Rejoice in heaven, all ye that dwell therein!

And it please God, that is where Paul Manz is dwelling even now.

The composer of one of the finest of all English language anthems, Manz died Wednesday.

E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come!

Saint Michael probably enjoys having a gimme, from time to time....

Very interesting thread on Fr Z's, discussing a recent talk by an exorcist.
I don't know a lot about the subject, and don't think I've ever met an exorcist -- or anyone in need of his services.
Though I think I may have been prayed over by a priest (now ex-,) mentioned in the thread. Not sure of the name of the priest at the "healing Mass" I attended, but it was in Florida.
One of the weirder parts of my life....

A commenter suggests that you mention the devil "around the parish sometime and watch the eyes roll," (no doubt,) and correctly goes on to name where the blame for the State Formerly Known As Sin ©, is now oft placed.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of vague social forces.
May God rebuke them, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Power of God -
thrust into hell, all the vague social forces,
which prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

I did appreciate the simple explanation of the difference between "deprecatory prayer (i.e. begging the help of God and the Saints, especially the Blessed Virgin), [and] imprecatory (i.e. “commanding”) prayer," (I didn't know imprecation was ever categorized as "prayer,") and this link to the "Current Norms Governing Exorcisms."

(I suppose as a kid I might have had what the comboxites call "an unhealthy interest" in these matters.)

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

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

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

Pray for the souls of priests.

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

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

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

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

First Pitch

Okay, Yogi didn't actually throw it out, but he was there.
And looking older and littler and wiser all the time.
I love Yogi.

He reminds me just a bit of another beloved character.

Hmmmm... and maybe another...

Heinous Headlines

Okay, I know the author is not responsible for the headline -- but the newspaper is, doncha think?

The Toledo Blade thinks Catholicism is ... "looking to score"? (Since that's the definition of "on the make" that is suitable for polite company...)

Thank you, David Schütz

Thank you, David Schütz, for slogging through a document much referred to around St. Blog's a little ways back, when the LCWR was under the microscope for... well, for skulking around and acting guilty, basically.
I just couldn't manage “An Invitation to Systems Thinking”, a document developed by their "Global Concerns Committee," it was written in such leaden facilitatorese, but Mr Schütz has provided a comprehensible description and a representative example of the "Systems Thinking" advocated by the ladies.

Part of this document is a section entitled “Case Study: Congregational Issue”. The case study opens with a description of a conflict within a particular (unnamed) congregation of women religious:

Description of the Situation

Recently our leadership team has received individual and group letters expressing concern over a Saturday afternoon prayer service to be held at our annual congregational gathering seven months away. The prayer is the highlight of a weekend of celebration honouring our founder. The planners of the event, a congregational committee of three elected delegates and a few volunteers, have designed a Rite of Celebration for Saturday afternoon that is not a Eucharistic celebration. Sunday morning everyone is invited to participate in the two regularly scheduled Eucharists at our Motherhouse complex.

Concerns expressed by the sisters include:

1) a belief that the most fitting way to honour our founder is with a Mass because “That’s what she would want;”
2) an assumption that our unity can best be celebrated if all of us are present at one event, and that event should be a Eucharist since it is the sign of our unity;
3) a fear that a small group (the Planning Committee) is thursting something on the whole group; and a deeper fear that a small number of those who object to priest-led liturgies is determining how we worship;
4) and a hope that such a decision could be voted on by the whole community.

The issue appears to be how we as a congregation can worship together in a satisfying way at a major congregational celebration.

Actually, the issue appears to be around some of the sisters (those on the planning committee) objecting to the Eucharist because it is a “priest-led liturgy”, and other sisters (the letter writers) not standing for this kind of nonsense.

Anyway, the case study goes on to analyse the source of the conflict. What is identified (using “Systems Thinking Resources”) is that some of the sisters (those who want the Eucharistic celebration) are thinking with the “Western Mind mental model”, while others (the planning committee) are thinking with an “Organic mental model”. Apparently the former “values ordiless, predictablity, continuity, productivity and a clear chain of authority” while the latter “values chaos, connectedness, process, inclusivity, relationship, and a non-linear expression of authority.” Apparently:

With regard to theology and spirituality, many sisters move back and forth between the “Western Mind” and “Organic” mental models. They value beliefs and practices flowing from a stable world of fixed relationships characteristic of an earlier time, as well as the insights of process, liberatioist and feminist theologies grounded in a more organic model. For them, cherished beliefs about Eucharist co-exist with a haunting awareness of patterns of ecclesial exclusion.

Hmm.

The next couple of pages are spent analysing the “systems” in which the sisters live and work, the place of entry into these systems, and how they might want to “disturb” these systems. Finally, we are told what the leaders of the congregation did to handle the concerns raised by the “Western Mind” sisters about the “Organic” planning committee sisters:

In responding we intentionally created our own ‘disturbance.’ We wrote and spoke with many of those who expressed concerns. In our response we

1) resisted the temptation to ‘fix’ the situation;
2) provided information by sharing our understanding of what the planners had in mind;
3) attempted to clarify both our own and the congregation’s identity at this time, by stating our belief that our current situation of differing understandings about the Eucharist and differing ways of celebrating Eucharist not only create uncertainty and frustration, but also offer new opportunities for the Spirit to lead us in life giving patterns of prayer;
4) attempted to strengthen relationships by thanking the writers and at the same time voicing our support for allowing the planning committee to do its work as it saw fit;
5) tried to honor all the voices by receiving without judgment each one’s uncertainty and frustration around the Eucharist question facing the Congregation; and by affirming the desire in each of us to have the best possible celebration of our founder.
6) invited a broader discussion of the Planning Committee’s proposal at our open representative Governing Board meeting a month later where the tensions around the issue were aired, and the authority of the Planning Committee was respected.

So. Without wanting to be too judgmental, I would say this amounts to a psychologising away of the objective truth of the Catholic Faith. In this “system”, the Eucharist has become an optional extra for the good sisters

One cavil, though -- Mr Schütz, the calf-length flowered skirt is just as much the uniform of the unimpeachably orthodoxly Catholic home-schooling mother ;o)

Oh, one of his commentator nails the contradictions inherent in the approach of the Global Concerns Committee:

The pseudo-response said that “the authority of the Planning Committee was respected.” But I thought the Organic mind-model had “a non-linear expression of authority”!

In other words, “we do not value a ‘clear chain of authority’ unless it’s our authority.”

Fact checkers, please?

The New Zealand Herald, after a generally even-handed piece of straight reporting on the lifeline the Vatican has extended to disappointed and distraught Anglicans, and the common ground that exists between Catholicism and the Anglican communion at large, unfortunately then goes on to present a table of "where the two churches differ."

Pope Benedict XVI has called homosexuality "a moral evil". The Anglican stance is that those who enter into homosexual relationships should be respected.

The "quote", despite the use of quotation marks is nothing of the sort -- what the Pope actually said was, "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

Got that? a tendency to evil, (which we all have summat of, in this post-lapsarian world. My particular tendencies to evil? well, first would be jumping to conclusions that people that write such dishonesty do so out of malice, when it is probably ignorance.)

But worse, by far is the statement that a difference from Catholicism is that Anglicans think gay people "should be respected."
It is a wicked lie to say that Catholicism teaches disrespect to any person, whether for their deviant sexual orientation or any other reason.

Solemn Vespers in Florida

I see nothing on their website but a friend who lives in Martin county called me excitedly to say that her parish bulletin had a blurb noting that (First?) Vespers for All Souls in the Extraordinary Form would be prayed, (and sung!) by the Schola Cantorum of the Palm Beaches in a place called Prosperity Farms.

If I can find anything more on line, I'll post it.
(And I should admit I'm jealous....)

CORRECTION: (10/28) First Vespers for All SAINTS

During these plummet months...

I was thinking about buying some boots, and came across this description:These boots are...

....the tall report of a customary classic luxury sheepskin wader - and if you're sharp out something temperate, snug and fashionable for the plummet and frost months, it is a good bet that you will devotion this one.
Over the older combine of existence, the classic Australian sheepskin gumboot ... has become somewhat current, especially the "Tall" boot for its fashionable looks as well as extreme comfort.
Since this elegance of boot "took off" in language of its popularity, several companies have sprung up that create them. However, not all the boots are the same - in verity it's a good idea to research the invention before business before business a brace merely because they are worse in penalty.

I loved the phrase, (an understandable mistake,) "the plummet and frost months."

Which means that some babies are "dying NECESSARILY"?

Archbishop Chaput is a man I am coming to admire more and more, the more I read his words, as opposed to what others say about him, (we were living in Denver temporarily when he was charged with that see, and I remember at the time thinking that wherever we went subsequently we would be hearing more from him...)

In First Things he has a stunning, at times chilling essay on the way secular society looks at "imperfect" life (as if we were any of us perfect!) entitled Conscience, Courage, and Children With Down Syndrome.
His remarks on the medical establishment and those with Down's Syndrome are very telling.
Go read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts:

What kind of people are we becoming, and what we can do about it?

A number of my friends have children with disabilities. Their problems range from cerebral palsy to Turner’s syndrome to Trisomy 18. But I want to focus on one fairly common genetic disability to make my point. I’m referring to Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome....

Prenatal testing can now detect up to 95 percent of pregnancies with a strong risk of Down syndrome. The tests aren’t conclusive, but they’re pretty good. And the results of those tests are brutally practical. Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are now terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes—a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, merely undesirable...

pregnant women now hear from doctors or genetic counselors that their baby has “an increased likelihood” of Down syndrome based on one or more prenatal tests. Some doctors deliver this information with sensitivity and great support for the woman. But too many others seem more concerned about avoiding lawsuits, or managing costs, or even, in a few ugly cases, cleaning up the gene pool.

We’re witnessing a kind of schizophrenia in our culture’s conscience. In Britain, the Guardian newspaper recently ran an article lamenting the faultiness of some of the prenatal tests that screen for Down syndrome. Women who receive positive results, the article noted, often demand an additional test, amniocentesis, which has a greater risk of miscarriage. Doctors quoted in the story complained about the high number of false positives for Down syndrome. “The result of [these false positives] is that babies are dying completely unnecessarily,” one medical school professor said. “It’s scandalous and disgraceful . . .

and causing the death of normal babies.” These words sound almost humane until we realize that, at least for that professor, killing “abnormal” babies such as those with Down syndrome is perfectly acceptable....
The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. The real choice is between love and unlove, between courage and cowardice, between trust and fear. And that’s the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.[emphasis supplied]...
Every child with Down syndrome, every adult with special needs—in fact, every unwanted unborn child, every person who is poor, weak, abandoned, or homeless—is an icon of God’s face and a vessel of his love. How we treat these persons—whether we revere them and welcome them or throw them away in distaste—shows what we really believe about human dignity, both as individuals and as a nation.

I have been thinking for a long time about a music project, inspired by a lovely child I know here.
Her younger brother sang with my choir, and after I assured her parents that her inability to learn the music was immaterial to her joining us if it would make her happy, but scheduling always defeated our intentions.

I was going to call it Singing With the Angels, and perhaps after the Big Move I will find an opportunity to embark on it.

(Oh, and for a truly, horrifyingly, obscenely chilling read? check out some of the comments at First Things)

Top Ten Reasons...

... Wyoming Catholics might want to be cautious:

10. It appears that a late night talk show host might be punking them. (Stupid human tricks?)
Or am I the only one who sees the resemblance?
(Or does everyone from that part of Indiana kinda look alike?)

I don't stomp on puppies, but I'm not a hard-liner, or anything....

When do we use the word "hard-liner"?

The Wall Street Journal, in the person of someone named Stacy Meichtry, tells us, "Long regarded as a hard-liner on religious doctrine, Pope Benedict XVI also is emerging as the pontiff of interchurch, or ecumenical, relations."

What do they mean by "hard-liner", do you suppose?

Oh, I know what it means, someone for whom something is, or nearly, non-negotiable.

But let's be honest, there are implications beyond that, and they are pejorative, the connotation is of an uncompassionate rigidity.

The word is part of the official journalists lexicon of adjectives and nouns to be used to describe the current Pope.

But in the context of "religious doctrine" the word is ludicrous, almost meaningless -- religious doctrine is about revealed truth and the practice of virtue, how could truth and the practice of virtue not be non-negotiable for any Pope, almost any believer?
One, well..... believes one's religious beliefs.

(Excepting always those people who stand up every Sunday and say "We believe.....," but it's not like we really believe it and stuff, ya know?)

Would a journalist use the word "hard-liner" to describe those who hold to other kinds of truth, or believe in other virtues?

Do people IRL describe those with whom they agree thusly?

Are those of us who believe the earth is more or less spherical considered "hard-liners" in our dealings with flat-earthers?

Would a woman ever say, I think it would be wrong to sleep with my sisters' husbands, but I'm not a hard-liner about it?

Of course, those who hold some positions would never be referred to as hard-liners because they don't hold them very strongly, or publicly, or exhibit any zeal to convert others to their positions.

But I think we can agree that marquee-name atheist Christopher Hitchens is not one such, no? neither waffler nor shrinking violet he.

I wonder how often Hitchens is described as a "hard-liner"? or the president of NOW?

To quote the elder sister, Let's look it up, SHALL we?

Let's go a-googling.

The word "hard-liner" itself gets 128,000 hits.

Christopher Hitchens gets 1,300,000; Christopher Hitchens and the expression "hard-liner" gets 810. (1 in 1605)
Benedict XVI gets 3,630,000 hits, add in "hard-liner" and you get 5,720, 1 in every 635.

What does this reflect? that we expect an atheist to have the courage of his convictions, but we are so used to religious leaders who don't that we need to tag those who actually do?

Bringing up the president of NOW turns out to be embarrassing, as I had the wrong name in mind. It was Kim Gandy until recently, now it's Terry O Neill.

Gandy gets 40, 600 hits, + "hard-liner" and you get 194; O'Neil get 47,400, + "hard-liner" gets you 1990.

Of course, just because the phrase appears on a page about a given subject it doesn't follow that it is applied to the subject.

The Dalai Lama, for instance, gets eight and a half million hits, and adding "hard-liner" gets you down to 1,460, but for the first I don't know how many pages, it is always the Chinese Communists or their policies that are described so.

I'd bet no one has ever called the Dalai Lama a hard-liner.

So, does "hard-liner" mean someone who won't budge on a position I don't like, or my editor does not hold, with which a majority of people disagree, or which is politically errant?

A little experiment, one more set of stats, googling for an exact phrase this time, so that we won't pick up pages that refer to someone's opponents as hard-liners, an issue on which we as a nation are almost evenly divided, and the partisans on both sides of which, no one would deny, are passionately convicted:

"pro-abortion hard-liner" 2
"pro-choice hard-liner" 2
"pro-life hard-liner" 2
[Okay, pretty even-handed, wouldn't you say? and then...]
"anti-abortion hard-liner" 87

I'm just sayin'...

Truth is the Daughter of Time

Over, and over, and over, and over again... ignoring history, reinventing the wheel, discovering that an earlier age got there ahead of this one, quoting Santayana and then going ahead and forgetting what you did yesterday anyway.

Josephine Tey wrote a mystery in which her detective is incapacitated, so instead of investigating a current crime, he digs into one of history, inspired by a postcard of a sad, wise face from the National Portrait Gallery.
And at the end of the novel, after much research, much effort, and proving to his own satisfaction that "common knowledge" of the case is, (as common knowledge of anything so often proves to be...,) wrong -- he discovers that this is old news, that the facts were there and uncovered for generations, for anyone who cared to look.

But simple truth has limited hold on the popular imagination, so it is the sizzling, or sometimes merely comfortable, or sometimes just NEW, lie that became and remains common "knowledge."

Are our struggles really different in kind from the struggles that the people of God have always faced?

Tantalizingly Close...

There are some who would say that the Twins, after all, were mere mortals, and Angels are just... well, angels.

And me? I'm singing.

We love the .... Yan-KEEEES! (no, not the Mets,) we love the...

Yankees

Happy 99th Birthday, Bob Sheppard!

The Yanks done ya proud, no?

"Hotel Weddings and Humanist Funerals"

Funerals in England certainly are getting to be... special.
Special and beautiful.

A vicar in Tunbridge Wells is disgusted with 'crumbling clerics', secularists and others taking funerals. Father Ed Tomlinson, of St Barnabas, a Forward in Faith parish, complains on his blog about the 'death of death'. He says that he hardly ever gets invited to the crematorium to take a funeral any more, and when he is he doesn't like what he finds: people being 'popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection'.

'I have then stood at the Crem like a lemon, wondering why on earth I am present at the funeral of somebody led in by the tunes of Tina Turner, summed up in pithy platitudes of sentimental and secular poets and sent into the furnace with ‘I did it my way’ blaring out across the speakers!'
'Once upon a time the beautiful requiem mass would have been the norm and not the exception in my parish,' he writes. 'Once upon a time even funerals at the Crem would have been sincerely Christian in character. But that was another England, a time when Christianity was worshipped on these shores. We must accept that, for now, such days are past and that this has inevitable consequences.

'Atheists and secularists might delight in this fact but is it really the victory they imagine? After all, I am not the one who suffers. Along with my fellow Christians, I will still have the gorgeous liturgy of the requiem mass to look forward to. Whereas the best our secularist friends (and those they dupe) can hope for is a poem from nan combined with a saccharine message from a pop star before being popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection.

'It might offend those who see choice as a wonderful thing, but whenever I consider humanist funerals (or hotel weddings come to that) I am only ever reminded of those words from scripture, ‘forgive them for they know not what they do.’ As Britain delights in grabbing hold of its new found secular identity it seems totally oblivious to the fact that so much meaning, beauty and ultimately life is, in fact, slipping through their fingers.

'Perversely then: it is as the church loses its grip on death that death itself gets stronger for the society in which we live.'

(Addition: After reading the entire post of the Vicar in question, I think I can say that without actual untruths, being written, what he meant seems to have been misrepresented.)

Incidentally, I've never had "My Way" requested, (although I have had to gently refuse to do "Over the Rainbow")

Cooperative Funeralcare [in the UK,] have done a survey of music played at funerals. They surveyed 242 funeral homes and 30,000 services and found that 58% of people in England and Wales chose pop music rather than traditional hymns. The top ten pop picks are:
1 My Way - Frank Sinatra/Shirley Bassey
2 Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler/Celine Dion
3 Time To Say Goodbye - Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli
4 Angels - Robbie Williams
5 Over The Rainbow - Eva Cassidy
6 You Raise Me Up - Westlife/Boyzone/Josh Grobin
7 My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion
8 I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston
9 You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers
10 Unforgettable - Nat King Cole

Specifics of Anglican Spirituality?

Could someone tell this very shallow person, who has tried to read on the subject, but not very deeply, what are some of the aspects of "Anglican spirituality" that differ inherently from Catholic spirituality, that any Anglicans swimming the Tiber would be desirous of preserving? (the liturgical patrimony I "get" all too well, to my sorrow...)

A new canonical entity will allow groups of Anglicans “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.

Play it again, Maurice....

So, I've been watching the ads with delighted anticipation, (although, impecunious employee of Mother Church that I am, I must wait until there are bargain matinee tickets to be had, to actually see the movie,) and thinking, how could they get that wrong?

So I take my (much-read and much-beloved yet pristine, purchased as an adult,) copy off the shelf, where it is tucked in between Outside Over There and The Nutcracker, and look it up -- the line really is "let the wild rumpus start"?

Yet a quick google confirms I'm not the only one who misremembers it, and some people are quite vehement in their inaccuracy.

So, I've decided it's like the line "play it again, Sam."

(Or the disregarded double dots in Be Not Afraid?)
(Ah! BITE YOUR TONGUE!!!!! how DURST thou put that in the same category as Casablanca? or even the merest thoughtless and discarded doodle of Sendak??!?#?$???)

The collective memory has corrected the creator's minor misstep. The rhythm is better, (especially if you shout it, and really, why wouldn't you?)

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

(Incidentally, I didn't hear him say them, but in retrospect, the celebrant may have accidentally uttered those words at a Mass I attended recently, instead of "let us being in the name of the...," at least judging from the activity that followed.)

Loving Music, and Fostering Understanding

In light of a certain amount of kerfuffle over who meant what about what kind of music, (which I may get into, later,) I though reading the Pope's words, courtesy of Zenit, on music's power would be a balm:

"This concert has [...] permitted us to taste the beauty of music, a spiritual and therefore universal language, a vehicle so importantly suited to understanding and union between persons and peoples," the Holy Father said in giving words of thanks at the end.

"Music is a part of all cultures and, we might say, accompanies every human experience, from pain to pleasure, from hatred to love, from sadness to joy, from death to life," he continued. "We see how, over the course of the centuries and millennia, music has always been used to give a form to that which we are not able to speak in words, because it awakens emotions that are difficult to communicate otherwise.

"So it is not by chance that every civilization has placed such importance and value on music in its various forms and expressions."

The Pontiff also reflected on the "vertical" dimension of music -- its power to bring the spirit toward God.

"Music," he said, "great music, gives the spirit repose, awakens profound sentiments and almost naturally invites us to lift up our mind and heart to God in every situation, whether joyous or sad, of human existence. Music can become prayer."

Ordination Histories

In honor of the Year for Priests, our parish, like, I hope, many others, is celebrating the "sons of the parish" whose vocations blessed the Church.
Not a big town, not a huge parish, but over the years, it gave a good number of young men to the priesthood.

The other parishes in town did as well, (though the widow's mite comes into play, the tiny ethnic parishes just did not have the human wherewithal to produce priests in such numbers.)

Since we are celebrating, or at least recognizing the ordination anniversaries, the stats are posted everywhere.

Several dozen priests over nearly 4 decades.

The longest gap in between vocations to the priesthood was 7 years, but at the end of that there was a cluster, so I am thinking the Second World War may have had a great affect the life trajectories of young Catholic men from this town.

A priest every three an half years, on average.

3.54, to be precise.

But looking at the numbers, on first glance, the parish seemed to have "produced" priests with a little more frequency.

Because we've only had one in the past 34 years, and there was a gap of over three decades since the second to the last.

And if you take that last one out of the equation, you see that the parish had an ordination every 2.23 years on average.

We were producing vocations.

And then we stopped.

We pretty much stopped.

What was your parish like?