The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Advisor in Chief

4.18.06 @ 12:01AM

(Page 5 of 5)

The house did have incredible hardwood floors that were indeed beautiful. Of course, that beauty only came out AFTER we busted our butts sanding and finishing them. You should see a 10 year old trying to control a floor sander as big as he is. It could have been something out of Funniest Home Videos. (I swear I have no IDEA how the cat's tail got skinned like that.) It had a lot of other incredible woodwork as well, but like the floors, it took a LOT of work to make it incredible looking.

Sure, the home had character. LOTS of character. But it seems we were ALWAYS working on that character, nurturing it, understanding it, trying to improve its feelings and self-worth by repairing and fixing it to the point where it would "last" until the next thing went wrong. There was always that unspoken promise that "someday" it would all be "done" and we could relax. It never happened. I moved out when I was 18. Eighteen years later when my mom died, she was STILL at it. However, by then, I think it was almost a game with her. A few years before she died, I offered to help her buy a new, smaller house that she could handle but she refused; you could tell the ongoing endeavor had become part of her life.

As an adult, I only buy new homes. My wife sometimes points out older homes in the area for sale, remarks on their "character," and comments on how much fun it would be to own one and fix it up. Having lived that "character" nightmare for 18 years, I never play along.

I don't care for the McMansions. I don't understand what anyone can even DO with10,000 sq. ft. Hell, my wife and I can barely clean the 2500 sq. ft. we have. I can't even imagine owning a home with rooms I might never ever enter!
-- Karl Auerbach
Eden, Utah

BACK TO BASICS
Re: Charles Pfeiffer's letter ("Drone Religion") in Reader Mail's That's the Spirit and Mark Gauvreau Judge's Catechism's Comeback:

Charles Pfeiffer wrote, "Mark Gauvreau Judge's assessment of the Second Vatican Council is rather dreary. He complains that one's catechetical instruction should be "living, conscious, and active."

Mr. Judge is absolutely correct about catechesis, but in general wrong about the Second Vatican Council, mainly because of his understanding of catechesis. He seems to think of it mainly as the absorption of abstract propositions regarding the Christian faith, and therefore something that is essentially pedagogic in nature. That seems to be the broad understanding of catechesis in the Latin Church, but the Eastern Churches have a different definition. Catechesis proper is "initiation into the Divine Mysteries" -- which is to say, the sacramental life of the Church. This is accomplished mainly through the liturgy of the Church -- through the Divine Praises (the Liturgy of the Hours), the Mysteries (Sacraments) themselves, and above all through the Divine Liturgy (Mass) and its Mystery of Mysteries, the Eucharist. Catechesis is thus an active, living, conscious participation in the faith, a continual growing in the faith through which we "put on Christ" and become sharers in the divine nature (Theosis).

Liturgically centered catechesis is thus the primary duty of the ordained ministers of the Church through their leadership in the liturgy and ministry over the sacraments. Eastern Christians would contrast catechesis with "religious education" (padaeia), which is what most Western Christians would understand as "catechesis." But if catechesis proper is a matter of sacramental initiation, religious education is "faith in search of understanding" -- an attempt to put an intellectual and conceptual framework around the mysteries which must remain ineffable. Put another way, catechesis is an exercise in theology (theologia as the Greeks would have it) or theologia prima: experiential contemplation upon the nature of the divine; religious education, on the other hand, is more theoria (theologia secunda): exposition and elaboration of the implications of the mysteries revealed through the theologia prima.

With these distinctions blurred or eliminated in the Western Church, liturgy has become alienated from its catechetical purpose, for which is substituted the dry, didactic prose of the CCC. A contrast between the CCC and the Byzantine Catholic catechism (Light for Life) is instructive -- while the CCC runs many hundreds of pages and is generously larded with citations from various Papal decrees and encyclicals, conciliar acts and constitutions, myriad theological treatises and even canon law, Light for Life consists of three slim (100 pages) volumes divided according to different aspects of Christian life -- belief, worship and living one's faith in the world. Footnotes are rather scarce, and most references are either to Scripture or to the liturgy, for the purpose of the volumes is to illuminate what the Church does at prayer, since that is the true rule of faith (lex orandi lex credendi), the source and touchstone of all theology.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
-- Stuart Koehl
Falls Church, Virginia

AID AND SUCCOR
Re: Ben Stein's Greetings From Rancho Mirage:

Thank you, Mr. Stein.

I would love to see you pen something as eloquent in support of our wives, husbands and children.
-- LCDR Jeff Morgan
U.S. Coast Guard

Thank you for your words. They mean a lot to all of us. I'm not serving on the front line but I feel the same way you do about all my Brothers and Sisters in uniform. Thank you for spending the time to write down such wonderful words of gratitude. Sometimes I wonder what our society coming to, and then something said, written or demonstrated is done to help reinforce the fact that not everyone in the world has lost sight of the most important things in life, things like God, Family and a deep sincere love of country. Once again, thank you so much for the words of thanks.
-- Michael Parshall, SSgt
USAF Recruiting Service

Thank you for saying so well what all of us need to say. My daughter has two brothers-in-law who are presently serving in Iraq. I am emailing this to them.
-- Charla Gilleland
Redstone Farm
Rush Springs, Oklahoma

Referring to the article by Ben Stein "Greeting From Rancho Mirage." Spectacular article. I am glad to know that someone out there in this country feels this way and I do believe there are many more. I would hope the same is thought of the families and spouses sitting home deployment after deployment with little time in between. They are, along with my wife, are heroes to me. I am going on a second tour to Baghdad way to soon. In-fact this article was forwarded to me by an NCO who is on his second tour, his first was with me. He headed back with less than a six-month break. Consider that, 24 months in Iraq with only six months between tours to say hello and get to know your spouse and kids again. Just thought you should know that particular case with many more just like his.
-- SSG John Dolan

Letter to the Editor

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