A Hierarchy of Atrocities, How the "News" Ranks Tragedy

Why do American news outlets give so much more coverage to one act of barbarity than to another?
They seem to have so much more to say about murders at a shopping center in Munich than a suicide bombing in Kabul.
Is the level of the victims' otherness the deciding factor?
Is where Americans might vacation?
Is war news fatigue to blame? (Oh, some more of those people have blown up yet more others of those people...)

And in nightclub shootings, it seemed there was an immediate effort to put a  face on the Orlando victims, even while a stand-off was occurring.
Not so with the children killed in Ft Myers.
Is that because in the Pulse incident both victims and murderer were members of privileged-by-forces-of-political-correctness classes? (Never mind the rush to blame the atrocity on those who were members of neither of the two.)

Then what to make of news reports on the Club Blu horror? Clearly from news photos, twitter postings and facebook videos, the club's teen-aged clientele was primarily, if not exclusively black. Is that not relevant?
And if not, why not?
Are victims' identity as African-American, (presumably, though one cannot tell residence or citizenship from photos and names,) teen-agers of less moment that that of Latino homosexuals, do they matter less, is it a less "sex" story?
Or conversely, is neglect of such details an effort to forestall commentary on black-on-black crime, whether that be rational or bigoted?

My hear is sick, how the world needs prayer!

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...

I know it's Lent and all, but ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA!

I needed this.
YOU probably need this.

An I'm absitively, posolutely certain that our nation and everyone in it constemplating the coming elections from whatever vantage point, REALLLLLLLLY needs it. H/T to Catholic Stand. (Read the piece so you know for whom you are praying, and why. Hint: you're not all that powerful. In fact, you're not all that.)

The Brief of St. Anthony of Padua-

Behold, the Cross of the Lord! 
Begone, all evil powers! 
The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
The Root of David, has conquered! 
Alleluia, Alleluia! 

I'm almost always wearing a cross, but I believe one could simply make the Sign.

Distractions At Mass, and When Before the Blessed Sacrament

I have set myself a little Lenten practice, and "in the final week of the regular season" I can now state categorically, IT HAS BEEN A DISMAL FAILURE.

 I had decided that instead of being annoyed, and instead of "praying for them", (which can be an exercise in smug superiority, at least for me,) I would simply try to love people who conduct kaffee klatsches, and in the process, annoy me at Church.
After all, I thought initially, this should be easy, I should be able to recognize kindred spirits, I am easily distracted, and the topic of my thoughts tends to the profane, too.

"....For through your goodness we have received the bread we offer --"
Bread. I wonder, is the gluten-free bandwagon ever some kind of sub-conscious dig at the Eucharist?  I like bread. I like carbs. Oh, heck, I like FOOD. There was some recipe I was looking for.... Do I need to shop? Trying not to spend anything until I get my insurance tangle unknotted. But I'll need another ingredient. Better head to the Sav-a-Lot. Oh, on the way I'll check for the shirt Himself needs at... Ya know, this top really looks pretty good with this outfit, I should check through any shirts he's getting rid of -- well, wait, did he already get one? I know on his way to golf he could have -- shoot. What did the priest just say? Where are we? Oh, I seem to be standing up, ah, preface dialogue?

Because to be honest, those aren't that different from the topics of the very loud convos that begin before the celebrant has even hits the sacristy.
But doctors appointments, prescription drugs and jokes are a bit part of the post-liturgical gabfest, too.
Lots of laughing.
Lots of greetings yelled halfway across the nave.
Lots of social engagements... engaged.

But the incredible volume, the din, is just a function of the age of your average weekday communicant.
So, yeah, the chats are loud, but I know, they are, in their way, mostly signs of love.
Are they appropriate in the presence Sanctissimi?
Probably not.
But are they irreverent?
Who am I to judge....

So, sometimes with my fingers in my ears, I just try to love Him and them--

Hey, there's that guy who always says "...Full of grace, the Lord is with YOU..." in his decades, I hate that--

And so it continues.

"Does a swimmer say 'I’ve never gotten wet'?”

I...
I don't know.
I really had nothing to say about politics.

In the coming presidential race, I honestly did not know who I might support, at one point I couldn't even say which party's nominee would more likely get my vote.
I still can't - at least with any real certainty.

But I have, not to be too melodramatic about it, a feeling of impending doom.
Is that boor's presidency a real possibility?
Is the media to blame for initially not taking him seriously as a political figure, while all too ready to take him seriously as a ratings generating entertainment powerhouse? and now, too late, trying to shine a spotlight on the monster they helped spawn?

Am I to blame, as one of a hoard of a snarky, mocking, prideful, It-Couldn't-Happen-Here grasshoppers, to blame?

Unlike some... (unlike ME! I have always pooh-poohed Himself's Chicken Little tendencies!) I think the World's soul is in peril from more than politics and war, I really do.
I am starting to see many things... Coming To An End.
People who should be worried, should be helping, should be taking things in hand are tuning up their Strads.

Forgive us, Lord.

I wrote this article  and sent it to [his] team in hopes that they would respond. But they never did. I cannot imagine what their world must be like. Who knows? It probably got lost in some email basket out there. But I tried because I felt that that would be more appropriate to do.

It’s a high stakes thing from my perspective because people make decisions about Christ on the basis of Christians and how we behave. If he’s going to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next or make fun of somebody’s menstrual cycle, it’s just beyond reason to me.

There was one occasion he held up a Bible. On another occasion, at Liberty University, he read from Scripture. On multiple occasions he’s said “Of course I’m a Christian.” There was a time in Iowa when he said “I’m a Christian,” and somebody asked about forgiveness and he said “I’ve never asked God for forgiveness.”

I can’t imagine that. I’m just shaking my head going “How does that work?” Does a swimmer say “I’ve never gotten wet?” Does a musician say “I’ve never sung a song?” How does a person claim to be a Christian and never need to ask for forgiveness?

Wait.

A correction, a little edit.

Forgive me, Lord.

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!

A Child Saved From Death

I don't know this blog, but the priest who writes it is apparently ill and in need of prayers.
Is there any better office for an insomniac?
But I wanted to share a story he tells:

Yesterday I got together with a girl....whom I saved from an abortion.  I had lost touch with her since I moved from my parish.  Her grandmother called me yesterday and we got together.  She is 7 years old.  If all the other things I have done in my life have been in vain, it is all worth while saving children from abortion. She said she wants to be a nun.  Thank you all of you for your love and prayers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arrested as a teenager

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

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

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

Acts of Reparation

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

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

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

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

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

And then I thought about Chesterton.

And then I thought about trying to love them.

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

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

Haters Gotta Hate

The Nominally Catholic Rundown is at it again.

One of their nominally Catholic bloggers feigns surprise that "a man who seems to really enjoy wearing as much lace and watered-silk as he can get his hands on [appropriate and prescribed liturgical vestments] ..does not see how that will make people wonder."

I was confused as to what this supposedly, "made people wonder."

It caused no amazement or curiosity in me.

I posted in the combox, asking, but it was apparently deleted. Other, however, comments informed me that this was  scarcely veiled accusation that the episcopal object of the bloggers hatred was gay.

So I can only assume that the blogger himself was wondering if the cardinal was gay.

Now, back in the day, the only people I knew who were similarly obsessed, (and frankly, similarly hopeful,) suffered from same-sex attraction themselves, and liked to sneer of "breeders", (male variety,) "oh, she's playing for our team...".

So now I actually am wondering, since the most logical conclusion for a Christian who is presumably familiar with the use of liturgical vestments to  make the accusation that the wearer "walks the Walsingham way," is that that poor blogger is one of those sad, self-loathing homosexuals who finds it easier to bear his own cross by pretending  he thinks other people suffer from the same infirmity.

So he claims to find priestly vesture... unmanly.

Right.....


(The Walsingham reference is a nod to A.N. Wilson, and is in no way intended to impugn any priest of any rite.)

And you guy's were complaining about Obamacare....

From Zenit :

Authorities in the province of Savannakhet, located in Laos, have declared that praying for the healing of the sick is in violation of the government's health care law.
In a report that has surprised and disturbed Christians in the region, the provincial authorities ruling was published following the arrest and conviction of five Christians for having prayed for a dying women.
"The religious ceremony to pray for the healing of the sick, in accordance with their religious worship, is a violation of Article 41 and 42 of the health care law", the reports states, adding that prayer "is an abuse of medical profession".

Great Line

A priest asked him if he’d ever thought about the priesthood. [The now-seminarian] had a ready answer: “Father, I like girls too much.”

The priest responded, “Getting married is giving up all girls but one; becoming a priest is just giving up one more girl.”

Some dioceses, some BISHOPS seem to be getting it right. I have always liked everything I have learned about Bishop Morlino, (not that my likes have anything to do with anything, I'm just sayin')

O Lord, grant us priests!
O Lord, grant us holy priests!
O Lord, grant us many holy priests!

I had no idea that was an SSPX prayer, or associated with them.  In fact, i don't think it is, really, because I have never been to an SSPX liturgy or service and I have known it a long time. (I did once worship, unwittingly, at a sedevacantist church when on the road, before I knew there was such a thing, and I've been to an independent chapel out of curiosity - and of a desire for corporate prayer, I hasten to add -  for a Holy Hour.)

A Good Death

Catholics mean something different from most people, when they speak of a "good" death, they refer not to peaceful freedom from pain, or worry, but to the soul having persevered in a state of grace to the last.

St Joseph is the saint most invoked in prayers for such a death, for a Happy Death, a Good Death, however pain wracked.

I cannot understand this concept -- oh, intellectually, I do, but I have such a terror of pain that I cannot imagine myself at the end wanting anything but a release from whatever agony takes me, by whatever means.

This isn't good, I know.

I do not know how to pray for others either, I do not know what to say to good when someone is near death.
I am in an even greater state of bafflement since the death of the person most dear to me in all the world. The loved ones of the dying want miracles.  Miracle? what miracle would I pray for? what miracle would God grant, Who didn't grant that which I asked for before?

Everyone dies.
Everyone.

He's not going to make an exception in your case.
He will not grant a miracle.

And yet -- I know He can, He does... Lord, I believe , help my unbelief.
And meanwhile,

"Go forth, Christian soul, go forth in the name of the almighty Father who created thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who has suffered for thee, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who has been given to thee, in the name of the glorious and holy mother of God, the Virgin Mary, in the name of blessed Joseph, her spouse, in the name of the angels and archangels, the thrones and dominations, the principalities and powers, the cherubim and seraphim, in the name of the patriarchs and prophets, in the name of the apostles, the evangelists, the martyrs, the confessors, the virgins, and of all holy men and women of God. May thy dwelling today be in peace, in the heavenly Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

Wolves or Hirelings?

Which are these?

Pray for our Mother, the Church, the Bride of Christ, mystically the very Body of Christ, so abused by these men.

St Joseph, Pray for Us!

I am fortunate enough today to be able to celebrate by attending a Solemn High Mass [Correction, 3/20 - it wasn't a "Solemn" High Mass, I believe -- no deacon or sub-deacon? I'm still not all that familiar with the ins and outs of the varieties of EF] in the great saint's honor.
Through the efforts of a 21-year-old (who hopes to enter the seminary when he graduates,) his fellow students at Holy Cross can do likewise, at the first Mass celebrated there in the older rite since 1995. (I is a shame reverence and solemnity doesn't speak to young people...:oP)
In this time of rampant unemployment, or underemployment, I have had recourse to asking St Joseph for his intercession in his capacity as the patron of workers, and today I learned that for at least one family member, my prayers have been answered.
There are other St. Josephs, besides our Lord's foster father, for whose intercession I ask.
Joseph was also my father's name, and I have no doubt whatever that he has the ear of our Father in heaven, and is in a position to add his prayers to mine.
Happy feast day, all you Josephs out there! (especially you, Papa, and you, my little brother!)

Blessed are the Lukewarm!

From an advice column, in reply to a worried mother whose four year old has asked for baptism. Without comment, (but with emphasis):

Who can predict the obscure and myriad ways our children will find to try us? I may not have the answers, but I certainly come equipped with some experience on this one. At eight, in an act of direct rebellion against my atheist parents, I began secretly attending Mass. T... with the excuse of an innocent playdate, and for six months I embraced Rome with a fervour not witnessed since Isabella and Ferdinand ruled Spain. When my mother eventually found out she was furious at my "betrayal", but luckily I'd wearied of the sermons, hymns and Hail Marys, and was more than happy to embrace pastures new. A further period of devotion followed in my early teens, when my social life briefly revolved around prayer meetings, where we sang folksy religious songs. In mitigation, "Jesus Christ Superstar" was soaring up the charts at the time, so I wasn't alone in my addiction to God Pop, and it was no coincidence that the object of my teenage fantasies, Louis, was a signed-up guitar-strumming devotee. When I realised he preferred God to me I moved on.

I tell you all this not in order to cause death by dreary anecdote, but to illustrate that children are highly impressionable, and that their lives are made up of many phases, most of which they'll outgrow. They also tend to be motivated by forces not involving intellectual consideration; making them, in many ways, ideal fodder for zealots of all varieties.

Your son is lucky in that neither of his parents qualifies for the Z word, although your ex-husband's determination to keep him free from religion could be bordering on the obsessive. It seems to me that prior to your kid's mystery conversion, the choice you jointly made regarding your offspring's right to choose was a sensible one. Your eldest professing to "hate" religion is as likely to change as your youngest's desire to embrace it. Your job as parents is to keep them updated with the facts while avoiding indoctrination....


Clearly, someone has been breathing biblical hell and damnation into your youngster's ear, or perhaps more seductive tales of lambs and salvation. My energy would be engaged in finding that propagandist rather than using the issue to score points against your ex-partner.

Theology is one of many ongoing areas of discussion for parents to engage in with their children. For those unconvinced of the merits of joining the flock, it's certainly sensible to allow your offspring to make their own decision. I suggest you continue to discuss all the possibilities with your son; he's clearly got a healthy interest in matters many of us neglect to consider. My five-year-old daughter, whose current favourite word is "amen", told me the other day that she thought "probably the world was made 50% by God and 50% by science".

Okay, one comment.
There is a four year old in Great Britain who needs your prayers.
Actually, a whole, albeit partitioned, family.

Year for Priests Not Just For Those Of Them Who Are Alive?

Well, yes.
In this Year for Priests we should surely pray for priests-yet-to-be...

But Father Z rightly reminds us that especially in this (about-to-be) month of November, the month for remembering the dear departed, we should pray for the souls of our deceased priests.

Pray for the souls of priests.

First, remember that you can gain indulgences on All Souls and the days following.

Second, 5 November is a first Thursday. You can gain a plenary indulgence during this year for Priests.

Third, would it not be a good idea in this Year for Priests, during the week after All Souls, for this 1st Thursday, to pray in a special way for the souls of deceased priests?

May I recommend that you bring this up with your parish priests, who might make pulpit announcements this Sunday?...
Would you recommend this to your prayer groups, friends and family?

Would you want to live like that? Well, how about die, would you want to DIE like that?

A cautionary tale.

Knowing how fond I am of liquid refreshment, I cannot think anyone will ever assume that I don't want hydration, or presume to speak for me so, when I cannot speak for myself -- but it is a frightening thought.

Offering prayers for Vera, even though that is not her real name.
Offering prayers for all those being put to death, all the starving, all those who thirst.

"The Nuns Had Me Pegged"

My Mom and I were talking.
In earlier generations, it would have been unthinkable that devout as she and my Father were, and with so enormous a brood, none of her children would have even thought of becoming a priest or religious.

Why didn't we? -- not, thinking about it as objectively as I am able, that any one of us would have discovered a true vocation to the priesthood or religious life -- but why did we never even consider it? (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I did think about becoming a priest, positive that by the time I was ready for a graduate school or seminary, the seminary would be ready for me; my ovaries and XX chromosomes would be no impediment whatever.)

The preceding generation had one failed vocation on each side, a permanent deacon who seemed to be a transitional deacon, who left the seminary two days, literally two days before ordination. On the other it was laicization and marriage, I was too young to know in which order, and it wouldn't do to ask now, "kids" don't need to be told such things, doncha know...

But being more conscientious about praying for vocations during this Year for the Priest, I am giving thought to some of the boys or young men I know who might have a vocation.

Think about it, you probably know one or two.

Have you ever said anything to encourage them, asked anything to get them thinking?

Ask your priest what set the wheels in motion for him.

"We moved to the second floor of a three-family house, and on the first floor lived [another future preist] and his family. He and I used to concelebrate long before it was permitted; we were only little kids. We offered Mass impromptu in the front hall of the house. [His]mother made little chasubles for us. We had a white piece of candy for the host. …

There are all kinds of connections. God certainly worked continually through all the years. I’ve never wanted anything else."

"I became an altar boy in fourth grade, which was the earliest you could do it because you had to learn the Latin. I was very interested in this priest who had a DeSoto. It was really flashy. I sort of liked that little car that he had because it was different from all the others; it had an odd shape. That was not the thing, of course, but I thought it must be nice to be a priest, to be able to celebrate Mass and help people. But it was the nuns. They had me pegged."

"I think it was the good example I had at home. We never said private prayer. In fact, I remember saying morning prayer with my mother and dad. At night we always closed with night prayer. I used to call it ‘my mother’s breviary.’ Even if we were going out for the evening, say during high school, we gathered to pray the rosary."

"I liked what I saw the priest do and felt that that is what I wanted to do when I saw them interact with us kids and the parish. When I finished eighth grade, I wanted to go to [a minor seminary?]. I was a day-hop. My parents were a little hesitant about me going in at that young age, but they saw it as a good education and our pastor reassured them."

"We had a curate... He was a big, tall, good-looking Irish guy. I just thought I’d like to be like that. Of course that was hero worship, but he taught me the Latin to be an altar server. He was a great man and he gave me a good example. That was the seed. Of course, I soon developed better reasons than that, but the seed grew from there."

Born-Again, but Only Half-Alive

Whilst I have been hither and 'yon', (over moor and fen?) in the rarified atmosphere produced by the singing of and listening to quilismae and tristrophas, (that's Greek, no? I don't know how one forms the plural, so I'll just give it a plain ol' English "s",) Himself kept up with the greater world.

On the desk-top I found he had saved an item from a blog at the New York Times, recounting a journey, sad and yet not altogether bereft of hope. (The combox, on the other hand, filled me with pessimism.)

About a decade ago, moved by a convergence of my longstanding fascination with religion and a time of great personal loss, I embarked on a search for a church and wound up a born-again Catholic. It was not a straight or untroubled path, guided as it was by both my attraction to and enmity for the Roman Catholic Church into which I was born and baptized.

Growing up Irish Catholic in New York City put me in a good position to experience the best and worst of the Church. Most of the Sisters of Charity who taught at my grade school were tyrants. In 1971 I knocked on the door of my parish rectory to inquire about becoming an altar server; I was advised that only boys could serve. Brides, said the priest, were the only females allowed on the altar. When my mother became critically ill at age 30, a Catholic priest administering last rites, refused to offer absolution when she, who had given birth to four children by age 25, refused to express contrition for taking birth control pills. People for whom I care deeply have been molested by priests.

In 1985, while working as a high school English teacher in a parochial school, I watched a 19-year student of mine weep in homeroom in response to that morning’s “pro-life” announcement, which included references to “mothers who killed their own babies.” I learned later that this young man’s mother had terminated a pregnancy two days earlier, [interesting that she fails to recognize that this boy's tear were, his pain was a reaction not to some announcement, but to the abortion his mother had procured -- and perhaps to a stark realization that the dead person could just as easily have been himself 18 years earlier] ...

The Catholic Church in New York has fed, educated and clothed more poor people than any other agency in the city. On most days a logic-defying confidence in the potential of the sacraments to deliver grace persists in me. [emphasis supplied] The beauty of even ordinary churches has never failed to astonish me. While I consider the brutality of the papacy, now and throughout history, a source of shame, Roman Catholic art, often commissioned by those very same bad popes is a source of pride, and comprises a tradition in which I, as a poet, often work.

Roman Catholic, as it turned out, was the language my spirit already knew. [emphasis supplied] Burning hyssop and frankincense, the stark and heart-charging splendor [GREAT phrase, the author is, after all, a poet,] of Gregorian chant, Marian devotion; the iconography, the Latin Agnus Dei and Litany of the Saints, the Angelus bells, the rapture at the crux of Catholic worship have always held fierce sway with me.

As I started to experiment with religious observance, I quickly developed a sense of what I did and did not want. My aims were practical and ethereal, metaphysical and physical. I wanted to transcend, but as the mother of three toddlers, I wanted convenience, too. I craved beauty, musica sacra, social justice work, and maybe a whisper of ancient tongues in my ear, but I also needed a church that would embrace the realities of motherhood. If the celebrant of the mass glowered or gawked when I jammed the baby up my shirt to nurse at mass, he failed the audition and I never went back.

I liked parishes that were racially and socio-economically diverse, houses of worship that were beautiful, the presence of women priests when I was lucky enough to encounter it. I had zero tolerance for folk masses, anti-abortion diatribes, ecclesiastical greed, rote reciters of scripture and congregants who refused to sing. (After all, as St. Augustine said, “singing is twice praying.”) When people in the pews were unkind to my generally well-mannered children, I crossed their church off my list. I preferred my homilists witty, lyrical and learned. A brilliant theologian and Dante maven who used to celebrate mass a few mornings a week in my neighborhood helped hook and reel me in. Most of all it was another — a lyrical priest I successfully hectored and charmed into serving as my de facto guru — who presided over my rebirth a s Catholic. And so I began to regularly attend Roman Catholic mass.

There is much more -- the self-portrait she paints is, of course, that of a protestant who was raised Catholic, and who , by the grace of God, has at least been drawn back to the Faith by Beauty, (putting herself in proximity to the sacraments! whose power does indeed defy logic...,) where the Truth will one day find her as well.

Or she it. Or rather, she Him.

And then she will indeed be born again.

Let us all pray for Michele Madigan Somerville.

One forgets sometimes that there are other liturgical conservatives, who are liberals in other areas of ecclesiology and/or life. (I was delightfully reminded of this several times last week. And less delightfully, the past several days.)