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.")

"Destination Parishes"

Am I being all judgey, or is there something inherently dishonest in presenting only one side of a contentious question, and attaching a survey to it, to see how people think?
In any case, the author who takes issue with parish shopping is in Chicago, so I'm pretty well acquainted with some of the "destination parishes" to which he may be referring.

Wonder if he takes equally dim views of St John Cantius and St Sabina's.....

 I don't know what the demographics are, but I think the urbanites, with the ideally "walkable" parish may be outnumbered by the suburbanites and rurals, to whom the "drivability" of a parish is more relevant.

And young, practicing, Catholic urbanites often work, play and live in the territory of several different parishes. SOME kind of choosing is going to have to take place, who is he to say on what basis it should be? (And we won't even get into the choosing on the basis that it makes it harder for someone on whom one is working ones wiles to turn down the invitation to accompany one, and I'm not saying how that situation came to my mind.)

And yes, sometimes one is not within the "territory" of a parish that one finds is actually walkable.

And since the idea of a universal liturgical language is in equal measure risible and abhorrent to a large part of the power structures in modern parish life, the generosity behind bishops allowing so many of those old "national" parishes is still needed, rather, needed more than ever now, (the priest/author doesn't even touch on languages issues.)

And finally, having spent quite a bit of time in his neck of the woods and in other densely populated, multi-ethnic, at least at one time heavily Catholic, urban areas - Chicago ain't Newark, which ain't Boston, which ain't Jersey City, which ain't Brooklyn, which ain't.... you get the picture.

Anyway, as always, one should keep in mind that there are reasons that "parochial" means what it does, and "catholic" means what it does, and I'll let you guess which trait I value more.

"Letters, we get letters, we get stacks and stacks of..."

Someone wrote to an advice column in the Paper of Record, that she felt betrayed by a co-worker, to whom she had expressed, (on the Book of Faces, I think,) her eagerness to be quit of her job.
The co-worker had passed this on to the boss.
WHO WAS THE CO-WORKER'S HUSBAND.

Some people maybe should avoid social networking?
Just sayin'.

A newsletter I receive contains a Letter to the Editor that has alerted me to what may be a sinister conspiracy that the epistolarian has noted.

Thank God he or she has called this to the attention of responsible Catholics! Else, where might this linguistic madness end? Imagine using the Universal Church's official language in Her liturgies, the horror!

But now, hopefully, someone will be "watching."
You know, and "addressing."
A group.

For about two years or so, quite a number of churches have started using Latin for the "Holy, Holy" and "The Lamb of God" in their Sunday liturgies.  Why?

Even the election of Pope Francis has not stopped this trend.  Is any group watching the liturgy and addressing apparent attempt to bring back Latin? 

[name redacted to protect the imbecilic innocent]

(In all seriousness, this is so dim-witted I wonder if the poor thing accidentally stumbled into a Mass in, oh, I dunno, Spanish)
(And while the subject is the Holy Father and languages, does Pope Francis always address the English-speaking pilgrims at the Angelus address in Italian? or did the tv station just use the wrong clip?)

"Out of Compassion for the Waywardness That is Ours"

Sometimes a phrase just jumps out at you during mass, you know?

The preface used by our celebrant this morning seemed completely unfamiliar to me, I've never given much thought to the prefaces, is there a pattern to how priests select them in Ordinary Time, I wonder?

But I've been dwelling, of late, on suffering, and how no soul seems to escape it, everyone has his "passion" to undergo, not only Christ, not only great saints...

So God-With-Us endured not just His own, but each of ours.
He chose, not just to suffer, but to share our suffering.

For out of compassion for the waywardness that is ours, He humbled himself and was born of the Virgin; by the passion of the Cross He freed us from unending death.

Who could have imagined such a thing? that a creator would do this for his creations?

To have "compassion"  - to suffer with.
Do we, can we, eve take on others' pain?
Does Christ's compassion for us not demand that we try?
#we'reallinthistogether.

But isn't waywardness an odd thing for Him to have seen in us and chosen to suffer with us?

We don't perceive waywardness as suffering, do we?

Doesn't the word summon up thoughts of a kind of footloose free-spiritedness, a desirable independence?
Doesn't contemporary man usually look on rebellion against, say, parental authority as a not only admirable, but more or less necessary break from childish submission?
Thinking outside the box, making up your own mind, learning to trust your own judgement, deciding for yourself what's right and what's wrong - those are all good things, doncha think?
I mean, yeah, you might make the occasional misstep, but no biggie...

You certainly will not die, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil. 

When you get down to brass tacks, waywardness is just another form of pride.
And like all sin, pride separates us from the Father.

And that is what the Son chose to suffer for us, beyond the physical agony - separation from the Father WITH WHOM HE WAS ONE.
Can you imagine the desolation of the Three Days?
And yet that is what He did for me and you.
Thinking of it in that way makes it mighty hard to brush off any deviating from the pathway, to forget that even minor excursions on my part contribute to the weight of His cross.

Out of compassion for the waywardness that is ours, He humbled himself and was born of the Virgin; by the passion of the Cross He freed us from unending death, and by rising from the dead, He gave us life eternal.

Show me the way to go home....

...I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
No, that's not true.
Or actually, it is true, but it's not my theme.
On a thread over at the CMAA messageboard wherein the oft vaunted virtues of vernacular are invoked, and by some, vented upon, the merits of Latin as the Roman Church's sacred language was neatly put like this, by the musician blogger Adam Wood:

The most important reason to retain Latin is that language carries culture.

Every immigrant group has realized this, and every native tribe after colonization --- when the children stop learning the old language, they abandon the old culture. When hegemonic political regimes want to control and subdue a culture, they forcibly remove the language --- think of Ireland, Native Americans, Native Australians, and Cantonese speakers in China....

Latin is the language of Catholic culture. If we lose it, we lose who we are as a people. Or perhaps we already have. 

I do not share his pessimism, or at least his doubt. We, the Church, the Faith, the faithful have not and we shall not lose it.
Not to say that  their aren't plenty of poor little lambs who have gone astray out there, just that the Shepherd will supply ... you know the rest.
There will always be that remnant, even when the glories of the Israel's forest, 

and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.
In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean upon him that smote them, but will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

I firmly believe that so long as a single child remembers the way home, the family can never be truly lost.

"The Tradition That Unites Us To Christ"

A very nice testimonial, essentially, from the Canons Regular of St John Cantius, to the great Francis Cardinal George, of happy memory.

The Liturgy, along with Sacred Scripture, is the primary carrier of the tradition that unites us to Christ.

(From an interview His Eminence gave last October.) 

I hadn't read the interview at the time - George rightly calls the interviewer, (albeit gently,) for phrasing a question in a way that presumes, and therefore helps spread, an untruth.
And he pulls no punches on the translation the current Missal translation replaced, (after graciously admitting that his opinion is perforce biased):

...the first full translation of the missal of Paul VI was ideologically charged..... the loss of the theology of grace, the domestication of God, the paraphrasing that deliberately omitted nuances of understanding, the deliberate omission of biblical references in the liturgical text itself, etc. left the church for forty years without a way of worship that adequately expressed our faith. This was clear for those of us who used the Roman missal in Spanish during those years; their translation was far more adequate. The bishops had the obligation to see that the translation into English of the third edition of the Roman Missal was faithful and also able to be used communally. I believe it has been well done.

And,

Some of the expressions in the Prefaces are a bit “clunky,” but the collects are truly beautiful if a priest takes the time to interiorize the structure of  dependent clauses and use his voice so that the prayer is comprehensible to the faithful. Normally, people paid little attention to the collect; they couldn’t tell you what the priest said as soon as they sat down. Hopefully, a more deliberate style of declamation with a more adequate text will help draw people into a climate of worship and prepare them to hear the Word of God in Scripture.

Amen and amen.
I've said it more than anyone cares to hear, in so many cases, the phrasing, the orator's rhetorical techniques utilized in the, ordering of the words acts like stage lighting, or a singer's expressive breaths to draw attention to key words, emphasize parallels, highlight the center of the prayer -- time after time I find myself turning over a phrase I'd never noticed before for hours after morning Mass, sometimes days.
If unacustommed to the syntax or vocabulary, a celebrant finds that he needs to focus, to pause, to slow down, TO SPEAK WITH GREATER CARE THAN USUAL - is that not all to the good?

(Full disclosure, I am a member of the flock of a shepherd who says Mass as if a meter is about to run out, and a parking ticket will mean financial ruin for us all...)

One Little Word

Corpus Christi Watershed has some downloads of early offerings in the attempts to supply the vernacular Mass with worthy musical settings, (that is to say, worthy of the activity that is the Source and Summit of our faith, perhaps of our very existence on earth - was the task ever approached with the fear and trembling it deserved? Because, you know, unlike the Pope, I am a big fan of fear, and don't think, as the Holy Father does, that those who experience it evince an "attitude" that is "not Christian." But perhaps like Yogi, the Pope "really didn't say everything he said." And I digress.)

Jeff Ostrowski sidetracks a little:

By the way, I wish ICEL had kept “peace on earth to men of good will.” I hate the wording in the current version. If they were set upon avoiding the word “men,” I wish they would have done something like “peace on earth to those of good will.” But nobody asked me.

I have to disagree, that would open a Costco-sized can of worms.

I can hardly believe it is necessary to say this, but O, the times, O the mores!

To replace "people" with "those" would open the door to revision according to the madness that tries to assert that not all "persons" are "people." 
Once society accepts that, (and it seeming to be getting perilously close,) who is to say that the Lord did not give his life upon the cross for chimpanzees and dolphins? 

Look how eager people were to report that "Pope Francis has declared that dogs go to heaven."
I fear that before society's current set of neuroses and mania run their course, and a corrective sets in, species fluidity will be as accepted by the chattering classes as gender fluidity.

As for me and my house, we will believe in human exceptionalism.

If only the Roman Catholic Church had some sacred language that belonged equally to all, instead of to one particular ethnic or national group....

...we wouldn't have these problems.

If only.....

Sunday's mass at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapel was the last to be offered entirely in Spanish. About 200 people attended.

Ben Abel, a Fort Bragg spokesman, said the Spanish-language mass isn't in demand like it used to be.

"We don't have that same quantity of need," he said. "Now that 7th Group is no longer here, there isn't as great a need. That's not to say there aren't Spanish speakers on post."

When 7th Special Forces Group was on Fort Bragg, there was a greater need for a Spanish mass, he said. The unit, which moved to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in 2011 as part of a base realignment, has strong ties to Central and South Americas to which it is aligned.

Chaplains decided to seize the opportunity to streamline the Spanish mass with an English one to create a stronger religious community, Abel said.

Sarcasm aside, a priest who opposes the change says,  "We have to protect their culture."

Do we? I suppose that might depend on who the "we" is, but I'm pretty sure neither the US Armed Forces nor the Catholic chaplaincy of the US Armed Forces have that obligation.

" 'Being on the Radio' Rather Than 'Performing on TV' "

This is a reminder of which I was very much in need.
From Zenit:
Singing the texts, at least on solemn occasions, reminds us that this is no ordinary text but God's word to us. It also fixes the attention very much on the word itself.
In 2005 a reader offered the following valuable suggestion based on experience, which I think is worthwhile repeating:

"When teaching lectors and seminarians, I have found it useful to tell them to think of themselves as 'being on the radio' rather than 'performing on TV.' This causes them to think how best to use their voice to proclaim the word of the Lord, undistracted by 'looking at the congregation, facial movements, gestures, etc. This approach allows the reader to take account of the listeners, making as clear as possible the sense of the text in front of them -- when God is speaking via their mouth. It also allows them to realize that the 'spoken word' they speak is God's word alive and so the most important thing. It also avoids the temptation to 'dramatize the text.'"

Himself and I have schtick, (shtick? shtik?) imitation an uber-dramatic lay reader at a parish in, (where else?) a theatrical community, Danversesque enough on the actual reading, hysterically so on "The word........ of....... the Lord," dropping her sepulchral voice at least an octave for the final two word.

And in my former parish I thought there were some usually superb readers who occasional crossed the line into dramatics.

And I've recently noticed that it is something against which I have to guard.
I receive a lot, a LOOOOOOOOOOOOT of compliments on my proclamation, not because I am particularly good but because many of the readers at my current parish are particularly bad.
Besides handling proclamation duties for Communion services in nursing homes, I read from time to time in the parish church itself, and specially in season, our congregation's collective age is really up there.
We have people who place there own devices on the ambo to transmit sound directly to them,  (if  only I had known of such devices when Mom was alive and deprived of really enjoying Church/opera broadcasts/tennis on TV, I'm assuming these same devices can somehow work with television,) and we have far more parishioners who could really use such technology

Besides volume -- I hold still, and insisted when choosing children and teens to chant or lead songs, (I couldn't do anything about those already in the cantor corps when I arrived, or the readers,) that if ones projection is insufficient when un-mic'ed one should not yet be allowed to read or sing with a mic' -- the most important aspects on which to focus are enunciation of consonants, particularly final, (thank you!) and punctuation or prehaps more accurately implied punctuation, (thank you!,) as it indicates phrasing.

Oh, and yeah, look up all those Old Testament names before hand, if necessary. Remarkable numbers of lay readers don't seem to have checked out "their" readings before arriving at church.

And if you're a woman, pitch your voice as low as you comfortably and naturally can. (As we age,hearing loss at hgihger frequencies tends to occur more rapidly than at lower, making men generally easier to hear for an aging population.)

But all of that is martha-ing.
First and last, as a reader or lector, remember that you are praying, not acting.

Get your mary on.

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!

Sad Man

When I moved from the cold wastelands of the north, I encountered for the first time those, sad, sad folk who seem not to understand that what they name "the Wo-ah of Naw-thun Agression" is over.

Is this the Church's equivalent delusional type, trapped in the past within their own minds?

I add my voice and prayer to [the] call for the 1998 English Missal translation, which was approved by more than two-thirds of the United States bishops, to replace the present failed text of the New Roman Missal.

Do I think the present translation is perfect?
Far from it. But it contains riches that I appreciate anew almost every day.
The rhythms which some decried as artificial are indeed unlike everyday conversation, and they work rhetorically to highlight words and phrases in ways the patterns of normal speech spoken by the average priest, who is skilled in neither oratory nor diction, could never manage, were he not so constrained.
And any fool can see that the disastrous roll out of the (no longer) new translation was ever bit as cataclysmic as, oh, Y2K.
And the Cosmic Convergence.
And that thing that fell on Chicken Little's head.

Speaking of failures, shouldn't a bishop who has written these words be looking for some way to atone for his?

"a technical theological term that neither priest nor people understand."

I know you were okay with ordaining priests who didn't know any Latin, but are you telling me the guys in your diocese don't understand theological terms in English?

Sad.

"Schooled!!!!!!!!"

Am I the only American Catholic who giggles a bit when the word "schooled" comes up in a Lenten collect?

Not Rosary, But SYLLABLE Counting!

Whaddya think of THAT, Holy Father?
So I'm reading along on a blog, (yes, yet again fretting about the lectionary and its paucity of needed repetition, and what exactly will I be doing tomorrow at RelEd, when, lucky dog that I am, I am going to be able to re-use the Abraham/Isaac sketch so that MAYBE they'll remember it, add a bit with 3 Apostles post-Transfiguration sounding like Steve Martin's dumb "what was that?" guy, and if one of my good ten year old orator's is in attendance, finish up with Paul's "what's anyone else gonna be able to do about it if I put myself on God's side?" exhortation) and I come across, (note use of historical present,)  a thread about the relative amounts of scripture in EF and OF.
The syllable counting was a  joke, sort of, but was actually done.
The blog in question is not one I read anymore, so I don't recognize "voices" the way I do on Chant Cafe, or such, but I found myself reading one combox denizen and thinking, wow, well put, and, more important, good insights, and wouldn'tcha know?

Mons. Wadsworth.

Because Fr Ruff says, " the unreformed rite has as much or more Scripture if you tally the big chunks repeated over and over every Sunday (such as the Last Gospel), but the reformed rite has much more Scripture being introduced week by week," which is just the problem, in my book.

I feel as if, instead of seeing how much of it we could get through if we spread it out over 156 weeks instead of 52, the guys in charge should have asked William Goldman to do what he did with Morgenstern's masterpiece, fabricate an Only The Good Parts version of the Bible, (yes, I know it's a literary conceit, not something he really did.)
Three four readings, YES! (the psalm, count the psalm or canticle!)
Hearing the Prodigal Son once every three years, NO! (yes, I know that in the year that it is read it may be read twice, but if your parish always does Year A because of RCIA it won't have been, so even if your family never misses a Sunday, and start schlepping you to Mass 2 weeks after your birth, by the time your first confession rolls around it is possible you have heard it proclaimed only twice, and that on one of those occasions you were 2 years old.)

About the continuous weekday Ordinary Time readings I am of two minds, so I will weigh in on neither side of that, but I have no ambivalence about the need for more repetition on Sundays and Major Feasts.

Maybe range rather than quantity is a better modality for comparison or comment. Clearly the OF adopts a wider range of Scriptural texts in an obvious fulfilment of what was mandated in Sacrosanctum concilium, yet its presentation of Scripture is often based on quite different principles from those which underpin the EF.
An example of this would be the almost universal preference for the lectio continua of the ferial lectionary when a memoria is kept, in preference to the selection of readings from the commons. In the EF, this is not a possibility and the range of Scriptural texts associated with the celebration of saints is narrower and yet one might argue that the identification of certain scriptural texts with the celebration of certain mysteries is very ancient and might even be considered part of a primitive liturgical kerygma.
If this is the case, then the narrower range does not necessarily mean a lessening of the importance of the use of Scripture in the liturgy but rather the presentation of a different paradigm. The combination of Sacrosanctum concilium and Verbum Dei brings a revolution in our understanding of the way in which Scripture is integral to our celebration and understanding of the liturgical mystery. My personal sense of this, as someone who regularly celebrates in both forms, is that we have a long way to go in beginning to experience many of the aspects of this important element of the liturgy as described in these two fundamental decrees of the Council.

"Oh, this over-the-top liturgical practice!"

It's horrible, HORRIBLE, I tell you... I can hardly believe it!

There's this institute where they're involved with liturgy, and they have priests and things!

And do you know what they DO??!?!??!??????

They chant the Our Father in Latin, can you BELIEVE it?

Run, run for your lives! Save your children, save yourselves!!!!!!

It's the Reform of the Reform!!!!!!!!!!

(oh, drat, my computer ran out of exclamation points. But I would say the string of comments, from a common squeal, is a great advertisement for the Liturgical Institute.)

"Feast of the Enunciation"

Let's add this to the calendar, shall we? a day to laud the patron saint of lay readers, whoever that might be, when we can all celebrate those who actually differentiate between "immorality" and "immortality."
We had several lay readers the past few weeks who obviously don't much look at the lectionary reading ahead of time?
So everything is a bit of a surprise?
Blow the trumpet?
A humble, content [sic] heart?
And everything sounds like a question?
Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ? (that one, I think. actually may have been a question in the mind of one reader, but lent often comes as a surprise...)

Must, Or Even Ought the Homily Reference the Lectionary Readings Of the Day?

According to this document of the USCCB the practice is "warranted":

 In addition, this very integration of the homily into the texture of the liturgy warrants the use of the Lectionary readings as the basis for the homily.

And to support this contention, the Code of Canon Law is cited, this passage specifically....:

Can. 767 §1. Among the forms of preaching, the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself and is reserved to a priest or deacon, is preeminent; in the homily the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian life are to be explained from the sacred text during the course of the liturgical year. 

...which says nothing of the sort.

You Know How I Loves Me A Good Turn of Phrase

In the combox at Fr Z's, a genius names the Masked Chicken took down a Chicken Little who bemoaned, no joke, "the widespread damage caused by the current English text."
LOL!
But then, a larger leghorn:

Widespread damage??...
Anyone who can read Latin will know just how badly the original ICEL translation of the Latin editio really was. It was like listening to a reading The Pride and the Prejudice by Huckleberry Finn.

Bravo, Masked Chicken!

I Do Admire People Who Can Turn a Phrase

Three months hours of my life lost to a movie yestereve, criticism of which I understand is dangerous to ones social standing in some circles.... nonetheless, Boyhood is not what it's cracked up to be.
There.
I said it.
This fellow my be snarky, but he's on the money discussing the dialogue in the script:

Look Dudes: when you have, like, sharp, like, dialogue, and a point to your scenes, really, you know, when the story has an arc (or something), and characters, like, you find a phenomenon akin to interesting filmmaking. In other words, movie dialogue is to human speech what race car driving is to drunk driving. It takes a degree of mastery to make a turn at 120mph or bounce your lingo for your audience to enjoy. You can't drift all over the highway shooting inside a black GTO bantering about your week and think you've made good work. 

(By the way, I think the movies is not terrible, it has some merit, which the quoted reviewer does not seem to believe, but on balance....)

And Father Hunwicke describes the principles behind Comme le Prevoit exquisitely, thusly:

"dynamic equivalence". According to this idea, you don't have to translate carefully every word of the Latin into your vernacular tongue; it is sufficient - indeed, better - to mix it all up, leave it on the oven to simmer for a minute or two, and then ladle out the Essence, the Ideas.

Poetry.

Fertility is Better Than Sterility...

... and to be fecund and productive is better than to be barren.

There, I said it.

And I say it as someone who is BARREN.

Who was unquestionably a SPINSTER, an OLD MAID by almost anybody's measure.

Someone named David Gibson, (a man? one presumes,) took it upon himself to claim, well, to be fair, it may have been a HuffPo or NCR headline writer that made the claim, that the Holy Father has said a few too many things that "make women wince."

I didn't wince reading any of them, or, not any more than I often do at Pope Francis' folksie and careless way of putting things, (not that I can claim to speak for womanhood, either, although I do at least have a complete set of chromosomes, instead of missing a section like those poor XY creatures we live with...)

I remember, while the class was considering, a teacher saying how perfectly, despite being a man, Chamisso, in Frauenliebe und -leben had captured the feminine soul, "just as Flaubert was able to do."
"How do you know," I asked.
Pardon?
"How do you know? You're a man." (I didn't add, "who has never had a relationship with a woman," but I could have.)
He acknowledged that that was true, laughed and we moved on to Schumann's phrasing.
And were this not thirty years ago, I would acknowledge to him that he was correct.
I digress.

Gibson does quote some women for support of this opinion, but the Notre Dame professor has such an ax to grind about her Church, in general, that she's a kind of Professional Umbrage Taker ("PUT"); and the Washington Post writer, as someone capable of the weasel words "right or wrong, there’s a widespread impression.....",  -- a mighty oily way of broadcasting a falsehood, of making a baseless claim that even the claimant knows is likely untrue, while mainting a plausible deniability -- is not someone whose middling dudgeon on behalf of nuns and sisters carries much weight.

But let's examine some of these offenses.
“I am wary of ‘masculinity in a skirt.’“
Masculinity in a skirt?

 

Clearly, Francis experiences the yeesh factor that many of us do in the presance of cross-dressers. Not PC by the standards of PUTs, (see above,) but surely no surprise to anyone. Whaddya expect, he's an old hispanic guy?
“Pastors often wind up under the authority of their housekeeper!”
Well, yeah. Does anyone dispute this? And the parish secretary, and the DRE, and his Mother....

Okay, okay, like the Pope, I kid.

The real problem, in some peoples' eyes, seems to be the man's use of the metaphors of fertility, and of motherhood.

Seriously? "Fertile" has long been used to mean creative, and if scripture uses motherhood to describe the care and nurturing not just of the Lord's people's leaders, but of Himself, who are we to deny a call to spiritual motherhood, to reject it as insulting, or insensitive?

Hear me, O house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
My burden from the womb,
whom I have carried since birth -

Even to your old age I am He,
even when your hair is gray I will carry you;
I have done this, and I will lift you up,
I will carry you to safety.

I am God, there is no other;
I am God, there is none like Me.

No, there is none like You. But we can must try to be, whether our motherhood is literal or metaphorical.

(Guess what, "blindness" is a good metaphor, too. And when is PETA gonna join forces with the disabled to kvetch about the term "lame duck"? Don't get me started.)

Enough Preaching to the Choir

Sometimes, hanging out in areas of the internet that specialize in a special facet of a speciality -- you know what I mean, you end up saying and reading things that everyone who hangs out there already knows.
Such is often the case with Catholic sacred music and liturgy -- liturgical musicians talk about things we wish desperately Catholic NON-liturgical musicians knew, (oddly non-CATHOLIC musicians often are already aware of these things.)

I remember practically dancing a jig a number of years ago when Amy Welborn had a post about "the propers" a term and a concept previously nearly unknown to her.

Well Jimmy Akins, (whose expertise is essentially apologetics, I believe,) has a 'Secret Info' email list, it's interesting, easily digestible things about the Faith, often, it seems so far, culled from the works of future Doctor of the Church Pope Benedict XVI, so, as you'd imagine, it really appeals to me.

The one sitting in my inbox today is, 7 Liturgical Terms You Need to Know.

It will be great, from my point of view, if his readership all know what Antiphon, Ordinary, Proper and Rubrics mean (I admit, I'm near to giving up on Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, and I don't know how the average PIP's spiritual life will be affected by knowing that what used to be called a prayer is a Collect, or what Epiclesis means. )

Anyway, y'all go read this, and sign up for his stuff.
I've even gotten past the fact that he's a man with red hair.