There’s nothing more frustrating than an argument with a relativist. It’s kind of like playing chess like this:
“Aha! Mate in three moves.”
“Uh, not if I don’t move any of my pieces. Oh well, guess it’s another stalemate.”
“That’s not a stalemate, it’s…”
“Yeah, well that’s your opinion.”
The prayer service for those who donated their bodies to the anatomy department this year was held yesterday. All the donors’ names were read, and every few names a student presented a brief meditation. Here was mine:
“Perhaps it is fitting that every aspiring doctor, at the beginning of his career, is forced to contemplate its end. On the day we received our white coats, we pledged our lives to medicine, to the maintenance and preservation of human health. It was a heady day. Not long after, in the anatomy laboratory, we looked down at the most unsettling basic fact of medicine: no matter how cleverly we outwit death, or how long we hide our patients from his gaze, though we might snatch a thousand years out of his hands, all of our patients, and all of us, will end in the grave. Faced with death, we are forced to ask: what does life mean?
“These donors offer us an answer. This man on the table in front of me, whose name I do not know, loved his neighbours, loved me, so much that he submitted his body to the ignominy of my scalpel, so that I might learn from him how to treat my patients. His sacrifice demands another. To be loyal to this man’s gift, I must take his example and give my own life to those I treat.
“But what can I do for him? Is there anything we can do for those who have gone before? Our very presence at this prayer service proclaims our confident hope that there is. Though his body has been of use to me, I can be of use to his soul. Wherever I go in my medical career, I will keep his memory with me and pray that God might give him what medicine could not: life everlasting. Goodnight, sweet prince, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, and until we meet again, may you enjoy the reward of your generosity. You are in my prayers.”
So far as I can remember, this was the first weekend I’ve ever spent at an event mentioned on page one of a Major National Periodical. Do give the article a gander: it’s called “Faith put into Practice.”
If anyone is entertaining ideas that I’m involved in a conspiracy to take over the medical world in the name of the Vatican, I’d like to confirm your worries by telling you that I stayed for the weekend in a residence operated by Opus Dei.
After a rejuvenating weekend of the laughter and good red wine to be expected at such an unapologetically Catholic gathering, I said goodbye to a couple of good friends and went back to the residence to sit down for a talk with the superior of the house. (Chosen for the priesthood by St. Josemaria himself. Conspiracy theorists take note.) We said vespers in Latin, and he heard my confession. I was on my way out when I realized I’d forgotten my penance.
“Could you remind me what my penance was Father?”
[Deadpan] “It was the Memorare.”
Come to think of it, the Catholicism in Bella is a lot like the Catholicism in New York, where it’s set: all you can point at is a nun here and a handful of palm leaves there, and yet it seems like the whole city is vaguely aware of the presence of Christ. After you see Bella, go visit New York.
Before I start, you should understand that I am not one who automatically approves of movies that are popular with Catholics just because they’re popular with Catholics. The “Jesus inventing the table” notion in The Passion annoyed me as much as the next guy, and after two poorly acted, poorly produced hours of a movie on JPII, I plan not to watch the other four. So you should take me seriously when I say “Go see Bella.” The story is touchingly handled, a couple of the actors are superb, and the directing is subtle and inventive. The flavour of Catholicism is indispensable to the story, and yet unobtrusive. It’s more like the rum in the Christmas pudding than the pink and green icing flowers on the cake at the office party. The same goes for the prolife “message,” which isn’t really a message at all. There’s not a word about the rights of the unborn or the sanctity of life. There’s just a movie about forgiveness, the little surprises of providence, and people living happily in spite of suffering. I doubt that Bella will make you a much better soldier in the fight for life. But it is a cheerful reminder that when all is said and done, life is still worth fighting for.
This is one of the funniest spoofs I’ve read. Rowan Williams should be proud to be the subject.
From a study investigating risk factors for retained foreign bodies after surgery:
“The increased risk associated with increased body-mass index probably reflects the amount of room there is in a patient in which to lose a sponge or instrument.”
Figure this one out for me:
A) Religious conservatives subscribe to the belief that there is an Almighty ruler of creation, but do not expect him to arrange a perfect state of political affairs before politics are permanently dissolved in the consummation of the ages.
B) Moral liberals tend to believe that the world operates according to some vague mixture of complete personal autonomy and the whims of Darwinian chance, but speak as though these forces were leading us into the age of universal peace and agreement. At least if we could get rid of those damn conservatives.
Ezra Levant to the Alberta Human Rights Commission:
“Make my day.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5dwUqCGJeE&feature=related
It’s worth watching.
(For my non-Canuck friends, the HRCs are quasi-judicial bodies that have assigned themselves the role of offensiveness police. Yes, in Canada, we take niceness so seriously that you can be financially ruined for being mean.)
You are to understand that the next quotation is from our tiny, constantly smiling, soft-spoken anatomy prof with the white hair and the gentle very English voice.
“Now these muscles are the dilator muscles of the mouth, and they have very strange names. My favourite one is this one: the levator labii superioris alaeque nasi. It doesn’t even sound like a muscle. It’s more like a… a blessing.” And then he intoned it, to uproarious laughter on all sides.