Causing Pain

Amy Welborn has one of those What did you see? what did you hear? threads about this past weekends liturgies that she does from time to time.

It's that week. Many of us gritted our teeth and sang, (or swallowed our gorge and programmed,) the obvious front-runner inspired by I Samuel. (I also did the Schubert "Behold the Lamb..." that we do, the anonymous "Let Your Light", the Calvert Shenk pro-life text to ST COLUMBA, the Richard Rice choral communion proper, the setting of the psalm refrain that Gather offers [albeit with the corrected lectionary verses, chanted in four parts,] some Purcell thing that I grabbed because it was the right key signature to eke out the rest of communion time, [is it a shameful admission that i don't even know what it was?] all in all, a very mixed bag.)

I don't know why, perhaps because I am tired, and find myself in one of those (cyclical, and, mercifully, usually short,) sloughs where I am discouraged about where the Liturgy is going, (only in the short term, and in the immediate vicinity, I know that ultimately and everywhere right will prevail,) I found myself very touched by several of the comments:

As a church musician who did one of those hymns this morning (Here I Am, Lord), I can tell you that, at this point in my life, the resources needed to throw out the OCP drivel and replace it with something good outweigh the despair I feel more and more as I play the stuff.

Just today I was thinking: I can’t stand this song one — more — minute! Yet trying to explain to the choir and congregation why we would be embarking on a new venture in church music, when no one around us is, when that “new” (mostly old) music is hard (though not impossible) to find, when it’s also hard (though not impossible — ever try teaching the verses of “Be Not Afraid”?) to learn, when the current music is all that people know …

I am too tired to face those overwhelming odds. I admire the people who can, but I can’t. For now, I try not to introduce any more drivel than I have to (there are some decent things out there), and I glean what I can of traditional (mainly Protestant) hymns from the OCP canon.

and

I don’t consider myself a traditionalist. I’m liberal politically (exc. life issues, where oddly ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ seem to have reversed their ideologies). I like Commonweal.

But you know what? I’m just tired. I need peace at Mass, not the constant cringing at The Next Dumb Thing. Not ham-fisted attempts at moving me emotionally through music. Not Father narrating every part of Mass as if I just entered the Church and am slow on the uptake, or as if Father doesn’t trust symbols to do what symbols are supposed to do without narration (”And now we will do X as a symbol of Y because we as a community believe Z”). And absolutely not the constant grating intrusion of Father’s personality. This aging liberal is so glad to have Father “turn his back on the people” at the start of Mass each Sunday. If only the writers of most Catholic music would be that considerate.

o.h.? MJ? I know it doesn't mean much, but I feel your pain. I share your pain.

Heck, I may have caused some of your pain....

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Hoopla!

Ah, yes, some chant scholars had to make do with San Diego, but I was in the tropical paradise that is the southside of Chicago.

In a blizzard, I might add.

No matter, it was wonderful, and I think, I think, (okay, I hope...) that I am getting the hang of the solfege thang....

I am the bleached head, (no, not "bleched,") almost directly below the red exit light.

Image 6 of 8

I missed it....

... but I understand Cheney attended the inauguration costumed as Mr. Potter.

A Very Different Funeral

Weather conspired against... or with? me.
This was a first at the parish for me, no one, not even a musically inclined undertaker's assistant to join me in the loft.
The funeral choir members were apparently all snowed in, or more probably, plowed in. (There is a very cavalier attitude displayed by our city snow removal personnel, in regards to private driveways and walks whose owners have already cleared them.)

Ordinarily, I would have been, I blush to tell it, pleased at such solitude.
I would have gone down to the ambo to lead the psalm, and sung the Gospel acclamation from below, and enhanced, (or so I immodestly think,) the liturgy with some Faure or Handel, and prayed at least a modicum of the Mass in Latin.

But I am possibly flu-ish, and at minimum, horribly-horrible-head-cold-ish.
So, instead of reveling in the freedom from dealing with the cursing, shouting, gossiping, loudly either complaining about or admiring the musical choices funeral choir, I was scrambling, what would I sing?
And I forgot to toll the bell (not normally my job, but in the absence of anyone else, I should have thought...)

First thing I did was sigh with relief that no one would be clamoring to sing the mandated pre-funeral concert of top 40 sacchro-sacro-pop and Protestant hymnody.

I gave a half second consideration to singing the Sanctus from the Requiem Mass, but since the pastor has reprimanded me for that in the past, I didn't think just because another priest had the Mass I should be so snarky. So, Danish Amen it was.

I had already programmed the Christopher Tietze hymnification ('zat a word?) of Requiem Aeternam, although for Offertory hymn, as the choir isn't quite used to it yet, and I often have some extra singers by Offertory, (the undertaker's assistants wasn't a joke,) so i bumped that to its proper, forgive the wordplay, place and used it for entrance.

For the responsorial I chanted the 122nd psalm to a Meinrad tone.

I couldn't risk the Gregorian Domine Jesu at the preparation, as I've never sung it aloud before, and with my voice not quite all there, I couldn't be as sure of what would come out, or in what range, as well as I could something I've done a lot. And I haven't yet arrived at a good strophic hymn text of the Offertory proper, (but I might be close.)

So I sang the David Hurd setting of Simeon's canticle, which I find a very suitable alius cantus aptus for funerals.
After Lux Aeterna I turned to the Gregorian Ave Verum for communion.

I sang the In Paradisum in English, (didn't want to push my luck,) but it was nice for a change to pick an easy key, (sang OVER my cold, rather than under,) and an easy tempo, instead of trying to drive them along with hands and voice.

And so as not to completely foil expectations, I played a "closing hymn" after that. Short of voice or not, I did not want to flout rubrics and do something purely instrumental, (though wouldn't Nimrod have been nice?), but I needn't have bothered.
I started in on The Strife Is O'er, but Father pretty well drowned it out, speculating aloud, on his live body mic, about whether his galoshes were where he thought they were, and would he be able to get by without them at the cemetery.

Somewhat less profane conversation than he is often picked up engaging in either before or after Mass....

Anyway, I have never had so large a proportion of the funeral regulars (does every parish have them? I hope so,) tell me how prayerful and well-chosen the music was.
This leads me to believe if I could only get the pastor's support, a reform would not be impossible with this parish.

Oh, well...

Is it "the Divine Liturgy".... or is it Blechy, fabricated rituals?

A new, to me, blog, the Discerning Deacon.
I will not try to tease out his location from his posts, but some of his words make me wonder if he is a sometime pew- or loft-mate.
I think he could use our prayers (of course, everyone can use prayers, but anyone discerning a vocation deserves special attention.

I recently attended a 'Children's Mass' at my parish. This was the first one I was at since I've been actively seeking to do the will of Christ. And what a shock it was. I should preface by saying that we have two Priests, who are both wonderful men, and have each helped me to grow in maturity and spirituality. To put it loosely, one is of a gentle, "Spirit of Vatican II" formation, and I suspect the other is somewhere on the spectrum of "The reform of the reform." Depending on the celebrant at Mass, we will have a different level of adherence to the GIRM, but it never approaches a Novus Ordo in Latin, nor a 'Clown Mass.'

However, the Children's Mass was quite a departure. ... the Second Reading.. was omitted entirely. .. they had to make time for the antics ahead. God forbid some Catholics spend more than 45 minutes at Mass. When I was in Africa, people would walk all night to make it to the Mission Church, and they would certainly feel ripped-off if the Homily was less than an hour long. But that's a story for another time.

After the Gospel, the Children put on a ...skit... as part of the homily, though mercifully, not in place of it. IT was something about how they were living in the faraway land of "Blech" (pronounced like disgust at some kind of food) and how they had to work together to do something or other. ...The children were really just props and I don't believe they even spoke. They were led/dragged around by our Choir Director who concluded by admitting that they were going to try out for Broadway. Then, the [Choir] Director simply left Mass, while the Pastor started his homily with a Joke. ... Mass Ended with [a song] where we sing "YHWH's people dance for Joy..." The message on the usage of Songs with the Tetragrammation has in fact reached our Parish some time ago. Sigh.

The Byzantine Rite does not refer to the great prayer of the Church as Mass. It is called, The Divine Liturgy. The name itself indicates that Liturgy does not belong to any of us, but only to the Lord. Perhaps the very name has played a small role in preventing the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom from devolving into the Liturgy of Us. ....

Now, I love and respect the perpetrators of all this, but !@#$, the Mass does not need to be made relevant, or be improved upon, regardless of the Good intentions of a Liturgy Committee.

Update -- The blog has disappeared. I suspect its author was fearful that discovery would lead to wounded feelings.
Glad I saw it while it lasted.

Hymns

This is a marvelous hymn text (LM, she suggests using BEACH SPRING,) in support of the sanctity of human like by the nothing short of brilliant Kathy Pluth, the "New Ephrem", suitable for a variety of occasions many of us will encounter this week.
I can't find my post on this at the CMAA fora, but my proposal was that the MacArthur people get on the ball and give this woman a "genius grant" so that she can devote her time to preparing worthy translations of the great Catholic hymns, to be sung to the glory of God and to the sanctification and aedification of His people.

1. At the dawning of creation, God divided light from shade,
And He made us, male and female. In His image we were made.

(Refrain) And the life that God created we will honor and defend
From conception to the heavens; from beginning to the end.

2. God the Father called a people, and He drew them by the hand
And He led them through the desert and into the Promised Land.

3. In His saving Incarnation, Jesus bore a human frame
To restore the sacred Image hidden by our sin and shame.

4. And He walked among the people, healed the sick and raised the dead,
And the poor rejoiced at hearing the appealing words He said.

5. On the Cross, our gracious Savior Jesus laid His body down,
Dying as the Man of Sorrows; giving humankind a crown.

6. And He sent the Holy Spirit for forgiveness of our sins.
Even now God dwells among us; even now, new life begins.

7. When we share the Holy Myst’ries in the Eucharistic food
We are filled with life eternal: Jesus’ Body and His Blood.

8. When He comes again in glory, all the dead shall rise again,
And our human eyes shall see Him in the splendor of His reign.

c. 2008 by Kathleen Pluth. Anyone may use this hymn freely.

But I have rethought this, forget the MacArthur Foundation -- USCCB, why are you spending your money, wait, why are you spending my money, OUR money on, say a film office?

THIS is what you should be funding.

Do you attend meetings?

Interesting article in the NYTimes about.... shudder.... meetings.

As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels.
This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.

I, thankfully, am not required to attend as many meetings as when I first took the podium, but most of those still on my plate? the bane of my existence.
I think when I leave this place, if I ever "do church music" on any but a volunteer basis, that would be one of the deal-breakers, compulsory attendance at LitCom meetings. (Another is, "do you allow eulogies at funeral Masses? and affirmative answer and I'm outta there.)

I think my problems with meetings are two-fold -- one is that they are often used as a democratic facade for a unilateral decision-making practice. I don't mind being part of a purely advisory body, but don't pretend its members have some power they do not; don't pretend that a decision you, rightfully, made was reached by "consensus" just because those who opposed it acknowledged that it was your choice to make and didn't hand in their resignations when you made it. (I'm loyal enough not to render my dissent in a published paper like a thwarted member of SCOTUS; but I'm not, especially in private conversation with those who have a stronger claim on my frank expression than you, going to take a bullet for you when I think you were wrong.)
The other is its opposite number, the gathering of too many, too uninformed, that goes on too long -- with no acknowledgement that all opinions are not equal, not even necessarily equally entitled to a hearing.

Two Questions...

... as I flip back and forth between the weather and the news.

How much worse can the winter get?
and
How hard is the word "Inaugural" to pronounce?

Yeah? well, then YOU tell them...

This seems to be said to me more frequently than to other people, at least the other people the intimacies of whose social intercourse I am aware in any detail.

(Which includes more people than you might think .... I seem to be at a point and place in my life where most of my acquaintances feel bound to relay the entire content of most of their conversations: So then I says to 'em... and then HE goes... so I up an' asks... you know the drill. I am not kidding. One pal regularly goes into such detail as, and then I said WHAT?!?#$?! and he says yeah, and I just shake my head, and then...)

We've had a rash of funerals. It's that time of year, and the vicious weather probably isn't lifting anyone's spirits or ameliorating his illnesses.
This morning was one of those where someone in the (not immediate) family chose to play liturgist. (This actually makes it a great deal easier, as one needn't put up with as much guff from someone who is not in mourning.)

The kicker this time was that the person in question really was a liturgist, and yet seemed slightly less informed that our average PIP.
He arrived spitting nails, with his karaoke accompaniment tucked under his arm.
What do you mean you don't have a sound system to play this on? (I bit my tongue and didn't add, and even if I had...)
And what's this the funeral director tells me that you won't use [favorite top 40 sacro-sacchro-pop song] as the psalm?
And didn't you get my email about the Mass parts? (You mean the setting of the ordinary?) Well it's the one we always use at my church, and this is the first I've heard that those aren't actually the words of the Mass.
And who says we can't pronounce [the unpronounceable tetragrammaton] where'd ya get that idea?
Well, the CDW-
Nah, I never read that stuff the diocese sends out...
Do YOU want to be the one to tell Cousin Flora's kids?

(Smiling) Sure.

That response always seems to take the wind out of the most belligerent people's sails. (It works at sub-committee meetings, too.)
The impression I get from the success of this technique is that people in these situations are at their most belligerent when they are trying to enforce their own preferences and intentions under the guise of insisting someone else's dearest wish.
(I had one funeral last year where two rival soloists, non-blood relatives showed up in the loft with competing "the Family's wishes", each of which, mirabile dictu, involved a show-piece by the bearer of the message.)
I'm going to play a clarinet solo for communion.
Well, it was a sacred piece, I figured you pick your battles, and a parish "liturgy director" who'd never heard of the General Instruction was going to give me a deer in the headlights look at the mention of the Ceremonial of Bishops.

Should it have been any surprise that this guy had his wife there to video his performance?...er,... his musical prayer?

I am trying, moving at what feels like glacial speed, to change my parish's liturgical practice regarding funerals.
The In Paradisum took a year before they finally gave up fighting me on it, the "only lectionary texts or other approved psalters" for the psalm took another year (and still gets me a lot of flack.)
I got the biggest funeral home on board with not presenting the family with a list of choices that included a lot of inappropriate music, but the others still pull out a list from who knows where, featuring stuff I don't know, never heard of and wouldn't play or sing on a bet, I think from 5 choir directors ago.
I'm working now on convincing TPTB, (of which, how is that?, I am not one...) to go to a "default" program, printed on pew cards so that people know the responses, for the love of pete, and the words to the ordinary, and when to stand and sit and kneel, who cares about the "songs?"
I wish they would stop making families in mourning think that it's their responsibility to play liturgist and "pick the songs."

My next move, I'm not sure.
I'm trying to introduce hymn texts to favorite tunes that are a decent approximation of the funeral propers.
There's a concept.
(Nope, sorry, not a chance of getting away from the Hymn Sandwich yet, not here.)

And I'd love to get rid of the "concert" before Mass.
Ah well, reach and grasp, and what's heaven for and all that....

The Andy Rooney of Liturgical Commentary

Well, GIA's own, the Andy Rooney of liturgical commentary is at it again.

He's really topped himself. Someone please, pat him on the arm and say, yes, yes, dear, of course you're right, communion on the tongue is the sign of the Apocalypse, let's just watch that nice Mr Matlock, shall we? while I go get you some jello and your little pills.
Fred Moleck wants to call our attention to:

a picture of Pope Benedict XVI in a style of chasuble that hasn’t been seen this side of Vatican II other than by some Tridentine diehards.

The fiddleback chasuble was the first to go among the pioneers of liturgical reforms. Graceful conical chasubles were constructed to replace them, which fit over the head of the presider and draped around the shoulders, resting gracefully on the forearms.

The material was usually of natural fibers, not polyester. Again, a move to authentic craft worthy for liturgical use was important to the reformers....

The ritual was freed of overstatement by liturgical trappings....

Seeing the picture of Pope Benedict XVI in a fiddleback chasuble is a little frightening, especially when one realizes that he celebrated Epiphany Mass in the Sistine Chapel facing the east, or in common language, with his back to the people.

I remember another photo Rocco ran after the feast of Corpus Christ of a man and woman receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling on two kneelers....

“Holy Hours” are replacing the church’s evening prayer.

I can only reflect on the passage from Luke’s gospel, 12:54–56.

Then he turned to the crowd: “When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, ‘Storm’s coming’—and you’re right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, ‘This’ll be a hot one’—and you’re right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don’t tell me you can’t tell a change in the season, the God-season we’re in right now.

Can someone explain to me the moral or theological significance of chasuble shape? Why all the passion, and in this case, a kind of contempt for that which is not ones personal preference? (And who does he expect to believe the nonsense that Vatican II rid us of tacky polyester vestments? That's just a bald-faced, or is it bold-faced? lie...)

When someone starts expressing hatred, contempt or fear of a perfectly respectable liturgical usage of long standing it makes me question not the hated or feared usage, but the ulterior motives of the hater.

When is the Christmass season over?

Well, well, well... it seems that I am not the only one who thinks everything should stay up until February.
Dare I suppose that this little tiff, had something in common with the (rancorous,) incident at our parish several years ago when a demi-cleric, (who I suspect sports a camauro at home,) told the janitorial staff to remove the wreaths from the church doors first week of January?
The Holy Father, having less of a temper, by all accounts, than our "Environment and Arts" person did not eviscerate the personnel analogous in the Vatican story, to our over-reaching Church Lady.... (who can doubt that someone figured, hey let's get this chore out of the way, and someone else, who... let's say, "outranked" the first someone, said, uh, no, that's not the way it works...? )

After a brief hiatus, the Nativity scene is back in St. Peter's Square. (CNS photo by Cindy Wooden)

"Vanity Faith"

I'm not sayin' this isn't an idea with the potential to produce a good book, and hopefully the blurb in the catalogue is nothing like the book itself, but the latest mail brings this from LitPress:

"As the title of one chapter in [Vanity Faith: searching for Spirituality among the Stars by Terrance W Klein] suggests, 'everything we need to know about grace we can learn from Audrey Hepburn.'"

Havey, Needy and Wanty

It is difficult to imagine anyone other than a fashion writer for a major metropolitan paper being quite this out of touch.

Only in France is the recession lauded for posing a crisis in values.

Can she really be so unaware of the way people around the country, whether sincerely or not, are making noise about rethinking their values, curbing their excesses, extolling the joys of simplicity and frugality?
I mean, even if there are no commoners for her to talk to, there is blogdom...
The country seems to have just discovered the perils of compound interest, the advantages of single-income families, and the difference between being "needy" and "wanty," (one of the cleverest lines ever in an exceptionally clever television show, the Tick.)

(By the way, another sin of pride -- I have got to stop being so smug about not only ALWAYS having been skin-flinty, although in a peculairly generous way, but gradually converting Himself to that, as well as Roman Catholicism.)

Karl Lagerfeld says, "I call it ‘the new modesty.’ ”
How very Marie Antoinette dressing up as a milkmaid...
(May I add how cringe-worthy I find it when people, and I admit to doing this myself, quote themselves? Or as I like to say.... Ick.)

Weather and Virtue

I remember seeing an animated short many years ago, of an episode from Woolf's Orlando long before I had heard of the actual book from which it was taken, about a wintry winter colder than all other winters, and it feels as if i am living through that now.
(I wondered at the time, and again years later when I read the book, and again when I saw the beyond-marvelous Tilda Swinton in the movie, was that real? was there one year in Bloody Elizabeth's reign that was cold beyond previous imagining? I digress...)

December was heinous and January has been worse.
Quite aside from the fact that I, the-cheapest-person-who-ever-lived have not quite recovered from opening the envelope holding my heating bill, I have been forced to do something I have never done before --
In the entire more than 7 years on this job, I have never canceled a choir rehearsal unless I had to be out of town; never for illness, never for other commitments, (even dress rehearsals, I bumped choir a bit earlier, or arrived late to the theater, or changed, with the choirs permission and vote as to the day, dates,) or weather.
My reasoning was, even in a blizzard or hurricane I could walk there, and if anyone else was willing to make the effort, by God, I would be there to rehearse them.

This is not to say I haven't cut rehearsals short, and hour fifteen instead of 2 hrs, because I just ran out of voice, but I've even rehearsed them with complete laryngitis, Himself proclaiming instructions as I wrote or mimed them.

It was a point of -- sinful -- pride, I never failed to live up to my commitments on this job as saw them, I have never taken a sick day, never missed a Mass, not for surgery, not for shingles, not for a minor broken bone.

But I have just sat here over a bowl of Smoking Bishop... oh, all right, it's really a bowl of cafe au lait, poetic license inspired by Scrooge-apalooza... and called all my choir members, even those who have not made an appearance since Christmass, to tell them there will be no rehearsal tonight.

I just couldn't see letting those few who do feel a real sense of commitment go out in 7 below with a wind chill hovering at about minus 24. (And it would be worse by the time even a sparsely attended rehearsal was over.)

It feels kind of shameful. (And you thought I had no shame!)
I'm not sure why, I am a naturally lazy person.

But extremes of weather often seem to inspire a certain relaxation of virtue, or a virtue.
Sloth seems a greater danger now than Lust, for instance, and sexual promiscuity during the "Long, Hot Summer" is a cliche.
It's as if the weather not just explains transgressions, it excuses them,(see, Wide Sargasso Sea, can't remember if the book had the same feeling.)
I loved "snow days" when I was in school, but did I ever take advantage of them? try to get ahead on some school project? do something useful?
Course not! when I was young and stupid I went out in the snow, when I was teen-age and stupid I slept and avoided my Mother so as not to be assigned something, when I was a young adult and conflicted and waffling about where my life was going I ate and read...

And today? am I working on the score to my pirates project, am I making out my music schedules and programs for the weekend, am I arranging the choir psalm as I would have been, had we rehearsal tonight?

Judging from the fact that I am blogging, it seems not.

Devotees Gone Wild!

And in a spirit of fairness, the other side of the coin:

If there is one thing I appreciate about our Holy Roman Catholic Faith is because it has a chestful treasure of Devotions to supplement the Sacraments. However, in the myriad of these devotions it is always easy for someone who is uninstructed in the faith to loose the way.

This is the main reason why I always feel that there is the extreme need to constantly educate the faithful about the faith.

Today this is very difficult to achieve because of our secular education. Majority of the faithful send their children to public schools where religious instruction is voluntary and is even scarce or non-existent in some areas.

Most often, the Sunday Mass is the only opportunity for the faithful to listen to religious instruction.

Yesterday I came across an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer reporting about how the homily of His Eminence Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of Manila was disrupted by a small group of people who were intent not on listening to the Homily, nor participation in the Mass but on getting nearer and touching the image of the Black Nazarene.

This shows how these small groups of people driven by fanaticism fail to grasp the true context of the devotion. A quote from the PDI says: "“The small group that fanatically climbed to get to the Lord, that’s the example of what it should not be. That part has to be purified,” Rosales said. “The emotions, the fanaticism in it should not be there and that’s exactly what we are trying to tell the people.”

Lay this body anywhere and take no trouble ... only remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.*

Yet more evidence, if it were needed, of how surely those who are deprived, or who have deprived themselves of traditional rituals, nonetheless NEED them, and will fabricate new ones.

“We change privacy settings so only friends can see the profile,” said Brandee Barker, a Facebook spokeswoman. “If [a deceased] person has entered a birthday, you are going to get the notification.”

“Every year?” I asked. “It’s going to pop up when I’m not expecting it, for the rest of my life? And then after I die, I’m going to haunt my Facebook friends, too?”

Not necessarily. At a family member’s request, Facebook will delete a deceased person’s account. But, Ms. Barker added gently, “Many people who have somebody they’re still mourning find it very comforting and feel it keeps them connected to a loved one.”

Did it comfort me? At first I didn’t think so. ... his birthday will sneak up to surprise me with the loss all over again.

But maybe that’s O.K.

“We’re all haunted by our losses,” said Dr. Susan D. Block, chief of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “It’s just that Facebook reminds us of that in a very in-your-face kind of way. I know it’s an idea of popular culture that you get over a loss. But the reality is, you don’t.”

In fact, most survivors don’t want to, Dr. Block said, because getting over it means memories dim and you start to forget the person. ...
“I guess it’s safe to take him off restricted access on Facebook.”

Later that night, I visited Steve’s profile — of course he’s grinning in the photo — and I gave him a poke. I think that will make a nice birthday tradition.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if this family knew how to go to Mass on their friend's birthday, or the anniversary of his death every year, and pray for him, and be close to him there?

Or, if only the Church in Her wisdom had appointed a day when we could "remember" all those who had died, remember even the "forgotten," (quote marks, because no one of God's beloved creatures, made in His own image, is forgotten by the only One Whose memory matters,) remember those we never knew.
Oh, wait, She HAS.

But we as a society have turned All Saints and All Souls into Super Bowl Sunday with masks.

I think much of what the Ephemerists decried, and tried to do away with or at least deemphasize in the Deform after VCII were not useless accretions, and meaningless gestures, and excessive ornamentation, and superstitious devotions -- but organic answers to timeless human needs.
The Preservatives knew what they were doing.

*Saint Monica to her son, Augustine, enscribed on her tombstone

Every cloud has a silver lining...

.... which is the meteorological way of say that God draws straight with crooked lines.

Suffering declines in funding caused by the economic crisis and the Madoff scandal, Planned Parenthood Federation of America is laying off around 20 percent of its staff.

I certainly wish those people no ill and hope that they can quickly find gainful and rewarding employment to care for themselves and their families in a way that does not either perform or provide support services for those who perform the private murder of the unborn.

Has she stopped coloring her hair?

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/

08:11 am

WASHINGTON DC, Jan 14, 2009 (CNA) .- Mrs. Laura Bush on Tuesday visited Little Flower School in Bethesda, Maryland in her last school visit as First Lady. Noting the upcoming celebration of National Catholic Schools Week, she praised the history of Catholic schools in the United States and congratulated Little Flower for being chosen as a Blue Ribbon School.

Who knew? I've been one all my life!

A Sinkie, that is....

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PEOPLE
WHO DINE OVER THE KITCHEN SINK

Sinkie Quickie FAQ

Hungry?

No time to cook?

No time to eat?

Don't like to clean up?

Become a SINKIE!

Delicious! Nutritious! No Dishes!

SINKIES know the difference between fast food
and REALLY fast food.

SINKIES prefer refrigeratorlight to candlelight.

Eating and snacking over the kitchen sink.
Millions of people around the world have been enjoying this casual dining style for many years.

Their casual dining style can also include standing in front of their open refrigerators, rummaging around the leftovers, taking inventory of the contents.

Drinking milk straight from the carton.

Eating on the run.

Grabbing a jelly doughnut, while racing out the door in the morning, late for work.

Dashboard dining in the car.

Having a desk lunch of M&Ms and Diet Pepsi from the vending machines in the break room.

IN OTHER WORDS, IF IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH HAVING A QUICK BITE, IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH BEING A SINKIE.

No dress code, reservations, tipping, annoying table conversation; no "soup or salad" decision (have both if you like), no trying to catch the waiter's eye, no deciding whether to use the everyday dishes or the good stuff, no having to endure the waitress calling you "Hon" or "Dearie."

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to never drinking milk straight from the carton, (in fact, I am repulsed by the idea,) and to liking what Himself refers to as "Hi, Hon'" restaurants.