Football and Faith
Google Earth Pictorial:
Notre Dame University
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There are many who are more scholarly than I, but I as I recall there was a philosopher named Kant who argued that even if the sun has come up from the East consistently for 8,000 years (approximate history of the world according to fundamentalists Christians/Jews), it does not mean that the sun will come up tomorrow from the East.
He argued this point from his critique of reason, which he argued was inherently flawed. I'll ignore the inevitable contradiction that if reason is errant, then you can't use reason to argue that reason is errant, because after all, reason is errant.
The point Kant makes is that at some point we cannot trust our reason and must rely on Faith. What's more, every moment is a miracle because it is willed by God and is to be valued as such. It may be a funny way to start the morning, but such were my thoughts as I watched my first sunrise on this pilgrimage.
For those who were watching. Notre Dame football suffered a huge loss last night. The ninth straight loss of a Bowl game by Notre Dame, which is made easier only by the fact that Notre Dame is still one of the most winning teams in football.
It is an overcast day here in Indiana. I came to Indiana right after getting my visa to India. Didn't realize that they were different places… guess I'll need to do better geography if I'm going to get around the world.
But I digress, as I drove through the dark to the University of Notre Dame, the sun came up, and for about 10 minutes the pink and purple of the sky decorated the campus of Notre Dame. Even on a dreary day after a disappointing defeat, Kant can't be wrong, the sun didn't have to come up, but it did.
I've been to Notre Dame several times. To see football games and to visit my Godmother who worked in the Sacristy of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It is a pristine campus with architecture and art balancing each other with precision that is otherworldly. You travel through cornfield after cornfield and then come to this oasis of Catholic thought and reverence. With painful jealousy as someone who graduated from THE Catholic University of America, I must admit that Notre Dame is one of the true treasures of American Catholicism. If you don't already know, you can go to their website to find out more.
The Basilica is nothing short of gorgeous, again raising the hearts and minds to something that is beyond our limited experience of life. The famous statue of Ivan Mestrovic sculpture Pietá can be found here. If you have downloaded Google Earth, you can see my pictures of it here.
In the reliquary are the remains of St. Servera, a saint who like St. Crescent in Galesburg (see January 2, 2007) was martyred and found in the catacombs of Rome (OK, I'm counting, if I find more than 10 saints bodies in Church's in America, I'm writing back to Corpus Christi to tell them to update their information). But the most memorable feature is the high altar. My pictures of the campus and basilica can be seen by clicking here.
He argued this point from his critique of reason, which he argued was inherently flawed. I'll ignore the inevitable contradiction that if reason is errant, then you can't use reason to argue that reason is errant, because after all, reason is errant.
The point Kant makes is that at some point we cannot trust our reason and must rely on Faith. What's more, every moment is a miracle because it is willed by God and is to be valued as such. It may be a funny way to start the morning, but such were my thoughts as I watched my first sunrise on this pilgrimage.
For those who were watching. Notre Dame football suffered a huge loss last night. The ninth straight loss of a Bowl game by Notre Dame, which is made easier only by the fact that Notre Dame is still one of the most winning teams in football.
It is an overcast day here in Indiana. I came to Indiana right after getting my visa to India. Didn't realize that they were different places… guess I'll need to do better geography if I'm going to get around the world.
But I digress, as I drove through the dark to the University of Notre Dame, the sun came up, and for about 10 minutes the pink and purple of the sky decorated the campus of Notre Dame. Even on a dreary day after a disappointing defeat, Kant can't be wrong, the sun didn't have to come up, but it did.
I've been to Notre Dame several times. To see football games and to visit my Godmother who worked in the Sacristy of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It is a pristine campus with architecture and art balancing each other with precision that is otherworldly. You travel through cornfield after cornfield and then come to this oasis of Catholic thought and reverence. With painful jealousy as someone who graduated from THE Catholic University of America, I must admit that Notre Dame is one of the true treasures of American Catholicism. If you don't already know, you can go to their website to find out more.
The Basilica is nothing short of gorgeous, again raising the hearts and minds to something that is beyond our limited experience of life. The famous statue of Ivan Mestrovic sculpture Pietá can be found here. If you have downloaded Google Earth, you can see my pictures of it here.
In the reliquary are the remains of St. Servera, a saint who like St. Crescent in Galesburg (see January 2, 2007) was martyred and found in the catacombs of Rome (OK, I'm counting, if I find more than 10 saints bodies in Church's in America, I'm writing back to Corpus Christi to tell them to update their information). But the most memorable feature is the high altar. My pictures of the campus and basilica can be seen by clicking here.