In Memoriam

Each year, much as journalists' organizations publish the names of news reporters, writers and camerapeople who were killed while carrying out their work, the Pontifical missionary news organzation Fides publishes a list of Catholic pastoral workers who suffered violent deaths on Church property or while carrying out their ministry. This list includes only priests, religious brothers and sisters, catechists and parish staff, not lay faithful who suffered martyrdom simply for holding to their faith. (That list would be long, indeed.)

According to Fides, "During 2011, 26 pastoral care workers were killed: one more than the previous year: 18 priests, 4 religious sisters, 4 lay people. For the third consecutive year, the place most affected, with an extremely elevated number of pastoral workers killed is AMERICA, bathed with the blood of 13 priests and 2 lay persons. Following is AFRICA, where 6 pastoral workers were killed: 2 priests, 3 religious sisters,1 lay person. ASIA, where 2 priests, 1 religious sister, 1 lay person were killed. The least affected was EUROPE, where one priest was killed. Biographical details can be found in the linked document.

"As in ancient times, today the sincere adherence to the Gospel may require the sacrifice of life, and many Christians in various parts of the world are sometimes exposed to persecution and martyrdom."

Pope Benedict XVI

December 26, 2011

AMERICA
In America 15 pastoral care workers were killed (13 priests and 2 lay people). They were killed in Colombia (7), Mexico (5), Brazil (1), Paraguay (1) and Nicaragua (1).
In Colombia 6 priests and 1 lay person were killed: Fr. Rafael Reátiga Rojas and Fr.Richard Armando Piffano Laguado killed by gunshot by a murderer who was traveling with the two priests; Fr. Luis Carlos Orozco Cardona, killed by a young man who shot him among the crowd; Fr. Gustavo Garcia, age 34, murdered at a bus stop (he was heading to a sick call) by a man who wanted to steal his mobile phone; Fr. Jose Reinel Restrepo Idárraga, killed by unknown persons while he was riding his motorcycle which was then stolen along with other objects belonging to the priest; Fr. Gualberto Oviedo Arrieta, age 34, found covered with wounds and knifed to death, in the rectory of his parish. To the list of priests we also add a lay man Luis Eduardo Garcia, a member of the Social Pastoral, attacked by a group of guerrillas, kidnapped and then killed.
In Mexico, 4 priests died and 1 lay woman: Fr. Santos Sánchez Hernández, attacked by an intruder who entered his house, most likely to steal; Fr. Francisco Sanchez Duran, found in the church with wounds to the neck, perhaps in an attempt to stop a robbery in church; Fr. Salvador Ruiz Enciso, who was kidnapped and killed, and whose body could only be identified through DNA; Fr. Marco Antonio Duran Romero, killed in a gunfight between soldiers and an armed group. To the list we add Mary Elizabeth Macías Castro, of the Scalabrinian Lay Movement, who worked at a newspaper and in contact with migrants, kidnapped by a group of drug dealers and brutally killed.
In Brazil, Fr. Romeu Drago was killed in his home. His body was then brought to about 25 km from his home, where he was burned.
In Paraguay, Bishop.Julio Cesar Alvarez was killed. His body was found in his room, hand and foot bound, with injuries and scratches and strangled.
In Nicaragua, Fr. Marlon Ernesto Pupiro García was kidnapped and killed .

AFRICA
In Africa, 6 pastoral care workers were killed: 2 priests, 3 women religious, 1 lay person. The killings took place in Burundi (2) and DR Congo, Southern Sudan, Tunisia, Kenya.
In Tunisia Fr. Marek Rybinsk was killed, a Salesian missionary, whose body was found dead in a local Salesian school of Manouba.
In Kenya Fr. Awuor Kiser was attacked in a suburb of the Kenyan capital. Shot in the chest with an edged weapon and died because of the serious the wounds.
In R.D. Congo Sister Jeanne Yegmane was killed in an ambush.
In South Sudan Sister Angelina died while bringing medical aid to refugees.
In Burundi, during a robbery attempt Sister Lukrecija Mamica of the "Sisters of Charity" and Francesco Bazzani, a volunteer, were killed.

ASIA
In 2011 in Asia the deaths of 4 pastoral care workers were recorded: 2 priests, 3 religious sisters, 1 lay person. They died in: India (3) and the Philippines (1).
In India, the priest Fr. G. Amalan was killed in his room by a young man who escaped with a few rupees found in the home; the religious Sister Valsha John, working among the poor, the marginalized and tribal people, killed in her home, a catechist and lay activist Rabindra Parichha, kidnapped and killed.
In the Philippines, Fr. Fausto Tentorio, PIME missionary was killed, who had dedicated his life to the service of literacy and development of the indigenous known as lumads. He was killed while on his way to a priests’ meeting, two gunmen shot him in the head and back.

EUROPE
In Spain, Fr. Ricardo Munoz Juarez was killed by thieves who broke into his home.

 

May they all enjoy the light of God's face, and intercede for us so that our lives of faith will allow the light of Christ to shine in the world throughout 2012!

Information from Fides, used under the Creative Commons license.

Book Report

As a presenter on the new missal, I have spent the past year immersed in the texts and in texts about the texts. Today I just finished yet another book about the Roman Missal, this one by a Chicago priest (and consultant for Cardinal George). Of all the titles I have read this year, this is the book I would most highly recommend, both for the more sophisticated members of the "daily Mass crowd" and for parish staff members, especially those on liturgy committees.

Father Tuzik doesn't just give the background to the new translation of the Mass prayers or the lengthy process of the translation and its approval. (Hey, you've gotten a lot of that from me already!) As the subtitle says, he really offers "pastoral reflections" on the prayers themselves, highlighting texts that the earlier translation had not really delivered (with a kind of "before" and "after" treatment in columns, so you can see the precise word changes and appreciate the difference). He also (and this is where the book is truly unique and useful) goes into the less-frequented parts of the Roman Missal: not just the various votive Masses, but the abundant ritual masses (Baptism, Confirmation, etc.) which are now included in the altar book, and the other optional masses--and they are many! (Each category has its own chapter.) Within the treatment, he will give a few examples of specific prayers, and then offer suggestions about when that particular set of mass prayers would be best used in a parish setting. As Tuzik observed, most of the time priests use the Sunday prayer texts, when there are so many optional prayers that match the readings for the day and put into relief a dimension of faith that deserves a bit more attention.
Among the Masses for various needs and occasions, there is the Mass "for the Progress of Peoples"; one "for Refugees and Exiles"; "In thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life." There is one Mass of thanksgiving whose prayers are suitable when people have been rescued from peril, and another Mass of thanksgiving where the prayers reflect more a sense of gratitude for successful endeavors. There are Masses for seedtime and Masses for harvest; Mass prayers for public officials (prayer may not be the most spontaneous thing that would occur to people when thinking of elected leaders!). There are Masses for the sick, and a Mass "for the Grace of a Happy Death" (which, Tuzik points out in that ever-present pastoral spirit, can be really suitable in the case of the terminally ill, acknowledging that they may even be longing for the Lord to come for them soon.) There's even a (how appropriate to our times!) Mass "for Chastity" whose prayers remind me of Ronald Knox's observation that virginity is not something slight and fragile, but something bold and grand, like a parade coming down the street: "Through the Sacraments we have received, O Lord, may our heart and our body flourish anew..."

His style is consistently pastoral and personal: refreshing in the field of liturgy! So, if you enjoy hearty reading of a theological bent, and haven't heard enough yet about the Roman Missal, or (above all) if you serve on your parish staff and assist the priests with liturgy planning, this is a book for you!

The other Babies of Bethlehem

Today's feast of the Holy Innocents can be a real head-scratcher. How can infants and toddlers be hailed as martyrs? Isn't that taking things too far?

And yet.

I am beginning to think that this feast offers us one the most profound interpretation of life. For Herod, the Innocents were just collateral damage in his attempt to protect the throne he would lose anyway--when he died before those babies could have even learned to tie their own sandals. As meaningless as the deaths of those babies could seem--just a couple of dozen more victims of one of history's many despots--this feast claims that their little lives were meaningful indeed, even though they could not articulate that meaning for themselves. 

After all, who gets to assign meaning to a human life when it is taken by force? The one doing the taking? The judges of history, seeing if any "benefit" came out of their suffering?

One of my daily prayer intentions is for the conversion of scientists involved in embryo research. Every day, I pray that "one more" will be converted from this hideous pursuit in which "surplus" embryos (whether from people's misguided attempts at overcoming infertility, or from abortion, or--Heaven help us--created in a laboratory for experimental purposes) are conscripted like so many minute slaves forced into someone else's service.  How far does the noble goal of saving lives and overcoming dread diseases go in bestowing genuine meaning on these tens of thousands of deaths? Does that imputed meaning legitimate the exploitation of these utterly helpless members of the human family, or are they simply new, nameless victims of someone else's power? Can one human being determine or direct the meaning of another's life?

It is not the oppressor, the despot, the murderer, the exploiter, who determines the meaning of a victim's life, but only God who gave that life.  Today's feast "claims for Christ" every innocent suffering, every betrayed love, every broken trust. Why? Because Jesus took on our humanity, making himself one with each and every person: with the victims of sin and injustice, to endure their lot, and with their oppressors, murderers and abusers, to atone for them--and save them, if they would accept it.


From Pope Benedict's homily for Christmas  Midnight Mass:
  "God has appeared - as a child. It is in this guise that He pits Himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors' rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One Who loves us, the One through Whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you. We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors' rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours."
V.I.S. -Vatican Information Service. www.visnews.org 

The feast continues...

Illustration by Allie Aucoin, age 6.

Our community celebrated the feast of Christmas (the feasting part) with 8 guests. We had to configure our two round tables into a kind of figure 8 so everyone could be together. Sr Frances and I took care of the menu. Come to think of it, Sr Frances also took care of all the decorating. And the place-setting. Back home, the family (minus one, me) gathered at Mom's house. (That's where the illustration comes from

So here we are on the third day of Christmas.

The Christmas Octave doesn't really feel like an octave. Not the way the Easter Octave does. In Easter Time (the new "Roman Missal "designation for the liturgical period formerly known as "Season"), the Octave takes precedence over every other feast, even a solemnity! That's because every day of the Easter Octave is considered a solemnity. But the Christmas Octave is scattered about with early and medieval saints. Yesterday brought the unlikely scene of a martyrdom with the feast of St. Stephen. But it has a profound link with Christmas, when you think about it. How many of our Christmas hymns refer poignantly to the suffering the Babe in the manger will undergo for us? St. Stephen proclaims that he will (to use Paul's words) "bear a share in the hardship the Gospel entails." Today is the feast of the apostle St. John, who wrote of "seeing" and "touching" the "Word of Life."

Tomorrow, more martyrs: the baby martyrs of Bethlehem, who died at the hands of Herod. Then Thomas Becket, then Wenceslaus (the "good king"). This year, the feast of the Holy Family takes the only empty spot in the Octave. (It is usually celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas, unless Christmas falls on a Sunday.) St. Sylvester is the New Year's Eve saint, bringing us to Jan 1, the Octave of Christmas. These 8-day observances are one of those biblical influences on the liturgy. (Notice how Passover and Hanukkah also last for eight days?)


What about the "twelve" days of Christmas? That leads us to Epiphany (and the beginning, back home, of "King Cake season," which is an entirely unique semi-liturgical time of its own). It's a little tricky keeping track of the days of Christmas, given that here in the US we celebrate Epiphany on a different date every year: do the twelve days end with the liturgical observance, or with the universal (and traditional) date? What about in your family: Do you try to keep all twelve days of Christmas in some way?

Midnight Mass and the Roman Missal

It's coming! Tomorrow night! Another opportunity for your not-so-liturgically-aware relatives to be introduced to the new Roman Missal!
For many people, Christmas "Midnight Mass" remains a tradition they'd never think of departing from, even though other forms of religious observance don't have a place in their calendar. That means that tomorrow night they will have their first experience of the changes in the Mass translation--starting with that opening "and with your Spirit." As I've written before, this could shake people up to the extent that they feel definitively alienated from the Church's life (and not just blasé).
We have a day and a half to prepare them.
Does your extended family have a "together at Midnight Mass" tradition?
Have your not-so-practicing relatives heard about the Mass changes yet?
What do you recommend as a non-preachy way of alerting Christmas/Easter Catholics to the changes they can expect this year?

Christmas Carols: few results

Well, we're all a bit too busy to answer a survey just for fun, I suppose. Only seven people responded to the Christmas Carol Survey I posted the other day. But the results are interesting.
With so many lovely songs to choose from for best Christmas Carol, "O Holy Night" got special mention.
Among the secular favorites, I was surprised to see "Pat-a-Pan" (which also got "panned" by one respondent who never wants to hear it again). I think I might put "Pat-a-Pan" up there in my list for the favorite religious songs category: the lyrics I'm familiar with (we recorded it years ago) read like a catechism on the Incarnation: "God and man to union come // with the birth of Christ His Son // our adoption He has won..." Does that count as "stealth evangelization," then?

Advent Readings: a Turn-around!

The way the Liturgy of the Word is structured (for special feasts and seasons, and most Sundays), there is ideally a kind of parallel or "match" of some sort between the first reading (from the Old Testament) and the Gospel. The Responsorial Psalm is meant to provide us with a prayer that we can carry through the day as an ongoing response to the Word of God.
Today's Liturgy of the Word turns that around a bit. Instead of there being a match between the first reading and the Gospel, it is the Responsorial Psalm (which isn't even from the book of Psalms!) that is the Gospel parallel. In fact, Scripture scholars would say there is a pretty direct correlation between the two: Hannah's canticle and Mary's Magnificat. (Of course, Mary had a lot more to sing about!)
Hannah's story is one of those lovely "types" that the Old Testament is so full of: real people and real events that were also prophetic hints of even better things God had in store.

Baby talk

Today's Gospel is the story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth, and the encounter of the unborn Jesus and his precursor. It's an amazing story; even more amazing when you pair it with other Scripture texts. The liturgy pairs the Gospel with a lovely passage from the Song of Songs. That reading ends with the words "Let me see you, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and you are lovely."
It is the sound of that sweet voice that triggers all the excitement in the Gospel. "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb and Elizabeth [was] filled with the Holy Spirit..." As holy as the Virgin Mary is, no human voice alone has the power to fill another person with the Holy Spirit. We might go so far as to say that the unborn Savior was speaking through his mother's voice. The grown-up John seems to say, in fact, that what he heard and responded to that day was not so much Mary's voice as the "voice of the Bridegroom" she carried: "The friend of the Bridegroom stands and listens for him, and rejoices greatly at the Bridegroom's voice. That is my joy, and it is full" (Jn. 3).
In turn, the unborn prophet seemed to be speaking through his mother's voice when she said, "Blessed  are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."
Ultimately, today's Advent liturgy is about being able to listen. Because only if we listen, will we be able to respond, in the words of the Responsorial Psalm, "Our soul waits for the Lord...for in him our hearts rejoice."

Christmas Carols!

Just a little fun, now that we've been hearing "holiday music" on the air for a month... start thinking of your best-loved and most-loathed songs of the season, and then fill out the survey. Compare your answers with everyone else's!

Compare the answers!

Not me!

Today's first reading is often heard on Marian feast days. Today being not a Marian feast day, but a Marian day of Advent, it is paired (as usual) with the Annunciation story. I have to admit, though, I get a little tired of it.
It's the story of King Ahaz, facing invasions from neighboring chieftans. Ahaz is sending ambassadors to create alliances who will help him resist the invaders, while God is telling him to have a little faith. God even offers to send Ahaz a sign, any sign he wants, as proof that God is with his Chosen People to protect them. But Ahaz says, "Not me! I'm not going to ask for a sign! That would be tempting God!" (As if Ahaz' crafting strategic alliances with Assyria was really a sign of his great faith in God.) Isn't it funny the way we can maneuver to maintain appearances of faith, while working frantically to make things work out on our own terms? That's what I got from Ahaz today.
In the end, God devised a sign of his own. Ahaz would get an heir, and we would get a tantalizing hint that this heir was, himself, a "sign" that God would be with his people: that God would be Emmanuel.

Advent: A Change in the Air

Daily Mass-goers might have noticed it in the readings today: the Advent season has shifted into high gear. Did it catch your attention?
Instead of general prophecies about the Messianic age and stories from the public ministry illustrating the fulfillment of those ancient hopes, we heard the first of a series of extremely specific Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament: Jacob's "blessing" of his fourth-born son, Judah: "The scepter shall never depart from Judah." In case we missed that, the Gospel gives us that long list of Jesus' ancestors, beginning with Abraham and Isaac, then Jacob, and then Judah....leading into "David the King" and up to Jesus, shown as a descendant of Judah through Joseph.
From now until Christmas, the readings will follow that same pattern: a powerful Old Testament passage with a rather direct correlation to a Gospel reading that will always be taken from the Infancy Narratives of Matthew (as today) or Luke.
The verse before the Gospel is also unique to this octave before Christmas, with the appearance of the "O" antiphons--themselves a compilation of Messianic titles leading into the heartfelt plea: "Come!"

Advent's extra day

 This is it! The Advent day we hardly ever see: a Friday of the Third Week of Advent that's not within the Christmas novena. And so the reading for today are just as rare, which is too bad. The first reading is God's marvelous promise through the prophet Isaiah that his house "will be a house of prayer for all peoples." Later, of course, Jesus will cite those very words when he "cleanses" that part of the Temple that was open to the Gentiles. And as God promised to join "others" to Israel who had not been part of that people, Jesus would say that he had "other sheep not of this flock" that would be joined into one flock under the one shepherd.

Advent 2011: The Long and the Short of It

It may seem as though Advent has been zipping past at the speed of light, but this year Advent is actually as long as it possibly can be. With Christmas on a Sunday, we are getting four full weeks of Advent (rather than just four Sundays and whatever days remain of the fourth week of Advent).
What are you doing to make the most of this "extended" Advent?

Virgin Martyrs

On this feast of the virgin martyr Lucy, it is tempting to think that the pious stories of Roman maidens resisting seducers and standing firm against pressure to offer sacrifices to idols have no place in modern society. And then you read news like this.

Advent is "this insistent call to watchfulness, to be ready to welcome the Lord. It is a time of waiting and interior preparation for our meeting with the Lord" (Bl. John Paul II).
In today's opening prayer (now called the "collect"), Advent is described a bit differently: not as a season, but as the definitive coming of Christ. "May the splendor of your glory dawn in our hearts, we pray...that...we may be shown to be children of light by the advent of your Only Begotten Son, who lives and reigns..."
This is an advent that accomplishes something. It is a coming that, in a certain sense, imposes itself as that coming at Bethlehem did not.
It is a coming that summons, judges, winnows, silences, reveals, proves, defends, vindicates, rewards, sets right.
If, as the Gospel says, "Elijah has already come (in John the Baptist) but they did not recognize him," there will be no such lack of recognition at this Coming. It will be the fulfillment of Mary's Magnificat; the answer to every prayer in its essence; the fulfillment of all the promises and of every hope: "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the starving with good things and sent the rich away empty."
At this mid-point of the season, is this what our Advent is like?

Advent Holy Wisdom

Today's Gospel seems like a bit of a negative intrusion in the overall atmosphere of joyful anticipation that is Advent: the critics of Jesus and his precursor, John the Baptist, seem to dominate with their fault-finding. John is too ascetic; Jesus too normal. Long before Abraham Lincoln's comment about pleasing some of the people some of the time, Jesus simply says "wisdom is proven by her works."
This feast of St. Juan Diego bears that out. The Aztec convert wasn't exactly the Bishop's idea of a messenger worthy of the Virgin Mary. (Juan didn't think so either, but he did Our Lady's bidding all the same.) 500 years later, wisdom's works are apparent.
Whether in John the Baptist, or Jesus, or Mary or Juan Diego, the Holy Spirit (Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom) was manifest for all who had eyes to see.

O (cyber) Christmas Tree!

So today the Pope lit a virtual Christmas tree (made up of actual lights, but no tree), using an Android Tablet to light up a mountainside over the town of Gubbio (remember the story of St. Francis and the wolf? That Gubbio.)
Geeks everywhere interpreted the gesture as an ecumenical outreach: after all, he had previously used an iPad to launch the Vatican news portal. Although Benedict prefers the pen to the pixel himself, the head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications says "With this Pope, Vatican communications have made enormous strides."
Go here to read the Pope's comments as he flipped the switch (er, touched the icon) to light the tree.

Thoughts on St. Ambrose

One thing about the new translation of the Mass prayers that I noticed between yesterday and today is how the "proper" prayers for saints like Nicholas (yesterday) and Ambrose (today) identify the saint first as "Bishop": "O God, who made the Bishop Saint Ambrose a teacher..." Their vocation in the Church becomes part of their name.
Ambrose is one of those saints whose vocation story itself did not fit the usual model. He was the governor of the Roman province centered at Milan; just a civic leader. In terms of his relationship with the Church, he was a catechumen: a student preparing for Baptism. In other words, the least likely candidate for the office of local bishop. But the community was so divided by the Arian heresy (that Jesus is the highest of God's creatures, but not "consubstantial with the Father"), that when the old bishop died, chaos ensued. The governor had to intervene and call for calm and cooperation. And then the fateful voice rang out: "Ambrose for Bishop!" Within a week, he had received four sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Holy Orders) and was consecrated Bishop.
This could have been the death knell for Christianity in Milan. Instead, it was its rebirth. Why? Because Ambrose was such an outstanding human being whose natural gifts met every need? Funny, but until this new translation of the Missal, that's just how I tended to see things. This morning, though, the newly translated entrance antiphon from the "Common of Pastors" set me straight: "In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth (thus far, the natural gifts of the man), and the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding..."
Ambrose was a gifted man, but it was the Lord who filled him with the incredible wisdom that made him one of the greatest of the Church Fathers. (He's one of the four Latin Fathers represented at the "Altar of the Chair" in St. Peter's Basilica.)
Ambrose didn't just passively accept the role of Bishop and attempt to carry it out faithfully. He took that office as his vocation and let it take over his l ife. His vocation redefined his life. Ambrose became entirely a man of the Church, devoting his prodigious intellectual and organizational and artistic gifts to the study and contemplation of Scripture, so that he could "translate" the Bible into solid and digestible teachings, into authentic liturgy and rich song. (The Church's favorite Advent hymn is not so much "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" as it is "Veni Redemptor Gentium" ("Savior of the Nations, Come"--you'll find it i n your parish hymnal): attributed to St. Ambrose.
That voice in the streets of Milan, "Ambrose for Bishop!" set the coures of his entire life, and impacted the Church until the end of time because of Ambrose's influence on his even more outstanding convert, Augustine.
And I suspect that each and every Christian who fully lives his or her vocation is meant to have the same level of influence on the Church!

From the Road

We've sung through four scheduled concerts (and one somewhat impromptu one at the nursing care facility of some Dominican sisters); yesterday we made our way from New York to Northern Virginia. I'm writing from our Old Town (Alexandria) convent, where I was stationed back in the mid-80's.

So far, the concerts are going well, and seem to be hitting the right "note" for the people who attend. The theme is "Our Christmas Hope" (same as our new CD, which pretty much contains the concert lineup). The times really call for a message of hope. (Who knows what burdens people bring with them when they walk through the doors?) After our Cleveland concert (that was Friday), one woman told me, "When I came here, I was really feeling down. But the concert did lift my spirits: I feel so much better now!"

Cleveland was also where I noticed a rather serious man in a front pew, his neck draped in a scarf that was woven to look like a piano keyboard. Every so often he would jot something on a notepad. Uh-oh, I thought, this is a music reviewer! Sure enough. After the concert, he introduced himself to Sr Sean, and told her to look for his review on Tuesday. Even though he represents the highly discriminating world of classical music, I am not too worried about his review. Not because I think we're that good, but because it is clear from our concert itself that we don't take ourselves too seriously. We are there to offer a message about Jesus and to give people an hour of spiritual uplift, counting on God to do the heavy lifting.

The concert was also broadcast last night on the Diocese of Brooklyn's NETNY TV channel (and on netny.net). We caught most of it online. The visual presentation was wonderful. (This is the Christmas concert we taped back in August.) Unfortunately, the sound engineers fell asleep on the job: some of the songs were well "mixed" (as they say); the solos were clear and strong because the technicians made sure that the volume from the choir microphones was lower than the soloist. But on other songs, the solo microphone was put on the same volume level as the choir, which basically muted the solo. Or the solo mikes were left at full volume when the choir was supposed to take over. There were songs in which all the sound seemed to be what the cameras picked up, not what came through the microphones. What a disappointment to have such poor audio quality represent our entire music ministry throughout the wide area of NET NY's influence. Perhaps they rushed it through and lost track of what songs had been mixed, and which ones not... Hopefully, they will address this before next year. (There's not much hope they will fix it before the rebroadcast.)

Tonight we will do our family-style concert at Good Shepherd Parish here in Alexandria. (There's plenty to keep even young children entertained.) Tomorrow our caravan sets out for Boston and the final three concerts.

Have you been to any of this year's concerts? Did you catch the (unfortunate) NET NY concert last night?