"Great St. Joseph, Son of David, Spouse of Mary Undefiled"

I had a day yesterday that promised to be very long, and very tiring, (or perhaps, its prospect only seemed frightening to my Indolence, which is like an actual companion creature to me.)

St Joseph's day, a great solemnity, (yes, gloria AND credo, Father) and a special feastday for me, but my parish has no Saturday morning Mass, and others in town had them at the same hour that I was required at an activity, would be engaged in an obligatory service.
There's a church in a town a county over that actually has TWO Masses on Saturday mornings, (perhaps only for Lent?), but only the earliest would get me back in time to fulfil my commitment, but I didn't see how I could get up two hours early and still have the energy and clear head I really needed for whatever.
I decided in fairness to the people depending on me later in the day I would set my alarm for the usual time, but if I awoke earlier I would get my sorry carcass to the liturgy.

As I prepared for bed, I remembered that when I was a child, my Mother, (about whom I can finally think and speak with some degree of serenity and composure,) told me when she was little her very good Aunt had taught he that if there was something you really needed to get up for and were afraid you would oversleep, you should say a few Hail, Marys and ask the Blessed Virgin to wake you.

So quaint, right?

I added 3 Aves to my night prayers, asked the Blessed Mother's intercession, and naturally to St Joseph. And then, for good measure I appealed to my parents, as well.
Now, I should caution, I am not of the mind that all those we love are thereby canonized at death, but I am as sure that both my Mother and Father enjoy the beatific vision as I am of anything, for certain and very specific reasons.

Oh, and my Father was Joseph.

And so, to bad.
Then, I couldn't sleep. My mind was full of... well, just so many things, none of them disturbing, wonderful, and interesting and encouraging, in fact, but I needed sleep and it took hours for it to come, and I resigned myself to saying a few prayers on my own for Good and Just Saint Joseph sometime during the day.

I don't suppose I need to tell you after going on so long about it, I awoke not just in time, but refreshed and happy to arise as I seldom never am, (not a lark, I'm afraid....more of a bat.)
Terror of demons, indeed...

Saint Joseph, you whom the Father knew to be the Essential Man, pray for us.

How Could That Be an Act of God? It's Not the Way That I Would Have Done It, If I Were God

The oddest blog, from December, from an outlet that bills itself as an "international Catholic weekly newspaper."
The author, a "religious journalist," according to a note in Wiki, is apparently a convert to the Faith, but seemingly not one who buys into all that religious claptrap, that Catholic mumbo-jumbo, that Papist palaver. Not "Catholic" but "Catholish"?

Intercessory prayer?
Whatever for?

One might think it would be better to cut out the middle man or woman

Miracles? But it would be,

a very small God who can be manipulated and used to send signals to the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, about who is and who is not in heaven.

The Lord still working wonders to increase someones faith, you know, the way He did in the Gospels? Like Mary McCarthy and the election of Nixon, he has his doubts-

Has this miracle helped to persuade a single person who previously doubted it? 

Apparently not anyone he knows, so that's that.
But, not very originally, what it finally gets down to is that whole, existential, why would God do something nice for one measly little person, when He, you know, permits evil?

One only has to think of the millions of desperate prayers for deliverance offered up by the terrified victims of the Nazis, not just by six million murdered Jews but by as many as two million Polish Catholics and others who shared the same ghastly fate. A God who does miracles in answer to prayers just to let us know that Mother Teresa is in heaven, but who leaves all those other prayers unanswered with so much suffering unrelieved, is a very strange God indeed.

So it's not Catholic practice he has a problem with, or Christianity, or even Monotheism - it's belief in a God who intervenes in human existence, period.

It's God.

I can't help him there.

But he seems just about right for the Tablet.

Reading For Comprehension

An opinion piece in Homiletic and Pastoral Review has occasioned quite a bit of comment in my online ovals, (they are far too off-kilter to call "circles.")
It is called "Questions Regarding the Use of Latin in Celebrating the Mass" and it boils down pretty much to Do you think it should be? and then an answer of No.
The Pharmacist/Philosopher starts off with an example of a verse of a Latin hymn and asks the reader to "pray the text...without performing an internet search or using an online translation."

I'm not typical because I took Latin in middle and high school.
Well, I suppose I should say rather than "took," that I was "given" Latin.
And I gave precious little back.
Oh, I did well enough to get highest marks on the College Board "achievement test", but that tells you all you need to know about the follies of reading too much into test scores.
I've forgotten most of it, but I had no problem with his example, the one word I didn't recognize I could deduce, from the English "irrigation."

Other in my online ovals might think I already knew that verse, but I am a little ashamed to say that while I recognized it as the sequence for Pentecost, I honestly did not know the Latin, I have only ever sung or spoken it in English, (and often done neither as the celebrant didn't have time for all that stuff, optional or otherwise,) but that is neither here nor there.

He goes on to fret about possible lack of understanding of the Eucharistic Prayer/Canon, on the part of the priest, and therefore, a defect in his intention, which would invalidate the Sacrament.
Seriously?
If a celebrant doesn't know, and remember, and understand the EP in his native language well enough to be quite sure of his intentions when reading from a missal in Tagalog, in French, hell, in Klingon, were it licitly translated, HE IS NOT COMPETENT TO SAY MASS PERIOD.

It is odd, is it not? that anti-Latin forces, (among which I count this Pharmacist/Philosopher,) continue to harp on a priest's possible incompetence, lack of comprehension and mispronunciation of Latin, and no one ever seems to campaign against non-Latino priests stumbling through Spanish-language Mass to be pastoral; or worry that the English language Mass celebrated in the United States by your local Ghanaian or Pakistani priest may not be valid.

My, I do go on...
And I haven't even arrived at my actual points.

There are two of them.

One of them is the mistaken message given by too much emphasis on comprehension -- that the miracle of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the confection of the Eucharist, the infusion of Grace by the actions of God the Holy Spirit is somehow open to human understanding.

IT IS NOT.

It is SUPERNATURAL.

It is beyond our comprehension.

And the other is amusement that the type of Catholic, (I do not include the Pharmacist/Philosopher in this, I have no idea of where he stands on this,) who is most likely to say that the people can't PRAY unless the WORDS are simple enough and familiar enough, is also the type of Catholic most likely to love and repeat ad nausum the probably misattributed to St Francis of Assisi, "PREACH the Gospel at all times, if  necessary, use WORDS."

It seems to me that the Person to Whom prayers are directed is more sure to understand them perfectly even if we don't use words than is the person to whom preaching the Gospel is directed, no?

Maybe that's just me.

(Oh, and whilst I think of it, "Some of the differences between the two Masses are the direction the priest faces while celebrating the Mass, the music, the prayers, and the languages used during the celebrations"? Umm.... no. Of  those four exactly ONE is actually a "differences between the two Masses.")

"St Michael the Archangel, defend us in batt---"

"That's okay, Mike, I got this."

On this Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God I like to imagine such a response to our prayers taking place.

"Meek and mild"?
I don't think so.
Amy Chua, you don't know what a real "Battle Hymn" is.
Gaea's our mother?  Bzzzzzzz, nope, but thanks for playing.

If the earth were our mother, our home would the grave.

(Props to the late, great Cardinal George.)

It's not.
Mary is.
Turn to your Blessed Mother.

I like the Litany of Loreto, which we often do before morning Mass, but I think I wish there were a litany that was... I dunno, a little more fierce?

(I have some of the convert's zeal perhaps, overcompensating for coming so late to my devotion.)

Thoughts During Early Morning Rosary

Why am I so annoyed by the old woman who, when it is her turn to lead a decade, loudly prays, Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with YOU, blessed are YOU...
But I give a pass to the old man who says, Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy GHOST....?

La donn' e mobile.

Praying for Whose Conversion, As the Saudis Prepare For Another Display of Barbarism?

Horrifying picture, right? (not the worst available)
What does it have to do with ones prayer life?

I understand, or at least, think I understand, that one prays I pray, not that God should change others - but that He should change me, the one who prays. We pray for metanoia.
The only person I have any control over really, is myself, so, "Oh, God, please make Mr.s Abercrombie forget to give us that math test I didn't study for, " is kinda dumb, what I'd need to pray for is the strength and common sense to... well, study my math.
So why was I disquieted by this article when I read it last week?

a lifelong Catholic says that getting to know and love Islam helped her develop a deep knowledge and love for her own Catholic faith. ... a 24-year-old research fellow at The Bridge Initiative, a new project of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington. 
...What really stirred her passion was a political email she received during her junior year of high school, forwarded enthusiastically by a family member. 
.... The email equated Muslims with the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. “I was so upset by this, that a practicing Catholic would send such a thing,” [she] says. “My mom took me by the shoulders and said, ‘That’s why you have to write.’"

Isn't that it exactly? You want God to grant greater understanding between people of different faiths, different nations?
YOU need to understand.
So this young woman helping her fellow Catholics, her fellow Christians, her fellow Americans to understand the "other," that's underneath it all isn't really so "other," that's the way to go, right?

So, why?
Why did I find it troubling? (It was one of those times when I forgot which Catholic periodical I was reading and couldn't understand my almost visceral disagreement with an outlet with whose editorial slant I usually agree -- aha! what a relief, it really is the principle, not the messenger of the principle to which I am reacting!)

So I did a little more reading and reasoned it was not with the young Catholic woman, but with the people with whom she had thrown in her lot, that I was feeling a bit queasy.
I mean, a " bridge" should go both ways, right?
But this seemed all about getting Westerners copacetic with Arabs, Christians accepting of Muslims, all funded by a fabulously wealthy, (self-made,) member of the Saudi royal family.

The Bridge Initiative took notice and approached her earlier this year as they began setting up a new project aimed at educating the [American] public about Islamophobia. Now she works there full time, researching and writing about Islamophobia in the West.

So that's my quibble - good, we need to work on changing us.
But Prince Alwaleed bin Talal? Maybe look to your own palace  home, first?

Ali al-Nimr, the nephew of firebrand Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, faces execution by beheading and an additional rare punishment of "crucifixion," which means publicly displaying the body after death as a warning to others, according to Saudi state media.

"Any judgment imposing the death penalty upon persons who were children at the time of the offense, and their execution, are incompatible with Saudi Arabia's international obligations," the U.N. group said in a statement Tuesday, invoking the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Saudi Arabia is a party.

Arrested as a teenager

Ali al-Nimr was a 17-year-old high school student when he was arrested for taking part in Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2012 calling for social and political reforms in the country's restive and predominantly Shiite province of Qatif.

A court later convicted him of charges including belonging to a terror cell, attacking police with Molotov cocktails, incitement, and stoking sectarianism, according to the state media report.

His final appeal was rejected when the Appeals Court and High Court ratified his verdict last week.

Say a Prayer for Your Priest

Tomorrow marks the memorial of St John Vianney, a pretty appropriate occasion, I think, on which to thank God for priests, intercede with God for priests, praise God for priests, ask God for more priests...
I was particularly disturbed today at some ugly, anti-clerical trolling on Facebook, with a point of view that would not have been out of place during la Terreur, (which has been on my mind of late,)from a supposedly devout Catholic - shameful, and all directed at a priest I know to be very, very good.
Pray with the Little Flower, (a spiritual mother to many a priest, I believe.)

O Jesus,
I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;
for your unfaithful and tepid priests;v for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields.v for your tempted priests;
for your lonely and desolate priests;
For your young priests;
for your dying priests;
for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.
But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptized me;
the priests who absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
the priests who taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way
(especially …)
O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.
Amen

That's What I Am!

I often haven't the faintest idea what Eccles is talking about, what with my ignorance of British politics and my confusion about the various forms of Catholic and Catholish Christians over there, but even when I don't know the players, the scorecard amuses.
I learned a new word:

God-botherer

(He's talking about a pol who isn't "the right sort of Christian. [the right sort] doesn't let his religious beliefs affect his actions in the slightest. You wouldn't catch [said right sort] letting his conscience get in the way of what was politically expedient.")

I am a God botherer.  :oD

Acts of Reparation

I was looking forward to the solemnity, this, Christ the King, and Corpus Christi really speak to me, orations, propers and readings. The celebrant is one who heeds the calendar and ordo, so, unwontedly, we actually spoke the gloria, the credo, even heard a small homily, on the history of the feast.
This was actually a touch remarkable, as there was some preaching on the beauty of devotions, and this from a priest who from time to time betrays a kind of fond contempt for anything that smacks of Old Churchy Things.
A few weeks ago I worshipped at a parish that hears Confession before Sunday Mass, "time permitting," and I do like to make confession somewhere other than my home parish. There was a very long line, it moved in fits and starts, and just as I made to enter "The Box" for my turn, the priest exited, "sorry, MASS!" and rushed past me.
So, they were having two morning Masses so presits were hanging around after the first and I availed myself of confession. I had the list of things I had wanted to talk about a few weeks ago niggling at me - nothing serious, nothing too specific, my poenitentia interrupta hadn't been keeping me up nights or anything.
Among my sins were the real anger i feel stirring at the way people behave in Church, not just in Sunday Mass where there may be those who are only there out of a sense of obligation, but weekdays, Lenten devotions, hanging around after Mass, that sort of thing.
Well, the good father didn't give me a penance, per se, he told me to just sit before the tabernacle and let the Lord's healing "wash" over me.

"Healing"??!???  I don't need no stinkin' healing, I thought quietly to myself, I need penance! punishment!
And instantly, from my reaction I figured, oops! guess I do....

So I took myself out to the nave and sat.
And sat.
There was Jesus. There was my Lord. There was the Sanctissimus.There was God.
So I sat there and just tried to love Him, and feel His love for me.
And it was workin' pretty good.

And as the Mass-goers trickled in for the 9:30, the chattering began. And it got louder, and louder. I thought the Pick-a-Little ladies were practicing behind me, the noise from what sounded like an Elks' smoker grew and grew over to the side with occasional loud guffaws, people were trading recipes and photos of their grand-kids, and disappointment in their teams scores in front of me.

And I wasn't feeling any love for them, and I was thinking, see, Father? I was right to be angry, that was a dumb thing for you to tell me to do, you should have known how noisy it wold be, I should come back and do this later, these people are awful, I can't stand them, what is WRONG with them, I hate it, can't they even --

And then I thought about Chesterton.

And then I thought about trying to love them.

Most sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us me prostrate before Thee, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries to which Thy loving Heart is everywhere here, in this very seat, subject. 
Mindful, alas! that we our I myselfves have had a the lion's share in such great indignities, which we I now deplore from the depths of our my hearts, we I humbly ask Thy pardon and declare our my readiness to atone by voluntary expiation, not only for our my own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying probably not as far as I from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity neglect? stress? thoughtlessness? (I'm in no position to throw stones,) to follow Thee, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the promises of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Thy law. 

I got me so much work ta do......

"Dear God, This is What You Ought To Do...."

Or, maybe, "This is what I would do if I were You, God."
"And by the way, You should know this...."

I read once about how off-putting some Prayers of the Faithful are, and how difficult it can be to compose them.
"For XXX, that YYY, we pray to the Lord...."

                             "Lord, hear our prayer."

Not the XXX part, we know pretty well what the problems, our problems are.

But the YYY?

Do we really want to tell God what the solution to the problems with which we present Him should be?

Isn't this a corker?

Lord God, we seek to follow the example of your Word, your Son and our Brother, Jesus.
We know from Him that your Holy Spirit is with us when we gather together in Your Name.

(Pretty good, so far.)

Therefore it is important to us that....

(Nope, couldn't resist giving the Big Fellow, and I don't mean the cardinal archbishop of NY, a word of advice, could ya?)

We believe that this is only possible for a Church that...

So much for,

Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

Of course, that's not a very popular chapter just now in the world at large, is it?

In fact, I shouldn't be surprised if it has been excised from a number of Bibles - so the authors of that prayer are not to blame for not knowing it. This is how the beginning of it goes:

The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” 

Oh, VOTF finish their prayer like this:

We long for a Church which acknowledges the full value of all its people and bases its judgments on Your Word.
Please help us become that Church. Amen.

Basing our judgements on Your Word.... hmm.
And on His words?

Prayers in Time of Plague

Grant to us, Lord, to receive the effects of our supplications ; and turn  away from us, of Thy goodness, pestilence and famine, that the hearts of men may acknowledge that such chastisements arise from Thy anger, and cease through Thy loving-kindness...

Would not put it quite like that - ever notice that the people with whom the Almighty has the least cause to be angry often bear the brunt of His fuppofed anger?
Still, it's presumptuous to attribute motives... who can know the mind of God? who can know the thoughts of the Lord?

Anyway, thank You, Lord.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Liberia free of the Ebola virus, confirming that the country has had no new cases in 42 days.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told the BBC that Liberia had "crossed the Rubicon" and would be celebrating a concerted effort to stem the disease.
More than 4,700 deaths from Ebola have been recorded in Liberia, more than in any other affected country.
Neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone continue to fight the outbreak.
It has claimed over 11,000 lives across the region since last year.
The WHO regards a country Ebola-free after a 42-day period without a new case - twice the maximum incubation period.
The last confirmed death in Liberia was on 27 March. On Saturday the World Health Organization said in a statement: "The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over."

Ever since Americans and white people stopped startling us Americans and white people by coming down with the plague, the only time it figures prominently on tv seems to be when comics mock us for ignoring it after our collective sigh of relief.
I understand the whole crisis fatigue thing, but how can Ebola, how can the suffering in Nepal, be less important than under inflated pigs' bladders?
Himself, with some justification, gets miffed over the frequent politicization of the news on EWTN, (and consequent slant,) but I swear, they often, with their drastically fewer resources and drastically shallower pockets than the American networks, (broadcast or cable,) offer more comprehensive coverage of  non-religious matters of international importance.

Prayer for the Year of Mercy

Pope Francis has composed a special prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy which will run from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016.

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,
and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.
Show us your face and we will be saved.
Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;
the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;
made Peter weep after his betrayal,
and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.
Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:
“If you knew the gift of God!”
You are the visible face of the invisible Father,
of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:
let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.
You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness
in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:
let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.
Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing,
so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord,
and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,
and restore sight to the blind.  
We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy,
you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen.

Am I a bad Catholic to say that I find it kinda klunky?  And I don't care for talk of "your Spirit" and "its" anything.
Can't argue with the sentiments, though... we'll just blame the translator, shall we?
(But hey, inconsistent capitalization of pronouns for the Godhead!)

"Mustafa"? The "Chosen" One?

How very proud members of the Anglican Communion must be now, to have hosted, in a "Royal Peculiar of the Supreme Governor", the "Collegiate Church of St Peter" an ecumenical service in commemoration of the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign a prayer, praising God, and wishing peace upon all His prophets, you know, the regular ones, and then, of course, the Chosen One.
"Mustafa."

That would be a human being named Mohammed. The plain ol' ordinary ones, the lesser though still "auspicious" prophets would include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses... oh, and a guy named Jesus. You know, the Christ. Messiah. Son of the Living God. Second person of the Trinity. The Word Who was made flesh. Who was with God.

Who WAS God.

Muslims should of course pray how they wish.

But what Christian Chur church finds such speech appropriate within the confines of her sacred spaces?

And how could it hope to endure?

The Rational Mind

Love these guys.
Yes, all three of them, Mr D. too. We're, um... kinda commanded to.
So God bless Richard Dawkins.
(While I'm at it, "and God bless Mrs. Mantel, and everyone who ever lived named 'Cromwell,' and that idiot in the Cadillac who tailgated me when I was already over the speed-limit and that florist that cut me off at the light.")
But Conall and Donall rule! COME HOME, GUYS!!!!!!!

Thoughts on Morning Rosary

When I was a kid the Rosary bothered me something fierce, its lack of symmetry drove me crazy - whaddya MEAN we say the "Glory be" on the "space" between the little beads and the big bead? then what do we say on the other little space before the next bunch of little beads? whaddya mean "nothing, we only say prayers on the beads"? you just told us we say the "Glory be" on the space!

This problem only became more dire when as an adult  I moved to a parish where what I think is called "the Fatima prayer" was also squeezed onto that tiny bit of chain or cord where the Glory be was already causing an irritating imbalance. (And don't even get me stared on the parish that added an ejaculation that began "Eucharistic Heart of Jesus," after the more common one.)

And what about that little part that's like an alle leading in to a circular drive? I get that we might go once, or three times, or even, now, four around the loop, but don't we need to EXIT???!??#?!?? where are the prayers at the end to lead us past the one-big-three-small-one-big pathway and back to the little Crucifix?
This doesn't make sense!

Not sure why this was ever a problem, I am someone who never squares my furniture or chotchkas, I also place things diagonally or off-center...

At one point, I was even considering making up my own arrnagement of prayers to take care of those worrisome beads to get myself out of Rosary-land when I finished.

But anyway, I got over it.

But I'm me, I found other things to get my back up over.

You know, that woman who insists on saying "you" instead of "Thy" on her decades, every church has one. (And yes, I can hear the lower case "y.")

I cured myself of that irritation, (okay, almost cured, vestiges of vexation linger,) by reminding myself at every "you" that I do not allow myself to be similarly annoyed at the people who say "Ghost" instead of "Spirit," and fair's fair, principles are principles. I have to try to be consistent as I think, why in tarnation doesn't everyone in the world do things the way I want them done?  apply rules.

So now I try to be loving toward and amused by everyone. (Well, no, of course I don't mean EVERYone, just the people who gather for the Rosary before Mass. I'll work my way up to the rest of humanity.)

Wouldn't that be great, to grow LESS cranky as I age?

I am really tickled by the lovely little elderly woman who makes three syllables of "amongst," as if it were a superlative.
Mary's not just among, or even amongst the rest of us women, she's the amongest among us!

The Way of the Cross

My parish has a booklet used for Stations, published and granted an imprimatur well after Nostra aetate was promulgated, in the '80s, in fact.
The narrative it presents is that, okay, yeah,  Pilate was in there somewhere, but the Jews were responsible for... well, pretty much everything in the crucifixion, right down to hammering in the nails. It doesn't say that, but the illustrations, of the ugly flat missallette circa 1975 style are filled with members of the Sanhedrin, but nary a centurion in sight.

shudder

The Scriptural Stations booklet offered by the USCCB doesn't do anything for me either.
I will not criticize the artwork as it is par of a youth projected, (sponsored by the much beloved Catholic Campaign for Human Development,) but I find it distracting. Not as distracting as the duelling stabat mater tunes heard in our pews, but distracting, too distracting to pray with.

I can hear my Aunt saying, offer it up, but offer what? my distraction?

Better to carry out the devotion some other time, even some other place.

Disturbing

I was looking for an image for devotion.
St John Cantius in Chicago has a stunning, almost life-sized statue of  a seated Man of Sorrows.
It never failed to move me when I saw it.
Although for religious, devotional, liturgical art I prefer some degree of realism, I have a fairly broad acceptance of genres and styles.
I was looking for a Man of Sorrows, mabe to use on my desktop while reading the office?

But I came across this, an Ensor monstrosity.

Where is the beauty? what is the point? the artist, about whom I know very little, seems filled with hate.
Am I a philistine that I can see no redeeming value in this? I feel as if I need a shower after seeing it.

(AFTER A BIT OF THOUGHT
I DECIDED LINKING TO THE
UGLINESS WAS QUITE
ENOUGH, I SHOULD NOT
SULLY THE INTERWEBS
WITH ANOTHER ITERATION
OF THE IMAGE ITSELF)

An Anglican-style Rosary

This is NOT really what the post is about, but Fr Hunwicke's description of the Rosary As Weapon, (to quote a bumper sticker one sees hereabouts,) caught my eye:

Fr Wason began Solemn Rosary ... not one of those rapid Irish Rosaries with the laity racing into the Sancta Maria before the priest has even got to the fructus ventris tui, but a slow, meditative, Anglican Rosary in which, at the end of each Mystery, Father preached about it generously and extensively, allowing no typological crumb to fall unexamined to the ground.

Against all odds, the morning Rosary with a bunch of other weekday Mass-goers has become my thang.
And a mighty good thang it is, too.

Unbearable Solitude

I like to be alone, (don't tell Himself.)
The idea of living alone has never been unattractive to me, even after I found My True Love.
Although I make a great deal of noise, silence bothers me not a whit.
I remember once leaving after a stay at my Mom's, my youngest brother had gone off to college, a sister who was moving cross country had been there at the beginning of the stay but was gone by the end, and I asked her to get in touch with a friend of mine on the other end of my several day dive home, to tell her that I had set out, (pre-cell phone days, except for very connected people.)
I later found out she had confided to the friend that that night would be the first time she had ever been alone in a house in her entire life, and she hated it.
But I've never been like that.
I look forward to solitude, generally. I have many times in my life gone days at a time without seeing or even speaking to another person.
As I said, I like to be alone.
But this morning at the nursing home for the usual prayer and communion service, I began to understand the terror that it can be.
Now, Himself's mother, and mine, both had real dread of nursing homes, and I know that's not uncommon. The care, at even the best of them that I have seen is, quite simply put, insufficient.
Toward the end of my Mother's life there were three different facilities and two hospitals, all highly rated, tops in the state, regularly laudatory inspections, lovely decor and food, seemingly plenty of staff - none of the stays were without incident.
Incorrect prescriptions, forgetful and callous doctors, revolving door staff that was never brought up to speed, alarms that were acknowledged but then forgotten without problem having been addressed, abrupt and frightening moves from one wing to another in the middle of the night...
And this was with one of us ALWAYS with her, sometimes over the objection of staff.
I cannot image how it would have been had there not been someone there to insist that oxygen be supplied now, to track down someone authorized to dispense controlled substances, to clean her, to make her food palatable and chewable...
Thank God, there had been an incident fairly early in her first hospital stay for which she had phoned us all at three in the morning - I think 4 of us had converged on her new hospital room and promised then that come hell or high water we would never leave her.
Now did we. For several months there was always at last one of her children with her, most nights two so that if she were to awake while one was answering a call of nature or desperately searching for coffee, there would be a face she knew.
I believe her fear was of dying without her family around her, but not from practical considerations like the need for someone insisting on care or running interference or giving protection.

Just to see a face she knew and loved.

This morning it was so painfully, cruelly obvious how alone many of the residents are.
Even those who have family whom I've occasionally met spend most of their days in the company of no one but nurses or aides.
And of course, many have no family who visit.

And finally, some are clearly alone even with family and friends beside them, so turned in upon themselves they are.
There is a tragic, hunted look in so many eyes. (Thank You, God, thank You, I never saw in Mom's.)
They think themselves alone.
Utterly alone.
And it rightly terrifies them.
We pray with them, talk, offer a shoulder or an arm around theirs, sing to them... but it is so not enough. 

O Blessed Joseph, you gave your last breath in the loving embrace of Jesus and Mary. When the seal of death shall close my life, come with Jesus and Mary to aid me. Obtain for me this solace for that hour - to die with their holy arms around me. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I commend my soul, living and dying, into your sacred arms. Amen.

An Excellent United Front

Now THAT'S a "here comes everybody" example of Catholicism that thrills me.

CNA/EWTN NEWS 03/05/201
WASHINGTON — Four U.S. Catholic publications with a broad range of audiences have come together in a joint editorial citing Church leaders in calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States.
 “Capital punishment must end,” stated a March 5 editorial by America magazine, the National Catholic Register, the National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor.
The death penalty is both “abhorrent and unnecessary,” the publications said.

 From their keyboards to God's ear.

For the sake of Your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.