Dona Nobis Pacem and Final Fantasy X

At Holy Mass as the priest holds the Sacred Host in His Hand, he strikes his breast three times saying-

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace

This moment occurs just after Sacred Host is broken, one of the moment which mystically shows forth the Sacrifice Our Lord offers on the Cross and that His perfect sacrifice has been accepted to grant us peace- peace between humanity and Almighty God in the New and Everlasting Covenant. 

Holy Mass renews this sacrifice it brings this Once and For all sacrifice into the here and now, God uses the rites of the Mass to intersect history anew with this One Sacrifice, bringing its efficacy, applying its merits to those who are present and who have interiorly united themselves to the sacred rites.

He does this through His Sacred Priesthood- those to Whom He Himself gave the command, 

"Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is My Body which will be given up for you- do this as a memorial of Me", a sacred rites, through which, according to St. Paul, "you are proclaiming the Lord's death, until He comes".

This brings me to the thought, which I have shared previously, about "the calm" of Final Fantasy X.

When the final summon is made, when the summoner gives his/her life in sacrifice, sin is defeated, the evil monster is chained up once more, and a period of peace is given to the world.

Let's skip the fact that as the plot of FFX develops the whole Yevon religion is revealed to be a sham, but the fact of the matter is, the final summonings did bring calm, and this was because of the self-less courage of the summoners.

Here is the extract from X about The Calm, only watch the first 5 mins, after that it moves on. 

Notice the desire for this Calm that the people have, and the language used, it is the period of peace during which people can raise their families without fear. The calm that parents long for the safety of their children, and children so they can be free from nightmares and sleep peacefully in their beds.

Maybe we need to try and see the Sacrifice of the Mass like this- in attending Holy Mass, in being there at this Have Mercy on us! Have Mercy on us! Grant us peace! The period of calm is ushered in to our lives, it envelops us, we are surrounded in Our Lord's merits mediated through the Holy Sacrifice- the Final Summoning. 

This doesn't mean we won't suffer from illness, it doesn't mean endless prosperity, but neither did the final summoning in X, but what it means is freedom from sin, from the power of the Devil, and for those who are living in the state of grace, the promise of Eternal Calm, of which this present time will just be a foreshadowing.

With these thoughts in mind-- Introeamus ad altare Dei.

Xenogears- Anti God or Anti Demiurge?

There are an increasing number of Xenogears fans out there I think, it's an interesting game, but a game I have never completed.

I reached disc two at least a couple of times but the game is far far from perfect and after beginning as an amazing game, a game which you are thinking is going to be one of the greatest games of all time, unfortunately it gradually and then quickly runs out of steam almost from 3 hours in. 

I really love some of the soundtrack though, it is a masterpiece and the vocals are awesome.

The big problem for Catholics with a lot of JRPGs is their blatant anti Catholicism and their promotion of false anti-God philosophies.

I have traditionally seen Xenogears as anti God in a really really big way...sham religion to control people, 'god' himself is an antagonist, reincarnation, etc etc. 

 but I recently saw a video that made me reconsider this a tiny bit, and the video has some good points. The argument is that the Japanese who are godless and largely propelling to eternal damnation like to use Christian terminology to make their games and stories seem more occidental and strange, often applying names incorrectly and with nothing to do with their original reference points. This is certainly the case in Xenogears in a way perhaps unparalleled. 

And so whilst at the centre of xenogears there is this god thing trying to revive itself by farming and feeding itself humans who it has created, this thing isn't really a god at all, it is a demiurge a being that is itself created and yet has the capacity to create as if it were a god. So a created being posing itself is god is the enemy.

But then there is this wave existence- is this the true God? Obviously not, since how could God get trapped by a demiurge (which seems to have happened in xenogears) the whole stuff about the wave existence in xenogears is just incoherent, an all powerful being from another dimension is somehow trapped in a man made robot demiurge and wants to be set free....

So in xenogears we are not dealing with the true creator of the universe in any of this, we are not fighting uncreated existence, we are not fighting the supremely simple, perfect and holy God, we are not actually fighting the supreme being in any way, nor are we helping him escape from the demiurge. 

Xenogears fails in as much as it does not bring to light to fact that whilst the demiurge Deus is a phony god that is rightly destroyed, there is a true God sustaining all things Who Himself exists without the need of any other, a God Who simply Is and cannot fail to Be, a God without which all things would fall back into nothingness.

Hear are some ideas of altering the plot to make Xenogears more Christian:

1) Wave existence has to go. 

2) the continual reincarnations of elly and fei not true incarnations but vocations given by the true God 

3) Just as the demiurge has his false religion in xenogears through the ethos, the true God too ough to His own religion in the world of Xenogears which is acknowledged by the end of the game to be true.

4) The true God wishes to see the destruction of demiurge through means of humans, as humans created this false god the true God wishes that they destroy it.

Favourite games -v- most re-played games

I have been recently thinking about the games I usually say are my favourite, as in my "top 5 RPGs" or whatever, and thinking about how this list overlaps with the games that I have played again and again.

What I have noticed is the lists don't really overlap.

So, my favourite game and RPG is probably FFVII, but in actual fact, I actually haven't played this game through in maybe 15 years now. Is it really the game that I should say is the "greatest"? Is that really what I think, or am I really saying "the game I have the greatest nostalgia for is FFVII"?

I don't think it is all about nostalgia though, because I only played MGS through for the first time 5 years ago, and I honestly think that that game ranks right up there in my top list of games, and in fact, I have only played it through once.

Is this honest? Do we need to have played a game many times for it to be in our top list? When it comes to films, all the films I like the most will be films I have chosen to watch quite a number of times... but with games, maybe it isn't the case.

Perhaps this is down to the amount of time it takes to complete a game, the investment, compared to a film. But even with my favourite books, I have read them a number of times, though probably not all of them....

And then there is the really weird case of games that sucked hours and hours away from my life, but don't even appear on my tops lists. RPGs that I put way down the list but which I played every last bit of juice from them, and at the time must have really enjoyed them or got something from them.... FFVIII for example- I played that to death over a full year, or Age of Empires, or Street Fighter Alpha 3, or Fifa 97, or Altered Beast, all of these I played loads, more certainly than MGS yet MGS ranks above them for sure in my estimation.

8-Bit Lent

We should all have a good strategy prepared for the spiritual battle of Lent- things we are going to deny ourselves from eating, extra prayers we are going to say each day, sacrifices in terms of comfort and sacrifices in terms of media.

Lent is serious, it is the badge of being a true Catholic.

Maybe one sacrifice you might make in terms of video games is to give them up completely and to give up all reading up about them. That would be a great offering to the Lord.

Another idea, and something I am going to take up is to reduce myself to only playing 8-Bit games, (and, of course, to abstain from gaming media on YouTube).

8-Bit games certainly can be a bit of a penance, they can train us in patience, in denying immediate excitement and pleasure, and they are very very basic. They are like a bread and water fast in terms of gaming.

Give it a try. 40 days, only 8-Bit, and of course, only games you can play legally,

Fascination

Some enemy attacks in RPGs always cause status effects, others have variable degrees of likelihood depending on player stats.

One enemy skill that always works (as long as the player does not have an accessory to prevent it) is "Fascination" used by a number of enemies in Final Fantasy 7 and primarily Jemnezmy. 

"Fascination" is a move in which a scantily clad, attractive, young female fiend blows a kiss or something at your party, and all of a sudden all the male characters are inflicted with the status effect of "confusion".

I have never forgotten about this enemy attack! 

As a 7 year old boy the move is rather strange and you don't quite understand what the big deal is, but as you change into a man, and also as you read theology, you understand how correctly the makers of FFVII designed this enemy. She is somewhat like the Siren of Greek mythology, her beauty is a trap, it makes you lose your mind, you completely forget your goal, your telos and the Siren destroys you.

"Fascination", it is from the Latin which can actually mean confuse, but also charm or bewitch. Some might argue that fascination is a really dodgy translation or whatever the Japenese is- presumably something more like "charm" or "entice", something that evokes more clearly both that you lose your mind, and that losing your mind is as a result of the vice of lust.

All men have experienced "fascination" and what a killer it is.
St. Thomas Aquinas describes "fascination" as one of the effects of the vice of lust, we read:

"Now carnal vices, namely gluttony and lust, are concerned with pleasures of touch in matters of food and sex; and these are the most impetuous of all pleasures of the body. For this reason, these vices cause man’s attention to be very firmly fixed on corporeal things … [As a] consequence man’s operation in regard to intelligible (obvious) things is weakened,
[This is caused] more, however, by lust than by gluttony, forasmuch as sexual pleasures are more vehement than those of the table. Wherefore lust gives rise to blindness of mind, which excludes almost entirely the knowledge of spiritual things."

Lust makes you forget eternity, heaven, hell, salvation, the truths of the Faith, the Crucifixion of the Son of God, your own immortal soul, your vocation, your state in life- absolutely everything can so easily get forgotten about in the grip of "fascination".

What wakes you up from confusion? In FFVII it is actually being attacked! Physical pain, and the ascetic tradition says the same. Take your USB charger wire, remove your shirt, and apply a few strokes to your back, that will wake you up! Take a cold shower! Sleep with the heating off in winter! Deny yourself the pleasures of taste, and, above all, alcohol. 

In the game world there are accessories to prevent confusion from the spell of fascination, in life, for some men, there ain't any accessories that will help you, there's no tactics to defeat this enemy, and so, when you see that Jemnezmy appear on your screen, hold L1 and R1 and get out of there.

Is Gaming a sin? Response to an e-mail.

Hello xxxxx,

Thank you so much for your e-mail, and may God bless you in your studies and in the pursuit of your vocation.

I am pretty much the only writer on this blog now and I don't contribute to it enough either, I think I started helping on it when I was about 24 and now I'm 32. I was a seminarian when I started and now I have been a priest 3 years.

I take the view that video games are a medium, just like film, music and literature. There are books that Catholics should not read, there are music types Catholics should not listen to, there are films Catholics should not watch, but this does not mean a catholic should not read any books, not listen to any music, not watch any films.

I also take the view that games are a kind of sport/ leisure activity a way of re-creating, of "playing" which according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a necessary element in being a flourishing human being.

So with those points put together we get-

1) everyone needs to play, to recreate themselves,
2) video games are a medium, a type of entertainment and like any medium in itself it is morally neutral. The particular message or content that comes from the game will define its morality. I am quite strict with myself on this- games with swearing, impurities, or games where you summon demons, I avoid those- sometimes I have bought them and stopped playing them- like 'the last of us' which i thought was too vulgar language. So you're right GTA is going to be something to avoid. But there are plenty of games that are perfectly fine, just as there are films and books and music.

Obviously, for play to fulfill its job as recreation it will, by definition, be in moderation, because pay is there is help us re-create, to de-stress, it should be to let off steam and not a central part of our life. I probably only play maybe 2-3 hours a week.

I think priests who oppose video games are weird and inconsistent. ... do they have a problem with someone playing a sport? of course not! Do they have a problem with someone reading a decent novel? no.

Video games therefore are fine so long as they are morally neutral games (like for example Pac Man, or Candy Crush, or Mario Kart or a spots game or a platform game), or even, on the rare occasion morally positive (where you have an RPG with an inspiring and christian themed message) and always only as a distraction, a small amount of play or diversion to provide recreation which we all need in order to flourish.

In Christ,

with the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

Fr Higgins

Fou-Lu and the mystery of iniquity

I recently finished Breath of Fire 4 on the PS1 which had been my project for some time.

I wanted to play the game after noticing on a pretty large poll that the game's antagonist Fou-Lu, is considered one of the most "highly rated characters" across RPGS, in fact, he secures first place in that poll, with Vivi registering second.

What to make of Fou-Lu? Here is the summary for those who don't know about him. 7 facts about his character. Spoilers? Absolutely! But the game is about 20 years old now!

1) An incarnate dragon-god who comes to rule the world as its rightful emperor. Extremely powerful, great weapon, cool look, awesome magic.
2) His coming is foreknown by political powers who pursue him, jealous of their position, they attack him and attempt to kill him.
3) While his powers are still weak he is aided and supported and protected by a human women, to whom it seems he falls in love with.
4) A god who decides to just live out the human existence, who slots into the mundane, who loses the desire to rule and conquer the world, to put it under his subjection.
5) Eventually the political powers find him, they do their upmost again and again to kill him, they cannot, he is a dragon god! But in the end they turn him, they chase him from his village, I think they kill his girlfriend, and they cause him to grow hateful towards humans, for him to return to his first thought, that as god he ought to rule them, but now as one who is evil, destroying all humanity.
6) Fou-Lu is the 'other half' of the game's dull, non speaking, personality-less protagonist Ryu. The two must be fused into one (destiny, as always)
7) Eventually they meet up and fight it out, if you win the game, well Fou-Lu is destroyed, sucked into the dominant Ryu. If you get game-over presumably Ryu gets sucked into Fou-Lu but unfortunately we don't get to see the consequences from that one.

So, What to make of him?

Fou-Lou essentially grows to hate humanity because it's leaders have hated him, have rejected him as their god and rightful ruler. He allows this hatred to pervert him, to corrupt his goodness and the compassion for the greater part of humanity that he had developed.

He's interesting, and by far the most developed character of the otherwise mediocre game, but in terms of philosophy, profundity of thought- Fou-Lu is really nothing more than a typical revenge driven bad guy.

The highlight of his story is most definitely point (4), the period in which he strips himself of his greatness, of his power, and in humility sets about just living the mundane human existence and finding dignity in his humble farm work. There is something beautiful here, seeing a powerful dragon god choosing to put destructive powers to one side for the sake of helping a village and out of love for a woman who has saved his life.

But from then on, it goes down hill and we find nothing more than a revenge driven villain who has decided the best thing to do is to destroy absolutely everything. Nihilism. What will it gain? Nothing? Is it a reasonable choice? No, only a small group of humans has persecuted him. Is it a moral choice? Clearly no... to inflict great suffering indiscriminately, to destroy the world.....

Scratch and RPG villain and almost always you reach Kefka, deep down they are almost all Kefka with a different backstory.

In Kefka we find raw nihilism, someone who destroys simply for the sake of it, because he wills it. Kefka and all RPG villains are utterly incomprehensible, their actions never add up. And that is because of what theologians call "the mystery of iniquity".


The nature of evil is that it is dark, that the more you look and contemplate it the less "sense" it makes, they are dark, you don't get anything deep or rich out of contemplating them.

Often in our world, we hear evil or wicked people pathologised, or their evil rationalised in terms of some illness, as if they cannot help do this irrational and hurtful thing, typically we hear the guy is mentally ill or was abused as a child. This is the easy option, it makes you think you understand the criminal and what he has done. It is not the full truth though, the real truth is "the mystery of iniquity", the evil person has chosen to do evil, he has willed it, and that is the explanation, it is irrational, it is dark, it cannot be understood, that is what it means for something to be truly evil, for good to be tarnished, perverted, simply out of will. Try and get your head around it, you can't.

Divine truths, goodness, holiness, the dogmas of the faith, these on the contrary are mysteries of depth, the more you look at them, they more sense they make, the greater profundity they are shown to contain. They are light, you can gaze at them forever and always see more and rejoice more.

We shouldn't expect the 'greatest character' in RPG history to be aligned with evil, because ultimately evil is shallow, hollow, empty, ignoble, un-admirable, dis-edifying. There is no likeness of Christ, the true man, Who carries all perfections to their completion.

If there is greatness in any character it is due to his nearness to our Saviour and His virtues, this is even true of fictional characters. Christ must have the glory, all creatures must kneel before Him.