I know the Consistory is “old news” but I’m told I’m getting to be “old” myself. There are some things that make you proud to be Catholic – for me, this is one of them. It says something about the Church not only that we can make such things beautiful or even that we have such positions of honor to be handed out, but also that we have been doing so for so long. And the music at the beginning, to me at least, is wonderful. Then again, I have a thing for Tu es Petrus.
Big ol’ H/T to CathCon.
Compare this with this. You tell me who you think has the right concept of what being a priest is all about. Here’s a hint, boys-n-girls, it ain’t about power. It’s about dying – yes, that’s the exact word – dying to yourself in the service of others for the greater glory of God. Any other definition is a waste of either air, paper or electrons.
And since I told Argent that the first link requires a WARNING, here’s one: don’t click on the first link if you love the Church as God’s gift to man and have any stress-related issues. It’s enough to make your hair curl. Or straighten, depending on its prior state. Shoot, I had a passing desire to rip some out. *sigh* Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis.
Father Martin Fox has a wonderfully Catholic idea of what to do when The Golden Compass comes out:
Yes, it is frustrating when we have to say “no” to popular things. But as followers of Christ, we are not surprised our culture often works against our Faith, and we sometimes have to take a stand. Instead of the $20-50 you may spend at the theater, stay home with a good video and have pizza; you’ll have money left over, you can give to the hungry. That will be a golden lesson that will point your children in the right direction.
It is a supremely Catholic idea (albeit, of course, not exclusively Catholic) in that it is not merely a “no” that a simple boycott would be but rather a “yes” not only to your family but also a “yes” to the Church and a “yes” to the poor. Very Benedictine, I would say. It moves the Operation Rice Bowl concept to an every-day idea. As I’ve said before about Fr. Fox, think “pointy hat”.
Zadok has a very interesting post gleaned from his reading of Origen’s treatise On Prayer. Reading the excerpts Zadok has provided does make one think that then-Cardinal Ratzinger had much of this treatise fresh in his memory when he wrote his The Spirit of the Liturgy
The English translation of Spe salve is here, the Latin “official” here. Guess I have my weekend reading set out for me. Be sure to print your own and get reading. Hopefully I’ll find a way to work this in to this weekend’s RCIA class. Viva il Papa!
James Kushiner said it, so I didn’t have to. One thing we all need more of, particularly in this day and age, is silence. With that, I’m going to go enjoy some silence. Or, at least try to.
Yes, it’s a bad play on his blogging moniker, but hey – everyone needs bad jokes now and then. In responding to a comment in his combox Bear-i-tone hits the mark and really gives us a solid statement on what it means to be a Catholic in this modern world. In part:
Even so, I realize my endeavors will most likely end in failure. Such is the way. So be it. I take comfort in the wisdom of my betters, and here Mother Theresa’s words come to me: “I was not called to be successful, but to be faithful.” St. John of the Cross wrote: “We must do not that which is easy, but that which is difficult.” Being Catholic is always difficult, but even so, I will not change.
I’m going to have to travel up to Canada just to shake the man’s hand – this has been my position for years – as good as I think I am or others say I may be there are those who are far better than I in their faith and it is my duty and my honor to take their example. Life is not easy – it was not intended to be so. Our goal is not to live an easy or leisurely life but to follow the example of our Master, for we are told, “[i]f the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” (Jn 15:18)
It is amazing how, when a door is left slightly opened and people come barging through the ensuing tensions last for a very long time. For many people the question of receiving Communion in the hand versus on the tongue seems to be a thoroughly settled one. Fr. Tim Finigan reminds us quite well that such is not the case. This is a stern reminder that just because we do something and the Vatican has said it is possible in theory, those facts do not necessarily make it a good idea. See also the controversy over Mass said versus populum and ad orientem. We do make fine messes for ourselves.
The strangest thoughts come to me after I’ve shut down my computers (yes, the ‘s’ is intentional) for the night. Last night for some reason it came to me that, in a way, there is a lesson to be learned about evangelization from how I’d turned my wife into a red-blooded baseball-lover. Your likely reaction mirrors mine – baseball … church … eh?
Way back when my wife and I were dating she came to realize that I am a huge fan of baseball – not just of the Red Sox, but of baseball as a game in and of itself. She, shall we say, had no use for the game. But being the good woman she is, she watched a few games with me. It was never like a switch audibly clicked or her attitude suddenly changed – no, she still couldn’t stand the game. Too boring, too slow, too nuanced for her – give her a good ol’ game of knock-em-around high-speed football and a bowl of queso and chips and she’d be happy. Baseball, though, is a game that is best understood slowly. The nuances, the quirks, the hidden corners, the nooks-and-crannies are what separate the sandlot guys from the pros and the pros from the future Hall-of-Fame types. It’s that little extra thing that makes the difference- avoiding the in-between-hop, seeing the shortstop move just before the pitch, remembering how the pitcher got you out last time. And the time before. And the time before that. Baseball watchers like to say that anyone can hit a straight fastball if they know it’s coming – but what about the cutter, the slider, the curve, splitter, changeup, two-seamer, sinker… And the more you know about those things, the more you internalize them, the better you are as a player – and as a fan. Baseball makes no sense as a game – until you know it.
I’ve found Catholicism to be so much the very same. All the small things – the devotions, the prayers, the almost-never-heard-of Saints, why the priest wears black and the Cardinal red, the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation and transignification… Each one of them, if you look at them from the outside without any basis for understanding, seems to reach the hight of picking at nits. Nothing, simply, could be further from the truth. The trick, however, is in picking up those bits when the question arises and helping that question to arise without forcing it. Fides quarens intellectum can also occasionally start with intellectum quarens fide (please, correct my grammar – my Latin book is still waiting for me) – sometimes there are those who in learning come to have faith.
You see, my wife never saw the beauty of baseball until she came to understand the intricate nuances of each play and how, when played well, it almost has an orchestral feel to it. If you’re not looking for the notes though, it’s just a bunch of overpaid guys whacking around a ball to appease their testosterone. Oh, and a lot of standing around. The Church, the Faith handed down from the Apostles, is much the same. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s just a bunch of disinterested people doing what their parents did and ignoring a bureaucratic, patriarchal and misogynist hierarchy that hasn’t been “in-touch” with anything in hundreds of years. Learn a little bit though – feed that infant fides with a little intellectum and vice versa – and they scales fall off and that bread-thingy is never again a “cookie” but Christ the Son of the Living God brought to us at the hands of a priest acting in persona Christi as Heaven and Earth touch. It is, in short, the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.
To get there though takes small steps. Perhaps that is why St. Augustine took so long to convert – one does not run a marathon in ten easy steps, but in hundreds and thousands of slowly progressing sometimes arduous movements forwards. Does my wife like baseball now – you’d better believe it. She even knows what a “magic number” is and what it means to “work the count”. She sees the beauty of the minutiae. So it is with the Church – the more you learn, the more there is for you to love. Each step, taken on its own and explained with proper and due care, bring the soul that one step closer. It’s our job, as much as we are capacitated to it by the Spirit, to help facilitate each of those steps for any and every one who needs it. Hey, if I can help my wife to come to love baseball … “[A]ll things are possible to him who believes. (Mk 9:23)”
