Well, it's a been a few months now with the revised Missal, and I no longer need the cheat sheet. I still hear some people say "And also with you," instead of the new "And with your spirit," but overall, everyone seems to have adjusted nicely. To be honest, despite the fact that they say this new version is a more accurate translation, I think there is something to be said for tradition, as long as the spirit is there. I also think some of the new translations are not as poetic as the versions we had before.
Still, all is well.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Friday, July 15, 2011
Liberals Promote One of the Seven Deadly Sins
I have long loathed the use of "class warfare" as a tactic by liberal politicians. Somehow I am to believe that bringing down those who have more than me will make me better off. Of course, this is true only if we lived in a zero-sum economy where there was only so much of the "pie," and for me to get more, I'd have to take it from someone else. But wealth and prosperity are made, not taken, and the liberal class warfare tactic is really Envy, dressed up in modern garb to hide its Seven Deadly Sins origin.
Dante defined this as "a desire to deprive other men of theirs." Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments, specifically "Neither shall you desire... anything that belongs to your neighbour". In Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious is to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they have gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low. Aquinas described envy as "sorrow for another's good".
Third Edition of The Roman Missal
There are changes coming to the Mass.
The Third Edition of the Roman Missal calls for more singing during the Mass, for both priest and assembly. When I first read about this change, I was not happy. I'm not a singer, and prefer to speak my role in the Mass. It is one of the reasons I prefer Mass Monday thru Friday rather than Sunday -- I find the setting in the church, without piano or organ, with minimal singing, with peace and solemnity, more conducive to communion with Christ.
However, as I read more about this change, the more intrigued I became, as they referred to it more as a revival of the Gregorian chant than true singing as we know it. If this is the case, I look forward to it. I've always loved the Latin chants of the early church.
Interesting times ahead.
The Third Edition of the Roman Missal calls for more singing during the Mass, for both priest and assembly. When I first read about this change, I was not happy. I'm not a singer, and prefer to speak my role in the Mass. It is one of the reasons I prefer Mass Monday thru Friday rather than Sunday -- I find the setting in the church, without piano or organ, with minimal singing, with peace and solemnity, more conducive to communion with Christ.
However, as I read more about this change, the more intrigued I became, as they referred to it more as a revival of the Gregorian chant than true singing as we know it. If this is the case, I look forward to it. I've always loved the Latin chants of the early church.
Gregorian chant is uniquely the Church's own music. Chant is a living connection with our forebears in the faith, the traditional music of the Roman rite, a sign of communion with the universal Church, a bond of unity across cultures, a means for diverse communities to participate together in song, and a summons to contemplative participation in the Liturgy.Some parishes may begin to see these changes as early as September, as the Church intends to slowly roll out these changes in the Liturgy to the assembly.
Interesting times ahead.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The Mosque Controversy
I've followed with some annoyance the calls from people like Barack Obama and Mayor Bloomberg to welcome the mosque near Ground Zero as a gesture of tolerance and religious freedom. Let me think back to the last time I heard such talk from these people (and their liberal ilk) when it came to tolerance and freedom for Christian worship. Well, what do you know, I can't think of a time when such passionate calls for religious tolerance was offered to Christians. But that glaring liberal hypocrisy is only part of my annoyance. After all, I've become all too familiar with their many hypocrisies.
Obama and Boomberg, among many others, set up a straw man in characterizing opposition to the mosque's location as religious intolerance, or in any way as denying the builders their Constitutional rights. As far as I can tell, no one is denying that they have the right to build wherever they want, provided they meet all jurisdiction zoning and building codes. Where there are rights, however, there are responsibilities, something liberals often ignore. The mosque proponents tell us that building the mosque that close to Ground Zero is a gesture of "healing." However their decision to build there has been nothing but divisive. If they truly wanted to offer a gesture of peace and healing, they'd voluntarily move the location, and if they refuse to do so, we must then question what their REAL MOTIVE is. What is this agenda that they MUST build in that spot, despite the intense feelings it has aroused in the general public?
They would gain so much more good will by practicing some of that responsibility that comes with rights. Just because they have the right to do something, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant writer, recently penned an editorial about this subject (see
"Sacrilege at Ground Zero" WSJ) and offered these great examples of rights versus responsibilities:
Obama and Boomberg, among many others, set up a straw man in characterizing opposition to the mosque's location as religious intolerance, or in any way as denying the builders their Constitutional rights. As far as I can tell, no one is denying that they have the right to build wherever they want, provided they meet all jurisdiction zoning and building codes. Where there are rights, however, there are responsibilities, something liberals often ignore. The mosque proponents tell us that building the mosque that close to Ground Zero is a gesture of "healing." However their decision to build there has been nothing but divisive. If they truly wanted to offer a gesture of peace and healing, they'd voluntarily move the location, and if they refuse to do so, we must then question what their REAL MOTIVE is. What is this agenda that they MUST build in that spot, despite the intense feelings it has aroused in the general public?
They would gain so much more good will by practicing some of that responsibility that comes with rights. Just because they have the right to do something, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant writer, recently penned an editorial about this subject (see
"Sacrilege at Ground Zero" WSJ) and offered these great examples of rights versus responsibilities:
When we speak of Ground Zero as hallowed ground, what we mean is that it belongs to those who suffered and died there -- and that such ownership obliges us, the living, to preserve the dignity and memory of the place, never allowing it to be forgotten, trivialized or misappropriated.
That's why Disney's 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It's why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It's why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.
And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Today, On Good Friday, Here's Why I Remain Catholic
Article from NPR Online by Elizabeth Scalia who is a contributing writer to First Things Magazine as the blogger known as The Anchoress.
The question has come my way several times in the past week: "How do you maintain your faith in light of news stories that bring light to the dark places that exist within your church?"
When have darkness and light been anything but co-existent? How do we recognize either without the other?
I remain within, and love, the Catholic Church because it is a church that has lived and wrestled within the mystery of the shadow lands ever since an innocent man was arrested, sentenced and crucified, while the keeper of "the keys" denied him, and his first priests ran away. Through 2,000 imperfect — sometimes glorious, sometimes heinous — years, the church has contemplated and manifested the truth that dark and light, innocence and guilt, justice and injustice all share a kinship, one that waves back and forth like wind-stirred wheat in a field, churning toward something — as yet — unknowable.
The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.
But then, my country is the most generous and compassionate nation on Earth; it is also the only country that has ever deployed nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
My government is founded upon a singular appreciation of personal liberty; some of those founders owned slaves.
My family was known for its neighborliness and its work ethic; its patriarch was a serial child molester.
The child molester was also a brilliant, generous, talented man — the only person who ever read me a bedtime story. I will love him forever, for that, even when I wake up gasping and afraid.
I am a woman with very generous instincts, and I try to love everyone, but I am capable of corrosive scorn. Have I been much sinned against? Yes. So have you. Have I sinned against others? Oh, yes. So have you.
Like a pebble cast into a pond, our every action ripples out toward the edges, reaching farther than we intended, touching what we do not even know, for good and for ill. It all either means nothing, or it means everything.
As a Catholic, I believe it means everything.
That doesn't mean I do not suffer for the sins of my church; we people in the pews are roiling with feelings of betrayal, shame, revulsion.
Having survived sexual abuse in the family and the public schools, I identify deeply with the pain, the sense of powerlessness and abandonment that the victims of some of our priests and administers have endured. I grieve for them — and for my church, and for my pope, and for all of the countless good priests and religious who are tarnished by the actions of a depraved minority.
I am saddened beyond words to know that these very real sins of commission and omission will repel people, who will miss the consolations of the church in light, out of concern for its shadows.
But the painful and incomplete news stories that have dominated this Holy Week helpfully illustrate how and why I am able to continue on in faith. Particularly during the Easter Triduum, we are thrust deeply into the crucifixion narrative of the Gospels. There, on the wood of the cross, we encounter Jesus, son of Mary, who knew shame, betrayal, abandonment, scorn, jeering, ridicule, unimaginable pain and sorrow, and submitted to them, in order to draw us into a consoling embrace that says, "I know what you are feeling; I know what you are thinking. You tortured ones, you shamed ones, you innocent ones, you slandered ones; I am the One who knows, and we are actually all in this together, and quite outside of time."
I want my church to shine. But I understand that everything, from our institutions to our innermost beings, are seen through a glass, darkly. Arms outstretched, listening for the Word, and its echoing liturgy, I make my way forward, in bright hope.
The question has come my way several times in the past week: "How do you maintain your faith in light of news stories that bring light to the dark places that exist within your church?"
When have darkness and light been anything but co-existent? How do we recognize either without the other?
I remain within, and love, the Catholic Church because it is a church that has lived and wrestled within the mystery of the shadow lands ever since an innocent man was arrested, sentenced and crucified, while the keeper of "the keys" denied him, and his first priests ran away. Through 2,000 imperfect — sometimes glorious, sometimes heinous — years, the church has contemplated and manifested the truth that dark and light, innocence and guilt, justice and injustice all share a kinship, one that waves back and forth like wind-stirred wheat in a field, churning toward something — as yet — unknowable.
The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.
But then, my country is the most generous and compassionate nation on Earth; it is also the only country that has ever deployed nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
My government is founded upon a singular appreciation of personal liberty; some of those founders owned slaves.
My family was known for its neighborliness and its work ethic; its patriarch was a serial child molester.
The child molester was also a brilliant, generous, talented man — the only person who ever read me a bedtime story. I will love him forever, for that, even when I wake up gasping and afraid.
I am a woman with very generous instincts, and I try to love everyone, but I am capable of corrosive scorn. Have I been much sinned against? Yes. So have you. Have I sinned against others? Oh, yes. So have you.
Like a pebble cast into a pond, our every action ripples out toward the edges, reaching farther than we intended, touching what we do not even know, for good and for ill. It all either means nothing, or it means everything.
As a Catholic, I believe it means everything.
That doesn't mean I do not suffer for the sins of my church; we people in the pews are roiling with feelings of betrayal, shame, revulsion.
Having survived sexual abuse in the family and the public schools, I identify deeply with the pain, the sense of powerlessness and abandonment that the victims of some of our priests and administers have endured. I grieve for them — and for my church, and for my pope, and for all of the countless good priests and religious who are tarnished by the actions of a depraved minority.
I am saddened beyond words to know that these very real sins of commission and omission will repel people, who will miss the consolations of the church in light, out of concern for its shadows.
But the painful and incomplete news stories that have dominated this Holy Week helpfully illustrate how and why I am able to continue on in faith. Particularly during the Easter Triduum, we are thrust deeply into the crucifixion narrative of the Gospels. There, on the wood of the cross, we encounter Jesus, son of Mary, who knew shame, betrayal, abandonment, scorn, jeering, ridicule, unimaginable pain and sorrow, and submitted to them, in order to draw us into a consoling embrace that says, "I know what you are feeling; I know what you are thinking. You tortured ones, you shamed ones, you innocent ones, you slandered ones; I am the One who knows, and we are actually all in this together, and quite outside of time."
I want my church to shine. But I understand that everything, from our institutions to our innermost beings, are seen through a glass, darkly. Arms outstretched, listening for the Word, and its echoing liturgy, I make my way forward, in bright hope.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Church in Italy to issue clarification on cremation
.- The Italian Bishops' Conference is preparing to publish updated norms on funeral rites including cremation and the burial of ashes.
The manual, which will be reviewed and approved by the bishops' conference in Assisi on November 9, will explain that Catholic doctrine does not oppose cremation but rejects the practice of storing ashes of loved ones at home. The document will stress that this is a violation of the work of mercy that obliges Catholics to provide a holy burial to the dead.
Cremation was approved by Paul VI in 1963 as a practice that does not contradict the Church’s teaching on the resurrection, since it does not affect the soul “nor prevents the omnipotence of God from rebuilding the body.”
However, the document will note, a norm approved by the Italian government in 2001 runs contrary to Catholic teaching, as it allows the ashes of the dead to be kept in an urn at home or to be scattered in the wind, land or sea.
Keeping the ashes of the dead at home does away with the important rite of accompanying the deceased to the cemetery, “which unites the community of believers.” Burying the ashes at a cemetery, the “place of the dead,” is what makes most sense, the bishops will add.
Scattering the ashes, according to the Italian bishops, is based on a pagan ritual that supposedly symbolized the union of the deceased with “the great soul of mother earth,” and is contrary to the Christian obligation, established by the Lord Jesus himself, to bury the dead.
According to official statistics, currently 10 percent of those who die in Italy are cremated.
Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life
VATICAN CITY — E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.
"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe."
Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds."
Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper.
The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.
Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.
"If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said.
This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.
In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.
"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."
Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."
The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.
Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.
Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science — a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.
Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy's national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit's Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.
"It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don't have a privileged position or role in the universe," he said. "I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they'll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude."
The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.
The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
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