3 amphibs to Jersey..a case of image over substance?


via Business Week.

The U.S. Navy is sending three large-deck amphibious ships to waters off of New York and New Jersey to assist in storm recovery and relief, according to the Navy’s chief of information.
“The Navy is moving ships to be closer to the areas affected by the hurricane,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the service’s chief spokesman, said in a blog posting today.
The Pentagon said in a separate update on military assistance that 10,000 Army and Air Force National Guard personnel have been mobilized to provide support in the 13 states that were hit hardest by superstorm Sandy.
While the three ships haven’t been officially assigned to post-storm duties, Kirby said the moves “will allow our forces to be best-postured to minimize the amount of time it will take these forces to get on station if tasked.”
The USS Wasp, USS San Antonio and USS Carter Hall are being sent from Norfolk, Virginia. The San Antonio is the lead ship in the new $18.8 billion, 12-ship LPD-17 class. The three vessels are capable of carrying Navy helicopters or refueling Army choppers.
The Wasp was already out to sea riding out the storm when it headed north “to be better positioned,” Kirby said, and the other ships today were ordered to follow.
Ok.

This is gonna be controversial.  But here goes.  Is the Navy again doing an image over substance exercise?

I mean seriously!  I saw the same thing happen with Haiti.  The Coast Guard chest thumped for two weeks about being the first on the scene but in reality there was little that a couple of Coast Guard Cutter could do to aid the suffering.

Same with the Navy.  They rushed a carrier down to that island but again.  There was little that could be done.  It acted as a large helo pad and that was it.

Now we're seeing the same thing.  Amphibs are being rushed to the area but what exactly are they suppose to do without their compliment of Marines?

What could the military contribute that would be most appreciated?  The National Guard is providing troops so that box is checked.  Maybe (like John stated) we could send the AAV detachment at Quantico up the coast to assist in the search and rescue.  Amphibious vehicles along with a Rifle Company or two would probably be welcomed.

If the Amphibs are manned then the surgical department could help back up local hospitals.  An Engineer company from the Corps would be of use...or even better some Navy SeaBees, but amphibs?

Image over substance.  But looks are what counts here.  Not actual utility.

Insane Ideas I Have!

Just had a crazy thought!

What if we borrowed some money at the current ridiculously low rates:

10 Year Treasury Rate Chart


And rebuilt our infrastructure so we don't have to sit around in the dark for a week once a year!

Or... yeah, this one is really nuts... we could tax the people who have the money and spend it on electrical grids and bridges and dikes and schools and junk!


Of course, the trade off would be that insanely rich people like Eli Broad couldn't buy off the entire New Jersey education system. Gosh, that would be just such a shame.

Hmm... More charters and testing, or an electrical grid that didn't blow up once a year?

Thinking...

Will My Teacher Rating Have a Sandy Variable?

So we're looking at missing at least a week of school where I am. That's a solid five days of test prep learning my students won't have compared to other students who are their "academic peers."

Well, if I'm going to be missing out on a merit pay bonus because my score doesn't take this into account, I think I'll have no choice but to sue!

So let's find a place in here somewhere:


To put in a "Sandy variable." It's only fair:


OK, now we can account for the fact my kids missed a week of test prep education when making my state-mandated evaluation. This is sure to be free of statistical noise and unaccounted variables now! I'm already feeling much more motivated...


(Did I make my point, or do I need to add some more snark?)

One more for Alabama's candy ass!



So I decided to start game prep a couple days early...get over it.

Why Shouldn't Teachers Fight For Their Interests?

Michael Petrilli, head frat boy at the Fordham Institute's blog, Flypaper, decided that this headline for a recent post was in good taste:

What’s more powerful than Hurricane Sandy? Hurricane Randi!

Randi being, of course, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. Yeah, I'm finding that so super funny, especially after waiting two hours in line for a can of gas...

The post goes on to take a gratuitous swipe at Diane Ravitch for daring to point out that there is no correlation between union strength and student achievement. Petrilli's post is based on a new report from Fordham, funded by the reformy folks at Democrats For Education Reform, that "ranks" union strength around the country.

After a cursory look, I can confidently report that this study is rather silly. The love these people have for ordinal numbers is, frankly, bizarre: when they're not ranking states and countries, or cheering the ranking of teachers, they rank unions. It never seems to occur to them that ranking implies a precision that doesn't exist when looking at qualitative assessments; that saying, "You're #23 and you're #24," is unwarranted in judgments where there are no precise metrics available.

But the ability to live with uncertainty is not part of the wonk's character. And so this paper dresses up a host of subjective judgments in quantitative data and pretends it gained insight into the precise relative strength of state-wide unions. For example, the methodology assigns a weight of 6.7% to the "percentage of public school teachers in the state [that] are union members," and a weight of 6.7% to the "percentage of the state’s delegates to the Democratic and Republican conventions [that] were members of teacher unions." Of course, the notion that anyone could state with such exactitude that these two factors are absolutely equivalent is absurd... but such petty concerns don't bother the wonk very much.

So when Petrilli says:
But according to our metric, these state unions are not as powerful as some have presumed, at least relative to other state unions. They ranked nineteenth (Delaware), twenty-first (Massachusetts), and twenty-third (Maryland) in the nation, respectively, for union strength.
know that these rankings are rather arbitrary.

And, in any case, Ravitch is right. She makes her case in her response to Petrilli's post:
What I wrote in “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” is this: “No one, to my knowledge, has demonstrated a clear, indisputable correlation between teacher unionism and academic achievement, either negative or positive. The Southern states, where teachers’ unions have historically been either weak or nonexistent, have always had the poorest student performance on national examinations. Massachusetts, the state with the highest academic performance, has long had strong teachers’ unions. The difference in performance is probably due to economics, not to unionization. Where there are affluent communities, student performance tends to be higher, whether or not their teachers belong to unions.”
What the unions do is to give teachers a voice in decisions about the conditions of teaching and learning. They give them representation if they are treated unjustly. They guarantee due process. Further, they provide an advocate for public education when decisions are made about the budget. Had there been a strong union in Texas, the Legislature would not have cut $5.4 billion from the budget for public education. Had there been a strong union in Louisiana, the Legislature would not have authorized the creation of vouchers and charters that take money out of the minimum foundation budget for public schools.
And unions do something else that matters to our society: They create a middle class. It may not be a coincidence that income inequality has grown as union membership has declined. Norman Hill and Velma Hill, veteran civil rights and labor activists, pointed out in a recent post on the Shanker blog that “the wages of black union members are 31 percent higher than the wages of African Americans who are not union members. The union wage advantage for women workers is 34 percent; for Latino workers, it is a whopping 51 percent.” [emphasis mine]
This echoes what Matt DiCarlo wrote about unions and student achievement last year:
So, overall, it is remarkably difficult to isolate union effects or how they might arise. The evidence is mixed and inconclusive, especially for student achievement, and any strong, blanket statements – whether for or against unions – should be taken with a grain of salt. They make for good talking points, but their evidentiary basis is, in most cases, shaky. 
What is clear is that unions do accomplish other goals – giving teachers (and other workers) a voice in their profession, their compensation, and their working conditions. On this score, as the Wisconsin protests demonstrate, the evidence is rather compelling. [emphasis mine]
Look at the sentences of Ravitch's and DiCarlo's that I emphasized. Then look at the methodology for the study. Notice what's missing from the Fordham report? Any accounting of how well each state pays its teachers.

We now live in a time where every education policy decision is made with one, and only one, consideration in mind: how will it affect student achievement test scores? Certainly every teacher would agree that student learning comes first in creating any school policy. But is that all we should care about? Is that really the only thing that matters?

What I'm going to say now will undoubtedly be willfully misinterpreted by the reformy among us, but it's about time we stopped cowing to the mindset that "adult interests" and "student interests" are always opposite each other. It's time for teachers to stop apologizing for wanting better pay and better working conditions; not just because it's good for students, but because it's good for teachers.

There is nothing wrong with teachers insisting on better pay, working conditions, and benefits for themselves simply because they deserve it. Unless and until someone can demonstrate that a particular policy is bad for students - not that Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein think it's bad, but that there is real evidence that it is - it's perfectly fine for teachers to insist on implementing policies that benefit them and them alone.

I understand some will disagree with me on this for political reasons. After all, we're in a recession, and times are tough all over; asking for more while people are hurting is tone deaf at best. I agree to a point: I wouldn't say that going on strike for big raises right now is a smart strategy.

But we've been playing defense for so long that we've reached the point where we can't even advocate for ourselves anymore. We can't even say that unions exist to serve teachers without being derided for "not putting the students first." We are acquiescing to a reformy mindset that views union protections not in terms of what they do for teachers, but how they affect politics and policies.

Teachers shouldn't apologize for demanding good wages and working conditions; they have every right to do so. And the strength of unions is, at least in part, properly measured by how well unions help teachers get better compensation.

Yes, happy teachers means happy students. But happy teachers also means happy teachers. What's wrong with that?

LVTUX2, Largest amphib ever.



The largest amphib ever.  Info on the LVTUX2 is rather spotty.  Time to hook up with the Marine Corps History Foundation to see what they have on it.

This game is gonna be good!



Yeah Baby!  Its almost that time.  I start game prep Friday afternoon by loading up on Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort, Louisiana Bourbon and assorted sea food and hot wings.

Hopefully by Saturday night I'll be in an altered state ready for some football!

F-35A Spin Recovery Chute Test

Sandy Blew Away Christie's Sense of Irony

Governor Chris Christie tweeted the following during Sandy, with no apparent sense of irony:
Commissioner Cerf is strongly encouraging all superintendents and charter schools across the state to cancel school tomorrow.
  
We respect that decisions need to be made at local level, but it's most important that we consider the safety of our students & staff. [emphasis mine]
This is the administration that:
Let's be very clear: when it comes to education policy, the Christie administration and Chris Cerf's NJDOE do not respect local control of schools. They never have; they never will.

Touch stone reaffirmed...

Amphibious by nature, expeditionary through training...
 Via Marine Corps Times...
Marines are definitely getting back to their expeditionary roots.
The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit just returned to Camp Lejeune, N.C., following a seven month deployment. But as Marine Corps Times’ Gidget Fuentes reported, when the 24th MEU was still in the Persian Gulf, there were more Marines on Navy ships than in the combat zone in Afghanistan in late-October.
Things are starting to sort themselves out.  Just a note to the head shed.  The Marines never left the sea, they were assigned a mission by the Commander in Chief that required max effort to win a war in the desert.

I've been going over Marine Corps history and I can't find one mention of the Marine Corps needing to get back to its amphibious roots after prolonged combat in Vietnam.  The "back to the sea" nonsense was a product of poor messaging.  Nothing more or less.

The hurricane saved the administration from the Libya scandal...

Major Hat Tip to Black5.




The greater 'We'



All Souls 2012

Many people suffer from an over exaggerated sense of self-importance, whether as individuals or collectively as a group. A dead give-away is when they begin almost every sentence with the royal ‘we’. Some feel that whenever they speak, they do so as a representative of the rest of the world or at least of its majority. They imagine themselves as the focal point of reference, the centre of the universe, the Solar system’s centrifugal axis where all other planets must find their orbit. Psychiatrists have a term for this – it’s called ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder.’ The Church too has sometimes been subjected to this egocentric and megalomaniac worldview. Thus the declaration, “We are Church!”

When speaking of the Church, it has become quite fashionable to say – “We are Church.” The reason for its popularity and attraction is because it implies a kind of democratisation of the Church; an identification of the Church with its grassroots rather than with the hierarchical elite. For those who may not be aware, ‘We Are Church’ is also the name of an organisation of dissenters, a church “reform” group that was started in the German-speaking world some years ago and has now spread to other countries. You would find the usual trendy, politically correct dissenter on their menu: women priests (for), clerical celibacy (against), homosexual sex (for), contraceptives (against), abortion (for) etc.

What most Catholics are not aware of is that the above label or way of describing the Church is not just highly inadequate but also distorts the vastly complicated ecclesiology of the Church. The Church is not just the sum total of its living members but also encompasses the members who are separated by the boundaries of death. Death does not sever their membership in the Church of Christ. GK Chesterton, one of the most famous converts to Christianity at the turn of the 20th century argued that if one wishes to apply the principles of democracy to the Church, especially in the area of its teachings or Sacred Tradition, then one must speak of a democracy that extends through time, encompassing all Christians who have come before the present generation and all Christians who will follow hereafter. So, to those who flaunt the problematic ‘We are Church’ slogan whenever they wish to dictate or pontificate to others, this is going to be news for you – ‘You are in the minority!’

When Pope Benedict was in Germany last year, he gave a talk to a group of seminarians. First, he stressed to the seminarians that a proper Christian perspective “requires us always to look beyond the particular, limited “we” towards the great “we” that is the Church of all times and places: it requires that we do not make ourselves the sole criterion.” When the Pope pointed to the greater “we”, he was not just merely referring to the rest of the living Catholics of our day. The emphasis is on the second part – “the great ‘we’ that is the Church of all times and places.” In other words, we must look beyond ourselves and our own views and must embrace the fullness of Christian tradition. If the voice of the whole Christian tradition is allowed speak, you will find a clear rejection of many of the issues championed by these group of dissenters today.

The Pope then continues with the following lines of wisdom firmly rooted in the Church’s traditional self-understanding: “When we say: “We are Church” – well, it is true: that is what we are, we are not just anybody. But the “we” is more extensive than the group that asserts those words. The “we” is the whole community of believers, today and in all times and places.” Who is this ‘greater we’, which the Pope is speaking of? The answer lies in the liturgical celebrations of these recent two days. Today’s feast of All Souls and yesterday’s All Saints are clear reminders of the truth in the Pope’s assertions. When discussing this greater conception of the Church under the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, has been traditionally described in a threefold manner as the Church Militant, the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant.

The saints and angels in heaven compose the Church triumphant, because they have gained the crown of victory. The souls in purgatory compose the Church suffering,because they still have to expiate for their sins before they can enter heaven. The faithful on earth compose the Church militant, because they have to struggle ceaselessly against the enemies of their souls, the world, the flesh and the devil. But there is only one Church, one Mystical Body of Christ, because its members are united by supernatural bonds, incapable of being severed even in death, with one another and with Christ, their Head, thus resembling the members and head of the living human body.

Today, on All Souls Day, the Church reminds us of our duty to pray for the dead. St. Augustine says: "Prayer is the key by which we open the gates of heaven to the suffering souls." The Church teaches us that just as we love and respect our living brethren, so do we love and respect those of them who have departed this life. We express our love for our departed friends and relatives through prayer. Death and burial cannot sever the Christian love which united the living with those once living and now deceased. We pray for the faithful dead not because we believe that God's mercy can only be triggered by our intercession, but because it is our life task to hold in our mind and heart those who are given to us through kindred and affinity, and as friends, colleagues and neighbours.  This task transcends the boundaries of life and death. 

Today’s feast teaches us an important truth about the Church - there is interdependence among the members of the Church – no one lives for himself alone, but for the entire body. Every good a member does perfects the whole Body, of which he is a part. We need to be always in the sync with the rest of the Body, especially with its Head, and not constantly plot to overthrow it with our own plans of Church-domination. This supernatural fellowship where all three Churches commune together, praying for one another is known as the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. The Church Triumphant prays for the Church Militant, who in turn prays for the Church Suffering.  We, the faithful who comprise the Church Militant, pray to the Church Triumphant, for their intercession and they, in turn, plead with the Lord on our behalf.  The Church Suffering cannot pray for themselves; therefore they cannot hope for the intercession of the Saints in Heaven without the Church Militant, praying in their behalf. This interplay has been described by some authors as a great philharmonic orchestra with God as its supreme maestro. It is really awesome when you think of the integral part each of us play in God’s Symphony for Salvation. 

Thus the doctrine of the communion of saints, though one of the least understood or known, is one of the most consoling dogmas of the Church. The doctrine injects the necessary antidote for humility to our hubris-filled notion of Church. ‘We’ are not Church, only a part of the Mystical Body of Christ, a small minority in fact. Thus, we must defer to the wisdom of the majority, those who have reached the perfection of heaven, the Church Triumphant.  

In celebrating both the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls we are reminded that sanctity is the universal vocation of all men. We are destined for heaven. Even for those who are suffering in purgatory, our faith fills us with hope, because we are assured that their salvation is guaranteed. Purgatory is never a final state. The souls in Purgatory have died in a state of sanctifying grace. They will enter Heaven!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! This year, I wore my little red riding hood costume but with a few changes from last time. Wearing my red peasant dress as a skirt turned out to be a bad idea since the boning poked me under the corset and got painful by the end of the day.


I redyed the now green linen that turned out all splotchy last time and it came out sooooo much more even. I pleated it up onto a waist band and instant skirt.


The corset was a big hit although people kept asking me if I could breathe all night.... Yes, I am talking to you without breathing. *insert sarcasm here*


I had heaps of fun anyways. Halloween is a costumer's favorite holiday, after all!

What did you go as for Halloween?

'Blessed are . . .' All Saints' Day


For All the Saints
Words by William Walsham How, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams

This is sung in Cardiff, Wales, a country noted for its choral singing and for its brass bands. Both are here. Williams gave the name Sine Nomine, 'Without a Name', to the melody.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) 

Gospel Matthew 5:1-12a (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition)

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”


Beauty and Holiness



All Saints

Today’s Solemn Feast draws us to contemplate, admire, and emulate the beauty of the Church in her Saints. Now this may seem strange to speak of the saints as being beautiful. The term ‘beautiful’ would commonly be associated with art. When we use the word "art," thoughts of paintings and statues in museums or galleries generally come to mind. When we refer to “the arts," music, poetry, dance, theater, etc. are added to the list. Not too long ago, the interior of our churches were beautifully and magnificently adorned with masterpieces of art depicting Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, in the form of statues, stain glass, murals, paintings, icons and frescos. But in the iconoclastic upheaval since (and not because of) Vatican II, many of our churches were literally whitewashed. (It is interesting to note that those who often style themselves as enemies of beauty or anything aesthetically pleasing often find themselves trivialising holiness) The Church’s artistic patrimony was replaced with functional technology and grotesque minimalistic representations of the sacred. Banal pop tunes and folksy ditties became staple repertoire of our choirs and Protestant inspired buntings were passed off as art.

So, how are the saints beautiful? Am I just referring to the statues of the saints which we have summarily exiled to the narthex (what you would commonly call the front porch of the Church)? Before we consider the relationship of beauty to that of holiness of the saints, let us first consider the concept of beauty. Beauty is more than just subjective aesthetic sensibility. Great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas teach us that beauty is a quality, either natural or man-made, that delights the senses, the mind, or the soul. Beauty reveals or is a reflection of goodness, perfection, clarity, and simplicity. It is objectively attractive by its very nature. Beauty draws us out of ourselves toward something other. Most importantly, beauty is not something we consume, but it is something that must be contemplated in order to be enjoyed. In other words, we must receive it and allow it to shape us. Beauty is something to ponder or to meditate upon. It opens us to the infinite!

Even here, when speaking of beauty in the secular sense, one can already appreciate the inherently transcendental quality of the concept. We could easily substitute the word ‘beauty’ with ‘God’ or ‘holiness.’ According to St Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle’s thought, beauty is counted as one of the transcendentals, the others being ‘one’, ‘good’ and ‘true’. The transcendentals are the properties of being that transcend the limitations of space and time.  Man ultimately strives for the perfect attainment of the transcendentals. In other words, man desires Perfect Union, Unsullied Goodness, Absolute Truth and Supreme Beauty. It is a search that can and may lead him to God. The Catholic Church teaches that God is Himself One, True, Good, and Beautiful. These are not merely attributes or qualities of God. There is a metaphysical reality to the transcendental that bespeaks of God himself. One need only to look at the way St Augustine used the word “beauty” in his most famous quote, “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!” For St. Augustine, “beauty” is another word for God Himself. God is not simply beautiful; He is Beauty.

Since man’s contemplation of the beautiful is ultimately a contemplation of God, then his desire for beauty is ultimately a hunger for holiness, a life in union with God. Beauty has an ability to pierce our hearts, to break them wide open so they can be filled with God’s presence. We sense God’s awesomeness, we sense His truth, and we sense His utter goodness, because none of these can be separated from His beauty. Last week, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, after attending a documentary entitled ‘Art and Faith’ spoke of the language of art as being a 'parabolic' language, “with a special openness to the universal: the 'Way of Beauty' is a way capable of leading the mind and heart to the Lord, to elevate them to the heights of God.” Beauty is always a reflection of holiness, for holiness is, at its core, a full harmony with the Divine; letting the Radiance of the inner life of the Trinity shine through the holy one. St. Augustine was correct when he wrote that “beauty is the splendour of truth”. Holiness is lovely in the sight of God. At the opposite extreme from the beauty of holiness is the hideousness of sin.  Sin is a deformity, a monstrosity. Sin defiles and distorts beauty, the good and truth. Sin is ultimately repulsive and repellent to God.

The power of beauty can work in reverse. We see this in sin. Just as we grow in holiness when we contemplate beauty, whenever we cast beauty from our lives, misuse beauty, or corrupt that which is beautiful, we develop vices. Pornography is a mockery of beauty. Whether we realise it or not, our environment has a great power to shape us. If we expose ourselves to truly beautiful places, truly beautiful objects, truly beautiful liturgy, and truly beautiful people, we desire to become beautiful ourselves because beauty awakens our desires for the higher and nobler things of life. But if we expose ourselves to places, things, or people that are devoid of beauty, our taste for the higher and nobler things of life is dulled and corrupted, and we begin to accept a life without beauty. In fact, over time we can lose our ability to recognise beauty when we see it—especially the beauty of moral goodness in the saints. And it is then that we lose hope.

If you remember the old penny Catechism, which seems to offer profoundly complicated tenets of our belief in digestible sound bites, you would know that whole purpose of this life is to become holy so that we can live with God forever in heaven. Our goal is to become like God Himself, in whose image we have been created. If God is Beauty Itself, as St. Augustine suggests in the quote above, then perhaps we can refer to this process as beautification! Interestingly, the word used to describe the process where the Church comes to recognise that someone is a saint is called ‘beatification’ (the third of the four steps in the process of canonisation). Therefore, being a Catholic and called to live a life of holiness is really a process of becoming more beautiful. To be transformed by His Power to be Holy is true Beauty. To be holy is to be like God, and thus to become Beauty itself. Therefore it is no wonder that the Church speaks of heaven as Beatific Vision. St Paul tells us that in heaven, we will see God “face to face.” We will behold the splendour, the majesty, the glory and the beauty of God in all its radiance and be consumed by it.  

But perhaps, all of this seems too lofty. We may be accused of a form of idealism or escapism. Contemplation of holiness and beauty may seem fine up in the clouds, but brings us no closer to its realisation in the here and now. It is here that the Church presents the beauty of the saints for our contemplation. The saints show us that the concrete realisation of beauty to which we are called as Christians is possible. They are epiphanies of beauty that reveal through their all too human life experiences and struggles, that holiness can be incarnated. In fact they offer a kaleidoscopic view of the Icon of Beauty, Jesus Christ - God became man in order for men to become gods. The Saints provides us a visual representation of heaven, together they depict the Church at its apex, its glorious perfection, the beautiful Bride, the New Jerusalem with Christ as its bright shining sun.

A Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky once made this audacious claim that “Beauty will save the world.” It seems hard to imagine how this is possible until we recognise that the Beauty which he speaks of is God himself. The saints are living testimony to this claim. It is no wonder that our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, believes that beauty is a path to God who is the source of all beauty. He is convinced that the most persuasive proof of the truth of Christianity, offsetting everything that may appear negative, are the saints, on the one hand, and the beauty that the faith has generated, on the other. He believes that for faith to grow today, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to come into contact with the beautiful. He has, therefore, proposed during this Year of Faith that the Church should enter into a deeper reflection on the lives of the saints, a catechesis not based on theory alone but articulated through the living testimonies of these men and women. Given the deep suffering in our world, a world whose beauty has been marred by evil and man has sunk into the mire of sin, a superficial beauty cannot satisfy the human heart. But, as the Pope once wrote that the paradoxical beauty of Jesus Christ — of that love that goes "to the very end" on the cross — can and does answer our deepest human need. In the person of Jesus, we see that real beauty does not deceive. It is one that saves!

Epilogue

A man, in fact a Pope, who truly believed in the power of the heroic witness of faith and sanctity found in the saints, was Blessed John Paul II. During his 26 year pontificate, Blessed John Paul II named more saints and blessed than all his predecessors combined. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies, during which he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds and performed 51 canonisations for a total of 482 saints. It was no wonder that the secular press often accused him of operating a “factory of saints.” He constantly refuted the claim that we have “too many” saint. According to Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, there were three principal reasons for the saintly Pope’s enthusiasm in seeing the beatification of saints or the beautification of the Church.

The first reason the Pope gave was that he, by beatifying so many Servants of God, did no more than implement the Second Vatican Council, which vigorously reaffirmed that holiness is the essential mark of the Church; that the Church is holy: one, holy, catholic, apostolic. Blessed John Paul II said that if the Church of Christ is not holy, it isn't the Church of Christ, the true Church of Christ, the one he desired and founded to continue his mission throughout the centuries. Therefore, he added, holiness is what is most important in the Church. What better way to demonstrate this by highlighting and presenting to all Catholics many models of holiness in the form of saints?

The second reason is the extraordinary ecumenical importance of holiness. In "Novo Millennio Ineunte" (the Blessed Pope’s Agenda for the Third Millennium), the Pope said that the holiness of the saints, blessed and martyrs is perhaps the most convincing form of ecumenism, because holiness has its ultimate foundation in Christ, in whom the Church is not divided. Therefore, the ecumenism we all want calls for many saints, so that the convincing ecumenism of holiness is placed in the candelabrum of the holiness of the Church.

The Pope's third reason was that "the saints and blessed manifest the charity of a local Church." Blessed John Paul II correctly noted that local Churches are far more numerous than in the last 10 centuries. Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised that there are also more saints, more blessed who express and manifest the holiness of these increased local Churches.

Thom Gunn's 'In Santa Maria del Popolo' and Caravaggio's Conversion on the Way to Damascus




This painting is Caravaggio's Conversion on the Way to Damascus, painted in 1601. It is in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome, and I saw it when I visited Rome with a friend three years ago.

By then, the painting had already held a great deal of personal significance for me for close to fifteen years. In my last year of high school, when I was sixteen years old, I took a course called Western Civilization, which (oddly enough) was based on the TV series and book Civilisation by British historian Kenneth Clark. I had never before taken a class which gave me such a good overview of the course of Western history over the last two thousand years, particularly in terms of religion, literature, art, architecture and music, and how they related to the events of history. I discovered Caravaggio and this painting through that class, as well as the paintings of JMW Turner, and Bernini's Apollo and Daphne statue, which we also saw in Rome. It was definitely a pivotal moment for me.

Seeing the painting in real life was a very moving experience. It is an incredibly powerful work, and it depicts an extremely crucial moment in one of my favourite Biblical books, the Acts of the Apostles. I'm always glad to not be disappointed when I see something like a work of art that I have waited to see for many years.

I have been thinking about the intersection between visual art and poetry: the places where they meet, or art inspired by poetry, or poetry inspired by art. I haven't reached many conclusions yet, except that the two mediums do two very different things and so it is hard to do one inspired by the other. Art is more immediate and visceral; poetry is subtle, cumulative and chronological - and even by saying that I am aware that I am simplifying far too much.

I tried to write a poem about this painting years ago, when I was about twenty. I doubt it was more than semi-successful. When I lived in Dublin and was discovering the wonderful art of Jack Yeats, W B Yeat's brother, I wrote a few poems inspired by his paintings, particularly For the Road and The Singing Horseman, both of which are in the National Gallery in Dublin. For the Road came out quite well, The Singing Horseman somewhat less so. I have a poster of his There Is No Night, which I used to go look at in the Hugh Lane Gallery. I love it but it has always bewildered me in some way I can't explain. I tried to write a poem about it - in fact, I tried on and off for at least a few years. I never really succeeded, which is still a source of frustration for me.

This is the poem 'In Santa Maria del Popolo', by Thom Gunn. Again, at this point of intersection between art and poetry, I am left uncertain. It is a rather analytical poem, more about Caravaggio's intentions and the poet's somewhat cynical questions, than about the painting itself, or the scene it depicts.


IN SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO (Thom Gunn)


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