Vocabulary Lesson

In the post below on the rosary, Leo XIII (a really cool pope by the way) spoke of people who fear suffering as "those who dream of a chimeric civilization in which all that is unpleasant shall be removed." I didn't know what that meant so I looked up the word "chimeric" for my edification. I found something interesting.

Here's what I found in the world of genetics:

In zoology, a chimera is an animal that has two or more different
populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes;
if the different cells emerged from the same zygote, it is called a mosaicism.
Chimerism is rare in human beings: there have been only about 40 reported
cases.

Chimeras are formed from four parent cells (two fertilized eggs or
early embryos fuse together) or from three parent cells (a fertilized egg is
fused with an unfertilized egg or a fertilized egg is fused with an extra
sperm). Each population of cells keeps its own character and the resulting
animal is a mixture of tissues. An analogy is two jigsaw puzzles cut using an
identical cutter, but with different pictures. A single puzzle can be made out
of the mis-matched parts, but the completed puzzle will show parts of both
pictures.

This is a photo of a "geep;" part sheep/part goat you can see the different genetic traits in the hair/wool on the geep's body.

And here's what I found in the world of Mythology:

Homer's brief description in the is the earliest surviving literary
reference: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake
behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible
flame of bright fire

I think the pope is saying that people who run away from suffering are those who want to pick and choose the parts of life that they want to have - taking away all the icky stuff and leaving -the good stuff. They piece it together to make a new kind of life - not the one God designed with joys and sorrows - but a life that is centered on their own good pleasure and comfort. We see this ideology all the more in this generation.

If anyone has other ideas, I'd love to hear it. I'm just taking a stab in the dark.

UPDATE:

Additional definitions:

• Composed of parts that are of different origin and are seemingly incompatible
• unreal; imaginary; visionary; highly unrealistic
• Created by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; highly improbable.