"Saying 'Yes' to the Whole Task of the Priesthood"

In case there actually ever was  anyone foolish enough or agenda-driven enough to believe Father Benedict was "only a theorist of theology with little understanding of the concrete life of a Christian today," an ivory tower, airy-fairy academic, totally lacking in a pastoral heart, or even, as I have actually heard claimed, in pastoral experience, his own words remembering his days as a seminarian when he considered these very questions should disabuse them of that notion:

It became clearer and clearer to me that there is more to the priestly vocation than enjoying theology, indeed, that work in the parish can often lead very far away from that and makes completely different demands. . . The Yes to the priesthood meant that I had to say Yes to the whole task, even in its simplest forms.
Since I was rather diffident and downright unpractical, since I had no talent for sports or administration or organization, I had to ask myself whether I would be able to relate to people-whether, for example, as a chaplain I would be able to lead and inspire Catholic youth, whether I would be capable of giving religious instruction to the little ones, whether I could get along with the old and the sick, and so forth. I had to ask myself whether I would be ready to do that my whole life long and whether it was really my vocation.
Bound up with this was naturally the question of whether I would be able to remain celibate, unmarried, my whole life long. . . I often pondered these questions as I walked in the beautiful park of Furstenried and naturally in the chapel, until finally at my diaconal ordination in the fall of 1950 I was able to pronounce a convinced Yes.

(And not for the first time, God bless everyone who creates Magnificat )

Having read it only yesterday morning, it was fresh in my mind when my own pastor preached last night about his  joy in the idea of the priesthood, his ordination and his First Mass when the immense privilege of being called to "do this in memory" of the Great High Priest gave him such joy.
(Oh, and I am slightly, no, very ashamed. I arrived at church, saw no chairs and thought, not bothering with the mandatum, great.... and then when Mass began I realized he was sick, had obviously dragged himself out of bed to come say Mass and then hear confessions, and that he all but needed to altar to brace himself and remain upright.I should remember better than most how difficult is the life of the man who sacrifices his whole life to be Alter Christi.

Pray for priests!!!!!

The Three Graces

Not, not those!

I think I shall always be bothered by the imprecision of Pope Francis' words, for as long as his pontificate persists. The sound bites often seem Hallmark-ish, ("Hallmawkish"?) and I think it behooves a spiritual leader to take note of common words more specific meaning within his particular "faith tradition."
(It's why I had such a visceral reaction to being asked to sing Ruth Duck's As a Fire Is Meant For Burning.... really??!?#?? NOT to "preach our creeds"?)
Yes, words mean different things in different contexts, but as a Catholic, in the context of catechesis, (which homiletics is,) you wouldn't, for instance, talk about a skanky ballet dancer as being "graceful."
So Francis' talk of the Gospels at the Chrism Mass...

"A single word - Gospel - that, even as it is spoken, becomes truth, brimming with joy and mercy. We should never attempt to separate these three graces of the Gospel: its truth, which is non-negotiable; its mercy, which is unconditional and offered to all sinners; and its joy, which is personal and open to everyone,"

...seems off to me.
Because yes, those three things are sharing in God's love, freely given (the simplest definition of Grace,) but, and pardon me for putting words in the Holy Father's mouth, but I wonder if what he really meant was a reference to the Theological Virtues, which do indeed seem to correlate with what he called "graces."
Because holding on to Truth is the essence of having Faith, our confident Hope cannot but fill us with Joy, and the granting of Mercy to others, (and ourselves!) is the highest good of Love in Action, (the way I describe Love/Charity/Christian Love to my religious education kiddos.)
And, of course, what sets the Theological Virtues apart is that they cannot be obtained by human effort, but are infused by God into a person freely given, (and in need of unwrapping, as I like to tell them.)

(Is it so wrong that on the cusp of Papa Ratz's birthday, at this, as at nearly every instance in which Francis says something that starts to make sense to me and cuae me to think in a new way, my wish is to know how his predecessor would have teased out the theme and crafted it into some all but perfect gem of theology for the blundering but trying, like me? Ah, well, if wishes were horses....)

"Demythologizing the Papacy"

And absolutely fascinating report by the wonderful Edward Pentin on a presentation by Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

Archbishop Gänswein, who doubles as the personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus and prefect of the Pontifical Household, said Benedict did not abandon the papacy like Pope Celestine V in the 13th century but rather sought to continue his Petrine Office in a more appropriate way given his frailty....

Drawing on the Latin words “munus petrinum” — “Petrine ministry” — Gänswein pointed out the word “munus” has many meanings such as “service, duty, guide or gift”. He said that “before and after his resignation” Benedict has viewed his task as “participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry’.

“He left the Papal Throne and yet, with the step he took on 11 February 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, something "quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.“

Instead, he said, "he has built a personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, almost a communal ministry...

“Therefore he has also not retired to a monastery in isolation but stays within the Vatican — as if he had taken only one step to the side to make room for his successor and a new stage in the history of the papacy.” With that step, he said, he has enriched the papacy with “his prayer and his compassion placed in the Vatican Gardens....

“So it is not surprising,” he said, “that some have seen it as revolutionary, or otherwise as entirely consistent with the gospel,  while still others see in this way a secularized papacy as never before, and thus more collegial and functional, or even simply more humane and less sacred. And still others are of the opinion that Benedict XVI, with this step, has almost — speaking in theological and historical-critical terms — demythologized the papacy.”

I will not deny that I miss Pope Benedict every day, but I utterly denounce this insistence on pitting the theology and faith and Catholicity of Francis against that of Benedict, or vice versa.
Different styles, different ways of expression, (there is no doubt to which I incline,) different personalities... different reserves of prudence? of the prudence of reserve?  but they are brothers in arms.
Cooperatores Veritatis , indeed.
The unseemly backroom machination against the popes are no surprise, but I did not know about the sister who had been killed in the car accident.
That is the kind of blow that can be hard to bear at any stage in life.
Any way, good read, thank you Catholic Register.
I am finding, with the raging partisanship that seems to have invaded every kind of social and institutionalized information supplying, that there is very little that we can depend on.
Sometimes our enemies tell us the truth, and our allies lie.
Did you hear what....? Well, no, so and so said that what really.... But it said in.... But were there actual quotations, or did someone mischaracterize... Yes, he wrote that but in context he clearly....
And yes, I have been troubled by some things actually said, and other things imputed to Pope Francis, and I don't always think he has phrased things as felicitously as he might have, or taken into account likely misinterpretations.
But so long as neither Ratzinger nor Gänswein has turned on him, neither shall I dare to do such a thing.

Thank God, the Pope is Changing the Church's Tone Toward the Divorced and Remarried!

"The difficulties and sufferings of those faithful in irregular marriage situations merit special attention. Pastors are called to help them experience the charity of Christ and the maternal closeness of the Church, receiving them with love, exhorting them to trust in God's mercy and suggesting, with prudence and respect, concrete ways of conversion and sharing in the life of the community of the Church."

Oh, wait....... what?
 Who said that?
That can't be right, can it?
Happy Anniversary, Papa! (Hey, did he steal Papa Francesco's schtick?)

 

"Let us pray to the Lord to help us be 'infected' by His mercy" - 12 Quotes from the Holy Father on Mercy and Forgiveness

1."Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: Encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in His body and on His soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of His suffering love."

2. "The secret of the true happiness of individuals and peoples: to believe and proclaim that the Lord has done marvellous things for us and that His mercy is from generation to generation on those who are faithful to him."

3. "God loves us in a way that we might call 'obstinate' and enfolds us in His inexhaustible tenderness."

4. "We are all sinners but God heals us with an abundance of grace, mercy and tenderness."

5. "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of His church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a 'sign' that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the evangelist reminds us that the only 'sign' is Jesus raised on the cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign."

6. "Wherever people are suffering, make it your task to serve them."

7. "To understand and accept God's merciful love: May this be your commitment, first of all in your families and then in every neighborhood"

8.  "Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil."

9. "'Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning'. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God and the power of His mercy. ... It is possible to return to the Lord, it is a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of faith that we entrust to His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates and moves our innermost core."

10. "Love never ends or fails. Love never ends. Everything must be based on love - the relation between two friends, my ministry, my service; the church services in every field must be based on love. Why? Because God is Love."

11. "We must note that Christ, in revealing the love-mercy of God, at the same time demanded from people that they also should be guided in their lives by love and mercy. This requirement forms part of the very essence of the messianic message, and constitutes the heart of the Gospel ethos."

12. [Our Lenten fast is not accomplished with mere abstinence from food, but with good deed; moreover]  "it should lead to personal amendment and domestic harmony... Let faults be forgiven, let bonds be loosed, offences wiped out, designs of vengeance fall through, that the holy festival through both Divine and human grace may find all happy, all innocent.
...................
Ah, but which Pope, you ask?  Well, 2, 6, 8,  and 11 are from Pope Saint John Paul II; 4 from Pope Francis; 10, Pope Theodore II; and 12, Pope St Leo the Great. The others and the title are Pope Benedict XVI.

Should I be angry to read Blessed Teresa of Calcutta maligned? not to say, "lied about"?

I have a problem with... I have been having a problem with anger.
And I have come, or at least think I have come to an acceptance of the fact that the source is, not as a priest suggested to me a sorrow to which I did not wish to subject myself again, (which would have allowed me to be play the victim,) but a pride-produced expectation that things would go my way because things SHOULD go my way, because, well, ME.

I had forgotten something, a few years ago a very good and very wise woman  at a CMAA "do" warned me about becoming like another very good but not quite as wise woman.
They had very similar PsOV, held to very similar principles, both theological/spiritual and liturgical/musical; and embraced similar currents of Catholic thought - currents I was watching from the bank, into which I was cautiously dipping the occasional toe.
Don't become like her, don't be angry all the time.
Because she was right, you see, but she was damaging herself and her causes with the anger. (Her anger did come from having been wounded, genuinely, and perhaps a resolution to attack rather than be vulnerable? I don't know. But I digress.)
I think I have actually gained on handle on my situation.
I try to remember opponents are not enemies, everyone has his reasons of which I know not, and stop gettin' all judgey.
This is easiest, actually - strangely - in affairs about which I am most passionate: no matter how stupid or wrong-headed their ideas or actions, I cannot think that any other human being in the Church is stupid and wrong-headed out of malice.
No one, despite Shakespeare's Iago and Shaefer's Salieri, no sane person deliberately sets themselves against Almighty God, no one is knowingly a tool of the evil one.

Is he?

A Useful Idiot, perhaps, but not knowingly and believingly in league with the devil.

On the Great Time Suck That Is Those Interwebs. (hereinafter the GTSITI,) I came across a screed about good priests who have borne the displeasure of TPTB, and dissenting or at least politically savvy chancery hounds, (and yes, thinking, there but for the grace of God go I, I thank Thee that I am not like other orthodox Catholics, angry and....)

Shockingly, I recognized a name, someone with whom I have broken bread many a time.
But that is neither here no there.
Looking into that, I came across another thing and another, and then this, and then that.... as I said, you know the GTSTITI.
Finally, (stumbling across quite a bit of anger from one side and superciliousness from the other along the way,) I ended up at a eulogy for a departed religious sister.
The writer told a story the religious sister had told him about something Dorothy Day told her, (or perhaps the sister had supposedly overheard,) that she, (DD,) had said to and regarding Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, and it seemed... spurious? uncharacteristic? And we all know about "quotes on the internet" and "who never said what."

And another story. The mid-70s rolled around, and organizers asked José to emcee the Eucharistic Conference in Philadelphia. In this particular sessions were some five thousand women. Two speakers were on hand: Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, both close friends of José.
First, José introduced Mother Teresa -- on that day in a foul mood. She rose to the podium, all fire and brimstone, and excoriated the women in the audience. You nuns -- why aren’t wearing your habits? You mothers -- how is it you’re here and not home with your children? The women withered and blanched. Mother Teresa had left them hurt and angry, and she returned to her seat to the deafening sound of silence. Not a pair of hands offered applause. Mother Teresa seemed taken aback.
With tension now on the air, José introduced Dorothy Day. She sidled up to Mother Teresa and leaned in close and issued something in the nature of a rebuke: “Mother, you know I love you more than anyone. But don’t you ever say anything like that again. You have alienated and hurt all these good women. They need our encouragement!” As far as anyone knows, Mother Teresa never did. 

That didn't sound right.
And if wrong, it does seem malicious.
Well, it seems Mother Teresa gave two talks at this 1976 Congress. The Tablet, not exactly in the vanguard of the hosts of Catholic orthodoxy tells us,

Big names studded the programmes : Archbishop Helder Camara, Cardinal Suenens, Dorothy Day and the rest. The press and the public swarmed, around Mother Teresa of Calcutta. "They idolise her without imitating her," a Canadian Protestant muttered in my ear.

Having read the snipe at Blessed Teresa in the National Catholic Reporter, I couldn't help but think of the spin put on Ratzinger's election by those who opposed him, reports of the sad, shocked, weepy crowd in St Peter's Square. You remember them, how upset and sullen everyone was -

 

Right.
So here is a site with quite a bit about the Eucharistic Congress, (not "conference",) in question.
As I said, two talks from Blessed Teresa, one sound recording here, and the full text of the address she gave on the day when she shared the stage with Dorothy Day.

Go ahead, read it. It's GORGEOUS.

I don't think I am going out a limb at all to say that someone lied, both regarding the content of what she said, and the probable reaction to it.
Lied.
LIED.
I don't know who. (I doubt it was the also-soon-to-be-sainted Day. I'll leave it at that.)
Well, as the Gospel today reminds us, the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.

Taking Time to Hear God's Word

This was my "day of uncertainty."
Part of my penance was to talk to someone about something - the "who" was up to me, but I've been talking, and now I'm listening.

H/T to Kathy Pluth

"Who finds time to hear God’s word and to let themselves be attracted by his love? Who keeps watch, in the night of doubt and uncertainty, with a heart vigilant in prayer? Who awaits the dawn of the new day, fanning the flame of faith? Faith in God opens before us the horizon of a sure hope, one which does not disappoint; it indicates a solid foundation on which to base one’s life without fear; it demands a faith-filled surrender into the hands of the Love which sustains the world." 

Benedict XVI, Homily, Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, 13 May 2010.

The Tridentine Low Mass as a "Sane and Solemn Tonic" to Liturgical Shenanigans

Kevin Di Camillo has a lovely piece at NCRegister about his discovery of the Extraordinary Form.

I am, of course, disposed to give a friendly hearing to the ideas of anyone who flat out says,

"I had no 'reaction' to the 'new Mass', no axe to grind, no animosity— only a vague curiosity as to why Pope Benedict (who, if nothing else, was obviously a bona fide genius......) would 'bring back the Latin Mass.'" [emphasis supplied]

And although our experiences were very different, he shared this question with me - what is this strange thing that so many find "so appalling"?

It was the irrational virulence of that ... hatred is not too strong a word... that demanded of me to experience something so apparently frightening and powerful.

It is, of course, easy to throw the new Mass under the bus, and that is (a) wrong, and (b) not my point. My point is simply that in a world where we each have more email, voicemail, texts, meetings, and Skype-chats than we could possibly digest in a lifetime, the Tridentine Mass offers a complete contemplative oasis. You have the right to be silent when you pray. True, on Sunday at the Novus Ordo, we SHOULD sing "loud-and-proud"— but at Low Mass you can be, you MUST be, silent before your God.
This I found (and find) wonderfully fulfilling — and terrifying. “Fulfilling” in the sense of theosis: as the Mass culminates in Holy Communion, one is literally filled with the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is, of course, absolutely true in the Novus Ordo as well— but this is “terrifying” in that the quieter it is the more one is AWARE that this is happening. Christ becomes present again, and we are about to receive him in perfect silence— not even an "Amen" after communicating.

I'll just add, I myself prefer a diffident dialogue Mass, but different strokes...

"But at least this pope guy isn't like that awful one he replaced..."

(Ooops.
I put that heading in quotes, and no one actually said that.
Well, I said it, but I was being sarcastic, mocking the position taken by... never mind.)
But.....
Seriously?

On one fringe of the Catholic cloth, and one side of the political divide, I believe, on very little evidence, a writer puts a particular construction on an event.
On another, a different slant is put on that event, by means of putting a particular construction on words from an unnamed source, some of which may or may not have supported that construction, since after using direct quotes, we lapsed into free indirect speech, a style much beloved of writers of fiction or those wishing to put their own slant on matters that actual quotes would not support.
On the basis of that, still others claim that one person involved in the event is a liar. 
Which may be, but it would be unfair, actually impossible to say so with no more evidence than someone else's misconstruction, and I don't see anywhere that any particular thing the woman so accused said is contradicted by anyone in a position to know.
The only "official" statement actually speaks more to the various construction various partisans are putting on the event rather than anything the woman in question said.
A semi-official spokesman who previously admitted he knew nothing about it, was nonetheless bravely willing to go on record of how it "would" have been, how it must have happened even though, um... he wasn't told and wasn't there.

 the pope would have been given a list of people who were invited to bid him farewell as he departed Washington, but was unaware of the details of the... case or any possible implications of the meeting.

Furthermore, this semi-official, rumored-to-be-litigious, spokesperson,

"believed the pope would have been given a list of names of the several dozen people who were invited to the embassy to bid farewell as he left Washington, but was unaware of the details of [the]case or any possible implications of the meeting."

But he was glad to,

"hypothesize that the reception amounted to a receiving line-type event, with people in various rooms [hm, how many in each room?] on the first floor of the embassy to greet the pope and receive a rosary from him.

And while in the official statement we read only,

The only real audience granted by the Pope at the nunciature was with one of his former students and his family.

... everyone upset about right-wingers making too much of this other meet-and-greet are dancing with glee and putting up billboards at the Vatican's thereby affirming... um, former students, (that's all anyone not "reading into" it would get from the official statement.)

But apparently besides being a "former student" (is that the pc term for such people?) this person engages in homosexual activity.

The Rev. James Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America, had cautioned in an article this week that the pope meets many well-wishers on his trips, and that news of the meeting... had been manipulated.

“I was very disappointed to see the pope having been used that way, and that his willingness to be friendly to someone was turned against him,” Father Martin said in an interview on Friday. “What may originally have prevented them from issuing a statement was the desire not to give this story too much air. But what they eventually came to realize was that they needed to correct some gross misrepresentations of what had happened. It shows that Pope Francis met with many people on the trip, and that she was simply another person who he tried to be kind to.”

Not sure if he's talking about the gay guy here or the other dealio, (do the young folk still say that?) but I assume his principles apply equally.

And let me see, has Pope Francis ever said any little thing that his handlers and spokespeople have had to, I dunno, "walk back" a bit?

Maybe once or twice.

Oh, dear, I have gone on....

Because what I really asked, SERIOUSLY???!?!??? about, was this piece of idiocy, which provoked my title -

"Nobody in the Catholic Church wants another Regensburg,” said [some assistant professor at some college.] He was referring to the backlash after Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, gave a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that appeared to denigrate Islam.

“This was not as serious as Regensburg, when Benedict read his own speech,”[the sometime writer for HuffPo and America]  said about the meeting ... “But the pope has to be able to rely on his own system, and in this case the system failed him. The question is, was it a mistake, or was it done with full knowledge of how toxic she was?”

What's the Italian for nincompoop?

The meeting ... was clearly a misstep, [the Italian professor] said, “because the whole trip to the United States he very carefully didn’t want to give the impression that he was being politicized by any side.”

He added, “And this thing is the most politicized thing that you can imagine.”

Let's see, what can I say, without using inappropriate language?

Oh, I know...

"______ "

Wolves in Shepherd's Clothing

It is deserving of the widest possible dissemination, so I will reprint Fr Hunwick's post on Cardinal Danneel's remarkably frank and damning confession (which some are now attempting to walk back):

During his Inauguration Homily, our Holy Father the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI asked for prayer that he might not "flee for fear of the Wolves".

Now, very usefully, the unspeakable Daneels has blurted out information about how the Wolves described themselves: they were "the St Gallen Group". Their declared purpose was to oppose the mission of Pope Benedict to reconnect the Catholic Church with Tradition. Apparently these lupi see no disgrace in likening themselves to the Mafia.

Interesting. If it is OK for Cardinals to gang together to subvert the Roman Pontiff during Pontificate A, then clearly it must be OK for Cardinals to gang together to subvert the Pontificates of Popes B, C, and D. And if it is OK for Cardinals, the sworn intimate collaborators of the Roman Pontiff, to gang together against him at all, then clearly there can be nothing unOK if mere clerics and laity do the same. Or if there is, please tell me why in simple words of one syllable.

Or is it only after the end of a pontificate that the brave souls who have conspired against the Pontiff have the courage to rubbish him publicly? During his pontificate, did they proclaim their loyalty to him from the housetops? While putting in the boot behind closed doors? And then boasting noisily about their doings as soon as he was gone? Is that how the Church is supposed to operate? I'm uncertain whether to call this 'group' a latrocinium or a lupanar.

What a seedy gang of hypocritical crooks at the very heart of the Church, plotting ... even as I write this and you read it ... to corrupt the imminent Synod of Bishops.

Is There Room For One More At the Synod?

A petition to the Pope Emeritus, asking that he attend.
Don't know the protocol of such a thing, but that's not much valued in the environs of the coming Synod, is it?
Anyway, please sign, and also disseminate the link, if you are so inclined.

"But the Birds... SIng"

Mons. [I don't care what Facebook says,] Charles Pope reflects most wonderfully on the voices of creation, and Joseph Ratzinger's proposition regarding them and the right order of our worship of the All in All.

As an unacceptably loud person, I know I have much to learn and much to accomplish in this regard.

It's a noisy world in which we live, and I find I seldom help to alleviate it.

Consider, then, this remarkable analysis by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, written back before the Internet and social media had turned up the volume even more. He paraphrases an insight by Gandhi, applies it to his analysis of our times, and then proposes a healing remedy to restore balance:

I would like to note a beautiful saying of Mahatma Gandhi … Gandhi refers to the three habitats of the cosmos and how each of these provides its own mode of being. The fish live in the sea, and they are silent. The animals of the earth scream and shout; but the birds, whose habitat is the heavens, sing. Silence is proper to the sea, shouting to the earth and singing to the heavens. Man has a share in all three of them. He carries the depths of the sea, the burden of the earth, and the heights of the heavens in himself. And for this reason, all three properties also belong to him: silence, shouting, and singing.
Today—I would like to add—we see only the shouting is left for the man without transcendence, since he only wants to be of the earth. …
The right liturgy, the liturgy of the Communion of the Saints, restores totality to him. It teaches him silence and singing again by opening him to the depths of the sea and teaching him to fly, the angels’ mode of being. It brings the song buried in him to sound once more by lifting up his heart. …
Right liturgy … liberates us from ordinary, everyday activity and returns to us once more the depths and the heights, silence and song … Right liturgy … sings with the angels … is silent with the expectant depths of the universe, and that is how it redeems the earth (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Collected Works, Vol 11, Theology of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, p. 460).

This is a remarkable analysis and application of liturgy and cosmology to the issues and imbalances of our day! It is in the vein of “Save the Liturgy, save the world.” For indeed, only in the worship of God do we find our true selves. Only in the liturgy is our true personality formed. The human person in his glory unites the material and spiritual orders. We are capable of pregnant, expectant silence; of the joyful shout of praise and the Gospel going forth; and of the song of Heaven.

"Little Ships" Failing In Their Duty To the Fleet

I have never been a true "Traditionalist" in the current Catholic meaning of the term.
For a long time, I was pretty unaware of the sectarianism among those who call themselves Catholic, unaware to the point of obtuseness I now know.
I was a secular musician, and nomadic enough to attend an enormous number of different parishes, chapels, monasteries since I never failed to fulfill my "obligation," (and in fact, was devout enough in a detached way, to attend weekday Masses as well,) -- and I thought the vast differences I observed were mostly due to aesthetics and the taste, or lack thereof, of the priest and music director.

If it was available to me, I was glad to go to a Mass in Latin but this was simply because the music that one heard with Latin lyrics was almost invariably better music than the music one might encounter sung in English or Spanish.
I don't think I was actually aware that there was an "old rite" and a "new rite" and if I was, I would have said that the essential difference was the language in which it was offered.

My impression from childhood was that the Mass changed a whole lot every few months anyway - Oh, new laminated "pew cards" this week, different words for the Creed now.
Oh, Father is coming down and walking around  in the aisles during his sermon now.
Oh, a woman is doing the readings now.
Oh, the other priests don't come over from the rectory now to distribute communion, one of them just stands there and we move past him rather than him moving past us.
Oh, the servers just sit around doing nothing during Mass now.

You know, like that.
So as I heard Mass in a multiplicity of venues, the differences I encountered at first just seemed more of them same. Gradually, I realized that the idiosyncrasies observed were not a result of changes the Church, big "c", had made, but  peculiarities of this church, little "c", this parish, this priest, this part of the country.
So that Latin Mass I had attended? it not just wasn't the same Mass, it wasn't the same Church, there were "Catholics" who were not in communion with Rome, or were in communion with Rome by their own reckoning but wasn't it a shame? there wasn't a real Pope in Rome at the moment.

But wait - this chapel, this other one, did recognize the same Pope as I - but the Church doesn't recognize them?

As I said, as I came to understand exactly what had been occurring in Catholicism, I wasn't really a Trad because - well,  I think A reform was necessary. It just wasn't THE reform that we got.

And I also began to love the old form, but without hating the new one, (I did hate the new theology that many of its supporters incorrectly believed was at its heart and was necessary.)

But Lordie, it was hard to keep track of! who ARE these people? where do THEY stand?
And of course, it wasn't black and white, there were profoundly orthodox people with a laissez faire attitude toward liturgy, there were preservationists who would do anything to support truly Catholic sacred music who were more or less atheists...
I actually made myself a kind of "scorecard", showing the continuum of players in the game, from right-wing crazies with their own Pope Skippy in Arkansas to leftist loonies who thought Gaia and Yahweh were the power couple of the cosmos , so I could remember, as I read, where, judging from their alliances, (yeah, guilt by association,) they were coming from, since even stopped clocks are right twice a day, and even an idiot may teach you something profound and true.

What a scandal, this lack of unity.

I confess I find it somewhat more difficult to suss out the positions of those on the right flank of Catholicism's host, the Ecclesia Militans, (have to use the Latin so no one thinks I'm referring to a particualr media-savvy faction,) because of the heat, even anger I think I see there.

So I am grateful to Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who always seems able to respond to others with both charity and precision, (I love that in our Pope Emeritus as well, and wish, wish, wish, wish that dear Francis, so gifted in the former seems incapable of the latter.)

The current situation of the Church is similar to that of the Arian Crisis in the 4th century: there is a naval battle in the night, where the enemies of the Church attack vehemently the big ship of the Church, whereas in the same time little ships of several true Catholic groups attacks one another, instead of make a common defense against the enemies.

(And that, dear reader, is as good a defense as you are likely to find, for us all to, um... face the same way.)

"It Should Be Admitted That Love Can Indeed End"

Or so says a German moral theologian.

“If two persons make the definitive decision of a common project of life, this does not mean they cannot review their choice.”

Okay, great, a performance review, maybe every six months or so, even quarterly at the beginning.

You know, because being a spouse is like being a priest, it is, first and foremost, a job. A "project."
Well, of course! Sometimes, on a big project, your team needs to bring in outside help.

Perhaps a second or third marriage should be understood in that light, outside help, to keep the project going on budget and on schedule.
Hell, mistresses and lovers could be looked at that way, couldn't they?
Thanks, Professor Schokenhoff! 

You know, I used to love crunchy peanut butter. 
So when I went to the supermarket, since that's what I preferred, that's what I bought.
It was a "definitive decision," unquestionably.
But upon review, this year I decided I'd rather have creamy.
More to the point, love had indeed ended.
I don't love any kind of peanut butter anymore.

I can't help it.

Snarking aside -what in blazes does this theologian think "love" is, to what adolescent definition does he hold?
An emotion? coupled with a stirring of the loins?
No!
Not just "no," but  HELL, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To the Christian, love, and especially marital love is an act of the will, a resolution to persevere in self-donation, an echo, however faint, of God's unconditional and unending love.

It is not the lightly considered acceptance of a responsibility, a burden that one is later free to cast aside.
It is not some temporary preference, which alters when it alteration finds.

A "love" which cost nothing, a "love" that doe not call us to sacrifice, a "love" for which we are willing to lay out nothing - this is not Love.

God's passionate love for his people—for humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice.... His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: “God is love”.  It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. 

There has been a bit of a buzz in the nation of Catholicistan here on those Interwebs, about the way instead of our acknowledging that God is love, we make love into our God.
I say that if we know that Love is the highest good, we cannot claim that we have given our love to another unless we have also tried to give God to him.

And how could such a love ever end?

"Father" Benedict?

Alan Holdren has an article at Catholic News Agency about Papa Ratz's summer plans.
An honorary doctorate from the Pontifical University of John Paul II and its music academy, for Benedict’s “great respect for musical tradition of the Church” and “special concern for the noble beauty of sacred music and its proper place in the celebration of the sacred liturgical rites of the Church.”
Nice.
But this took me by surprise-

Benedict XVI – who now goes by “Fr. Benedict”

Who knew?

Cardinal Sarah on the Liturgy

Many thanks to Jeff Ostrowski for this round-up of wisdom and insight from the head of the CDW.
And since Jeff's title evokes a Lettermanesque approach to things, I will asnwer a rhetorical question of Fulton Sheen which appears in the email heralding this article - They say this.  They say that.  WHO ARE «THEY» ? - in viewer mail one night  Dave supplied the answer to this very question. In reply to the query, when they say "you know what they say" who's the "they" they mean? Dave told us. "The Van Pattens."

"You know what I say..."

Incidentally, I think he might be Catholic.
Van Patten, not Letterman.
I digress.

Anway, this was my favorite thing he, (Ostrowski, not Van Pattan,) said that he, (Sarah, not Letterman) said -

"When the Holy Father, Pope Francis, asked me to accept the ministry of Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, I asked: ‘Your Holiness, how do you want me to exercise this ministry? What do you want me to do as Prefect of this Congregation?’ The Holy Father's reply was clear. ‘I want you to continue to implement the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council,’ he said, ‘and I want you to continue the good work in the liturgy begun by Pope Benedict XVI.'”

He Looks More Like His Brother Each Time We See Him, Doesn't He?

"What did he know, and when did he know it?"

I think a little too much is being made by some about the HuffPo interview with Cardinal Bertone.
Yes, he says he "knew" of Pope Bendict's abdication many months ahead of time, and yes, he says he remonstrated with the Holy Father about what he needed to do before he "sign[ed] things over to Pope Francis,"as if that were an eventuality that he knew as a certainty before it could have officially "happened."

But don't many of us say, "I KNEW that was gonna happen!" when what we mean is we were sure/guessed/had a premonition/feared/hoped expectantly?

If Benedict had discussed things with friends, advisors, even before resolving to do the thing, that is only natural.

And Bertone could very easily have actually said, "don't you want to do/finish thus and such before signing things over to the next guy? "but speaking of it in retrospect say, " before signing things over to Bergoglio?" (He simply could NOT have known Francis would become, well... "Francis," ahead of time.)

"The Result of a Thought of God"

I arose, as one does sometimes, in the middle of the night - why?
I think my heart awakened me, to turn on the television and watch a bit of the consistory, because any glimpse of the Pope Emeritus might be the last opportunity?

“The purpose of our life is to reveal God to men. Only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is a result of a thought of God: each of us is willed; each of us is loved; each of us is necessary.”

 

That was some thought, IS a great thought You had, God. Thank You, thank You, thank You. (And please, keep having it.)

Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another.

It will always be a heart-breaking memory

Two years ago today, I was rushing to get to Mass, (mostly, truth be told, to bring the Blessed Sacrament back to the love of my life who lay dying,) and Himself had turned on the news and we both stopped in our tracks.

Is that supposed to be funny? is this a joke? what kind of hoax...

But no, the beloved Holy Father had indeed announced his retirement.

A Scottish archbishop shares hismemories of the day:

February 11 is a holiday in the Vatican. It is the day when the Holy See celebrates the settlement in 1929 of the so-called “Roman Question”, the resolution of the 59-year stand-off between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See after the fall of Rome in 1870 to the Kingdom’s troops and the effective end of the ancient Papal States in central Italy.
By chance it was also the day Pope Benedict XVI chose to resign.
The date had been scheduled for a small consistory, comprising midday prayer and the announcement by Cardinal Angelo Amato of some beati due to be promoted to saints. There had also been a little gentle buzz for some time in the Roman Curia about the Holy Father announcing one or two important changes then, perhaps near the top of the administration, but these kinds of rumours circle like the seagulls around the Vatican’s Belvedere: they come round frequently, make a bit of noise and go away again. In other words, as in most places, nothing happens until it happens...
The Holy Father then took the floor. This was the first time I had sat in a consistory, so I had no idea if this was normal or not. He spoke in Latin, so a greater effort than normal was going to be required by all of us – Italian being the normal language of the Curia – so a little strain was evident as we tried to grasp where he was going.
Within seconds it was clear what was happening. This was no ordinary address. He did not speak about the consistory and the soon-to-be saints, or a few changes in administration, or the anniversary of the Lateran treaties, or the end of the historic dispute with Italy. Instead, he made history. I felt my stomach turn over as I realised that here before us was something not seen for centuries: the voluntary resignation of the Roman Pontiff. 

 

 It was an awful, blessed, horrid, holy time.