Andrew Thornton-Norris

God is Love

2012-06-03T11:20:00.003+01:00

We have learned above that in the supreme and altogether perfect good there is fullness and perfection of all goodness. However, where there is fullness of goodness, true and supreme charity cannot be lacking. For nothing is better than charity; nothing is more perfect than charity. However, no one is properly said to have charity on the basis of his own private love of himself. And so it is necessary for love to be directed toward another for it to be charity. Therefore, where a plurality of persons is lacking, charity cannot exist.

The Trinity - Richard of St. Victor

Edward Norman on liberal theocracy

2012-05-19T09:47:00.000+01:00

In reality the modern state is as confessional as its predecessors – it is just that the secular and materialist humanism which it actually promotes does not have a coherent or recognized label by which it can be identified. For all the declamations about choice and pluralism made in relation to modern liberal political practice the truth is that the core beliefs of this secular humanism are enforced by law in a tightly prescriptive manner, and with an almost puritanical insistence that dissent indicates personal delinquency.

Newman and Satanic "Enlightenment"

2012-05-10T07:58:00.000+01:00

To the supporters of gay "marriage": Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination,—he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.

English and the English - Patrick Wormald

2012-05-08T08:39:00.000+01:00

The political education of European peoples recommenced in the aftermath of Rome’s fall with the simple but explosive idea that God might single out a distinct culture for His special favour in return for its enforced conformity with His Will as its authorities perceived it. That idea bore its first fruit in the concept of the English. The indestructibility of their political persona is the proof of its power.

The Norman Conquest was the most drastic political upheaval in Europe’s post-Roman history. The entire ruling elite was displaced by men that, literally, spoke another language: an ironic symbol of the transformation is that the home of Beowulf also produced the oldest manuscript of the great Old French epic, the Song of Roland… The extraordinary thing is that English survived the Conquest at all. For two and a half centuries after 1066, the cultural trend was wholly in favour of French… yet it seems as certain as anything unprovable can be that the knightly Rogers and Godfreys of medieval England spoke English in their off-duty hours… Like the Latin speakers of the Roman Empire on the Continent, but unlike the Britons, the Anglo-Saxons transmitted their language to their conquerors. This is very probably because English itself had become a language of literature and government. There is an indirect, yet also a real, connection between the two facts, that England is the world’s oldest continuously functioning state, and that English is now its most widely spoken language.

Albion - Peter Ackroyd

2012-04-24T09:15:00.000+01:00

From the reports of foreign observers it becomes clear that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English were notable for their piety; they rivalled the Romans in their love of ceremony, and the Spanish in their devotion to the Virgin… and a continental observer noted of the citizens that ‘they all attend Mass every day, and say many Paternosters in public, the women carrying large rosaries in their hands’… England then was at the heart of Catholic Europe... We cannot at this date… separate an English sensibility from a Catholic sensibility. The world of miracles and marvels is still alive in Shakespeare’s last plays.

Maurice Cowling

2012-04-16T09:21:00.000+01:00

What in truth has rolled uninterruptedly through at least fifteen centuries has been Catholic, ecclesiastical Christianity. It is this which is Christianity, which gives Christianity such continuity as it has in the salvation of souls and the evaluation of civilizations and which has had as its problem over the last two hundred years to know its own mind, to understand the difference between itself and the secular mind and to know how to address the secular mind while yet anathematising the heresies which have been conjured up by separating out and exaggerating the centrality of specified aspects of a fragmented orthodoxy.

Newman, Toryism and Popery

2012-04-14T05:59:00.001+01:00

Modern Rome then is not the only place where the traditions of the old [converted Roman] Empire, its principles, provisions, and practices, have been held in honour; they have been retained, they have been maintained in substance, as the basis of European civilization down to this day, and notably among ourselves. In the Anglican establishment the king took the place of the Pope; but the Pope's principles kept possession. When the Pope was ignored, the relations between Pope and king were ignored too, and therefore we had nothing to do any more with the old Imperial laws which shaped those relations; but the old idea of a Christian Polity was still in force. It was a first principle with England that there was one true religion, that it was inherited from an earlier time, that it came of direct Revelation, that it was to be supported to the disadvantage, to say the least, of other religions, of private judgment, of personal conscience. The Puritans held these principles as firmly as the school of Laud. As to the Scotch Presbyterians, we read enough about them in the pages of Mr. Buckle [in his History of Civilization]. The Stuarts went, but still their principles suffered no dethronement: their action was restrained, but they were still in force, when this century opened. It is curious to see how strikingly in this matter the proverb has been fulfilled, "Out of sight, out of mind." Men of the present generation, born in the new civilization, are shocked to witness in the abiding Papal system the words, ways, and works of their grandfathers. In my own lifetime has that old world been alive, and has gone its way. Who will say that the plea of conscience was as effectual, sixty years ago, as it is now in England, for the toleration of every sort of fancy religion? Had the Press always that wonderful elbow-room which it has now? Might public gatherings be held, and speeches made, and republicanism avowed in the time of the Regency, as is now possible? Were the thoroughfares open to monster processions at that date, and the squares and parks at the mercy of Sunday manifestations? Could savants in that day insinuate in scientific assemblies what their hearers mistook for atheism, and artisans practise it in the centres of political action? Could public prints day after day, or week after week, carry on a war against religion, natural and revealed, as now is the case? No; law or public opinion would not suffer it; we may be wiser or better now, but we were then in the wake of the Holy Roman Church, and had been so from the time of the Reformation. We were faithful to the tradition of fifteen hundred years. All this was called Toryism, and men gloried in the name; now it is called Popery and reviled. Blessed John Henry Newman A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk 1874

Baudelaire on Woman

2012-03-31T10:54:00.003+01:00

The being who, for most men, is the source of the most lively, and even, be it said, to the shame of philosophical delights, the most lasting joys; the being towards or for whom all their efforts tend; that awe inspiring being, incommunicable like God (with this difference that the infinite does not reveal itself because it would blind and crush the finite, whereas the being we are speaking about is incommunicable only, perhaps, because having nothing to communicate); that being in whom Joseph de Maistre saw a beautiful animal, whose charm brightens and facilitates the serious game of politics; for whom and by whom fortunes are made and lost; for whom, but especially by whom, artists and poets compose their most delicate jewels; from whom flow the most enervating pleasures and the most enriching sufferings - woman, in a word, is not, for the artist in general and for M.G. (Monsieur Constantin Guys) in particular, only the female of the human species. She is rather a divinity, a star, that presides over all the conceptions of the male brain; she is like the shimmer of all graces of nature, condensed into one being; she is the object of the most intense admiration and interest that the spectacle of life can offer to man’s contemplation. She is a kind of idol, empty-headed perhaps, but dazzling, enchanting, an idol that holds men’s destinies and wills in thrall to her glances.

Charles Baudelaire "The Painter of Modern Life"

Eliot on Baudelaire

2012-03-24T10:26:00.003Z

What is significant about Baudelaire is his theological innocence. He is discovering Christianity for himself… He was one of those who have great strength, but strength merely to suffer… to study his suffering… Inevitably the offspring of romanticism, and by his nature the first counter-romantic in poetry, he could, like anyone else, only work with the materials which were there. It must not be forgotten that a poet in a romantic age cannot be a ‘classical’ poet except in tendency… It is not merely in the use of the imagery of common life, not merely in the use of imagery of the sordid life of a great metropolis, but in the elevation of such imagery to the first intensity… that Baudelaire has created a mode of release and expression for other men… Baudelaire is indeed the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language, for his verse and language is the nearest thing to a complete renovation that we have experienced. But his renovation of an attitude towards life is no less radical and no less important… Baudelaire perceived that what really matters is Sin and Redemption… the recognition of the reality of sin is a New Life; and the possibility of damnation is so immense a relief in a world of electoral reform, plebicites, sex reform and dress reform, that damnation itself is an immediate form of salvation – salvation from the ennui of modern life… it is this that separates him from the modernist Protestantism of Byron and Shelley… So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good; so far as we do evil or good we are human; and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least, we exist… Baudelaire was man enough for damnation… In all his humiliating traffic with other beings, he walked secure in this high vocation, that he was capable of a damnation denied to the politicians and the newspaper editors of Paris…

Introduction to Journaux Intimes

All first-rate poetry is occupied with morality: this is the lesson of Baudelaire. More than any poet of his time, Baudelaire was aware of what most mattered: the problem of good and evil.

The Lesson of Baudelaire

Unreality, Illusion and the Claim to Omnipotence

2012-03-14T17:30:00.000Z

The Fathers of the Church in their doctrine explain that man, created in the IMAGE of God, has lost his LIKENESS to God by becoming centred on himself. In losing his divine likeness, man has plunged into UNREALITY for he is no longer united to the source of his reality. He still exists. He is still in the "image" of his maker. But he does not have in him the life of love which is the life of God himself - since God is love. Since he does not have this life in him, he is unreal, false. He is not what he is supposed to be. He is a caricature of his true self. Man destroys all his potentialities by centring all his love on himself. In order to become "real" again, man must purify his heart of the darkness of unreality and illusion (pride). The "impure heart of fallen man is not merely a heart subject to carnal Passion. "Purity" and "impurity" in this context means something more than chastity. The "impure" heart is a heart filled with fears, anxieties, conflicts, doubts, ambivalences, hesitations, self-contradictions, hatreds, jealousies, compulsive needs and passionate attachments. All these and a thousand other "impurities" darken the inner light of the soul, but they are neither its chief impurity nor the cause of its impurities. The inner defilement of fallen man is his profound and illusory conviction that he is a god and that the universe is centred on him. Note that this conviction has a basis in truth, since he sees in himself the obscure image of God. What is this image? Saint Bernard says it is man's FREEDOM. So man, feeling in himself this freedom to shape his own destiny by his own choice, feels himself to be indeed "godlike" - like God who alone is supremely free. But although God has made us free, he did not make us omnipotent. We are not gods in our own right. Yet in our desire to be "as gods", a lasting deformity impressed on us by ORIGINAL SIN- we seek what one might call a relative omnipotence; the power to have everything we want, to enjoy everything we desire, to demand that all our wishes be satisfied and that our will should never be frustrated or opposed. It is the need to have everyone else bow to our judgements and accept our declarations as law. This claim to omnipotence is our deepest secret and our inmost shame. It is the source of all our sorrows, all our unhappiness, all our dissatisfactions, all our mistakes and deceptions. It is a radical falsity that rots our moral life in its very roots because it makes everything we do more or less a lie. This radical psychological claim to omnipotence is the deep impurity which stains and divides the soul of man. The demand, on the part of a limited being, to be treated as the Absolute and Supreme Being is the terrible illusion which dooms us to the slavery of passion, and of madness, and of sin. Those who we agree, among ourselves, to call "sane" are those who keep their personal claim to absolute perfection and omnipotence repressed and disguised under certain acceptable ways. There are many "sane" ways of indulging one's illusory claim to divine power. For example, one can be a proud and tyrannical parent - or a tearful and demanding martyr-parent. One can be a sadistic and overbearing boss, or a nagging perfectionist. One can be a clown, or a dare-devil, or a libertine. One can be rigidly conventional, or blatantly unconventional; one can be a Hermit or a demagogue. Some satisfy their desire for divinity by knowing everybody else's business; others by judging their neighbour, or telling him what to do. One can even, alas, seek holiness and religious perfection as an unconscious satisfaction of this deep and hidden impurity of soul which is man's pride. The great enemy of purity of heart, humility, is the basic hidden project to be better than everybody else, to assert one' freedom at the expense of every other freedom, to exalt one's will over the wills of others, and to elevate one's own spirit above the spirits of lesser men. The life of the impure, proud soul, is, and must be, most complicated. There are so many things to be done! One must assert himself, and exalt himself, and at the same time think of himself as self-sacrificing and humble. One must be quick to notice all the weaknesses and imperfections of other men, because they are potential rivals. And one must take care to see that these others are "charitably" punished and "sweetly" humiliated, lest they raise their high heads as high as ours on the royal road to sanctity. One must take care that, while he openly "renounces" his own will, his will is secretly satisfied. In a word, one's own will must be done on earth as God’s will is done in heaven! Since all this is manifestly impossible, Saint Bernard points out that such a soul is inevitably subject to insecurity and fear. And fear is the "colour" which darkens the soul and obscures the divine image. Fear is the "impurity" of the soul that aspires to, be omnipotent. What is the answer? It is the sacrament of the Cross. The interior pride of fallen man must be crucified on the Cross of Truth. THE SILENT LIFE Thomas Merton 1957 (With thanks to the late Fr Alan Fudge of Ogle Street for copying this out!)

Newman on Reverence in Prayer

2012-03-13T09:55:00.001Z

Prayers framed at the moment are likely to become irreverent. Let us consider for a few moments before we pray, into whose presence we are entering,—the presence of God. What need have we of humble, sober, and subdued thoughts! as becomes creatures, sustained hourly by His bounty;—as becomes lost sinners who have no right to speak at all, but must submit in silence to Him who is holy;—and still more, as grateful servants of Him who bought us from ruin at the price of His own blood; meekly sitting at His feet like Mary to learn and to do His will, and like the penitent at the great man's feast, quietly adoring Him, and doing Him service without disturbance, washing His feet (as it were) with our tears, and anointing them with precious ointment, as having sinned much and needing a large forgiveness. Therefore, to avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words and rude half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray from book or memory, and not at random. It may be objected, that this reason for using Forms proves too much; viz. that it would be wrong ever to do without them; which is an over-rigorous bond upon Christian liberty. But I reply, that reverence in our prayers will be sufficiently secured, if at our stated seasons for prayer we make use of Forms. For thus a tone and character will be imparted to our devotion throughout the day; nay, even the very petitions and ejaculations will be supplied, which we need. And much more will our souls be influenced by the power of them, at the very time we are using them; so that, should the occasion require, we shall find ourselves able to go forward naturally and soberly into such additional supplications, as are of too particular or private a nature, to admit of being written down in set words. http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume1/sermon20.html (This post was inspired by my friend Peter Mullen! http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100126507/on-tim-tebow-and-praying-for-victory-luck-and-money/ )

Sir Vidia Naipaul on cultural decay today

2012-03-07T10:48:00.000Z

If he was starting out today he probably wouldn’t take up writing, ‘I don’t think there’d be a future. Fifty years ago it seemed that there was. It was an important enterprise. I used to think so, but I know now from considering the history of the world that there have been non-centuries when there was no writing or serious reading. The death of serious literature reflects the state of the world at large and can be defined by ‘the strange combination of high technological advance and very low intellectual development’, he says. This kind of world spawns people who lack profound interest in the art of human civilisation.

http://peace-foundation.net.7host.com/article_detail.asp?id=79

After Liberalism

2012-02-28T07:24:00.002Z

We are told that there was a seminar on this subject yesterday :-

"...reaction lacks real political and social consequence, because it defines itself in terms of what it is against. Is there an alternative to liberalism? Can we envision something after liberalism? To a great degree, as religious believers, we already have. For example, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have reaffirmed the humanizing authority of God’s revelation—an affront to liberalism and its exaltation of free self-determination as the highest good."

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/02/after-liberalism

And, as in so many things, Blessed John Henry Newman got there first!

Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word.

http://www.newmanreader.org/works/apologia/liberalism.html

Freud and the Assumption

2012-02-20T08:08:00.003Z

To be truly great an artist must make some technical innovation their own. In the case of Lucien Freud, it was the "life-size portrait". The terrifying honesty and obsession with the "human animal" which Freud possessed was developed against the background of his family's exile to London from Nazi Berlin. Four of his great-aunts died in concentration camps. It is against this background, and that of the slaughter of the first world war, that the other great British artist of the twentieth century, Francis Bacon developed his vision too. Both of them make us see the world anew, the other mark of a great artist. And it is against this background that the only infallible dogma that the Catholic Church has yet defined was promulgated in 1950, that of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Into Heaven, body and soul. This had been understood since the beginning, but was only explicitly defined in the twentieth century; as a direct response to the abuse of the body at which that century excelled, and to which Freud and Bacon responded so eloquently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cdhs5/Lucian_Freud_Painted_Life/

Newman On Liberty

2012-02-18T09:51:00.003Z

Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word.
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/apologia/liberalism.html