Ruach ha-Kodesh

...has just been breathed into me. How freaking cool is that? [Gotta love being Catholic.]

How 'bout that?

I don't attempt to posit that this post has anything to do with establishing a meaningful life OR a civilization of love, as the thesis above claims this post SHOULD be about ;) but oh well, it's my blog so I suppose I can break my own rules. :D

So after the Halloween party, Ashleigh said a lot of her guy friends kept coming up to her and saying, "So, that Sophia chic, she's hot." I was like are you KIDDING ME? She's like, "Yeah, some of them even woke me up to tell me that." It was a weird weird feeling but also kindof nice. And very ironic considering my costume was quite modest. Now that was intriguing to note. A girl doesn't have to be naked or basically naked to get guys' attention. That's definetely a good lesson to learn. In fact if you dress like a woman and not like a whore, they treat you like a woman and not like a whore. Go figure that one...

What Holly and I read outloud before going to a party :)

Get Drunk!

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.


On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.

But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"


- Charles Baudelaire

And as Ambrose says,
we should not be drunk on wine,
but "inebriated with the Spirit."

(I hope that's why people always think I'm drunk, even though I've never officially been drunk in my life, nor do I plan to ;)

the Caf.

[As Holly and I remark to eachother practically every time we go to dinner]


there's just something about a cafeteria that makes one despise the human race... . ..... .. . .


?

maybe this will help cure the non-philosophers with love for life... ... . .
a poem by audre lorde
"now that i am forever with child"



how the days went
while you were blooming within me
i remember each upon each
the swelling changed planes of my body
and how you first fluttered, then jumped
and i thought it was my heart


how the days wound down
and the turning of winter
i recall, with you growing heavy
against the wind. i thought
now her hands
are formed, and her hair
has started to curl
now her teeth are done
now she sneezes.
then the seed opened.
i bore you one morning just before spring
my head rang like a fiery piston
my legs were towers between which
a new world was passing




from then
i can only distinguish
one thread between running hours
you flowing through selves
toward you

I even dream...

about Saint Augustine :D
Its NO wonder I HAVE to double major in Theology, as well as Creative Writing...
So talk about a freaking WEIRD video we watched in Dr. Craig's writing class, wasen't that freakish, Holly? yikes and a half...

"THE GIRAFFE IS LIKE THE AVANT GARD THE ELEPHANT is more surreal

hahahaha... wt? does anyone have a clue what that is supposed to mean, cuz i know i don't, lol...
OH and i got a 98% on my English midterm--- NOOOO way i can't believe it...this is amazing lol.... i just don't get 98s that is unheard of...





so here is something interesting from the "Gadfly"

"we are sex addicts, druggies, raging alcoholics, chronic masturbators, cheaters, self-righteous, homosexuals, homophobes, condemners and kleptomaniacs. We are sinners. We are Franciscan University."


first off, whoa! damn, what a bold honest way to start an article, entitle "Murdered by the self-righteous"

"None here would deny that we are all these things and more,






but Christ came for the whores, gamblers, tax colectors, the despised of the earth. HIs mission has not changed; he came for us, the students of FUS. Howvere, we at Franciscan have one flaw above all the rest. . .. We are fake, we are hypocrites, we are the new Pharisees. And worse is we justify to ourselves that we are not Pharisees... .. . .

this is refreshingly honest....

no-one at christendom would EVER DARE say that, as true as it is.......

in fact this sad reality described is more evident at Christendom College, and so greatly saturated with the Neo-Pharisee-ical mentality, that it is not even recognized to exist... or if it is, no one has the courage to mention it, and, if what John Paul posits is true, and "courage is the owrk of God" what does that say for Christendom, how is it responding to the work of GOd? Not well, for courage to resist the tide of spiritual pride is something practically exstinct on its grounds...

as Jerome says, one of the worst evils is ignorance of ones ignorance... and ironically, Christendom, that school which prides itself on its REASON; its conquering of ignorance; its great and noble intellectual stamina, is so blinded by that very tunnel vision and emphasis on the power of the mind so as to NOT even realize that state in which they are so entrenched. thank God BEnedict XVI wrote on the dangers of this infatuation with reason (ironic that the supression of emotion through reason has its root in an emtional inclination to reason) and spoke that we must strike at its heart the "tyranny of the intellectual." ( in the church)




and Jesus says,

I come to heal the sick ........

but if we tell ourselves we're NOT sick... if we're blind to our grave illnesses of spirit what happens to your insides--- they WILL start to die.....


God,


is awesome,
the word lies....

I love Him....

the words lie
i wish my love was not conditional, &more like His own


.....so what's the avant gard?"

Hmmmm

Archbishop Chaput clarifies Church’s stance on death penalty, says in industrialized societies, it must end
Denver, Oct. 19, 2005 (CNA) -
In his most recent column in the Denver Catholic Register, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput clarified the Catholic Church’s oft misunderstood teaching on the death penalty, saying that in almost all cases today, it goes beyond necessity, and into undignified excess.
He compared the Church’s teaching on the death penalty to that on acts like abortion, genocide and euthanasia, saying that in the comparison, there is an inequality.
"The death penalty", he wrote, "is not intrinsically evil [like abortion and euthanasia are]. Both Scripture and long Christian tradition acknowledge the legitimacy of capital punishment under certain circumstances. The Church cannot repudiate that without repudiating her own identity."
"Catholic teaching on euthanasia, the death penalty, war, genocide and abortion", the archbishop said, "are rooted in the same concern for the sanctity of the human person. But these different issues do not all have the same gravity or moral content. They are not equivalent."
He used war as an applicable example, noting that there are cases in which acts of war are morally legitimate--similar to the death penalty.
However, he pointed out, what the Church’s teaching on the death penalty involves is, "a call to set aside unnecessary violence, including violence by the state, in the name of human dignity and building a culture of life."
"In the wake of the bloodiest century in history," Archbishop Chaput said, "the Church invites us to recover our own humanity by choosing God’s higher road of restraint and mercy instead of state-sanctioned killing that implicates all of us as citizens."
He cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that if "non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor [i.e., the convicted murderer], authority [should] limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person" (2267).
Likewise, he quoted John Paul II, who points out in his Gospel of Life, that "the nature and extent of the punishment [for capital crimes] must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not to go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity; in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society."
The late Pope noted that "today however, as a result of steady improvements to the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent."
The Archbishop stressed that "In modern industrialized states, killing convicted murderers adds nothing to anyone’s safety. It is an excess."
He said that "for John Paul II, the punishment of any crime should not only seek to redress wrong and protect society. It should also encourage the possibility of repentance, restitution and rehabilitation on the part of the criminal. Execution removes that hope."
As the Church recognizes Respect Life Month, being celebrated throughout October, Archbishop Chaput ended his piece with strong words: "Choosing against the death penalty is choosing in favor of life."
"We need to end the death penalty," he said, "and we need to do it soon."

The Balance

If, as Augustine posits, no good act is possible for us without grace, then how is it possible for us to truly engage our free will, for it would then seem to follow that every good act is God's act and not our own. But, what then of Christ's words, when he says "What good is your love if you love only those who love you. Even the Pharisees do this." How then, if Augsutine is right, can the Pharisee truly engage in that good act of love? Or is it that the deepest and purest love is an act of God. Is it that God's action initiates the good in us, or presents the seed of good. Free will seems then to enter the picture when we are given the chance to deny the oppurtunity presented to us, but without God's grace would we never even think to do good. (???) It then seems that good acts become a union of God's will with our own acceptence of the good, and the good act becomes something done in God and through God and with God.

A Robot Cries

There's this show where they grant three wishes. I have never seen/heard of it until this Friday. I was gonna see Zach's band play at Rooney's, but then I just diden't go for some reason. I can't remember the last time I cried, its probably been a good 2 years since I've cried. And by the end of the show there were REAL tears streaming from both my eyes, down my cheeks, coming together under my chin and drippping on my lap. I often feel like a robot. And if I see a person crying, I almost want to reach out and touch their tears, wondering in awe at this strange phenomenon.

Quotes

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, and screams to us in our pain."

-C. S. Lewis

"I'm not a beatnik, I'm a Catholic."

-Jack Kerouac

"If the Eucharist is just a symbol, to Hell with it."

-Flannery O'Connor

"A room without books is like a man without a soul."

-G. K. Chesterton

Augustine's Intellectual Orgasm

HOLLY, HOLLY, HOLLY!
WHERE ARE YOU? WHY AREN'T YOU HERE?

GUESS WHAT?

AUGUSTINE NOT ONLY BELIEVES IN THE I. O. (our lovely co-creation, hahaha!) HE ALSO CONSIDERS IT TO BE ALL THERE WAS BEFORE THE FALL, lol, as in, he thought that physical orgasm is a RESULT of our state of disordered-ness... and hence, could not have existed pre-original sin AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! SO GUESS WHAT HE CALLS THE I.O.! It's "Spiritual Delight" what you get when you had sex in the Garden of Eden, supposedly ;) And the "moving of the sexual organ" for the male was as exciting as "a farmer calmly sowing his seeds" ( although, what farmer actually does so calmly anyways? Isin't that quite a vigorous activity pre-20th century technology ;)

But yeah, so, of course, this all seems quite Manichean, which is exactly what "Julian the Pelagian" accused Augustine of. Personally, I agree with the heretic on this. If orgasm is evil, the body then would be the source of evil. How do we feel about all this? Lol, its no wonder Julian freaked out at Augustine, I'm definetely feeling the heretic on this point, hehe :O

The Story Continues

From: Sophia Mascia [mailto:ink-blood@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 12:08 PM
To: Jerry Johnson
Subject: RE: okay...it's still unfinished and you've already seen mostof this, but what do u think so far


so Jerry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i just got out of class- i had my teacher read it outloud instead of me- since my voice gets shaky in front of people... but, people really loved it! it made people laugh!!!!!!!! and smile and people reacted passionately to MY STORY JERRY!!! THEY LOVED MY STORY like people were like i love this about it i love that-- the main critiscisms were WHY??????? like what are all the undertones was the question and such... but they like it!!!!! its like they reallyWANTED TO KNOW the why when they asked... you know?!!?!!? like it got them into it -- wow, cool--so they had the same critisicms same as you and also the disjointed scenes... which i agree with and also sortof make the images less daunting - like spread it out a bit like you said bnut yeah-- you know whats funny my teacher was like talking about the ppl in the story he said "i LOVE how intense these people are- you know someone who hasen't moved for two days has serious issues" and i'm thinking haha yeah i really relate to them so i guess i DO have issues lol... hehe...

Clarification of Terminology Used in Previous Post

Knowledge: As I see it, anyone can know anything. Knowledge has to do with hardcore, physical, sweaty truths, alebraic formulations, dirt, clay, H20, e=mc2, a painting, the sun. Knowledge is oneness with truth. Knowledge is oneness with the most simple of truths. My sweatpants are black. They are cotton. I can know the chemical compounds of the fibers. It's simple. It is. It just is.
Understanding: Understanding then, would be, a rightly ordered utilization of these simple truths. Perhaps, glimpsing of motivations and unseen realities; ordering physical reality in ones mind; to see things as they are in their true level of importance; the increase of vision is grantedwhen one streches to a full view of both physical and metaphysical truth.
Wisdom: Wisdom then is that fullest level of understanding. For reality is seen most fully when one is granted the vision granted by Love. If people say "Love is blind," it is not this kind of "love" of which I speak. Essentially, I cannot define the love I am grasping to define. It is a mysterious thing. But it is a love which does not blind, it is a love which gives infinitely. This kind of love is the seed of true wisdom. It plants in the heart the ability to see things as they are. I am Hitler, say. I am a vital, knowledgable, charismatic leader who possesses the level of knowledge and understanding neccesary to implement a well mechanized movement. I have a deep understanding of the way in which people think. However, I hate Jews. My knowledge, my understanding, what good then are these things? "If I have all knowledge and have not love, I am a resounding gong, a clashing cymbol," or something much worse. If I have not love, I am nothing.

Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom

[For Holly's benefit I post this summery of last night's discussion]

Though we prolly covered too much to be summerized... this is one of the main things that stood out to me. John was saying how the difference between these three things used to fascinate him while he was attending Society of St. John Seminary. Most intriguing I found was this...

"If I have all knowledge, and have not Love, I am a resounding gong, a clashing cymbol..."

So, I wondered, does this mean that one has no knowledge at all without having Love?
One can have knowledge, true knowledge of reality, yet, knowledge leaves reality at its shallowest level, it seems, understanding then can integrate knowledge of what goes deeper then basic facts closer to the inner working, the depth...
Love is that force which is the root of Wisdom...
love gives not only the what of knowledge but the why of wisdom...
providing the clearest vision... so many traditionalist "Catholics" I have experienced, they had "all knowledge" but that knowledge blinded them even to the simplest dignity of the human person... and that knowledge was fruitless
because it became a tunnel through which they saw the world,
a world which we know to be 3-dimnesional, 4-dimensional, infinitely dimensional,
and impossible to see reality while wearing blinders...
or perhaps they allowed that intellectual principle to govern their hearts...
to cut them off from loving another person... which seems to me to kill who you are...

anyways, another interesting thing I thought of was, the essence of Satans's (yes ergo, Satan)being is Non Serviam, I will not serve, and yet it is not only that "In serving eachother, we become free..." (so God does not enslave Satan, he enchains himself)
but also
that Satan can never know what it means to love... he can never know Love itself/Himself...
so, Satan does have knowledge, perhaps some understanding,
but the one who attains true Wisdom through not only having love, but union with Love, surpasses Satan in knowledge...
though Satan possessed the most cunning intellect of all of creatures,
he can never know that which we know when we possess Love...
which is why his games become laughable... Satan says to us,
when we come to that one-ness with Love,
he presents his cheap wine to our lips and says

"You know you want it, come on, just a little bit..."
-Satan: the pimp of pimps ;)

and we do laugh outloud

and say drink the poison yourself...

cuz we have the choicest of wine which is Love Himself to drink of...
Jesus let me drink of You again

anon. person informs me

that Jeff is GONE! Maybe I should explain. To your right you should find a link to a BBC production entitled "Coupling." This show is 100% morally depraved. Now, to symboliccaly paint a portrait for those of you who have not seen the show (PBS has it on weekends), basically every character on the show is a "horn-toad." The lengths to which the characters will go for sex is, in my opinion, unrealistic. Now, to use some Pauline imagery for you here (hahaha!) the body is one, though many parts. Each person on the production is part of a body of players making up the show. One could say that this body has an extreme hormonal imbalance and tendencies to no other function then that of stimulation of the reproductive organs. (haha!) The great tragedy of removing Jeff from the show is that you remove the only other bodily organ that has been demonstrated on the show-if you take away Jeff, the quirky Irish guy who constantly makes a fool of himself, you take away the HEART of it! OH! I have class now! Cheers!

What I'll Be Doing Spring Break (link)

o.k. so,

every day, here in the library, i see this pregnant lady...
she looks really really really good!!!! even though she's like HEllo->> huge! she has really cool clothes and she looks so sophisticated and shit... like, i WANT those clothes! except -oh, they're maternity- hahaha, darn... and, no, i will not get pregnant just so i can wear those clothes, maria, hehe, but, i do plan to look like her when i eventually do get pregnant... and, yikes! why am i talking so much about pregnant ppl lately?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? (what the hell?) aaaaaaaaah ok enough of this nonsense SOPHIA GET TO WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interesting (for a formal heretic, that is)

Credo quia absurdum.

"There are things I submit that are foolish enough, those concerned with the reproaches and sufferings of God. For which is more beneath God's dignity, more a matter of shame, to be born or to die, to carry about a body or a cross, to be circumcised or to be crucified, to be fed at the breast or to be buried, to be laid in a manger or to be entombed in a sepulcher? You will be wiser if you also refuse to believe these. Yet wise you cannot be, except by becoming a fool in the world through believing the foolish things of God. Whatever is beneath God's dignity is for my advantage. I am saved if I am not ashamed of my Lord. The Son of God was crucified: I am not ashamed- because it is shameful. The Son of God died: it is immedietely credible- because it is silly. He was buried, and rose again: it is certain- because it is impossible."

I do wonder if my impression of what Tertullian is getting at is actually what he was trying to express. The feeling I get is this... the idea of the Fall, the Chosen People, the Incarnation, the Death and Ressurection of a God-Man, Baptism, salvation, all of it, is just too ridiculous to be made up. It is absurd. Its far-fetched... so far fetched it can't be made up. I think that's what he was trying to say... not sure though...

In the past...

... 20 years i've only actually lived 3,285 days (that's acually in 19 years... if i knew how many days were in each month i'd figure out exactly what number day this is)... my good friend Katie, formerly a member of the US Nationals gymnastics team, has pretty much decided to become a nun. she has wanted it ever since she can remember... always has... and now she seems... there is definetely something surreal about her... yesterday morning she was walking towards me as i was coming out of Egan... i actually diden't recognize her, even when i was fully apprehending her! ... she seriously, in 100% honestly looks like a different person... her face has always been pretty, but she is like somehow way prettier now, ironically, she looks how you might imagine a girl to look when she finds out she's pregnant with the baby of the man she loves, thats how katie looks, [lol, please nobody mention to her the "yeah- sophia thinks you look pregnant!" hahaha] but i mean, since this decision she made, it takes me awhile to recognize- oh! hey! katie!- its a suprise... like a weird, calm glow from her face--it has a different tinge of light, almost like a soul-shimmer as if she turns in the light no matter where the sun is resting... but its not really like that, of course, since its something metaphysical... i dunno.. i can't explain it...

That which we have touched

2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1


*******************
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.


******************
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
... 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

So, why is it

that i can never cry? no matter how badly i want to, even when i feel it in me so strong, when all i want to do is cry and nothing comes... i'm like a brick... and it makes it all so much worse cause i can't get it out of me... i'm like a rock solid fortress against my own emotions

Jesus really loves me

so, what are the chances of one particular, pale, pink, shiny, Rampage purse, with cell phone, cash and apartment keys inside, when left in blatant sight on the main sidewalk of downtown Steubenville (not exactly your safe neighborhood) for over an hour... to actually still be there???!?!?!?!??!?!? Well, whatever the chances... i was at 4 o'clock mass at St. Peter's and guess what i did? hehe yes how did you guess? i dropped my purse on the sidewalk and as i'm slowly walking back to the car after mass got out... it was surreal... first of all, Is that my purse? What on earth is my purse doing there? What one earth is my purse doing STILL there?

Nightmare

wow i had such a freaky dream last night, maybe its because i'm sick i dunno, but, what ahppened was, one after another of my really close girlfriends (they weren't real ppl i know but i only knew them in the dream) kept coming to me and telling me they had decided to get abortions! like 2 of them in a row, i think it was...it was so so so scary.. and then one of them, she was supposed to be my sister in the dream but she wasen't my real life sister, actualy was having twins and then she did the abortion herself, in the living room, with the whole family there watching, on christmas, in front of the christmas tree!!!!!!! and i started screaming and freaking out and calling her a murderer and tried to stop her but i coulden't and i even said f*** you to her right after she did it and it was all neat and proper and everyone jsut contrinued talking as if nothing had happened... and then it was halloween in the dream and there were witches everywhere and stuff.. yeah it was bad...