US Bishops Propose New Year's Resolution

You might have missed this, but at their November meeting the United States Bishops approved a concept that probably ought to be recommended to every Catholic as a New Year's Resolution.

This recommended resolution is a call to a weekly day of fasting, along with a commitment to prayer on a regular basis (daily Rosary, monthly Holy Hour) for special intentions related to life, families and religious liberty.

Every week a different special intention is announced, and an information bulletin offers additional information, suggested prayers and more, so the prayer and fasting can be informed, focused and ongoing, and not just a vague, easily forgotten resolution. This is part of a movement, so Catholics can find support, encouragement and motivation in the larger community of those who are taking part.

Last year, the bishops of England and Wales reinstated the common Friday penance of abstinence from meat, inviting Catholics to take up this practice together. I remember when this was mandatory--and for many, it must have been rather perfunctory. In the 1960's the bishops thought it would be more spiritually fruitful for people to choose a personal penitential practice to honor our Lord's death every Friday. Instead, the weekly remembrance of the Cross went out with the fish sticks and tuna casseroles. I think the US bishops are taking a good approach, inviting us to reclaim something from our tradition--a unifying identity marker, to be sure, but by intensifying it (fasting and abstinence--that's what we are only "obliged" to do on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) and making it a weekly, conscious intention and not a blanket mandate, the bishops are really calling us to the "grown-up" approach their predecessors had expected to see 40 years ago.

What is your take on this recommendation? Will you include it among your resolutions for 2014?

Ya Gotta Love Chicago (especially at Christmas!)

Best Friends Day

I hereby proclaim December 27, Feast of the Apostle and Evangelist St. John, to be "Best Friends Day." This is, after all, "the disciple Jesus loved," the favorite among the Twelve apostles. With St Andrew he was the first (literal) follower of Jesus, and the witness to all the major events in the public life of Jesus. He stood under the cross, took Christ's bereaved mother in, ran to the tomb on Easter Day (where "he saw and believed" what had not yet been announced). John is a wonderful patron and image of a faithful friend.

Is it possible that friendship is a notion we need to reclaim as a culture?

on the feast of Stephen

The first saint of the Christmas season isn't really one I would have chosen, but Stephen "saw his glory," the glory the shepherds heard in the angels' song that Christmas night. As I reflected on Stephen and what his martyrdom says to me, one thing came out in a particular way. (I have to admit, this reflection was probably strongly influenced by the passage I read last night in the huge biography of Bonhoeffer that I am working my way through; the chapter quoted a letter of his in which he commented that our lives are so powerfully guided in God's providence that we have nothing to fear, not even what could kill us. Our death itself is in God's providence. As Stephen "saw the Son of Man standing at God's right hand," I realized that because of Jesus and the death he faced alone for us, no one will ever, ever be truly alone at death. 

Help your friends celebrate all Twelve Days of Christmas! Find more Christmas message squares (ideal for Facebook and Twitter) on the website of Pauline Books and Media!

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New e-device? "Baptize" it with some Catholic e-books! http://t.co/45mhDohtXL 

Merry Christmas!

New Lyrics for Old Holiday Favorites

On that long drive from Northern Virginia to Boston (an annual experience of the concert choir), you can only say so many rosaries. I used part of the drive last year to come up with what I thought was a winning medley. All I need now is an arranger!

(Open with snippets of all four melodies in a kind of overture, then segue to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer")

Hearing the angel's message,

Shepherds went to Bethlehem,

Looking for Baby Jesus,

Meeting up with three Wise Men.

What if you had been with them?

Would you have gone out to see

Jesus the newborn savior,

Center of all his----to-----ry?

(Segue to "Frosty the Snowman" but start with a verse, not the chorus)

There must have been

a wondrous hymn

in Bethlehem that day

to make the shepherds leave their flocks

for a Baby in the hay!

O!

Jesus the Savior,

in a most unlikely place.

Not in strength and awe,

but a crib of straw,

and a tiny infant's face.

(Segue to "Here Comes Santa Claus")

Here come the Wise Men,

Riding on camels,

kicking up desert sand.

NIght after dark night, 

Led by a star's light,

Coming with gifts in hand.

What will you bring

to the new King

in that stable out there?

Let your heart be

His completely

and Christmas will last all year.

(Segue to triumphant "Ode to Joy")

Christ, awaited by generations,

ever since old Adam's fall.

He's the reason

for the season,

Merry Christmas, one and all!

(Closing "overture" reprising snippets of all four themes)

Christmas Novena, Day 9

"God is important, by far the most important matter in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing issues in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place--however important they may be--so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbor is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly alive, when we live our humanity to the full."
Benedict XVI (2009)

Christmas Novena, Day 8

"God's sign is that he makes himself small" (Benedict XVI).

Chicago Atheists inspire this Christmas A-List

Nothing says "Happy Winter Solstice, Everybody!" like an uppercase A in red lights set up in the public square, right? Well, that's the best the Chicago chapter of the "Freedom from Religion" Foundation could come up with. The A, fittingly enough, is the Greek prefix for negation, a big red "no." In placing their Dawkins-designed holiday symbol (note to Dawkins: keep your day job) in Daley Plaza, though, the group created an interesting framework through which to see the Christmas star--and inspired me to catalog a series of Christmas affirmations. Call it the ...

Christmas A-list

Meanwhile in Daley Plaza, carolers
singing "O Come All Ye Faithful"

A is for (let's start with the Solstice theme) Astronomy, and even Astrology, through which "the heavens proclaimed the glory of God" (Ps. 19) for those with ears to hear and eyes to see
A is for Adam (and Eve, since they were two in one flesh), who sees in the Second Adam his Son and Lord

A is for the Archangel sent to Mary with a divine invitation

A is for Angels, who brought message to the shepherds

A is for Advent, when we prepare our hearts to be receptive

A is for Amendment, the daily conversion that makes us new and better persons by God's grace

Families flock to the manger while
the A stands alone.

A is for Awake, which we pray our hearts to be at all times

A is for Awe that fills us when we surrender to what is beyond our imagining

A is for Amazement that there is more to life than our senses can perceive

A is for Adoration, the only rational response to the revelation of divinity

A is for Anticipation of the fulfillment of the Christmas mystery at the end of time

A is for Alleluia, the song of the redeemed!

Visited only by the pigeons,
is the A a self-defeating symbol?

What would you like to add to the Christmas A-list this year?

Christmas Novena, Day 7

"I saw that for us He is everything that is good, comforting and helpful; He is our clothing, who, for love, wraps us up, holds us close; He entirely encloses us for tender love, so that He may never leave us, since He is the source of all good things for us."
Julian of Norwich

Phil Robertson: damaging the cause of marriage despite himself UPDATED

You might be surprised to hear this, but until all the brouhaha about cable network A&E and Duck Dynasty, I had no idea who Phil Robertson might be. Indeed, all I knew about Duck Dynasty was from seeing the spin-off merchandise in the novelty aisles at the local Walgreens. Now all of a sudden the bearded patriarch is being held up as a paragon of plain-speaking biblical wisdom.

Except I'm not buying it. In fact, I think that the more Robertson is defended in social media as an upholder of marriage, the more the cause of natural marriage will suffer in the long run. The articles I have read on the matter quote very little of Mr. Robertson, but what is there is incredibly coarse and unreflective. There is little "biblical" to it. As much as Catholics all the way to Pope Francis believe that complementarity is essential to marriage as such, we really can't put an "Amen" to what the White's Ferry Road Church of Christ elder said about it. Yet the more Mr. Robertson's cause is pleaded, the more he becomes established in the culture as the spokesperson and image of all those who stand up for the integrity of natural marriage.

Is this what we are hoping for? A reduction of the spouses themselves to their reproductive organs?  A raw, physical (not personalist) caricature of complementarity, divorced from its essential, life-giving fruitfulness and the very nature of the family built on marriage as the primary cell of society? Heaven forbid!

Somebody, quick! Invite my fellow Louisianan Mr. Robertson to the Theology of the Body program!  As a Church elder, he should really appreciate the rich, nuanced, infinitely complex biblical vision of man and woman that Pope John Paul spent so many years developing. As the now de-facto media spokesperson for natural marriage, he really needs it.


Here's a reflection from Audrey Assad on Phil Robertson and the Theology of the Body; Audrey offers  the same point as I (in a much more elegant and comprehensive way).


For a do-it-yourself overview of the Theology of the Body, take the 6-part Theology of the Body Overview we filmed in May.

Christmas Novena, Day 6

Today is in some ways the high point of the Advent season. The Mass readings, focusing on the Visitation, make the reality and the effectiveness of Christ's coming almost palpable. The first reading is one of the few times a selection from the Song of Songs is in the Lectionary at all (most often, this book is read from at weddings, but not typically in a Sunday or daily Mass). That alone makes today's liturgy distinctive!


 

Christmas Novena, Day 5

It's hard to make a novena! At least, that's what my several years' worth of stats on the Christmas Novena are telling me. Days 1, 2 and 9 have the most hits; Day 5 doesn't even make the list on the analytics page. So if you are making today's novena, you are part of a rare breed!

What do you think is the secret to sticking with a novena, or any other spiritual commitment?



   

Christmas Novena, Day 4

A lovely prayer for these final days of Advent:

O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants,
in the spirit of your holiness,
in the fullness of your power,
in the reality of your virtues,
in the perfection of your ways,
in the communion of your mysteries.
Have dominion over every adverse power,
in your own Spirit,
to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.

(Jean Jaques Olier, SS)

Christmas Novena, Day 3

 It's good to be back in Chicago (even if the weather in Boston yesterday meant that I landed around midnight)! Because of the Christmas concert series, it almost seems that "my" Advent begins with the Christmas novena, so I am extra appreciative of the step-by-step way it helps me approach Christmas.
What about you?

Christmas Novena Day 2

Today the O Antiphons begin! See my 2006 post about this secret Christmas code.

Christmas Novena, Day 1

Even though the Advent liturgy won't shift gears until tomorrow (the Octave before Christmas), today tradition invites us to begin the Christmas novena. My community's traditional novena is based on one from a Benedictine community in northern Italy, where the congregation was founded, and has some liturgical elements (such as the O antiphons) and traditional Scriptural prophecies that we don't hear that much any more.

Actually, today's first reading for Mass has one of those unusual prophecies in it. It is from the Book of Numbers, and tells a story from the days when the Israelite people had not yet taken possession of the Holy Land. For all practical purposes, they were an invading horde. The  locals knew they had to take action if they were not to be dispossessed, so they called in the big guns: the flamboyant prophet Balaam. Balaam (whom we might call more a shaman than a prophet on the order of Isaiah or Jeremiah) commanded a stiff fee, but it would be worth it: he would curse the Israelites, and the matter would be settled.

The surprise in the reading is not only that Balaam ("whose eye is true...who hears what God says and knows what the Most High knows, ... sees what the Almighty sees...") does not curse the people, but that he really is a prophet of God Most High, and foretells the coming of the Messiah! ""I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near..."

In Advent, we too see him, "though not now" but we can't say he is not "near." Even though we do not yet "see what God sees," we know his promise: "I am with you always!"



This is the seventh Christmas I am posting this simple video novena. Every year I make the resolution to do something a bit nicer... Next year, maybe?

say again?

Following up on yesterday's post about the Blessed Mother song...
While I am on the road, I am doing most everything on my phone and its big-but-not-big-enough screen. When comments are submitted, the "publish" button is awfully tiny, and very close too the"delete" button.
...So could the person who sent a comment with the lovely quote from Nicholas Cabasilas please resubmit it?
Sorry for the extra effort of getting the quote and bibliographical source down again; thanks!

say again?

Following up on yesterday's post about the Blessed Mother song...
While I am on the road, I am doing most everything on my phone and its big-but-not-big-enough screen. When comments are submitted, the "publish" button is awfully tiny, and very close too the"delete" button.
...So could the person who sent a comment with the lovely quote from Nicholas Cabasilas please resubmit it?
Sorry for the extra effort of getting the quote and bibliographical source down again; thanks!

say again?

Following up on yesterday's post about the Blessed Mother song...
While I am on the road, I am doing most everything on my phone and its big-but-not-big-enough screen. When comments are submitted, the "publish" button is awfully tiny, and very close too the"delete" button.
...So could the person who sent a comment with the lovely quote from Nicholas Cabasilas please resubmit it?
Sorry for the extra effort of getting the quote and bibliographical source down again; thanks!

It's an Honest Question (Mary, Did You Know?)

On our Christmas concert repertoire, one of the best received songs this year is also a surprisingly controversial one, at least in some limited Catholic quarters. Written by a Protestant (Mark Lowry), the song invites us to contemplate the life of Jesus through Mary's eyes. Lowry doesn't leave us at the manger with the shepherds, but seems to envision what the Vatican II dogmatic constitution "Lumen Gentium" spoke of as Mary's "pilgrimage of faith."

Mary did you know that your baby boy would some day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when your kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Oh Mary did you know 

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the Lamb. 

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I Am.


Naturally, the anticipation of Christ's public ministry and even the unabashed confession of Chalcedonian faith in the full divinity of Jesus does not raise too many Catholic hackles. Instead, some people seem to be personally offended by the references to Mary as needing any sort of deliverance, given that she was (as we must affirm in faith, and as we celebrated liturgically just this week) conceived without sin.

I'll admit that the lyrics could be more doctrinally precise. When we sing them, I have to obey St Ignatius' advice to "make every effort to interpret the expression in the most orthodox manner possible." This is not so very hard to do; we just have to play with the mystery of time, the way Blessed John Duns Scotus did when he came up with a way to reconcile the Church's ancient conviction that Mary was never under the dominion of sin with the obvious fact that she needed to be redeemed by Jesus, the redeemer of all. She was, Scotus realized, more perfectly redeemed, in anticipation of the merits of Jesus.

I'm willing to give the Protestant Lowry a break for not hitting on a theological solution that did not even occur to Thomas Aquinas. And I'm delighted that he is willing to engage Mary in an earnest conversation.

Popping online for a minute!

It has been a full and interesting week for the DSP choir.

We've traveled thousands of miles and met thousands of people, collecting prayer intentions along the way. Yesterday, we prayed all along the way as we inched down the New Jersey Turnpike in a snowstorm, passing one wreck after another. Our vehicle (part of a 3-van caravan) made the 4-hour trip from Staten Island in a mere 7 hours. The other two vans were on the road for more than 10 hours. (Truth to tell, we're all still recovering.)

Selfie in the car on the New Jersey Turnpike during Sunday's
snowstorm. (Are we there yet?)

Today being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, there was a huge crowd at the noon Mass at historic Old St. Mary's. (The stained glass windows were lovely, but there were too many people praying after Mass for me to discreetly snap any pictures.) At lunch afterwards (chicken cutlets, sweet potatoes, mixed veggies and salad), Sr Tracey commented, "It's like the Blessed Mother has something so specific in mind for our ministry today that she arranged a change of venue."

In suburban Fairfax County, where our evening concert in the Beltway district was originally slated (at Good Shepherd Parish), all schools and other institutions were ordered closed. Until around 10:00 this morning, we weren't sure what was going to happen, but now our concert has been relocated to the nearer (and more intimate) St. Joseph's here in Old Town Alexandria. We're doing our best to get the word out. (Some people had already traveled from as far as Charleston, so we're glad that the event wasn't completely cancelled.) If you can make it (or let others know about it), the show starts at 8:00 tonight.

You know that line in the Gospels about those who leave all things for Jesus having a hundred times as many homes, brothers, sisters and mothers? It is coming true for us every day. Here in Alexandria, Sister Margaret Michael's mom is even preparing home-cooked meals to keep us going. (And those visitors from Charleston? They brought homemade Irish soda bread and an almond pound cake that belongs on the Cooking Channel.) There are plenty of sacrifices, as you can imagine, but it almost doesn't feel like living out of a suitcase when the meals are so fresh and good!

See the photos from our "big" concert on Staten Island!

A minute with St. Nick

On his feast day, we have a special message from St Nicholas himself, courtesy of the Winds of Change radio show.
If the player is not visible, click here for the audio file.

Singing our Hearts Out

As you may recall, I am in New York (technically, the borough of Staten Island) for the beginning of the Daughters of St. Paul Christmas Concert "season," having arrived here while everyone else was chasing down bargains for Black Friday.

Since our sisters moved from the large convent they were renting since the year we sold the massive place where I was stationed in the late (late!) 70's and early 80's, the choir members are scattered about wherever we could find hospitality. Four of us are guests of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist, a teaching community with a girls' school (K-12, it seems) with a view of the Verrazzano to the North and the New York Bay to the East. (The views from their little chapel are spectacular!) We all meet at our own little convent (an adapted two-family home with its own spectacular views--of Manhattan) in the morning to begin the day's work.

Naturally, we have time for Mass and prayer--and twice went to the local parish, St. Peter's, for Mass. The parish church is something on the order of a cathedral, in terms of size and sheer majesty. I went around before and after Sunday Mass taking pictures on my phone so I would have something to share with you (and to illustrate future blog posts!) but something went very, very wrong and not one of the photos is even in the phone memory. (I guess I'll have to find our way back to St. Peter's for Mass at least once more this week!)

Now that we are finishing up our third full day of practice, things are starting to gel. Sr Julia and I are doing a duet that has a few tricky spots for me; I nailed them twice today--and hope that's the beginning of a wonderful new trend, since our first concert is scheduled for tomorrow! (If you are anywhere near Ramsey, NJ, come to St Paul's parish!)

(The view from our convent on SI!)