"Morning Star Over America"

I am a staunch believer in the miraculous in general - I know the Almighty sets aside the laws of physics, the law of nature whenever it please Him to do so - but in particular?
Not so much.
I don't disbelieve them, Medjugorje, stigmatics, [is that the word?] intermittently liquefying blood, the Virgin Mary visiting Long Island.... but I am agnostic.
But an agnostic, or at least a thinking agnostic, by very definition is open to being convinced, and perhaps even, sometimes, eager to be convinced - at least one way or the other.
Has the Blessed Mother been appearing to two men in Illinois?
One might ask why would she? but might just as well ask why not?
In any case, Bishop Paprocki is just the man to depend on in determining the truth of the matter.

"I could hear a voice coming from outside me. It was a pleading voice from a very young girl. There was authority in her voice, even though it was very mild.”
...[Two] former Ashland residents who now live in Springfield, said they have been receiving visions of and messages from Mary — communications they recently turned over to Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Springfield Diocese for a commission to review.
Parsons-Heather and Roth said they have experienced visions, miraculous phenomenon, apparitions, prophetic knowledge and daily conversations with the Virgin Mary since February 1991.
“After the initial shock, she began teaching us about moral truth and what kind of people Jesus wishes us to become,” Roth said. “I don’t see mystical phenomena or miracles, per se, as something extraordinary or rare anymore. They accompany our faith. Many beautiful spiritual gifts become part of anyone’s life when we are consecrated in obedience to Jesus through his mother’s guidance.”
...“The purpose of the commission is to study the body of literature concerning what is referred to as the ‘Morning Star Over America’ in accord with the ‘Norms Regarding the Manner of Proceeding in the Discernment of Presumed Apparitions or Revelations,’ in order to express a judgment regarding the authenticity and supernatural character if the case so merits,” Paprocki said. “I would advise people to do nothing with the published ‘Morning Star Over America’ works until the commission yields a response.
“This is the only such request for the establishment of a commission to examine private revelations that I have had during my tenure as bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, which began in June 2010."
...  In 1989, [one of the men]  received a book about Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, and that inspired him to visit the holy site.
“It was probably the most profound experience of my life up to that time,” Roth said. “I had grown up being taught about our Holy Mother’s appearances at Fatima and Lourdes, and it struck me that it was happening right now, and I thought that we were very, very blessed to have an event like that happening.
“What I saw was the truth through the faith of the visionaries at Medjugorje. I became convinced that the power to change the world was through the Virgin Mary’s miraculous intercession. I knew it was the gift that the world had been waiting for.”

One might find the fact that the apparitions began after a pilgrimage to the location of another reputed Marian apparition makes them suspect, inspired by the power of suggestion, but what if we look at it another way?
What if we acknowledge the possibility that such things have happened over, and over again, are happening even now, are occurring constantly, to each and every human creature, if only he opens the eyes of his soul, the ears of his heart to recognize it?
It occurs to me that I may have been the potential recipient of mystical communication but having given it no thought, failed to so much as notice it.

Birders know that it takes practice and knowledge and awareness to take in all the sightings one could make.

I remember when I was involved in a wedding being planned, being shocked at how many gracious homes with charming gazebos in beautiful gardens there suddenly seemed to be.
Had they not been there before?
Had they sprung up overnight?
Do I think they weren't really there and I only thought I saw them through the power of suggestion?

Why Do People Always Ask "WWJD"?

Should what Jesus would do be our guide?
Should we not rather ask, what would Jesus want me to do?
What He might do, what He may do, what He has done - these are not necessarily relevant.

He might tell a cripple that his sins are forgiven, He might say I am the Resurrection and the Life, He might ask His governor, and His worried-sick Mother, how could you not know I'd be taking care of my Father's business?

 I not only don't do these things, I daren't do them!

Nope, we have neither the power nor the right to do what Jesus did.
(Although turning over tables to end irreverence and abuse in God's Holy Place should be a message to those upset with Liturgy Shaming Admonishing.)

Oh, and one last thing - another correct answer to WWJD?

Start my own Church.

That's right.

Not my prerogative, you know?

Not yours, either.

Madonna and Child

Sometimes things work out, in a manner that just seems far too coincidental.

An abandoned newborn baby girl was saved from starving to death when a heroine cop breastfed her while they waited for paramedics.

New mother Luisa Fernanda Urrea - a police officer in La Marina, Colombia - had been called to a remote forest settlement when locals found the baby in the undergrowth.

Medics say that without her maternal support, the hours-old baby might have succumbed to starvation and hypothermia.

Why I Am Not an Extraordinary Minister

I've been asked, numerous times, multiple parishes. You're always here anyway, you know how to do things at church, you'd be good at  it, we always need more people....
I would do it, I have done it, for home visits.
But not in the context of a liturgy.
The excuse I usually make is m eczema, my skin condition. Heck, most of the time, I wouldn't eat anything my hands have touched, (and I imagine the Blessed Sacrament would not be improved by condiments such as Bag Balm or hydrocortisone ointment. Just a guess.)
But back in the day of school Masses another faculty member, (who was an EM,) was going on a tear about kids who present for Communion with filthy hands or fake tattoos all over their palms drawn with Sharpies and how she insisted they receive on the tongue and that they had better not present themselves like that tomorrow.
And I told her that I had seen too many people present for the Sacrament in a manner that made it very clear that they had no idea what they were about to receive, I had seen people strolling back down the aisle and casually breaking off a chunk of Jesus to give someone else, I had seen people look at the Host in their hands with such a quizzical expression on their faces that there was no doubt that they were not Catholic or even, perhaps, Christian, I had seen people go to stick Him in their pockets only to be chased down by ushers, I had come across the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ stuck in the pages of a missallette.... I couldn't do it.

I could not stand at the head of the aisle giving the Body and Blood of Christ to everyone knowing the profanation that was, I will not say "probable," but certainly possible, and occurring with a hideous frequency; yet I am sure this is the task, is it not?

The bar is very high for a non-ordained minister to refuse someone Communion. (I am no John Wesley.) It would make me sick to wonder if with every ministration I was risking participation in the profanation of the Sacrament, but I could hardly do other than to give the Host to anyone who presented.

I hadn't thought of this in a while, but I helped out with Communion at a rest home today. (Very short of healthy priests, just a Liturgy of the Word with Communion.
These are all long term residents, no one is on the road to recovery, no one will be leaving alive.
Quite a few non-Catholics, even some non-Christians in attendance - it is something to do, something to break the monotony and provide human contact. It is always thus at nursing homes, old age homes, etc.
One man wanted my attention while the EM was distributing, his roommate was not a Catholic, he insisted, and always took Communion at these things, look at him there, big as life waiting in line, I had to do something about it!

I told him, (I think this is more or less accurate?) that according to canon law it is not up to any minister of Communion, ordained or extraordinary, to deny the sacrament to anyone who presents without moral certainty that that person may not receive, and that the nun religious sister directing the service took his word, hadn't she? she had accepted him as a Catholic without insisting on seeing his "permanent record,", and would take the word of his roommate, as well, all things being equal.

That seemed to sooth him, the mention of canon law, and my acknowledging his concerns even if I offered no remedy, so he went on, (there were many extraneous conversations going on throughout the service,) that the fellow would go to the Methodist services too, and that he was "mentally ill" and was there in the home because of his dealings with Satanism and theDevil, (which are, I believe, two different things?)

That rocked me back on my heels a bit, I admit.

But if he is indeed mentally ill, there is no sin in actions which he cannot help.
And besides, he receives on the tongue. And he does so, so easily, I cannot believe it is not an action in which he has engaged for a good part of his life. (And he consumes the Host.)

And he knows the words and tune to Holy God We Praise Thy Name, (seldom if ever heard in Protestant congregations hereabouts.)

And finally, he says his Hail Mary fluently and unaffectedly.

If he is not Catholic, he is certainly not a devil-worshipper, and if receiving the Body and Blood of Christ is not something he has done most of his life, it is something that does him good, and nourishes his soul and prepares him for a voyage that is not, I think, too far off.

... And This is Why I Love Priests

So a coupl'a priests walk into a bar....

No, no, it's not a joke. And the prest in question was in a bar
Just read this story.

wearing a Roman collar, identifying as a priest at all times, [emphasis added] has its effect.

This family, Father, Mother and Daughter, from Spain, They pull me aside as I am paying my bill and ask if I am Catholic, to which I reply, Yes.

The Daughter is going in for Brain surgery in the morning in [a] hospital known for this kind of work.  Papa was concerned his daughter had not found a priest to "confess."

I took care of her. And then made them wait as I went upstairs and retrieved my oils. Yes, they have always gone with me on my trips.  So she recieved the annointing of the sick,  The rite is on my iphone.

Signs and Wonders

We drove some distance to go to Mass on Sunday.
It was Mothers' Day and I couldn't bear, didn't want to risk going to our parish, and besides, I don't often have the opportunity to attend the Extraordinary Form.
We arrived early, and after praying before Mass,  I was talking to my Mother and Father, as is my wont.
How much Mom had loved it the few times I was able to bring here there.
I've been laughing lately, somewhat ruefully, that the Almighty only breaks the laws of nature, only gives us miracles when they are necessary, for faith - so if you already believe you're plumb out of luck! No miracles for YOU....
But gee, wouldn't a sign be swell? just a little one? Dad? Mom?
No, I know. It isn't necessary.
But would it kill ya?
That's okay.
I feel especially close to my parents, really to all my family, even those I never knew, in Church. At Mass, especially at the Latin Mass that generations of them sang and prayed.
I love this from a letter of St. Teresa of the Andes:

How I would have loved to be by your side...But our souls met by the tabernacle.

And so they do.
Our souls meet by the tabernacle.

Anyway, I need to take advantage of the few weeks this time of year when I can get there, you know, long drive or not, before it's back to the dry, minimalism of...
Wait, what?.... what's the priest saying, what' he announcing before Mass?
He's being transferred, he won't be available to say the EF for them any more down here.

He's being transferred

He's being transferred to a parish in my town.

Signs and wonders, signs and wonders

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.

Miracles?

The remaining staff at the Weekly Charlie seem to be bucking for canonization:

"For the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has achieved more miracles than all the saints and prophets combined."

I don't know that going about ones occupation despite ones grief and fear qualifies as a miracle, but those in mourning have earned the right to a little hyperbole, (not to mention the right to the increased sales that will at least help them to capitalize on their tragedy.)

"The Truth About Downs Syndrome"

Some very lovely writing about life with Downs Syndrome, and very charitable writing about that jackass theophobe Dawkins in the NY Times.

Recent research indicates that individuals with Down syndrome can experience more happiness and potential for 
success than Mr. Dawkins seems to appreciate. There are, of course, many 
challenges facing families caring for children with Down syndrome, including a 
high likelihood that their children will face surgery in infancy and Alzheimer’s 
disease in adulthood. But at the same time, studies have suggested that families 
of these children show levels of well-being that are often greater than those of 
families with children with other developmental disabilities, and sometimes 
equivalent to those of families with nondisabled children. These effects are 
prevalent enough to have been coined the “Down syndrome advantage.”

I experienced that firsthand a few years ago, I was working with some children on a project, and selected someone for a plumb, but difficult role.
My choice surprised some other adults.
When questioned about it, I told a colleague about my hunch, the boy's unusual self-possession, my certainty that he was somehow wise and responsible and capable beyond his years, and could be utterly depended on.

I said he reminded me, in that, of a slightly older girl whom both knew.

"Funny you should mention her....."

I had not known that the boy, like the teen-age girl, had a developmentally disabled sibling, and that he, like the girl, was a better person for it, and their family happier, and dare I say? holier for it.

"Gone To Chicago"

I often, for some reason, don't know, done it my whole life, don't like to trying to explain where some obscure place is, so instead of making it part of the explanation, I just use the name of whatever is nearb and might be known.

Last month,  Himself and I told our cohorts in ministry, some staff, and the nursing home congregation that we'd see'em in a few weeks, we were heading for Chicago.

Alas.
We did not know, when we told them this, that "going to Chicago" was the nursing home residents' euphemism for "dying."

It caused some unnecessary consternation.

When we returned from the Colloquium, etc., I found someone I had often cajoled into conversation, and visited with, had gone to Chicago.

She was a tiny, feisty woman,often  mean as a snake, who was constantly wishing her fate on EMTs who helped her, threatening and taking swings at people, and loudly complaining that the food was lousy and they never fed her anyway, (it isn't and they do.)

She was cranky, but never outright mean to me, the worst she did was yell, "Too much damn Jesus for me!" one day while I was reading the Epistle and storm, or rather, wheel out.

Understandable, since she was Jewish, (though she knew it was a Communion service when she had asked to come, whihc she did often -- anything to relieve the killing boredom, I imagine.)

But nature abhors a vacuum, and the universe has sent a replacement who is more than her equal -- and a biter besides.





We all have all of that in us.


And we'll all go to Chicago one day.

It is a great gift that I was asked to help out with this ministry. It has been a source of great healing for me.

Now THAT'S a Sense of Occasion

How do you mark your festivities?
I should remember this for my next birthday.

A quip by the late Fr Edward Holloway, founder of the Faith Movement, when he was celebrating his 50th: "I feel that on these occasions, rather than celebrating so wildly, one should make a good act of contrition."

Fr Finnegan's post from which I drew the charming quip was remembering his own ordination, and also featured this beautiful sentiment, accompanying a snap of his large family:

Missing from the photo but not from the liturgy (which includes the Church militant, the Church suffering and the Church triumphant) is my brother Gerry who died in 1979.

I know what he means, exactly. It is a great comfort, to be certain of that. I have sometimes, several times, had the most overpowering sense of the presence of my dear Father, after he had been gone for decades -- and always in Church, and usually in Mass.
There is no doubt in my mind, and as I say, it is a great comfort.

"Act of Contrition" remind me - at dinner once, while some tow-headed niece or nephew was preparing for a sacrament, there were maybe six of the dozen siblings, all of us but one having gone through the same "Faith Formation," in the same parish, and never with a break of more than two years from another. We knew, we had been taught -- SIX DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the Act of Contrition.

That's okay, I think we all learned differrent "versions" of everything the Church teaches.

The Splendor of Confusion....

Historical Hand Missals

No, no, not proving that, See, despite propaganda about the Bad Ol' Days, the people DID know what was happening in the Mass when it was in Latin!, although that is a point worth making.

No, this is about crypto-Catholic US President, Lyndon Baines Johnson!

I kid.... he was an amalgam of Baptist, Christadelphian and mostly, Disciples of Christ.

But apparently, he took the oath of office when he became president, (you've seen the picture,) on a Catholic hand missal.

Missing Her, 2

 

Tomorrow is her birthday. Tomorrow was her birthday. Would have been. No, tomorrow is her birthday.
Chronos is an artificial construct, or rather, an indulgence of the Almighty Father so we don't get crazy confused.
Kairos is the reality.
I wish I could be alone all day tomorrow, not pained by the heedless nor pestered by the sympathetic.

But I can't.
Yet again, thanks You, Lord, for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
I don't remember where I found this, years ago, so I can't give credit, but it refers to Teresa of the Andes, the first Chilean saint, or rather, the first to be canonized.

From the cloister, Santa Teresa de Los Andes, writes to her grieving mother, "How I would have loved, mother dear, to be by your side to console and weep with you. But our souls met by the tabernacle" (LT 113).
------
More than simply being a pious thought to comfort her mother, the little Carmelite offers a deep insight into the mystery of the Eucharist. True, it is primarily Jesus Christ whom we encounter in the Most Holy Eucharist. But when we commune with the perfect Body of Christ in the Eucharist, we also have a communion with the entire Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Church, with all of her  members, all Christians, in all places, in all times, who ever were or ever will be; not just with those members who, through accident of geography or chronology, happen to be physically present.

.... it's Still the Goats You Have to Watch Out For?

Much conversation at The New Liturgical Movement and on the CMAA discussion boards about a book by an Episcopal priest entitled "When Sheep Attack!" (I loves me a good, snarky title.)

In broad strokes, it is about the oft-times calamitous results when an entrenched cabal in a parish insures, or tries to insure that a new leader cannot lead.

The next higher up in the chain of command through inertia, spinelessness or genuine conviction fails to support the new leader who rapidly becomes the ex-leader, and the cabal awaits the next sacrificial victim.
It happens to pastors, (bishops don't stand behind them,) it happens to music directors, (pastors don't stand behind them,) ... some details of the "It happened to me!" stories that poured out had me on the verge of joining the threads and asking who'd been reading my diary, until I learned last night of an incident that is emblematic of something far sadder.

It happens to pastors, yes and music directors.... but it happens to parochial school principles, and since the window of opportunity to affect the lives of those in their charge is much smaller, the consequences may be even worse.

Pray for Catholic educators. (And pray for those who are subjected to Catholic education?;o))

A slightly OT anecdote: When I was very young I was involved in a family situation in which I was a selfish brute and a villainess and a liar.... no, really, you could ask anyone not immediately involved in the situation and they could have told you what a little $#?% I was being.
There was nothing I could do to convince anyone otherwise.
But a few years went by and I was "rehabilitated," or at least my reputation was -- nearly everyone else in the family experienced similar episodes with the person at the center of the problem, and realized where the truth lay.
It was nice to have reassurance that I was neither a scoundrel nor a madwoman, that what I had perceived was indeed what had happened, I had not made it up, and I could stop wondering if it had been my fault or if I could have done something to change it.

Something similar has happened to a friend in a parish near me -- the person, (and that person's minions,) responsible for the firing of the most competent and consciousness musician to ever darken the doors of their loft has now managed to run off two principles in as many years, as well as the 1st music director's pretty decent successor.

The musician told me that hearing the details of the latest firing from both sides (it's a small diocese,) didn't make him happy, but at least he felt vindicated, could now understand how his fall from grace had been orchestrated, and could stop thinking that his ouster had been his fault, although he had never been able to figure out exactly how.

Is none of this giving the parish administrator a clue as where his personnel problem really lies?

Anyway, back to the comments on the book at hand:

Parishes are complex social structures. They invite everyone to join and encourage everyone to contribute time and money. But it is inevitable that pockets of interest group pressure develop within them. There are always factions. These factions can be based in ideology and theological outlook, but they are more commonly based in issues of control and perceived ownership over some sector of parish life....
There is usually one ring leader. Most often it is someone on the staff of the parish, perhaps even having retired from some ministerial position. It could be a church secretary. It could be a former youth minister. It could be the person who organizes first communions. Regardless, it is the sort of person that the whole parish regards as a fixture, someone who is seemingly indispensible to parish life.

What is the motivation for this behavior? The person and his or her follows have high “control needs.” They must be in charge if not in name then at least in reality. They are accustomed to determining structures and outcomes of parish life. They resent anyone who would interfere with their power. I know that this sounds petty and ridiculous but it is a reality....They pass on unattributed complaints....They try to recruit other people to their cause, using in particular their status as indispensable fixtures of parish life.... New pastors should not fear replacing problem staff, even to the point of cleaning house completely. The seemingly indispensable person who is the source of the problem must be sent packing as soon as possible.

- I>o

....................
I thought I was reading my autobiography -- exactly what happened in my last parish!

There is actually an epidemic of this behavior at present, so much so that in one large archdiocese there are currently seven parishes without a pastor -- because every priest has refused the assignment, for the very reasons noted in this piece.

The bishops have caused this mess by creating a Protestant parochial polity over a forty-year period. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost.

- A priest/commenter

............
On the other hand, I've witnessed new pastors who clearly lack the emotional intelligence to accomplish their goals well. It's sad to see, and it's sad to see them be so insecure as to shy away from people who try to help them, because they feel it undermines their authority.

- Another poster [wise words!]

I know that a small but vocal Neo-Cat group at a parish about 10 miles away from forced the ouster of a non-sympathetic pastor. Instead of a sympathetic pastor, though, they go a traditionalist-leaning ex-Jesuit who I am quite sure does not coddle the sometimes odd liturgical praxis favored in certain NC circles.... I think the chancery decided to have a sense of black humor about the ferocious sheep.

-- ibid

...............
have a small group of singers in the church...often cantors who want things back the way it was before you got there...having done their best to discourage new singers who were interested in the group...solved their problem, the new director, the new music, the new people, by poisoning the pastor with their take on things?

- Another musician

There is also a sad case come to our attention recently of a MORE than competent, (and seemingly more conscientious and knowledgeable regarding Catholic praxis than many Catholic musicians,) Episcopalian MD at a Catholic parish who after years of good service was kicked to the curb for not being Catholic.
Huh?

Oh, and I feel I should take the opportunity now, because I have whined about it in the past, to say that it is absolutely my own fault I had to offer a letter of resignation a few years ago.
I should have been savvy enough know that the power couple who didn't like me, (though that was unbeknownst to me at the time,) were too firmly ensconced in parish life and the parish power structure for anyone to fail to knuckle under to them and last, even if they should have had no say in matters that were technically my purview.
And I should not have added, even collaterally, in any way whatsoever to my priest's already over-filled plate of woes.

(Have you ever noticed, though, how people who have no respect whatever for others' years of experience or degreed expertise in a field other than their own, are often the most puffed up about their own credentials, their ten whole hours spent in diocesan training with a certificate to follow, or whatever? I digress....)

And I should have found a more felicitous way to describe the energy drain that is, all too frequently, the modern American teenager than "soul sucker." Sullen little darlings are made in the image and likeness of God, too....

One lives, one learns...

Am I going to regret writing this? I'll think about that while I pour another shandy.

You call it "sloth", I call it forbearance....

I am, (I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters....,) the laziest person on God's green earth.
I went elsewhere than my parish for Mass this weekend, and intended to duck in to pick up a bulletin.
Time got away from me as I lazed away hours and now the church is certainly locked.

BUT.....

Saved from myself, I cannot now check out the hymn board, and I should acknowledge that descrying the inappropriate selections was a different, and perhaps primary reason for my intention to drop in, as I realized as I was looking for my keys and sunglasses.

It's an ignoble impulse.

And it isn't healthy, it's like picking at a scab, seeing that however much my efforts fell short, there now seems to be no concern at all for liturgical specificity, as we avail ourselves of the Frightful Fourth.

In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop....The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory chant...The norms on the manner of singing are the same as for the Entrance chant...While the priest is receiving the Sacrament, the Communion chant is begun....In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Communion chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song

Umm, yeah....

If you haven't an umbrella, DO wear a hat...

I have been helping out at the parish that is my former place of employment in a variety of musical ways (volunteer, mostly...)
After one liturgy, my replacement and I were talking about the coming new translation, how to prepare, when to prepare, WHO to prepare,etc...
My dear, dear pastor approached and we let him in on the topic under discussion.
"New translation? I got the answer, just do it in Latin...."

Now, no doubt this strikes you as an unremarkable conversation.
BUT....

Six years ago this same priest accosted me after a Mass at which the Sanctus had been sung in Latin, the simple Gregorian one, Jubilate Deo, Missa Primitiva, Pro defunctis... however you choose to name it.

What was that, the people don't know Latin!
Don't worry, we're only going to do it at choir Masses, so that they'll have a lot of support, until they know it.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they'll pick it up with repetition.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they can't know it unless they learn it, and they can't learn it unless they hear it.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they can't know it if they don't hear it and do it. Don't you WANT them to know it?
(LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG, uncomfortable pause)
No.

Make of this what you will. (But yeah, I feel a little like Moses, looking at the Promised Land he would never reach, even though he was the one who dragged the Chosen people, kicking and screaming, to its threshold.)

Belief in the Supernatural, and the Efficacy of Sacramentals and The Sacraments

I am a bit of a skeptic. While I believe in miracles in theory, in practice I cast a gimlet eye on claims of the miraculous.

But I cannot deny the supernatural.

A few things floating around the interwebs in these latter days of Lent seem related to me.
1. Fr Z has what I presume is a not-for-the-first-time rant about the silly practice of removing Holy Water from the fonts for all of Lent, in some cases replacing it with racks or sand (or kitty litter?) as if Holy Water served no real purpose other than symbolic.

2. Another topic is that of the devil, and exorcisms and Satanists, naturally replete with sound bytes from Fr Amorth, and the expression of scorn, not for his claims, which may or may not be true, but the quaint old beliefs in such things that make such claims plausible to him.

3. And we are gearing up for the marathon at my parish, (more about that later,) which always includes, on Easter morning, part of the Rite of Baptism for infants, (adults will have been baptized the night before,) described in the first comment.

There have been parents who wanted their infants baptized immediately, and in discussing this a catechist of my acquaintance, (NOT from my parish, I haste to add,) poo-poohing their urgency, essentially said there is no such thing as Original Sin.

And finally,
4. The oft-repeated opinion that getting the right "right" doesn't really matter, who cares what words we pray at Mass, or even if we go to Mass, or what anyone believes, as long as he's a nice person, and...

Do you see the connections, or is this reaching on my part?

It seems to me that modern man is ashamed to admit of a belief in the supernatural -- the supernatural, without which, there is no purpose other than the psychological to the Sacraments and to sacramentals.

Oh, sure, they "remind" us of things, they make us "feel" a certain way, they encourage solidarity -- but they can have nothing to do with Grace, for pete's sake.

Because, of course, Grace, if it existed, would be supernatural.

And therefore, can it really exist?

It isn't even Lent yet...

... and I'm already celebrating the Octave of Easter!

Yes, bit the bullet and since I'm over the hills and far away, went to a doctor OUT OF NETWORK.
(Since my eyes were swollen shut, didn't have much choice.)

I blame it on my Mother's peanut butter cookies, (damn and $!%#&&!%$ the reduced fat fetish of food manufactures, and the plague of corn syrup that has struck the land!)

And now, for the first time in my long acquaintance with steroids, I'm experiencing the insomnia, the motor-mouthedness, and the... well, the being even louder and meaner than is my usual high level of achievement in that area.

At least today my hands are working.
I marvel at how, in seven years on the job, I never, never once was incapacitated -- the Holy Spirit and my guardian angel took note of my schedule!

Life is Always a Miracle...

... but this story of a Belgian man "recalled to life"is something beyond the beyond. (h/t to Creative Minority Report.)
Most remarkable is M. Houben's determination to enjoy life and society, and LIVE.

A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.

Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound.

'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state....

Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

Mr Houben described the moment as 'my second birth'...

Mr Houben said: 'All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.' ...

The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious.

Ya think?

A Treasure Trove for the Organist of Meagre Talents

Because I am so absent-minded, it seems obvious that anything I know must have come to the attention of everyone else eons ago, and I often assume as much, but I know it ain't necessarily so.

In light of that, it occurs to me that not everyone knows about the Werner Icking Music Archive, running neck and neck with CPDL for second place (behind the CMAA's resources,) for the most extravagantly, graciously, (and I use that word quite deliberately,) useful site for those of us who "do" church music, on the interwebs.

Sometimes I am simply in awe of the generosity of those who have made all these gifts available, the true liberality, the love that has made this possible -- Grace indeed!

My memory was pricked by the CanticaNova article I referenced yesterday, where among the possible sins of organists cataloged by the author, was the charge of sameness.

Not a fault of which I am guilty thanks to several decisions and/or lucky breaks, but I digress -- the one I am discussing is that I DONT PLAY THE SAME MUSIC OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER... (there is one lady I know who, I swear to the Almighty, plays Preire a Notre Dame EVERY MASS.)

No, I have an embarrassment of riches, or at least, an embarrassment of comfortably-well-offs from which to choose for postludes, preludes, fill-in at the Offertory procession outside of Lent, traveling music...

In case you didn't know about Werner Icking, and in case like me you are an accidental organist, I highly recommend the works of John Stanley. I had come across a voluntary or two of his, the ones that show up in the usual Organ-For-You-People-Who-Can't-Really-Play-Organ-And-Who-Do-You-Think-You're-Fooling? albums, (Oxford has some nice ones,) but he wrot e scads of music, SCADS, several collections of, in some cases fairly long, multiple movement voluntaries.

So there you are. An entire years worth of mostly sight-readable keyboard pieces.

A reasonable variety of keys in case you like easy segues into and out of that hymntune that you are playing to death so that when you finally program it people will think they already know, a variety of moods and textures, some very short, some extraordinarily easy, all with a modicum of dignity, (that not all "liturgical" music is possessed of dignity was brought home to me yesterday when I took a funeral programmed entirely by someone else, and found myself working overtime to try to... well, the less said about it the better.)

Stanley suffers a tad bit from Telleman-itis, who is said to have written not 500 concerti, but the same concerto 500 times, but there's still a lot there, a lot.

Anyway, God bless Stanley, Icking, and the wonderful, wonderful musicians, academics, and computer whizzes who have made the archive possible.