Catholic Anime Once Again

GKC for the win!

Ahahahahaha. Okay, maybe Tuxedo Mask has a useful purpose in that sense. However, usually, both of them are useless.

Never thought you'd see Sailor Moon and St. Therese in the same post, did you?

Merry Christmas, everyone.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

GKC + Tolkien = Win

Two of my top three favorite authors combined! How could this get any more awesome?

Come to think of it, G. K. Chesterton does show up in Toward the Gleam, a book that takes the, "What if Tolkien really did find a copy of the Red Book and translated LOTR, and there was someone out to get it from him?" approach. The book is all sorts of awesome, and it's fun guessing at who the famous people are when you don't have their last names to work with. Gilbert was a bit of a giveaway, though (and I was so glad to see him). Jack was C. S. Lewis, of course. Yeah, it was awesome.

The animated version of The Hobbit is considered by some to be the best adaptation of it. Obviously, I am not one of those people. I think, were I to watch it all the way through again (I saw it once in like... third grade), it would give me nightmares. I'm not fond of their animation decisions, and the Dwarves are... well...

Um, you just go look it up yourself. Yikes.

Fun fact: The animation studio that did it was later re-named Studio Ghibli. Yes, that Ghibli.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Briefly Interrupting the Hobbit Spam

...to bring you Catholic memes. It is all part of our grand scheme to evangelize the world, don't you know. And Phase 1 is already in place. See?

*rubs hands evilly* Time to get to work.

G. K. Chesterton for the win. His quotes are always so amazing, so applicable, and so *right* that you could slap them on pictures from just about any fandom and it would be perfect. We need more GKC in our modern world.

This is just a reaction meme graced by Pope Benedict XVI, not intended as a commentary on my previous statement about the world needing more GKC.

If I am ever in a position where I need to use this one, I shall immediately follow it up with lots of Catholic spam. Because I am a troll that way. XD

I love this one. Who knew Fullmetal Alchemist and a line from "The Magnificat" would combine so perfectly? See, Catholics know how to do humor concerning their faith without also doing irreverence. Protestants can't always do the humor part since they're so hung up on the reverence part (and even then... sometimes their priorities are skewed) and modern culture is so hung up on thinking humor comes only from irreverence that most of the time their end result is all irreverence and no humor.

Just sayin'.

"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD, your God, is giving you."

Although... well... Van Hohenheim isn't the best dad. I can understand why he had to go off to save the world by creating his second array that canceled the Homonulorum Father's array. I can understand how he wanted to learn how to stop being a Philosopher's Stone (long story) so he could grow old and die with his family.

BUT! You can't just leave your family with no explanation for ten years and then show up again. And have the gall to be surprised that your wife has died, your kids have grown up, and your house has been burned to the ground. Seriously.

I was reading that part in the manga when Hohenheim turns up again and I was chanting to myself under my breath, "Punch him, Ed! Punch him in the face! Punch him with your right arm!" (Context: Ed's right arm is made of metal.)

So... yeah... Hohenheim may be a good person, but not always the best dad.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Further Catholic Tidbits

Hey, while it is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, make the most of it.

"The mother of Him Who alone saves and condemns is our mother."

 

- St. Anselm of Canterbury

 

I'll stick in this picture as a divider. However, it also has a very valid message:

 

 

"America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is with the broad-minded... In the face of this broad-minded permissiveness, what the world needs is intolerance."

 

- Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 

 

 

GKC always knows best. He is just so eminently quotable. I easily have half a dozen of these Chesterton e-cards saved to my computer. And why not? He's one of my top three favorite authors, right up there with Peter Kreeft and J. R. R. Tolkien.

 

 

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

 

- Flannery O'Conner

 

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer. A man who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. A man who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an artist."

 

- St. Francis of Assisi

 

In Pace Christi,

 

Elyse





Found Some More Catholic Anime!

The last ones seemed to be well received (*insert winking smiley face here*), and I had more pictures to post, so here we go!

Some day, I should really put up a blog roll or something, so the links I use all the time will be permanently on the right side of my blog. That might be handy. I dunno. Anyway. On to the pictures!

There's actually a book by Louis de Wohl based on the life of St. Francis Xavier, who was, of course, one of St. Ignatius of Loyola's first disciples and so one of the first members of the Jesuit Order, the Societas Jesu. All Jesuits have the initials 'S.J.' after their names. Conveniently, the English translation works, too: 'Society of Jesus'. Our present Holy Father, Pope Francis, is a Jesuit.

Anyway, the name of the book is Set All Afire and is based off of this quote. In fact, this quote is said to St. Francis Xavier as he leaves for the Orient.

I loved that book. It was my favorite book of all time for the longest. And then I discovered The Lord of the Rings, and, well...

Louis de Wohl actually wrote many novels about different saints throughout church history. Set All Afire is one of the better ones, since it doesn't have a parallel main character to contend with. In most of his books, Louis de Wohl has two main chracters: the saint, and another fictional character who moves in the secular/political world, acting both as a foil for the saint and in order to explain the world in which the saint lived.

Now, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. I really, really liked the parallel character in The Quiet Light, which is about St. Thomas Aquinas. He was an English knight named Sir Piers Rudde and he was all sorts of awesome. He also shared the story equally with St. Thomas.

However, in The Joyful Beggar and in The Citadel of God, which are about St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is tomorrow, yay!) and about St. Benedict, respectively, the parallel characters overshadowed the saints and sort of dominated the story. And neither one of those parallel characters were nearly as likeable or awesome, while the saints were awesome. So those two books were a bit of a letdown in that respect.

The Last Crusader, which is about Don Juan of Austria (no connection to the figure of romantic tales), was a return to awesomeness on the other hand. He was his own parallel character, so the undivided focus of the narration on him greatly improved it. That book should really be read with Lepanto, by G. K. Chesterton. Same story, both retellings wonderful.

This picture cracked me up. It reminds me of the meme in the Fire Emblem fandom: NUNS WITH AXES. (Long story cut short: the cleric units in that series of games are usually helpless. The most recent game gave them the ability to carry axes. Much awesomeness and hilarity ensued.)

I have never seen a nun with such weaponry, however... Spears, swords, daggers, halberds... is that a warhammer in the background? O.o Please give it back to Dwalin, Sister Mary Whatever. And a morningstar... oh, goodness. They really looted the armory, didn't they?
It's probably from some anime where the Catholics fight zombies or vampires. I find it really amusing that the secular world implicitly acknowledges like this that we are the best equipped to deal with spawn of the netherworld. XD

Okay, not anime. It was on Catholic Gag. But I had to share it anyway! Don't worry, I have another Catholic anime coming up. But it's the best one, so I'm saving it for last. XD In the meanwhile, have this:

I had never realized how much meme potential the Popes have until I found these websites. And it's not even the first Pope pic I've found with this caption, although my other one is in Latin (which, actually, makes it kind of funnier).

Oh, and one other before we return to Catholic anime (but it's funny, I promise):

I had honestly never thought of that before. Now I will think of it every time. XD Gee, thanks, Catholic Gag. That's another Gospel reading where I must try not to crack up inappropriately while Father is at the lectern.

I already have problems maintaining a straight face through the part about being cast into Hell, where there shall be "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (it's a bit of a family joke). Also, any time the psalm where the wife is compared to "a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home" and the children are "like olive plants around your table"... yeah... I lose it. It just provides such hilarious mental imagery...

I think this sums up anyone's reaction to the slow pace of a Takahashi romance. Even I (who am not usually in the shipping camp) was like, "Come ON already!"

But I guess it's worth it and all that.

I still cannot pronounce 'Sesshomaru' for the life of me, though. That reminds me, I need to go watch his whole Bakusaiga kablam. Because that is pure awesome. He gets stabbed in the heart. It just makes him angry. XD

And now, time for my favorite of the Catholic anime memes. Drumroll, please!

*rolls on floor laughing hysterically*

Yami Yugi FOR THE WIN! A combination of The Exorcist and Yu-Gi-Oh, combining for a pic that is definitely being saved. Actually, I think Yami is doing his whole 'Mind Crush' thing here, which makes it even funnier - he's shattering Kaiba's soul and removing the darkness from it. (Don't worry, Kaiba gets better... for a certain value of 'better') So, in a sense, he is doing an exorcism, or at least his Ancient Egyptian version of it.

That, or he's just finishing a duel with his standard, "Dark Magician, Dark Magic Attack!" It's really cool when Dark Magician attacks. Everything goes all photonegative and the enemy gets blasted away at the speed of light. XD

I like Dark Magician. He's cool. And kind of cute, but you didn't hear me say that. Actually, I think my last lab notebook somewhere has lots of doodles where I wrote all the permutations of Dark Magician in runes on unused sheets of paper. So that means... yeah... it's been a year and a half since I've discovered Yu-Gi-OH.

Too many fandoms. Too little time. Gah.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Catholic Anime!

So I found this website: Catholic Anime. Much delight was had over what I found there. Let me show you all:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn't stop laughing at that one. XD XD XD So true! Guitar Masses are the worst evil of them all.

 

 

 

 

 

Manalive is a really good book. In fact, everything written by my beloved GKC is good. Go read it all.

 

In Pace Christi,

 

Elyse



GKC For The Win!

Have I mentioned how much I love G. K. Chesterton today?

I'm collecting these quote cards of him. I'm really not apologetic about my admiration of him, am I? But he just makes so much sense!

I'm listing today some of my favorite GKC quotes. Don't worry. They're short and to the point.

"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

"There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less."

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

"The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man."

"[Feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands."

"Dear Sir: regarding your article, 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly."

"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem."

"Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable."

"People use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost - more for support than for illumination."

G. K. Chesterton a day keeps insanity at bay!

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

GKC For the Win

I have just finished In Defense of Sanity, which is a collection of essays by the amazing Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Among them were included (1) an essay on chese - yes, chese and (2) an essay on Jane Austen.

I knew I loved GKC for a reason.

So now, yes, I am here to share favorite quotes with you all.

p. 309 - Generally, the difficulty is not to tolerate other people's religion. The trouble is to tolerate our own religion. Or rather (to speak more strictly), to get our own religion to tolerate us. Comparatively few modern religious people are intolerant. But a great many modern religious people are intolerable. Nor are these specially those that are called bigots; it is rather, I think, the other way. The person we really find exasperating is he who does not understand our beliefs, and yet also does not agree with his own.

 

p.334 - Some people fear that philosophy will bore or bewilder them; because they think it is not only a string of long words, but a tangle of complicated notions. These people miss the whole point of the modern situation. These are exactly the evils that exist already; mostly for want of a philosophy. The politicians and the papers are always using long words. It is not a complete consolation that they use them wrong. The political and social relations are already hopelessly complicated. They are far more complicated than any page of mediaeval metaphysics; the only difference is that the mediaevalist could trace out the tangle and follow the complications; and the moderns cannot. The chief practical things of today, like finance and political corruption, are frightfully complicated. We are content to tolerate them because we are content to misunderstand them, not to understand them. The business world needs metaphysics -- to simplify it.

p.337 - 338 - Anyhow, what do modern men say when apparently confronted with [a miracle], something that cannot, in the cant phrase, be naturally explained? Well, most modern men immediately talk nonsense. When such a thing is currently mentioned, in novels or newspapers or magazine stories, the first comment is always something like, "But, my dear fellow, this is the twentieth century!" It is worth having a little training in philosophy if only to avoid looking so ghastly a fool as that. It has on the whole rather less sense or meaning than saying, "But my dear fellow, this is Tuesday afternoon."

If miracles cannot happen, they cannot happen in the twentieth century or in the twelfth. If they can happen, nobody can prove that there is a time when they cannot happen. The best that can be said for the skeptic is that he cannot say what he means, and therefore, whatever else he means, he cannot mean what he says. But if he only means that miracles can be believed in the twelfth century, but cannot be believed in the twentieth, then he is wrong again, but in theory and in fact. He is wrong in theory, because an intelligent recognition of possibilities does not depend on a date but on a philosophy…

Let us not be too severe on the worthy gentleman who informs his dear fellow that it is the twentieth century. In the mysterious depths of his being even that enormous ass does actually mean something. The point is that he cannot really explain what he means; and that is the argument for a better education in philosophy. What he really means is something like this, "There is a theory of this mysterious universe to which more and more people were in fact inclined during the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries; and up to that point at least, this theory did grow with the growing inventions and discoveries of science to which we owe our present social organization - or disorganization. That theory maintains that cause and effect have from the first operated in an uninterrupted sequence like a fixed fate; and that there is no will behind or within that fate; so that it must work itself out in the absence of such a will, as a machine must run down in the absence of a man. There were more people in the nineteenth century in in the ninth who happened to hold this particular theory of the universe. I myself happened to hold it; and therefore I obviously cannot believe in miracles." That is perfectly good sense; but so is the counter-statement, "I do not happen to hold it; and therefore I obviously can believe in miracles."

p. 338 - The advantage of an elementary philosophic habit is that it permits a man, for instance, to understand a statement like this, "Whether there can or cannot be exceptions to a process depends on the nature of that process." The disadvantage of not having it is that a man will turn impatiently even from so simple a truism; and call it metaphysical gibberish. He will then go off and say: "One can't have such things in the twentieth century," which really is gibberish.

I had some nice GKC meme-like things with shorter, much more manageable quotes from him, but Blogger refuses to load them. Bad Blogger.

*goes off to sulk*

In Pace Christi,

Elyse