Happy New Year

New Year's Resolution Number One: Plan to attend ChesterCon08--June 12-14.

Resolution Number Two: Don't make any new Year's Resolutions. Instead: Plan to make everyday a new day, every day a resolution, every day, get a little closer to Jesus.

Update on ordering The Surprise DVD

From the Combox (thanks Carol!):

The "Surprise" DVD is not currently instock or shown on our website, however, you may put an order in for it now if you like. When stock comes in, we will ship immediately. The item code is “HDS”—It is a DVD and sells for $20 plus $5 shipping/handling. You may order online or by calling me at 205-271-2990.

Thanks for your support of EWTN, LeAnn, Customer Service

Update on Sean

Sean thanks you for your prayers for him. Please continue. He is recovering well from an infection, then will be sent home on medication for a few weeks and return for surgery. Keep praying! Thanks.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Dropping the ball - two kinds

A short and very curious pair of quotes, relative to tonight's activity. One from Chesterton and one from 155 years ago. Let this simple synchronization of our world's clocks not obscure the name-day of our Lord and the solemn feast of Mary's maternity.

Thanks for taking time to be Chestertonian during 2007. Let us all strive to follow our Aunt Frances and Uncle Gilbert more closely, as they lead us on to Jesus Christ, the Everlasting Man.

I shall leave you with a quote from the Paschal Vigil, a fitting prayer to mark off the boundaries of time:

Christus heri et hodie
Principium et Finis
Alpha et Omega
Ipsius sunt tempora et saecula
Ipsi gloria et imperium
per universa aeternitatis saecula.
Amen.

Christ yesterday and today,
The Beginning and the End,
The Alpha and the Omega,
His are the times and the ages,
To Him be glory and dominion
Through the universe of unending ages.
Amen.

--Dr. Thursday

Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be
perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do
not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, was
the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on
which you could at any moment do and which, very
often, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the point here is
that to me this did not seem unjust. ... If Cinderella says, "How
is it that I must leave the ball at twelve?" her godmother might answer,
"How is it that you are going there till twelve?"
[GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:260]


One of the latest applications of the electric telegraph is at once
useful and beautiful. It is a plan for distributing and correcting mean
Greenwich time in London and over the country every day at noon. Every
holiday-maker knows the ball which surmounts the Royal Observatory, and has watched with interest its descent as the clock gave the first stroke
of noon, thereby telling the sea-going men in the river the exact state
of the chronometers to which they have to trust over the pathless
waters. Such a ball has been raised on a pole on the Telegraph Office,
near Charing Cross, and at noon each day is to drop by electric action
simultaneously with that of Greenwich, and falling on a cushion at the
base of the pole, is to communicate standard time along all the
telegraphic wires of the country. At the same instant the exact period
of noon will be known at the most distant as well as the less remote
places in the country; and it is said that all the Railway Companies
have agreed to avail themselves of these means of obtaining an exact
uniformity of time.
[Our Iron Roads by Frederick S. Williams (This history of the
development and status of Britain's railroads was published in 1852.)]

Thank you Dr. Thursday, for this and all your "Thursday" posts in 2007.

Gilbert Editor Update

Sean is improving, thanks for the prayers, and please continue, as he has surgery yet to look forward to.

Information on obtaining "The Surprise" (EWTN edition) on DVD

I don’t know too many details, but I do know that “The Surprise” will be available on DVD from the EWTN Religious Catalogue at some point in the near future. You will be able to order it by visiting the website: http://www.ewtnreligiouscatalogue.com/ or by calling toll free: 1-800-854-6316.

This information from Emily, who works at EWTN. Thanks, Emily!

Whoever notices first that the DVD is available, please let everyone know!

Attention Poets: Blog Poetry Contest

Sheila, at My Enchiridion, is conducting a poetry contest in honor of Christmas.

She, like Chesterton, prefers poems that rhyme. Although she doesn't mind free verse as long as it isn't completely random.

You may submit up to three poems.

Sheila The Famous, is also known for her Triolet Contest last year, which resulted in many good and popular triolets. Some of which received the honor of publication in Gilbert Magazine, after being published on My Enchiridion.

Now, let's get those creative juices going and make some Christmas poetry!

Please Pray for Sean

The editor of Gilbert Magazine, Sean Dailey, was unexpectedly and suddenly admitted to the hospital today for an infection which needed immediate treatment. Please join us in praying for his speedy recovery.

Thank you.

Merry Christmas from Dr. Thursday

Celebrating Christmas - and the Year-Boundary

Today, the Third day of Christmas, is also the feast of St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist. It was amazing this morning at Holy Mass to hear the gospel, which is about as far from shepherds, Magi, and the infant in the manger as one might find: "Early in the morning of the first the day of the week... Peter ran to the tomb, but the Disciple-Whom-Jesus-Loved ran faster... he saw, and believed." (see John 20; my paraphrase) I wish to say something, but I shall first preface it with a Chesterton quote to attempt to indicate something about my tone here:

"I'm very fond of strong Protestants," said Father Brown. "I came to you because I was sure you would tell the truth."
[GKC, "The Chief Mourner of Marne" in The Secret Of Father Brown

It is unfortunate that we who love Jesus should find a division here, but it is a real division, and needs to be acknowledged - if we ever hope to abolish it (cf. GKC on fences in The Thing CW3:157) - and this will require all interested Christians to tell the truth. Which I shall here strive to do, with God's help. Read more.

The simple thing is that at Christmas, as on every other day of the year, Catholics are always bringing the stark reality of the Cross into bold uncompromising view - by the simple celebration of Holy Mass, the centerpiece of which begins "On the day before He suffered, He took bread..." It is not simply doing what St. Paul restricts himself to do "I determined when I was with you I would speak of nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." [see 1Cor2:2] This may be "absurdity to Greeks and stumbling block for Jews" [1Cor1:23] - and something forbidden by tradition for some others. But it happens to be what Jesus told the Apostles to do "Do this in remembrance of Me." and "Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." [Lk 22:19, Mt 28:20]

But I know I am saying this very poorly. Really it is not my intention to "argue" (in any sense) nor to ride rough-shod over other religions. It is rather my attempt to observe the curious truth that GKC pointed out and which we examined in our previous studies:

Herod had his place, therefore, in the miracle play of Bethlehem because he is the menace to the Church Militant and shows it from the first as under persecution and fighting for its life. For those who think this a discord, it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the Christmas bells. For those who think the idea of the Crusade is one that spoils the idea of the Cross, we can only say that for them the idea of the Cross is spoiled; the idea of the Cross is spoiled quite literally in the Cradle.
[GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:314]

Let me try again - and again I preface it with my respect for those who differ from me in their heritage: A Catholic (by virtue of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - which is why we call it Christ-MASS) is forced to approach the Christmas Cradle full of the awareness that this Baby was born in order to DIE:

...the life of Jesus went as swift and straight as a thunderbolt. It was above all things dramatic; it did above all things consist in doing something that had to be done. It emphatically would not have been done if Jesus had walked about the world for ever doing nothing except tell the truth. And even the external movement of it must not be described as a wandering in the sense of forgetting that it was a journey. This is where it was a fulfilment of the myths rather than of the philosophies; it is a journey with a goal and an object, like Jason going to find the Golden Fleece, or Hercules the golden apples of the Hesperides. The gold that he was seeking was death. The primary thing that he was going to do was to die. [see Mt 16:21, Lk 12:49-50] He was going to do other things equally definite and objective; we might almost say equally external and material. But from first to last the most definite fact is that he is going to die.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:339]

Hence, Christmas is celebrated with His own death in stark view - we celebrate the Birth first and foremost by the ritual commemoration of the Death. This is not an argument for a "better" or a "worse" method. It is a comment on a strange reality.

Because, as most all Christians know, God's "secret plan" [cf. Rom 16:25-6] was for God to become Man in order to die - and by dying, destroy death. St Paul lectured on this: "Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." [Romans 6:3-5] And it's even in that carol: "Mild He lays His glory by, born that Man no more may die." Let all Christians here find an even greater cause to rejoice at Christmas - and paraphrase St. Paul: if Christ be not born, our faith is in vain.

But let us recall, as GKC recalls very strongly in his preface to our reference text, that the consideration of Jesus Christ the Everlasting Man is not intended to pick at conflicts between various forms of Christians, but to reveal the stark division between Christianity and "the world" of pagans. You can see CW2:141 for details, but let me (just for a change) quote something else, because I have some more to say, and this will lead us into the topic:

There is nothing really wrong with the whole modern world except that it does not fit in with Christmas. The modern world will have to fit in with Christmas or die. Those who will not rejoice in the end of the year must be condemned to lament it. We must accept the New Year as a new fact; we must be born again. No kind of culture or literary experience can save him who entirely refuses this cold bath of winter ecstasy. No poetry can be appreciated by him who cannot appreciate the mottoes in the crackers. No log-rolling can rescue him who will not roll the Yule log. Christmas is like death and child-birth - a test of our simple virtue; and there is no other such test left in this land to-day.
[GKC ILN Jan 9 1909 CW28:251]

Yes - death, division, Christmas - and rebirth and the New Year - which just happens to also be the Octave-day of Christmas, and the day on which Jesus was given His most holy name. [see Luke 2:21, cf. Lev 12:3-8]

Over on her own blogg, our esteemed bloggmistress Nancy Brown points out two important facts:

1. "...we keep on celebrating..."

This is important. This year, even areas which transfer Epiphany to Sunday shall celebrate Epiphany on January 6. Therefore, we shall have a precise Twelve Days of Christmas. Perhaps we can call it "Extraordinary" time, hee hee.

2. "...the thing that's brought us all together, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, is the birth of Jesus 2000 years ago..."

This is even more important. No one - whether Christian or not, whether recognizing Christ as historical or not, whether celebrating birthdays or not - indeed, no one, regardless of religious or philosophical inclination, can escape this simple fact of calendar. The very years are numbered and fixed upon Christmas. (NOT on Easter, as curious as that is. Though perhaps another time we shall consider the possibility that Good Friday fell on March 25...)

Yes, fixed upon Christmas. Perhaps we could call that milestone, or marking point in time, a "virtual" or (more properly) a reference Christmas, somewhat like the reference circles like the Equator, or the Greenwich Meridian, or (even more exotic) like the Aries Point when the Sun crosses the celestial equator and begins Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Few people live ON the equator, and those who do cannot really see it. And yet it is still there. People buy and sell two-by-fours, even though those are not the precise dimensions of that piece of lumber.

In the same way few at that time actually knew of Christ's birth (despite the efforts, as we saw last week, of the Heavenly Host, and some talkative shepherds!) Then, somehow along the way, the year-count got just slightly garbled early on, and it seems certain that Jesus was actually born a few years B.C. (Before Christ!) But that birth was a known date, and one which was "not all that long ago". It wasn't some long-past half-myth, like "the year of the Founding of the City" (A.U.C.) for the ancient Romans. It was a known moment in time. It has been ignored, has been forgotten, and even now is being denied. And yet for all of us, regardless of belief, the very Earth Time itself is measured based on this singular reference mark: the Birth of Jesus in the Cave of Bethlehem.

If there was any doubt of this, there would have been some radical change arising from the fears voiced as if by the whiney tone of the Cold One (algor is Latin for cold), back in the late 1990s. Yes, back then, Total Doom for the technical world was forecast when the cosmic odometer rolled over as 23:59:59 on December 31, 1999 became 00:00:00 on January 1, 2000. Some of us techies had some good laughs reading about how vacuum cleaners, and toasters would malfunction, and door hinges would no longer rotate, and glue and nails would lose their grip, and so on. Ah, it was funny.

Of course, as you may already know, the Total Doom was warded off. I had a whole bulb of garlic on my computer, and by the MAGIC of the INTERNET, the goodness of garlic seeped out, and so the comet Y2K, also called Eetook, was kept away from us. If you need more information, or are worried about another form of imminent disaster, see here for all the details. Recipes are not included.

So, whether you eat garlic or sit it on your computers, I do hope you will continue to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas properly. We get the authentic 12 this year - take advantage of it! Keep celebrating!

The next Thursday we shall meet (God willing) will be in 2008. So let us conclude with another remark from Uncle Gilbert:

Civilisation is simply that self-command by which man can revert to the normal. Anarchy is not uproar; uproar is all right in its place. Anarchy is not plunging; anarchy is not being able to stop. It is not anarchy in a house if people sit up all night on New Year's Eve. It is anarchy in a house if this makes them sit up later and later every night afterwards. It is not anarchy in the State if men under extreme misgovernment drag down their existing rulers, and substitute other rulers and obey them. It is anarchy in a State if people come to think that all things, small and great, may, in varying degrees, be so resisted; that whenever the postal service annoys me, I may break the rules of the post-office. Civilisation does permit outbreak; it does not permit anarchy...
[GKC ILN Nov 23 1912 CW29:394]

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

--Dr. Thursday

PS. Here is an amazing, and timely poem which I posted back in my own blogging days. It is one of my favourites.

Another PS. It is well-known that our current time is labelled A.D., standing for Anno Domini, Latin for "Year of the Lord". And we English speakers write "B.C." the initials of "Before Christ" meaning the other side of the time axis. But I wondered how - say - Aquinas, or a Papal encyclical - would refer to "B.C." Do you know? After some exploration I found out. The Latin for "Before Christ" is Ante Christum, hence the abbreviation is "A.C." If you know of a good joke - or even better, a good mystery - connected with this, please let me know.

A Message to the ACS from EWTN re: The Surprise

Hello to all at the American Chesterton Society!

I work at EWTN and was counting the days until we aired “The Surprise!” My whole family watched the movie on Friday night, then again on Christmas Eve. (We switched the TV on to let my five year old brother see some Christmas programming, but he said “No! I want to see ‘The Surprise’ again;” wouldn’t G.K. be proud?) Chesterton is such an amazing author, the dialogue was so wonderful and thought provoking- I’m sure I will catch something new every time I see it! The play was brought to life by such wonderful acting talent as well! A standing ovation to Kevin O’Brien, Miss. Ahlquist and “the author” especially- though everyone’s performance deserves a big round of applause! How appropriate for Christmas too, with the amazing line “What have you done with my play- I’m coming down!” It truly brought the message of the Incarnation to my mind, and helped me realize that God came down to this earth to save us.

I want to thank everyone for the hard work they did to bring this story to life! We all had a wonderful surprise this Christmas in “The Surprise!”


Many Blessings,

Emily Lunsford
EWTN Media Missionaries Support Assistant

UPDATE: Just to clarify, Emily wrote on behalf of herself and her family. She happens to work at EWTN. ;-)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

God bless us everyone!

The Surprise

Did you see it? Want to talk about it? The combox is awaiting for you!

I saw it and loved it. It brought back many good memories of the conference where it was performed. There were some new touches, especially the scenery; but also Dale's cockney accent seemed new.

I also noted some dubbing, and I wondered what that was all about. Especially at the end of Act One where the Poet, Oliver, says "My God! The Surprise!"--we noticed it was dubbed "Oh Yes! The Surprise!" or perhaps just "Yes! The Surprise!"

Dale and Mark were great as the guards, Dale's drunken performance was spot on with that gorgonzola cheese remark. Kevin O'Brien's performance was great, very believeable and natural, his acting abilities shine. Similarly, the Author, Jeremy? I think...gave a great performance.

The two lovely ladies, Ashley and Catherine, gave wonderfully good performances as the Princess and her lady in waiting, Donna Maria Margareta. And the prince, Julian, was regally handsome and swashbuckling in his swordplay.

What fun! I hope the person who agreed to tape it for me did tape it. But if you want to see it again (or missed it last night) it will be on EWTN again on Monday afternoon, Christmas Eve.
1PM EST
12PM CST
11AM Rocky
10AM Pacific

O Antiphons (con't)

O Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light,
sun of justice:
come, shine on those who dwell
in darkness and the shadow of death.

Award for this Blog!

This blog is a runner up for the Catholic Blog Awards 2007-Best Group Blog award!

I guess the group is me and Dr. Thursday and YOU!

Congratulations Everyone!

The Surprise on EWTN tonight!

10 EST
9 CST
8 Rocky
7 Pacific
If you don't have cable, you can get it streaming live on EWTN, whether you have cable, broadband or the old fashioned dial-up.

Enjoy the show!

O Antiphons (con't)

O Key of David,
O royal Power of Israel
controlling at your will the gate of heaven:
come, break down the prison walls of death
for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death;
and lead your captive people into freedom.

Thank you, Dr. Thursday.

Dr Thursday's Third Thursday in Advent Post

Three Thursdays of Advent - a Trinity of Christmas Truths:
3. The Shepherds (and the Angels)

again with a subtitle:

News - and not N's

That last character is not an English N, but the capital Greek "nu". For we shall start with a bit of language lesson today:

Angel, ankle, anchor, sphinx
Are joined by Chestertonian links
There, gamma gives us nu's effects
Preceding G, K, C, or X.

Of course the person who wrote that is not very Greek-literate, or he would have written the last line differently. It ought to say "preceding gamma, kappa, chi, or xi". But then he would have had to change the rhyme, and the rhythm... well, it does not pay to criticise a poet. Besides, it's fun to see that G, K, C there. Uh-oh.

Eee-oo, Eee-oo.
"Yes, ossifer, I was rhyming without a license again..."
"Pay your bail,
Or it's off to jail."

Ahem. (Sorry, I got carried away. Christmas, Greek, and so forth...) Yes, in Greek, a gamma before these four letters (gamma, kappa, chi, xi) has the effect of a nu, or at least a nasalizing. Ask your neighbourhood Greek scholar if you want to know more.

I bring up this odd little effect of the Greek gamma, because I hunted up the word "angel" in my splendid GIGANTIC copy of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. It weighs maybe 10 pounds, and is over 3.5 inches thick... whew! But as Greek scholars will point out, you will NOT find "angel" (OK, actually "angelos") if you hunt under alpha, nu, gamma... that's not how it's spelled. It's spelled aggeloV - that is, alpha, gamma, gamma, epsilon, lambda, omicron, sigma. Two gammas, but but it still sounds like angelos. It means, simply, "messenger" or "envoy". The related word angelia means "message", whether the substance (the information) or the conveyance (the media).

Why am I bothering about some abstruse detail about the word "angel" when I am supposed to be talking about the SHEPHERDS?

Well, partly because of what GKC pointed out about this matter. All too often, there is a loss of perspective in the matter of shepherds - especially when considered next to angels, which is where we really need to consider them:

...the more the artists learned of realism and perspective, the less they could depict at once the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on the hills, and the glory in the darkness that was under the hills.[GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:305]

Hence, if we really want to know more about the shepherds, we have to know more about the angels, and what it was that was happening, there in the fields, during the night shift. (No we are NOT going to see them dancing on the pinheads. Not today. There's a form to be filled out if you want that.)
Read more.
First, and it bears repeating - an "angel" is NOT simply a "kind" of being - it is a being who is holding, or carrying out an office - specifically a messenger. The correct term for them is "Spirit" - specifically Good Spirit, to distinguish from those we glimpsed last week. Even though we have some hints, we don't quite know how else they occupy themselves - it seems every time we see them they are delivering a message to somebody. Kind of God's FedEx. One place where it seems we catch them out-of-uniform was in the vision of Isaias:

And they [angels] cried one to another, and said: "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of his glory." [Is 6:3]

Uh, oh. Nope. Read it again. It says they cried ONE TO ANOTHER. They're such perfect messengers when they're not busy, they keep in practice sending the same message over and over again to each other! And why not? The statement "The Lord God of hosts is holy, holy, holy" is perhaps the most sublime of all truths. It ought to be repeated. If we understood it - and angels, not having to bother with school and study and research and forgetting, and all that, certainly understand it. As I was saying, if we understood it, we would know it is not just a simple quibble like "2+2=4" or "the sun rises in the east" or whatever. For in this statement is contained infinite depth of truth which only God himself knows completely. Hence the angels, as they stand before him, gaze into this infinity and see more and more, and are moved to say it again and again, in utter and total joy. And there is no joy like the joy of satisfaction of grasping a truth!

Now, where do the shepherds come in?

Well. You see, there was this Roman poet Virgil. He wrote about shepherds, and country scenes. People had gotten citified with all that Roman stuff, and forgotten their roots: a simple people who worried about keeping their kitchen fire burning, their crops growing, their livestock increasing... Ah (you can imagine them sighing) back then we were HAPPY. Curious. The Latin word "felix" usually translated "happy" is derived from "fecund" - a crop-growing word - it first meant "fruitful". (It may be a shock to learn that fetus and female and related words come from the same root.) Virgil, as you may know, wrote a sequel to Homer (yeah, it's been happening for over 2000 years) called "The Aeneid". He also wrote a bunch of poems called the Bucolics, or Eclogues. (I always mix up if there are two sets or just two names.) One of these, the Fourth Eclogue, is perhaps the most famous poem in the world. I wrote about it previously, and GKC talks about it in our main reference (CW2:292, 307-8) But here I mention it not to explore it, but just to point out that the other big piece of the puzzle - the one not among our three present topics of study, which is Rome - was quite aware of a certain importance of shepherds - not just as the lowly people necessary if one wants wool and lambchops, but as forming an important element, and a simple (and HAPPY=felix) one, as part of the Roman thing.

There was also a Hebrew poet who we first hear about watching his sheep. He ended up getting another job - hard to say if it was a promotion, but he kept on writing poems in any case. One of the most famous of his poems is often quoted as a great prayer for peace, in which case either the quoter hasn't really read it, or he doesn't know much about life as a shepherd. I mean, of course, David, who later became King of Israel, and his psalm about how the Lord is his shepherd. It contains one of the most militant phrases in all the psalms: "For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me." [PS 22(23):4] And this provides the critical link to our topic of last week: How on earth can a shepherd guarantee peace to his flock if he is unarmed? But our Lord is the Lord of Armies, the God of Battles. David fought with God's help, attained victory over the enemies of Israel (remember Goliath? There was a lot more after that) and established peace. He knew what being a shepherd required.

Now that we've reviewed these two items, we come to the shepherds who "were in the same country, keeping night watch" that night when Jesus was born. Here we could get into the discussion of how that means it wasn't winter, or how there could not be snow, etc., etc. I am not going to go there, except to mention how it snowed when Gilbert and Frances visited Jerusalem in 1919. [See The New Jerusalem CW20:238]

Recalling that GKC had actually been to the Holy Land, then, let us now hear how GKC considered the shepherds. He gets to the matter in one of his penetrating insights, which is tied in to our discussion previously about how Christmas is the "invasion" from Heaven. And, like the Hobbits, there's a riddle involved:

...in the riddle of Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth.

There is in that alone the touch of a revolution, as of the world turned upside down. It would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate, or anything new, about the change which this conception of a deity born like an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties to the poor and outcast. It is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves. There could be and were people bearing that legal title until the Church was strong enough to weed them out, but there could be no more of the pagan repose in the mere advantage to the state of keeping it a servile state. Individuals became important, in a sense in which no instruments can be important. A man could not be a means to an end, at any rate to any other man's end. All this popular and fraternal element in the story has been rightly attached by tradition to the episode of the Shepherds; the hinds who found themselves talking face to face with the princes of heaven. But there is another aspect of the popular element as represented by the shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed; and which is more directly relevant here. Men of the people, like the shepherds, men of the popular tradition, had everywhere been the makers of the mythologies. It was they who had felt most directly, with least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt cults of civilisation, the need we have already considered; the images that were adventures of the imagination; the mythology that was a sort of search; the tempting and tantalising hints of something half-human in nature; the dumb significance of seasons and special places. They had best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story and the soul of a story is a personality. But rationalism had already begun to rot away these really irrational though imaginative treasures of the peasant; even as systematic slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home. Upon all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk and twilight of disappointment, in the hour when these few men discovered what they sought. Everywhere else Arcadia was fading from the forest. Pan was dead and the shepherds were scattered like sheep. And though no man knew it, the hour was near which was to end and to fulfil all things; and though no man heard it, there was one far-off cry in an unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains. The shepherds had found their Shepherd.

And the thing they found was of a kind with the things they sought. The populace had been wrong in many things; but they had not been wrong in believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits of time and space. And the barbarian who conceived the crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a box, or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his enemy deceived with a stone, was nearer to the secret of the cave and knew more about the crisis of the world than all those in the circle of cities round the Mediterranean who had become content with cold abstractions or cosmopolitan generalisations; than all those who were spinning thinner and thinner threads of thought out of the transcendentalism of Plato or the orientalism of Pythagoras. The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search. We all know that the popular presentation of this popular story, in so many miracle plays and carols, has given to the shepherds the costume, the language, and the landscape of the separate English and European countrysides. We all know that one shepherd will talk in a Somerset dialect or another talk of driving his sheep from Conway towards the Clyde. Most of us know by this time how true is that error, how wise, how artistic, how intensely Christian and Catholic is that anachronism. [GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:305-7, emphasis added]

There is so much meat here I would be at it for several more pages, going further and further into all kinds of interesting matters, and yet still not talking about the one which motivated me in the beginning. That is, the one which links shepherds with angels and Nu's, I mean News.

And you may delight because of it, because you'll get to hear just a tiny bit about Subsidiarity, which I still hope to get completed.

You see, God himself did what he told us at the Last Supper when he washed the feet of the apostles, as he told his apostles: the Son of Man did not come to BE SERVED but TO SERVE.... [Mt 20:28]

And that means THERE MUST BE AN INVERSION OF THE GREAT HIERARCHY OF BEING.

At Christmas, the great secret - the most marvellous of all secrets, the secret of new life which is known only to pregnant women, God's own secret that "the Word is made flesh" is suddenly made known by direct view. Mary sees her newborn. Standing vigil at the cave-mouth, Joseph hears the infant cry and comes in when Mary calls him - he sees, and now he also knows.

BUT THIS IS GOOD NEWS - IT MUST BE MADE KNOWN.

The great sea-going writer, Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, wrote one of the most priceless and most dramatic lines I have ever read in his book on Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Speaking of that incredible night from October 11 to 12 in 1492, he wrote:

Not since the birth of Christ has there been a night so full of meaning for the human race.

Elsewhere, he tells of how Columbus, struck by a storm during the return journey, was in agony, copying out his logs and sealing them in casks, anxious that his news be spread even if he be lost... For the first rule of discovery is to LET SOMEONE KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DISCOVERED.

Likewise, the fundamental law of ALL science: it is not science until it is "published" - somehow it must be told to others.

So what did God do?

Immediately, the full armies of heaven are dispatched, songbooks in hand, to the fields near Bethlehem. Why? Hard to find someone lower than a tired, stinky, hungry, poor, bored, sleepy shepherd on a hillside of a little town.

But God knew where they were. And what does God do? He sent the whole army - a "great multitude of the heavenly host" - here "host" means army. And you don't send armies around unless they have orders.

Remember - no need to keep things secret any more. The plan has begun. So, (as said in another story of a Close Encounter) the Son came out at night and they sang to Him. (hee hee! Ahem.)

As usual the angels (being angelic, in the Greek sense!) had a message. Here it is:

"Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people: for, this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger." [Lk 2:10-12]

If the great joy is for all people, the only way that can happen is for them to be TOLD about it.

Now, the shepherds, not being fools, saw that this news story could easily be checked. All they had to do was go over to the town mangers (in the cave, you know, everybody knows where that is) and see if there was a newborn baby boy there...

But the critical line, you see, comes a little further down: "And all that heard wondered: and at those things that were told them by the shepherds." [Lk 2:18, emphasis added] Just a line further on, the Latin has the verb reversi sunt (they returned) - this provides a clue. It's as if the shepherds were REVERSED - in a manner of speaking, they had been promoted. The lowest are now doing the work of the highest. (Inversion of the hierarchy, you see.) They were now performing the office of messenger. Exalted above even the principalities and powers, these poor folk were now the angels, and their feet are beautiful on the mountains [Is. 52:7] bringing the Good News: a Baby is born in Bethlehem.

It is all that is in us but a brief tenderness that is there made eternal; all that means no more than a momentary softening that is in some strange fashion become a strengthening and a repose; it is the broken speech and the lost word that are made positive and suspended unbroken; as the strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity. [GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:317]

Let us hasten to the cavern, pray there, then take on our duty to proclaim this good news, singing like the angels, singing the joy of good news over and over, again and again:

Doxa in `uyistoiV Qeon kai epi ghV eirhnh en anqrwpois eudokiaV.

Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

That is, "Glory in the highest to God and on Earth peace to men of good will."

A holy, merry, Chestertonian Christmas to all!

--Dr. Thursday


PS It strikes me, having read this over again, that there is a paradox between the Hobbit-like secret invasion and its news-flash reporting by angelic choir. Of course there's a paradox - we're talking about God-made-man here, what would you expect? Chesterton doesn't have a copyright on paradox, little buddy. God was quite aware of the leak, having lit up the star (whatever it really was!) as we saw previously - he knew he was drawing a line in the sand - or perhaps I should say on the Hill - and at the right time he would cross it. It was even so prophesied: "This child shall be a sign of contradiction..." [Lk 2:34] More on this some other time. But don't forget that Christmas is first and foremost a Mass - that is, a sacrifice. -- Dr. T.

O Antiphons (con't)

O Flower of Jesse's stem,
you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples;
kings stand silent in your presence;
the nations bow down in worship before you.
Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

Nov/Dec Gilbert Magazine

I had a chance to peruse the latest Gilbert today, and I enjoyed so many of the great articles I found there.

First, I have to say the opening editorial was great. But then, I was consulted on it (as the author of a book on Harry Potter, which included plenty of Chestertonian references). I was immediately drawn to the Aidan Mackey defense of Harry Potter, which I was pleased to read. Every time I read of another Chestertonian who understands the Potter books, I feel more reassured about writing my book. Aidan's article, "Plain Without a Sledgehammer", was something I could have written. My sentiments exactly.

I then looked at The Wise Men, an illustrated work by Beatrice Wilczynski. I enjoyed this work. I also noticed that sprinkled throughout the magazine, there were many little "The Three Wise Men" trivia bits, which I enjoyed reading and finding.

Next, I read Nick Milne's Harry Potter article, as I enjoy his work on line and since he's a previous Gilbert and Frances Scholarship winner, I knew he'd have something fascinating to say. And again, I felt I could say, my sentiments exactly. Another great article.

Then, since I've enjoyed James G. ("Gerry") Bruen, Jr.'s stories in the past, I skipped over to his "Terrific Tots" and found, once again, a modern Chestertonian article with a great punch line. This story idea is one I've actually had myself but never wrote, so I was glad to see Gerry do a great job of it. He actually made me feel sorry for Saundra's kids. Can I adopt them?!

Then, just because I always forget what I wrote, I read my review of Regina Doman's book, Waking Rose. I don't remember writing it that well, so I think some editor really improved it. ;-)

After that, because I am really a fan of Edward Chesterton's (partly because he was an amateur photographer, and I happen to like photographers, and partly because he was the father of someone I love), I enjoyed reading Dale Ahlquist's short article on Mr. Chesterton. I also had the idea while reading it that those scrap books could probably be found in some landfill in England somewhere, and someone should be looking for them. Someone should have run after the trash man, too. Yes, it is frustrating that Gilbert threw all those things away.

I forgot to mention that somewhere in there I read News with Views, because I always enjoy that feature.

More tomorrow.

O Antiphons (con't)

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel, who didst appear unto Moses in the burning bush, and gavest to him the Law on Sinai: COME and redeem us by Thy outstretched arm.

Thanks to Dr. Thursday.