I realize that this is my thirds straight post on the Orthodox Church, but I simply can’t help but to find myself showing a little envy for the faithful of Eastern Orthodoxy.  No worries, dear reader, this is not me becoming Orthodox (though I appreciate and admire their many practices and beliefs) but I simply find myself wishing that Roman Catholics could fly under the radar like our brothers in the East (or, as they at least do so in America).  It seems that no matter what the Catholics do, they will be criticized and thrown through fire by our society, meanwhile few even are aware that the Eastern Orthodox exist.

This envy especially became apparent with the news reports of the Catholic welcoming in the Anglicans.  All kinds of nastiness is given, questions of motives, and whatever name calling the simple engage in.  However, the Eastern Orthodox Church in Moscow and Antioch had started opening their doors to an Anglican/Western Use almost a century ago and this has included bringing in entire Anglican parishes as recently as 1991.  At no time, as far as I can find, did the New York Times reserve a space for decrying that the Orthodox were poaching Anglicans and Roman Catholics, that the Orthodox were behind the times or any of that nonsense.

In general, the mass of Americas media legions want to see the Catholic church as backwards and bigoted, but I often wonder how they would feel if they encountered a traditional priest of Orthodoxy.  I remember one encounter with a Serbian Orthodox priest who, when I inquired about attending Divine Liturgy informed me, “We would love to welcome you.  However, I must tell you that you are in schism and thus we can’t offer you communion.  But please join us for coffee afterwards.”  There was no cruelness in his voice, he was merely stating a fact from his perspective and in general he and the parish were among the kindest people I’ve ever met.  However, in this time there is no way a Roman priest could say that and not have throngs of freaked out parishioners claiming that he’s bigoted, anti-ecumenical and unchristian.  In fact, how much ire would be brought about if every Roman Catholic parish published this in their bulletin?

For some people communion is merely the opportunity to share
a sense of “fellowship” with everyone present regardless of their beliefs and practices. We believe that such a practice cheapens and trivializes communion and denies the basic Biblical understanding of what communion is all about.
As St. Paul says, those who do not discern the Body and Blood of Christ partake of their own peril (I Corinthians 11:27-28). While many non-Orthodox Christians may individually hold the same or similar views as we hold, we cannot examine each person on their beliefs as they come to the altar rail, so only Orthodox Christians may receive communion.

I can imagine now that people would clamor that they had some “right” to the blessed Body and Blood of Christ, which is born as much from a misunderstanding of the Eucharist as much as it is a misunderstanding of rights.

I am happy to be Catholic, but I at times can’t help but to wonder what it would be like to have an Orthodox faith in America and no one think me backwards or bigoted.

Father Stephen writes yet another post that makes his blog required daily reading for me.  Reposting an earlier post, the Orthodox priest writes:

Knowing God is not a distraction from knowing other persons, nor is knowing other persons a distraction from knowing God. But, like God, knowing other persons is not the same thing as thinking about them, much less is it objectifying them.

Knowing others is so far from being a distraction from knowing God, that it is actually essential to knowing God. We cannot say we love God, whom we have not seen, and hate our brother whom we do see, St. John tells us. We only know God to the extent that we love our enemies (1 John 4:7-8).

And this matters.

This blog does not matter – except that I may share something that makes it possible for someone to know God or someone may share something that allows themselves to be known. This matters.

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople spoke at the Religion, Science and Environment Symposium in Memphis with regards to the human responsibility towards the environment.  As he usually does, the HAH Bartholomew I points to the issues surrounding the degradation of the environment as being rooted in humanity overestimating control of its destiny and believing that we would find a way to solve all our crisis.  Knowledge and the pace of technology have not appealed to wisdom, even the most common wisdom that knows the finite character of creation.  His address is short and even comes with a video, both of which are worth watching.  Please find them here.

The Patriarch Delivering his Address.

Every once in a while Time Magazine will do an article that doesn’t send me into a fury.  This happens to be one of them.

Madees Khoury’s favorite days are the ones where she wakes at 5 A.M., slips out of the house, enters the huge shed in the yard and, still in her pajamas, climbs the ladder to the top of the stainless steel tanks to begin brewing beer. A graduate of Hellenic College, Boston, Khoury, 24, is the only woman brewer — or brewster — in the Middle East. She is being groomed by her family to take over the Taybeh brewery, home of the only Palestinian beer.

I’m still trying to maneuver the streets of Chicago to find a good place to buy/drink beer, but this will be something I’ll keep an eye out for.

HT to Sean at The Blue Boar.

There is a certain joy I get when my puritanical friends have to swollow their pride and admit that maybe not all my

Indeed it is!

vices are quite as bad for me as once thought.  A suspicion that I’ve shared with many greats over the centuries has finally been proven by an American University.  It seems, my consistent reader, that Guinness is good for you!  According to  BBC Health, studies at the University of Wisconsin have found that Guinness may in fact be good for the heart.

They [the UW researchers] believe that ‘antioxidant compounds’ in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls

Well, let us raise a pint to your health!

Nicholas Sanchez, an old friend from my days at Thomas More College died yesterday, July 29, 2009.  I have no details that I feel comfortable writing here so I will just simply ask for prayers that God receives his soul and for peace with his family.  I will, however share some memories of someone who left a memorable impression everywhere he went.

In the centre, Nicholas Sanchez.

I met him while TMC was having a Halloween dance, I was dressed kind odd and smoking a cigar.  He turned to me and asked out of the blue, “So, where’s my cigar?” It was from there that we talked much and he was the one who introduced me to Melkite Rite of the Catholic Church and encouraged my discernment for the Dominicans.  Granted, I could always count on him for a little East and West taunting, but I could also rely on him for a good meal, a good drink, and some great conversation.  He always insisted on being called Uncle Nick, and in many ways he rejoiced in being TMC’s strange uncle.  I will alway remember his large laugh and love of Rumpole, and especially his enjoyment of friends around a claret.

Requiscat in Pace Mr Sanchez, you won’t soon be forgotten.

Please pray for Nicholas Sanchez and his family. Mr. Sanchez is an old friend of mine and someone whose name has been on this blog before.  The details are sketchy, but I know that he may not have much longer to live.  Keep him in your prayers my dear readers.

“Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.” -GK Chesterton, ILN

I begin to wonder about a nation which has decided that consenting adults smoking tobacco of their own volition is a greater evil then any other possible act.  Coming from Oregon I like to tell people that my state is such a place where you can take your sixteen year-old girlfriend to get an abortion without parental consent then later in the day take your grandmother for euthanasia with the family physician and end such a hard day with a live sex show.  You cannot, however, under any circumstances smoke a cigarette in a bar.  Likewise, a few years ago we witnessed a great out cry against the behavior of James Bond and the example he set for children everywhere, never mind that children should never watch 007 anyhow.  As it were, do you suppose that the out cry was against his excessive drinking, his womanizing, problem gambling, or senseless violence?  Well, no, those things are necessary functions of MI6, but everyone wondered if he had to smoke after doing it.

Recently the modern idolatry has demonized President Obama for his occasional use of cigarettes.  In all honesty, I wonder how serious the media wants me to take them when this is the only issue they can take with our President.  The President smokes and, certainly, we ought to be bothered that he punishes smokers everywhere with legislation, but his own legal and private vice is just that: a vice that is legal and quite private.  This is truly modern madness at its finest: society is more perturbed by responsible adults using a legal substance than by any sign of weakness or corruption of the soul.  Do not be surprised, my dear reader, if it turns out that tobacco becomes the new prohibition and you find the timeless insanity of idolatry failing the test of time once more.

This last weekend I was pleased to find a last minute deal that allowed me to go to the wedding of some close friends and see the many friends I counted in the wedding party and the crowds who witnessed what might just be the most perfect couple New Hampshire ever produced.  The music played, the beer flowed a little too much, many danced despite not having anything more than grass to jump on, and I can assure you, my dear reader, that this event might just be known as the most joyful event of anyone’s summer.  Love, it seems, is a strange and contagious thing at weddings, as is evident by men who feel sorry for lovers without marriage and a marriage without love.  As I was leaving the incredible feast, a companion remarked the tragedy that so few marriages seem to last and it was then that an idea came to my mind and that idea is the joy of a crisis.

I remarked in my usual intoxicated enthusiasm, “No, what is sad is how few can handle the idea that a crisis is a cathartic time to find the true joy in our lives.  Couples part ways and friendships are broken at crisis because few can realize that the joy of a relationship is that it is always in a crisis.  It is, in fact, the paradox of all human relationships that they are only strong in a crisis; if not then they can only be proven strong in a crisis.  Men are unsure who they count as a friend until a time of upheaval comes about and then whatever friends remain become the prize possession of such a fortunate soul.  No one is thankful for loved ones while all is going well, but it is in times of adversity that we are able to thank God for who we do count as a loved one and are ever afterwards mindful of it.”  Afterwards, I seem to remember falling down asleep and was happily taken to a comfy chair to lean against.  In all my rants of friendship, it seems, I was given another crisis of being unsure where to pass out after such long day.  This, my dear and constant reader, is truly the work of the spirit in our daily lives: to be propped up by those around us.