Beginning another year of RelEd

Took me a while to realize what all the acronym and abbreviations I see are meant to indicate - catechists like jargon as much as those in any line, I suppose.

Anyway, RelEd is how we are currently naming the processes, although most of the quasi-official papers that pass through our hands seem to use "CCD", a term that if thought was a relic of my remote youth.

Although I am NOT looking forward to it, I will be receiving some sort of formation and certification myself -- I have long been dead wary of any endeavor necessitating interaction with a facilitator, (particularly one who refers to herself as a facilitator,) although the woman in my parish scheduled is a delight, and a well-spring of humility.

There is so much mis[leading]information about on Catholicism and catechesis, you know? even from what one would expect to be orthodox sources.

Not quite misinformation, not literally wrong, but implying untruths by means of selectively edited truths.

I told some other catechists that I would forward some links that I thought would make their lives easier, (the Compendium, for instance,) because our DRE, thankfully, is adamant that we are to embrace the magisterium, not offer opinion at odd with it, and not answer questions from a place of ignorance, or with conjecture. (This is a reiteration of the message in a moderately stern missive our deacon sent to all of us last year, mid-year.)

YEAH!

I am reluctant to forward some links because of the dissent to which they may, or actually do, then link. One really interesting, valid and unobjectionable article, about methods of presenting the Faith according to the age of listeners happily provided links more on the subject from an organ that purports to offer "Catholic" "reporting" -- yet they have no quibble with identifying someone as a "Roman Catholic woman priest."

Such a periodical is not Catholic and cannot be trusted to present a Catholic perspective. Period. The end.

I am leary of otherbooks, magazines, forums, that insist on presenting excessively limited, (or is that a contradiction in terms?) views of Church history or ecclesiology -- Vatican II is often conferred some kind of unique, stand-alone authority as if it were the only council ever, or at least the only one that "counted," (you know how we Catholics like to ask if things "count,") rather as if it were in contradiction instead of  continuity with what preceded it.

Anyway, I shall keep an open mind going into whichever certification process I choose.

At least one of the programs sounds content dense, so at least it won't be boring.

Only Vegans Are Morally Entitled To Object to Abortion?

 
So much for the voice of reason.

Should We Care If Human Beings Are Aborted "Before They Have Human Feelings"?

In that case, Richard Dawkins is still eligible wouldn't you think?

Or is it possible that the theophobe has human feelings, just suppresses them?

Budding atheists wondering whether Richard Dawkins is in need of a little time away from Twitter to reflect on the past few weeks are about to have their (lack of) prayers answered. The philosopher has managed ... to voice his opinions on what it would be ethical for a mother who is informed that her unborn child has Down Syndrome to do....
 after engaging in conversation with a number of users, his ethical values appeared to come a little unstuck. “994 human beings with Down's Syndrome deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in 2012. Is that civilised?” @AidanMcCourt asked. “Yes, it is very civilised. These are fetuses, diagnosed before they have human feelings,” Dawkins responded. ...
“Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice,” he tweeted back.

And what, you may ask, was his earlier contretemps? ("contwittertemps"?)

Looking on the bright side of date rape and paedophilia.





(Kind of like Whoopi Goldberg's "I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape," apologia for Roman Polanski?)

Seriously though, the fact that this man's thoughts are accorded respect or given any notice at all outside of Twitter and the like is appalling.

"I am the one who spices!"

Perhaps when my eyes are swollen and, for want of a better word... sticky?...  is not the best time to be grinding up chiles and making hot sauce.
But the peppers won't keep forever, (and won't be available long,) and sometimes you need to bring a little heat.
And wouldn't you know, hot sauce is one of those things made with corn "vinegar," (a contradiction in terms according to an etymologically fastidious friend, since corn grows on stalks not vines,) which I must therefore eschew except on rare occasions.
Anyway, the Interwebs, arbiter of all truths, tells me that Hot Sauce is easy and fun to make, and delicious proportionate to the individuality one brings to it, and I made such magnificent mayonnaise, (I am not kidding, it was sensational!) I decided to give it a whirl, (literally, thank you, Food Processor, I think I'd miss you most of all.)
One site suggested even normal people ought to go "full-on Walter White," with the protective gear, so I suppose Exemplar of Eczema as I am, I should have been careful.
But was I?
No, not really.

I am not in danger,  I am the danger. A guy eats some hot sauce and burns his mouth and makes his eyes water and you think that of me?

No.

I am the one who made the hot sauce!

 

So we'll see - it smells fantastic, but I think it should age a bit? (And I think I'll sneak in a little agave)

Pretty, Pretty....

 or should that be "weepy, weepy"?

Really, my memory...

It never occurred to me until I was drifting off to sleep last night that there was a logical explanation for my emotions being so unwontedly close to the surface as I  read yesterday - trying a new steroid, and one that in the past has made a member of my family flat-out bat-guano crazy.

My typical excema face is this:

Last time I had a really debilitating flare-up it was this:

This most recent episode?

 Travel, heck,. going out for a bite to eat carries a risk - what caused the latest?

Who knows... a hidden, or at least unsuspected ingredient in a meal or snack? (the remarkable diner cake I tried anyway, making the whole thing my fault?) the detergent with which some other family member or hotel laundered sheets? the softener? the food industry switching over to a corn-based source for a hitherto safe food? (I'm looking at you, cider vinegar.) Whatever was in bloom near the NY cottage? the mold in the NJ cabin? ('cause the outhouse wasn't disincentive enough...) a European ale which has moved production over to a North American brewery? borrowed shampoo?

Maybe the dread demon Febreze...

Ah well, all's well now.

Loving "Magnificat" yet Again

I hadn't noticed, till this morning's homily pointed it out, that the Queenship of Mary is the octave of the Assumption.

(We need more octaves!!!!!!)

The Magnificat had this from Hans Urs von Balthasar

Today’s feast reminds us that holiness means depending on God. The Queenship of Mary invites us to exercise our obedience to God in a way that results in, not abject submission, but likeness. 

Isn't that lovely? isn't that perfect? Because she, though the Mother of God, is also the Child of God -- like us, not God's slave, but His child -- and a child wants nothing more than to grow up to be just like a beloved parent.

Not submission, but likeness.

Reader at Mass today, had looked over the OT, and the psalm, pointed the Gospel acclamation, (at least in my head...)

No "hard words." I know to beware of "prophecy" and "prophesy."

I'd always loved that passage from Ezechiel, when it came up in the Stations we did at the parish where I used to live, loved proclaiming it, ("... and I will do it.")

And I got to it, "O my people..." and I just lost it.
My voice wavered, though it didn't crack; I took long deep breaths, but didn't sob or gasp; my eyes were moist, but I didn't actually weep.

But it was noticeable, very noticeable.

When my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest, my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song was actually dying, (being a bit melodramatic, aren't we?) I would occasionally luck out, and be called upon to read something that struck close to home, but never faltered, what was going on today?

Recently returned from travel to inter the remains of the relative I've always been told I was most like; daily, almost hourly updates on the status of a dying relative; the news, all the death in the news, nothing but death.... I don't know.

None of these really affect me, I'm ashamed to say - or so I would have thought.

A stranger came up after Mass, and sheepishly asked me if he could help, if there was something he could do,  (no one would ever have noticed if construction hadn't moved our altar into the nave temporarily.)

People are good.

And God is great.

Thus says the Lord God:
O my people, I will open your graves
and have you rise from them,
and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the Lord,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the Lord.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.

And you know what? He will.

Ratzinger Schülerkreis

It is the time of year when the students of our beloved Pontiff Emeritus ,gather to discuss the theology of one of the greatest teachers the Church has ever known.

This year the subject will be the Theology of the Cross.

(I was part of an endeavour once  that concentrated on the Cup, the Covenant and the Cross. "We are Covenant People" was an okay title for one session, but some editor should have caught the program that announced in Felix Titling Bold, "We are Cross People.") (Although some of us surely were, if for no other reason that the presence of certain parish fixtures on the committee and the resulting stultifying boredom to which we were subjected at meetings. I digress.)

Most recently new members were admitted into the group. They had never attended a class of Joseph Ratzinger, but just like thousands, they've studied his work and have been intrigued, moved and challenged by it.  

Any way, I would be the furthest thing from cross to be able to sit at the feet of those who sat at the feet of a man who I believe sits at the feet of Christ.

Future Doctor of the Church with an also fairly smart albeit spiritually myopic guy -

How to Grow Wealthier Every Day

And who doesn't want to do that?

We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.

-- Immanuel Kant

 

If Kant Can Can't I?

Finding it easier to both focus on what is needful to attain joyfulness and indulge in true happiness and real pleasure simply by being mindful.

Having what you need is a far greater luxury than having what someone else wants you to want.

(Having said that, if you actually DO want what society/advertising/your neighbor wants you to want -- you might be amazed at how many retailers price match.)

Hmmmm.... Jesus "belongs" to the Catholic Church?

Hearing on the news on EWTN that the civil courts have been used in Oklahoma City to force the idiot publicity seekers who claimed they would be performing a black mass with a consecrated host, and this seems to be true.

I'm glad if it worked, but I am uncomfortable with the claim that the Blessed Sacrament is the Church's "property," and therefore "stolen" if those clowns do indeed have what they claim.

Not theft, but kidnapping.

I do like the notion of the Church's claim of custodial rights over any validly consecrated host as long as it remains unconsumed, even if, for instance, I have It on my person if I am bringing Communion to the home-bound, or if a group were allowed to take custody of It for adoration, but It is no more property than ones children, I should think.

Interesting conundrum.

What do they say, It's a ill wind, (or rather...

.. an ill recession,) that completely blows?

Or something like that.

A missive in my email inbox informs me:

The net revenue from [Voice of the Faithful's] end-of-fiscal-year appeal in May was less than half of what we projected.

Serendipity at the Cathedral Basilica

So, where do I find myself on Assumption?

The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, I read once somewhere, would be where the royal family's weddings were celebrated if the US had a royal family.

It is that breath-takingly beautiful and beautifully situated.

I expected very little of a liturgy, but I am, as my nieces and nephews like to remind me, "2 lucky  2 live 4 long, Aunt Scelata."

John Miller, (IIR his name, C,) was the organist, and the Dupre postlude was stunning.
It was nice to hear and sing, (for the first time since the new translation,) the Lee Gloria, and the Proulx Commnity Mass.
Standard hymns, (WHAT??!?@?#??? an American parish where they didn't sing HMGW? saints be praised!) didn't think much of the Jones Magnificat, or an alleluia that tried to out-alleluia the celtic cliche, (and why if there is no deacon-returning-the-Book-of the-Gospels-to-a- place-of-honor procession do we need to repeat the alleluia post Gospel? that seems to have become part of the ritual,) but the server/ priest, cantor/lay reader, everyone perfect and perfectly diffident in their ministry. (Different from the near heretical sermon I sat through over the weekend while traveling.)

Wonderful.
Bravo Mr Miller!

Syrian Orthodox Chants, Preserving an Ancient Tradition

H/T to Rod Dreher, you have to read this and listen to this, here's the transcript.

Jason Hamacher has made some fascinating recordings, and is doing a great service from both a musicological and a spiritual standpoint in doing so. (Pray to God, his recordings will NOT be all that remains of this liturgical music.)

Chant of other traditions fascinates me, and if I weren't so lazy I would know more about it.

(I can't be the only one who was always transfixed by the Gospel chanted in Latin and Greek from the Vatican. And when I indulged my "liturgical tourist" side of a Sunday morning in my nomad days, finding a Melkite, or Maronite church was always exciting.)

The project got its start when Hamacher read in a book about "the world's oldest Christian music." He tracked down author William Dalrymple, who told him there were no recordings of the music — and that "it's not a monastery in the desert; it is a Syrian Orthodox church in the middle of the city of Aleppo." Hamacher ended up staying at that church as a guest of the archbishop, who has since been kidnapped by rebels.

It feels wrong to be almost thrilled that we, (us, Americans,) have begun to do something, when that something is dropping bombs on other people.

But there you have it.

Lots feels "wrong."

"Nothing old-fashioned, like sex or murder...."

I love opera.
For all the carping about Peter Gelb, I am in his debt for his visionary role in bringing opera, the Met broadcasts in HD onto the big screen.
I love them.

Likewise, I love that the caddish, (or laddish?) writings of some UK critics and the fracas it engendered revealed to me the live streaming going on accessible in my very own home, on my very own ancient desktop, of productions from Glyndbourne and elsewhere.

And I REALLY love that besides Glyndbourne and ROH, England produces masterpieces like THIS promises to be (not) (oh, and also, not - that I'd want to watch it -- but com'on, that's first class comedy writing!):

Camilla Kerslake is ...hoping to shake up the opera world this week as she appears in a controversial new production, wearing a vampy floor sweeping Morticia-style dress.'They wanted me to go naked underneath, but I refused and we settled on nude underwear.'

The opera - covering sex, spirituality and plastic surgery and is the creation of composer Toni Castells.

Camilla hopes the new work will make opera 'more mainstream.'...

She added: 'In the modern day things like sex, plastic surgery and spirituality need to be addressed. 'The classic opera is full of murder and adultery but what we are trying to say is more about modern issues. It is basically an expression of human condition and is much more accessible to the average person on the street. This is a really exciting way to make opera more mainstream.'

The "Church of the Chickens" and a Breeze That Sounds Like Gregorian Chant

I am a lazy slattern, but I am thinking about walking "The Way".

For a while now, I've been noticing things, stories about the Camino, pictures, movies, o-hand mentions -- that kind of synchronicity is how events in my life find their beginnings, it seems.

This article popped up on a search for something, can't remember what.... (chant, maybe?)

And actually, lazy or not, I'm a good walker.

Poor Himself, I dragged him to the cliffs of Moher, and in Glastonbury, up the Tor, and then to see the Thorn, along a path rightly called "Wearyall."

It's his code now for putting up with my suggestions.
"I'll follow you up the hill."

Don't think he could do this, though, (although the wine fountain might be a draw...)

Happen there's another pilgrimage the two of us could undertake.

Something to think about.
But maybe I'm just too old.

"Maintain Clear Blue Water Between Liturgy, the Action of Christ and Other Human Activity"

Very solid piece of commentary regarding what the author, Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, rightly calls a "non-story" about a "major matter," the attempt by the CDW to try to restore some dignity, some sense of the sacrality, some set-apart-edness to a portion of the liturgy that anyone with a lick of common sense would acknowledge has gotten out of hand in so many places.

The world "reserved" may mean stodgy in one context, but face it, an attitude of reserve is not out of placed when actions, places objects and words are reserved to a special use.

At bottom what lies behind this question is the major matter of maintaining clear blue water between liturgy, the action of Christ in head and members, and other human activities. The Congregation is rightly concerned to maintain the dignity of liturgy, and to avoid all those activities which undercut its true meaning. (Leaving the altar to greet people at the peace absolutely undercuts, indeed contradicts, the meaning of the Sign of Peace, as it entails leaving the altar and ignoring Christ Himself who is on that altar, and who must be the only focus of the celebration.) Moreover, once more, the Congregation is calling all of us – and the clergy must take the lead here – to guard against the loss of reverence, and the loss of transcendence in our liturgical celebrations. 

Whenever I mention these matters to people I sometimes notice their eyes glaze over. They simply do not ‘get’ why liturgy matters. Surely there are more important things, they ask? Actually, no. There are no more important things. Liturgy is central. [emphasis supplied] It is the reason why the Church exists: to carry out the command of the Lord, in the way He wants it to be carried out, as He commanded us to do at the Last Supper. We must guard and defend the Church’s precious liturgical heritage at all costs. 

The chief threats to it are secularisation – that is not a dig at the National Secular Society, but rather at those Catholics who wish to make the Mass more or less indistinguishable form any other human activity, by chipping away at its sacral character.. 

The other threat is theological and historical ignorance, and those who want to leave out elements of liturgy on the grounds of being ‘up to date’, unaware (at least one supposes they are unaware) that liturgy is a language, and the omission of certain elements may make the elements that remain incoherent. 

The final and perhaps most insidious threat comes from those who wish perhaps to change the theology of the Church and make it into a different sort of church altogether. If one changes the Mass sufficiently, one changes the belief that sustains it, and which it in turn sustains.

And not to pick on Fr Reese, (okay, not to pick on him about this one thing, moving the Pax to its historic place, I'll gladly pick on him about other things) -- no, a change in the structure of the Mass this soon after the promulgation of the corrected translation would lead to exactly the liturgical atmosphere of my childhood, where the adults around me all seemed to engage in EffCap with an exasperated but resigned attitude of, "Okay, all right, what're they messing with, what'o we have t'learn, what's new, what're the liturgists changing THIS week?"

Sometimes the Onion is superfluous....

Things may have reached a point where parody is impossible.

Is Dr. Ben Pitcher a real person? and if so, is he really sociologist? or is he perhaps a sociologist the way Dame Edna is a dame?

Perhaps the Spectator and the Mail aren't real news outlets... does John Oliver write for them?

But I'm quite sure the Telegraph is real.
So the question is, has it been hacked, and this bogus story, excuse the expression, planted there?

Regular listeners to [a gardening show on the radio] may be horrified to discover it has been accused of peddling racial stereotypes.

According to an academic, the sedate Radio 4 panel show is riddled with "racial meanings" disguised as horticultural advice.... Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs. 
Speaking on another Radio 4 programme, Thinking Allowed, the academic said: “Gardeners’ Question Time is not the most controversial show on Radio 4, and yet it is layered with, saturated with, racial meanings.
“The context here is the rise of nationalism. The rise of racist and fascist parties across Europe. Nationalism is about shoring up a fantasy of national integrity. My question is, what feeds nationalism? What makes nationalism powerful?”
Dr Pitcher said the “crisis in white identity in multicultural Britain” meant people felt unable to express their views for fear of being called racist, so expressed their racial identity in other ways, such as talking about gardening. 

There'll always be an England, I believe the New Yorker used to say, (of course, it being a magazine, there probably won't always be a New Yorker.)

Celebrating Holy Days

Yesterday a morning Mass, or rather, at Eucharistic Service in the Absence of a Priest, my mind wandered a bit...

The Feast of the Transfiguration.

Wow.

Just wow.

How is that not a bigger deal in the Roman Catholic Church?
Of course, thanks to our conscientious deacon, we had a Gloria which we do not on most Solemnities, but still....

But then, I also thought - "Domestic Church."
Whose job would it be to make a bigger deal of a Holy Day?

That's right.

I have no children, so this is easy for me to say, but I think if I did.... (and I can say, I have been primary care-giver for weeks at a time of quite a number of rugrats
Well, to start, I would be broker than I am now.
And secondly, summer vacations, at least when I was growing up, were almost de rigeur, but also touch and go, what with thirteen mouths, and all that.
And "stay-cations," an inelegant neo-logism but an idea whose time has come, are more feasible for any struggling with pecuniary matters.

SO...

Why not make Holy Days, holidays?
Imagine celebrating next Friday by getting up before dawn and going out somewhere beautiful, or at least unusual to watch the sun rise? and then going with your family to whatever is the earliest Mass around? perhaps at a Church to which you've never been before, and will have new windows and statues and architecture to take in? and then going out to a celebratory brunch or breakfast, even if it's just fastfood? (remembering, if you abstain from meat on Fridays during the year that there is no fast on a feast?)

Wouldn't that be enough out of the ordinary to be something for children to actually look forward to? (and not too ruinously expensive, which I know really matters when you've got scads of kids.)

And if you really planned it, talking about it ahead of time, wouldn't that help solidify the fact of the Holy Day? (which is something quite lacking in most world views, even for Catholics alas...)

I dunno, just an idea...

Pawn Shops and Syphilitics

What's the connection?
Today's memorial - the Memorial of St Gaetano, or Cajetan.
More evidence, if it were needed, that we are a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints. Because the Kingdom of God is already BUT NOT YET.

[Saint Cajetan] was born in Vicenza and became a priest at the age of 36. He worked hard for the poor and the sick and for the reform of the Church; with this last aim in mind, he founded a congregation of secular priests which became known as the Theatines. These had three functions: preaching, the administration of the sacraments, and the celebration of the liturgy.

  He encouraged the growth of pawn-shops as a means of helping the poor out of temporary financial difficulties and keeping them out of the hands of usurers. His congregation also cared for incurable syphilitics (a particularly virulent form of syphilis was sweeping Europe, having been imported from the Caribbean by Columbus’s men).

  His example encouraged many others on the path to active sanctity. He said [in a letter to Elisabeth Porto]: “Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use him as you judge best, but give yourself to him and let him receive you in this Sacrament, so that he himself, God your saviour, may do to you and through you whatever he wills.”

 An excellent thought - His will, not mine, He is not a feather on my breath, but I on His; I am not the potter, but the mud of the earth from which, if I but let Him, He may sculpt a vessel of not just utility, but beauty.

"For with the LORD is mercy, with Him is plenteous redemption...."

I wonder if any of the same Arbiters of Catholic Right-thinkingness, or more importantly, perhaps, if any of the secular media types who would like to ordain what Catholic Rightthinkers should think, who have their undercrackers in a bunch over his rehabilitation:

....were similarly distressed by his:

... or vice versa?

Or is all just politics as usual?

Seriously, an old man who begs to “celebrate the Holy Eucharist again before dying,” should be denied because he insulted Ronald Reagan?

Which political incorrectness is forgivable, and which beyond the pale?