Followup to yesterday's Humane Vitae post...

   I have gotten some response to yesterday's post, and first of all... thanks.  I've been quiet recently, I know, but I've also been real busy with a number of projects.  I am still waiting for my assignment to come down, which is just a matter of time at this point, so when I have news I can share publicly, I will certainly do so.

   I am also sitting on top of a couple of "Comeback Trail" articles which I started and never finished.  Number 3 is practically done, so I'll work it over in the next day or so and turn it loose.  The next one shouldn't be too far behind.

 

   Anyway, one of the follow-ups I wanted to offer was something that I and no small number of my colleagues have used in a homilies and talks before... it is the four "predictions" of Pope Paul VI which he offers towards the end of Humane Vitae, the papal teaching document which was offered 45 years ago yesterday.  He was a prophet of his time, I think, as he had a good understanding of the consequences of the "contraceptive spirit" which he could see, even in the mid-1960's.  Without further ado, here they are:   (from Humane Vitae #17-18)

1. Contraception would promote conjugal infidelity.
2. Contraception would contribute to a "lowering of morality" by increased temptation and the perception of 'ease' (meaning a seeming lack of consequences) in breaking that law.
3. Contraception would lead to diminished reverence (what an awesome word!) for women, where they would be seen as "instruments of satisfaction of his own desires " rather than as a cherished partner to the man.
4. Widespread acceptance of contraception would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.

The results some forty-five years later are somewhat self-explanatory, but wow, we are getting front-row seats to #4 here in the states in our own time.  Contraception and abortion are now considered health care by many of our duly-elected overlords (not to mention, the unelected bureaucracy).  Indeed, the next step for a big government that assumes this kind of power is that it exercise that power coercively.

 

 

New to Blu-Ray: Babette's Feast

   Some years ago, I was at a talk given by Fr. Robert Barron, where he referenced the Danish movie, Babette's feast, about a Frenchwoman who fled Revolutionary France, to find herself in a grim little fishing village in Denmark, where she served as a maid to two spinster sisters who were daughters to a respected and beloved preacher.  After many years, Babette pours herself into one last creative burst, where she introduces the people of the town to the elegance of a meal that could only have otherwise been found at a six-star Parisian restaurant.  It is a wonderful movie, and has been a source of encouragement to me through the years in my own priestly ministry, which has its moments of glory interspersed among occasional long stretches of, well, provincial grim-ness.  Providence, love, hope, artistry, grace, gratitude, acceptance, absolution... all of these are on display in the quasi-sacramental, quasi-Eucharistic experience of Babette's Feast. Check it out at Amazon--if you are willing to take the time to savor the images and story presented in this Feast, you won't regret it.  It was released to Blu-Ray by the Criterion Collection yesterday or the day before and was in my mailbox today.

   The Blu-Ray is in Danish (and French) and has English subtitles.  The DVD I owned before (which I loaned out and never got back) did have an English dub track, but between the dub-track, what French I know, and the subtitles, I am not too convinced that any of the translations very good from a critical point of view.  Don't let the language sandbag you, though.  Like being at Mass in a foreign language, you'll know perfectly well what's going on by watching and engaging it in its own terms, rather than straining it through the filter of language.

 

A few years back (2009), I wrote a short review of the movie, which I include below...

 

   The way that the movie comes together is much more than the sum of its parts.  The elderly sisters, Phillipe and Martina, iconically named after the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and Phillip Melchthon, are two pious spinsters who have tried to do everything they can to remain faithful to the legacy of their preacher-father, and that of their deep faith.  In doing so, they have rejected the riches of the world, have chosen to consider romantic love as nothing more than of 'slight importance', and subsist on a thin, nasty 'ale bread' gruel.  Not unlike their namesakes, they represent everything that is, for lack of a better expression, 'puritan'-- I would say even, 'anti-sacramental'.

   Into their lives, seemingly randomly, a mysterious refugee from France (in the time of the Revolution-- a time particularly precarious for Catholics), arrives at the ladies' house and serves as a domestic worker for little more, it seems, than room and board.  She comes into 10,000F from the lottery, and in thanksgiving to the ladies who sheltered her for some 14 years after her arrival, she desires to serve them a real French feast.  The women, who do not know anything other than their modest village accede to her proposal, and almost instantly come to fear what they are about to encounter as they see the foreign produce and wine and the big, scary turtle which are brought in... not to mention their fear in having an encounter with the romantic 'ghosts' of their past.  The ladies and the townspeople, in fear of offending the austere sensibilities of the old, long-gone pastor in whose honor the meal is served, form a pious compact among themselves that, in their lack of concern for the splendors of the world, they will politely eat, but not 'taste' what they are eating.

   The preparation and serving of the feast becomes the focus of the last half of the movie, where the villagers and the women come to 'see' their worlds differently by way of this 'otherworldly' meal... loves left behind, old sins pardoned, fulfillment of the words of scripture and of the ladies' father.  The Eucharistic overtones of the banquet are unmistakable, bringing a new and different life to a poor and perhaps even undeserving people who did not and perhaps still do not know any better.  They cannot help but 'taste' the meal and be drawn into its power to resolve the past fears such a meal represents (such as the inevitable encounter with old loves, the worldly splendor of the meal itself, or perhaps an encounter with the 'turtle from hell').

   In serving the meal and exhausting her fortune, Babette herself finds fulfillment-or perhaps redemption-as a frustrated artist who has for one final time in her life fulfilled her ("priestly"?) calling, not simply to make people happy or to entertain them, but to come to the full self-realization of who she is as a world-class French chef.  It is a moment of 'transfiguration' if you will, not just for her, but for her guests within the confines of this particular time and place and situation when the meal is served.  The spinster sisters--even in their world which no doubt will return to austere puritanism and mean gruel the next day--are forever changed.  At the same time they are touched and even affirmed in their faith by this encounter.  Again, the sacrificial, Eucharistic, and sacramental overtones are unmistakable and an essential part of understanding this movie's message and depth.

   To appreciate this movie, one needs to put the first half hour in perspective and not get lost in it.  It is slow, but it is important development to understand the providence of Babette's arrival.  At moments the story seems slow, but there is plenty of room to take in what is going on and consider it on multiple levels... to savor it like the character of the general sipping the fine wine... rather than gulp it down like some of the townspeople who may never even appreciate what they are enjoying.       --Fr. Tom Donovan

July 25, 1968 - forty-five years later...

   July 20th is the 44th anniversary of Neil Armstrong stepping out of the lunar module and onto the surface of the moon. It took an amazing sequence of events and the work of many intelligent and brave persons to make this first step a reality that we can look back on today.  On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI signed the encyclical, Humane Vitae (On Human Life: the Regulation of Birth), making this weekend its 45th anniversary.

   Humane Vitae is the famous “anti-pill” encyclical, which caused a storm of protest in its day, and remains one of the least-well-understood papal teaching documents to our own time. In light of this anniversary, again I turn our attention to the Church’s teachings on Human Life and the Dignity of Marriage for your consideration.

   In Humane Vitae (#8-13), the Church teaches that the conjugal relationship of husband and wife participates in the Creator’s design by perfecting [the creation] of each of the spouses and allowing spouses to participate in God’s ongoing acts of creation through in the rearing of new life. Married love between husband and wife is intended by God to be exclusive, open to life, and complete (or as I often call it, the "three F's": faithful, fruitful, final). Responsible parenthood is rooted in the virtues of prudence (using right means to accomplish the highest good) and generosity (liberality in sharing of one’s goods). These conditions are reflected in Natural Law and place an intrinsic connection between the marital act and procreation. Thus, any act to frustrate, modify, or simulate the intimate relationship between husband and wife improperly (sinfully) claims an absolute dominion over the human body and the act of creating life itself, offending the Creator’s plan.

   Contraception is little different than the first foolish act of pride in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve told God that they would determine their own morality, based on their own disordered desires. Regrettably, that first sin injured not only humanity’s relationship with God, but also man and woman’s relationship with each other. In the new world order after the fall, men and women began living in shame and, in an effort not to be exploited by the other, they fashioned clothes, guarding themselves from the lustful glances of each other. In a way, this shame also continues when couples resort to contraception. The totally selfless and mutual act of the marital relationship intended by the Creator is perverted into something less in contraception:  “I love you except for your fertility.” “I want you, but not your children.”  “We are one, until it suits me.” In these statements, one can see how the relationship between man and woman quickly degenerates into nothing more than a means to satisfy my wishes, my fantasies, my desires, my neediness, and my loneliness.

   This is completely contrary to God’s holy plan for marriage and marital relations.  These teachings are some of the most challenging that the Church has to offer, and in many ways the Church has not done well in understanding the challenges of married persons or in teaching the beauty of their vocation over the last 40 years. I think this is beginning to change, but society has changed, too— in many way for the worse, with respect to sexual license, lowered standards, marital infidelity, indifference to perversion, and focus on self. Our encounters with Church teaching are corrupted by these ‘contraceptive’ attitudes. What the Church must do in order to be truthful to God’s Word and relevant to today’s Catholics is to offer “a better way” to live— a way that leads to life and truth and faithfulness—a way that promotes strong marriages, families, and children. This can only be done one step at a time– one marriage, one family, one Church at a time.