Wedding notes

 I watched a live streamed wedding Mass a few hours ago. It wasn't bad and the homily was actually good but  I noticed a few things that struck me as lacking.

Ladies, don't wear strapless gowns.  You're not going to a NYC Fashion week ; you're going to the house of God for a sacrament. On a practical level strapless gowns show too much when you bow or genuflect or lean forward to adjust your gown.  Show some respect to the priest and don't make him have to put up with an eyeful of heaving bosom or be photographed with an embarrassingly dressed bride.   

Be kind to your bridesmaids.  Pick a gown that doesn't make any of them look like five pounds of meat in a two pound bag or the chorus line at the Moulin Rouge.  Ease up on the makeup too. I'm not saying go barefaced by any means but resembling the Joker isn't a good look...truly.

If you're going to have family or friends do the readings make sure they can actually speak  using a microphone instead of muttering, giggling or whispering. They don't need to act out the reading either.  When you kiss your groom, please  don't grope each other, or attempt a search mission for his tonsils. Nobody needs to see that in general and certainly not in church.  

Merry Christmas

For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course,  Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.

Random thoughts on a lazy afternoon

 

• The rug cleaner is here and I am so happy. He's moved all my living and dinning area furniture and dirt that laughed at my Little Green Bissel machine is being removed. I'll  have brand new looking rugs for Christmas!
  
  
  
• People get really snobby about this little missal but this is the first one I ever saw and owned, and it's the missal that many people use every Sunday.  It's cheap, fits in a purse and is easy to use. 

• If you want to go further and buy a sturdy daily or Sunday only missal the Latin Mass Helper store is a great resource. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Years ago I realized two things. I needed to veil when appearing before the Blessed Sacrament and I was never going to receive Communion from a Eucharistic minister ever again. I am a very shy person and both decisions scared me because I knew I was going to get blow back. I did in the form of dirty looks but Rocky discouraged people from saying anything to me and I kept going. Today I'm not the only woman who wears a veil in church. Nobody scowls or rolls their eyes. People are used to it.  I'm not the only person who silently, politely avoids the EM line either. If your afraid of what people will say if you veil this little book offers encouragement. 
  
  
  
  
  
• One thing I've learned in my life is that when multiple men look at a priest and either clench their jaws and grunt and refuse to have anything to do with him and parish activities other than Mass or they flat out say that Fr. Skippy is too womanish for them, the best thing to do is to not argue. Wait long enough and observe you'll find yourself going, "Oh, Dad/Uncle/Son/Husband was right."

Advent

 

The news is going to get weirder the closer we get to Christmas. Hollywood will release a blasphemous movie, or some professor will say something ridiculously  foul, or a crime will happen and someone will try to blame it on a supposed Christian... don't get fooled. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Random thoughts on a frosty Saturday afternoon

• The whole maelstrom around Erika Kirk is astonishing.  The woman has been accused of things so wild I won't repeat them. I don't have an informed opinion on any of that, but if I was advising the Widow Kirk I would tell her to make like Jackie Kennedy and say nothing in public for the next six months or more. She may be trying to keep her husband's dream alive but from a public relations stand point, she's failing. Work behind the scenes to publish a book, or create a foundation but the whole speaking gig needs to stop.  
  
  
  
  
•  I saw that 600, 000 illegals have been deported so far and I'm seeing a difference in my area. There is a gas station about two miles from my home that had a huge group of Hispanic men hanging around every day. They drank heavily, fought, regularly stabbed each other, and harassed women who went to the market next door or were at the gas station. Week after week, the police reports listed arrests for assault and battery. I noticed back in the Summer that there were less men hanging out. Now, when we drive by I see either a handful of men or nobody.  For the first time in my memory there are no large groups of men in the Home Depot or U-Haul parking lots.  I am amazed.  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was disappointing this year. Young Father says the Novus Ordo Mass as best as it can be done but the homily was wasn't great. It's not his fault. The pastor likes "fun", jokey homilies and perhaps between him and some of the more vocal parishioners, I think, young Fr. has been "encouraged" to make his homilies less like adult theology  and more like a pep talk for elementary aged school children.  Attendance was not great either. Perhaps people took off work and went to one of the day Masses instead of the 6PM, that Rocky and I went to. 
  
  
  
  
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• I was doing my Saturday cleaning while listening to You Tube and really enjoyed Stephen Kokx's interview with  Frank Walker. Later I listened to bits of Kennedy Hall's video on Nick Fuentes and his most recent one  which is meant to be an encouragement and warning to Gen Z men.  I did not enjoy the Hall experience and I don't see either  video going over well with the target audience. Kennedy has a tendency to come off as somewhat  pompous and I think that the Z generation is even less tolerant of what they consider to be "Boomer slop condescension," than even my folks, Gen X are. Kennedy is either a Millennial in the older age range or a younger  Generation X so he really should know that. 

Hey US Bishops, Could You Spare a Thought for the US?

 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's had their  Baltimore meeting and among other things, they  voted 216–5 to condemn our country for deporting illegal aliens.   As soon as I read about it, I remembered two stories from the past. 

The first was from  a young priest who lived in one of the worst parts of Mexico. He  wrote about  four young thugs who ran afoul of their gang for beating and robbing a man who was already paying the gang protection money. They acted without permission and presumably took profits for themselves. The punishment was supposed to be execution, but due to the priest's pleading it was reduced to exile. They were told to get out of Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande that night. It's a dramatic story and the priest's sympathy was for the young men, but I have wondered what happened next. Did those violent men throw themselves at the foot of the Holy Cross and go straight, or are they now victimizing Americans?  

Here's another story for the bishops. One weekend afternoon,  a former co-worker of mine went jogging in a park that was close to her neighborhood.  At some point she realized that she was being closely followed by two men in a truck. She ran faster and they picked up speed. Finally, she came to  a side trail that had two steel bollards that may have saved her life. The driver couldn't follow her without damaging his vehicle and both men, who appeared to be from some country in Latin America, were either two lazy to pursue her  or simply realized that this  American woman was not going to be an easy victim,  chose to let her go.  She ran for her life on that trail until she made it to the parking lot. From there she ran home. If my old co-worker hadn't been fast, what would have happened to her? 

The USCCB  wrote about a "climate of fear", but ignore the fear American women and girls have had to live under for too long. We've gotten to the point where going for a walk or going to the gas station could lead to rape and murder and our bishops just blow off as if we are nothing. 

A ghostly tale for Halloween

 Years ago when I was still in high school I read a collection of ghost stories called "Haunted Heartland." Most of them weren't a bit scary and were presented in  the dry  businesslike fashion of a folklorist who is merely collecting materials for a dissertation, but one tale stuck with me. It was the story of Fr. Louis Lesches, a priest assigned to St. Mary's College in Minnesota, who tried to kill his superior, Bishop Patrick Hefron. The bishop was saying Mass in the seminary chapel one morning when he turned around and saw Fr. Lesches standing behind him. To the bishop's surprise, the priest was wearing a Prince Albert suit instead of his cassock. To add to this surprise ,the bishop quickly realized that  the priest was packing heat. Fr. Lesches fired a gun three times, hitting the bishop twice.

At that time Fr. Lesches was already the number one problem child of the diocese. Although he was said to be brilliant and had done well in the academic part of his seminary studies, he was judged to be overly emotional, and  insubordinate. He'd failed at all of his parish assignments and now the concerned and probably a bit exasperated bishop had recalled him to St. Mary's to keep a close eye on him.  Fr. Lesches became convinced that the bishop was persecuting him. 

 Bishop Heffron's  great physical and mental toughness probably saved his life.  Instead of dropping dead, hiding in the pews, or swooning, he yelled at his now panicked attacker and chased him out of the chapel. Fr. Lesches was later captured by the police and spent the rest of his life in a mental hospital.

 Students have been claiming to see the ghost of Fr. Lesches on campus for decades. It's a spooky tale but I hope everyone who hears or reads it will stop and say a prayer for this poor, strange, unstable man who never should've been ordained but is a priest forever and one who probably really needs our help now.