Monday, May 30, 2016

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl.  Do you know where the wicked go after death?”
“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer.
“And what is hell?  Can you tell me that?”
“A pit full of fire.”
“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?”
“No, sir.”
“What must you do to avoid it?”
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: “I must keep in good health, and not die.”
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

"[T]he existence and prestige of the Church prevented society from being totalitarian, prevented the omnicompetent state, and preserved liberty in the only way that liberty can be preserved, by maintaining in society an organization which could stand up against the state.” 

-A.D. Linsday, The Modern Democratic States

[H/T Mike Flynn]

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Mark Shea on the name "Easter"

"But what about the very name 'Easter'? It comes from the pagan goddess 'Eostre'!"

Right you are. And 'Friday' comes from "Freya's Day". Does that make you a Norse pagan who worships Freya when you say, "Thank God it's Friday?" No it makes you an inheritor of a Germanic language group that didn't bother to change the names of some of its days. But in all Latin language groups (and beyond) what we English speakers call "Easter" is known by some variation on Pascha, or (as it's translated into English) "Passover". Why? Because Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover and is our Passover sacrifice
-Mark Shea