Te Deum for 2012

It's a Catholic custom that deserves to be maintained, that of praying the Te Deum (a solemn psalm of praise) on New Year's Eve in recognition of the grace bestowed on us throughout the year that is ending. We'll be praying ours tonight during our Hour of Adoration. (New Year's Eve is always a time of special thanksgiving for us, since it was in adoration during the wee hours of New Year's Day 1900 that our Founder received the extraordinary grace of "understanding Christ's call, 'Come to Me, all of you', the heart of the great Pope [Leo XIII], the appeals of the Church, the true mission of the priesthood...")

Here's a little poem/song for the year in review. It's quite incomplete, so add your own verse or two in the comments!

For the good books read
and the new friends met
and in hope of grace
I have not seen yet.

For successes won
and for travels done.
For new vistas glimpsed
every mile I've come.

For the crosses borne
over paths well-worn,
and for each new share
in the Crown of Thorn.

For the love I've known
and for mercies shown;
for the signs that I'm
never all alone.

For each Holy Mass
of the year now past.
May my heartfelt praise
and thanksgiving last.

Let it snow?

Well, song or no song, we've had snowy mornings in Chicago these first days of Christmas, even if there's not much to show for it afterwards. But the seasonal weather has suggested a coping mechanism for something I am dealing with right now. There's a liturgical situation here in the Loop that causes me so much aggravation, the only solution I know of is making a hasty exit. Usually that is an option, but not always. And lately...not at all, so that I have really been put to the test (three times in one week!!!!!). The last time this was going on, just after Communion a holiday song came to mind. At first, it was only the refrain, but now I have a whole set of lyrics:

Oh, I'm tempted right now to spite, though
I know it isn't right, so
While praying for grace, I know:
"Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!"

Easier said (or sung) than done, of course. That's where forgiveness comes in. As they say, forgiveness isn't for the offender, it's for the offendee. A book I read about this very thing puts a helpful light on it. According to Dr. Fred Luskin, author of "Forgive For Good," we need to employ forgiveness whenever one of our "unenforceable rules" is transgressed. It is helpful to recognize that it is "my" rule that is at issue, even when my rule is fairly reasonable, and actually corresponds to some objective rule out there (rubrics, for instance).

Today's feast of the Holy Innocents reminds me that even the most objectively just rules out there can be unenforceable. ("Thou shalt not kill" comes to mind.) I pray I can take a page from the Lord's own forgiveness book and lighten up when it comes to my own unenforceable expectations of others.

How long is your Christmas?

Downtown Chicago is back to business mode, although there are a few extra shoppers and visitors along State Street and Michigan Avenue and I hear the skating rink in Millennium Park is quite crowded...but that would be by the youth group from St. Patrick's Parish in St. Charles, out in the Rockford diocese: 95 teens came in for a day that started with Mass at St. Peter's. Not bad for the 3rd day of Christmas (although I haven't seen Three French Hens yet).

I don't know how it happened that the Twelve Days of Christmas got reduced to One Big Day. I am a fan of protracted feast-days, myself. There is just too much in Christmas to take in within a twenty-four hour span (or a lifespan, for that matter). I hardly know which aspect to look at; which person to sit with or watch or listen to; which mystery to marvel over. Thank Heaven we have those Twelve Days!

Pope Benedict on Financial Priorities

In case you missed it the other day, Pope Benedict was approached by the Financial Times to write a Christmas piece. He obliged, commenting on the challenge the almost worldwide financial crisis presents when it comes to celebrating Christmas. Words from the public ministry of Jesus became the opening line of the Pope's reflection--and they are surprisingly apt words in the light of the Christmas story itself, when "an edict came forth from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be registered...": "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

The Pope wrote about the sharing of earth's resources; Christian engagement in political life (an engagement that ought to shun every form of ideology); the need to care for the weak... In a word, he wrote about Christian life in the world. And that Christian life began...in Bethlehem.

Death in the season of life (updated)

A few months ago I was sent a review copy of John Kiser's book, The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria. It's a thorough presentation, rich in context, of the martyrdom of a Trappist community in an otherwise godforsaken stretch of the former French colony (the subject of the movie Of Gods and Men). Unsurprisingly, the message of the monks has been resounding in my mind over this past week.

Unlike the families of Newtown, the monks were not taken by surprise when their monastery was invaded by armed men. They weren't even the first religious community to be kidnapped or put to death in that civil war. But their deaths did something that the many (many) previous murders failed to do: bring the whole country up short. Within a short span, peace (well, stability) came to Algeria.

I think the events in that grade school last week may prove to have somewhat the same effect for us. There have been mass killings before. There have even been school shootings. And most of the time, the perpetrators fit so familiar a profile, you could practically describe them without knowing anything more than the body count. But after a while the media quiets down, and outside of the immediate locale, people mostly forget. Things go on unchanged until the next time.

Now, for all the (predictable) talk of gun control, something new has happened. People--ordinary people with jobs and minivans, mortgages and golden retrievers--are starting to tell their stories of coping (or not) with mental illness in the family. The first of these was Liza ("I am Adam Lanza's Mother") Long, whose post about her thirteen-year-old quickly went so viral that even posts about her post went viral and generated hundreds, even thousands, of comments. Another perspective came from Washington Archdiocese's Msgr. Charles Pope. He had written, just the day before the school massacre, about his beautiful sister's struggle with mental illness and the further tragedy that visited his home in the wake of his sister's untimely and horrific death. In the light of the Newtown tragedy, he revealed more about his family's failed attempts to get his sister the mental health care she needed. Read those posts, and read the comments, many from courageous people who live with mental illness and find the support they need to live richly even while under a heavy cross.

Like many families, my extended family has had to deal with various forms of mental illness. As has been the case with my relatives, most people with mental illness do not commit violent crimes, though a disproportionate number of people in our prisons have been diagnosed with a mental illness (perhaps because our society does not pay attention to them unless something rather drastic happens). But until a disturbed young man fired on a rooms full of helplessly small children, the stories of quiet coping mostly went untold.

Maybe now we'll be able to talk about it. Out loud.


Today three USCCB Committees issued a joint statement calling for (in addition to better gun control laws), "healthcare policies that provide support to people with mental health needs, and [for] the entertainment industry to address the proliferation of violence and evaluate its impact in society."

Apocalypse Now? Well, maybe.

Okay, so it doesn't feel like the end of the world. At least not the way Jesus presented it (i.e. unmistakeable) (oh, and He plays a Very Big Role). But there have been rather apocalyptic goings on of late. Over in Newtown, CT, the scene of so much horror and heartbreak already, the parish priests are being besieged with threats (starting with the bomb scare during the noon Mass on Sunday). The younger of the two, ordained just two years, had his identity stolen. And to top it all off, the diocese doesn't even have a bishop right now, so there's no fatherly, brotherly support "from the top" either.

Oh, and Christmas is in five days.

What gives?

Actually, I'm not finding the personal threats against the priests all that surprising.

On the one hand, the events of last week seemed to have roused all the "wannabe" mass murderers, who, having failed to carry out a newsworthy act of violence, are attempting to hitch a ride on this one. But there's more to it than that, I think. The manifestations of hate can also be seen, in a way, as anti-sacramental signs that "contain and bestow" hostility. After all, we do have an enemy. And chaos serves this enemy's purpose just as much as reconciliation and hope thwart it.

The untold good news from Newtown is precisely that "where sin abounded," peace and hope and prayer "abound yet more" in a parish Church that has not been empty since the troubles began. And boy, does the enemy know it.

So add one or two more envelopes to that stack of Christmas cards you know you haven't finished writing yet. And send not just a promise of prayers, but a "report" of prayers already offered for them--Rosaries, Holy Hours, quarter-hours spent reading the Gospels, chaplets of Divine Mercy and St. Michael--to the parish priests of Newtown. You'll be sharing in the good, and bolstering the spirits of two men who have borne and still bear for their people a sorrowful burden we cannot begin to imagine.

Father Luke Suarez
46 Church Hill Road
Newtown, CT 06470

Msgr. Robert Weiss 
46 Church Hill Road
Newtown, CT 06470

Words for a Valley of Tears

The news has its way of offering a new "angle" on the Scripture. As we prayed the Liturgy of the Hours this morning, Psalm 84 kept speaking--loudly--to the sorrowful events in Newtown, CT. I found myself hoping that some of the families there had the custom of praying the Liturgy of the Hours, just so they would find the consolation embedded in that first Psalm of Monday, Week III of the Psalter.

This is the Psalm that gives us the expression we find in the "Hail, Holy Queen" about the valley of tears (in the Grail translation it is "the bitter valley"). Not that the Psalm dwells on the bitterness, no. This is a pilgrimage Psalm; it focuses all our attention on the destination. I couldn't help but hear the voices of the children, reassuring their parents as they exclaimed, "How lovely is Your dwelling place, Lord God of hosts!" They have not entered a monochrome half-life of clouds and harps; they have discovered a vibrant existence that outstrips the most exuberant moments of their little lives: "My heart and my flesh ring out their joy to God, the living God." They even assure us, "I would rather one day in Your house than a thousand days elsewhere."

All this goes not only for the innocent little ones who died in an insane hail of gunfire; we can't be wrong in hearing it also from those grownups who laid down their lives trying to protect them. (I was struck yesterday at Mass, during the commemoration of the departed in Eucharistic Prayer III, at the recommendation to God of "all who were pleasing to you in their passing from this life.")

Psalm 84 speaks to us of Advent as a pilgrimage. We are not taking a sentimental journey to the Bethlehem of the past; knowing that "we have no lasting city here" (not even in Bethlehem), we are going out to meet the One who is taking giant steps toward us. The little ones of Newtown have already achieved what we are made for.

Help for kids "When Bad Things Happen"

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, one of our sisters prepared a children's book on dealing with the experience of evil. Not just "tragedy," but evil, as in "tragedy effected on purpose." There are still a few used copies of this beautifully illustrated book available out there, ready to offer insight.

If Amazon is out of this title, try this used book dealer.

We Need a Little Easter this Christmas

I didn't sleep much last night. Every time I turned (again) or plumped my pillow (again), it was as though I was with the parents and family members of the Newtown massacre, facing that atrocity. I just kept praying for them all, and in a special way for the first responders who will probably need years of therapy to come to terms with what they had to deal with.

For my Advent reading, I have been reflecting on Pope Benedict's "Christmas" book, Jesus of Nazareth : The Infancy Narratives. Throughout, he notes the way Matthew and Luke, in telling the Christmas story, are at pains to keep tying it in with the story of Christ's passion and death. Today--how timely--I read the chapter on Herod's slaughter of the innocents. Matthew quotes the Old Testament words about Rachel's grief, for which there can be no comfort. The Pope comments: The only true consolation that is more than mere words would be the resurrection. Only in the resurrection could the wrong be overcome."

Spirituality talk in recent decades has not exactly focused on the Passion of Christ; that is, we have been told, dangerously "morbid."  And so who ever prays the Stations of the Cross outside of Lent? But the Passion and Death of Christ puts us on the path to Easter. And walking the way of the Cross in Christ's steps gives us more of a chance to see Him at our side on our Via Crucis.

I've never been to St. Rose of Lima church in Newtown, CT, a parish that lost perhaps ten members in yesterday's shootings. I wonder what it's like inside. I wonder what their Stations of the Cross are like. Do they have an image of the Pieta, where mothers and fathers can find that they are not alone in their awful grief? The fifth joyful mystery also offers some mysterious hope. Not necessarily in the joy of reunion, but in solidarity with Mary and Joseph in their anguish about the lost Child.

These final days of Advent (the Christmas novena starts tomorrow) will surely be the deepest Passiontide imaginable for the families of Newtown. May the grace of Easter shine on them.

Chicago Christmas Concerts

Since the choir I sing with at Our Lady of Mt Carmel is offering an Epiphany-time Christmas concert, and members of the choir are involved in other seasonal events, I thought it would be nice to list some of those here for you who are in the Chicago area. NB: the music starts tomorrow!

City Voices Chorale, Pro Musica and The Oriana Singers 

Saturday, Dec. 15 

6:30 pm - Silent auction and treats 

7:30 pm - Concert 

Adults $20, seniors/students $15, families $50 

Group discounts for 10 or more 

Free child care provided 

First United Church of Oak Park

848 Lake Street at Kenilworth 

Oak Park

CHRISTMAS TRIPTYCHS
William Ferris Chorale
Sunday, Dec. 16, 3 p.m.
St Clement Church
642 Deming Place
Chicago
Ticket info here

What Star Is This with Beams So Bright?
Saturday, Jan. 5, 7 p.m.
 Our Lady of Mt Carmel Church
708 W. Belmont Chicago
(free admission)

Why We Need More "Minor Revisions"!

Here I am writing about the miniseries from NET-NY TV and I didn't even see it yet... I was at a meeting for the Archdiocese last night precisely when "Minor Revisions" premiered. Thankfully, they will be running the show again on Saturday afternoon, so I have another chance. (I hate being out of the loop!)

But even without having seen the show (I did read Jennifer's post after she got a sneak peak at it last week), I can say that this is the direction Catholic TV needs to move in.

Why?

Because, as Father Barron commented when introducing "The Catholicism Project," we have been letting everyone else tell our Catholic story to the point that much of what goes without saying about Catholicism in our culture comes from so far afield that it doesn't even relate to anything that is actually Catholic! As an example [confession: I saw this on a FB meme, so hopefully it was imaginary...but I don't think so] the person who thought he spotted an inconsistency in the Pope using an iPad to send his first Twitter message: how can someone who doesn't believe in evolution use so highly evolved a technological tool? Right there you have it as a given that Catholics reject the theory of evolution. Why would anyone presume such a thing? Because other people have been telling our story for us.

With programs like "Minor Revisions" (as with the earlier sitcom pilot from Catholic TV, "Mass Confusion") not only are we telling the one Catholic story of the Fulwiler family: the show is also telling the Catholic story of the "Vitae Clinic" where women find health and fertility care that is completely consistent with Catholic moral values, and where women in crisis pregnancy find all the help they need. You find the further Catholic story of the former drug dealer who is now a leader of Adult Faith Formation in a Catholic parish. And yet another Catholic story in meeting with Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood manager who left her job (after winning accolades from Planned Parenthood) and was recently received into the Catholic Church. That's an abundance of Catholic stories, all told from a Catholic perspective.

Programs like this are not easy (or cheap) to produce. It would be more cost-effective to create another conversation-based show with a genial host and a series of guests. But what is more effective in telling our story?  I'm thinking we need to show our support for NET-NY for going out on a limb and breaking important new ground for Catholic television.

In case you missed it, here is my write-up about Jennifer Fulwiler from "Support a Catholic Speaker Month," as well as the audio recording of our conversation.

Advent (in case you missed this)

Following @Pontifex

The Pope sent his first "real" tweet out today on his official Twitter page (@Pontifex; the blue circle next to his name means that this is an authenticated account). My understanding is that the Pope will write his own content, though others will take care of actually posting it in the various languages: German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, French, Arabic. Naturally, the Catholic bloggers and news agencies are all over this.

In view of his inaugural day on Twitter, the Vatican social media office invited people to submit questions for him, adding the tag #AskPontifex so the question would be noticed. Of course, the Holy Father won't be able to answer all of those questions (and challenges; some of them on the crude side)--that would be a full time job in itself! But there's nothing stopping you and me from checking that hashtag and responding ourselves. In fact, the Vatican communications office is hinting that we are invited to do just that.

At this point, his English profile has just under a million followers (are you there yet?).

Home Sweet Home

I got back to Chicago yesterday afternoon after over two weeks on the road, so now it's catch-up time once more (with the extra pressure of those "end of the year" type projects added to the list). I put the whole list in front of Jesus this morning, so he could help me prioritize things. After all, I suspect there are some things on my "to do" list that aren't exactly on his...but I am a very persistent type, and tend to keep on trying to make things work out (even at great cost!). I don't give up (or give in) readily.

How do you practice discernment in the daily decisions that have to be made?

Two Tales of Singing Sisters

It's interesting that this year our concert "season" is accompanied by all sorts of news items (and Billboard charts) about singing nuns. The Benedictine Sisters Mary, Queen of Apostles in Missouri are about as far from being Daughters of St. Paul as you might imagine, but when God wants consecrated women in the forefront of the evangelization of culture, He doesn't look at the initials after their name. In fact, I think He takes a special sort of glee in having cloistered contemplatives, like the Benedictines or like Mother Angelica and putting them in the driver's seat of media evangelization. (And in this case, there is the added fact that the sisters' patron, Mary as Queen of Apostles, is also our primary Marian devotion!)

So this year, as we go from town to town with our rather dynamic Christmas "show," the classical music charts (which we will never, ever see) are being blown away with the ethereal side of Christmas. Between the two, I think we and the Benedictines cover the gamut: some people need the witness of an unexpectedly lively presentation to work around their defenses, while others will be drawn to God by sheer loveliness.  "God has put each member in the body according to his plan," St Paul commented, and I need that reminder right now, because (as someone with a background in music, and a real love for classical styles) I wish my community would invest a little more in the that area. God has His own way of using our talents, and for as long as we have been doing our "schtick" we have gotten news of people returning to the sacraments or finding peace in a relationship.

Yesterday, a TV crew came for our morning rehearsal; I can't embed the video that aired yesterday, but you can watch it on the link from New England Cable News.

Too important not to share

We're extremely pressed for time, but I need to do my part to get this out. Seems that the American Academy of Pediatrics is now putting your child's doctor or notice that he or she has "a moral obligation" to provide the "morning after pill" to your daughter even though she is not sexually active. If your doctor is hindered from doing this because of troublesome ethical scruples, he/she still has a "duty" to bring a more enlightened colleague on board to handle the matter.

Here is a write-up I received from a medical professional from a medical information service:

To reduce teenage pregnancies, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement November 26th 2012 urging pediatricians to supply or prescribe in advance emergency oral contraception / "morning-after pill"s to teenagers . "Advanced prescription for emergency contraception means providing a teenagerwith a supply or a prescription for emergency contraception before it is needed." "Pediatricians should provide levonorgestrel 1.5 mg (Plan B, Plan B One Step, or Next Choice) for teenagers in immediate need of emergency contraception and provide prescriptions/supply for teenagers to have on hand in case of future need (ie, advanced provision)." [1]


Pediatricians with ethical reservations about this "have a duty to inform their patients about relevant, legally available treatment options to which they object and have a moral obligation to refer patients to other physicians who will provide and educate about those services. Failure to inform/educate about availability and access to emergency-contraception services violates this duty to their adolescent and young adult patients." [1] According to Medscape the AAP " supported OTC status for Plan B One-Step regardless of age. The US Food and Drug Administration was ready to grant their wish last year, but US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the agency, saying that girls who reach menarche at age 11 years lacked the maturity to use the drug." [2] 

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/11/21/peds.2012-2962.full.pdf

 

http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/AAP-Recommends-Emergency-Contraception-Be-Available-to-Teens.aspx?nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR%3a+No+local+token


Here is one physician's reply to this post:

 

 "Pediatricians often dispense samples of medicines to patients to start treatment as soon as possible or for a full course for those in finacial difficulty. We supply vaccines which are a medication that we could write a presciption for and have parent fill at pharmacy and return to office with it in cooler so that it can be administered by us. The real question is whether we ethically object to giving or informing an immature teenager to take a medicine that she often will not need and so make her ill, albiet temporarily, or a medicine that will kill the genetically unique human zygote that's life has begun in her fallopian tube or uterus."

Advent!

I snapped a picture of the almost-capacity crowd last night in the Cathedral

We got back from Cleveland just in time for ADVENT! (Evening Prayer 1, or the "first Vespers" that introduce Sundays.) Over at BustedHalo.com they prepared a clever (and quick) video, just the right style and speed for sharing on social media:

Get your own valid XHTML YouTube embed code

If the video player is not visible, click on What is Advent? to view it on YouTube. You can also visit the Paulinemedia site to download some Advent graphics and cover pictures to use on Facebook