Bellissimo Canto?

I was thrilled, when my dear Mother was failing, to discover what an extraordinary amount of opera is to be seen on the Tube of You.
Even sitting in a movie theater for very long became impossible, so shortly after she was introduced to them, the Met's HD broadcast's were no longer an option - but I was so, so grateful for them while they worked, and for the chance to share performances with her.
And then, there was Youtube, sometimes singers I never saw or had the opportuinty to hear live much less in person, but whose recordings were the best sort of  "blast from the past", in the case of, say, Birgit Nilsson, almost literally so! ("literally", refers to the "blast" part.)
E'en now, I think when she tires of bending the Blessed Virgin's ear, my Mother chats with Magda Olivero and the latter's English has become perfect, and my Mother's Italian is flawless.
(Or perhaps, I should say, everyone there speaks "heaven.")

I was reminded of all that delightful scouring of the Tube of Yous, while repeating the exercise for some examples and inspiration for Himself's next gig.
And since the Tube is one of the worst offenders of the ThoseInterwebsAreATimesuck variety, I ended up listning to various too many In Questa Reggias, and hearing Nina Stemme, and being sorry that the Met's most recent Turandot HD broadcast was not available to us when I heard her shattering Elektra on the radio this past weekend.
Hopefully it will find its way to a PBS station or library shelf near us.
But THAT reminded me of another Saturday afternoon broadcast - I only listen to the "radio", (ask your parents, little ones,) from the Met, (thank you, Towle Bros, Toll Bros?)

Not an enormous Donizetti fan, not wildly familiar with Roberto Devereaux, (though IIRC, I saw the entire "Tudor Trilogy" in my remote youth,) and only heard snatches in between errands, (I only think to listen to the radio in the car.)

But, you guys.... Matthew Polenzani.
Because, MATTHEW POLENZANI.

Omiwerd, I don't think I've ever been bought to tears by Donizetti, and unless it was a super-familiar, filled-with-associations opera or singer, ever wept at such over the radio, of all things.

Pearl Fishers was another one I would have dearly liked to have seen, but the Met is no longer available at any theaters near us.

So, just once more, I need to type - MATTHEW POLENZANI.

Signs and Wonders

We drove some distance to go to Mass on Sunday.
It was Mothers' Day and I couldn't bear, didn't want to risk going to our parish, and besides, I don't often have the opportunity to attend the Extraordinary Form.
We arrived early, and after praying before Mass,  I was talking to my Mother and Father, as is my wont.
How much Mom had loved it the few times I was able to bring here there.
I've been laughing lately, somewhat ruefully, that the Almighty only breaks the laws of nature, only gives us miracles when they are necessary, for faith - so if you already believe you're plumb out of luck! No miracles for YOU....
But gee, wouldn't a sign be swell? just a little one? Dad? Mom?
No, I know. It isn't necessary.
But would it kill ya?
That's okay.
I feel especially close to my parents, really to all my family, even those I never knew, in Church. At Mass, especially at the Latin Mass that generations of them sang and prayed.
I love this from a letter of St. Teresa of the Andes:

How I would have loved to be by your side...But our souls met by the tabernacle.

And so they do.
Our souls meet by the tabernacle.

Anyway, I need to take advantage of the few weeks this time of year when I can get there, you know, long drive or not, before it's back to the dry, minimalism of...
Wait, what?.... what's the priest saying, what' he announcing before Mass?
He's being transferred, he won't be available to say the EF for them any more down here.

He's being transferred

He's being transferred to a parish in my town.

Signs and wonders, signs and wonders

Happy Endings

I was sitting in Mass this week and like a headline or advertising slogan, the words, "There are no happy endings in this life except dying in a state of grace," popped into me, clear and crisp and loud as if someone had said them...

I say "popped into me" rather than the more usual "popped into my head" because... well, because I didn't actually think them, I just took them, or rather they took me.

Okay, a bit verbose for either headline, slogan or aphorism, but there it was.

I watch a lot of too much television, and a number of my favorites are winding down.

I have come to terms with the fact that I will never appear on the Letterman show introduced as, xxxx, currently xxx-ing at xxxx and one fabulous babe, while Paul and CBS Orchestra played the theme from Peter Gunn. (Yes, that specifically was one dream of mine. Embarrassing, no?)

Person of Interest, (a shockingly pro-life while at the same time shockingly violent drama,) had a season finale that threatens to leave the regular cast diminished by at least one or two come fall - I will stop watching, if what I would call the worst happens.

Mad Men is teasing its viewers with hints of then subverted closure for its major characters, and while at first I wanted at least some "happily ever afters," I realized that the show, for whatever unrealistic conceits it has employed over the years, is in many ways too naturalistic for that.

Things don't come to an end in this life, certainly not to happy ends.

They drift into other things.

Even when all seems settled, and perfect - like resolution in music, ah we're all here, got through that safely, all have what we want, sit down for a breather, things are settled --

It isn't true.

It just isn't true, things are never like that, life is never like that.

Even if the best possible outcome seems to have been arrived at, life is a process of death.

What awaits us but decay and diminution?

It's Mothers' Day weekend, and I am less than cheerful, not long ago thought we had arrived at a point where things were accomplished, and we would enjoy, and my Mother would enjoy, as Laura Ingalls Wilder put it, these happy, golden years. 

(When I was in first grade, and devouring that series after being promoted to access to the Big Part of the school library, I hated getting to that, both because it seemed like an unwanted end to a pleasure and because "golden years" seemed like something bathed in a sickly light, like the front of Chicago's cathedral's nave... I digress.)

It seemed as if our lives had reached a plateau that we could at least enjoy for a few years, but no.

How quickly things fall apart.

Forget a Happy Ending, I didn't even think we got a fair share of the Happy Middle.

But that is life.

Or rather, that is this life.

The happy ending, if it is to be had, is only the beatific vision, and I will learn to stop thinking and saying, it's not fair.

Fair will come.

p.s. A few years ago, thanks to a reaction from someone to a sitcom title, a someone who is usually cheerfully raunchy and foul mouthed in his humour, I learned that there is another, perhaps nowadays more common meaning to the title of this post than that I intended.

Don't care, I will gaily use it, I refuse to cede another phrase or word to the Culture of Filth.

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.

The Martyrs of Libya, and Prayers for the Dead

I prayed the Rosary the morning at church, with a group with whom my Mother used to pray, (I feel especially close to her sometimes at weekday Mass, "inherited" her seat, you know - and her place in line to lead a decade from time to time.)
I had been thinking about indulgences and prayers for the dead and how I would explain them and the treasury of merit, (and how that works into the economy of salvation, kind of the way you dad let's you think you're helping him when you're four years old and want to shoulder some of the load when he's doing yardwork,)  to the kids in CCD, (as they call it here.)
I flashed back to my parents talking, when I was very little, about someone very, very dear to us, and quite unknown to the larger world, who had just died, at the same time as someone very famous; and my Mother talking about how sad it was that so many people would pray for, and say Masses for this famous person, and very few would give a thought to, or even knew of "poor J." (In retrospect, the famous dead Catholic was probably in FAR greater need of prayer and reparation than dear, sweet "poor J., but that's not the point.)
How often when someone dies we Catholics are uncertain of his fate --- okay, ya pretty much know if someone's a complete scoundrel, but your average trying-but-occasionally-stumbling Joe --- who's to know if he died in a state of grace, or instead needs a little bit of washing and buffing in purgatory, or what?
You don't want to fail to offer prayers for someone you love, but you don't want to insult them either, right? (Imagine someone, for instance, some early Christian who knew that the Blessed Mother was a very sweet old lady, but not , of course, that she had been immaculately conceived ; now imagine that someone praying for her soul after she had left this life!)
Well, of course, nothing goes to waste in the economy of salvation, so that's not really the issue, but how about this?
Can I put my prayers, any indulgences such as I may gain, any merit I might accrue from, (for once uncomplainingly?) suffering -- can I put them at the disposal, so to speak, of the beloved departed? tell him or her that if he or she has no need, to just... spread them around where they'll do the most good?
So I have decided to make someone I knew and loved the executor, the Trustee of my assets.
Is that acceptable? (I know when I get schemes they are often hare-brained, and often, if not heretical heresy-adjacent.)
Do those 21 Coptic Christians who died confessing the Lord Jesus need my prayers? Very likely not.
But I can pray for them nonetheless, and if they're just coals to Newcastle, the Trustee will apportion my... heavenly holdings.
Orate pro nobis,

Milad Makeen Zaky
Abanub Ayad Atiya
 Maged Solaiman Shehata
Yusuf Shukry Yunan
Kirollos Shokry Fawzy
Bishoy Astafanus Kamel
Somaily Astafanus Kamel 
Malak Ibrahim Sinweet
Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros
Girgis Milad Sinweet
Mina Fayez Aziz
Hany Abdelmesih Salib
Bishoy Adel Khalaf
Samuel Alham Wilson
Ezat Bishri Naseef
Loqa Nagaty
Gaber Munir Adly
Esam Badir Samir
Malak Farag Abram
Sameh Salah Faruq
Another worker from Awr village whose name is not yet known.

It will always be a heart-breaking memory

Two years ago today, I was rushing to get to Mass, (mostly, truth be told, to bring the Blessed Sacrament back to the love of my life who lay dying,) and Himself had turned on the news and we both stopped in our tracks.

Is that supposed to be funny? is this a joke? what kind of hoax...

But no, the beloved Holy Father had indeed announced his retirement.

A Scottish archbishop shares hismemories of the day:

February 11 is a holiday in the Vatican. It is the day when the Holy See celebrates the settlement in 1929 of the so-called “Roman Question”, the resolution of the 59-year stand-off between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See after the fall of Rome in 1870 to the Kingdom’s troops and the effective end of the ancient Papal States in central Italy.
By chance it was also the day Pope Benedict XVI chose to resign.
The date had been scheduled for a small consistory, comprising midday prayer and the announcement by Cardinal Angelo Amato of some beati due to be promoted to saints. There had also been a little gentle buzz for some time in the Roman Curia about the Holy Father announcing one or two important changes then, perhaps near the top of the administration, but these kinds of rumours circle like the seagulls around the Vatican’s Belvedere: they come round frequently, make a bit of noise and go away again. In other words, as in most places, nothing happens until it happens...
The Holy Father then took the floor. This was the first time I had sat in a consistory, so I had no idea if this was normal or not. He spoke in Latin, so a greater effort than normal was going to be required by all of us – Italian being the normal language of the Curia – so a little strain was evident as we tried to grasp where he was going.
Within seconds it was clear what was happening. This was no ordinary address. He did not speak about the consistory and the soon-to-be saints, or a few changes in administration, or the anniversary of the Lateran treaties, or the end of the historic dispute with Italy. Instead, he made history. I felt my stomach turn over as I realised that here before us was something not seen for centuries: the voluntary resignation of the Roman Pontiff. 

 

 It was an awful, blessed, horrid, holy time.

Christmass Priorities

We discussed this in CCD a week and a bit ago, but try as I might to drive the conversation, when all was said an done, there was a grudging admission by some that, okay, maybe "family" was more important than "presents", but #2 was the lowest presents would go.

"God"  or "Jesus" might be as high as fourth or fifth, but worshiping God? attending Mass?
Probably not going to happen.

My own priorities list starts out admirably enough, but by fourth, it's more a matter of laziness - if I don't care about lights, look at all the time and effort I save!

Cookie ranks pretty high, time must be found to bake, but that's more of a memorial to Christmasses Past, and a memorial to the Great Baker herself than gluttony on my part.

An old proverb says, "Cookies are made of butter and love."
And that is certainly how she made them.

I had only come across two of my very, very very favoritests shortly before discovering my allerg to All Things Corn -- James Beard had an amazing, crispy, rich wafer made with orange zest and corn meal that I will probably always miss.

But Melting Moments?

It finally occurred to me to substitute potato starch for the corn starch.

Eureka!

Perhaps BETTER than the original!

I see that I am not the first to make this discovery.