Monday, April 11, 2005


This plaque is quite fine for those of our present world who are so entrenched in this world that they cannot see beyond it; those who's conception of heaven is a mamby-pamby life reclining on a cloud. However, I found this outside of a Franco-Latin (Roman Catholic) church, in front of a statue of our Lady-who is the supreme example of one who forsook this world for the joy of life eternal.
Pertinent quotes:
The future Kingdom has not been abandoned by modern Christians, but it has been so "toned down" that one wonders how strong the faith of Christians is. Particularly all the involvement of Christians in the projects of social idealism, seems to me a way of saying: "You, the worldly, are right. Our Kingdom 'not of this world' is so distant and we can't seem to get it across to you; so we will join you in building something we can actually see, something better than Christ and His Kingdom—a reign of peace, justice, brotherhood on earth." This is a "new Christianity," a refinement, it seems to me, of the Christianity of the "Grand Inquisitor" of Dostoyevsky.

    Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

...man in his fallen condition feels the dissolution of the present world and of his own existence as a pain, a suffering; feels it as a sorrow because he has bound the affections which form part of his very being to the image of this world which is passing away. This attachment to the things of this world is felt particularly strongly by those who do not believe that there is any further transformation of this world after the life which we now know.

    Fr. Dumitru Staniloae

The modern idealism that hopes for "heaven on earth" hopes likewise for the vague "transformation" of man—the ideal of the "superman" (in diverse forms, conscious or not), which, however absurd, has a great appeal to a mentality that has been trained to believe in "evolution" and "progress."

    Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

7 comments:

Colonel K said...

Apropos to the general situation at hand in our times we're living in today at the present moment.

Anonymous said...

especially when new information comes to light.

Anonymous said...

reminds me of this story
"http://www.obviousnews.com/breakingnews/stories/obviousnews-555604.html"
make it to the last sentence if you can as its worth its 'wait' in gold.

Anonymous said...

I never have to push my glasses up you freaks!

Colonel K said...

Hey, they stay in place: have you been sued yet for people becoming cross-eyed from your product? It'll happen, then all you'll have is a remote control! (and a chair, and an ashtray, and...)

Jacob Aleksander said...

I don't know what the convenience of not pushing ones glasses up has to do with the eternal reality before us...

Jacob Aleksander said...

give me convenience or give me death evidently...