Familiarity Breeds Contempt

I've been in the habit of reading and reflecting on the Gospels with my friend Eric, one chapter at a time.  Today it was Luke Chapter 4.

This passage in particular got my attention as we reflected on it:



"And all spoke well of Him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth; and they said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'  And He said to them, 'Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard You did at Capernaum, do here also in Your own country."'  And He said, 'Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in His own country.'"

(Luke 4:22-24)



Clearly the people of Nazareth, where the synagogue was where the above passage takes place, were familiar with Jesus as a human being--they knew He was the Child raised by Joseph and born to Mary, and they may have known Him for many years, maybe even since He was a baby.

The trouble is this: precisely because the people of Nazareth were privileged to know about Jesus during His "hidden years" (those not recorded in Scripture, when He acted little differently from anyone else), they would have found it all the easier to assume that they knew what there was to know about Him.  Therefore, they would have found it harder to listen to Him--harder to accept that He had anything to teach them.  Besides, He was a carpenter, who worked with His hands, and who didn't even have a scholarly education.

Because they found it so difficult to accept that this Man whom they had known for years could be privy to such authoritative Wisdom, I trust it was a mercy that Jesus did not perform the great wonders in Nazareth that He had done in other cities like Capernaum, where He was a stranger to them.  (Even in Capernaum they weren't so holy as all that, but Jesus did perform His first public miracle there, an exorcism of a possessed man in a synagogue.)



As we reflected on this passage, I came to realize more far-reaching implications.  The scribes and Pharisees were the most familiar with the Torah, the Divine Law given to Moses, because they had studied it as part of their scholarly education--and whom did Jesus most rebuke?  The scribes and Pharisees.

And who did Jesus allow to come to Him, and say would enter heaven even before the scribes and Pharisees?  Tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners.  In short, outsiders.  Jesus even preached to a Samaritan woman, exorcised the daughter of a Canaanite woman, and healed the servant of a Roman centurion--all non-Jews, people whom the Jews weren't supposed to hang out with!



And today, who has the most familiarity with Jesus?  It would obviously be the pope and the bishops of the Church--but I would argue most especially those of the West.

Christianity began in Jerusalem, then spread throughout the Roman Empire over the next four centuries.  Then, during the AD 600's, Islam took over northern Africa and the Middle East.  Christendom remained primarily in Europe, and even there, Spain and Portugal were Islamic until 1492, and there was a significant Muslim presence in the southeast as well.  And then in 1054, the Eastern churches split off from Rome.  And of course, it was from Western Europe that most of the overseas colonial empires came to exist, in the last few centuries of history (most of which are now independent nations).  Granted, some of these were Protestant because of the Protestant Reformation, but mostly southwestern Europe remained Catholic, even if this became more formal than material over time.

The point is that we in the West are the most likely to have heard of Jesus Christ, of Christianity, of the Catholic Church.  Not to the same degree elsewhere in the world.



This made me think of something that Shane Schaetzel said on his old blog.  Unfortunately, since he restarted his blog, I'm unable to provide a link or even a quote, but I know for a fact that it was on his old blog that I read this.  (The closest thing to something similar that I can find is at this link: https://completechristianity.blog/2018/09/03/where-do-we-go-from-here/ )

Shane Schaetzel is a Traditional Vatican II Catholic.  He recognizes the truth about the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) where too many Catholics, especially in the West, do not.  On his blog he has stated that Vatican II was specifically meant to combat the Modernist heresy that was already beginning to infect the human element of the Church, NOT (as is commonly supposed by supporters and detractors alike) to introduce this heresy into Catholic teaching and practice.

The evidence he provided was to contrast the Catholic Church (and the application of Vatican II therein) in Africa and Asia, with that in the West.  He said that in Africa and Asia, which have largely remained untouched by the Modernist heresy, they have applied Vatican II correctly, as the Council Fathers intended--and the Church is flourishing and growing!  People are converting and taking the faith seriously, which would certainly explain the persecution and even execution of Christians in those lands--they must be loyal to Jesus Christ to refuse to renounce Him under pain of torture and death!

On the other hand, in the West, where Modernism has taken root in the human element of the Church, the opposite is happening: Vatican II is applied in a way more consistent with the Modernist heresy than with the revealed Gospel, and the Church is fizzling out and shrinking.  That is, more people leave the Church than enter, and more of those who don't formally renounce the Church are being more lax about their responsibilities.



The point that I'm trying to make is this: we in the West have had a Christian tradition (and specifically a Catholic Christian tradition) for centuries--only in the last few hundreds of years has it been different, and even then largely as a reaction against the old Christian order.  We've gotten used to it.  And it's here, in the West, that Modernism has infected even the human element of the Church, even at the highest levels: Modernism, which Pope Saint Pius X said in 1907 was the "synthesis of all heresies".  It's here, in the West, that we see the most contempt for the Holy Trinity, for Jesus Christ and His Church: it's here that we see the most brazen blasphemies in the media tolerated, while they will bend over backward to avoid offending non-Christians and even anti-Christians.

But in Africa south of the Sahara desert, and in Asia outside of the Middle East (and maybe India, since Saint Thomas the Apostle preached there), the Church has only existed within the last few centuries, beginning during the Age of Discovery in 1414.  And while that was going on, the Church endured the Protestant Reformation in Europe, and then Europe sought a non-religious "balance of powers".  And it's primarily in these regions that I hear about people being threatened with torture and death unless they will, by word and/or action, renounce Jesus Christ and their Christian faith--suggesting that it's primarily in those regions that anyone has to resort to such extreme measures to part a Christian from His Savior, because the faith is flourishing there.  Certainly I haven't heard of such a thing here in the West--where it's too easy to convert a Catholic or other Christian away without resorting to threats of torture and death.

Which is making me wonder if a new Catholic "Renaissance", if you will, is to be found in those regions of Africa and Asia.  I've given up trying to predict the future with too much accuracy (and I certainly don't want to give up my own country for a loss prematurely, and fail to pray and fast for her!), but those seem to me to be the "outsider" groups most likely to cling to Christ, and to be saved, and to be the center of a rebirth of faithful Christianity.

********

And finally, this brings me to a more unpleasant topic.  On September 22, 2018 (last Saturday as of this writing), Pope Francis made a deal with the People's Republic of China.  Supposedly this was done in order to give the Vatican greater control over the appointment and removal of bishops in China.

However, as part of the agreement, it is the authorities of the Chinese government who will actually select the bishops, and His Holiness recommunicated seven excommunicated men who had already been appointed as bishops by Beijing.

Let us not forget that the People's Republic of China, which took over the country in 1949, is a Communist dictatorship that hates and opposes God and all religion.  Indeed, the very next day, September 23, 2018 (this past Sunday), the officially recognized Church pledged their loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.



This is a giant slap in the Holy Face of Jesus Christ.



Literally.  When Jesus revealed the Holy Face devotion to Sister Mary of St. Peter, she reported what He had said (from here: http://www.holyfacedevotion.com/revelations.htm ):



"The Savior made me understand that His justice was greatly irritated against mankind for its sins but particularly for those that directly outrage the Majesty of God--that is, Communism, Atheism, cursing, and the desecration of Sundays and the Holy Days."



Communism, such as that espoused loyally by the People's Republic of China (and especially by purported Catholic Christian clergy), contributes to the blows and spit that desecrate the Holy Face of Jesus, which Saint Veronica wiped away with her veil.  It ought to be condemned sharply, not enabled.

Sadly, I absolutely understand and sympathize with those who have accused this of being a "selling out" of the Church to her enemies in China.  This is making me feel more and more like it would be best for Pope Francis to abdicate the papacy as soon as possible: how can the Vicar of Jesus Christ preach faith and trust in Jesus Christ and the Church when his actions are such?  How can faithful be expected to trust Jesus Christ when His Vicar does this to His flock in such a dangerous country?  I fear both for the Holy Father's soul and for the souls of those who may be led astray by such actions, and I am extremely disappointed.

The only good that might come out of it, again, is that the true Church in China (the "underground" Church) will be put to the ultimate test of faith, hope, and love--which will breed truly great saints of modern times, who can pray and intercede on behalf of the whole world.



Today is the first day of the Novena to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, and I intend to participate in it.  Please pray for me that I remain faithful to it for all nine days (the Feast Day is October 7).



Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.

Graces and Mercy

Today was the day of my Secular Franciscan meeting: my first since my initiation last month.



While I've learned enough about the faith to know that this is only a drop in the ocean (so far), after today I'm beginning to recall what Father Michael E. Gaitley said in his books 33 Days to Morning Glory and 33 Days to Merciful Love.  Specifically, he said that once you've made the consecrations (to Jesus through Mary, and to Divine Mercy Saint Therese style), you can expect great graces to be showered upon you, assuming you keep an open heart and do not willfully reject these consecrations.

I'm beginning to suspect that I am feeling such a thing now.  This isn't the first day that I've felt what I'm feeling now, but it is the first day that I've thought of it in these terms.



Aside from the many gifts that I received from the other members of the fraternity, as well as ideas and motivation for what I can do to become a better Catholic Christian (and Secular Franciscan) that I haven't been doing lately, I've come to many insights with regard to the Gospels.  This came as a direct result of reading a chapter with my friend Eric every day that we're on Skype: we go through it section by section, and then reflect on it.  I'm coming to recognize a lot of such inspirations that I had never even thought of before, and Eric suggested that I mention them.

I've mentioned one at the end of my previous blog entry, "Asperger's Syndrome": that of Adam and Eve (the first man and woman and the father and mother of us all) being the first workers who began work late (working for less than a full day before resting on the first Sabbath).



There's another one that I came to even earlier, and that Eric specifically suggested that I share: it has to do with the Temple veil being torn in two when Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday.

First, some background: the veil covered the Holy of Holies, the most sacred room in the entire Temple.  In the days of the Temple of Solomon, it contained the Ark of the Covenant, a chest which itself contained the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, as well as the staff of Aaron and a jar of manna from heaven.  It was the physical Presence of God on earth in those days...until the Babylonian Exile, beginning around 586 BC.

The Holy of Holies was so sacred that only the high priest of Israel was ever allowed to go inside, or even to look inside--and then only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (last Wednesday, September 19, was Yom Kippur this year), so that he could make a sacrifice in atonement for his sins and for the sins of the whole nation of Israel.  Anyone else going inside, or even looking inside would die--as would the high priest on any day other than Yom Kippur.  Indeed, apparently they would tie a rope to the high priest's leg as insurance in case he died while inside the Holy of Holies, so that they could pull out the body without removing the curtain and thus risking death themselves!

The point is that, because of original sin and personal sin, we are not worthy--and because we are finite, we could not comprehend God in His entirety even if we were not fallen.  But especially because we are, we cannot come to Him, not by our own efforts.  Even the high priest being allowed to enter is an exception, not the rule, and that was only to sacrifice for his sins and the sins of all Israel.

This practice continued until about 586 BC, when the Babylonians conquered the Jews, destroyed the Temple, and exiled the Jewish people to Babylon.  Decades later, the Jews were liberated by the Persians, and allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  However, although the Second Temple kept the tradition regarding the Holy of Holies, there was one thing missing: the Ark of the Covenant.  No one knows exactly where it is, although tradition holds that it is buried somewhere around Mount Nebo, along with the corpse of Moses.

The reason the Ark of the Covenant was never in the Second Temple is because that's the Temple that was around at the time of Jesus Christ.  The Ark of the New Covenant is His Mother Mary, and once she became the new vessel containing the physical Presence of God on earth, the Second Temple was on its way out.

And Jesus died on the Cross to take away the sins of the world: He is, in one Person, the High Priest offering the Sacrifice, the Sacrifice itself, and the God to whom the Sacrifice is made.  He is fully God and fully Man, and so alone is a pleasing Sacrifice in atonement for the people's sins.  And He died on Good Friday, two days before the first Easter Sunday--tradition holds that He died on the same day as His Incarnation in the womb of Mary, March 25 (nine months before Christmas Day).  The point is, that is nowhere near Yom Kippur--it is, in fact, at the opposite end of the calendar!

And once Jesus died on the Cross, at about 3 pm, the Temple veil tore in two and exposed the Holy of Holies for all to see!



So what is the significance?  This is where the Lord blessed me with an interpretation of it--more specifically, a simile that might help make it easier to understand.

The Holy of Holies being thus exposed, by God Himself, is the sign that He is pleased with Christ's Sacrifice (and not with the sacrifices of the wicked priests), and that His Sacrifice is sufficient to take away the sins of the world, and therefore to make Temple worship obsolete at last.  It is a sign that Jesus Christ's own Body is the Third Temple, and the last.  It is a sign that, as stated in the Christmas carol "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing", "God and sinners reconciled!"

In short, it is a sign that the gap between God and man is and need be no more: that we may now see the Face of God and live (that Face being the Holy Face of Jesus Christ).  The image that came to me (though not actually seen by the priests) was of God the Father opening His arms for a welcoming embrace of love--and given the hard hearts of the priests, an exhortation to come back into His embrace for their own sake.



But what did the priests think of it?  Especially given their continued hardness of heart afterward, and the fact that God therefore allowed the Romans to destroy the Temple in AD 70, I have a guess--and Father Michael E. Gaitley's books have pointed the way to this.

Remember, the original intent was to hide the Holy of Holies because anyone going inside, or even looking inside, would die (with the sole exception of the high priest at Yom Kippur, which was six months away).  And now, thanks to no one except God Himself, the Temple veil was torn and the Holy of Holies was exposed for everyone to see!

Being the sinners that they were, the priests probably feared that they would all be struck down!  More specifically, they probably thought that God was angry with them and showed this anger by tearing the veil and exposing the Holy of Holies so that they would all die.

To use the aforementioned image again (remember, there is no indication that the priests actually saw this image), they mistook God's loving, welcoming outstretched arms for a threatening gesture, for someone looking to strangle the lifeblood out of them all because He was so furious with them.



And even when this proved not to be true (Temple worship continued for another 37 years), presumably they managed to veil the Holy of Holies again--indicating that their hearts were still hardened.

Continuing the simile, they built a barrier between themselves and God's loving, welcoming embrace, rejecting it--because they feared that they needed the barrier to protect themselves from His wrath (as if such a thing were possible if He really were to try anyway!).

And because they did so, and did not themselves tear down the Temple in recognition that the Body of Jesus Christ (including His Mystical Body the Church) was the Third Temple, God would not accept the sacrifices made therein--including the sacrifices made for sin on Yom Kippur, since they had not properly repented of those sins.  And therefore, the only one who would accept those sacrifices was the Devil.  Therefore, because the Jewish priests wouldn't do it themselves, God mercifully allowed their conquerors the Romans to destroy it in AD 70, so that no more sacrifices could be made to Satan therein.



For the moment, this is the only insight I'll mention in this blog entry.  But glory be to God Most High!  Little by little I'm recognizing His blessings upon me, and I want to share them, to give back, not just to keep taking and taking.

Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.



P. S.  I'm editing to mention just one more insight.  Because we in the Church are the Mystical Body of Christ, it has finally occurred to me to recognize that the various saints can be compared to the various devotions to Jesus Christ (the Holy Face, the Holy Wounds, the Sacred Heart, the Precious Blood, etc.).

And many saints are specifically dedicated to such devotions.  For example, Saint Therese of Lisieux (whose feast day is next Monday, October 1), is devoted to the Holy Face of Jesus (whose Feast Day is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday--the last day before Lent).

And Saint Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is next Thursday, October 4), is the first one to receive the stigmata (to mystically receive the Holy Wounds of Christ on his own body), although the vast majority of saints receiving the stigmata were women, not men.

(Indeed, I'm becoming interested in Saint Catherine of Siena in particular, a Third Order Dominican whose feast day is April 29, because of her mystical marriage to Christ.)

Asperger's Syndrome

I don't want to lump together everyone who has Asperger's Syndrome, not least because I know so few people who have it (and in this day and age, it might be easy for people to lie and claim they have it when they don't--or to make themselves believe they have it when they don't), and so I can only speak from my own individual perspective.

Having said that, I can't help but suspect that my Asperger's Syndrome does figure significantly into what I'm about to say, in terms of my problematic situation--which I'm sure many others suffer from, although I don't know of anyone besides myself who does.



When I was little, it was easier to be proactive, at least at times.  I followed my instincts to begin--doing what I liked and avoiding what I didn't like.  Then, as I learned the rules, I followed those, and tried to encourage others to do the same.

But as I got older, I came to realize that this wasn't good enough.  I can't always follow my instincts: sometimes they're wrong, and even if they're not, sometimes people will react negatively--or not at all when I really want them to.  Also, not everyone follows the rules, not even when they know the rules, and the rules make sense and are easy to follow.  Plus, not all human rules actually do make sense.

Consequently I became insecure, to the point where it was a lot easier to be reactive than proactive.  When being proactive I can't help feeling anxious to some degree, wondering how the other person will react, but deep down wondering "Is this right for me to do?" because I don't already have confirmation that it is.  When being reactive I don't have that problem: someone else has already confirmed that it is right, or at least okay, to do--and so unless I have serious reason to doubt this, I have confirmation before I do it myself.  This is not good because, without a root in objective Truth, that makes me easily led by the nose.

And where I'm not easily led by the nose, I tend to get stubborn, digging my heels into the ground, refusing to listen to a contrary view and rationalizing it on the grounds that it's illogical--even if I really ought to be listening, if for no other reason than to show love to the other person.  Plus, it may not be illogical; it may just be that the person giving that view isn't using logic (or at least logic I can understand and accept) to arrive at it.  Also, when I act like this I betray the fact that my faith in my own view is weak, and I betray how shallow my Christlike exterior truly is.  But I have acted this way anyway because I've found some objectivity to cling to with regard to my position, be it logic, mathematics, or theology or morality (now that I'm convinced of Catholic Christianity's Truth).



Because of this, I've reached a point at which I'm afraid to ask for what I want, even if what I want isn't unreasonable, for fear that I will appear needy, whiny, annoying--or else bossy and pushy and demanding.  As a result, I don't ask for what I want; instead, I hope against hope that I will get what I want without needing to ask--that someone else will both know what I want and give it to me because of this--and when I don't get it (which is very common) I get resentful of those who aren't giving it to me.  And whether I mean it or not (or recognize it in the moment or not), that means I'm being resentful of God Himself.  Worst is that, when I finally do indicate what I want, I actually am being needy, whiny, annoying--or bossy, pushy, and demanding.  I say things like "We never do this" or "You never want to do this with me" or etc., rather than making it an invitation, something that someone is more likely to respond positively to.

And at other times I either get bored or else I retreat into my own mind, or to screen technology, to basically run away from the rut I've been in for years now--to put blinders on the fact that I'm still in it.



I now think that this has a lot to do with why I identified with the original Peter Pan story as written by J. M. Barrie, as well as with J. M. Barrie himself, for the last decade and a half.  I feel like a "mirror", like a "mime".  I tend to reflect what others do unless I either know it's false, evil, or ugly--or unless I personally strongly dislike it--including how they treat me.  And while this may make me good at writing or acting, it comes at the cost of not knowing who I really am, irrespective of any "role" I might make up and put on for others.  It is not unlike having an extraordinarily long childhood (not to mention that I look younger than I am and I'm shorter than the norm).

Plus, I don't even know that I am that good at it.  I might be good enough to please myself, but when it comes to sharing my work with others (something I long to do), I fear that they won't agree.  At worst, I fear that I might confuse them because of something I overlooked and neglected to put into my writing or performance, so that my readers/audience didn't get it.  And these fears tend to hinder my creativity and my productivity.  At any rate, I haven't gotten my name out there as a writer or an actor, and certainly I haven't been paid for it.

I feel like the stranger who longs to be welcomed, and who fears greatly that he will not be welcomed.



Because of this, I quit working for Aspergers Training, Employment and Life Skills.  I no longer feel that I can in good conscience work for such an organization.  I worked with someone who I presumed knew the special needs of people with Asperger's Syndrome, given the organization he worked for--and he consistently showed, over a period of years, that he did not.  I have no resentment against the man, or even the organization--I wasn't treated unkindly, and please do not badmouth either!--but I felt hypocritical in working for them.  My heart was never in it, and I don't feel that I can in good conscience recommend them.

But that means that I'm back to where I was before early 2015, and where I had been for nearly six years before that (more if you don't count the years I was an adult in college): unemployed.



More and more, though, I'm coming to realize that what I'm truly longing for is God Himself.

God gave me the instincts that I have, and where my most passionate desires aren't innately sinful, they are a sign of what God wants me to do (either to do what I most passionately desire, or--in some cases--to do what I passionately desire to avoid).  And while not all rules come from God, if they don't require me to sin or forbid me from doing my duty by Him, I must follow them.  What matters is what God thinks, not what other people might think--or even what I think.  Jesus was crucified: obviously He didn't care what others thought of Him!

And part of a root in God doesn't just mean knowing what the Church teaches and so having "pre-confirmation" that what I'm doing is right--it means taking risks, making myself vulnerable, out of 100% trust in God and love of Him.  I've come to realize that, by definition, that means acknowledging that sometimes I cannot possibly know before the fact--and I cannot rely on other people as my confirmation that what I'm doing is right--but I need to act anyway.  God can do more with my mistakes than with my inaction.

I need to humble myself and listen to others--and especially to listen to God in contemplative prayer.  And I need to accept that the other might have a point, even if I don't see the logic in their arrival at it, and even if I perceive the other person being prideful and so fear I'm "giving them the satisfaction" by doing what they say (that very fear is as un-Christlike as it gets).

I need not to be afraid to ask for what I want, including of God in prayer.  Jesus responding to Mary's prayer when the wedding feast at Cana ran out of wine--will He not all the more desire to respond to my prayers for things that are more important?  In particular I need to stop acting as if doing so were "bothering someone".  God Himself doesn't act that way: He doesn't refrain from acting out of fear He's "bothering someone", so why should He be bothered unless what I want is sinful?  I need to be more inviting if I want to be more invited, or to feel more welcome.

And I cannot run away from my problems, whether physically or mentally--they won't go away that way.  I will only be removing myself from a position to address them.

I need to reflect God, to mirror Jesus, to imitate His example.  Only thus can I learn who He made me to be, who I really am irrespective of any role I might put on.

I need to welcome the stranger myself--and that especially means welcoming Jesus into my heart by spending time with Him, sharing with Him, and especially listening to Him.



The trouble is that I'm out of the habit.  Given my situation it may well take a long time and a lot of effort before I reach a point that I'm satisfied with, even to a significant degree (I can't expect complete satisfaction this side of heaven), and that can get discouraging.

But I know that, unless something is impossible by definition, there is a chance of its being possible, and therefore of its happening.  I also know that, concerning my most intense desires that don't go away no matter how little they're fulfilled--as long as they aren't sinful, God placed them in me and they are a clue to what I need to act on and what He wants me to do and to be.  And I know that if I never give up, no matter what my apparent failure or lack of progress, He will answer my prayers if doing so will not hinder my salvation (and I know that He knows better than I do what will or won't).

I might have more of a shot of its happening faster if I have the prayers and intercession of others, especially Mary and the saints.  On the other hand, perhaps this is meant to teach me patience (something I know escapes me a lot), and persistence, and a truer faith even when I'm blind to the results of it.  Plus, maybe I'm not ready for everything I want all at once, and so maybe that's part of the reason God withholds it from me to the degree He does.

********

Come to think of it, this relates directly to something else that I wanted to mention.  It has to do with an insight that I received last night, when my friend Eric and I were reading and reflecting on the Passion narrative in the Gospel of Matthew.



According to Genesis Chapter 1, God made Adam and Eve on the sixth day of creation--what we would now call Friday.  Given that, and given that they were His last creations, coming after the animals, Adam and Eve did not exist for the entirety of that Friday.

And the very next day, the seventh day (what we would now call Saturday), was the Sabbath, the day of rest.  That means that Adam and Eve did no work on that day.  In other words, literally all the work that Adam and Eve did before the first Sabbath was done on the previous Friday--and only for part of the day because before that they hadn't been created yet!

In sum, Adam and Eve did less than a full day's work before their first Sabbath rest!



When I realized this, it got me to thinking about Jesus Christ's parable of the workers in the vineyard:



"'For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, "You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you."  So they went.  Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.  And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, "Why do you stand there idle all day?"  They said to him, "Because no one has hired us."  He said to them, "You go into the vineyard too."  And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, "Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first."  And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.  Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.  And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, "These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat."  But he replied to them, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or do you begrudge my generosity?"  So the last will be first, and the first last.'"  (Matthew 20:1-16)



A denarius was a day's wage for a laborer, and so it was a fair wage.  And those who worked from the beginning of the day had no problem with those who came last receiving this very wage--only when they themselves received the same, and no more, did they complain.  As the householder said, they had agreed for a denarius, which was a fair wage, and they weren't treated unfairly.

Also, the third hour means roughly 9 am by our modern standards; the sixth hour means roughly noon; the ninth hour means roughly 3 pm; and the eleventh hour means roughly 5 pm.



The point is that it isn't the amount of work that we do that determines our reward: we do not enter heaven by our own efforts, but by God's generosity to us.  If it was the amount of work we do, what of the poor, the sick, and the captive?



But now, thinking about Adam and Eve in the context of this parable really helps to illustrate it for me.  Adam and Eve certainly were not working from the first hour of their first day of existence--and the very next day was the Sabbath, on which they weren't permitted to do any work!  But surely, especially given that they hadn't yet committed the original sin, God was no less generous with them on that first Sabbath than on others, when they'd had the chance to do a full week's worth of work before the Sabbath!

And Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, and this was before they committed sin--therefore they correspond to the laborers in the parable who started work late.  And Adam and Eve were not only the father and mother of us all, but they repented of their sin and rejoiced when Jesus Christ broke the gates of Hades and allowed the Old Testament saints out and into heaven.



This gives me further hope, because I am indeed a "late bloomer".  Even though I was baptized as a baby and raised only in the Catholic faith, I fell away slowly when young.  I only returned in 2010, and now I'm in my mid-thirties, which is making me think of the beginning of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Dante begins this poem "Midway upon the journey of our life", which means when he was 35, half of a Biblical lifetime.  I'm not too far from that now, and I still haven't become financially independent, and I haven't entered into my vocation yet.  In many ways I'm still a child.

But I need to recognize and embrace my dependence upon God, because I will always have that no matter what.  If I recognize and embrace my littleness, Jesus Christ's merciful love will flow to me as a "little soul", that I might become a great saint.  And it is only humility that makes us desire not only to become saints, but the greatest saints we can--to be as close to God in heaven as we possibly can, for all eternity.



This is making me recall Disney's Mulan.  (Wow, it's hard to believe that movie is 20 years old!)

Fa Zhou, Mulan's father, early in the movie, says to her: "My, what beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one's late. But I'll bet that when it blooms, it will be the most beautiful of all."

Then, towards the end, no less than the Emperor of China says of Mulan: "The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all."

I don't pretend to be enduring the greatest of adversity, not by a long shot--but the point of the above parable is that it's not about comparing individual situations, especially not in an envious way.  I am a late bloomer, but maybe that's because of what I have to endure, and maybe I will be all the better of a man and a Christian because of it, when I finally do bloom.

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But the main reason I posted this blog entry first, before the others I wanted to mention, is because I am slowly getting the message that I need to rely on God more and more.  That being the case, I don't expect to have as much time to work on this blog in the near future, because being online can be a real distraction--even when I am trying to focus my searches on my faith, sometimes I'm not looking for the specific matters that will help me, or shake me out of my comfort zone, and at any rate I'm not directly addressing the Lord in prayer.

Granted, I'm not exactly updating regularly as it is, but you only have my word for what my life is like outside of this blog, unless you know me personally.  I need to stop letting myself be dragged this way and that by capricious whims, and to stop putting off my responsibilities.  I need to learn to listen to God, and to grow closer to Him and to be the person that He made me to be.

Please pray for me, and I will pray for you.



Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.

Without Hands

I've been thinking about what it truly means to be creative: I touched upon this in my blog entry on The Lord of the Rings but I didn't have room to go into detail there.



When we think of creativity we usually think of producing something original, whether something to look at, or a performance, or something to read.  And we especially desire to produce something that "no one has ever seen or done before".  Indeed, we consider it plagiarism if we do otherwise.

And there is nothing wrong with simulating reality in our art, such as the visual arts and theatrical performances.  That has been going on for thousands of years, and the Church has commissioned such works.



But the fact is that "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  As Aristotle would have put it, we might produce original forms--but the raw materials that we put into those forms are exactly the same and are available to anyone.  We aren't capable of creating new materials, as that's something only God can do, God who is Being itself.

That being the case, while there is nothing wrong with works of art that simulate reality, the highest form of artistic creativity is to tap directly into God's own creative power.  This is counter-intuitive to us today, even to many Christians, because it means "stepping out of the way" and not showing off.  It actually involves as little originality as possible.



While many icons in the Church were painted by hand, there are some icons called "acheiropoieta", a Greek word meaning "made without hands".

Among the best known of these are the Veil of Veronica (containing a miraculous image of the Holy Face of Jesus) and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe (which miraculously appeared on the tilma of Saint Juan Diego).



The Veil of Veronica and the miraculous image thereon of the Holy Face of Jesus are not recorded in the Bible, but they make up the Sixth Station of the Cross.  Saint Veronica showed mercy to Our Lord as He carried His Cross through Jerusalem to Calvary, wiping the Blood and sweat off His Face--and then an image of the Holy Face of Jesus miraculously appeared on her veil.  Indeed, the name "Veronica" means "true image".

According to tradition, Saint Veronica took her veil to Rome and healed the Emperor Tiberius with it--and it was used to heal the blind, quench the thirst of the thirsty, and even to raise the dead.

The Veil of Veronica was displayed in Saint Peter's Basilica at least until the Sack of Rome in 1527, but after that it isn't clear.  Some say it was destroyed, but there is no conclusive evidence that it was ever taken out of Saint Peter's Basilica and it may still be there.

The Holy Face of Jesus devotion has continued into modern times.  Sister Marie of St. Peter, O.C.D., received private apparitions in which she learned that what Saint Veronica wiped away from the Holy Face of Jesus is being added to even at present by blasphemies and sacrileges, and so Our Lord desires devotion to His Holy Face in reparation for these.  These blasphemies and sacrileges especially include "those that directly outrage the Majesty of God--that is, Communism, Atheism, cursing, and the desecration of Sundays and the Holy Days."  Such things are terrible responses to the gift of being able to see the Face of God and live!

And of course, whatever we do to the least of His brethren, we do to Him--and so the Holy Face devotion can also help us to see His Face in the faces of the poor, the sick, and the captive, and to do what we can to show them some dignity, even if that's all we can do for them except pray and fast.  To do less is to add insult to their injury.



Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared to Saint Juan Diego at Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City on December 9, 1531.  Three days later, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared miraculously on his tilma, and so that date (December 12) is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Near that hill, as Our Lady desired, a shrine was built to her, which is now the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  The tilma is still displayed within, even to this day.  And Our Lady of Guadalupe is Empress of the Americas, and since this year she is also the patroness of Mexico, a country that needs it.  Mexico's economy depends unfortunately on two things to an excessive degree: 1) drug cartels, who also commit murders which cry out to God for justice, and 2) money sent home from the United States by immigrants--all too often those who cross the border into the U.S. illegally.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe recalls the woman in the Book of Revelation Chapter 12, and it depicts Mary as clearly pregnant with Our Lord, which makes sense because she would have been heavily pregnant with Him on December 12, thirteen days before Christmas Day.  Because of this, Our Lady of Guadalupe is also Protectress of the Unborn, also needed in this day and age of a holocaust of aborted babies whose lives are not protected by human laws--again, sins that cry out to God for justice.

According to a book I read, Our Lady of Guadalupe also helped considerably in introducing Christ to the New World by reintroducing the original means of converting souls: peer-to-peer, rather than top-down.  The latter is moot today anyway, when most nations are republics rather than monarchies: you cannot convert a nation by converting her monarch if the nation doesn't even have a monarch!  So peer-to-peer conversion is all the more important now, and Our Lady of Guadalupe reintroduced that in the West by introducing it for the first time in the Americas, specifically in Mexico City.

And in The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, Father Michael E. Gaitley said that North America (the realm of Our Lady of Guadalupe) is the site for the second biggest push for Marian consecration in history, after the Militia Immaculatae founded by Saint Maximilian Kolbe in the first half of the 20th century.  He has contributed to this with his previous book 33 Days to Morning Glory, especially in its Spanish translation which has been used to combat the demonic cult of "Santa Muerte" who demands human sacrifice.  And he believes that Our Lady is preparing us for something significant in history to come in the near future.

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These icons are made directly by God Himself, rather than being painted by human hands.  But in this day and age it is possible to make images without hands ourselves.  Saint Veronica is the patroness of photographers, who make images that directly capture God's reality rather than simulating them--images that are made with light, not by the work of human hands.  That's something to think about the next time you take a selfie.

But while photographic technology is new in history (less than 200 years old), the raw materials have been with us since the beginning.  Indeed, silver nitrate was discovered by Saint Albert the Great in the 1200's!



And of course, since the late 1800's, there have also been motion pictures.  As recorded by Steven Greydanus on his decentfilms website, Andre Bazin (a Catholic) believed that cinema is the highest form of art because it taps directly into God's creativity, recording rather than merely simulating His creation.

That being the case, the purest form of cinema in this regard would be live action documentaries, without scripts (or screenwriters) and without actors playing roles--recorded with deep focus and in long takes only, and minimal editing.

While there's certainly nothing wrong with other forms of cinema, those overlap with non-cinematic and non-photographic art forms, and so they don't truly represent the essence of cinema.

Bazin also held to the "auteur theory" of cinema, and the above explains why: without a script, the auteur of a movie can hardly be a screenwriter (as the auteur of a play is the playwright).  A documentary is essentially a moving photograph, and a photographer is the auteur of a still photograph.  According to the auteur theory of cinema, the auteur of a movie is the director, the one with the creative vision (even though "director" isn't the best name because it was borrowed from stagecraft, where the auteur is the playwright and not the director).

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But while photography and cinema are art forms that can record reality, they necessarily require a produced recording--and they are new to history.

When I read Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer J. Adler, I learned that Aristotle noted three "cooperative arts", arts where nothing is produced, but human efforts facilitate natural processes by making them happen faster and more efficiently.  In Catholic terms, this means that human beings participate in the created order directly, by using our free wills to cooperate with these natural processes.

These three cooperative arts are:

1) farming arts;

2) healing arts;

3) teaching arts.



Whether we help it or not, plants will always grow and reproduce.  Farming arts help this to happen faster and more efficiently, for greater production of plant foods, which can then feed the hungry--a Corporal Work of Mercy.  And Adam, the first man, was a farmer.

Whether we help it or not, the human body has at least some ability to heal itself of maladies.  Healing arts help this to happen faster and more efficiently, so that someone sick or injured can become healthy again faster and more efficiently.  And Christ was in part a Physician, healing maladies that no human doctor could.

Whether we are helped or not, we are always learning something--even when we're not in school, and even long after we've left school behind.  Teaching arts help this to happen not only faster, but also more efficiently in giving us a direction, so that we can put our knowledge to good use.  And Jesus, again, was in part a Teacher or Rabbi, teaching what the Kingdom of Heaven is like, what we must do to enter, why we must enter, and what will happen if we don't listen.

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Once again, there is nothing immoral about other forms of art.  The Church has commissioned such in the past, and (for example), in the private revelation of the Divine Mercy image, Jesus told Saint Faustina Kowalska to paint the image she saw (she had it painted by a professional painter, but the point is that He didn't give her an icon made without hands).

Indeed, I have been drawing for my entire life, and I especially like to draw things that come into my head, things that I cannot see before me in real life--and if I root this in love of Christ, I can glorify Him with my drawings.



All I'm saying is that these icons made without hands, and these art forms, tap directly into God's own creative power--and therefore they are the best, objectively speaking.

That being the case, I don't intend to ignore them.  I am already consecrated to Jesus through Mary, and Our Lady of Guadalupe is simply one apparition of Mary.  Besides, I am partly a Mexican-American, with some American Indian blood in me (confirmed by an ancestry.com test that my grandfather took), and I have lived in North America my whole life.  Therefore I am subject to Our Lady of Guadalupe as Empress of the Americas.

I am also consecrated to Merciful Love, after the fashion of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.  Saint Therese regarded these two devotions, the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, as inextricably linked.  On the one hand, both display how the Son of God became dependent upon, and vulnerable to, His own creatures--us human beings (and the same is true of the Eucharist, the only time we encounter His physical Presence today, in Mass and in Adoration).  This shows how He humbled Himself out of merciful Love, and how we are to show the same merciful love to Him and to the least of His brethren, including the poor and those condemned to death.

On the other hand, both manifest the notion that we can see the Face of God and live.  We are finite, and fallen, and so we cannot expect to see God as He truly is, according to His divinity, and not either die or go mad from the revelation.  God knows this, and He shows us mercy by not revealing Himself in all His glory, which would frighten us anyway given our fallenness.  But aside from the Holy Face being an image of the Face of God that is not made by hands, the Child Jesus recalls the first time that it was possible to see the face of God and live: Christ's birth.  Hence the connection with the devotion to the Christ Child, the most wonderful gift on the first Christmas Day (the second, inextricably linked to the first, being Mary as our Mother).



I have gotten back into the habit of doing First Saturday devotions in reparation for blasphemies against Mary.  I did so this year, and I intend to do so every year from now on.

I am now becoming interested in the Holy Face devotion, and in making Acts of Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus.  In particular, Jesus revealed to Sister Marie of St. Peter the Golden Arrow prayer, which makes Reparation for blasphemies against the Most Holy Name of Jesus.  And my birthday is the Feast Day of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.  And according to the official website for this devotion, Pope Leo XIII established the Holy Face devotion for the entire world, although it was neglected after World War I, some 30 years later.



I will close this blog entry with the Golden Arrow Prayer:



May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.  Amen.

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Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.

The Lord of the Rings

Now that Christopher Tolkien has published his final Middle-earth book, The Fall of Gondolin, I've been thinking once more about The Lord of the Rings and its point, especially regarding the Catholic faith of J. R. R. Tolkien.  I now think I have a bit of an understanding of what the elder Tolkien intended.



First of all, J. R. R. Tolkien was "sub-creating" (his term) a mythological world, presumably set in pre-Christian times and among Gentiles.  In other words, a world that (like the real world in pre-Christian times) is innately good, but fallen, and that lacks the grace of Jesus Christ's Sacrifice or even the revelations received by the pre-Christian Israelites.  That is, they only have the natural world, creation, to go by in terms of knowing the true God, its Creator--and that is faulty because it's been corrupted (in this mythology by Morgoth).

But more to the point, given the setting, fallen man (or other races) cannot hope to exert their wills against evil and win.  At most they might endure while trying to resist evil (like someone being tortured for information and desperately trying to keep quiet in the face of such torture), but in the end they will succumb to evil--whether that means being destroyed, killed, or whether that means turning to evil themselves.

Nevertheless, even in such an apparently nightmarish world, there is hope: evil cannot exist in a vacuum, but only as the corruption of good.  Good remains, because God the Creator is all-good, and so all creation is innately good, if corrupted.  Therefore, those resisting evil need not be alone--though given the setting, they need not to know exactly that they aren't alone, or who is with them.  All they need to do is will to merciful love, which is God's will, whether they know it or not.  God planted the capacity and the desire for merciful love in us--both to receive it and to give it--and even pre-Christian pagans have this.

Therefore, the point is that if one persists in willing merciful love, for oneself and for others (especially those who need it the most and to whom one would least want it given), and does this to the last ounce of one's strength even in the face of great evil, even (and especially) when it looks to the world like madness, like suicide--God will show merciful love to that person.



But why?  Why set it there?  I think the reason J. R. R. Tolkien set the story outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition of divine revelation was twofold: 1) lest he take the Lord's Name in vain by writing fiction about a people to whom God had revealed Himself; 2) to show the universality of God, and that His existence and action are independent of our knowledge of or belief in Him (as it must be if He is the all-powerful Creator), by having the setting be one that lacks knowledge of or belief in the Holy Trinity.

But that still doesn't explain why it's a mythological rather than a historical setting, nor why it's an invented mythological setting rather than an established mythological setting.  This answer is beyond the scope of this blog entry, and it may be as simple as J. R. R. Tolkien desiring to emulate God's creativity as best he could, as well as restoring (to some degree, after some fashion) to his country of England something of her culture that was lost with the Norman Conquest (and might have been further lost with World War I): a placeholding mythology that points to God not just in the actual world but in man's desire to know the truth and to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.

I say this is beyond the scope of this blog entry because I hold with Andre Bazin that the most creative act is to tap directly into God's creative power with cinema, specifically documentary--or, probably even more, with what Aristotle called the three "cooperative" arts of farming, healing, and teaching--and if so, J. R R. Tolkien was going in the opposite direction from this.  That's not necessarily to say that Tolkien was wrong (he did try to root his mythology in what he knew of language), and we do have imaginations for a reason, but by its very nature "sub-creation" is going in the opposite direction from tapping directly into God's creative power, even if it is rooted enough in reality that it can still be a tribute to the Lord.



At any rate, here, then, is the reason for the main story thread in The Lord of the Rings: Frodo Baggins's quest was never actually to destroy the One Ring, because he had not the ability to stand up against its great evil, but only to get the Ring close enough to Mount Doom for it to be destroyed--and from thence to exercise hope, which is a theological virtue, that the quest would not be in vain.  It is not entirely his fault that he succumbed to the Ring in the end, claiming it for his own and refusing to destroy it--its influence upon him was too powerful.

But had it not been for Gollum's intervention, the best that could have been hoped for is that Frodo would have suffered Gollum's actual fate--and at worst, the Nazgul would have killed Frodo, taken the One Ring, and returned it to Sauron, who would have conquered Middle-earth with it a second time.  Because of Gollum's intervention, however, Frodo was himself shown mercy from above, being spared the natural and just consequences of his act of claiming the Ring by receiving the mercy that Gollum had rejected, so that Gollum replaced Frodo in suffering the ultimate ill fate.

And yet, Gollum acted entirely out of selfish, wicked motives.  He did not heroically intervene to save Frodo from himself, and then sacrifice his own life to save Middle-earth from Sauron or anyone similarly powerful who coveted the Ring.  On the contrary, Gollum had so succumbed to his desire for the One Ring above all else that he simply saw Frodo as a rival, and determined to get it back no matter what.  Gollum didn't even kill Frodo to get the Ring, nor did he kill Frodo after getting it back.  Gollum simply leapt for joy at having his "precious" back after all these decades, heedless of where he was, and slipped and fell into Mount Doom.  So Gollum is not the hero of the story either.

So why was Gollum there?  He was there because Frodo and Sam didn't kill him when they had the chance.  Because of pity and mercy.  It began with Bilbo, who first stole the Ring from Gollum and neglected to exploit the invisibility the Ring gave him and kill Gollum to get out of his lair (in The Hobbit); then Frodo, who pitied Gollum when he first saw him, and who noted that they needed a guide into Mordor if their plan was to succeed (and Gollum had been in Mordor before, having been captured and tortured there), and who hoped against hope that Gollum might repent and be saved.  In the end, at Mount Doom, even Sam showed Gollum mercy (and Sam had refused to trust Gollum at all before then).

But how was it that Bilbo, Frodo, and even Sam were able to show mercy to such a wretched creature as Gollum?  Here's where it really gets counter-intuitive when you look at it from a temporal perspective: it was because they had themselves become Ring-bearers by then, and so to some degree (however slight) they were experiencing firsthand what Gollum had experienced for centuries, and so they understood.  In a Christian understanding, they (to a degree) effectively "became sin" but without giving themselves over to evil, even when all signs seemed to point to killing Gollum (he meant to betray and kill them in the end, if need be, in order to get the Ring back).

This seems to me to explain why the opening chapter shows Frodo inheriting the One Ring from Bilbo (though it takes a great effort on Bilbo's part, and even then requires some help from Gandalf, just to part with the Ring), and the next chapter has Gandalf mention that it was pity and mercy that prevented Bilbo from killing Gollum when he had the chance.

In other words, the point of Frodo's quest was as follows: 1) receive the One Ring without stealing it or killing its previous bearer Bilbo--without any evil act on Frodo's part (Bilbo had had it for too long to be a suitable hero for this quest); 2) get the One Ring as close to Mount Doom as possible, meanwhile avoiding the Nazgul as well as anyone else coveting the Ring (or their spies), and resisting putting it on and succumbing to its evil power to the last ounce of his strength; 3) encounter Gollum and show him mercy, borne partly out of his gentle nature and partly out of his own experience with the Ring--as well as prudence in needing a guide to get into Mordor without being caught--even to the point of hoping Gollum might be redeemed, and even when Gollum betrays him unto apparent death.  Beyond that it was out of Frodo's hands.



But in the end, it was Sam who showed the final mercy to Gollum, when Frodo's last words to Gollum had been "Begone, and trouble me no more!  If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom"--and after which Frodo succumbed to the One Ring and so was no longer able to show pity and mercy to Gollum, but only to see him as a rival.  And I think this, even more than simply the fact that Sam carried Frodo along the last leg of the journey when Frodo's burden became too heavy for him to move, is why J. R. R. Tolkien regarded Samwise Gamgee as the true "hero" of The Lord of the Rings.

Therefore, there was a point to Sam being on the quest as well, and that was as follows: 1) while meaning no harm, overhearing Gandalf's and Frodo's conversation about the One Ring, and getting caught by Gandalf, so that he went on the quest with Frodo; 2) continuing to follow Frodo even when Frodo ditched all his other companions after the Breaking of the Fellowship; 3) deferring to Frodo's pity and mercy to Gollum even when he strongly disagreed with it, even if it was only deference to Frodo's status as Ring-bearer or Frodo's superior social status (Sam was Frodo's gardener, his servant); 4) fighting back against Shelob when she poisoned Frodo, so that she would not devour him now that Frodo was helpless to fight back himself; 5) take the One Ring himself with no other intent but to complete the mission that Frodo had started and seemingly could no longer finish; 6) without being caught, discover that Frodo was alive after all; 7) resist the temptation to keep and use the One Ring, instead rescuing Frodo (thereby demonstrating his own merciful love even without thought of the cost to himself, rather than abandoning the still-living Frodo even for the sake of the quest) and returning the Ring to the one who had first offered to take the Ring to Mordor; 8) carrying Frodo to Mount Doom when Frodo's burden became too heavy for Frodo to make it any further on his own; 9) finally, showing Gollum mercy himself when they were at Mount Doom, even when Gollum had already shown himself to be treacherous and murderous and desiring only to have the One Ring back.

This also explains why it was Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in particular who made most of the journey to Mount Doom, though it doesn't explain the other parts.

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If you've been following my blog entries for this year, you might suspect that my use of the term "merciful love" came from Father Michael E. Gaitley's books.  And it is from another of his books, The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, that I was inspired to another conclusion about The Lord of the Rings.

In The Second Greatest Story Ever Told, Father Michael E. Gaitley argues that Pope Saint John Paul II was a martyr for the faith--more specifically, that the pope was martyred on May 13, 1981, the day he was shot and almost killed.  Indeed, the Holy Father's death was reported prematurely, and doctors could not explain how he survived.  What's more, Father Michael E. Gaitley said that, in anticipation of Pope John Paul II's death, his blood was collected as relics.

But Pope John Paul II survived, not dying until April 2, 2005, almost 24 years later--so how does he still count as a martyr?  Father Michael E. Gaitley notes that the doctors couldn't explain how he survived, and that Pope John Paul II believed he had been spared miraculously, for a divine purpose.  Also he took note of the date, May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, who had prophesied that "the Holy Father will have much to suffer" without a consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.  And indeed, on March 25, 1984, Pope John Paul II (with all the bishops of the world) finally satisfied heaven in consecrating Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, confirmed by Sister Lucia Santos (the one surviving child seer at Fatima) and by the end of the Cold War exactly 7 years and 9 months later, on December 25, 1991.  Also, April 2, 2005, the day that Pope John Paul II actually died, was the First Saturday of the month, and First Saturdays are devoted to Mary.

In short, Father Michael E. Gaitley suggests that God intervened, through Mary (as Our Lady of Fatima), to save Pope John Paul II's life--that, without this miraculous intervention, Pope John Paul II would undoubtedly have died from the attempt on his life (and presumably have gone to heaven).  In other words, the Holy Father gave his life as a martyr for the faith, but God decided it wasn't time for him to die yet, because He wanted him to do this great deed (and not only this, since Pope John Paul II lived over 21 years after the consecration, and over 13 years after the Cold War ended).  It was only by April 2, 2005, that Pope John Paul II had done what God wanted him to do, and therefore it was only then that the Holy Father died and went to heaven.



What does this have to do with The Lord of the Rings?  I would argue that J. R. R. Tolkien's intent, whether he would have described it this way or not, is that Frodo Baggins was effectively a martyr as well.  In the 11th chapter, Frodo is stabbed by the Morgul blade of the Witch-king of Angmar, the leader of the Nazgul--and while he is healed by Elves in Rivendell, he is not healed completely.  His injury flares up every year on the anniversary of the day he was stabbed.  Moreover, the same thing happened on the anniversary of the day he was stung by Shelob and paralyzed.  Because of this, Frodo was unable to find rest in Middle-earth once his quest was completed, and only found peace by leaving Middle-earth for Aman in the last chapter (hence probably why it was the last chapter).

In other words, I suspect that J. R. R. Tolkien intended for Frodo Baggins to have suffered martyrdom, but to have been miraculously spared because his purpose was not yet accomplished.  Once it was, however (once the One Ring was destroyed), Frodo remained a martyr, if a living one, and so could not find peace afterward.  Aside from his injuries flaring up every year on the anniversaries of the days he received them, Frodo returned home to find the Shire taken over by Saruman and ruffians.  Only in the undying lands, the home of the Ainur and the rightful home of the Elves, could Frodo be completely healed of his wounds and find peace at last before he died.

In short, Frodo Baggins was effectively "not meant for" Middle-earth, as he received the One Ring on his 33rd birthday (for a Hobbit, his coming of age), in anticipation of his quest, and he did not die in Middle-earth, nor did Bilbo (and we're told that Sam would not either, though the epic ends before Sam follows them).

And because this is the final fate for Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam, it is not only a final peace for those who had been Ring-bearers but also a reward for their mercy, especially to Gollum.  It didn't save Gollum but it did save themselves.

But it was only Frodo who was martyred.  Bilbo and Sam both gave up the One Ring of their own free will, though it took a lot of effort (and presumably did not happen without help, though Sam wouldn't have been aware of his help).  Hence, perhaps, why J. R. R. Tolkien also called Sam the true heir to Bilbo as the latter is in The Hobbit.  Even in The Hobbit, Bilbo never suffers anything like Frodo's two wounds, but returns to the Shire in the end, presumably to live comfortably (because there is no indication as yet of The Lord of the Rings).  Therefore, unlike Frodo, Bilbo and Sam return from their respective adventures to live long and comfortable lives in the Shire, but in the end to go to Aman to be completely healed of the effects of the One Ring on them, before they die.



And in the end, perhaps this is why The Lord of the Rings begins and ends where it does.  At least, this is one reason, and the most obvious.  But there are hints to another reason.

In the third chapter, when Frodo, Sam, and Pippin encounter Gildor and the Elves leaving Middle-earth for Aman (foreshadowing the last of the Elves doing the same in the last chapter!), Gildor names Frodo "Elf-friend", which is a blessing.  Bilbo had already been so named by Thranduil, the Elvenking of Mirkwood (and Legolas's father), when he gave the Arkenstone to Bard and Thranduil in hopes of averting a war between Dwarves on the one hand, and Men and Elves on the other.

Also, Arwen asks that the grace given to her pass to Frodo--so that, in effect, with Arwen's decision to live a mortal life as Aragorn's queen, what might have been her place on the last boat to Aman was instead given to Frodo.  This even further indicates that Frodo is an Elf-friend, almost an adopted son to Elrond Half-Elven, Arwen's father, who bore one of the Three Rings and who (having chosen the immortal life of an Elf) did leave Middle-earth forever, just as Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam did.

And this points to the long-term reason for The Lord of the Rings to end where it does, which I'll get into next.

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J. R. R. Tolkien started The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to his children's book The Hobbit, but in the end it became a conclusion to his Middle-earth legendarium which he began during World War I.  He originally desired co-publication as "one long saga of the Jewels and the Rings", the "Jewels" being the Silmarils that give The Silmarillion its title.

If the Silmarils are thought of as having a similar role to the Rings of Power, then Earendil must be the equivalent of Frodo: Earendil inherits a Silmaril from his wife Elwing, the granddaughter of Beren who cut it from Morgoth's crown, and it is Earendil's efforts that (however indirectly) lead to the defeat of Morgoth and the end of the First Age--and he is rewarded with becoming the morning star (from which light is contained in the phial of Galadriel, used by Sam against Shelob).

But J. R. R. Tolkien never wrote the story of Earendil in as much depth.  Rather, similarly to how The Lord of the Rings is both a sequel to The Hobbit and to the never-published story of the Fall of Numenor, Earendil's tale is a sequel to The Fall of Gondolin and to Beren and Luthien.  (He never finished either, and they were only published this year and last year, but he wrote more to each of these than to the story of Earendil himself.)  Of those, it is Beren and Luthien specifically that deals with the Silmaril, as well as the uniting of the races of Elves and Men (they were the ancestors of Aragorn and Arwen, as their granddaughter Elwing was the mother, and Earendil was the father, of Elrond and his brother Elros, the latter of whom was ancestor to Aragorn).



But why did J. R. R. Tolkien consider the two to be inseparable?  This gets into the other reason why The Lord of the Rings ends where it does.  Specifically, why were the Rings of Power forged at all?  And why were there more than just the One Ring?  Obviously Sauron desired the Rings of Power so that he could dominate their bearers with his One Ring, but he only forged the One Ring on his own: the rest were forged either in part or in their entirety by the Elf Celebrimbor.  But why?  Ah, therein lies the tie to the Silmarils.

When Melkor stole the Silmarils, explaining why he had them in his crown (and why he was renamed Morgoth) and took them from Aman to Middle-earth, Feanor (who forged the Silmarils) and his sons swore an oath that they would recover the Silmarils at all costs, and kill anyone who hindered them (against the will of the Valar).  This led them and the Noldor Elves to commit the First Kinslaying of the Teleri Elves, which brought upon them the Doom of Mandos.  And this doom was that they had earned the enmity of the Valar, shut out from their old home of Aman, and that they would not succeed in their quest.  In short, the Noldor Elves would fail, their efforts turning to ill, and they would not be able to return home.

But at the end of the First Age, Earendil, whose mother was a Noldor Elf, took one of the Silmarils back toward Aman and begged for mercy of the Valar at a time when Morgoth was taking over the entirety of Middle-earth.  And the Valar showed mercy and fought back, defeating Morgoth and sending him to the Void, and rewarding Earendil and his descendants.  They also offered forgiveness and pardon to the Noldor Elves, allowing them to be freed of the Doom of Mandos and to come home to Aman again--if they would repent.



But not all did.  Some Noldor Elves stubbornly refused to return (notably Celebrimbor, grandson of Feanor), and so they allowed themselves to remain under the influence of Morgoth's corruption of Middle-earth.  Even though Morgoth was in the Void and so was no longer able to exert active and deliberate influence, the effects of his corruption of Middle-earth remained.  Therefore, the stubbornness of the Noldor Elves who remained in Middle-earth doomed them to suffer the same fate as the land itself: diminishing, corrupting, fading away, before the world might be renewed in the future.

Rather than accept the choice of either this terrible fate or humbling themselves as the price to be freed from it and return home, Celebrimbor fell victim to the temptation of Sauron in the Second Age.  While Sauron had his own evil intent, Celebrimbor's intent with forging what would become the Seven Rings and the Nine Rings (with Sauron's help), and the Three Rings (without it), was to provide a third option, a way out of this choice that he and the other Noldor Elves remaining in Middle-earth considered unacceptable.  That is, the intent was to forge Rings of Power that would preserve the realms of Middle-earth ruled by their bearers, in an (ultimately vain) attempt to make Middle-earth enough like Aman to where they felt they could continue to live there comfortably instead of returning to Aman in humility, or suffering in Middle-earth.

But Sauron had deceived Celebrimbor: not only did the Ring-making craft he revealed include (without Celebrimbor's knowledge) the ability to be dominated by the One Ring, but it also included the fact that if the One Ring were ever destroyed, so would the power of all the others--in hopes that, therefore, there would be no incentive to even think of destroying the One Ring.

Therefore, once the One Ring was destroyed, the power of even the Three Rings, untouched by Sauron's evil, faded away, and the corruption due to Morgoth's actions of the First Age set in once again.  And this forced the remaining Noldor Elves to face the music: either they could humble themselves and return home to Aman, or they could stay in Middle-earth and suffer diminishment as Middle-earth became more and more corrupted over time.  (This does not apply to half-Elves who chose mortal lives, like Arwen.)  Once they have made this choice, the Fourth Age and the reign of Men can begin.

Hence the other reason The Lord of the Rings ends where it does, with the last of the Elf-boats leaving Middle-earth never to return, now that the Rings of Power are no more.  And hence why there are other elements of The Lord of the Rings besides the main storyline of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum and the quest to take the One Ring to Mordor and Mount Doom, determined that the Ring must be destroyed to save Middle-earth from Sauron's domination or that of another of similar power coveting the Ring (like Saruman).  Besides the aforementioned seeing of Gildor and his Elves leaving Middle-earth, these include seeing Rivendell and Lothlorien, both of which are as they are because of two of the Three Rings, on the way towards Mordor.  These also include the absence of Elves' direct collective participation in the War of the Ring (notwithstanding Legolas), and the fact that the only true "third way" is for half-Elves who choose the mortal life of Men (such as Arwen), and for Men distantly descended from Elves (such as Aragorn, and the Men of Gondor).  Middle-earth is for Men, not for Elves, just as Aman is for Elves, not for Men.

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And what does this tale of the Jewels have to do with what I just said about interpreting The Lord of the Rings from a Catholic perspective?

First, the whole reason that Morgoth was able to steal the Silmarils in the first place is because Feanor, the Noldo Elf who forged them, refused to give them to the Vala Yavanna, so that she could restore the Two Trees that once gave light to Valinor (the originals having been destroyed by the giant Spider Ungoliant).  Once Morgoth had them, Feanor and the Noldor Elves did not have the ability to resist Morgoth's evil on their own, and so their quest to get the Silmarils back was doomed from the beginning--they were doomed either to be destroyed by Morgoth or to turn evil themselves, especially since they swore their oath and brought upon themselves the Doom of Mandos.  Only by repenting could they be redeemed of this and return home to Aman--but at first some stubbornly refused, making themselves vulnerable to the temptations of Sauron--and the effects of this were only undone with the destruction of the One Ring.

But there's another thread, that of the Half-Elves.  Where the Noldor Elves failed, Beren alone succeeded in taking one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's crown and not suffering the burning of his hands in the process.  Beren succeeded out of love for Luthien, the daughter of Thingol of Doriath.  As a result of his self-sacrificial love, Beren was allowed to marry Luthien, the first time a Man married an Elf maid, and their line continued to inherit the Silmaril until their granddaughter Elwing married Earendil (himself a Half-Elf)--though they also inherited the enmity of Feanor's sons as they determined to get the Silmaril back and to kill whoever had it (to say nothing of Morgoth!).

In the end, there were two lines of half-Elves: the descendants of Beren and Luthien, and the descendants of Tuor and Idril, and they united when the former couple's granddaughter Elwing married the latter couple's son Earendil and they had two sons named Elrond and Elros.  Thus the two lines became one.  In addition, thanks to the efforts of Earendil, his sons were rewarded with the choice of which fate to have: the immortal life of an Elf or the mortal life of a Man.  In the end, it was Elros alone who chose the mortal life of a Man, and was given the island of Numenor as his kingdom.  (And Aragorn and the Men of Gondor are descended from the Numenoreans.)



But Earendil, Elwing, and Elrond all chose the immortal lives of Elves, which meant that Middle-earth was not for them.  Indeed, Earendil would have chosen the mortal life of a Man (and so presumably would have stayed in Middle-earth or possibly Numenor, where his son Elros was the first king), but for the fact that his wife Elwing chose the immortal life of an Elf, and he didn't want to be parted from her.  So, again out of love, he instead chose the immortal life of an Elf, and therefore chose to renounce Middle-earth and Numenor as possible homes for himself despite probably desiring them.  Indeed, before thus choosing, Earendil was the first mortal to set foot in Valinor, no small thing!  Therefore it was a sign of his humility and desire for mercy that prompted the Valar to allow him there at all, never mind acting on his request and defeating Morgoth, as well as offering mercy to the Noldor Elves who would repent.

Only Elrond, of those who had chosen the immortal life of an Elf, stayed in Middle-earth, where he would eventually become a bearer of one of the Three Rings, until he left for Aman at the end of The Lord of the Rings.  But the same choice of fate was granted to his children, and his daughter Arwen, out of love for the mortal Man Aragorn, chose a mortal life, becoming his queen--and so the grace given to her as a child of the Elves was passed on to Frodo, who accompanied Elrond in leaving Middle-earth for good.

Even before the end, it was Elrond who declared that the One Ring must be destroyed (refusing to touch it himself), knowing full well that this would mean the power of his own Ring would die, and that (having already chosen the immortal life of an Elf) he would have to make his choice--and he made the right choice, repenting and leaving for Aman, even though that also meant being parted from his children who stayed behind.  So Elrond made a heavy sacrifice in the end and was rewarded for it.

Indeed, The Fellowship of the Ring has all three bearers of the Three Rings (Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel) come into close proximity with the One Ring, and so being tempted to take it--and they all refuse, as is right.  Aside from the fact that the One Ring is evil and needs to be destroyed, all three of them have too much power, and could easily become as terrible as Sauron if they claimed the One Ring for their own.

Indeed, Saruman presents a contrast with Gandalf in this regard.  But, perhaps tellingly, there is no comparable wicked Elf who covets the One Ring as Saruman does, even though Elrond and Galadriel both have the most reason to do so (and Galadriel comes closest), and Legolas is the Elf who is in the closest proximity to the One Ring for the longest time, as part of the Fellowship of the Ring.  Perhaps this fact, then, shows the redemption of the Elves collectively, and therefore The Lord of the Rings ends with them going to their reward.  And perhaps, then, one reason for the existence of Saruman as a secondary villain to Sauron is to demonstrate the absence of a comparable character who is an Elf (someone comparable to Feanor and his sons with the Silmarils--I suppose the most likely would have been a hypothetical descendant of Celebrimbor who forged the Rings of Power other than the One Ring).

Granted, someone in the 1950's who wasn't familiar with Middle-earth wouldn't have reason to regard this as an omission, but aside from showing Elrond and Galadriel in Book II, this might have been part of the reason the Ring-rhyme begins "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...."



In short, the mercy rejected by Feanor and his sons is granted to the Half-Elves and their ancestors Beren, Luthien, Tuor, and Idril.  In particular, Idril is a Noldo Elf, like Feanor and his sons.

This isn't an exact analogue to the mercy rejected by Gollum being granted to the Hobbits Bilbo, Samwise, and especially Frodo.  Most obviously, the tale of the Silmarils doesn't end with the First Age.  The point, ultimately, is for the Silmarils to be returned to Yavanna so she can use their light to restore the Two Trees of Aman--but that is in the future from the perspective of the characters in The Lord of the Rings.  At the end of the First Age, the three Silmarils are in three of the elements: one in the fiery pit, one in the sea, and one in the sky as the Evening Star (the Star of Earendil).

Nevertheless, since the Noldor Elves brought the Doom of Mandos upon them by the Kinslaying (and Smeagol killed Deagol to possess the One Ring, Smeagol who would become Gollum as a result), my guess is that the Half-Elves and their Elvish ancestors Luthien and Idril did not participate in any kinslaying.  And Feanor and his sons would count, especially in Idril's case, so that refusing to kill them would mean constantly being targeted by them, just as with Morgoth whom they could not possibly kill anyway even though he doesn't deserve mercy at all.

And indeed, the fate of one of Feanor's sons, Maedhros, seems to foreshadow that of Gollum: because of his unworthiness, the Silmaril burned his hand and he cast it and himself into a fiery chasm.

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One more thing:

Before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling, was published in 2007, Orson Scott Card wrote an essay called "Who is Snape?"  He wrote this by way of attempting to solve the mystery of what side Severus Snape was on and what he thought he was doing when he killed Albus Dumbledore--by analyzing what he knew of Snape from the first six books and what he would have done as a writer himself given that.

But for the purposes of this blog entry, in his essay Card said that Severus Snape is as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: "the center of moral ambiguity, the character who, seeming evil, might also serve the good."  In other words, he is "not the character we are rooting for, but he may be the character whose moral struggle means the most to us in the end."



If Gollum is such a character, as certainly he seems to be--a "wild card" in a world of good and evil--then it seems that Feanor and his sons were similar characters in The Silmarillion, given their obvious parallel.  They do not want either the Valar or Morgoth or anyone else but themselves to have the Silmarils.  They are not evil in the sense of supporting Morgoth (quite the opposite!), but they are evil in the sense of opposing the Valar--just as Gollum is not evil inasmuch as he doesn't want Sauron to have the One Ring back, but he is evil in the sense of having allowed himself to desire the One Ring for himself so passionately.

This might explain why J. R. R. Tolkien had it be Feanor who made the Silmarils in the first place.  Although he made them and he is not the irredeemably evil Dark Lord, they were made with light from the Two Trees, and it is there that the light rightly belongs.  Therefore the right thing to do, once the Two Trees were destroyed, was to give the Silmarils to Yavanna so that she could use their light to restore the Two Trees.  Feanor didn't do this, and that allowed Melkor (whom Feanor renamed "Morgoth" as a result) to steal them.  Hence probably why this story is called The Silmarillion.

That being the case, then, if it wasn't Gollum (if The Lord of the Rings hadn't started as a sequel to The Hobbit, for which J. R. R. Tolkien invented the character of Gollum in the first place), perhaps a comparable character would have been an Elf, possibly a son of Celebrimbor who forged the Rings of Power other than the One Ring (and therefore a great-grandson of Feanor).  That, too, would have provided a contrast with Saruman, who (though shown mercy multiple times) never showed any sign of possible redemption, where Gollum at least came close.

Then again, an Elf would have been more powerful than Gollum, and probably better able to dominate Frodo and Sam, so perhaps that wouldn't have worked as well anyway.  Indeed, it wasn't until The Lord of the Rings that J. R. R. Tolkien even decided what Gollum originally was: a Hobbit.

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Finally, I'm partly saying this to indicate what J. R. R. Tolkien meant for his readers to take from his story, and partly to get it into words so that I can take inspiration for my own story.  Please pray for me in that regard.



Thank you for being with me.  God bless you.

Woe to you, hypocrites!

More and more, with what's going on both in the human element of the Church and in the United States government, I'm feeling that we're reaching a turning point in history--past the point of no return--and we're all going to be called to participate.



The people whom Jesus most rebuked in the Gospels were the scribes and Pharisees--not because they were scribes and Pharisees, as if it were bad to be so, but because they were hypocrites.  Hypocrisy is always one of the worst evils, but it's all the worse when it comes from someone who ought to be held to a higher standard, someone who knows the moral Law and is charged with teaching it to others and helping them to follow it--like the scribes and Pharisees.

The clergy of the Catholic Church are the people whom God holds to the highest standard of all: the men called to shepherd us, His sheep.  If they are untrustworthy, how will the laity be able to trust God, who is trust itself?  If they do not repent of this and act on that repentance, how can God do otherwise than to act directly to stop them?



And sexual abuse is a sin that cries out to God for justice, meaning that if man doesn't let God act through him (if man doesn't enact God's justice for the victims), God will do it Himself, and He will not spare those who ought to have let Him work through them.

Just today I read something shocking--to me, because (thank God) I have never been sodomized, neither by my will nor against my will.  I read that sodomy (anal sex) is not only painful, but that it causes bleeding, and involuntary bowel movements requiring adult diapers.  I call that sex abuse, equally so whether the victim wanted it or not, whether the victim is a man or a woman, and irrespective of the victim's age.

The only reason we still (rightly) get morally outraged at pedophilia (so that it takes no courage at all to speak in outrage against it) is because Jesus Christ and His Church taught that it was evil.  It was practiced by pagan Gentiles who thought nothing of it.

And it's precisely because we look to whether the victim "wanted it", rather than to whether God wanted it, that abusers try to deny being abusers at all (both to the world and to themselves) by trying to convince themselves that the victim did want it, and that "therefore" it wasn't abuse at all.  This is a lie: a willing victim is still a victim.

But for clergy, especially high-ranking clergy like former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to be guilty of such is multiply heinous.



Worse still is when those in the know, especially high-ranking clergy who are themselves innocent of such abuse, cover it up by their actions or even by their inactions.  This is cooperation with evil: even if the individual is a completely celibate virgin, he is as guilty of the abuse as if he had committed it himself.

And I would argue that it's even worse to participate in the coverup by attacking the victims, as by accusing them of "calumny".  To be sure, it is a serious charge to accuse someone of such a heinous crime, or a coverup of such--and to be sure, the Devil hates the Church and probably inspires many people to do just that, especially against the most visible and highest-ranking members of the clergy.  Nevertheless, if there is any legitimate possibility (as by two or more people making the same serious charge specifically against the same person), at minimum an investigation is warranted.  And we need to be charitable to everyone involved: both the victims and the clergy.  The desire should be to learn the truth, for God is Truth, and to enact justice for all in merciful love, for God is Love and is always just.

And if the accusation is against high-ranking clergy, such as the Pope or the College of Cardinals, then an investigation is all the more warranted if there is any significant chance of its being true, however slight that chance may be.  If they are innocent, they should welcome an investigation because it will only prove them innocent.



Granted, we must be as charitable as we can be, consistent with the facts as we know them--and matters affecting the whole Church are facts we need to know, and we cannot willfully turn a blind eye to them.  And we don't know what's in a person's heart at all, and all that can be judged is what the person thought, said, and did based on the evidence, and whether these are good or evil.  One need not be knowingly and deliberately malicious to be an unwitting pawn of the Devil.  And even in the case of those poor souls who have knowingly and deliberately given themselves over to the darkness while posing as shepherds of Light, we must love them enough to care what happens to their immortal souls.  A godly rebuke is done out of love, as Our Lord did when He rebuked the scribes and Pharisees.

But for those who genuinely are wolves in shepherd's clothing, Our Lord said it would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with millstones tied around their necks than for them to do what they are doing.  If children or childlike adults cannot trust even the highest-ranking members of the Catholic Church, how can they find it easy to trust God Himself, especially since we are all conceived in original sin and so we all fear and distrust God to some degree anyway?  And this is why God will intervene if this goes on long enough without anything being done about it--make no mistake.



And to divert attention away from this to "climate change" fearmongering is distrusting God's promise to Noah (and so by extension distrusting the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ, which fulfills all previous covenants), acting out of step with the Third Commandment to keep the Sabbath (a grave sin), and deflecting attention from a matter that falls under the clergy's jurisdiction to a matter that does not.



I didn't mean to write so much myself, so I'll leave the last word for Our Lord:



"'But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.'"  (Matthew 23:13-15)

"'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.  You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!'"  (Matthew 23:23-24)