One hundredth day

Of late, I've taken to accompanying each Ave in the fourth decade with a prayer for an everlasting perfection. They change day to day but there are some I pray every day (okay, you got me: I mean every day I make it to the fourth decade--most days).

For example,

{(tacit) Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,} grant her perfect everlasting peace.

This requires no further explanation. We mean what the church means by peace in the prayer resquiat in pace.

I like verbs with past tense same as present.

I cut her sandwiches into quarters. I cut mine in half.

Epitaph Worries.

As of Monday, yesterday, we are worried. The people commissioned to design, build and engrave the stone, which is to be for both beloved ms and your own cricket, seem to think a single epitaph should apply to both of us. Leaving aside the fact that the participle "Affidata" is singular and feminine, it seems obvious to me that each person buried under a stone should have his own epitaph. Having chosen interment in a casket over cremation for myself, I think I want mine to be: "Still wasting space", but I guess I'll give the kids the final say on that.

Epitaph

As of Sunday, two days ago, we've decided on:

Affidata al Cuore Immacolato di Maria

per la moglie strega

O Jesus:


We pray that she be enfolded within Your blessed Mother's most holy and immaculate heart;
That she might turn at any moment to feel against her cheek of the cold steel which pierce the same graceful heart,
And so suddenly to find her own heart pierced with a love for you as keen as any one of those seven dolors.

Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

Scrooge's effects were so light. Why are hers so heavy?

Double dactyl

Grommity Grammity

How anonymity

Gives me the license to

Spout like a fool

Maybe quite typic’lly

Brooking no cavil, I

Rest on the dictum of

My blog, my rule.

My people don't work

The notion that the word liturgy means 'work of the people' seems to be popular among a certain type of liturgical progressive not so intent on returning the Mass to the people as on putting his own personal stamp on it. The larger problem with the formulation is that it is not strictly true. While the word leitos for people or public and ergo for “to do” form its Greek roots, the word liturgy was not cobbled together from its roots by early Christians, but taken whole in the word leitourgia from Greek culture. In that context, the word meant “public work” actually of an elevated or rich person, for (not by) the public. What the progressive seem to have in mind is more a new coinage, demourgia—ringing uncomfortably close to the Gnostic concept of the demiurge. Considered seriously, we must humbly admit that the liturgy is not the work of the people, but the work of Christ given through his Spouse the Holy Catholic Church for the benefit of the people. This consideration should be enough to quell any temptation we have to engage in any such tinkering with the Mass as for example (as I have heard recently) altering the words of the Agnus Dei.

a quarter century

She took me, damaged goods as they say, without reservation some twenty-four years ago--I'm almost certain she never, even at the end, knew just how damaged--and slowly and painstakingly went a long long way toward fixing me. I never even realized what she was doing (she was no scold); sometimes she even allowed me to think it was she who was in need of repair.

The project, however, is still far from complete. I pray she may still give it some of her attention.

Our last conversation

I asked her, "Are you afraid?"

She said, "No."

Conflicting requests

The Church prays:

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace.
Amen.

But I ask that she experience (among many other things) an everlasting falling into joy, an eternal coronation like unto and only a little less than that of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, an exquisite cardinal moment of perfection on which all creation--time, space and matter--hinges.

Am I wrong? I cannot quite reconcile these prayers. The Church's plea seems to be for a sublime sort of sleep. But sleep, to me

(as, it would seem, to the Psalmist, For there is no one in death, that is mindful of thee, {6:6 Vulg} as well as to the Preacher, For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing more, {Eccl. 9:6}),

means forgetfulness; and eternity, to me, subsumes the notion of an expected future universal resurrection. What's more I'm praying through the intercession of men and women who also have gone down to eternal forgetfulness, praying that she knows even as she has been known.

If I am not wrong and our prayers are not incompatible, then the answer lies surely in the gaps in my understandings of words like eternity or perpetuity, experience, repose, peace and... and the list doesn't end, really. This is what I hope.

I'm wearing it now.

I just found out this morning that I have a shirt that has buttons on the cuffs that I'd never before buttoned myself.

40th Day

Well, she did it. What's more, she made it look easy.

Do I need a new prescription? Is that all?

The horizon that seemed so near I pleased to obscure with a clutter of vanity heaped upon vanity now seems immensely distant and the space between barren.

Ero ism o sono ism.

"She is in a better place now," are words meant to console. But, to say nothing of their being taken together, each of the seven words taken separately easily might underlie ten thousand words of contentious and disturbing debate. Well, perhaps not "a", but, then again, maybe so.

Olympic Coverage on Mother Corp.

I won't say it's explicitly part of the mission statement of the CBC automatically to exclude Christ and Christianity from the airwaves, but in their radio coverage of the winter games recently I heard their announcer give details of an Olympic awards ceremony at "BCE Place".

Sad music in my parish.

Our new priest has instituted a music program in which Chant and Latin hymns are forbidden and in which the music draws heavily from post-Vatican II American sources. A few months ago, fearing from things that I had heard that he would take this very step, I wrote him a letter. He seemed pleased to receive it and told me the following Sunday that he was working on a reply. I have received no reply from him in writing, but only the appearance of a new modern (pronounced "godawful") Hymnal in the pews, the almost complete abandonment of the organ, and way - way more electric piano at mass. I mean no disrespect, but if this is what he intended as his reply, I take it to be the equivalent of the raised and extended middle finger. For posterity and with identifying info removed, I reproduce the letter here. If he ever does reply in writing, I will attach it to this post. I welcome criticism from my many readers.

Dear Father
While I was unable to attend the parish music information meeting held last Saturday, it would seem that mine is one of the voices for whose return you made an appeal on Sunday. I note further your undoubted enthusiasm for the establishment of a body of some form or forms of sacred music along with musicians and singers able to draw from it for the enrichment of the liturgy. With this in mind, I hope I might offer my personal thoughts.

I have been a parishioner of St X for the last {a number more than ten} years after having attended for several years from outside the parish. As much as I appreciated in many ways the pastoral care of Fr. Y, as a music lover, the one thing that was often a source of dismay was the state of sacred music both in the parish and in the Church as a whole.

Inspired by a certain understanding of the aims of the Second Vatican Council, a rich and still fruitful patrimony of ancient sacred music had been set aside, as it seemed to me, for the mostly insipid tunes and sometimes profane or heterodox lyrics of a small cadre of 1970’s composers. Even when older hymns and chorales were tapped—a great many of them imported directly from Protestant hymnodical traditions—performances frequently were suited more to nightclub or campfire than to church. This is not to say that there were no bright spots: many examples of musicians and singers sounding truly Catholic hymns both old and new in the vernacular with voices raised to the glory of God and not to their own; just that there were these disappointments and so much of our treasured Catholic musical inheritance simply missing.

So when I was asked about four years ago to help found a choir in the parish that would have as its aim—secondary of course to adoration and worship of God—the revival of chant and polyphony and the return in that context of music truly integrated into the liturgy, I leapt at the opportunity. Since that time we have been working hard to cultivate a command of the media of chant and polyphony while at the same time striving to remain obedient to the wishes of the parish priest and respectful of the sensibilities of the congregation. It was not a case of foisting chant and Latin on the parish, but rather of slowly and painstakingly reintroducing the parish to their richness, beauty and importance and allowing them to take their proper place along side the standard English repertoire.

If the proper interpretation of Vatican II required the summary jettison of music essential—not just incidental—to centuries of liturgical practice, the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium would not, as I am sure you are aware, have granted Gregorian chant “pride of place” as “proper to the Roman liturgy” and would not have singled out polyphony especially as “by no means excluded”. If Latin were meant to be suppressed in the post-conciliar Church, the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram would not have provided that “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved”, and Pope Paul VI of blessed memory would not under its auspices have provided the church with the 1974 document Jubilate Deo (see http://www.ceciliaschola.org/pdf/jubilateb.pdf) allowing even small congregations to enjoy the manifold blessings of the tradition of plainsong.

As for that tradition, the value of chant in worship must not be underestimated. Its transcendental qualities are known to non-Christian faiths as they were in pre-Christian traditions. It is well known that many chant melodies predate their score-notation by many years, and it is theorized by some that a few are nearly as ancient as the psalms themselves. Certainly the roots of chant lie firmly in the Hebrew tradition of psalmody which was carried into the early Christian Church.

One might reasonably argue that the remoteness and difficulty of chant preclude the “active participation” in the liturgy called for by Vatican II, by hampering the ability of the congregation to “sing along”. It must be admitted there is an element of validity to this argument for some; naturally it is desirable that there continue to be offered masses at which music is sung entirely in the vernacular with as much vocal participation as possible from the congregation. However, for many others the dynamic will be just the opposite.

The objection is answered in part by considering the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI’s writings focusing on the more important internal dimensions of “active participation”: a level of involvement in prayer, a focus on the Holy Mysteries taking place at the altar, uniting one’s intentions with the priest’s, recollecting oneself before Holy Communion and making thanksgiving afterwards. Without these and like levels of participation, singing along to the hymns is useless. It can even be maintained that as much as our joining in the singing of folk and pop style songs excites the emotions, our listening to chant—even if the words are not understood—elevates the spirit not only by the melodies themselves soothing the passions that the soul may be lifted, but by the authentic voice of the Church being raised up to God in the words. In this way chant is able actually to enhance active participation in the liturgy truly lending itself to powerful use as a sacramental.

I believe this benefit obtains even granting that understanding of the words be nil. But I would not concede that much: if Latin chant were introduced into the ordinary of the Mass in a systematic way, very quickly the words Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi would be exactly as accessible to the congregation as the words Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world. Truthfully, in either language the greater import of the words remains a profound mystery, as it must. Two advantages of choosing to enunciate the former over the latter are 1) that we speak in the mother tongue of the Church and join in her catholic voice and 2) that the Latin words and melodies of chant are so inextricably bound as to form one organic whole much as our own bodies and souls form whole persons.

A second objection that one might raise is that our particular schola was simply not accomplished enough to realize the myriad benefits of chant. This objection has a great deal more power and not a little truth. But the solution is not to suppress chant and Latin, which would clearly be contrary to the will of the Church, but to foster it: first, I would humbly suggest, on the part of the pastor both by educating the congregation as a whole and by encouraging greater participation in chant by musicians from within the congregation; and secondly on the part of the choir itself both by self study and by practice, practice, practice.

Yours in Christ,

Euclid meets God (or doesn't)

In a letter to my Protestant friend (MPF) (cc'd to my atheist friend (MAF)) concerning MAF I said,

it would be fruitful, if possible, more precisely to spline the curve of that twisted notion of the Divine from the roots of disbelief to the point where its tangent becomes true, that is to say orthodox.

Some discussion ensued in which MAF opined,

Believers are asymptotic to God (growing ever closer but never actually meeting). Non-believers are parallel to God (in the Euclidian sense).

He seems to have been implying nobody ever meets God. With this, MPF disagreed, saying,

The un-believer is obviously not parallel to God, since his distance from God is increasing... The believer is parallel to God, as the two lines meet in infinity.

(which Euclid might have found surprising, but never mind). After some discussion in which I did not join about the meanings of the word parallel, I replied at length,

As you all know, I love to beat dead metaphors as much as the next cretin. So, preposterously hoping this nag'll gallop a little further let me try this.

I like the notion that believers travel an asymptotic path toward God, never (in this life) meeting. What's more, we always view God around our own individual curve, so when we look toward God we don't see Him. Those greatly advanced in holiness travel through life so close to God they might almost turn and touch. Yet they're in the same position as anyone, seeing God around a curve, though they can more profoundly experience in this way that dark night ably described by the mystics: They run or are carried and so they look not at but in the same direction (nearly) as God; thus suddenly they can find Him absent as a child does when his father runs along beside and just behind his first two-wheeler.

At our deaths we must all hop the gap between our own curves and the True at which point our own paths will be trued. This, of course, is the function of Purgatory, and, the farther we are from the asymptote at our deaths the more jarring this correction will be--as through fire, for some. One of the frightening things about death is that it seems we will be losing a dimension of our existence, as the happy little locus free to range across the fruited cartesian plain views eternal imprisonment on the y-axis as a limitation. But those on the increasingly straight and narrow path so close to the asymptote will begin dimly to perceive the truth in the promise of an unfolding of vast and manifold dimensions of which the dreaded axis death is only the visible edge.

Where we go wrong is in assuming that it's different for unbelievers. No, the unbeliever is on the same species of asymptotic curve (this has the happy consequence of obviating debate on the meaning of parallel), he's just looking in the other direction. When he does look over his shoulder checking for God, he doesn't see Him, He's around the curve, same as for the rest of us. Unlike believers he is unpracticed in following the curve round in his heart and mind where his eye does not reach. {The preceding sentence, of course, refers to prayer} If the angle of his curve is very steep he won't even recognize a hint of God. I used the verb "spline" to describe sounding out another's curve (without, naturally, knowing its parameters) as perhaps a "fruitful" step in helping to bend it toward the limit (this itself a spiritual work of mercy). But it is the wicked not the unbeliever, pace {MPF}, who is actually traveling in the other direction; who is willingly steepening his curve and further obscuring God and goodness, making unbelief ever easier, ever more plausible; who, when he hops the gap, will crash and burn, unable to be trued. This is why wickedness will foster unbelief and why unbelief can also lead to wickedness. It is also why metanoia is so often characterized simply as a turning around.

What {MAF} in his heart of hearts recognizes, if I may be quite bold, is that the plane, or space if you will, in which we are all swimming these paths is at least a moral space; that reality has an intrinsic (non-constructed, non-culturally programmed, non-arbitrary, but real) moral character, giving the path itself, real meaning. {MAF}'s problem is not so much that he doesn't believe--for he does and by that I mean he doesn't think it is "superstitious" to love his neighbor as himself--but that he erroneously thinks it is of any consequence that when he looks for God he doesn't see anyone, and what he does see--others' conceptions of God--he (rightly) sees as fairly ridiculous. He knows, or has a fair idea when he is traveling in the Good direction, though he despairs of seeing God--for the moment anyway. Of course our mortal span is a mere moment, but I see no reason not to hope that some beauteous (if distant) day he will ask in wonder, "when did I see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink?"

COEXIST

I personally love the COEXIST (2nd person plural imperative) sticker and would have one on my car (next to my old "nuclear plants are built better than Jane Fonda" sticker) if I could find the right one. For me it conjures up the image, in the one issuing the mandate, of a one assuming all power and authority unto himself and charging all kingdoms to quake before him. It freshens my day in a lovely Ozymandias moment, one with a gentle twist of irony.

I'd be in a bad mood today, if I weren't in a subjunctive mood.