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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop it!!! Just stop it!

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

Poor Little Lambs Who Have Lost Their Way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll retire to Bedlam....

Pondering the "Big Questions"

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

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. What does the Lord require of me?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was seamless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Got it?

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

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

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

The Rewards of Teaching Sunday School

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

To ANY "Act of Contrition."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Italian Archbishop on the Sin of Halitosis, and the Automatic Excommunication It Incurs

If he's not discussing bad breath so heinous as to knock another down, (or the unpleasantness attendant upon people who spit when they talk,) and this is not a translation problem,  I am hard pressed to know what in the world Archbishop Rino Fisichella means here:

“I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’ because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might think.”

"Physical," in common with many words, has an actual meaning, you know?
It means something.
Harsh words are "physical violence"?..."PHYSICAL VIOLENCE"?
Really?

"'Literally'? .....'LITERALLY'?"

The Trombone is the Butchest of Instruments

Just a random thought whilst listening to Shostakovitch...

"Ut duo sint"?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.... said Jesus NEVER. 

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

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

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

"In a nod to Pope Francis's humble style, alongside the figures from the story of Jesus's birth will be sculptures of ordinary people, including a man supporting an elderly person in need."

Right, because no Neapolitan presepio ever contained poor shepherds, or beggars, or boys on crutches, strangers, or slaves, or old people, or any cross-section of humanity until now.

(This is akin to the msm reports that Pope Benedict signalled his support of environmental causes by wearing green vestments...)

Well, Merry Charade.

The Rites of Winter

Why didn't Stravinsky or Orff write something for us?

Old people.
Shouldn't we have something vigorous and sensual and beautiful?
I digress.
Christmas approacheth, and being firmly in the lazy camp, I am happy to decry the glossing over of Advent in favor of the Buying Season. CHRISTMAS LASTS 40 DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS DAY.

But...

.. and it's a big "but"...
... some things simply must be done ahead of time if they are to be done at all..

Thus, the Rites of (Late Autumn, but let's call if) Winter!
I shall be on the road when I should be pouring brandy and rum and deliciousness over a fruitcake, so I have baked one today and doused it with the only rich alcohol to hand, (except a birthday single malt scotch of Himself's, which tastes and smells like fabric softener to me and does not enter into the equation,) cream sherry.

I am very eager to see how it turns out.

You know, I always feel sorry for people who hate fruitcake - they never tasted my Mother's.
Her Christmas baking, and trying to reflect in some small measure, the same, - after Mass and Family, it is IT for me.

Coquamo, ergo sum (christiana.) 

I realized I need to make it tonight if it was to be done, so I used what was to hand - dried blueberries feature prominently, as do almonds, pecans would have been my choice, if I had more of them, and dang it!!!! no raisins!
Bu my Mother actually hated raisins, even golden ones, (my fave,) so it's more fitting that I used only dates.
And she hated coffee, but I use a bit of strong brew in the recipe I've settled on after a few years, so that can be a little tribute to my Father, who enjoyed a cup of joe.
And now that I think of it, he was a near-teetotaller, and twice a year, anniversary and New Year's Eve, sipped a half a glass of sherry, so there you are.

Lord Jesus, we approach Your coming as man -- Christmass, quickly come!

Doe God Hate Sin? Should We?

Honestly, I had no idea this was even a question, but I keep stumbling across people saying, more or less, that we are not to hate sin.

The cliche of "loving the sinner but hating the sin," is described as a mischaracterization, bastardization, an embarrassment, a sin and a total abomination.
It is damned as "flying in the face of everything Jesus said."
And most thrillingly, its usefulness is called into question -- because really, isn't process, utility, pragmatism the really meat and potatoes of our faith? -- as we are told that “the distinction between sin and sinner no longer works.”
(In all honesty, that link is to a quote of a translation of an overheard.... well, you get the idea.)

God hates, or so we're told, and I don't mean by vile wretches like the preacher from Westboro Baptist.

We're actually told in the Bible, that there are sins God hates.
Shouldn't we as well?

In all honesty, the anti-LTSHTS crowd seem fixated on certain sins. That claim that those who are pro-LTSHTS types are fixated on those same sins.

Maybe it's just me, but I have a sneaking suspicion the real source of division is that the antis don't really think those sins are sins.
(I was going to say "deep down," but their incredulity is pretty much bubbling up right there on the surface.)
Yeah, the conversations on "sin" always seem to end up dancing around what some call "pelvic issues."

There's a good reason for this, and it's not that the pros are obsessed with them, is that they're the only sins, if sins they be, that have people campaigning in favor of them!
Nobody presents for communion wearing a sash proclaiming his fealty to the Embezzlers' Agenda.
No one is seeking equal rights for Cannibals.

Fr Hunwicke had a good idea, that if you are trying to get down to brass tacks, to really see what your actual principles are, as opposed to warm-fuzzies, regarding sin, (you know, gradualism, use of the Internal Forum to resolve questions about whether you are in a state of grace, and here, whether you need to stop hating the sin if you really love that sinner,) substitute for whatever you pet sin is, "paedophilia."

We love the paedophiliac, must we therefore love the paedophilia?

I'm guessing not.

So in that case, what the anti-LTSHTS should admit, is that they are saying that they don't have to hate the sin because it's not a sin.

Come to think of it,what about people like the, (now defunct,) preacher from Westboro Baptist?

I think his campaign, his activities, his words, all were utterly, unquestionably sinful.
I try not to hate such cruel people, I try to hope he did not condemn himself to eternal separation from the Father in a hell of his own design and choice.

So, if I succeed, if I don't hate him...

Am I also not supposed to hate his sins?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Ooh, wasn't that Dante guy a judgey sort?

In all honesty, I had never thought until now, it never occurred to me when reading Dante in school how antithetical the inferno of  the Comedìa is to the Catholic concept of hell, at least as it is expressed nowadays, when we never claim to be able to know who might be there.
It was a public high school, so the catholicity of its theology wasn't really on the radar.

In the middle ages did people so presume?

A Faithful Citizen had Two Sons, Second Draft

“What is your opinion?
A faithful citizen had two sons.
He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work to respect the dignity and life of every human person from conception until natural death..’  He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and did in some ways, but was more interested in peripheral causes.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but when it came down to it, really, isn't burning fossil fuels as bad as dismembering babies in the womb? isn't  refusing to give a guy a job worse than giving him poison when he's going through depression?
For which of the two should his father vote?"

Human Resources Office at the Vatican

Who does the hiring? is there someone like this,


whom all the folk in every department hate because they are required to take sensitivity training, and answer on sexual harassment charges?

Or someone like this,

who is the reason everyone else is so required?

In any case, are we really surprised that this hire, (the mustachioed lady on the left,)


proved not the best fit for working at the Vatican?
Well, I'm sure she'll land on her feet.

I'm not one of those wacky German Cardinals, but can I get in on some of that schadenfreude stuff? Maybe with a nice chianti....

A Faithful Citizen had Two Sons, First Draft

“What is your opinion?
A faithful citizen had two sons.
He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work to respect the dignity and life of every human person from conception until natural death..’  He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and did in some ways, but was more interested in peripheral causes. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but when he had the chance didn't do much so that he could keep that issue in play to fire up his base.
For which of the two should his father vote?"

You Know What's Shameful? BOTH Sides Trying to Score Political Points With the Survival of, the Very Lives of Refugees

The Democratic President and the Republican Presidential Candidates? quit you smarmy politicking and tell the truth and be human!
Last year the president of the USCCB quoted the late, great James, Cardinal Hickey, "we serve others not because they are Catholic, but because we are."
Don't we do the honorable, the decent thing for other people because we are Americans?

There are people, running campaigns and running states, flat out saying, No more Syrian refugees, not in my back yard.

Said President Obama,

"Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values," he said. "Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both."

Good, so far.But then,

President Obama decried the calls from some to stop accepting Syrian refugees after the attacks in Paris, saying it would be "a betrayal of our values....And when I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that's shameful. That's not American. That’s not who we are."

Um, yeah it is. It IS who we are.
Refugees are prioritized, and religion IS one way our country does so.

We expect to admit some 1,600-1,800 Syrian refugees in FY 2015.

And that, prior to the current anguish and anger over security! That is a shamefully low number, (and the Republican presidential race doesn't bear the blame for that one.)
We,

allocate admissions among refugees “of special humanitarian concern to the United States in accordance with a determination made by the President after appropriate consultation.”

F'rinstance,

• Priority 1 – Individual cases referred to the program by virtue of their circumstances and apparent need for resettlement;

• Priority 2 – Groups of cases designated as having access to the program by virtue of their circumstances and apparent need for resettlement;

• Priority 3 – Individual cases from designated nationalities granted access for purposes of reunification with family members already in the United States.

#2 includes

The open-access model for Priority 2 group referrals... has functioned well in the in-country programs, including the long-standing programs in X and the X, and in X. It was also used successfully for Xfor nearly thirty years (1980-2009), X refugees during the 1990s, and is now in use for Xian religious minorities, Xs with links to the United States, and minors from X, X, and Xs with lawfully present parents in the United States.

and

This Priority 2 designation applies to Jews, Evangelical Christians, and Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox religious adherents identified in the Lautenberg Amendment...

and

Included in this Priority 2 program are human rights activists, members of persecuted religious minorities, former political prisoners, forced-labor conscripts, and persons deprived of their professional credentials or subjected to other disproportionately harsh or discriminatory treatment resulting from their perceived or actual political or religious beliefs.

So it's pretty dishonest to claim that there isn't already a "religious test," for expedited asylum procedures.
In fact, I have read that a finding that "genocide" is taking place is about to facilitate the admission of members of one Syrian religious minority to the US. (Whereas the attempted extermination of another Syrian religious minority, which just happens to be a majority in this country, is not being granted the status of genocide, and have thus far been pretty much shut out of relocation to the US, but that's another matter...)

And I don't think it's particularly honest to assert that lawmakers and governors who don't have complete trust in federal screening processes are only expressing concerns for partisan reasons.

That said, the politicians jumping all over this and demanding a "pause" in what is so far a pitiful show of welcoming the stranger at best seem to be having a knee-jerk reaction, in view of the time it takes for  screening now, and wouldn't it be nice if people looked into what they are talking about before the talked about it?