Should the warning attributed to Edmund Burke – that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing – itself cause us some concern? The answer depends on how we interpret the warning: in particular, what we mean by the implied “something” that good people must do else evil triumph.
We can find the idea that evil might triumph over the whole world at play in a contemporary collective imagination, an imagination fed by the fears of terrorism, weapons of mass murder, the social and economic collapse of civilization, foreign ideologies, and even political opponents. In the world created by this play of ideas, images, and fears, we narrate evil as something exterior to us that resides in our enemies, and we imagine ourselves and our instruments and our ideas as forming the necessary weaponry in the fight against evil. We see ourselves as the true hope for the world, as the knights who will deliver us all from evil’s triumph. We, the good people, are the solution to the problem of evil.
In the Christian imagination, evil is seen as something both caused by us, all of us, and something (yet not a thing) already present before we exercise our freedom, before we are even born. Evil corrupts us, makes us less that what we ought to be, and separates us from God. From the Christian standpoint, the solution to the problem of evil is grace: God’s power, not ours. The ultimate response to evil, the divine response, isn’t destruction or prevention, but salvation. Though we are not saviors, we may participate in God’s act of saving grace, in his plan of salvation. We can, alas, also refuse salvation and embrace our own destruction.
If we understand the “something” that good people must do as in some way participating in God’s power, as living a life nourished by grace and marked by the virtues, as fundamentally responding to evil as a terror from which only God can save us, then Burke’s warning is of no concern. May good people respond to evil. May our good deeds help prevent the triumph of evil. On the other hand, if by that “something” we mean trusting in our own powers to defeat evil, we will only help push us along toward evil’s triumph.
In his On Christian Teaching, Saint Augustine intends to share knowledge with his reader — knowledge which he hopes will enable them to interpret Sacred Scripture for themselves so as to lead them to union with God and to enable them to share that knowledge via proclamation. He offers a grammar or rule to aid in the process of illumination and ascent. He explains that in order to understand scripture properly, we must be aware of it in its entirety, we must be aware of the way in which the tradition interprets it, and we must understand everything according to the rule of love and the rule of faith. In other words, if my perception of any “ambiguous” text favors a depiction of God which is unloving or contrary to the deposit of faith, then I am interpreting a figurative passage too literally, a literal passage too figuratively, or I just don’t get it. The problem is with my comprehension, not with the text.
Augustine’s approach is one firmly grounded in faith, but he demands that his reader attain a liberal knowledge of the secular sciences to aid in his understanding scripture, which is to say that his position is not fideism at the expense of reason, but a heavy use of reason which is purified from false conceptions by faith.
I am no Biblical scholar, but it is interesting to note the contrast between Augustine’s rules and the standard approach which most modern biblical scholars seem to take. Their use of the historical-critical method often seems to me to rely on reason and the secular sciences too heavily, to dissect the text sometime for great insight, but also often at the expense of the faith. When a problematic text arises, many times all interpretations offered by tradition are cast aside to root out the problem. The problem is not presumed to be in our comprehension, but in the inspired text itself.
I do not mean to say that the historical-critical method is necessarily or intrinsically a bad method, but often it is used on the literal sense to the neglect (and implicit derision?) of the other sense of scriptural interpretation.
Should not our approach to God’s self-revelation be less scientific, more prayerful, more humble? Would not such an approach as Augustine recommends better aid those attempting to ascend to God in holiness?
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
- Humpty Dumpty, who, we learned today, has an apparent influence on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
This is probably not news to most of you, but I thought it worthy of a post… From Common Dreams:
The G20 in Pittsburgh showed us how pitifully fearful our leaders have become.
What no terrorist could do to us, our own leaders did.
Out of fear of the possibility of a terrorist attack, authorities militarize our towns, scare our people away, stop daily life and quash our constitutional rights.
For days, downtown Pittsburgh, home to the G20, was a turned into a militarized people-free ghost town. Sirens screamed day and night. Helicopters crisscrossed the skies. Gunboats sat in the rivers. The skies were defended by Air Force jets. Streets were barricaded by huge cement blocks and fencing. Bridges were closed with National Guard across the entrances. Public transportation was stopped downtown. Amtrak train service was suspended for days.
In many areas, there were armed police every 100 feet. Businesses closed. Schools closed. Tens of thousands were unable to work.
Four thousand police were on duty plus 2500 National Guard plus Coast Guard and Air Force and dozens of other security agencies. A thousand volunteers from other police forces were sworn in to help out.
…
Since no terrorists showed up, those in charge of the heavily armed security forces chose to deploy their forces around those who were protesting.
Not everyone is delighted that 20 countries control 80% of the world’s resources. Several thousand of them chose to express their displeasure by protesting.
Unfortunately, the officials in charge thought that it was more important to create a militarized people-free zone around the G20 people than to allow freedom of speech, freedom of assembly or the freedom to protest.
…
Then a group of young people decided that they did not need a permit to express their human and constitutional rights to freedom. They announced they were going to hold their own gathering at a city park and go down the deserted city streets to protest the G20. Maybe 200 of these young people were self-described anarchists, dressed in black, many with bandanas across their faces.
…
This drove the authorities crazy.
Battle dressed ninja turtles showed up at the park and formed a line across one entrance. Helicopters buzzed overhead. Armored vehicles gathered.
The crowd surged out of the park and up a side street yelling, chanting, drumming, and holding signs. As they exited the park, everyone passed an ice cream truck that was playing “It’s a small world after all.” Indeed.
Any remaining doubts about the militarization of the police were dispelled shortly after the crowd left the park. A few blocks away the police unveiled their latest high tech anti-protestor toy. It was mounted on the back of a huge black truck. The Pittsburgh-Gazette described it as Long Range Acoustic Device designed to break up crowds with piercing noise. Similar devices have been used in Fallujah, Mosul and Basra Iraq. The police backed the truck up, told people not to go any further down the street and then blasted them with piercing noise.
The crowd then moved to other streets. Now they were being tracked by helicopters. The police repeatedly tried to block them from re-grouping ultimately firing tear gas into the crowd injuring hundreds including people in the residential neighborhood where the police decided to confront the marchers. I was treated to some of the tear gas myself and I found the Pittsburgh brand to be spiced with a hint of kelbasa. Fortunately I was handed some paper towels soaked in apple cider vinegar which helped fight the tears and cough a bit. Who would have thought?
After the large group broke and ran from the tear gas, smaller groups went into commercial neighborhoods and broke glass at a bank and a couple of other businesses. The police chased and the glass breakers ran. And the police chased and the people ran. For a few hours.
…
The G20 leaders left by helicopter and limousine.
Pittsburgh now belongs again to the people of Pittsburgh. The cement barricades were removed, the fences were taken down, the bridges and roads were opened. The gunboats packed up and left. The police packed away their ninja turtle outfits and tear gas and rubber bullets. They don’t look like military commandos anymore. No more gunboats on the river. No more sirens all the time. No more armored vehicles and ear splitting machines used in Iraq. On Monday the businesses will open and kids will have to go back to school. Civil society has returned.
It is now probably even safe to exercise constitutional rights in Pittsburgh once again.
The USA really showed those terrorists didn’t we?
How sad is that?
Today marks the expected delivery date of our daughter Vivian Marie, but her birth may be a few weeks away. This is a difficult day for us, both longed for and feared. We learned over Holy Week that our daughter has anencephaly, a rare and fatal condition. Statistics say that about half of the babies diagnosed with this condition make it to term, but those statistics may not be accurate as the typical response to anencephaly is abortion. We hoped during Holy Week and we continue to hope now that we’ll be blessed to share some time with Vivian. Anencephalic babies that survive the birth typically live a few hours to a few days. Vivian continues to be very active, kicking and twisting and bending and stretching. My wife and I want very much to hold her and comfort her and say hello to her before we’re forced to say goodbye. We want our three-year-old son to meet his sister.
The months since April have challenged us physically, emotionally, and spiritually as we’ve prepared for both her birth and burial. We’ve struggled with responding to people who in passing congratulate my wife on the pregnancy. What do you say? How do you say it? We’ve had to respond many times but still lack a definitive answer to those questions. Many people around us know about Vivian’s condition, and the support we’ve received from our family, friends, parishioners, neighbors, and even strangers has been an awesome blessing to us, but many others do not know and won’t find out until they see us post-birth with no baby in our arms. We’ve also faced uncertainty about what it means to be good parents to Vivian. We plan to baptize her, but we won’t be able to raise her in the faith. We won’t be able to educate her or play with her. We can’t fix her condition. We couldn’t have prevented it. Nevertheless, we have loved her and will continue to love her. We have suffered with her and will continue to suffer with her. She may not know us, but her not knowing us doesn’t prevent our presence to her. Whatever happens, we will be with her.
Motherhood is bound up with the structure of the woman as person. John Paul II reminds us that Man only finds himself through a sincere gift of self, and that this truth about the person leads us to a full understanding of motherhood. Motherhood is the fruit of the marriage union of a man and woman, and this mutual gift of the person in marriage opens to the gift of a new life, another human person.[1] “When a woman agrees to sexual intercourse she consents to God’s direct partnership with her in creating new human life. This is an amazing affirmation of her personhood. With it comes a great responsibility.”[2] For the woman, becoming a mother is an event that consumes much of her energy; she dedicates her entire self to the task of growing, birthing, feeding, and caring for each of her children. Woman finds herself in this giving of herself. Although both the man and the woman are parents, motherhood comprises the most demanding part; parenthood as such is realized more fully in the woman. “It is the woman who ‘pays’ directly for this shared generation, which literally absorbs the energies of her body and soul. It is therefore necessary that the man be fully aware that in their shared parenthood he owes a special debt to the woman.”[3] A man is somewhat separated from his own child, but the woman gives her very body over for the sake of the child. They exist together, and in a sense, it is woman who gives the child his personhood, for it is in the relationship between mother and child that the child becomes a person and not a mere individual. John Paul II writes, “‘Communion’ has to do with the personal relationship between the ‘I’ and the ‘thou’…. On the human level, can there be any other ‘communion’ comparable to that between a mother and a child whom she has carried in her womb and then brought to birth?”[4] Therefore, “it is essential that the husband should recognize that the motherhood of his wife is a gift.”[5]
Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl is plunging the Catholic Church deeper into the battle over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District, a tactic that could complicate the D.C. Council’s efforts to quickly take up the matter this fall.
Wuerl sent a letter to 300 local Catholic priests Tuesday reminding them about the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, and he launched a round of media interviews to bolster the church’s presence in the debate.
In his efforts to mobilize Catholics, Wuerl joins a group of Baptist, predominantly African American preachers in stepping up the pressure on D.C. officials to allow a public vote on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized.
“We will continue to let the voice of the Church, the teachings of the Church, be heard as clearly as it can be heard,” Wuerl said. “That is why we have sent out so much material to our priests to help them explain this to our faithful people.”
Read the article in its entirety at the Washington Post
Interesting considering his usual low profile. While I agree with the Church’s teaching on the matter, I am not sure what is the most prudent, effective, or compassionate approach. What do you think? I am open to having a reasonable, civil, and respectful dialogue on the issue from a Catholic perspective.
Although American culture is highly individualistic and its emphasis can be quite overpowering, the human tendency toward relationships is still present. Americans across the country still gather in small groups around the country: voluntary associations, country clubs, bowling leagues, church groups, sewing clubs, just to name a few. However, it is necessary to make the distinction between superficial and genuine communities, which Bellah calls lifestyle enclaves and communities of memory, respectively. Bellah notes that lifestyle, as opposed to community, is “fundamentally segmental and celebrates the narcissism of similarity.”[1] Lifestyle enclaves, then, are self-contained groups in which only those with similar tastes and interests gather together. Lifestyle enclaves are sectarian. Due to their heavy reliance on affinity, they tend to create boundaries and fences, where those outside of the group who are dissimilar or different are unwelcomed. They fragment and limit the person, because they offer a narrow view of the world: the only one that is shared in common. Lifestyle enclaves impoverish relationships rather than enrich them. Any attempt on the part of the members to share other skills or values that may contradict or not completely align with the interests of the enclave can be considered a cause for conflict and division. The members of lifestyle enclaves do not enrich one another; they maintain a monologue among each other rather than a dialogue with outsiders. Thus, the search for our selves and for our identity as Christians within the American culture becomes fruitless in these lifestyle enclaves, because these groups do not offer us a window to the world through which we can understand how we fit in it as individuals and as a group. Instead, they are merely a mirror that reflects an image that we have invented or that we have allowed society to create for us.
I have written a bit over the last year about my problems with technological progress and consumerist ideology. One of the most serious consequences of these trends that I have yet to touch upon is delayed adulthood.
Commentators and social theorists are observing that my generation is not growing up. Young adults now take five years on average to get a bachelor’s degree. Marriage, children, home ownership, and a career that can support them all are each coming much later. In the meantime, my generation is living at home with mom and dad, if not all the time, at least some of the time – I myself have had to move in and out of my parent’s home a few times since I graduated.
Only in modern day Western societies, where the struggle for daily existence has been abolished for the majority of the population, could the phenomenon of delayed adulthood arise. It isn’t just that there are too many college degrees and not enough jobs, though that plays an important role. Prolonged education is a part of delayed adulthood. Millions of young people have absolutely no idea what they want to do, what sort of goals they should set for themselves, or what it is that makes life worth living. Meaningful religion has been scrubbed from most of their lives, replaced with some version of Cafeteria Christianity, New Age occultism, or far more frequently, agnosticism, cynicism, relativism and nihilism.
Edith Stein begins her discussion of vocation by explaining what it means to be called. “A call must have been sent from someone, to someone, for something in a distinct manner.”[1] Furthermore, a calling develops on the basis of one’s ability or gifts. Finally, it is God who calls each human being to a personal calling, and he also calls “man and woman as such to something specific” which can be discerned from Scripture, the nature of man and woman, history, and the needs of the time.[2] Based on the creation accounts in Genesis, Stein then points out that, in the beginning, man and woman were assigned a common vocation: to be in God’s image, to be fruitful and multiply, and to be masters over the earth. Only after the Fall is there a split in the duties assigned to man and to woman.[3] “Sin alters the unity within the couple: in addition to an uneasiness consecutive to sin, the relation between man and woman is transformed into a relation of submission and obedience and their respective vocations become specialized due to a lack of cooperation.”[4] Stein follows the tradition of her time in understanding the subjection of woman to man to be natural and one-sided; later, John Paul II will emphasize mutual subjection as the norm in the redemptive condition of humanity while one-sided subjection is a result of the fallen condition of humanity.[5] Stein begins her discussion of woman’s vocation by noting that woman, in soul and body, is formed for a particular purpose – “woman is destined to be wife and mother.”[6] Some of the things she writes of woman include that she “naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole” and that her natural, maternal yearning is to “cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth.” Lifeless facts for no sake than themselves generally do not hold woman’s interest; “abstraction in every sense is alien to the feminine nature.” That which falls under woman’s care is seen as a concrete whole, a totality, by her. Theory and practicality correspond; “her natural line of thought is not so much conceptual and analytical as it is directed intuitively and emotionally to the concrete.”[7] Stein speaks of woman’s basic spiritual attitude in terms of her destiny to be wife and mother:
[H]er relation to her husband is one of obedience, trust, and participation in his life…; to the child she gives true care, encouragement, and formation of his God-given talents; she offers both selfless surrender and a quiet withdrawal when unneeded. All is based on the concept of marriage and motherhood as a vocation from God; it is carried out for God’s sake and under his guidance.[8]
Stein speaks of woman in terms of her relations to others and how this relates to her vocation; woman is endowed with characteristics that lend to her calling to be spouse and mother. Woman mirrors the divine perfections of knowing, enjoying, and creating in characteristic ways, which are particularly adapted to her role of being companion and mother.[9]
However, Stein does not limit the vocation of woman to that of wife and mother. read more…
On the day before his installation as Archbishop of New Orleans, at which the native New Orleanian was greeted with thunderous applause, Gregory Aymond, re-iterated the USCCB’s position on health care reform:
The Catholic bishops in the United States recognize a pressing need for health care reform. Too many American citizens lack basic health care coverage and the cost of health care is becoming prohibitive for many more.
The Lord Jesus, who came to save us from our sins, manifested a great concern for the sick in his public ministry. He also urged us to reach out to the poor and sick in our midst. The Church rightly considers that government has a responsibility to ensure access to basic health care for all.
The bishops do not propose a specific plan or policy. But we set out the following principles to shape public policy:
Strident or shrill rhetoric does not help us to engage in civil and respectful deliberation about a serious social issue with significant moral implications. God grant us the wisdom to discern what is right and the courage to do it.
* We need to develop a plan which ensures access to basic health care for all.
* We need to make sure that the poor and the vulnerable, including legal immigrants, are part of this plan.
* We need to control health care costs so that it is affordable to all.
* We need to make sure that abortion, euthanasia or other immoral activities are not mandated or financed with tax payer dollars. This includes conscience protection for all providers, whether institutions or individual persons, and for all recipients.The bishops, without proposing either a public or private sector option, urge that any plan which is developed embrace these principles. Catholics are urged to contact their United States Senators and Representative to ask them to use these principles to evaluate all proposals that are developed.
I find nothing with which to disgree in Archbishop Aymond’s statement. The health care reform on which we, as Catholics, must insist should look, in part, like what he has described. If we, as Catholics want not merely to stake out the moral high ground, but to actually work toward real health care reform, much more needs to said and done.
read more…
For those of you interested, the US Bishops have put together a health care reform site to help clear up some of the confusion.
John Paul II writes about woman’s personhood in terms of her openness to the other, her “genius”:
In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this favours some, it pushes others to the edges of society. In this way, unilateral progress can also lead to a gradual loss of sensitivity for man, that is, for what is essentially human. In this sense, our time in particular awaits the manifestation of that ‘genius’ which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are human! – and because ‘the greatest of these is love’ (cf. 1 Cor 13:13).[1]
There is something peculiar to woman that makes her more attuned to humanity. And while the Western world continues to move beyond industrialization and toward a technocratic society, woman has a unique genius that can help the human species maintain its humanity in spite of all the forces working against it. John Paul II speaks of a sensitivity for human persons that woman seems to possess more than man; obviously he does not mean that woman is better than man ontologically. read more…
Quote of the Week: Pope Benedict XVI on St. Paul, St. Jean Vianney, and the Year for Priests
June 19, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day traditionally dedicated to pray for the sanctification of priests, I had the joy of inaugurating the Year for Priests. The year was proclaimed on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the “birth into eternal life” of the Curé d’Ars, St. Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney. Entering into the Vatican basilica for the celebration of vespers, almost as a first symbolic gesture, I paused in the Choir Chapel to venerate the relic of this saintly pastor of souls: his heart. Why a Year for Priests? Why particularly in memory of the holy Curé d’Ars, who apparently did nothing extraordinary?
Divine Providence has ordained that this personage would be placed beside that of St. Paul. As the Pauline Year is concluding, a year which was dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, the epitome of an extraordinary evangelizer who made various mission trips to spread the Gospel, this new jubilee year invites us to gaze upon a poor farmer turned humble pastor, who carried out his pastoral service in a small town.
If the two saints are quite different insofar as the life experiences that marked them — one traveled from region to region to announce the Gospel; the other remained in his little parish, welcoming thousands and thousands of faithful — there is nevertheless something fundamental that unites them: It is their total identification with their ministry, their communion with Christ. This brought St. Paul to say: “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). St. John Vianney liked to repeat: “If we had faith, we would see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass, like wine mixed with water.”
The objective of this Year for Priests, as I wrote in the letter sent to priests for this occasion, is to support that struggle of every priest “toward spiritual perfection, on which the effectiveness of his ministry primarily depends.” It is to help priests first of all — and with them all of God’s people — to rediscover and reinvigorate their awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of grace that the ordained ministry is for he who receives it, for the whole Church, and for the world, which would be lost without the real presence of Christ.”
From Pope Benedict’s address on June 24th.
How many vocations have been lost because of a lack in knowledge of and love for the priesthood? How many parents have pressured their children away from religious life? On this Feast of St. Jean Vianney and in this Year for Priests, may we all we reflect on and cultivatee our love for the ministerial priesthood as we more fully practice our common priesthood.
(Sorry for the blogging hiatus, but we are in the middle of moving and will be doing so for the next two weeks!)
Antony said, “He who sits alone and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing: but there is one thing against which he must continually fight: that is, his own heart.”
The Desert Fathers are usually considered fanatics by some–literalists who read too much into the Gospel. But perhaps we may be the ones who are reading the Gospel in a very comfortable light. It is the radical nature of their commitment to the Gospel and their constant efforts to unite themselves in Christ while on earth that constantly challenge our view of holiness even today.
The reasons that pushed these men and women to lead harsh lives in the desert have been questioned throughout the centuries. Even though St. Anthony Abbott had introduced the eremetical (hermit) form of community life some years prior to the Edict of Milan–when persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire formally ended–it is believed that many early Christians felt that it was necessary to return to a more authentic, rigorous, and Christ-centered Christianity as during the time of the martyrs, which may have been one of the main reasons for the rise of monasticism. However, other factors influenced their decisions. Monasticism started mostly in Egypt where the translation of Sacred Scriptures from Greek to Coptic gave rise to many converts to Christianity in the area. An eschatological expectation was very much present among the early monks that may have also influenced their radical choice. At the same time, many had the need to flee from political and economic oppression, which led many non-Christians to the desert, which may have influenced the monks’ choice of a place. Nonetheless, these men and women embraced the Gospel message radically in their lives and sought to find themselves in Christ–in the rough and inclement desert. read more…
Last week was Natural Family Planning Awareness Week. Unfortunately, because we were packing and moving and unpacking, I failed to post and bring attention to that fact. Nevertheless, I do feel that it is very important and something that ought to receive more attention.
“As the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind have at all times seen—I am thinking particularly not only of Plato, but also of Spinoza—there can be no justice where there is no respect for truth. Only, when we talk of having a ‘respect for truth,’ we do not mean merely that we are going to use high sounding phrases; we mean that we are going to keep all the channels open, sometimes exceedingly tenuous channels, by which we can hope, I will not say to attain truth, but at least to approach truth.”
- Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society
Blogging Jesuits! Nathan O’Halloran, SJ of Under a Chindolea has brought together a number of Jesuit writers to form a promising new group blog called Whosoever Desires, which kicks off today on the Feast of St. Ignatius. Posts thus far contemplate such topics as Human Ecology, Pope Benedict and Darwin, and prophylactic soda.
While some creative people use Christian imagery to develop a story or build a church, my son uses it to delay taking a bath. He’s three years old and very imaginative. Throughout the day, he fancies himself Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty, Tarzan, a garbage truck, and Bob the Builder. Sometimes his narratives converge. He assigns me the roles of the dragon, horse, leopard, and trash. Sometimes I’m a Balrog, which is, I admit, better than being a pile of waste. Anyhow, my son loves taking a bath, but he seems to forget this love during those few minutes before it’s time to get in the tub. Yesterday, following his standard, screamed complaints about bath-time, he said to me, while standing on the couch with his back pressed against the cushion: “I can’t take a bath, Daddy. I’m Jesus, and I’m stuck to the cross.”
A curious and easily overlooked detail in Melville’s Moby-Dick might say much about the character of Captain Ahab, but the ambiguity of the detail makes interpretation difficult. Before boarding the Pequod, Ahab’s ship, in pursuit of the white whale, the narrator, Ishmael, encounters a strange man on the docks named Elijah. The stranger warns Ishmael about Ahab, showing him how little he knows about the captain. Ishmael, despite his claiming to know all about Captain Ahab, can only speak of him in vague generalities. Elijah, on the other hand, speaks of Ahab in more detail, but his statements seem no less ambiguous. Elijah asks Ishmael if he knows about the “deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa” and “the silver calabash he spat into.” He hasn’t, but dismisses Elijah’s ominous hints as gibberish.
Elijah doesn’t give Ishmael much of an image, but the picture he paints should have clued Ishmael into the person from whom he would soon take orders—at least, had Ishmael’s ears been more attentive, he should have inquired further into the meaning of the strange prophet. Consider the image: Ahab was before an altar in Santa, he kills a Spaniard, and he spits into a silver calabash. Given the names, it’s pretty clear that Ahab killed a man before an altar in Catholic country. He was in a church or a chapel, holy ground in any case. It is here, apparently, that he spits into a silver calabash. A calabash is a type of gourd, one that looks like a bowl. In fact, calabashes are sometimes dried and made into bowls. So Ahab spits into a bowl while before an altar in a Catholic holy setting. Could this silver calabash have held the Eucharist?
M.J. Andrew
Katerina Ivanovna
Joe Hargrave
Kyle R. Cupp
Joshua B
Ashley Marie