More Congress Updates

Last night the Congress went a lot better for me for a couple of reasons. First, I felt better. Second, the speakers weren't speaking a million miles an hour. Third, we had handouts in English on the Powerpoint slides. Fourth, they turned down the heating lamps above my head that were frying me. Fifth, the pieces to the puzzle were starting to come together a bit more. I'm going to hold off on putting my thoughts down on paper yet, because I still have some more reflection and research to do before really being able to communicate the concepts.


One of the aspects of the Congress is Relgious Artwork. Above, you can see a sculpture of St. Rose of Lima. Apparently St. Rose is almost always depicted with a baby Jesus. I really need to read more about her...

This picture is a part of an 8ft tall piece of work that has all these little characters in different scenes. Above you can see the Bishop and the people singing around the tomb of Jesus.

After the Congress, my roommate, his friend Juan, and I went out to grab a bite to eat. When walked a bit to this diner and I was greeted with this fake US $20 bill. Apparently, the owner is showing that they can detect forged bills and this is what happens if you try to use them here.

One thing that really annoys me about Peru is the tiny, thin napkins that are provided. Essentially they're only for "one time" use. I pretty much go through 5-6 of these little suckers at every meal.

After dinner, I got a history lesson from these guys. I learned a lot about the liberation of South America and how "history" incorrectly celebrates the liberation as a mostly South American battle, when in reality, the British and French were dominate players in trying to dissmantle Spain's colonial influence. One comment that Juan made really resonated with me, "I don't think that South America was ready for independence. We kind of had it forced upon us without the structure and ability to govern on our own." This made a lot of sense to me. How can a people, with no experience in democracy, or ruling for that matter, be expected to produce a democracy? This, I think, is a good example of what may happen in Iraq and Afganistan. Instead of a full Representational Democracy, maybe something simpler like a Democratic Monarchy, which moves the people in the right direction, without completely overthrowing power, might be more realistic.

Also, notice in this picture the great care that they are taking trying to get over this little fence. I just stepped over this thing with no problem, but being short Peruvians, they were in quite the predicament. Let's just say the pole was a little to high for comfort...

Feeling better...

I'm feeling a bit better as I write this entry. For those of you who have been following along, this is the second stomach episode I've had, but luckily it wasn't as bad as the first go round.

Here are some pictures from the Congress on the Anthropology of the Human Person:

I really liked this depiction of the last supper (Peruvian style). If you can't tell, the food is tradition Peruvian. Very cool.

There are about 50 Religious Sisters here, and maybe 70 in formation (the sisters have the navy blue habits and the ones in formation wear white). The really awesome thing is 95% of them are under the age of 40! I believe they are one of the fastest growing orders in the world.

A couple hundred of us taking a break and getting a snack.

Outside of the art exhibit.

Tomorrow I'll share some information on what the Anthropology of the Human Person is all about (because it's pretty amazing!).

Until then, I better rest up and feel better for another busy day tomorrow!

Sick again

Last night I got the "Peruvian Virus" part 2. I woke up in a pool of sweat and had some serious stomach issues. I crawled out of bed about 3 hours ago and I'm trying to make it to the second night of the Congress on the Anthropology of the Human Person.

Day 1 was pretty amazing. I'll have some detailed thoughts and reflections when I write again tonight (if I feel well enough).

Blessings!

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 10 (Concluding Thoughts)

I conclude with a claim to infallibility. I give you two infallible prognoses: One, if you we do not use this weapon, we will not win this war. Two, if we do use this weapon, we will win this war. Or more subtly, insofar as we use this weapon, we will win this war, and insofar as we do not, we will not.

We can win, because we wield here the world’s most unconquerable weapon, the strongest force in the universe. To translate it from the abstract to the concrete, the weapon is Christ’s Blood. Not Christ without blood, not merely a beautiful ideal. And not blood without Christ, not a merely human sacrifice and martyrdom, but Christ’s Blood.

Back when there were more communists in Russia than in American universities, Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say that the difference between Russia and America was that Russia was the cross without Christ, and America was Christ without the cross.

Neither will win. Neither will work. Neither sacrifice without love nor love without sacrifice. But the Blood of Christ will work. For that blood flows from His Sacred Heart, and the heart of that Heart is agape, divine love. That is why it will work—because love never gives up.
And that is why we will never give up and why we will win. Why we whose food is this Blood are invincible.

The hard-nosed, successful, secular lawyer Gerry Spence writes: “A small boy and a bully meet. When the small boy is knocked down, he gets up and attacks again, over and over, until at last he will win. For nothing in the world is as fearsome as a bloody, battered opponent who will never surrender.”

Never.

Winston Churchill delivered the shortest and most memorable commencement speech of all time at his alma mater during World War II: “Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.” That’s all.

We will win the war, because no matter how many times we fall down, no matter how many times we fail at being saints, no matter how many times we fail at love, we will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 9

Last year, an American Catholic bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations for ways to increase vocations to the priesthood. The priest replied in his report, “The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, Your Excellency, would be your canonization.”

Why not yours?

But how? We always want to know how. Give me a method, a technology, a means to this end. What does that question mean, “How can I become a saint?” Or “Give me a means to the end of sanctity.” It means, “Give me something that is easier than sanctity, which will cause sanctity. So that if I do this something or attain this something, then this something will be the middle term, the link between me and sanctity.”

No. There is none. No prayers, no meditations, no 12-steps programs, no yogas, no psychological techniques, no techniques at all. There can be no button to push for sanctity, any more than for love. For sanctity is simply love: loving God with all your soul and mind and strength.

How do you love? You just do it. A cause cannot produce an effect greater than itself. And nothing in the world is greater than sanctity, nothing greater than love. Therefore, no cause, no human cause, can produce sanctity. There can never be any technology for sanctity.
Of course, God is its cause. Grace is its cause. The Holy Spirit is its cause. “Oh well, why doesn’t God cause it then? If sanctity isn’t a do-it-yourself thing but an only-God-can-do-it thing, then why doesn’t God make me a saint? If only grace can do it, why doesn’t He give me that grace?”

Because you don’t want it. If you wanted it, He’d give it. He promised that: “All who seek find.” It’s back to “just say yes.” It’s infinitely simpler than we think, and that’s why it’s hard. The hard word in the formula “just say yes” is the word “just.”

We are comfortable with Christ and theology or Christ and psychology or Christ and America or Christ and the Republican Party or Christ and the Democratic Party or Christ and phonics or Christ and dieting. But just plain Christ, all Christ, Christ drunk straight, not mixed, we find far too dangerous for our tastes.

Aslan is not a tame lion. Just say yes to Him? You never know what he’d do with you!

Feeling...well...numb

Well, I don't know where to begin today.

Each day, I try to think about something interesting that happened, something exciting that I could take a picture of or share about.

There were no pictures today, there were no "exciting things," just some deep realizations:

1. The Church is much stronger than I thought. I've spoken to lay people, priests, and bishops, and I've heard their valid concerns: we are losing many battles. We have fought the pro-life battle for 30+ years and are only making incremental advancements. We have fewer religious than we did 30 years ago, more young people have little to no concern about being married in the Church (let along remaining a practicing Catholic). There's also the growing hostility of the secular world to religion (ie. Universities, Politicians, and the Media). Yet, after all that, I believe the Church is strong. Tonight I went to a Mass for the opening of the Congress of the Anthropology of the Human Person. The scene was impressive 150 Sodalites dressed in dark blue suits (Brothers who take vows of celebacy and obediance to the Pope), 50 religious sisters in habits, 25 priests, 2 Bishops, and 100s of people packed into the Church to celebrate Mass. This wasn't a normal Mass celebration, these were serious soldiers. You could have heard the congregation singing from at least a mile away.
2. The Church has many Saints. After Mass I met 15 or so people, including a few Americans that were in the CLM. They all wanted to know what I was doing here, which considering the length of my story, I spared them. Each one of them shared with me the type of work they're doing here, or what they'll be doing, and it wasn't out of pride, because they were deeply humble people, but it was clearly out of the Love of God that brought them to do the work that they were doing. I met 2 Sisters from the Philippines, who had gone there with nothing but faith. Now there are 7 of them, with 6 in formation to join them. I met a jack of all trades professor who spent time in the ghettos of Brazil working with the poorest of the poor, who also happens to be an intellectual and an expert on the Shroud of Turin.
3. I'm very special, but not. Probably for the first time in my life, I felt like there were so many people that were just like me. People with intellectual curiosity (and the IQ horsepower to drive it), an intense sense of adventure (yet tempered with prudence and obediance), an unyielding committment to God and the Church, and the courage to answer any call. It was like meeting God's Special Forces: there were the ground troops, specialists, generals, medics, drill sergents, nurses, the whole 9 yards. The incredible thing is that people are coming from all over the world to Peru and the CLM. They're not just Peruvians or South Americans, but folks for all 4 corners of the Earth - which is strange because the CLM is only in about 20 countries, but so many of them just have incredible stories of how they came to be here.
4. I think I'm going through a dark night of the soul (http://www.gotquestions.org/dark-night-soul.html). I know God is taking care of me, I don't have much anxiety about things (and why I'm here), but at the same time, I feel distant from Him. It's almost like He is teaching me not to be dependent on "feeling good," but instead being faithful without the "warm feeling" I had when I decided to come here. Let me be clear, I'm not doubting my decision, in fact I have no doubt that I should be here, but I think He's just trying to call me closer and I have no where to hide.
5. Life is so much clearer without distractions, but it also involves more suffering. It's been wonderful not having a cell phone, not having TV, not having the constant pounding of media and advertising that we get so much of in the US. It's also been nice to be lonely. It's been nice to have more prayer time, to be alone, to think, and to not be distracted by "work." Like Our Mother Mary said, "Totus Tous" (All Yours), nothing less. Yet, the consequences of this are everything. When you say "all yours," you have nothing (and everything). There is no place to hide, but also nothing to hide from. You have the promises of eternal life, but also the consequences of what that will mean while you're here. The question becomes not: "is it worth it?" but "what else is worth it?"

Top 5 Monday Hits

So, I'm running short on time, but I wanted to give a Top 5 update:

1. It's good to be tall in Peru, clothes may be harder to find, but when you do they're on clearance - So, think about sales in the US, they usually have clearance items that don't sell. All those XL, XXL, and XXXL clothes, here it's the L's that don't sell!
2. You need a passport to use your Credit Card. Oh, and if you don't have it with you, memorize it. If you don't you look like an idiot and...a thief
3. ATM's don't post their fees...concerning. Do I take out a lot of money and get hit with a flat fee, or a little and get hit with a percentage?
4. Micro-Buses post fixed fees, but they charge you whatever they want (and they usually do)
5. Remember that you still have friends working at Vanguard, and if you want to keep them as friends, you should be careful of the non-politically correct emails you may send and also updates on your latest trading habits...

5 1/2. It's funny that Congressmen Boehner is complaining about contraceptions in the stimulus package...his name is ironic, and it makes you wonder what Pelosi is wanting to stimulate because it's certainly not the economy (my middle school joke of the day!).

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 8

3. The Weapon

And that gives us our third necessary thing to know—the weapon that will win the war and defeat our enemy. All is takes is saints.

Can you imagine what 12 more Mother Teresas or 12 more John Wesleys would do for this poor old world? Can you imagine what would happen if just 12 people in this room did it? Gave Christ 100 percent of their hearts with 100 percent of their hearts 100 percent of the time and held back nothing, absolutely nothing?

No, you can’t imagine it—any more than anyone could have imagined how 12 nice Jewish boys could conquer the Roman Empire.

You can’t imagine it, but you can do it. You can become a saint. Absolutely no one and nothing can stop you. It’s your free choice.

Here is one of the most wonderful and terrifying sentences I have ever read, from William Law’s Serious Call, “If you will look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not even now a saint. You do not wholly want to be.”

That insight is terrifying because it is an indictment, but it is wonderful and hopeful because it is also an offer, an open door. Each of us can become a saint. We really can. We really can. I say it three times, because I think we do not really believe that deep down. For if we did, how could we endure being anything less?

What holds us back? Fear of paying the price. What is the price? The answer is simple. T. S. Eliot gave it when he defined Christianity as “a condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything).” The price is everything—100 percent. Martyrdom, if required, and probably a worse martyrdom than the quick noose or stake, the martyrdom of dying daily, dying every minute for the rest of your life. Dying to all your desires and plans—including your plans about how to become a saint.

Or rather, not dying to your desires but dying to the you in your desires. I think this sounds much more mystical than it is. It is simply giving God a blank check. It is simply islam, complete submission. Fiat. Mary’s thing. Look at what it did 2000 years ago when she did it; it brought God down from heaven and thus saved the world.

It was meant to continue. If we do that Mary thing, that islam, and only if we do that, then all our apostolates will work—our preaching and teaching and writing and catechizing and mission-ing and fathering and mothering and studying and nursing and business-ing and pastoring and priesting—everything.

Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 7

Most of our religious culture is simply embarrassed at this idea, therefore it is embarrassed at Christ. For He is the One who gave us this answer: “Do not fear those who can kill the body and then [have] no power over you. I will tell you whom to fear: Fear him who has power to destroy both body and soul in hell.” That is Satan, of course, not God, who work is to save souls, not to destroy them. Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat.” And Peter learned the lesson and passed it on to us in his first epistle: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist, steadfast in the faith.”

Paul, too, knew that we are not contending against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Pope Leo XIII saw this truth. He received a vision of the coming 20th century—a vision that history has proved terrifyingly true. He saw Satan at the beginning of time allowed one century to do his worst work in, and Satan chose the 20th. This Pope Leo, with the name and the heart of a lion, was so overcome by the terror of this vision that he fell into a swoon like a Victorian lady. When he revived, he composed a prayer for the whole Church to use throughout this century of spiritual warfare:

St. Michael, archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against
t5he wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly
pray, and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust
into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the
ruin of souls.

This prayer was known by every Catholic and prayed after every Mass—until the 60s. Exactly when Leo’s Church was struck with the incomparably swift disaster, which we have not yet named, but which future historians must: The disaster that has taken away half of our priests, three-quarters of our nuns, and nine-tenths of our children’s theological knowledge by turning the Faith of Our Fathers into the doubts of our dissenters in a miraculous reversal of Christ’s first miracle at Cana, turning the wine of the gospel into the water of psychobabble. An anti-miracle by the anti-Christ.

The restoration of the Church, and thus the world, might well begin with the restoration of the Lion’s prayer and the Lion’s vision. Because this is the vision of all the saints, all the apostles, and Our Lord Himself—the vision of a real Satan, a real hell, and a real spiritual warfare.

I said there were two enemies. The second is even more horrible than the first. There is one nightmare even more terrifying than being chased by the devil, even caught by the devil, even tortured by the devil. That is the nightmare of becoming a devil. The horror outside your soul is terrible enough, but not as terrible as the horror inside your soul. The horror inside the soul, of course, is sin. Another word, which, if any dare to speak it today, elicits embarrassment from Christian and condemnation from the secularist, who condemns only condemnation, judges only judgmentalism, and believes the only sin is believing in sin.

All sin is the devil’s work, though he usually uses the flesh and the world as his instruments. Sin means doing the devil’s work, tearing and damaging God’s work. And we do this. That’s the only reason why the devil can do his awful work in our world. God won’t allow him to do it without our free consent.

And that’s the deepest reason why the Church is weak and why the world is dying. Because we are not saints.

Visiting some CLM Communities

Alejandro and I standing in front of a hand made mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Sodalites hand crafted this depiction by cutting pieces of rock. They worked in shifts 24 hours per day for about a month. Each stone is a sacrifce that one of the Sodalites made (for example running 10 miles). It is an incredible piece of work!Javier's feeding the community's pet Squirrels!

The "gringo" squirrel (he's white).

Come here little feller!