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The old, old fashion

The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion—Death!

Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens

Belief of Catholics about the Blessed Virgin as Colored by Their Devotion to Her

Did not the All-wise know the human heart when he took to Himself a Mother? Did he not anticipate our emotion at the sight of such an exaltation in one so simple and so lowly? If he had not meant her to exert that wonderful influence in His Church, which she has in the event exerted, I will use a bold word, He it is who has perverted us. If she is not to attract our homage, why did He make her solitary in her greatness amid His vast creation?

Newman, Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans v.2

Those boogie, woogie bugle boys

Reflections on the right use of school studies with a view to the love of God

Most often attention is confused with a kind of muscular effort. If one says to one’s pupils: “Now you must pay attention,” one sees them contracting their brows, holding their breath, stiffening their muscles. If after two minutes they are asked what they have been paying attention to, they cannot reply. They have not been paying attention. They have been contracting their muscles.

We often expend this kind of muscular effort on our studies. As it ends by making us tired, we have the impression that we have been working. That is an illusion. Tiredness has nothing to do with work. Work itself is the useful effort, whether it is tiring or not. This kind of muscular effort in work is entirely barren, even if it is made with the best of intentions. Good intentions in such cases are among those that pave the way to hell. Studies conducted in such a way can sometimes succeed academically from the point of view of gaining good marks and passing examinations, but that is in spite of the effort and thanks to natural gifts; moreover such studies are never of any use.

. . .

Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts as a man on a mountain who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it.

All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style and all faulty connection of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth. The cause is always that we have wanted to be too active; we have wanted to carry out a search. This can be proved every time, for every fault, if we trace it to its root. There is no better exercise than such a tracing down of our faults, for this truth is one those which we can only believe when we have experienced it hundreds and thousands of times. This is the way with all essential truths.

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. Man cannot discover them by his own powers and if he sets out to seek for them he will find in their place counterfeits of which he will be unable to discern the falsity.

The solution of a geometry problem does not in itself constitute a precious gift, but the same law applies to it because it is the image of something precious. Being a little fragment of particular truth, it is a pure image of the unique, eternal and living Truth, the very Truth which once in a human voice declared “I am the Truth.”

Every school exercise, thought of in this way, is like a sacrament.

In every school exercise there is a special way of waiting upon truth, setting our hearts upon it, yet not allowing ourselves to go out in search of it. There is a way of giving our attention to the data of a problem in geometry without trying to find the solution, or to the words of a Latin or Greek text without trying to arrive at the meaning, a way of waiting, when we are writing, for the right word to come of itself at the end of our pen, while we merely reject all inadequate words.

Simone Weil

hymnparty

The notion of being a human creature, a sort of grown-up fetus, conditioned by descent, land, speech, blood, metabolism—this notion seemed intolerable to me. Independent to an insane degree, I swore to be the only human being that belongs to no community. According to my conviction nothing had served to educate, influence, or guide me. I was to be the fruit of myself. The self-consciousness of a vain spirit exalted itself above all human thought. If I did not acknowledge the being of God, it was because I could not endure not being he. Therefore the analytical processes became a throne from which I ruled the world. And now it seems to me today as though I were standing behind my own back and saw myself in the round at last like any stranger. My sin, Clarens, was the sin of Lucifer, even though I’m a dirty nobody and sick unto death. In the heavy nights of the past year I have also come to see that our sin harms us far more than it does God. It is evident that my pride has destroyed me.

A few of the people at prayer looked with astonishment at Lafite, who was standing in the aisle between the benches.

‘Thou rose of the spirit—thou tower of ivory—thou golden house—thou ark of the Covenant—thou gate of Heaven—thou morning star …’

Where was I? Yes, thou tower of ivory. I, too, am a tower. But the tower is ruined and full of rats and woodlice. Oh, yes, thou golden house. My self is a house, too. It was lent me and I made a pig-sty of it. But now the period of the loan runs out and I shall be driven forth and there is not time left in which to put things to rights. O thou morning star, what have I made of my life? For it was a good life, despite all need

… .

‘Thou healer of the sick—thou refuge of sinners—thou comforter of the troubled—thou helper of Christians …’

Am I even a Christian? I don’t know. All that I know is that all dazzling formulations of my mind are no more than the croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets. Nothing is left me but solitariness. For my pride has lost me mankind.

… .

Even and mechanical was the voice of the young priest! Even and mechanical were the murmured responses of the devout! Scarcely distinguishable were the words of this endless cradle-song: ‘Pray for us . . . now and in the hour of our death …”

The rhythmic murmur became a beneficent rustling. It was like a soft support against which one could lean one’s back. And with it came the feeling as though one were surrounded by a helpfulness, encircled, taken into its core. The prayers of men took Hyacinthe de Lafite into its core. The prayers of men took Hyacinthe de Lafite into their midst. Something like smiling irony came over him. Proud and without love? Yes! But am I really so deserted, so much more than others? Would it not suffice, seeing the vast incertitude of all knowledge, to be no vainer than these here? What’s the difference between myself and them? Bits of sophisticated power over speech, which enable me to dress up my total ignorance, more frivolous in itself and less honest than theirs. Did I not sink so low merely because I did not believe that there were arms, which could lift me up? O maternal power of the universe, O Morning Star! The support came nearer him. The prayer behind him seemed to lay many gentle hands upon him. He who had always despised numbers as a conglomerate of low instincts and low interests now felt the devout behind him become a single loving incorporeal body that helped him more and more. Without any other sensation than that of the fading of his shame, the writer Lafite now also sank upon his knees and murmured into the grotto of the lady the familiar words of the angel’s greeting and of his mother’s lips and his own childhood. There was no new element in his consciousness. But he knew that the emptiness, the critical emptying of the soul’s content, of which he had once been so proud, had always been fulfilled by a certainty, which was merely being unveiled and brightened as by a breaking fog. There is no such thing as a conversion to faith, only a reversion, only a return. For faith is not a function of the soul. It is the soul itself in its last nakedness.

The Song of Bernadette, Franz Werfel

In his back yard

Burying the lede

#orthodox

When a multitude of young men, keen, openhearted, sympathetic, and observant, as young men are, come together and freely mix with each other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to learn the meaning of the information which its senses convey to it, and this seems to be its employment. It fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it, till it actually learns the contrary, and thus by practice does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first elements of knowledge which are necessary for its animal existence. A parallel teaching is necessary for our social being, and it is secured by a large school or a college; and this effect may be fairly called in its own department an enlargement of mind. It is seeing the world on a small field with little trouble; for the pupils or students come from very different places, and with widely different notions, and there is much to generalize, much to adjust, much to eliminate, there are inter-relations to be defined, and conventional rules to be established, in the process, by which the whole assemblage is moulded together, and gains one tone and one character.

Newman, Idea of a University, Discourse VI

#john henry newman

Knowledge, viewed as Knowledge, exerts a subtle influence in throwing us back on ourselves, and making us our own center, and our minds the measure of all things. This then is the tendency of that Liberal Education, of which a University is the school, viz., to view Revealed Religion from an aspect of its own—to fuse and recast it—to tune it, as it were, to a different key, and to reset its harmonies, to circumscribe it by a circle which unwarrantably amputates here, and unduly develops there; and all under the notion, conscious or unconscious, that the human intellect, self-educated and self-supported, is more true and perfect in its ideas and judgments than that of Prophets and Apostles, to whom the sights and sounds of Heaven were immediately conveyed. A sense of propriety, order, consistency, and completeness gives birth to a rebellious stirring against miracle and mystery, against the severe and the terrible.

Newman, Idea of a University, “Duties of the Church Toward Knowledge”

#john henry newman

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