….since I moved to Virginia, some of things I have done for the first time are go within a traditional confessional for the sacrament of Repentence, attended a Tridentine mass, and gone up in a small airplane with friends.
So why now? July 1, 2009
June 31 has seen in the Catholick Church the closing of the Pauline Year and on July 1st the fiscal year begins. On the 19th of June, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Year of Priests began. So this time should be full of opportunity.
I return for longer June 30, 2009
Not too long after that post in September I mov’d to Virginia. I became a schoolteacher, living as roommate to new friend and an old friend. I made a new facebook account so this website fell by the wayside. I revive it again hoping to put out some additional commentery concerning the world. (As though my readers need more from opinions.) Perhaps this space is just organizing my thoughts…oh well, so much to type!
The Cliché Way to Start: Entry Two September 6, 2008
Does the sound of a barking dog ever bother you? Is it even unworthy for notice? Perhaps, but sadly persons writing articles on-line—and even academick papers—seem to devote energy, to sounds that are not present. You must understand that including allusions of the literary sort seems clever to many readers. Therefore, why not try to seem truly cleverer, than by referring to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, “Silver Blaze” from the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes that is more famous for Reichenbach Falls. (True fans of the detective know what I mean.) This introduction generally has a phrase about listen for the dogs that are not barking; sadly this attempt at English mastery misses the point of that Holmes mystery.
The title refers towards an eponymous horse, which has gone missing. Not to mention the fact that the groomer, John Straker, has died mysteriously. Through much walking and some train riding Sherlock solves the case. “Silver Blaze” is in mine opinion, one of the few mysteries (concerning the residents of 221B Bakers Street,) where anyone can crack the case. To then answer the mystery, Silver Blaze in fact killed Straker to save his—the horse’s—life. The dog in question knew Straker; so the dog made no noise. But people miss the point of the story, the Scotland Yard detectives can collect evidence, but they lack imagination to catch the perpetrator. The same is with writers, trying to sound well-read, who use a common declaration about sounds not made by canine animals, thus making themselves the same champs that Holmes had to correct.
My friend Brian likes to defend this method of introduction. I however grow weary with trying to not-so-cleverly proceeding with attaching ones self to Sherlock’s brilliance. Doctor Doyle may have done us a service my introducing the concept of smoking guns at crime scenes as metaphors for irrefutable evidence into the language of English, but I start to wish that “Silver Blaze” were less-cleverly written piece of detective fiction.
Why we need an article, indefinite or definite August 25, 2008
“Decreasing drinking age fails to solve problems” says an (of one kind of definition of the word) article’s lead-in. I quite agree with that headline. That is, to how long alcohol has ag’d before consumption. As to reading that piece, and its contents, that is another matter. I guess Baylor may not become the “Notre Dame” of Protestant Christians when it comes to grammar.
So what is wrong with this country-at-large? August 25, 2008
Nothing like a little rant. Here we stand in America. The press should be critiquing past bills by Senator Biden. Our journalists should analyze his foreign policy visits for common trends; hopefully not like how our current president looked intpo then-President Putin’s “soul” and liked what he thought he [Bush] saw. Nah, what does Politico do the major piece on? Joe Biden’s hair; perhaps more colorfully his-lack-of. Ya know, when the fourth estate interrupts coverage of Iraq to get into Paris Hilton and her jail time as Jay Leno then illustrates, we know that we for certain are seeking trouble.
A little house-cleaning August 22, 2008
All right, now that I have talked about my parish and Christianity the time has come to move. Over the next few days then I will post several pieces about Scouting. That subject has less open discussion on it than Catholicity but I may type more concerning cafeteria-Catholicks. I know that I owe me loyal readers more posts on grammar that I promised months ago; plus pieces on Classical music, alternative names for this site, and getting on to Yeats. All coming I promise. For today, here be some of my personally-written Latin phrases to test out, translate, and discuss. Why? because everything sounds better coming in Latin!
- Ubi nil ibi est, deus ibi est.
- Nos in mundo vivimus facimus.
- Ego in umbras non-credo; sed alias agnosco crescent.
…& The Post-Modern Christian August 21, 2008
Two posts before I used the phrase Modern Christian. In reality, we, those Christians born in the year 1985 since the year Jesus was born, are Post-Modern Christians. Religion has become fragmented as modernity has aged. What does that sentence mean? Modernity has seen two major world wars, smaller ones, and a Cold War. The death toll has stretched the people’s belief in God; much less the traditional Christian one. Science was a factor for Christians in the 1700s and thence. But the challenges of comprehension grew in the nineteenth century. Protestants, as most notice, have difficulty with Macro-Evolution. Astronomy has grown by the bound. But living in an Atomic Era really can be just too much for some to handle. So following all the death of the Second World War, we turned our collective face from that Old School. So much blood was too much. Good bwye to discretion. Good bwye to duty. Good bwye to Neo-Hegelian teleologies of the Great Books school. And good bwye to the collective writ of dogma from successive generations. It is not even about beginning the world again; it is about trying to forget anew by feeling good. Too soon to know whether the soixante-huitards were wrong? Maybe, but they sure did damage going about it…therefore Christianity today has the myriad of facets that:
- Baptism, in all denominations. becomes delayed as concern for the funerary quality to burying original sin and being born anew towards an opening to God’s grace becomes less important.
- Confirmation/Charismization into multiple sects multiplies. Parents try to compromise by taking their children to different churches for spiritual grace. Heck some try the hybrid of bringing up offspring in Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity. As a result people believe nothing if everything is just the same. Persons look upon religious faith as a cultural inheritance like ethnic ancestry for discarding when something interesting comes along.
- Marriage in houses of worship and/or by clergy remains popular; though people have none intention of following a religion’s laws.
- The daily life brings a sense of taking Communion for granted. It is done all the time and becomes timeless yet obligatory.
- Repentance is over-rated since people become not sorry for sins that are in these times unnecessary for survival. (A knight in the Middle Ages frequently had to kill to survive. Fornication however to-day would not be so mandatory.) Besides, will not God just blanket forgive all sins anyway?
- Ordination for those Orders Holy have less substantial value, as a laity becomes suspicious of the minister’s actions, whilst coddling their religious leaders to have less judgement rendered unto them. And so fewer candidates step in for the job.
- And all rituals like anointing the sick and dead become deconstructed and perhaps shunned for supposed pagan qualities; perhaps embraced because of such hearsay.
[I proceed to disrupt this series for clearing up an idiom] August 20, 2008
When I refer to someone as a “cafeteria Catholick,” I do not mean “someone who picks and chooses aspects of Catholicity” to believe. (For that I prefer “salad-bar Catholick” to label.) Rather I mean “cafeteria Catholick” as someone who goes into the dining hall to talk and discuss Catholicism aplenty but then does nothing for the Catholick Church outside such an establishment. All chat and none of action; but then not a true hypocrite since they may believe some articles of faith. Now back to what I was leading up towards on this website.
…Two Parishes, One Church… August 18, 2008
Some months ago I attended a meeting about the future renovation of my parish set for 2009. Our pastor gave the talk and then took all questions. I caught him off guard with a query about the 1989 renovation when Immaculate Conception was first changed. You see the second renovation means restoring high altar plus moving the tabernacle back to the middle of the sanctuary. Besides stone floors, this renovation undoes the 1989 renovation. (Though one should add that IHM faired worse in the renovation department. Monsignor Connors ((may he rest in peace)) did far more to change that ekklesia for the worse when he refurbished that interior, according to Mary Wolff. Oh, and Monsignor Connors also briefly had liturgical dancing in tony Scarsdale’s Catholick sanctuary. Yup.) The current altar—really just an old adult baptismal font with a thin slab of stone atop it—will be moved further back into the presbyterium so that more pews can be put in and also straightened. So twenty years later, those parishioners who fought the renovation all the way to Cardinall O’Connor, can smile. And New York’s Archbishop actually agreed with the congregation but did not dare to contradict a fellow priest who was the Monsignor pastor. For my part so long as bispecies Communion continues I shall attend when in Eastchester. (Thence the reason I usually do not attend mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary.) As for sources, consult the privately published history of my parish. Should you require more photographic documentation, my christening, done by a priest famous in my parish, was in the pre-rennovated Immaculate Conception.
