"Now the power, Now the vessel brimmed for pouring..."

In an eMail from Magnificat - I'm not sure that the artwork isn't the greatest benefit of the magazine.
No, that would be the reflections.
Though it might be the obscure saints on various themes. Oh, except it's probably....
(Sometime I feel as if I am advertising for Magnificat, but really, you should subscribe.)
Anyway, this reminded me of the heartbreaking statue of the Man of Sorrows at St John Cantius, the same kind of stillness and power.

"Now the power, Now the vessel brimmed for pouring; Now the body, Now the blood..."

(Hymn text, by the way, which has nothing, so far as I know, to do with Magnificat, by Jaroslav Vajda.)

St Kateri

First time out my door since Sunday, fitting that it was for the feast day of the "Lily of the Mohawks."

Here's the thing - I thought it wryly funny, and appropriate, the day in honor of a saint with scarred, and probably, let's be honest, ugly skin.
I happily implore her intercession and accept her patronage. My skin is ugly, and so the face under it is often as well, and I accept that. It's also painful, I'm not as accepting of that.

But what had somehow escaped me was that it was not just her appearance damaged by the smallpox, but her eyesight.

All my worst flare-ups until now had hurt, yeah, and had looked appalling, but this last episode had left my vision, albeit only temporarily, affected.
I didn't, couldn't help at all with the driving, (on the way south after the glorious, glorious CMAA Colloquium.)
I wore my sunglasses all through Mass on Sunday, and have pretty much stayed in dim rooms since.

I've always been very grateful for my eyesight, which was not just good but, once upon a time, exceptional.
I have noticed I don't have as much leeway with distance vis a vis music rack,as opposed to hand-held, as opposed to hand-held in a dense choral crowd, (Brower's choir at the Cathedral, f'rinstance.)
But that's a normal part of aging.
Presbyopia, no?
But now I wondering if something more specific and serious is in play.
S. Kateri, ora pro me

"Do not be afraid, I will not harm you. I come from heaven."

Today is the memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, the 99th anniversary of the first apparition.
(Those are comforting words, but we should all remember that Friar Alberto in the Decameron says something similar.)
At any rate, though I've never been one for apparitions and personal revelations, I believe I should hurry along and make more of an effort to be in time for the pre-Mass Rosary.

“Throughout history there have been supernatural apparitions and signs which go to the heart of human events and which, to the surprise of believers and non-believers alike, play their part in the unfolding of history. These manifestations can never contradict the content of faith and must, therefore, have their focus in the core of Christ's proclamation: the Father's love which leads men and women to conversion and bestows the grace required to abandon oneself to him with filial devotion. This too is the message of Fatima which, with its urgent call to conversion and penance, draws us to the heart of the Gospel” (The Message of Fatima, CDF, June 26, 2000)

(In the old calendar 'twas the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine, apologist, Cardinal, tireless enemy of schism and heresy, and perhaps most important for today, culture warrior - St Robert Bellarmine, pray for us!)

Oh, that silly St. John Fisher......

Bishop, you simply don't understand "the need to avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity of various situations."

"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.

In Honor of International Women's Day, Let Us Now Praise Saints "d'un certain age"

Anna the prophetess, for instance. She was, in a way, the first (human, anyway,) Christian evangelist; (the heavenly host could, I suppose, to be said to have evangelized the shepherds.)

She too, at that very hour, came near to give God thanks, and spoke of the child to all that patiently waited for the deliverance of Israel.

St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin.
The patient St. Monica, without whose uncesaing prayers, the Church might never have had St Augustine, or at least, had to wait a great deal longer for that wild young man to see the light. (Oh, and yes, I see the peculiarity in my thinking of a woman who lived only to the age of fifty something as being "elderly," but there you are - different times. I don't imagine that Sara in her 80s, for instance, looked like Carmen Dell’Orefice in her 80s.)

 

Blessed, (and oh, so soon saint!) Teresa of Calcutta.
The polymath and all-around Bad-Assertive woman, Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church.
Saint Josephine Bakhita.
Yes indeed, Happy International Women's Day!

Doctrinal Congregation?

Who needs'em?

Yes, I am being facetious.

Alas, I am not being irrelevant.
Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation devoted to the family will be published by the end of March....

[It] will be “a hymn to love, a love that wants to take care of the welfare of the young, to be close to wounded families to give them strength, a love that wants to be close to children as well as to all mankind in need. "...
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has studied the draft and sent a long note with several doctrinal remarks, rumored to be 40 pages in length. 
A senior Vatican source told the Register last week that the CDF has offered “all kinds of observations” on other documents as well during this pontificate, “but none of them are ever taken." The dicastery, like much of the Roman Curia, is largely left out of such processes.

Because what difference does doctrine make? as long as you're a nice person God doesn't care what you do. It's not as if we can't all come up with the Truth on our own, who needs to be taught? And it's not as if teachings are supposed to affect how we live our lives, right?

St Joseph, Guardian of the Family, Patron of the Universal Church, Terror of Demons.... pray for us.

On the other hand. what do I know about what's really taking place? (Although I have great trust in Edward Pentin.)
Be not askeered!

"Women and the Eucharist"

I think I should just post the entire address of Mother Teresa's referenced below. (Which, ya know, ends on an obvious applause line, right?)
.......................................
Women and the Eucharist

Dear co-workers of Christ:
I believe that our mother the Church has elevated women to a great honour in the presence of God by proclaiming Mary the Mother of the Church. God so loved the world that He gave His Son. This was the first Eucharist: the gift of his Son, when He gave Him to Our Lady, establishing in her the first altar.
Mary was, from that instant on, the only one who was able to affirm with complete sincerity, This is my body. She offered her body, her strength, her whole being, to form the body of Christ. It was on her that the power of the Holy Spirit rested, and in her that the Word became flesh. Mary gave herself to him completely because she had previously consecrated herself to him – in order to preserve her virginity virgin, her purity pure, and her chastity chaste, and in order to offer them to the only living God.
When the angel announced to Mary the coming of Christ, she only posed a question: she could not understand how she could take back the gift of herself that she had made to God. The angel explained it, and she understood immediately. Her lips uttered a beautiful response that asserted all that she was as a woman: “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say.”
“They Have No More Wine.. “
Our Lady – the most beautiful among all women, the greatest, the most humble, the purest, the holiest – in the moment when she felt flooded by grace, full of Jesus, ran in haste. I think this is why God chose a woman to show his love and compassion toward the world. It was she, the woman, who gave evidence of her kindness by immediately sharing what she had just received. To say it in another way, she hastened to share the Eucharist.
We known well what happened to John the Baptist in the womb. In the presence of Christ he leaped for joy. This is our gift as women. We have been created to be the centre and the heart of the family. As St Thérèse of the Child Jesus once said, “I want to place myself in the heart of the Church in order to offer love.” You and I have been created for that same end: for loving and for that love, as Mary did everywhere and at all times.
We too have to go look for our children, just as Mary did when Jesus was lost. We must live through the worry of not knowing where our children are. The home is not a home without the child. We also discover the genuine Mary, full of tenderness, in the wedding feast at Cana. She was moved by seeing the newlyweds exposed to the humiliation of not having wine. That is why she said to Jesus, “They have no more wine.” I think this is the wonderful tenderness of a woman’s heart: to be aware of the suffering of others and to try to spare them that suffering, as Mary did. Do you and I have that same tenderness in our hearts? Do we have Mary’s eyes for discovering the needs of others? Perhaps in our own homes: Are we able to perceive the needs of our parents, of our husband, of our children? Do our children come home with us, as Jesus went home with Mary his mother? Do we offer our children a home?
We know what happened to Mary, the mother full of tenderness and love who was never ashamed of proclaiming Jesus her son. Eventually everyone abandoned him. Mary stayed beside him. Mary was not ashamed by the fact that Jesus was scourged, that his face was spat upon, that he was treated as a leper, as one unwanted, despised, hated by all. Because he was Jesus, her son. And there surfaced the deep tenderness of her heart as a mother.
Do we know how to stay beside our own in their suffering, in their humiliation? When our husband loses his job, what do we represent to him? Do we feel tenderness toward him? Do we understand his anguish? When our children are pulled away from us and receive bad advice, do we feel that deep tenderness that makes us go after them in order to draw them toward us, to welcome them kindly in our home, and to love them with all our heart? Am I like Mary for my sisters in the community? Do I realize their suffering, their sorrows? If I am a priest, do I have a heart like Mary’s? Do I experience the tenderness of forgiveness? Can I offer God’s forgiveness to the humbled sinner who stands before me?
“The Greatest Gift of God to us”
Mary did not feel ashamed. She proclaimed Jesus her son. At Calvary we see her standing upright – the mother of God, standing next to the Cross. What a deep faith she must have had because of her love for her son! To see him dishonoured, unloved, an object of hatred. Yet, she stayed upright. As the mother possesses her son, she possessed him, knowing that he who belonged to her was at the same time her absolute master. She was not afraid to accept him as her belonging. Do we know how to consider our own as our belonging when they suffer, when they are discarded? Do we acknowledge our own as our family when they suffer? Do we realize the hunger they have for Jesus in the hunger they feel for a love that understands them?
This is the source of Mary’s greatness: her understanding love. You and I who are women – do we possess that great and magnificent thing, that love full of understanding? This is the love I observe with amazement in our people, in the poor women who day after day discover suffering and accept it because of their love for their children. I have seen many fathers and mothers deprive themselves of many things, very many, and even beg, in order for their children to have what is needed. I have seen fathers affectionately carry their abnormal children in their arms because those children are their own. I have seen mothers full of a very tender love toward their children.
I remember a mother of 12 children, the last of them terribly mutilated. It is impossible for me to describe that creature. I volunteered to welcome the child into our house, where there are many others in similar conditions. The woman began to crey. “For God’s sake, Mother,” she said, “don’t tell me that. This creature is the greatest gift of God to me and my family. All our love is focused on her. Our lives would be empty if you took her from us.” Hers really was a love full of understanding and tenderness. Do we have a love like that today? Do we realize that our child, our husband, our wife, our father, our mother, our sister or brother, has a need for that understanding, for the warmth of our hand?
The Love of Small Things
My sisters also work in Australia. On the reservation, among the Aborigines, there was an elderly man. I can assure you that you have never seen a situation as difficult as that poor old man’s. He was completely ignored by everyone. His home was disordered and dirty. I told him, “Please, let me clean your house, wash your clothes, and make your bed.” He answered, “I’m okay like this. Let it be.” I said again, “You will be still better if you allow me to do it.” He finally agreed. So I was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. I discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. Only God knows how many years had passed since he last lit it. I said to him, “Don’t you light that lamp? Don’t you ever use it?” He answered, “No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I do it for?” I asked, “Would you light it every night if the sisters came?” He replied, “Of course.” From that day on the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. We cleaned the lamp, and the sisters would light it every evening. 2 years passed I had completely forgotten that man. He sent this message: “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still.” I thought it was a very small thing. We often neglect small things..
Hungry for God 
Some time ago our sisters in Rome came across someone in very sorrowful circumstances. He was one of those persons who are locked up in themselves, with no contact with the surrounding society. I think the sisters had never seen anything like that. They washed his clothes, cleaned his room, prepared some hot water for him. They left everything ordered and clean. They even prepared some food for him. He was still mute; he was not able to utter a single word. The sisters decided to go to his house twice a day. A few days later he broke his silence to say, “Sisters, you have brought God to my life. Bring me also a priest.” That man made his confession, after 60 years. The next day he died. This is beautiful. The tenderness of those young sisters carried God to that man, who for many years had forgotten what God’s love is, what loving each other means, what it means to feel loved. He had forgotten it because his heart had closed itself to everything. The humble, simple, tender work of the young sisters was the tool God used to enter the life of that poor man. But what impressed me most was the greatness of the priestly vocation; that poor man needed a priest in order to come into contact with God.
I believe that what we can learn from Our Lady is her tenderness. All of us, you and I, have to use what God has given us, that for which he has created us. God has created us for great things: to love and offer love, to experience tenderness toward others, as he did, and to know how to offer Jesus to others. People are not hungry for us; they are hungry for God. They are hungry for Jesus, for the Eucharist.
In 1976, at the invitation of the President of Mexico, we opened a house in that nation. Our sisters, as is the custom in our congregation, were full of activity – seeing everyone, walking tirelessly until their legs could endure no more, trying to discover where the greatest need was in order to begin there. They found deep poverty everywhere in Mexico. All the zones they visited appeared immensely poor. But no one asked them for clothing or medicine or food – nothing. Only, “Teach us the word of God.” I was very surprised. Those people are hungry for God: “Teach us the word of God.” They didn’t know the sisters; they had never seen them. But they saw that the sisters carried rosaries in their hands, and they thought about that.
When we walk the streets, in whatever part of the world, the sisters carry in their hands the crown of the rosary. The Virgin is our strength and our protection. I can assure you that throughout all these years the younger sisters have been penetrating the most difficult places without being touched by anyone.
Even in New York, although it is said that we have been in the most difficult district of the city these past 5 years, I can assure you with complete honesty that the sisters have never had to hear a discourteous word. As they pass, there are no sarcastic comments. No one has ever put their hands on them or caused them the least harm. The greatest respect and dignity have always accompanied them, even though they enter ruined houses, inadequate for habitation. They enter places where others cannot easily enter.
The Virgin always protects us. She is the cause of our joy, and we try to be a cause for her joy. Thus gathered, following her example, invoking her protection, staying united with her, we can move through the most difficult places with no fear at all because Jesus is with us and he will never abandon us: Jesus is our love, our strength, our source of kindness.
God has created women for this. Perhaps he didn’t create them to do great things, but certainly at least do small things with a great love. And I believe that this love is to begin in the home, coming from our hearts; in our families with our neighbours, next door, with our neighbours on the next street. And then it must be extended to all. Only thus will we be able to extend the meaning of the Eucharist. The meaning of the Eucharist is love that understands. Christ understood. He understood that we are terribly hungry for God. He understood that we have been created for loving. That is why he became the bread of life. And he said, “If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not be able to live. You will not be able to love. You will not be able to serve” (see Jn 6: 53) We have to eat him. The kindness of Christ’s love is his love that understands.
Christ wants to offer us the means of putting our love for him into action. He becomes hungry, not only for bread but for love. He becomes naked, not only for bread but for love. He becomes naked, not only for a piece of clothing but for love that understands, for human dignity. He becomes dispossessed, not only for a place of shelter but for the sincere and deep love for one another. This is what the Eucharist is all about. This is Jesus, the living bread that has come to be broken with you and with me.
I think that the greatest love and honour we can demonstrate to Our Lady may be to stand up and recite the Angelus.

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.

De Sanctis Nil Nisi Bonum?

I believe Oscar Romero is a saint and was martyred for his faith, in upholding Church teaching about the rights and dignity of each human person, in a society where these were denied the poor, quite aside from political considerations.
Just to get that out of the way....
But is everyone who speaks against a saint's cause presumed to be acting in bad faith?
Don't you imagine there were people who hadn't had any contact with St Augustine after his youth, and when they heard his hagiographers thought, "Gus? [or maybe, Augie,] that dog??!?!? that drunken whoremonger?????

Go back further, don't you think there were probably Christians who died thinking of St Paul as "that son of a *****"? (And I don't just mean St Stephen.....)

We know that Pope Francis thinks gossip is the worst of all possible sins, and I suppose he knows some of the actual parties involved, but isn't it possible that Romero's "own brothers in the priesthood and the episcopate," weren't attacking him even after his death by "the hardest stone that exists in the world: the tongue" but giving their honest opinions?

Surely in the causes of the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War there were also voices on both sides of the question, and sincere voices at that -- because someone thinks fascism a greater danger than communism, or vice versa, and sees matters from a different POV than that of those whose views prevail is no reason to calumniate them.

The Holy Father seems very comfortable in assigning malevolent motives to members of the episcopate who disagree with him, e.g. "closed hearts which frequently hide behind the Church’s teachings", people who "sit in the chair of Moses and judge" displaying "superiority and superficiality," those who express themselves "not in entirely well-meaning ways."

The automatic assumption that those who oppose you are acting in bad faith is destroying the civic fabric of the US, I think we need to guard against it in the Church.

St Joseph, the Indispensable Man

I have been a bit hot and bothered of late about all thing faithyy and politicky and culturey and society... society-y, I guess.
But as someone, somewhere recently quoted from someone else, (Bernanos I think?) indignation never saved a soul.
Nor did it.
And I've also been thinking quite a bit about anger lately, and pace, my most recent confessor, your diagnosis was wrong, but your prescription was perfect.
You see, what I thought was (occasionally righteous,) anger did not really rise to to the grand level of anger -- it was mere indignation.
And like most sins or even unpleasant traits, it could be traced back directly to the grand-daddy of all sins, Pride. Why should this happen to ME? How could she say that to ME? Why must I put up with...?

DOESN'T THE UNIVERSE KNOW WHO I AM?

And the fact is, I am among the very most fortunate of human beings.

And I'm not just referring to the gratitude due for having enough to eat and healthcare, and being able to read, and living in a nation where I can vote, and all that that puts most first-worlders in, what? the top 1% of humanity for sheer good luck?
I'm talking about my family. My parents. My home. My friends, my siblings, yes -- but mostly, my parents.
I grew up with such a vision, such an example of how a life of authentic love looks - I don't think .00001% of humanity in all of history has enjoyed the like!
Anyway, after thinking about that, I have determined to try to live my life under the patronage of St Joseph. I have decided to lay my cares, regarding society. And culture. And politics. And, especially, the Faith --
I have decided to lay these cares at his feet and ask him to formulate how my prayers should be presented before the throne of the Lamb, and then, just, you know -- let me know what my prayers are.

I think a great many of the wounds of this weary world could be bound up and healed by a study of, and devotion to, St Joseph, and I don't mean just churchy faithy matters.
Saint Joseph is the Indispensable Man.

Now, I know Saxon White Kessinger's poem was about pride, and sought to convince the puffed-up that there's no such person as the "indispensable man," and I know, or at least think I recall, that there's a bio of Geo. Washington that opines as how, for this nation and its history, at least, our first president was indispensable.
But there IS such a person, and he was necessary to a far greater and more numerous people than the citizens of just our puny nation.

St Joseph is that Indispensable Man.
Think about it. God could have come to earth in any human form, but He chose to be helpless and humble, to enter history, time as we can understand it, as an infant, born in obscurity.
So He chose to have a human Mother.
But he was not begotten by a human, so a father was not needed for procreation.
Now, you might say that in those days, (as if other times were so different from ours...) a human father was needed for physical protection, fiscal support, etc.
But Mary had a father, she had an uncle who was a priest, a man of some stature -- an angel could have whispered to any male relative, it's okay, she's a good girl, help her take care of the kid that's on the way...

That's not how God arranged it.
God thought it was important for His human self to have a visible, that is, a human father.

Now -for whose benefit?
So often, God's signs are for someone other than to whom or on whom an event has occurred.
Miracles are for the faith of the onlookers, the loaves and fishes is not so much to fill the bellies of the crowd as to instruct the disciples in how they are to continue His work.

That little family in Bethlehem, and then Nazareth, Jesus Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family exists as a family to show the importance of the family; the Domestic Church is not just our first and most important school of the Faith, it is the very foundation of society, it is the building block of all culture.

We need to relearn this.
A society where human lives are begun in laboratories, where children are parented by committees, where the state decrees what one must and must not teach ones children, where men "become" women by wishing and declaring it so - a society like this needs to relearn the simple Truths that Joseph's mere existence teaches us.
We need St Joseph.
We need the model of fatherhood, yes, but we also need the model of manhood he gives us, he is the ideal for all men.
It is impossible not to think that our nation would not be a better place if thousands upon thousands of families were not left fatherless by mass incarcerations of young men from certain segments of society. It is difficult not to suppose that half a world away another nation would not be the demographic time bomb that it is, if its fathers had been able to rise up and say no to the murder of their unborn children and had protected the daughters born to them instead of throwing them away in hopes of a son next time. It is hard not to imagine that the most celebrated strumpet of our time would be a different person without coming from a broken home and being raised by a stepfather with delusions about sex and his own manhood.
And I am convinced that, had they grown up with more stability and with a proper understanding of how we are meant to love and care for each other, most of the generators of popular culture would not be hawking the filth and nihilism that they do.
Why St Joseph?
All men should look to him as a model of manhood, not just fathers, for all men are called upon to protect.

And perhaps, most especially, he is the model for the priesthood, for the celibate, for the man who offers his very life to the Church.
As Mary is the type of the Church, the Spotless Bride? St Joseph is the type of the priest, the man who should love Her and Her children as much as if they were begotten of his own flesh.

Saint Ioseph, Most Indispensable, pray for us!

Ss Zelie and Louis, Subito!

I have had a devotion to the couple since I read a biography of the Little Flower years ago.
What a family the Martins, what a fantastic example of God drawing straight with crooked lines - like the Cure d'Ars, Louis was deemed "not smart enough" to be a priest, (his Latin was bad,) and Zelie's mother selfishly wanted her at home and Zelie was thought too "sickly" for religious life, (because, you know, raising children and running a business to support a family, while giving birth nine times was an easier road to hoe...)
So, instead of a priest and a single nun, FIVE nuns, one of whom is a Doctor of the Church and a saint, (among the most well-known and influential in the Church's history,) with perhaps more to follow.

I was thrilled when they were beatified under Pope Benedict, and this Sunday will be a great day!

Reading Fr Hunwicke

I am always sorry when I realize I have forgot to check in on Liturgical Notes, that is, Father Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, in some time, but then delighted because there is so much to read.

And some of it is even within my understanding!!!!!

Anyway, some thoughts of his connecting John the Baptizer, (who came up with that silly sounding translation, which we heard for a while?) and Synods  and bishops and what a jolly thing it is letting bygones be bygones:

Off with his head?

As History and S John Paul II both teach, the Rosary has been/is a flexible devotion. I sometimes recall my great Patron by saying these decades: The Annunciation to Zachary; the Visitation; the Nativity of S John Baptist; the Baptism of Christ; and the Decollation of S John Baptist.

In this delightfully hypersynodical age, what a very topical festival today's commemoration is. How sad it never occurred to S John Baptist to make clear to Herod and Herodias that all would be tickety boo about their interesting and fulfilling 'union' if only they performed an episcopally-authorised 'Penitential Path'.

Anyway, the Good News is that nobody has decapitated Cardinal Marx.

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

Holy Worm Food

Besides Friday in the third week of Eastertide, today is the feast day of the martyr Fidelis of Sigmaringen, a Capuchin father. It is said that when he realized that his death at the hands of "reformers" was inevitable the knowledge cheered him, and he began signing his letters, "Father Fidelis, in days ahead to become food for worms."

Much talk of martyrdom nowadays, is there not?
I am an utter physical coward, if I were ever tested I should prove less than unworthy, I would apostasize at the merest threat of pain, I know I would.
Where do people find such courage?
Obviously, from God, it is grace from Him, a share in His omnipotent Love, that is to say, a share in His very Self.

“Let’s just say I know I’m not gravely evil”

"Let’s just say I know ....." --  we can leave the claim of a catholic attorney at that, I think.

Put aside the contentious subject matter - whether an institution with very clear, very specific, very easy on which to inform oneself fully, very widely disseminated, very long-held without modification standards of belief and practice is within its rights to demand that its paid members not to violate those standards publicly, (ya know, now that I write it out, it seems unlikely that that would be contentious, but that's the world in which we live,) -- how does the speaker know?

How do we know what we know, or think we know regarding good and evil?

Did someone tell us? (Did SomeThree tell us?)
Did someone write down what SomeOne else told us?
Did we "just know" because of vague inchoate feelings that something is "right"?
Did someone make a definitive list of things someone else had written down that SomeOne else told us?
Did we take a poll?
Did we look around to see what the people we hung with thought they knew and decide we would know the same thing?
Did we decide what most people know at this moment in time, even if it is at odds with what until now 99.9999% of all the people who have ever lived knew is what w should know?
Did we taste the fruit and judge the tree good o evil on that basis?
Did the successors of somone to whom Someone else gave the grace to discern what is bound and what is loosed tell us?

I'm just curious.
How do we know?
(By the way, one note, Dennis Herrera put up a strawman to swat at, as far as I can tell, no one, so far as I can find, ever said he was gravely evil. Like most people who want to argue against the truth, Herrera cannot differentiate between the sin and the sinner.)

Herrera's seeming satisfaction with his own powers came back to me when I opened the Magnificat this morning.

Judas is neither a master of evil nor the figure of a demoniacal power of darkness but rather a sycophant who bows down before the anonymous power of changing moods and current fashion.

-- Benedict XVI [emphasis added]

And alas that this needs to be stipulated, but it does, --it's an analogy, folks, I am not calling the attorney Judas, nor putting anyones sins in a league with Judas's.

Why Were Which [W]Ones Waived to When?

I had read that St Benedict's memorial was transferred to July since the anniversary of his death would always fall during Lent, cutting back on the festivities.

So how about the far loftier Saint Joseph and his solemnity?

Is it because he has another day that doesn't fall in Lent?

Or was consumption of zeppole getting out of hand? (There were none available around here.)

Attending an Italian-American wedding soon. (What is with the weddings in Lent?) Will there be a St Joseph's Table?

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.

Happy Feast Day, to at least someone, there certainly are a lot of Irish saints.

When I read anything about the Irish Prime Minister, I always think, for a moment, that his name is Edna.