"Words and Stuff....." and Maybe, Just Maybe... Silence?

Had a disturbing conversation, someone noticed I had traipsed through the nave with a gaggle of children in tow recently, asked me about it -
I told her, yes, it was partially to point out art and items of interest, and explain the liturgical and catechetical purpose of some of the architecture, but mostly to model behavior; cover my head in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, genuflect when necessary, maintain a reverent silence...
They don't know how to behave, do they....? she commiserated.
And I replied, how could they, most adults don't, the noise level before and after Mass, joking and trading recipes, and making golf plans -
But you must remember, it's a social event, too!
When other people are trying to pray?
But some people, that may be the only time they get out all week...
Now, understand,  our climate, weather and architecture are such that there is an embarrassment of riches for places to chat in comfort.
And I'm not an ogre - I am not condemning the wheelchair bound man who it takes two friends to get in to weekday Mass, or the senile and deaf-as-a-post babushka who shouts to ask, whadja say? at every squeak and sound.
And truth be told, the disabled man isn't among the offenders, he's impeccable - it's the Pick-a-little ladies who are heading to a meeting across the parking lot who are going to see each other all day but must start their kaffee klatsch konvo in the pew, and the wealthy retirees who want to make sure everyone hears their travel brag...
No, the simple fact is, many do not behave with reverence before and after the Liturgy, because the so often Liturgy itself transpires with precious little reverence, much less silence.
Fr Douglas Martis had a wonderful piece in Adoremus a few months ago about silence, different kinds, different dimensions. You should read the whole thing, (his words on the word, "mystery" are something I used in class,) but this descriptive phrase is a keeper -

"Invitation not Interdiction"

Again, something about which to talk with my gaggle of kids on Sunday, (in the classroom, not the nave.)
Silence as gift, not punishment. "A feature, not a bug," as the techie types say.
However -
I question his implication that speed and quiet reverence are a zero sum game, and to this end, (that of striking down such a notion,) I'd like to offer the neologism,

Breverence

Frankly, having assisted at more than one Liturgy conducted by Fr Martis, I would say it is a virtue he himself already posesses.
And finally, wihtout getting into the, "Was Shakespeare a Catholic or not?" fracas, a quote from Much Ado always pops into my mind when Silence in the Liturgy is the subject-

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy- I were but little happy if I could say how much.

I Am Not "They"

I have only just noticed that Facebook, (where I am reading, sharing and liking but not posting for lent,) uses plural pronouns for me.
F'rinstance, "XXX changed their profile picture."
Is that because I needed to select from some long list of possibilities what "gender" I am currently "choosing"?
I am singular and female, but come April perhaps I'll do something silly - I've always liked the sometime-pretentious use of "one,"  or "ones" subbing for I/me/mymine... is that an option on FB?

I mean, now that feels trumps reals, and words have ceased to have meaning...

 

The Apostate Demon

It seems clear that at least SOME of the people involved think they are actually doing this.

Witches in the U.S. are offering a solution to those who say Donald Trump is not their president: cast a spell on him. It’s a planned monthly event that began Friday, Feb. 23 at the stroke of midnight Eastern Time.
Witches from around the country are casting a mass spell to drive Trump from office. The plan is to continue every night of a waning crescent moon until he is no longer president.
Organizers set up a Facebook page, called “A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him.” The spell is publicized on the Internet and includes a supply list such as an unflattering photo of Trump, a tarot card, a stub of an orange candle, and earth.

But I think one good Father quoted does not give adequate consideration to the stupidity and foolishness and failure to see how the dots are connected of too many of us, and even, in some cases, of the good intentions of  those engaged in the "binding" when he asserts,

"It’s not Trump they are against but Jesus... the devil is saying, ‘no way are you reigning in this country, we are coming out against you!’”

But one point Monsignor Esseff, on the degrees of demonic activity, and its progression rocked me back.

“Then, came the apostate demon,” Msgr. Esseff said, “that denies the sacrificial nature of human life is possible. We are told we will never able to achieve this kind of holiness or goodness or unity—it just can’t be done,” he said. “This is a real apostasy; not just in politics but also in churches, convincing people that holiness is unattainable.”

Can anyone read that who is aware of the Coccopalmerio Proposition, (which has succeeded, and one might say exceeded for sheer awfulness, the Kasper Proposal,) and NOT feel a frisson of recognition? Is that not precisely the degradation to which he is calling the Faithful?

Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts... says that a couple should have “absolution and access to the Eucharist as long as – I repeat – there is the impossibility of immediately changing the situation of sin.”

You know, 'cause we're hopeless sinners, powerless against sin, and cannot depend on God to be paying attention and give us the Grace necessary to... umm... NOT sin.

My Lenten Sacrifice Renunciation

I'm not sure one of my intentions is at all suitable for Lent, as one is called, if one so chooses, to forswear a good, not some vile habit one would be better off without anyway.
But in case any of my three readers is also a Facebook Friend, or a Twitter Tweeter, I don't want you to think I am either cheating now, or lied previously.
I will continue to read social media, (I have an extremely large and careless-of-communication family, and I could otherwise find myself ignorant of some health or matrimonial matter that I very much need to know,) and will "like" and "share" and "retweet."
What I have decided to eschew until Easter is... dialogue.
Liar!
No, what I am really trying to cure myself of is not conversation but argument, and worse, snarking commentary.
So, I am around, but pledge to forgo saying anything unkind about presidents, popes or pinochle partners.

Hearken, O Lord, and have mercy, for I have sinned against Thee

Gregory DiPippo to the Rescue!

Do Sundays "count"?
Which "Forty Days" are we talking about?
Well, New Liturgical Movement has most interesting information on this very question.

It is a universal custom of all historical Christian rites not to fast on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, even in Lent and Holy Week. The original Roman Lent of six weeks therefore comprised forty-two days, but only thirty-six days of fasting, which St Gregory the Great describes as “the tithe of the year.” (Hom. XVI in Evang.) The Roman Missal preserves a reminder of this in the Secret for the Mass of the first Sunday of Lent, which speaks of the “sacrifice of the beginning of Lent.”

Not long afterwards, however, perhaps by [Pope Saint?] Gregory himself, the four days preceding the first Sunday were added to the fast to bring the number of days to exactly forty, the length of the fast kept by the Lord Himself, as well as by the prophets Moses and Elijah. This extension of Lent back to Ash Wednesday, once commonly known as “in capite jejunii – at the beginning of the fast”, is a proper custom of the Roman Rite, attested in the earliest Roman liturgical books of the century after St Gregory. 

And when a commentator reminds Mr DiPippo that Christ gave Himself no such break in the desert, he replies,

He had not yet risen from the dead, so there was as yet no need to observe Sunday. The sermon of Pope St Gregory the Great quoted above, in which he discounts the Sundays from the number of fast days, is from the end of the 6th century, but St Gregory was not much of an innovator, so we may safely assume that the idea was not a new one in his time.

Lent Is Upon Us.... or Almost Upon Us... Which 40 Days Are We Talking about, Exactly?

I haven't decided yet if I will give myself Sundays off - I don't usually, but I am more than usually annoyed with the Holy Types who sneer at those who do allow themselves a respite from what is VOLUNTARY PENANCE - you know, if someone is fulfilling his Sunday obligation, the daily communicant should not hold him in contempt?
When it was explained to a woman I know once that the rubrics no longer called for a double genuflection during Exposition she shot back to the person who had so informed her, "FINE.... SPARE your precious knees!"
(Of course, she also thought Heaven was going to be like my high school, with some tables in the cafeteria the property of the Kewl Kids, among which she hoped, by dint of her holierness, to be numbered. As if there were a perfecter version of perfect joy, and beatificer Beatific Vision.)
Anyway, I have a plan.
But alas, the "Three Pillars" are tilting... what do pillars hold up, a roof?... the "roof" of my Lenten practice.
Fasting? subjecting my privileged self to some sort of deprivation? check.
Prayer? something more than usual, something extra? check.
Well, planned at least.
Almsgiving?
Aye, there's the rub.
I'll figure it out.
I actually kind of love Lent. It gave me a little thrill to walk into church this morning and see the violet Tabernacle veil, and Father chanted the entire psalm. And after four years, (and with Himself in the congregation, a "ringer," with a VOICE,) the  early morning crowd finally sang the Gospel acclamation, et to attende domine, with gusto.
Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.
Isn't that a call to arms?

True Christians have cheerful faces and joy in their eyes…

What Cardinal Kasper Said, If Cardinal Kasper Said What I Believe Cardinal Kasper To Have Said

In this day of Fake News, or rather, constant accusations of fake news, one is reminded more than ever that no one can have empirical knowledge of all matters that interests or concerns him.
I am not there to hear to the actual words spoken by a president, or here to watch the actual expressions and gestures of a pope or that other place to see the actions taken by a terrorist .

When it gets down to it, I don't know that those images of storms flickering on the screen are of an actual event happening now, that the contents of this pill bottle are what the box describes, or even if they are, that they will do what I am told by my doctor who is told by the FDA or a pharmaceutical conglomerate, that they will.
But you have to trust somebody, and I choose to trust the weather man, and I choose to trust my GP. One hopes previous accuracy or good faith is, if not quite a pledge, at least an indication of present accuracy and good faith.
National Review, New York Times, Breitbart, HuffPo... who knows?
An additional problem in this area of finding and trusting sources for information, especially in the ecclesiastical realm is the translation issue.
All that is by way of prelude to saying, Sandro Magister is someone in whom I have a high degree of trust. He has a  piece on the push for inter-communion in recent ecumenical initiatives, including some of an interview Cardinal Kasper gave, to which I can only say, What the Francis? [Emphasis supplied]

Cardinal Kasper: We are friends, we are brothers and sisters. We have begun this ecumenical way and we have taken many steps in the meantime. We have good hope that one day we will even reach full communion. Even now we already have a great deal of communion among us.
       Q: A communion at the Eucharistic table as well?
Cardinal Kasper:Yes, shared communion in certain cases, I think so. If [two spouses, one Catholic and one Protestant] share the same Eucharistic faith - this is the presupposition - and if they are interiorly disposed, they can decide in their conscience to receive communion. And this is also the position, I think, of the current pope, because there is a process of coming together; and a couple, a family, cannot be divided in front of the altar.

Um, no.
The entire premise is flawed because the two descriptors of this hypothetical couple are incongruous, they cannot exist at one and the same time.
If they ACTUALLY "share the same Eucharistic faith" it is either because the one has ceased to be Catholic or the other has ceased to be protestant.
(Yes, I'm shouting.)
And the idea that just because they are a couple they cannot be divided this way is absurd.
He's speaking of mainline protestants with liturgical worship and at least some sacraments, whose Eucharist faith is similar, (NOT "the same,") but what of others?
What if one is Catholic and the other Mormon? or Baptist? or Jewish? of Satanist? or pagan? or Muslim? or Taoist? or atheist?Should they be divided in front of the altar?

The Picture of....

.... well, of obedience, as it happens.

Does it take "guts" to admit, "“Il Papa ha sbagliato”?.... or Grace?

Interesting, interesting interview with the German novelist, (and sometime liturgist, and certainly liturgical theologian,) Martin Mosebach, regarding Amoris Laetitia, the dubia, and papal duty.

It occurs, with who-knows-who turning their attention to and getting their mitts on the current Missal and its translation, I know he's an Extraordinay Form guy, but perhaps Mosebach would consider a sequel to Heresy of Formlessness?

Or even a contemporary papal history, The Papacy of Formlessness?

Hagen formlessness!

("Hagen falta de forma?")

Which One of These Has Earned Prelatial or Episcopal Opprobrium?

You know, I mean.... for his sartorial choices?
Which one do you think, say, a pope even might weigh in on?
Go ahead, take your time.
I'll wait.

  

 

Trying Not To Play "Gotcha!" With the Holy Father

Pope Francis, not sure why, brings out the worst in me.

I know, I already KNOW, headlines are like as not completely deceptive, sometimes flat contradicted by the facts as presented in the article that follows. (Not as big a problem in middle-of-the-road Catholic news outlets, but still...)
And I'm not taking all the blame for this, I think it is a matter of sad confluence that we have at this time a president who thinks in tweets and and a pope who preaches in sound bytes.
Governing well may take more than 140 characters, the Holy Spirit probably doesn't sound like a Hallmark card.
So I see, "Trusting in God means letting go of what we want, Pope says,"and my first thought is, Oh, really? than why do you seem to be getting all bent out of shape when thwarted by Synods, Knights, and Catholics who feel a connection with previous centuries of Catholicism?
And now on top of this, I'm wondering, why is it all right to say, “this is my opinion: women are more courageous than men.”
Are positive generalizations not just as sexist/racist/whateverist as negative ones?
You might, in this PC world, barely get away with, “this is my opinion: men are less courageous than women,” just barely, but there'd be some sniffing, although it means more of less the same thing.
But yeah, you'd get away with it.
Because. Privilege.
But could you imagine the outcry if instead, “this is my opinion: women are less courageous than men.”
He might find himself in Origen's shoes. Or other item of clothing.
Oh, and I also know the Law of Projection, by which we are all to be judged in the 21st century, so if this bother me, clearly it is because if it is a fault it is one of which I myself am most grievously guilty.
So, I see an apt Lenten penance suggesting itself, weeks early....

"To Drive the Cold Winter Away....."

By which I mean, to feel cozy at the prospect of the mercury dipping below 70°.

But even so, sipping mulled wine and gazing happily at our Don't-You-Dare-Take-It-Down-Before-February-2 Tree feels like Yules of Yore, (meaning, not of my Youth, but of Years Yet... oh, shut up.)

But I do like spiced wine and I do like the glittering bead garlands of the tree and I do like the over-populated creche scene, (a heathen in-law looked at it and said, wow, that supposed to be Jerusalem or the east Village, or what...? Magnanimous at this festive time, I forgive him and pity him his ignorance.)

Not much time left to savor the victual delights of the season.
One last bit of "fancy" cheese - is there much tastier than Sartori's Bellavitano? I should like to know about it if there is!
Thank God for Aldi, it's the only way I'd ever have such a treat in my house, (we were almost banned from Whole Foods after Himself consumed pretty much the entire contents of a "dome" of samples once. I was made very aware of the... frugality? of my holiday larder by the aforementioned in-law. The prospect of Himself losing insurance coverage will no doubt preclude us ever again entertaining the guy in a manner he finds acceptable - if that isn't the very definition of Silver Linings I don't know what is!)

My Mother... she may have been the only person I know who also enjoyed mulled wine. And she liked cheeses as much as I. Her last Christmas is a memory that will continue to haunt and delight me.
"Lo, how a..."

"Harvey, Pray For Us"???!?@??#?$???%?^???!?????

I imagine everybody could use a laugh right about now, even if it's a mirthless one.
The choice of some putters of notes and words on paper in a manner that those putters (and presumably their editors, [though it should be said that they themselves often are on the editorial boards which deem their putting of notes and words worthy,] and publishers,) believe to be suitable for use in Liturgy as recipients of an award was met with some amusement, some ridicule and some outrage on the Book of Faces.
One of those outraged linked to his blog
He linked to a post I would have thought Eye of the Tiber material, the gist of which was this award recipient's veneration (in the religious sense,) of a tragically, and senselessly murdered gay man, who seems to have been a generally nice guy all of whose stances were politically correct.

And IT links to... well, it turns out their is a dealer in "religious" goods who actually sells this "icon."
The artist, allegedly a Franciscan brother, gives halos to a remarkable range of... persons, and also includes many actual saints and blesseds. (Also, some truly lovely and holy depictions of our Blessed Mother, and of Christ Himself with characteristics and coloring of ethnic minorities.) Einstein with a halo. Ss Pepertua and Felicity posed for a Benettons ad. Merlin, (yes, THAT merlin.)
And the Aboriginal American cross-dresser, We'wha, (I believe that is also the spelling for the way they young folks nowadays pronounce, pitch and inflect, "Wait... whaaat?"

Well, SOMEBODY pray for us...

The Woman Taken in An Other-Than-First Marriage

"This woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”
They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus asked, "So, is this a formal dubium?"
And they answered,"Well, uhm... I dunno... so what if it is?"
And He spoke, "Then I might not answer you. So.... in what diocese do you live?"
And one said, "Uhm.... Malta?"
But yet another declared, "I'm from Philly."
And they were sore confused.
But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him.
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, "Are you at peace with God?"
The woman replied, "Yeah, I guess so..."
“Neither do I condemn you. Go, from now on try to make it work with your current partner, okay?”

Watching "Night Manager" Pick Up Some Golden Globes, I Thought About How A Crux Columnist Might Apply Amoris Laetitia in THIS Hard Case

Wonder what kind of spiritual direction is available in Mallorca...
Jed, of course, is as fictional as Irma, and the man with whom she is living in sin isn't warm and cuddly like Tony.
But when you think about it, breaking off sexual relations with her guy would have more immediate, more dire consequence, so really...

“But, Father, can’t I go to communion?”
As we sit in the confessional, Jed, a divorced Catholic, living with a man to whom she is not married, looks at me with pleading eyes. She is asking me a direct question.
As I respond, I must follow the guidelines that Pope Francis described in Amoris Laetitia, issued after the discussions and discernment of two Synods of Bishops on family life. I’m called to accompany Jed. I’ll need to exercise prudence throughout what may be a long, gradual process of helping Jed understand, appreciate, and fully carry out what God is asking of her.
Along the way, I must “avoid judgments which do not take into account the complexity” of Jed’s situation. Pastoral discernment is not needed if all I have to do is tell Jed what the rules are and then order her to obey them. I am not allowed to treat the Church’s moral commands as if they were stones that I must hurl at Jed’s life.
In a process of discernment and accompaniment, I must understand that “it is possible that in an objective situation of sin - which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such - a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.”
At this point, I have spoken many times, over almost two years, with Jed in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Over the course of our many conversations and prayers, I have come to know a great deal about her life.
Jed is from New York, where she married and had a child with her high school sweetheart, when they were both twenty-one. She doesn't remember much about him anymore. Jed now describes herself at that time as really just a “cultural” Catholic.
Neither she nor her child's father had ever really thought about their faith seriously. Their families were Catholic. Everyone they knew was Catholic. It was just assumed that when you got married, it would be in the Catholic Church.
She says that the first year of their marriage was “wonderful.” Although it was tough to make ends meet, they were managing.
But then he became a completely different person,” she told me.
Eventually when he would drink he would become physically and verbally abusive. He would always apologize the next day, and promise it would never happen again. But, it always happened again. He began to regularly “brag” about his affairs with other women.
Then he abandoned her and their child. Jed had no idea what to do. She couldn’t find work.
So, in desperation, Jed looked for a sugar daddy and left the child to live with some of her family who thought she was a skank.
After traipsing around Europe, Jed met Roper. They began dating and it felt like love. Jed described Roper as exciting and rich beyond dreams of avarice. He had a reputation as a philanthropist “He is so considerate, always surprising me with little gifts and taking me out.” Eventually they settled on a private island off Majorca with armed guards. Roper's son from a failed marriage lived with them.
Roper was not Catholic and hadn’t really ever gone to church, but he supported Jed in her decision to begin practicing again
Jed was awakened to her Catholicism. She wanted to be a good Catholic and grow in her relationship with God. She especially wanted to be able to go to communion.
Jed had no idea where her child's father might be. She didn’t really even know if he was still alive. She had no church or legal documents with her when she went to Europe, and her family would hardly speak to her much less help.
She wanted to get married but Roper, who smacked her around wasn't interested. Although Jed is convinced that she was just too young to get married the first time, it also seems that she wouldn’t have any real grounds for requesting an annulment in that her child's father’s problems did not develop until after they were married.
“But, Father, can’t I go to communion?”
Jed and I had discussed what the Church teaches concerning communion for those living. I had explained to her that if she and Roper lived as “brother and sister” then she could go to communion. She told me that Roper thought that idea was crazy. As he was used to getting what he wanted, Jed was afraid of what might happen to their relationship if they were no longer able to grow in their love through physical intimacy.
She knew Roper could handle the prospect of committing to complete celibacy for the next 70 years. Plus, both she and Roper were fond of children
Jed told me that every Sunday after she gets home from Mass with little Donald, she cries all day. She is so heartbroken that she cannot make her communion with the Lord and receive his grace in the sacrament.
Her despair is so great that as a pastor who also has a counseling degree, I am concerned that her spiritual and psychological health is being harmed by her attending Mass and not being able to receive communion. Although I have not said so to Jed, I have wondered if it would be better for her to attend a non-Catholic church.
She has told me that Roper has begun refusing to attend Mass because he can’t bear to be a part of what is causing her so much anguish. Even little Donald wants to know why Jed always cries after Mass.
“But, Father, can’t I go to communion?”
After more than a year of accompanying her, how do I answer her direct question? If she were to just come up for communion, I couldn’t deny her. First of all, everything I know about her relationship has come from within the sacrament of Confession. Outside of the sacrament, I can’t “use” that information in any way, certainly not by publicly denying her communion.
Even if I did know of Jed’s circumstances apart from Confession, no one else in the parish does. And there are ways wose situations of manifest public sin so there is no danger of scandal. I would also not know on any given Sunday if she and Roper had decided to begin living as “brother and sister.”
Jed certainly does not have an attitude of defiance or lack of love for the Church and its teaching. Given these circumstances, if she were to come forward at communion, I would not be allowed by the Church to publicly refuse her.
But I am not dealing with whether I will deny her communion. I am dealing with one of the faithful who is asking me a direct question, and she deserves a direct answer.
Jed certainly has the true “humility, discretion, and love for the Church and her teaching” that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has said is necessary before someone in this situation might be able to go to communion. She is in a “sincere search for God’s will” and has a “desire to make a more perfect response to it.”
Amoris Laetitia has described a number of things that I must consider as I offer pastoral care to Jed. First of all, I can see no real guilt on Jed's part for the failure of her marriage. While she is sad that she and Roper, she also believes that God has put Roper in her life for her well-being. Despite not being married, and that he beats her, their relationship in some other respects appears to have benefits.
And as she sends money to her mother, Roper in effect supports her child. I share Jed's concern that attempting life-long celibacy might endanger the seeming faithfulness and the continuance of their relationship which would certainly not be for the good of her child or his. And Jed is a good influence on Roper. I believe the end of their relationship would harm all four of them.
In this case, I have come strongly to believe that Jed would be greatly aided by the grace of the sacrament of Communion. Without it, I fear that she will stop coming to Mass, and perhaps should. I believe it may be possible that someday in the future, perhaps after another two or three children, that Jed and Roper may be able to embrace a life as “brother and sister.” Or their former spouses could die.
“But, Father, can’t I go to communion?”
Based on everything I know as a priest concerning sin, conscience, hope, Jesus, the teaching of the Church, and particularly the instruction the Church has received from Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia, I tell Jed, “If you sincerely believe in your conscience that this is how Christ can aid your growth in holiness, then, yes. You may go to communion.”
After Mass the following Sunday, Jed greets me with tears in her eyes - this time tears of joy. Even Roper doesn't seem to be in too foul a humor.
Jed tells me, “For all these years at every Mass when it was time for communion, I have felt as if Jesus turned his back to me. Today, for the first time, I felt as if Jesus embraced me and told me that he loved me!”

I don't care what the US liturgical calendar says....

...a Blessed Epiphany!
(And I feast on this Friday...black forest ham, Mancahgocidre, fruitcake and eclairs)

"My Dad's really mad at me, He's always ticked off about something...."

A friend posted

"Jesus told St. Faustina that He comes to every soul three times at the time of death." My ex-husband committed suicide, and I have always hoped that at the hour of his death that he realized that God wasn't the Big Meanie in the Sky that he had been fighting."

I repeat this because I have been looking for ways to explain various situations, doctrines, practices, etc. of the Faith - to children.
It's hard.
It's really hard.
Sometimes when you are fooled, rather, you've fooled yourself into thinking you've succeeded, you find yourself like the couple who thought they'd succeed with their children and the Ten Commandments.
"Hey," said a small one at bedtime, who really glommed onto the 6th, "We should write a book! Curious George commits Adultery!"
Anyway, I'm not sure this is good, or true, or non-insulting to the Chosen People, but it occurred to me recently, that the Big Meanie in the Sky, the one in the Old Testament that Abraham had to try to wheedle  the safety of the Gomorrahans out of, had a bit in common with the parents of adolescents.

Teenagers often completely misunderstand the emotions on adults' faces.
"My parents are pissed off because I went and and did xxx ...." when the expression on Mom and Dad'sf aces was really terror and relief at the stupid and dangerous thing their child has just survived.

Is the Angry Father glowering down from the heavens, the vengeful law-giver simply a misinterpretation on the part of adolescent humanity?

Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of ...

... you thought I was going to say, "Christ," didn't you?
No, the'res more than one answer, boys and girls.
It turns out ignorance of scripture leaves a gaping lacuna in the study of sexual sociology.
To whit:

The work of sociologists has long been concerned with the relationship between urbanization and sexuality, especially in the form of visible clusters or neighborhoods typified by specific sexual moralities or practices. Identification of 'vice areas' and, latterly, 'gay villages', has been a stock in trade of urban sociology since at least the time of the Chicago School.

Really? at least since the 1920s or '30s?
No one noticing the phenomenon, and how it would affect both the denizens of such areas and, you know..... visitors, and, when you think about it, migration from said urban enclaves, a bit earlier?

Notes From a Dying Tablet

It's old, it was dirt cheap, and it's starting to malfunction so frequently, and freeze requiring restarts thats it is almost useless.
So, I'm going through everything actually on it, rather than preserved for posterity somewhere in the ether, and I am at a loss - why did I once think it necessary to remember that Sheldon Cooper's proposed nicknames for Amy Farrah Fowler included Princess Corncob, Gollum, and Fester?

The Pope Gives Definitive, Clear Answer to Questions of Divorce, Remarriage and Sacraments

Assuming post-synodal exhortations are magisterial, (I am not convinced they are) and magisterial teachings may lawfully be developed, but not negated, (of this, I am convnced.)

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.
This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."
Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.

Well, that answers that.

So, dubia schmubia.