What is the Mass?

    The authorization by Pope Benedict XVI of the Latin Mass as codified by Pope Saint Pius V should be enough of an indication of the perplexity of many of the faithful. They had many reasons to complain about the fact that the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular has failed to promote a vivid grasp of the awesome mystery of the Mass. This booklet was written at the request of a friend deeply beset by that perplexity. In answer, this booklet points out that the agonies felt over the improper celebration of the Mass and over the often odd participation of the faithful in it, should be seen in the light of the essence of the Mass. Enduring those agonies with faith in God is a sharing in the essence of the Mass, which is the rendering present, in a sacramental way, on the altar of Christ's self-sacrifice on the cross. Since he chose to be crucified for our sake, it behooves us to share in his crucifixion by enduring those agonies. The Mass is a breaking of the bread but only inasmuch as on Calvary Christ's body was tortured, and therefore our participation should be a modest sharing in that painful process. This participation in the Mass was brought into focus in our days by the little-known account of Cecil Raymond Humphery-Smith, a convert, about his privilege of sharing daily in the excruciating agonies that marked Padre Pio's Eucharistic celebration day after day.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892539-14-4  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3.00

The Drama of Guadalupe

    Even among such outstanding Marian shrines as Loreto and Lourdes, the sanctuary of Guadalupe in Mexico looms large. A reason is that its principal attraction, the image of the Lady of Guadalupe imprinted on December 12, 1531, on the tilma of Juan Diego, is a standing miracle by its defiance of the laws of decay now for almost five centuries. This booklet is written for those in the vast crowd, spreading all over the globe, of devout believers in that miracle who want to see into the frame of mind of those whose latest representatives did their best to forestall the canonization of Juan Diego in 2002. By then they had created a scholarly aura on behalf of doubts in documents that vouch for the Image and the historical reality of Juan Diego. The clash between the two groups, Apparitionists and anti-Apparitionists, is deeper than their respective appraisals of the documents on hand. Beneath that difference lies a disparity between those who instinctively grasp the supernatural and those who keep griping about it in order to escape its grip. With the act of Juan Diego's canonization, John Paul II put the seal of infallibility on the historical reality of Juan Diego and his virtues, as well as on the reliability of belief in the miraculous origin of that Image.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892539-12-0  •  36 pages  •  softcover  •  $3.00

The Garden of Eden:
Why? Where? When? How Long?

    Of all the Bible stories none has fallen into such a disrepute as the one about the Garden of Eden. It has become the butt of ridicule in coffee-table books on human origins. Worse, men of the cloth have become ashamed of it. Even Catholic divines, who should know better, prefer not to think of it and certainly not of Adam and Eve as two concrete beings who initiated the human race. Contrary to the widespread belief, it is not paleontology that poses the really serious objections. Recent studies of human origins leave plenty of room to the rise, through a single couple, to the race called homo sapiens sapiens, or the race truly human and not merely by appearance. The most serious difficulty to the story of Adam and Eve comes from the reluctance to face up to the morale of that story, a story profoundly moral. Not for modern man the divine plan that all men had to share in the Fall so that all may be the recipient of God's overflowing love which is his mercy. It is in this perspective that the reason behind that story is discussed, in addition to comparatively minor questions such as the location, the time, and the length of the sojourn of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is not the believer in the essentially literal truth of the Garden of Eden who should feel uneasy about it, but the proud modern man who wants human justice but not divine mercy, though he badly needs it.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892539-10-6  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3.00

The Brain-Mind Unity:
The Strangest Difference

    A difference is never so strange as when it appears as complete identity. As brain research advances by leaps and bounds, mental functions appear to be ever more intimately tied to very specific areas of the brain. Does this development entitle one to predict that eventually references to the soul will be meaningless? This booklet begins with such a prediction as recently made by Francis Crick, who fifty years ago became the codiscoverer of the double-helix structure of chromosomes. It remains, however, a fact that neither evolutionary, nor molecular biology, not even brain research have diminished a whit the enormous difference between biophysical processes in the brain and the conscious mental experiences tied to them. This difference, being the strangest of all differences, will forever bespeak the reality of a soul at least for those who are alive to differences. These, let it not be forgotten, are the basis for registering reality, the basis of all intellectual discourse. The baffling difference of mental experiences from scientific data about the brain should remain a powerful reminder that there has to be a mind, a soul, which is immensely more than man's brain.

    The Spanish translation of this booklet can be found here.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892548-40-2  •  32 pages  •  $3.00

Science and Religion:
A Primer

    There are few subjects so intriguing and misleading as the relation of science and religion. About the importance of science little needs to be said. As to religion, it keeps maintaining itself, although many have expected that as information about science grows so would diminish interest in religion. But what is the true relation of two fields that singly and together command more attention than anything else? Some basics about that relation are presented in this booklet, which wants to be a primer on the subject. It therefore has to stress the elementary, or rather really fundamental considerations about both science and religion. Since religion and science are equally vast subjects, clarifications about both are indispensable, in order to clear the air. These clarifications are given without mincing words, lest the reader may too easily read his own thoughts into what he reads in this booklet. About religion, it has become a fad to think that all are born experts in it even without a grasp of the basics. As to science, one can become a safe judge on much of what is presented in the media about it, by keeping in mind some fundamentals.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892548-42-9  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

    In these days when news about physical catastrophes go hand in hand with urgent appeals for help, it would be most appropriate to refer to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Yet hardly a word is heard about that parable. One possible reason for this is that the parable's hero is a Samaritan, a most disliked specimen in the Jewish context of those times. Another reason is that the parable is immensely more than an exhortation for social action. It rather aims at underlining a way to secure eternal life. This is not, however, something of which modern man wants to be reminded. The parable is preceded by Jesus' statements that stress the urgency of paying attention to the fact that the Kingdom of God, which is eternal life, is on hand. Careful attention is paid in this booklet to the parable's scene, the danger-laden road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It is also emphasized that some heroic actions in the lives of saints are the best commentaries on the parable. They surely stand in sharp contrast with some dispiriting cases of disinterest in the afflicted. The reason for writing this book was the author's realization that he would have turned into a replica of the parable's priest and levite had he ignored a painful situation.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892539-04-5  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

Eastern Orthodoxy's Witness to Papal Primacy

    This booklet was written on the spur of the moment. But momentous should seem its message, which aims at a refreshing of memory in this age of ecumenical efforts. For whatever the good intentions behind such efforts, they cannot escape either facts or logic. The fact remains that the finest representatives of Eastern orthodox theology and spirituality bore telling witness on behalf of the primacy of Peter's successors in the See of Rome. This booklet is not a précis of those testimonies but aims at presenting the vital force and logic that animates them. Maximus Confessor deserves to be remembered more by his heroic stand on behalf of papal primacy than by his speculations of cosmic dimensions. As to Saint John Chrysostom, no latter-day ultramontane could produce a more sustained endorsement of the papacy than he did. And the same is true of Pope Hormisdas' Formula, which has a factuality and logic with a compelling force for the bishops of Rome as well as for Eastern Orthodoxy. So much in brief about some major points made in this booklet and with a factuality that should seem salutary in an age that prefers fashions to hard facts and to the force of logic.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892548-44-5  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

Evolution for Believers

    Ever since Darwin, the science of evolution has been taken to be destructive of Christian faith. But insofar as it is destructive, it hits Darwinism, as distinct from the science of evolution, before it hits its intended target. Moreover, whereas faith, properly understood, comes out unscathed from that attack, Darwinism cannot. Only a studied oversight of what is meant by the science of evolution and an equally studied ignorance about Christian faith can see the two to be in an irresolvable conflict. The resolution of that conflict is extremely simple. Insofar as Darwin's theory is science, its truth rests on considerations that are quantitative, either concretely or at least in principle. The propositions of Christian creed are never such as to be subject to a quantitative or experimental test. This is a strictly rational test of truth, which, if heeded, would save Darwinists from becoming the promoters of Darwinism. The same test imposes itself even more stringently on believers for whom God is Reason infinite, his Incarnate Son is the Logos (a name that must do something with logicality), and who must consider themselves to be made in the image of God.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892548-35-6  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

Intelligent Design?

    This booklet on the Intelligent Design theory of evolution was prompted by the front-page report which The New York Times devoted to that theory in three consecutive days this past August. Those reports and other cover stories surely exposed an aspect of that theory which is its at least indirect connection with biblical fundamentalism. But that theory has in its armor other and far more serious chinks about which Christians, who take seriously Saint Paul's warning in the Romans that their service is a "reasoned service," should be fully aware.

    On no account should they espouse the fallacy of the "biblical" doctrine of the special creation of each species. This notion flies in the face of sound exegesis and sane theology. The shortcomings, often very serious, of Darwinian theory cannot be remedied with Intelligent Design theory, which philosophically cannot cope with design and purpose. Moreover, it is a subtle rehash of the doctrine of special creation. Even worse, as it claims to be a "scientific" theory of evolution, it implies that design, insofar as it means purpose (and indeed divine purpose) can be the object of measurements, which is the touchstone of truth in science.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 0-9774826-0-X  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

 

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Darwin's Designs

    This booklet contains the lecture delivered on February 8, 2006, in Shreswbury, Darwin's birthplace, in the context of the annual celebrations there in Darwin's honor. The lecture aims at giving a balanced view of Darwin, who failed to keep his science separate from his ideology. Three days after this lecture was delivered, Richard Dawkins, the well-known professor of biology at Oxford and also the notorious village atheist there, spoke in Shrewsbury's Music Hall, and declared Darwin to be the greatest man who has ever walked on earth. This claim is a verbal acrobatics that one would try in vain to unmask for the benefit of those who revel in mental somersaults. To keep one's sanity about Darwinism, one has to have a clear idea about Darwin's various designs, some distinctly scientific, some brazenly ideological.

    This was overlooked by Darwin's first prominent critique, Samuel Butler, also a famous son of Shrewsbury, best known for his posthumous The Way of All Flesh. The Erewhon ("nowhere" read backward), or the best remembered among Butler's anti-Darwin books, is a case of jumping into vitalism, which is to abandon science. This booklet also outlines the "somewhere" to which one has to go in order to do justice to Darwin, the scientist, and to remain free of the tidal wave of ideological confusion his work triggered.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 0-9774826-5-0  •  16 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

Fifty Years of Learning

    This booklet contains the address given at the fiftieth anniversary of Woodside Priory School, Portola Valley, Califomia, March 21, 2007, the Feast of Saint Benedict. The author of this address was one of seven Benedictine Fathers who started Woodside Priory School in 1957. Owing to the upheavals of World War II, they settled in the United States and ultimateIy gathered here to start a preparatory school for boys. They came from the Archabbey of Pannonhalma, Hungary, which celebrated the millennium of its foundation in 1996, with Pope John Paul II being present. The Priory School was at first a small venture but as the years went by it has grown steadily. Fifty years have not failed to teach a great many things here and elsewhere. In this booklet one of the "founding fathers" discusses the lessons he leamed during that time and shares them in the conviction that education is best judged by the lessons it teaches.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-0-9790577-5-5  •  16 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

The Sun's Miracle,
or of Something Else?

    In making public the Third Secret, the Vatican described it as part of the most prophetic of private revelations in modern times. As such it had to be supported, as are all true prophecies, with miracles. The miracles connected with Fatima form a long series that reach into the last decade of this century. Any such series or chain must be especially secure in its first link, which, in this case, is the miracle of the sun, an event witnessed by 50,000 on October 17, 1917. No one who raised respectful objections to that private revelation called in doubt that event. But even the best champions of that revelation, or the message of Fatima, failed to carry out a painstaking study of the nature of that miracle. The study, which must start with a thorough listing and analysis of the eyewitness accounts, leads to the conclusion that, instead of the sun, an air lens served as the means of a divine intervention. This little booklet presents the gist of the author's God and the Sun at Fatima, a work of almost four hundred pages.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 1-892548-11-9  •  32 pages  •  softcover  •  $3

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