Nationalism

Love for country is certainly a Christian principle, but the deviation of nationalism is "wholly anti-Christian," according to Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Hmm... how'bout exceptionalism?

Of LitComs and Nostalgia

Yes, I'm feeling a bit of the latter, anticipatorially, as freedom from the former looms.

But that's not what I'm thinking about today.
I came across this, several months old post, on the blog of the religion writer for the Times, UK. Ruth Gledhill, not a Catholic herself, had asked Chris Gillibrand to comment on a dust-up over some shoddy and dishonest journalism by The Tablet, a Catholic periodical in the UK, as they tried to put a spin on some words of the new-ish Archbishop of Westminster, the de facto leader, (or at least first among equals,) of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, making it seem he liked what they liked and descried what they descried, and had put England's trads in their place, (the dust-bin of history to the Tablet's way of thinking.)

(The Tablet's dishonesty was so egregious that an auxiliary bishop corrected them publicly and in print, incidentally, lest I be though to be exaggerating.)

Anyway, not being a partisan per se of the EF, (I am in favor of equal rights for equal rites,) this was the part of Gillibrand's comments that interested me:

Thousands, upon thousands, of authorised permutations for celebrating Mass exist, which becomes an unknowable number, possibly approaching infinite, when all the variations that exist that have never been authorised are taken into account. These variations are in the hands, at best, of the parish priest, and, at worst, a parochial liturgical committee.
....If we accept the argument that personal preference should play no role in liturgy, it is time to close down every liturgical committee in the land, and produce proper rubrics for the new Mass, so that its dignity of celebration can approach that of the Latin Mass.

Once during a typically interminable committee meeting, after a twenty minute conversation on the height of the platform on which the creche was to be placed, a member turned his attentions to the settings of psalms I had been programming, saying that the diocese had decreed that some musical compositions to which I never had recourse could be used.
I declared that just because someone at the chancery said they could be used it did not follow that they must be used.
Well, if you're not going to take our thoughts into consideration as to what music you use, what in the world is the liturgy committee for?

And I regretted my instant reply of, I dunno... to decide where to put the creche? because the crimson face and literal sputtering of my interrogator made me fear someone in the committee room would need to give immediate first aid to yet another a stroke victim.

But in all seriousness, what is the LitCom for?
When all is said and done, even if the meeting ends with a definitive, so we've decided, we're going to have the sprinkling rite every Sunday of Easter, if the celebrant doesn't want to do it, come 11:00 Mass in April, the mere presence of the aspergillium [sp?] on the rim of the font, the will of a handful of lay people, and the gimlet eye of the committee head fixed upon him, boring into him from the front pew -- they all matter not, he cannot be made to stride down the aisle spoiling everyone's new silk frocks with water spots.
(Me, on the other hand, they can have fired....)

Gillibrand's idea that the creation of "proper rubrics" will acheive much seems naive to me -- the rubrics that exist now are ignored.

I do agree with what I think he is saying, that there are simply too dang many options for ritual to ensue reliably.

There is always a feel of Sunday Morning at the Improv for many parishes, from the get-go.
Hymn end after the last verse? or stop instantly when the celebrant signals by his loudly impatient singing that that's enough, he's ready to begin, who cares if the Holy Spritz is given short shrift?
Do those processing genuflect? do they bow? and do they realize it is a ritualistic gesture, has anyone informed the servers of this? or does it seem like embarrassed calisthenics?
Is the Lord be with you too feeble a greeting, so we need to preface it with Good morning, everyone, isn't this a glorious day?
Which form of the penitential rite, A, B or C? or, much feared by MDs, the made up D, for the priest who hates saying the confiteor, just sing that short Kyrie, no invocations.
Gloria... oops, stupid organist shouldn't have played the intro, this is the celebrant who likes to give a little explanation before we begin. You know, because it's in English, so we won't understand what the words mean, from themselves. :oP
And from the fact that they are the same words every week.
Opening prayer - which one? even if we're celebrating the actual Mass of the day, there's almost always an alternate. (Why?)
The odd thing is, in many places, aspects that are subject to change, where there are legitimate options, are sacrosanct. (We can't eliminate the closing song! people will think it's Lent!)

All that said... a glimmer of hope. A LitCom leader of my acquaintance, late 60s, is my guess, though perhaps a septuagenarian, previous partisan of liturgical dance, (me, I like liturgical tap...:oP) had a glow of enthusiasm recently expounding on the current crop of young religious who embrace the habit, want to pray in community.

And this isn't nostalgia, he insisted as if he had just discovered it, They're not old enough to remember the way it used to be! They want to priest facing what they call "ad orientem," so that they are all in this together, facing the same way, GOING the same way....

Don't worry, I'm not going to get careless and optimistic.

Earlier that day, when I had collected a Latin motet which I decided we simply didn't have time to get back in shape before the Sunday on which it would be appropriate, (because TPTB had changed for the third time, what mass we would be celebrating, but that's another story...) one of the sopranos said, that's probably good because some people have been complaining that they can't understand all the Latin we're doing.

She is, you will gather, the liturgical equivalent of the letter writers to Anne Landers, or the Playboy Adviser, "I have a friend who...." and is full of suggestions and complaints which she charitably and tirelessly transmits from mysterious and unnamed other persons who are too diffident to speak for themselves.

Yeah.

It was this messenger's misfortune that I was feeling feisty. Oh, we shouldn't sing things that people don't understand? Okay, no more of those French hymns... (this was a French-Canadian parish, but 150 years on, no one understands a words of the hymns and beloved carols for which they still clamor.)

Oh, well, no, she didn't say anything about FRENCH.

Well, if people are complaining about things they don't UNDERSTAND, I don't want to be upsetting people, so I...

Oh, NO, I sure she didn't mean....

Yeah, right.
SHE didn't mean...

So, it is not only parish music directors...

... who say a bit too much about perceived injustices perpetrated by those with power over them, and find themselves tossed out on their keystrokes.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but....

... something odd struck me in reading a jeremiad aimed at one of President Obama's appointees.

Obama science czar John Holdren stated in a college textbook he co-authored that in conditions of emergency, compulsory abortion would be sustainable under the U.S. Constitution, even with Supreme Court review.

WND has obtained a copy of "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," published in 1977 and co-authored by Holdren with Malthusian population alarmist Paul R. Ehrlich and Ehrlich's wife, Ann. As WND reported, the authors argued involuntary birth-control measures, including forced sterilization, may be necessary and morally acceptable under extreme conditions, such as widespread famine brought about by "climate change."

To prevent ecological disasters, including "global warming," Holdren argued the U.S. Constitution would permit involuntary abortions, government-imposed sterilizations and laws limiting the number of children as steps justified under the banner of "sustainable well-being."

(What's a "science czar", anyway? Does he get to wear one of those cool Russain crowns with the fur around them? How many Faberge eggs as perks?)

Now without taking a stance on the morality or validity of this man's positions, (after all, it would be possible to argue that something one knows is heinous is allowed under current law and that this is a loophole that must be closed!), or even whether he still hold opinions he once held, (I believe in redemption, not to mention growing up,) let us stipulate that whether Holdren is one of them or not, there are indeed people and states who believe that over-population is damaging Planet Earth, that this is a problem, and that the private murder of the unborn, even without the consent of the proprietor of the womb occupied by that unborn child, is an acceptable way of dealing with the problem.

This is of major concern to anyone who holds to the sanctity and dignty of human life.

Now, a television show I had followed and enjoyed was abruptly canceled. (Bear with me.)

Not the sort of thing I usually watch, SFX heavy sci-fi, lots of CGI dinosaurs and other creatures.
But snappy dialogue, interesting characters, and time travel, (not a plus with me, but catnip to Himself, and it's always easier to stay involved with a series if ones intimates are as well.)
It was called Primeval.
So far as I had read, its ratings were excellent, its critical reception laudatory, its creators keen to ride it out.

And then poof! gone.

None just gone, but gone on a cliff hanger, canceled with its protagonists stranded and separated in the Jurassic age, or something, (once I recovered from my 1st grade intention to be a paleontologist, and yes, that was the word I used, I ceased to pay attention to that sort of detail, and am woefully ignorant of such matters.)

No warning, just gone. Extinct, if you will.

Now, here's the conspiracy part -- its primary antagonist was utterly un-PC.

A real, practically mustache-twirling, (though it was a woman,) villain.

Why so Politically Errant? What would be most upsetting to the Politically Correct in fictional villainy? Who would be to most upsetting to the sensibilities of most media types? a member of an oppressed minority? a fundamentalist muslim? a LBGT dwarf of color?

No, this absolute monster of a brilliant mad scientist had taken the "Save the Planet By Destroying Surplus Human Beings" dodge to its logical extreme: she was going back in time to kill the first hominid ancestors to prevent humanity from ever having existed. So rather than positing the wimpy, half-hearted:

To provide a high quality of life for all, there must be fewer people

Helen the sinister and sexy scientist concludes:

Planet Earth Would Be So Much Better Off Without Mankind

The ultimate Malthusian, no? Or just the big picture equivalent of your crazy aunt with the plastic slipcovers who never lets ANYONE set foot or tuckus in the salon with the absurd misnomer of "living" room.
And since she is clearly presented as evil, and um... wrong -- and well, we can't have such ideas being held up for what they are, evil, and um... wrong, can we? something must be done.

Okay, I'm crazy, never mind....

However, if and when it is brought back, especially if its American -- betcha the new villain espouses evil notions we have all agreed to vilify.

Like, eating saturated fats.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE poetry....

... and I don't think the word of our prayers to the Triune God or to those nearest and dearest to Him should have the rhythm and feel, oh heck... the flatness and banality of a request for a side of mayo with those fries.

I want prayer to be beautiful and poetic, the words rich and evocative, and even, (ineffably?:oP) unusual.

But Lord save us from facilitator-speak!
"Teach me to focus on every detail."
Why?
"Help me befriend today as the best way to love God."
What?

There seem to be a great cloud of persons with dominion over the printing presses and photocopiers who take their language cues either from self-help articles in mass market women's magazines with a new-agey feel, (or rarely, but occasionally, from trade journals for teaching pre-school teachers how best to communicate with their charges.)

And they are the ones composing our corporate prayer it seems.
I know I have railed before about the particular, er, I mean general intercessions.
"For the XXXXs and expecially Y, that..."

Why Y? why him especially?
Yeah, sure we may know Y personally, but what is that to God?
Wouldn't it be better to pray "For Y, and for all the other XXXXs..." reminding us that we personally know someone going though some trial but thre are faceless millions if not billions more undergoing the same trial with no one to pray for them, to whom we owe just as much love?
For that matter how do you know, composer of the Prayer of the Faithful, or lay reader directing us for whom and for what to pray that those faceless unknown are faceless and unknown? Perhaps when you want me to pray "especially" for Y, I want "especially" to pray for my cousin Z who is, unknown to you, in the same predicament.
For a while our Prayer of the Faithful was coming off the ticker on CNN, "For the 7 farmers in Mongolia who...., the NATO leaders meeting at..."

But even worse is the "O Lord, for so-and-so, (so far so good) that thus-and-such,"so that we not only present the Almighty with our concerns, but then proceed to give Him advice on what WE think He ought to do about them.

And most jarring of all, like the bad old devotional waltzes and ballads of yesteryear and the smarmy religious crooners ditties of today, many prayers lack diffidence and display an excess of affect in their expression that makes them unsuitable for corporate prayer.

I found myself recently reading, "rattling off," I could say, as part of a "ritual," with several hundred others, a long rambling prayer that went, in part, ""Teach me how to pray. Sometimes I am speechless and don't know what to say. Often I simply rattle prayers of others or count on rituals to please you. Help me get in touch with my heart."

You do the math...

Without You we can do nothing...

I think you've done well if you can take one gem, one single nugget of wisdom away from a work-shop, or day of reflection.
Sifting through the bushels of facilitator-speak, there is almost always some kernel of great truth to be found, right?
And besides, this is the midwest, the hospitality is always generous, the food always good.

I attended one diocesan thang when I had just begun doing this for what I laughingly 9or laughably?) call a "living", where the key-note speaker, possessor of a very Big Name in the liturgical-industrial complex, began his address smiling about all the work he had put in on the past Christmas.

"I did THIS, and this, and then I did that, and I had done all of those, and gotten new ones of these and spent all this time planning that, and arranged and wrote and stapled and composed and phoned and directed and played and found and persuaded and taught and...."
He had a stand-up's timing, and a funny charming manner, and I thought excellent, and waited for the punchline.

And it came, "and then at 12:05 pm I slumped on the organ bench and thought, is that all there is? isn't anybody going to THANK US for the Christmas liturgies we made for them, all the things we gave them?"

And we all roared with recognitions, and I thought good, now he'll give us sitting here all smug the zinger we deserve -- WE didn't make anything, GOD DID IT ALL.

Of course you will always feel dissatisfied if you are looking for credit for something you didn't do. (Not to mention a fundamental misunderstanding of the identity of your employer/boss/client. Hint: not the guy who signs your check. As Gaudi liked to remark)

But that wasn't where he went with it, his talk went on to be about how we as pastoral musicians must avoid burn-out since we are so under-appreciated.
He wasn't being ironic at all! And around me people nodded even more knowingly at that!

So the nugget of wisdom I took away from that day didn't come from the speaker -- it was my realization that if the whole thrust of liturgical planning as taught by the LIC, and the focus of so much of the music, (actually, the texts thereof,) pushed by the LIC seems wrong, wrong, wrong... well there's a reason for that.

And that is that their understanding is wrong, wrong, wrong.

They really DO think it's all about what we do and what we're gonna do, and what we can do... no wonder so much of the prayer we sing is Pelagianism Lite.

But the leading lights of the LIC are coming around:

About 18 months ago I heard a lecture by a prominent liturgist who suggested that, instead of thinking that the liturgy is primarily the "work of the people"—as it is described in many liturgical circles—we should first think of the liturgy as the work of God. Look at that prayer again: "for when we proclaim the death of the Lord (the very definition of what we do at Mass) you continue the work of his redemption." God is always at work; working on each and every one of us and we experience this at Mass when we celebrate the Eucharist, proclaiming the cross and resurrection of Christ. But this is a holy exchange of work, for we must do our part, the necessary work that it takes to "proclaim the death of the Lord."

When I shared this with the members of the liturgy and spiritual life committee at our meeting last night, it dawned on me that this is a great stance to have when going to Mass: expecting that God will be hard at work on me, while I am doing the work of the liturgy.

I need to find "A Prayer Before Blogging"

Zenit carried this:

Benedict XVI has chosen to dedicate World Communications Day 2010 to the theme "The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: new media at the service of the Word."

The message for the 44th world day is addressed especially to priests, as the Church continues to celebrate the Year for Priests. The message also comes in the wake of last October's synod of bishops on the Word of God.

A communiqué from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications announced the theme today, feast of the archangels.

The Holy Father urges priests to "consider the new media as a powerful resource for their ministry in the service of the Word and wishes to express a word of encouragement in order to address the challenges stemming from the new digital culture," the communiqué explained. "If the new media is adequately known and appreciated, it can offer priests and all pastoral agents a wealth of data and content that previously was difficult to access, and it facilitates ways of collaboration and growth of communion that were unthinkable in the past."

Reaching out

The communiqué highlights the fact that "thanks to the new media, those who preach and make known the Word of life can reach, with words, sounds and images [...] individuals and whole communities on every continent."

This enables the creation of "new areas of knowledge and dialogue, enabling one to propose and carry out programs for communion," the council affirmed. "If used wisely, with the help of experts in technology and the culture of communion, the new media can thus become for priests and all pastoral agents a valid and effective instrument of true and profound evangelization and communion."

The Pontiff's statement suggests the hope that the communications media will be a new way to bring Christ to the streets.

"The priest's principal responsibility is to proclaim the Word of God made flesh, man, history, thus becoming a sign of that communion that God effects with man," the communiqué noted.

The World Day of Communications is the only worldwide celebration established by the Second Vatican Council. It is observed in most countries the Sunday before Pentecost.

Puzzled in a Puzzling Church

America magazine has a review of the memoir of Archbishop Weakland, formerly of Milwaukee, now of a retirement monastery IIRC, somewhere in NJ?
The review was written by a friend of the poor man, and is favorable, as one would expect, not just on account of the friendship, but because Weakland is a good and articulate writer.
She feels the book is, on balance, honest.

I intend to read it….. eventually. I intend to do everything “eventually.” In truth, days pass and I seem to have done nothing, or more precisely, done a great deal but gotten nothing done.
Several things struck me in the review.

One is the reviewer’s insistence, (surely echoing the memoir itself?) that the man’s life has been anchored by the Rule of Benedict.

Is there nothing about particular friendships in the rule?

That surprises me.

Another is this peculiar revelation of her reaction when the Weakland blackmail scandal first broke:

when I heard that he had had an affair with a man and that there had been a cash settlement of $450,000, two thoughts converged: one, that he fell in love; two, that nobody in church leadership—bishop, cardinal, whoever—should have free access to large sums of money. I knew that canon law allows bishops to avail themselves of church funds if the amount is not $500,000 or more, and to do so without the involvement of the diocesan finance committee. But less ($450,000 in the Weakland case) does not require oversight. This distinction, while legal in the strict sense of church law, seemed to me to fail a basic ethical test, as normal people understand ethics. I thought at the time that canon law needs some fixing; I still think so.

Really?
The law forbids an action beyond a certain limit, and someone obviously intent on doing something unethical or immoral knows that law and goes almost exactly as far as he can, violating the spirit of the law but not its letter, and your first thought is that the law ought to be changed?
Not that as sinners we will always seek ways to circumvent law and rules to which we pay lip service while trying not to get caught? and then lie to ourselves that we did nothing wrong?

(It is not strictly true that he went "almost exactly as far as he" could. He could have gone further, I suppose, and paid his ex-boyfriend $499,999. And ninety nine cents.)

But it seems likely that he knew what they could get away with without setting off alarms, I can’t give you half a million, people will be suspicious. Okay, I’ll take 450 thousand.

Gee, better change canon law, so we can effectively cap hush money payments bishops make to disgruntled former sex partners.

I didn’t know the amount of money up to which a bishop may avail himself no questions asked, but now that I do, the incident puts me in mind of nothing so much as several recent scandals involving homosexual predators who “groomed” their young victims, sometimes for years, while tkaing great care not to cross certain lines -- until eighteenth birthdays arrived.

Most intriguing of all, is the reviewer’s assertion that the book “raises big issues the church needs to grapple with honestly: the role of the laity in the contemporary church, and especially of women.“

I am curious as to how consternation about the place of women “especially” in the Church figures in the story of a man nearly destroyed by his closeted homosexuality.
Would the presence of galpals, (to use the kinder rhyming slang, and I’m not calling names, I’ve been one myself,) in the hierarchy have mitigated his SSA?
Can she possibly think the position of women be BETTER in a Church where gay men didn’t feel the need to hide their inclinations and their activities?

That is perfectly ludicrous.

But perhaps that’s not what she meant.

As I said, I intend to read the book.

Okay, but THIS is why you don’t get things done.
The train of thought, no, train of PAGES I was riding was New York Times Magazine -- The Red Book -- Jung -- Archetypes -- Catholics and Jung -- Catholics who hate Jung -- Catholics who buy Jung -- Leckey -- America -- Weakland…

Hungering for Love

I had never before heard of the Hindi custom, Karwa Chauth.

In a NYTimes piece under the Modern Love umbrella, (which often has pieces of monumental silliness, andwill feature crippling feats of verbal and mental gymnastics in an effort to avoid following a premise to its -- oh horrors!-- Politically Errant conclusion, but is usually entertaining,) an Indian-Canadian writer describes her mother's fasting to honor her husband.

When I was a child, growing up in a tiny Canadian mountain town where we were the only Indian immigrants, she used to tell me: “This is a day to honor my husband. Only when you are married will I tell you more.”

I used to think of that day as magical. But now that I am married, I am not so sure.

“It is good you remembered Karwa Chauth,” my mother said after I told her that I hadn’t eaten. I wanted to explain that I had not been fasting on purpose, only that I had forgotten to eat. But I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth....

After our conversation, I went over to our refrigerator and opened it. I imagined myself making [my husband's] favorite meals, but I grew exhausted just thinking about it — the hours of preparation, the mess I would make in the kitchen. I called him instead.

“It’s Karwa Chauth,” I said mysteriously. “I’m fasting for your good health.” It sounded glamorous, this declaration. Wifely. Though it was a lie, he seemed rather surprised and pleased. Maybe even touched.

The woman seems to love her husband, seems to respect if not share her parents' beliefs.
Yet she does not embrace the custom.
Why not?

She has trouble acknowledging that what her parents share might possibly be love.

my father calls it as he sees it. The trouble is, he sees only half of everything.

On the subject of marriage, my father has given me the same talk over and over: “In the first few years, a man will want to have sex with his wife to make babies. Afterward, his wife will no longer interest him. That is all.”

My parents have always slept with their bedroom door open, and for years my brother slept on a cot near their bed. I remember being keenly aware of the absence of touch between my parents. Once, when I was 19 and feeling emboldened by a women’s studies class I’d taken in college, I asked my mother if she still had sex with my father.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” she cried out. But even as she avoided answering, I noticed her hiding her flushed cheeks — the smallest hints of her longing?

Perhaps the writer also is guilty of seeing only half of everything -- is it so impossible that her mother's blush is the smallest of hints of her continuing physical intimacy with her husband, despite his pronouncements, (which surely echo the received wisdom of his culture,) that she can't possibly interest him?

I wonder if there is a reciprocal abstention or sacrifice by men on behalf of their wives, and the love they bear for women?

Such practices could very profitably be adopted as a spiritual exercise by Christians, I think, (and have been, I think by some Evangelical and conservative Catholic men's movements.)

I think ritualizing such fasts would be a most excellent form of inculturation.

(I am not starved for affection, but I would most gladly fast for love of Himself. And for someone who loves food, sometimes to distraction it seems, a fast is a very deliberate thing.)

Giving Shape to the Liturgical Year

Or, more aptly, recognizing its inherent shape and form.

Gary Penkala has some advice, which plays right into another of my unanswered prayers, my unsuccessful projects -- SING YOUR PART, FATHER!

Seminaries should teach priests their musical parts of the Mass, and should train them to sing what is theirs.
Singing is part of the celebrant's role — like preaching, and should be expected of him.
Goodness knows, it's "expected" of the congregation. "Nerves" or "my lousy voice" are not excuses.
Priests not totally "comfortable" with public speaking learn to deal with the "thorn" of delivering a homily.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to advocating always singing the dialogues and presidential prayers (although there are some priests and communities who do).
Using these sung parts on occasion highlights important liturgical days. Our liturgical year risks becoming a flat, lifeless desert rather than a contoured, living landscape, if Pentecost sounds just like the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (but for red clothes).

Although I part company with him on one point, the dialogues? Yes, they should sung always.
If anything is sung, they should be.
Before you bother with songs, or even most parts of the ordinary.

But I thoroughly agree, singing the collects and preface is a most excellent manner in which to highlight the highpoints -- sing them on the major feasts and solemnities and holy days!

We have abandoned so much of the Catholic culture that once gave us wordless catechesis, that informed our Faith without our even realizing it, and in some cases, instead allowed secular culture to give rhythm to the year.

A Day Spa for Saints, or a Clinic for Sinners?

Or better, is the Barque of Peter a luxury liner for saints or a lifeboat for sinners?

I have no dog in this fight, so to speak, I don't believe that I have ever even met anyone in the SSPX, (full disclosure, I did once, inadvertently go to Mass at the chapel of "independent" schismatics, but I did not at that time know that there were schismatics.
I also, in those days, by mistake found myself worshiping with schismatics on t'other fringe of the Seamless Garment, a sect with Catholic in its name, and married and women priests, and thus forced to avail myself of a LifeTeen Last-Chance-Mass that evening to fulfill my Sunday obligation.
So you can see, I am an equal-opportunity Osteo-encephalitic.)

But I am fascinated by the continuing seeming newsworthiness of the continuing He Said/He Said, (ooooooooh! that mean ol' misogynistic hierarchy! ;oP) of the continuing ruckus over the lifting of the excommunication on the noted film critic, Richard "Bishop" Willimason.

I must say, I don't see the logic of the expressed reasons most of those who objected to the Pope's act of mercy.
There may be, in fact I believe there were, good arguments to be made mitigating against it, but the one being put forth over and over and over again ain't it.
Flunking Modern European history, being Politically Irregular rather than PC, being a mean or stupid son of a b****? Not excommunicatible offenses.

And where is the canon saying "Sinners Need Not Apply" for full communion with the Body of Christ? who has decreed that those already aboard the Barque are only to extend a lifeline if the drowning man bobbing or thrashing alongside is certifiably sinless?

And I'm not the only one with wonderings of the same sort:

Maybe those with doubts about the Apollo Moon landings should be questioned about their attitudes to the Treaty of Utrecht. Or Global warming deniers should fess up about their links to Lee Harvey Oswald.

I have my own candidate for the One Unforgivable Sin, and the leaders of the SSPX seem to be guilty of it -- lack of a sense of humor.
Cardinal Castrillón-Hoyos reveals this alarming tidbit,(I have cleaned up the syntax a bit, the English translation of the Cardinal's interview with Suddeutsche Zeitung seems to have been effected by a non-English speaker):

[The LeFebvrists he once met by chance] are good people, but sometimes fixated on the idea that all evil in the world has the reforms of the [Second Vatican] Council as its source. As I tried to relax the atmosphere and joked that if I were to choose a language for Mass, I would take Aramaic, the language of Christ, as I didn't know who had the bad idea to exchange the language of the Lord for the language of His [Roman] persecutors. They found it a very bad joke.

In Search of Gruntlement

When one is disgruntled, yet knows very well, from prior sublime experience, that one is more than capable of being adequately gruntled -- ought one to seek out gruntlement and simply avoid the source of disgruntlement, as a near occasion of sin?

At Our Lady of The Way We Do It Here, I find myself... well, distracted.

Tornado Siren

Never actually heard one before, not live... not even when the radar clearly showed one just next-door, and we spent the evening underground.

And kinda anti-climactic, now they say, (who, "they"? the Van Pattens?), we're just supposed to worry about thunder storms.

As if.

Trek back up from the basement.

Fittingly strange end to a strange day.

That's not an office for a friend, my lord...

A slope getting slipperier and sloppier by the minute....

Assisted suicide has been illegal in England for nearly 50 years.
But, ordered by the courts to clarify the law, the country’s top prosecutor on Wednesday set out a list of conditions under which his office would be unlikely to prosecute people who helped friends or relatives kill themselves.

The new guidelines are likely to make it easier for the terminally ill and those with degenerative diseases to receive help in committing suicide.

(Okay, I'm just gonna say this once...

... and then hopefully I can let it go.)

Thirteen-year-olds doing "Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes" at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

Not appropriate.

(In the interest of full disclosure, that was not the song they were singing, just the moves that they were doing; and the accompanying photo is NOT from the liturgy I witnessed, but looks very like, except for the age of the children.)

"How to Pray"

A very long piece in the New York Times Magazine by Zev Chafets explores The Way We Pray Now.
(Because our relationship to God is different than in other places and than at other times in the past 200 years? No, I'm just snarking at the Times's "Way We Live Now, Way We Spend Now, Way We Think Now, Way We News Now"-speak)

As to validity, I can only comment on his comments on, and quotes from those involved in Catholic prayer.
I know that it is virtually impossible -- despite the gotcha style of many writers, bloggers (no, I'm not going to link to anyone, even the most egregious polemicist or snarker on either, or should I say "any?", of the Seamless Garment's fringes,) , etc. who speak and act as if it is -- to make sweeping generalizations about the "progressives", or the "traditionalists", or the "VCII generation", or the "Reform of the Reform crowd", or the"JP II priests"... the members of the Body, of the OHC & A form a continuum.
That said, despite the Here Comes Everybody character of the Church, I think I have discerned a flaw, or at least, a contradiction in the thinking of .... okay, not a wing, (does the Body of Christ have wings?) but a moderately cohesive chunk of the Church.

“People once learned to pray from priests and ministers and rabbis,” Liz Ellmann, executive director of Spiritual Directors International, told me.... “A lot of people today don’t have that training,” Ellman said, referring to traditional prayer. “They want to learn how to pray, but they feel awkward in a house of worship.”...

Once it was all simple. Catholics prayed in Latin for salvation in words and ceremonies dictated by the One True Church in Rome. Protestants prayed in fancy English for the expiation of sin and a place in a decorous heaven. Jews prayed in Hebrew to the One God who had inexplicably chosen us for a private destiny and saddled us with commandments.

And then, in the time it took to go from Frank Sinatra to the Beatles, these ancient taboos and walls began to crash. Prayer changed, too. For Catholics, the key event was the Second Vatican Council. “Vatican II was a course correction when it came to Catholic prayer,” says ...a professor of theology who is old enough to have personally experienced the change. “Emphasis shifted to the centrality of the Bible for Catholic prayer.”

Part of this populist shift involved better exposing laypeople to a centuries-old method of Biblical exegesis and meditation called lectio divina...

“Priests and women religious have always been taught to do this, but Vatican II called for ‘full and active participation’ by all Catholics. Part of that was praying in the vernacular. Another part was introducing lectio divina to laypeople.” After Vatican II the practice became widespread among the laity.

Catholic prayer has not only become more accessible to the laity, it seems; it has also become more private and personal. [One Sister of Mercy says] “Women religious have been very active in promoting deeper contemplative, mystical prayer. Until Vatican II, that was reserved for the very few. Now it is becoming the ordinary expectation for people with a regular prayer life.”

... the Eucharist remains the defining source of Catholic spirituality, but that you can have authentic spiritual experiences not mediated by ritual. “Most people don’t live in churches. And these days, most laypeople tend to do more contemplative prayer and less confession. The sacrament of penance has radically diminished since Vatican II.” .... There is a renewed popularity to the mystical component of prayer, and it is found especially in the retreat movement.

What I think I am reading in this and in much else recently, (please correct me or tell me what you think I am missing here,) as a brave front is put on in the face of incontrovertible bad news, a de facto embracing of the smaller, purer, (leaner, meaner?) Church that Benedict is, unjustly I believe, often accused of working toward, of wanting.
I say "unjustly" because while it is true that the Holy Father undoubtedly longs for a purer, more faithful Church, I think it certain that he views the loss of any members, any souls from the Body of Christ as deeply tragic collateral damage, not an aim in itself.
Just because he is not willing to scamper after those who reject Hard Sayings, (how does that go in John,"No, no guys, come back! I didn't mean it, it's just a METAPHOR!"?) doesn't mean he doesn't mourn every single lost sheep, and i think he has proved that with his efforts at reconciliation on all sides.

But it seems to me that some of the same people who decry the Pope's supposed eagerness to jettison the heterodox as if they were dead weight, (which I do not concede for a moment that he is,) try to make lemonade of the lemons of the hemorrhaging of the actively, (actuosa?) practicing that has beset the Church in the last few decades.

How else to explain obviously intelligent people claiming:
“Vatican II was a course correction when it came to Catholic prayer...Emphasis shifted to the centrality of the Bible for Catholic prayer.”

It is wishful thinking to pretend that the emphasis in prayer, in practice, as opposed to theory,) went anywhere other than to... well, to not praying.

And what evidence is there of this:
"Part of this populist shift involved better exposing laypeople to a centuries-old method of Biblical exegesis and meditation called lectio divina... After Vatican II the practice became widespread among the laity."

"Widespread"?????
No practice of prayer or worship or study became "widespread" among the Catholic laity in the wake of Vatican II, and most good practices that had previously been widespread became more unusual.

And finally, “Women religious have been very active in promoting deeper contemplative, mystical prayer. Until Vatican II, that was reserved for the very few. Now it is becoming the ordinary expectation for people with a regular prayer life.”

I would posit that a mystical experience of prayer may actually less common now, less sought after by ordinary Catholics in the wake of vigorous attempts to de-mystify liturgical prayer, to denigrate the supernatural aspects of the Faith, and to discourage the private prayer and devotions that were most liable to lead to a transcendent experience of communicating with the Almighty and the blessed who already enjoy the Beatific Vision full-time.
...................

Oh, and a complete tangent, but can I just say all men have more in common than we sometimes think we have?

“Evangelical Christians, Pentecostals, they go to church to pray,” [Rabbi] Gellman went on to say. “Why else would they be there? But Jews are different. People come to temple to identify with other Jews, or socialize. The writer Harry Golden once asked his father, who was an atheist, why he went to services every Saturday. The old man told him, ‘My friend Garfinkle goes to talk to God, and I go to talk to Garfinkle.’ There’s a lot of that.”

“At least they come,” I said.

“Sure. But when you have a large percentage at a religious service who aren’t actually praying, it dilutes the quality of the entire experience.”

“Like subprime mortgages on a bank’s balance sheet,” I said. “Toxic Jews.”....
“I think it’s important to use Hebrew, saying the traditional words, even if you don’t exactly know their meaning,” he said.

“Praying in English is like kissing through a veil,” one of the young assistants said.

“In the old days,” [another Rabbi] said, “cantors made the women cry. Now they just want to do performance pieces. And congregational singalongs aren’t the Jewish way of praying. Our prayers are meant to be chanted rhythmically.”

..................
Oh, and one other thing -- prooftexting from a reader-commentor?

For the Christians of the world, I believe some fellow named Jesus of Nazereth left pretty explicit instructions on how to go about praying in Matthew 6:5-13:
1. Don't make a public show of it. Do it privately. It's between you and God.
2. Keep it short and pretty simple.
3. Focus on what God wants, not what you want.

Hmmm...
I'm pretty sure that same Fellow suggested that people gather in His Name, because where they did, you know, in groups of "two or more"...?

It is good to remember, the OHC & A Church? It is a Church of "both/and."

Synchronicity

Wonderful visit from family, much making merry.
Dressing this weekend, I find I can no longer pretend just because it's a "shrunken jacket" that it's supposed to look that way.

But see how things turn out?

Food poisoning, the resolution to lose a little weight and an ember day, all at once!

Lucky me.

Wondering if there will be repercussions....

Very, very busy times, weddings, parish festival, "yoof" Masses, 40 hours, maybe a Sorrowful Mother novena, Benediction, and more funerals in a week than in the preceding two months.
And at one of them, all requests, couldn't do anything about the choice of music, bu crossed out the theologically offensive verse from all the choir hymnals.

There may have been those who questioned this, or objected.
We shall see.
Joining together, with bread and wine, and sharing our meal...

"This is your brain on throat-singing...."

Fascinating idea: studies indicate that certain sounds "recharge" the human brain.

The effect of music on the brain has, of course, been explored quite extensively by academics.... many of whom have focused their investigations into the effects of chanting on the brain.

Dr Alfred Tomatis, a French specialist in otolaryngology, believes that the ear helps to recharge the brain; that sound causes vibration in our bones, which amplifies the sound thus making the cranium resonate, and this stimulates the stapes bone of the inner ear – which, in turn, stimulates the brain. Tomatis claims that for the ear to help recharge the brain it needs to hear "all the frequencies of the voice spectrum, roughly 70 cycles per second to 9,000 cycles per second". These are the frequencies that can be heard in Gregorian chants, the one-voice chord of Tibetan monks and the throat chanting found in east Europe.

And of course, I had to wonder, is this respectable science, or do I just really, really want it to be because it meshes with my own prejudices? Or is it merely something some writer with a deadline latched on to that's either ancient history, or more or less fabricated?

Well, ya can trust everything you read on Wikipedia, right?

Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis (January 1, 1920–December 25, 2001) [Ancient history] was an internationally known otolaryngologist, and inventor. He received his Doctorate in Medicine from the Paris School of Medicine. His alternative [maybe not quite respectable science?] medicine theories of hearing and listening are known as the Tomatis method or Audio-Psycho-Phonology .

His approach began as an effort to help professional singers in his native Nice based on his idea that hearing is the root cause of a variety of ailments. His Listening Test and later his Electronic Ear therapy were designed to alleviate these problems. Most of the research conducted on this approach has not found any support for its use.

Tomatis adapted his techniques to target diverse disorders including auditory processing problems, dyslexia, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, autism, and sensory integration and motor-skill difficulties. It is also claimed to have helped adults fight depression, learn foreign languages faster, develop better communication skills, and improve both creativity and on-the-job performance. Some musicians, singers and actors also claim to have found it helpful in fine-tuning their artistic skills.

The Tomatis Method uses altered recordings of the patient's mother and extensively uses electronically modified music by Mozart. Some people therefore call it the Mozart Effect. [Ah. Okay, that old thing.] Tomatis wrote 14 books, and numerous articles. Only a few have been translated into English. The most complete book on Tomatis’ discoveries was written by one of his students, Pierre Sollier (Listening for Wellness, 2005, The Mozart Center Press).

... Soon after he began his practice, his father began sending him opera colleagues with voice problems. Tomatis soon discovered not only did traditional treatments not work but also that there was very little research on the voice. He came up with the theory that many of the voice problems were really hearing problems. He called his theory that "The voice does not produce what the ear does not hear," the "Tomatis effect" and was the hallmark of his career and his method.

He found that the voices of opera singers had damaged their own ears. While the ear can be damaged with sounds of 80 or 90 decibels, a male opera singer often produced 150 decibels. With damaged hearing, they were forcing their voices to produce sounds in registers they could no longer hear. In his attempt to retrain the singers, he developed his device, the Electronic Ear, which used earphones and sound filters to enhance the missing frequencies. The goal was to sensitize them to the missing frequencies.

Tomatis began treating a number of other problems with the same methods, including reading problems, dyslexia, depression, severe schizophrenia, and even autism. He was convinced that many of these problems result from a failure of communication, which has to do with listening and the ear. His approach was based on emerging knowledge of the physiology of the ear.

Scientific reports showed that the ear starts forming a few days after conception and that the ear is fully developed by the fourth month of pregnancy. Tomatis theorized that information coming from the fetal ear stimulates and guides the development of the brain. He believed that autism is a communication problem that begins in pregnancy, with the fetus not properly responding to the voice of the mother.

His most controversial method attempts to lead autistic children to recognize and respond to their mother's voice. He devised an apparatus to simulate the sound of the mother's voice as heard in the uterus, and to lead the child gradually to accept and respond to her real unfiltered voice. He reported that this method often brought startling results, with children crying with joy as they recognized their mother's voice for the first time.

In many of the different problems he attempted to solve, Tomatis was often very Freudian. He believed that many problems of learning disabilities, dyslexia, depression, schizophrenia, and depression were caused by some trauma resulting from broken relationships and poor communication. He found that treatment of these maladies requires the cooperation of the parents and even grandparents.

Tomatis theorized that the whole body is involved in the production of speech and language. He stated that reading, even silent reading, is an activity of the ear. He recommended reading out loud, not only for children and by children, but also by adults, for 30 minutes a day. He claimed this not only stimulates the brain but is the best way to learn.

In his autobiography, Tomatis recounts the many conflicts he had with the medical establishment in both France and Canada, where he later worked. He finally gave up and turned in his medical license, admitting that he was practicing very little medicine. He named his new field audio-psycho-phonology.

Tomatis reported in his autobiography that he regretted not providing scientific colleagues with more statistical evidence for his work along with his many publications. But he claimed that the benefits of his methods are difficult to measure.

The theory of the method was investigated in 1979 by Gomez for a masters thesis with thesis advisor Tomkiewicz at INSERM and published a few years later. The summary (translated) states: "We show how the scientific and ideological presuppositions which underlie his conception of psychopathology, based on intuition and magic thought, cannot constitute a coherent theoretical model."

Studies by John Kershner conclude that there is a lack of support for the educational efficacy of the Tomatis Listening Training Program (LTP) for learning disabled children. This 2 year study was limited to group of 26 students and used an auditory placebo similar to the LTP program. Tim Gilmor's meta-analysis, covering four smaller studies of the Tomatis method, including Kershner's work, found that "Positive effects sizes were found for each of the five behavioral domains analyzed".

The status of research was evaluated in an article by Jill Lawton. She stated "There were also not many objective test results available. Most studies were either not scientific, as in the case of Mrs. Flores' testimonial or the story of the monastery, or taken by centers that were probably trying to 'sell' the program."

A study was undertaken by the University of California on autistic children using the Tomatis sound therapy, its findings were published in 2007. The method used was randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design. The study showed that there was improvement in the children, however none of it related to the treatment. The children that were given the placebo showed a higher percentage of improvement over those given the Tomatis treatment. The study concluded there was no improvement in language using the Tomatis Method.

And as I read it through, I realized, I think I babysat for a family in the '90s, watching the other three children while the parents flew their autistic son overseas in search of ANY efficacious therapy -- it may well have been to see Tomatis?

The Pope will Visit the Synagogue in Rome

According to the Global News Service of the Jewish People, Benedict, in his Rosh Hashanah greetings to the Jews of Rome, said he would visit the main synagogue in Rome after the High Holy Days.

The comments at the linked site are pretty funny.

Collections only once a year?????