R.I.P. Mary Cebalo

A week ago today was the funeral of Mary Cebalo, my Grandmother. Grandma was born in 1921 in Kalgoolie, Western Australia. Her parents, my great parents, were from the island of Korcula, in what is now the Republic of Croatia, that said, Grandma would be quick to tell us that she was Yugoslav, not Croatian.

Grandma had, from an early age, a deep love of literature and history. The first stirrings of my love of poetry began around her dining room table where she would read of recite or read some of her favourite poems and then encourage me to recite one of my favourites.

My interest in history and my belief that the current state of the world can only be understood was likewise nurtured by her and my grandfather's long talks which would cover everything from Alexander the Great, to the Roman Empire, to the history of Balkan Region to 20th century Australian History.

Grandma loved school and hoped to become a teacher herself; I don't doubt that she would have been a good one. Unfortunately, economic necessity forced her to leave school at only 14. I suspect this was one of the things that formed another key aspect of who she was, her strong sense of social justice. Grandma talked a lot about what life was like before the war, how difficult things could be for people from poor families if they became sick. She also, in spite of growing up in the Australia of the 'the White Australia Policy' was always adamant that anyone, regardless of colour, was welcome in her home and around her table. I know some people wonder why, in spite of my relatively conservative views on a number of social and cultural issues, I continue to identify with the political left; I think a good part of the credit or blame, depending on how you view it, belongs to Grandma.

I've mentioned her table, without a doubt my fondest memories of her have to do with her cooking. Grandma made an amazing pasta, she cooked a traditional Croatian recipe, similar to what the Italians would call Bolognese, although it would have taken more courage than I've ever possessed to call her pasta Bolognese within her hearing. Likewise, she made an excellent rissott. Yes, that is the same thing most people call 'rissotto'; no, we're slavs, we spell it without the vowel on the end.

Grandma, like most Croatians, was baptised and confirmed a Catholic. She didn't practice the faith, at least not as far back as I can remember. She did however, retain a deep love for the sacred heart. A picture of the sacred heart, which belonged to her parents, hang over her bed through most of her life. When she was unable to stay at home anymore and had to move into a hospice, that picture came to me. I'm not generally one for sentiment but I do love to think about the fact that I know have a holy object which belonged to my great parents is something that touched me deeply.

I ask you all who read this, please pray for the soul of Mary Cebalo.

 

A Day in the Life of Jason

TW: Mental Health Stuff

I had plans today for writing two posts today, one on the Book of Isaiah and the other a continuation of my response to James White. However, stuff happened, so you get this post instead.

Most of those who know me know about my long term mental health problems. To be specific, my diagnosis (or one of them) is Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is a complex animal, giving a full explanation of what it's like is difficult, but the worst part of it, is an extreme emotional instability. On a bad day my emptions can swing back and forth at a really scary speed.

This morning, when I started composing this post I was feeling like there was an incredible weight that had somehow been attached to my stomach. The pit of my stomach felt horribly heavy and I had no idea what to do about it.  There were a whole lot of things I wanted to do, instead I just lay on my bed thinking about what a horrible person I am. I was pretty certain that if I got up and did something productive, this would have make me feel less horrible, yet there I lay.

Why don't I get up? In large part the answer is because I was scared. Scared of what, I honestly can't tell you, but that's a big part of my condition, frequently, when I try to do something to help me snap out of the condition, I frequently have an awful panic attack, but I can't tell what I'm panicking about.

So, that's been my day, or at least a large part of it. Here's the weird thing, however, I'm not depressed. I've never been depressed, at least in the strict clinical sense, so, if you suffer from depression, I apologise if I get this wrong, I'm going by second hand accounts. If I understand depression correctly, one of the symptoms is anhedonia, or an inability to gain pleasure from the things one would normally enjoy. This isn't a problem for me. I can be in a state of really deep emotional pain and self loathing and still enjoy all the things I would normally enjoy.

So, this morning, after laying on my bed feeling like crap for a bit and writing a first draft of this post, I put some funny videos on YouTube. I enjoyed said videos, and I cheered up, but only to a point. So, for most of today, I've been doing fun things to distract myself, and it has mostly worked, but again, only to a point. For most of today I've been doing things that I've really enjoyed, and my main focus has been on those things. But, always, in the periphery of my attention, that feeling has been there, that feeling that I'm a horrible person, that I hate myself and that everyone would be better off if I killed myself. I've managed to keep those thoughts out of the centre of my consciousness, but I haven't been able to fully escape them.

And that, friends, has been my day.
 

Response to Pastor James White on Rick Warren (Part I)

As most will have heard, Pastor Rick Warren, of the famous Saddleback Church in California, recently made comments about the importance of Catholics and Protestants working together. He also, while noting the many differences which exist between Catholics and Protestants, argues that the great truths we believe in: the Trinity, the incarnation, salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ are far greater than what divides us.

Not everyone agrees. One noteworthy critique comes from Pastor James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. In a video found here, White accuses Warren of "capitulating" on fundamental issues of the Gospel.

At approximately the 3:35 mark of his video, Pastor White declares:

"There is a reason why, at the reformation, the solas were promoted... it is Christ ALONE, it is by the Grace of God ALONE, it is by faith ALONE; those solas have a reason." (emphasis Pastor White's).

This is a constant theme in Dr. White's criticism of Roman Catholicism. I've heard him say many times, for example, that the issue of the Reformation was the sufficiency of grace, that both sides agreed that grace is necessary to salvation but that the reformers believed grace alone saves while Rome held that salvation is by grace plus something else.

This is completely wrong. Both sides of the Catholic/Protestant debate have always affirmed that salvation is by grace alone through Christ alone. The contrary heresy, that humans, unaided by grace, can do anything towards our own salvation, is called Semipelagianism (as opposed to Pelagiansim which affirms that we can be saved without grace.) Semipelagianism was solemnly condemned at the Council of Orange in 529. A reaffirmation of this condemnation is implicit in chapters 5, 6, 8 and 13 of the Council of Trent's Decree on justification.

Pastor White goes on to argue that, even where we agree, the agreement is superficial because of our reasons for agreeing. At approximately the 4:15 mark, he says.:

"Why does a Roman Catholic believe in the Trinity? Because the Church tells him so. Why do I believe in the Trinity? Because God has revealed it to be true in His Word. Why do I believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Scriptural authority. Why does the Roman Catholic believe? Church Authority."

To say the least, it's quite a bit more complicated than that. While I'm certainly glad to have the many magisterial declarations on the Trinity, I affirm that the truth of the Trinity can be amply defended on the basis of the Bible alone and I'd be very happy to prove this in debate with any Jehovah's Witness, Mormon or 'Biblical Unitarian'. In fact, I've pretty much done it already, in my debate with Muslim apologist Abdullah Kunde, and I can recall Pastor White having some reasonably complimentary things to say about my performance.

As for the resurrection, no, my reason for believing in the resurrection is not Church authority, actually it's the other way around. I was first convinced of the historical fact of the resurrection, convinced from the this fact that Christ was who He claimed to be. I was then persuaded that Christ established the Catholic Church to teach in His name. So, far from me believing in the resurrection because of Church authority, it would be closer to the truth to say I believe in Church authority because of the resurrection.

I will, Deo volente, continue my response to Pastor White in the coming days.

YouTube posts on St. Thomas Aquinas

I've done two YouTube posts seeking to answer the question "Who was St. Thomas Aquinas and why is he so Important?"

The first post runs at just under twenty minutes and can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzhtVyeni6g

The second post is just under three minutes in length and can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvSqVn06yiA&feature=youtu.be

Obviously the first post is much more informative but the second will take up less of your valuable time. Have a watch, let me know what you think and, as I say in one of my posts, questions or suggestions for future videos are very welcome.

 

Answers for an Atheist (Part VII)

I'm continuing my series of posts responding to Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta. You can find his original video here, the most recent post in my series here and my first post here.

#29 Does God speak to you?

Good question and a tough one to answer. I believe He has spoken to me directly at least once although I admit I can't be sure.

Most protestants, from what I can see, fall into two camps on the "God speaking to people" question. On the one hand, there are those who believe that God stopped directly speaking to people when the last apostle died or when the last book of the New Testament was written. My problem with this view is that I see no real evidence for this position in the Bible.

On the other hand, there are those who seem to believe that a Christian should expect God to be constantly speaking and giving personal revelation to them. The objection to this is pretty obvious, God can't really be behind all the many contradictory messages that people think they are receiving from Him. I once had a conversation with a woman, a member of such a group, who told me that her boy friend had recently broken up with her because (he believed) that God had told him to that he wasn't ready to be in a relationship and wouldn't be for some time. Less then a fortnight later "God told" the same young man to start a relationship with another girl and, in less than a month "God told" him to propose to her. Now, I hope it's reasonably obvious that, unless we assume that God was either mistaken or deliberately giving bad advice, then God could not actually have been giving all of these messages.

Catholics take something of a middle ground here. We accept that God can and does continue to speak to His people, but we tend to be wary of the claims that expect such revelations to be constant. Fortunately for us, we believe that God has given us a reliable guide in the form of the Church hierarchy which Christ has established. Therefore a Catholic who believes that God is speaking to him or her is best advised to approach a reliable priest and ask his opinion.

Our example here should be St. Theresa of Avila. St. Theresa is one of the great mystics in history and believed herself to have been directly spoken to by God many times throughout her life. It is significant, however, that St. Theresa never directly acted on these messages without first consulting with her confessor/spiritual director.

I want to close by stressing what I am and am not saying here. Obviously I don't imagine any atheist, on reading this, is going to be convinced of the truth of Catholicism. I what I do hope I can show, however, is that a belief in a Church hierarchy, established by God and empowered to teach for Him, at least gives those who believe God has directly spoken to them a meaningful structure to evaluate whether it really comes from God.

A Good Summer Meal

Last night, I cooked chicken for my family.

The specific dish I cooked is called a Thai Pepper Chicken, although the name may not be entirely accurate; I'm not sure how authentically Thai it is and while the recipe does include pepper, the dish is not particularly peppery.

Anyway, the dish makes an excellent meal, particularly for spring/summer.

My recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

8 Chicken thighs
150 mls olive oil
100 mls soy sauce
6 cloves of garlic
a handful of coriander leaves (basil is an acceptable substitute)
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns

Cooking

Chop the garlic and coriander leaves reasonably finely. Put all the ingredients other than the chicken pieces into a bowl and stir until it all seems to sit together. Then add the chicken and allow it to sit. It can sit for as little as 20 minutes but I think 40 minutes is better, giving the marinade longer to sink in. I cooked the chicken on a BBQ, which I think gets the best results but, if a BBQ is unavailable, the pieces can be cooked in a fry pan or oven.

To accompany the chicken, last night I did some large mushrooms which I marinated in a mix of olive oil and soy and the sprinkled with granulated garlic and rosemary and then did on the BBQ along with the chicken.

To this, add a salad. I think the ideal salad to go with this chicken dish a Waldorf Salad. Fans of classic British Comedy will remember the Waldorf salad from Basil Fawlty's famous apology that the hotel was out of Waldorfs.

The Waldorf salad consists of walnuts, apple, celery and grapes in a mayonnaise sauce. Exact ratios vary. My recommendation: one apple for every two people who will be eating the salad (rounded up), enough grapes to roughly equal the volume of the apple and walnuts and celery to each make about half the volume of the apples.

I make the sauce from 500mls of mayo and the juice of a single lemon, stirred together until they are integrated.

Chop the apples and celery up into small pieces and simply mix everything together.

 

R.I.P. Wayne Goss

I've been meaning for a while to set up my own YouTube for a while. As providence would have it, I finally set that channel up on the day that Wayne Goss, a significant figure in Australian politics, and someone I once deeply admired, passed from this mortal life. So, my first video is my response to his passing. You can find the video here. Please watch and please pray for Mr. Goss' soul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKehvSJPU24.