“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the product of conception you have there. And how does this happen to me, that the person who may in the future be the mother of my Lord, but is not currently a mother of anything but merely the vessel for a blob of cells, should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the fetus in my womb, admittedly somewhat bigger than the embryo in yours, but still not a person, only a potential person, not a life or anything, leaped for joy!"

.... said Elizabeth never.

"Well, no, it can't be so, because I would have heard of it otherwise... right?"

I can't be the only one who has been startled by something a friend or acquaintance says, and thought that he must be mistaken, he misheard, he mistook Eye of the Tiber or SNL for actual news; yeah, I know I was out of radio contact/insane busy/sick/obsessed with some nonsense for a couple weeks, but that shouldn't matter, I would have heard later, that would have had some traction, people would still be....

The Greater Horn-billed American News Cycle, however, is a skittish beast, and sometimes an item much like one that preceded it and another that succeeded it, both of which were hobby hoses ridden by the media for many days fails, inexplicably, to fascinate the chattering classes.

This is one of those how-did-I-miss-that horrors that I used to think, (and then I used to hope,) someone had fabricated.

There are people I know who have connections to the culpable institution, and to some of the principles, (and no, not the victims,) for whose sakes I would hope it was untrue, but when the bare facts are laid out, there's not much doubt.

But imagine any sort of concern or establishment, one of whose employees or members admitted to abusing 13- or 14-year old prostitutes overseas, another to drugging young victims who were in his care, another pretending to be interested in figurative art to have children disrobe, another who abused children and was merely removed as a dorm supervisor but allowed to continue as a teacher.... it goes on.Then imagine that organization issuing this statement regarding all those crimes and all those sins when they are forced to release files:

The files provided include those of [men] currently living [right here where many of their crimes took place] under safety plans. Their actions are limited and they are closely supervised. Files also include nine [men] who are deceased and two men who have left.... The allegations against these men involve incidents that occurred more than two decades ago; some of the incidents are 30 or 40 years old. 
There are documents in each file which may be quoted and framed in a lurid context. [YA THINK?!???] But the huge majority of the documents in each of these files acknowledges the very real failures of some [men] while showing each of the accused [men] as a fallible, relatable person. [which are, what? NOT so "lurid"?]
The files also show that [we] did not try to cover up allegations and did a reasonable job of managing the [man] and the problem.

That would do it for me, I guess. Everything's on the up-and-up, credibility restored, huh?

The New Normal, and Performing Acts of Mercy

A man sitting in church.

Not very well dressed, sloppily, even, but that is not uncommon in a vacation area approaching its peak of attractiveness to those who live elsewhere where the weather is other.
Wearing a hoodie. Okay, unusual, but there is no longer a canon law proscribing hats on men.
Reading before Mass.
Good.
Reading from an electronic device, not common, but not unheard of, either.
Reading aloud. Quite loudly, in fact.
Also, alas, not unheard of in this parish, where one man finally needed to be asked to stop proclaiming the Liturgy of the Hours deliberately seated in the midst of the regularly scheduled, daily, and noted-in-every-bulletin public recitation of the Rosary.

Reading about murder and massacres and gunshot wounds and blood and devastation. Aloud.

Now, it's strange.

One pew-sitter glances at him, and decides just to give the head usher, back in the sacristy, a heads up.

Several of us exit the sacristy and see the stranger exit his pew, stride up to the front of the nave, genuflect deeply, but instead of making the customary sign of the cross, he bows his head profoundly, and stretch out his arms, like the Crucified One, like a martyr.

This satisfies most of the ushers, who return to their pre-celebration tasks. One, however, exits the church by the same door, and sees the man make a circuit of the cloistered garden and duck in a back door. Alarmed, he gets the attention of another usher, an extremely large man, whether chosen by accident, or design, who knows?
They follow, and find the fellow in the wash room, albeit, not using the facilities.
Warily, they welcome him, ask him if he doesn't want to come in a find a seat, and tell him that Catholic men do not customarily cover their heads in Church.

Nervously, tensely, everyone finds himself a seat, and Mass begins.

Later, another usher tells us that she has seen him around, he is a schizophrenic in the neighborhood, she thinks he is harmless.

If a stranger dwell in your land, and abide among you, do not upbraid him: But let him be among you as one of the same country: and you shall love him as yourselves: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Poor Sad Little Atheists.....

As Stuart says, when Sheldon complains that "more wrong" is an absurd phrase, as wrong is an absolute and therefore has no gradations.

No, it’s a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable, it’s very wrong to say it’s a suspension bridge

I heard someone say something like this: The believer may be like a child who thinks Saint Nicholas delivered presents, when they were really secretly placed under the tree by his parents - a little wrong; the atheist, like the child who thinks the gifts spontaneously generated, - is very wrong.
Our inability to comprehend, fully the nature of our Creator, is no refutation of His existence.

As almost always, Eccles is wittier than I could ever hope, in his kindly pity for the second sort of child and his irrationality.

1. And lo! Christmas was approaching once more, the season of peace on Earth to people of good will (and maybe some others, too)
2. But Richard was still in those days an unsaved person, and he spake forth, saying "Bah! Humbug!" Or sometimes (for a change) "Bah! Jellybaby!"  .....
3. And behold, he went on the attack with a brilliantly-crafted tweet, saying "There are people who believe Jesus turned water into wine. How do they hold down a job in the 21st century?"
4. For he reasoned that the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, and the professor of biology could not do their jobs adequately if they believed in an omnipotent creator.
5. For would they not inevitably produce bad sausages, or bad bread, or bad candles, or bad lectures, if they were men of faith?

I will never understand the child who doesn't want to play with his comrades, no he does not! 

No I do not and don't ask me again, leave me alone, that's a stupid game anyway, I'm going to stand right here and keep telling you how stupid it is, oh, you're going over there, okay, I will too so I can keep telling you how much I don't want to play wi -- HEY, WAIT FOR ME, I CAN'T KEEP UP! okay, this is stupid, I don't want to play with -- hey, can you hear me? why aren't you paying attention to me?

Plugging Away at This Churchy, Faithy Thing

I hope I do no wrong when I tell my Sunday School kids that Advent is kinda like the Church's time to be Old Testament people, to know what it was like for the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, B.(efore) C.(hrist)- waiting, longing, hoping, thirsting, begging for Him who was foretold to get here already!

I do enough complaining about it that I also need to praise, sometimes the lectionary, the choices made by its fabricators are incredibly powerful and perfect.

How many times have I read this, how many times have I PROCLAIMED the readings for this Sunday, and how have I never noticed this before?

He shall take His place as shepherd

by the strength of the Lord,

by the majestic name of the Lord, His God;

And they shall dwell securely, for now His greatness

shall reach to the ends of the earth:

He shall be peace.

Not, He will bring peace, or there will be peace in His time -- He will BE peace.

Peace Incarnate.
As He is Love incarnate, Mercy incarnate, and yes, Justice incarnate... PEACE INCARNATE.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus

Dear King Richard III...

The New Yorker has a political advice column penned by the long dead but recently re-discovered, skeletally and genetically identified, and buried with fitting pomp and reverence albeit by protestants whom he would have had executed, non-nephew killing, much slandered monarch, Good King Richard.

Well done. (The handsome Duke of York was an early crush of mine, and the facial reconstruction proves he was quite as noble-visaged as I imagined him. So there..)

Dear King Richard -

Have you ever seen someone dominate an election like this? I would have curb-stomped Reagan. I am more popular than Mussolini ever was. I am significantly taller than Jesus. I’ve made a huge amount of money, and I’m not going to apologize to anyone for that. China is scared of me. My question is: How are you?

Sincerely,
Talking Loudly Inside Trump Towers

Thank you for writing. I am fine, though afflicted by a certain melancholy for, as I understand it, most of you think I am the ruthless caricature created by that cretinous ass William Shakespeare. Do you people really think I was in my mother’s womb for two years and born with fangs? That not only did I kill my own brother’s sweet sons but I also found time to kill Henry VI, his son Edward, and my own beloved brother George? That I murdered my wife so that I could marry my niece? Calumny. Oh, and Donald? You are like poison that screams its victim to death. You belong in a dungeon.

Royally Yours....

New, Improved, "GendrLite"? Not So Much, With a Rudolf to the Rescue Again

Not sure if the German Bishops' Conference had considered the catchy trademark, I think "GendrLite" would have attracted the yoof, 'cause, you know. Misspelling and missing vowels.

GendrLite

Doncha think? But a spoilsport in their midst has played the reality card.
A bishop, in bishop's clothing, as it were.

Celebrating the feast of St. Wolfgang, who was Bishop of Regensburg from 972 to 994, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer taught in an Oct. 31 homily that gender theory – the idea of separating biological sex from gender – does not contribute to equality, and is ultimately a denial of nature and the goodness of creation. It puts at stake the essence of man and woman, denying their nature as potential fatherhood and motherhood.
A bishop's pastoral ministry, he said, “includes the duty and the responsibility to act as a guardian, to raise his voice, as necessary, to draw attention to discrepancies or errors, however convenient or inconvenient this may be.”
“Recently, just such a necessity has again arisen.”
Bishop Voderholzer noted that the German bishops' conference published a flyer in late October which “was written to declare these theories as being basically compatible with Catholic belief, in contrast to an extreme form of gender mainstream, and it claims to be formulating the Catholic position on this issue.”
“In my opinion, the former appears impossible – finally, there is no such thing as 'gender light'. The concept lowers the drawbridge and opens the gate to positions irreconcilable with the Christian faith. And the flyer not only fails to present the Catholic position, it leaves it out completely.”
The bishop also noted that the publication “was released in the name of the Conference of Bishops, of which I am a member, without my having previously seen its content, much less having approved it.”

Rudolf helping save Christmas Christian thought, (not to mention credibility.)

Praise be St Wolfgang, and St Rudolph. I'll have to look up who they are.

Do We Really Want To Give Such a Guy PR?

Supposing....
A fat sex offender with bad skin and a worse coiffure, who had been kicked out of his former kaffee klatsch of "satanists," announces that he is coming out of his room in his mom's basement long enough to perform a sacrilegious act in a small city in the middle of nowhere, in public.

Why would a Christian help him to publicize his activities?

Toddlers who learn foul words, or how to maximize the sound produced by passing gas are less interested in the obscenities or the noise than in the reaction they get from adults. (Don't ask me how I know...)

Pray, perform acts of reparation, but why fall for his ploy by giving this poor sod the attention he wants?

Okay, I LOOOOOVE Star Wars, But These Are Not the Ads I'm Looking For

I love Star Wars.
I love every single person involved with the original, I remember Kenneth Colley and Denis Lawson, I can see every line of Luke's Aunt Beru's face as if she was mine, I remember the eyes of the boy I first saw the movie with and how we thrilled to every frame of the film and note of the score, I remember the taste of the milkshake I had on the way to see it a second time with another young man, I saw and defended the weaker episodes, I bought sheet music to the music, I chewed gum I hated to get cards, I...
Okay, you get the idea.

Oh, and I AM GOING TO SEE THE NEW ONE IN A MOVIE THEATRE.

(I have only paid to see HD broadcasts of operas in movie theatres in recent years.)

So you will understand than I am not a hater, I give anything Star Wars or Star Wars adjacent a lot of leeway, and I do not say this lightly:

I am sick of the commercial tie-ins and references to Star Wars!

Mascara? Sub-sandwiches? a waffle maker? (I know about that one because I'm in the market for a pizzelle iron this Christmass.) Crocs? Coffee creamer?

Stop it!!! Just stop it!

(Oh, but this one? It's okay.)

Poor Little Lambs Who Have Lost Their Way

So, Borat, or someone, had no trouble gathering signatures to repeal the first amendment at Yale.

Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the “safe space” crowd.
Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students. 
“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. ...
In fact, Horowitz discovered a solid majority of the students asked willingly signed the petition, with several expressing their enthusiastic approval for his anti-First Amendment efforts.

I wonder if those who felt Sacha Baron Cohen's movie revealed not so much latent racism, anti-semitism, and general cluelessness of the American butts of his joke, as their excessive "hospitality and politesse," will similarly jump to the defense of these... butts, saying they were just being amenable and kindly.

(Well, not that particular apologist, he no longer being in the business of jumping to anything, r.i.p.)

The fact is, of course, that any cause, good or bad, is almost bound to have its share of supporters who are idiots, churls,  moral imbeciles - or just people who haven't thought their positions through to their "logical conclusions".

Trump isn't a thug because some of his supporters are thugs any more than Michael Brown was a petty criminal because some of his posthumous supporters are petty criminals. Abortion isn't wrong because some abortionists are callous money-grubbers.

And I don't think it improves anyone's chances of bringing those with opposing viewpoints over to one's side by trying to demonstrate that anyone who disagree must be a fool.

(Not that I always play by such rules...)

"Thank heaven, for little girls...."

When Himself undertook the Maurice Chevalier role in a revival of Gigi, there was talk about how the hit song from the musical would be impossible to introduce nowadays, and was barely acceptable in a revival; and how difficult was the task of performing it without being creepy or downright louche.
Much was made of how the musical, (not the Colette story,)  was the product of a more innocent time.
Any way, his charm was sufficient unto the task, he was avuncularly flirtatious, not Dirty Old Man, (although in my opinion, the director made a few errors increasing the challenge: the girl-child who inspires the song should come into Honore's presence, join him already seated on a park bench, not the other way 'round.)

Now that all seems quaint, that seems a more innocent time..

A grown man need not find a little girl to thank heaven for - he can just be one, (although I'm not at all certain the whole thing isn't a hoax): 

After 23 years of marriage and seven children, a transgender woman [disturbed man] is taking a chance on living her [his] truth [sick fantasy]— however controversial it might seem.
Stefonknee Wolscht began her transition [his play-acting] six years ago at age 46 and now she is living as a 6-year-old girl.
"Stop being trans wasn't something I could do; that's like telling me to stop being 6-foot-2 or leave,” Wolscht said of her [his long-suffering] wife's ultimatum in a clip.
Wolscht is the subject of a social video series ... which profiles transgender people in Canada.

As I said, could be the Onion's doing, but it's not as if society isn't full of enablers in media, academe and generally the chattering classes who would take this seriously, go along with it and pretend that the delusional fellow is what he says he is.

I'll retire to Bedlam....

Pondering the "Big Questions"

I thought philosophy and theology were supposed to help us with these, but so far I remain confused.

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. What does the Lord require of me?

3. What the #ell is a "lip kit"?

Haunted..., no, VISITED by a Liturgical Memory

Did you ever assist at a Mass that, for what ever reason, continued to occupy your thoughts and your feelings for long afterward?

I have been very fortunate, much superb preaching, much stirring music, much careful and precise prayer, much authentic emotion, much manifest "active love" in my lifetime, far more than liturgies that haunt one for the opposite reasons.

But the one that has all but obsessed me now for a week stands out for... well, for the reason that nothing about it "stands out," utter simplicity*, utter focus, utter simplicity, utter God-ward motion.

It was one single prayer offered to the Father by the Son in the Holy Spirit.

It was seamless.

I like gorgeousness, I like splendor. These are not the same as ostentation, but I have to remind myself at times that Beauty avails Herself of a broad range of aesthetics and styles, so that by the same token minimalism and simplicity are not the same as shabbiness or homeliness.

My tastes are naturally formed somewhat by good experience, nostalgia, fond associations - but I think I can be objective in my judgements, as well, and I think the plain fact is that some styles and aesthetics lend themselves more to liturgical use, are more powerfully able to accomplish the evanglization and catechesis that is required of them.

Any way, my Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception just hit that sweet spot. I was travelling, for pete's sake, and it was almost pure chance!

Sometimes I think I'm just to lucky to live. (For LONG, Aunt Scelata! I can hear my squeaky voiced little niece reprimanding me for shortchanging an expression she likes, "2 lucky 2 live 4 long" is how it goes!)

I'll have to write a bit more of it when I can.
.........................................................................
*"Noble simplicity" properly understood - This is as good a definition and concise a description as any: noble simplicity, at least as Winckelmann first defined it, properly refers to a unity of physical and spiritual elements in a work of art, and was used by him to refer to classical Greek sculpture, which is a world apart from the misshapen gnomes that populate OCP clip art. You could make the case that good Gothic, Baroque or Romanesque has the quality of noble simplicity.

"Well who the hell are WE to say people should be prevented from blowing thier brains out?!??" asks the New York Times

Or wait, they didn't.
Or actually came out in support of suicide prevention.
Except when they aren't.
But by "they", I don't mean "they" because there's the paper, (LOL! do they even have any readers of "paper" anymore?) and then there's the "Editorial Board."
Which speaks for the paper, right?
Although, of course, in the pages of the Op-Ed, they may give space to other viewpoints.
Except when they point blank refuse to.
Because a multiplicity of opinions can be countenanced, should actually be encouraged.
Except when it can't because anyone who disagrees is a poopyhead.

Got it?

So.
If stricter gun control will help prevent suicides, than civilized people have no choice but to support it. ("But we should try to save as many people as possible.")
You know, because that's an absolute value, keeping distraught people from offing themselves.
Unless we approve of the means said distraught people have chosen.
Then we're in favor of it, (a "governor should sign into law a bill that would allow some terminally ill patients to hasten their death.")

One might be forgiven for suspecting that it's only guns to which the New York Times Editorial Board objects, that they hold guns to be objectively evil, but find suicide morally neutral.
At least, that's the only logical defense I can find for rationalizing the two different stances.

And I say this as a supporter of stricter gun control, who hates what the NRA, at least currently, stands for, and who despises the cowardice of its congressminions..

The Rewards of Teaching Sunday School

Okay, so my ten-year-olds can't remember if they've ever received the sacrament of confession... or of reconciliation... or of penance... or of mercy.
And they cannot manage to learn the words o the Act of Contrition.

To ANY "Act of Contrition."

(Could you just say, "I'm sorry for my sins"? Five words...? Learn that? Please...? Too much?)

And they can't tell the difference between "confirmation" and "communion."

And it is impossible to get them not to write in the pages of their missals, and to write on the pages of their workbooks.
Or pick up paper off the floor.
Or not to taste the paste.
Or to keep their hands off my things.
Or to put down their phones.
Or...
Well, no matter.

Today one instigated, and the others kept going, with pertinent, insightful questions, a discussion of, I kid you not, chronos and kairos.

I love them. (Even the kid who tried to break a desk by pounding on it with his foot in a cast.)
I just love them

Has There Ever Been a Biopic of La Bernhardt? And Is Mayam Bialik Too Busy?

Is it just me? or is there a resemblance here....

The great Cheryl Campbell played Bernhardt on television once, IIRC, and she doesn't look anything like Amy Farrah Fowle, and yet she also looked somehow exactly right.
I love faces.

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'?"

The Trombone is the Butchest of Instruments

Just a random thought whilst listening to Shostakovitch...

"Ut duo sint"?

A Catholic/Jewish panel in Rome has issued a statement.

Par for the course from the Vatican nowadays, clear as mud and flexible enough to support 'most any position already held by anyone.

The secular press, (and, true, the portions of the Catholic media less given to precision in reportage than I might like,) ,) is therefore to be forgiven for stating flatly that "the Vatican says".. Catholics "should not try to convert" the Jewish people.

The document is far more equivocal and far less authoritative that NPR et al would have it be, but hard as any German bishop or rabbi might wish, it does not really say quite that.

Rather than actually proscriptively banning such evangelization, the doc, (which clear states of itself that it is "not a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching" of the Church, descriptively  says how things are at the present time, that the Church "neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews," and it "is not a matter of missionary efforts to convert Jews" which is "a very delicate and sensitive matter," and "must be presented correctly."
The Jewish people are unique, unlike any other non-Christians, occupying a special and privileged place.
BUT, the Church's members are "nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews," since She believes in the "universality of salvation in Jesus Christ," She "cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah," and yeah, sure, the "figure of Jesus thus is and remains for Jews the ‘stumbling block’", and the Old Testament is meaningless for Christians unless interpreted through the "key" of Jesus Christ, who is the "cornerstone" of the faith.
"Jesus Christ is the universal mediator of salvation,...there is no other."

Oh, and yeah, forced conversions and violence and antisemitism are bad and soup kitchens are good.
What was that commission Christ gave his disciples? and how did He pray to the Father?

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, except the Jews, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching everyone, oh, but like I said before, leave the Jewish people out of it, to observe all that I have commanded you." 
"I pray that they may all be one, but, You know, with the usual exceptions, as You, Father, are in me and I in you... but now that I think of it, You and I are one but We're also kind of two, so yeah, like that, I pray that they all may be two...."

.... said Jesus NEVER. 

"What If We Just Said Wait" Mentality Rears Its Head

Seriously, four years on, priests are still whinging about the (no longer very,) "new" translation of the Missal?

And then to throw gratuitous quotes from Timothy Radcliffe into the stew?