So Heavy

An Italian friend translated this prayer, and it seemed particularly apt to the theme of grace that appears in many Catholic novels. I realize this prayer isn't meant as a work of fiction, but please consider it an accompaniment piece to the novels and short stories that have been written after 1900. From a Christian perspective, grace is meant as a gift for the undeserving, and for the quietly desperate like Binx in The Moviegoer or for those physically suffering like the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory, this prayer is an acknowledgement that to live fully is to know pain.

The two graces

that the Lord gives

are sadness and weariness.

Sadness, because it forces me to memory.

Weariness, because it forces me to the reasons why I do things.

O God, let a total positivity lead my soul,

in whatever condition I am,

whatever remorse I have,

whatever injustice I feel passing on me,

whatever obscurity surrounds me,

whatever enmity,

whatever death overtakes me,

because You, who made all the living creatures, are for the good.

You are the positive hypothesis about everything I live.

---Don Luigi Giussani---  

The Enduring Creepiness of Uncle Screwtape

         Let's face it. It was probably a bad idea to start reading The Screwtape Letters on a dark and stormy night when I was home alone and had forgotten to replace the burnt out light bulb in the hallway. Yeah, bad idea. It's not exactly like C. S. Lewis set out to right a horror story or anything. For me, it's a very particular kind of horror, the kind that sneaks up on you and drags you to Hell. Little joke there. Got it. Not funny.
        I haven't heard too many people try to pigeon-hole this novel as a horror story. In fact, Peter Kreeft considers The Screwtape Letters to be the first of a very particular, satirical, and epistolary genre, where a more knowledgeable sort gives advice to a less knowledgeable sort. In this case, Uncle Screwtape gives advice to nephew Wormwood about how to deal with his patient, which supposedly should lead the human down the wrong path into the jaws of Satan. And that advice is the opposite of everything that I--excuse me, the patient--should do for eternal life with God, or in Screwtape's words--the Enemy. Which quite effectively, gives me the creeps.
         In the last post, I mentioned a couple of authors who have mimicked Lewis's style and repeated much of his information in more recent novels. Kreeft followed Lewis's style incredibly closely with a new Uncle-nephew demon pairing. While Eberstadt twisted the role reversal further with a female protagonist that is not advising demons but atheists. The two more recent authors probably saw a need and a voice that Lewis's did not necessarily miss, but they believed could be expanded upon. Kreeft and Eberstadt situate their novels in current US versus Lewis's WWII England. Time and location change somethings, but certainly not all, and if one returns to the original masterpiece, he may be surprised at just how much it creeps him out by how much it still applies.
           Consider for a moment these lines from Screwtape:

I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch...In fact [this idea was] much too important to tackle at the end of a morning...the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added 'Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,' he was already half way to the door.  (2-3)

         This is such a simple anecdote of how easily one can be distracted from the state of their own soul that it makes my skin crawl for anyone to lose it over a sandwich.  It also demonstrates how the demons don't even need to argue. They just whisper seeds of doubt and forgetfulness, and then the human does the rest. Screwtape goes on to articulate how to direct the patient away from God through distraction, distortion, and straight-up lying. He hits on a variety of diabolical exploits ranging from the disruption of happy union between man and woman by the man creating a fantasy of the perfect woman via pornagrophy, etc. (79). Everything was made by God as Screwtape readily admits, and he admits even more that many of those things cause great pleasure to the patient. It's all in how it's "twisted" that matters (87).  Basically, if the human does the exact opposite of whatever Screwtape says, they would be in pretty good shape.
          I should also point out that while Lewis dedicated his book to J.R.R. Tolkien and the updated versions have been written by Catholics, Lewis engaged both sides of the Tiber when he included quotations from two well-respected men, one of Catholic origin and the other Protestant. It was probably his evidenced-based way of saying that both groups were suffering, had suggested similar advice, and could probably benefit from a bit of devilish satire.

Howlers

By Auntie Oscura (Screwtape is a second cousin once removed on my father's side)

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

This man is the not-so-dearly-departed English writer, who caused plenty of trouble for us in his earthly life. It just makes it all the more annoying that we still have to deal with his sixty-plus writings on our Enemy. It makes me want to vomit when I consider how he converted to Christianity and defended that old relic--the Roman Catholic Church--when he wasn't even a Catholic! He defend her through satire, no less. Pardon the human expression, but what the hell. How dare he turn our darkness against us with the Enemy's own invention of words. It's just too much, and under Screwtape's name!  For better results with your own patients, do not mention to anyone Lewis's friendship with that ultimate Catholic loser J. R. R. Tolkien. Squash at all costs the rumors that Lewis would have come into the Church if he had just lived a bit longer and had a few more discussions with that hobbit-like man.



Peter Kreeft, The Snakebite Letters: Devilishly Devious Secrets for Subverting Society As Taught In Tempter's Training School

Get a good look at this face because this is another traitorous convert to that doddering institution.  Worst of all this one seems to have been taking notes and has made Lewis's WWII satire relevant to a modern USA with an American patient. This is a disturbing development for us because before we could have simply whispered to our patients that Lewis's words were outdated, "Why of course those old ideas are no longer relevant to you, darling. Don't worry just be a caring person and all will turn out well." Yeah, right. This Kreeft seems to be up to Lewis's nincompoopery again and affirming the Enemy's Word. Could someone please distract him during Mass. Nothing too obvious. Just get him thinking about how cute his grandkids are, or how wonderful that Avenger's movie was. Anything. So what if there was a line in the movie about there being only one, true Enemy. It's a small price for us to pay if it means that Kreeft takes his mind off what is really happening in the Mass, when that little bit of bread turns into...DON'T MAKE ME SAY IT!

Mary Eberstadt, The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism
Well, this one's a bit different than the other two, but don't be fooled by those big, innocent eyes. She's as much trouble as the other two and has been up to mischief much more recently. She's one of those Cradle Catholics. She's a tough nut to crack make no mistake. Not because of the whole Cradle Catholic business. No, we're old pros at lulling those ones into a false sense of security in the Enemy before setting them a drift into the world thinking that they're with Him, when they just haven't realized that they abandoned Him long ago. Oh, good times. Good times in deed. Back to the matter at hand, this Eberstadt woman is a problem. She's written something with a female narrator exposing our avid, atheistic supporters' weaknesses. I can't tell you how dangerous this is for us.  Before we had had such success with those surplus Eves by getting them to believe that the Church was too patriarchal, too masculine with all of those priests and bishops. Now, we have this female author making a female narrator talking to our athiests. Needless to say, she must be stopped at all costs.  We don't need another disgusting human poking light into our darkness.

"The Enduring Creepiness of Uncle Screwtape" to arrive on May 23.

Tree of Life --- Review by Fr. Robert Barron

If you haven’t already, you should really consider watching Tree of Life. Unlike most movies, there isn’t really a concrete plot to it, so I cannot suggest with a high certainty that you will get out of it the same ideas that I did. But I am confident that the experience you will get from this movie will be extraordinary. If you would like a learned Catholic’s interpretation of Terrence Malick’s film, please watch this.

Father Robert Barron, as many of you know from the series Catholicism, comments on this movie in the above video. The title “Tree of Life” comes from the book of Genesis, in the story of Adam and Eve. They are living with the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They are given the choice to “grasp” at the latter tree and attempt to understand what God only fully knows. This is assuming a God-like position, and denying an access to real life.

Fr. Barron suggests that the main point of the movie is an attempt to show God’s answer to the human question: “why is there suffering?” Evidence that the movie is about this is that it starts with a verse from the book of Job:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” Job38:4,7

This is a part of God’s conversation with Job, a character in the Bible who, in his story, suffers greatly. So, this question of suffering can be examined from God’s point of view.

In the movie, we have two main human characters, the mom and the dad. In Fr. Barron’s interpretation, the dad represents “nature” and the mom represents “nurture,” or grace. The dad raises the children by teaching them the ways of the world, teaching them to be on top of the competition. The mom raises them with grace, allowing them to enjoy life and live it as though each day was the last.

Fr. Barron goes on to say that nature and grace are both controlled by God. Neither is good or evil, but God, through them, is good.

God allows “negativity” into God’s creation for the purpose of producing a greater good. God allows a certain play of the hard-edged and the forgiving.

So, the answer (the movie) answers our question and says to us that we weren’t there when God created the universe, world, etc. but we should accept that God is the One who knows the full truth and knows what God is doing. This is how we can re-gain access to the Tree of Life from Genesis.

Howlers and the enduring creepiness of Uncle Screwtape

Coming soon on May 16.

Dean Koontz's "Odd Thomas" Series

Ever since reading Flannery O'Connor's literary work, I realized that of all the novels and series that I have read outside of this class only one novel series has truly used the grotesque in such an effective manner as she. Enter in the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz.

Dean Koontz, like many of the main characters that we have read in previous novels, converted to Catholicism as a result of his love for his wife, Gerda, who was Catholic. He became more and more intrigued and inspired by Catholicism and finally converted in college. He has become an icon for mystery and supernatural fiction writing, even making it on to the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover 13 times as number one. Now, as he continues to grow in faith and write more popular novels, one can see his faith permeate through his literary work and create such wonderful stories like "Odd Thomas."

Odd Thomas is quite a peculiar character. He can see ghosts and the supernatural in the world around him, offering an insight into the wicked and evil that is present in the world, while simultaneously accentuating  the beauty and wonder of the world and of many people in it.

First reading the starting novel, aptly named "Odd Thomas," I had a hard time diving into the story as I do when reading the work of other well known others authors like Clive Cussler. However, action suddenly appears (quite unlike the Moviegoer) and the rest of the novel becomes enrapturing and quite thrilling. After taking this English course, the Catholic themes and motifs that are present in this novel and the other novels in the series, become very interesting and easy to spot.

So, try this novel. I had a great time reading it, I really enjoyed thinking about it after, and I think you will too. Caution: If you are like me in how I was when I read this, make sure that you allot the next 6 hours, at least, as free time because I guarantee you will not want to put it down until it is finished.


Dean's Faith:
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/2013

Dean's accomplishments (to name a few):
http://www.deankoontz.com/about-dean/

I Am Legend, I Am Will Smith

The idea of the movie I Am Legend as a Catholic film may not come across many minds. The idea is simple though, a Christ-like figure, Will Smith, all alone in the world. There are many Catholic elements throughout the film including: the family saying a prayer while evacuating the city and the main character denying the existence of God before undergoing a turnaround before the ending.

In the film at the beginning there is a truck with many signs on it that read "God still loves you." Which, at first may seem like a sick joke since there is only one person left in the city and many have been affected by the disease. It comes to be viewed as more of a theme for the end of the film though. The middle parts of the film do not address much Catholicism besides the prayer and a cross on a rear-view mirror. Suddenly though, God is at the forefront of the film. The woman, Anna, comes to the movie and mentions that the world is quieter now, which makes it easier to hear God. The film takes a crazy turn towards religion in the final part of the film.

Will Smith as a Christ-like figure may be difficult to understand without background. He plays a scientist whom is searching for a cure to the disease that has caused the mass evacuation of the city. He is making an attempt to save many people, he is willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the remainder of the world. These parallels make Smith a great comparison to Christ.

It's not very clear, but the posters on the
 right say, "God Still Loves Us"

It's a lot to wrap your head around, but upon several viewings of the film, you also will come to realize the Catholic aspects of I Am Legend.