Yep--they're mine.

Or, Why Rachel Is Often My Favorite Child.

Yesterday was the family mass at our parish. The central point is the homily, where the younger children gather in front of the altar while Fr. sits with them. Just to prove I'm not the rubrics cop you think I am, I don't complain and my teeth don't grind. They didn't before I had kids, either. The rest of the Mass is handled appropriately and is free from..."creative inculturation," shall we say. I've been told we're the only parish in the area that consistently kneels for consecration, so I'm willing to be indulgent on a few points once a month.

Anyway, Maddie has reached the age where she can go up and sit with her friends without supervision. Unfortunately, that means Dale has to go--the reason being that Big Sister is allowed to do it, why can't I? I held Rachel and Heather rode shotgun on The Boy because of his short attention span and love of wandering the sanctuary when given the slightest chance. Wide open spaces were meant to be raced through, don't you know?

Maddie was pretty well behaved, the slight exception being her decision to do a loop around Father to try to find a place to sit. When that proved fruitless, she returned to her previous seat.

But what of The Boy? you reasonably ask.

Sure enough, two minutes in, after prolonged squirming, The Boy made a break for the sacristy, employing his toddler Waddle-Sprint™ technique. At least he didn't use the happy shriek battle cry as he ran. Heather went charging off behind and caught him eventually, out of the sight of the amused parishioners.

I hunched down slightly. But at least the eldest is behaving well, right?

Madeleine sat primly with the rest of the group for another minute or two. Then she decided to loudly shush those who weren't paying sufficient attention to the homily, complete with hand gestures:

"SHHHHHHH. FATHER'S TRYING TO TALK!"

Three times. To kids who were, for all I could tell, mute.

Father claims not to have noticed any of it.

I've discovered it's impossible to ooze throught the cracks of a pew.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I have no problem in principle with the idea of raising money from one's blog. I've even contributed to such.

But it's a lot harder to do it yourself, I've learned.

Scroll down a little and you'll see a shiny new Paypal button. The reasons for installation are diverse--"furnace" and "transmission" are a couple of the words over the last two weeks which have driven it. I'll spare you the details.

That, and hey: Over 103,000 visits have happened here in the past 2+ years. Three of the items here became published pieces. In the words of Richard Dreyfuss as he stared at the tower of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters: "This means something."

So, if you'd like to chip in, great! Think of it as green applause for a RenFest busker in cyberspace. If you don't/can't, that's great, too. I have no problem with that a 'tall. It's not like I can stop you...And it's not like the world will end.

Furthermore, I don't intend on calling attention to it--once every two odd years, at the rate I'm going.

Finally, I'd like to close on a Catholic note: think of it as penance for your collective and continuing woeful sin of omission--failing to nominate me for the high-schoolish (but still world-important) popularity contest known as the Catholic Blog Awards.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

OK--returning you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Pope muses: "Where's Dave Winfield when you need him?"

The perils of working with children and animals.

[Link via Amy Welborn.]

Soldiers of Christ, Arise!

Charles Wesley was the finest hymn writer the English-speaking peoples have ever produced. [This is not open for debate. Dale locuto, causa finita. Dissent on this point will be addressed swiftly, mercilessly and with finality.] It is a source of no small pride from my Methodist upbringing that I can claim CW as a part of my heritage. Amongst the torrent of gems that flowed into the hymnbooks was Soldiers of Christ, Arise. I will reproduce the lyrics here in their entirety (oddly enough, it's not your OCP Breaking Bread missalettes):

Soldiers of Christ, arise,
and put your armor on,
strong in the strength which God supplies
through his eternal Son;

Strong in the Lord of hosts,
and in his mighty power:
who in the strength of Jesus trusts
is more than conqueror.

Stand then in his great might,
with all his strength endured,
and take, to arm you for the fight,
the panoply of God.

From strength to strength go on,
wrestle and fight and pray:
tread all the powers of darkness down,
and win the well-fought day.

That, having all things done,
and all your conflicts past,
ye may obtain, through Christ alone,
a crown of joy at last.

Jesus, eternal Son,
we praise thee and adore,
who art with God the Father one,
and Spirit evermore.

Great stuff--ideal, also, for men's conferences. Permit me a brief aside.

Hint hint. Soldiers of Christ Arise is galaxies better than one of the staggeringly awful ditties of renewal that was inflicted on yours truly at 2004's otherwise superb Catholic Men's Conference here in Detroit. Last year, at Divine Child Parish the presumably well-meaning cantor decided to tamp down the looming threat posed by so many y-chromosome bearers concentrated in one place. As you know, there is an omnipresent threat that Catholic men gathered together will hype themselves into a berserk frenzy chanting Deus lo volt! and will put paid to any heretics they come across. Happens all the time.

I mean, that had to be the cantor's goal--he chose Hosea, by Gregory Norbet, OSB.

Imagine the comfort level of two men sharing a missalette and repeatedly cooing (the song is absolutely immune to "belting") out the refrain:

Long have I waited for
Your coming home to me
And living deeply our new life

If the goal was to turn a healthy exuberant gathering into an awkward, weight-shifting, eye-contact-averse mumblefest--Mission Accomplished.

Moving along.

JenB at the Totally Catholic Youth Ministers' Lounge blog related a recent experience in the Disapproving Schoolmarm vein. Jen called her charges "soldiers of Christ."

Uh oh.

Naturally, she was confronted by a most scandalized mom:

"I have a problem with the phrase 'Soldier for Christ'. That is such an emotionally charged word and brings up images of violence and war. Christ wasn't about war he was about peace. No where in scripture does it talk about this being a war. These are children for gosh's sakes-not soldiers!"

To my Protestant brothers and sisters who frequent this blog--yes, I admit it: Your average Catholic knows precisely squat about that leather-bound heavy book that collects dust on the shelf below the pictures of Fido and Fluffy.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication."

Then there's that whole first-three-quarters-of-the-book-thing commonly referred to as "the Old Testament." Even putting that aside--and you shouldn't--her picture of Jesus is incomplete--and therefore wrong. The willingness to ignore the complete picture of Christ proffered by the whole New Testament in favor of a toned-down version of the Alpha and the Omega says more about the would-be Lion tamer than it does about the Lord.

Call it wimpy dispensationalism.

You can also call dangerously naive. Whether Disapproving Mom likes it or not, the Christian life is one of struggle: internally against our own sin and also an external one, facing all the world throws at one who bears His name, from temptation to scorn to open persecution.

Moreover, it's not a strictly defensive struggle. We are supposed to, by virtue of our baptism, bring the Gospel to an increasingly unbelieving, uncomprehending, and hostile world. A spirituality that tries to pretend this is not a battle--one that strenuously denies even the very vocabulary and examples of battle contained in revelation and the lives of the saints--is one doomed to destruction. And deservedly so.

I'll take Wesley's vision. It's the one grounded in reality.

Around the blogs.

Lee Anne Millinger could use your prayers. Not so BTW, I really like her blog--it's one of the peaceful zones in the blogiverse.

As opposed to places that seem more like an Irish pub brawl, complete with the broken Guiness bottles and flying bar stools. You know, like this one.

William Luse's daughter, Bernadette, is on the official rookies' list for the LPGA. You can feel Papa's deserved pride from here. Congratulations!

Alicia the Midwife beautifully reminds us what home is.

Mike Inman is a braver man than I am. Two words: no way.

And finally, wholly appropriate to the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, is that fine Saint's admonition to people Just. Like. Me., courtesy of the Old Oligarch (who also is to be congratulated on the birth of his first child):

You will find others who must always be hearing and seeing something new. To attract attention they collect innumerable books and create libraries that are wonders to behold. 'Poor creatures, what is the purpose in all that?' They will respond: 'Oh, we are practicing foresight in anticipating our future needs. When older, we can make good use of them.' 'Oh God! do you not realize that Our Lord strongly desired to remove such avarice and anxiety from His disciples' hearts and commanded them to live from hand to mouth and to have no anxiety about tomorrow (Mt 6:34)?" Indeed, among the ordinances which God imposed on the children of Israel was the command to collect only a certain measure of manna [Ex 16:16]..."

Um, I can explain...

I think St. Francis just entered Heather's Top Five list--with a bullet.

From the mouths of babes.

We took our biggest winter wallop in about four years Saturday. Even with temperatures in the teens, ice forms in the sunlight.

In order to keep the kids from going stir crazy, we went to a McDonald's Playplace tonight. Along with the genius who thought of minivans, whoever came up with the Playplace concept deserves time off in Purgatory as far as I'm concerned. If not immediate canonization. Unfortunately, it was too cold to stay long, but the children still had fun.

As we were leaving, Madeleine noticed the array of stalactites forming off the south part of the restaurant's roof. Her comment?

"Look at the ice nipples, Daddy."

Thirty Two Years.

[Two scatological references below. You have been warned.]

And counting.

Roe v. Wade turned thirty two today.

The difference between those who support life and those beholden to ideology can be seen in this story concerning a dispute over a Colorado Catholic parish's burial of the cremated remains of the unborn--done with the full knowledge and consent of the mortuary and its parent company. But the abortionist is miffed:

The Sacred Heart of Mary Church obtained the ashes from a local mortuary that has a contract to cremate remains from the Boulder Abortion Clinic. But the clinic said it didn't know the ashes were being given to the church. "They have taken it upon themselves to make a macabre ritual out of this, inflicting pain on everyone," said clinic director Dr. Warren Hern.

Well, not "everyone," obviously. Starting with the unborn themselves. That was Dr. Hern's job.

For a significant fee. Yes, he does third trimester abortions--and the early stuff, too. A "five-tool" man, as they say in baseball. Don't let the "specializing" tag fool you.

And "macabre" is a funny word for someone who wants the remains chucked into the garbage. Funnier still--in the blackest sense of the word--was his alternate description of the church's activity, stated for the cameras of CNN:

"Sacrilege."

I s**t you not. The good doctor actually called the respectful burial of the unborn a sacrilege.

A most revealing insight into what he regards as holy.

"I have women calling me who are very upset over this. These fanatics simply cannot leave other people alone with their most intimate sorrow."

I'm sure he's had such calls--then again, Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling are pretty easily wound up and have long since mastered the fine art of speed dialing.

So what is Dr. Compa$$ion trying to say--better the remains were dumped in some landfill and forgotten?

Come to think of it, that's precisely what he's saying.

But, mirabile dictu, the mortuary is being backed to the hilt by the home office (headquartered in Texas):

The owners of the mortuary defended its actions.
"First of all, Crist Mortuary obviously cremated these fetal remains at the request of the clinic, and the church had a site and was willing to take them," said Terry Hemeyer, managing director of Service Corporations International in Houston, which operates Crist. "There was no intent of the mortuary to make any political or religious statement at all. They were trying to do the right thing, which I think they are doing."

You might want to think about dropping a line to SCI in appreciation.

And just what are the heartless fanatics doing with the unwanted products of conception?

The church began getting ashes from the mortuary in 1996 and quietly has been doing burial services since 2001. Parishioners went public this year to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
"We never meant this as a political statement, we wanted to give dignity to the unborn child and dignity to the pain and sorrow a woman who has had an abortion feels," said Susan LaVelle, a parish volunteer organizing the service.
The church cemetery has a Memorial Wall for the Unborn, with tiny plaques put there by women who have had abortions. Each one has a message:
"I'm sorry."
"Forgive Me"
"No less real, No less loved"
The remains of 3,000 fetuses are buried near the wall. On Sunday, between 600 and 1,000 small boxes of ashes will be emptied into a tomb and covered.

And just how did SHM become the repository of the remains? Why, through the transparent honesty of Dr. Hern's clinic:

LaVelle said Chuck Myers, a Crist employee, contacted the church in 1996 after discovering human remains in material received from the abortion clinic.
"The clinic said it was just tissue, but when he opened it up he and his staff were traumatized," she said. "He asked the church what he should do, and our priest offered to bury it."

"Just tissue." Merciful Jesus--we're talking abortions past the twenty-sixth week, and the "caring" Dr. Hern is fobbing it off as "just tissue."

Right up there with "other debris" in the ol' lexicon.

Well, you have to award points for consistency--especially when you consider that the abortion industry grew to the billion dollar business it is today by lying out its collective ass.

On a happier note, the parish is located in the Archdiocese of Denver:

LaVelle said she was baffled by the controversy.

"If we had not buried these ashes, they would have been thrown away in the trash," she said. "Why would they be upset that we are treating the remains of unborn children with dignity?"

The Catholic Archdiocese of Denver has expressed support for what the church is doing.
"This parish and other parishes have done this for years," Sergio Gutierrez, the diocese spokesman, said Friday. "This discussion clarifies the distinction between people who believe in the sanctity of life and those who don't. What is their view? To discard unborn children and then worry where they end up."

Sergio Gutierrez just became my favorite Catholic diocesan spokesman ever. Not that he's got a lot of competition, but hey--this was nothing short of brilliant. Good stuff.

Even the State of Colorado is fine with it:

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said that neither the church nor mortuary has done anything against the law.
"It's all legal," said Glenn Mallory, a solid waste disposal specialist with the department.

But for those who regard suction tubes as sacramentals, there is only incoherent fury:

Legal perhaps, but some groups say it's a violation of privacy.
"It's sad the church would take it upon itself to violate the doctor-patient relationship," said Kate Horle, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. "These women went to the doctor in confidence and made a difficult, personal decision. And now it's been dragged all over the media."

Amongst my three wishes would be a worldwide requirement that anyone who speaks for attribution on moral and political issues would be required to take and pass an Introduction to Logic course with at least a B+. Failure to do so--on the first try--would lead to a permanent disqualification from doing so. On the basis of her quote, it's pretty clear that Ms. Horle would have to forever hold her peace.

HOW THE HELL IS THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP VIOLATED WHEN WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THE PATIENT IS? NAME A SINGLE PATIENT WHO HAS BEEN "DRAGGED ALL OVER THE MEDIA", MS. HORLE.

I'll wait.

Brain donor.

Hern said he terminates many wanted pregnancies due to serious fetal anomalies or because the pregnancy may harm or kill the mother.

OK. I mean, if you can't trust an abortionist who lies to a mortuary about what he's shipping over to them, who can you trust?

Fine--I'll accept that this does happen. But I don't buy the word "many."

In some cases, he has participated in Jewish and American Indian funeral rituals after the abortion, along with the family members.

And Jews and Indians are cool with landfill burials? I did not know that. File under "Huh." Some might even see that as a "macabre ritual," too. But no--you're a good guy.

"Anti-abortion zealots, Catholic or otherwise, have shown that they will stop at nothing to inflict guilt and to compound the grief, sadness and sense of loss that these women experience," he said.

While the good doctor stops at nothing to minimize it.

Tell me, precisely, how the burial does all that, Doc? Sounds like you went to the same college as Ms. Horle.

Food for thought.

"Nor is this the first time in history that a specialized class or elite or bureacracy has broken loose from the authority structure over it and tried to go it alone, charting it's own distinctive path. It is a consistent feature of modern revolutions from 1789 on, as a matter of fact, that a segment of the elite or knowledge class revolts against, declares its independence from, and tries to usurp the functions of those in authority. The well-known expression, trahison des clercs, which we have employed, vividly describes the recurring reality of what happens in this kind of revolutionary situation.

Moreover, this same sort of thing has occurred before in ecclesiastical settings. Dramatic examples of it can precisely be seen in the evolution of some modern mainline Protestant churches from orthodoxy to Modernism in recent times. Lacking an episcopacy or papacy, the leadership of some of these churches has sometimes been unable to resist the influence of liberalizing and modernizing elements.

A common feature in such Modernist revolutions (or takeovers) has been launching a crusade against perceived "fundamentalists" in the name of the latest scholarship. These "fundamentalists," meanwhile, have usually included anybody continuing to hold to the communion's orthodox rule of faith. Nor have the "moderates" in these controversies ever proved very helpful by going around counseling moderation and even appeasement lest irreconcilable positions permanently damage the communion; such moderate positions have usually facilitated the liberal takeover.

The typical result of victories by the Modernists and the liberalizers in such contests has generally been the evacuation of any real meaning from and truth from the basic Christian revelation preserved in sacred Scripture."

Flawed Expectations, by Msgr. Michael Wrenn and John Whitehead, Ignatius Press 1996, pp. 346-47.

Sure the analysis is a little flawed--one can argue that the episcopacy actually facilitates the auto-demolition of the Episcopalians and Methodists. Overall, though, it is certainly something to remember the next time you hear your local Catholic theologian or educator railing against Catholic "fundamentalists." Take a look at the mainline canary (almost at room temperature) and see the future some self-identified Catholics are rushing to embrace--and impose on the rest of us.

[Thanks to Bill Cork for the last link, and SAM for the next-to-last.]

Nika!

Anybody else beginning to wonder if this whole Red-Blue meme is going to turn into the 21st Century American equivalent of Byzantine chariot racing?

Update on the AoSF Blessing/Prayer/Thing.

SAM notes that they've taken out the "Spirit/Great Spirit" references (scroll down).

Which makes it ahistorical (no such thing was ever used).

Not to mention even less coherent. E.g., who or what (God? Elvis? Mother Nature? Mr. Whipple? Joan Chittister? The President of Briggs and Stratton?) is being addressed?

Frankly, the A0SF version wasn't Wiccan enough to be really compelling and interesting. Shorn of even those elements, the remainder has a high school poetry anthology(1)/open-mike-night-at-Caffeinhaus badness to it that demands it be sent the memory hole, posthaste.

Watch it not happen.

-----------------
Footnote:

(1) I speak here with some authority, as someone who had a sonnet published in such a book back in 1987. No, there's not a chance in Hell you're ever going to see it. Let's just say it was reflective of a mentality oversaturated with D&D and Molly Hatchet album covers, and leave it at that.

Mass of the Ages, Part II.

We made it to St. Josaphat on time and piled into the great old Church--built in 1888, in the heart of Detroit's Polonia District. We didn't have time to get over to Sweetest Heart of Mary, but next time, next time. The crowd was disappointing, I have to admit.

But I picked up on more this time, with more of the Mass being prayerfully sung by the celebrant, Auxilliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton. It's starting to percolate a little more.

Beg pardon? Oops. My mistake--the celebrant was indeed a Detroit auxilliary bishop--big kudos to the AoD for that--but it was Bishop Earl Boyea.

I keed, I keed.

Sorry about the coffee on the monitor and keyboard.

Moving forward. It is indeed starting to make more sense and is becoming easier to follow, and would have been even more so had my eldest two developed a more Tridentine spirituality since October. My daughter was too distracted by the surroundings and kneelers and my son...

I have termed Dale's ideal form of worship as "charismatic." Upon further reflection, this is inaccurate. It is more properly described as "Norse."

As in a preference for howling and hacking things with a war axe. He punctuated the bishop's homily on Cana with a long, consonant-impaired bellow on nothing in particular. He also reappeared in the row of pews in front of us after worming his way past the deployed kneelers. He also needed a diaper change.

Maddie was also less than angelic, finding the food selection inadequate.

At the end of it all, a lovely old woman two rows behind us said "What well-behaved children you have!" Ooookaaay. Well, I have to admit they didn't set anything on fire.

No--she was serious, and spent five minutes talking with Heather.

I spent the same time preventing The Boy™ from ascending the high altar.

We met a pleasant young couple afterwards--they have five and one due in May. What is it with Catholics and the legal profession, anyway? Dad was a lawyer, too. They were also ex-SSPX, and had nothing good to say about the experience. I didn't press. A good experience--genuinely nice people, and it's nice to occasionally know you aren't virtually alone in the world.