I’ve been absolutely buried lately, but I have absolutely every intention of putting up at least a few posts tonight.  I only wish my absence were due to having such an intense Lent rather than temporal issues.

I know.  I’m a cranky old slug of a person who doesn’t like to see anyone have fun.  What else is new?  Now that we’ve cleared that up, I just wanted to point to a post by Fr. V at Adam’s Ale which describes in a far more civil manner than I’d be capable of (remember, I’m a curmudgeon) why you don’t find me clapping for the choir at the end of Mass.  Aside from the actions of Christ which are the center and summit of the Mass, Fr. outlines the whole host of people who help make Mass happen behind the scenes.  If they’re not getting applauded, neither should anyone else.

If I might be so bold – if you find someone did something unusually well at Mass, take the time after Mass to tell them so after Mass is over, privately.  That will mean far more to them than a smattering of culturally-induced applause.  And it may just be the personal touch that makes a huge difference in someone’s life.

With Fr. Finigan (of The Hermeneutic of Continuity fame) being unscrupulously dumped on by The Tablet, Fr. Z has the perfect remedy – pound him!  I’d explain more, but that would ruin the comedic value – just click on the link and take the opportunity to pound a priest!

(BTW – Keith, I say you’re exempt from this.  Seminarians are poor as a general rule and there’s no need to exacerbate that.  See, I can be a reasonable person!)

The once and future queen of Catholic blogdom, Amy Welborn, has a new blog set up under the BeliefNet umbrella.  She has even given in to the pressure to use a Latin phrase for the blog’s name, Via Media.  May this be exactly what all involved parties need and may it be a beautiful relationship.  Be sure to stop in and say “hi”, and maybe even more.  Heaven knows she could use the company.

At some point yesterday in a conversation on plurk (a.k.a. YATESNS – Yet Another Time Eating Social Networking Service) someone wrote the very simple and oft-repeated phrase, “God is good”.  Well my contorted little mind realized that, depending on which word you place the accent you wind up with three very different meanings, but all of them valid.  Linguists fight this issue all the time, particularly in languages meant more for speaking than writing – inflection changes everything.

So which one(s) strike you the most?  We have:

• God is good.
• God is good.
• God is good.

Leave something in the combox if this kind of wordplay strikes your fancy.  I think it’s both an intellectual exercise and a spiritual exercise, but maybe I’m rare in that belief.

With all that has been happening  in the past few weeks, now is a good time to express your solidarity with our Supreme Pontiff.  Go here and add your name to the list!

H/T to WDTPRS.

Mark Shea has given us a very well-written post on the issue of why the Church interacts and even tries at times to support the United Nations.  Very often we forget just how ancient is the Church, and that it has seen empires greater than any now existent come and go and has had to deal with each of them in one way or another.

The Church, which antedates not just the nation/state but the Holy Roman Empire, keeps an eye on this and does what she’s always done: try to address whichever competent governmental authority men devise for themselves to try to keep order and preserve the Common Good. Doesn’t mean the Church thinks the UN is flawless any more than Paul thought Nero was a great guy. It just means that here, supremely, is an example of the Church trying to navigate the rocky waters of history and read the signs of the times.

While perusing my Sitemeter stats the other day, I discovered that I’ve been found out. It appears someone from the Senate Sergeant at Arms (or, more likely some Senate staffer) has been checking up on me. I’m going to guess it was driven by this post.

Work has found me here in not-so-sunny California for a chunk of this week. Posting will be unusually light since I didn’t bring my laptop with me (gah!). From here it’s on up to Oregon at the end of the week before heading back home. It’s going to be a long week…

Now a full day after this (hopefully) last kiss of winter here in New England has whisked away, God has deigned to offer a sign that everything redounds to His glory. The roads are finally mostly cleared and the piles of dirty snow stand as scars in comparison to the eminent joy occurring in my back yard as I write.

After receiving around eight inches of snow and then being granted a fine layer of freezing rain to create a sugary coating, my two children discovered to many shrieks of glee that, lo and behold, they don’t need sleds to go sledding. The ice is just thick enough to support their weight, so long as they don’t go too fast. So down they go, not needing Dad to give the sled a shove, impelled by their own suddenly independent power, sliding and shrieking in glee.

Were it not for them, I would see this glistening coat as nothing but a nuisance and a danger. But in their eyes and out of their mouths come a glittering reminder that, indeed, all things redound to His glory.