Notre Dammit!

There's a lot of information behind this, but basically at Notre Dame's most recent graduation ceremonies, when President Obama spoke, a group of Pro-Lifers showed up to peacefully demonstrate in the interest of Life. Apparently 88 of them were arrested for trespassing, while none of the Pro-"Choicers" were.

Basically, this is a petition to the president of Notre Dame (a priest not living up to his calling, apparently), asking him to release the demonstrators. Please sign it.

http://www.tfpstudentaction.net/campaigns/notre-dame-drop-the-charges.html

An Ecumenical Effort

**This post contains spoilers to the Harry Potter series (particularly the final installment, and the Deathly Hallows). You have been warned**

This is all conjecture. Do with it what you will (except consume it with a grain of salt. That will hardly do anything for the flavor).

So we all know Rowling hails from the Presbyterian background (...right?) and we all know that the old Presbyters developed their theology from John Calvin, the sweetheart of a man who, unlike Martin Luther who sought reform, designed to completely break away from the established (thus, at that time, Catholic) church. Basically there was no love lost between those two groups, Calvinists and Catholics, that is, we are all of course aware of denominational disunity ("Oh, they can't be Christians, they...").

Ok, that's the set up. Let's build.

Severus Snape is forever oscillating in our minds from "good guy" to "bad guy." It's never clear where he stands. "If he's a good guy, which that action makes him out to be, why is he so mean to Harry that Harry can only hate him back, unless that's for his cover... but still, he doesn't have to be such a jerk," versus, "He's such a jerk. He obviously just did that seemingly good thing just to keep his position of double-double agent intact. He's covering his own ass and he's an ass, to boot!"

Then what happens? (This is where the spoilers come in. Stop teasing yourself if you haven't finished the stories yet. This will ruin it for you!!!). When Snape's ("Professor Snape's, Harry") life is forfeit, and he's in his final moments, he gives Harry his memories, which reveal that Snape's perpetual love for Harry's mom, Lily, was the driving force behind Snape's actual working-for-the-good-guys work. We see that, while Snape truly didn't like Harry for Harry's resemblance to his father James, and treated him thusly, Snape was doing all he could to subvert, and surreptitiously help Harry eventually end, Voldemort's reign of terror for love of Harry's mother.

In the epilogue, when Harry's son, Albus Severus Potter, is anxious about which House he will be sorted into ("...not Slytherin..."), Harry tells his son that he's named for two Hogwarts headmasters, one of which is from Slytherin, and "he's the bravest man I've ever known."

When Harry sees the fullness of gravity of the position Snape put himself in--and more importantly, why--he doesn't just say "Oh, cool. Snape was good after all. Sweet." No! His entire perception--thoughts and feelings--change. Snape is now the bravest man Harry knows. He now is filled with such respect and admiration for the man that Harry names his very son after him. Think about it. How could you think or feel anything but all of this for the person who loves your mother so much that he puts himself in the position of physical torture, mutilation and humiliation just for the memory of her, just for her progeny (who he personally hates!).

Rowling's message to the Calvinistic world (and Christian world at large)? How can Catholics, who we see as having perpetrated injustices throughout Church history (to say nothing of the injustices all denominations have perpetrated since the beginning of their own personal histories) and who we think are just off theologically really be as bad as we think they are when they love the Blessed Mother of Our Lord (Luke 1.43,48) as much as they do?

How indeed, Mrs. Rowling? How indeed?

([{And, Chris, Aaron, this isn't the piece I've alluded to. No, that one is far more brilliant and dazzling to look at (if it ever gets finished)}]).

A note of praise

You allow for me to be who I truly am.

You have proven my worth through Your Incarnation, You have shown Your Love through Your Passion and You have redeemed my life through Your Resurrection.

Our nature is irrevocably united to Yours through Your Divine Person, the Son, the Eternal Word, Jesus the Christ.

Man is blessed in all Creation and every human person--an alloy of the Divine--shines like the sun and deserves every fiber of love the Divine can eek through me.

Lord, pick up my nature once more in Your Personhood and give me the grace to love with all of Us.

Amen+

Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One…

**This conversation never actually took place**

During the Pope’s recent apostolic visit to the United States, while at a forum in Washington, DC, a Baptist minister stood up to test Benedict XVI.

“What must I do to be saved?”

“What is written in the Bible? How do you read it?”

“Accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.”

The Pope said in reply, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself and asked the Pope, “What does it mean to ‘accept Jesus into your heart’?”

In reply, the Pope said: “There was a poor man, a crackhead, on your streets. He came to the States from South America, because the living conditions back home were no longer viable. You see, a certain corporation moved their coffee bean field outside his village and the chemicals used to catalyze the growing process poisoned the water table underground, rendering all the well water in the region undrinkable.

“He knocked on the door of a church in the first major city he could hitchhike to, thinking to himself, ‘A Christian, and that in the Land of Opportunity, shall understand my plight and give me honest work.’ The man who answered the door, a right-wing evangelical pastor who bled Red-White-and-Blue, turned this man away for he was dirty and could not speak English. After repeated events such as this, the only work the man could find was dealing drugs to others in differing yet similar situations on the same harsh street.

“A representative from ACLU, doing an investigation on the poor living conditions of the residential motels in this man’s area, took pity on this man and fought to make sure this man, and those like him, had honest work and decent housing, despite his past, his economic status and his ability to speak the local language. This representative also connected with Green Peace to fight the unjust practices of the corporation who made this man’s homeland unlivable to begin with.

“Tell me, which do you think was the one who accepted Jesus into his heart?”

The minister replied, “The one who lived out John 13.35: ‘…you are my disciples if you love one another.’”

The Pope told him, “Go, and do likewise.”

**Note: As Jesus didn’t think priests and Levites were inherently bad (being He is the one Who founded their roles), so too this is not a blanket statement concerning right wing, patriotic evangelicals. The point (concerning this specific aspect of this piece) is that we need to make a distinction between cultural Christianity and real Christianity.**