Saturday thoughts

This morning I went to church and joined the Altar Society in cleaning the candle holders, polishing brass and arranging the altar floral display for Palm Sunday. It was fun. Fr. Theoden came out and offered a few suggestions. I'm tired and smell like chemicals but it was a good thing. I can see that I won't be able to do it every Saturday morning because of my crazy schedule but today was good.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Today Rocky and I went to the Ukranian Holy Family Shrine in DC for Mass with his bible study group from church. They are Catholic but use the Byzantine rite. It was amazing. Except for the homily every part of the Mass was sung either by the priests, deacons or the congregation. Communion was administered using a silver spoon. We Latin rite Catholics have lost so much beauty and dignity in our liturgy. It's really quite tragic how ugly the average Novus Ordo Mass is.

Afterwards we all went to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception for lunch and a tour. That was very nice. The tour guide got a couple of dates wrong but she had a huge amount of information to remember so that's understandable. After the tour Rocky and I visited the Poor Clare's convent and the Franciscan monastery. And then we came home so Rocky could cheer Georgetown on to victory.

Fr What-a-Waste and other thoughts

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  This phrase has irritated me for years. When a woman refers to a priest that way she's saying that the only men who should serve God are the ones who are uglier than a fatherlesss billy goat and/or so socially inept that no woman would want them.

• Here's a lovley new blog written by a young fellow who's on his way to the Missionaries of the Eternal Word.
  
  
  
• I suspect that the whole Iraq thing is hopeless. This is a country that has a 40% literacy and where most marriages are between cousins. Cousin marriage leads to idiots and tribalism, two things that you really need to lose if you want a democracy.
  
  
  
• I dearly love John Paul II but let's not declare him a saint just yet. We have time and it's no offense to our late Papa if a slow, thourough investigation is done. Remember even the remarkable St. Therese had to wait twenty some years after her death to be cannonized. St. Maria Gorretti's then teenaged murderer was an old man by the time Pope Pius cannonized her. There is no need to rush.
  
  
  
  
• Fr. Fessio got fired. I haven't followed the whole Ave Maria thing so I'm now I'm curious. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
  
  

Was that water really holy?

I have a question. Last week I was asked to fill the Holy Water font at church. I was directed to get the water from the sacristy sink that Fr. Théoden and Fr. Aragorn use to wash up. There was no salt and no blessing so how can it be Holy Water? Can you pre-bless all the water that comes form Father's sink?

Apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist

I wish I could get more excited about this but to be brutally honest it means almost nothing in practcal terms. If your bishop is more Mahoney than Sheen then he's going to keep on doing what he's doing.

thursday night thoughts

Mary Alexander at Against All Heresies has a post on something that has made me uneasy for a while now: lay people who set themselves up in their own "ministries". Mark Shea, Jimmy Akin, Karl Keating and Stephen Ray all hawk their books, tapes, and speaking engagements on their sites and "generously" share their views on Catholicism and the world. Some Catholics hang on to their utterances as if these guys were the pope. This is dangerous ground to tread on.

All these guys are self appointed experts who remind me way too much of Protestant ministers. Something just doesn't seem right.

What's up with the earring?

This man is a priest. Wrap your mind around that for a sec and then read this on Catholic World News to see what he's been up to. It aint pretty.

St. Pio, pray for us!

St. Peter Damien, pray for us!

St. John Vianney, pray for us!

Servant of God, Archbishop Sheen, pray for us!

Thoughts for a Thursday night

Dominic Bettenelli's wife, Melanie has cancer. They have a baby and are still practically newlyweds. Dom is sometimes a bit pompous but he loves his family and his heart is in the right place.

St. Peregrine, patron of cancer victims please pray for this young wife and mother.

19th wedding anniversay

I've finally figured out what has been wrong with me this week. I've been uncommonly weepy and day dreamy. My wedding anniversary was yesterday (we went to Ruth Chris's Steak House and it was the best steak of my life!) and the memory of those early days when Rocky and I first met and got married are so intense that I'm emotional.

19 years ago when I was 21 and Rocky was 23 we drove to Baltimore (no blood tests) and got married in the city court house. Two US Marshals and a shackled prisoner wished us luck. Afterwards we went to the Baltimore Inner Harbor and had shrimp. Later, we walked into the rectory of Saint Ignatius Chruch in Maryland and asked Fr. Wermer to help us. He gave me a stern talking to about getting married civilly and reminded me that it was no more than living together and then he got to work at the diocese marriage tribunal. We were married in church per the bishop's approval and lived happily ever after.

I remember that it was night and the there were no lights in the church except for candles. We had no flowers except for my corsage and baby's breath crown. I had on an old dress and my satin shoes from my high school prom. Rocky was sweating like Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull and we forgot about getting pictures. Rocky's family did not attend.

His family didn't like me at first. I was not their class, I was Catholic and they were Baptist (Rocky converted after our marriage) and I was too quiet, too smart and just too different from what they expected their son to marry. His little brother frankly told him that he didn't care for me all. Rocky told him thanks for the opinion and pursued me like the Colts going after the Lombardi trophy in the Superbowl anyway.

When I met Rocky I was seriously involved with someone else but he just blew that other guy away. One day as we were walking along I realized that this boy was The ONE. I swear I heard Judy Garland singing. And then I got nauseaus. I had planned to marry someone who was well, weak, tame and who'd let me be in complete charge. Rocky wasn't tame then and he sure isn't now.


Here's an essence of Rocky story:

Last year I organized my family's reunion. It was hard, hard, hard work to pull off an event that large; it was like running a small business for a year and Rocky really didn't have a wife for months. He never complained. He was an advisor, the reunion accountant and cheerfully shuttled me and my mother to various meetings. On the day of the reunion banquet I was so exhausted that I lay down (collasped really) to rest before getting dressed in my evening finery. Rocky immediately went into protector mode. I have a vaugue memory of relatives coming to our room door needing various things and hearing R. say, "No you can't talk to Dym, she's trying to sleep. Talk to me." He made change, rustled up extra t-shirts, gave directions, conferred with the banquet manager and straightened out a couple of my wild cousins. He didn't let anyone in to see me or pester me on the phone until the color came back into my cheeks. Forget cards and flowers I thought that was the most romantic thing….