The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism

Today I stumbled upon "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism" by A.E. Housman, written in 1921. I think I enjoy Housman's various papers and letters even more than his poetry, and I found this work to be a particularly refreshing and level-headed view of things. This will be of interest only to a few, but those few who are intrigued by this snippet would do well to read the whole of it (linked above).

[Textual criticism] is not a sacred mystery. It is purely a matter of reason and of common sense. We exercise textual criticism whenever we notice and correct a misprint. A man who possesses common sense and the use of reason must not expect to learn from treatises or lectures on textual criticism anything that he could not, with leisure and industry, find out for himself. What the lectures and treatises can do for him is to save him time and trouble by presenting to him immediately considerations which would in any case occur to him sooner or later. And whatever he reads about textual criticism in books, or hears at lectures, he should test by reason and common sense, and reject everything which conflicts with either as mere hocus-pocus.

[...]

Textual criticism, like most other sciences, is an aristocratic affair, not communicable to all men, nor to most men. Not to be a textual critic is no reproach to anyone, unless he pretends to be what he is not. To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.

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St. John Vianney

Last Saturday, I heard an absolutely extraordinary homily at Mount St. Mary's Seminary given by a certain Fr. Miller. This was given in the context of a conference on the life of St. John Vianney, and I share here just the closing thoughts:

The greatest penance the Saint performed was his heroic availability to his people. What would you do as a priest if so many people came to your confessional that you had to sit there for three hours a day seven days a week? That’s how it started with Father Vianney! Three hours soon turned into six, then into ten, then to sixteen hours a day. He sat in a cold Church in winter and a sweltering Church in summer. So many people came from such distant places that they often had to wait for a week to see him. Please note that this charismatic phenomenon confirmed Vianney in the asceticism that he had chosen as his way of priesthood. His service as Shepherd permitted him no “days off” – no vacations – no working out in the gym for hours on end - no fine dining – no preoccupation with financial matters. Surely the poorest of the poor always felt comfortable in his company and in his home. Father Vianney relaxed each day by visiting the girls in the orphanage that he had founded. The Divine Lover of Souls kept asking the priest for more of his time and energy. He never said “no” – even though he was tempted to say “no”.

Three times in his long pastorate John Vianney ran away from Ars in the shadows of night. Why? He felt he was neglecting his spiritual life. He yearned to be a monk, a hermit. Surely, he was overwhelmed by what he heard day in and day out in the confessional. Surely, it was nerve wracking to be so available to so many people at such a level of intimacy day in and day out. It was all too much and he ran away. Each time en route to his destination, John Vianney turned around and returned to Ars. It was his obedience to Christ that brought him back to the tiny Church of Ars. He believed Christ had called him to be a priest and spoken to him through his Bishop so many years before: There is not much love of God in the parish of Ars. You will bring some to it. It was his ever deepening “yes” to Christ that has made Saint John Vianney a beacon of Divine Mercy in the Church of God.

The most important truth Saint John Vianney teaches us about the Priesthood is that the ministers of Christ become holy only by serving the Lord’s flock. Everything and anything that impedes that service is not of God. The grace of the priesthood is the grace of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

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Happy Michaelmas

Happy Michaelmas to all! Today marks four years since I was received into full communion with the Church. God continues to do marvelous things!
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Pearls of Wisdom: Finance 101

"If I could purchase with money the blessings which I possess, I should make much of it; but it is plain that these blessings are gained by abandoning all things." — St. Teresa of Avila, Autobiography, XX, 34

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An Untried Idea

"But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above [...] Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is." — Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

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Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Heraclius restoring the Cross to Calvary

At the end of the reign of the emperor Phocas (early 7th century), Chosroes, king of the Persians, seized Egypt and Africa and captured Jerusalem, killing many thousands of Christians and taking away into Persia the Cross of Christ the Lord which Helena had placed on Mt. Calvary. Heraclius, who succeeded Phocas, was prompted by the burdens and disasters of war to sue for peace. But he could not obtain it even under unjust conditions, since Chosroes had been made insolent by his victories. In this great crisis, Heraclius gave himself up to constant prayer and fasting, imploring God's help. By divine inspiration, he raised an army, joined battle with the enemy and conquered three of Chosroes' generals and their three armies.

Broken by these defeats, Chosroes fled and, as he was preparing to cross the river Tigris, he appointed Medarses, his son, as his co-ruler. But Siroes, Chosroes' older son, bitterly resented this affront to himself and plotted to kill his father and his brother, which he did a little later when they returned from their flight. He obtained his kingdom from Heraclius under certain conditions, the first of which was the restoration of the Cross of the Lord Christ. And so, fourteen years after it had been taken by the Persians, the Cross was returned. On his coming back to Jerusalem, Heraclius bore it on his own shoulders in a solemn ceremony, taking it to the mount which the Savior Himself had carried it.

This event was made famous by a spectacular miracle. For Heraclius, clad as he was in gold and jewels, was forced to halt at the gate which led to Mt. Calvary. The more he tried to go on, the more he seemed to be held back. Heraclius and those with him were dumbfounded at this; but Zacharias, bishop of Jerusalem, said, "Consider, O emperor, how poorly you are imitating the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ when you carry His Cross in these triumphal robes." Then Heraclius, taking off his ceremonial robes and his shoes and putting on a poor man's garment, easily went the rest of the way and placed the Cross on that same spot on Calvary from which it had been taken by the Persians. And so the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which was already being celebrated each year on this day, took on still more luster because of the memory of this event when Heraclius replaced the Cross where it had first been set up for the Savior.

Image from Cardinal Seán's Blog.
Text from Mater Dei.
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Pearls of Wisdom: Fidelity

"The fidelity of the servant of Jesus Christ consists precisely in the fact that he does not try to adapt the faith to the fashions of the time." — Pope Benedict XVI, at a recent episcopal ordination

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