CUTAWAYS: THRONE OF FIRE

We’ve all been there, right? Just like the Conan wannabe from 1983’s Throne of Fire, we think things are going our way and we have the devil on the ropes and then… things happen. What do we do then?

Okay, so maybe poor Siegfried there had to wing it on the spur of the moment. By the end of the movie, though, he does manage to get some help from a friend or two and come back to kick the spawn of Satan’s butt.

That’s the way it is when we’re battling the devil, whether it be physically or, more often than not, spiritually. Sometimes we just need help. As the Catechism puts it…

“The human person needs to live in society. Society is not for him an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature. Through the exchange with others, mutual service and dialogue with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his vocation.”

It’s one of the many reasons God requires that whole going to Church thing. He knows a lot of the time we’ll try to tough it out alone through hard spiritual times. But that just doesn’t always work. Sometimes we need someone else to lend a hand. But don’t take my word for it. St. Paul himself said it best in Hebrews 10:24-25…

“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

So, if you’re in a bad place spiritually and can’t seem to figure a good solution on your own, go find some help. That’s what the rest of us are here for.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 12: NIGHT OF THE MEEK

To bring this year's Twelve Clips of Christmas to a conclusion, let's end things with a little something from the pen of Rod Serling. We haven't gotten to this episode yet in our Twilight Binge, but what the heck, it's Christmas; consider it a gift.

Let's hear that closing narration one more time.

"A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There's a wondrous magic to Christmas and there's a special power reserved for little people. In short, there's nothing mightier than the meek."

You know, I don't think I need to add anything to that at all. Merry Christmas, everyone!

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 9: THE PRUNE SONG

Not every Christmas movie can be a classic and not every song a new standard. Such is the case with The Prune Song from The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. Incredibly, this tale of Santa having to take a second job to pay his rent never caught on with the kids. It did with HBO, though, who for some reason showed this thing nonstop back in their early days. Probably because nobody else wanted it.

The word "prune" in the song has no other meaning or purpose behind it other than it's the villain's name, one meant to associate the bad guy with having a big BM. THanks to the pain of watching this movie, however, it reminds me of the verb "prune," which means to reduce especially by eliminating superfluous matter. Over at Catholic Exchange, Fr. Paul Scalia has something to say about that use of the word...

"Our Lord uses the image of pruning to describe our heavenly Father’s work: 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does He prunes so that it bears more fruit' (Jn 15:1)... If pruning brings some degree of suffering to a plant, it must also bring the same to us. But it also brings benefits. Perhaps if we understand the purpose of the Father’s pruning we will endure it more joyfully — and avail ourselves of it more often. Our Father has, in short, the same purpose as any gardener: He prunes in order to produce spiritual health, fruitfulness and beauty... Pruning does away with the old, diseased and dead branches from a plant. God works the same in our souls. He seeks to remove the dead wood of sin and the diseased branches of vice so that our souls can enjoy greater health."

You know, given the extraordinary pain in the you know what 2017 was, the good Father's words might just be something to keep in mind as 2018 gets under way. Every time you feel the new year give you a little jab, just consider there might be some pruning going on.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 4: SANTA CLAUS VS. SATAN

Well, yesterday's match-up between Santa and the Frankenstein Monster turned out okay in the end. But that was just a warm-up. Now, thanks to some weird fever dream writer/director René Cardona had back in 1959, Santa has to go up against Ol' Scratch himself...

Hopefully, the first thing everyone learned from this clip is that you should really invest in some sort of home security system, otherwise just about anyone will be able to waltz in anytime they feel like it. Given who might take advantage of the opportunity of an open door, a good home blessing with holy water and salt might not be a bad idea either.

The second thing to be learned from this clip is... Satan isn't always the brightest person in the room. As C. S, Lewis wrote in his rather lengthy preface to Paradise Lost (seriously, it's as long as some books), "What the Satanic predicament consists in is made clear... by Satan himself. On his own showing he is suffering from a 'sense of injur'd merit.' This is a well known state of mind which we can all study in domestic animals, children, film-stars, politicians, minor poets; and perhaps nearer home... What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual activity with an incapacity to understand anything. This doom he has brought upon himself; in order to avoid seeing one thing he has, almost voluntarily, incapacitated himself from seeing at all... He says ‘Evil be thou my good’ (which includes ‘Nonsense be thou my sense’) and his prayer is granted."

The short version is, if you purposely make yourself blind to what is right in order to be able to do something wrong unimpeded by conscience, you will almost always screw up by missing something important. This may even include not noticing a fat guy crawling in a window behind you and setting up a cannon to shoot you in the ass with a dart.

The even shorter version is... sin makes you stupid.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 2: ELVES

Sure, we all know about Santa's elves, how they help make the toys and occasionally practice dentistry on poor helpless Bumbles. But tales of the álfar go back at least as far as Norse mythology where they were portrayed as a lot more than just happy wee folk prancing around in stocking caps. Allegedly, they were magical beings of great power. As such, it was only natural the occultists among the Nazis would take an interest in them. At least, that's what the 1989 movie Elves would have us believe...

Believe it or not, that bit of dialog is one of the least crazy things in the film. Thanks to such utter lunacy, Elves is something of a much watch for fans of Dan Haggerty and/or bad movies, although those two things usually go together more often than not.

Oddly enough, the idea of elves being demonic beings actually goes way, way back. In Jacob Neusner's book Religion, Science, and Magic, it states, "Although originally ambivalent in character, elves were gradually demonized under the influence of Christianity." We see this play out in the story of Beowulf where elves are noted as one of the races that resulted from the mark of Cain. In the English Royal Prayer Book of the late eighth century, the word elf is equated Satan. And in the Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath claims the little guys are actually incubi. Of course, everything was about sex for the Wife of Bath, but still, you get the point.

These days, though, thanks mostly to Santa Claus and Tolkien, elves have pretty much been rehabilitated. Now they're considered either happy toy makers or endless fodder for cosplayers. Either way, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone, Nazi or otherwise, who believes sex with an elf would result in the birth of the Antichrist. No Will Farrell jokes, please.

So, for any elves out there who might happen to be reading this, welcome back to the fold. Isusarad ‘elir and idhrin-eden ‘elir!

CUTAWAYS: THE TOOTH FAIRY

Today is National Tooth Fairy Day! Now, like most of you, I am at  a loss to explain why any single person, let alone the whole nation, would want to celebrate one of Dwayne Johnson's worst movies ever. In fact, Tooth Fairy was so bad, The Rock was worried his acting career was headed, well, right down the toilet...

Johnson spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about this phase of his career...

"I was told that I had to conform to a standard in Hollywood that would beget me more work, better roles," he explains. "Which meant I had to stop going to the gym, which meant I couldn't be as big, which meant you had to distance yourself from wrestling. You essentially had to deconstruct yourself." 

For a while, he says, he bought into that, in part because he did not have the high-level industry contacts he could turn to for advice. "Then that started to not feel good to me. It reached a point of, 'I'm not feeling authentic."

"After [2010's] Tooth Fairy," says [manager Dany] Garcia, "we recognized that Dwayne was moving away from his core of who he was."

Judging from recent box-office results, it looks like The Rock course-corrected his career pretty well since his Tooth Fairy days. There's a lesson to be learned in that. While there's nothing overtly spiritual in The Rock's statements, that doesn't mean we can't recognize some deeper truths in the actor's decision to abandon false self-images and return to an authentic vision of himself. Author and speaker Fr. Jacque Philippe notes that we Christians should strive for such epiphanies in our own spiritual journeys... 

“We have tried to construct a personality for ourselves... and yet a part of us is still empty, unsatisfied, perplexed: Who am I really? Does what I have lived through up till now really express what I am?... Everything we may learn about ourselves by human means (experience of life, psychology, human sciences) is not to be despised, obviously. But that provides only a limited and partial knowledge of our being... That deepest part comes to light only in the encounter with God, which strips us of everything artificial in our identity to bring us to what we really are, at the heart of our personhood. Our true identity is not so much a reality to be constructed as a gift to be received. It is not about achieving, but letting ourselves be begotten... We human beings can only know ourselves truly in the light of God. "

So, by being who God wants us to be, we actually become a fuller version of our true self, we... what's that? You say National Tooth Fairy Day is actually about dental hygiene awareness and not at all about The Rock's terrible movie? Oh. Okay. Well, I'm sure God wants us to take care of our teeth too.

CUTAWAYS: THE GROOVE TUBE

C’mon and admit it. This is what most of us who have watched the political conventions over the past two weeks have actually heard…

Sigh, what to do? When prominent Catholics are saying there is absolutely no way in good conscience you can vote for Trump or vote for Clinton or vote for a third party candidate or just nobody at all, what’s left? I guess we do what we always do; consult the Catechism and the USCCB’s Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship and muddle through as best we can. Maybe we should just write in Clark Terry; his message is as clear as anyone else’s this year.

CUTAWAYS: FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF

Please tell me I’m not the only goofball out there who hears today’s reading about “Doubting Thomas” and immediately thinks of this…

Oddly enough, it’s actually a pretty good thing Thomas had his little bout with doubt. As St. Gregory The Great noted…

“It was not by chance but in God’s providence. In a marvelous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection… What follows is reason for great joy: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. There is here a particular reference to ourselves; we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. We are included in these words, but only if we follow up our faith with good works. The true believer practices what he believes.”

Well, okay, there is that last part. Saying we believe is one thing; living like we believe is another. Always a catch, isn’t there?

CUTAWAYS: GIRLFRIEND FROM HELL

Ever heard someone toss around the old term Church Militant? Well, I think I’ve discovered video evidence of just what that means in this clip from 1989s Girlfriend From Hell…

Okay, so maybe not.

Perhaps its best if we just stick with the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s explanation. It tells us how the word Ecclesia, meaning body of believers, “may signify the whole body of the faithful, including not merely the members of the Church who are alive on earth but those, too, whether in heaven or in purgatory, who form part of the one communion of saints. Considered thus, the Church is divided into the Church Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant.”

Taking a closer look at this division, it goes like this.

• The Church Militant refers to members of the Church on Earth, the ones actively living a Christian life and working together to try and make things on Earth as they are in Heaven. 
• The Church Suffering refers to the members of the Church who didn’t quite attain their full perfection in life and are now in Purgatory getting cleaned up a bit.
• The Church Triumphant describes the members of the Church who have already made the cut and are in Heaven praying for the rest of us.

The Catechism doesn’t actually use the old terminology anymore (maybe the word militant is just too scary these days), but it does recognize this threefold state of the Church, proclaiming…

“When the Lord comes in glory, and all his angels with him, death will be no more and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is. All of us, however, in varying degrees and in different ways share in the same charity towards God and our neighbors, and we all sing the one hymn of glory to our God. All, indeed, who are of Christ and who have his Spirit form one Church and in Christ cleave together.”

So, whether we use the old terminology or not, pondering the three divisions of the Church can be an uplifting exercise as it reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles here on Earth, that those who went before us are still an active part of the Church, interceding and adding their prayers to ours in the battle against evil. Thus, while I imagine a rocket launcher could come in handy for those times when you absolutely need to blow up a devil-possessed road-raging girlfriend from hell, I’m pretty sure having the kind of spiritual firepower the ENTIRE Church provides is going to turn out to be a lot more useful to us in the end.

CUTAWAYS: METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR

See if you can spot the problem the scientists in the following clip from 1990’s Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor are having.

That’s right, they’re facing the age-old conundrum  of when, where and how it is appropriate to show public displays of affection in front of your… progeny.

Well, according to Pope Francis, almost any time is a good time for parents to express their love for one another through little caresses or kisses. In an address to parents of confirmation candidates in 2014, His Holiness remarked how important it was that children witness their parents being affectionate. “Don't ever forget that your children are always watching you” the Pontiff explained, “and when they see that a father and mother love each other, children grown in an air of love, in happiness, also in security, because they know that they are safe in the love of their father and mother.”

So, go ahead mom and dad, hug and smooch away in front of the kids, it’s fine. Um, might want to make sure you’re not brandishing a needle in front of their eyes at the time, though. Probably just asking for trouble if you do that.

CUTAWAYS: ONE CRAZY SUMMER

Well, we did it. For the first time in years the family actually left town for a quick weekend vacation. Not to worry though, we were immediately punished for it once we got home. Still, it was fun while it lasted. We even managed to work in a little dolphin spotting along the way.

Of course, me being me, the first thing I immediately thought of once Flipper and his pals began popping up was this…

Once I got that out of my system, though, my thoughts turned to this…

According to the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia:

“The use of the dolphin as a Christian symbol is connected with the general ideas underlying the more general use of the fish. The particular idea is that of swiftness and celerity symbolizing the desire with which Christians, who are thus represented as being sharers in the nature of Christ the true Fish, should seek after the knowledge of Christ. Hence the representation is generally of two dolphins tending towards the sacred monogram or some other emblem of Christ. In other cases the particular idea is that of love and tenderness. Aringhi (Roma Subterr., II, 327) gives an example of a dolphin with a heart, and other instances have some such motto as PIGNUS AMORIS HABES (i.e. thou hast a pledge of love). It is sometimes used as an emblem of merely conjugal love on funeral monuments. With an anchor the dolphin occurs frequently on early Christian rings, representing the attachment of the Christian to Christ crucified. Speaking generally, the dolphin is the symbol of the individual Christian, rather than of Christ Himself, though in some instances the dolphin with the anchor seems to be intended as a representation of Christ upon the Cross.”

I really don’t know if it’s feasible these days to get this kind of religious symbolism back into the mainstream public consciousness so that something like running across a few dolphins brings to mind Christ as well as old silly movies. Sure is a nice thought, though.

CUTAWAYS: HALLELUJAH!

It’s Easter! He is risen! Hallelujah!

See, even The Cage digs Handel’s “Messiah.” Now, if you’re anything like me (God help you), you probably forget that only the first part of “The Messiah” deals with the birth of Jesus. The Hallelujah Chorus we so often sing at Christmas is actually all about the resurrection. That’s why when Handel premiered the work back in 1742, he did so right before Easter. So, everyone feel free to Hallelujah away. And if you’re not comfortable breaking out your Nick Cage dance moves and would prefer something a bit more subdued, there’s always the classic approach…

A happy and blessed Easter to each of you and yours.

CUTAWAYS: HOT ROD HERMAN

My latest review over at Aleteia was for the latest video game adaptation to hit the big screen, Need For Speed. It’s probably the dumbest movie I’ve seen in theaters this year (and I’ve seen Pompeii), but I’ll admit, it’s got its fun parts as well. Still, if I’m must going to have to watch something with custom modified racing cars, I’d probably prefer it to be this…

The Munster Koach and Drag-u-la! Now those are some kustom kars I could go for. As it turns out, the Munster’s rides were built by the legendary George Barris and his crew, the same folks who cooked up other well known TV tanks such as the Green Hornet’s Black Beauty, Adam West’s Batmobile, & KITT from Nightrider, as well as notable B-Movie beaters such as The Car and Supervan.

Thinking about how iconic some of Barris’ designs are, it makes you wonder what he could do with something like the Popemobile. You know, there have been a lot of Popemobiles over the years, most of them made by Mercedes-Benz, starting in 1930 with a stretch version of the Nürburg 460…

…all the way to the current iteration, a modified M-Class SUV.

The latest version of the Popemobile is a true kustom kar, outfitted as it is with removable roofs, a throne-like backseat, a modified transmission designed especially for slow driving, full armor plating, and bullet-proof glass. With all that, I’m not really sure what Barris or any of the other kustomizers could do to improve the Popemobile. Maybe something like… well, tune in tomorrow and I might just have an idea or two.

CUTAWAYS: ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES

It looks like The Lego Movie will continue to dominate the box office this weekend, but if you’ve already seen that and are looking for something new, there’s always Pompeii which I reviewed for Aleteia this week. It’s a pretty average sword and sandal flick, probably not something you’ll want to pay full price to see. Maybe part of the movie’s problem (beyond the horrible script, I mean) is that we’ve seen this kind of total destruction played out again and again on screens over the past few years. Hollywood needs to figure out audiences want a little more than just seeing another CGI city get wrecked.

What they really needed to do was take a look at all those old peplum flicks from Italy to see how to do this kind of thing the right way. Most all of those movies had awful scripts too, but they made up for it by managing to give you something memorable each time around. Mole men, vampires, rubber monsters… heck, even Zorro inexplicably showed up in one film. You could always count on a peplum to give you something weird. Take this moment from Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules, for example. I can’t think of anything from Pompeii that sticks in my mind the way this one of a kind cinematic moment does…

For me, it’s the expressions on the faces of the leads that really make the scene. It almost looks like nobody told the two leads what was going to happen before they started filming, so when the chicken people show up, they don’t have a clue as to what they’re supposed to do. It also kind of reminds me of the expressions a lot of us here in the States get whenever we see liturgical dancing.

Ah, good ole liturgical dancing. We make fun of it a lot around these parts because, well, it’s liturgical dancing. But aside from the mostly well intentioned, but undeniably cringe-inducing goofiness of the activity (your opinion may vary), there’s also the fact that the 1975 document published by the Vatican's Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship entitled Dance in the Liturgy declared most, if not all, liturgical dancing to be inappropriate for masses in the West. The document states…

“Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses… For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: That would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements, and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations… Neither can acceptance be had of the proposal to introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet because there would be presentation here also of a spectacle at which [only] one would assist, while in the liturgy one of the norms from which one cannot prescind is that of participation [by all].”

Basically, because dancing in the West is typically a hey-look-at-me kind of personal expression rather than a communal act of worship by a congregation, the Church says it shouldn’t be allowed during the mass where the focus should be on God only. Now the same document does also acknowledge certain forms of “rhythmic swaying and dance movements on the part of the participants” among some peoples as entirely appropriate due to their religious cultural heritage, but the exceptions are generally relegated to those in Africa and Asia (i.e. the Ethiopian rite).

So, if you’ve just got to dance before the Lord, that’s fine, but instead of trying to shoehorn it into the mass, why not do it the way King David did, stripped down to his ceremonial underwear OUTSIDE the sanctuary. The Church is perfectly fine with that.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS: DAY 11: I AM NOT NICE!

Ah, Christmas. Even a curmudgeon like myself softens up a bit at Christmastime. It’s like Bill Murray said in Scrooged, “It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we... we... we smile a little easier, we... w-w-we... we... we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be!” Now, if you think that’s hyperbole, then just take a look at this clip from He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special. It seems even ol’ Skeletor isn’t immune to the charms of the season…

Of course, Skeletor being Skeletor, he doesn’t really want to cop to being a nice guy, even if it’s just for Christmas. I mean, even though his plans always fail and he has extremely poor judgment in choosing henchmen, he still needs to protect his credibility as the big bad on Eternia. So that explains why he insists on not advertising his lapse into niceness.

But what’s the deal with Jesus in today’s reading from the study of the Gospels in a Year? We see two blind men approach him and beg to be healed, which he does, but then, “Jesus sternly charged them, ‘See that no one knows it.’ But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.” That seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Skeletor’s reluctance to have his good deeds broadcast is understandable, but you would think Jesus would be okay with a little publicity. After all, it might help with spreading that whole “I’m the Messiah” thing.

Now some modern scholars have interpreted this seeming pattern in Jesus’ behavior (he does it multiple times in the Gospels), one which they have dubbed the “messianic secret”, as a result of later generations inserting these passages into Scripture to explain why Jesus wasn’t recognized by everyone as the messiah during his lifetime. And they had to do this because these scholars purport Jesus never actually claimed to be the messiah in the first place. The problem with that idea is that not only does Jesus actually once command a person to go and tell everything that happened, meaning the pattern was inconsistent, but even when he did instruct people to be silent, most of the time they blabbed anyway. So what would be the point of inserting something later, then saying it didn’t really work? Eh, sometimes modern scholarship just comes down to wishful thinking.

Pope Benedict XVI had a better idea. He thinks Jesus did this because he absolutely did know he was the messiah. “He knows in fact that to liberate humanity from the dominion of sin he must be sacrificed on the cross as the true paschal lamb. The devil, for his part, tries to divert his attention and direct it instead toward a human logic of a powerful and successful messiah.” In short, Jesus didn’t want too much fame to sidetrack the whole reason he came here for in the first place, which was the cross. “This is why he often admonishes the apostles and the sick people whom he heals to not reveal his identity to anyone… because the fulfillment of his mission is at stake, on which our salvation depends.”

Of course, the Pope wasn’t speaking infallibly when he gave his interpretation, but hey, it makes more sense than desperate contortions like the “messianic secret”. Heck, even Skeletor’s reasoning made more sense than that stuff.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS: DAY 10: THE SOUND OF THE CITY

Depending on your frame of mind, one of the true pain and/or pleasures of watching a lot of old exploitation movies is how dated they seem. Me, I love it, especially when a film is trying desperately to be timely and relevant, but is already hopelessly out of date before it even hits the theaters. I mean, how can you not get a kick out of the painfully ‘hip’ dialog in 1950s juvenile delinquent movies like High School Hellcats or Untamed Youth? Or how about all those flower power flicks of the 60s like Psych-Out and Gas-s-s-s? But on trolling around message boards dealing with this topic, a suggestion came up for one movie in particular that I’m truly at a loss as to how it could possibly be topped in the dated part. Just take a gander at the film’s opening title sequence… IF YOU DARE!!!

If you suddenly feel the irresistible urge to go scrub your eyes with steel wool, I completely understand. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay, you’re back, good. So, where to begin? Steve Guttenberg? The roller skating? The disco music? STEVE GUTTENBERG ROLLING SKATING TO DISCO MUSIC!?! Just how locked in the year 1980 can one movie get? Oh yeah, there’s the fact that it’s the pseudo-biographical story of the formation of The Village People. Dear Lord, I bet even homosexuals, at least those under the age of 25, look at this thing and say to themselves, “Oh my, that’s a little too much.”  Can’t Stop The Music has to be the queen (no pun intended) mother of all dated movies.

If you’ve just got to incorporate easily dated references into your story, then you need to at least make sure the themes are timeless. Take Saturday Night Fever for example. It couldn’t reek more of the late 70s if it tried, and yet, along with addressing the time period it was made in, the movie also manages to address the general malaise and dissatisfaction that settles in when one chooses a life of hedonism.

You know who was good at pulling off that kind of thing? Jesus. In today’s reading from the study of the Gospels in a Year, Jesus is being grilled by the disciples of John the Baptist about why the Apostles don’t fast. “And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Now the wineskin reference was a little dated even as Jesus was making it. Ceramic amphoras were the preferred method of storing mass quantities of wine at the time (that’s probably what was being used at the wedding in Cana) and barrels were already making an inroad. But the wineskins served the greater point. As the Ignatiius Bible Study explains it, “Fermenting wine is accompanied by a build-up of pressure. If kept in skins already used and dried out, the wine would certainly burst them. Jesus thus illustrates the impossibility of inaugurating the New Covenant while maintaining the Old. The abundance of New Covenant grace cannot be contained within the structures of the Old Covenant (cf. Jn 1:16). A new kingdom is needed to contain it - one fashioned to endure for ever.” So you see, even though the reference was to something of its time, the message was timeless. That’s how you do it. No Steve Guttenberg required.

THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS: DAY 7: FLAUTING DANGER

So a few days ago in my study of the Gospels in a Year, one of the really famous sayings of Jesus popped up. I’m sure you know how it goes.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?… Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat?' Or What shall we drink?' Or What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

I wonder if Picard had those verses in mind during this mash-up from ST:TNG…

Okay, maybe he took it a bit far. The notes from the Ignatius Study Bible remind us that these verses simply point out that “Christians must prioritize the pursuit of holiness in their lives.” God must always be the first of our concerns. However, “this is not an excuse for laziness in practical matters (2 Thess 3:6-13).” If the Borg show up, it’s probably a good idea to put the flute down and deal with the situation.

CUTAWAYS: GHOSTBUSTERS

One of the more noticeable things in Thor: The Dark World (which I just so happened to review for Aleteia this week, plug, plug) is how the filmmakers go out of their way to explain that the Asgardians are not gods, but rather just really, really powerful and long-lived aliens instead. I don’t know, maybe they had an aneurysm or something, because it seems like somebody on the screenwriting staff completely forgot about this scene from Ghostbusters…

So, yes, if somebody asks you if you’re a god, you say yes! Besides, the Catechism says it’s okay to do just that, doesn’t it? You know, right there in paragraph 460 where it quotes 2 Peter 1:4, as well as the writings of St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius…

The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."

See, we’re gods. Gods I tell you! Or maybe not.

What Peter and the other saints are talking about here is the concept of Divine Filiation, aka Divine Sonship. As Fr. Joseph Ponessa, S.S.D., co-author of the “Come and See” Catholic Bible Study Series, explains it, “While St. Athanasius’s quote might be easily misunderstood, the previous line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Catechism), from St. Irenaeus, provides the appropriate context… To be the Son of God and to be a son of God are therefore two very different things: Christ is Son by nature (the “only Son” in John 3:16), while we are sons by grace (“sons in the Son” according to Gaudium et Spes, 22). Further, since man is a creature and there is only one God, man can never be God in the proper sense. Within the context of this paragraph, we see that St. Athanasius’s statement means something other than a man becoming the one God.”

So, what does it mean exactly? Well, basically, it all has to do with God making Himself accessible to us. As Fr. Ponessa puts it, “When God created Adam and Eve, He desired them to participate in His divine nature—to be able to love Him in an intimate way that exceeded the normal ability of human nature. So in addition to their human nature, God bestowed on Adam and Eve the supernatural gift of grace of original holiness (Catechism, no. 375). He thereby invited Adam and Eve to love Him as He loves Himself—that is, in a divine way. However, when they sinned, Adam and Eve forfeited this ability to love God supernaturally. Christ became flesh in order to restore our union with God. In Baptism, we are united to Christ (cf. Gal. 3:27)—sharing in His Passion, Death, and Resurrection (cf. Rom. 6:3-4)—and so become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). Because there is only one divine nature and this nature is God, we are said to “become” God.”

So, no, we don’t become all powerful gods, or even really powerful Asgardian type gods for that matter. But what we do get when we “become God” is the chance to spend an eternity basking in the light of the one true God’s love. That’s a pretty good deal.

CUTAWAYS: THE THREE AMIGOS

Day 162 of reading through the Catechism in one year as a part of the Year of Faith has rolled around, and this little nugget popped up. “God speaks to man through the visible creation. The material cosmos is so presented to man's intelligence that he can read there traces of its Creator. Light and darkness, wind and fire, water and earth, the tree and its fruit speak of God and symbolize both his greatness and his nearness.” Of course, I understand that the Catechism is speaking about hearing and seeing God in nature much in the same way you recognize an artist’s hand in a painting. But still, wouldn’t it be neat if we really could hear what nature was saying…

Hmm, probably better to just skip all that and keep reading the traces like God intended in the first place.

CUTAWAYS: LEGEND

Oh sure, there’s plenty of things wrong with Ridley Scott’s epic fairy tale Legend, just ask every single person on the Internet and they’ll be happy to launch into a diatribe about shallow characters and inappropriate use of modern vernacular. But despite its problems, the parts in Legend that work do so really well, especially Rob Bottin’s make-up and Tim Curry’s scenery chewing performance (I’m pretty sure that’s the only kind he knows how to deliver) as Darkness, the living personification of evil.  Plus, if you look really hard, mixed in amongst all the fairies, unicorns, and goblins, you just might find a pretty good symbol for the Church. Take a look.

Did you catch it? That’s right… it was the plates. Yes, the plates, you know, the ones Jack and his pals used to reflect the sunlight from the surface down into the depths to bring doom to Darkness. You see, while perusing the selection for Day 113 of reading through the Catechism in one year as a part of the Year of Faith, I was struck by the paragraph that notes how “according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.” The Catechism calls to mind this imagery while discussing the part in the creeds in which we profess our belief in the holy Catholic Church. It does so that we always remember “not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God’s goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on the Church… The Church has no other light then Christ’s.” In short, the only light we have to shine on the shadowed evils of this world come not from us, but are reflected from God above. Without his light, we are powerless before darkness.