The great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar presents his insights into the work of this very good and very faithful observer of the human scene in the book “Bernanos,” a study of one of the 20th Century’s great novelists whose religious themed novels and stories concentrated on the life of faith and struggles associated with it. The goal of von Balthasar’s book is simply to reveal and reinforce what Bernanos wanted to convey, as the devout Christian and Catholic author that he was, by means of the “electrifying” portrayal of the struggle between the soul and Evil for which he is noted. Author of the perennially popular “Diary of A Country Priest”, Bernanos was a deeply prayerful Roman Catholic whose profound love for the Church made everything he created or wrote an “ecclesial existence that has been given form: existence derived not merely from an abstract, individual faith but from the faith of the Church.” With judicious quoting of the primary sources and careful juxtaposing of texts and commentary, von Balthasar constructs a unique forum in which the novelist can speak to the reader in such a way that he can be clearly heard and genuinely, thoroughly, understood.

Visit The Christian Book Corner (t-CBC) and browse a unique and growing collection of books and other media from reputable sources and offered at handsome discount.  t.CBC books and media are all “Chosen with care, Chosen with Prayer” for your enjoyment and enlightenment.

Beyond the meadow which was a village
Once peopled with the land’s first native race
Now emptied of all but post-holes, tall grass,
Wildflowers, sweet berried vines at the edge
Of sacred blue shade mystery, who would
In the blinding light and heat of day guess
What deep surprise waited in twilit shyness
Still where once lily maiden walked and stood.

Yet, walk yourself down to the ancient stream
Where she had walked in morning’s world made new
Lily of the ribboned river’s sunrise gleam.
You’ll find eternity there for you.

Still Siloam in rising morning mist
So this Virgin’s pool waiting Him, unkissed.

peg
January 18, 2012

Dear brothers and sisters!

In the biblical readings of this Sunday — the second in Ordinary Time — the theme of vocation emerges: in the Gospel it is the call of the first disciples by Jesus; in the first reading it is the call of the Prophet Samuel. In both accounts there comes to the forefront the importance of the figure who plays the role of mediator, helping the persons called to recognize the voice of God and follow it.

In the case of Samuel, it is Eli, a priest of the temple of Silo, where in ancient times the ark of the covenant was kept before it is was transported to Jerusalem. One night Samuel, who was still a boy and had lived in the service of the temple from the time that he was small, heard a call three times in a row while he was sleeping, and ran to Eli. But Eli had not called him. The third time Eli understood and told Samuel: if you are called again respond: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9). And so it happened and from then on Samuel learned how to recognize God’s words and became his faithful prophet.

In the case of the disciples of Jesus, John the Baptist was the mediating figure. In fact, John had a large circle of disciples, and among these were the two pairs of brothers, Simon and Andrew and John and James, fishermen from Galilee. To two of them the Baptist points out Jesus the day after his baptism in the Jordan River. He indicates him to them saying: “Behold the lamb of God!” (John 1:36), which was the equivalent of saying: “Behold the Messiah!” And those two followed Jesus, remained with him for some time and were convinced that he was truly the Christ. Immediately they told the others this and thus was formed the first nucleus of what would become the college of the apostles.

In the light of these two texts, I would like to underscore the decisive role of the spiritual guide in the journey of faith and, in particular, in the response to the vocation of special consecration for the service of God and his people. The very Christian faith in itself presupposes proclamation and witness: in fact they consist in adhering to the good news that Jesus of Nazareth is dead and risen, that he is God. And thus the call to follow Jesus closely, renouncing a family of one’s own to dedicate oneself to the great family of the Church, normally passes through the witness and the suggestion of an “older brother,” usually a priest. But this is not to forget the fundamental role of parents, who with their genuine and joyful faith and their marital love show their children that it is beautiful and possible to build a whole life on the love of God.

Dear friends, let us pray to the Virgin Mary for all teachers, especially priests and parents, that they have complete awareness of the importance of their spiritual role to help young people not only in human growth but also in answering God’s call and saying: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

We visited Sheila the other day
After we had bid a last adieu to Bea
Who was already ninety-nine
When she finished finally with time
And wandered on to eternity.

I was very cold, so cold my fingers hurt
Standing with them all near what once was her;
Children, grandchildren and great-
Grandchildren, clumps of them, with us in the cold
With two priests and the rest of us all praying
That God grant eternal rest to he soul.

Taking our leave of Bea at last I looked
Toward the distant low hillside where
Sheila’s and her mother’s stone stood
Some rows in among the neighbors near
Now almost lost between two dwarf blue spruce
And yearned to see her once again.
So I told Mariellen, my wife and friend.

We approached the simple stone and grave
In silence beneath an open sky,
A slight chill wind sole evidence God gave
That he saw us, that he stood by
As we processed along on pilgrimage
To the little marker of her earthbound rest.

I remembered when we had laid her
On a cold and sun lit autumn day;
Her resting place to be this new turned earth
And we to stand at clean cut edge to pray.
I didn’t then, don’t believe it now
That we remain where we have been put down.

No, I believe the grave’s no simple “place
of rest”, and stones just sign posts if you will
The last mile markers on our way.
Peaceful?  Yes, but not so I want to stay.

At home that evening I received a message
From my daughter who said her mother had
Been on her mind all afternoon.  It was
so odd she thought.  Not I, remembering, and glad.

PEG
January 12, 2012

You know, a friend once said of me, while introducing me to someone, “Peter’s a very humble guy.  But, that’s because he has a lot to be humble about.”  We all laughed, myself included.  I hadn’t given much thought to being humble up to that time, or even given much thought to what humility was.

But, I began soon after.  One of the first things revealed to me was the close linguistic connection between humility and dirt, soil, humus.  I liked that, thinking to myself about the dirt, the soil I grew my few plants in, the ground I walked on, that held me up, the dust from which I came and to which I would return.  I liked it.  There’s a lot of that in Viper’s Tangle, a lot of dirt.  The protagonist, a retired lawyer, Monsieur Louis, is the son of farmers, living in a house in the middle of a farm and vineyard.  He’s not humble at all.  He’s proud, a word which some sources trace back to a Latin word, prodesse.  That means “to be of value”.  I found that interesting when I learned it, since M. Louis is a miser…and proud of it.  Somehow, because of his money, and solely because of it, he thinks he is of value, and suspects everyone of trying to get at it, the source of his pride and power, hating them for it.  According to the book, most of all of that is true.  The apples do not fall far from the tree.

Read the book, if you haven’t, and find out what happens to him and his pride.

But, that’s not exactly what I was interested in in telling you about this, though it is to be sure a part of it all.  I was speaking about what I discovered, that “something else” on my way to Confession and Holy Mass the other day on the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.  We’ve been reading another book, “As Long As Love Remembers”, by a fellow named Russell Janney.  It’s long out of print.  Janney wrote a couple of other novels back in the middle of the last century, one of which became a hit film, “The Miracle of the Bells”.  We read that one, too.  This one is a kind of reworking of “Bells” in the Saturday Evening Post style of story telling.  If a film were to have been made of this book, June Allyson would have played the girl lead.  (I forget that many of you may not remember her.  OK, then how about Glynnis Johns.)  The title of the book is sufficient, I think.  It is a good counterpoint…and a refutation in its own way… of the title of Mauriac’s book.  The author makes much of the openness between the two protagonists in “As Long As Love…”  They are married as is M. louis, the old miser in Viper’s tangle”, but, oh, what a difference.

Before we left for the short ride downtown to St. Patrick’s for the Holy Mass I was sitting here in front of this thing doodling with the keyboard and came across a video by a priest named Father Robert Barron in which he talks about hell, what it is and how to get there.

It’s a very interesting little video, and you ought to take the time to watch it.  Not too long after he begins talking about hell he says he thinks that what is taught by the Church about hell is a corollary to two others things the Church teaches us…and requires us to believe: God is Love.  We human beings are free.

Of course, I said to myself, as I listened to Fr. Barron say that.  It is the very thing I have thought, and the very thing I have known for lo, these many years.  God is love.  The problem is…

He continues in the video to speak, then, about the absurd conclusion many have reached that God sends us to hell, drawing on the words of CS Lewis who said once said that the door to the soul is locked on the inside.  (There is also that famous painting of Christ knocking on the door, the door with no door handle on the outside.)  So, as I sat there watching and thinking about what he was saying something began to bubble up inside of me; a small bubbling, to be sure, but, nonetheless…

The example of poor M. Louis, came to mind.  You see, in the book, the old skinflint has his own bubblings, but he successfully punctures them, disbelieves in the possibility they present to him, and continues along his not so very merry way.  He is rather proud of himself, all in all.

Well, we left and drove down to the church.  Along the way I am turning over in my mind what the little video about hell and humility have to do with me and confession.  I am not scared, afraid of anything, but I am more than normally eager to get there and participate in the ritual, partake of the sacrament, receive absolution and become new again.  At least that’s what I thought I had been doing all along.

But, had I?

Then, as I walked into the church, entered the confessional and began to speak to Father X, something dawned on me that brought things into focus.  I hadn’t really opened my own door.  I had kept back some essential part of myself all along, our of fear, lack of trust, timidity, and yes, pride…just like the old miser.

I did not mention that to my confessor, because the thought was/is still forming, and, now, here I stand, listening to the insistent knocking on the door. A knocking by the one who as John Paul II said  knows, and only He knows, what is inside me.  What have I to fear?

The question looms larger in my mind, and I begin to see the answer.  I fear the loss of my pride, my “prodesse”, my sense of value.  Nothing.

Francois Mauriac, the Nobel Prize winning French novelist, made a career of writing about “human frailties,”  exposing our inner darknesses and revealing what was and still is the only lasting remedy for them.  Mauriac’s classic novel in this genre, The Viper’s Tangle, deals with the decaying effect of such corrosive greed upon one person and upon his relationships with everyone he should love but cannot because of his fatal flaw.  Whether a person’s flaw is greed or some other of the so-called “deadly”sins, one comes away from Mauriac’s tale concluding that without grace, the result will be the same:  misery here and torment elsewhere, for eternity.  Mauriac’s narrator, an old man nearing the end of his life, pours out his sad and bitter life in a letter to his wife who hates him, as he says he hates her, because of her own greed.  If you seek a serious, classic work of good fiction which deals with enduring truths, then this book is one you should read.  It’s fiction, of course, but even as such it is truth, a Catholic novel in every sense of that word, illuminating classic Christian teaching about Good which could have been done but for the choices made to ignore grace and embrace selfish desires and the conflicts they inevitably produce.  The Viper’s Tangle, one of the best novels to come out of France in the last century is, sadly enough, a cautionary tale for today as well.

The Christian Book Corner (t-CBC) is pleased to offer this book from Loyola Press at our everyday steep discount.  Along with other such books, t-CBC offers a wide and steadily growing array of carefully chosen Christian and Catholic fiction, poetry, intellectual, religious and theological books, music and films for all ages from only the most reputable publishers and suppliers.  Visit us today to browse our expanding collection of books, cds, dvds, journals and other articles, all of them “Chosen with Care; chosen with Prayer.”  “Like” us on Facebook to receive regular updates and news about sales and further special events!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Snow is falling, neighbors just now leaving
For Grandma’s house over the hills and through
The woods, bringing kids and gifts, believing
This is all they will really need to do
To receive their share of Christmas spirit:
Show up, open gifts and eat.  Say goodbye
When the game’s over.  “Goodbye, Grandma.  Great
To see you.  So, long Uncle Pat, Auntie Vi.
It’s a long way home.”  It is a long way
Home I tell myself every single day.

I think of those two ancient travelers
Who walked from their home through cold bitter nights
Along stony sheep tracks winding raw hills
Where shepherds sleep, their tiny fires’ light
Faint across the high plains, crossed frigid rills
Tumbling down rock and ridge, cold, hungry
And worried about the one they carry
With them.  None waited for them to arrive
Warmly smiling welcome from off their way
None except rude animals, beasts, alive
To serve and work from day, to day, to day.

Myself become an ancient traveler
Along narrow winding paths in strange lands,
Faint stars and far horizons far less than
Comfort as I go along unchanging keep
Their cold distance beautiful but so deep,
Unreachable I think, unsearchable
Too no matter how one frames the question
On every mind, I silent, stumble,
Occasionally fall, my way along
Towards home with this thought growing:
I carry Him who walks with me going.

Of course you may wish something like this for yourself, but to share it with others is the greater pleasure.  So, whether you have in mind someone old or young, someone rich or poor; whether your thoughts are for a man or woman, boy or girl, may I suggest this as a lasting way to solve the common problem.  In many cases, if not all of them music makes it easy, and this time the solution may be found in the brand new cd called “Burnished Bright: Sacred Sounds of Brass, Organ and Bells”.  It  is a sophisticated and dynamic blend of  sacred instruments, perfect for this and any season of Advent and Christmas.  The heraldic voices of brass, bells and organ announce the majesty of Christ — his human birth as an infant in the stable at Bethlehem, his glorification on the mount of Transfiguration, the descent of his Holy Spirit in tongues of fire.  Christmas is not properly prepared for nor celebrated without music.  Christmas cds make for a very special Christmas celebration, a perfect Advent preparation and a joyous season for all, no matter whom or where.  “Burnished Bright: Sacred Sounds of Brass, Organ and Bells”  makes a perfect addition to your own collection or a gift for anyone whom you wish to favor with something jewel like in quality and of timeless value.

This excellent CD and others like it are available in many places, including our little place on the internet, The Christian Book Corner (t-CBC) where you may find individually and carefully selected and recommended products at discount, classical and contemporary works of literature, music and scholarship for all tastes and ages “Chosen with Care; chosen with Prayer”