"For he that is not against you is for you"- or do I really need to start smacking heads?

37 John answered him, saying: Master, we saw one casting out devils in your name, who follows not us: and we forbade him. 38 But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no man that does a miracle in my name and can soon speak ill of me. 39 For he that is not against you is for you. 40 For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (John 9:37-40) from http://www.newadvent.org/bible/mar009.htm

I have read some posts and articles regarding the labeling that so many just love to do, such as conservative, traditional/trad/traddie, neo-con.... Sometimes (often) it makes me want to start knocking heads together in hopes that will knock some sense into others. I am thinking of a recent article I read that was critical of those who were judged to be conservative but not traditional.

Everyone is not going to be formed in the same way and that is good. You want diversity (yes the d-word) in the good sense which means there will be variations in speech, opinions, ideas because your environment, your family, your ethnicity etc. can and will influence you. Read St. Thomas Aquinas especially in the area of temperance. What is suitable for one person given their state of life might not be appropriate to others. Even in the TLM mass, speaking with those who attended prior to the changes, there were those who experienced a low mass for almost every mass and those who learned the ordinary and propers and who attended many sung masses as well as vespers services etc.

So the relevance is we are in a culture that is actively working against the church on many levels. We need active catechises including more priests not afraid to preach on what the church holds, teaches and believes, even though much is counter to what society says.

Yes, there are hymns that are earwigs to me and which I would love to gather into a pod and jetison into space forever (though they are so bad it could start an inter-stellar war if there were ever found to be life on another planet). I cringe to see guitars and drum kits at mass, the social mixer "kiss of peace" and numerous other additions. I also understand and know, that the people I know who do like that style and who are on the front lines with me in Germantown and who are and will be in Annapolis (or other capital cities) and DC, are not the enemy and I don't need to concentrate on changing them. The enemy is "prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls".

Gaudete in Domino semper! Ember Days as Advent calm in the storm of Christmas prep

In the western church, we have lost much of the penitential nature of Advent. From friends who were Byzantine Catholic, I had learned that there was an Advent fast. It is not as severe as the Lenten fast, but in both liturgy and actions our eastern rite brothers and sisters were a bit more focused on trying to make Advent a real time of preparation.

I know it is hard to stay focused on Advent or any penitential actions since, outside of mass, which for many is just once a week, there is not much if anything to counter the Christmas season that surrounds us and that starts to disappear December 26. Personally, I love Christmas lights and since it is completely dark by 6pm here, it is easy to see numerous houses light up with various degrees of festivity.

We have our Advent wreath and most of our nativity sets are out and waiting patiently for baby Jesus to arrive. The Benedictine office in the EF today included the verse "Rejoice in the Lord always, I say again rejoice" and the gospel reading was focused on those asking Jesus who was John the Baptist. We prepare and are trying to get ready and in the Latin rite we do have helps for this week for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are Ember Days, which are days of fast which occur four times a year. This coming week, Wednesday December 14, Friday December 16 and Saturday December 17 are days to fast and pray, From discussions on other sites, I gather these days were not surpressed but were just not inlcuded anymore on the calendar and in the OF there is not any mention of them in the mass. I was able to attend an EF mass on Ember Saturday in September and it was quite moving and included more readings and prayers of intersession remenicient of those on Good Friday.

Even though you may worship completely in the OF of the mass, you can still try to make time to reflect, pray and even fast in preparation for the coming of Christmas. To try to make certain that in all of the cleaning and shopping and cooking and traveling, we remember to rejoice in the Lord always and to prepare anew for Christ to come into our hearts.

Auschwitz was in the city

I was at the the prayer rally for the tragic one year anniversary of the late term abortionist who started killing late term (starting at 5 months) babies one year ago today. We were hoping for 1000 and per the people counting we had 2000 witnessing to life.

I was reflecting on the fact of the horror that goes on in an office park that looks like any one of hundreds in suburban DC. It is near daycare centers and grocery stores, banks, fast food places, and a mega shoe store. You can find a similar area in pretty much any town and city.

During the last 40 Days for Life, I was talking with one of the other women who came to pray and she was telling me about a visit she made to Auschwitz while on a tour of Europe after college. She and a friend decided to take the train to the city and when the exited the train, they asked a taxi driver or bus driver to take them there. The driver asked what was wrong with their feet and when they asked why he said that he pointed and they found that the walls to the compound were right there. The death camp where so many innocent people died was right in the city. The woman said she returned a few years ago when she was on a trip to Europe and she wanted to make certain her memory was not distorted by age and she confirmed.

The internet can be a wonderful resource. You can see satellite and even street level pictures of so many places on earth. I looked it up, and she was right. I saw the train tracks and the city, and the memorial left where cruelty that stuns me happened.

The people had to know Auschwitz was there and they had to know something was horribly, drastically wrong. They had to know.

It is very easy to mouth slogans and politically correct and politically safe statements. It it easy to go along with what will keep you from being seen as "stuck in the past", or fundamentalist or reactionary. Totalitarian regimes almost always if not always paint their opposition as being the radicals.

Auschwitz was in the city.

Keeping Advent- The challenge and the purple light set

Advent was one of the great treasures that I discovered when I found the church. I think I had heard of Advent calendars, but the only "season" of the church really on the radar was Lent. I spent many years having no idea that the 12 days of Christmas were the days AFTER December 25 and that December was for Christmas trees, Christmas lights etc.

Don't get me wrong, I do shop for Christmas presents and I do like to see the lights on houses as I am driving in the evening. I am not constantly reminding people around me that "it is Advent not Christmas!" It remains a challenge, in the face of all of the red and green to focus on the season of Advent. We have our "real" Advent wreath and I found a couple of Advent resources for little hands- one an Advent wreath place mat that allows the child to color the lights on the wreath and the other a fabric wreath that allows your child to "light" their own wreath that they can actually touch.

I had been wishing I could find a purple light set because I would be willing to put them up, but only with purple during Advent and changing them to colored lights later. Nothing big, but just something seasonal. Well, I was out running some errands yesterday morning and I had to to to CVS yesterday and they had purple lights and on sale. I was trying to put them on our railing at home, but then discovered that the brilliant folks who designed our subdivision did not put an external outlet on the front of our townhouse, the only outlet is in the rear. Still trying to figure out plan B.

Scepter Press Daily Roman Missal personal edition review

I arrived home today and a small box had arrived. When I saw it was from the Midwest Theological Forum I was very happy as it meant my copy of the Daily Roman Missal had arrived. This is the Missal that really changed my life as it was the only missal that included the Latin and English for the OF form of the mass. It served the purpose of reinforcing that the Roman Catholic Church never ceased to be the Latin Rite. More importantly, it helped me understand, long before discussions of the new translation, that the English we were saying was not what was in the Latin. It also taught me that there are proper introit, offertory and communion antiphons for every day of the liturgical calendar and the prayer section is also thorough and contains many prayers in Latin and English.

The book comes in hardcover, bonded leather and leather and I went for the bonded leather in burgundy. The leather is textured and the missal feels solid.



The pages are an eggshell cream color and there are black and white/cream engravings on some of the pages. The print is a good size. Some of the pictures look brighter due to the flash. The color of the pages is hard to capture but it appears similar to the paper in my older Daily Roman missal.

Inside cover



Page from Advent




Page from feast of St. Teresa Benedicta



There are 6 ribbons



The edges are gilt and look nice. The binding is tight, but the bonded leather seems flexible enough that it should not split at the base from daily use.



The book is 7 inches by 4 3/4 inches by 2 inches. Compared with my Christian Prayer LOTH book it is a bit thicker and taller. It has 2514 pages.



Edge to edge



As I was unfolding the ribbons from the book I did find one page was folded inward and the folded edge had been bound into the book. I gently cut it free and it will need a trim, but no worries. I am just happy I won't have to bother with the pew cards and can read the readings prior to mass.



And last, but not least, the missal retains the section on preparing for mass and preparing for confession as well as a very good section of classic and traditional prayers. And, of course, the main attraction of the missal for me, the prayers on opposite pages in Latin on the left and English on the right.




Receiving the missal just confirmed for me that this was the best choice. Also, it is ready and shipping now and I noticed the other day on the web site of a well known missal that has separate Sunday and daily versions that there missals will not be ready until early next year and the last time I saw them, they contained no Latin. This missal will be of use at the parish's which are fortunate enough to have the Latin OF mass, but even for those of us who normally attend the OF in English, this missal includes all we need to attempt to pray always and also to pray the mass.

ISBN 978-1-936045-59-4 is the bonded leather in burgundy. It also comes in black bonded leather, black leather and black and burgundy hard cover.

Our children's liturgical neglect

One of the worst results of the liturgical destruction that was the result of Vatican II and post council committees was the loss to 2-3 generations of the richness of the liturgical life and the mass that had lasted for centuries. The reality is the council called for Latin to maintain it's pride of place and Gregorian chant was to remain the preferred music along with some polyphony. You will meet those that will tell you to your face and believe that "Vatican II did away with Latin". For children, it too often ended up meaning the loss of the chants that were known by all (Ave Maria, Salve Regina) as well as the loss of learning the richness of chants in their Catholic Schools. The Catholic experience was then and remains varied, but I have spoken with enough people and seen their accounts to know that there were many children who learned the ordinary chants for the mass and the propers. There were schools and churches where the oldest students, the 7th and 8th graders, who were the most accomplished were called upon to sing for funerals and other special services.

Pope Paul VI, alarmed at the wholesale abandonment of chant by the mid 1970's promulgated a collection of chants that he said all of the faithful should know. It was called Jubilate Deo and I actually have a booklet and cassette tape (dating myself) of the collection. This is significant. The pope who oversaw the end of Vatican II and the changes was indicating things had gone too far.

What we got in America, was at too many parishes guitar based pop music. There are parishes where I have seen the drum kits on the altar since new churches are not built with choir lofts. I have some guilty pleasures- one of them is some not so great 70's pop. If I channel hop and "Seasons in the Son" or "Baker Street" or even Bay City Rollers comes on I will likely listen. "Peace Train" is on my Ipod. When it comes to the music in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, top 40 should not be part of the equation. When people try to change the Holy Mass into just a meal and a love feast around the table (a protestant idea), problems arise.

So instead of learning the chants which elevate mind, body and spirit and that are not hard to learn (a pre-school child literally can pick up some chants) children's masses are generally plagued with bad music or pop based tunes better saved for a prayer meeting or other casual gathering.

The majority of children graduate from Catholic grade school without knowing the basic chants unless they learn them some other way. That is a crime and a neglect of our children which has and is depriving them of their religious heritage.

To disappointment of media no heads exploded at masses with new translation

The media in the U.S. can be funny. Not rotflol funny but sheesh funny. Several papers and news websites have run articles in the last weeks and days solemnly stating the mass won't sound the same. The WaPo article today was, "Will the New Mass cause confusion." I have read such phrases as "not since Vatican II have such sweeping changes been made" and my personal favorite quote "it's going to be like Vatican II all over again. Ummm, not at all like the changes the first Sunday in Advent 1968 when people came to mass and without any warning, it was entirely in English on a table and the priest was staring at them the entire mass instead of praying with the people facing (liturgical) east.

Doing things by rote can have its advantages at times. When it is oh dark hundred and the morning, it helps to not have to think while you get up, turn off the alarm clock and start the daily routine. Breathing and blinking and walking are all things that, in a sense, we do by rote- most of us don't have to think about them, we just do it.

I remain unconvinced that the responses of the mass are a good thing to be rote. One reason I am very happy to be able to attend the EF mass is I have to participate and I have to actively participate. Even though I know how the mass proceeds, I know many of the responses and good amounts of the prayers, I am always paying attention or being recollected. I focus. At the OF, since I know English, it is all to easy to let the distractions of the day creep in and I often am not really listening to the prayers. I try and it is not on purpose, but English is ordinary, I don't have to work at it. Latin means worship and I have to remain focused and attentive.

On the other side of the pond, our media is spreading cheer by amusing some of our English friends who were given permission by their bishops to begin using the new translation several months ago. People adjusted fine and no one will look askance when you accidentally say "and also with you".

It would be amusing to go to masses on Christmas to listen for those C & E folks who have not idea, but I should behave and not be snarky.