Fiat, in a TOB kind of way

I'm still working on my Paul talks for next week's retreat (in Saint Paul) and had a funny insight, a kind of theology of the body insight on Mary and Paul. Because Mary's response to her calling was "Be it done to me." But what did Paul say? Guy that he was, Paul wanted to know, "Lord, what would you have me DO?"

Clean Air

The machine next door that was causing us so many (literal!) headaches appears to have been turned off. Thanks be to God! Just wanted to offer a little "status update" so my devoted readership wouldn't worry. (It's okay, Mom, really.)

CO

Sometimes you just take air for granted. Not me! Not today, at any rate.
I've been battling a headache since I woke up yesterday. Now everyone else in the building has one, too. And the carbon monoxide alarm was going off. Uh-oh.
Sr Helena tracked the problem down to the building next door: they have a generator going full time, right by our building's air intake vent. Step two is getting the generator turned OFF. Meanwhile, I have been working on third floor, with the fire escape door wide open. It only let in a little snow, along with the brisk (but hopefully fresh) air.
In a way, Lent is like that: opening a door, letting the unexpectedly brisk air sweep away the stale and even noxious fumes that we somehow get used to breathing in day after day.
But I do hope we get that generator shut off before the weekend...

Comment Spammed

I have had to change my comment settings; hopefully it is just temporary. Until now I have managed just fine leaving comments open to anyone, but today I got hit by the elephant of all comment spammers. This creep (or maybe it was a bot) put a "comment" consisting of roughly 50 of those ad-laced (probably Trojan-laced) weblinks on about five posts. I don't want to have to delete these things one at a time, so for now you will need to sign in just to leave an authentic comment.
Sorry.
Grr.

Lost in Cyberspace

Somehow yesterday's post seems to have been stalled until today. And today has been such a busy day, this is only my first chance at the keyboard. No e-mail, no status updates on Twitter. Nothing! It's our community day, so we have had lots of time together. Not that I did my part for the housecleaning yet. But I did go to Chinatown with Sr. Barbara to show her where to get the great noodles, bean buns, sesame oil and ... treats. (Note to self: more than 2 minutes in micro produces burnt bean buns. Not a treat.)
I'm still pulling my talks together for next weekend's retreat in St. Paul. It's not quite where I need it to be yet, but I do have some more notes. (That's what I was doing in choir, yesterday, flipping the music over so I could scribble another idea on my church bulletin!) Somehow these things always come together in the end, but today it doesn't feel like it. (Time for an act of faith!)

Lenten Meme

Book blogger Rann offers a Lenten book meme as a way for all of us to exchange ideas and recommendations for spiritual reading. ("What's on your bookshelf?")

• What books have you read and/or reviewed in the last year that you would recommend to people looking for Lenten reading?
• What book/s is/are you reading this Lent?

Add your answers to the growing list on Rann's blog.

Unmasking

It's Mardi Gras--and by this point, almost time now to take off our masks for the 40 days of Lent. That's what Lent is, so to speak: an unmasking of the false self. St. Paul actually used much starker terms--"killing the old self" so that a "new self" can rise.
Not that we can do any of that ourselves. All we can do is attempt to cooperate with the process begun in our baptism! And for that, the Church gives us the three typical Lenten practices of fasting, prayer and works of charity.

On Twitter, I asked what people were hoping to "do for Lent" and I got some interesting responses, from "Giving up World of Warcraft" to "praying the Liturgy of the Hours." Other devout practices include "fasting from complaining," "adding Midday prayer to my praying the Liturgy of the Hours" and doing spiritual reading.
The fullest response to the question came on Facebook, from a mom:

"We have a Mercy Cross we built as a family, and the boys will hang hearts on it
for their acts of Mercy during Lent - then it will become our Victory Cross for
the Easter Season. As a family we're giving up our "eating out" and saving the
money for the poor. I'll be giving up chocolate again *sigh* I feel a bit silly
giving up the same thing every year, but it's really the only thing I have to
give up that has any real meaning... it's my one big splurge and indulgence...
:) (I'm such a choco-holic - the darker the better...) My hubby will be giving
up meat all week long (not just on Fridays), and we're adding more spiritual
reading and prayer-time to our days... This Lent I'll be reading the poetry of
St. John of the Cross and *something* by Blessed Mother Teresa (I really do have
to decide what - perhaps I should read Come Be My Light again?)... I went to the
Pauline website and ordered Salvifici Doloris by JP the Great too. :)"

What's your approach to Lent? What's your great hope for Lent this year?

the Convent Oscars

Some friends joined us for the Oscars last night; Sr. Helena has to keep up with these things, so we made a virtue out of necessity and threw a little party. The food was my doing. (The "fruit pizza" was a big hit.)

Sr. Helena provided the red carpet (here Mary demonstrates the distinctive "red carpet walk") and the ballots.

Of all the participants, it was Judy who was the most on the Academy's wavelength, greeting every announcement with a cheer that indicated she had awarded her own "Oscar" to the same winner. (Note the gleeful smile.)

Sr. Helena gives her opinion of the judges' decisions in favor of Slumdog...

How many stars for Slumdog, Sr. Helena?

Sr Helena gets Sirius

Lino Rulli is going to interview Sr. Helena today on his "Catholic Guy" program on Sirius Radio. I have no idea what time, but I do know the topic: Sr. Helena's reaction to last night's Academy Awards. (Spoiler alert! Every time "Slumdog Millionaire" won another Oscar, Sr. Helena let out an anguished "Noooooooo!")

My own reaction, non-movie person that I am, was that Hollywood was so upset over California voters passing Proposition 8 (keeping the natural definition of marriage unchanged) that they gave "Milk" as many Oscars as possible. That said, I also have to admit feeling real distress on hearing from Sean Penn that anti-Milk protesters were outside the venue: what was the point? They won the vote--that was already a very strong statement to Hollywood and to anyone else who might care to listen.

Even in such international Oscars as we witnessed last night, when it comes down to it, Hollywood really does orbit its own planet. What we saw last night was a sign that to "the Industry" California is the world.

Gearing up for Lent

Yesterday I got invited to the Facebook group "Fast Facebook for Lent." Today I was reading yesterday's Wall Street Journal, and lo and behold: a front-page article about just this phenomenon! I do a weekly "sabbath fast" from electronics, and since my mission involves communicating, I'm not inclined to make it more than a sabbath event, but people are onto something. In fact, the WSJ article quoted a few people who were right in line with Pope Benedict's World Communications Day message: social networking is wonderful, but don't let it take the place of face-to-face relationships with the people you live and work with. Of course, those "real" relationships ask more of us. We can dismiss irritating online friends with the click of a mouse. Doesn't work so well with the nag in the next cubicle.
The traditional Lenten practices are prayer, fasting and charity. Perhaps a Facebook fast can be the jumping off point for all three!
What are your ideas for this Lent in the Pauline Year?

The Other "Monologues"

I was interviewed this morning for a Catholic program in Minneapolis; while waiting to go on the air, I heard the broadcast, which included an ad for a new theater production of V-Monologues. Not G-rated (due to some pretty hard-hitting testimony about abortion), these are the "Vitae" Monologues, a pro-life production that will premier at the University of St. Thomas next weekend. It's about time someone took on the V monopoly on college campuses!

Unintended Consequences

Today's story of the Tower of Babel struck me in a different way today. I noticed the motivation for the building project: to "make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth." Talk about the "best laid plans of mice and men": as the story ended, they ended up in the precise situation they had tried to forestall! The Gospel, on the other hand, gives us a kind of reverse situation: "whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it." Losing one's life (or whatever you are supremely invested in) is no way to "make a name for yourself," but Jesus challenges us to believe that this is precisely how we can secure our place in the kingdom. It's another application of the "Seek first the kingdom of God and his holiness, and everything else will be added to you."
As I reflected on this, I had to ask: how many of us believe the Creed, but not the Sermon on the Mount (which is where the rubber of faith meets the road of real life)? "This is a hard saying," because our only assurance or guarantee is the word of Jesus. (Lord, increase our faith!)

The book that launched a thousand talks (and the story behind it)

I really regret not having posted this sooner: Sister Armanda's wonderful book came out on time for the Conversion of St. Paul, and I am only now putting it on this resource page. And this was the manuscript that inspired me to do my own research and presenting on the life and legends of Paul in art! Here's the book--and the story behind it. (This post is being cloned to the PaulineSpirit.wordpress resource blog.)

For years she ran the presses, printing books by the thousands. Her practiced eye scrutinized the sheets as they glided from the rollers of offset presses the size of tractor-trailers. She had to check that the print was clear and the colors sharp and true--especially important when reproducing masterpiece art. Now Sister Armanda Santos, FSP, of Redwood City, has a new book to show for her labors, but this time, she is the author.

"Facing the Apostle: Paul's Image in Art"--a meditative look at the life of Paul through the lens of Christian art--was released, appropriately enough, during the Jubilee Year of the Apostle's birth. Sr. Armanda says that her intention was "to allow Paul's iconography to reveal something of his personality and inner life." One appreciative reviewer, Rodolfo Papa (Professor of the History of Aesthetic Theory, Pontifical Urbaniana University, Rome) commented “….This book shows in a fascinating way the real and everlasting connection between art and spirituality.”

Sister Armanda's admiration of St. Paul began long before the Pauline Jubilee was announced. It could be said that Sister really "met" Paul during her initial formation in the religious congregation of the Daughters of St. Paul, which she entered in 1971. "My favorite aspect of St. Paul is his humanness. I like to emphasize that aspect to people who feel intimidated by him." But while Paul established communities, the Daughters of St. Paul established publishing houses and book centers "to help the individual person encounter Christ," Santos explains. Sister Armanda worked the publishing house presses even as a postulant and novice, and was eventually made head of the pressroom at Pauline Books and Media, Boston, before being tapped for roles as a superior and Provincial Councilor. The ministry she kept coming back to, however, was in the Pauline book centers. "I love book center ministry. I find that it is a wonderful way to reach people in a very personal manner," Santos says. "Being in the marketplace creates a non-threatening environment for people to come in and encounter Christ in his Word by what they read, in the music, in the chapel and even in our presence."

Through the years, she collected images of the community's patron saint. "The iconography of Paul is huge," she commented, "hundreds of depictions from every era and every type of medium: icons, oil, polychrome..."

After several terms in leadership, including service on a province-wide level (the network of Pauline communities across the U.S. and English-speaking Canada), Sister Santos welcomed the opportunity to pursue a Master's Degree in Theology. While stationed in Culver City, CA, she began a program at Loyola-Marymount, but transferred to the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, where she would be near enough to help care for her mother in San Leandro. (The Santos family came to the San Francisco Bay area from the Azores when Sister Armanda was eleven years old.) A stimulating course on St. Paul, and Sister's long-standing interest in the language and symbols of Christian art naturally inspired the direction her graduate studies took. She found her favorite images of Paul and began to craft a thesis around them. "I built chapters around the pictures I really liked," Santos admits. "Then I had to choose others in order to tell the whole life of Paul from beginning to end."

The life of Paul, beginning with his oft-depicted conversion, provides the framework for the entire book. Opening with a relevant Scripture passage, each of the 13 chapters is built around a single work of art, with an overall description of the piece and of the artist (when known), the circumstances of its creation and an interesting analysis of its unique details. From this, Santos offers a deep and informative reflection on one aspect of the life and teachings of the Apostle, allowing the artwork to once more illustrate Paul's thought and spirituality. A concluding prayer, composed by the author's own sister, Sister Germana Santos, FSP, allows the reader to enter into Paul's own spirit of prayer, and makes the book even more useful for group use. (An appendix also provides discussion questions.)

"Facing the Apostle" could be used as a guide in a study of Christian art (from the masterpieces of Raphael and Rembrandt to the work of anonymous iconographers) or for a course on the life and letters of Paul. The entire book is printed on high-quality paper that brings out the best in images. Its fine reproductions make "Facing the Apostle" an ideal gift book for RCIA or ordination.

Sister Santos is currently stationed in Redwood City, CA. Her community's Pauline Bookstore hosts her ongoing presentations on the language of Christian symbols.

Paperback / 144 pages / Dimensions: 6" x 9" / ISBN: 0819826839
Retail Price: $16.95
Pauline Books & Media, Boston

BYOB: Bring your own Bible (for Lent!)

According to Sr. Helena, there's only 7 shopping days 'til Ash Wednesday! So do you have your Lenten spiritual program ready? If you are here in Chicago, we are offering two Bible studies, both using Jeff Cavins' "Great Adventure" DVDs and guided by an on-site presenter (sometimes me, sometimes Sr. Helena, sometimes a seminarian).
Our Saturday class begins this Saturday (10:30-12:00); it's the "Bible overview" in eight sessions. Registration fee $20; optional workbook is another $20. (Payment not refundable after Feb. 21.0
Tuesday evenings (6:30-8:00 p.m.), starting Feb. 24 and continuing through April 28, will cover the book of Revelation (Apocalypse). Registration fee $30; optional workbook is $20. (Payment not refundable after Feb. 24.)
To register, call or visit the Pauline Chicago bookstore (312 346-4228).

Still en route

Got on the train at Newark station. As it pulled out, this cheerful conductor informed me that it was the wrong one. Not a big problem: the correct train is coming in ten minutes. . .

En route

At the gate in terminal 1-C (O hare). Giving a talk tonight at St. Paul Church in Princeton, prayers, please!

TOB A-list

We had a TOB brainstorming session today, partly in person, partly online, partly by conference call. Christopher West and Fr. Loya couldn't make it, but we did exchange ideas with:

• Vicky Thorn, founder of Project Rachel and speaker on the science that supports the Theology of the Body. Vicki will be speaking this week in Madison, WI (Feb. 19; make it if you can; free but registration required) and on the 28th of this month in Milwaukee
• Mark Wassmer from Mike Mangione and his band
• Anastasia Northrup from TOBIA and Our Father's Will Communications (your source for Fr. Loya's DVDs and other TOB conference recordings)
• Kelly and Scott from Share a CD (a low-cost CD service, so you can spread the TOB message freely)

Plus, Deacon Dan (I hope I have his name right) from Toronto, Marta from Miami, Steve from Ascension Press, and Jenny from Toronto (who got the ball rolling in the first place to have this meeting). And others, including four FSPs: Sr. Kathryn and Sr. Grace in Boston, and Sr. Helena and I from here in Chicago.
You can find most of the above on Facebook; we are using the group "Theology of the Body & HV - Free Resources" to share info on events and opportunities. Join us to stay up to date on TOB around the world!

Censorship 2.0?

A tip of the "hat" to Karen and Mary Jo for noticing a particularly creative approach to book burning (which originated in Ephesus, circa 55 A.D. as a way for Christian converts to make a clean break with their past idolatry). Actually, it's more than book burning. But libraries (not to mention used bookstores) will be the most affected by the provisions of “The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008”which went into effect, unnoticed, on Feb. 10. The focus of the Act is any object intended for use by children.
It's a liability bonanza for any lawyers or groups that can win monetary awards against any offending institution if they can prove that children have been exposed to books printed before 1985.
I kid you not.
The American Library Association is taking this very seriously. According to their website:

"...the Association of American Publishers (AAP) have tested the components of books and found that the levels of lead in children’s books were far below the future legal requirements at the full implementation of the regulations three years from now. However, the advisory opinion from the CPSC says that not only must the testing be done by one of their certified labs but that this legislation also is retroactive, and every book must be tested. This situation will become even more complicated because the CPSC has not certified any labs to administer the lead testing."

(Books are to be held to the same testing standards as toys.)
The ALA is fighting this very hard; not to have books exempted from the "safety" prescriptions, but to have libraries exempted. (After all, very few children have been known to gnaw on old library books!)

The liturgy certainly offers some appropriate thoughts for this Valentine's Day: the second reading from the Office of Readings was Bl. Isaac of Stella on charity, and in the Gospel today, Jesus tells us what is in his heart as he looks on "the great crowd without anything to eat." Jesus came to their rescue before the people even had time to get anxious about the situation. ("Your Father knows what you need before you ask; seek first his kingdom and way of holiness and everything else will be given you in addition.")

After our Wednesday Theology of the Body session, I find myself reflecting on St. Valentine. All we know about him is that he was a priest and martyr. But in the light of the Theology of the Body, the connection of this priest with romantic love makes more sense than ever. Because in the Catholic sacramental system (and even more in the Eastern Churches), the priest's role is not only that of a representative of the people before God: he represents the Divine Bridegroom before his Bride, the Church. So... St. Valentine's Day is perfectly suited to the celebration of the love that finds its full expression in marriage, and that mirrors the love of Christ and the Church.

Aggie nuns?

Our vocationists spent a week at Texas A&M for a combination of their own annual meeting and some discernment activity among the student body. Sr. Helena came back a confirmed Aggie. Evidently they are doing some things really, really right over there: daily Mass at the Catholic chapel is a standing-room-only event; there are over 20 (twenty!) Theology of the Body groups, and a generally exceptional level of active Catholicism on campus.
Here's Sr. Helena's video summation of the week.

Forbidden Fruit

Alas, today's first reading tells of the beginning of all our troubles. Every sorrow, every grief, every act of injustice, war, infidelity, deception. Some superficial types complain that God should not have put the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the primordial garden if he didn't want us to eat its fruit. But let's see what the story really tells us...
The first thing I noticed on re-reading the story last night was the serpent's odd phraseology: if you eat the fruit, "you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil."
Evil is the privation of good. God, the true God, does not know evil! And he wanted to spare us this "knowledge," too, because you can only know a privation by suffering it. Outside of the experience of a privation, you do not really know it; you only know "about" it. So Adam and Eve already had been like God in their knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent can only be speaking of false gods: "god" redefined. How is it that Eve, or Adam after her, did not stop short at the glaring disconnect and say, "This does not match our experience of God at all!" Instead, they entered into the fictional worldview--where we have remained ever since: a world of competition ("red in tooth and claw") and ladder-climbing and backstabbing, of "winners" and "losers".
In the Gospel, Jesus brings the surprising freshness of God's own view of reality; an innocent worldview where " 'yes' means 'yes,' and 'no' means 'no'." He undoes the privation suffered by the nameless deaf man. Too bad Adam and Eve had not earlier been deaf to the serpent's insinuations!

Yummy

We had a birthday/thank-you celebration for one of our great Pauline volunteers and his wife (another great Pauline volunteer; both of them are novices in the Holy Family Institute). I was the cook du jour, and my culinary endeavors turned out so delicious, I have to tell you about them.
I started last night by putting a few (frozen) sprigs of rosemary (from Mom's back yard!) into a baking pan, then sitting an enormous salmon filet on top. I surrounded it with onion and garlic, drowned the whole thing in white wine, sprinkled it with a handful of dried lemon zest (from the Spice Store in Old Town) and put it in the fridge.
Today I peeled the potatoes and cut them into one-inch cubes; nuked them in a casserole dish full of water and left them to drain while I went to the afternoon Mass.
After Mass, the salmon went in the oven at 450. I put some cloves of garlic in olive oil and heated it until the garlic started falling apart. This then went into a frying pan along with some green beans. The potatoes went into another pan with a bit of salt, a tiny dollop of canola oil and lots of wonderful fragrant dill. (I also took some rosemary essential oil and touched it to the kitchen counter, to fill the area with the scent of the principal herb I was using.)
I generally like my own cooking, but this supper surpassed my expectations. And to top it off, we had Sr. Barbara's homemade blueberry pie for dessert!

If you didn't go to Mass today, the first reading is the creation of Eve (and Adam's delight at finally finding a creature like himself) and the Gospel is Jesus' repartee with the Syro-Phoenician woman who was pleading for a miracle for her little daughter. Jesus had turned her down (!) with an appeal to his own specific mission to the people of Israel, but the woman turned his words back on him in a way that seems to have delighted Jesus. So, far from refusing her, he sent her home to see the miracle her faith had brought about.
Today's liturgical readings would have been even better (for us here!) if they had been yesterday's. That's because we had our Theology of the Body study group meeting here. You can still access the video (some technical problems--as usual!) and here are Sr. Helena's notes. Sr. Lusia attended the session--it was her first real exposure to the Theology of the Body (English isn't her first language, so Pope John Paul's weighty tome wouldn't do it), and she has been talking about it all day, marveling at the renewal it offers...
What is your experience of TOB?

Our Lady of Lourdes

Today's feast of Our Lady of Lourdes closes the 150th anniversary celebration of these marvelous apparitions. Pope John Paul also established this day for the observance of the "World Day of the Sick." It's not the "Day of Prayer for the Sick," but precisely the "Day of the Sick." This is a way of emphasizing that suffering is not only a condition from which hapless victims need to be rescued or in which they should be at least supported by our thoughtfulness: dedicating a day to the sick themselves proclaims, in the words of this year's Papal message, that "human life is beautiful and should be lived in fullness even when it is weak and shrouded by the mystery of suffering."
Even though we may not spontaneously apply the word "weak" to the Apostle, St. Paul knew about weakness and suffering. Remember that "thorn in the flesh"? No one knows what it was; all we can tell from Paul's language is that it caused him real suffering over a long period of time. And he prayed to be delivered from it! Instead, he was told, "My power is made perfect in weakness." And so Paul's paradoxical response was to "boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me, for when I am weak, then I am strong."
There are people like Paul who live their weakness in a priestly spirit, "offering it up" the way St. Therese offered her weary steps so that a missionary would be strengthened by her weakness to walk through danger to bring the Gospel to new peoples. In the encyclical on hope, Pope Benedict invites us to take up this practice again, letting our weakness (whatever form it takes) be transformed into the "sufferings of Christ for the sake of his Body, the Church."
(Other times in this blog I have mentioned the good work of the Catholic organization of people with chronic suffering; it's kind of a pen-pal support group for the mutual encouragement of this same "missionary attitude" in dealing with suffering: see www.cusan.org.)

Did you miss me?

I was in Joliet talking about St. Paul, and totally cut off from the Internet, so boy do I have a lot of catching up to do!

St. Paul's parish invited me for their "Flag" program: Families Learning About God (intergenerational catechesis). The kids were so responsive!

Everyone's Favorite Apostle

Even in this Year of St. Paul, everyone's favorite Apostle is still St. Jude. His popularity owes a great deal, at least in this country, to the Claretian Fathers and their Shrine of St. Jude, here in Chicago. Next week, in fact (Valentine's Day!), the Claretians will begin celebrating four score years of novenas to the "forgotten" Apostle, and they will be doing it in style (with a novena, of course). My friend and frequent commenter, Father Fred, tells me that the novena will be held three times a day, twice in English (2:30 and 5:30 each afternoon) and in the evening in Spanish (at 7:45, after Mass). The English preacher is the much-published Blessed Sacrament Father Paul Bernier, and the Spanish preacher is the Claretian's own Brother Manuel Benavides, who has the reputation of being an outstanding speaker. (If only I knew Spanish as well as I know Italian!)
Everything is happening at the St. Jude Shrine, located at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 3200 East 91st St. in the far southesast side of Chicago.
Does anyone have a St. Jude story to share? The only one I have is...my brother's middle name is Jude (we always said it was because he was impossible).

Entering religious life is not without it risks. Not only do you have to leave the comfort of your home and family (as in my case) or the comfortable sense of responsibility in your career (as is more and more the case today), during formation you, of necessity, have to withhold judgment in some cases in order to learn the spirit of the community, its customs, stories, manner of interpreting events in the light of a charism that is still only incipient in you. You have to trust the superiors and formators to some degree, and your trust is based on faith: ultimately, faith in the Church which granted the congregation its recognition and approval, and in Jesus who said the "gates of hell shall not prevail."
Unfortunately, superiors don't always know what they're doing or fully live the values they proclaim. They can let you down.
Because of that, there's a verse in today's first reading that has long provoked conflicting feelings in me: "Remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you." I still remember how I felt at the realization that my trusted spiritual director (a longtime superior in my community), was, despite all her sincerity and good will, not a reliable guide at all. I felt unmoored, and began to question everything I had ever heard in community. The circumstances were not grave; the spiritual harm I suffered not deadly, but I was profoundly shaken.
This allows me to feel tremendous sympathy for the Legionaries of Christ and members of Regnum Christi now that the unsavory allegations against their founder are beginning to be substantiated. So far, official statements have been characterized by incredibly vague language, as though the community were hoping that a simple admission of "conduct unbecoming" would allow the whole matter to be dealt with and all traces of it swept carefully under the rug of charity. I hope that what we have seen is just a first step, while they consult with some of our wisest bishops about the best course of action to take for the greater glory of God and good of the Church. (I would recommend they seek counsel from the bishops who did not fawn over them during the founder's prosperous lifetime.) Meanwhile, there are thousands of innocent souls who "left all things" to hear "the Word of God" from a man who is now being revealed as a kind of Dorian Gray of the clerical state. Today's reading can, for now, only drive a stake further into their hearts: "Remember your leaders... consider the outcome of their lives and imitate their faith." How can they do that and still maintain peace?
But it is especially important for those betrayed members of the two communities to go back to that reading from Hebrews. They are consecrated to Jesus, not to any human being; they put their ultimate hope in Jesus, and he is completely, utterly faithful. Even if their "leaders" fail, "the Word of the Lord stands forever": "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever."

Untouchables

Today's first reading is a comparison of two revelations of God: the first is the revelation of God on Mount Sinai, replete with thunderbolts and earthquakes and all manner of very convincing evidence that God is taking the proceedings quite seriously. So seriously, in fact, that no one, not even a goat, could so much as touch the mountain. The whole thing was too much for the people, who all begged God to find a more subtle form of communication.
So God did. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wants to remind us (or maybe convince us) that we have drawn near a new mountain, a new Jerusalem, a city where angels are gathered in festival, and the covenant blood of Jesus. Abel's blood had called out to God from the soil where it had been spilled by his brother; his blood called for vengeance. Jesus' blood calls out to the Father from the Cross, not in a wordless plea for vengeance, but in the eloquent prayer, "Father, forgive them."
It's still an "untouchable" situation; we can only access it now through faith. And in the Gospel, Jesus has the fledgling apostles go out on an initial mission, "preaching repentance." Maybe today would be a good day to reflect on the gift of faith, and to thank the Lord that even without the blazing mountain and trumpet blast, we have been given the grace to know him in this life.

I was surprised by the number of people at the 5:00 Mass at St. Peter's this evening. Usually, Wednesday evenings are rather sparsely attended. I was being edified by the increase in devotion when it hit me: these must be Holy Name Cathedral's daily Mass people, exiled (again) from the edifice--this time because of fire.
Sr. Irene Regina was on her way to the 6:00 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral when a woman in uniform stopped her. Sr. Irene thought there was some mistake, so she said, "I'm just going to Church." "There ain't no Church today," came the reply. Not until she had crossed the street on her way home did Sr. Irene look up and see the Cathedral roof in flames. This is a Cathedral that had been closed for eight months last year while the ceiling was repaired. This time it's the roof, and serious water damage to the sanctuary. I'm praying for the poor pastor who has to face such a nightmare.
God be praised, in both cases, no one was hurt, although the firefighters did suffer quite a bit from the cold.

Meanwhile, across the ocean...while the firefighters were sending streams of icy water to the roof of Holy Name, the Holy Father was speaking to the usual Wednesday crowds about St. Paul. In highlighting the Apostle's spiritual heritage, he noted the number of religious communities that have sprung up under Paul's patronage, and specifically mentioned the Paulist Fathers ("The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle") and the "many-faceted Pauline Family founded by Blessed James Alberione."

Sister Mary Oscars?

Sr. Rose writes about a visit to Sony Studios: will she appear on the silver screen on Oscar night?

I was interviewed briefly for the "Our Catholic Life" podcast; if you listen closely, you'll hear the instrumental base for one of the songs in our latest album, "In Paradisum." The version of "O Sanctissima" is from last year's release, "Catholic Favorites, vol. 1."

Candlemas

For the popular culture, today is Groundhog Day (he popped back, at least here in Chicago: uh oh), but on the liturgical calendar, the day is called Candlemas, or the Presentation of the Lord. It's the 40th day of Christmas, the day when a woman's first son would be "redeemed" from God by means of a sacrifice at the Temple. Of course, in the Presentation of the Lord, something else entirely is happening. Instead of the firstborn son being replaced by a pair of turtledoves, he himself is the ransom for many, although the sacrifice will not be completed for thirty-plus years. The readings for today add another dimension: the Lord is coming to his Temple. "But who may abide the day of his coming?" In the first reading, the Lord is coming like a blazing fire to purify the people like so much gold and silver. It's more an image of the second coming than of this day, when the Lord comes, yes, but in diapers in the arms of his mother.

The "candles" of the day are inspired by the Gospel. Simeon recognizes the infant as "a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people, Israel."