Best Liturgical Treatise on Love Ever
Current mood: everyday I despise anthony johnson more and more
Category: everyday I despise anthony johnson more and more Religion and Philosophy
I think I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Listen to this song and then imagine that Jesus Christ is singing it, and you have the crown jewel of the Christian faith.
PRINCE :: I WOULD DIE 4 U
I'm not a woman I'm not a man I am something that you'll never understand
I'll never beat u I'll never lie And if you're evil I'll forgive u by and by
U - I would die 4 u Darling if u want me 2 U - I would die 4 u
I'm not your lover I'm not your friend I am something that you'll never comprehend
No need 2 worry No need 2 cry I'm your messiah and you're the reason why
U - I would die 4 u, yeah Darling if u want me 2 U - I would die 4 u
You're just a sinner I am told Be your fire when you're cold Make u happy when you're sad Make u good when u are bad
I'm not a human I am a dove I'm your conscious I am love All I really need is 2 know that U believe
I would die 4 u Darling if u want me 2 U - I would die 4 u
mortification of the flesh
Current mood: you don't even know
Category: you don't even know Religion and Philosophy
It's been awhile since I've blogged with any degree of serious intention, but here goes:
I've been writing a novel that deals with a lot of religious material, specifically sainthood.Part of the inspiration comes from the "miracles" attributed to saints.The other inspiration for the novel is the idea that everyone is called to sainthood and I wanted to put together a cast of characters that are all potentially saints and then have them work at cross purposes to each other.So I set out doing a lot of research about different saints, the process of Beatification, and theological differentiations of the concepts of miracles, ecstasy, thaumaturgy, visions and revelation.
After doing all of this research I have my favorite saints and the ones with the coolest "powers"…. (There are some cool bilocation stories).St. Lucyis nifty, St. Ignatius is dreamy St. Catherine of Siena, St. Bernadette (the best looking corpse you'll ever see), St. Jean-Marie Vianney(he was very hardcore and from my neck of the woods), I think I'm a little fond of Philomena because she was a favorite of Vianney, oh heck lets throw in St. Theresa too.
Now for what troubles me, especially lately…the subject of mortifications because most of the saint's were into some severe stuff when it came to this.I understand the basic concept of beating yourself silly or fasting and so on as a means to be closer to God.From what I've read on this subject there seem to be two basic arguments/explanations for this practice.One is that by mortifying the flesh, a person becomes closer to God.The other explanation is that by suffering physically one becomes closer to Christ who suffered great physical trials on his way to the cross.
What I'm having trouble understanding is intentionally inflicting pain on yourself.Why would God want you to do that?Isn't it somewhat insulting to people that are actually suffering?Case in point.Rose of Lima.She would sleep on a bed of broken glass and nails, people thought she was pretty so she rubbed lye and pepper on her face to ruin her complexion; she would starve herself, etc.Why would God want you to do that?Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque, the woman that introduced the image of the sacred heart would slice her arms with razor blades. Why?
I can understand fasting for brief periods, or abstaining from addictive substances like sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine etc, as a means of mortifying the flesh in the sense of keeping yourself focused on God instead of on the pleasures of the material world which are temporal and fleeting.This is presupposing that you accept the statement that the pleasures of the material world are temporal and fleeting and that heaven exists and is everlasting.
But submitting yourself to what amounts to physical torture of your body doesn't make sense to me at all.Why would God reward enduring self-inflicted suffering?It just seems like there are enough difficulties in this world without inducing your own tortures.The other thought that comes to mind here is that of being a creation of God.If God makes a beautiful girl won't it get pissed off if that girl deliberately scars her face with the singular intention of making herself ugly (I'm not talking about socially accepted modifications of the body which the society would consider beautifications, though I have a problem with these also…but to avoid that can of worms lets start with the premise that the person is deliberately trying to make themselves unattractive), or a person with a perfectly good back who keeps wounding it by splitting open the skin with a scourge?
One other note, a lot of these hard core mortifiers don't live much past the age of 30. Either they're really on good terms with heaven and since Jesus died at 33, perhpas we can assume that even God agrees that people much over the age of 30 are useless. Tee hee. I'm making fun of old people.
and hey, I never get tired of posting this clip of mortification from Carnivale...the best apocalyptic gifts of the spirit show that ever was...including best eucharist scen and best armageddon homily....but now for the mortification:
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Addendum: Because I always have to have one. Saints I don't like....because I find them annoying. I don't understand why they're a saint, or maybe their hagiographies were too over the top, but I really can't stand:
St. Theresa Lisieux....look I dont' know why but the Little Flower just ain't doing it for me. I think it's like the care bear version of spirituality that she spins or something. I don't know, but it's all her fault.
Just a side note. I found a holy of card of the Virgin Mary in my room this morning. I don't know where it came from. Anyway. I put it by my computer. Now things keep falling right by it so I have to look at it. WTF.
Dear Jesus.
If you are trying to talk to me could you do it in a way that is less creepy to a girl that lives by herself and is freaked out my random things falling all the time when she is by herself in the dark.
Thanks. Me.
Also I now own a documentary called Century of the Self and I think everyone should watch it. Here is a little clip.
This is one of my favorite speeches on God and the Devil....and the human condition. Short and Sweet.
Part of the novel I'm working on involves the relationship of a priest and a girl who might be a saint and their relationship over time...there are lots of weird conversations between them about this subject matter. I just...whatever watch it. You've seen it before, I'm sure of it.
L'Histoire continues, or Le Deluge as I've been calling it lately. Either way the novel is going well and I've been researching Catholic symbolism in the interests of said novel and I compiled a list of myths I'm incorporating into the story, and it looked kind of funny. These myths/symbols/historical events all come together seamlessly in a story that attempts to span a century of religious confusion. But uh....some themes are:
The Pelican in her Piety: according to legend during times of famine the pelican will pierce its chest with its beak and feed its young with its own blood to prevent starvation.
The Beast of Gevaudan: This was a real creature that killed 100 people over a three year time span from 1764-1767. There isn't a lot of physical evidence left, well there's none left, but the records of eyewitness testimony etc attests to the fact that these things happened. The official word is that it was a deformed wolf, but of course there are lots of wacky cryptozoology theories etc. It was considered case closed when the archbishop at the time declaired the beast as "A Scourge of God."
The Muscadin of Theize: After the Revolution some villagers caught some aristocrats hiding in the nearby woods and to quote silence of the lambs "Did things with their skin....."
Julian of Norwich: You know, the nun that had a fever where God visited her and talked to her about the Trinity and stuff. Similar themes in the little kids that talked to the Virgin Mary and stuff.
Eugene Vidocq: The guy that invented Detection as we know it today, you know forensic evidence, psychological profiling and so on. He was a petty theif that bargained for his freedom by convincing the Paris Police, the first such agency, to let him solve crimes for them by going undercover. He coined the phrase "To catch a theif you must think like a theif."
and of course a quote or two from the book:
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (NIV)
because of course, most of this story takes place on a vinyard. Don't even get me started on the transubstantiation of Christ.
And the longest word in English is a description of a religious inclination: antidisestablishmentarianism
So the idea is that you take the first line from the first entry of each month of your blog, journal, ect. and make a list. This list then becomes your "year in review." I don't know what to think after examining this list. I'm not sure that it has any value, comical, social, political or otherwise. As a matter of fact I think that if a detective came across this list and was asked to extrapolate from it some kind of profile of the writer their first assumption would be that I was no older than fifteen. It would only get worse from there, with the final kick in shins being that it was written by a boring fifteen year old.
January:
This is a clip of an even larger movie I made for my mom to explain how I've been feeling lately....I'll put the other clips on slowly...
I was watching the "documentary" and I use the term very loosely here, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and this lady just charmed the pants off of me, so I had to share. I don't know what it is about her, but she's quickly earning a place in my pantheon of Earthly Saints. Now before my more intellectually inclined friends give me shit. I understand all of the problems with aforementioned documentary, and this is not meant as an endorsement. Miissy Vaughn seems to think that this woman is who I'm going to be when I grow up. Where it that I had her temerity...
Time for a littel Gospel from Nina Simone. If you've never listened to her before you should. The clip is only a minute long. You can spare a minute to hear something made of awesome can't you?
Someone suggested that I watch The Thorn Birds while I was on this topic of whatever it is....and I was like "Hey, I haven't read that book since I was in the fifth grade, why not pick up the DVD?"
You should absolutely never do this to someone. I've been crying, like, nonstop....and I'm not particularly sentimental....But this is the most tragic love story ever, because it's completely self-inflicted. I'm fucking crestfallen.
If you're not familiar the Thorn Birds covers three generations of a family living in Australia, but it mainly focuses on the relationship between Meggie Clearly and Father Ralph De Bricassart....well he's a Cardinal by the end of the novel...but anyway. They meet when she's ten and her family moves to Drogheda, a sheep station that her widowed aunt runs. Ralph is twenty-eight and the parish priest assigned to Gillanbone, the miniscule town near Drogheda (because he pissed off a Bishop)....they become close, and as she gets older he backs off...but it's too late she's already in love. The Aunt dies and leaves everything to Ralph and the church, and he gets promoted out of there....but alas when he comes back a few years later for a visit he's in love too. So for the next thirty something years they play this weird game with each other where, they can't get over each other, but they can't be together either.
The miniseries aired in 1983 and is the most watched miniseries of all time, and this couple was voted the most romantic in TV history. So there. Though they aren't quite a couple.
So here's the ending, which is like the saddest thing I've watched in a really long time. The farewell speech is pretty intense though. And interesting, in terms of the whole vows, love, forgiveness, Jesus thing:
I've been researching French history from 1750 through 1850, which takes us through the Enlightenmnet, French Revolution, Napoleonic Empire, July Monarchy, Restoration, and on and on. Meanwhile the Industrial revolution is happening too. It makes for a lot of outside influences on the characters and all that. So I'm quickly becoming an expert in a period of time in France that never really concerned me before.
One of my characters decides early on that she wants to be a nun, circa 1776, and so I've been researching convent life during that time, what they wore, what they ate, what they talked about, how they were seen by the public, what changes they were going through. I'm quickly becoming well versed on all things Catholic...it's kind of like gaming, give me a few months and I'll be a level 5 priest.
God bless project Gutenburg and all of their free ancient texts. I'm a nerd, I know. I came across something interesting today while reading an old manual on the teaching of Catholic schoolgirls, which sparked my reflection on my own early education and I came up with an interesting compare and contrast. So here is an exerpt from the training manual:
Sincerity is a difficult virtue to practise and is too easily taken for granted. It has more enemies than appear at first sight. Inertness of mind, the desire to do things cheaply, dislike of mental effort, the tendency to be satisfied with appearances, the wish to shine, impatience for results, all foster intellectual insincerity; just as, in conduct, the wish to please, the spirit of accommodation and expediency, the fear of blame, the instinct of concealment, which is inborn in many girls, destroy frankness of character and make people untrue who would not willingly be untruthful. Yet even truthfulness is not such a matter of course as many would be willing to assume. To be inaccurate through thoughtless laziness in the use of words is extremely common, to exaggerate according to the mood of the moment, to say more than one means and cover one's retreat with "I didn't mean it," to pull facts into shape to suit particular ends, are demoralizing forms of untruthfulness, common, but often unrecognized.
and now an excerpt from an author I was well versed in during highschool, William S. Burroughs:
People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people. Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old. Never intefere in a boy-and-girl fight. Beware of whores who say they don't want money. The hell they don't. What they mean is they want more money. Much more. If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, Get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
Avoid fuck-ups. We all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, No matter how good it sounds, Turns into a disaster. Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal boob.
Now some of you may encounter the Devil's Bargain, If you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving, At least to a priest, But not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. He tries the easy ones first. You know like money, All the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetary? Money won't buy. Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard.
Well time hits the hardest blows. Especially below the belt. How's a young body grab you? Like three card monte, like pea under the shell, Now you see it, now you don't. Haven't you forgotten something, gramps? In order to feel something, You've got to be there. You have to be eighteen. You're not eighteen. You are seventy-eight. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.
Well they always try the easiest ones first. How about an honorable bargain? You always wanted to be a doctor, Well now's your chance. Why don't you become a great healer And benefit humanity? What's wrong with that? Just about everything. Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains Involving exchange Of qualitative merchandise Like souls For quantitative merchandise Like time and money. So piss off Satan And don't take me for dumber than I look.
An old junk pusher told me - Watch whose money you pick up.
They're kind of getting at the same thing. I think. I love words of advice. They're funny. One of the best came from my mother "Most people are carrying their crosses to their own resurrection."
And in other news, another interesting thing I've stumbled upon in my research (the novel is coming off splendidly by the way), many of you may think I'm daft, but I had no idea there was something called Vatican II....kind of like the Terminator movies.
Anyway, there was some hullabaloo about the real Pope being usurped and the new Vatican under John Paul II, and now Pious the whatever number he is, not being the real Pope, but I was't really paying attention. What was most significant to me was the fact the the Nun's habit changed drastically.
Now apparently the reason behind this was that John Paul and all his minions and research knomes decided that the church need to update some of its traditions and not be so ceremonial, blah de blah. And so nun's habits needed to change so they were less restrictive and more contemporary. Personally I kind of like the old ones better, because the new ones look like something teenage housfraus should wear. And there is nothing sadder than seeing a dignified 50 year old relgious in a fucking jumper.
Observe:
Now, I think its kind of weird that Nuns clothing was the subject of a Vatican cabal...but what the fuck do I know.
But this is the other thing I've figured out in my research, the Catholic Church is hurting for priests and other "religous". They have a lot of vocation information on the web right now. They NEED you. Anyway, there are a few obstacles to getting the noviates and eventual priests and religious that they need. One is parishoner interest and the other is selling young men on celibacy in a culture that doesn't even view sex as an option any more.
I'll not jump into that debate in this particular blog, but I think it should be noted that Catholicism is the most popular religion for conversion for adults. Meaning that grownups that haven't had a religion before, or who convert from one faith to another, are most likely to convert to Catholicism. Why is this? Well the reaon most often cited is that people are attracted to the cermemony and tradition of the Catholic faith in a world that is perhaps moving at a faster rate than people.
So this whole streamlining and modernizing the faith thing may very well be what's damaging the church....that and the perverse sexual practics of many in the Massachutsets region of the U.S. (why is there such a high percentage of priestly pedophilia in this area....whereas heterosexual adult across the board sexual assault victimization between preists and parishoners seems to be highest in Africa and South America).....
The other thing I learned....after taking a free intensive online test at the official Catholic vocations website it that I would make a good nun.....don't laugh. I meet severl of the criteria of the called.....1.attraction 2. intention 3. fitness. I said don't laug!. I totally scored really high on this test, and I answered the questions very soberly.....Now the only problem is that I'm not catholic or baptised, and I've only been to Mass a few times when I was a little girl....that's a whole different story. And priests frighten me....like really bad. Pastors are okay, but Roman Catholic priests scare the shit out of me....with their collars and their eyes always looking at you...peering into your soul. Dear God. I just suffered a horripilation.
I would like to add at this point that taking a test and having it confirm that you are best suited to a life of solitutude in which you never even attempt to have intimate relationships with people is a confirmation of a quite frightening suspicion I've always had about myself. So to all my X people.....I guess you were right.
Speaking of attraction to the Catholic faith...there is a lot of fetish porn out there geared towars those with religious issues. Without exposing you to it all and begetting more sin on the world (trust me I have imagination enough for the both of us anyway) I wanted to make a note.
The biggest priest fantasy seems to be that a woman will be seduced in the confessional. Extra points if she's a virgin and she is in love with him.
The biggest nun fantasy seems to be that a man or women will be severely disciplined by nun wearing a dominatrix outfit under her habit.
I find this amusing in that it seems that basically the sexual fantasies of those who dream of the church seem to entail a basic gender fuck. Because in real life men rarely listen to anything women have to say, and women have a hard time saying what they should. So the fantasies entail people acting completely out of line with their gender indenties. Now I understand that there are women who are naturally dominant and men who are naturally sensitive, but on the whole I'd say that these kinds of people are unusually resistant to biological impulses and televion commericals.
And in closing, a little 15th century religious erotica, contrasted with modern reality.....if I were the vocations director I know which pictures I'd be putting on the brochures.
..
One last thing....I've been reading all these stories and what not and they keep talking about "forbidden love"......that term was ubiquitous throughout my viewing so the series the Thorn Birds....but like. no it's not. There is no one threatening anyone's life should they fall in love. God isn't holding his servents hostage. According to Vatican II being called to marriage or the single life, or celibacy are all equally good....so it's not forbidden love so much as it's inconvenient love (because well, you can't be a priest or nun anymore, but I'm sure there are other things you can do besides put wafers in the mouths of people that are on their knees before you, or smacking little girls with rulers for not doing their grammar homework). I know this is much less sexy, but some things are sacred.
In Ireland priests with a less than respectable attitude towards their vows call thier Roman collar (you know that white thing in the collar of their shirt) a "bird catcher"....get it?
Priests and Nuns getting involved with each other is fairly common...common enough to have the earned the euphemism "the third way"....
According to most surveys only 2% of the clergy is successful in achieving perpetual celebacy....whereas 90% break their vows one or more times after taking their perpetual vows....it is estimated that at any given time roughly 20% of the clergy is actively involved in sexual relationships, that jumps up to 40% if you include homosexual activity.
Someone put together a calender of sexy real life vatican priests:
The vatican used to house a brothel that the cardinals and Holy father would of course make use of....
not to be confused with this brothel that they currently own in Russia....
a vow of chastity means you vow not to have sex, a vow of celibacy means you vow never to get married, so technically having sex when you're celebate is okay...so the real sin with sex in the clergy is that you aren't supposed to have sex outside of marriage...so you're not breaking a perpetual vow so much as committing a venal sin. now if you got married to the woman you were sleeping with, you would have broken your perpetual vow, which gets you a ticket straight to hell. So sex...any kind of sex that keeps you from feeling the need to settle into a relationship with a woman(who is of course evil by nature, because by nature you will desire to have her around) is preferable. Some theorist think this is why sexual abuse etc has become such a problem for catholic priests.....
I won't even get started on the wierd mental hospital just for sexually maladjusted clergy...God what I wouldn't give for a day pass in that place....yes it really exists...It's called St.Lukes and it's just outside of Maryland.
Peter Abelard of France was one of the most famous teachers of his time. His gift was conveying to his students the relationships between logic and dialectics and theological passages. Yet, Abelard is unfortunately most remembered for betraying his vows of celibacy, impregnating Heloise, a young student of his, and being castrated by hired thugs in the process. The painful romance between Abelard and Heloise is a monument to un-God-like persecution and hypocrisy that evolved out of the basic underlying tenet of Catholicism: that sex out of wedlock and without the intention of procreation was of the utmost evil.
"Priests keep their celibacy although not necessarily all the time," said Greeley in words that, on the surface do not seem particularly profound. However, beneath the surface, the exceptions to "not necessarily all the time" are the keys to adjustment problems, aberrations in the moral conduct of celibates, and, very likely to the future of the celibate priesthood as well as Catholicism in general. (Sipe page 70)
According to A.W. Richard Sipe, a study in 1984 suggested that the modern-day candidates for the priesthood are inclined to have dependency problems, low libido, low athletic and/or mechanical interest, and have experienced "mother dominance." Not necessarily a cause and effect factor, Sipe also indicates a subliminal suggestion of homosexuality in seminaries and in other institutions of the Church is not being acknowledged and/or addressed and is therefore posing some important problems.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- The Rev. Ted Haggard admitted Friday he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a male prostitute. But the influential Christian evangelist insisted he threw the drugs away and never had sex with the man.
Haggard, who as president of the National Association of Evangelicals wielded influence on Capitol Hill and condemned both gay marriage and homosexuality, resigned on Thursday after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed that he had many drug-fueled trysts with Haggard.
On Friday, Haggard said he that received a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel, and that he bought meth for himself from the man.
But Haggard said he never had sex with Jones. And as for the drugs, "I was tempted, but I never used it," the 50-year-old Haggard told reporters from his vehicle while leaving his home with his wife and three of his five children.
Note:
Why is it stranger to me that a man would pay another man for a massage and not have sex with him? I know I shouldn't laugh, it's just that when they fall, they fall so hard. I always think of these people's wives. I wonder how much crap they put up with just to have the husband fuck it up....because let's face it, men are notoriously bad at cheating. Like really bad... You want to know why? Because usually they are cheating with girls, and there is nothing we love to do more than talk shit on the person we're sleeping with. I think it might be a scientific fact....how he doesn't do this or that for us and on and on. That's why gay men are usually able to stay on the "down low" for so long, because they are cheating with other men, who are also in it just for the sex. So this guy really is the rarity.
