What is Character?

I've been reading 'The Happiness Hypothesis' by Jonathan Haidt, and a chapter entitled 'The Felicity of Virtue' explores the notion that character, which used to be an important attribute to have, has been superceded by personality, which is the perfect new, shiny and improved accompaniment to mere humanity, perfect for any mere mortal living in an individualist culture. 'Having character' has been kind of relegated to a moral ancestry, where the Greek philosophers might have pursued the meaning and intent of accumulating character, but in our post-utilitarian post-post modern world, moral character has been sacrificed to knowing what appropriate moral actions actually are. Which seems to confuse the underlying structure with the process a tad, for my thinking.

Anyrate, there are also twenty four character strengths that lead to six higher-level virtues, as defined by Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman, which you can explore in detail through the VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire here.

I'm listing them out with the intent of taking one strength per day, for a month, and sitting with the word in contemplation during Compline.

1. Wisdom
- Curiosity
- Love of learning
- Judgement
- Ingenuity
- Emotional intelligence
- Perspective

2. Courage
- Valor
- Perseverance
- Integrity

3. Humanity
- Kindness
- Loving

4. Justice
- Citizenship
- Fairness
- Leadership

5. Temperance
- Self-control
- Prudence
- Humility

6. Transcendence
- Appreciation of beauty and excellence
- Gratitude
- Hope
- Spirituality
- Forgiveness
- Humour
- Zest

Crucifixion

I've wanted to post this as a cross link for a little while. I was actually intimidated by it. See if you can figure out why...




Daniel Mitsui - Crucifixion.
Completed Holy Saturday.

http://www.danielmitsui.com/artwork/religious.html

Corpus Christi

Sub divérsis speciébus, * Signis
tantum, et non rebus, * Latent
res exímiæ.

Here beneath these signs are hidden *
Priceless things, to sense forbidden *
Signs, not things, are all we see.

from the Alleluia sequence from the Proper of the Mass for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

ref: http://www.maternalheart.org/propers/Sundays%20after%20Pentecost/Pentecost%201%20-%20Thursday%20-%20Corpus%20Christi/corpuschristi.pdf

The feast of Corpus Christi, which is celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, comes to be birthed in the Catholic Liturical calendar in a gorgeous way - in 1209, St Juliana of Mt Cornillon, a devout nun who was devoted to care for the sick at the Convent for Augustinian Sisters in Liege, had a vision.

She saw the moon hanging in mid air, in the sky. Although the moon was shining bright, there was a single black spot on it. St Juliana was not used to seeing things like this. She thought that the vision was just her imagination, so she tried to forget about it, and prayed, more fervently, that she might find salvation from these petty distractions.

But, through the inner dialogue that grew with her Christ, she came to understand that this vision of the moon was a symbol of the Church, so bright with all its Feasts. The black part of the moon was a hole, where there was no Feast to honour the Blessed Sacrament. She understands her Mission as a call to get many people interested in this new Feast Day. But St Juliana was very humble, and she was frightened at the thought of such a Mission. She believed that this vision was just her imagination, so she decided to keep the whole thing a secret.

In 1230, St Juliana became Mother Superior of the Augustinian Monastery. Soon after her election, she again had the vision of the moon with the black spot on it. Mother Juliana decided to share her secret. She decided to tell this Canon de Lausanne, a priest in Liege about her vision and also begged him to talk to other theologians, to try to make head or tail of it.

While the Feast was quickly incorporated into the Office of St Martin, St Juliana did not live to see the Feast accepted in all Churches in her local area - indeed, it was only through the work of her staunch friend St Eve, combined with the efforts of Pope Urban IV (I love that name) that the Feast become an institution in the Catholic Church.

ALLELUIA, alleluia. Caro mea
vere est cibus, et sanguis meus vere
est potus: qui mandúcat meam carnem,
et bibit meum sánguinem, in
me manet et ego is eo. Allelúia.

Alleluia, alleluia. My Flesh is meat indeed,
and My Blood is drink indeed: he
that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My
Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. Alleluia.


Ref: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04390b.htm
http://www.sspx.ca/EucharisticCrusade/2002January/St_Juliana_of_Mt_Cornillon.htm

Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum

Haec quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis.


hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctum vitae aeternae, et calicem salutis perpetuae.

Salome

I never did fully get over this music video, much less the song.



Stand Inside Your Love by The Smashing Pumkins (2000). Theme for the video is based on Salome by Oscar Wilde.

Attuning to the Music

'No one remembers, word for word, all that was said in any lecture, or played in any piece. But, if you understood it once, you now own new networks of knowledge, about each theme and how it changes and relates to others. Thus, no one could remember Beethoven's Fifth Symphony entire, from a single hearing. But neither could you ever hear again those first four notes as just four notes! Once but a tiny scrap of sound; it is now a Known Thing - a locus in the web of all the other things that we know, whose meanings and significances depend on one another.'- Marvin Minsky