Trinity Sunday

 

Typical Kitchen Glocks

Tomorrow we rightly remember and honor the fallen, today we celebrate the holy and undivided Trinity. Part of that, here at the Compound, means welcoming assorted soldiery on a weekend pass from Fort Hood. One of them, my eldest, is even a Sergeant, which seems very strange.

Perhaps you remember when Sergeants seemed pretty old. Now they're not, they're ludicrously young and full of youthful energy. That in mind, let the reader understand, would the NCO Club make it to Mass this morning?

Good question, and after Mass #1 at 0945 the Manse was ominously silent, like two minutes silence silent. You'll be pleased to know I resisted the heady urge to charge upstairs beating a wake up drum armed with a pick-axe handle, and brewed strong coffee instead. Let the kids rest, I thought to myself on the back deck, after all, they run around all week, so.

Then, irenic reverie over, lo and behold, there's a team in the dining room struggling into two button blazers and khakis. Why they couldn't do this in their rooms is and remains a mystery, but still, there it was and not bad for all that. And off we went to Mass #2 by the lake.

I'll spare you the trinitarian homily, which was a hopefully helpful Augustine/Aquinas hybrid, but I will say this: The faithful believe that a communion of divine persons in perfect love lies at the heart of reality, that ultimate Truth is personal love which loves us. The modern heathen believe in a very different God, that reality is impersonal force. You will notice, my dear friends, that people come to resemble the deity they worship. Choose wisely.

In similar news, a churchman sent me this excellent photo after Mass, from the restaurant where he was enjoying lunch. Have a look:

We must all eat at this place, and what can we say? A free man can defend himself, a slave can't. Go ask a Red Indian or someone in the UK if you doubt me.

#2A,

LSP

Trinity Sunday

 

It's Trinity Sunday and here in the far flung Missions of rural Texas we worshiped the Triune God without dividing the substance or confounding the persons.Good stuff, and I'll spare you the sermon but I did quote Benedict XVI:

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one because God is love and love is an absolute life-giving force; the unity created by love is a unity greater than a purely physical unity. The Father gives everything to the Son; the Son receives everything from the Father with gratitude; and the Holy Spirit is the fruit of this mutual love of the Father and the Son.

 

Well said, B16, an infinitely loving communion of persons, which is infinitely better than its opposite. And to celebrate the glory of revealed truth, I'm grilling jalapeno poppers and ribs. 

Blue Socialist thinks he's entitled to these, and I tell him he's not, "Because you're just a dog." The furry little Leveler replies, "But your Eminence, even the dogs get to eat the scraps which fall from the master's table." Well, you can see why the Medieval Church frowned upon the laity's access to Holy Writ.

Lollardy aside, word to the Dojo. Don't rub your eyes after prepping jalapeno poppers.

Your Pal,

LSP

The Holy Trinity

Listen up, heathen, it's Trinity Sunday and time to reflect on the inner life of God, revealed as three persons in one divine nature. Three persons fully God yet not three Gods but one God.

Tricky, isn't it, and I'm reminded of a conversation I had with an old monk, back in the mists of time. "Tell me, Father (he was a priest religious), how do we understand the Trinity?" I was hoping for wisdom from this elder, you see, and he replied, "Well, it's like a shamrock!"

The problem, of course, is that the Trinity isn't much like a shamrock or three pieces of one awesome pizza; each leaf or slice is fully the thing itself. How?

Perhaps Aquinas helps, following Aristotle through the lens of St. John. God, from all eternity thinks, He generates or begets an idea of Himself, a perfect concept of who He is, which is everything that He is, including existence and self-consciousness. 

This thought is expressly uttered as His Word, identical in being with the Father but distinct in relationship to Him. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, says St. John. Here's Aquinas:

Whenever anyone understands because of his very act of understanding, something comes forth within him, which is the concept of the known thing proceeding from his awareness of it. It is this concept which an utterance signifies; we call it 'the word in the heart' signified by the spoken word. (1a.27.1)

So the Father and the Son, or Word, are one in being but persons by virtue of their relationship one to the other. And the Father looks at the Son and loves Him because He is everything that is lovable. So too does the Son love the Father. Both pour out their being, perfectly, to each other in love.

Such love, being all that the Father and the Son are, must itself be a person, the Holy Spirit. Again, identical in being with the other persons of the Trinity but distinct in terms of relationship; the Spirit proceeds. And He pours Himself back to the Father and the Son in love.

Step back from this for a moment and see that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are a community or communion of persons in love. As Augustine teaches, Lover, Beloved and Loving. God, per St. John and in no other religion, is love.

How very beautiful, LSP, you say with that faint curl of the lip as you sip the next fizzing glass of Clicquot. Not so fast, boulevardier, consider the reverse. As opposed to God is love, think of the reality behind the universe as simply its material, stars, planets, electrons, atoms, particles, gasses, forces and on. 

This, we're told, liberates us from oppressive Christianity. Really? Being in the hand of vast, implacable, natural force is freeing?

Go ahead and think that, but since when did gravity write your family a condolence letter when you fell off the pier fishing for Gar? Since when did an electron apologize for making you feel bad and then try to do something about it?

That way lies despair and the Trinity frees us from this. In the Triune God we  see love at the foundation of all that is, and therein lies fulfillment, meaning and purpose, the telos or end of our soul's desire.

May we grow into the glory,

LSP

Boots On The Ground

Pair of old boots

Decided to take a break from reading commentaries on St. Augustine and "freedom" to write about boots. I've been using a pair of 8" Bates desert boots with suede & nylon uppers, vibram Durashock soles and goretex inners. A very comfortable boot with good traction and until recently, surprisingly waterproof - waded about in the shallows off Aberystwyth a few months ago and came out completely dry. They've held up well too knocking about the country - in the brush, along half dry creek beds and at the stables; so along with the U.S. military I guess I'd recommend them. But they're not without problems.

On mine the sole started to delaminate from the upper; I solved this with Locktite superglue, which has held up well but its annoying to have to use it at all.

Superglue Solution

More seriously, I discovered that when they leak they hold water and refuse to dry. What seems to happen is that water gets held between the leather/nylon upper and the goretex inner lining, with the whole boot acting as a kind of heavy squelching sponge. Granted it took a storm to get this effect but still, the boot's effectiveness was seriously compromised by its inability to lose the water and dry out. A real problem for anyone having to wear them for any length of time in wet conditions. Solution? Heavy duty, breathable, waterproof spray - I think. Better yet, a system that doesn't trap water in the boot. Also, for Texan country use, the Bates boot doesn't give much protection against snakes, which is fine until it isn't.

With that in mind and looking for something that'd be inexpensive, better at the stables and still good for getting out in the field, I went down to the local Tractor Supply Store and bought a pair of 10" Wolverines.

New Wolverines

They seem sturdy, comparatively well made and comfortable. Also they don't have the treacherous goretex lining which I've grown to suspect; I'll see how they hold up. In the meanwhile, the Bates pair still have plenty of life in them.

Back to the African Doctor now.

Cheers,

LSP