Science and the Human Person

Here's a great response to Bill Maher's mockumentary, "Religulous": a day-long seminar Dr. Richard Sternberg [evolutionary biologist with doctorates in biology (molecular genetics) and systems science (theoretical biology); former Staff Scientist with the National Institutes of Health, now Research Fellow with the Biologic Institute in Seattle] on "how the philosophy behind Darwinian evolution relates to John Paul II's vision of the human person and the spousal relationship. Dr. Sternberg will explain its influence on abortion, euthanasia and other current issues in bioethics. He will be joined by Dr. Paul A. Nelson [philosopher of biology] and Fr. Thomas Loya."
Oct. 25, 8 am to 4 pm
Annunciation of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church
14610 Will Cook Road
Homer Glen, IL 60491
815-828-5094 tobia [at] theologyofthebody [dot] net
Limited seating; register now! $60 registration fee ($35 for students) includes lunch.

Dr. Sternberg's experience of being shunned by the scientific establishment after allowing the phrase "intelligent design" to be included in a journal he edited was the inspiration for the movie "Expelled."

Busy Season

Autumn is what we Paulines call "an intense apostolic season." This is when we put the most miles on the odometer mostly because of the number of diocesan religious education conferences that fall during this time of year. (I just got back from a teachers' conference in Milwaukee--going with a volunteer in a borrowed van, since three other sisters and our two vans are otherwise occupied farther afield.) And tomorrow Sr. Thecla and I will run a book display for the Ambassadors of Mary, who hold their annual Our Lady of Fatima observance every October. (I'm cantoring for that, too, but that's beside the point.) All this activity can create a kind centrifugal force, though: the more we have going on, the more we may think we can do, ought to do, must do. It can keep spiraling outward until we are living on a treadmill. It's a real grace for me that precisely in this "intense apostolic season" I am finding the words of Psalm 127 especially helpful: "If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labor."


What else are we up to besides book displays? Well... I'll admit to testing this online Pauline trivia game, a very cute idea from a parish in Mexico. Try it yourself--but make sure to make a mistake or two to activate the "swords and shipwreck" feature. If you know all the answers, it is very boring.

Wholly Spiritual

If there's anything that should come across powerfully through today's readings (aside from a sense of shock and awe at Paul's lambasting the Galatians), it is that God wants us to ask for (and receive) the Holy Spirit.
For Paul, the Galatians' earlier reception of the Holy Spirit was so remarkable that he could refer back to it rhetorically, asking why on earth they wanted to "go back" to the ritual observances of a Judaism they (former pagans) had never known, when they had already experienced the greatest gift of all.
And in the Gospel, the familiar and comforting "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find" is related above all to the gift of the Spirit. "The Father will give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks."
It made me really perk up and take more notice at the "epicleses" of the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, those two moments when the priest asks God "send your Holy Spirit to hallow these gifts" and "send your Holy Spirit upon us."

This week our community is invoking the Holy Spirit for all our apostolic undertakings: we are scattered to the four winds as of today, with Sr. Laura going from Minnesota to North Dakota, where she will meet Sr. Helena and Sr. Irene Regina (who were in northern Wisconsin). They will hold a book display at a Eucharistic/Marian Congress in the Fargo diocese. And I will going with a volunteer, the ever-faithful Blanca, in a borrowed van (God bless Larry and Cari), to Milwaukee, to run a book display for Catholic educators at the Midwest Airlines Center. Pray for our safety, for great diffusion of the Word of God, and above all for all the many, many people we are meeting on the way. (I'll be back Friday night.)

Here we are!

Live Video streaming of Theology of the Body Online Study

TOB tonight!

	Going "by the book" of JP2, with Fr. Thomas Loya. If he gets here on time, it will start at 7:30 EST, 6:30 Central on Ustream.tv Tell your friends!

The Better Part

It wasn't until last night when I was preparing for today's liturgy that I realized that my "mistake" yesterday (taking up today's Gospel instead of yesterday's) was really an invitation to do what Mary did that day in Bethany: really sit at the Lord's feet and let him do the talking.


Speaking of talking.... I (finally) put together a web page offering the presentations I am doing for the Year of St. Paul. If you are in the greater Chicago area (or the Midwest, generally!), please give a copy of this list to your pastor or adult faith formation director. Maybe I can come your way!

Sorry about that, Bruno

Today is the feast of St. Bruno, the Carthusian. But all during my prayer time this morning, I was convinced that it was tomorrow's feast of Our Lady of the Rosary! I prayed the Invitatory antiphon ("Come, let us worship Christ, the Son of Mary"); I reflected on the feastday Gospel ("Mary has chosen the better part"); I made a mental note to find my copy of Pope John Paul's document on the Rosary to use for my afternoon prayer... All to realize that I was skipping right over St. Bruno. Even worse, when I took pictures of the stained glass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church (where I sing in the choir), I skipped right over St. Bruno's window, thinking that I would have very little use for an image of an 11th century hermit.
My bad.

7 days and 7 nights

There's a Bible marathon on Italian TV. It was kicked off on Sunday (fittingly enough, the day the Synod of Bishops opened their discussions on the Word of God in the life of the Church), with the goal of reading the every book, every word, from Genesis to Revelation, on live TV. Even Pope Benedict had a turn with the book of Genesis. At this writing, Sunday night, they are already well into the story of the golden calf.
Even if you can't understand Italian, it's worth spending a bit of time with. The production is very high quality--and the Word of God is living and active, even in a language you don't understand!

Synod time

The Synod of Bishops is now meeting in Rome to discuss the Word of God in the life of the Church. I attempted to spy on them by means of the Vatican webcam (sometimes it gives you the Vatican TV feed), but I forgot that it was midnight in Rome... St. Peter's Square is pretty deserted right now.
Anyway, here are some Synod links to keep you in tune with the bishops. (Our Mother General was invited to participate as well!)
About the Synod/
Documents related to the Synod of Bishops
Vatican TV (only works when they are broadcasting live)

Don't rue the rubrics!

I participated today in the Mass for the feast of St. Francis at the Franciscan Church here in Chicago (St. Peter's). It was one of those pull-out-all-the-stops celebrations (literally, the organ was booming), with candles and trumpets and with dozens of friars in their habits looking appropriately Francis-like. The Gloria (by Fr. Robert Hutmacher, OFM, who was serving at the altar) was phenomenal. But one aspect of the liturgy unsettled me, unexpectedly. At the Gospel, there was a procession to an ambo set up a few yards down the center aisle. It was a beautiful and reverent procession that highlighted the importance of the Word of God, and looked as if it were a retrieval of an ancient tradition. But after the proclamation was begun, the retinue, including the presider, began walking back up the aisle as the presider continued reading the Gospel! After the reading, I sat down to listen to the homily, only to be summoned to my feet again: we were told to reverence the Gospel with a bow. Okay. And then the Alleluia was sung again. We had to wait for the liturgist to tell us when it was safe to be seated.
At that point, I totally forgot the Gospel I had just heard. All I was aware of was that I was suddenly feeling irritated and ill at ease, unprepared for what might next be sprung on me during the remainder of the liturgy.
I'm sure the group who coordinated the celebration had no such intention, but what they ended up doing was depriving the assembly of a small part of its rightful autonomy. The responses and postures of the liturgy are ours! They are what free us interiorly to respond to the Word of God and participate genuinely in the celebration. When we have to keep looking up to a liturgist or server for hints about what to do next, a new dependence on the clerical office has been imposed on us. At this point, I can see the friars shaking their heads in grief: "Noooooooooo!" (Call it the law of unintended consequences at work.) Maybe there's more wisdom to the rubrics than we are generally aware of!

Praying the Psalms

In preparing for my upcoming talk on the Liturgy of the Hours, I'm really enjoying Joseph Jungmann's book on the history of Christian Prayer. A tidbit I read yesterday mentioned that--it being a given that monks would pray the psalms as their primary form of prayer--by the Middle Ages, some monks didn't know how to pray the psalms. They just tried to get through them. One kindly bishop offered the "helpful" suggestion that they meditate on the various aspects of the suffering of Jesus as a way of engaging their minds and hearts while they recited the words of the Psalter. (Some monasteries, especially early on, had the goal of reciting all 150 Psalms every day!)
I don't really have much trouble praying the Psalms; they seem to say just about everything. Singing the blues? Psalm 22. Singing for joy? Psalm 92. Singing of love? Psalm 18 (parts of it, at any rate!). And one of my Dad's old books provided me with an insight that I have found especially fruitful. The book was "The Soul of Jesus," and in one chapter, it offered a meditation on how Jesus himself learned to pray at home in Nazareth. I imagined Mary and Joseph praying the Psalms, and little Jesus lisping along with them, and it became like an invitation to me to witness the way the members of this Holy Family prayed the Psalms. So now, when I prepare at night for the next day's liturgy, I read the responsorial Psalm four times: once, just to open my mind to it. And then I read it again, opening myself to the way Mary would have prayed those words. Then it's Joseph's turn, and then Jesus'. It has really made a difference in how I then take up the Psalm as my own.
Try it with today's Psalm!

AOL's decision to retire its FTP service at the end of the month has me scrambling to get files hosted here and there--I've already moved the adoration "ad" in the sidebar from AOL to a free service that allows file uploads (if not FTP). I hope to move other things (my profile picture, for instance)--including the linked items from archived articles--in the days ahead. I'm disappointed, because my AOL address is part of a still-paying account. There were some real benefits to this (for example, 50 gb of online storage on xdrive.com), but it looks like these are going to be taken away, one by one. (Nothing lasts forever!)

Hurray!

Maybe the Angels had something to do with it, but YouTube has (finally!) pulled the videos of the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament. I didn't even want to go to the videos to click the "tag for inappropriate content" button, lest the number of hits go up even by one. Today being Thursday, assigned by Catholic tradition to honoring the Eucharist (and a first Thursday of the month of the Rosary, no less), it is certainly fitting that this happen now. God be praised!

Makes the world go 'round

St. Therese, young as she was, had it spot-on. "In the heart of the Church, I will be love!" Because without love, the martyrs would not shed their blood, nor the missionaries preach: the Church itself would lose its reason for being.
It took Saul of Tarsus a while (not to mention one very hard fall!) to learn that lesson, but Therese owed the discovery of her unique vocation to Paul.
Forecast for today: a shower of roses.

Today's saint could well have been described in the words of today's first reading from Job, "a man of strife and contention." Poor Jerome! His character just didn't fit what we would consider the "saintly" model. One Pope is even said to have commented (referring to Jerome's meditation on mortality, symbolized in a skull among his books), "Oh, Jerome, if it weren't for that skull, I'd un-canonize you!"
In some ways, perhaps, Jerome was born out of his time. He was by nature an anchorite, but was called (even by the Pope!) to be a teacher, spiritual director and scholar. Amazingly, the grimy ascetic, who grumbled publicly against Augustine, had a devoted group of women disciples. They must have recognized something in the crusty priest with his tomes in Hebrew and Greek (and that skull!)... And the Church, too, recognizes something in Jerome. Sanctity isn't the same thing as sweetness. Perhaps it was the case with Jerome that, as St. Gertrude later wrote about her own "crusty" superior, the Lord allowed a person of immense virtue to retain an ugly character trait as a constant call to humility.

From generation to generation

My first great-niece was born this morning: the first of a new generation in our family. I'm still waiting for pictures, other than the teeny cell-phone pics my Mom sent, which, well, don't really let me know anything other than that little Leah Claire has seen the light of day on this feast of the Archangels. (May they be her guardians and guides all her life long!)

Not for Sissies

My Aunt Shirley has been known to sigh on occasion, "Ain't nothin' good about gettin' old." Qoheleth seems to agree with her in today's first reading. In poetic language, he details the progression of decrepitude in "the evil days" of advanced years "when the almond tree blooms" (evidently, the almond is a late blooming tree?): shaky limbs ("the guardians of the house tremble"); crippling arthritis in the legs ("the strong men are bent"); loss of teeth ("the grinders are idle because they are few"); loss of eyesight ("they who look through the windows grow blind") and of hearing ("the sound of the mill is low and one waits for the chirp of a bird"); loss of appetite ("the caper berry is without effect").
Qoheleth is addressing all this to the young by way of advice: "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." Don't wait for old age to give praise and thanks to God; don't leave God the dregs of your existence. Let God also be glorified and praised in the very joy and beauty you experience in the fullness of your strength. And then you will find a way to give God glory and praise when he will be the one unchanging good that remains to you.

More from the mailbox

More from the YouTube mailroom:

I just wanted to drop you line... to.. say... thank you for your youtube... experience
Its bringing me closer to the church once again and I want to thank you for it...

I also have a question about books, do you have any recommendations for a person discerning religious life?

first off I would like to say I enjoy ur videos very much. I recently just bought a CD from the daughters of Saint Paul at our local Catholic store, and I rely liked what I heard, I was wondering if they hade a myspace music profile, I know it sounds weird for a nun to have a myspace, but we have developed a community on myspace. I think it would also be good advertisement for the Order.

Hello sister, I send you a video on how one lives Easter in my city. My city is called Linares and lies within Andalucia, a region in southern Spain. I hope she likes. P.D.: Excuse me, my English. If the shipment of video fails, here you have the web address:

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpVEJODwIQ

Catching up

I didn't realize how far behind I was in reading the messages sent to me on YouTube... This one is from "Catholic Albanian" and was sent in July:
As you may probably be able to tell after reading my screen name I am Catholic and Albanian and was wondering whether you may be able you recommend Albania to some missionaries looking to spread the word of God. Fortunately I am Catholic and have heard the Good news but there are hundreds of thousands of people in Albania who haven't. Although there is missionary work taking place in Albania it is limited and a lot more can be done to help.

Albania is a majority atheist country despite foreigners believing that the majority of Albanians are Muslim, they are in fact atheists as they do not practice their faith and follow the rules. So if possible please help increase our Catholic population from 10% to a much larger figure by recommending Albania to your missionary friends.

God bless you and keep up the great work you are doing.

What time is it?

Today we get that lovely meditation on time from Ecclesiastes: "He has made everything beautiful in its time."
How much stress comes from the inability to accept the "sacrament of the present moment"!

Where two or more Daughters of St. Paul are gathered, there am I in the midst of them...with a video camera.
Here you see (or will see, once YouTube finishes the process) what happened when I asked sisters "What are you reading right now?" and "What's your favorite book?" (Most of them waxed eloquent about what they were reading at the moment.)

So what are YOU reading right now?

Something New Under the Sun

Today's first reading is that gloomy assessment of human life from the "gatherer of the community," Qoheleth: the one who sighed "Nothing is new under the sun." But the Gospel is a flat-out contradiction of that! Jesus brought something so new that no one could fit him into any of the usual categories. Was he Elijah? John the Baptist? Some ancient unknown prophet come again? Even Herod seemed to realize that something new was up, "and he kept trying to see him."

Mark your calendar! It's your chance to learn how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours: how to find your page; when to pray what; how to use all those ribbons!

A couple of years ago, Father Bob Sprott, ofm, wrote about his experience as a confessor: he was hearing more and more men confessing indulging in Internet porn. Other priests confirmed that this is a growing problem, and that many of the men who admit to using Internet porn seem unwilling to really break it off. Maybe a movie like this will help them. Sony is taking a risk on a movie produced by a Baptist organization, so the first weekend's income will be closely monitored. This might be a good weekend to go to the movies...

Faith in Reason

I meant to blog about it a few days ago, but the trip to Davenport didn't leave me too much time for Internet access... There was an interesting column in the WSJ the other day. About the faith of atheists. (Yes, you read that right.)
I had read something months ago about the inverse relationship between conventional religious belief and credence in superstition, astrology and the like. This was something along the same lines. ("31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in [the occult and paranormal], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week [do].") But to me, the most interesting info was this: "Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven."

The book display and St. Paul talk in Davenport went well. The parish there, St. Paul's, is celebrating its centenary this year. Sadly, the parish and school was vandalized a few weeks ago: the first-floor windows of one of the school buildings are are boarded up, and the church's exterior light fixtures and a stained glass window were also broken. One of the local religious communities, the Sisters of Humility, held a prayer service there (and a simultaneous one at their motherhouse for the sisters who were too infirm to come): it's something they do now wherever there has been an act of violence in the area. Sr. Laura and I stayed with these sisters and were really impressed with their continued engagement in mission, even when so many of the sisters are really quite elderly. There was a real spirit of ministry in their house; just this weekend they took on a new service, running a shelter that another organization was pulling away from.
My USB hub died last week and I picked up a cheap replacement at Office Depot. This replacement was so cheap it didn't even come with a power cord! I got it anyway, because I thought my old power adapter would fit (same output), but no. So now I have two non-functioning USB hubs, and lots of USB devices. (Maybe I can find the right adapter in a closet somewhere, or in the basement computer graveyard.) (Any other ideas?) I had another tech problem in Davenport--rather, in the car trip there. Before leaving, I remembered to bring some AAA batteries with me for the many gadgets I use. If only I had realized that the pack of batteries were the rechargeable kind. (No recharger among the gadgets.) Then, setting up the projector for my talk, I couldn't get the wireless mouse to communicate dependably with the computer. I strained to pull the computer as close to the lecturn as possible, but the monitor cable didn't allow it to come close enough. Then the pastor raided his technology closet and came out with a twenty-foot 7-pin cable that solved the problem. (Note to self: find twenty-foot, 7-pin cable for future talks.)

It's lovely outside; maybe I will take a Rosary walk by the lake before heading to Mass.

San Gennaro

Today is the feast of San Gennaro (or St. Januarius, as he is known outside of Naples!). This bishop and martyr is best known, I suspect, for the phenomenon of Italian festivals in his honor--um, no, I mean, for the phenomenon of the liquification of his blood.
It was a custom in the early church to preserve the spilled blood of the martyrs in a vial--St. Praxedes (see the Vermeer at left) met her death while carrying out this work of devotion. Well, from at least the 1300's, an ancient dried mass of dark brown preserved in a glass reliquary, turns rich red, bubbles and flows as the vial is tilted back and forth in a ceremony by the Archbishop of Naples. Sometimes this happens quickly; other times, it takes days. Since in the Neopolitan mind the failure of the blood to liquify hints at impending disaster (Mt. Vesuvius is visible from the city!), any delay in the annual miracle can inspire thousands of people to repentance. The confessionals of Naples suddenly become very popular...
The fact that the relic appeared only in the 14th century has, of course, raised questions in the past hundred years. The blood of San Gennaro has not been subjected to any high-tech testing (like electron spectroscopy) to verify that it actually is human blood. And researchers have managed to use local minerals, including one only found in volcanic soils, to develop a substance that has the same properties--solid when resting, liquifying after gentle motion. So, who knows what is really going on there in Naples? For centuries, though, people have had a graphic reminder that, long ago, a bishop did die for his faith, giving his life for his flock.

In today's Gospel, Simon the Pharisee may not have had any big ticket items on his debit sheet with God, but Jesus listed his omissions one by one, all adding up to a kind of contempt--or at the very least, indifference toward Jesus. (Kind of reminds me of the accusation hurled (!) in the book of Revelation toward the tepid.) And he looked with more than indifference toward the woman at Jesus' feet. Now she was someone Paul could relate to--and in a way, he does "relate" in the first reading. It's the scene of the "woman who was a sinner" washing Jesus' feet with her tears. Jesus says that this woman, because she was forgiven much, showed great love. St. Paul could, and did, say the same thing in his own regard: "I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but I have been treated mercifully...and the grace of God has been given me in overflowing measure...and this grace has not been fruitless in me. The love of Christ controls us with the conviction that because one died for all, all died..."

In today's Gospel, we can almost see Jesus shaking his head over the "people of this generation." They were using themselves as the standard of upright, balanced living, and according to that scale, John the Baptist failed by excess and Jesus failed by falling short of expectations! Since the crowd itself represented the norm, they could not notice that John and Jesus were both, in their own way, expressing a life that had God as the center. In a word, they were living in love. And in the first reading, Paul is showing the Corinthians what a life centered in love looks like. Love, like wisdom, is vindicated by its "children."

Welcome Wagon

Please add your comments to welcome Sr. Irene Regina to our Chicago community. Sr. Irene is from the St. Louis area, and has most recently been stationed in our New York community. We're excited to introduce her to this dynamic city and all the missionary possibilities it offers. In fact, she will have hardly set her suitcase down when she'll go on the road with Sr. Helena to attend the Holy Family Institute annual Triduum in Canfield, OH. (Sr. Laura and I will also be on the road, but in the opposite direction, for a parish book fair and St. Paul talk in Davenport.)
Sr. Irene is "famous" in our communities as being the only Daughter of St. Paul (so far) to have attended college on a basketball scholarship. (With her phys. ed. background, she might be the one to help us all keep any resolutions we might have made in the way of health and exercise...)

Mater Dolorosa

Today's feast of Our Lady of Sorrows reminds me of an episode from high school (Latin I class). My friend Liz (who took Spanish) was writing about a funeral at Mater Dolorosa Church, and she wanted me to translate that name for her. All I had to go by was the glossary in my Latin I textbook, which had such interesting terms as "Cocam-Colam" and "Picus-nicus" (no, I am not kidding), but no "dolorosa." So Liz suggested it meant "of the roses." I didn't think so, but what did I know? So I just said, "well, maybe."
When Liz got her corrected paper back, she was quite ticked off with me. "Dolorosa" has nothing to do with "roses." Instead, it is about "dolor," suffering. Mater Dolorosa is not "Our Lady of the Roses," but "Mother of Sorrows." (And still a very lovely church in New Orleans, too.)

Am I missing something?

One of my friends seems to be on the "dire warnings of doom" e-mail list. Lately, she has been expressing preoccupations with the upcoming Presidential election. Everything from "Obama is Satan" to "McCain won't last long in the White House: what kind of President would Palin be?" to "Armageddon is coming, really!" Not to dismiss the possibility of Armageddon (it seems to already be in full swing in some parts of the globe), the general thrust of my friend's response to whatever it is that has affected her is worry and fear that the end is near.
So am I missing some critical information?
Jesus himself had some pretty scary language about how bad things would be right before the end. Did he mean for us to live in terror or anxiety? Not if St. Paul is to be believed--and he thought the end was right around the corner in his day! Instead, Paul told us to "long" for the coming of the Lord and to "hasten" it with prayer and upright living. It would be silly not to think that there would be some risk, even spiritual risk, if a time of universal crisis should break over us. (If Christians were being led off to torture or death for professing their faith, I picture myself--apart from the special grace of the Holy Spirit, hesitantly raising my hand about waist-high to admit my belief while hoping the gesture wouldn't be noticed.) But Jesus told us not to imagine these things: "sufficient to the day are the troubles thereof." St. Paul expected us to "love the Lord's coming." "The Lord is near! Rejoice!"
But I'm still wondering: am I missing something?

A speck in my eye

Today's Gospel features the comical image of the concerned person "helping" a neighbor get a speck out of his eye while oblivious to the beam in his own. St. Paul, in the first reading, recognizes the risk: "I drive my body and train it, lest, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." He knows that "if a blind person guides another blind person, they will both fall into a pit" (Gospel). Paul wants to "be like his teacher" (Gospel) in taking "the form of a slave" (Paul) "to save at least some" (first reading). This is what it means for Paul "to have a share in the Gospel" (first reading).

And Sr. Lorraine has drawn my attention to another situation in which we (by which I mean, my community's publishing house) are being told we have a speck in our eye... How typical of St. Paul to stir up controversy even long after he has entered into the full sharing of the Gospel! (As Sr. Lorraine says, "Get your banned books here!")

9/11 and the most unlikely Gospel

There are four Gospels: four accounts of our Lord's life, teachings, death and resurrection. And in the pattern of readings for the daily Mass, these Gospels are distributed across the whole year. There had to be something, then, in Divine Providence that every so often, like today, the Gospel passage assigned to the universal calendar speaks with a clarity that tells us that this Word of the Lord is very much intended for us, in real life, here and now.
What is the Gospel for this Thursday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time, which in 2008 happens to fall on the anniversary of a dreadful and deadly attack? "Love your enemies."
If we were able to vote off Gospel passages like so many contestants in a reality show, this one would probably rank right next to Jesus' teachings about divorce. It's something most of us might wish just weren't there. Especially in the face of enormous evil, of real, sworn enemies. Things as big as 9/11 can make us dismiss the whole teaching as impossible, even on a small, personal level.
That's where the first reading proves us wrong. Because in a way, St. Paul is telling the Corinthians about loving their enemies.
The situation was quite different, of course. In a culture where any meat served at meals or sold in the market had probably been part of an animal sacrifice to a pagan god, could Christians eat meat without participating in idolatry? The more sophisticated members of the Church felt free to enjoy any food whatever, but some of the brethren were scandalized. So the weak were imposing on the strong. We tend to think of an enemy as stronger in some way--at least as strong enough to do us harm. Paradoxically, in Corinth, it was the weak who had become the "enemy." And Paul said submitting to the chafing limits they imposed on one's freedom of menu was loving one's enemy. It was a way of protecting the soul of "one for whom Christ died" (Paul's new definition of "neighbor"). Paul doesn't say it, but it is clear that he expects the "weak" of Corinth to love their enemies by refusing to judge them.
"Be merciful as the Heavenly Father," for "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." For Paul, this is everything.

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Peter (Claver) and Paul

Today is the feast of St. Peter Claver, the Jesuit missionary to Colombia who designated himself "slave of the slaves forever." The African slave trade was at its height, and so was the human misery that Peter encountered when he arrived in the new world from his native Spain. He devoted the rest of his life to compassionate ministry to the slaves, boarding the slave ships with food, water and medicine, and carrying out whatever services he could. Peter was the Mother Teresa of his day, because those slaves were the "poorest of the poor."
Like Paul, Father Claver could say, "Although I am free, I have made myself a slave." Not that Paul was the first one to come up with such an idea. It was really Christ, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself and took the form of a slave."
It's an ugly word, but for Jesus, for Paul, and for Peter Claver, "taking the form of a slave" was the language of love.



Happy Birthday to my sister Lea Ann and her son Logan!

TOB starts up again

Our online streaming video class on the Theology of the Body resumes this Wednesday at 7:30 Eastern Time. If you missed the earlier sessions, view the archived video on the channel page.
Mystified by Church teachings on marriage and sexuality? Tune in!
Love what the Theology of the Body has done for you? Tell your friends to join us!

HB, BVM!

Wonderful first reading (if they go with the Pauline option): basically, my signature URL: Romans 8 v 29!
Mary's arrival on the scene was the first breath of the upcoming redemption. As one of the early writers put it, in Mary' God was setting his throne in place. Soon he himself would come to occupy it.
The image isn't exactly the Birth of Mary, but it is so stunning, I wanted to share it. Sr. Sergia in Rome just sent it to me. (She's sending me some new Angelus pictures so I can redo the Angelus video with better quality images.)

A Blessing to Romania

Sister Anna Maria Bulai will be making her first profession in Bucharest on Sunday, Sept. 7. She is the first of our Romanian sisters to make her religious vows, and comes from a family that retained their Catholic faith through that country's long dark years under Communism. In fact, Sister Anna Maria's father was a printer and did clandestine printing for the Church--so her vocation as a Daughter of St. Paul was in line with a family tradition. There will be a certain poignancy to the profession ceremony, because the faithful printer died on August 15, somewhat like the situation my family experienced when my sister was married three days after Dad's death: just as we knew that Dad was taking part in the event from heaven, the Bulais are confident that their father will be there in spirit to see his daughter profess her vows.
Please pray for Sister Anna Maria, for our little community in Romania (one of our relatively recent foundations) and for their mission in that land, and for the Bulai family, still in mourning for a fine man of God.

Measure for Measure

Today's first reading (1 Corinthians, still!) and Gospel both hint at the skewed criteria we can use in the matters of God. St. Paul knew what it was to be "weighed on the scales and found wanting." He complains of being judged "ahead of time" and by merely external criteria. Jesus, too, was judged on external criteria, and found not to measure up to the standards set by John the Baptist and the Pharisees, whose disciples were noted for their ascetical practices (whereas Jesus and his disciples could just as easily be found at a dinner party). There's nothing wrong with asceticism, of course, but Jesus tells us that it needs to come in a "new wineskin" of awareness that "the bridegroom has been taken away" for a while, and that we await the "new wine" of his definitive coming.

With Mother Teresa's death now over ten years behind us, middle-grade children will only be able to know her as they know other holy dead people: not as contemporaries, but as people in books. So here's a book about our saintly contemporary.

Everything is ours

I love today's first reading from 1 Corinthians. The community in Corinth tended to use a variety of measuring rods to establish the worth or status of its members. Disciple of Peter, rather than Paul? Bonus point! Prolific speaker in tongues? Check! Clever in logic and scholarly wisdom? Wealthy? From a noble family (or at least not born into servitude)? Good for you!
St. Paul tosses it all over his shoulder in disgust. These things count for absolutely nothing in the eyes of one who was "determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified." What did it matter if the Apostle you learned from was eloquent or rough in speech? Or if the gifts of the Spirit in you were showy (like tongues) or hidden (like works of service)? "Everything is yours!" Paul said. "Everything: Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present and the future." Everything is yours, so what is left to measure each other by, or as a basis for comparison between one Christian and another?
"Everything is yours, and you are Christ's and Christ is God's."

What is happening in Orissa, India?

Persecution and death for Catholics, even if they are simply offering social services. The latest event was just last week.

Cardinal George responds

Our Archbishop answers the "Catholic" politician who made a particularly outrageous misstatement about the Church's position on abortion.

What a surprise!

There was a small box with my backlog of mail. Although the label was from our motherhouse, I didn't recognize the handwriting on it. And the packaging certainly wasn't done in our shipping department. (They'd never seal a box with masking tape!) Naturally, I tore into it. At first, all I saw was bunched-up paper, but on the side of the box was a flap of letterhead.

RE: Come to Jesus
Dear Sr. Flanagan:
Editions Des Beatitudes in France has published the above referenced title. It is our custom to send copies of the published books to the authors. I hope that you are as pleased with it as we are.
Your book will now be able to touch people throughout the world, reaching people you perhaps never dreamed of touching.

Well, they certainly got that part right.
In the box were four copies of "Viens rencontrer Jesus: Petit manuel pour introduire les enfants a l'adoration eucharistique."
Yippee!

Choice Words

One thing that has struck me in the recent coverage of the Palin babies is what has become almost a stock phrase: "she chose to continue the pregnancy, despite..." (the diagnosis of Down Syndrome in the one case, and the underage mother in the other). It used to be that abortion was defended as a woman's "choice." But the language reflected in these news articles seems to say that abortion is now the "default" position.
Am I the only one who noticed that? Am I reading too much into this language?

Living like Abraham

Got a new text message from Mom. They are heading to my brother-in-law's hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Evidently, they weren't able to cross the lake back into New Orleans. Kind of reminds me of Abraham, who "went forth, not knowing where he was going." So please continue praying for all the dispersed.

Not over yet

Just learned that the area where my Mom went to avoid Gustav is under a mandatory evacuation: the after-effect of the storm is that the two local rivers are starting to rise, and these are not rivers with levees or flood walls. I texted Mom and niece; niece responded in two words: "We're packing."

I don't like the looks of this

Mom called from across the lake; with the storm passing to the west, they lost electricity (and it is very, very hot without air conditioning), but they are okay. Meanwhile, back home in New Orleans...

Guess where my prayers are tending? Funny how small New Orleans looks, but that marker is on my Mom's house, so it's pretty big to me.
Things this big, so phenomenally out of human control, can be really good reminders that we depend on God all the time, not just when confronted with massive storms. (In a way, I was tempted to think people were better off before storm tracking and satellite images!)

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Fear of the Lord

The most puzzling of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit has got to be "fear of the Lord." Fear does not sound like a positive thing: how can it come from the Holy Spirit? But today's Responsorial Psalm gives a hint of what the "fear of the Lord" means.

The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness.

The parallel structure of the Hebrew poetry equates "fear" with "hoping for his kindness." And if we wonder just what that means, the psalm continues by spelling out what is hoped for: deliverance from death, survival in times of famine. Concrete hopes! (Like the hopeful prayers of my family in New Orleans right now...)
The psalm also offers an interesting commentary of sorts on Mary's Magnificat. No one more than Mary was "chosen by the Lord as his own inheritance"; The Lord looked with favor" on her, and she knew that "his mercy is from age to age on those who fear him." To deliver his people from death, the Lord would "cast down the mighty from their thrones"; to "feed them in time of famine," he would "send the rich away empty."

"Our soul waits for the Lord, who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice."
"My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my savior."

Katrina Memories

It's weird for me, on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, to hear Mom on the phone talking about her evacuation plans. Three years ago, I had just returned from my parent's Golden Anniversary celebration when they left New Orleans at midnight (the first time they had ever evacuated the city for a hurricane). This time, it's just Mom, and she is ready to go: the frozen goods are bundled into big black garbage bags, so if the electricity goes out, the freezer won't be ruined. She's got her medicines and clothes ready to go. My sister, Jane, now has a husband (courtesy of Katrina--the one bright spot in the whole history of that hurricane), and they're ready to take the dogs and head for high ground. (Hopefully high ground.) My sister Mary, soon to be a grandmother, is heading for her daughter's house. (Luckily, "Grandma" is a nurse, in case baby Leah makes any surprise moves.) My nieces's husband is a firefighter, on duty until the hurricane threat passes. Another sister, plus a brother and his family, have their destinations in northern Louisiana.
But we're still praying Gustave away. Praying really hard.

You can read my Katrina archives here.

Still keeping busy

I didn't even realize until some time after 9:00 last night that I had forgotten to post anything for St. Augustine's feast day! And here it is the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (the most macabre feast day in the year). Leave it to the Herodians, the most dysfunctional family in the ancient world, to provide the occasion for this secondary feast of the "greatest of those born of women." Since John the Baptist is my patron saint (my profession name is Anne Joan, after John), this is my "minor" feast day. (His birthday in June is my "major" feast day, thank you.)
Anyway, what was I doing so close to 9 p.m. that I forgot to blog? I was creating a video update about our recording project! Here you go:

God's sense of humor

In our family, when things go just slightly awry, we look at each other and say, almost in unison, "Gawd's sense of humor..." We got the expression (which we repeat with the orginal intonation) from a beloved Boston Jesuit who was a spiritual director and dear friend of my parents. I had one of those moments this morning. During my meditation and even through Mass, I kept getting insights about the spiritually dangerous phenomenon of setting personal non-negotiables that are really more strategies for protecting oneself from hurt or discomfort than they are about protecting objective values. (Not to say that self-protective strategies don't have their place, but it takes discernment to recognize when self-protecting becomes an end in itself.) Then, shortly after breakfast, I ran into a sister who had said something really dismissive and hurtful to me about a manuscript I had sent in. It seems that the editors want some changes. (How many, I don't yet know.) I made an appointment and then hurried to chapel to fit my Hour of Adoration in before the day's recording session... Then it dawned on me: during my meditation, God was, in effect, warning me not to dig in my heels with unnecessary "non-negotiables" that had nothing to do with His glory and peace to humanity! Gawd's sense of humor...
I kind of dread the meeting (Friday noon), so please pray that the outcome may really work for God's glory and peace to humanity!
Now I am almost late for the studio call...

Jesus is still at it in today's Gospel, taking aim at the practices of the scribes and Pharisees (but not at their teachings). The homilist this morning made a very good point about the tendency of people who are committed to holiness of life to overemphasize the external. This can lead to a scrupulosity that loses track of what today's Gospel sums up as "justice, mercy and fidelity."
This is easy enough to understand: It's much easier to focus on things that are more within reach, and external things are under our control. After all, "justice, mercy and fidelity" are attributes of GOD! It can be overwhelming to keep these things in mind as my actual vocation. But in today's first reading, it is Paul who encourages us: God wants to strengthen our hearts for this very thing.

St. Gregory, pray for us!

I know, it's really the feast of St. Louis, King of France... But the album we hope to begin recording today is based mostly in Gregorian Chant, so we are invoking St. Gregory for the project.
Today's Gospel can be frightening. Jesus comes across as scathingly harsh in revealing the emptiness that can hide behind pious practices. It seems it was really the nitpicking that sent him over the edge: "If you swear by the altar," the experts of interpretation declared, "you aren't really held to your oath. Only if you swear by the gift on the altar are you bound to your word." Jesus had a real problem with that: it made the gift more important than the altar! (Jesus had a problem with oaths anyway: "Do not swear at all! Let your 'yes' mean 'yes' and your 'no' mean 'no'," he said in the Sermon on the Mount.) I suppose that if you boiled today's Gospel down to the essence, the message would be "live in the presence of God!"

I'm back!

Back from retreat and back to the sound studio for a really exciting project. I have a few bars looping through my head (going on two hours now); appropriately enough, it is the "Ave Regina Coelorum" ("Hail Queen of Heaven," the chant for today's feast of the Queenship of Mary). This is one of the chants featured in the upcoming album, currently without a title (not even a working title!). Today we reviewed some of the music, practiced our Latin pronunciation and spent close to an hour in a photo shoot with Sr. Mary Emmanuel. She posed us this way and that, in this setting and then in another one. I was rather anxious the whole time, not just because of my sneakers (she wasn't doing feet, thankfully!), but because I was wearing the wrong color blouse (pale blue instead of beige!). I don't know how that's going to turn out. I didn't bring my beige blouse with me, thinking I could borrow one. (I didn't know that the photo shoot was today.) As the project continues, we hope to be keeping our choir blog up to date; maybe Sr. Emmanuel will provide some of those photos we smiled for today...

See you later.

Our community encounter week has been so packed, there has barely been time to wash the dishes. (Note that we did have time to eat! Priorities, after all.) Suffice it to say that I haven't done much more than micro-blogging. The encounter ends at noon tomorrow (Aug 14). We have time to wash the dishes (ahem!); the great silence of our eight-day retreat begins at 5:00. Naturally, Internet access falls under the category of "unnecessary conversations" that are not consistent with the best retreat practices. You are welcome to post your special intentions in the comments; I'll check them at about 4:00 (Eastern Time).
As a sign of the special grace I expect from this retreat, be it noted that the retreat begins on the 33rd anniversary of my entrance, and at near the hour in which I first walked through the convent door in suburban Boston. So please pray for me, too!
Blessings! See you in eight days.

Too good to miss

Here's Sr. Tracey's video rendition of our week in the recording studio...

Cookout for St. Lawrence Day

It wasn't planned that way, really. Tomorrow is our "free Sunday" when our encounter meetings are suspended for a day of rejoicing in the Lord. It just happened that one way we like to rejoice in the Lord as a community (especially when we are gathered from the four winds and are with sisters we haven't seen for quite some time) is to fire up the ol' grill. And it just happens that tomorrow will be the feast of St. Lawrence, known for all time as the deacon martyr who was grilled to death, but somehow maintained a wry sense of humor during the ideal. (He was the one who so famously said, "Turn me over now; I'm done on this side.")

From the retreat house

The last of the singers (that would include me) arrived at the retreat house last night for a week of community meetings (to be followed by our eight days of silence). As I was moving into the room I will occupy for the next two weeks, I found a peculiar object on the shelves (no real closets)in the room. It was carefully and quite neatly wrapped in a mattress cover. An old, red brick.
If that wasn't the Cure' of Ars' pillow, I can't imagine what it was doing in a retreat house room. But as long as the holy Cure' doesn't expect me to use it as a pillow, I think I'll be okay with it.

When Peter Was Satan

Today's Gospel is the famous "Get behind me, Satan" passage, where Jesus delivers a real zinger to Peter. Why? Because Peter was "thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do." And this right after Peter had been praised for what the Father had revealed to him about Jesus! Turns out, Peter had "rebuked" Jesus for predicting his suffering and death. Peter couldn't fathom that God might actually allow the righteous to suffer. It is almost as if Peter was scolding Jesus, saying "Hey, where's your faith?!"

Transfiguration, Real Presence and Reparation

Yesterday was the first I had heard of the recent rash of Eucharistic sacrileges being promoted, as it seems, by a professor of the [University of Wisconsin (Madison)] [CORRECTION: University of Minnesota: sorry about that, U Wis]. It seems that the man is asking folks to send him consecrated hosts so he can desecrate them with aplomb, publishing the manner in which he carries this out (so as to assure himself the greatest possible attention). I understand he is an equal opportunity offender, having simultaneously desecrated the Eucharist and the Koran. Clearly, there is some sort of personality disorder at work here: a kind of exhibitionism.
Rather than dismiss this ("What a loser!"), we are called to two responses. The first of these is, clearly, reparation, not only for the professor, but for those who are collaborating with his deranged project. Our reparation can take the form of the opposite of sacrilege: praise and adoration of the Eucharist and reverence toward the members of the Body of Christ. Our second response, one that has already been taken up by many, is to pray for this person. I am praying especially to St. Paul for his healing and conversion, because if such a person as this were to be converted, he could become an Apostle of the Eucharist, much the way Paul became the most unlikely Apostle of the Gentiles.
The Lord's presence in the Eucharist is almost the opposite of what today's feast of the Transfiguration celebrates. Until that moment on the mountain, our Lord's divinity was utterly hidden: only his human nature was apparent. Then, the glory he had with the Father before the world began manifested itself in that transcendent experience. But in the Eucharist, as Thomas Aquinas sings in "Adoro Te," both divine and human natures are hidden. All we see is a passive piece of bread (or a "cracker," as the sacrilegious professor insists on saying). But perception is not reality--certainly not in this case, nor was it during our Lord's earthly life!
And now, down to the studio.

Our midday break (for lunch and prayer) is almost over. During my Hour of Adoration, I was especially struck by today's Gospel: "Every plant not planted by my Father will be uprooted." I tend to interpret this as a "divine passive," which means that God is really the one doing the action. But it could also be the sheer nature of human initiatives that makes them susceptible to destruction. I found myself flipping pages to that other passage in the Gospel about the house that can't be shaken by wind or flood: the secret is that the house is built on the rock of God's word.

False hopes

Today's first reading (from Jeremiah) confronts the problem of false prophets: people who raise false hopes. And what kind of false hopes? The expectation, in times of suffering, that things ought to just return to the familiar patterns and structures and supports; that things will go back to "normal." It's understandable, of course: we judge what is "normal" by how things have been in the past. But we risk limiting our openness to God's creativity that way. Even in the biblical situation, when the false prophet was promising that the fixtures stolen from the Temple (the Temple of the Lord himself) would be restored, and worship would again proceed like always, God was hinting otherwise: the Temple would be destroyed, leveled to the ground. God wanted the people to be very clear on this, and not to base their hopes on a building, no matter how illustrious. Once that happened, God promised through another prophet, "Greater will the future glory of this house be than what it ever was before."
God's promises outshine our hopes.


On a different note:
We're getting ready for another day of recording; I posted a video of our work so far. Check our Singing Sisters blog for updates!

Still singing!

There's barely time to blog, tweet or plurk (never mind Facebook!) while we are working in the studio, but we are trying to keep the music blog updated, so please keep checking there for my whereabouts! If I get any particularly deep insights, or have any especially interesting experiences while here (and I can get to the computer), you'll still find it here, though!

Keeping up with the Choir

We're going to try to maintain a blog from the studio, keeping the connection open all day so as we get breaks between songs any of the singers can update the blog. And post pics and video. So get your daily update on the recording project: Catholic Favorites, vol. 2. Maybe you'll even hear a snatch of a favorite of yours!

For the Greater Glory

On this feast of St. Ignatius, we are scheduled to begin a new music project (for the greater glory of God, of course). I just learned which songs are to be included in this new album, and it will certainly be a constant reminder to "seek first God's kingship" if all we do is pay attention to what we sing:
Adoro Te
All Creatures of Our God and King
How Great Thou Art
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Let There Be Peace on Earth
The Lord Is My Shepherd
Magnificat
No Longer I
Now Thank We All Our God
O Bread of Angels
To Jesus Christ our Sovereign King
Ave Maria (I don't know which one)
Salve Mater Misericordiae (the typical translation was done by my old professor, C.J. McNaspy, SJ!)
Veni Sancte Spiritus

I'll do my best to post video updates and scenes, observing the limits of time and copyright. Check back often! And every time you do, say a little prayer for the people this project will touch.

Martha, Martha

I know I'm a day late on this, but on yesterday's feast of St. Martha I really wasn't able to do more than a laboriously entered phone message. Besides, I'm still thinking about what the Lord said to St. Martha! And I noticed something.
It is typical in Luke's Gospel for Jesus to repeat a person's name when he has a "good news/bad news" type of announcement. A call to conversion, in other words. It's "Martha, Martha", "Peter, Peter", "Jerusalem, Jerusalem." Even in the Acts of the Apostles, the Risen and Exalted Jesus follows the same modus operandi: "Saul, Saul."
Not only that! Jesus tells his hearers that if they don't carry out his message, one day they will be saying, "Lord, Lord!"
I also noticed an interesting pattern in that section of Luke's Gospel where we find the Martha/Mary story. Just a few paragraphs ahead of that, we have Jesus reminding the disciples, "Blest are the eyes that see what you see." (Boy does that apply to Martha!) Then someone asked Jesus about the greatest commandment in the Law. And Jesus had the man answer his own question: Love the Lord with everything you've got, and love your neighbor as yourself. The very next thing is the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is followed by Martha's frenetic hospitality of the Son of God, and then we get the teaching on how to pray (the Our Father). So there is a subtle "inclusio" of sorts as a commentary on the Law of Love: neighbor (good Samaritan) and God (Our Father) and in the very middle, the story of Martha in which Jesus is both "neighbor" and Lord, the "one thing necessary." Jesus sums up God and neighbor in himself, and the story of Martha and Mary becomes a parable of how to live the Law of Love.

Airport chapel

What a great service! Midway has a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament, too. And O Hare. Where else?

tada!

Sr. Laura and I met some wonderful people at the Catholic Family Conference in Elgin this weekend...
And here's Sr. Laura's finished version of St. Paul for the Pauline Year:

Now I'm heading to Boston (angels on the plane!) for a week of music and then a week of prayer; a week of meetings and then another week of music. I have a frightfully early flight tomorrow...
Please pray for us!

The mustard seed and biblical inerrancy

Today's Gospel always reminds me of the time I first encountered the possibility of error in the Bible (not doctrinal error, mind you, just inexact information). I was about nine, and was the proud and hope-filled possessor of some seed packets, purchased from the local "dime" store. Among the flowers I hoped would grow in our freshly prepared patch of backyard were zinnias. I ripped open the packet and poured the seeds into my hand: hundreds of tiny black dots settled into my palm. And I remembered the words of the Holy Gospel, "the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds."
I had seen mustard seeds (in those little acrylic bubbles). I looked again at the seeds in my hand. These had to be the smallest of all seeds.
Faced with the obvious fact that Jesus was plain wrong about seeds, I was in a quandary. Did Jesus, who was all-knowing, not know about zinnias? Was the Bible wrong about other things besides the relative sizes of seeds? Did any grown-ups know about this? I piously decided to ignore the discrepancy, but every time I hear this Gospel, well... now you know!

Scenes from my walk

On the road

Sr. Laura and I head out this evening for the Rockford Diocese's Catholic Family Conference in Elgin. When we get back Sunday afternoon, I will have just over a day to catch up and...pack for my trip to Boston! So you may not hear from me too much over the next five days.
Meanwhile, I have launched yet another blog, this time on behalf of our recording choir. It is hosted on St. Paul's Tube, a Pauline Family social networking site. Hopefully, during the recording sessions, we'll manage to post daily updates, video clips, reminders for prayer and the like.
One voice that may be missing on this album is that of Sr. Margaret Timothy Sato. I don't think she's missed an album yet, but this month she was named Provincial Superior--a role that can be pretty much all-consuming. Sr. Timothy, a native of Honolulu, takes the helm of the Daughters of St. Paul in the US and English-speaking Canada. Assisting her on the council are: Sr. Joan Paula Aruda, Sr. Marie James Hunt, Sr. M. Domenica Vitello and Sr. Karen Marie Anderson (who is presently also serving as director of novices). This is their very first week "on the job," so I know they would appreciate an extra dose of prayer.

Another book for your shelf

We have a clearance sale going on, which is (to my mind) the perfect reason to quickly read through a book or two before it sells out. One of the books I perused was Ruth Barton's "Sacred Rhythms." It's a kind of handbook on Christian spirituality: prayer, discernment, creating a spiritual "rule of life" (and even the examen of consciousness!). All very solid, very real-life oriented and very readable. What is particularly interesting to me is that Barton, who was brought up in the Baptist tradition, makes all this traditionally Catholic stuff very approachable for non-Catholics, to whom the language may be much less familiar. But her writing is not so focused on a Protestant audience that a Catholic would be distracted or unable to relate. It's just a good, solid and balanced treatment of key issues in our life with God.
Barton deserves kudos for her treatment of the Sabbath in our Christian life, and her helpful explanation of how to create a "rule of life" that sets our life on course in a way that coincides with our life with God, not setting "prayer life" and "real life" on parallel tracks.
As I mentioned, this was a book I picked up from our sale shelf; we have a few copies left (at 30% off!), so if you're quick enough, you might be able to snatch one up for yourself.

Mary, Mary

Today's feast of St. Mary Magdalen renews the problem of the many Marys in the Gospels. Mary Magdalen has suffered the brunt of most of the confusion, being considered a reformed prostitute by the churches in the west, and a virgin by the Eastern churches. And to tell the truth, the confusion is a bit warranted. Luke says that Jesus cast no less than seven demons from Mary of Magdala, and since the number seven represents completeness, that's like saying "all hell" was upon her before that deliverance. A "sinful woman" washed Jesus' feet with tears, dried them with her hair and perfumed them with fragrant oil. Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, also poured expensive perfume on Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair. There were no less than three Marys at the foot of Jesus' cross, and two who approached the tomb on Easter morning.
There was bound to be some confusion.
And maybe that's all right. Maybe the multiplicity of Gospel Marys means something for us. Maybe we should blend them all into one image of Christian discipleship, summed up in Mary, the Mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalen, apostle to the Apostles. Maybe we are all supposed to be those Marys, made one.

Jesus and Jonah

I meant to post about today's Gospel (better late than never!): how today we hear Jesus claim to be "greater than Solomon" and "greater than Jonah." And John the Baptizer said that Jesus was "mightier" than he, "ranked ahead" of him, and so on. I wondered at the terms "greater" and "mightier." What did the Greek say? Well, sure enough for John the Baptizer: he was saying that the one coming after him was "stronger" than he was. But Jesus claimed to be not exactly "greater" in our sense of greatness; the word in today's Gospel is closer to our word for "full, fullness." As would only be fitting of the one "in whom all the fullness was pleased to dwell."
Solomon and Jonah were "types" of Christ; Christ himself is the fulfilment. John was not a "type" of Christ, but his predecessor and the "best man" at the wedding that is yet to come.

Saints Alive!

So this is what pious surgeons do in their downtime...

Adoption Help

A piece in yesterday's Tribune mentioned organizations that offer grants to adopting families. Here are some of them:
The Gift of Adoption Fund
Shaohannah's Hope (Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman started this one)
The Asian Bridge (matching grants for families adopting from any Asian country)
Help Us Adopt

Yum

Thanks to Inge on Plurk, I found this delicious Italian recipe blog (from the Puglia region of Italy, famous for its olive oil). Even if you can't read Italian, you can savor the pictures.

The conversions of st paul

Sr. Laura is creating a new image of St. Paul
for the Pauline Year. It is taking place in her "studio" (aka "cubicle") right across the hall from my "office."
Just today she asked the Paulist priest who celebrated Mass in our chapel if he could be a "hand model" for Paul. (How appropos!) Here you can see the "portrait" taking shape.

Sr. Julia's back!

I brought the video camera down to New Orleans when I visited my family, and Sr. Julia was gracious enough to expound on "summer reading": fiction! I apologize in advance for the audio problems in the first part of the video. You would not believe what I had to go through with this! For a while, I thought it was going to be a silent movie. Thankfully, St. Paul and Bl. James Alberione got at least some sound working...

So Where are "The Nuns"?

A comment that appeared not only in this blog's comment box, but also in Karen's (and I suspect quite a few others--someone must have spent the day doing blog marketing for Sony) announced an upcoming music sensation, already signed with Sony: The Priests. Real ones. And they sing. Their first album will be released in November.
As readers of this blog know, "The Nuns" have released almost two dozen albums. We're still waiting for that call from Sony/BMG: maybe they'd be interested in our upcoming project?

Introducing....

As soon as I get a picture, I'll do the formal introductions! Meanwhile, I just wanted to give you an update on our community, which is in summer flux as we take turns for retreat, updating and so on. Sr. Helen will be returning from her retreat tomorrow; I'll be leaving for mine in two weeks (actually, we have a recording project first and then retreat). Sr. Helena (movie philosopher blogger nun) is taking a course through our "Pauline Center for Media Studies" in Culver City, CA. I'm sure she's loving those Pacific Coast sunbeams.
Meanwhile in Chicago we are hosting a Korean sister who is working on her English skills at a language school two doors away. Sister Triphonia is a theology student at the Gregorian University in Rome (many classes, papers, texts and tests are in English). She is slated for higher studies in moral theology, probably at the "Alphonsianum." (Don't you love how those Roman Universities have such saintly names? In addition to the two just named, there are: the Angelicum (St. Thomas Aquinas), the Antonianum (St. Anthony), the Claretianum (St. Anthony Claret, with a specialization in Religious Life), the Anselmianum (St. Anselm--or was it Ambrose? I'm getting confused. This university specializes in Liturgy studies), the Seraphicum (St. Francis), the Teresianum (St. Teresa--specializing in spirituality!)... I know there are more; who wants to fill in the blanks?

iConfess

Somebody had to do it.
Cajun geek Travis Boudreaux has created an iPhone application for the distracted penitent. (It also functions as a very small web site.)
Great work, Travis! Now, what about the priest's edition?

Listen Up!

I'll be making my retreat day on Sunday, but you can still hear me chatting away with Sr. Tracey and my fellow New Orleanian (transplanted to Georgia these twenty years), Ken Lampert. An interview recorded at the Atlanta Eucharistic Congress will be broadcast Sunday night (8:30 pm) on "The Catholic Hour," WDUN AM 550 (wdun.com). Ken, who grew up in the same Metairie parish I did, just a few streets away, says that the first half of the program will be on Saint Columban, and then you can catch me and Sr. Tracey on the air.

Oviedo: Wish I had Known

Found a book in our center yesterday about the "Sudarium of Oviedo," a bloodstained linen cloth that has been venerated in an historically ascertainable way for at least 1400 years as the "cloth that covered the head" of Jesus after his death. Interestingly, although this cloth was locked in an wooden trunk in Spain and maintained in one place since 1041, the bloodstains match those found on the Shroud of Turin (which never passed through Spain). Sudarium and Shroud feature the same microscopic pollens. And blood type AB (common in the Middle East; rare in Europe). The sudarium was moved from Jerusalem to Alexandria when Muslim armies were conquering the Holy Land; two years later, they were at Egypt's door, and the relic, in its oaken trunk, was spirited off to Spain. As the Muslims advanced through Spain, the trunk was sent off to more and more remote places, finally being secured in Asturias (the one region of Spain that was never under Muslim rule). Finally it was moved in 1041 (or 1014? memory fails me) to what became the capital of Asturias, Oviedo, and a Cathedral was built up around the royal chapel where the trunk of relics was kept.
I visited that Cathedral in 2006. With Karen (see picture taken with her magic camera).
I didn't know what I was missing as we were hurriedly shown around the church (whose guardians wanted to lock up for siesta). We should have been in adoration, but it seems that the caretakers of the relic were only following historical precendent in not alerting us to its presence or significance. (This makes sense, given the need to protect it from destruction. Even in the 20th century, it wasn't safe; during the Spanish Civil War, the relic chapel was fire-bombed. The oaken trunk, though, was not destroyed.)
Turns out that medieval pilgrims to Compostela would make a detour through mountains (Asturias is Europe's prime mountain-climbing region) to visit the Cathedral of Oviedo. A couplet that was common at the time (and that appears in various forms in other languages than Spanish) said that one who went to Compostela and the tomb of St. James without visiting the Cathedral of Oviedo was focusing on the "servant" and not on the "Lord."

Catching Up

I was planning to spend the day catching up on the post-travel backlog in my office. Instead, we learned that the mom of a friend of the community had died, so the day was ordered around a visitation held quite far from downtown Chicago. I got a little bit done earlier in the afternoon, but there wasn't much left for blogging. Hopefully I'll be back in full swing by Monday. (I'm making my July retreat day on Sunday, but I don't blog on Sundays anyway. As for tomorrow...we'll see!)
If you are in the Chicago area, come and visit our center soon. We are having a clearance sale and there are some fantastic titles on the sale shelf. I think that priests and seminarians would be especially excited about the books in the areas of liturgy and Scripture study, as well as spirituality.

Back to Chi-town

Yesterday was a pretty full day with Mom, running around the city and ending up at my brother's house for "the world's healthiest pizza" with his two tiny girls. Then, back home, I couldn't print out my boarding pass for today's flight to Midway. That discovery led to the realization that Mom's impossibly slow computer was simply maxed out. So I spent my last waking hours last night with Mom, deleting duplicate and triplicate folders of family photos. And then doing a defrag. (Mom's not just losing a daughter here; she's losing in-home tech support!)
So, "angels on wings" for the flight to Midway. See you in Chicago!

My recent experience with Facebook got me thinking about the precariousness of our online existence. Interestingly, yesterday (just as my problem was resolved) the paper had a four-column article on the issues involved "Online Freedoms Inconsistent." When we sign up for these free services, we are at the mercy of the service provider. We can be screened, edited, or (as I was) summarily booted out, and we have no court of appeal because this is a private enterprise. That's perfectly legitimate, but my experience this week told me not to take too much for granted. Just two days before I found myself exiled from the Facebook community, I published a post about a pro-life video that had been taken down by YouTube for violating unstated criteria. I kind of wondered if my FB experience was in some way related to my having put that post on my FB page and not only on my blog... In other words, is Orwell's Big Brother online?

As the AP article noted: "Community backlash can restrain service providers, but as Internet companies continue to consolidate and Internet users spend more time using vendor-controlled platforms such as mobile devices or social-networking sites, the community's power to demand free speech and other rights diminishes. Weinstein, the veteran computer scientist, said that as people congregate at fewer places, "if you're knocked off one of those, in a lot of ways you don't exist.""

About Face(book)

After some correspondence with the folks behind Facebook, and a 1.5 mb jpg of my passbook page, I am back on Facebook, presumably as "Sister Anne." I would check on it now, but Mom wants to go see the Hummingbird Lady of Metairie, and our time is short!
Glad this was taken care of; I was getting rather creeped out by the implications of what FB was doing.

Facebook Face-off

I tried to log onto Facebook today, only to be met with the curt message that my account had been disabled by an adminstrator because of a "fake name."
I used SrAnne as my name because Facebook had earlier deleted the "Sister" from "Sister Anne." I just wrote(disabled@facebook.com) to protest (mildly), saying that SrAnne was as close as I could get to my real name, given the restrictions on titles in FB. "Sister Anne" appears on my passport; doesn't that count as a "real" name?
So if you are wondering, as Jeff was, why I disappeared from your friend list, that's the reason. Want to help me (and other offending "srs") get back on?

Independence

Going to Mass on Independence Day got me thinking about what "independence" means for Christians. St Paul speaks about our freedom as children of God. So when did we declare our independence? We can't be independent of God, although there are some strands of spiritual thought that do incline that way. Actually, our "July 4" was our Baptism day, and we celebrate Independence Day every time we renew our baptismal promises. We declare our independence from Satan, from all his works and from all his empty promises. Even more, we "renounce" them.
Jesus has already won the victory: we are free at last!

I saw that the Vatican Congregation for Saints recognized a miracle attributed to St. Therese's parents, and also recognized the heroic faith, hope and charity of an Italian teenager who died in 1990. I had to look her up: Chiara Badano, from a family in the Focolare movement. Beautiful!

Seems a bit... intolerant, doesn't it?

I learned this morning that YouTube yanked an expose' video offline, claiming that the video violated their terms of use. Having viewed the four-minute clip, I can't say I saw anything at all that could have provoked such an action. What the video did, however, was expose the link between various aggressively pro-abortion organizations (including megalith Planned Parenthood) and an allegedly neutral documentary on abortion.
I'm not saying that the interview was handled in the best possible way. The gentleman couldn't wait to play his hand he missed the opportunity for a rejoinder when the woman from "The Decency Gap" insisted that the website he was quoting was old. (It had a 2008 copyright notice.) But, gracefully or not, the points were made and they are valid. And it is hard to imagine the excuse that was made for yanking the video.
So where are the voices decrying this unofficial censorship of unwelcome revelations? Sure, it's not government censorship, but when other private entities exclude ideological input, there are plenty of protests. It seems that Planned Parenthood & Co. has a lot of pull over at YouTube.

In case you are willing to brave it, here is the video that YouTube so heroically pulled in protection of... what? (GoogleVideo has so far been willing to face the consequences of keeping it available, which is odd, since Google owns YouTube; maybe because it is on Google.es?)

Doubting Thomas

Today is the feast day of no-longer-doubting Thomas. Interesting, isn't it, that he who refused the testimony of the other apostles that they had seen the Lord is traditionally considered the founding Apostle of India? Presumably, the people of that subcontinent accepted Thomas' testimony, "I have seen the Lord!" They walked by faith and not by sight, and still do.
Speaking of faith, I am reading an excellent presentation on the Catholic faith by George Weigel: "The Truth of Catholicism." It's not a new book, but it's my first chance to actually read it, and I am delighted with it. Weigel addressed the principal questions that people in our culture have when it comes to things Catholic, and he does it with panache. Is the Catholic Church condemning other religions or Christian communities with its claims? Is "doctrine" a "conservative" notion? Are Catholics the least free of all religious believers? Stuff like that. Weigel's book deserves a careful reading, something our culture doesn't seem to be too good at (one of the reasons the book needed to be written!).
I am also just finishing a fine book of Catholic spirituality: "Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions" by Albert Haase, OFM. I know, the title is pretty unappealing, but the book itself is well written, both solid and contemporary. I already have it lined up for a second read!
What is on your bookshelf for summer reading?

Begone!

"Begone!" When I hear that archaic word, I'm more likely than not to associate it with the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert, when he dismissed the enemy of mankind with that one-word command. But in reading today's Gospel, I realized that this rough dismissal was probably used more often to send Jesus himself away (or at least to try!). Today we hear Matthew's account of the healing of two demon-possessed men in the (pagan) region of the Gadarenes. When the demons left the men and entered a huge herd of swine (leading to the death of every last porker and an immense financial loss for the owners), the townspeople came out to where Jesus was and asked him, probably not too kindly, to leave the district. Even Peter, when he had witnessed the miraculous catch of fish, told Jesus to leave. (At least Peter added the motive, which was "for I am a sinful man.") "He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him."

I suspect that even in Gadara there were many people who heard the news about the demoniacs and the swine, and felt a glimmer of hope that Jesus would come to them, too. Perhaps it was only the herd owners, probably the leading men of the town, who insisted that "the whole town" rise up to expel Jesus. Maybe it did not occur to them that anyone would welcome someone who could "bear our griefs and carry our sorrows." And so they sent God away, and God meekly left.

Wall*E

Father Roderick was right: "Wall*E" is a very Catholic movie, from the rusty robot's discovery of a "partner like unto himself" (the roach certainly didn't qualify!) to the nurturing of life by E.V.E. (!) and the eventual new creation under human stewardship. And delightful all the while. I also loved Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth," sung during the credits.
This is one of those movies where the critics' "two thumbs up" really makes sense!