WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Patti Renfroe said she knows that when the Holy Father hears “One Bread, One Body” played this week during his historical trip to the United States, it has to hurt his aesthetical nature, but she is hoping that the pain it causes him may mean she will spend less time in Purgatory. “As he rode by, I yelled out, ‘Pope Benedict, please offer up ‘One Bread, One Body’ for me and my kids, for our salvation!” He kind of gave me a knowing, but pained smiled and nodded. “What that man has to suffer for us,” said Renfroe, a music teacher at Our Lady Queen of Heaven School in Arlington, Virginia. “People just don’t appreciate it.” - Maureen Martin parody via Alicia of "Fructus Ventris"

Some of my more Evangelical friends find this very odd about the Catholic idea of liturgy. Why have so many pages and intricate systems just to pray? Why not just open your bible or lift your heart up to God in your own words? Why should the mass be so "scripted"? The answer is that as Catholics we do not just pray individually, as persons or as congregations, when it comes to liturgical prayer. We pray as the one Body of Christ. And all those thousands of pages serve to keep Catholics throughout the world on the same page, as it were. Never has this been so immediately illustrated to me as today, when I had the chance to watch via the USCCB's web streaming as Pope Benedict XVI prayed Vespers with out nation's bishops at the National Shrine. I pulled my copy of Christian Prayer out of my briefcase and began following along. There I was, a thousand miles away, holding and praying the same text as the Holy Father and all our bishops. And rippling backwards and forward through the time zones of the world, priests, religious and laity across the globe were doing the same, praying the same psalms and antiphons and readings. The Body of Christ praying as one. - Darwin Catholic

I love and hate life just enough:
ibis in the dawn clouds' tracery wouldn't bring
me to tears, nor would ash in my mouth
at our schizoid communions,
nor the halt in my step, once so sure,
nor the pain in my neck from gazing up
at the stars, roaming cataclysms
thrown about the void on a whim and a word.

I won't remember bygone days
vernal and wet with sun showers, footprints
impressed in the grass, light glinting
off green blades like porcelain,
golden rain trees dropping blossoms in the dark;
no, I love and hate life just enough. - Endlessly Rocking

Blackadder reminds us that it's tax day (I'll confess, I'd forgotten, having filed back in February) with a quote from the first book of Samuel warning the Israelites that if they choose to have a king they can expect him to confiscate a whole tenth of their income in taxes. As of this year's tax bill, ancient Isrealite tax rates are sounding pretty good to me! - Darwin Catholic

It was rough telling our children yesterday. Their options are now public schooling or home schooling. We’re exploring both. I’m leaning toward home schooling. The way I dramatize it, we’re the last Catholic family in America, and I have to start the re-building process. I’d rather nurture a drop of devout Catholic water than swim in the ocean of lukewarm Catholic water that caused our school’s downfall. In the meantime, I am broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I will be homeschooling every day at mid-day, when the sun is highest in the sky. If you are out there… if anyone is out there… I can provide food, I can provide shelter, I can provide security, I can provide beer. If there are any serious Catholics out there… any loyal Papist… please. You are not alone. - "The Daily Eudemon" on the news of his Catholic school's closing. The last few sentences parody "I am Legend".

God did not create an imperfect world. His creation is perfect, our disobedience corrupted it and brought it all down with us. I've often pondered why this should be so--why would Adam's disobedience affect the world of cats and dogs? Why is this necessarily so? And it occurred to me, that it is, once more, a sign of His love for us. Humanity could not exist in a perfect world because of its own imperfection. It would be a constant stimulus to envy, jealousy, and destruction. The food of such a world would be like poison to us. - Steven of Flos Carmeli

Vexed by Musselmans aggressyve.
Hie and thither to the Arche-Bishop's manse
The pilgryms ryde and fynde perchance
The hooly Bishop takynge tea
Whilste watching himselfe on BBC.
Heere was a hooly manne of peace
Withe bearyd of snow and wyld brows of fleece
Whilhom stoode athwart the Bush crusades
Withe peace march papier-mache paraydes.
Sayeth the pilgryms to Bishop Rowan,
"Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin'.
You know we are as Lefte as thee,
But of layte have beyn chaunced to see
From Edinburgh to London-towne
The Musslemans in burnoose gowne
Who beat theyr ownselfs with theyr knyves
Than goon home and beat theyr wyves
And slaye theyr daughtyrs in honour killlynge
Howe do we stoppe the bloode fromme spillynge?" - Blogger at "Iowa Hawk" via Karen Hal

Obviously people do value seeing Pope in person and also, obviously, that interest irritates others...The secularist looks at the Pope pilgrims and sees dupes of an erstwhile Flying Spaghetti Monster, wasting their time, as usual. Some Protestants see another kind of dupe. Papist Dupes, strangers to Jesus Christ. Which is O.K. People think whatever they think. But in my mind, in a Gawker Stalker culture, in a culture which is fixated on celebrity for its own sake, and a culture in which on any given weekend, zillions of dollars are being spent hauling ourselves to the latest AARP-sponsored geriatric arena rock-out or to see a few dozen young men zipping around a stadium or, God help us, taking our children (at 15 bucks a pop) to see a Hannah Montana 3-D movie … well. In that context, making some sacrifices to see an 81-year-old guy talk about God seems to be a little easier to live with. Even without the sneering, maybe. Oh, and about the Papist thing? Putting “man” in the place of God? Believe me, I’ve been to enough conventions of evangelical Protestant book-selling organizations and seen enough life-size cutouts of Joel Osteen...to know how much that criticism is worth. But still… what’s the value of the personal presence of the Pope? How can it be more than just one more celebrity hogging the headlines and taking up our time? What’s renewing about it?...After contemplating this for a while, I finally decided that it comes down to connection — one of the deepest connections I’ve ever experienced. When I see the Pope, I’m seeing more than a man named Joseph Ratzinger. I’m seeing a figure that resonates with 2000 years of history, that reaches back to Christ himself. Weirdly, seeing the Pope in person — especially in Rome — deepened the connection I feel, most of all, with Catholics all over the world and through history. Which, I’ve heard, is sort of the idea — You are Peter… - Amy Welborn