Rose Vestments....

.... thoughtful homily; reverent, deliberate ministers, (including the servers.)

Who cares that there was nothing approaching unanimity regarding the rubrics for the congregation?

(I've lightened up on that ever since I was told by someone who seemed to know that sort of thing, that for all intents and purposes, there WERE no rubrics for the congregation. As long as no one is giving anyone else the skunk eye for saying the dialogues, o genuflecting twice in the Credo, it's all good - live and let pray and let pray.)

A Modest Proposal For Archbishop Cordileone

Contact every parent of a diocesan high school student who objects himself, or whose child has objected, to the efforts to restore doctrinal integrity to the schools.

Then ask them to reimburse the Faithful of the Archdiocese for the portion of the actual costs of their childrens' schooling over and above the tuition the parents paid -- for every year the child has been in a parochial or diocesan school.
They obviously didn't actually want to raise their children in the Faith, and in fact, even if they were non-Catholic and upfront about it, seem to object to other students being raised in the Faith by dint of teaching and example.

Yet they certainly knew that that was the goal of the Archdiocese, as well as the intention of most of the non-parent pewsitters who every year contribute to other peoples' childrens' school costs.

They have committed fraud.

"Jeremiah, DUDE, are you kidding?"

"Get with the TIMES!"

And Herod said....

"John, John, slow your roll, man! You are on the WRONG side of history!"

Poor Little Professor, First That Pope, Now This One

Learn to live with disappointment...

Poor Candida Moss, author of Oh Those Silly Christians Insisting On Being Christian , (soon to be followed by, Oh Those Silly Christians Insisting On Being Christians, Volume II: The HHS Years,); is shocked, shocked, I tell you.
Pope Francis is Catholic. He may actually believe in some unchanged and unchanging Church teaching.
What the Francis?!??#??!?!!?
He is not "as liberal as his image suggests"!!!!!! To be fair to Miss Moss, it was the headline writer who said that.
But "his image'? really? by "image," do you mean the way the chattering classes have insisted on portraying him on very little evidence?
So, you fabricate and promote a concept and then pshaw and moan that um,... it's not true, as if it were Reality's fault for not consulting you before it decided to be?

Because before she was shocked by this, only a few months earlier she was shocked by traditionalists, or conservatives, or some bogeymen of hers, "calling out the Pope [Francis,] when he’s not Pope-y enough."
And they were going to go into schism! No, really! They MIGHT! Well, they could.... Well, prolly not but you never know, (crossing fingers and wishin' on eyelashes and clovers and shooting stars...)

Look, I get it. When you earn your bread and butter quinoa and grapeseed oil by writing Things, it's an absolute necessity to have Things.
You know, to write about.
So sometimes, out of necessity you might just have to make Things up, right?

Cardinal George Pell unnecessarily reminded his congregants not only that Pope Francis is the 266th Pope, but also that “history has seen 37 false or antipopes.” Antipopes? Does Cardinal Pell intend to hint that Francis isn’t a true Pope?

I dunno, DOES he?
Not according to the report to which you had actually linked in that earlier piece.

“The role of the successor of St. Peter has always been vital to Christian and Catholic life, especially as the touchstone of doctrinal fidelity and as a resolver of disputes, pastoral as well as doctrinal,” the cardinal wrote.
“The church is not built on the rock of Peter’s faith,” he wrote, “but on Peter himself, despite his faults and failings.”
“Pope Francis is the 266th pope and history has seen 37 false or antipopes,” he wrote.
“The story of the popes is stranger than fiction,” the cardinal wrote, and today “we have one of the more unusual popes in history, enjoying almost unprecedented popularity. He is doing a marvelous job backing the financial reforms,” he wrote
Cardinal Pell concluded his written remarks with a prayer “I was taught as a child: May the Lord preserve the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and give him life. Keep him safe on earth and deliver him not up into the hands of his enemies.”

Ya know, I think maybe if you make your name by writing Things, sometimes you ought to read Things.

Who is the Bishop to tell me I can't commit adultery?

Old Post From New (To Me,) Blog -- About Rabbits, and Slippers, and Popes, Oh My!

I do not know if she is always this funny -- now that I think about it, have I misread? is this a h/t, ("an" h/t?) to someone else? - but Clare Short made me lough out loud.
Look at the pictures and just tell me you don't want to read the rest...

In an unprecedented interview yesterday Pope Francis reminded Catholics that they are not supposed to “breed like rabbits” and then went on to outline several newly acceptable forms of contraception.
When asked about birth control by Italian journalist Dolmio De Fungi, the Holy Father said “We should not be breeding like rabbits” and then unusually went onto clarify: “When I say ‘we’ I mean ‘you’, not me – I’m the Pope, and besides, we are both men!”
The Holy Father then went on to say “There are several types of Vatican approved contraception available to Catholics that are completely in line with Gods plan for Marriage and Family life: Dressing gown and slippers for example.”
When asked how reliable ‘dressing gown and slippers’ was in regards to limiting pregnancies within marriage, the Pope answered “Remarkably effective."

"Schooled!!!!!!!!"

Am I the only American Catholic who giggles a bit when the word "schooled" comes up in a Lenten collect?

The Pin Has No Point

I know this is partly hagitude on my part, but social media seem to be created to fulfill needs that nobody feels, in fact, THAT NOBODY HAS.

I sign up for everything, register for everything, because a friend wants you to see or read something, and  before one can observe the paucity of content, there one is - signed up.
And then I hardly ever return again.
Okay, Twitter is hella funny because the boneheadedness and/or arrogance of some people is oft spread about to the amusement of others, (cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life).
It offers those with Mobius Personality Disorder*, (not to be confused with Mobius syndrome,) an outlet and those who have it not, mirth.
And it can be an efficient way, pretty much all in one place, to see what's new in the topics and ongoing events one then needs to go elsehwere to actually see.
But Vine?
Stupid stupid, stupid. (Says the person who just linked to a video - do and observe all things whatsoever the Pharisees tell you, but do not follow their example.....)
And Facebook allow you to disseminate or gather family and circle news quickly.
Okay.
But Pinterest?
One does a quick search, how do I cook/where can I buy/what's the best way to? and now the first Gazillion links turn out to be nothing but pictures of what you seek. You'll probably have to follow a half dozen more links to find the actual recipe/merchant/instructions.
(I'm sure my problem with Pinterest is a result of my having misunderstood one simple but crucial thing about the process - but I feel like ranting, nonetheless. It's good for the constitution, and ones circulation, and possibly ones collagen production to rant on a regular basis. In fact, my older sister has thereby become my younger sister.)


*The symptoms of Mobius Peronality Disorder being all surface, one-sided, self-referential, no boundaries, and thinking everything begins and ends with ones self. Again, cf.: Josh Groban's most significant contribution to modern life. I have a friend who likes to quote himself. Literally. "Blah, blah, blah, or as I like to say..." and he then repeats a bon mot mediocre we've already heard from him several times, committing that cardinal sin of witty society, as described by Stendahl in Red and the Black, IIRC, of bringing a ready made epigram into the conversation. 

(I think that asterisk may have introduced the most pretentious thing I have ever written.)

Pro-choice?

When the choice is between love and unlove? You still think there's a choice to be made?
The great Cardinal Archbishop Chaput has a stirring column from his diocesan paper which Zenit has picked up:

It's a simple fact: Raising a child with disabilities can be difficult. 
The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection and imperfection. None of us is perfect. No child is perfect. The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear. That's the choice in our personal lives. And that's the choice in our life as society......
Many families in this country are now waiting to adopt children with disabilities. Many of these families already have, or know, a child with special needs. They believe in the spirit of these beautiful children, because they've seen it firsthand. ...
Here's my point this week: In the eyes of God, nothing is more beautiful or precious than a person with special needs. So I warmly encourage families who have members with disabilities and parishioners who want to come together to show their support for the value and dignity of all life, to join me March 21 for the Mass for persons with special needs. I sincerely hope to see you there.

He has returned here to what is not a new issue for +Chaput.
Please God, the Francis effect will be in full force, not that the Church is saying something, for She always has, but that suddenly secular society will take notice.

Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning.....

No parish in the area seems to have an evening weekday Mass, or even a lunchtime Liturgy, so for the rest of my life, okay, for the foreseeable future, I figure to be hauling my carcass out of bed before I would wish.
Besides, for all my complaints this is now My Parish, so I don't partifularly want to get into the habit of Going Elsewhere.
My parish. You know how that feels.
And I have in effect inherited my Mother's seat for weekday mornings, and her place in reciting decades of the Rosary.
So beyond my own devotion, I am drawn to these things by nostalgia, and love for her in whose memory I perform these tasks.
It's like my compulsion to root for Rafael Nadal.

(Seriously, I think Rafa ranked somewhere between the Blessed Mother and St Casimir or St Adalbert on her "devoted to..." list. Maybe ahead of Placido Domingo. Hmmm.... I just noticed - Spaniards.)
But I digress.
Anyway, I'm trying to embrace my hagitude, own my geezerhood, celebrate my cronosity - BE THE VIRAGO I WAS INTENDED TO BE.

I'm old and therefore I am doomed to keep old people hours.
There, I said it.
I've always been a night owl, so the worst part of getting up is not staying up.
Hence, I miss things like this delight from Jimmy Kimmel and Josh Groban:

I dunno, are the congregants at the Extraordinary Form "fans" or "addicts"?

For a secular newspaper newspixels the Los Angeles Times gets quite a lot right here.

Failure to use correct terminology, even if it needs explanation for the non-Catholic, hurts the usefulness of the piece as a presentation of the conflict overall:

the ideas that the Mass is primarily a repetition [sic]of Christ’s death on the cross.

Or

the Mass is primarily the action of the priest rather than of the congregation

which would have cleared up the traditional interpretation more fully if the words "in his role representing Christ," were inserted after "priest."
And of course this:

Francis, although he embraces some aspects of pre-Vatican II Catholicism (such as veneration of the Virgin Mary),

is simply absurd.

If anything, the piece gives the edge to traditionalist sympathies, it's edifying not to see their preferences presented as merely aesthetics, or as some kind of anti-intellectual retro-fascism, nostalgia for simpler and stupider times.

"Ashamed"? "Didn't want to make a scene"? "Whipped around"?

As it happens, I fully support breast-feeding babies in public. In church. On airplanes. In diner booths. At papal audiences. In courtrooms. At White Sox games. In Home Depot.

And so as far as the incident itself goes, I'm pretty much on this woman's side.
That said, the depiction of it by the discomfitted mom is nonsense.
If turning "beet red" were actually from embarrassment, I doubt she would have repeated her yelling.

Kristen Hilderman, a Vancouver mother who felt shamed by a flight attendant after breastfeeding her son on an airplane, says she’s overwhelmed by the outpouring of support after she complained about the incident on social media Tuesday night.
Hilderman was on a United flight from Houston to Vancouver on Sunday evening when a male flight attendant approached her while she was breastfeeding her five-month-old son, according to her statement on Twitter.
She claims the flight attendant named Keith came up to her husband and in a loud voice asked him: “Are you two together?” When her husband replied ‘yes,’ she said the flight attendant “tossed” a blanket at him and said tersely, “‘Then here, help her out.’”
Hilderman said after the attendant tossed the blanket she went beet red and so she asked him, “Help me out with what?” She said the flight attendant ignored her....never has anyone made me feel so uncomfortable and ashamed for feeding my baby.

Actually, she said she "whipped around" and asked him, he ignored her so she got louder and repeated herself.
The attention was embarrassing, and you were ashamed so you made sure more people, further away were aware of it? really?
(And did you dislodge the poor kid when you whipped around?)
You're the customer, he was service personnel, obviously he was in the wrong, but do you really want to frame the problem as being about feelings? and if so, do others' feelings matter, others' discomfort?

"Christian Ethicists"? "Christian" Ethicists? Christian "Ethicists"?

This isn't really current, but the name of a rather silly woman popped up, in a very admiring mention, in a newsletter in my inbox this morning, and I did a little googling to see why her name struck a bell.

Oh, yes, her.

But I remember this niggling at me at the time:

Given that in Christian theology the understanding of personhood is fundamentally relational because it bears the image of the Triune God, it is hard to see how an embryo can be deemed a person before even the mother enters into a rudimentary relationship with it. As many as one in four pregnancies may spontaneously abort during the first eight weeks of pregnancy, often without the woman knowing that she was pregnant. As some Catholic ethicists point out, the logical corollary of this position is that a woman should baptise every menstrual period – just in case.

Is this made of whole cloth, or are there really any such people?
I can find this, even as sarcastic snark, nowhere except as attributed to her.
Anyone know?
Marginally amusing....

“Just Take It. It’s Easier This Way”

What do those words summon up?

An assault?

Well yes, of a sort. But not in a frat house or an alley, or on the screen where a romantic picture of abuse is being painted.

No, in a Church.
A Catholic church.
In the communion procession.

The Carolina Cannonball tells a tale that is equal parts infuriating and heartbreaking.
I offer prayers for her Grandmother, and I offer just the latest in a long line of prayers of thanksgiving.

Prayers it took me far too long for which to see the need, of which to see the justice - prayers for the circumstances surrounding my beloved Mother's death.
Between stories like this, observation of the residents at the nursing home where I minister, and the daily evidence of the disrespect for human life especially in the weak or dying that is the curse of our cursed world, and sometimes seems found as much in the care industry and the hospice movement as anywhere else - with all of this I am gradually becoming as grateful as I ought always to have been.

last month when I got the call from my family that Abuela was back in the hospital and it wasn’t looking good I decided to call her church [ Church of St. Thérèse of Lisieux 4137 Portsmouth Blvd., Chesapeake, VA]and let Father know. I reached the parish secretary and the conversation went like this…

    Me: My grandmother is in the hospital dying and I would like Father to administer Last Rites.

    Secretary: Well, Father stays pretty busy but we have a ministry team of people that regularly visit the sick and pray over them.

    Me: No, I want her to receive Last Rites.

    Secretary: Well, the members of this ministry can anoint her for healing.

    Me: Well, that’s lovely but you can’t heal death. She.is.dying. I would like her to receive Last Rites.

    Secretary: I have a few members of the ministry available now. Are you sure you wouldn’t like them to visit with her?

    Me: Unless they can hear her dying confession, absolve her, and prepare he soul from one transition to the next, no.

And her communion story rival's mine, where the priest dropped the Most Sacred Body of Christ on the organ console and waved, Don't bother getting up, take it [sic] when you're finished.

when I went up to receive on the tongue he forcefully tried to pry open my hands to put the Eucharist in my palm. When I remained in front of him with my mouth open, holds folded closed, to receive on the tongue he grabbed my hand and took the Body of Christ, wedged it between my fingers and said, “Just take it. It’s easier this way.”

Small things with great love, my aspergillium....

A Princely Send-off

Twice in one week, I need to rethink my opinion of the Cardinal Archbishop of New York.
First, he has carraigeacha, calling out the IRA at the same time he puts ISIS on blast.

Second, at one of the biggest deal Catholic funerals in this country's since one that was a cross between a political convention and a canonization, one long eulogy, he reminded everyone that the guest of honor wasn't the guest of honor, the Lord was, and neither he nor He wanted an eulogies, (although there was one, of course.... but Dolan's homily was superb.)

The liturgy, thanks to scaffolding and the "blended" music style that is nearly inescapable in Catholic churches in this nation and age, had feeling of cobbling, but all things considered, was excellently done.
(I wish Cdl Dolan could be persuaded not to stand at the door or on the steps glad-handing everyone like mine host, but whaddya gonna do?)

Someone -- the EWTN techs? the cathedral techs? SOMEONE knows how to mic' cantors in a way they should teach to whoever takes care of such things at the National Basilica.

And speaking of cantors.

Not absolutely sure this is the correct John Des Marais, (hope it was, he has facial hair now,)  but whoever was the psalmist/cantor, he was perfection.
Gorgeous tone, perfect diction, prayerful affect, and admirable diffidence - the minimal, almost apologetic, I-know-you-all-probably-know-when-to-make-your-vocal-entrance-but-it's-my-duty-to-make-this-slight-motion-for-those-that-don't gesture was such a nice change from the flight attendant inspired, Your exits are here, here and here giant arm swoops from local singers who are thrilled to be on tv.
Lord, but I hope he's a practicing Catholic!
And speaking of singers possessed of gorgeous tone, perfect diction, prayerful affect, and admirable diffidence - why couldn't Matthew Polenzani have been Cdl Egan's favorite singer?

No ugly interpolated high notes from him, and again, the prayerful affect that does not say Get a load of how I am acting the heck out of this aria, lieder prayer, yeah that's it, prayer.

Dr Pascual, (sp?) is really to be commended, as are the MCs.

And does anone know what that first hymn? folk song? from the pipers was?

The Importance of the Family

Fr Z thinks the "money quote" from an address Raymond Cardinal Burke gave in Great Britain was “If we can’t get it straight with regard to the truth about marriage and the family, we really don’t have much to say about anything else.”

It reminded me of a quote I dug up when putting together a Festschrift, (I didn't know that was what it was, at the time ;oP) for a great, great woman, who was like a Mother to me.
It was suppoed to have been spoken by Jackie Kenndy, a woman about whom I had little opinion until that time, and what I had, not all that kind.

If you mess up raising your children, it doesn't much matter what else you do well.

Funeral Wishes, Funeral Liturgies, Funeral Music

If you are reading this, and haven't already done so, I urge you to make your wishes known to someone who is in a position to see to it that your desires are accomplished, (and if you are a member of a liturgical denom, check with TPTB to insure that the are appropriate, or at least judged so  now. Thinks change.)

At my old parish we often encountered lapsed, apostate or functionally pagan survivors who really didn't care that Aunt Millicent was a daily communicant, they weren't going to put up with any of that priestly mumbo jumbo, nice flowers and some jokey family reminiscence at a funeral parlor would do, well, okay, ya call yourself reverend or father? no mind, you can come along and say some words if ya want.

Wait, what's this going to cost us?

This despite the fact that my parish put a great deal of effort into funerals and never took a fee for a parishioner's or a parishioner's dear ones obsequies.

Cardinal Egan's send-off will, I presume take his stated wishes into account.

One final point: Asked what he would like played at his own funeral, Egan answered:

I didn't expect that question, and let me tell you what I would do if I had the opportunity. And, I would say that if it ever were possible for me to choose what it would be, it would be the Perosi Requiem. I don't know what'll happen, but if they did have the Perosi Requiem, it would be wonderful.

As far as much of Perosi's output is concerned, IMO, Catholic ceremonial was deprived 
unceremoniously of it in the wake of the Changes, in a baby and bathwater kinda way.

(The "Changes"? the Bride of Christ going through menopause? Hmmmm, may have to explore that idea, picking my way through the minefield of sacrilege that is Ecclesialogical metaphor....)

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I had a map of the events of Holy Week, the Stations of the Cross, etc. for the rugrats.

A bright, attentive kid looking at the markers for long assumed site of Golgotha, other possibilities of site of Crucifixion, Mount of Olives, Herod's crib, the Sepulchre; even though in primary grades was aware of unrest in the Middle East, and guessed some of the sites might be difficult to reach given the facts of life in modern day Jerusalem, and the treatment of Christians in some places in the world.

So where do they keep His body now?

Why I teach RelEd.

"On the Origin of (TWO) Species," According to Liturgical Notes

Fr Hunwicke has a fascinating, multi-part series... I guess if it were not multi-part, it would not be a "series", she said wearing her official Repetitive Redundancy league hat.... beginning here for which he asks patience in the combox, no commentary before final post.

It's not really on the aspect of the Liturgy implied by my post tittle, I just couldn't resist once I had typed the word "origin."

It begs fair to be the most enlightening work of his ever - that I could understand.
(I'm certain there is brilliance on the blog that was just beyond my reading or reasoning skills, but so far so good with this.)
Anywho, it is about liturgical history; it is about the prayers of the Mass, specifically those of consecration, across rites and across nations and across centuries, and the tardy entrance of the Holy Spirit, or rather, man's invoking of Him, in one rite in particular.
"On the Origin of Specifics"?
Go read him.