Archive for the 'Catholicism' Category
Forgot to mention!
Kasia February 25th, 2008
One of the highlights of the weekend…
Our parish’s new music minister, while a very kind soul of great talent, has a regrettable habit of peppering each Mass liberally with Haugen, Haas, Schutte, and Joncas. And the St. Louis Jesuits. Whenever I see a composer’s name at the bottom with note that s/he was born in the ’50s and is still with us, I have an involuntary anticipatory cringe. It’s usually borne out by the lyrics, the melody, or both. Once in a while I finish and think, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad,” and once in a blue moon I might think, “You know, that was actually OK!”…but as a rule I just don’t care for them.
ANYway, the Communion hymn yesterday was “Eye Has Not Seen.” Melodically, we both actually thought it was OK, but lyrically I thought it was too reminiscent of the Unitarian “hymns” I grew up singing. Though it did actually mention God…well, anyway.
After we left the church, checked the Lost & Found, and had a doughnut or so in the social hall to keep my sugar up until after I’d taken The Canuck to his train, we headed out to the car. We got in, and my beloved said:
“You’ll understand why I wouldn’t say this in the church, and I’m probably tacking extra years onto my time in Purgatory for this, but when they read the name of the Communion hymn, all I could think was: ‘Eye has not seen…but I can has cheeseburger!’”
ROFL. I love that man!…
Da Pope!!!
Kasia February 12th, 2008
I am such a Catho-geek.
I already knew that the Pope was coming to the East Coast, and had resigned myself to accepting that I would not get to see him while he’s in the States. I mean, DC and New York aren’t exactly on the other side of the world (unlike, say, the Vatican), but still.
Well, THEN I heard about tickets being available from our Archdiocese to an actual Pontifical Mass that’s being held at Yankee Stadium. So I jumped on the horn – well, on the e-mail – to The Canuck and asked if that was something he’d be interested in going to, assuming we could get tickets. I was debating: on the one hand, it’s Mass at a stadium, which seems a little incongruous… But on the other hand, it’s seeing the Pope celebrate Mass!!!!!!!!!!!!! (You can tell by contrasting the punctuation which consideration won out for me.)
He said sure, and I started calling other people to see if they wanted tickets. I couldn’t call everyone I would’ve liked to, but I got TBS, Jill and her family, and Jaibee (some of the biggest local Catho-geeks I know).
Noo Yawk, here we come!!!
Urrrgh…
Kasia August 20th, 2007
Don’t mind me. I’m still twitching.
The Canuck was in town this weekend, and didn’t sleep well Saturday night. As a result, he was exhausted when it was time to get up and go to church Sunday morning, so we decided not to drive the 1/2 hour each way to the parish I belong to; instead we’d catch a slightly later Mass at my territorial parish, which is maybe 1/4 mile from my home.
In case you were wondering why I don’t go to my territorial parish, I’m hoping this account will clarify things for you.
Before I start, though, I must stress that this was not the parish I attended for Assumption last Wednesday. That was an entirely different parish. And as an editorial correction, I found out for certain who the priest was at the other parish who did that interesting twist on the offertory. He is not the new associate pastor; he’s just been filling in there until the new associate pastor arrived.
Anyway. The Canuck and I were running a little late, having had the opportunity to lounge a bit before it was time to go to Mass, and got in about 5 minutes before Mass was scheduled to begin. I was pretty embarrassed, as I try very hard not to play “beat the priest” – I think it’s disrespectful – but I understand that it happens. Happens to me, happens to everyone, and we just (one hopes) all do our best not to let it happen often.
There were only about a dozen people in the church when we arrived. Well, maybe two dozen. About four minutes after we arrived (so about one minute before Mass was scheduled to begin, and yes, the procession was lined up at the back of the church to begin Mass) a flood of people arrived.
“OK,” I thought. “It’s drizzly outside, and that makes everyone run a little slower. Plus I’m sure a lot of these folks have kids, and that can slow you down too. And Heaven knows I run late sometimes – the Canuck jokes about my having come on my due date being the last time I was on time for anything.” So I didn’t think much of it – I figured it was unlikely that they were ALL just running late this once, but I also figured, quite rightly, I think, that it really wasn’t my concern. That was between them and God.
So Mass began.
And at least at first, it was pretty uneventful. I don’t like that the tabernacle is kept off in a side chapel, but they had added a corpus to the cross since last I was there (which was probably Assumption last year), and the priest was doing a fairly good, reasonably reverent job. Of course, 90% or more of the chairs (not pews, chairs) didn’t have kneelers, and I hadn’t realized any of them did at all, so I hadn’t thought to scout us out chairs with kneelers, so I wasn’t sure what the Canuck was going to do when the Consecration started (I don’t have knee or back problems to speak of, so kneeling on the floor isn’t an issue for me at present). But apart from having difficulty blocking out the infants and toddlers who were fussing, I wasn’t having any real issues. The Gospel reading actually had a Gloria *after* as well as before, so I automatically sat down before I realized everyone else was still standing. Whoops – I jumped back up. Figured hey, a little more praise of God can never be a bad thing, right?
Then the homily started.
Father started off talking about how it can be difficult to go against the grain. Fair enough. Then he started talking about people who have done just that, citing (St.) Joan of Arc, (St.) Thomas More, Dorothy Day…all fine so far. Then he mentioned Mahatma Gandhi.
Errmmm…ok, well, citing him as someone who went against the grain…OK.
He mentioned a couple of others, then Martin Luther King Jr.
Again…errrmmm…ok…yeah…
Then he said, “All these have died in Christ.”
‘Scuse me?
MLK was, at least, a Christian. Gandhi wasn’t.
To be perfectly clear here, I’m not taking issue with the possibility that Mahatma Gandhi is in Heaven. He may well be. The Church does teach that, while the Church possesses the fullness of Truth, that depending on various circumstances someone outside the Church may be saved.
No, that’s not what turned my head. What turned my head was his stating as plain fact that Gandhi died in Christ. Whether he meant in baptism (and to my knowledge Gandhi was never baptized) or in literal death, I can’t see it applying. Christ died for all of us, yes, but does it follow that we all die in Christ? If so, what’s the point of saying it?
Then he went on to cite Bishop Gumbleton as another brave soul who, according to this priest, is being punished by the higher-ups in the Church for “daring to question the authenticity of our witness.” Mmm. No comment.
Finally, he cued the music. I didn’t know Garth Brooks counted as “sacred music”.
Yes. He played Standing Outside the Fire. After the two introductory verses and choruses, during the instrumental portion, he came back to the microphone and intoned a few tight sentences about how we need to be inside the fire. Then Garth finished up.
The Canuck and I looked at each other.
The offertory started. The Canuck leaned over to me and whispered, “Would you like me to keep the check in my pocket?”
I whispered back, “I’m tempted. What do you think?”
“Honestly,” he whispered back, “I can’t in good conscience support this kind of thing.”
I agreed, and we passed the basket without contributing.
The rest of the Mass was relatively uneventful too – I only saw one person besides myself and the Canuck kneeling for the Consecration, and because I was kneeling near the back I couldn’t see what the priest’s behavior was like at all. And when I walked up and opened my mouth to receive on the tongue (like I always do), I thought the priest hesitated a moment. I half wondered if he wasn’t going to give me the Eucharist. But he did.
The one thing I have to say in defense of the priest is that he seemed to be a basically decent guy who really cares about living a Christian life. He’s not like a lot of apathetic priests I’ve encountered.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t sincerely wrong.
The other thing that really bothered both of us was the behavior of some of the children there. Now, I’ve said before and I’ll say again, babies crying at Mass doesn’t much bother me, provided the parents are paying enough attention that they figure out when the little one needs to be taken out into the narthex. Same goes for small children who are too small to really know better, and even older small children who probably ought to know better but are misbehaving. Kids are kids. As long as you’re being a reasonably responsible parent, I don’t really care to put up a fuss about noise.
This parish didn’t have a cry room. However, a few people who were sitting in the back of the church seemed to think that there was an invisible wall in front of their section that created a cry room. One woman was interacting with her two-or-three-year-old son in a normal speaking voice throughout most of the Mass. I also heard some noises from an electronic game (which, mercifully, was either taken away or at least muted early in the Mass). Etc, etc.
Halp mee, Kuzzin – i iz a Catlick…
Kasia May 7th, 2007
Faithful readers of The Clam Rampant know I have a cousin, dubbed “Beloved But Obnoxious Cousin” a la Mike the Geek. However, said cousin has a brother (who thus is also my cousin) who may deserve that nickname more than she does. So I need to come up with a new nickname for one or the other of them.
For simplicity’s sake, right now I’ll refer to them as Utah Cousin and Michigan Cousin. Michigan Cousin is the one who has up ’til now been known as Beloved But Obnoxious Cousin. She’s 23. Utah Cousin is 27.
Utah Cousin is in the habit of sending out periodic unsolicited e-mail rants. (He is also in the habit of replying to all whenever anyone sends an e-mail that includes him, which created no small friction between him and my mother a few years ago…but that’s another story.) The most recent one was on the subject of the so-called “National Day of Reason” that was dreamed up as a (one might argue, somewhat sophomoric) answer to the National Day of Prayer. Here is what he wrote, to persons unknown:
http://www.nationaldayofreason.org/
Why? Why not!Everyone go out and do something useful today. Give some blood, engage in some commerce, turn your back on a church, write your elected officials a nasty letter 100% protected by man’s natural rights: whatever.As ever: no gods, no masters. [Utah Cousin], who on this point is right, and let no man say otherwise
Ahem. So I wrote back:
Otherwise. Very much otherwise.It amazes me that you try to pre-emptively shut down any sort of response (”..who on this point is right, and let no man say otherwise.”) Surely you can’t be afraid of what us feeble-minded religious types might come up with?
Your newly Catholic cousin,
[The Clam]
To which he responded:
You’ve got to be smarter than that. No matter how much propaganda one has absorbed, there’s a little
tiny flicker of reason at the back of the brain signaling the truth.
And I, after some deliberation, responded thus:
Dear heart, I could say the exact same thing back to you, without changing a word. You might want to take a look at this document:
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
I think you either have forgotten or else never knew the intellectual history of the Church. Before you go around characterizing persons of faith as knuckle-dragging Kool-Aid sippers, it would behoove you to do some research.
If you want to discuss questions of faith and reason, I’m happy to do so, as long as you approach the matter seriously and come across as wanting to actually engage in discourse. As long as your ‘discourse’ consists of snark and condescension, however, I am not going to take it seriously.
Much love,
[The Clam]
It never ceases to amaze me – and it probably never will – how people who respected my intelligence (or at least purported to do so) before I became Catholic seem to think that I must have abdicated reason in order to convert.
Double your penance, double your fun
Kasia May 4th, 2007
Oy vei.
So I know that Friday penance of some sort is mandatory. In the U.S., it is not required to be abstinence from meat, but that’s the traditional penance. However, someone recently pointed out to me that giving up meat, especially for one day, is hardly a huge sacrifice for most Americans. This individual thought that what the Pope should do is order American (and Canadian, and Western European) Catholics to give up pop (including diet) and sweets each Friday.
That struck me as a much more appropriate penance for me, as I have a sweet tooth the size of Rhode Island. So I decided to implement it today.
However, when I went to lunch I felt inexplicably guilty about the prospect of eating meat. Must be leftover Lenten sensibility. So I had a meatless, popless, sweetless lunch.
Now I’m sitting at my desk jonesing for a Pepsi. And when I say ‘jonesing’…well, it hasn’t gotten to body-wracking physical cravings yet, but I have this nagging headache that would probably disappear in two shakes if I could only give myself a sugar-and-caffeine boost.
So now I’m finding myself wondering if, since I haven’t had meat yet today, I could just say now that meat is my penance and go suck down a pop. Probably not.
But I am beginning to think that next Friday, abstaining from meat will be sufficient penance. I’m still developing the penitential habit, after all; me going without pop as penance is like a two-year-old running the Boston Marathon. Well, no. That’s me giving up pop for Lent. But it is like a two-year-old doing something that involves a lot of muscle development that they don’t have yet. Don’t ask me for a good analogy right now; I’m in withdrawal. The only reason I’m not snarling and throwing things at passersby is that I made sure to eat a proper (if meatless) lunch, so my blood sugar hasn’t totally crashed.
Sheer brilliance!
Kasia May 1st, 2007
Perpetual Adoration next door to an abortion clinic.
Check it out – and hey – if I win the Mega Millions, my first project will be trying to start that here in Detroit too.
Curtsy to Cathy of Alex and Ray from Minnesota.
Holy faithful Archbishops, Batman!
Wow! That was fast!
Kasia April 24th, 2007
I heard back already from Trinity Stores:
HI [my name]:
Thank you for writing to us at Trinity Stores. It is a very interesting concept that you propose. Unfortunately, I do not have a proper accounting of all of the existing inventory. All ten icon images were part of the massive assets we purchased when we bought all of Br. Roberts icons from Natural Bridges. It would be a large undertaking for me to pull the boxes filled with the hundreds and hundreds of prints, note cards, postcards, bookmarks, etc. I would be open to this major effort if we got to a place wherein the finances to purchase the products was better secured. Suffice it to say, we have thousands of dollars in just the cost of these icon images.
I wish I could be more helpful to you at this time. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance to you. Thank you again for writing to us.
Peace
[his name]
Owner/Manager
Trinity Stores
So…anyone got an ‘in’ to Tom Monaghan?
File under “Curse not the darkness, but rather light one candle…”
Kasia April 23rd, 2007
I don’t really expect much, but I had to try something.
You may have seen posts from Digital Hairshirt, the Catholic Cavemen, Carolina Cannonball, and by now probably others about some artwork by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM. (Warning: there’s some strong language at the latter two.)
Anyway, let’s just say the works are…controversial. They are painted in an iconographic style (complete with halos), and feature pagan and secular subjects, from “Merlin of Britain” and a female Jesus (”Christ Sophia”) to Harvey Milk and Martin Luther King, Jr. There’s also an icon that’s supposedly of Jesus called “Lord of the Dance”…you don’t want to know.
Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, where Br. Lentz’s order is located, apparently expressed some criticism of these images (gracious me, I can’t imagine why) from a professed religious, and Br. Lentz’s order has agreed to stop distributing them. However, Trinity Stores (which is in Colorado, and therefore is not under Archbishop Sheehan’s authority) still has some inventory of them (how much, I don’t know) and intends to continue distributing them until the supply is depleted.
I’m notorious for being able to see both sides of a conflict. So I can see that it’s possible that Trinity Stores cannot afford to simply sit on or dump their existing inventory – I don’t know how much they have on hand, what they paid for it, what their cash flow is like…
On the other hand, part of me is just saying “Look, guys, this is just offensive and wrong. Do the right thing and stop selling the stuff.” Especially considering this excerpt from their mission statement (incorrect capitalization is theirs, not mine):
”Our plan and aspiration is to continually evolve into the Premier Provider of
Catholic, Christian and Spiritual goods and services.”
I note they use extremely inclusive language (”spiritual” may give them some cover for the image of “St. ” Mohandas Gandhi, after all, to say nothing of some of the more overtly pagan images). But if they want to be a “premier provider” of Catholic goods and services, it might behoove them to be a little more sensitive to Archbishop Sheehan’s criticisms. Anyway, I decided to try the “light one candle” approach. Below is the e-mail I sent to Trinity Stores. I’ll let you know if I get a response.
Dear Sir or Madam:
I understand that Trinity Stores intends to continue selling its remaining inventory of Robert Lentz’s more controversial works. I must confess myself disappointed – I would like to think that a business dedicated to serving Catholic Christians would bend further to accommodate the concerns of Archbishop Sheehan. With that said, I do appreciate that Brother Lentz’s order is not continuing to distribute the images, and I realize that, more than likely, you cannot afford to lose the money you’ve already invested in your existing inventory.
I would consider it be a great act of good faith on your part if you would give me an idea of how much remaining inventory you have of the 10 images that concerned Archbishop Sheehan. Although I do not personally have the means to deplete your inventory, I would like to know so I can encourage fundraising to do so. Perhaps we could make an arrangement whereby you would receive something above your original purchase cost but less than the usual retail price of the inventory, to better facilitate reduction of inventory without loss on your part?
Please let me know if you’d be willing to consider something along those lines. I look forward to your response.
Your sister in Christ,
[my name]
