Concentric Circles, pt. II.

The cosmic trail left behind by the Logos in having become Man, in having walked among us, in having gone to the Cross and risen, and in having returned to the Father, left the pattern for a new vocation on the part of creation. The Incarnation was both a vertical and horizontal movement: a pattern that can only be geometrically represented by a triangle. In other words, in the pattern established by the Incarnation, creation is renewed in its ability to represent God - and now even more fully than it could before. God the Holy Trinity, because of the simultaneous vertical and horizontal movement of Christ, is shown more fully in creation itself than He was even at the beginning, which implies in turn that every detail of creation can be seen as an icon of God, in one way or another.

This, I think, is the key to understanding the whole of the universe and the meaning of life. Life itself is an icon, and the stage on which life unfolds is an icon, which, if correct, takes account of such seemingly disparate works as Pope John Paul’s encyclical, Evangelium vitae, and Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

Mums, Daffodils, and the Rest of the Cosmos

What I used to know as Mothering Sunday, and which the British call ‘Mother’s Day’, is looming. This coming Sunday, in fact. I was reminded of this as I walked to work this morning and got visually assaulted by a billboard telling me to remember to buy flowers.

The Mother’s Days of my youth I fondly remember as days on which the mothers of our parish were given daffodils. The servers would be dispersed from the sanctuary to hand them out, and would inevitably become flustered when faced by the one young woman whose maternal status was unknown. After church, we would proceed as a family to my grandparents’ home, where we would give my grandma the daffodil we had collected for her, and gorge ourselves on all the food her and my grandfather would lay out.

Perceptions of the Church - Looking under the Bonnet

For all my interest in intellectual pursuits, I have a bit of a boyish weakness I have never been able to shake. I quite like cars. From F1 to WRC to the average Volkswagen on the street, I can spend far too much time thinking about cars and what goes on underneath them. But having confessed this, I know that I am not alone. Numerous colleagues of mine - men and women - will turn their head toward a nice-looking vehicle. And for good reason. Cars can represent the best in design, with lines as appealing as just about anything human beings have contrived.

Concentric Circles, pt. I.

What began as a response to R. of Nipawin’s comments to the article ‘Culture and Religious Integration‘, also seemed like an appropriate (albeit partial) response to D. Smith’s comments at the bottom of ‘Apologia pro mutatione mea, pt. VII’. At the end of the day, it is my attempt to explain how I understand the Gospel to relates to culture, how the Church relates to the world, and how the Liturgy relates to life. Like the apologia, I intend to offer it in parts. Feel free to comment.

Missing the ‘gesimas

One of the reasons that it took Johnny Cash to wake me up for Lent this year, I am sure, has something to do with the disappearance of the ‘Gesima Sundays - that is, the three Sundays running up to Lent, including Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.

Culture and Religious Integration

One of the great joys that comes with being Catholic is the disintegration of barriers between what constitutes one’s regular life and what constitutes one’s religious life. My experience is such that my children attend the local Catholic school, play football (soccer) with their school friends, go to the Friday night ‘junior club’ with the same set of friends, and depending on the year, meet up with those friends yet again for First Communion preparation. In this respect, participation in the Mass must seem to them a mere extension of everything else they do; not an added Sunday morning inconvenience, but part of a holistic world of which family and friends together partake.