Lost Piece Volume II Issue 3 - Know Thyself.pdf

8/14/2019 Lost Piece Volume II Issue 3 - Know Thyself.pdf

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LOST PIECEan undergraduate journal of letters

VOLUME II, ISSUE IIIKnow Tyself


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LOST PIECE : Volume II - Issue IIIkg

Copyright, Lost Piece ; All rights reserved.

No part of this journal may be used or reproduced by any means,graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, record-ing, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the EditorInChief except in the case of briefquotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Te works included

in this journal are printed with explicit permission of their authors.

Lost Piece: An Undergraduate Journal of Letters Te University of Notre Dame

Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement

PRIN ED IN HE UNI ED S A ES OF AMERICA


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an undergraduate journal of letters gk

LOST PIECEan undergraduate journal of letters

VOLUME II, ISSUE IIIKnow Tyself

Editor-in-Chief Stephen Lechner

Editors Raymond Korson

Josef KuhnConor Rogers


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Something of a Mission Statement From the Editors

Lost Piece exists to facilitate undergraduate reading, discussion,and writing of an intellectual nature beyond course curriculum

and without distraction from the grade point average.

Lost Piece seeks to help undergraduates to complementand even unify what they learn in their classes with

their own personally driven intellectual pursuits.

Te goal of Lost Piece is to combat mediocrity in allthings, and particularly in all things intellectual.

Lost Piece holds that the goods proper to intellec-tual activity are ends in and of themselves and are tobe sought regardless of whatever recognitions may or

may not be extrinsically attached to such activity.


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able of ContentsLost Piece: Volume II, Issue II

Something of a Mission Statement From the Editors ..........................................................................4

Meet the Writers

Lost Piece ......................................................................................7 A Dialogue On DelphiTe Editors ....................................................................................9

Why I Didnt Vote Josef Kuhn .....................................................................................15

Your Honor William Stewart ...........................................................................23

Anatta Brittany Burgeson .........................................................................27

Desireaylor Nutter ................................................................................28

Love is the Reason for Obedience James Schmidt ...............................................................................29Song of OurselvesChristina Mastrucci ......................................................................35

Lack Tereof Catherine Groden ..........................................................................37

Liturgical Emotion Michael Black ................................................................................41

In Short, I Am...Sara McGuirk ...............................................................................49

Black Swan: Humanity and the Perils of IcarusTomas Graff ................................................................................55


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Contribute to Lost Piece

Please consider writingwhether essay, poem, story, or what-have- youfor the Fall 2011 Semester of Lost Piece. Write what youthink is pertinent to the life of a student, whatever that might be

Pose a question

Or offer an answer

Write at whatever length you need

But write well.

Submit your work to Stephen Lechnerat [email protected] by May 20th.


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Meet the Writers

Te Program ofLiberal Studies:So it turns out that PLS stu-dents dont only like to talkabout such trivial things asfree will or the meaning of

life as approached through thelens of certain Great Books,but they also like, even need,to engage ideas wherever theycan nd them. Tats why afew of them got together to

watch movies every week, rstas a social event and later moreas a discussion group.Tey liketo think they are staying true tothe spirit of the word seminar(which literally means seed-

bed) by holding profound con- versations on their own from which they hope to bear thefruits of new ideas, serious dia-logue, and lasting friendships.

Istum:(Also calledTat Ting ) Tree years ago, a group of friendsdecided to get together every weekend to start a literarysociety. Its members include

students from the Collegesof Arts and Letters, Science,and Engineering, but strangelynone from the college ofBusiness. Tey write, simplyput, despite the obvious fact

that they are only tyro writers,and they criticize each others writing as best they can. Oneof their goals is to bring backthe essay (which literally meansan attempt) as a form of writ-

ing and as a rhetorical work ofart. Te group takes its namefrom one of Ciceros orations.

Tese groups have contributed to the writing of the Fall 2010Edition of Lost Piece. We encourage you, as an undergraduate, tocontribute your writing to future editions whether individually or aspart of any such intellectual society. You can send your writing andfeedback to the editor [email protected]. k


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: is a group of undergraduates who meet together to discussissues of importance, rangingfrom theology to philosophy

to current issues in any andall elds. It is a casually struc-tured, socially engaging eventthat welcomes the opportunityto nd both common groundand a multitude of opinions on

topics. And they drink tea, too.

Mustard:Mustard is Notre Dames un-dergraudate creative writingclub. Tey share their writing with each other and offer con-structive and friendly criticismof their work at their 9:00 PM Wednesday meetings in theGold Room of La Fortune. Writing is encouraged, thoughnot required for participation,and new members are always welcome.Email [email protected] for more information.

Te Philosophy Club: Te Philosophy Club is a groupof a few dozen undergraduates who enjoy arguing, using big words, attempting to answer

lifes great questions, askingmore questions, and arguing.

Te Orestes Brownson Council: As a club, OBC is focusedon better understanding the

Catholic intellectual tradi-tion and its interaction withphilosophy, politics, andculture. It takes its namefrom the American Catholicpolitical thinker who is buriedin the crypt of the Basilicaof the Sacred Heart, OrestesBrownson.


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A Dialogue On Delphi An Introduction

Te Editors fromthe Class of 2011

Four of the great minds of theage sit in South Dining Hall sip- ping chilled Bordeaux. Te hall is packed. Te bells of Sacred Heartstill ring their song of six oclock.Sunlight sets through the tallwindows casting a streak of brightcolor, somehow both orange and red,across the oor, up the wall, and onthe face of a newly hung painting.

Joey: (sitting down with histray of food) UmmConor, where did you get caviar?

Conor: Oh, you didnt see it?Its over in the pizza section, but

the lines pretty long, it mightnot be worth it.

Steve: (inspecting a bottle of1996 Saint-Julien Bordeaux fromtheir table) So, is today somekind of occasion?

Conor: I heard the dininghalls trying to respond to last weeks Viewpoint stink over thequality of food here. Tey hadlet mignon and shrimp cocktail

at lunch.Ray: Manand I got Grab n

GoSteve: (pouring himself a gen-

erous glass) Well, Im not gonna

complain.Conor: Now, what I want

to know is, why is that there?(points to the new painting onthe wall) Joey: Oh, thats Colliers

Priestess of Delphi . From some-time around the late 1800s.Conor: Itskind of creepyRay: I think its pretty cool,

actually. See the air bursting outof the earth? Te way shes hold-ing that bowl in her hands Steve: Yeah, the red shes wearing is pretty striking. Andher facethe look shes hidingunder those closed eyesyoucan almost hear her whispering,KNOW HYSELF!Youthink somebodys trying to tellus something by putting thatpainting up? Ray: Oh, come on. Do peopleeven know who the priestess of


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Delphi was? Nobody wouldmake that connection.

Steve: Yeah they would. All they have to do is read alittle bit of Plato. Its all over hisdialogues.

Ray: Yeah, but not manypeople read Plato, do they?

Steve: Owthats a sadthought(drinks more wine) Conor: I think most peopleread at least a dialogue or twofor their intro philo classes.Delphis in the Apology , right?

Tats a pretty common introreading.

Joey: Yeah, but even if peopledo catch the reference, howmany people do you think havereally comprehended what that

means to know theyself? Imean, its a hard message to taketo heart. Look what happenedin Socrates case.

Conor: I agree, Joey. Self-reection is not the kind ofthing that you can just suddenly

do right. It takes effort, andtime, and most importantly, anextraordinary level of honesty. And I just dont know if the typi-cal undergrads are willing to bethat honest with themselvesSteve: (laughing) Owthatsa sad thought (drinks more

wine) Conor: No, but really. Weretalking about something reallydifficult , and I dont think mostpeople will ever do it. I mean, whether you like Socrates or

not, he had a pointpracticallynobody realizes that they dontknow. Why couldnt the peopleof Athens take it? Because he was right , and on top of hav-ing been insulted by him, they

couldnt accept the fact thatthey didnt know. Because thattakeswell, humility, I guess.

Joey: Actually, that sounds alot like something I just read by . S. Eliot, now that you men-tion itDo not let me hear

Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Teir fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. Te only wisdom we can hope to acquireIs the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.


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Something like that, anyway.Ray: So what does it take for

someone to know themselvesor know that they dont knowor become wise or whatever? (Asthey ponder, Steve pours himselfanother glass) Conor: Well, talking with

friends, for one. I mean, thereare things about yourself thatother people can see clearly, that you would never be able to knowon your own.

Steve: I completely agree

we are really good at trickingourselves. Even you and me. Imean, just think of all the littleassumptions we make aboutourselves and other people allthe timeeven now, in this very

conversation. Were all assuming were doing something worthwhile, that what Im saying orabout to say is somehow going tobe worth your time, your atten-tion, your thought. But what if what Im saying is totally absurd?(they all laugh, Steve smiles tooand takes a swig, continues) Itdoesnt appear that way tome , ofcourse, buthow am I to knowif it is absurd unless somebody

tells me? Joey: Actually, I think thats

true about ideas too, not just stuffabout yourself, like Conor wassaying. Te worlds a big place,and there are a lot of ways oflooking at it, so youre not likelyto consider all the possibilities

that you need to consider just on your own. It takes dialogue toreally get anywhere; otherwise, were just a bunch of individu-als who will always be bumpinginto each other because we cant

understand one anothers lan-guages. Like in the story of the ower of Babel.

Steve: (laughing) Wow,thanks, Socrates. Way to throwa plug in for dialectic conversa-

tion. (drinks) Joey: No, really. I mean,the university and all theseother groups are always goingon about dialogue all the time,and regardless of whether theyactually know what it means tohave a dialogue, I think theyvegot the right idea. Ray: (pouring more wine forthe others) But do undergradshere actually do that? Are people


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really trying to gure things outin dialogue or conversation or what-have-you? (Tey listen tothe hum of the dinner crowdtalking. Conor stirs his caviarsheepishly.) Conor: Well, thats kind of what the idea behind Lost Piece

was, right? We wantedtohelp. Give an outlet forwords,ideas

Joey: (nodding his headthoughtfully, listening to thehum) Do you think it worked?

Ray: Oh, yeah, I think it did.It helped, anyway. A lot of stu-dents wrote. A lot are reading.

Conor: And its just begin-ning, really. We have the editorspicked out for next year. Teyll

do a good job, keep it alive. (Tehum continues, they sip quietly.) Joey: But will it be enough?

Tere is a crash of broken glass asSteve, having leapt onto a table toaddress the denizens of the dininghall, throws two empty bottles ofBordeaux to the ground.

Steve: And why are youall here? You, here, at NotreDame, on someone elses money,perhaps, or on two-hundred

thousand dollars of your own?Have you considered it? Didnt

you make the decision to attenda university, and this universityat that? Well? What was it for?

A diploma? Or an education?A diploma, many of you

would say if you were being

honest with yourselves. Honest.Im an honest man, you say,and its no harm to want to besecurely employed after gradu-ation. And honest you maybe, but I have this against you:

It is much easier to escape un-employment than it is to escapemediocrityfor mediocrity runsdeeper than unemployment.

And now, because I am imprac-tical and have studied the arts,

having felt the need to pursueimpossible questions, I mightbe drenched by the swift currentof unemploymentmaybe, for

who knows what the market maybring. But youdiplomatists ,being practical, having pursuedmere job-training, having got-ten all the right internships andnow having a large income setup for next year, you will nd

yourselves drowning in the deep


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doldrums of mediocrity. For what is more dull than a man or woman who could have excelled a man or woman who had aunique opportunity , even auniqueability to achieve an educationa man or woman who could havebecome something , something real ,

something relevant , somethinglegitimate and yet who settledfor security, and therefore re-mained little, average,mediocre ? Tat was too easy, if you ask me.So now I graduate, condemned,

youd say, to pay the penalty ofunemployment, but you, you willbe damned by Reality for yourdullness and mediocrity . I willbear my penalty, but so you will yours. Perhaps it is even good

that we doLaughter! Are you laughingat me because I am drunk? Oh,but I know what I say is true, whether you laugh or not. But you, dont tell me that you havenot been drunk beforeI haveseen you drunk before, andoften. But your drunkenness isfor nothing, not for sorrow, notfor joy. Even your drunkennessis mediocre. And you are wrong

if you believe that by ignoringpeople you can prevent anyonefrom judging you for yourmediocrity. No one can avoidsuch judgment, nor would it be good to avoid it. All that anyonecan hope to do is to try to be aslegitimate as possible.

But an educationsome of you will say instead thatthat is what you are here for. And if you are honest (and honest youmight not be, but if you are hon-est ), then graduation will only

be like a journey from here toanother place. Because for you,studentsand the name student ,one who has zeal, properlyapplies only to youyour edu-cation will not end, but ourish

with graduation. For if you ar-rive at graduation, employed orunemployed, released from thedistraction of those who claimto be students, you may yet ndthrough your own pursuit those who were students in truth. Youmay yet, by reading, converse andassociate with Homer, Dante,Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, andmany more, and this, for you, will bring undoubted legitimacy.


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So you too, students, should beof good hope towards gradua-tion, and you should know thisone thing to be true: that thereis no misfortune that can befallan interesting and legitimateperson, whether employed orunemployed, from which God

will turn away, indifferent. Tus, with a new command-

ment, I challenge you whoremain at this university comenext fall: Ridicule one another,even as I have ridiculed you, if

that other seems to care for aGPA or a diploma or anythingelse before intellectual legiti-macy. And if others are reputedto be something when they arenothing, reproach them just as

I did you: ell them that theydo not care for the things theyshould, and that they supposethey are something when theyare worth nothing. And if youdo these things, you will havetreated all legitimate students with justice.

Most of the crowd only see Steve faint at the end of his ridiculous,drunken oration, for it takes theentire duration of his rant before

his shouts overcame the halls hum.wilight lingers as the others, stillvery alarmed at the eveningsevents, carry him off to bed.k


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Josef KuhnClass of 2011Program of Liberal Studies

Tis past November, mygrandmother kindly went to thetrouble of obtaining an absen-tee ballot for me to vote in thePennsylvania midterm elections,but I never lled that ballot out,and it now lies in a trash heapsomewhere. I wasnt trying to

spite my grandmother. I madea deliberate, reasoned choicenot to voteyes, you can dosuch a thing. I am not referringto a decision to abstain becauseneither major party strikes your

fancy, or because you reject thecountrys entire political-eco-nomic system. My decision wasnot guided by any such politicalangst, although such a motivefor abstention may be perfectly

legitimate. No, my decision was motivated, quite simply, bymy own ignorance. But let meexplain further. As I approached the rst elec-tion for which I would be of legal

voting age, I was a little puzzledas to why all my elder relations were so supremely concerned with whether I planned to vote.Strangely, they did not seem at

all concerned whether I wouldcast an informed, judicious vote.None of them made any effortsto ensure that my political edu-cation was sufficient, aside fromtossing a few pro-life pamphlets

at me. Of course, this arousedmy suspicion that my elders wereonly desirous to add one moretally to the party of their ownpolitical persuasion. My puzzlement at this oddapproach to civic duty did notabate. It stuck with me untilI was recently reminded of itby, of all things, a Doritos bag.On the back of this bag wasa marketing shtick claiming,Doritos Supports Kids WhoDo Something ! (or along thoselines). Te bag proled a youngman who had founded an orga-nization to increase the numberof young people voting. Now,

Why I Didnt Vote An Essay


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I must make it clear that I amfully in support of the intentionsof this noble endeavor. But thiscrinkly bag of snack food calledmy attention back to somethingshy about the prevailing at-titude toward elections. Tis was the same shiness I had

smelt around my relatives, and itconsisted in this: the Doritos bagpraised this young mans organi-zation simply for increasing the youth vote by 250,000, or somenumber , without any mention of

the quality of those votes.It might seems strange to talk

about the quality of a vote, butI believe it only seems strangebecause we are not used to talk-ing about it, and that is because

all peoples opinions must beregarded as equal, etc., etc. But when I say quality of a vote, Imean simply the common no-tion, taught in all civics classes,that a citizen must investigatethe candidates thoroughly andmake a sensible and impartialdecision, to the best of his or herabilities. Shouldnt we be moreconcerned with the lack of voterquality than of voter quantity?

How does an increase in votesby 250,000 benet the nation, ifeach of those votes might havebeen chosen based on the namesof the candidates or completelyat random, for all we know?

Yet one seldom hears a big to-do made over any attempts by

individuals or organizations toenable the citizenry to carry outtheir civic duty with prudenceand justice. I am sure that suchattempts existmaybe the orga-nization featured on the Doritos

bag even has an educational andinformational branchbut thiscrucial side of the duty of votingis too often ignored. Tat Doritos bag representedto me what seems to be the

common opinion of voting in America (I am not sure aboutthe rest of the democratic

world). Around election time, you hear one rallying cry takenup on all sides around you inthe form of trite slogans: GetOut and Vote! Make YourVoice Heard! Tese sloganshave begun to irritate me to noend, not because of what theyadvocateof course everyone in


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a democracy should participatein the governmentbut becausethey are never balanced by thenecessary and complemen-tary exhortations: Know YourCandidates! Research theIssues! Be Fair-Minded andConsider the Common Good,

Rather than Only Your PettyPassions! Te common slogansimply that the duty of voting isfullled in a single event, that voting is just something you goout and do on election day. But

in reality, the democratic dutyto vote is a continual duty, andit involves much more than mostpeople would like to believe. Itrequires consistent attention tohappenings in the public world ,

whether on the national, state,or local level, andthoroughgoinginvestigation of the candidates inthe period running up to theelection. It also requiresa seriousattempt to grasp all the complexi-ties and nuances involved in highlycontroversial issues . In short, theduty of voting demands bothtime and mental effort , yes, evena lot of each. But such is thesacrice we must make to live

in a free society. o the extentthat each of us fails to makethese sacrices, we let ourselvesbe guided by forces above ourheads, and wecease to be free .

While were on the topic,I might as well point out thatthose forces over our heads are

often the very forces that give usthe illusion of freedom of choice.I am referring to the media, tothe advertising campaigns of thepoliticians, and to the govern-ment itself. Tese agencies do

very little to facilitate informeddecisions, and often activelystymie rational deliberation. Ingeneral, it is fairly safe to say thatany media message is strategi-cally designed to work on your

passions and prejudices, for oneside or the other. And of course,there are only two sides to everyissue. Every political matter,down to the tiniest administra-tive detail, is immediately turnedinto a game of tug-of-war byultra-polarized politicians andpundits, so that one can nevereven get the facts straight. Andthe PR teams of most politiciansdo their utmost to make their


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candidates platform as vagueas possible and to keep any bitsof concrete information fromcreeping into campaign adver-tisements and websites. Teportraits of the candidates that we get from them are, of course,meticulously crafted.

Where can one turn in thisquagmire? It would be nice ifone could nd an agency or pub-lication with the express purposeof providing busy citizens withclearly organized, objective in-

formation on political candidatesand governmental proceedings,but to my knowledge no suchagency exists. Entrepreneurialtypes, take notehere is anenormous gap in the informa-

tion market, just crying to belled. And it seems that theInternet was made for such uses.But to hope for a truly objectivepolitical news source is probablyto search for the philosophersstone. In the present state ofthings, there are some sourcesof honest information and voicesof intelligent opinion within themedia, but these are few andhard to nd. Tey mostly hide

out in the written species ofmedianewspapers, magazines,and books, on paper or online.Unfortunately, fewer and fewerpeople pay attention to thesesources as they are drowned outby more insistent and illiberal voices on the television and the

radio. Because of all the obstaclesmentioned above, the best(maybe only) possible way tobe really informed about what you are voting for is to actually

get involved in the governmentand get know the candidatespersonally. Of course, that ispretty hard to do on the na-tional and even the state level, so your best bet is to start locally.

Coincidentally, the level of gov-ernment that should affect yourday-to-day life most directly (thelocal) is also the level in which your voice can most easily havean actual impact. But paradoxi-cally, people seem to pay moreattention to political matters theless power they have to affectthem. You may know everythingthere is to know about BarackObama and Sarah Palin, but can


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I could have made more of aneffort to learn about the politicalgoings-on affecting the generalpublic rather than being so self-ishly absorbed in my own collegelife. Te single-minded focuson increasing the quantity of

votes is not an isolated prob-lem; it reects a widespread, willful blindness to our na-tions most serious political ills.Psychologically, its an easyphenomenon to explain. Our

natural inclination as humans isto avoid exertion whenever pos-sible, and this applies no less tomental than to physical exertion. Tats why were always trying tosimplify issues that cannot really

be simplied, convincing our-selves that big problems are easyto solve. We want to believe thatif we just pitch in more moneyhere or re those people there,everything will come up roses. Tis is the same reason whypolitical discourse is so polarizednow; its much easier to fall backon a prepackaged platform thanto actually have to do your ownthinking and research. Tat way

you know who are the good guysand who are the bad guys; every-thing is simple. What is this butsheer mental laziness? So I admit that I failed in mydemocratic duty because I didntsacrice enough time and effortto bring myself to the level at

which I felt sufficiently informedto vote; but how much more dothey fail in their duty who do noteven recognize that they mustsacrice much time and effortto bring themselves to this level?

Was my failure any worse thanthat of those who did vote, but voted for candidates they hadnever even heard of based onmere party prejudice, or votedfor candidates based on judg-

ments they had formed hastilyfrom a few vague impressionsgotten from V or You ube?Let us call things what they are.If shortcoming is shortcoming,and failure is failure, than the vast majority of those who votealso come short of the mark fora responsible citizen of a democ-racy and fail in their democraticduty.

I realize that I am setting the


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mark extremely high, but a doseof idealism may be just what theillness calls for.Someone in a de-mocracy has to stand up for virtueand excellence over mediocrity. Ialso realize that if my reasoning were put into practice, almostnobody would allow themselves

to vote. Or worse yet, the bestand wisest men and women, who are able to contemplatetheir own ignorance, would not vote, leaving the vote entirely tothe most foolish segments of the

population. When I discussedmy argument in this essay witha friend, he replied, But Joey, youre probably more knowledge-able about the candidates than alot of the people who do vote! I

do not dispute this point. Tis is why I am not recommending mydecision as a pragmatic courseof widespread action. No personcan presume to decide for anyother person at what point he orshe is knowledgeable enough tocast a responsible vote. Where would you draw the line? It would have to be arbitrary, justas the voting age is arbitrary. Tus, the decision to vote or not

to vote must be a matter of con-science. I did not vote because,like Socrates, I was conscious ofmy own ignorance in the eldof politics. My conscience toldme that it would be irrespon-sible and pointless for me to votegiven my level of ignorance. All

I can ask you to do is to care-fully consider, before you go tothe ballot box, how much timeand thought you have put into your decision, and whether youare carrying out your duty to

your country in the manner of atruly responsible, educated, andupstanding citizen. If the answeris less than satisfactory, you canstill vote if you want to, but youmust by all means make an effort

to get closer to that ideal by thenext election. And all do-good-ers with well-formed intentionsand less well-formed reasoningfaculties can stop pestering ev-eryone to vote. If people arent voting, theres probably a goodreason for it, and were probablybetter off because of it.k


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on behalf of all those who work to make Lost Piecehappen...

e Tanks For Reading


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William StewartClass of 2012Program of Liberal Studies

Te sky presented an ambigu-ous complexion on the morningthat Your Honor handed downthe ruling. Murky grey cloudshad swirled through the sapphireblue sky that morning, each oneconfusing with the other andleaving him, as he paused on

the steps of the courthouse, atsomewhat of a loss to make adeclaration with any certaintyabout their character: it wasunclear whether they constituteda threatening formation or a

optimistic opening in the skies. And further, he concluded,an accurate interpretation ofthe renewal clause in 10 of thestatute clearly demonstrates thatthe transfer of funds between

the accounts of the company andMr. Silberman is unlawful andcriminal. Tis court nds thecomplaint levied against the de-fendant legitimate and mandatesthat his party shall remunerate

the plaintiff the amount in fullof damages incurred by sucha transfer. Te court is nowadjourned. His secretary agged down

Your Honor as he walkedthrough the anteroom towardhis office. Misters Wilcox and Voigt would like to set a date with youto meet about the Copstone case.

Tey say that they are interestedin an out-of-court settlement,and had hoped that you wouldmediate. I gave them the tenta-tive date of the twelfth. Tat mediation will be worthwhile only if they havereviewed the business expansionlaw that was just passed. ellthem to read the last pages ofthat ordinance, especially thosepertaining to joint corporationsettlements, before setting thedate. In all likelihood, becausethe law does not allow forgrandfather cases, theirs will nolonger be eligible for this kindof mediation and will have to be

Your Honor A Story


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heard in court. ell them thatthey can call me with questions.Im sure theyll have them. While eating lunch later thatafternoon, Your Honor ex-plained to Harris, a friend of hisfrom law school and a recent ap-pointee to the bench, the nature

of their position. Wearing the robe is not onlyabout passing a judgment. Itis about authoring an objectiveconclusion from a subjective pre-sentation. No matter the weight

the decision carries, societydepends on your words. Peopleenter the court because they areconfused and because the sen-tences of the judge offer them areassuring direction in the midst

of conict. Never forget that:even when people outwardlydisagree with your decisions,they thank you inwardly forthe certainty you provide them.

You give them something solidto trust, even when they cannotunderstand it. Your Honor took the express-

way back home to the suburbs,listening to the days news onthe radio and only losing a few

minutes in a slight traffic delay.Pulling into his driveway, hesaw that his wife was alreadyhome. Seeing her car always re-assured him. Since the purchaseof the house, a chronic, naggingfear had lodged itself rmly inthe back of his mind. It poked

and prodded him throughoutthe day to second-guess if all ofthe doors had been locked andthe iron and stove burners hadactually been switched off. Heconstantly feared arriving home

to a street of re trucks drown-ing his ve bedroom udor,and seeing his wifes car let himbreathe a sigh of relief, knowingthat, if anything had occurred,she would have found it rst and

probably called him to let himknow. Walking through the door, hegreeted his wife with a kiss andproceeded to loosen his tie. How were their days, they asked eachother. Uneventful, Your Honoranswered her. Te same, sheresponded. He never knew howto push that question, how toask her to say more without pry-ing or sounding overprotective.


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What did his wife do duringthe day, he wondered. She woretennis skirts and joined womensleagues, but how could he everhave any surety that what shetold him was the truth? Tere was no way to really know, heruminated silently over the pork

chop and peas. Who was she when they werent together atthe house? He crumpled thepaper over into his lap, pausingto think about how to phrasethe question, but then decided

against it, picking the Marketsection back up. Hmm? sheasked him from across the room,but he just shook his head. His wife went to sleep, but Your Honor stayed awake, sit-

ting up in the bed, ippingthrough the muted channels. Hepaused on a late night talk show,the pale blue of the televisionpainting his expressionless face. Te host was interviewing aneconomist whose name lookedfamiliar to Your Honor, thoughhe could not remember where hehad come across it. Te box atthe bottom of the screen bearingthe name titled him as an author

as well as a professor, and YourHonor glanced at his bedsidetable. Tere, in raised, metal-lic letters along the spine of apopular-economics bestseller, Your Honor read the nameof the same economist beinginterviewed. He picked up his

copy and studied its bright bluecover before ipping the pages. Although he hadnt actuallynished the book, he remem-bered enjoying its simplicity andexciting pace. He looked back

at the screen and author, whosehand gestures and lip move-ments appeared comical behindthe mute button. What would itfeel like to be an expert like thatand have an answer for everyone,

he thought to himself. He hadliked economics in college, heremembered, liked it enough toeven major in it, but he couldntquite think why he had left it forlaw school. He wondered if he would have made a decent aca-demic, if he could have ended upan economics professor. Te lawhad been good to him, though,had been a sure pathway to eco-nomic stability. It was a good


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choice for his family. He lookedat the sleeping curve of his wife.

Tough she never said it, sheprobably thanked him inwardlyfor the choice.k


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Anatta (Te Not-Self) A Poem

I is neither ID nor egos sum

of ideas,

Aspirations; the sculpted vibrations of lettered

objects on a face

I cannot be contained in a vat brain

on an odd pedestal

I scratch three lines an exasperated sigh

I, I, I. k

Brittany BurgesonClass of 2012Mustard


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Desire A Poem

A dream of endless, endless plains Te subtleties of miles Of endless, countless, owing grainOf pleasure in a smile

Musics soft resounding dinTe horizon lying soft, beyond But in the waking life were in It seems these things they do abscond

For it is into thoughtless dreams Tat even the old men retire For it is not a passion they seek No, naught but desire k

aylor NutterClass of 2014Philosophy Major


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James SchmidtClass of 2013Istum

Tere seems to be great con-fusion about a lot of things these

days. I wish here to dispel justone of them. I want to nd the justication for obedience, myanswer to which is suggestivelyhidden in the title. Tere isalso a problem of authority, i.e.

what justies it , but I am notgoing to ask this question. Formy inquiry, I want to ask When there is legitimate authority andwhen that authority commandsor requests some (legitimate)action, what justies doing what the authority says? Inother words what reason can begiven (other than the obviousbut altogether unsatisfying onebecause so-and-so said so) fordoing such-and-such? I want torestrict my attention to cases in which the authority is a person with whom the subject of obedi-ence has a personal relationship,and therefore exclude questions

of the states or an institutionsauthority. But my goal is actu-ally to widen application of act-ing obediently.

Before getting started, it may

be helpful to get clear about what exactly obedience is, orrather, what circumstancesconstitute acting accordingto another persons say-so asan act of obedience? Te rst

thing necessary is a legitimateclaim to authority. So if a shadycharacter takes someone by forceand demands that he empties his wallet, he may receive the reply,Excuse me sir, I am on my wayto a meeting right now and I amrunning a bit late. Id rather younot delay me any longer and inthis case we would not say theman was acting disobediently. Te second thing has to do withthe request itself. Say some kidsmother poisons the soup whilecooking dinner and tells them,Eat this. A refusal here shouldnot be considered disobedience,not because a mother isnt a

Love is the Reason for Obedience An Essay


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legitimate authority, but becausethe thing commanded is nota legitimate thing to ask. So I

will assume that there is a cer-tain amount of legitimacy in theauthority itself and in the thingasked, but exactly where the lineis to be drawn for these cases

isnt very clear and it is not mydeal here to correct that.

But there are cases in whichthe legitimacy of the thing askedis not itself clear, but acting ac-cordingly could be justied. A

friend once asked me if I woulddrop smoking for my wife and Iresponded, Absolutely, withouta moments thought- if it wasbecause she found it distaste-ful but if it was because of

moral uneasiness about the mat-ter, then no way, Jose! I changedmy position later, and it isdenitely not because I came to

justify bad ethics1 but because a wife is the type of thing to love,and love is the type of thing in

which the reason for acting isone that refers to what someoneelse wants without checking therationale of those wants againstanother criterion (e.g. the agents

wants).2

Te example I give showsthe reason I say one is justiedin acting obediently (even ifthe example is not obedienceproper). Someone is not justiedin acting only by because thatperson said so since we could

ask But why do what that per-son says or wants? Te answerI provide- Because I love thatperson- is where I say the ques-tion of obedience stops (i.e. thequestion Why did you do that?)

and where another question, if1 I should perhaps qualify this bynoting that if the ethics were really outof line, say apathy about coldbloodedmurder then my reaction would be abit different. But given that I see themorality of smoking as a relativelypointless topic, I accept it as a justi-able reason to go one way or another. Tis example just marks the difficultyin drawing lines in certain situations.2 I dont exactly know where lovefalls into philosophy on action. I havereferenced Anscombes claim beforethat our reasons can be traced to adesirability characteristic of the agent(Intention sec. 37) but I think love is aclear divergence from that. Someonecould say Well you act because you want what they want and I guess thatstrue, but I think a lover would justifyhis action by saying I did it because you wanted it not because I want what you want.


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it must be asked, begins: Whydo you love that person? Butbefore going any further I wantto explain the value of obediencein this light. When one actsfor love of another person, whatmakes acting according to theirsay-so different from acting e.g.

only because it will be good forthem? Lets take an example. Your mom asks you to wash thedishes. If you do what she asks we call it obedience. Or youcome home and notice the stack

of dishes. You do them then andthere, but we do not say you werebeing obedient. Te second is a very noble thing to do, indeed,but I want to mark a distinctionbetween the two kinds of acts.

I will rst present the argu-ment and then tackle a compli-cation that comes up. If you seethe dishes are stacked up and dothem there could be a variety ofreasons that you do them: theyneed to get done anyway, or yourmom will probably ask you later(so better now than then), or you dont like the smell of dirtydishes, or because you know it will make your mom happy.

Now a key feature I see in act-ing for such reasons is that itcontains an explicit awareness ofthe good to be brought about bythe action (the good I am refer-ring to here is the dishes gettingdone). If I e.g. just turned on thedishwasher (lets say even doing

this is an arduous task) and wastold But there arent any dishesin there then I wouldnt havethe dishes need to be done asa reason for doing it.3 Now say your mom says Do such-and-

such, but you dontknow whatgood reason there could be fordoing it. If you act according to your love for her, then love forher is the only good reason youhave for doing it. So obedience

sort of sifts out the reasons wecould have for doing somethingand makes it exclusively or pri-marily the persons asking it ofus, and in the case of my presentargument, love for the personasking it of us. Now you could3 Anscombe points this out in Intention.Why are you going upstairs? o fetchthe camera But the camera isnt up-stairs, its on the table down here We would be at a loss to understand whyhe is still walking up the stairs.


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say But when your mom asks you to do the dishes, you couldstill have all those other quali-fying reasons in addition. Sofor things the good of which isknown by the agent there doesseem to be a difficulty. But I say,if your action was donebecause

of the request (e.g. you wouldhave been reading Lost Piece ifshe hadnt asked), then I think we can still be sure that it is theprimary reason. Anyway, ques-tions and problems of obedience

are usually directed towardsuncertainty about what goodthere is in complying (i.e. blindobedience) and my argument isabout that.

Before going on to the com-

plication, I clarify the role of re-quests or commands. Accordingto this reason for acting obedi-ently, a command does not playthe role of commanding, butrather expressing the other per-sons wants, in like manner whenI tell my friend, Guess who Italked to today? what is happen-ing is not the revelation of somedry historical fact (that Jamestalked to so-and-so today); I

am sharing with someone I careabout and someone who caresabout me something that I wanthim to know because it was anevent that I take an evaluativestance on and would like myfriend to share in. In other words, we shouldnt be too quick

to say that what is containedin a statement made between persons (as opposed to e.g. whatI say in this philosophy essay asI write it in my computer) is ad-equately expressed merely by the

language. In point of fact, I amexpressly trying to change theattitude we take on the languageused in cases of commanding.

Now there seems to be a prob-lem with thinking that satisfy-

ing anothers wants is all there isto love. Obviously, we wouldntcall it love for a parent to give achild candy every time he askedfor it, though at rst glance theexample doesnt seem to domuch here since a child doesnthave a claim to authority. But itis a good example rst becauseit points out that for those whodo have a claim to authority, thescope of that authority is still


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an open question and secondbecause satisfying wants maybeisnt the quintessential act oflove. A story may help. I was ata party at which a friend and hisgirlfriend were preparing din-ner. Te woman wounded hernger and in a t of anxiety (and

devotion!) her man rushed to thestore to get the necessary rst-aid material. Upon returning,she reprimanded him for notkeeping her company while shecontinued preparing the meal.

In this situation, we could seethat he might have been justiedto leave her- she would have bledto death otherwise! In fact, I would probably say that actingaccording to her wants in that

case would not have been theright way to go. But just becauseit would be justiable to haveheeded her request, if it wouldhave been, does not impugnthat it would have been justi-able all the same to go againstit. So what is requested doesplay some part in whether lovecan be attributed as the reasonfor acting as such, and at thebeginning I assumed that the

things we take as requested arelegitimate. But the very problem with obedience is that one actsoften without knowing whetheror not it is legitimate or goodin the rst place, which was the very reason I gave for exalting itsstatus as acting primarily out of

love. I am not sure yet how todeal with this difficulty. But I would just say that it is unfair totake an example like this and saythat we cant reasonably acceptthe legitimacy of many requests

made upon us, just as that clowntrying to persuade you thatSanta Clause is real wouldnt justify questioning the reason-ableness of accepting on trust what a friend tells you happened

two hours ago in the lecture youdidnt attend.I end by discussing the ap-

plications of this reason forobedience. First, it seems it isgreatly limited to the people welove. Personally, I dont considerthis a constraint, because I thinkthat humans qua humans havesome right to our love.4 As an4 Obviously humans qua humans donthave a right to our obedience, but...


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example, when the professorsays, Hush up and pay atten-tion listening to the lecture likeit actually matters can be donefor a better reason than justbecause the next test will bebrutal if you dont. For those who do not agree, then I sup-

pose the real argument for me tomake is that any person we havea certain amount of relationship with has a certain claim to ourlove, and therefore if they havea certain claim to authority they

also have a claim to a certain de-gree of obedience. But I am not yet sure how to argue this universal dictum of love. Second,the applicability of the solutionto cases where there obviouslyis

love is too great- I think- to bebrushed off. For this I have hu-man love in mind; it seems thattoo often once the magic hasdisappeared in marriage the rea-sons for a request made by oneparty are weighedscrupulously bythe other, in a way that I dontthink is conducive to a healthymarried life. Tird, there is theproblem of the authority of thestate, because you cannot love

something impersonal like youcan a person.5 But that is not tooproblematic since we should becautious of thinking that obedi-ence to an institution can belikened to personal obedience inthe rst place. Finally, my wayof speaking about obedience

may seem odd for the contextsthat I apply it to. I imaginemany problems of obedience areinstead problems of authority,

which I put off dealing with inthis essay. Tis is partly because

I am at a loss about what author-ity is and partly because I thinkthe motive I put forth for actingobediently can justify it in somecases without even asking aboutauthority. Te ultimate point is

that we can take our interactionsand encounters with people asopportunities to love them; inthe case of a request made, Iexplained how.k

...I have said nothing about the reasons justifying authority.5 I hate to say this, but yes, even ifthe authority is the beloved monarch.


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Christina MastrucciClass of 2011English Major

We live in the greenand not in the grass itself.

Each spear of summer grass is seen only for its color,but not for how it grows or how it suffocates.

Te lilacs in the dooryard have withered.Purple mountains roll only to hidethe dead in the valley.

Wake up, wake up!

See the sprawled eaglebathing in its blood,

the trail of tears it carved on the faces of the forsaken.

Beneath that gulf of bones the bodies of the slainare rotten, unburied,

while the spears of summer grass think themselves an island.

Song of Ourselves A Poem


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Perchance a memory of the soil in our souls can cure our twisted nature,

but how does one sowshriveled grass, or yet,a graveyard of lilacs?

If we could remember the roots of our hearts,

perhaps they would be revived; yet,

We live in the greenand not in the grass itself.Grass by any other name would still be grass.k


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Catherine GrodenClass of 2013Mustard

I would like to tell you thestory of Lou: believe me. I

want to whisper it in your earand have you pass it on until itbecomes something greater andmore profound than it really was. I want to visit his favoriteplaces on this campus and erect

signs reading,Lou was here . ButI dont know what those placesmight be. So you see, I really would liketo tell you the story of my father;but I dont know it myself.

* * * Its always a jolt, to hear peopletell dad stories. Just the word is jarring enough. Its short andhard and unfamiliar, with thatfunny a sound that my friendsfrom up north can rarely pro-nounce. Dad. Dad . It should be written like that, like cest la vie ;like something foreign, but notenough to warrant a translation. We hadnt gotten there yet,

you see; and it was neverDaddy anyway. It was Dada, alwaysDada. I have no idea why.

Te upside is that I retain alot of information about found

objects. But the stories. Anecdotes,really. Teyre not stories at all,theyre snippets of conversationsand bemoaning of rules, nothingthat should be called a story.

In any case its a whole form ofsocial intercourse, the dad thing;one of them starts with a com-plaint and then another agreesand elaborates and then theyreoff. Teres no reining them inuntil they wear themselves outon their own. Sometimes you want to shutthem up. o give them a pieceof your mind, for making lightof what theyve got, forresenting it, even. Tats wanting to be visible tothem. Mostly, though, you want tobe invisible. Let them chatteron, happily oblivious you want

Lack Tereof A Story


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to be allowed to absorb. Luckily thats usually whathappens.

* * * What is a parent, anyway, buta story the child cannot fullytell? My mothers best friendin college was the woman whose

house I never wanted to visitbecause her sons were bigger andpicked on me.

Clearly I cant tell her storyeither, my mothers; but if youreally want to know she can tell

you herself. Words are whatshe and I have in common; thescience I got from my father. Ithink.

* * * oday at the game they parad-

ed the cancer survivors aroundthe court. Everyone clapped, forhours it seemed, but once I sawthe rst man I couldnt. All thestories these people can tell, itsnot fair. All the pink. Its notfair. What about the others, those whose tragedy doesnt t in quitethe same peg as all the rest? Its a terrible thing to say, butthe truth is that its very hard to

applaud a list of survivors, how-ever long and diverse and beau-tiful, lacking the face for which

youre always, unconsciously,searching. I didnt try too hard not to cry,

watching them. I knew no-one would notice. No-one did.

* * * I would tell the story if Icould. Someone should. But Icant. I can tell you when he wasborn and when he died, whenhe graduated and married; but

thats no story. Tats an outline. Youd think the least a kidcould do would be to tell hisown story of those days, but Icant do that either. What doesa seven-year-old understand of

hospitals? Only that they smellfunny and that sometimes thepeople come out but sometimesthey dont. Whats in the bag,Mommy? Blood? But its notred. And then as time goes onmemory fragments and locksgreat chunks of itself away, untilthere are words to tell a storythats no longer there. Te best I could do would beto tell you all the stories since


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then, the ones that arent abouthim in the slightest.

* * * It was the last week of thirdgrade and, for lack of anythingbetter to do with us, our teacherhad passed out Fathers DayPackets. We rushed in from

recess, red-faced from the heatand the climb up the narrowstaircase, and found the crisppapers, neatly stapled and sittingon each desk. I saw them as I passed other

kids places, saw what they said: About My Dad. Tings I Do With My Dad. Te packet wasa ll-in-the-blank, a gift. Tere were pictures to color. I preparedmyself: mine would be different,

but that was normal so so what? When I got to my desk,though, it was already differ-ent. Tere was a thick blackline through everyDad , and myteachers tidy round handwritinghad replaced them all with Mom.

I took it straight up to her andasked for a normal one. Ten,angry, I sat myself down andlled it out. If Id had the words then, or

the self-assurance, I might havesaid something like: I resent your implication. My family isnot broken, nothing is erased, Ihave a father. Im already dif-ferent, different in so many waysfrom the other girls at this littleplaid school thanks for setting

me apart some more. But maybe I wouldnt have.Maybe I just wanted to see herreaction. Ive forgotten what shesaid. It was nice of her to remem-

ber, really.* * *

In any case Im not convincedthat anyones story can really betold. I cant even tell my own,mostly because I dont know how

to frame it. When I try to tellthe Story of My Life it alwaysstarts with my father and soundslike a tragedy, which it is not.Usually its a comedy. Someoneslaughing. Most of the time itsme.

* * * I was thirteen and walkinghome from school with thesisters who live down the street;the younger one was pegging


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me with questions. What does your dad do? Huh? What doeshe do? But I was an awkwardchild who didnt yet know howto dance, to answer the questiondelicately, so as not to make oth-ers too uncomfortable; and I saidnothing until at last her sister

said, too loudly, Hesdead . I laughed so hard I fell off the sidewalk. Te older girl waspleased with herself; she thoughtit was funny too.

* * *

Tats true but its wrong. Tere are funnier things, likecheese graters and lamps that wont stay lit. Innocent things. You had to be there. You see why true stories are

so hard. * * * Were having a registry, col-lecting future marrow donors.So yesterday I called my motherand asked the Questions Which Are Not Asked In Tis Family,to nd out just how personallyinvested I should be. urns out its not very much. A moot point I had imagined tobe critical.

I will crusade for this driveanyway.

Even my mother had troubleremembering. Cest la vie .

* * * What I can tell you is this:that that candle there, that onein the upper left, about to be

doused by the dark wind thatsthe one I just lit. Tat I put it inthat same spot every month, sothat when I look back, for just amoment I know where Im com-ing from. k


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Michael Black Class of 2011Orestes Brownson Council

Liturgical Emotion An Essay

Philip did not make much account of this warmth and acuteness of feeling, forhe said that emotion was not devotion, that tears were no sign that a man was inthe grace of God; neither must we suppose a man holy merely because he weeps when he speaks of religion. ~ Bl. Cardinal Newman, Light of Holy Joy

Blessed Cardinal Newman isspeaking of a difference betweenemotion and devotion. When weapproach the Liturgy, we oughtnot to seek emotional comfort;one should approach a Liturgyso that he might, in devotion,

give himself and submit his willto God. However, the emotionhe is addressing is the Anglicanunderstanding in post-Lockean,nineteenth century positivistEngland. Positivism, among oth-ers things, is the philosophical

doctrine contending that senseperceptions are the only admis-sible basis of human knowledgeand precise thought. He is notarguing for a rationalist denialof any role for emotions in theLiturgy; emotions in fact help

us grow in devotion. A simplelook in any medieval Church isfull of art and architecture meantto arouse the senses. Rather,Newman argues against emo-tions as the end of the liturgicalprayer and as the summit of ones

ascent to God.In this essay I call for a re-newed understanding of therole emotions play in the lifeof true devotion and ascent toGod. I will argue with CardinalNewman that this positivist no-

tion of emotions is not devotionand a Liturgical Life orientedtowards eliciting this kind ofemotional response and comfortis disordered. Tis is not to saythat emotions have no role inones approach to the Liturgy

and the Blessed Sacrament. What I will argue, then, is fora higher sense of emotion that,though an intellectual response,is not inwardly focused butserves to elevate our whole beingto a spiritual union with God.

rue emotions are embodiedmental states. Te positivist notionof emotions resonates more withthe Aristotelean and Stoic notionof uncontrolled emotions, or pa-thos ( ). Tese appetites canbe understood as the emotions, or


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passions, we share with sentientanimalsthe bodily feelings

of pleasure and pain and such. Tere are, however, deeperintentional emotions that arerooted in our rational capaci-ties. We are by nature embodiedrational agents and we can feelrationally. Tese are deeply spiri-

tual emotions; affective responsesthat humans alone can give toobjects. It involves a rational re-sponse to some object and in thecase of the Liturgy, it involvesa rationally emotional assentof love to Christ. rue emotion

needs an object as its reference. As Dietrich von Hildebrand as-serted in Te Heart , it makes nosense to say I feel compassion-ate, but I do not know toward whom. Our intellect, our ra-tional capacity, is the foundation

of our spiritual and intellectuallife and is presupposed for otherspiritual functions (nihil volitum,nisi cogitatum; it is not possibleto will unless we know what is willed) like these spiritual feel-ings. Pure passions do nothingto unite us to the object of Christour Savior. Rather, these true,spiritual emotions are those thatunite our animal and angelicfaculties so that, as humans, wedevote ourselves to God in devo-tion and adoration. Our rightly

ordered emotion towards God,then, must be intellectual and

this kind of spiritual emotionought to be the end of a Liturgy. St. Bernard of Clarivaux, thegreat mystic monk of the latetwelfth century, describes thisdistinction in a different way inhis treatise De Dilegendo Deo.

In his treatise, he describes fourstages along the ascent from anatural to a full and spiritual loveof God. He posits that every-thing good in human persons isan expression of Gods love andthat, by love, the person may

participate in the being of thetriune God. St. Bernards viewis that, through the medium ofa love of God, ones relation-ship with God will grow from apurely carnal love of the self toa fully spiritual love of the self.

Romano Guardini, a priest andimportant Catholic intellectualof the 20th-century, argues thatthe liturgy as a whole is not fa- vorable to exuberance of feeling.Emotion glows in its depths, butit smolders merely, like the eryheart of the volcano, whose sum-mit stands out clear and sereneagainst the quiet sky. Te liturgyis emotion, but it is emotion un-der the strictest control. We aremade particularly aware of this atHoly Mass, and it applies equally


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to the prayers of the Ordinaryand of the Canon, and to those of

the Proper of the ime. Amongthem are to be found master-pieces of spiritual restraint.1 Te end of the Liturgy cannotsimply be a fostering of the pas-sions or base emotional comfort. Tere is, in the Liturgy, a certain

primacy of logos over pathos sincethe Liturgy is oriented as a prayerto Christ 2 who is the Logos . TeCatholic liturgy is the supremeexample of an objectively estab-lished rule of spiritual life. Ithas been able to develop kata

tou holou, that is to say, in everydirection, and in accordance with all places, times, and typesof human culture. Terefore it will be the best teacher of thevia ordinariathe regulationof religious life in common,

with, at the same time, a view toactual needs and requirements. Tus, when we approach theLiturgy solely for emotional com-fort, we betray the Liturgy itself. Tis kind of an emotional com-fort is the carnal emotions thatSt. Bernard speaks of and thekind of emotion that Guardiniargues against. Tis is not tosay that all who approach theLiturgy and Christ in the BlessedSacrament need to have a well-ordered rational and intellectual

understanding of the great mys-teries of the Faith; rather, we

ought to approach the Liturgy forour Communion with Christ theLogos , not for our own emotionalcomfort. Furthermore, since weare by nature rational, compositebeings, we betray ourselves andGod Almighty by lowering the

Liturgy to a mere means fornatural emotion. Tis is not, ofcourse, an attempt to deny thatthe heart and the emotions playan important part in the life ofprayer. Prayer is, without a doubt,a raising of the heart to God.

But the heart must be guided,supported, and puried by themind. In individual cases or ondenite and explicit occasions itmay be possible to persist in, andderive benet from, emotion pureand simple, whether spontane-

ous or occasioned by a fortunatechance. Te point, rather, is thatthere is more to Liturgy than just raw, natural emotions. TeLiturgy, as the highest prayer wecan offer to God Almighty mustincorporate our whole being as

1 Romano Guardini, Spirit of theLiturgy this and all subsiquent cita-tions of Guardini can be found at:http://www.fdlc.org/Liturgy_Resources/ Guardini/Chapter1.htm2 Hence the tradition of the Churchof offering Massad orientem, or facingEast and the Rising Sun who is Christ


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rational agents; or, as RomanoGuaridni describes it, both the

natural and the supernatural lifeof the soul, when lived in ac-cordance with these principles,remain healthy, develop, andare enriched. In isolated casesthe rules may be waived withoutany danger, when such a course

is required or excused by reasonof a spiritual disturbance, im-perative necessity, extraordinaryoccasion, important end in view,or the like. In the end, however,this cannot be done with impu-nity. Just as the life of the body

droops and is stunted whenthe conditions of its growthare not observed, so it is withspiritual and religious lifeitsickens, losing its vigor, strengthand unity. Tis action then, tosteal Romano Guardinis ter-

minology, is Liturgical Emotion. Te aim of the Liturgy is notthe expression of an individualsreverence or worship of God. Itis not even concerned with thesanctication of the individualsoul as such. Te focus of theliturgical action is not in theindividual. It does not even in- volve specic groups of people orcongregations. Te liturgical en-tity consists rather of the unitedbody of the faithful as suchtheChurcha body which greatly

outnumbers the mere congrega-tion. Te word Liturgy, from the

Greek leitourgia ( ),literally means a public act per-formed on behalf of the peoplre. Te liturgy is the Churchs publicand lawful act of worship, and itis performed and conducted bythe officials whom the Church

herself has designated for theposther priests. In the liturgyGod is to be honored by the bodyof the faithful, and the latter isin its turn to derive sanctica-tion from this act of worship. Tis is sharply different from

Protestant worship that tends tobe individualistic in focus. Tefact that the individual Catholic,by his absorption into the higherunity, nds liberty and disciplineoriginates in the twofold natureof man, who is both social and

solitary. Te Catholic Liturgyfullls that in us which is animaland that in us which is angelic. We participate, as the Faithful,not by our own emotions, but by joining the Body of Christ, theChurch, in prayer through liturgical emotion. An example of thistoday is in modern Requiems. Te focus tends to be on fosteringand caring for the emotions ofthe people in the pew; the fam-ily and friends of the deceased. And though I would never doubt


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the grief and sorrow they arefeeling for a loss of a loved one,

the Requiem Mass is not saidto provide emotional comfortto the grieving.3 Rather, it isan opportunity for the Body ofChrist, the Church, to gather inprayer for one of its members,praying for the repose of his/her

soul. Tat is the liturgical emotion. Te Liturgy is universal andextends to the whole of the Bodyof Christ, so it should not bemarked by the special expressionof any particular congregation(or college campus). Popular

devotions, however, which aremarked by the period, location,and the people involved and area direct expression of speciccongregations, can be markedby such special expression. Tus,the Liturgy, as the prayer of the

Church the spouse of Christ,must be an act that is sustainedby thought. We see that this is infact the case as the prayers of theLiturgy are so thoroughly inter- woven and grounded in dogma.Tose who are unfamiliar withliturgical prayer often regardthem as theological formula, ar-tistic and didactic, until on closeracquaintance they suddenly per-ceive and admit that the clear-cut,lucidly constructed phrases arefull of interior enlightenment.

Te Liturgy must be sustainedby thought since only thought

is universally current and con-sistent, and, as long as it is reallythought, remains suited, to a cer-tain degree, to every intelligence.If prayer in common, therefore, isto prove benecial to the major-ity, it must be primarily directed

by thought, and not by feeling. Itis only when prayer is sustainedby and steeped in clear and fruit-ful religious thought, that it canbe of service to a corporate body,composed of distinct elements,all actuated by varying emo-

tions. Tis is so since, as wehave already considered, we areby nature rational agents and itis our rationality that we share with other human beings...and with the angels.4 For this reason,it seems, Dante has St. Bernard,

the great medieval contemplativemystic, as his nal guide throughthe Paradiso. Dante, how-3 Te priest, outside the Liturgy, oughtto meet with the grieving, providingspiritual direction so that they too areon a journey towards God...this, how-ever, is not the role of the Sacrament, it

is the role of the pastoral care and lifeof the priest outside the Sacraments.4 While the necessity of thought isemphasized, it must not be allowed todegenerate into the mere frigid domi-nation of reason. Devotional forms onthe contrary should be permeated by warmth of feeling.


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ever, does not depict the saints inParadiso as purely contemplating

the Divine Essence; rather, theyare dancing for joy. Tere is anemotional aspect to beatitude. Itis guided and grounded by prayer. In Heaven, we become de-iform; we become so intimate with God, incorporated into His

rinity, that we become like Godand see God as God sees himself. Tis does not solely consist in thesense of communion and theabstract feeling of love; rather, itis something far and beyond that.In this state of being, we elevate

our angelic nature (our rationalsouls) by performing the very actthat the angels perform. In the

Liturgy, we are, as the Body ofChrist and the Spouse of Christ,

invited to the Eternal Banquet inHeaven. In Holy Communion, we are admitted as the privilegedtenth choir of angels; that is, we get to do exactly that whichthe angels have done and willdo for all eternity adore our

Lord. In the Great Sacrice ofthe Mass, the heavenly veil isopened and for a brief moment,Earth and Heaven are united.Recalling that the Holy Sacriceof the Mass is the one andsame Sacrice of Christ on the

Cross, Archbishop Fulton Sheenseems quite right when he says:

Hence the Mass is to us the crowning act of Christian worship. A pulpitin which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; achoir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Crossthan to His garments. A temple without an altar of sacrice is non-existent among primitive peoples, and is meaningless among Christians. And so in the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choiror the organ, is the center of worship, for there is re-enacted the memorialof His Passion. Its value does not depend on him who says it, or on him who hears it; it depends on Him who is the One High Priest and Victim, Jesus Christ our Lord. With Him we are united, in spite of our nothing-ness; in a certain sense, we lose our individuality for the time being; weunite our intellect and our will, our heart and our soul, our body and ourblood, so intimately with Christ, that the Heavenly Father sees not somuch us with our imperfection, but rather sees us in Him, the BelovedSon in whom He is well pleased. Te Mass is for that reason the greatestevent in the history of mankind; the only Holy Act which keeps the wrathof God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heavenand earth, thus renewing that decisive moment when our sad and tragichumanity journeyed suddenly forth to the fullness of supernatural life.

Tis act raises up our rationalnature above and beyond oursentient nature. It doesnt exclude

our emotions; rather, it allowsour reason, our highest function,to order our emotions. Te ideas


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which ll it are vital: that is to say,they spring from the impulses of

the heart which has been moldedby grace, and must again in theirturn affect other eager and ardenthearts. Te Churchs worship isfull of deep feeling, of emotionthat is intense, and sometimeseven vehement. ake the Psalms,

for instance--how deeply mov-ing they often are! Listen tothe expression of longing in theQuemadmodum, of remorsein the Miserere , of exultationin the Psalms of praise, and ofindignant righteousness in those

denouncing the wicked. Orconsider the remarkable spiritualtension which lies between themourning of Good Friday andthe joy of Easter morning....Liturgical emotion is, however,exceedingly instructive. It has

its moments of supreme climax,in which all bounds are broken,as, for instance, in the limitlessrejoicing of the Exultet on HolySaturday. But as a rule it is con-trolled and subdued. Te heartspeaks powerfully, but thought atonce takes the lead; the forms ofprayer are elaborately construct-ed, the constituent parts carefullycounterbalanced; and as a rulethey deliberately keep emotion

under strict control. ake thesuppression of the Alleluia dur-

ing Lent and the great joy insinging it during Eastertide. ake the Gothic architecture,meant to foster those feelings ofremorse and guilt and vulner-ability, and the Baroque archi-tecture, meant to foster feelings

of ecstasy and beatitude. akethe liturgical colors meant toexpress the various sentiments ofthe One rue Church as she livesher day to day life; the penanceof Lenten purple, the sorrow ofblack in requiems, the suppressed

and anticipatory joys ofGaudete and Laetare Sunday, the fullnessof joy in Eastertide. Te glories ofthe music which moves our soulsto feelings of great joy ordolor . All these different externals theChurch utilizes in her Liturgy,

her public prayer on behalf of the whole of the Body of Christ, thenare meant to reinforce dogma anddoctrine and inspire a true devo-tion and adoration of Our Lord.

Te emphasis of a rationalfoundation, however, is notmeant to imply a certain intel-lectual aptitude for union withGod. ake the beautiful prayer ofSt. Jean-Marie Vianney who wasknown to be quite uneducated:

I love You, O my God, and my only desire is tolove You until the last breath of my life.


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Te focus of the Liturgy can-not simply be to elicit emotionsand a strong sense of community.Such a focus, if the primary fo-cus, is not only not good enough;

it is a disgrace to the Sacramentof Sacraments, the Most BlessedSacramenta Sacrament in which we re-encounter the gloryof the Cross that saves us andexperience the great Love andMercy of God. Te way in which

we both glorify Gods Most HolyName and experience the loveof God most is by contemplat-ing him; rational thought is ourhighest function. If the primaryreason that someone has to par-ticipate in the Liturgy is for some

emotional experience then theyare not only failing to be fullyhuman in a Liturgy constructedfor humans but they lower theexperience of God to somethinglike that of a sentient animal. As Cardinal Newman states,

emotion is not true devotion. Wemust, so that we can glorify GodsMost Holy Name, not allow theclimax of our Eucharistic experi-ences be emotion, but adoration, which involves both very deep

emotional and intellectual activ-ity and which is a higher emo-tionone that, usually silent,involves the greatest intimacy tobe fostered between Our Lord,

substantially present under theEucharistic veils, and the person.In this act of adoration, we allowthe Liturgy, formed by thoughtfor the universal Church, to raiseour rational thought (and our an-gelic nature) up and above that of

our sentient (and our animal) na-ture, and thereby we predict ourbeatic existence at the EternalBanquet in the Communion ofSaints in Heaven. Tus, I havenot argued that the notions ofcommunity and emotion play no

role in a Liturgical function, butthat, as we see in the Liturgy itself, we must not have those thingsas our ends in our approach tothe Liturgy. In approaching theLiturgy with a primacy forLogos , we sing and dance to the glory

of God (as we read in Dantesportrayal of the saints dancingin Paradiso) and experience thecommunity of the saints along-side God Almighty Himself. k

I love You, O my innitely lovable God,and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You.I love You, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You,I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.


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Sara McGuirk Class of 2014Mustard

I wont name names, butthere are womenmothers,

the communal maternal voiceof domestic wisd...no, folk-lorethat have fabricated someexotic blend of webMD quotesand urban-myth remediesthat stem from a nature prone

to overprotectionor, moreliterally, uninhibited paranoia. Teres always that bit about red wine, cranberries, high fructosecorn something-or-other, mi-crowaves and about three dozeningredientsincluding (but notlimited to) anything that soundslike riboavin, maltodextrin orglutamatethat give you cancer.

In any case, it was one of these women that told me in her pseu-do-medical-dictionary-dialectto sleep upright when sick so asto clear a breathing path throughones nostrils topped withthe untting, yet ever-present:honey, darling or sweetie, etc.

And now, I have inadvertentlyharnessed the inexorable powerof gravity to internalize any andall mucus into the cavernousdepths of my core.

In short, I am a mucus pot. You know mucinex, that drug

that continually seems to beevicting those pudgy green menfrom run-down apartments inall their commercials? Yeah, it

never seems to work in real life? After convoying 4 reinforce-ments of the little landlordsinto the trenches of my innards,I remain chock-full of em. Yes, chock-full, and unable tocommunicate save the piercingsquawks of the crow, pigeon,dying and/or being-bathed catthat I now emulate. How mightone describe thesense of a shrug,the essence behind a slanty smi-leywhat its meant to say? Its wordless, yet it somehow evokessomething distinct. I cant communicate with thepublic. If you hold a door openfor me youll receive an awkward

In Short, I Am... A Story


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smile or an even-more-bizarre,thankful shriek. If I think youdeserve to order your coffee rstin line, youll be approached bysome weirdo waving her armsin a way that strikingly mimicssome dog that really wants youto go ahead of him up the stairs

or to go save whomever fromthe ole well. And heaven forbidI know you and actually have toaddress you somehow!

Te progression goes insequence as follows: Familiar

gure appears in view; saidgure greets me; I now have twooptions: offer some deranged-sounding howl in salutation or(the option utilized by the well- versed mute) admit my sickness

promptly so as to avoid shockand/or curiosity. Ah! But thereinlies a new problem! Familiargure is left wondering why Ibothered telling him/her rightaway, as if it were some urgentnews. If they are kind-hearted,they immediately assume thatI am somehow asking for theirassistance.

Wishes of sympathy: 23.Invites for soup: 8. Te startlingly

repulsed expression on the faceof that boy Id been crushingon: priceless...ly tragic. Te one time this kid says hi (!), I havethe damn plague and, yes, soundlike a coked-out warlock,Lord ofthe Rings character! Safe to say,my precioussssssss...will never be

speaking to me again.And...how did that make you

feel? Kathy mindlessly askedthis question so often that Iswear it must have been her de-fault quick-text. And so, I texted

back.I feel like the Little Mermaid

when that over-grown squidlady steals her voice. Everybodyknows the melody thats sup-posed to glide through her

throat and into the seascape,but it jolts and wheezes like thefeeling Id imagine youd getfrom shooting a blank gun. What I should have said was: Atrst I felt anonymous, voiceless,stripped of my means of identity. Tis was my soliloquy addressedto the ether. It came to me, how-ever, that one who is anonymous,by denition, creates somethingunder the guise of namelessness;


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they write heedless of self-iden-tication. I have been rendered,instead, anonymouss opposite:an identity devoid of the abilityto release its creation.

So, oh voiceless one, whatshall I call you?

I am,

oday, Te clam With a name.

Gollum.Well, sometimes its bet-

terwhen you feel like thatshrimpy midget-thing in a skirtfrom Lord of Te Rings to becreeping under rocks by yourlonesome than to be the centerof attention. Kathy had a point. And soI, anonoymouss counterpart,thought about all the timesthroughout my young life that Ihad been anonymouss other ri- val: the blatant object of the pub-lic eyesomeone, perchance,

that wished to be anonymous.My thoughts turned to pee,

naturally. I used to pee a lot...accidentally. Yes...in my pants. And I got away with it too!

Because when you pee yourpants, adaptation becomes ne-cessity. In this hierarchy denedby survival of the ttest, you sureas shit dont want to be the girlthat pees herself. Like, remember that time when you pee I shut my

phone upon the sight of (howdare she) that time of which we do not speak: the Voldemortmoment of my childhood.

With weak bladder, comesgreat responsibility. So, you get

good at covering your ass...liter-ally. Tat timethe Voldemortmomentin third grade mathclass, the bladder prevailed andI, blatant object of the publiceye, yearned for anonymity over

any form of identity.Katherine! Tats the cardinalrule of our friendship! Refrainfrom such vile thoughts as these! You speak as though the be-grudged memory of a lesser timemight soothe what scathes menow, what scathes me now! Oh Lord, English majors.Psh, thats the thing aboutanonymity though. You want tohave your words and eat them


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too. You want to get them out without having to be the one tosay them. Te thought strikesme as stirring and well-phrased;I kidnap it and raise it as my own.Immediately, as if upon birth,there is a division between thethey and the youwhoever

you are. Te you wants somekind of individuality wrappedin a bow of crowd-trimmed se-curity. Hey Im sorry, I shouldhave mentioned something dif-ferent...oh, like the time Keith

Dawson saw you in that catsweater! Tis girl is stiing mymonologue. Very funny, Kat, how aboutthat time every member of Clubde Cinematique threw mashed

potatoes at you during lunch be-cause you said that your favoritemovie wasCatwoman! Tere were only like threepeople in that club, Gollum!

* * * Te they are those guysthat named it highway insteadof driveway, those enigmaticpeople responsible for manu-facturing hideous cat sweatersthat your grandmother buys

you every Christmas, the theythat thought that adaptation ofCatwoman with Halle Berry

would be a good idea. You getthe jist, yeah? Teyre not ac-tual beings...theyre anonymousin their collective immensity;theyre the powers that be.

All the while, the you isendlessly trying to break free ofthe they, to form an individualpersona inwhat we assumeto bethat one instant of self-realization, the emergence of

character . And were all thinkingitll be some grandiose E.R.trauma scene, some pivotal mo-ment when you hit the walk-offhomerun, some near-death ornear-life experience out of the

clear, blue seascape. We ndourselves saying, Go to class,maybe this will be the lecturethat inspires you...this will bethe mountain hike where Istumble into the love of my life...and then off a cliff.

Wasnt one of those kids theone Allison tripped in front of? At age fteen, when myfriends and I saw a hottie, the rstto spot the target would literally


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tumble at his feet as if she hadtripped in some clumsy, cosmic,fated collision that would breakthe ice between them and bondtheir hearts together forever. It was dumb...and weird, but youget the point; were all lookingto force that square peg of mean-

ing into this circular existence...and acquire vain bruises in theprocess of course. Yeah, he asked her to promthe next week...even though shesprained her ankle.

Ohh right! And then she went home with Alec, instead,ha! Its that typical anxiety overthe hype, the way prom is neverthe best night of senior year

(obviously), the way that feel-ing that youre supposed toget at the college thats meantfor youthat over the moon,tummy-twisting sense of be-longingdoesnt ever match itsreality.

I heard it wasnt such amagical night, haha. She endedup vomiting the ilapia. I bet she wished she couldhave been Gollum that night.

Yeah,

Lost Piece Volume II Issue 3 - Know Thyself.pdf

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