Showing posts with label Gabriel Bunge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gabriel Bunge. Show all posts
Friday, October 25, 2013
Friday, December 14, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Gimme That Old Time Manly Religion
Why I'd Be a Pagan by Scott Locklin
An essay representative of the alt right's attempt to reappropriate pre-Christian religion as being part, if not the basis, of "traditional European" culture.
Well, something could be said about the decay of human religions since the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the result of creating gods in the image of fallen man. We hear the echoes (from Nietzsche?) of the criticism that Christianity is for the weak. In actuality, Latin Christianity teaches us that grace perfects nature and enables men to become great men in and through Christ, full of strength and virtue, even though their works may seem small and humble to the world. But what sort of convincing defense can we muster at this time, when the Roman Catholic churches of the West are in such poor shape and the needs of men are neglected?
Leon Podles has written his genealogy attempting to explain the emasculation of Christian culture. Why not blame excessive Marian devotion, as represented by the Western Christianity's adoption of the Rosary? (In contrast to the importance of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodoxy.) This is one cause, if at all, and not sufficient to explain the phenomenon in question. What factors were at work, and when did the problem first arise? There are doubtless many factors that are older - the lack of a vernacular liturgy leading to the replacement of a proper liturgical spirituality (dependent upon the intelligibility of the prayers and texts) with something else, the rise of the nation-state and the erosion of community, further exacerbated by industrialization and the centralization of political and economic power, turning men into wage slaves with very little political identity. The full exercise of citizenship may not be necessary for the Christian vocation, but one needs to be able to live the order of charity with one's family, neighbors and fellow men (his brothers in the community) and this has gradually been lost to many of us.
Still, I am reminded of this interview with the Orthodox monk Gabriel Bunge:
The Pauline reform of the Roman rite is not without problems, but at present I am concerned with the texts of the ordinary form, but with the style of worship that accompanied the reform, the '60s sensibility that plagues our parishes. One noticeable aspect of this is contemporary "Catholic worship music," but we can also consider the introduction of women as lectors, cantors, servers, and extraordinary eucharistic ministers. Women should be allowed to sing in the choir or schola, but when they speak as lectors, their vocal performance of the text distracts and is annoyingly artificial. (The same can be said of males, but women are worse because their voices do not naturally command attention.) The readings for the liturgy should be sung, but having a woman sing would not solve this latter problem.
OF worship can thus be said to be more "feminine," with contemporary music that has origins in the Romantic Era and is characterized by sentimentalism. What we should have is liturgy that engages men as men, rather than pandering to exaggerated female sensibilities; both reason and the senses should be involved, but reason is acknowledged as having priority. Truth and intelligible beauty cannot be replaced by emotion without severe consequences. A more "traditional" form of liturgy would appeal to women as well, since they seek order and truth as well. Appealing to their senses and emotions does nothing to foster an authentic Christian spirituality for them.
Can you think of any examples of contemporary Catholic worship songs that are consonant with manly singing? (Even Gregorian chant may not be enough, or certain interpretations of it!) Men do want to glorify God in song, not sing superficial, narcissistic, sappy or stupid songs that end up drawing attention to the self rather than God.
Despite the open-mindedness of Benedict XVI and John Paul II and the apparent numbers of its members, I think for the reasons given above that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a dead end - it is just the NO cult or worship style taken to another level (understandable, as it promotes a form of spirituality that generally relies too much upon sensible manifestations).
And now a comment about the implications of a feminist-dominated Church on the "real world"...
An older seminarian recounts that one of his teachers, an American nun, harshly and repeatedly rebuked him in class (i.e. in the presence of his classmates, then). He didn't say it was emasculating but I have no doubt that it was. St. Paul's stricture on women teaching or being in authority seems to apply outside of the temple, as this is one negative consequence. That sort of dynamic also is probably not a good one for men and women in general. A woman may be acceptable as a teacher of those who are young; she is just a mommy figure. But after puberty, having another mommy figure is not appropriate. This seminarian probably can't even talk back, since she has a position of authority and there could be negative consequences. How many women respond well to criticism of abuse of authority? In this case, it really would be personal. If men were to abuse authority in such a manner, they would lose respect and standing among men, both their peers and those who are subordinate to them. But a woman? She can get away with this without any consequences.
Even if a man is reasonably rebuked by a woman, it smacks of being scolded by mommy. If a man is reasonably rebuked by a man that he respects, it is different. He hopes to earn his respect one day, perhaps even be treated as an equal by him. But a man cannot be an equal to a woman because of their sex differences. A female may try to ape male leadership, don't she doesn't know the nuances and the principle that one must lead by example, first of all - how can you really be an example to men if you are a woman?
Should students be more like apprentices, not just learning a specific skill or techne, but learning from moral exemplars and mentors as well? We are used to over-specialization and the compartmentalization of life. Still, a teacher is not a spiritual father to one's students, despite the age difference, but more of a brother or fellow citizen. He can offer fraternal correction, but it seems out of place for him to act like a father figure, unless that is what the student seeks. (Even then, that may be a rather perilous position to assume.) As a teacher he is not a supervisor of the entirety of a student's life, though he will supervise the limited good of the proper functioning of the classroom setting as well as a student's study habits, though indirectly. (Should corporal punishment be limited only to those who exercise a role with respect to moral training? If a teacher acts in loco parentis or in place of the community, then they may have the right to punish in that manner. But if a teacher is only safeguarding the good of the learning environment, then the most he can do is to expel a disruptive student.)
*I missed this when I read the interview with Fr. Gabriel the first couple of times: " He has been living in the Skete of the Holy Cross in Swiss canton Tichino since 1980 following the ancient typicon of Saint Benedict." I do not doubt that the Rule of St. Benedict can be harmonized with being in the Byzantine rite; after all, isn't this what some of the monks at Chevetogne do? (Fr. Bunge was originally from that community.) But can one be a hermit and still be said to be following the Rule of St. Benedict? I would like to see Chevetogne one day, to see how one can be an Eastern Benedictine.
An essay representative of the alt right's attempt to reappropriate pre-Christian religion as being part, if not the basis, of "traditional European" culture.
These aren't the gods of narrow backed poltroons, or dastardly over civilized urbanites; these are the gods of real men who carved a raw living from the earth, and by hacking gobberts of gore from their enemies' living flesh. They were not smarmy urban stock brokers, vegetable fetishists, or grubby cube-dwelling software developers. For that matter, they weren't even soldiers; they were freebooters, farmers, and hunters. I suppose the original gods of the Vedas and of the Greeks were something very similar to the gods of the Norsemen, but, through the mists of time, they have been corrupted. Certainly, the way the gods are spoken of in Homer is much like enormity of the Norse gods. The stories of the Greek gods are transmitted to us and filtered by centuries of perfumed city-dwelling degenerates, so we now think of Jove as a semi comedic fellow who had sex with a duck and a cow in his attempts to get away from his shrew wife, Hera. Alas the urban thunderer. But with Thor, we get the raw, unexpurgated, red-bearded, wild eyed, hammer wielding original item.Jack Donovan writes that this essay had a great influence on his own thinking.
Well, something could be said about the decay of human religions since the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the result of creating gods in the image of fallen man. We hear the echoes (from Nietzsche?) of the criticism that Christianity is for the weak. In actuality, Latin Christianity teaches us that grace perfects nature and enables men to become great men in and through Christ, full of strength and virtue, even though their works may seem small and humble to the world. But what sort of convincing defense can we muster at this time, when the Roman Catholic churches of the West are in such poor shape and the needs of men are neglected?
Leon Podles has written his genealogy attempting to explain the emasculation of Christian culture. Why not blame excessive Marian devotion, as represented by the Western Christianity's adoption of the Rosary? (In contrast to the importance of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodoxy.) This is one cause, if at all, and not sufficient to explain the phenomenon in question. What factors were at work, and when did the problem first arise? There are doubtless many factors that are older - the lack of a vernacular liturgy leading to the replacement of a proper liturgical spirituality (dependent upon the intelligibility of the prayers and texts) with something else, the rise of the nation-state and the erosion of community, further exacerbated by industrialization and the centralization of political and economic power, turning men into wage slaves with very little political identity. The full exercise of citizenship may not be necessary for the Christian vocation, but one needs to be able to live the order of charity with one's family, neighbors and fellow men (his brothers in the community) and this has gradually been lost to many of us.
Still, I am reminded of this interview with the Orthodox monk Gabriel Bunge:
There are two types of mysticism in the Catholic Church: restrained (inner work) and ecstatic. Both schools are rooted in the monastic tradition. The first school that originated in Sts. Macarius, Anthony, and Evagrius is the inner mysticism, “inner work.” But St. Macarius’ Homilies contain the other school too, more affective mysticism. Therefore he is traditionally considered to belong to the softened or semi- Messalianism, that is a kind of ecstatic monasticism. I think, that here we could see just two different spiritual temperaments that confront one another. That’s why it’s difficult to find a common language. The follower of the inner work could say to his opponent, “You are too sensual,” and the latter could reply, “You are too reasonable. You don’t have any inner experience.” And both these opinions would be wrong.I want to focus primarily on liturgy in this post, and not on living the order of charity towards a man's neighbors.
However, I have to admit that in the Middle Ages there were purely women’s mystical movements on the West that seem strange to me and are beyond my comprehension. I belong to a different school. I don’t have anything that could help me to understand or feel deeply that affective, ecstatic mysticism. The main rule of any spiritual life for me is restriction and lack of exaltation because exaltation itself is a ground for demonic prelest. This experience we can find today in charismatics. To avoid mistakes that Evagrius calls imitation of spiritual and mystic states, we have to be very careful, wise, and to possess simplicity and purity. Today it is called a self-suggested condition, that is, an imaginative mystic (spiritual) condition.
St. Theophan the Recluse, who is very popular in the West, by the way, understood the matter of western mystics very subtly. Once he exclaimed: “Oh, these Western people, they cannot distinguish between psychic and spiritual!” And really, when I talk to people who come for confession, I see how often they mix these things. One has to teach and help people to see the difference between their feelings and true spirituality from God. People quite often feel something deep inside and think “Here it is, here is that true spirituality.”
The Pauline reform of the Roman rite is not without problems, but at present I am concerned with the texts of the ordinary form, but with the style of worship that accompanied the reform, the '60s sensibility that plagues our parishes. One noticeable aspect of this is contemporary "Catholic worship music," but we can also consider the introduction of women as lectors, cantors, servers, and extraordinary eucharistic ministers. Women should be allowed to sing in the choir or schola, but when they speak as lectors, their vocal performance of the text distracts and is annoyingly artificial. (The same can be said of males, but women are worse because their voices do not naturally command attention.) The readings for the liturgy should be sung, but having a woman sing would not solve this latter problem.
OF worship can thus be said to be more "feminine," with contemporary music that has origins in the Romantic Era and is characterized by sentimentalism. What we should have is liturgy that engages men as men, rather than pandering to exaggerated female sensibilities; both reason and the senses should be involved, but reason is acknowledged as having priority. Truth and intelligible beauty cannot be replaced by emotion without severe consequences. A more "traditional" form of liturgy would appeal to women as well, since they seek order and truth as well. Appealing to their senses and emotions does nothing to foster an authentic Christian spirituality for them.
Can you think of any examples of contemporary Catholic worship songs that are consonant with manly singing? (Even Gregorian chant may not be enough, or certain interpretations of it!) Men do want to glorify God in song, not sing superficial, narcissistic, sappy or stupid songs that end up drawing attention to the self rather than God.
Despite the open-mindedness of Benedict XVI and John Paul II and the apparent numbers of its members, I think for the reasons given above that the Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a dead end - it is just the NO cult or worship style taken to another level (understandable, as it promotes a form of spirituality that generally relies too much upon sensible manifestations).
And now a comment about the implications of a feminist-dominated Church on the "real world"...
An older seminarian recounts that one of his teachers, an American nun, harshly and repeatedly rebuked him in class (i.e. in the presence of his classmates, then). He didn't say it was emasculating but I have no doubt that it was. St. Paul's stricture on women teaching or being in authority seems to apply outside of the temple, as this is one negative consequence. That sort of dynamic also is probably not a good one for men and women in general. A woman may be acceptable as a teacher of those who are young; she is just a mommy figure. But after puberty, having another mommy figure is not appropriate. This seminarian probably can't even talk back, since she has a position of authority and there could be negative consequences. How many women respond well to criticism of abuse of authority? In this case, it really would be personal. If men were to abuse authority in such a manner, they would lose respect and standing among men, both their peers and those who are subordinate to them. But a woman? She can get away with this without any consequences.
Even if a man is reasonably rebuked by a woman, it smacks of being scolded by mommy. If a man is reasonably rebuked by a man that he respects, it is different. He hopes to earn his respect one day, perhaps even be treated as an equal by him. But a man cannot be an equal to a woman because of their sex differences. A female may try to ape male leadership, don't she doesn't know the nuances and the principle that one must lead by example, first of all - how can you really be an example to men if you are a woman?
Feminism is not about equality, it's about women usurping men.
Appended:
Should students be more like apprentices, not just learning a specific skill or techne, but learning from moral exemplars and mentors as well? We are used to over-specialization and the compartmentalization of life. Still, a teacher is not a spiritual father to one's students, despite the age difference, but more of a brother or fellow citizen. He can offer fraternal correction, but it seems out of place for him to act like a father figure, unless that is what the student seeks. (Even then, that may be a rather perilous position to assume.) As a teacher he is not a supervisor of the entirety of a student's life, though he will supervise the limited good of the proper functioning of the classroom setting as well as a student's study habits, though indirectly. (Should corporal punishment be limited only to those who exercise a role with respect to moral training? If a teacher acts in loco parentis or in place of the community, then they may have the right to punish in that manner. But if a teacher is only safeguarding the good of the learning environment, then the most he can do is to expel a disruptive student.)
*I missed this when I read the interview with Fr. Gabriel the first couple of times: " He has been living in the Skete of the Holy Cross in Swiss canton Tichino since 1980 following the ancient typicon of Saint Benedict." I do not doubt that the Rule of St. Benedict can be harmonized with being in the Byzantine rite; after all, isn't this what some of the monks at Chevetogne do? (Fr. Bunge was originally from that community.) But can one be a hermit and still be said to be following the Rule of St. Benedict? I would like to see Chevetogne one day, to see how one can be an Eastern Benedictine.
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