The Divine Lamp » humor

Obama’s Song

Dim Bulb — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:01:41 +0000

Over the past week I’ve been carefully considering the text of President Obama’s Notre Dame speech and, I must say, I’ve undergone a change of heart. I’ve decided to become as open-minded as he is. To celebrate my new found spirit of Modernity I offer to our fine showman/President this song I wrote to the tune of IT’S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL by the Rolling Stones. I do this in the hope that he will perform it at the next Democrat National Convention, for it would give people an idea of where he truly stands. To help the less careful readers discern the meaning I’ve colored the text: “B” is for babies and so blue denotes my enduring pro-life position which I share with the President; Red is the color of blood and creeping socialism and is therefore fitting for denoting my pro-abortion position; and purple is the color you get by mixing blue and red, denoting the new found open-minded relativism I now share with him. I hope this clears things up.

Just one more thing. I’d like to dedicate this song text to the clerics of the ROMAN COLLAR COMEDY TOUR who were so instrumental in helping to convert me. They have a new CD out and I listened to it as I wrote this song; they are my muses. And special props must be given to the well-informed editor of L’Obamaservi Romano (or whatever it is called)

If I could rip a baby apart
I would toss it all over the stage
Would it satisfy ya, would it help decide ya
Would you think yor Prez humane? Ain’t I humane?
If I could win ya, if I could talk ya
Dialogue so divine
Would it be enough for your pro-life trust
If I screamed I’m for change? I’m for change!
I said I now it’s only crock ‘n show but I like it
I know it’s a dog and pony show but I like it, like it, yes, I do
Oh, well, I like it I like it, I like it
I said can’t you see that your old Prez is about living?

If I would stick a probe in a womb
Infanticide right on stage
Would it be enough for your death’crat lusts
Would it ease my pro-life claims? Ease your brains?
If you could see down deep in my heart
Truth would trump the legal page
Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya
Would ya think your Prez a Saint? I’m a Saint!
I said I know I only say it for your vote but I like it
I said I know I’m a dog ‘n pony show but I like it, like it, yes I do
Oh, well, I like it, I like it, I like it
I said can’t you see that your old Prez is about loving?

And do ya think that you’re the only vote around?
I bet you think that your the only vote in town

I said I know it’s only crock ‘n show but I like it
I said I know it’s only for your vote but I like it
I said I know I’m such a dog and pony show but I like it, like it, yes I do!

The Presence of God in All Creatures

Dim Bulb — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:27:20 +0000

I posted this on my other site as well.  Everything found on this site-and more besides!-can be found there.  Some of the
things found there which you wont find here are videos (theological, biblical, musical, humorous, ect), documents in
the iPaper format (my own and others), and certain posts which, due to the format, I am unable to post here.

The Presence of God in All Creatures as Their 
Active Principle or Efficient Cause 

Before broaching the interesting yet difficult question 
of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of 
the just, and of the mysterious union He thus effects 
with them; before going into the proofs of the presence 
both substantial and extraordinary of the three Divine 
persons in the just soul which thus becomes a living 
temple wherein the adorable Trinity finds delight, it 
will be useful, and, to a certain extent, even necessary, 
to grasp a few preliminary notions on the ordinary 
way in which God is present in all things. Nothing, indeed,
could be more unreasonable than to expound the 
doctrine of the extraordinary or special presence of God 
in the souls of the just, before we know quite clearly 
what is His ordinary presence in all creation. 

To be in a fit position to speak in precise terms of 
these two kinds of presence, and to distinguish one
from the other, we must first of all become acquainted 
with their respective characteristics, and see in what 
they agree and in what they differ. This may be 
achieved by carefully examining, defining and comparing
their natures. Were we to follow a different course 
of action, plunging at once into a more or less scientific 
explanation of the indwelling of God in the soul by the 
life of grace, without having, at the outset, firmly established
and clearly explained that such an indwelling is 
to be found nowhere else in nature, we should be in 
danger of imparting very incomplete notions, and of 
leaving the reader in a state of vagueness that could not 
but be regrettable. On the other hand, it will not be 
necessary to dwell at length on the proofs for the divine 
omnipresence, since all Catholics believe in it; we shall, 
however, insist on the way in which it is to be understood
in order to convey an exact idea of God's immensity,
and so to prepare the way for a clear understanding
of the special presence of God in the souls of the just. 

It is a dogma of faith, as well as a truth of reason, 
that God is everywhere — in heaven, on earth, in all 
things and in all places: that He is present in a very 
intimate manner in everything created. This truth is 
known to all, not only to the philosopher and theologian, 
but even to the little child whose intelligence is 
but awakening; it is one of the first lessons it receives 
at its mother's knee — one of the first truths it learns 
from any Christian teacher. 

This doctrine, which the simplest Christian holds at 
the beginning of his moral life, and which he continues 
to hold without always understanding its full bearing, 
nor suspecting what deep truths it expresses, was
preached long ago by the Apostle St. Paul, before the 
most illustrious audience in the world. He was addressing,
not an ignorant populace, but the official representatives
of human wisdom, the members of the Areopagus of Athens,
when, referring to the existence of God in every creature,
the Apostle exclaimed : "That they should seek God, if
haply they may feel after Him or find Him, although
He be not far from every one of us; for in Him we live,
and move, and are."  

Centuries before, the Psalmist had made this same 
divine omnipresence the theme of his song: "Behold, 
Lord, Thou hast known all things, the latest and 
those of old; Thou hast formed me, and hast laid Thy 
hand upon me. Thy knowledge has become wonderful 
to me; it is high, and I cannot reach to it. Whither 
shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I fly from 
Thy face? If I ascend into heaven. Thou art there; if 
I descend into hell, Thou art present. If I take my 
wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead 
me, and Thy right hand shall hold me."  

Finally, in order fully to convince us that we cannot 
escape His ever-vigilant eye, God Himself, using our 
weak human language, with infinite condescension, says 
to us through the mouth of His prophet : "Shall a man 
be hid in secret places, and I not see him, saith the 
Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?"  

It is not necessary to cite other testimonies in proof 
of a point of doctrine admitted by all who believe in the 
existence of an infinite Being, the Author of all things; 
yet, on account of its extreme importance, we should 
like to set down here the philosophical proof of the 
omnipresence of God, given by St. Thomas. God, he 
says, "is present in all things, not as part of their essence,
or as an accidental element, but as the active
principle is present to the thing on which it acts;
for it is essential that the efficient cause be united with 
the object upon which it exercises an immediate activity, 
and that it comes into contact with this object, if 
not bodily, then, at least, by the exercise of its power 
and energies." 

We may compare God's action with that of the sun. 
Although vastly distant from our planet, it still comes 
into contact with it through its rays, else how could it 
give light and heat to the earth? But God works in 
every created thing, not only through the medium of 
secondary causes as the sun acts upon the earth, but also 
in a direct and immediate way, by Himself bringing into 
existence and preserving in things that which is most 
intimate and deep-rooted in them, namely, their very 
being. For, as the characteristic effect of fire is to burn, 
so the characteristic effect of God, Who is Being itself, 
is to cause the being of creatures. "And so God is intimately 
present to all things as their efficient cause — as 
causing the being of all things."  

God, then, is not present to the world like the artisan 
or the artist; he is external to his work, and does not 
often touch it in a direct way, but rather through his 
instruments, or is present to his work when he produces it, 
but later on withdraws from it without endangering its existence. 
God is so intimately united to the works of His hands that if,
after calling a created thing into being. He should withdraw from it and cease 
to sustain it, it would immediately fall into the nothingness out of which it was made. 

And if you question the Angelic Doctor as to how 
God, an immaterial, unextended and indivisible substance,
can be present in all places, and in the inner 
depths of beings occupying material space, he will answer 
you with a comparison borrowed from nature and 
already employed by the Fathers, namely: He is present
in three ways: "By His power, by His presence, and by 
His essence. By His power, because all things are subject to 
His sovereign command: He is present everywhere 
like a king who, while residing in his palace, is 
by a fiction deemed present in all the parts of his kingdom 
where he exercises authority. By His presence, 
that is to say most intimately, because He knows all 
things and sees all things; and nothing, however hidden 
it may be, can escape His attention; all things are present 
to Him as objects are said to be in our presence, although
they may be situated at a slight distance from 
our person. Finally by His essence, for He is as really 
and in His very substance present to all created things 
as a monarch is present in person to the throne on 
which he is seated." 

The reason for this substantial presence of God in 
His creatures is that not one of them could dispense 
with the divine action preserving its existence and actuating
its operations; and since substance and action are 
not really distinct in God, it follows that "He is substantially — in His
actual reality — present wherever He 
works, I. e., in all things and in all places." 

In his commentary on Peter Lombard's first book of 
Sentences, St. Thomas explains this threefold presence 
in slightly different words. Not that it excludes the 
explanation we have just given, nor that it is in contradiction with it, 
but it brings out better the thought of 
the Angelic Doctor relative to the substantial presence 
of God in His capacity of efficient cause. Here are his 
words: "God is in created things by His presence, inasmuch
as He is there in action, for the worker must in 
some manner be present with his work; and, furthermore, 
because the Divine operation cannot be separated 
from the active force from which it flows, it must be 
held that God is present in all things by His power; 
finally, since the force or the power of God is identical 
with His essence, it follows that God is in all things by 
His essence." » These words are highly significant.
There are some theologians who explain the divine 
omnipresence by saying that God is present everywhere 
by His essence, because the divine substance, being 
infinite, fills the heavens and the earth. To them, the 
immensity of God is a property by which the divine 
essence is, so to speak, distributed ad infinitum in all 
existing and possible spaces; that is to say, God's omni- 
presence is the actual diffusion of the divine being, penetrating
all real things and places without blending with 
them. According to this opinion, the divine immensity 
might be compared to a sea without shores, capable of 
containing an infinite number of beings of every nature 
and dimension. Within this sea is a sponge which the 
waters interpenetrate and then flow over on all sides: a 
figure of this world, that God's immensity pervades and 
then flows over on all sides; with this difference, however, 
that God is wholly in the world and wholly in each 
of its parts, whereas each portion of the water of the sea 
occupies a distinct place. 

St. Augustine conceived a similar picture of the divine 
immensity in his early days before his conversion: "So 
also I thought of Thee, O God, O Life of my life," he 
says in his Confessions, "so also I thought of Thee, as 
stretched out through infinite spaces, interpenetrating 
the whole mass of the world, reaching out beyond in all 
directions to immensity without end, so that sea, sky, 
all things are full of Thee, limited in Thee, while Thou 
art not limited at all. As the body of the air above the 
earth does not bar the passage of the light of the sun,
but the light penetrates the air, not bursting or dividing 
it, but filling it — in the same way, I thought, the body of 
heaven, and air, and sea, and even of earth was all 
pervious to Thee, penetrable in all its parts great or 
small, so that it can admit the hidden interjection of 
Thy presence, which from within or from without 
orders all things that Thou hast created. This was my 
fancy, for I could shape no other; yet it was false. For 
in that way a greater part of the earth would contain a 
greater part of Thee, a less part a less. All things would 
be full of Thee in such a sense that there would be more 
of thee in the elephant than in the sparrow, inasmuch 
as one is larger than the other, and fills a wider space. 
And thus Thou wouldst unite Thy limbs piecemeal with 
the limbs of the world, the great with the great, the 
small with the small. This is not Thy nature, but as 
yet Thou hadst not lightened my darkness."  

Further on, speaking on the same subject, he adds: 
"I marshaled before the sight of my spirit all creation, 
all that we see, earth, and sea, and air, and stars, and 
trees, and animals; all that we do not see, the firmament 
of the sky above, and all angels, and all spiritual things; 
for these also, as if they were bodies, did my imagination 
arrange in this place or in that. I pictured to myself 
Thy creation as one vast mass, composed of various 
kinds of bodies, some real bodies, some those which I 
imagined in place of spirits. I pictured this mass as 
vast, not indeed in its true dimensions, for these I could 
not know, but as large as I chose to think, only finite on 
every side. And Thee, O Lord, I conceived as lapping it 
round and interpenetrating it everywhere, but as being 
infinite in every direction; as if there were sea everywhere, 
and everywhere through measureless space nothing 
but illimitable sea, and within this a sponge, huge, 
but yet finite; the sponge would be pervaded through all
its particles by the infinite sea. In this way, I pictured 
Thy finite creation, as filled with Thy infinity." 

After his conversion and accession to the episcopal 
see of Hippo, Augustine's language is entirely different: 
"When we say that God is everywhere we must withdraw 
from our mind every grossness of thought, and 
disengage ourselves from sensible images, lest we should 
imagine God as diffused everywhere, like some greatness 
spreading itself in space, as does the earth, the sea, 
the air or light; for all such things are less in one of 
their parts than in the whole; but we rather should 
conceive God's greatness as we think of great wisdom 
in a man who happens to be of small stature." 

The notion of the diffusion and expansion of God's 
being, was entirely disapproved by St. Augustine, and 
dealt with by him as a carnal conception to be rejected. 
The advocates of such a theory do not, it is true, fall 
into Augustine's error whilst he was a Manichean, of 
supposing that a greater part of the earth can contain 
a greater part of the divine substance; for they know 
and teach that a pure spirit being indivisible and without 
parts does not occupy space like earthly bodies, but 
can be wholly in the whole being and wholly in each and 
every part of that being. They do, however, seem to 
share the ideas of Augustine's pre-conversion days, but 
which he reformed later, in the general trend of their 
argument and in the manner in which they conceive of 
the divine ubiquity. 

Far more spiritual, and therefore much more in accordance
with the divine nature, is the notion of God's 
immensity given by St. Thomas. Instead of admitting, 
with the advocates of the theory we are now refuting, a 
kind of diffusion of the divine substance, so that God 
would still he in His most real substance present to 
created things scattered through space, even though by 
an impossibility His action exercised no influence upon 
them, the Angelic Doctor teaches that the formal reason 
of God's presence in all created things is none other than 
His infinite activity and operation, just as the reason of 
His immensity is His omnipotence. 

The Divine substance occupies no determined space, 
either great or small; it does not need space to display 
itself, and enters into no relation of proximity or remoteness 
with beings that exist in space. If we speak 
of a relation of the Divine substance with these beings, 
we mean only a relation of power and operation; i. e., 
God is intimately present to all things because He produces 
and preserves the being of all things: "God is not 
determined to space great or small by the necessity of 
His essence, as if He need be present in any place, since 
He is from all eternity before all place; but by the im- 
mensity of His power He reaches into all things which 
are in place, because He is the universal cause of being, 
Thus He is wholly wheresoever He is, because by His 
simple power He reaches into all things." If then God 
is present in all places and in all creatures, it is because 
no actual space and no created being can escape His 
direct and immediate influence, for His power, and consequently
His substance, reaches out to them all. 
Theologians, as we have seen, often explain God's omnipresence 
by saying that He is present everywhere because of His immensity. 
St. Thomas uses a different term. According to him, 
God is present everywhere in the capacity of efficient cause,
per modum causae. Such an expression is profound and full of meaning,
for it banishes from the mind any idea of a diffusion or expansion
of the Divine substance, at the same time marking out the Divine operation
as the basis of the relations existing between God and His creatures.
Yet the expression was not a new one, and St. Thomas is not giving 
a purely personal opinion; here as ever he shows himself to be the
faithful echo of tradition. 

And, as we have already noticed, St. Augustine declared 
that God was in the world as the efficient cause 
of the world, "as the presence of the One by Whom the 
world was created; as the artisan is present to the work 
he handles." If, therefore, God fills the heavens and 
the earth, it is by the presence and exercise of His power 
and not by the necessity of His nature," for God's 
greatness is one of power and not of bulk. St. 
Thomas seems manifestly to have taken his inspiration 
from these different passages. 

St. Fulgentius, a disciple of St. Augustine, speaks in 
much the same terms as his master. Likewise, St. 
Gregory of Nyssa. 

That the basis for the presence of God by very substance 
in all created things is the divine activity, can be 
clearly seen from all these passages, and from many 
others we could easily adduce. An earthly body is 
present in the place it occupies neither by its action nor 
even directly by its substance, but by its dimensions, by 
the contact of its parts with the parts of the body surrounding 
and containing it; since, therefore, it is quantity 
that gives parts and dimensions to a body and enables 
it to come into contact with another body and to 
occupy a determined part of space, such or such a body 
is, properly speaking, present in space by its quantity:
per quantitatem dimensivam. 

Far different is the way in which a spirit is present 
in space. As it is a simple, that is to say, an indivisible 
substance and without parts, it cannot of itself occupy 
any space, either great or small, and does not need space 
to display itself. If, however, a spirit wishes to enter 
into relation with a place or with the things present in 
that place, it can do so by the exercise of its activities 
and its energies. Hence the proposition, looked upon as 
an axiom by all Scholastics : spirits are present in space 
by contact of power — per contactum virtutis. 

What, therefore, quantity is to bodies — i. e., a property 
distinct from their substance and extending it 
through space — active power is to spirits, which it 
places in contact with space and the things situated in 
space.2 

This is why St. Thomas, when asking the question 
whether ubiquity is a property becoming God from all 
eternity, utrum esse ubique conveniat Deo ab aeterno, 
instead of answering, like some theologians, that God 
is not, of course, present from all eternity to things 
which did not as yet exist, but that His substance is, 
nevertheless, really and eternally present in the spaces 
which the different created beings are to occupy in time, 
answers "that the Divinity is present only temporarily 
in created things according as by His creative act He is 
present by His power during their temporary existence." 

And if you question the Fathers as to where God was 
before the creation of the world, instead of answering 
that He was in these incommensurable spaces occupied 
by the present universe, spaces which thousands of
other worlds far greater than ours could not fill, they 
will answer you differently, saying through the mouth 
of St. Bernard: "We need not trouble to ask where He 
was, for besides Him nothing existed, and He was then 
in Himself alone."  

Hence, to summarize, in the mind of St. Thomas and 
the Fathers of the Church, the basic reason, the true 
ground, the definitive "why" of the presence of God in 
creatures is the divine operation, formally immanent, 
since it neither issues forth from, nor is even distinct 
from, the principle whence it emanates, yet producing 
outward created effects and, therefore, called "virtually 
transitive," virtualiter transiens.~excerpted from THE INDWELLING
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE SOULS OF THE JUST ACCORDING TO THE TEACHING OF ST THOMAS AQUINAS.

Canadian Billboard

Dim Bulb — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:19:19 +0000

My Sister sent me this.

Geppetto Has Gone High-Tech!

Dim Bulb — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:47:21 +0000

So how come Pinocchio still looks wooden?

It may be Geppetto (whoever he/she/it may be) hasn’t got all the ticks out of the tech yet. Maybe they should call Al Gore.

source for image.

Custom Made Frames For Notre Dame Diplomas And Honorary Degrees

Dim Bulb — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:26:50 +0000

Notre Dame Think Tank

Dim Bulb — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:22:19 +0000

According to a post on American Papist, 95 Notre Dame seniors have sent letters regarding the invitation to President Change to appear as the commencment speaker at graduation. 97% of those letter were supportive of the invitation. Perhaps this photo of the Senior Student Body Think Tank will help explain those numbers. Be sure to notice the serpet…urrr, I mean python…urrr, I mean muse getting ready to impart some wisdom.

Rural Humor From Upstate New York

Dim Bulb — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:36:55 +0000

A Contest: Connecticut’s New State Motto

Dim Bulb — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:02:01 +0000

My first entry-Connecticut: A Great Place To Apostatize (a valde locus ut apostatize). OK, so I stink at Latin.

This stands in marked contrast to its original Motto: Qui Transtulit Sustinet. The English translation has varied slightly down through the years, reading either “He Who Transplanted Still Sustains,” or, “He Who Transplanted Continues to Sustain.” It is derived from Psalm 79:9 of the Vulgate (80:9 in most modern translation). In light of recent events in that state I suggest another possible Motto: EGO sero vos a electus vinea tamen vos verto obnoxious volo (see Jeremiah 2:21).

Other suggestions:

Connecticut: Ubi vermis eorum non moritur et ignis non extinguitur (Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinquished Mark 9:47).

Connecticut: Your gateway to Hell.

Lasciate Ogni Speranza, Voi Ch’ Entrate (Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here- Dante’s Inferno, Canto III, the signpost at the gates of Hell)

EGO mos non servo (I will not serve. Satan’s words in Milton’s Paradise Lost)

Also, in light of these events, along with a growing opposition to all things Catholic from marginal Catholics and anti-constitutionalists, I suggest making a Novena to St Joseph, whose feast day is just nine days away.

Please feel free to add you own entry in any language you choose. The winner will receive a match, five gallons of gasoline, and a bus ticket to the Connecticut State Legislature Building**.

**For entertainment purposes only.

Anxiously Waiting For Open Season On Whiney Swiss Theologians

Dim Bulb — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:17:14 +0000

(Disclaimer: There is no such thing as open season on Swiss Theologians, still, a boy can dream about Kung fool fighting, can’t he)

Father Erik Richtsteig models a Sharps Sportsman Carbine, model 1874. So excellent is the quality of this rifle that with just a little practice even the weekend sportsman will be able to blow a copy of McBrien’s CATHOLICISM out of the hands of a seminarian at 200 yards. So powerful it is capable of bring down the most megalomaniacal of Swiss theologians, no matter how big of mouth and ego. It’s light weight makes for easy carrying as one is tracking down all types of liberal theologians in their natural habitat, be it the hollow halls of a liberal university, or the lobby of any major secular media outlet.

The Result of the UFO Crash in Roswell: The Democrat Party Connection

Dim Bulb — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:18:21 +0000

My sister sent me this via email. Sorry, I don’t know the original source.

1947

Some of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, a little over  60 years ago,
witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO)  with aliens aboard
crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell,  New Mexico. This is a well known incident that many say has long been covered up by the U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies and organizations.

However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of April 1948, nine
months after that historic day, the following people were born:

Albert A. Gore, Jr.

Hillary Rodham

John F. Kerry

William J. Clinton

Howard Dean

Nancy Pelosi

Dianne Feinstein

Charles E. Schumer

Barbara Boxer

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep?

I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of
things for you.

It did for me.

No wonder they support the bill to help illegal aliens!