If the phenomenon of Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" and the forthcoming "Angels and Demons" film have shown us anything, it's that people continue to have a fascination with the supernatural.
Yet examine films like "The Excorcist" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," not to mention numerous dark references in popular media, and a further truth becomes clear:
It's not just that people are into a good story, or that they are interested in the supernatural -- they remain fascinated with the picture of Catholic cosmology. They suspect, perhaps, that despite all modern advances, this worldview might actually be true.
The modern skeptic or agnostic has a terribly difficult path to follow, as -- contrary to popular belief -- we are living in the greatest age of Christian supernatural phenomenon, which might also explain why the 20th century also saw the greatest number of Christian martyrs in history.
The 20th century was an age of mysticism and miracles. Everything I am about to mention has been the subject of scientific and/or psychological examination, so this is far from science-fiction.
Padre Pio's incorrupt body continues to lie in state, being one of many modern saints whose body, rather than naturally decompose after death, remain wholly or partially preserved while emitting the scent of roses.
The 20th century has widely been called a Marian age, being as numerous Marian visions have occurred. The phenomenon of Medjugorje baffled scientists who studied the children suppossedly receiving the Marian visions. Or we can turn to Lourdes, where we had not only fulfilled prophecies, but a massive vision witnessed by thousands of people at the same time. Such things are hard to explain-away or push aside. The bloody history of the 20th century can in fact be understood almost entirely through an examination of the Lourdes prophecies.
Then there are bleeding and weeping statues, crucifixes, and even several documented Eucharistic miracles (one literally "gushing" example being captured on home video, where it is clear that no contraptions or tricks are being used.)
Then we can talk about the stigmata, a phenomenon that science has not been able to even begin to understand.
At the sites where such things have occurred, numerous high-profile and inexplicable healings (blindness, cancer, etc) have taken place.
Those who sarcastically ask where the ever-present God of the Old Testament went have merely to look to history -- especially recent history -- to see his constant intervention.
If God's hand is so visible in our time, perhaps the Devil's is even more visible. Father Gabriel Amorth -- the Exorcist of Rome -- has performed over 15,000 exorcisms. To this day, each diocese employees the services of at least one of these holy men (I've met one, actually.) They are men who -- after all the required batteries of modern psychology have failed -- have been able to intervene and save the minds, lives, and (we believe) souls of the terribly afflicted. While the Church has a general policy not to publically document such occurences, there is enough evidence on display to both baffle and terrify. The very phenomenon of possession and excorcism should be enough to move the most hardened skeptic, if not downright frighten them into a reconsideration of their position.
When an author like Dan Brown taps into the Catholic mystique, he is not only using a great device to tell a good story. He is tapping into what some of us downright believe, and others uncomfortably suspect may be true. It remains a terrifying and inconvenient truth, yet the evidence is there, and "all who have eyes should see."
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
What We Have Lost
Already the lessons of this journey begin to emerge, and I feel as one who has been allowed to step outside of the mad rush of modern life in order to learn to live more fully. Surely, I am very busy. Surely, there are many challenges before me. Yet something is different.
I have always understood, even if intuitively, what we have lost as a Western culture. It was only later that what I learned confirmed my intuition. Now, I am beginning to feel what I have understood, and therefore understanding on an entirely different level.
In my previous blog, I wrote about the choral Mysterium I witnessed, and how it managed to fulfill a deep human need found scarcely anywhere outside of the realms of religion and art.
Over-skeptics, atheists, and doubters of all sort will be quick to counter that my religious sentiment is no more than a product of evolution, an evolved condition for my own personal comfort as well as for social cohesion.
I will be quick to counter that the deification of natural selection is far more bizarre than the belief in a higher power. If natural selection is truly so precise, then it makes no sense that mankind would have evolved a contentious "sense of things" for which he would also have to evolve a religious need as an opiate. No, my friends, this is far too complex, and hardly the most elegant solution to the matter.
Nor do I think that the being who willed us into existence is above dabbling in the very genetic code he created. If religious need be genetic, if emotions be entirely chemical, then it was meant to be so. It is exceptionally odd and short-sighted that learned men would assign to us a religious need borne out of randomness. Such men, for all their learning and degrees, are no more profound than bleating sheep and stubborn children.
Last night I attended Mass in yet another ancient Cathedral. This time the crowd numbered well over two thousand young people, all eagerly crowded around four Dominican Priests. In a country viciously under attack by secularism and liberalism, this was a stunning witness of faith from the generation on the cusp of taking power. The feeling in the Church bordered on ecstasy (aided along by a wonderful musical presentation and vivid homily.) And I was reminded of what we have lost.
In the west, we have lost the sense of origin. We are, for better or worse, the wayward creations of a higher power. While we constantly emphasize the grand potential of these "imperfect creatures," we are quick to forget how quickly this potential can go astray. The 20th century was, if nothing else, a material confirmation of the doctrine of original sin. Perhaps our current economic crisis is no more than a gentle reminder?
We need help. We need guidance. We need to take a day a week to slow down, take a deep breath, and bring our frail selves before the creator. We need grace to learn, grace to persevere, grace to live in the moment, grace to be kind, grace to know when to fight, grace to know when to back away, grace to know when we are wrong, grace to confess our wrongs, and grace to even begin to approach the image of a decent life.
This is not religious fanaticism, nor is it the sort of sentiment which breeds oppression. It is a simple and comprehensive knowledge, available to any person with the courage to truly examine the human condition.
I have always understood, even if intuitively, what we have lost as a Western culture. It was only later that what I learned confirmed my intuition. Now, I am beginning to feel what I have understood, and therefore understanding on an entirely different level.
In my previous blog, I wrote about the choral Mysterium I witnessed, and how it managed to fulfill a deep human need found scarcely anywhere outside of the realms of religion and art.
Over-skeptics, atheists, and doubters of all sort will be quick to counter that my religious sentiment is no more than a product of evolution, an evolved condition for my own personal comfort as well as for social cohesion.
I will be quick to counter that the deification of natural selection is far more bizarre than the belief in a higher power. If natural selection is truly so precise, then it makes no sense that mankind would have evolved a contentious "sense of things" for which he would also have to evolve a religious need as an opiate. No, my friends, this is far too complex, and hardly the most elegant solution to the matter.
Nor do I think that the being who willed us into existence is above dabbling in the very genetic code he created. If religious need be genetic, if emotions be entirely chemical, then it was meant to be so. It is exceptionally odd and short-sighted that learned men would assign to us a religious need borne out of randomness. Such men, for all their learning and degrees, are no more profound than bleating sheep and stubborn children.
Last night I attended Mass in yet another ancient Cathedral. This time the crowd numbered well over two thousand young people, all eagerly crowded around four Dominican Priests. In a country viciously under attack by secularism and liberalism, this was a stunning witness of faith from the generation on the cusp of taking power. The feeling in the Church bordered on ecstasy (aided along by a wonderful musical presentation and vivid homily.) And I was reminded of what we have lost.
In the west, we have lost the sense of origin. We are, for better or worse, the wayward creations of a higher power. While we constantly emphasize the grand potential of these "imperfect creatures," we are quick to forget how quickly this potential can go astray. The 20th century was, if nothing else, a material confirmation of the doctrine of original sin. Perhaps our current economic crisis is no more than a gentle reminder?
We need help. We need guidance. We need to take a day a week to slow down, take a deep breath, and bring our frail selves before the creator. We need grace to learn, grace to persevere, grace to live in the moment, grace to be kind, grace to know when to fight, grace to know when to back away, grace to know when we are wrong, grace to confess our wrongs, and grace to even begin to approach the image of a decent life.
This is not religious fanaticism, nor is it the sort of sentiment which breeds oppression. It is a simple and comprehensive knowledge, available to any person with the courage to truly examine the human condition.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Why Art Must be Sacred
The twentieth-century gleam of lights dimmed suddenly, leaving only the ancient reverberation of candlelight on the walls of the 15th century cathedral. Choristers were gathered in the very highest portions of the grand old building, slowly floating the opening strains of "Silent Night" down onto the people below.
In mid-phrase, the immense organ boomed suddenly, shaking the very stones of the cathedral as lights revealed another choir which had snuck-up to the main stage. And so it went for over three hours on the evening of February 2nd, in Sczecin, Poland (Christmas is celebrated from Dec 25th-to Feb 2nd here, unlike our early American start.)
All sacred music and carols, performed with the expressed intent of inspiring the highest emotions in the audience before them. Even more shocking to me as an American was the fact that the main choir came from a secular state university. It was one of the many refreshing differences I have found in this country which is still unafraid to believe and to proclaim that belief in the public square.
I was also struck by the profound aesthetic experience of it all, and this brings me to the main point in this blog. Such high art, performed so well, would have lost the majority of its power if it were simply relegated to the realm of "aesthetic experience." Aesthetic experience, divorced from religious sentiment, becomes nothing more than the enjoyment of our biological reaction to beautiful sound. The reason art must be sacred is quite simple: because it is precisely the sacredness possible in art -- what Ives and others termed the "transcendent" element of their craft" -- that gives it meaning. The divorce of art, science, and public policy from the realm of faith has neutered these endeavors, making them self-serving and ultimately aimless beyond the immediate satisfaction of carnal needs.
Simply put, people of faith are able to hear "something much, much more" in Ives' Concord Sonata, in Beethoven's 7th Symphony, or in Gorecki's third symphony.
I left the Mysterium concert joyful, yet feeling a profound sense of loss for my own country. How can it be that a nation founded by believers could lack such public expressions of the cornerstone of our great society?
In a world that teaches me that I am no more than an animal, I was reminded that I am certainly much more than the flesh which contains me. I was reminded of desires that move beyond the carnal, of thoughts that move beyond the psychological oversimplifications of neo-Darwinists, and of an origin and destiny which my soul yearns to acknowledge even if the world seeks to forget.
This is how art once inspired the best in people.
Such inspiration cannot rise from the personal or the carnal, but rather must come from above. It is in this arena that much modern creativity has failed, and it is little wonder that so many remain indifferent to the self-centered ramblings of eccentrics choosing to remain on the fringe of society. Simply put, it doesn't have to be this way.
We already have the right answer, but are too stubborn to embrace it.
In mid-phrase, the immense organ boomed suddenly, shaking the very stones of the cathedral as lights revealed another choir which had snuck-up to the main stage. And so it went for over three hours on the evening of February 2nd, in Sczecin, Poland (Christmas is celebrated from Dec 25th-to Feb 2nd here, unlike our early American start.)
All sacred music and carols, performed with the expressed intent of inspiring the highest emotions in the audience before them. Even more shocking to me as an American was the fact that the main choir came from a secular state university. It was one of the many refreshing differences I have found in this country which is still unafraid to believe and to proclaim that belief in the public square.
I was also struck by the profound aesthetic experience of it all, and this brings me to the main point in this blog. Such high art, performed so well, would have lost the majority of its power if it were simply relegated to the realm of "aesthetic experience." Aesthetic experience, divorced from religious sentiment, becomes nothing more than the enjoyment of our biological reaction to beautiful sound. The reason art must be sacred is quite simple: because it is precisely the sacredness possible in art -- what Ives and others termed the "transcendent" element of their craft" -- that gives it meaning. The divorce of art, science, and public policy from the realm of faith has neutered these endeavors, making them self-serving and ultimately aimless beyond the immediate satisfaction of carnal needs.
Simply put, people of faith are able to hear "something much, much more" in Ives' Concord Sonata, in Beethoven's 7th Symphony, or in Gorecki's third symphony.
I left the Mysterium concert joyful, yet feeling a profound sense of loss for my own country. How can it be that a nation founded by believers could lack such public expressions of the cornerstone of our great society?
In a world that teaches me that I am no more than an animal, I was reminded that I am certainly much more than the flesh which contains me. I was reminded of desires that move beyond the carnal, of thoughts that move beyond the psychological oversimplifications of neo-Darwinists, and of an origin and destiny which my soul yearns to acknowledge even if the world seeks to forget.
This is how art once inspired the best in people.
Such inspiration cannot rise from the personal or the carnal, but rather must come from above. It is in this arena that much modern creativity has failed, and it is little wonder that so many remain indifferent to the self-centered ramblings of eccentrics choosing to remain on the fringe of society. Simply put, it doesn't have to be this way.
We already have the right answer, but are too stubborn to embrace it.
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