Standing in the rain

The year has fallen, darkened,
its spoils surrendered
to the fading pulse of the sun.

A brief harvest of gold coins,
bleeding, corroding, falling spent to earth,
their once brilliant argument lost,
their nothingness exposed by chill, relentless rain.

Days of rain, October’s parting word.
A year of trial and loss, storm and wreckage, and survival,
a year of awakening, of standing up in the rain,
deciding what matters, what to save, what to abandon.

A year to remember why the sun rises
and hurries to begin again with undiscouraged purpose.
A year like a chisel in the hand of God,
like a finger probing a wound that no longer bleeds.

Purpose from chaos,
passage through darkness,
a return home,
the door swung open wide,
and unaccountable joy.

Anglican commentator bristles at Pope's invitation

Re: Thanks Benny, but no thanks -EdmontonSun.com,

Dear Ms. Woodcock,

What You described as "the biggest bid to drag [Anglicans] back into the fold in the almost 500 years since we broke away" is colorful but rather unfair. The Pope's offer is hardly a mustache-twirling scheme to "drag", "poach", or otherwise coerce. It's simply a serious, constructive invitation supported by canon law, an option that freely can be accepted or declined.

The invitation came only after inquiries by Anglicans distressed at controversial changes within the Anglican communion, and who have expressed interest in closer union with the Bishop of Rome. The Pope has acted in good faith to respond to these inquiries in a meaningful way that respects the desires and worthy traditions of those Anglicans seeking such an accommodation, while promoting genuine unity.

Naturally not all Anglicans will be interested in swimming the Tiber. As your article suggests, those who are most put off by the Catholic Church's doctrines, disciplines, or defects, perhaps will not be dialing up Rome anytime soon. But the sincere invitation stands for any who may be interested. They are most welcome to join us Roman Catholics. We value their fellowship, their best traditions, and want to join efforts with them in trying to live the Gospel.

Becoming a priest of Jesus Christ

An apostle — that is what a Christian is, when he knows that he has been grafted onto Christ, made one with Christ, in baptism. He has been given the capacity to carry on the battle in Christ's name, through confirmation. He has been called to serve God by his activity in the world, because of the common priesthood of the faithful, which makes him share in some way in the priesthood of Christ. This priesthood — though essentially distinct from the ministerial priesthood — gives him the capacity to take part in the worship of the Church and to help other men in their journey to God, with the witness of his word and his example, through his prayer and work of atonement.

-Saint Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, no. 120

More Anglicans coming home to Rome

Traditional Anglicans welcome Vatican announcement with joy - Catholic Culture

A very warm welcome to those Anglican brothers and sisters who will enter full communion with the Successor of Peter through this new provision! May You be greatly blessed in Your new home. And may the worthy liturgical traditions You bring with You result in blessings for the entire Church.

How to pray in the Spirit when we don't know how

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

Joel 2:28-29 RSV

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27 RSV

-Saint Josemaría Escrivá, 22 October 1972.

Getting to know Christ

On the first day of the week, at dawn, the women came to the tomb. They found the stone rolled back and a messenger who said:

"Why do you search for the Living One among the dead? He is not here; he has been raised up. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee- that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again" (Lk 24:5-7).

The new Life that has burst forth in the Resurrection is the world’s only hope.

In the name of Christ, in the name of the Church, in the name of needy humanity: I encourage you to have that new Life in you! Be witnesses of that new Life to the world around you.

-Pope John Paul II, Address to World Youth Day, Denver, August 13, 1993

...Wherever young men and women allow the grace of Christ to work in them and produce new Life, the extraordinary power of divine Love is released into their lives and into the life of the community. It transforms their attitude and behavior, and inevitably attracts others to follow the same adventurous path. This power comes from God and not from us.

-Pope John Paul II, Address to World Youth Day, Denver, August 14, 1993

-Saint Josemaría Escrivá, 9 November 1972.

The fire of Christ

"Don't let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love. With your apostolic life, wipe out the trail of filth and slime left by the corrupt sowers of hatred. And set aflame all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you bear in your heart."

-The Way, n. 1, St. Josemaría Escrivá.

Make a little time –perhaps five or ten minutes before bed- to consider these things in God’s presence. And ask Him to help You prepare Your heart for the Holy Spirit... He’ll do it.

Joy

"Let those who do not know they are sons of God be sad!"

Saint Josemaría Escrivá

Pope: "The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ"

EWTN.com - Pope Tells Young People: You Are the Hope of the Chruch

"As he did with Augustine, so the Lord comes to meet each one of you. He knocks at the door of your freedom and asks to be welcomed as a friend. He wants to make you happy, to fill you with humanity and dignity. The Christian faith is this: encounter with Christ, the living Person Who gives life a new horizon and thereby a definitive direction."

"The Lord calls each of us by name, and entrusts to us a specific mission in the Church and in society'. He constantly renews His invitation to you to be His disciples and His witnesses. Many of you He calls to marriage, and the preparation for this Sacrament constitutes a real vocational journey. Consider seriously the divine call to raise a Christian family, and let your youth be the time in which to build your future with a sense of responsibility. Society needs Christian families, saintly families!"

"...And if the Lord is calling you to follow Him in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life, do not hesitate to respond to His invitation. In particular, in this Year for Priests, I appeal to you, young men. ...The Church in every country, including this one, needs many holy priests and also persons fully consecrated to the service of Christ, Hope of the world."

"Hope! This word, to which I often return, sits well with youth. You, my dear young people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope."

-Pope Benedict XVI, message to young people at Melnik, Czech Republic, 28 September 2009

Fr. McBrien: embarrassed at Jesus' Presence?

Perpetual eucharistic adoration - National Catholic Reporter

"...there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually. Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward."

-Fr. Richard McBrien, Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame

I feel badly for Fr. McBrien, but at least now much of his past dissent from the Gospel message makes more sense. He admits that Jesus is "sacramentally" present in the Eucharist, but he speaks as one who does not believe Jesus is "really" there, perhaps not really anywhere.

And if, as he says, "The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually", then why did Jesus bother to give us the other sacraments at all? And why ever bother praying, outside of Mass?

Fr. McBrien, what misery must You feel if You -a priest beloved of Jesus- not only despise Jesus' teachings, but no longer can even recognize His Presence? How black must be that night.

I pray You will find Him, know Him, and love Him, before You finally have to give an account to Him. Perhaps meditating on this prayer may help You:

May the sacred Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the altar be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, now, and until the end of time.

Unknown Politcal and Religious views in 80s/90s Rock Music

Musings of an Expagan » Unknown Politcal and Religious views in 80s/90s Rock Music

"...postulates that the young male singer is seeking Heaven, and ultimate connection to God."

OK, maybe that’s what he REALLY wants, although I’m not sure he knows it. What it SOUNDS to me like the singer really is seeking is a romp in the sack at an out of the way place. That’s not necessarily evident from the words alone, but the music seems to steer the meaning in that direction.

Now, if You’re looking for transcendent longing for God in recent music, who could fail to point out the poignant, lilting rap lines from the up-and-coming WhackDog:

I gotta gun gotta run
and put lead in yo whacked head for fun.
U dissin’ me is hissin’ me.
My blood’s boilin’
my .45’s recoilin’.

Gotta drive to the house
gonna eat a mouse.
Thinkin’ ’bout puttin’ on a blouse.

Yo man i make two words rhyme -gimme a dime
Feed me till my next crime.
Got about fifty words total in my mind.
Cant read cant spell but dont need no commas in hell.
Thats where we are.
Was gonna live in hevn but i fell.

got twenty wimn got no bride.
used ‘m up till they all cried.
Gave em crack but one died.
They stand in line to see me but I got my pride.
Got 23 inch rims on my ride.

Got dirt in my head
Carry it to my grave for when I’m dead.
Maybe stay all day in bed long as i get fed.
It’s dark outside my bros lied then they died.
It’s dark inside I’m inside out.

U owe me cuz U got what shiny I want.
Obama take it from yo mama
give it to me.
Turn this country into Botswana.

This world whack’ gonna take it back
put it in my sack.
Forgot what i was sayin
just need another gold chain.
-it’s business.

Don’t need the truth
i got three gold tooth.

;)

Give Yourself to Him

Universalis: Today:

"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."

St. Cajetan (1480-1547)

Lex orandi, lex credendi

Great observations, Mr. Gibson, including Your claim that Vatican II “was needed by the Church”. It’s necessary (and easy) to point out and try to repair the many aberrations and tawdry innovations that have damaged the liturgy since Vatican II. Some extremists -”ultra-Tridentists”?- seem to think the Novus Ordo is actually invalid and should be suppressed, the only solution being to revert to the Tridentine liturgy. Personally, I’m more inspired by and drawn toward the Tridentine than the Novus Ordo Mass, but I reject claims that either is invalid. And while the Novus Ordo has been battered and debased through laziness, ignorance, and misguided meddling, I doubt that the pre-Vatican II Mass was always as pristine, reverent, and sublime as the ultra-Tridentists would have us believe.

If the pre-Vatican II decades were all holiness and refinement, how is that large numbers of the children of those raised in that culture abandoned the Church, or turned to attack and ridicule it from within? And how is it that the stage was set for the decades of liturgical inanity and experimentation which followed?

If, as You say, Vatican II was needed, it wasn’t just because the liturgy needed a new coat of paint. If liturgy ultimately is a meeting point between God and man, then one of its main purposes is to foster the sort of interior life that man needs in order to commune with God. Perhaps the Pope, perhaps the Holy Spirit, knew that the interior life of the Church was vitally in need of a restoration, or better yet a re-ignition. If the liturgy is a shambles today, perhaps that’s a reflection of the weak, disordered interior life of many of us in the pews.

We do need the liturgy badly, and we need to adorn it with all the sublimity and reverence we can muster from language, music, and the arts. Getting to that point will be both the cause and, paradoxically, the result, of a deepening of our own interior lives. For some this may involve baby steps. For example, I have to do better with keeping my appointment for daily morning prayer, and struggle not to give up even when it seems like my prayer is superficial and weak.

Hmmm. I guess that’s the same lesson I have to learn about the liturgy: not to give up even when it seems pedestrian and dry.

We preach Christ crucified

Bishops fear new Bill could force schools to take down crucifixes - Catholic Herald Online

"Catholic schools and care homes could be forced to remove crucifixes and holy pictures from their walls in case they offend atheist cleaners, bishops have warned MPs.

They said that under the terms of Equality Minister Harriet Harman's new Equality Bill they could be guilty of harassment if they depicted images 'offensive' to non-Catholics."

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23-24, Douay Rheims)

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine, cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine: esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for man, from whose pierced side flowed water and blood: Let it be for us a foretaste in the trial of death.

Make me believe Thee ever more and more,
In Thee my hope, in Thee my love to store.

-Saint Thomas Aquinas

And here is the Great Secret, the greatest reason of all to be Catholic, to be Christian, to be human, to be alive: Jesus present to us in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And not only present to us, but united to us personally.

This is the promise of eternal life. This is Life in abundance, a life not content to wait until heaven, but bursting open within our hearts today.


Since the thirteenth century Catholics around the world have observed a solemn feast day in honor of "Corups Christi" -the Body (and Blood) of Christ, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

After Mass today at Saint Mary of the Angels Church in Chicago, we observed this solemnity with our annual Corups Christi procession honoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Hundreds of people accompanied Jesus as He was carried in turn by His priests and a deacon down the street, and around the block. A gold canopy, incense, and a squad of altar boys marked His way. Young girls who had just recently received Jesus in their first Holy Communion carpeted His path with thousands of scarlet and yellow rose petals. Boys in black suits marched alongside. And the faithful followed close behind, singing Tantum Ergo Sacramentum and other hymns, praising the One Who turned bread and wine into Himself, so that He could remain with us in invisible glory until He visibly returns in glory. At the happy spectacle neighbors opened their doors, stood on their porches, or watched from their windows as the King of the Universe passed by cloaked in the humble appearance of bread.

On each side of the block the priests paused at a temporary altar, prayed aloud with the faithful, and elevated the Lord to receive the love and adoration of the crowd.


Finally returning to the church building, we ascended the steps, and the Lord stopped briefly to bless us at the altar before returning to His repose in the tabernacle.

Lord, how good it is to be here! How lovely is Thy dwelling place, O Lord!

What will Obama do with his Notre Dame degree?

Obama at Notre Dame -are there reasons for hope?

Does President Obama's appearance last week at Notre Dame University offer Catholics any cause for hope?

Perhaps the university's namesake, Our Lady, may be able to accomplish something that the protests of faithful Catholics could not.

Pope Benedict shows how it's done

"Holiness... are You in there?""

Did Jesus ascend on the wrong day?

Musings of an Expagan » Lazy Catholicism

Feast of the Ascension

If I recall correctly it’s certain dioceses of the U.S. (and maybe a few other odd places) -not the entire Latin Rite- which have transferred observance of the Ascension to the nearest Sunday. What were these bishops thinking? Not sure, but it seems they were overcome by an irresistible urge to facilitate, to accommodate. As it is written,

"Make straight in the desert a highway for our parishioners."
"…and He shall wipe away every inconvenience from their calendars."
"Keep holy the Sabbath Day (but keep the other six for Yourself)." And,
"You’re lucky if they show up once a week."

Unlike the king who ordered that His servants compel guests to come into his wedding feast -this sort of approach not being popular among the voters- many of our ecclesiastical leaders instead have boldly determined that nobody need bother coming at all, unless they can manage to show up on Sunday after the kids’ soccer game.

After all, it’s only the Lord’s Ascension into glory. We can celebrate that any time we feel like it.

Oh, one more oft-forgotten passage: "Little can be expected of him whom little is asked."

One wonders whether these same bishops would like to take their chances showing up three days late for the General Resurrection.

Where heaven and earth meet

"He waits for us everyday, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it...”

“I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence of God. That is why I have told you so often, and hammered away at it, that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my children, on the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your everyday lives.”

-Passionately Loving the World, St. Josemaria Escriva

Timely guidance from the fourth century

"Show your wife you appreciate her company a lot and that you prefer to be at home rather than outside, because she is there. Show her a preference among all your friends and even above the children she has given you; love them because of her ... Pray all together ... Learn the fear of God; everything else will flow from this like water from a fountain and your house will be filled with bounty."

-Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, 347-407 A.D.

Swine Flu makes hands stop shaking

Swine Flu Impacting Catholic Communion Practices in Texas - EWTN.com

"He [Father Michael Dugan, Director of the Office of Liturgy for the Diocese of Dallas] said congregants should not be offended if someone chooses not to shake hands during the sign of peace.

“If you are ill, the appropriate response to someone extending a sign of peace might be to bow to them and say, ‘Peace be with You,’ to avoid bodily contact or one might wave slightly at the other person.”"

Did shaking hands at the Sign of Peace during Mass ever really make sense? At that moment, the congregation is preparing to receive our Lord in Holy Communion. What does shaking hands signify, that we're closing a business deal?

OK, "Peace be with You" and an embrace for family members perhaps makes sense. But shaking hands with those around us?

Now in particular, during a very serious outbreak of swine flu, can we pick some other way to indicate our fraternal charity to our brothers and sisters in Christ? How about a simple "Peace be with you", and perhaps even a slight bow of the head?

In any case, I think I'll drop the deal-making hand-shaking at the Sign of Peace. For me it never really did make much sense, and now it makes even less sense. I hope You don't take offense.

Peace be with You!