Still in the Hahn roofrah...

Finished Hail, Holy Queen. It's a fairly short book, and very easy to read. Mary for Beginners, as I think of it. Now I'm on to Rome Sweet Home, which is Scott and Kimberly Hahn's conversion stories. Again, one of the first Catholic books I picked up, after the Bible and the Catechism. Something I have read before, and enjoyed, and will most certainly enjoy again.

Sisters are Fun...

Baby Sis just called, luckily Mom and Dad are out at a Christmas party.

Sis: Guess what I just did?

Me: thinking: She's just gotten another speeding ticket and is heading to jail... Not a clue. What'd you just do?

Sis: I got a tattoo! Don't tell Mom!

Yeah. Twenty year old Sis, just got a tattoo of her drum core logo and their wins on her foot. Congrats. She intends to hide this from Mom for as long as possible. Perhaps her entire life, if she can. I...have my doubts about this. She's coming home for Christmas on Wednesday. She says she'll just wear socks the entire time.

Edit:

Because Baby Sis called Mom to complain that Mom had ratted her out about Baby Sis smoking (which she swears she's not, but I don't believe her, and am pissed, since I just had a friend die of lung cancer!), Mom knew that *something* was up, from a comment Baby Sis made. Consequently, Mom now knows of tattoo, but will not say anything until Sis is home. Mom had no problem with tattoo, as I knew she wouldn't. Baby Sis is twenty, will be twenty-one very soon. I promised Sis I wouldn't tell Mom, not that I wouldn't confirm a guess.

I Am Not the Person I Want to Be - Anger

I am not, to my own mind, an angry person. I don't run around, cursing all the time, yelling, or even quietly fuming.

I like to think of myself as fairly even tempered, all told. That being said, I do get angry. Everyone does, it's natural. We can't help it some times. The question is, what do we do when we're angry? Some people have inappropriate responses to things that anger them. They take it out on others, on innocent people, or animals, or even inanimate objects. None of these responses are appropriate. None. I don't have a good suggestion as an alternative, but there are therapists who do, that's their job, they studied for it.

I've never, in so far as I can remember, ever been angry like that. I've been angry enough that I want to scream, and cry, and throw things, yes. I've been so angry that I can't even speak! I have been incoherent with rage. But, thankfully, it's internal for me. Except for the throwing things urge, which I have never given in to, because I don't like breaking things.

Earlier in the week, something at work made me so angry that I was twitching with the urge to scream and tell someone off, and make them understand why they were such total, abject morons, and how their decisions made other peoples lives harder, and made it impossible to do our jobs properly. I did none of these things, because the abject morons in question own the place where I work, and all of this would get me fired.

Now, with several days between the incident and me, I can sit here and think:

Why does any of this make me so angry? I am lucky! I still have a job, no, it doesn't pay well, but it's a job, in a time when many have none, and no prospects of getting one. I have a roof over my head, and should something happen, I wouldn't lose it if I couldn't make any money. My car is paid off, I have a loving family, I have found faith, and happiness, and contentment in so many places where before I was just a raw, wounded nerve.

So why do I let this stuff get to me? Oh, there are reasons, reasons that a psychiatrist, or just a counselor would give me, on why my anger is not my fault. And, you know, I'm calling crap on that, for myself. Others have been through much, much worse, and they can have those reasons. I don't want it. I don't want people to know and look at me, and think, 'oh, well, yes, she's got a temper, but it's because...'. No.

The only reason that anything in this world matters, is because this is all a test. In the end, money only matters because I need it for food and shelter. My job only matters because I need it to make the money. But in the larger picture? None of this is going to be around forever. None of the things that I own are going to help me get closer to God's plan for me. But it can all make me stumble. And in letting my anger get to me like that, no matter how rarely it might happen, I believe I'm letting the world win, even if it's just a little.

I'm resolved to not let this happen again. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail at that, but I'm going to try. I'm just not sure what, exactly to do, aside from keep in mind that this is all a test, one that I do not want to fail.

Fasting During Advent

My personal theory on why the Church does not mandate fasting during Advent as they used to, and continue to do during Lent?

It's HARD.

You wouldn't think so, but Advent is the month of Christmas, even for the non-religious, which means cookies and candy and parties and happiness and excess on, and on, and on, for the whole month. For the four weeks of Advent. So, fasting, and keeping the fast? Is difficult.

I have, thank God, managed thus far. And I feel good about it. It's been more difficult, because I'm also on a diet, and I have to eat so many calories per day, in order to keep my body from 'starvation mode', but I've just sort of shifted the calorie intake around, and eaten a larger (but still healthy!), dinner than I typically do.

But yesterday, one of the girls at work, her niece brought in some snacks that she had made. Little red velvet cake's, some just with frosting, others in chocolate cups, with fruit or frosting or syrup, you get the picture. I was actually leaning over them, taking in the smell of sugar (and it does have a scent, I don't care what anyone else says!), and thinking about which one I could eat, because 'it won't hurt my diet that much, I've been so good'. And then my brain kicked in and reminded me that I was fasting, and this would most definately break the fast. It was still hard to just walk away, but I did.

From Aquinas to Demons to Mary

I finished Aquinas's Shorter Summa yesterday, and started Interview with an Exorcist. It's a very short book, done in a question and answer format. Interesting, which I say a lot, but I find so much to be interesting! There were some things in there that I'm unsure of the orthodoxy of, but the book lacks an imprimatur or nihil obstat, so I'll double check those things, but they're not really hugely important.

Now I'm on to Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen. This is actually one of the first books I'd picked up when I became interested in Catholicism. Coming from MS Lutheranism, Mary wasn't as big a problem for me as she evidently is for some others, but I wanted something simple to read that explained where the Church found the evidence for their doctine's and dogmas, and this book came well recommended. I still enjoy it.

St. Thomas Aquinas - The Mother of Christ

I'm having a discussion on someone elses blog about the phrase 'Mary, Mother of God'. I read this section of Aquinas's Shorter Summa tonight:

"The error of Nestorius, who refused to acknowledge that Blessed Mary is the Mother of God, is likewise excluded. Both Creeds assert that the Son of God was born or was made flesh of the Virgin Mary. The woman of whom any person is born is called his mother, for the reason that she supplies the matter for human conception. Hence the Blessed Virgin Mary, who provided the matter for the conception of the Son of God, should be called the true mother of the Son of God. As far as the essence of motherhood is concerned, the energy whereby the matter furnished by a woman is formed, does not enter into the question. She who supplied the matter to be formed by the Holy Spirit is no less a mother than a women who supplies matter that is to be formed by the energy latent in male seed. If anyone insists on maintaining that the Blessed Virgin ought not to be called the Mother of God because flesh alone and not divinity was derived from her, as Nestorious contended, he clearly is not aware of what he is saying. A woman is not called a mother for the reason that everything that is in her child is derived from her. Man is made up of body and soul; and a man is what he is in virtue of his soul rather than in virtue of his body. But no man's soul is derived from his mother. The soul is either created by God directly, as the true doctrine has it, or, if it were produced by transplanting, as some have fancied, it would be derived from the father rather than from the mother. For in the generation of other animals, according to the teaching of the philosophers, the male gives the soul, the female gives the body.

Consequently, just as any woman is a mother from the fact that her child's body is derived from her, so the Blessed Virgin Mary ought to be called the Mother of God if the body of God is derived from her. But we have to hold that it is the body of God, if it is taken up into the unity of the person of God's Son, who is true God. Therefore all who admit that human nature was assumed by the Son of God into the unity of His person, must admit that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God. But Nestorious, who denied that the person of God and of the man Jesus Christ was one, was forced by logical necessity to deny that the Virgin Mary was the Mother of God."

Clearly, St. Thomas was not a biologist, and he was working with the scientific knowledge of the time. But I find the argument interesting.

St. Thomas Aquinas - Forgiveness of Sin in the Next World

From Aquinas's Short Summa -

"But we should understand that those who are condemned to final misery cannot have after death what they craved as the best. Libertines in Hell will have no opportunity to gratify their passions; the wrathful and the envious will have no victims to offend or obstruct; and so of all the vices in turn.
But the condemned will be aware that men who have lived a virtuous life in conformity with the precepts of virtue obtain what they desire best. Therefore the wicked regret the sins they have committed, not because sin displeases them, for even in Hell they would rather commit those same sins, if they had the chance, than possess God; but they cannot have what they have chosen, and can only have what they have detested."

It's interesting, a different take on Hell than what I'd thought. I'd have thought, once condemned to Hell, souls would know, and regret, their sins, but, being condemned, their regrets would be too late. After all, after you've met God and been judged by Him, how much of a question is left?

This seems to say that even in Hell, those condemned do not hate their sins, rather, they only regret that those sins have kept them from being able to commit more sins.