link below is to a screen shot made prior to the removal of the site.
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) site contained a section called “Make test prep fun,” which directed students to a site with quizzes that help them find out if they are a “sexy bitch,” “evil,” a “freak,” “insane,” etc.
Scrolling down and right on the page, students could also click on the links to take quizzes that would help them find out if they are “sluts,” or “losers.”
Questions on the “Are you a slut?” test include:

[…]

That’s enough of that.

Thanks to everyone out there who voted for Pres. Obama.

BTW… how’s the AFFORDABLE Care Act working for you so far?

Posted in Liberals | Tagged Affordable Care Act, Common Core, Obamacare, Pres. Obama, The First Gay President
26 Comments

Airsoft Altar Boys

Posted on 13 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Howdy from the heart of Texas Fr. Z! We decided to get our Altar Boy group together to play airsoft (military simulation that fires plastic pellets) at a local airsoft field. This is why we’re referred to as Altar BOYS. Picture is attached here. I’m the guy in the middle with the Austrian Bullpup rifle.

Oorah!

I hope these extraordinary guys are also learning and serving the Extraordinary Form.

Posted in Be The Maquis, Fr. Z KUDOS, Just Too Cool | Tagged airsoft, altar boys
57 Comments

GUEST POST: Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Grand Rapids, MI

Posted on 13 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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From a reader:

Thank you for your blog, your collect translations, and your devotion to the Tridentine Rite. I pray for you every night before bed, please pray for me.

I wanted to pass along some information about this wonderful bunch of young women who formed their own chant group and have been singing High Mass at the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Grand Rapids, MI (unfortunately, the only extraordinary form parish in our diocese). They put out a CD last year and here is a clip promoting it:

This is not my home parish, but our family tries to get over to attend the Mass there whenever we can. I have heard this group on multiple occasions and they truly glorify God with their singing.

I attended the Easter Sunday Mass there last year and they added much beauty on a such sacred feast. I remember sitting in the pew hearing an angelic rendition of O Filii et Filiae. I had not looked back at loft to see who was singing. So, I was shocked during communion when a group of four high school age girls come down from the loft to receive Eucharist. I was even more surprised to learn from the new parish music director, Dr. David Saunders, that these young woman had formed the group of their own initiative.

Great pastoral work by Father Robert Sirico bringing TLM to our youth! Please give Sancta Schola Caecilia Father Z kudos.

Brick by brick!

Fr. Z kudos!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged music, sacred music
16 Comments

¡Vaya lío! Flash ‘Mass Mobs’ help struggling parishes.

Posted on 13 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the Buffalo News:

‘Mass Mob’ breathes life into Catholic church [Nice of them to demote the Church to ‘church’, no?]

Sam Kolodziej Jr. had a few more people than normal in his pew on Sunday morning.

In fact, there were a couple hundred extra members of the faithful inside Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. And they had the Buffalo ‘Mass Mob’ – the latest iteration of Internet flash mobs – to thank.

The church on O’Connell Avenue in the Old First Ward was packed with about 300 people for the 10:30 a.m. Mass, with most of the churchgoers drawn as part of an event meant to supply a dose of rejuvenation to some of Buffalo’s Catholic churches. A normal crowd for the Sunday morning Mass is less than 100, the church’s pastor said.

Kolodziej, a long-time parishioner who graduated from the grammar school formerly on the site, said he even got a little emotional seeing the church filled with worshippers.

“Overwhelming,” Kolodziej said when asked about the turnout. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Believers said the event made the church look like it did decades ago when Mass attendance in the United States was higher than it is today. [Ahhh the fruits of renewal of the …. 60’s.]

Flash mobs have taken on a different spin locally with cash mobs, where a crowd descends on a local business to give it a boost in sales. Niagara Falls has a “CleanMob,” which focuses on cleaning up trash.

The idea for the Mass Mob grew out of a “Facebook Mass” held a few years ago at St. Adalbert Basilica on Stanislaus Street, when the church encouraged its Facebook fans to come to a Sunday morning Mass. [Use of social media to encourage people to… go to Mass?!?] Electronic communication and social media, including Twitter and Facebook, play a prominent role in spreading the word about the event.

“What you’ll hear from people about a place like this is that it’s kind of on a side street in the First Ward. Nobody ever really sees it,” said co-organizer Christopher Byrd. “It falls off the radar screen. People forgot about this place in a lot of ways.”

The organizers, including Byrd, Danielle Huber, Alan Oberst and Greg Witul, want places like Our Lady of Perpetual Help back on the radar screen.

“Maybe it will inspire people to come a few times a year,” Byrd said, “and it gives the church a little one-day boost, attendance-wise and in the collection basket.” [And, if there is something going on inside the church, such as worthy liturgical worship, decent preaching, and opportunities to participate in parish life… who know what might happen? People might actually…. gasp… go there regularly.]

The organizers want to give these churches a shot in the arm before it may be too late.

The declining fortunes of St. Ann’s Church at Broadway and Emslie Street – a closed Catholic church that some are working to save – has provided some motivation to the organizers.

“We need to be proactive to save these buildings,” Huber said.

[…]

“We need to be proactive.”

Yes.

For example, if you want to build/expand/keep your Extraordinary Form Mass, you have to apply yourselves with grace and elbow grease.

Don’t sit around and wait for Father to do something.*

That approach will mean the death of parishes, the closing of churches, the loss of treasures gained through the sacrifices of our forbears.

Get organized, come up with plans, present them and do something.

¡Vaya lío!

^{*A typical Catholic approach to serious problems.}

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, Just Too Cool, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged D. Buffalo, flash mob, social media
9 Comments

“immensely complex… huge ramifications… major reverberations…”

Posted on 12 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Holy Father baptized the baby of a couple who are only civilly married.

¡Vaya lío!

From the excellent Canon Law blog of Ed Peters… who is probably smart not to have an open combox. Or .. maybe he just enjoys watching me moderate the discussion over here. I dunno.

My emphases and comments.

How popes, baptism, marriage, and form, all come together

[…]

First, unlike the foot-washing episode last Holy Week (here and here), the pope’s actions today occasion no reason to think that canon or liturgical law has been—what’s the right word?—disregarded, for no canon or liturgical law forbids baptizing the babies of unmarried couples, etc. Indeed, Church law generally favors the administration of sacraments and, in the case of baptism, it requires only that there be “a founded hope” that the child will be raised Catholic (1983 CIC 868 § 1, 2º). A minister could certainly discern ‘founded hope’ for a Catholic upbringing under these circumstances and outsiders should not second-guess his decision. [And I guess that still applies when the minister is THE POPE.]

But here’s the rub: a minister could also arrive at precisely the opposite conclusion on these facts and, equally in accord with the very same Church law, he could delay the baptism. I know of many pastors who have reached this conclusion and who used the occasion of a request for a baby’s baptism to assist the parents toward undertaking their duties in a more responsible manner, including helping them to regularize their marriage status in the Church, resume attendance at Sunday Mass, participate fully in the sacraments, and so on. [All of which, I think, we will stipulate are good things.]

Now, if the pope’s action today was as reported (again, we don’t know that yet), [then… (here we go!) ] pastors who delay a baby’s baptism in order to help reactivate the Faith in the baby’s parents are going to have a harder time doing that as word gets out about the pope’s (apparently) different approach to the rite. Whether that was the message Francis intended to send is irrelevant to whether that is the message that he seems to have sent.

[NB] But, I suggest, the whole question of whether to baptize the baby of these parents surfaces a yet deeper question.

The only reason we describe this civilly-married Catholic couple as “unmarried” is because they apparently did not observe “canonical form” in marrying, that is, they did not marry ‘in the Church’ as required by 1983 CIC 1108, 1117. Now think about this: had two Protestants, two Jews, two Muslims, two Hindus, two Animists, two You-Name-Its, otherwise able to marry, expressed their matrimonial consent before a civil official, we Catholics would have regarded them as presumptively married. But, when two Catholics (actually, even if only one were Catholic, per 1983 CIC 1059) attempt marriage outside of canonical form, the Church regards them as not married at all. [Get that?] That’s a dramatic conclusion to reach based only on one’s (non)observance of an ecclesiastical law that is itself only a few hundred years old.

For more than 50 years, a quiet undercurrent of (if I may put it this way) solidly Catholic canonists and theologians has been questioning whether canonical form—a remedy that nearly all would agree has outlived the disease it was designed to cure (clandestine marriage)—should be still be required for Catholics or [Quaeritur…] whether the price of demanding the observance of canonical form has become too high for the pastoral good it might serve.

Canonical form is an immensely complex topic. It has huge ramifications in the Church and it has major reverberations in the world. I am not going to discuss those here. But if the upcoming Synod on the Family and Evangelization is looking for a topic that needs, in my opinion, some very, very careful reconsideration, that topic would be the future of canonical form for marriage among Catholics. There is still time to prep the question for synodal discussion.

All of this, you might wonder, from the baptism of a baby? Yes, because everything in the Church is connected to everything else. Eventually, if we get it right, it all comes together to form a magnificent tapestry of saving truth.

And he is eloquent, too.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged ¡Hagan lío!, baptism, can. 1059, can. 868, canon law, Ed Peters, Pope Francis, Synod of Bishops
163 Comments

Pope Francis baptized baby of couple with civil marriage only

Posted on 12 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is interesting.

Today Pope Francis followed the custom of other Popes and baptized babies in the Sistine Chapel.

But wait! There’s more!

I read in La Stampa that the parents of one of the babies isn’t married.

That is to say, the couple is civilly married but not married in the Church. My translation:

Among the baptized – according to the report in the daily “Il Tirreno” – there is also Giulia, caught of a couple married civilly but not in church. And this is certainly a novelty. Not for Bergoglio, who as a priest, bishop and cardinal baptized babies of teen mothers or unmarried couples many times. Giulia’s parents, last 25 September, had made their request to the Pope directly at the end of the Wednesday general audience. “We were on the ‘sagrato’ (the ‘porch’ in front of the Basilica)”, Ivan Scardia recounted, the father of the baby, “when he passed by and we asked him if he could baptize our second child. He told us to get in touch with his collaborators and then they contacted us.” When the time came to send in the documents there was a glitch: “We were married at city hall. But this problem was also overcome,” Giulia’s father said.

In other news, during the baptism rite itself, there was a point when the Pope stopped saying the black and went off the cuff (big surprise there). He turned to the congregation and gave them a little talking-to.

Having listened to the Pope for a while, we are starting to hear his different voices, his moods, as it were. Frankly, he got a bit intense and serious, verging on stern.

He told them:

Don’t forget, the greatest inheritance that you can give to your children is this, the light of the faith. Hand on the faith, a strong faith that it be their salvation.