Since it is Saturday and there are yet no buses to the Blackstone Valley Shoppes there is little to do, so in my boredom I began Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a text for the upcoming semester. I rather like it (maybe I have finally grown used to 18th Century texts), but now need a break.

I might attempt to recount the many happenings of the last week of student leader training, but even the most cursory account would span too great a space to make for pleasurable reading. Suffice it to say: SGA training was productive, and helped us develop our agendas for the just-opened session of the student government more fully. This year's camping experience, at Connecticut's Camp Woodstock, though burdened with a few politically correct games, and too many exercises purportedly teaching us a sort of teamwork we could better master by getting a head start on the year's bills, was buttressed by enough BB gunnery, archery, swimming, comraderie, and midnight tomfoolery (pranking) to make the two days and a night well worth the 40 grand price tag. Nonetheless the whole silly sojourn does make a person realize that, however easy pessimism is, the well over 200 students who embark on the trip are all just as seriously concerned for the good of Assumption College and her student body as this Pundit, and one is reminded of the good element in human nature they exemplify- rather like the scene in the Apology where Socrates was astounded that so many of the jurors had voted for his innocence.

Meanwhile, sonnets were distributed, and sonnets were requested in turn. To my great and total surprise, one recipient, Miss Laura Hall, our Senate Speaker in SGA, became Miss Vermont over the summer (in the traditional Miss America competition, not to be confused with Donald Trump's Miss USA). Ah, how pretty she is, and how proud we are of her! Supposedly I would have found it out sooner if I had Face Book, BUT, since I knew it not as I wrote her poem, I can now say I was one of her groupies before she became Miss Vermont (and long before she does, we all hope, become Miss America in January). Here is her admiring poem, crowning her just as she also received her tiara as the preeminent Green Mountain girl, which she rather enjoyed and desired published as below:

Sonnet CXXII- A Fluff and Bubbles Queen

It came to me one night: Miss Laura Hall,
Our Speaker, is a Fluff and Bubbles Queen.
You're asking what exactly does that mean.
Well when I wrote it, I knew not at all,
But when I put these sentences to ink
The meaning of my intuition cleared,
And as it dried I closer closer neared.
The meanings in the titles are, I think:
-That Laura likes her conversation plush.
Her words are rarely tough, like salted meat,
A malleable fluff, or something sweet.
-A good director'd place her, all ablush,
At bath, relaxing, bubbles over breast,
Because, when happy she will smile best.

And, you see, I can't remember her ever being unhappy. I, too, have continued living the good life of late, and look forward to the beginning of classes on Monday the 31st.

Today, after an about perfectly-lived summer, I return to Assumption College for SGA training. Please expect no new blog posts for a week and a few days, or for comments to be posted within that time. Though I am apprehensive about my demanding course schedule, generally I am quite happy about the whole affair. Plus, I am bringing along a nice new volume of manga- Neon Genesis Evangelion 1- to read inbetween SGA activities. Indeed, after the academic year begins, I may be in the mood to speak of something else for once!

Anime can sometimes sidetrack a person. Yesterday, in George B. Sansom's A History of Japan to 1334, which I have almost finished, I read that Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun, appointed constables to keep order in the provinces. Parenthetically, he noted that the original word for the officers is shugo. Instantly I lapsed into a daydream, thinking of how nice it was of Yoritomo to dispatch cute little shugo charas to provinces near and remote. Shugo charas, or guardian characters, figure prominently in the excellent Peach-Pit anime Shugo Chara!, of which I cannot get enough. Luckily I still have time for reading, however difficult it remains to pay attention.

Aside from my serious readings and delightful animes, little time is left for much else. Our Lady's Feast of the Assumption has already transpired and been duly celebrated, but, whether due to a deficit of time or of good ideas, I didn't finish my celebratory sonnet until yesterday:

Sonnet CXXIII- Mary's Assumption

A Woman perished out of charity,
Her body healthy, free of sin, with grace,
Perfections hidden by a boastless face.
The wide, magnificent disparity
Between the homely, hearthly goodness of
That Mother, sewer, psalmist for her Son,
And fallen man, who does do good, but none
So humbly as this Lady in her love,
Became apparent only after life.
She left for Heaven's houses, where she could
Rejoin her Child, Jesus. Though she would
Have merited a passage that was safe
And deathless, always following His ways,
She had Him leave her body three more days.

The songwriting details are from The Mystical City of God. In Sr. Mary Agreda's account the Mother of the Church composed and sang so many original pieces for the glory of God that I determined, if she had lived her earthly life in more recent times, her biographers would've put her career as composer/ songwriter in addition to stay-at-home mom. Of her death, Agreda was told that Mary perished instantly when the Lord ceased to supernaturally preserve her from dying on account of love. Given that normal human beings can get strokes after a shock or surprise which overwhelms their capacity, the explanation is not at all outlandish. Afterwards, the traditions say, she rose bodily in much the same manner as Christ.

And now, back to anime. Verily, except for The Journey Home on EWTN, Red Eye late, late night on Fox News, and often some network news throughout the day, I really don't watch TV. I would almost certainly nix the TV altogether if it wasn't a necessity to other family members. Indeed, my newest slogan is:

Kill Your TV...

Anime is Online!!!

Rushing as I am (if sluggishly) to finish my summer reading before the return to college, I should take a few moments to note the virtues in The Way of Divine Love, a life and account of the private revelations given to Sister Josefa Menéndez (1890-1923), a Spanish-born nun who resided in France while living her vocation. From a literary standpoint, I confess, the book is one of the most redundant I have ever read- the apparitions and interactions Josefa was so blessed to receive were, apart from the message to the world, meant more as everyday reminders than material of hagiography. The repetition does, for those who persevere in the read, more chances for the saving message to sink in. Near the end of her life on earth, Jesus said, as part of a refresher he gave her before she was to report the message to the bishop:

Never shall I weary of repentant sinners, nor cease from hoping for their return, and the greater their distress, the greater My welcome. Does not a father love a sick child with special affection? Are not his care and solicitude greater? So is the tenderness and compassion of My Heart more abundant for sinners than for the just.

This is what I wish all to know. I will teach sinners that the mercy of My Heart is inexhaustible. Let the callous and indifferent know that My Heart is a fire which will enkindle them, because I love them. To devout and saintly souls I would be the Way, that making great strides in perfection, they may safely reach the harbour of eternal beatitude.

Bear with me now. While, of course, Our Lord's message of Divine Mercy and His love for us is fully communicated in the gospels, the above is a favorite of mine in the book, striking powerfully in my heart. Private revelations, as it is often said, are not necessary in themselves, but they serve as reminders in forgetting ages.

A person might imagine, though, that God's mercy and love for us, so comforting (and perhaps "affirming" in the modern's lexicon), would be easily remembered, and that reminders chiefly concerned with the need for moral reformation and penitence, or else (La Salette, Fatima) are most needed in an age which holds itself in too great esteem. Though I have seen that this is not the case, the reality still astounds me. I recently took a rather broad course which basically surveyed the universal catechism. When we were discussing the sacrament of Penance, how I was amazed when not one but several kids, raised Catholic for the most part, believed mortal are called mortal because they cannot be forgiven. Luckily, our professor frantically but most ably set straight their misconceptions, no fault of their own. For non-Catholics out of the loop, mortal are so called because 1. they are of grave matter, 2. fully willed, and 3. done by one conscious of their evil; they alienate man from God (but not His overtures), and can lead to damnation if not forgiven. Enough has been said of the unarguable worthlessness of CCD already, so I need say nothing myself. Rather, what to do?

In modern times, it seems especially hard to render believable the idea that the Creator of the Universe so loves us, that he would sacrifice His Son for our eternal happiness, and forgive, over and over and over again, our sins and indifferences against Him. Bewildered by the idea that God the First Cause really loves to His death a seemingly insignificant race inhabiting just one planet in all the expanse of space, we forget that He, who made us in His image, also sees in perspective. The geocentric model, though scientifically mistaken, is a truer map of the heart, both human and divine, than a proportional map placing the solar system and Milky Way in their astronomical niches. Observe:






How, still, to communicate this to make it understandable? As I said, we are fortunate to have all the resources needed in the gospel, so all that must be done is a little explication. The Parable of the Lost Coin would be especially helpful here. Usually overshadowed by the Parable of the Lost Sheep, remember, the old widow finds a lost coin, and is so excited, she invites over the neighbors to celebrate. A priest-professor had fun pointing out the absurdity in an Early Church course I once took. Sometimes the only way to communicate God's love is by a nonsensical anecdote. To put it in terms of Assumption College terms, that would be like finding a quarter in the sofa, and throwing a kegger for all your friends to celebrate. Verily, this is perhaps the easiest of Jesus parables to render intelligible to Assumption College spirituality ^

Foiled again, I said to myself as I read Product of Japan on the back of the box of Pocky I had purchased. Manga, like most books, is generally printed domestically, allowing one to feel good about their buy as they peruse foreign literature. However, after seeing the Rozen Maidens crunch down some Pocky in the eponymous manga, I needed a pack of my own. At the time, though, it never occurred to me that I might needlessly be buying a foreign product when an equivalent American snack would be cheaper. It was, though, delicious, but made me wonder how the Japanese are so healthy. The stuff is sold by the vending machine, and has to be the most unhealthy snack I have ever seen. There are two servings per little box, each under two ounces, and each has about a quarter of the daily value of saturated fat. Ironically, the logo of Glico, the manufacturer, says "A WHOLESOME LIFE IN THE BEST OF TASTE". How innocent; the packaging design looks like something from the 1950s or early 1960s.















After that, I was determined not to bungle the next opportunity at supporting this Nation's pallid manufacturing body. It was a sad parting, but for the first time since elementary school I selected a new pair of shoes that aren't Chuck Taylors. Though Converse All Stars have the classic style I have come to expect from Chinese sweat shops, I opted for a pair of New Balance 993s. Hailing from one of their five New England factories, I decided upon black since it tends to negate their flashiness.