The Three Graces

Not, not those!

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

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

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

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

When Promiscuity is Your Sacrament, and You're Terrified of Normalcy

I guess it's to be expected that those omalophobic souls who make a cult of despising virtue, or chastity, or even such a bourgeois habit as commitment, would be screaming on Those Interwebs about that strange, evil guy who, you know, does strange, evil things and set himself strange, evil rules of conduct, because he has these strange, evil notions about a strange, evil institution called marriage, and has this strange, evil superstition that there's such a thing as temptation, and he loves his strange, evil wife enough that he wants to avoid both it and the chance of giving people who delight in that sort of thing excuses to gossip, (not that the previously mentioned omalophobia sufferers have any particular affinity for dishing...)

Do you REALLY see in another person's fidelity or continence an inherent reproach to the way you've chosen to live your life?
Are ya maybe... projecting?

I wonder if there's the odd chance that any of such screamers read today's lectionary?

The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright:"Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;he sets himself against our doings,Reproaches us for transgressions of the lawand charges us with violations of our training.He professes to have knowledge of Godand styles himself a child of the LORD.To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us,Because his life is not like that of others,and different are his ways.He judges us debased;he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.

Virtues Let Loose Do More Damage Than Vice

It is hard talking about vices and virtues, and Good and evil with children in a way that makes the Catholic Faith accessible.
(It's difficult with adults who disagree with us, too. of course, because while they object to our "irrational" absolutes, they refuse to see that they too come from a place of unquestioned and often ill-thought out principles, and I've said repeatedly that one of the silver linings in the glowering thunderclouds of our current political climate is the clear evidence that when push comes to shove very few parties or persons hold to their stated principles. Oh, they have principles -Freedom! Dignity of human life! Tolerance! Godliness! self-determination! Safety! - but the ones they use as talking points are not the ones they actually hold, when it comes to applying them to other matters than their pet causes. But that's another topic...)
With children the notion of positive and negative are often completely linear, and they struggle to comprehend how evil exists if a good God created everything, and they reject assurances that evil is not equivalent in power, that God is "All", that the demonic is not something they need to worry about if they hold fast to Him.
(And thanks in part to their age, and in part to the super-abundance of horror films, games, books and graphic novels, and mostly thanks to their society and families having left a vacuum where thought of God should be, they are fascinated by the devil. But that too is another topic.)
They need a different geometry through which to ponder God and Virtue and Goodness, Truth and Beauty, they need to see existence more multi-dimensionally,  they need to see that their is more than one direction away from the center, from home, from God; so that the nearer we draw to virtues, actual virtues themselves rather than the actions to which those virtues might prompt us, the nearer we find ourselves to God.
Because all else is Nothingness.
And they, WE need to discern the difference between abundance and excess.

“The modern world...is full of wild and wasted virtues...it is not merely the vices that are let loose...the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

-- GK Chesterton

"I Haz Met the Enemy & He Iz Me"

I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast made me JUST as other men are, and even given me the grace to recognize it....
I do know it, really I do. I just have trouble remembering that I know it.
Himself is off to a volunteer activity, one that requires real, make-you-bone-weary labor, and he is heading there early, in order to make it impossible for anyone to guilt him into staying late.
He explained who it was who indulges in the attempted lazy-shaming, and quoted the "tired of being left to finish this up all by myself" emails, and since I know the person, I surmise that being unpleasant pretty much guarantees the same outcome every time.
Himself then drew parallels to a subordinate of his in another charitable work he does - that guy refuses to acknowledge that his area of authority is under the umbrella of a larger program,  (Himself is fine with that, hates being in charge of anyone else in the first place,) except when he needs more help, which he constantly does, and then he expects Himself to scare up some minions.
The guy is always wailing that he is too old to be doing so much on his lonesome, he needs assistance, why is his load so great? more volunteers are found by my husband, the guy talks to them as if they are mentally disabled 5 year olds, bosses them, scolds them, yells at them, insults them in front of others; they quit, and he gets to wail again that he's too old to be doing so much, needs help, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me!
"Which," says Himself, a light bulb going off over his head, "is what he actually wanted all along."
I think in the movie, "Last Days in the Desert," a very clever thing was done in casting the same actor to play both the human incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity and the Evil One.
This is not some heretical dualism, but a visual representation of Christ the "high priest who is [not] unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way."
Surely in these tests, in these temptations to sin, one is often one's "own worst enemy."
Temptations aren't ugly, obviously evil possibilities that present themselves - they seem good and true and beautiful, THAT'S  WHY  THEY  ARE  TEMPTING.
And our sins are habitual because vices are habits we allow ourselves, even when taking actions putatively intended to produce virtuous, or at least beneficial to us, results.

See? I tried Y [solution] but it ends up that I have to do Z [sin]. It's not my fault, it's X's!!!!!! Why does this always happen to me?

It is amazing how often, and how blatantly we sabotage our own stated goals. And we don't need the Serpent to suggest it - no, the devil can take his ease, we're his Useful Idiots and will do all the work for him.
It's never my fault.
I think of the Islamists who resort to murderous violence because someone insulted them by saying they were prone to murderous violence.
It's the cartoonist's fault!
I think of the self-proclaimed "nice guy" who goes on a vicious rampage because women don't recognize his niceness, and so believes they "deserved to be dumped in boiling water for the crime of not giving me the attention and adoration I so rightfully deserve."
They didn't think he was nice, go figure...
So it's women's fault!

And yes, it's my fault. And Lent is about trying to remember that, and repent of that, and remedy that.

I think of that axiom about the government we have, and think perhaps, yeah, we all commit the sins we deserve.
It is God, against Whom we sin Who doesn't deserve them.

Trying Not To Play "Gotcha!" With the Holy Father

Pope Francis, not sure why, brings out the worst in me.

I know, I already KNOW, headlines are like as not completely deceptive, sometimes flat contradicted by the facts as presented in the article that follows. (Not as big a problem in middle-of-the-road Catholic news outlets, but still...)
And I'm not taking all the blame for this, I think it is a matter of sad confluence that we have at this time a president who thinks in tweets and and a pope who preaches in sound bytes.
Governing well may take more than 140 characters, the Holy Spirit probably doesn't sound like a Hallmark card.
So I see, "Trusting in God means letting go of what we want, Pope says,"and my first thought is, Oh, really? than why do you seem to be getting all bent out of shape when thwarted by Synods, Knights, and Catholics who feel a connection with previous centuries of Catholicism?
And now on top of this, I'm wondering, why is it all right to say, “this is my opinion: women are more courageous than men.”
Are positive generalizations not just as sexist/racist/whateverist as negative ones?
You might, in this PC world, barely get away with, “this is my opinion: men are less courageous than women,” just barely, but there'd be some sniffing, although it means more of less the same thing.
But yeah, you'd get away with it.
Because. Privilege.
But could you imagine the outcry if instead, “this is my opinion: women are less courageous than men.”
He might find himself in Origen's shoes. Or other item of clothing.
Oh, and I also know the Law of Projection, by which we are all to be judged in the 21st century, so if this bother me, clearly it is because if it is a fault it is one of which I myself am most grievously guilty.
So, I see an apt Lenten penance suggesting itself, weeks early....

The Woman Taken in An Other-Than-First Marriage

"This woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus asked, "So, is this a formal dubium?"
And they answered,"Well, uhm... I dunno... so what if it is?"
And He spoke, "Then I might not answer you. So.... in what diocese do you live?"
And one said, "Uhm.... Malta?"
But yet another declared, "I'm from Philly."
And they were sore confused.
But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, "Are you at peace with God?"
The woman replied, "Yeah, I guess so..."
“Neither do I condemn you. Go, from now on try to make it work with your current partner, okay?”

"An Ashley By Any Other Name"

I won't bore you with a map of the wormhole down which... no, one falls down rabbit holes, right? wormholes are more a matter of falling through, I think.... there. I've done it again.
Start over.
I won't go into how I ended up here, (thank you, Time Suck Yclept Interwebz), but because several young couples in my family are going through the minefield of whatever shall we name junior? and all the juniors so far have been girls, I found it arresting.
Large family, names have good and fairly immediate associations, but also, of course, unpleasant one; names are taken or over-taken; names create awkward monograms; names have too few or too many syllables for euphony; names sound too indicative of one nationality or another, (sometimes one appropriately enough claimed); names are oocky.
(That last is an actual, quoted appraisal of one suggestion.)
Add in some specific familial... I won't say requirements, but no one has defied certain expectations for generations... customs having to do with eldest offspring being named after a parent and bequests of purely sentimental value being given along with the name.
And smart aleck relatives who favor vaguely insulting or gross nicknames for pets and children.

Absent, yes, I will say sadly absent, from the negotiations is any thought of honoring ancestors, (other than in that one instance mentioned,) or the Faith.
This saddens me.
No thought of patronal saints, or looking to the liturgical calendar.

And with the resurgence of "old-fashioned" names for girls, (flowers, or Old Testament heroines,) there has been no trendy rise of virtue names, has there?
Well, I suppose modesty and constancy are no longer considered virtues, and "Purity" would just be tempting fate...

But there is an irony to the above linked piece from 1985, to a degree that would probably shock the author were she alive - she wondered why "pink" children, girls, were being given names that "mask their gender."
If only she had known! By 2016 we would have been past such creaky notions, that the options for an infant's gender were binary! What, only "boys" and "girls"?
What an antiquated notion!
Not only are there dozens of conceivable genders, being "fluid" in ones gender is a gender in and of itself!

But perhaps most important of all, masculinity or femininity is hardly something parents, or even medical personnel can tell, or would dare to assume just from looking at the little, squalling, red thing.

Brave New Relativistic World that has such creatures beings in it, we can't call them "creatures" because that would imply something or Someone created them, and that surely can't be right...

AMORIS LÆTITIA - of Content, Conjugality and Conjunctions

So, at long last... what?
The post-synodal exhortation from the Synod on the Family has finally been released and it contains, well, not very much.
Rules are rules, and reality is reality, and Truth is Truth - and we should all be kinder to other people.

My only quibble (well, apart from Amoris Laetitia being released in the annoying PDF format, rather than a nice web page)?

A conjunction.

A short, solitary little word, (emphasis supplied.)

I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion. But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, “always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street.”

It's about that "but."*
Surely Pope Francis cannot be saying that he prefers making statements to the Faithful which do leave room for confusion?
(That ain't merciful.)
Surely he meant to say, "I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion AND SO I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness."
Because it is precisely the presence of this "room for confusion," in what they have been told, what they have been exposed to, what they have seen, what the world teaches them, that allows us who, (yes, I agree with Anne Frank,) are basically good to be lured into actions that are basically sinful.

It is not just weakness, it's believing that regardless of circumstances or consequences  I "deserve to be happy,"  and the drumbeat of It's no big deal, it's no big deal, it's no big deal, that leaves me in the situation where I need the Church's help to find goodness.
The Good Shepherd does not come out to join me in the wilderness, but to disentangle me from the brambles and sling me over His shoulder and carry me home, and the good shepherd knows it is his job, (note the lower case "g", "s" and "h",) to do likewise.

*(And no, it's not a big "but", Peewee.)

Epic Prayer FAIL

A few weeks ago, when there was Exposition at the parish, after maybe three or four minutes of their extremely loud chatting I walked over to a group of about 6 older adults, and carefully smiling, I tapped the one nearest me on the shoulder, and mouthed the words "benediction... adoration," and gestured silently toward the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance.
They moved it outside, but they were not amused.
It came to me that my smile may have been too practiced and seemed insincere.

Perhaps I even scared them.

I resolved to make an effort to be less quick to be annoyed at the lack of decorum sometimes shown by others in Church.
Henceforth, instead of seeking to change someone else's behavior, I would try to pray for them.

Yes, that was it, I would pray for them!

Today, after Mass, while I sat and read, (not for the first time, THANK  YOU,  MAGNIFICAT!!!!!!) really, a perfect reflection, considering, Dorothy Day considering the Little Flower's Little Way of Love, the opportunity arose.

Three women stood not a yard from where I knelt, not particularly old, the eldest couldn't have been 45, nattering full voice about tennis, restaurants, clothes, someone they hadn't seen lately....

I put my fingers in my ears and continued reading, the booklet balanced on the back of the pew in front of me.
I suddenly thought how ostentatious that must have seemed, but i needn't have worried, they had not noticed, or if they had, it didn't phaze them, for their conversation continued. It was loud enough to hear despite my fingers. Someone turned off the lights in the nave, leaving only the sanctuary illuminated, that served as an indication to them to speak more loudly.
Since I could no longer read, it seemed like the perfect time to stop feeling mean feels and just pray for them, try simply to love them, instead.

Complete failure.
I found I only eschewed peevishness by substituting condescension [poor dears! they don't know any better...]. I settled into a state of exasperation, and left.

Falls again for the umpteenth time...

Is That Really the Spin Being Put On the Pope's Long Awaited Exhortation?

(For instance:)
The writer(s?) here.
Yes, critique and exegesis has already begun on a document some of the commentariat may not even have seen.
What did the Pope say? Why, of course, being right-minded he said exactly what we wanted him to say, what we would have said were we pope! It may seem otherwise, but this is why what he said means what we say it says rather than what the words might indicate to someone less right-minded!

But the same could go for the commentary on the commentary. (Or do I mean the commentary on the commentary on the commentary? They don't call it "spin" for nothing.)

This agitation might indicate that the post-synodal exhortation will not contain any doctrinal novelties or breaches. Rather, the text will focus on pastoral recommendations for the integration of the divorced-and-remarried.
This agitation was evident in the three articles published during the last week.
One article is by Enzo Bianchi, a layman who in 1965 established the Ecumenical Monastic Community of Bose in Italy. Brother Bianchi wrote a March 14 commentary in L’Osservatore Romano about the gospel account of the woman caught in adultery.
In general the commentary gave an ordinary interpretation of the text. But at its very end, Brother Bianchi stressed that “Jesus did not condemn her, because God does not condemn, but he gave her the possibility to change with his act of mercy.”
Brother Bianchi added that the Gospel “does not say that she changed her life, that she converted or that she became a disciple of Jesus. We just know that God forgave her through Jesus and delivered her to freedom, so that she could return to life.”
Vatican internal observers have interpreted this phrasing as an open door to the reception of Communion by Catholics who have divorced-and-remarried. A source told CNA March 22, “Brother Bianchi emphasizes God’s forgiveness, no matter what she will actually do,” as if “Communion might be given, no matter what you had done.”

Now, I can't read the original Italian, and the tense of the verbs is paramount to understanding this.
But it seems to me that no one could argue with what the good brother is said to have said.
let me repeat:

A source told CNA March 22, “Brother Bianchi emphasizes God’s forgiveness, no matter what she will actually do,” as if “Communion might be given, no matter what you had done.”

Who would disagree with that, of COURSE it might be! That is the entire point of God's mercy!
No matter what you had done He would forgive you!
What He won't condone is what you WILL do.
And that is clear in the story of the woman taken in adultery.

Nowhere does Jesus say, "Has no one condemned you? then neither will I. Now get back to bed work, you knucklehead, those tricks aren't going to turn themselves!"

No, as Brother Bianchi is reported and translated to have said, (emphasis supplied,)

 "God forgave her through Jesus and delivered her to freedom, so that she could return to life."

She could, though she might not have.
We don't know if she returned the "The Life," or to Life, the choice was hers, because Free Will. 
Scripture is silent on this point, just as on so much else. We don't know if the Dutiful Son ever joined in the Welcome Home festivities when the Prodigal returned. We don't know if the Rich Young Man thought about his riches for a while, and how much he would miss them, and then chucked them to follow the Lord. We don't know if the Centurion went on to some other assignment, eventuallyw went back to Rome, years later heard about this cult coming out of Palestine, realized its import and gave up all to be a follower of Christ.

And you know what, it's good that we don't.

Because if we don't know the end of the story, it's easier to understand that it's our story, that the ending is still up to us, and that God leaves it that way.

Because, um.... free will.

Contemplating and Confronting Contradiction, the Triduum, and My Own Unrighteousness

It sometimes seems to Himself that every conversation I have with him contains some form of correction or contradiction.
I know this, because he has said so. (I could counter that I'm not getting credit for all the times he says something patently absurd  or factually wrong, but um... fuel on the fire.)

But it is true that I am a contrarian.

A shameful proportion of all of my impulses to write here, or to tweet, or to retweet, or to post in comboxes are in an effort to "fix" some error, or fantasy, or misapprehension.
(Seriously, what's all the fuss about the Oxford comma, what purpose did it serve there? Use it when it's needed, says I. I digress.)
Showing contempt, carping, complaining, critiquing - this is what I do.

I literally only opened this window because I have some culinary obligation for the coming feast, was about to look for a recipe and was confronted with some absurd assertions regarding substitution of ingredients.

In what universe is cinnamon a suitable replacement for cardamom?????

I see myself, (and it is a fearful prospect,)  turning into my great aunt, who could launch a twenty minute rant on virtually anything.
Really.
I was once trapped in a car with her for a half hour ride home while she riffed on the temerity of whoever ran the concessions at the airport at which she had just been met, to stock his chewing gum rack with the variety of wares with which he had chosen to do so,
Another digression.

I have decided to fast from contradiction, in print, pixel or parley from sundown today, until dawn Sunday.
Please pray for me.
(But until then, Katie bar the door.)

Holy Week Film Festival

Himself is an old movie junkie, so I have no doubt that this evening or tomorrow he will begin his annual Viewing of the Passions.
I used to avoid tv this week, but now that I no longer have musical/liturgical duties I do have plenty of time, and I don't think watching certain films is an at all inappropriate way to turn ones thoughts on what our Lord has done for us, so when the DVDs come out, (yes, we're that old,) I'll probably join him for some.

There was an excellent television movie that's always in the rotation.  The crucifixion is harrowing, there are first-rate, A-lister performances, and I require about 3/4 of a large box of Puffs to be able to see anything by the end.

I can only watch parts of the Mel Gibson film, but the very end, where Christ stands, alive and naked and strides forth from the tomb into the world Made New Again? and the sunlight streams through the hole in his hand?

Epic. (And That is what that word means. It doesn't describe a kegger. Or a golf tournament. Or a new nail color.)
(That reminds me, last week EWTN showed a fascinating and very moving film about St Edith Stein, starring the thrilling actress who portrays the Blessed Mother in the PotC. Look for it.)

But a film popped into my head after Mass this morning, which, if you haven't, you should see, and Holy Week is a pretty fine time to do so.
We have a lovely mosaic of the infant Jesus behind the altar, and I suddenly remembered a scene in Robert Duvall's masterful The Apostle.

He plays a pentecostal preacher on the lam, and the story of sin, redemption, and amendment is eloquently told.
What is so good affecting about it is that while it is a satisfying plot, with a premise, action, narrative and conclusion, yes, an actual ending - it also is is about those processes of sin, redemption, and amendment in a post-lapsarian world, and the atonement is on-going.
It doesn't seem to say, once saved, always saved, at least to me.
Salvation, once found, can be lost.
Our conversion, our turning toward the Lord must be continuing - which is a very un-Protestant notion, no?

There is a magnificent scene where Duvall is preaching, and he picks up a baby from the congregation, and marvels with his congregation how beautiful the infant is, how perfect, look at his perfect little hands! How his parents must love him!
Can you imagine hurting such a lovely thing? Who would allow that?

How can we wrap our minds around a father, THE Father, Who loves us so much He would allow a nail to be driven into the palm of his Beloved, His Only-Begotten, His One-In-Being-With-Him Son?

We hardly can.

Ennio Morricone and My Capacity To Hold Grudges

I have talked about this with my confessor more than once - I keep score.

I keep it with those I love, I keep it with those I hate am trying to learn to love because Christ demands it of me.

It's a really corrosive trait for ones relationships, and it colors my opinions in really unhealthy ways, for I also keep track of the score regarding people I don't even know.

I had a beef with Tom Hanks for taking home the Oscar that rightfully belonged to Anthony Hopkins for Remains of the Day long before he made those obscene and hateful movies where he played a "symbologist." Hopkins' Mr Stevens was an achievement on the order of Maria Falconetti's Joan, but besides being the kind of flashy play-acting the Academy loves, Hanks' work was in the service of a cause Hollywood loves, the lionization of those suffering with the consequences, unjust or otherwise, of sexual license, so, of course he won.
Oddly, the same year saw another of my Top Ten Oscar Things-That-Make-You-Say-WHAAAAAAA?

Michael Nyman's brilliant, BRILLIANT score for The Piano? not even nominated.

THAT SCORE WAS MORE IMPORTANT TO THAT FILM THAN ANY OTHER MOVIE SCORE IN THE HISTORY OF MOTION PICTURES.
It was almost the plot of the film, a parallel screenplay in another medium.
It was a character in the film.
(No grudge on my part against John Williams who won the award for score, since Nyman received no nomination.)

Ennio Morricone's Mission score lost to Herbie Hancock's for Round Midnight, and that inequity has ticked me off for thirty years.
Anyway, because I don't watch the Oscars, other than the opening if I think the host has promise, (Chris Rock's monologue was spot on,) I did not learn until just now that the great Morricone has finally received a competitive Oscar, (he did have an honorary.)

It's for a film I shall probably not see, (Tarentino movies can be too skeevy,) but I feel a great deal of ....some emotion that sits between joy and relief?
That kind of "all shall be well, and all shall..." satisfaction that the world is going back toward being in balance.
And that's my problem in a nutshell.
I think things should be in balance.
I remember things. I remember slights, I remember favors.

I keep score, I take inventory, I measure things on a scale of my own devising and find people either wanting or in desert of more.
Even when although I perceive some trespass but magnanimously forgo revenge or even calling attention to What I'm Letting You Get Away With?
I'm still keeping score, that's right.
And I reward myself by giving myself over to feelings of smug superiority.

Now, I say "I remember," but I must be honest, the one matter I manage to forget as I sneak my thumb onto the scale?
God offers boundless mercy against my minute goodnesses,  prefect benevolence to my trivial good turns, abundance for my puny deeds.
Balance things out? you, Scelata?
Don't make me laugh.
But God has no thumb on the scale, and for that I am grateful.

Morricone has a way with the oboe, huh?
And this was, no, is beautiful.
Although his music is neo-romantic, it functions, as I believe movies scores most often should, in the way classical, as opposed to romantic art does - not to provoke and manipulate the viewer's emotions but to evoke the emotions one already has, to put one in touch with what is already there, to remind one of what hopefully lurks just below the surface, to resonate with memories of ones better self.

Let Us Now Chide Famous Men Persons

A number of... oh, for pete's sake, they are all men, a number of men on whom fame and fortune smiled most winsomely have died recently.
Much ink was spilled, many pixels employed first to mourn them, then to say, in at least one case, hold on, wait one mo...

Likewise, there have been a number of protests, and in some cases tantrums, of late, at honors given long ago to men long dead whom many today find not so honorable.
In the US, most of this involves honoring men who fought and died in defense of the right to hold other human beings as chattel slaves, (oh, or who were revered football coaches.)
At Oxford, it involves Cecil Rhodes, who is accused, (I can't find the details,) of "mass murder," by students who have no problem attending university on his dime, it should be noted.

One of the things I've always been drawn to in the stories of the saints is the quirks to overcome and the sins of which to repent most of them, all of them, had.
In the "great men who did bad/awful/bizarre/shady things" stakes there are those like Martin Luther Kin Jr who betrayed their wives and marriage vows, there are "freedom fighters" who are indistinguishable from terrorists like Menachem Begin, there is Wagner who was a self-centered egomaniac, there is St JP II who treated Oscar Romero with less than saintly kindness.
And speaking of saints, there was Augustine of Hippo who delighted in his transgressive nature, Thomas a Becket's whoring and roistering, "Gypsy" Mary...
For that matter, there is Blessed Theresa of Calcutta who suffered agonizingly "dry" periods, the kind of spiritual torture that non-spiritual people seem to think is evidence of some sort of hypocrisy - see! she had DOUBTS!!!!

Oddly, secular society, despite celebrating and lionizing some sins, can't wrap its mind around this. Ooh, she did something evil? he had doubts? not a saint, off with his (statue's) head!!!!
So you get the Guardian, in a piece enumerating the lapses in Mohandas Gandhi's c.v., reminding their readers, "there's no such thing as a saint."

Reading around Those Interwebs about Mahatma, I gather the details of what is claimed as proof of his feet of clay may indeed be accurate but the big picture painted thereby? very likely not.
One "writer" (although I am unsure that one can claim to be a writer and type a phrase such as, "if Hitler would of [sic] heeded Gandhi’s words") believes, like so many today, that anyone who thinks any limits should be put on sexual expression is "sex obsessed," (he betrays his own obsessions, with his gratuitous boot licking of one of the more prominent demi-gods in The Cult of Atheism's little pantheon and even more gratuitous swipe at the Church.

Why are we such seekers after all or nothing? why can't we accept that all good men have their flaws, all bad men have some redeeming characteristic?

Why can't we admire whiteout being hagiographers? criticize without seeking to wipe every previous word of praise from public discourse?
In Anhalt's screenplay from Lucienne Hill's translation of Anouilh's Becket... so i don't know who gets credit for the line.... Becket fondly chides a newly devoted disciple, about being such "a creature of excess."

Aren't we all?

Look, just LOOK at the lunatic words spilled in the wake of David Bowie's death!
I'm not the Grief Police and I'll take people at their word that others have indeed "pissed on" their mourning, telling them how they should or should not express their sorrow, but I did not see any of that.
I did see unctuous and incomprehensible tweets, and overblown encomiums that seemed to betray the principles of what should have been the tweeter's first priorities, and well as ludicrous brushing aside of mentions of the singer's pretty publicly known and acknowledged sins crimes - I had no idea that statutory rape isn't rape if the now grown victim was okay with it at the time, and that it is "condescending" to say that a victim "is entitled to believe" that she was not a victim, or that that is "brushing aside an adult woman’s agency and replacing the narrative of her own life that she knows for herself to be true" with, umm.... facts.

Thanks to a great moralist, I know that great artists don't, or maybe can't, commit "rape rape" but one wonders if, say, one of Jerry Sandusky's victims said their encounter was no big deal, or if the predator being eulogized were a priest, how different the reaction from all the Internet Tribes would be.

That being said, while a great and true point is made by writing, "it can’t be a crime when rubbish entertainers sleep with children, and all fine and dandy when great ones do," saying "one would have had to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the lush smorgasbord of lachrymosity that accompanied his death earlier this week" is a snark too far.

Because while, yeah, some of wailing and gnashing of teeth is from "the chorus of people with nothing to say, but who’ll say it anyway, for a fee," plenty of it is simply authentic expressions of emotion from people who want to share their love for the late singer and his music with the wonderful immediacy that social media now allow.

Italian Archbishop on the Sin of Halitosis, and the Automatic Excommunication It Incurs

If he's not discussing bad breath so heinous as to knock another down, (or the unpleasantness attendant upon people who spit when they talk,) and this is not a translation problem,  I am hard pressed to know what in the world Archbishop Rino Fisichella means here:

“I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’ because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.”

"Physical," in common with many words, has an actual meaning, you know?
It means something.
Harsh words are "physical violence"?..."PHYSICAL VIOLENCE"?
Really?

"'Literally'? .....'LITERALLY'?"

Doe God Hate Sin? Should We?

Honestly, I had no idea this was even a question, but I keep stumbling across people saying, more or less, that we are not to hate sin.

The cliche of "loving the sinner but hating the sin," is described as a mischaracterization, bastardization, an embarrassment, a sin and a total abomination.
It is damned as "flying in the face of everything Jesus said."
And most thrillingly, its usefulness is called into question -- because really, isn't process, utility, pragmatism the really meat and potatoes of our faith? -- as we are told that “the distinction between sin and sinner no longer works.”
(In all honesty, that link is to a quote of a translation of an overheard.... well, you get the idea.)

God hates, or so we're told, and I don't mean by vile wretches like the preacher from Westboro Baptist.

We're actually told in the Bible, that there are sins God hates.
Shouldn't we as well?

In all honesty, the anti-LTSHTS crowd seem fixated on certain sins. That claim that those who are pro-LTSHTS types are fixated on those same sins.

Maybe it's just me, but I have a sneaking suspicion the real source of division is that the antis don't really think those sins are sins.
(I was going to say "deep down," but their incredulity is pretty much bubbling up right there on the surface.)
Yeah, the conversations on "sin" always seem to end up dancing around what some call "pelvic issues."

There's a good reason for this, and it's not that the pros are obsessed with them, is that they're the only sins, if sins they be, that have people campaigning in favor of them!
Nobody presents for communion wearing a sash proclaiming his fealty to the Embezzlers' Agenda.
No one is seeking equal rights for Cannibals.

Fr Hunwicke had a good idea, that if you are trying to get down to brass tacks, to really see what your actual principles are, as opposed to warm-fuzzies, regarding sin, (you know, gradualism, use of the Internal Forum to resolve questions about whether you are in a state of grace, and here, whether you need to stop hating the sin if you really love that sinner,) substitute for whatever you pet sin is, "paedophilia."

We love the paedophiliac, must we therefore love the paedophilia?

I'm guessing not.

So in that case, what the anti-LTSHTS should admit, is that they are saying that they don't have to hate the sin because it's not a sin.

Come to think of it,what about people like the, (now defunct,) preacher from Westboro Baptist?

I think his campaign, his activities, his words, all were utterly, unquestionably sinful.
I try not to hate such cruel people, I try to hope he did not condemn himself to eternal separation from the Father in a hell of his own design and choice.

So, if I succeed, if I don't hate him...

Am I also not supposed to hate his sins?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Speaking of Kryptonite...

... sin is ours.
It is poison.
It is toxic.
There is no "mercy" in sitting back sipping your post-prandial port or brandy while someone else is enjoying poison.
And it is even worse to pass him the decanter.

"I say, old boy, I wouldn't touch it, but feel free... care for a splash with that anti-freeze?  Carson, would you fetch---"

"Don't be an ass....he will have a syrup of ipecac cocktail and stop being so suburban.".

Someone Who Has Actual Knowledge of the German "Church Tax"

Very interesting stuff about the way the Church tax is administered and the truth about the ontological reach of a Catholic opting out of the paying of such, in the combox at Catholic Herald

As someone who grew up in Germany I may be able to give some background information:
In order to no longer pay 'Kirchensteuer' you have to declare at the local council that you leave the 'Catholic Church.' Since the goverment is no religious institution this means that one is leaving the civil-law corporation 'Catholic Church in Germany,' without any deeper religious meaning (and courts have made it clear that the goverment can only deal with civil law and have to leave everything else to the Church). The German bishops used to claim that this was tantamount to Apostasy, but a few years ago Rome told them that this was not the case. As a result, the German bishops introduced the crime of leaving the civil corporation, which is to be punished with de-facto Interdict - and recently the bishops decided that you can be teacher in a Catholic school if you live in a civil-partnership with some same-sex partner, but that you are sacked more or less automatically for the sin of de-registering from the civil-law coporation. (Oddly enough, foreigners moving to Germany and simply not registering to the civil-law corporation can receive the sacraments).
However, I guess that the tide is changing - if the German bishops join some Kasperite heresy (as most of them are likely to do so, although hopefully not all), many orthodox Catholics will refuse to fund them any longer, and it is hard to imagine that orthodox priests will pay any attention to this register any longer (it may be necessary to get married abroad, though, because there could be problems with the paperwork). I have been already taught by an long-standing German parish priest that de-registering was maybe not yet morally necessary (this was Pre-Synod) but would in his eyes not be a problem either.
The real tragedy is that the German Church could have done so many things with this money, but they use it to build up a giant administration and to dilute the Faith....

Communion, Unworthiness, Trendy Sins, Zizzania and the Sorrows of Post-lapsarian Humanity

Fr Ray Blake has a deeply thoughtful essay that should be read by everyone.

EVERYONE.

No perfunctory condemnations, no glib solutions - just thoughtfulness.(And fascinating anecdotes and erudition. Who knew? Cockles.)

What have we come to? I had a letter recently from a parishioner telling me he had fallen in love with another man and therefore wasn't going to be coming to Mass anymore!

The Gospel yesterday in the Old Rite was the wheat harvest sown with zizzania (translated as cockle), the owner tells the servants that rather than weeding out the weeds, to leave them until harvest time, 'lest the wheat also is lost'. The Second Vatican Council spoke about a 'universal call to holiness', what we seem to have difficulty with is coping with the fact that not everyone wants 'holiness', or at least wants to delay it until the last moment, or simply feels they are incapable of it

In the past we dealt with this by accepting people were at different places in their spiritual pilgrimage. Now I wonder if we have lost that flexibility. Chesterton's remark about the possibility of leaving an umbrella safely in any church, of any denomination, except a Catholic church, because in a Catholic church it was bound to be stolen, because Catholic churches are full of sinners, once contained a lot of truth. I remember certain London churches and certain continental churches that seemed to be full of ladies of certain character and men of  certain 'exotic' tendencies, all at the back or behind pillars or in side chapels praying with intensity, and slightly more reflectively 'pray for us sinners, now and the hour of death'.

One of our parishioners remembers as a young boy being told by the Parish Priest not to accept sweets from the then rather elderly Lord Alfred Douglas and another, now dead, told me that his mother didn't think it "safe", presumably in the modern sense of 'safeguarding', for children to come here on their own "because of the strange people who go to 'Mad Mary Mags'". If their parents didn't come with them they were sent to the posher and safer Sacred Heart Church next door in more select Hove. Graham Greene used to come here when he stayed in Brighton, he was friends, along with Belloc and Chesterton. with Mgr Wallis, who was Rector here until his death in 1950. I can well imagine that on a Sunday not only Rose but most of the characters from Brighton Rock turning up here at Mass. Maybe even Pinky came here at Christmas and Easter.

We have always taken it that the God 'tolerates' sin in the Church, and sin in its members. It hates sin but loves sinners and yet is formed of men and women who are sinners. In the inter and post-war Catholic novels of the great age of Catholic literary converts, who often had an ambiguous relationship with God themselves, there is a deep sense of the divided self, Sebastian Flyte deeply in love with his German lover and yet ultimately finding a relationship with God, that is quite saintly but which occasionally falls disastrously apart but he he always returns again and again, to care for the sick and to live alongside the brothers in the monastery that have taken him in. It seems typical of the light and dark motifs of Catholic literature and spirituality of those years, and tells the true story of Catholic pastoral care of those years.....

The older idea, still prevalent in Orthodoxy and certain declining branches of Protestantism, and amongst more ultra Traditionalists, that people should receive Communion only rarely, and then only after confession and a period of intensified fasting and penance, was the norm up until Pius X. In pre-Reformation England the norm was for Communion once a year, following Lateran IV's precept of reception at 'Easter or there abouts'. The confession, penance, prayer and rigorous fasting of Lent was the period of preparation....

if everyone is to receive the Eucharist, does it means that there is no room for the prostitute or the gay man or adulterer unable to control his sexual desires or the alcoholic or the wife beater or the paedophile or the murderous God hating gangster, or the simply confused, or just plain ordinary sinner with a divided soul who loves the idea of God but is too damaged to fully embrace him.

We are indeed all called to holiness but yet whilst virtue might indeed be growing in us like a rich crop of wheat, the zizzania flourishes too and maybe, until harvest time, it dominates. The problem is we see the weeds and God sees virtue. We are not the best judges in our own cause....[emphasis supplied]

we have never been a 'holiness cult' but a Church of sinners....

Is there a place in today's Church for the man who washes the wounds of the diseased and lights copious candles, faithfully tells his beads, yet has a penchant for a particular vice and then goes on a bender, throws his beads in the dustbin and a few weeks later, horrified is found kneeling outside the confessional or weeping before the statue of Our Lady? Is there place for the priest addicted to drink, or maybe nowadays porn, who claims he has lost his faith, yet is actually heroic in his fidelity? Is there a place for Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang, the opium addict, forbidden the sacraments for thirty years, yet had the courage to die for Christ.

Not certain what I think of any of this - do I receive the Blessed Sacrament too casually?
I had forgotten until just now, when I was younger there was a parish at which my Mother sang, my younger brother and I sometimes joined her with the choir.
She pointed out to me once a young couple, 2 very lovely men, boys, really. She told me they were there every week, arrived early, (like the musicians,) very devout, knelt in prayer for a long time, participated devoutly in Mass and never presented for Communion.
And then she smiled sadly.
That was all she said about them, I was never quite sure why - thought perhaps at the time she was trying to tell me something about many of my friends, (as if i didn't know....)

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.