"See?" Says God

The Lord comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted. Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?

See, upon the palms of my 

hands I have engraved you...

 

I really have had a kind of break-through, about life in general, but also regarding some recent concerns obsessions that I share with.... well, with too many people online.

This is as a result of some spiritual direction, (although not, perhaps in quite the way my confessor intended,) and I don't yet know how to put it into words, or, more important, to extend it to other people.

But I'm working on it. 

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Battles, at Nafpaktos, in Souls, and in Synods

I have been having trouble dragging my carcass out of bed in any timely fashion, but today I did arrive for Mass in time for the Rosary.
And I was even called upon to lead a decade, for which I was glad - and besides almost righteously so, snarkily, as well.
Two Turks parishioners came in to the church and thought they would have a conversation.

Not today, boys, not today.
I am the youngest "regular" by a couple miles, and there is some serious hearing loss distributed amongst my fellow pray-ers.
Do the hearing impaired think it might behove them to sit nearer the front, from which intentions are read, congregants called upon to take a decade?
No, they do not.
I think all priests and ushers and other lay ministers come to terms with this reality, eventually- people gonna sit where people gonna sit. (I knew a wonderful pastor twho once tried strategically turning out various lights in the transepts and near the back to heard the daily mass people into a closer grouping - after a week, with no success, one man who had sat in near total darkness the entire time dropped in to the confessional after mass -Father, I don't have a confession, I just want you to know that a bunch of the lights in the back that must be burned out.)

Anyway, I know, because I am approached at the supermarket, in the church parking lot, at restaurants, (on the rare occasions,) that people love it when I read at Mass or lead part of the Rosary.
They can hear and they can understand.
I have good diction, (thank you, Lord, and thank you, Dorothy Tree/Dorothy Uris,) and I am loud.
And I can always get louder.
Or even LOUDER.
Without shouting.
So don't think you're gong to come in and converse loudly enough to hear each other, boys - ain't gonna happen.
Take it outside.
Anyway, a good day for the Rosary - and a visiting priest, so I'm also looking forward to confessions this weekend.
And the celebrant was beautiful!
I don't mean good looking, but gestures so perfect and reverent, I didn't even notice them until i thought back on them after Mass.

The way the orans posture changed so smoothly into hands folded in prayer into the sign of the cross was art.
Gentle, (yet somehow in retrospect almost shocking,) art.

It was so wonderful, not having to fight distractions to Be In the Liturgy.

And the Rosary was especially powerful today, our Lady, hearing our pleas, watching over us - us all, the Church, her Son's Bride.
And evidence of her protection, and the Holy Spirit sorting things out?
A corrective, when goings on, (at the Sin-Odd? ;oD) take more effort than you might think, to make public.
God bless Edward Pentin!

reliable sources have shared with me a few of the subjects covered by other synod fathers, helping to provide a more rounded picture of what was discussed: 
* A number of synod fathers spoke in support of Cardinal Peter Erdo’s introductory speech, including one who underlined the importance of keeping fidelity to truth about marriage, the family and the Eucharist.
* A synod father asked “What are we doing here?” and stressed the synod is about the family, not other relationships such as homosexual ones. He also stressed that if the synod accepts the divorced-remarried issue, the Church effectively “supports divorce”.
* Another said the emphasis should be the sacrament of marriage, so the spiritual beauty of marriage is brought to the fore. Often the Church is not united around the “positive vision” of marriage and family. He said instability around marriage is “against its nature”.
* A synod father referenced St. Augustine, saying some of the baptized living in “irregular situations” don’t want to approach the Sacrament of Penance; he said the crisis of the family is a crisis of faith. He quoted 2 Timothy 4:2-5
* Another intervention noted the flock are too few, and that one should show respect for families which battle and try to remain faithful, those who in particular remain faithful to their marital vows given before God, although there are controversies and difficulties.
* A further intervention stressed that the Church has to defend that which God revealed about marriage and family and that the work of prelates is to support healthy families. A danger for families are “certain cultural currents,” as well as a sociological approach. In order to serve the family one has to take as the point of departure the word of God.
These were just some of the interventions the press didn’t hear about from [the English language press spokesperson] among the 72 delivered to the synod on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

Queen of the Rosary, and Victor of Lepanto, pray for us!

Pro-Choice? Changing the World, One Heart At a Time

This is the kind of good news we need.
Listen to Ruben Navarrette Jr at Daily Beast -

For the last 30 years, I’ve supported abortion rights. This year may be different.
The only thing I hate more than talking about abortion is writing about it. It’s no accident that, in 2,000 columns over a quarter-century, I have never—ever—written about abortion. I’ve avoided the topic like a root canal. 
But that is getting harder to do with the release of what are now five gruesome, albeit edited, undercover videos by The Center for Medical Progress depicting doctors and other top officials of Planned Parenthood discussing, and even laughing about, the harvesting of baby organs, as casually as some folks talk about the weather.
It’s jarring to see doctors acting as negotiators as they dicker over the price of a fetal liver, heart, or brain, and then talk about how they meticulously go to the trouble of not crushing the most valuable body parts. This practice is perfectly legal, and for some people, it is just a business. With millions of abortions each year in America, business is good.
Who could forget Dr. Mary Gatter, council president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors, when, in Video #2, she tells undercover investigators that it isn’t about the money—before she zeroes in on dollars and cents? 
“Let me just figure out what others are getting, and if this is in the ballpark, then it’s fine,” Gatter said. “If it’s still low, then we can bump it up.” ...

I want a shower....
in the latest video, Abby Johnson, the former clinic director of that same Planned Parenthood office, said her branch made about $120,000 a month selling aborted fetus tissue and organs.
All for the sake of research, no doubt. Make that a long, hot shower with lots of soap.
The videos were produced by The Center For Medical Progress after a 3-year investigation into Planned Parenthood. While many Democrats—most notably, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest—claim that they haven’t seen the videos so they don’t have to comment, others on the Left admit to having seen them.
Hillary Clinton, who recently came to the defense of the organization as doing a lot of good in the field of women’s health, called them “disturbing.”...
I’m pro-choice. At least I thought I was until recently. These days, each time, I express concern, outrage, disgust, or horror over another video—which should come with warnings that they may produce nightmares—some supporter of the organization responds by attacking me and insisting that I was never really pro-choice to begin with. 
Defenders of Planned Parenthood are trying to deflect criticism away from the organization and onto those who produced the videos. In the minds of true believers, those are the real culprits—guilty of releasing illegally obtained and “heavily edited” videos with the intent of destroying a valuable organization that provides essential health services to millions of women. The organization has hired an expensive Washington, D.C.-based PR firm to do damage control, and the firm quickly tried to pressure television networks to stop airing the videos. ...
After all this, I still consider myself pro-choice, as I have for the last 30 years. I staked out this position during my freshmen year in college. Even then, I understood the abortion debate was a tug-of-war between competing rights—those of the mother versus those of an unborn baby. I sided with the mother. And I tried not to think about the baby.
All this was happening in the 1980s, which was a particularly tense time in the abortion debate. Americans were at each other’s throats. Protesters picketed the offices of abortion providers. Clinics were bombed or set on fire. Doctors who performed abortions were being threatened. The Moral Majority, Operation Rescue, and the Republican Party seemed an intolerant lot. I couldn’t imagine siding with them, so I lined up on the pro-choice side. 
I arrived there for a simple reason: Because I’m a man. Many will say that this is not a very good reason, but it is my reason. Lacking the ability to get pregnant, and thus spared what has been for women friends of mine the anguishing decision of whether to stay pregnant, I’ve remained on the sidelines and deferred to the other half of the population.
Over time, I made refinements—going along with waiting periods and parental notification laws at the state level, and coming out against the barbaric practice known as partial birth abortion. 

As I’ve only realized lately, to be a man, and to declare yourself pro-choice, is to proclaim your neutrality. And, as I’ve only recently been willing to admit, even to myself, that’s another name for “wimping out.”

I suspect more than a few men have thought of "pro-choice" as their only choice - wasn't it presumptuous, wasn't it paternalistic of them to have any opinion that in any way limited a woman's options, to inject themselves into a matter where women were the ones who would have to bear... well, everything? bear the pain, bear the consequences, bear the meroies, bear the guilt, bear the lost opportunities, yes, bear the child?
But neutrality in the face of evil is not going to cut it.
One at a time, people will open their minds, open their hearts - and they will not come down on the side of evil.
Because people are not evil, God di not make us that way. We are created for glory.

Happy Endings

I was sitting in Mass this week and like a headline or advertising slogan, the words, "There are no happy endings in this life except dying in a state of grace," popped into me, clear and crisp and loud as if someone had said them...

I say "popped into me" rather than the more usual "popped into my head" because... well, because I didn't actually think them, I just took them, or rather they took me.

Okay, a bit verbose for either headline, slogan or aphorism, but there it was.

I watch a lot of too much television, and a number of my favorites are winding down.

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never appear on the Letterman show introduced as, xxxx, currently xxx-ing at xxxx and one fabulous babe, while Paul and CBS Orchestra played the theme from Peter Gunn. (Yes, that specifically was one dream of mine. Embarrassing, no?)

Person of Interest, (a shockingly pro-life while at the same time shockingly violent drama,) had a season finale that threatens to leave the regular cast diminished by at least one or two come fall - I will stop watching, if what I would call the worst happens.

Mad Men is teasing its viewers with hints of then subverted closure for its major characters, and while at first I wanted at least some "happily ever afters," I realized that the show, for whatever unrealistic conceits it has employed over the years, is in many ways too naturalistic for that.

Things don't come to an end in this life, certainly not to happy ends.

They drift into other things.

Even when all seems settled, and perfect - like resolution in music, ah we're all here, got through that safely, all have what we want, sit down for a breather, things are settled --

It isn't true.

It just isn't true, things are never like that, life is never like that.

Even if the best possible outcome seems to have been arrived at, life is a process of death.

What awaits us but decay and diminution?

It's Mothers' Day weekend, and I am less than cheerful, not long ago thought we had arrived at a point where things were accomplished, and we would enjoy, and my Mother would enjoy, as Laura Ingalls Wilder put it, these happy, golden years. 

(When I was in first grade, and devouring that series after being promoted to access to the Big Part of the school library, I hated getting to that, both because it seemed like an unwanted end to a pleasure and because "golden years" seemed like something bathed in a sickly light, like the front of Chicago's cathedral's nave... I digress.)

It seemed as if our lives had reached a plateau that we could at least enjoy for a few years, but no.

How quickly things fall apart.

Forget a Happy Ending, I didn't even think we got a fair share of the Happy Middle.

But that is life.

Or rather, that is this life.

The happy ending, if it is to be had, is only the beatific vision, and I will learn to stop thinking and saying, it's not fair.

Fair will come.

p.s. A few years ago, thanks to a reaction from someone to a sitcom title, a someone who is usually cheerfully raunchy and foul mouthed in his humour, I learned that there is another, perhaps nowadays more common meaning to the title of this post than that I intended.

Don't care, I will gaily use it, I refuse to cede another phrase or word to the Culture of Filth.

An "Ethnic" Catholic is Shocked to Find It All MEANS Something To Her

Raise your kids Catholic.
Talk about your Church to other people.
Be kind and welcoming to children not your own at Church and in all places.
Show them, use, display "Catholic things."
Make "Catholic gestures."
Hum "Catholic melodies."
Use "Catholic words" and expressions.
Say grace in restaurants, bless people, stop in your tracks at noon and six for a Marian devotional quickie, never fail to reverence the Blessed sacrament even when you are just passing by a church on the sidewalk.

Be visibly and audibly and tangibly Catholic.

Be Catholic in front of other people, especially young people.

Do not slack off because "children can't really understand it yet anyway."
Do not weep if adult children seem for a time to reject the Faith.

What you do will have effect, you don't know when, you don't even know on whom, but it will.
Someone will be caught,

with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to...wander to the ends of the world, and still [be brought] back with a twitch upon the thread.

Exhibit A for all you who fret:

last I checked, I was a generic New Agey feminist who loosely observed the pagan festivals and was obsessed with achieving mindfulness.
When our first daughter was born in 2011, Tim and I decided that the Earth was what mattered most to us.....
I was baptized Catholic as a young girl.... no one made me go to Mass as a child, I grew up thinking that being Catholic was mostly an ethnic identity: it meant being Irish, swearing a lot, feeling haunted by guilt at weird times, drinking at Easter, having a superiority complex, having a strangely light sense of humor about death. It meant family members fighting one moment and laughing heartily the next, it meant hearing stories of  ...[hers, yes, but I recognize it, don't I just...) our family.
I was content to consider myself ethnically Catholic. And then I had a hard year, a year in which my deep reverence for the Earth was not enough to see me through.
So by many twists and turns, I was led to Christianity. The beautiful Christian-based seasonal festivals celebrated at my daughters Waldorf School certainly held my imagination. From there my interest was fueled by several stunning works of historical fiction, by a desire to fully participate in whatever still existed of the culture surrounding me, a need to share my faith with people outside of my own living room, and to learn the sweet art of forgiveness, for myself and for others. There was also the hope that the faith tradition of my ancestors might have something to offer me after all.
Thus, on a random and unremarkable Sunday, I found myself at Mass. I was greatly disturbed by how much I enjoyed it: the candles, incense, the priests in their vestments shaking holy water over the crowds, the kneeling, the rosaries, the veneration of Mary the Holy Queen, the intercession of the Saints.
I remember feeling a bit terrified: how could I possibly be enjoying myself? Certainly the Catholic Church is corrupt, authoritarian, condemning to women and their experiences. There is The Scandal, or as my Jewish friend laughed, “Which scandal?” If I allowed myself to enjoy Mass, the sheer volume of spiritual and ethical hurdles I would have to jump seemed nothing short of insurmountable.

And yet jump she did.
She goes on to tell how she wore, shudder of discreet horror, a veil.
In her hands, or rather, on her head, it becomes almost hipster, and a sign of paradox - she defiantly submits.
Go read it, Chelsea Clarkson's a terrific writer.

And remember what I said.

What Does "Colored" Mean? she asked, incorrectly.

I ask this question as a pasty, slightly mottled, beige person.

Trying to read my email, I was confronted with headlines that Bandersnoot Comfyboats was "devastated" for accidentally saying something perceived as "racist," and having no ability whatsoever  to stay on task, (as we reproach six year olds,)  I of course followed the links.

In decrying the lack of opportunity for actors of ethnic and racial minorities, (or of oppressed majorities in some places, I suppose,) what he said was, "I think as far as colored actors go, it gets really difficult in the UK, and I think a lot of my friends have had more opportunities here [in the U.S.] than in the UK, and that's something that needs to change."
IIRC, when the movie film Gandhi came out a hundred years ago I was confused by the historical use of the world "colored" in, IIRC, South Africa.
I was told by someone that the term was used differently in different Anglophone countries, (and colonies,) and that a lot of times it simply meant "not like us," to tell the truth.

Irish and Italian immigrants to the US were "colored" at one time, weren't they?

I would have thought, it was obvious from the context that Bendyduck Slumbersnatch was expressing a position that is the furthest thing from racism. However, since the critic cited in the CNN report is based in London, (don't know here nationality,) and from her photo seems to be of an ethnic or racial minority, or of an oppressed majority in some places, she would be in a better position to know how offensive the word is or isn't.

On the other hand, notice the repeated use of the word "black" which I have certainly heard, um... white people reprimanded for uttering or writing in the US over the past decade or so, and been told IT was "offnsive" since "African-American" took its place as the Said Thing.
But of course, it's the only word that makes any sense to use in this context, since it's clearly not, or not mostly, about Americans.
On the other hand, the expression "African-American," is used, absurdly, when someone is being described of whose nationality we have no way of knowing, and that is just plain silly. I heard someone on the news once, in his PC zeal, (or perhaps in his terror of the PC police,) refer to someone as an "African American Frenchman."

And finally, I admit it is probably laziness on my part, but I have an aversion to extra letters and syllables being required by the suppression of a previously considered polite word or phase in favor of a more cumbersome one. And I don't know Bumbershoot Clamberbutch, but I think it not impossible that he wasn't referring to "black" people only, who are ill-done by the industry, but Pakistanis, and Maoris, and Guatemalans, and Lebanese, and Koreans, and Inuit and... well, you get the picture.

And a colorful one it is.

At the risk of sounding like Sancho... "I like him, I really like him"

USCatholic, which can be depended upon to have the wrong take on almost everything except social justice issues, (on which they are almost always right,) suggests we take a survey to "rate the Pope.

I think, and said so in the question that asked us to give the Holy Father a grade, that it was unseemly to "rate" him, but I did answer questions, which made me reflect on him, in a good way.

I am by nature judgey. I have to fight against my tendency to "keep score" in relationships, (a friend whose life was saved by a 12 step program calls it "taking other people's inventory," so I think that may be the AA lingo for the same activity?)

I don't know if this is a universal experience but even with those I most love -- perhaps especially with those one most loves, because one spends so much time with, and thought on, them -- numerically the points against predominate.
But that gives the wrong impression because even if at times fewer in number  the pros drastically outweigh the cons.
A thousand thousand failures to...  say, return milk to the refrigerator? it's nothing compared to a single smile.
On balance -- it's love.
Right?

So I am very glad I took the survey and thought about me and Uncle Frank, because at the end of the day, I love him.

Many of the questions were agree/disagree or multiple choice, and no ones fault, the choices were very simplistic; there's no other way to word them, almost all answers seemed to demand an explanation, a mitigation of what seemed on surface either praise or condemnation.
(There was also plenty of Phil Indeblanc's work.)

Pope Francis represents a major change in the direction of the church?
Disagree, he represents a new way for non- and dissenting Catholics to misrepresent actual Church teaching.

By now, I expected that Pope Francis would have made more concrete changes in the church.
Disagree, one might hope, but surely not expect more rapid progress in reform of Church governance.
I think the refusal of msm and even Catholic media to accept the difference between what the Church is free to change and what She may not has been a great distraction for the Holy Father and the Church in general.

The widespread media coverage of Pope Francis has been:
Harmful because the media often misrepresents what Francis says. But also helpful because you cant speak to someone without getting his attention, and Pope Francis has certainly done that.

The comments Pope Francis has made on controversial topics often distort church teaching. -
Disagree
I think besides deliberate, or at least unprofessional misreporting, some of the ocntroversy may be generated by a certain casualness, not to say carelessness in the way the Pope expresses himself.
However, I don't read Italian, Spanish or German, and I am not convinced his words are always translated correctly, either by official or unofficial sources.

The area where I would most like to see more action from Pope Francis is:
I believe the Eucharistic Liturgy is the source and summit of our Faith, and clearer and more explicit teaching, (and example,) on the Liturgy and the Sacraments would go a long way to sanctifying the people of God so that we would more readily take up our mission.
Sometimes his big and wonderful personality can distract from that.
You adore the Blessed Sacrament, you kiss a parrot - which picture is going to make the news?


I think Pope Francis’ frequent off-the-cuff interviews and informal approach have:
Made the papacy much more appealing to the average Catholic.
But being appealing is not an absolute value.

I have been inspired by Pope Francis’ humble and simple lifestyle -
Disagree, inspired to what?
It doesn't mean a whole lot more than President Carter carrying his own garment bag,  Bush clearing brush or Pope Benedict walking over to his old apartment to pick up some papers or riding on a bus.
It's the stuff of photo-ops if it's played that way, (and if it weren't played that way, in most cases we wouldn't even know about it.)

I believe that Francis will make major reforms in the Vatican during his papacy.
Agree, I have great hopes for more stream-lined and accountable Church governance.

Pope Francis doesn’t speak enough about abortion.
 I disagreed
I don't know if he does or not.
I might say, he doesn't speak LOUDLY enough - again, if his more quotable remarks take the focus off matters that are truly life or death, I don't know if he is giving the subject short shrift, or it is just not being reported.
Did he ever speak out on the abominable Belgian bill concerning assisted suicide for children?
Not that I could ever read anywhere.

I find Pope Francis’ comments on homosexuality and same-sex relationships troubling.
Not at all - he merely expressed Church teaching, albeit, not as eloquently as he could have, leading to misunderstanding.

 I think Pope Francis is causing too much division within the church.
Until the parousia She, and really, the entire world, will always suffer from division.
(And I wish USCatholic would capitalize.)
Division is caused by those who deliberately divide themselves from the Church and what She teaches.

One thing about Pope Francis that has been a disappointment to me is…
Did any of us know enough about him to have expectations, and thus, disappointments?
Not I.
I could wish he would perform his task as celebrant with a little more attention to liturgical niceties because the Holy Mass is not a random collection of arbitrary references obeying arbitrary rubrics, (this would also be an outstanding sign that the pope is the servant of the Liturgy, not its master,) and that he would acknowledge the weight people may inadvertently give the words of a pope by expressing himself a little more carefully.

I like His palpable joy in the Gospel.

I'm learning not to jump to conclusions about people based on secondary and even tertiary sources.

I hope for reconciliation with the Orthodox, the Anglicans, the SSPX, Lutherans.... you name'm, (hope, not expect.)

"Ideology needs protests, anger and revolution to keep it afloat. Truth has no need of any of these things, because truth is Christ. "

A nice reminder that getting your knickers in a twist is not only bad for your cortisol levels, it may not be godly.
(Neither, come to think of it, may the expression," to get ones knickers in a twist." )