Secrets (Dr. Thursday's Thursday post)

Dr. Thursday has been involved in a fraternity since his college days, and has a very interesting article for us today. Thanks, Dr. T.

Why Secrets?

I am quite busy getting ready for the voyage to ChesterCon07 - if you are travelling to it from anywhere on the route that leads west from Pennsylvania please let Nancy know - in any case I hope to see you there.

We are now after Pentecost, though the Paschal season still has its effect - there's still Trinity and Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart. Even more than at Christmas, the Church is like a little kid, just wants to keep celebrating. And so we anticipate the "Inn at the End of the World" where we won't have to worry about time, or wearing out, or getting bored - or old - or any of that. We'll have a new heavens and a new earth, and the Good Wine... Meanwhile, we are still here, and like Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth, facing the demons of ignorance. People make up silly lines about "peace" - but they've forgotten what Gandalf said: "It only takes one to have a war" (I quote from memory.) Thank God we have our dear Uncle Gilbert to help us with the weapon of his mighty pen.

In the last week or so I heard a simply stupid - no, simply hilarious - proposal.
To find out the proposal, continue reading.

It seems that one of those awful Greek Letter College Associations (a "fraternity") is considering the publication of its secrets. Never mind that all their history is available for public contemplation. Never mind that their "constitution" or written form of government was published back in the 1800s. They suggest that it would be "better" to tell the handful of details which they have kept to themselves since they were founded.

Now the correct term for this is "identity theft". It is the destruction of the one thing which makes such an organization be itself-and-no-other. Hence I said it's stupid.

But it's actually very hilarious, because it reveals a greater secret. It reveals that those members proposing it have not read Chesterton, and have not grasped the nature of the thing these fraternities call "secrets".

For they are secrets kept for one of the Three Great Reasons why humans keep secrets and have always kept secrets - which you can read about in ILN August 10, 1907 (CW27:523) or reprinted in All Things Considered. If you don't have the time to read it now, I can be of assistance here...

(1) Things are kept secret because EVERYONE knows about them. Like s-*-x.

(2) Things are kept secret because NOBODY has a clue about them, including the main person involved. Like why one stops for a moment on a hike and looks at a stone or a tree or a view...

But the third reason is the one which applies to fraternity, and the one which those unfortunates have overlooked.

(3) Things are kept secret for the sole purpose of revealing them at the proper time and proper conditions. Like a gift which is wrapped, or the solution of a detective novel.

It has escaped these college graduates that the "secrets" of fraternities - usually amounting to little more than three Greek words and their specific interpretation, a handshake and password - are preserved as secrets, not because they have some sinister plot, but simply because of the real fun of being able to reveal them to their new members. (No, it's not about hazing, or swallowing goldfish - you'll have to trust me on this.)

Like religions, where some people recite a creed stating their beliefs, even if they do not understand the complete character of the dogmas they are attesting, the typical fraternity member may not grasp the intricacies of their "secrets" - they leave such curiosities to the scholars, just as the man-in-the-pew leaves homoousion to the theologians... (Shh - there's a Greek word! Maybe a password?) Sure, the effect of that word is still in the public creed, but religions rarely mention that term, much less its technical lore. And the same is true for fraternities. Nobody is going to study page after page of detailed attributions to ponder the theory of a Greek word because the founders of some college club happened to like its sound. Not even college administrations have that kind of time to spend. But those members-to-be, those who are reading the mystery story, they deserve this little surprise.

Alas. The poor, deprived people who are proposing this most heinous of crimes (like the posting of solutions to Father Brown stories without a "spoiler" warning) would never post their bank accounts and PIN numbers and social security numbers. There's an awareness of the modern e-thugs, e-bandits, and e-pirates who steal identities. The same is true in this case. Let the children's gifts stay wrapped; let the children open them for whom the gifts are intended. We've got our own gifts - we ought to be thankful, even if we've kept them secret. "Your Father who sees in secret will repay you" for He "knows the secrets of the heart". [Mt 6:4, Ps43:22]

The Poet and the Lunatics: Chapter One

Chapter One: The Fantastic Friends

The Inn of the Rising Sun. I love the name. I love Chesterton's description of it. I love the painter. Notice that the only patron in months walks out and has red hair. Chesterton loved to give his lively characters red hair.

Having just traveled along Route 66 almost all the way to Texas last month, this line:

...and now everything goes by the new bridge a mile away.

reminded me of what interstates have done to the businesses along good old Route 66.

This line:

And on this side, where the white road curved over the hill, two figures were advancing, which seemed, even when they were hardly more than dots in the distance, to be markedly dissimiliar.

reminds me of both the Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, where Chesterton compares Aquinas to St. Francis of Assisi, and to the closing scene of The Blue Cross, where Father Brown and Flambeau are seen in sillouette against the setting sun in Hampstead Heath, just before the greatest arrest of the century.

I liked this:

the chin beneath jutted forward, almost as if it had formed an unconscious resolution of its own

watch for the chin to keep playing this prominent role.

Questions: What does the innkeeper mean when he says he wants a tonic of "Prussic acid"? Is he saying he wants to die?
When the two men arrive at the inn, the man with the painter (whom we find out is named Hurrel) says his painter friend is "an RA"--what does that mean?
Does a "pewter pot" hold paints?
Hurrel has been talking as if he were a "cheap-jack"--what's that?
"if you will play Haroun Alraschid"--what is that?
"tenacity of a tout" ?

Who is the insane person in this chapter? Why?

Chestertonian theme: He must be locked up in a cell to show him that life is worth living after all, and the world a bright, happy place to live in. The man standing on his head. (or rather on his hands, as Chesterton says) See the landscape upsidedown. It's true for philosophy as well as art.

Gale says: you can only forbid him to die, can you persuade him to live? What would persuade a person to live?

Transcendental tomfoolery. I love that phrase.

We're all flies crawling on the ceiling, and it's an everlasting mercy that we don't drop off. Peter, crucified upside down. All men hanging on the mercy of God.
Crazy! Crazy, crazy, crazy! She thinks. Ah, now we think we've identified the lunatic, don't we?

Another dark river was flowing between her and her own fairyland. What does this mean?

Gosh, there's so much just in this one chapter. So much Chestertonian thoughts packed in one short story!

What part of this chapter do you like the best? I like where Diana says, "I thought YOU were the lunatic!"

Happy Birthday Gilbert!

Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority
and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I
could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am
firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on
Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of
the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the
large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any
significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly
deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power
of West London to turn me into a Christian.

-- The beginning of GKC's Autobiography CW16
(Thanks Dr. T!)

Young guy quoting Chesterton

I read a bit of his blog, good stuff.

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post

Thursday during the Great Novena

I am very busy just now, but even if I had time, I hesitate
to approach the profound harmonies which would link GKC's work with the
Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit... it will demand a greater discipline
and a purer holiness and a simpler and clearer mind than I have, sinful
as I am. But I will dare make a selection for our meditation today. It
is in very great resonance with the "Fairy Tale" essay by our beloved
J.R.R.Tolkien, and of course with many other writings of GKC like
Manalive. And I would especially mention that superlative
discussion on the "literary style" of Jesus and His bridge-building
fulfillment of the "granting of a real romance", discussed in the second
half of The Everlasting Man.

Please read it slowly, and think carefully, and deeply, while pondering
the story near the beginning of the "Acts of the Apostles" where the
great wind came, not to Beacon Hill, but to the upper room where the
Apostles where in prayer with Mary...

--Dr. Thursday.

For every mood there is an appropriate impossibility - a decent and
tactful impossibility - fitted to the frame of mind. Every train of
thought may end in an ecstasy, and all roads lead to Elfland. But few
now walk far enough along the street of Dickens to find the place where
the cockney villas grow so comic that they become poetical. People do
not know how far mere good spirits will go. For instance, we never think
(as the old folk-lore did) of good spirits reaching to the spiritual
world. We see this in the complete absence from modern, popular
supernaturalism of the old popular mirth. We hear plenty to-day of the
wisdom of the spiritual world; but we do not hear, as our fathers did,
of the folly of the spiritual world, of the tricks of the gods, and the
jokes of the patron saints. Our popular tales tell us of a man who is so
wise that he touches the supernatural, like Dr. Nikola; but they never
tell us (like the popular tales of the past) of a man who was so silly
that he touched the supernatural, like Bottom the Weaver. We do not
understand the dark and transcendental sympathy between fairies and
fools. We understand a devout occultism, an evil occultism, a tragic
occultism, but a farcical occultism is beyond us. Yet a farcical
occultism is the very essence of "The Midsummer Night's Dream." It is
also the right and credible essence of "The Christmas Carol." Whether we
understand it depends upon whether we can understand that exhilaration
is not a physical accident, but a mystical fact; that exhilaration can
be infinite, like sorrow; that a joke can be so big that it breaks the
roof of the stars. By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become
godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous to the sublime.

[GKC, Charles Dickens CW15:49-50]

.....Come Holy Ghost, renew in us Your seven-fold gifts...

Anyone know? RIDES TO CONFERENCE

Reader bleg:

This will be my first Chesterton Conference. I fly in to Minn/St. P HHHumphrey terminal on SunCountry at noon on Thursday and out at 10 a.m. on Sunday. If anyone could give rides, carpools, sharing a cab from the airport, etc, around those times, I'd appreciate knowing about it.

Also, do you have any idea of cab fare from the airport to the college, or whether there is an alternative, e.g., bus, shuttle, or van services?

Thanks for any info/help.

I've driven into town, so I don't know the airport situation at all.

UPDATE: From Dale--Everybody who needs a ride to the airport on Sunday will get one. A ride
from the airport is trickier, but workable.

2nd Update: From Sara B on the airport:

the answer to the airport question is that there are two terminals at
MSP. Most flights go into the main terminal, Lindbergh. Humphrey is the newer terminal.

They are a couple of miles away from each other. You could possibly share a taxi going back -- and certainly share a volunteer ride -- but not one coming in without enormous hassle. There's a shuttle bus between the twoterminals, but you want to get the right one the first time.

Speaking as someone who gave a ride to Humphrey and fortunately noticed in time that the airline wasn't listed -- and hightailed it to Lindbergh.

As always, check your itinerary. The current map of Humphrey lists AirTran, Midwest, Sun Country, Ryan and Champion air as the airlines there -- it's also used for a lot of charter flights. Northwest and the others are at Lindbergh.

I don't know the current taxi fare, but as things go in the MSP area, the terminals really aren't that far from the conference. It's about a 15 minute ride.

But it shouldn't be a huge cab fare to leave the airport and go to the conference. Just make sure you have your map along to get them to the right check-in point if you don't know University of St. Thomas.

March Gilbert

I did finally get it a couple days ago. Just haven't had a chance to do much more than look at it. It looks nice, doesn't it?

Last week, the next issue finished up and was sent to print. Now, we can look forward to another great issue, edited with bubbles and brewing going on in the background. Should be good!

Lobster Mayonaise

Make it in honor of The Man Who Was Thursday.

Poet and Lunatics--Introduction

OK, let's get started on The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale. This is one of Chesterton's lesser known works, originally published in 1929. According to the Chesterton Society's Bibliography:

"Eight mysteries featuring the poet-detective, Gabriel Gale, who solves (or prevents) crimes committed by madmen. The lunatics all represent the modern breakdown of reason.
-Out of Print.

Quote:

"I doubt whether any truth can be told except in a parable."

But of course the "Out of Print" information is already out of date. I have a House of Stratus edition published in 2001.

The clue from above, that Gale solves or prevents crimes is interesting. And also that each lunatic represents a modern breakdown of reason. I think we'll find that these "modern breakdowns" are current to our day.

And first impressions?

Mine, as usual, is that Chesterton has written a mysterious book, one which I need help to read and understand. Some of you have probably read this book more than once, and know it inside and out. I'm only on my first reading of it, so you will all help me out, ok?

Dawn Eden on the Radio talking about the Chesterton Conference

I'm happy to report that going to be on Gus Lloyd's "Seize the Day" show this Monday on Sirius Catholic Chanel at 6:40 a.m. Eastern and have told the producer I'd like to discuss the Chesterton conference and what I'll be speaking about there. Could you mention it on any Chesterton blogs with which you're involved? I believe readers can get free three-day online Sirius memberships at http://www.siriusradio.com, where they should be able to hear the Catholic Channel. Thanks!

Brew Update

From Sean:

Update for my homebrew (Gabri-Ale): I racked it into the secondary fermenter on Thursday. It is doing very well: I took a hydrometer reading and it will be at just about 5 percent alcohol, which is what you want for an English pale ale, which is what this is.

The beer, still uncarbonated, has a nice yellow-ish hue with a hint of orange. In other words, when the light shone through it, it looked very lovely. It'll settle out further for the next four or five days, and then it'll be ready to bottle. It'll carbonate, or "condition," in the bottles. With this batch, I am "dry hopping" for the very first time. Dry hopping means adding hops during secondary fermentation, in addition to the hops I added during the boil. This is a traditional English method of hopping and improves hop aroma.

Right now it is sitting in my office in its glass carboy with a towel wrapped around it. It is nice editing Gilbert Magazine while homebrew ferments behind me. Sort of like having a guardian angel there. The towel is to keep the light out. Why? Ever had a "skunked" beer? It gets that way from being exposed to light: light reacts badly with the hops, making them emit a skunk flavor and odor if exposed to light. That's why most bottled beer comes in brown bottles: it protects the beer from sunlight. Any skunked beer you might have had, I guarantee, came in a green or clear bottle. Beer in green or clear bottles is nearly always skunked. Corona, in clear bottles, is notorously skunky. Avoid it. Drink homebrew.

Pretend it's Thursday

The Ascension: Some Technical Aspects
From Dr. Thusday

I myself have little Latin and less Greek. But I know enough Greek to know the meaning of the second syllable of "enthusiasm," and I know it to be the key to this and every other discussion.
[GKC, The Thing CW3:139]
Note: the second syllable of enthusiasm comes from the Greek word QeoV which means God.

Yes, like GKC I have very little Latin and even less Greek - but I try to be enthusiastic. Hence, for me, and for the Chestertonians who like The Man Who Was Thursday, today's feast is a very special one. After all, it is always celebrated on a Thursday! Yes, so is Holy Thursday. And there is a very curious connection between these two great feasts.To find out the curiosity, continue reading.

Our modern world - no, the civilized world - makes much of connections, of linkings, of unitings, of tyings-together, bonds, unions, weddings, contracts. So many forms, so many purposes.

If there is one word which is the glaring trademark of civilization, from ancient Sumer and Egypt, out to the Magellanic Clouds and all points south, it is communication, which is the most fundamental and most grand form of joining. It links two minds, separated by years, or by distance, or by life-experience. The mystery of the spoken word, the written word: this is the linking which binds us in time. This is a reasonable, and even logical thing to recall today, for St. John calls Jesus "the Word" ("ho Logos in Greek)!

And from time immemorial, there have been ships, there have been carts and waggons, there have been beasts-of-burden - and there have been roads, both Roman and interstate. There's a method in my madness, however - for Jesus told us "I am the way" ("he Hodos" in Greek)!

Now today we see another road - the road to heaven, to eternity - taken by a Man who was dead, but now lives.

Today marks His "departure" from this world in that visible body with its five glorious wounds. Yet today is not at all sad - nor are His last words the usual words of departure or leave-taking. Yes, it is paradoxical - like oOur dear Uncle Gilbert, whose last words were "Hello, my dear" - the last words of Jesus were "Behold, I am with you always." (see the very end of St. Matthew for the details.)

So - this day is a kind of feast day of communication. (Speaking personally and quite technically, I would have to say that the real feast day for communication is March 25, but I will have to discuss that another day.)

Why? Well, partly because communication plays well into the haphazard structure of meditations for the Thursdays of Paschaltide which I stumbled into a few weeks back. We've been exploring the Great Vigil, and last week we had gotten up to the blessing of the water and the renewal of Baptism. But after that, except for the proper prayers and a special Hanc igitur, and the double Alleluias at the dismissal, there really isn't anything different in the bulk of the Vigil Mass from that of any Mass from the rest of the year. Just what is in that "bulk"? Chiefly, it is simply the "thanksgiving" prayer (which is what "eucharist" means) - but it is the re-presentation of Calvary, as Jesus taught us at the Last Supper.

In a word, it is Transubstantiation - it is the way in which Jesus is with us always.

Yes, that's a hard word, for us who deal with fuel injection and broadband and internet web pages and so forth. No, it's just the supreme form of commuication, whereby God communicates with us - and we communicate with God.

As to Transubstantiation, it is less easy to talk currently about that; but I would gently suggest that, to most ordinary outsiders with any common sense, there would be a considerable practical difference between Jehovah pervading the universe and Jesus Christ coming into the room.
[GKC, The Thing CW3:180]

As you read this, the signals of hundreds of television channels, of radio stations, of beams and signals from satellites, from cell-phone towers, from antennae of many kinds - all kinds of waves are pervading your presence. You, poor weak human, are completely unaware of them - the most that might happen is you would be cooked if you were too close to a high-power microwave source. But any detector, even a simple one, can turn those undetectable waves into a form we can perceive - it's as if their source walked into the room with you.

Behold, our God has not left us orphans. He is with us hidden in the sacred species, as hidden in His Manhood as He once hid His divinity on Calvary. And if there is one clear fact about the sacred species, it is that they are products of engineering: you have to grind wheat, crush grapes, add water, and do all the rest of the various steps in just the right way - ain't no philosophy there, buddy - it's reality.

So, too, in the Ascension, there is another kind of engineering. Jesus, the Way, shows us the way we also will go, if we choose to follow Him. He has built the "back-channel", the other side of the highway - the bridge which goes back from earth to heaven.

P.S. I've always wondered why there aren't some devout engineering titles for our Lord. Well - maybe there is at least one: the Pope is still called by a title of the high priests of ancient Rome - pontifex maximus - the Greatest Bridge Builder. And if the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, I guess Christ can have that title too. (You can just imagine Him out there with His hard hat and clipboard, blueprints rolled up under His arm, checking the traverses!) But though there are other liturgical phrases and prayers which hint at the technical character of our faith (like St. Joseph the worker!) there is always that beautiful line in the Litany of the Sacred Heart:

"Heart of Jesus, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, have mercy on us.

[See St. Paul's letter to the Colossians 2:3 for the source.]

Turning the World Upsidedown

A recurring theme in the Chesterton writings is seeing the world anew by turning it upsidedown. There's even a blog called Standing on my Head.

What does it mean to see the world upsidedown? How can we get a new perspective on our lives by seeing things differently?

It seems to me as if The Poet and the Lunatics is Chesterton's attempt to answer these questions.

On Monday, we'll begin with Chapter One.

Approximately One Month...

...have you registered for the conference? Time to do so. Make those travel plans.

Carpool help here. Let us know if you'd like a ride, can offer a ride, etc. Also needed are people to pick up people from the airport and take them to the conference.

Who is Aidan Mackey?

There will be a session at the conference called "AAA" Ask Aidan Anything. Another with Aidan's perspective on The Man Who Was Thursday.

The brochure says he's the founder of the G.K. Chesterton Study Centre in England. My bet is he's British (accent and all).

This is a man who knew Ada Chesterton. Talked to her. Who else did he talk to?

You people who know Aidan better than I: Tell us more about him, and why any Chestertonian would want to talk to him.

New Books at Chesterton

There is a new edition of The Well and the Shallows available through the ACS. It boasts an introduction by our own Dale Ahlquist.

Put it on your wish list, buy it at the conference, or get it today.

Something New for the Chesterton Conference

I got a letter in the mail this week about the Chesterton Conference and I noticed something new: The Chesterton Society would like to remind you that tradition has dictated that the conference be free, but increasing financial demands beg that we consider making a small donation ($10 per day) for the Conference this year.

It seems to me that $30 is still pretty low to pay for the best Conference I've ever attended.

It isn't a "registration fee" this year, but I suspect it may be next year, unless tradition prevails, or unless the suggested donation works out.

It also says in the letter that the membership fee, which includes a subscription to Gilbert and 20% discount on all Chestertonian products and books, will be going up after the conference (June 14-16) so NOW would be a good time to join (still only $35) or renew.

The letter also suggests purchasing and reading The Man Who Was Thursday in preparation for the conference, hey, we're way ahead of that here, having already had an on-line book discussion over the past few months. We're good. ;-)

So, prepare your wallets. If you can give more, please do. If not, please plan to put at least $30 in the donation box. It will help defray the costs of the building rental, and keep Chesterton Conferences going for the great annual event they've come to be.

And if you can't come but can donate, naturally, that's always welcome. If you're in that position, we thank you.

Will you be generous when the donation basket is in front of you?

GKC's Intro to Jane

Austen, that is. Some Chestertonians are Austenians, too. One I know will miss ChesterCon07 due to an AustenCon07.

Some have it

but not I.

Thursday Post

Humbly Renewing the Renewal (of Baptism)

"Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak."
[GKC "The Hammer of God" in The Innocence of Father Brown]

Our story, so far:

The new fire, the light of the New Spring of the Universe, has been kindled.

The great candle has been claimed for Christ, the Alpha and Omega, redolent with the fragrance of His five glorious wounds, and alight with the New Life which comes from death, as He foretold: "if a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies..."

And therefore, we hear chanted the great Praeconium, the hymn of His victory, which is ours. We hear reading after reading, remembering why "this night is different from all other nights" when our doors were marked with blood and we followed Moses through the sea.

And then the bells rang out, and the Gloria was chanted! the very same song which was taught to us by the angels on another night of wonder.

Then we hear Paul, the persecutor-turned-Apostle, tell us that we have died, and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God.

Then the Alleluia, and the Good News is told: how just as the sun had risen, [What a pun. But I did not make it.] the women went to the tomb, forgetting about how the stone needed to be rolled back - and what they discovered...

Sure - you know all that. But like little children, we tell it to each other, over and over, because it is Good News - night is passed, and the Day is here!

A day of new life. So now it is time for us to consider how the new life begins.
Continue reading.It begins, as the story of the world began - with water. No, my dear subatomic physicists, no, my beloved big-banging cosmologists - I am not trying to talk about some literal interpretation of how "the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters". For most of human existence, water was seen as an elementary thing - how much more, now that we know so very much about water, do we know its vast, fundamental, critical, wonderful importance for life - and for us. Especially for us Christians.

Some time ago I wrote an essay about water, setting forth a mere handful of important facts and a comment or two, almost a kind of meditation... little guessing that in 2002 Pope John Paul II would practically give us what we might call the Five Hydrous Mysteries! Should you care to read my essay, you can find "The Division of the Waters" in my index here. (My discussion of how the Luminous Mysteries are connected with water appeared in my comments for Advent 2006, which begin here.)

But here and now, we are here considering the particular use of water during the Great Paschal Vigil.

How solemn this event is! The fire, the candle, the readings, the Doxa, the Epistle, the Gospel! The memory of the races at sunrise, people running around, telling each other something too good to be true - but it was true!

But now, we enter into a deeper layer of the mystery - for we now enter into the very womb of the Church, and we shall see the organs by which the New Life is communicated - and (as much as our earthly eyes can) see that Life itself.

Such an action cannot be taken lightly. We must humble ourselves, and ask for assistance. So the priest intones the ancient Litany of the Saints, asking God for His mercy, and the intercession of Mary and all the angels and saints - and we respond, Lord have mercy! All you angels and saints, pray for us!

Then the priest opens the baptismal font, filled with that marvellous liquid called water, or H₂O.
There it sits, quiet and shimmering in the Paschal light: one of the most unique and most fascinating substances formed by God. In nearly perfect balance within itself, its pH of 7 means that only one out of every ten million molecules is incomplete, and thus charged. Yet, its powerful electric dipole gives it a "fractional" charge, formed along the central axes of a tetrahedron, and thus having the form of a cross - it is this powerful activity which makes water one of the most difficult of all substances to make warmer, or colder - and why ice floats.

Meanwhile, we humans stand nearby in reverence, the warmth of our bodies keeping the water in unceasing motion within the cells of our body forces the various proteins in those cells to maintain their correct shapes... To say nothing of the heart's pumping of blood, which is another topic in itself.

Now, to all these, and so many other amazing physical powers, the priest comes, and speaks in persona Christi, exorcizing the water - it is no longer just a thing-of-the-world; blessing the water - it is to be used for divine purposes; dipping the Paschal candle into the water...

Ah, now we see a connection to the Luminous Mysteries (L1 to be precise; see Mt 3:13-17) And, strangely enough, to Genesis. For the Paschal candle is the symbol of Christ. And once, Jesus Himself was dipped into the water of the Jordan. Now, the water which was divided in Genesis, and which divides the hydrophobic amino acids from the hydrophilics in the countless places within our bodies - now, this water will have the power to act as Jesus commanded before His ascension: "baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" [Mt28:19]

This water can now perform division: dividing New Life from death.

Alas, I've got to stop now, or I will quickly fill a gigabyte or two. After all, next week is the Ascension, and I've got to leave some room for that. Ah, I know what's missing. So far, I haven't said much about Chesterton, and just in case you don't have time to hunt up my essay, here is a relevant GKC gem for you to ponder:

Chesterton was a very large man, and he began his autobiography by stating that he "was baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little Church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power of West London to turn me into a Christian." [GKC Autobiography CW16:21]
This water tower played an important role in his story The Napoleon of Notting Hill, but even more important to him was the role of baptism: "I know only one scheme that has proved its solidity, bestriding lands and ages with its gigantic arches, and carrying everywhere the high river of baptism upon an aqueduct of Rome."[GKC The Thing CW3:156]
[above quoted from my essay]

But I ought not end this solemn renewal of the renewal-of-baptism with a quote of my own, or even of GKC's. Let me, rather, quote someone who was a living Paschal candle, bearing marks of the Five Wounds in his very own flesh. He also thought very much about water, whom he loved so dearly he called her his "sister" and even wrote her into a song! Here is the verse:

Praised be my Lord for our sister water, who is very serviceable to us, and humble and precious and clean.
[St. Francis of Assisi, "Canticle of the Sun" quoted in the Poetry Appendix of The Liturgy of the Hours]