So last night was the talk by a Fr. W. O.P. at St. Pat's downtown and I skipped it because I didn't want to drive all the way back downtown. Psychologically it's tough to do it again. But I guess he's pretty renowned: certainly you know “something's up” when all the three priests and one deacon of St. Patrick's concelebrate at weekday masses just to hear the four minute homily of the august Dominican preacher. Turns out high-ranking Cardinal Bertone, a potential pope during this past conclave, talked him into becoming a bishop in his native England but almost at the last moment, after preparations had been made, he changed his mind since being a bishop these days is rather trying. Lots of administration, headaches, closing of churches, etc…
*
In some ways, the message of Pope Francis won't be that much different from Benedict and Benedict not that much different from John Paul since the gospel is the gospel. And yet the sheep delight in the slightest tweak to the message! Hence I rhapsodize over a slightly different translation of scriptures!
I've been lately thinking that he's not my pope, or your pope, but our pope. I'm getting allergic to this natural human tendency to polarize ourselves by putting ourselves into "camps". As Pope Francis said of his predecessor: "Benedict XVI lit a flame in our hearts." A great thing about the Catholic Church compared to, say, political leadership is that no matter who gets elected we should feel especial closeness because he is, after all, our father! It's the office itself that is crucial, not the man, and not as a vehicle for personality.
And yet....we are human, and we are attracted to some of our spiritual leaders more than others. Grace perfects nature and all...
March 15, 2013
March 14, 2013
Quotable
"I must not be scandalized by the fact that the Church is my mother: I must look at its sins and shortcomings as I would look at my mother’s sins and shortcomings. And when I think of her, I remember the good and beautiful things she has achieved, more than her weaknesses and defects. A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the Church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals?" - Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis
March 13, 2013
Conclave Surprise
He was ranked a distant number 31 on the New Advent ranking of most likely candidates. He was a 16-to-1 shot on a Vaticanista blog. And now he wears the white of Holy Father. Even John Allen seems to have mostly missed him, even though Bergoglio was said to have garnered a healthy 40 votes at the last conclave. Sometimes the next pontiff is right under your nose I guess.
How counter-cultural though. He wasn’t really on my radar because I’d thought the electors might go in a totally opposite direction, i.e. get a young “media star” like Dolan. Or at least a smiler like JP the first.
Pretty bold action to again go with a humble, somewhat shy pope like Ratzinger again. Seems like they’re going for the holiest perhaps, imagine that!
And I guess his age didn’t matter, or maybe was a plus. Maybe the cardinals are thinking that since everyone lives longer it’s necessary to have older popes so that the reigns are reasonable.
*
So many thoughts, but one that sticks out is how Lino Rulli mentioned that assuming this pope didn't get all 115 votes, that meant that different cardinals discerned the will of God differently. It just goes to show how difficult it is to discern God's will even among the princes of the Church! It makes me feel a smidgeon better for the times in my past and future where I will be mistaken in what God's will is. It's a humbling thing in a way.
*
So today I had a premonition at Mass that it was *the* day even though I'd predicted Thursday as the Habemus Papam day at the Fantasy Conclave last week. I picked the wrong guy (Schrer) on the wrong day (Thursday) taking the wrong name (Paul VII). So much for my prognostication skills. I was amused to see Amy Welborn go "out on a limb" and pick not one but three she thought would be pope, none of whom made it. She picked two papal names but understandably did not come up with Francis. I was surprised no pope has taken that name before.
So given my premonition I made a point of tuning into Sirius/XM radio's The Catholic Channel for the first time during a ballot period and I listened while I worked until that eventful moment when I heard Fr. Dave say the smoke was white. Whitesmoke! Then the long, killer wait for the who (and not the band). Seriously, like the drama was well-nigh unbearable. The work output of Catholics throughout the world surely dropped precipitously.
Then, finally, the name that launched a million Google searches: "Bergoglio". An older guy who humbly asked him to pray for us, which we did, and then granted us a fine gift in the form of an indulgence for receiving his first papal blessing even if we were listening on the radio! Now I really love modern technology. Most good I've ever gotten from it.
*
It's funny, but I thought how when he went to the Our Father and Hail Mary that he was doing it in order to have something to say. And yet Cokie Roberts on ABC News said she thought it was wonderfully inclusive since every Catholic grade schooler from here to Singapore knew those prayers (though they were reportedly in Italian but…). Anyway interesting how perspectives differ, and perhaps we're both wrong in that he wasn't aiming for inclusivity or to eat some clock but simply to orient us to where we ought be oriented: Our Lord and Our Lady.
*
You have to wonder what Pope Emeritus Benedict (if I write it enough I'll surely get used to it) was thinking. Maybe something like, “I step down and you elect someone almost as old as me?” However much Pope John Paul II was respected and admired, it does seem like the electors are allergic to long papacies now. One time, okay, but twice is a trend. Maybe they are more concerned, I think, over a long pontificate than the vigor and verve of the pontiff himself. It could be a healthy concession to the fact that popes live much longer these days.
*
A friend wrote me about how Benedict was a “dire disappointment”. Which is disappointing and irritating but I just said that if you wait long enough you'll get a pope that pleases you and I hope Pope Francis fits the bill.
Almost wrote “St. Francis”. Be awhile before I connect “Pope” and “Francis” given that they've never been connected before in a couple thousand years (although I believe the Dominicans refer to St. Francis as their “holy Father Francis”).
*
I'm sort of glad now I didn't overindulge in the great sea of pre-conclave commentary and exegesis given how 95% of it didn't focus on the man who would be pope. I did a search on the Catholic Blogsearch site and there were a pitiful 11 references to Bergoglio in the month up till yesterday. And most of those hits were just one liners at the end of a posts about him as a possibility, almost like a CYA thing.
I did find a translation of the Cardinal's Lenten homily on a Catholic blog and tweeted it. The sermon is old school through and through, a call to hard sacrifice in a bad age. Lip service not needed - rend not your garments but your heart. Say not the prayers but with your heart. He rather boldly suggests the “fasts” we do as a church are a bit tepid, especially if we do so in a spirit of compliance un-affecting the heart.
*
So an exciting day. The adrenalin was pumping overtime, that's for sure. Not every day you hear those immortal words, “Habemus Papam!” and the very rarity and historicity of the event concentrates the mind.
It was inspiring to read of his bio, of how he eschewed the limo service to the cathedral as well as the fancy digs. Lived in a simple apartment and took the bus to work! I crave new-old teaching in the form of coming talks and encyclicals. He's the ultimate blank slate - he wrote a book, it has an electronic version, but it's in Spanish and so I can't immediately gratify that urge to read him.
*
It seems like there's been a premium on sheer, high-wattage intelligence combined with devoutness lately in the papacy. JP II and Benedict were world class intellects and this Bergoglio guy is said to have some serious wattage. All the better to fight for faith and reason in a world gone somewhat faithless and mad.
How counter-cultural though. He wasn’t really on my radar because I’d thought the electors might go in a totally opposite direction, i.e. get a young “media star” like Dolan. Or at least a smiler like JP the first.
Pretty bold action to again go with a humble, somewhat shy pope like Ratzinger again. Seems like they’re going for the holiest perhaps, imagine that!
And I guess his age didn’t matter, or maybe was a plus. Maybe the cardinals are thinking that since everyone lives longer it’s necessary to have older popes so that the reigns are reasonable.
*
So many thoughts, but one that sticks out is how Lino Rulli mentioned that assuming this pope didn't get all 115 votes, that meant that different cardinals discerned the will of God differently. It just goes to show how difficult it is to discern God's will even among the princes of the Church! It makes me feel a smidgeon better for the times in my past and future where I will be mistaken in what God's will is. It's a humbling thing in a way.
*
So today I had a premonition at Mass that it was *the* day even though I'd predicted Thursday as the Habemus Papam day at the Fantasy Conclave last week. I picked the wrong guy (Schrer) on the wrong day (Thursday) taking the wrong name (Paul VII). So much for my prognostication skills. I was amused to see Amy Welborn go "out on a limb" and pick not one but three she thought would be pope, none of whom made it. She picked two papal names but understandably did not come up with Francis. I was surprised no pope has taken that name before.
So given my premonition I made a point of tuning into Sirius/XM radio's The Catholic Channel for the first time during a ballot period and I listened while I worked until that eventful moment when I heard Fr. Dave say the smoke was white. Whitesmoke! Then the long, killer wait for the who (and not the band). Seriously, like the drama was well-nigh unbearable. The work output of Catholics throughout the world surely dropped precipitously.
Then, finally, the name that launched a million Google searches: "Bergoglio". An older guy who humbly asked him to pray for us, which we did, and then granted us a fine gift in the form of an indulgence for receiving his first papal blessing even if we were listening on the radio! Now I really love modern technology. Most good I've ever gotten from it.
*
It's funny, but I thought how when he went to the Our Father and Hail Mary that he was doing it in order to have something to say. And yet Cokie Roberts on ABC News said she thought it was wonderfully inclusive since every Catholic grade schooler from here to Singapore knew those prayers (though they were reportedly in Italian but…). Anyway interesting how perspectives differ, and perhaps we're both wrong in that he wasn't aiming for inclusivity or to eat some clock but simply to orient us to where we ought be oriented: Our Lord and Our Lady.
*
You have to wonder what Pope Emeritus Benedict (if I write it enough I'll surely get used to it) was thinking. Maybe something like, “I step down and you elect someone almost as old as me?” However much Pope John Paul II was respected and admired, it does seem like the electors are allergic to long papacies now. One time, okay, but twice is a trend. Maybe they are more concerned, I think, over a long pontificate than the vigor and verve of the pontiff himself. It could be a healthy concession to the fact that popes live much longer these days.
*
A friend wrote me about how Benedict was a “dire disappointment”. Which is disappointing and irritating but I just said that if you wait long enough you'll get a pope that pleases you and I hope Pope Francis fits the bill.
Almost wrote “St. Francis”. Be awhile before I connect “Pope” and “Francis” given that they've never been connected before in a couple thousand years (although I believe the Dominicans refer to St. Francis as their “holy Father Francis”).
*
I'm sort of glad now I didn't overindulge in the great sea of pre-conclave commentary and exegesis given how 95% of it didn't focus on the man who would be pope. I did a search on the Catholic Blogsearch site and there were a pitiful 11 references to Bergoglio in the month up till yesterday. And most of those hits were just one liners at the end of a posts about him as a possibility, almost like a CYA thing.
I did find a translation of the Cardinal's Lenten homily on a Catholic blog and tweeted it. The sermon is old school through and through, a call to hard sacrifice in a bad age. Lip service not needed - rend not your garments but your heart. Say not the prayers but with your heart. He rather boldly suggests the “fasts” we do as a church are a bit tepid, especially if we do so in a spirit of compliance un-affecting the heart.
*
So an exciting day. The adrenalin was pumping overtime, that's for sure. Not every day you hear those immortal words, “Habemus Papam!” and the very rarity and historicity of the event concentrates the mind.
It was inspiring to read of his bio, of how he eschewed the limo service to the cathedral as well as the fancy digs. Lived in a simple apartment and took the bus to work! I crave new-old teaching in the form of coming talks and encyclicals. He's the ultimate blank slate - he wrote a book, it has an electronic version, but it's in Spanish and so I can't immediately gratify that urge to read him.
*
It seems like there's been a premium on sheer, high-wattage intelligence combined with devoutness lately in the papacy. JP II and Benedict were world class intellects and this Bergoglio guy is said to have some serious wattage. All the better to fight for faith and reason in a world gone somewhat faithless and mad.
Pope Francis!
From John Allen a few days ago:
The case for Bergoglio in 2013 rests on four points.
First and most basically, he had strong support last time around, and some cardinals may think that they're getting another bite at the apple now.
Second, Bergoglio is a candidates who brings together the first world and the developing world in his own person. He's a Latin American with Italian roots, who studied in Germany. As a Jesuit he's a member of a truly international religious community, and his ties to Comunione e Liberazione make him part of another global network.
Third, Bergoglio still has appeal across the usual divides in the church, drawing respect from both conservatives and moderates for his keen pastoral sense, his intelligence, and his personal modesty. He's also seen as a genuinely spiritual soul, and a man of deep prayer.
"Only someone who has encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, is happy and comfortable with the Lord," Bergoglio said in 2001. "I beg the theologians who are present not to turn me in to the Sant'Uffizio or the Inquisition; however, forcing things a bit, I dare to say that the privileged locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin."
Fourth, he's also seen as a successful evangelist.
"We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church," Bergoglio said recently. "It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former."
...one Italian writer quoted an anonymous cardinal on March 2 as saying, "Four years of Bergoglio would be enough to change things."
March 12, 2013
On Reading Multiple Books at a Time
Delightful excerpts from Joe Qeenan on his book habits:
“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library,” wrote Samuel Johnson; “for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.”
---
Somewhere along the line, I got into the habit of reading several books simultaneously. “Several” soon became “many,” and “many” soon became “too many.” A few of my female friends read one or two books at a time; my closest male friends insist that they are always reading at least one, though I believe this figure may embody the triumph of hope over truth. In my adult life I cannot remember a single time when I was reading fewer than fifteen books, though at certain points this figure has spiraled far higher.
---
My reading habits are unusual, perhaps counterproductive. Sometimes I think that I am reluctant to finish books because I want to let the joy of reading them go on and on forever. Other times I believe that I get a particular kind of thrill out of starting books that I do not get from finishing them. Another possibility is that, at any given moment, I am distracted from the subject I am reading about—the life and times of Mata Hari—by a far more pressing concern—the neutral-zone trap employed with such great success by the New Jersey Devils. Friends say that I suffer from a short attention span, an inability to stay focused, but I think exactly the opposite is true. If anything, I have too long an attention span, one that allows me to read dozens of books simultaneously without losing interest in any of them. Moreover, I have an excellent memory that permits me to suspend reading, pick up a book six months later, and not miss a beat.
Most books written by journalists open with two reasonably good chapters, followed by loads of padding, then regather a bit of momentum for the big roundup. This is because editors encourage writers to front-load the merchandise, jamming the best material into the first two chapters, the only ones that will ever get read.
---
Well, I do get back to them later. I started Lord Jim in high school and finished it when I was fifty-two. Better late than never. No matter how good the book I am currently reading—be it The Aeneid, War and Peace, or The Red and the Black—I am always ready to drop everything and crack open a forty-year-old book about the 1954 Viet Cong triumph at Dien Bien Phu.
When I look at that stack and try to imagine the order in which I might read them, I always arrive at the same conclusion: Middlemarch is the last book I will ever finish. I’m not going down without a fight. I have started it six times; I am now 312 pages into it; but it is much like the mandolin or snooker or tantric sex: something I would dearly love to master without ever believing for one second that I would actually enjoy the experience...
Middlemarch is one of those books that I long ago enshrined at the very top of my desert-island reading list, that compendium of elusive, difficult, fundamentally unreadable books I have always wanted to finish or at least start, if I only had the time to do so. But I know that if I were shipwrecked and somehow managed to stay afloat by clutching the splintered, though jagged, remnants of the mainmast and started paddling through shark-infested waters toward a distant shore and then, just as I was dragging my battered, bruised, waterlogged body out of the surf, spotted a pile of desert-island reading books that included Mrs. Dalloway, Finnegans Wake, and Middlemarch, I’d turn around, plunge right back into the surf, and start paddling toward another island.
I used to think that I kept stopping and starting books because I could never find the right one. Untrue. Virtually all the books I start are the right one. It’s the fact that all these books are so good that makes me stop reading them, as I am in no hurry to finish; the bad ones I could whip through in a few hours.
Sundry & Various
I find a disturbing tendency in myself to marginalize any good work by thinking it's not going to have any “real impact”. This despite Mother Teresa's instruction that we “build anyway” despite what we are building will likely be destroyed.
This thought came to mind when I read a study of the program Head Start, and how there are no statistical benefits to it discernible by the time the participants reach the third grade. When even something as noble as Head Start doesn't work, something that is much more along the lines of “teaching someone to fish” rather than giving them a meal, you have to shake your head.
*
It's amusing that these modern day iPad journal apps have “reminders” available in order to make you into write. Kind of hilarious given how much I write without any need of reminders. It's also sort of amazing to me how frustrating keeping my first diary was, how much I loathed it after the first week or two. That was at age 12, where I kept it up for 3 months and it felt a remarkably onerous duty. Now I write, each day, much more than at that time and without having to coerce myself.
*
It's obvious and apparent that there was a early need for popes given the rampant heresy in the early church but it's unseemly, reading about it now, that the date of when Easter would be celebrated was so rancorous. There needs to be a standard, one seemingly possible to find in this world except by apostolic credential. At least that's what Christian history has taught us - the way the early Christian churches could come together is by appealing to the authority of an apostolic succession.
*
The rarest coincidence of confluent events: good spring weather on a weekend. Sunday it reached 71 degrees, a gaudy enough number, and I prepared by bringing out the back and front patio furniture. When nature rewards, I aim to take advantage of it.
Such delicious weather - what to do with it? We lost an hour due to Daylight Savings Time, the scheme which giveth in fall and taketh away in spring. I sat out in the sun and read, constantly fighting off the urge to sleep. Read some of a $1.99 book by Ivan Doig on Kindle, a sort of old-fashioned yarn set in Montana around the turn of the 20th century. Nice, fragrant images that are a fine complement to Michael Chabon's ultra-modern stylings. Things like, “Our father's pungent coffee, so strong it was almost ambulatory, which he gulped down from suppertime until bedtime and then slept serenely as a sphinx.”
It feels an eon since I'd last sat on the back patio. I would guess maybe October sometime. Four months or so. They say time flies but it sure feels like a long time since I've had the annex of the back patio available.
*
I look at my threadbare clothes, specifically a favorite work shirt that now has the dreaded rip along the elbow (which didn't prevent me from wearing it Friday anyway), and realize that having lame clothes is somewhat of a necessary tradeoff towards the goal of taking plenty of vacations. Books, vacations, charity - these uses of money “make sense” to me. But clothing not so much. Nor do expensive meals, cars, or houses.
This thought came to mind when I read a study of the program Head Start, and how there are no statistical benefits to it discernible by the time the participants reach the third grade. When even something as noble as Head Start doesn't work, something that is much more along the lines of “teaching someone to fish” rather than giving them a meal, you have to shake your head.
*
It's amusing that these modern day iPad journal apps have “reminders” available in order to make you into write. Kind of hilarious given how much I write without any need of reminders. It's also sort of amazing to me how frustrating keeping my first diary was, how much I loathed it after the first week or two. That was at age 12, where I kept it up for 3 months and it felt a remarkably onerous duty. Now I write, each day, much more than at that time and without having to coerce myself.
*
It's obvious and apparent that there was a early need for popes given the rampant heresy in the early church but it's unseemly, reading about it now, that the date of when Easter would be celebrated was so rancorous. There needs to be a standard, one seemingly possible to find in this world except by apostolic credential. At least that's what Christian history has taught us - the way the early Christian churches could come together is by appealing to the authority of an apostolic succession.
*
The rarest coincidence of confluent events: good spring weather on a weekend. Sunday it reached 71 degrees, a gaudy enough number, and I prepared by bringing out the back and front patio furniture. When nature rewards, I aim to take advantage of it.
Such delicious weather - what to do with it? We lost an hour due to Daylight Savings Time, the scheme which giveth in fall and taketh away in spring. I sat out in the sun and read, constantly fighting off the urge to sleep. Read some of a $1.99 book by Ivan Doig on Kindle, a sort of old-fashioned yarn set in Montana around the turn of the 20th century. Nice, fragrant images that are a fine complement to Michael Chabon's ultra-modern stylings. Things like, “Our father's pungent coffee, so strong it was almost ambulatory, which he gulped down from suppertime until bedtime and then slept serenely as a sphinx.”
It feels an eon since I'd last sat on the back patio. I would guess maybe October sometime. Four months or so. They say time flies but it sure feels like a long time since I've had the annex of the back patio available.
*
I look at my threadbare clothes, specifically a favorite work shirt that now has the dreaded rip along the elbow (which didn't prevent me from wearing it Friday anyway), and realize that having lame clothes is somewhat of a necessary tradeoff towards the goal of taking plenty of vacations. Books, vacations, charity - these uses of money “make sense” to me. But clothing not so much. Nor do expensive meals, cars, or houses.
March 08, 2013
Into Each Life a Little Interregnum Must Fall
Exciting time, this interregnum period. Surprised today no one prayed for the cardinal electors at the Liturgy of the Hours tonight at church. I guess I should've piped up (the deacon asked if anyone had any intentions).
It's hard to consume all the stories and I feel like if I should read one I should read them all so I haven't read any yet. I saw where the New York Times has one on Cardinal Dolan, a figure of keen interest to me given my familiarity via his show on Sirius/XM radio. (He recently “boycotted” the media silence that was requested of the cardinals, figuring that only applied to press conferences. That sort of boldness would be pope-like?)
National Catholic Reporter's one saving grace is John Allen, and he has a boatload of stories on that website. There's also an app called “Concave Alert” that provides a twitter feed of conclave-related tweets, ranked by number of retweets. It's awfully stimulating though again I feel a compulsion to read everything. Let no tweet go unread. Then too there's this new book that Jeff Miller and Julie Davis mentioned about the Vatican that appears a must-read.
I've heard it said that this atmosphere hearkens back to last year with the presidential election but one thing is almost certainly different - the new Holy Father will be holier, more inspiring and more truthful than any of the political leaders we've had in recent years or likely in years to come.
But what a tough seat to fill after giants like John Paul II and Benedict. A commenter on Sirius/XM said that what the Church needs is a way to appeal to young people without changing the message. To find a way to deliver the message better. But wow you got to feel if the charisma of John Paul II couldn't reach them, or the intelligent frankness and clarity of a Benedict, then it's a daunting task. It's hard to picture a new guy, even a Cardinal Dolan, as making inroads there. It's like how if at work there's a computer problem and the sharpest guy there can't fix it then I think, “wow, what chance do I have?” But then with God all things are possible, especially in matters spiritual. See David v. Goliath.
*
So a beautiful change of pace: instead of going to Eucharistic Adoration while hungry for supper and tense due to traffic, I went straight home, ate, and then went back. And it seemed to make all the difference though I wondered if I should've taken advantage of the “fasting” part of Lent by trying to go without food another hour. But the combination of an early lunch and a late dismissal from work made it look a bridge too far.
Got there at around 6:20 and, unfortunately, was initially in the mood to “get it done”, to say a few prayers and bolt around 6:35. But as thankfully often happens with prayer, I became engrossed and entranced and enchanted by God's love. I wound down. I said a Rosary, yesterday's Glorious mysteries. I felt the light of hope from Our Lady, a trust in her despite my failings.
Our deacon shuffled by with his distinctive gait (old-sounding and deliberate despite his relatively young age) and handed me, at 6:50, a pamphlet of the Liturgy of the Hours for this Thursday night. I accepted it and said “Thanks”. And it felt bad form to leave right after that so figured I'd stay a little longer. I was transfixed, anyway, by a possible rendering of James 4:8 as, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.” I just couldn't get over that idea of God yearning for us instead of the other way around. It also made a certain sense: God is spirit, God made our spirit, God wants our spirit with Him. It sort of fits.
*
So what else? Simcha Fisher, in the tradition of many other fine bloggers like Betty Duffy and Amy Welborn and Tom of Disputations, has that holy boldness of saying the unsayable. Of going there, where “there” is that vulnerability that needs to be addressed even if I want to sweep it under a rug. It's that “blogesty” (“blog” + “honesty”), that is the raison de etra for blogs. Posts like that make me a bit wistful inasmuch as it shows the shallowness of my own posts.
March 07, 2013
Santo Subito!
Via Dylan, excerpts of a poem from Czeslaw Milosz:
Foreigners could not guess from whence came the hidden strength
Of a novice from Wadowice. The prayers and prophecies
Of poets, whom money and progress scorned,
Even though they were the equals of kings, waited for you
So that you, not they, could announce, urbi et orbi,
That the centuries are not absurd but a vast order.
[...]
Then, suddenly, like the clear sound of the bell for matins,
Your sign of dissent, which is like a miracle.
People ask, not comprehending how it's possible,
That the young of the unbelieving countries
Gather in public squares, shoulder to shoulder,
Waiting for news from two thousand years ago
And throw themselves at the feet of the Vicar
Who embraced with his love the whole human tribe.
Czeslaw Milosz, from "Ode for the Eightieth Birthday of Pope John Paul II"
This & That Edition 4,211
Gleaned some posts from my Google Reader feeds yesterday. (Bolding of the previous sentence inspired by Brandon Vogt's blog.) Came across a handsome post from one Curt of Jester on a Vatican website tribute to Pope Benedict XVI, a surprisingly beautiful tableau in e-bookish form. Sixty-two pages of pictures and painful teaser quotes containing links to his talks or encyclicals or homilies (I say 'painful' because there's no way to absorb even half of the content of all the links). And who knew our own Jeff Miller had been tapped by the Library of Congress as one of the prime sources of papal material? He self-deprecatingly referred to it as possible spam. I await my spam any day now, Libe o' Congress!
*
Our dog is absurdly polite. When we first got him (he was 6 years old at the time), it took him a couple weeks before he would soil our backyard (he insisted on going on other people's property). And now he'll wait until I get up from the recliner for some reason before standing quietly by the door. I let him out he'll pee for ten minutes. He's the opposite of our cat, who will scratch the door loudly in ten minute increments in order to gain access to the house or yard.
*
Still some cardinals not in Rome, but I'm not in a hurry to have a new pope. It seems fitting that there not be an immediate successor. Sort of like how its unseemly to marry right after the death of a spouse? Am slowly processing things and I'm grateful for the chance to pray for the electors. Lino Rulli thinks we shouldn't be without a pope this long even. I suppose. As Catholics we're supposed to have a shepherd but what's the all fire hurry? Though at least the cardinals ought to have been all there by now. I'm not a big fan of meetings but really now, twelve cardinals hadn't made it to Rome by Tuesday and even today there's a straggler? I think it's safe to say that they've taken themselves out of the running. No way anybody will vote for a dude who can't say goodbye to Pope Benedict or get there for the initial meetings. Seems indicative of a cleave in Christianity between theory and actuality: in theory the cardinals wear red to show that they'd be willing to be martyrs, but in actuality some aren't even willing to make it to the conclave on time.
*
What I don't get - but haven't explored at all and so will likely misrepresent his position totally - is why some think Cardinal Burke will be pope while at the same time subscribing to St. Malachi's prophecy that this is the pope who will apostatize. Are they saying they expect Cardinal Burke to be Judas?
*
Monday of this week went lightning fast though due to enjoying a CNBC special about Google. Yes I got paid to watch an entertaining and compelling news show. It was a meeting notice sent to the whole company, so I made an executive decision to accept the meeting and trundle off to the big auditorium. Learned about the environment of Google, about some of the key players, how they distinguished themselves from other search engines, how fantabulously successful they are as a company (“the most successful of all time”) and about how we don't use a search engine for free - we give up our privacy in exchange for information. All that data is stored and can be used against you. “We tell search engines things we wouldn't tell our doctor, our priest, our spouse.”
*
Been looking at The Vatican Diaries, a book that Julie Davis on Facebook said she wanted to read. It looks like yet another must read for me. An inside look at the Vatican, and how loose a federation it is.
*
In the '80s I saw our culture as flawed primarily because I couldn't find a girlfriend and had career worries. Certainly any culture that couldn't provide me a girlfriend or a stress-free income had insurmountable difficulties as compared to, say, the arranged marriages in Asia and the “15-hour work weeks” of the typical hunter-gatherer “society” of 17,000 B.C. I had grievances, let's just say.
*
It's just crazy how fast weeknights go by these days, even if admittedly often drink-aided. I'm under-read, under-led and underbred but not underfed or under-wed. I'm popeless but not hopeless. I'm in reading arrears but compensated via beers. “He wasn't cheated on beers,” is not the most edifying of epitaphs but surely accurate.
Drank something different last night, a Magic Hat Pistil made from dandelion petals. A nice change-of-pace beer from the more bitter, more hoppy and higher alcohol beers I'm used to. And who can resist a spring seasonal in early March? (As you can plainly see, I didn't give up beer for Lent.)
*
Libraries. Reading a nostalgia-tinged piece made me want to write about my own libraric experiences. I remember borrowing books and reading them by candlelight under the staircase in our house. How beautiful that book on St. Peter's Basilica was; many years later I bought it and well, it wasn't as beautiful as I'd recalled. Books have changed over the years - better quality photographs particularly. Still, though, the ease of buying used books online makes me want to try to find old volumes of my past library, like the 1953 (I think?) edition of my mom's favorite, Terhune's Lad a Dog. But I'd probably never look at them even if I could track them down. How many times do I look at my baseball cards these days? Close enough to never, although cleaning out my desk at work I found some old basketball cards. The USA “Dream Team” from '92. Worth something like $2. The card market has tanked.
*
I was bemused to hear the play-by-play of the Pope emeritus's first free day: some piano playing, watched television, did a lot of walking. God bless him, he's certainly entitled. He finally reached the level of authority where he could fire himself. Sure different than the way the secular world works!
*
It was also interesting to see how Jesus interpreted the famous passage, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” In Matthew 21 it seems like the “stone rejected” was the Gentiles. I've always thought of it as referring to Christ, which of course it also does, but in this context it's interesting Jesus says immediately after, “Therefore…the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” And the fruit of Christianity seems to have been borne mostly by the Gentiles despite the Apostles all being Jewish.
*
Really liking this iPad app called Day One for journal-writing purposes:
*
Our dog is absurdly polite. When we first got him (he was 6 years old at the time), it took him a couple weeks before he would soil our backyard (he insisted on going on other people's property). And now he'll wait until I get up from the recliner for some reason before standing quietly by the door. I let him out he'll pee for ten minutes. He's the opposite of our cat, who will scratch the door loudly in ten minute increments in order to gain access to the house or yard. *
Still some cardinals not in Rome, but I'm not in a hurry to have a new pope. It seems fitting that there not be an immediate successor. Sort of like how its unseemly to marry right after the death of a spouse? Am slowly processing things and I'm grateful for the chance to pray for the electors. Lino Rulli thinks we shouldn't be without a pope this long even. I suppose. As Catholics we're supposed to have a shepherd but what's the all fire hurry? Though at least the cardinals ought to have been all there by now. I'm not a big fan of meetings but really now, twelve cardinals hadn't made it to Rome by Tuesday and even today there's a straggler? I think it's safe to say that they've taken themselves out of the running. No way anybody will vote for a dude who can't say goodbye to Pope Benedict or get there for the initial meetings. Seems indicative of a cleave in Christianity between theory and actuality: in theory the cardinals wear red to show that they'd be willing to be martyrs, but in actuality some aren't even willing to make it to the conclave on time.
*
What I don't get - but haven't explored at all and so will likely misrepresent his position totally - is why some think Cardinal Burke will be pope while at the same time subscribing to St. Malachi's prophecy that this is the pope who will apostatize. Are they saying they expect Cardinal Burke to be Judas?
*
Monday of this week went lightning fast though due to enjoying a CNBC special about Google. Yes I got paid to watch an entertaining and compelling news show. It was a meeting notice sent to the whole company, so I made an executive decision to accept the meeting and trundle off to the big auditorium. Learned about the environment of Google, about some of the key players, how they distinguished themselves from other search engines, how fantabulously successful they are as a company (“the most successful of all time”) and about how we don't use a search engine for free - we give up our privacy in exchange for information. All that data is stored and can be used against you. “We tell search engines things we wouldn't tell our doctor, our priest, our spouse.”
*
Been looking at The Vatican Diaries, a book that Julie Davis on Facebook said she wanted to read. It looks like yet another must read for me. An inside look at the Vatican, and how loose a federation it is.
“I appreciate that…at the end of the day, the Vatican is marked more by human flair and fallibility than ruthless efficiency…The Vatican remains predominantly a world of individuals, most of whom have a surprising amount of freedom to operate…there's a significant population of minor officials, consultants, adjuncts and experts who see themselves as protagonists in their own right.”I like that “protagonists in their own right”.
*
In the '80s I saw our culture as flawed primarily because I couldn't find a girlfriend and had career worries. Certainly any culture that couldn't provide me a girlfriend or a stress-free income had insurmountable difficulties as compared to, say, the arranged marriages in Asia and the “15-hour work weeks” of the typical hunter-gatherer “society” of 17,000 B.C. I had grievances, let's just say.
*
It's just crazy how fast weeknights go by these days, even if admittedly often drink-aided. I'm under-read, under-led and underbred but not underfed or under-wed. I'm popeless but not hopeless. I'm in reading arrears but compensated via beers. “He wasn't cheated on beers,” is not the most edifying of epitaphs but surely accurate.
Drank something different last night, a Magic Hat Pistil made from dandelion petals. A nice change-of-pace beer from the more bitter, more hoppy and higher alcohol beers I'm used to. And who can resist a spring seasonal in early March? (As you can plainly see, I didn't give up beer for Lent.)
*
Libraries. Reading a nostalgia-tinged piece made me want to write about my own libraric experiences. I remember borrowing books and reading them by candlelight under the staircase in our house. How beautiful that book on St. Peter's Basilica was; many years later I bought it and well, it wasn't as beautiful as I'd recalled. Books have changed over the years - better quality photographs particularly. Still, though, the ease of buying used books online makes me want to try to find old volumes of my past library, like the 1953 (I think?) edition of my mom's favorite, Terhune's Lad a Dog. But I'd probably never look at them even if I could track them down. How many times do I look at my baseball cards these days? Close enough to never, although cleaning out my desk at work I found some old basketball cards. The USA “Dream Team” from '92. Worth something like $2. The card market has tanked.
*
I was bemused to hear the play-by-play of the Pope emeritus's first free day: some piano playing, watched television, did a lot of walking. God bless him, he's certainly entitled. He finally reached the level of authority where he could fire himself. Sure different than the way the secular world works!
*
It was also interesting to see how Jesus interpreted the famous passage, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” In Matthew 21 it seems like the “stone rejected” was the Gentiles. I've always thought of it as referring to Christ, which of course it also does, but in this context it's interesting Jesus says immediately after, “Therefore…the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” And the fruit of Christianity seems to have been borne mostly by the Gentiles despite the Apostles all being Jewish.
*
Really liking this iPad app called Day One for journal-writing purposes:
March 04, 2013
Saintly Pope Scoreboard
Quick run-through of centuries and papal saints:
1st-5th centuries = 49 saints, one uncanonized.
6th-9th centuries = 26 saints, 41 uncanonized
10th-13th centuries = 3 saints, 68 uncanonized and a half-dozen Blesseds.
14th-17th centuries = 1 saint, 45 uncanonized, about 3 Blesseds
18th-19th centuries = 1 Blessed, 13 uncanonized
20th century = 1 saint, 2 blessed, 2 venerables, 1 servants of God, 2 uncanonized
March 03, 2013
The "S" Word
Happened across a line from Flannery O'Connor recently: "Pornography...is essentially sentimental, for it leaves out the connection of sex with its hard purpose, and so far disconnects it from its meaning in life as to make it an experience for its own sake." (From "The Church and the Fiction Writer", America Magazine, 1957.)
"Sentimental" must have very negative associations for O'Connor to be used in that context. I wonder if you could almost replace "pornography" with "cross-less Christianity": "Cross-less Christianity is essentially sentimental, for it leaves out the connection of the Crucifixion with its hard purpose, and so far disconnects it from its meaning in life as to make it an experience (of suffering) for its own sake."
"Sentimental" must have very negative associations for O'Connor to be used in that context. I wonder if you could almost replace "pornography" with "cross-less Christianity": "Cross-less Christianity is essentially sentimental, for it leaves out the connection of the Crucifixion with its hard purpose, and so far disconnects it from its meaning in life as to make it an experience (of suffering) for its own sake."
March 02, 2013
Yes
Hey, wow, it was a line begging to be said and I'm glad it's finally has an audience.
Back a couple years ago I wrote on this blog: "I think we should have a national conversation on whether to have national conversations." And I see in the latest National Review James Lileks wrote, "We need to have a national conversation about national conversations."
Back a couple years ago I wrote on this blog: "I think we should have a national conversation on whether to have national conversations." And I see in the latest National Review James Lileks wrote, "We need to have a national conversation about national conversations."
March 01, 2013
The Limits of Highlighting
I'm reading the Catechism & the daily meditations of Co-Workers of the Truth (my dog ate my Fr. Barron Lenten meditation booklet, so I'm back to Co-Workers -- Kim if you're reading, any way I can get a fresh copy of Fr. Barron's pamphlet?) and I've found that highlighting has become something of a joke. When you highlight 80% of the passages you are, essentially, highlighting none. But I do anyway (see my blog title). Here's the latest from Co-Workers:
...God appears everywhere as the Being who is all eyes, as sight itself. This archaic concept has been preserved in the portrayal of the eye of God with which we are familiar from Christian art. Behind the concept, we recognize a primitive human feeling—men know that they are known. They know that there is ultimately no hiding place for them, that their lives are everywhere exposed to a sight from which there is no concealment, no escape; that for them to live is to be seen—and they react in a variety of ways to this knowledge. They can sense danger and feel that their lives are circumscribed. In that case, the feeling may leave them embittered, can become a passionate struggle against the unseen witness who is thought to be envious of their freedom, of the uninhibited quality of their will and actions. But the opposite can also happen: men, who are made for love, can find in this presence that is everywhere around them the security for which their whole being cries out. They can see therein a victory over the loneliness that no human individual can ever banish even though it is in direct contradiction to our being, which cries out for a You, for someone to share our life. In this secret presence, men can find a reason for the confidence that makes life possible for them. At this point, their response to the question of God’s existence acquires critical proportions. Whether they want to remain hidden; whether they want to be totally alone—“You will be like God”; or whether, despite their insufficiencies and precisely because of them, they are grateful to the one who supports and bears all their loneliness—all this depends on how they have regarded their life from the beginning. There are many reasons why one or other of these responses may be given; it depends on their formative relationship with the You—whether it appeared as love or as threat. It makes a difference also under what aspect they first encountered God—as the fear-inspiring Watcher who is implacable in his demands for punishment, or as the creative Love that awaits them. Everything depends ultimately on the decisions by which, in the course of their lives, they have accepted or transformed their earlier experiences.
From: Cardinal Ratzinger's Co-Workers of the Truth (quoting Der Gott Jesu Christi, pp. 13–14).
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