Amen, I get mail...

In response to yesterday's lamb's brains recipe, (of all things) a Southern Gentleman well on his way to becoming a Catholic one commented thusly:


Darrell said...

It's only so often that you read a recipe that actually include the lines like cook brains until brown... pour the sauce over the brains," etc. I never thought when I read "Get Fuzzy" the other day that it would come back to haunt me. ;)


Wow. Toughen up, buttercup. There are worse parts of animals that people eat every day. (BTW, be careful with Get Fuzzy. Talking animals are just plain unnatural.)

But seriously, folks, lets welcome Darrell and Wendy home.

Darrell and his wife Wendy are preparing to convert to The Church. May the Lord God bless and protect them on their journey, which, by the way, will not end next Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday. That is just the beginning of a wonderful (and trying) life in God. After visiting Darrell's blog, The Southern Conservative, and the couple's Wayfaring Strangers index (which details the progress of their faith) I think they both have at least some idea of what lies ahead.

At least they do not have to become Italians, too. Ouch! Of course, the food would be better...(Ha! A joke! I kid because I care, kiddies.)

It seems the most common reasons for conversion are being in love with a Catholic, (Be careful there, kiddies. You should convert because you love Him and therefore wish to worship Him properly.) a Catholic spouse, the vigor of Catholicism, and the emptiness of protestantism. (Wait for it. Wait for it.)

As a Catholic from my baptism as an infant (Thanks, Mom and Dad, and all my ancestors who made it possible!) the last two reasons are of more interest to me.

The vigor, vitality, or, to be bluntly politically incorrect, the manliness of Catholicism is incredibly appealing, especially when compared to the wan, deracinated, and downright boring competition. I cannot recommend the works of G.K. Chesterton enough to both Catholics and the Catholic-curious. Talk about vigorous defense of The Faith!

It is not that he is the greatest of Catholic apologists. (My old brain boggles at the prospect of choosing the greatest.) But he is the best of the modern ones, plus he wrote the Father Brown mystery stories.

Here are two of my favorites from Mr. Chesterton:


Orthodoxy.

Considered by many to be Chesterton's best book, it is certainly his most indispensable book, a unique and refreshing spiritual autobiography and defense of the Christian faith. Everyone should read this book. Everyone should read it every year.

Available! See Books by Chesterton
Also Collected Works Volume 1.

Quote:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."

EX-FREAKIN'-ACTLY!

Bonus:
"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."

Heretics.

An often overlooked book that contains some of Chesterton's strongest writing, as he takes on the "heresies" of modern thought, such as negativism, relativism, neo-paganism, puritanism, aestheticism, individualism. Includes one of his best essays, "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family."

Available! See Books by Chesterton
Also Collected Works Volume 1.

Quote:
"Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural."

Bonus:
"Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves."


The emptiness of protestantism stems from its rejection of the sacred (the Mass, the Sacraments, et cetera) combined with its elevation of the individual will to, practically speaking, the level of a god. (Every man's a denomination. And, BTW, how exactly does this jibe with the denial of free will and that predestination nonsense?)

Anyway, I'm no philosopher, kiddies. (All together now: "That's for darn sure, Fyodor!") Do not worry, I'll stop now. Volumes can, and have been written on these subjects by better and smarter men than Your Humble Servant.

So, shut off your 21st century idiot box and read a few of them.