Revert To Saved Version: February 2005

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

SuperPope

SuperPope battles a demon in Flash anime.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Equality in Heaven?

Flipping through the channels the other day I came across “Bishop” Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church and stopped to watch long enough to hear something I found most interesting. He was preaching about the Judgement and the importance of doing good works and even quoted James 3:26 “faith without works is dead,” while at the same time defending the standard Protestant belief in sola fide and the perseverance of the saints.

Perhaps I misunderstood him, but he seemed to reconcile the apparent contradiction here by saying that all the saved would of course go to Heaven, but once there they will be judged and rewarded according to their works, implying a hierarchy of rewards in heaven. I suppose this must be a fairly common idea since “seventh heaven” is a standard figure of speech and the various levels of heaven were described at least as far back as Dante’s Paradiso, but it’s not an idea I run across very often in contemporary circles, either Protestant or Catholic. I guess it just does not fit in with the reigning egalitarian spirit of our age.

This can’t be a distinctly Protestant idea given that it dates back to Dante, but it seems especially useful to them to solve the dilemma raised once you discard the doctrines of Purgatory and mortal sin, namely: what happens to someone who accepts Jesus as his savior and then relapses into a life of sin? He can’t go to Hell if you don’t believe in mortal sin, and he can’t go to Purgatory if you’ve rejected the whole concept of Purgatory, but surely justice demands some distinction between the reprobate and the pious, does it not? Hence: greater and lesser rewards in heaven. A tidy solution, I’ll grant him that much.

Friday, February 18, 2005

Get Out of Jail Free Cards

I’m off to a good start this Lent. If I understand the fine print correctly, I may have qualified for two plenary indulgences today. I attended the evening Mass at St. Patrick’s and stayed for the Stations of the Cross (#63 in the Enchiridion of Indulgences) and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (new indulgence for the Year of the Eucharist). I also fulfilled the “usual conditions” by going to Confession on Tuesday, taking Communion then and again today, and praying a Rosary for the Pope’s intentions tonight.

Of course, that still leaves the tricky fourth hurdle of “a spirit of total detachment from any inclination to sin” to overcome. I’m not quite sure how to interpret that clause, so I’ll have to leave it in God’s hands to judge. At the very least I gained a partial indulgence, and that’s better than nothing, right? Plus it’s a beautiful tradition carried out in one of San Francisco’s most beautiful churches, if you live in the Bay Area I cannot recommend it strongly enough: every Friday after 5:15 Mass through the end of Lent.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Zoning Out

I caught the wrong BART home from work today, I was all the way to Walnut Creek before I noticed. Oops! Took an extra 2 transfers and 45 minutes to get home.

I blame it all on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I often play my GBA to kill time during the commute home from work. Sometimes I read, but often I find my brain too frazzled after a long day to make much progress on a book. Video games are the perfect way to relax and zone out for a while, though not usually to the degree that I don’t notice which train I’m on...

FFTA is a fantasy RPG, a genre I played for hours on end back in junior high but have not been willing or able to invest the necessary time in since, until now. I’ve been playing for 38 hours so far, for some odd reason the game keeps track of how long you play it. In the game you build up a “clan” of characters and accomplish missions by winning a series of battles. Each battle takes place one of 30 or so different terrains, a little chessboard with hills, rivers, buildings, etc. where the action unfolds.

First you select up to 6 members of you clan to deploy. Each member has a specialized job, such as soldier, archer, hunter, white mage, black mage, and on to the more esoteric like beastmaster and time mage. Each character gets a turn, and on each turn you can move and fight or cast a spell on enemies within range. The characters are endearing little cartoon half-human half-animal critters: reptile men, elephant men, and so on.

Interestingly, no one ever dies in this world; after exhausting their allotted hit points a character gets “K.O.ed” and is out for the rest of battle but fine thereafter. I assume this is intended for the benefit of younger players. I wonder, though, is it really so vital to shield them from the very concept of death? And on the other hand, is it healthy to imply that you can attack someone with swords and burn them with magic fire without doing any lasting damage?

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Ash Wednesday

No, I haven't given up blogging for Lent. As you can see from the general infrequency of my posts, giving it up would be no great sacrifice anyway...

I went to Ash Wednesday Mass at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, one of many beautiful old churches downtown. The music was equally beautiful, chanted by their schola cantorum from the old choir loft. So that's what a choir loft is for... No musical instruments, just beautiful voices singing the ancient music of the Church in mixed Latin and English.

And then to top it all off they rang sanctus bells at the consecration!

I dearly miss the bells, few parishes here in the Bay Area use them any more. They were rung without fail at my neighborhood parish growing up, and I can remember when I was a very small child it was always my favorite part of the Mass. Of course I was too young then to understand what they meant, but isn't it all the more fitting that even at that age I looked forward to the consecration every Sunday? Yet now, even at the children's Mass at my parish where they are willing to mangle and distort the rubrics and norms in an attempt to appeal to children, they still don't ring any bells... puzzling.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Abortion Compromise?

I read a fascinating debate between bloggers Matteo and Chadster including this highlight:

I don't know if you expressed yourself the way you meant to, or if there is something revealing in this, or whether it's just metaphysical confusion, but you said, "But who is to say whether the life of a child brought forth by a 14 year old girl in the trailer park will be of much less quality than the life of that same child if the girl had an abortion, went to college, bought a nice house, could afford groceries and then had the child." You know, the child she had later is not the same child she aborted, so there is no better life in store for it. It's dead. Right?

This neatly sums up the priorities of both sides of the abortion debate in America today. The pro-choice side focuses on the right of women to choose when to have children, while the pro-life side focuses on the right of human beings, once conceived, to continue to live.

Is there any possibility for compromise here? The standard formula proposed by pro-aborts is “safe, legal, and rare,” trotted out most recently by Hilary Clinton (as parodied here). But “rare” is a slippery slope, and any compromise in which the murder of innocent human life remains legal does not address the concerns of the pro-lifers.

Of course, one fact the pro-aborts tend to gloss over is that, with the exception of rape, women can control when and how many children to have by choosing when and with whom to have sex. What is really desired is the ability to control reproduction and have unlimited casual sex, and that requires 100% effective contraception. Thus the shape of a true compromise emerges: outlaw abortion, strictly enforce the laws against rape, and make highly effective non-abortifacient contraception freely available.

Note that I am not endorsing the use of contraception or denying the Catholic position on its use. That’s why I called it a compromise. No doubt the pro-aborts would quickly point out that no form of contraception is actually 100% effective; ironic really, when you consider that they normally sing the praises of contraception and rush to condemn anyone who dares question the effectiveness of “safe” sex.

Which brings my to final point: our courts have held tobacco companies liable when people who voluntarily use their products develop cancer. Some folks are suing fast food chains trying to blame them for the health problems of their obese customers. Gun manufacturers have even been held responsible for a murders committed using their products. Applying the same logic, shouldn't condom manufactures be held liable every time one of their customers gets pregnant? Here at last is a potential solution for Chadster’s hypothetical 14 year old pregnant girl: she’ll be able to afford a nice home and groceries after all with her million-dollar settlement from Church & Dwight Co. Inc.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Sunday Night Mass

Sunday Night Mass Critical to Retaining Young Adults

Amen! I will often drive to Sunday night Mass even though my local parish is a two minute walk from my apartment. Those of you in the Bay Area might run into me at St. Joseph at 5:30PM or Newman Hall at 10:00PM on a Sunday.

Revert To Saved Version