One Year Later

We've got a wedding in three weeks, and we're all going to be there. And this time Clare doesn't even have to worry about Mary stealing her hair appointment.

God is so good.

Welcome back

We've been sitting here........waiting and waiting............
and you're finally coming home!!!

Prayers for Benedict

I was just reminded in an article I read that Benedict asked the following of us in his first homily as Pope--"Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves".

What a hard, hard job he has. I wouldn't want it for the world and neither did he. He wanted to retire and teach in his German homeland. But God saw fit, and hallalujah for it. But we should take him at his word, because he is most certainly a man against wolves who have no decency or truth in them. What a noble and horrible task he has! What brilliant and humble joy we should feel that it is him who has this task!

Viva la revolucion.

In Need of A Good Homily?

I know, I know, a rhetorical question.

So meet Fr. Jones! I was privileged enough to be introduced to this great Dominican priest and pastor of St. Vincent Church in NYC through a friend and have had the good fortune of receiving sporadic spiritual direction from him when my head gets too cloudy.

If you want to hear some of his great sermons go here:

http://www.csvfblog.org/tag/homilies/

I am sure they are all good, but his Easter Vigil and First Sunday of Advent came recommended and I was not disappointed.

I have been doing my best to make the drive/subway ride into the city on Sundays since Lent to go to Mass there. It's been great.

I Remember 81!

Mass a year ago this Sunday. Man do I wish you all would have been there!

Hi Poppy (Hi Peepee?)

Happy Easter, Poppy. We missed you at Holy Saturday dinner!

(Note to the casual observer Charlie is a well-known media whore. In the second clip, he assumed that I was taking his picture, not filming. Check out the fake smile that comes instantly to his face. Shameless.)

The Triduum Begins, Holy Thursday

The Triduum begins today, the three holiest days of the year. How hard it is to keep this in mind in this most secular of ages, how difficult it is to be mindful, to keep watch, to remain alert. But let us try! Tonight Jesus enters into the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane in perfect and sublime obedience. How frightful that we are meant to do the same. What a terrifying freedom we have--that we can, that we almost always choose not to.

This is an excerpt from Romano Guardini's The Lord from the chapter on the "Footwashing," emphasis is mine.

"Every Christian reaches the point where he too must be ready to accompany the Master into destruction and oblivion: into that which the world considers folly, that which for his own understanding is incomprehensible, for his own feeling intolerable. Whatever it is to be: suffering, dishonor, the loss of loved ones, or the shattering of a lifetime oeuvre, this is the decisive test of his Christianity. Will he shrink back before the ultimate depths, or will he be able to go all the way and thus win his share of the life of Christ? What is it we fear in Christianity if no precisely this demand?

But to be Christian means to participate in the life of Christ--all of it; only the whole brings peace. The Lord once said: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gived to do I give you. Do not let your heart be troubled, or be afraid." Peace comes only from living this through to the end. One way or another we must brush the depths Christ divinely plummeted, taste the dregs he drained to the last drop" "It is consummated." From this unreserved realization of the Father's will comes the illimitable peace of Christ, also for us."

The Passion of Mary

Not sure about you all, but I could use a reminder that it is Holy Week, the holiest of weeks. Here is a rare excerpt by Charles Peguy that I came across:

The Passion of Mary

"She wept, she had become dreadful.
Here eyelashes stuck together.
Her eyelids, the upper one and the nether one.
Swollen, bruised, tinged with blood.
Her cheeks devastated by grief.
Her furrowed cheeks.
Here cheeks all seamed.
Her tears had as it were ploughed her cheeks.
Tears on either side had worn a furrow in her cheeks.

Her eyes smarted and burned.
Never had anyone wept so much.
And yet it was a relief for her to weep.
Her skin smarted and burned.
And during that time, on the cross, his Five Wounds burned.
And he had fever.
She too had fever.
And thus shared his Passion.

She wept, she looked so strange, so dreadful.
So dreadful.
That you could certainly have laughed.
And you would have made fun of her.
Certainly.
Had she not been the mother of the condemned.
Even the street urchins looked away.
When they saw her.
Turned their heads away.
Turned their eyes away.
So as not to laugh.
So as not to laugh in her face.

And they had set him on his way to death.
To that death.

They had a firm hold on him.
This time.
And they would not let him go.
They would never let him go anymore.
And he no longer shone among doctors.
Seated among the doctors.
He did not shine.
And yet he shone forever.
More than he ever shone.
More than he ever shone anywhere.

And such was his reward.
You are sometimes strangely rewarded in life.
You sometimes get strange rewards.
And they got along so well together.
The boy and his mother.

They had been so happy in those days.
The mother and her boy.

Such was her reward.

Thus was she rewarded.

For having borne.

Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him who died for the sins of the world.
For having borne.
Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him who died for the salvation of the world.

For having borne.
Given birth to.
Fed at the breast.
Carried.
In her arms.
Him though whom all the sins of the world would be forgiven."

The Hollow Man

Four years ago, I predicted of George W Bush, "Many will be the night during his second term that Bush will wish he were still in Texas, and still drunk." . I predict that there will be nights when Obama will wish he were still in Springfield.

Well I wish he were still in Springfield, but he's not. This is excerpted from Spengler (a pseudonym) who writes for AsiaTimes.com I think it is spot on:

Absolute Power Gets Blamed Absolutely
By Spengler

"Economic disaster will occur in geopolitical hotspots, starting with Pakistan. New York Times reporter David Sanger wrote on January 11 that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal might be Obama's worst nightmare. The candidates for "worst nightmare", though, have multiplied since I warned at the end of October that the world isn't flat - as one New York Times writer likes to say - but rather flattened (see The world isn't flat, it's flattened, Asia Times Online, October 28, 2008). The prospects of a narco-state on American's southern border, now widely mooted in the press, might be the most daunting.

What will Obama do? He has more answers to urgent problems than the verses of Barnacle Bill the Sailor ("I'll tell Iran/that I'm the man"), but they are just as fanciful.

I have never met the man, but I have interviewed a fair sampling of his supporters, and conclude that Obama learned the power to cloud men's minds, like the Shadow on the old radio show. Apart from ambition, there is no "there" there. There are as many Obamas as there are interlocutors. He is a hollow man, I concluded, a Third World anthropologist studying us with engaged curiosity but complete emotional detachment. In this respect he is unpredictable.

I predict that he will do nothing much at all. The American economy is in trouble because Americans got too much cheap credit to buy houses, using their price appreciation to buy other consumer goods. Obama proposes to provide more cheap credit to homebuyers and incentives to buy consumer goods, which seems an odd response to the problem. Now that Americans are scared out of their wits and likely to save every available penny, it is hard to flush with enthusiasm over his program's prospects.

Obama's secretary of state, the redoubtable Hillary Clinton, will pursue the same tired formulas in the Middle East and South Asia into tighter and tighter little circles, until she quits in frustration. His Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, will do precisely what he has done in the past year in his capacity as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is to use the federal balance sheet to buy trillions of dollars of toxic assets. And Defense Secretary Robert Gates will continue to attempt to engage the Iranians, as he has done since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when he took notes for president Jimmy Carter's national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in meetings with the newly empowered mullahs.

He will make resonant speeches, hold frequent press conferences, consult friend and foe alike, and tread water while America's economy and strategic position continue to deteriorate. His entourage of one-trick wizards, as I called them in a recent commentary, will pick over the broken American economy for trophies to put into private equity funds. (See Obama's one-trick wizards, Asia Times Online, November 25, 2008). Without casting aspersions on anyone involved, the opportunity for self-dealing in a multi-trillion-dollar bailout-cum-recapitalization of the financial system exceeds the grandest dreams of Third World kleptocrats.

At a certain point he will have to take a decisive stand on something. And then we will learn who Obama is, and what he wants. Four years ago, I predicted of George W Bush, "Many will be the night during his second term that Bush will wish he were still in Texas, and still drunk." (see Careful what you Bush for, Asia Times Online, August 3, 2004). I predict that there will be nights when Obama will wish he were still in Springfield.

Something to Lift the Spirits

News in politics and the economy are bleak these days, but this helps.

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4961&Itemid=121&ed=3

"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"--St. Paul

I just finished reading this tremendous book and I recommend it to all of you. Von Hildebrand writes beautifully and directly on transforming our lives in order that we might best surrender to God's will for us and, in so doing, become really joyful! It can be uncomfortable when you realize how poorly you are going about it all, but it made much very clear.

C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that:

"If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent with far less help to defend the far more desperate posts in the great battle."

That always scares me a bit. But we are a chosen people, we do have real mission, and this life is a holy drama, an adventure in love--for Love.

Bernanos puts the following words into the mouth of his "unbeliever" in his Sermon of an Agnostic on the Feast of St. Therese -

"When we (unbelievers) seek Him now, in this world, it is you we find, and only you...We're wondering what you do with the Grace of God. Should it not be shining out of you? Where the devil did you hide your joy?"

Viva la Revolucion!

Follow Christ!

Lest we fall into the sin of despair, let's turn our attention away from the elections for a moment and remember who we are.

We may not be able to make public policy, no matter! We are in charge of our souls and we have a friend in the highest of places. Our lives are intended to be little revolutions for Love.

Follow Christ! Viva la revolucion!

Fugitive Hope

Just finished reading The Everlasting Man by Chesterton, really, really good. These lines sounded something strong in the soul --

"In Christendom, hope has never been absent. Rather, it has been errant, extravagant, excessively fixed upon fugitive chances."

Not the flimsy, emasculated, impotent hope of modern platitudes. But the virile and tenacious hope that ennobled the martyrs and gave birth to saints. No other religion or philosophy has that, says that. I am so, so, so glad I am Catholic.

Cheers

Brent in Sable, on his 19th Birthday

I know Brent (who secretly lurks around the blog) joins me in saying thank you all for your prayers. It was a wonderful, wonderful trip - I hope for you all to go one day. A strong dose of beauty and grace is great medicine for the soul. Great, great.

However.....good luck not being depressed, Brent, when you go to mass tomorrow. I went this evening and still can't get "Raise You Up on Eagle's Wings" (strummed on a guitar, of course) out of my head. At least the sermon was about Michael Landon. Jealous, Maureen?

There are downsides to being exposed to so much beauty. Serious downsides.

I love you all!!

Solesmes Beaucoup

We have just landed on American shores and are already dreaming of Solesmes. We are raising our glasses to the monks and discussing great lines from Peguy. Beaucoup, beaucoup!

Off to the Buri's for dinner. Here are a few pictures for now!

We arrived on Thursday just in time for Uncle Michael's weekly free time! We went on a long walk through the countryside.

The door to the chapel. We went many times a day for prayer. What we would give for one more.

For all your thoughts and prayers, merci!

Au Revoir

We are off in a few hours. Weather forecast for Solesmes is 75 and sunny all week. Pray for us and we will pray for you!

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, RIP

A hero of mine died on Sunday. He was a Russian writer who was imprisoned in the Gulags (Soviet slave-labor camps) for criticizing Stalin in the 1940s. During his 8 years in prison and many years later in exile, he converted to Catholicism. He used to write on small scraps of paper, memorize them and throw them away (like everything else, writing in the Soviet labor camps was illegal). He wrote entire books and memorized them for later. He even once destroyed an entire manuscript while in exile to keep it from being discovered by the police. He rewrote it after.

Can you imagine understanding your vocation like that? His books were later published in the West, making him one of the very few people with the courage to tell the world about the atrocities of Soviet Russia.

His novel, Cancer Ward, is one of the greatest novels I ever read, so beautiful. The last chapter is the best last chapter in the world.

I always thought of him as lion-like--fierce and noble and willing to say what is true despite all. Maybe it's the beard.

If you are curious about him, this is a nice article:
http://cusack.norumbega.co.uk/2008/08/03/alexander-solzhenitsyn/

Rest in Peace

"Those whom we love
and lose
are no longer
where they were before.
They are now
wherever we are."

St. John Chrysostom

A Nice Surprise

Watch the trailer to the movie here:
http://www.grassrootsfilms.com/

I taught Jeffrey, in blue above, one of the brothers who shot this film. He graduated in 2005.

The movie company is run by the boys home in Brooklyn set up by Fr. Groeschel, where Jeffrey and his brother lived.

For a good blog on the film, go here
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1106

Gerald Manley Hopkins

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And, for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.