The Problem of 'Our Times' ...

Anyone within driving distance of Mundelein Illinois:

The Very Reverend

Cassian Folsom, OSB

Topic:

"Nostra Aetas: The Problem of 'Our Times' in Sacrosanctum Concilium and Subsequent Liturgical Reforms"

Who:

The Very Reverend Cassian Folsom served as the vice-rector of Rome's Pontifical Athenaeum Sant'Anselmo from 1997 to 2000 and is the founding prior of the Benedictine monastery Maria Sedes Sapientiae in Norcia, Italy.

When:

Monday, April 16, 2012, 7:30 pm

Where:

University of Saint Mary of the Lake Campus

1000 East Maple Avenue, Mundelein, IL

Classroom Building (#800), Room 202

Free and open to the public – so bring a guest – but please call 847.837.4542 or reply to this email to reserve a place

Brave New World, That has Such Double Standards In It

A magazine interview, (to which I will not link,) w/ an actor, (whom I will not name,) who has never starred in a movie I had the slightest inclination to see, and whom I never noticed in any movie in which he had a supporting role.

Q: If you woke up possessing the ability to see the number of partners any given woman will have had by her thirtieth birthday, what would be too many in order to consider a serious relationship?

A: No more than 20. A girl I fall in love with will not have been like I was. I would like the girl who's had serious boyfriends, with maybe a wild phase when she's had a couple one-night stands and that was that. Not the one who went for it like I did.

Speaking of Germany...

(Weren't we?)
They apparently do something right.
From Colin Mawby's latest issue of "Vivace":

[O]ur children are denied a broad musical and liturgical education if they are not given access to the hymns loved by their parents and grandparents. You have to distinguish between traditional and old-fashioned and I am not asking for the reintroduction of the latter, it is the absence of the former that worries me.

The Catholic Church in Germany has solved this problem in a highly imaginative way. There is one Hymn Book, sponsored by the Hierarchy, and given free to every church. It contains a basic core repertoire and each Diocese adds its own supplement. This book is currently being revised. The core repertoire contains the finest hymns and this means that children are introduced to the tradition of German Chorales at an early age. I only wish there were something similar in other countries.

The proliferation of Hymn Books, many with their own agenda, does nothing to preserve our traditional hymns. Catechetics in our Training Colleges, with their emphasis on the new, is producing a semi-educated, sometimes fanatical, vintage of religious teachers – this is not the fault of the students! There is a lot of good in modern religious teaching but if it cuts us off from our history it's doing a great disservice to religious education. Let’s preserve the traditional alongside the innovative. We all need to be aware of the history and practice of Sacred Music.

..... This I Know, For the Interwebs Tell Me So

New neighbor, self-described Catholic who does not go to Church but will not discuss the reason, (odd, because she is willing to discuss everything else AT LENGTH,) knows because she "read an article on the internet," that not only was the Pope a Nazi, but an unrepentant one.

It's the Priest, Stupid

On Chant Cafe, Fr Christopher Smith describes the really quite brilliant liturgical progress made at a small, ordinary parish. A commenter named Kenneth offers, that the solution is simply to have a perfect pastor.
Indeed.
Pray for our seminarians, pray for the excellence of their liturgical education.

Meanwhile, we had Mass interrupted this morning for a slightly ribald song.

One of the Greats is Gone

Himself just called to tell me there was an email on an account we share, dear, dear Fr. Larry Heiman has died.

Studying paleography and chironomy with him one summer was one of the great spiritual experiences of my life, and more precious for being so totally unexpected, (the whole atmosphere at the Chant Institute was so utterly different without his presence....)

I had vaguely hoped to visit Carthagena again before the Big Move, and informally "interview" him - the story of what happened and how what happened happened in the '60s haunts me. And so few are left who remember.

He was a saint, I believe, and I am in possession of several second class relics.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.

Beautiful People, indeed....

What can I say, I'm feeling particularly Irish as St Pat's approaches this year.... (I'm almost as thirsty for a session as I am for a sung Mass)

(And what's with this spelling? Seisiúns ?)

You've Got Two of Them, and You Only Need One

Why not give your spare to someone who could really use it?

Really interesting story, of "paying it forward," as my brother put it. (I'm told protocol is such that I could get obtain a slot in such a chain for a loved one, were it necessary.)

In February 2011, the desk clerk at Mr. Ruzzamenti’s yoga studio told him she had recently donated a kidney to an ailing friend she had bumped into at Target. Mr. Ruzzamenti, 44, had never even donated blood, but the story so captivated him that two days later he called Riverside Community Hospital to ask how he might do the same thing.

Halfway across the country, in Joliet, Ill., Donald C. Terry Jr. needed a kidney in the worst way. ...With nobody in his family willing or able to give him a kidney, his doctors warned that it might take five years to crawl up the waiting list for an organ from a deceased donor.

“It was like being sentenced to prison,” Mr. Terry recalled, “like I had done something wrong in my life and this was the outcome.”

As a dawn chill broke over Chicago on Dec. 20, Mr. Terry received a plump pink kidney in a transplant at Loyola University Medical Center. He did not get it from Mr. Ruzzamenti, at least not directly, but the two men will forever share a connection: they were the first and last patients in the longest chain of kidney transplants ever constructed, linking 30 people who were willing to give up an organ with 30 who might have died without one.

What made the domino chain of 60 operations possible was the willingness of a Good Samaritan, Mr. Ruzzamenti, to give the initial kidney, expecting nothing in return. Its momentum was then fueled by a mix of selflessness and self-interest among donors who gave a kidney to a stranger after learning they could not donate to a loved one because of incompatible blood types or antibodies. Their loved ones, in turn, were offered compatible kidneys as part of the exchange.

Oh, to be in...

...Miami, this coming weekend!

And the recitals sound out of this world.

Wadsworth, Ryan, Lebounsky, Prowse, (and that barely scratches the surface, the CMAA is developing a deep bench,)... a newly composed motet by Paul Weber....
And His Excellency Archbishop Wenski presiding over Solemn Pontifical High Mass for the Feast of Candlemas -- EF!
It's just a little too far to drive with current familial obligations.
I do hope some of the presentations
will be posted on line.

Elizabeth DeShong

First off, anyone who loves baroque music, charming stagecraft, a rollicking good time, or just something a little out of the ordinary in classical music, go see the encore performance of the HD broadcast of the Met's Enchanted Island, http://www.metoperafamily.org/opera/the-enchanted-island-tickets.aspx (supposing you are not so fortunate as to see it in person.)

But secondly, though there was tons of both interesting a great singing, because no one else seems to be mentioning her, OMG Elizabeth DeShong!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.elizabethdeshong.com/

I have never HEARD such articulation. her coloratura was simply amazing!

My Italian, She is Not So Good....

... but doesn't that mean "BREAD of Angels"?

For the first time ever, a selection of paintings and tapestries from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, by such Renaissance and Baroque masters as Sandro Botticelli, Il Parmigianino, Lorenzo Monaco, Il Guercino and Cristofano Allori, is coming to the United States. The museums participating in the national tour are the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale, Florida (November 20, 2011 through April 8, 2012), the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (April 21, 2012-August 11, 2012), the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin (August 18, 2012-November 12, 2012) and the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia (December 15, 2012-April 1, 2013).

Il Pane degli Angeli (Offering of the Angels) was such an enormous success in Florence that the Uffizi's curators decided to make it available to an international audience. The exhibition opened the following year in Spain; first in Madrid in 2008 and later, in Barcelona in 2009, where it was visited by a half million people.

All of the forty-four works of art in Offering of the Angels are related to the theme of angels and the Eucharist. The paintings and tapestries portray scenes from the Old Testament, including the Creation of Adam, the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the Miracle of the Manna, as well as events from the life of Christ, including the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. All the subjects are tied together by the theme of forgiveness.

For the first time ever, a selection of paintings and tapestries from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, by such Renaissance and Baroque masters as Sandro Botticelli, Il Parmigianino, Lorenzo Monaco, Il Guercino and Cristofano Allori, is coming to the United States. The museums participating in the national tour are the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale, Florida (November 20, 2011 through April 8, 2012), the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania (April 21, 2012-August 11, 2012), the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin (August 18, 2012-November 12, 2012) and the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia (December 15, 2012-April 1, 2013).

Il Pane degli Angeli (Offering of the Angels) was such an enormous success in Florence that the Uffizi's curators decided to make it available to an international audience. The exhibition opened the following year in Spain; first in Madrid in 2008 and later, in Barcelona in 2009, where it was visited by a half million people.

All of the forty-four works of art in Offering of the Angels are related to the theme of angels and the Eucharist. The paintings and tapestries portray scenes from the Old Testament, including the Creation of Adam, the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the Miracle of the Manna, as well as events from the life of Christ, including the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. All the subjects are tied together by the theme of forgiveness.

Anyway, sounds like a winner
http://www.michenermuseum.org/press/?item=2011-07-27

Must Read

http://www.devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/2012/01/03/adversus-catholic-praise-and-worship/

Thus, this post is not so much a generic argument as it is an exposé of how I went from a world that made “praise and worship” the terminus of the Christian life to a Catholic who would shudder at thinking of taking up his guitar to do “praise and worship” as a faithful son of the Catholic Church.

Question #1: Does

+

=

??????

Disconnect maybe?...The Eucharist and the Liturgy is the solution. Why? For starters, it is what Our Lord gave us! At one point in my journey, I was overcome with joy by this truth. Watching a grandmother with a third grade education, a distinguished professor, and field welder, all receive the SAME gift of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist was overwhelming. This truly is a Church of grace! No one got the benefit of some kind of spiritual inside track, goose bump meter, or the like. You did not get “more Jesus” if you got “more chill-bumps” nor were you left out if you just showed up. “The Body of Christ” is the source and summit of our life as Catholics–and must always be the centre of our worship. Nothing can distract from this.

My old hobby horse - music that thwarts recollection. (And this can include "good" music that is too much about being good, and being music.)

Anyway, a new (to me) blog to read! (In my ever shrinking interwebs time :oP)

Being Pleased

It occurs to me that many people would would wish to be pleased shoot themselves in the foot by being, instead of difficult to please, so patently impossible to please that reasonable people who might otherwise earnestly wish to please them, absolve themselves of any need to even make the effort.

I'm just sayin'....

This has nothing whatever to do with my life right now.

Nothing.

I am pleased to say....

Hearing the graduale sung, from the Vatican, kinda takes the sting out of anticipating what I will later hear, and perhpas be asked to sing at Midnightish mass.

A blessed Christmas to all!

Spotless Cookies

The point of this seems to be that some wag at Commonweal think that the words of the liturgy ought to use the same diction as The Joy of Cooking, and that a description of Christ's hands and actions merit no greater reverence than Betty Crocker's...