Canada, Beloved Neighbor to My North, I Love You To Death, (Sorry, Bad Choice of Words,) But Help Me Wrap My Mind Around This Suicide Thing

Killing yourself, dying on your own terms, in your own time, is a way of retaining your dignity, and therefore a good thing.

The Supreme Court ruling on that case last year established that Canadians have the constitutional right to doctor-assisted death.

Unless it's not.

The community, [of Attawapiskat ] on James Bay in remote northern Ontario, declared a state of emergency a week ago after 11 of its members attempted suicide in one weekend and 28 tried to do so in March.

It's bad unless someone you think is old enough to make the decison wants it?

And in that case, is it objectively bad, or just something that ought to be postponed?

Waste Not, Want Not; Georgetown University's Hook-up Culture; and Aborted Baby Parts

And odd confluence of events, all of which revolve around the sheer usefulness of the human body.

It can give pleasure, when a sexual event "happens", (if you read the whole thing you'll see that apparently no one "did" anything to cause the life to begin, that would have inconvenienced a young woman, and probably the young man with whom she had no "relationship" as well, terribly):

I cannot help but harbor resentment and sadness at the hypocrisy.* When the Office of the President sent an email advertising for an event, called “Resisting the ‘Throwaway Culture,’” on April 5 calling for an end to violence and citing “the destruction of unborn children,” I recoiled. When I sat down to write this and realized it had been eight months and 15 days since a six-week pregnancy was terminated and what that timeline means for me now, I sat there looking at my calendar unable to comprehend how different my life could have been.

A baby just happened, so his mother unhappened him?
And of course, the civil debate at Georgetown to which the Empress of Abortistan will contribute is coming up.

The news that Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards will speak at Georgetown University reignited a perennial debate about freedom and identity in religious universities, particularly Catholic institutions....On the same day of Richards’ speech (April 20), Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood staffer turned abortion opponent, is also expected to speak.

 

Planned Parenthood: like the Plains Indians, usin' every part of the Buffalo!

Because isn't is a good thing when an organization that takes government money is thrifty, and takes the initiative to get a few bucks for something that would otherwise go to waste?

And now we have this:

Georgetown University will rename two buildings named for school presidents who organized the sale of Jesuit-owned slaves to help pay off campus debt in the 1830s, the university’s president announced.

I don't think the usefulness of slaves, both as labor and as an almost liquid asset when you need funds quickly can be overestimated.

 

*I've tried, I've re-read it, I just can't see what the hypocrisy is whihc she condemns. Let me know if you figure it out.

The "Truths We Could Not Otherwise Endure" Come to Us "Transfigured By Ceremony"

Colm Sinclair sends home [a letter] to explain to his parents why he took the unthinkable step of becoming a Catholic: “What saves us is ceremony … Ceremony makes everything bearable and beautiful for us. Transfigured by ceremony, the truths we could not otherwise endure come to us … It is this saving ceremony that you call ‘idolatry’ and ‘mumbo-jumbo’.”
This salvific “ceremony” was of course the Mass. Completing the letter, Colm walks to a nearby church to experience the beauty of the liturgy: “The celebrant entered … Once again, for the thousandth time, Colm watched the ancient endless beautiful ceremony, the exchange of gifts between earth and heaven, dust and spirit, man and God. The transfigured Bread shone momentarily in the saffron fingers of the celebrant.”

Never heard of George Mackay Brown before, need to learn more.
Stunning
When did I stop reading?
I literally cannot remember the last time I read a novel, and I used to be omnivorous, with the emphasis on novels.
What happened?
Look at this, from Brown's "An Orkney Tapestry" -

“There is a new religion, Progress, in which we all devoutly believe, and it is concerned only with material things in the present and in a vague golden-handed future. It is a rootless utilitarian faith, without beauty or mystery … The notion of progress is a cancer that makes an elemental community look better, and induces a false euphoria, while it drains the life out of it remorselessly.”

Brilliant, and dead on.
Where would we be without converts?

That all may be one.

Strangely Fitting That the Sacrament of Marriage Should Be the Battleground On Which the War of Who Ought Be Admitted to Holy Communion is Fought

And no, I don't mean because wedded bliss sometimes gives way to wedded blitzkrieg...

Look at it this way - receiving the Sacrament of Unity when there is no unity, seeking to hold the Host when you don't hold to the teachings about grace and sin which the Church hands down from Christ, partaking of the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb without submitting to His leadership, enjoying the Bread of Heaven with the Mystical Body of Christ the tenets of which you don't fully espouse?

Why, it's kinda like enjoying the marital bed with a partner you haven't fully espoused.

Isn't it?

The outright lie you tell with your body by presenting form Communion when you are not in union with the Bride of Christ is, perhaps, the same lie you tell with your body when you have conjugal relations with someone who is not your sacramental bride or bridegroom.

Why would anyone want to tell such a lie, or to have such a lie told?

"Taught That Sin Does Not Matter"

I do not have the strength to have been a parent.

Looks as if I should - I'm stubborn, confident, smart, very sure of what I actually know and very interested in looking into what I don't, flexible...
I love babies, I love children, I even love, (though it's hard sometimes,) teen-agers going through their sullen phase. I love teaching. I love learning from them. I love the negotiations between generations.

I love the spats. Yes, really.

I love large, no, make that enormous families, I come from one and would happily have continued the family business, (which for generations seemed to have been producing children.)

But the good Lord knew what he was doing.
I read articles like this open letter, and I literally tremble.

Sin was introduced into all our children’s lives, and one by one we watched as they began to weaken and fall. The teenagers in our community were suffering the broken hearts, bodies and souls that sexual experimentation brings with it....
As our children’s hearts broke, they had to turn to ways to dull the pain. Alcohol and drug abuse followed shortly behind. Then, of course, mental and emotional problems. Eating disorders were rampant in our daughters’ Catholic girls’ high school. Abortions were common. Suicides not unheard of. 

The family to which I am closest, have seen the most over the years as they grew up, have lived with and cared for for solid stretches, never were in this deep a whole, nowhere near - and yet, I don't know if I could have handled even those 5.
They're young adults now, only 1 doesn't go to Mass with anything like regularity, 1 thinks too highly of drinking as a recreation, 1 lived with spouse-to-be before marrying, (presumably not to have a partner with whom to say their pater noster...)
But all in all, a really good family.
They had great parents, (their worst transgression, as far as I knew? letting a son keep a "Grand Theft Auto" in the house. Can't think of much else I would have done differently.)
I just would not have had the strength.

But Susan Fox? more than strong, she's mighty. But never mind that she "saved" her family.

Read her take on today's problems, and their long, winding, hardy and tenacious root.
We should remember, the devil does, after all, have gardening experience...

Sacred Music Conference Opportunity, (Yeah, had to really check myself not to do a "chance"/"chants" play on words, there)

Anyone in Florida, or really, just the south-east US, or anyone who would enjoy a jaunt to one of the more interesting cities on the gulf coast, ought to look into this. I highly recommend the personnel, the prayer, and the sheer.... well, I hate to use this word because it makes it sound frivolous, but.... fun of it. (Seriously, a great time with great people.)
I can't make it this year, alas, (lots of hatching, matching and, sadly, dispatching amongst family and close friends.)

 

Papal Document: " In addressing this Encyclical to you, my Brother Bishops, it is my intention to state the principles necessary for discerning what is contrary to "sound doctrine", drawing attention to those elements of the Church's moral teaching which today appear particularly exposed to error, ambiguity or neglect."

Oh, sorry, wrong Pope.
But isn't that really at the root of the AL tizzy - one good, holy man's prudential judgement as to which teachings of the Church "today appear particularly exposed to error"?

Pope Francis' experience is different from Pope St. John Paul's, (and needless to say, from mine.)

I can disagree with him, (with either of them - I can even use gentle sarcasm, I think,) without calls for his head.

Frankly, if you think the Holy Father goes too far in decrying a dearth of mercy, and you express that by hurling words like idiot, nincompoop, evil, jackass and clown at him or those who agree with him - you're proving his point.

So if you think the Straighten Up and Fly Right Gang isn't nearly as dangerous to the salvation of humanity as the Wink Wink Nudge Nudge Absolutions For Everybody Absolutions on the House Party, make your case.

Explain why leaving sinners in their sin is the opposite of mercy, and ignoring the plight of the abandoned in favor of ministering to the abandonee is both unjust and unmerciful - but do it with love.

Here's my quibble of the day:

How is it possible that as the world grows ever smaller, information ever more accessible, instantaneous communication ever easier, social safety-nets of an ever finer mesh - how is it possible that people seeking to marry and be given in marriage in today's world are somehow more in need of a mulligan than their great- great- grandparents were?

Holy Hour For Life

I will not go so far as to say the person targetted here is corrupt, nor call for her resignation, for many actions are taken by those who are stupid or uninformed or illogical or ill-thought-out rather than evil.
But I do suspect that the the California Attorney General targetted David Daleiden because she supports Planned Parenthood, and that support and therefore that action are evil.
So, at the time of the rally at the AG's office in Sacramento, today from 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM I will fast, keep silence, and pray in reparation for the sin of the murder of the unborn.

Heroism, the Average Man and the Subtle Condescension of Lowered Expectations

(Yes, "man," I consider myself included in the term, I am part of mankind.)
I have to confess, (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea minima [?] culpa,) since the organ in which it appeared its not one from which I find I receive much information nor food for thought, I had not actually read the entire interview in which a German prelate had opined that "heroism is not for the average Christian."

It is a ludicrous statement, a theologian might as well say that sanctity or sainthood is not for the average Christian, the grandeur of Heaven is not for the average Christian, the doing more than the minimum to get by is not, or the Beatific Vision, or the effort to live without sin...
Not called to holiness, not called to grapple with the prince of this world and his rules for  going along to get along...
One might as well say that the Glory of having been created in the image and likeness of God is "not for" you.
You.
There.
You commonplace persons, you member of the hoi polloi, you sad little average person.
Not everyone agrees.
There was a link to a FOCUS article about heroism in my inbox, and some pretty solid advice, (though the trendy jargon of "being present in the moment," I could have wished had been worded differently.) An excerpt:

1.     Pray.
Build and solidify your relationship daily with Jesus Christ, the most heroic among us.
2.     Practice saying no to yourself.
Build a habit of saying no to the things you want. This will make you the master of your own will.
3.     Be present in the moment.
Become interested in the people you’re with.  Don’t wish your life away.
4.     Lead someone else.
As you try to grow in virtue, teach someone else those same virtues which you are building — and then show them how to teach someone else.

Also, instead of merely reading the money quotes as reported elsewhere, I did read the rest of the Cardinal Kasper interview. His "hero" line in context:

To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high respect for those who are [living together as brother and sister]. But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not for the average Christian. That could also create new tensions. Adultery is not only wrong sexual behavior. It’s to leave a familiaris consortio, a communion, and to establish a new one. But normally it’s also the sexual relations in such a communion, so I can’t say whether it’s ongoing adultery. Therefore I would say, yes, absolution is possible. Mercy means God gives to everybody who converts and repents a new chance.
I have high respect for such people [those who say that absolution requires penance, and that entails a firm purpose of amendment]. But whether I can impose it is another question.

'Zat really any better? As a confessor or spiritual director he "can't say whether it’s ongoing adultery"? Of course you can't impose any penance or absolution fort that matter FOR SOMETHING YOU CAN'T SAY IS A SIN.
Oh, one last section, which I will not criticize, but which leaves me flummoxed:

CWL: When you talk about a divorced and remarried Catholic not being able to fulfil the rigorist’s requirements without incurring a new guilt, what would he or she be guilty of?
Kasper: The breakup of the second family. If there are children you cannot do it. If you’re engaged to a new partner, you’ve given your word, and so it’s not possible.

"Engaged"? "Given your word"?
Perhaps by "engaged" he means something other than the immediate association most anglophones have.
But is there guilt in breaking your words when the very giving of it breaks and earlier one?
And yes, children, if there are any, should be the first consideration.
This, of course, includes children from the previous union.
But is it good for a child to live in an environment where at least one of his parents has come to the realization that, whether fully culpable or not, his participation in conjugal relations is sinful, and is not willing to forgo them?
In fact, if one parent would like to live chastely and the other insists on them, isn't that the very definition of an abusive relationship?
Which almost anyone would say, one should extricate oneself from, no?

"More is involved here than mere ignorance"

"A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding its inherent values."

I find this one of the most baffling statements in Amoris Laetitia - what is its point?

That in this fallen world we are often perfectly aware of what is right and yet we do wrong anyway?

Or that we know what She says, but deny the Church's authority to transmit and interpret God's law?

Not sure how the first would mitigate culpability, not sure how the second would involve anyone who gives a tinker's dam what a Church document allows or forbids or even says about anything.

March Madness April Agita? Insanity? Inanity? Unbalance? Irrationality? April Absurdity?

It is difficult for me to take seriously a poll regarding beautiful churches that puts St Pat's NYC in an eastern bracket rather than Newark's astonishing Sacred Heart Basilica, but it's all in good fun, I suppose.

Won't know about St Louis till this summer, but St John Cantius has my heart, anyway.

Receiving the Sacraments, the Way We Live Now

Be courageous, go to Confession!

So urges Pope Francis.
God bless him, he has made commendation of this sacrament a centerpiece of his pontificate, God prosper his work.

In preparing a class on the "Sacraments of Healing" it suddenly hit me - not only has the Church of most of my lifetime, at least in this country, taken rather different tacks with the two sacraments that are most available and one would think would be those by which each of us is blessed most frequently with an outpouring of God's grace...

It has likewise turned the practice of the 2 sacraments of healing on its ear!

I have long laughed at the inconsistency of the .... what, "progressive"? not really, but whatever... of the Catholic establishment in its demands, (that amount to bullying,) regarding frequent reception of the Eucharist, (especially under both species,) and its simultaneous denigration of the sacrament of Reconciliation.
Yes, I said "denigration," and I meant it.
The "box" is disparaged, priests chase penitents away for wasting the priest's time with petty sins, catechists have discouraged inculcating reception of the sacrament by making much of the fact that canon law does not absolutely "require" it prior to a child's first Communion, the condtion of Confession for gaining Indulgences elicits the same kind of contempt indulgenced practices themselves do, the specification of "mortal" is always now highlighted in the precept of the Church dealing with the sacrament of penance, (if, indeed, anyone is so backward or ill-bred as to mention the Precepts of the Church).....
It seems never to have occurred to them that what makes confession of mortal sin terrifying is that by deprecating and making difficult if not downright unavailable the confession of venial sin, (who is going to make the effort to receive "by appointment" for "hitting my brother"?) confession itself has been turned into a daunting "emergency procedure."
The prospect is as horrifying as a root canal - how can someone who has never brushed his teeth be less than sick at the thought?
Or perhaps that was the intention? to eliminate confession entirely?
Guilt and shame are baaaaaad.
Do away with them by neutering the concept of sin, of there being anything for which one should feel guilty.

But as our beloved Holy Father has said, "“It’s healthy to have a bit of shame… It does us good because it makes us more humble.”

But strangely, at the same time as the practice of confession has been frittered away to nothingness, reception of the sacrament of the Sick is growing by leaps and bounds!
Some parishes offer it at every single Mass on a weekend, two or even three times a year, and everyone is encouraged to partake, Getting a scratchy feeling, might be a cold coming on, sign me up!

I literally know a normally healthy, walking around, living-her-life adult who has received the Sacrament of the Sick far more times than she has been to Confession.

How did this happen?

Do you think Francis can change how things are?

I Had Never Thought of Good Pope John As Naive

In doing a bit of reading on "mercy" I came across this from Pope Saint John XXIII's address on the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations 

That is lovely, no? "Errors vanish like fog before the sun." Before the Son, perhaps?
Continuing,

Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. 

Good, so far... but then, [emphasis supplied] :

But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them. 

As Penny from Big Bang would say, gently, Oh, sweetie...

"A Problem With the Truth"

While futzing around with tea and coffee and the morning news and getting ready for Mass this a.m., Himself asked if I had head the name, X, a "journalist,"  for a "major" "news" organization, (Oh dear! I'm going to run out of scare quotes!) forced to return a Pulitzer because she had fabricated her entire winning story.
He brought it up because he had just come across the Gabriel García Márquez bon mot, "it was unfair that she won the Pulitzer prize, but also unfair that she didn't win the Nobel Prize in Literature."
I refreshed his memory that it was only yesterday that we were discussing a Times piece about the growing problem of the dubious veracity of "documentary" movies which ought better to have been released with the "Inspired by true events" tagline.
There is a whole new style of documentary, challenged, no doubt but how compelling Ken Burns' (honest, excellent,) work is, to sex up their under-researched offerings with "re-enactments" of events that are imagined rather than attested to; completely bogus "facts" are presented, and the film-makers absolve themselves from their lies by saying, "not everyone agrees" and devoting a tenth of the time spent on the fiction to some sober, boring truth. (The Hitler History Channel, NGC, Discovery provide an outlet for much of this stuff.)
Then as we tangentalized the conversation into the recent spate of Advocacy Fiction Masquerading as Journalism, (e.g., Sabrina Eredely's campus rape hoax, the New York Times with the Duke lacrosse story, or its ugly and insensitive "embarrassment to Ireland" exploitation of the death of students at the hands of a criminally crooked construction company); deliberately spun yarns, (Blair, Glass,) reporters and editors too lazy or harried or eager, to fact check when scams are fed to them as news by PR hacks or comedians, (wolves in the Olympic hotel?); outright shills.... he realized that he hadn't noticed the sheer volume, how very ordinary, almost expected dishonesty has become in institutions in which one once had some trust.

Fr Ra Blake has a blog on Amoris Laetitia, but I'm going to leave that for now. I haven't really digested the, (yes, Father, very long,) document, or his opinion on it.
This is what I want to be read, I want people to notice -

I think the crisis in the Church is one of integrity. Benedict interpreted it as a crisis of the disintegration of the liturgy, following the idea that we believe what we say and do in the liturgy, lex credendi lex orandi. It stems of course from the 2nd Commandment,  that if we keep Holy the name of God, nothing we do in the name of God should be trivial or false, that our "yes means yes and no means no". The ending of our  prayers, "Through Our Lord Jesus Christ ..." turns them into a sacred oath. Lies and obfuscation have no place in the Christian life. There must be something very different in way Christians speak, most especially bishops and priests, Christ after all spoke with authority, unlike the religious and political leaders of his day. His words were witnessed to by God himself, the Father and the Spirit witness to Him as the Truth. It is as the Truth that Pilate is incapable of recognising Him, and therefore as the Truth that He is condemned and crucified. Those who are on the side of Truth listen to His voice, because He is the Word of God, the Son of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.
The child abuse crisis and consequent episcopal cover-ups revealed the Church or rather ["SOME of", please, Father!] its leaders as being without integrity, as being far from the truth, in fact many were shown to be downright liars. If we are to witness to the truth of Christ we need to be men and women of total integrity, the knotty wood of the Cross is the great sign of integrity, it is through our trustworthiness as witnesses to the resurrection that others are called to believe, if the Church cannot be trusted we cannot be faithful witnesses.
Perhaps it is not just in the Church but in society in general that there is a problem with the truth, manipulation by politicians, journalists, spin-doctors, political correctness, language manipulation all in one way or another create an environment of mistrust in which communion/communication between human beings breaks down. Its the tower of Babel situation there are so many voices crying out but no-one can hear what is being said. The Church is supposed to be different, making out of many nations one people, with one certain truth, down the centuries the Church has sought truth, the One Truth, now it seems to me that the Church is following the world, that bishops are emulating politicians, that we are not so much concerned with truth as its application or spin, that we no longer see truth as person but a commodity.

"Let us pray to the Lord to help us be 'infected' by His mercy" - 12 Quotes from the Holy Father on Mercy and Forgiveness

1."Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: Encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in His body and on His soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of His suffering love."

2. "The secret of the true happiness of individuals and peoples: to believe and proclaim that the Lord has done marvellous things for us and that His mercy is from generation to generation on those who are faithful to him."

3. "God loves us in a way that we might call 'obstinate' and enfolds us in His inexhaustible tenderness."

4. "We are all sinners but God heals us with an abundance of grace, mercy and tenderness."

5. "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of His church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a 'sign' that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the evangelist reminds us that the only 'sign' is Jesus raised on the cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign."

6. "Wherever people are suffering, make it your task to serve them."

7. "To understand and accept God's merciful love: May this be your commitment, first of all in your families and then in every neighborhood"

8.  "Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil."

9. "'Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning'. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God and the power of His mercy. ... It is possible to return to the Lord, it is a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of faith that we entrust to His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates and moves our innermost core."

10. "Love never ends or fails. Love never ends. Everything must be based on love - the relation between two friends, my ministry, my service; the church services in every field must be based on love. Why? Because God is Love."

11. "We must note that Christ, in revealing the love-mercy of God, at the same time demanded from people that they also should be guided in their lives by love and mercy. This requirement forms part of the very essence of the messianic message, and constitutes the heart of the Gospel ethos."

12. [Our Lenten fast is not accomplished with mere abstinence from food, but with good deed; moreover]  "it should lead to personal amendment and domestic harmony... Let faults be forgiven, let bonds be loosed, offences wiped out, designs of vengeance fall through, that the holy festival through both Divine and human grace may find all happy, all innocent.
...................
Ah, but which Pope, you ask?  Well, 2, 6, 8,  and 11 are from Pope Saint John Paul II; 4 from Pope Francis; 10, Pope Theodore II; and 12, Pope St Leo the Great. The others and the title are Pope Benedict XVI.

"Room for Confusion" Insufficent, Building Confusion Its Own Suite, Perhaps To be Expanded to a Wing In Future

IN my Father's house, there are many mansions, so there's plenty of room for Confusion. In fact, have her bring her BFF, Obfuscation. Oh, what the haec, invite Little White Lie to join them.

It's always good to be able to read between the lines.
And under the lines.
And on the back of the page.
And the discarded pages... written in invisible ink, ya know?
And thus we get headlines like this:

Pope Francis Relaxes Church Rules On Divorce

On "divorce"? Um, no.
Not even close.
And that's also how we get pastoral advice like this, from a "professor of moral theology at Boston College," even though he admits the document deosnt actually, you know, say what he wants it to have said:

While Francis did not explicitly give a green light for remarried Catholics to return to communion, “the dots are pretty close together, you can connect them reasonably easily."

AMORIS LÆTITIA - of Content, Conjugality and Conjunctions

So, at long last... what?
The post-synodal exhortation from the Synod on the Family has finally been released and it contains, well, not very much.
Rules are rules, and reality is reality, and Truth is Truth - and we should all be kinder to other people.

My only quibble (well, apart from Amoris Laetitia being released in the annoying PDF format, rather than a nice web page)?

A conjunction.

A short, solitary little word, (emphasis supplied.)

I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion. But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, “always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street.”

It's about that "but."*
Surely Pope Francis cannot be saying that he prefers making statements to the Faithful which do leave room for confusion?
(That ain't merciful.)
Surely he meant to say, "I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion AND SO I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness."
Because it is precisely the presence of this "room for confusion," in what they have been told, what they have been exposed to, what they have seen, what the world teaches them, that allows us who, (yes, I agree with Anne Frank,) are basically good to be lured into actions that are basically sinful.

It is not just weakness, it's believing that regardless of circumstances or consequences  I "deserve to be happy,"  and the drumbeat of It's no big deal, it's no big deal, it's no big deal, that leaves me in the situation where I need the Church's help to find goodness.
The Good Shepherd does not come out to join me in the wilderness, but to disentangle me from the brambles and sling me over His shoulder and carry me home, and the good shepherd knows it is his job, (note the lower case "g", "s" and "h",) to do likewise.

*(And no, it's not a big "but", Peewee.)

"And then Oedipus and Jocasta, assured by their supporters on social media that '#LoveWins', decided...."

In the great time suck that is Those Interwebs, ostensibly searching for some information about children and catechetics on the super highway, I found myself on a bypass about the irrationality and inconsistency of the current tv and movie rating system, and then went up a dead-end about the size of Cinderella's, (AKA Lilly James',) waist, pulled in to a private driveway and noticed something tantalizing about how to nip in the waist of an oversized button up shirt, had to back up to the intersection where I saw a criticism of children's literature that was not protective of the environment/blended families/the Other among us, and decided to go brew a cup, no, a mug, stadium cup of almond tea.

But while sipping, the thought came that there is a great misapprehension of the purpose of the fairy tale.

We get modern takes, and reboots and re-writes, and outright bannings of fables that fail to impart information in the manner of a user's manual.
We want Common Core nuts and bolts to help make us better worker bees instead of the grandeur and deeper truths of myth, shrunk to childsize for little hands, and pureed for mouths not yet containging any permanent teeth.
Cinderella isn't about women needing men to take care of them but about spousal and familial love being a greater goal and a rarer prize than almost any other in this life, finer than extravagant clothes and grand houses, (and certainly than inherited wealth, or servants to boss about.)

Have we done this with, (more than the occasional movie, such as the nit-wit Troy, and all stories from the Bible, on which there is open season) do we do this to creation tales, and to myth, as well?

Is there a volume of Greek and Roman Myths that functions as an apologia for Jocasta's incest and assures us that no, Time doesn't devour his children? where Narcissus has a learning experience, falls in and, rescued by followers who learn of his plight via Instagram, resolves to limit himself to only a few selfies a day? Does Atalanta not just scoop up the golden fruit but speed past Melanion just the same, magnanimously allow him to live and go off with her best gal pal to a life of lesbian bliss?

Of Waffles and Coincidence and the Hand of God

So.
Been looking for a pizzelle iron, for cheap, (because while I enjoy eating them, I may find I don't particularly like making them, and if I bought one retail, even on sale, there would be thirty-some bucks wasted, and I couldn't bear throwing it out, so it would take up space in my kitchen  WHICH  IS  AT  A  PREMIUM  for ever and ever and ever.)

Monday I had some items for the St Vincent De Paul Food Bank, and after I dropped them off, I dropped myself in to the thrift store, (it's a good time of year for NWT clothes, household goods, etc., as snowbirds decide impulse purchases are not worth packing up and transporting.)

There was a perfect, tiny electric waffle iron, which I thought might just do, for $5.

So, looking up recipes, today, what do I learn?

The Annunciation, or "Lady Day, to the Swedes, ("Vårfrudagen,") which was, because March 25 fell in Holy Week, unwontedly celebrated on April 4, this past Monday, is also, jokingly, "Waffle Day," ("Våffeldagen.")

Clearly, the Blessed Mother wants me to have waffle cookies.

Of course, she would! She loves us all and wants us to be happy!

Speaking of Oboe...

I wish I liked new music more.
Should I say, "I wish I liked contemporary music more"?
"I wish I liked modern music more"?

One feels such a philistine.... it's like admitting to not liking poetry. Or Brando's "acting." Or sushi. Or goat cheese. (My shame on this account is no doubt exacerbated by my high school humanities field trips and the beginnings of my "free tickets with student I.D." days having coincided with the tail end of Boulez's [Boulezs'? Boulez'z?] tenure with the NY Philharmonic and subsequent lionization.)

Stipulating that serialism, at least, is a dead letter, there are other musical attempts at modernity to which i just do not take.
But I have learned that just as the mighty King of Instruments, (why isn't it the "Queen of Instruments?" a friend once suggested it was because a king usually takes a queen. I digress,)  is a gateway to actually enjoying sonorous dissonance, the oboe produces so winsome a sound that it makes palatable that which would set my teeth on edge played by the finest violinist in the world.
There is a lot to love on Michele Fiala's The Light Wraps You: New Music for Oboe,
and
Overheard, (I liked the Averill very much,)
and especially
A Tree in Your Ear. (Give Stephen Caplan's "Miniatures" a listen.)