Parting the clouds

Ahk...Do you know what is not my idea of a great way to spend a summer day?

Falling prey to a nasty illness, going to the doctor's to the happy tune of $53 (insurance? what's that?) and being told that it's just a cold and that I should take some over-the-counter stuff and rest up.

I got some strange looks from both my examining physican and the waiting room folks. I didn't exactly do a lot of work on my hair besides running a comb through, and my nose was sort of doing a constant drain into my handkerchief. Good stuff.

The doctor could see in my face that I was about to demand an antibiotic because she beat me to the punch and insisted that "At this point an antibiotic wouldn't do you much good." Sneaky! But she was right, the CVS version of Dayquil has been working quite well for me.

Offer it up, offer it up! It made me sad today, though, because I couldn't very well go to daily Mass and infect all of those pious souls and the priest, too, who is just recovering himself from a bout with the wheezes.

St. Angela Merici, patroness of the sick, pray for us!

Why isn't she blogging?

If you had a twin sister who was going to be entering the convent of the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word in Birmingham, Alabama in less than 30 days, would you spend your time blogging? Or would you spend your time doing wonderful things with her like going to daily Mass and Adoration, and silly things like eating large quantities of fudge tracks ice cream and Doritos?

I thought so.

On August 1st, I am going to start a little countdown. I hope to go to B-ham with her for her little entrance ceremony, and I hope to take some pictures which I will of course post. It is exciting to see the goodness of God playing out in her life :)

Please pray for her, me, and our family!

Benedict and... Bernard?

In this picture made available Wednesday, July 19, 2006, by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI caresses St. Bernard dogs in Martigny, Switzerland, Tuesday, July 18, 2006. Pope Benedict XVI made an unannounced visit to Switzerland, strolling across the Italian-Swiss border during his Italian Alpine holiday to visit a monastery and a kennel of St. Bernard dogs. Benedict arrived in the mountains a week earlier and his holiday ends July 28. (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, Arturo Mari)

Isaiah 40:1-11

1: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

2: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

3: A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4: Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

5: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

6: A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

7: The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass.

8: The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.

9: Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!"

10: Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

11: He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

On surrender

Take, O Lord,
and receive my entire liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my whole will.

All that I am
and all that I possess You have given me:
I surrender it all to You
to be disposed of according to Your will.
Give me only Your love
and Your grace;
with these I will be rich enough,
and will desire nothing more.

- St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder, Society of Jesus

I have a confession to make

For a long time after my reversion to Catholicism, I was deeply skeptical of the whole "pray and God will show you His will and guide you" line, which, of course, crosses the lips of just about every devout Christian at least a few times over the course of a lifetime.

Since I very rarely heard of anyone actually literally hearing the voice of Christ whispering an answer into a supplicant's ear, I considered the "discernment" pursued in this manner to be quite possibly nothing more than a concentrated effort at morphing one's own preferences into the "will" of God, which could then be used as backup to defend one's decision.

For instance: "I really want to go to Ohio State University instead of Michigan State University, but it is an important matter, so I will take it to prayer." ::: Time passes ::: "Oh, how conveniently, I have decided that God wants me to go to OSU! Hurray!" This attitude I carried around says a lot about how I myself approached such "discernment" prayer, doesn't it. Blush.

It couldn't be farther from the truth, of course. If one asks the Holy Spirit humbly and truly openly, He will not fail to point out the right path. One musn't expect great signs like lightening bolts, angels carrying swords of flame and hails of locusts. And they really aren't necessary, if one is truly ready to accept whatever the Holy Spirit suggests. The locusts descended on Egypt only because the pharaoh was putting up some pretty stiff resistance to God's will.

These thoughts occurred to me due to something that happened to me tonight. There is Eucharistic Adoration at St. Mary's on Thursday nights for an hour, from seven to eight at night, and all this summer I have not been able to get over there for it, due to other issues. I have always loved Adoration - I go just about every week when I am in Athens - but today, when I was actually free to go, I seemed to be having some kind of block. I had, in fact, really planned on going tonight. I looked in the Sunday bulletin to check the time and place; it was definitely on my schedule.

But as the afternoon went on, I seemed to be developing, as I said, a block. I have had similar attacks of laziness with regard to my prayer life, especially the Rosary, but never with Mass, thank God. My mind wandered about trying to invent excuses for why I could not go to Adoration: It was too hot. I was too tired. I had too much to do. (What? Nap?) I spent the afternoon watching pointless but amusing early 90s syndicated television, and completely forgot about Adoration. Then, around 5 o'clock, it suddenly popped back into my head.

"Urgh," I thought to myself. "Too hot."

I wandered up to my room in a fog, put on a CD mix and lay down on my bed. The third song was Mother Angelica's nuns (of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery) singing their greatly treasured motto, "Adoremus in aeternum sanctissimum Sacramentum" - "Let us adore forever the most holy Sacrament." The nuns sing so beautifully that I put the song on repeat. As I lay there listening to the pretty music, it did not occur to me that possibly the Lord was banging me on the head with the song to suggest that I try to make it to Adoration. Nooo, His foolish little child is very thick about such things. Luckily He knows this and is very indulgent and patient with her.

I started to worry my old bone: My vocation. Where and how does He want me? Why am I so sure of His will one day and hesitant the next? Wringing of hands, wringing of hands. My mind drifted back to our parish's Monday night book club, when our associate pastor, Fr. Damian, mentioned that he had found his vocation while praying before the Blessed Sacrament. That brought to my mind all those countless people who have been converted to Catholicism simply by seeing or passing by the little white Host, so fragile and beautiful, held aloft in a monstrance or in the hands of a priest. I thought to myself, How wonderful the Real Presence is. I wish I could spend all my time with Him. And I felt my heart warm with that wonderful consolation of love.

Then, I remembered, all in a flash: Adoration! Tonight! It was 6:45. At this point my excuse would probably have been, "I'll be late." I sprang out of bed, threw on some nice clothes, and bolted out the door; I was actually just in time. And it was hot. And I was tired. And there are no kneelers in the chapel so we had to kneel on the floor for the better part of an hour. And it was absolutely wonderful.

And I have to say that I am both awed and amused by the lengths the Lord will go to in order to persuade me to do His will. I am not very far on the spiritual path and so it takes me a long time to catch on; He doesn't seem to mind repeating Himself over and over for my benefit, however. He is like a persistent suitor, who never forces Himself on His loved one but Who never stops wooing. I hope that as the years pass I will be able to respond with my "Yes" more and more readily and without the need for such a display of persistence on His part.

Book clubbing

Although it is principally my writing which has kept me occupied this summer, I have been indulging in the summer book club run by our wonderful young associate pastor, Fr. Damian. Our first book was "Everything that Rises Must Converge" - I didn't have to buy the book, as I of course have already got a few things by Flannery O'Connor.

Currently we are reading "The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Orthodox Christianity" by Colleen Carroll. We read the first three chapters for this week's meeting and I must say it sparked some very interesting conversation about the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the reform of the reform, reform in religious orders, and the reform of catechesis etc. Everyone in the book club is quite conservative, as far as I can tell, but there were actually a few comments that strayed toward "embittered traditionalist" territory, which sparked some debate. I found the conversation to be very lively and stimulating.

We still have quite a few chapters to go in the Carroll book, but our last tome is going to be "The Ratzinger Report" by none other than our beloved Papa. I am ashamed to say that I do not own a copy of this book; being a cash-poor student, I have done most of my Ratzinger-reading via the library. I also read this particular book about five times, and it is quite short; I sort of developed the idea that I had it memorized and didn't need to buy it ;) But I will purchase a copy of it for the book club! A good addition to the collection...

I need to get back to writing... Urgh...

Vacation time

Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by faithful upon his arrival in Les Combes d'Introd, in the Aosta Valley region, Italy, Tuesday, July 11, 2006. The pontiff will remain in Les Combes until July 28, when he will travel to the papal residence in the ancient town Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills, on the outskirts of Rome. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Call the mortician, dear

Is your church okay with homosexual sex? Totally cool with female clergy? Not too into that "None shall come to the Father but through Me" line that Jesus utters in the Gospels?

Is someone going to be around to shut the lights off when your doors finally close?

I'm not the first nor the last to notice the embrace-modern-culture, kiss-your-viability-as-a-Christian-community-goodbye trend.

From the LA Times:

Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins

Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.

By Charlotte Allen

...Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.

Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating...

...When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

The entire article is quite good. But the best graph has to be:

When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

Ain't it the truth.

Nice shades!

Pope Benedict XVI, wearing sun glasses, waves as he leaves in his popemobile after saying Mass in Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences, Spain, Sunday, July 9, 2006. The pontiff celebrated a Mass on the last day of the 5th World Meeting of Families on Sunday concluding his two-day trip to Valencia. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

On "holy kisses"

From the Boston Catholic Journal:

...A love that sees its goal in chastity and purity is painfully beautiful and it is already a foretaste of Heaven! The partners in such a love seek to love without selfishness and to love in God. It truly is a deep share in the Divine Love, a pure love uncorrupted by license and sensuality.

For those who experience it chastity is a blinding beauty, a beauty that can consume the soul totally ... for it comes from God and returns to Him.

Many look back upon their lives with deep regret for the choices they had made, the sins they had committed, – but do not be discouraged or dissuaded! Purity of heart can be regained, we can become like little children again: by His grace, and through His unspeakable, unfathomable love for us...

A very beautiful reflection.

Religious freedom?

Are Mother Theresa's sisters (the Missionaries of Charity) criminals? Unbelievable story out of India from Sandro Magister:

...But the anti-Christian act that provoked the greatest outrage was, on June 25, the aggression against four sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in a hospital of the Hindu temple town of Tirupati, in Andra Pradesh, a state in which there is no anti-conversion law in force.

The four sisters of the Missionaries of Charity - Maria Julia, Chriselda, Emma Felesia, and Reena Francis - had come to the hospital to assist the sick, as they have done every Sunday for years, with the permission of the authorities. Surrounded by a crowd of 300 persons, including news broadcasters, and accused of converting the dying through coercion, they were held hostage until the arrival of the police, who placed the sisters under arrest.

They were freed, late in the evening, by the prime minister of the state, upon the request of the archbishop of Hyderabad, Marampudi Joji. The following day, the archbishop held a press conference together with non-Catholic representatives of the Christian Federation of Andra Pradesh. The sisters were authorized to resume their apostolate, and a judicial investigation was begun into the organizers of the attack. The Hindu fundamentalists, the archbishop said, "are pointing to the bogeyman of conversions to discredit our chief minister, who is Christian, and to bring down his government."

The aggression against the Missionaries of Charity has no precedent in India. Their founder, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, is respected in India as a national institution, universally honored regardless of religious affiliation. What happened to the four sisters on June 25 marks the crossing of a critical threshold. Hinduist organizations have planned a demonstration in the capital, Delhi, for July 11, intended "to raise awareness in the population about the Christian danger."

Full article on anti-Christian Hindu extremism in India

Fireworks

I've forgotten to write about how we celebrated the Glorious Fourth here in Hudson, Ohio. The authorities cancelled the municipal fireworks, alas; this caused quite a ruckus with their constituents. The folks in charge commenced braying about rising costs and falling donations; this appeased nobody and only made the locals' reaction more fierce.

We went to fireworks in Solon, Ohio, a fine, if slightly less affluent, city to the north of us. Its chief distinction in our family was that it finished ahead of Hudson in Money magazine's national list of the "Best places to live" - Solon was the forty-second best place to live in America, while Hudson was the forty-seventh.

The fireworks were, I have to say, fairly unexceptional. But they were fireworks, and honestly, it is hard to "do" them well or "do" them poorly. If they make big booms and bright flashes, you've done your job. And the folks from Solon did their job, in spite of the fact that an angry thunderstorm temporarily threatened to undo all of the preparations. The spectators only got a little moist, and it seems that the fireworks themselves stayed dry :)

I am also pleased to announce that I managed to snap, with my phone camera, several amusing pictures of my father doing the "YMCA" dance during the long lying-around-waiting-for-the-sky-to-get-dark period before the show began. There's something to make me smile when I'm feeling a bit blah! ;)

The fountains of Rome

Zenit has an interesting article on the subject. In her youth my mother made a brief sojourn to Europe with some friends. She visited the Nordic countries and determined that she wanted to go home. Her US-bound plane flew out of Italy, and so she stayed in Rome briefly; alas, her intimacy with the city was mostly limited to the cab driver who kept trying to convince her that she needed to see the Collesium, the Vatican, all the great places which were flying by the taxi window. My mother very firmly insisted that all she wanted to do was get Stateside. Somehow she did see the Trevi fountain, however - and she has gushed about it ever since. "Gushed," I know, bad pun...

ROME, July 6, 2006 (Zenit.org).- As Rome temperatures soar, and the sun reflects off the travertine in the Forum and St. Peter's Square, turning the city into a giant kiln, tourists start to view an old attraction with new eyes: the fountains of Rome.

While the Trevi and the Four Rivers fountains are always high on people's must-see list, it takes the scorching heat of Roman summer to see these works not only as photo opportunities, but also as examples of the generosity of Papal Rome.

The seventy-odd elegant sculpted fountains, as well as hundreds of simple water spigots, ensure that one never has to go far to find a source of refreshing water. Savvy tourists carry empty bottles to refill as they go along, saving themselves the exorbitant prices of water at drink stands. During these hot July days people gratefully rinse feet, face and hands, cooling down and getting a second wind for the rest of the day's sightseeing.

The constant flow of water through the city has been a source of pride for Rome since its earliest beginnings. Rome was famously founded on seven hills, lifting the first settlements above the level of the Tiber river. The hills are laced with underground springs, and the early population dug wells and cisterns to obtain fresh water, supplementing from the Tiber when necessary...

Full article.

Happy independence Day!

A spectator watches a firework show at the Light Up the Sky Festival in Phoenix on Monday, July 3, 2006. (AP Photo/Khampha Bouaphanh)

Writer's block

Oooo, I am struck with the world's worst case of writer's block.

I think it is because I have no hard and fast deadline, so I subconsciously feel free to dilly-dally and generally over-think my writing.

The current writing project on which I am splitting brain is my first column for The Post. I'm trying to do a few columns over the summer so that I don't have to scramble for one during a bad or busy week.

Basically, this provides great opportunities for me to briefly indulge my tortured artist routine - even though it can't last long in my house. "I can't interrupt my train of thought to answer the phone, Mother. I'm creating." We shared a laugh. Then I picked up the phone.

In the past I have found that blogging or journaling seems to "lift the mist" fairly well. That's what I'm doing write now. I mean, right now. Auuuugh. Does anybody know the patron saint of struggling writers? I think I'll see if I can look it up. Mmmm, more excuses to procrastinate... ;)

The New York Times and "Recovering Catholics"

From On the Square

...Michael Tomasky’s review aside, haven’t the book reviews in the New York Times gotten more and more annoying? There’s something so mechanical about the counterintuitiveness with which the newspaper’s reviews are assigned. The notion of picking someone inappropriate as the reviewer starts out as clever, but it quickly descends into a mere automatic trick of taking a book and getting the most opposite person the editors know to review it—particularly when the universe of people the editors know is so small...

...The same impulse produces my old acquaintance Norah Vincent’s review of Seminary Boy by John Cornwell. The book is, by most accounts (I haven’t yet read it), an interesting report on the author’s Catholicism as a child and a seminarian—not, apparently, the kind of rage against the Church that produced from Cornwell the diatribe of Hitler’s Pope. And, for Vincent, that’s exactly the problem: A self-described “recovering Catholic,” she’s outraged that the book doesn’t go far enough in demolishing the faith... This isn’t serious book reviewing. It’s treating the life of ideas and prose as a ping-pong game: The author serves up a book, and the reviewer tries to smash it back...

Full post.

Good point about The New York Times Book Review. It's too bad to see such ostensibly talented editors (I don't regularly read their paper so I can't judge their general output) reduced to such gimicks.

The point of this post, though, is that I have to say that the phrase "recovering Catholic" has to be one of the most annoying, offensive phrases on the face of the planet, at least, obviously, to a practicing Catholic. I'm so sorry that some people disagree with the Church or have had bad experiences with her, but I must insist that Catholicism is manifestly not a hideous disease or addiction from which one "recovers." It is not cancer, alcoholism, etc. Rather it is a powerful force in which the encounter with Truth (that is, with Jesus Christ) in the Word of God, in the teaching of the Church and in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, utterly transforms people.

It would amuse/disgust me to see the whole range of possible phrases developed: "My Catholicism is in remission," "The doctors say his Catholicism is terminal." "I'm afraid he fell off the wagon and went back to the sacraments." I would perhaps accuse the individuals who are fond of these phrases of "terminal liberalism" except that no one is "spiritually terminal" and beyond the healing grace of God until after death. Dum spiro, spero, while I breathe, I hope! It's never too late!

Library sale!

Again!

This time I made out pretty well with Dante (all three sections of the Divine Comedy), The Little Flowers of St. Francis, a brief section of the Summa Theologica, a biography of G.K. Chesterton, and a copy of the play A Man for All Seasons. The total was $2.00 - pretty good!

Of course the first thing I did when I got home was to turn to the very last page of the Paradisio and read Dante's very last line, when he is enjoying God in Heaven: "To the high fantasy here power failed; but now my desire and my will were revolved, like a wheel which is moved evenly, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars."

"The Love which moves the sun and the other stars." THAT is why Dante is a great, never-to-be-equaled master of poetry.

Love is, of course, the secret to understanding God and the Christian religion. It's no accident that Dante devotes part of one of the last cantos to a brief discourse on love. Deus caritas est. God is love!