Got a good priest? Thank God!

Our new parochial vicar, Fr. G. is going to run in the Baltimore Marathon He's raising money for the Gabriel Project pregnancy assistance and Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministries. Since I wouldn't even run on an indoor track I'm very impressed.

He's been giving a lecture series on the letters of St. Paul every Sunday and it's brilliant. It feels like a college course. The Church no longer has simplex priests, the men in your parish are pretty darn smart as a matter of course. And some like Fr. G., Fr. Aragorn and Fr. Theoden are simply amazing. Your pastor or parochial vicar could've done a lot of things with his life. I've often thought that Fr. Theoden would've made a good teacher or diplomat, Fr. G. used to be a lawyer. Thank God they and all good priests have chosen to follow God's call.

The fabulous Kit Brookside loves my blog! The rules of this meme are that I have to complete the questions name the person who gave the award and pass it on.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? work
3. Your hair color? dark
4. Your mother? SC
5. Your father? SC
6. Your favorite thing? cheese
7. Your dream last night? weird, 8. Your dream/goal? beauty 9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blog
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? church
14. What you're not? bored
15. One of your wish-list items? dress

16. Where you grew up? DC
17. The last thing you did? read
18. What are you wearing? Orvis
19. Your TV? old
20 Your pet? dead
21. Your computer? pc
22. Your mood? grumpy
23. Missing someone? Nope
24. Your car? Ford
25. Something you're not wearing? coat
26. Favorite store? Borders
27. Your summer? fast
28. Love someone? sure
29. Your favorite color? black
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? Sunday

I nominate everyone in my links list because I really do love their blogs.

nastiness abounds...

I've been reading lots of bloggers who seem giddy about the current national financial crisis. What these people intend to do if the system crashes I don't know but I don't think they'll be too smug when their jobs are gone. It never seems to dawn on these people that "the rich" that they hate so much employ the rest of us............

Rock on Pope Benedict!

You know, for an old man, Papa Benedict is working at a breathtaking pace. He's replaced all the members of the Office of Liturgical Celebrations. He's moving and giving his all to restore the Church. What are you doing? How about praying and fasting. When you say your rosary this weekend don't forget to pray for the pope. He has the hardest job in the world and some times he must feel like he's standing in the midst of a snake pit.

I will go to the altar of God --- pray for vocations!

I found this holy card on a really lovely blog named He Gently Calls us and I spent I don't know how long just feasting my eyes at all the beauty. It reminded me once again how far Catholic art has fallen. Mostly our "artists" produce manure piles and call us philistines or stuffy trads for not being fooled.

Why they hate Sarah Palin

I was watching Governor Sarah Palin and felt a bit wistful. She's close to my age. If it weren't for my infertility problems I might have a big boy of Track's age now or a girl the age of Bristol or Willow. If my pregnancy last year hadn't been ectopic I would have a boy close to Trig's age.

When the feminists look at Sarah they are stung becuase she is living proof of the lies they've been espousing. You can have a real man for a husband, you can have children and still make --- if you are fit for it, and a lot of us aren't--- a serious career. Their own mutinous hearts whisper, "Where is my man, where is my child?, "

As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, they are "Just something with a book of clippings, an office full of French provincial furniture, but not a woman," and they know it. How it must gall them and terrify them. That's why they hate Sarah.

The Faithful Departed

I'm reading Philip Lawler's book , The Faithful Departed and so far, I see why it was banned from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception bookstore in DC (they have Medjugorje books though) and why my beloved Catholic Information Center in DC isn't carrying it, (Opus Dei avoids any book that seems gets too political). Lawler argues that the rot in Boston started a long time ago and made the homosexual child molestation scandal possible. He's gone all the way back to 1919, when the cardinal at the time had to be told by Benedict XV, to get rid of his nephew and a priest who had a wife and home in another state. This same cardinal prized professional priests over holy priests. Sound familiar? Later, they got Cardinal Cushing who seemed to be a jolly fellow but who was way too interested in trying to integrate Boston Catholics into the mainstream life of Protestant America.

It's a fascinating read so far. Painful, becuase this isn't just Boston's problem. To a certain extent the rot is everywhere.

oh well

Remember that scene in Ten Commandments where Moses is told that his name will sticken from the court history and by law nobody is speak his name out loud? Well, I accidentally offended the head of a rather important group at church. I spoke the truth but I don't think ole girl wanted to hear it. So, I don't think my name will be unspeakable but it might be mud with the important group for awhile.

And now for something calming and beautiful.....

The view of St. Rita's from the choir loft and the statue of Jesus and his Sacred Heart.

I will go to the altar of God

To God, who giveth joy to my youth........

Pray for priests!

Hat tip to the Meeting Christ in the Liturgy blog.

Voodoo practitioners for Obama

There's a shop in my town that looks like a Catholic statue store when you first walk in but has things like penis shaped candles for fertility and sex spells and a voodoo shrine in the back. When Rocky and I accidentally visited it one time, we both wandered down different aisles of the store and just as it was dawning on me that something wasn't right , Rocky rushed up to me an whispered, "There's some kind of a shrine in the back. I don't know what they're praying to but we need to get the hell out of here." Usain Bolt couldn't have left the store any faster than we did.

Today we usually don't even glance at it when we drive by but last weekend we were walking past it on the way to one of our favorite restarants and I noticed a large Obama sign in the window. We both had to laugh. Considering how weird Obama supporters tend to be, it made sense.

Pray for our priests!

Except for Jesus, the eternal High Priest, nobody was born a priest. Many a vocation is lost because family and friends discourage a young man.

The Vatican doesn't have a priest nursery somewhere in St. Peters so, let's pray for vocations and support our seminarians and young priests with prayer and helpfulness whenever we can.



Oddly enough, our pastor, Fr. Theoden looks a lot like the baby in the vestments.

9/11

O Lord, the God of mercies, grant unto the souls of Thy servants the anniversary day of whose murder we are keeping, a place of solace, of peaceful rest, of glorious light.

Through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Hallowed Mother, do this favour: Those Wounds that gored my Saviour, deeply on my heart engraved.

Mine it be, Christ's throes in sharing.

Mine it be, his anguish bearing.

These, his wounds, to keep in mind.

From the flame of hell unending, be thou, Virgin, me defending, in that dreadful reckoning day! When in death my eyes are closing, open them, Lord, to see reposing, Victory's crown in Mary's hand.

When my frame by death is broken, and my doom by thee is spoken, be it, Lord, the better land. Amen.

Here was a man

Thomas Vander Woude was the sacristan at Holy Trinity Church in Bristow, Virginia and the father of a local priest in my diocese. He died a horrible death so that his youngest son might live. God bless this brave man and his sorrowing family.

Eternal rest grant unto him, oh Lord, may perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

Dorothy Day nuttiness strikes again

The Dorothy Day Worker's House in DC is going to host an abomination. They are going to allow women who are pretending to be priests hold a fake mass. I tend to avoid anything with Dorothy Day's name on it because although she may have been a very holy person the organization with her name on it tends to be whackadoodle. As for these fake priests....well, there's few things more pitiful on earth than a woman who wants to be a man.

How to save the old city church--put up or shut up

A lot of Catholic blogs post pictures of magnificent old churches and then mention that the church in danger of being closed. They usually blame the bishop. I sigh and comment on occasion, but usually I just move on.

The reason why those big city churches are in danger is pretty obvious but nobody wants to talk about it. It's the Catholic elephant in the living room. In 1964 , the Civil Rights Act was passed and a few years later came the Fair Housing Act. Black people were then legally free to live where they pleased and many began moving into neighborhoods that had been closed to them before. Many white people left the city. Some left because they were racists. Others left becuase they had to. To their innocent surprise their new neighbors frequently were hostile and had some cultural habits that were undesirable to live next to.

Okay, I'm not blaming anyone for leaving who belonged to the latter group. I don't blame anyone who just doesn't want to live in a city. My mom still lives in DC and I'd like to get her out of there. For whatever reason the old German, Polish, Italian, Lithuanian, or Irish Catholics left and only come back to the old parish on Sundays for the Tridentine Mass or they don't come back at all becuase they have their own parishes in the burbs.

Many city churches are open for commuters to attend a morning, noon or after work Mass and then promptly close becuase of the city crime. No pastor wants a situation where a visitor was raped or killed in the church while praying after rush hour. I once had to flee St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill in DC becuase of agressive vagrants. It was a weekday afternoon. The Shrine of the Sacred Heart in DC is not only locked in off hours but has a tall iron fence around the entire church because that neighborhood is rough. I wouldn't even walk there alone.

So, a bishop looks at his old church that may be in such a horrid neighborhood that it doesn't even draw commuters and he realizes that he's spending an awful amount of money on a mostly dead parish. And he decides to close it. Suddenly people who never gave a damn or a dime before come out to protest and Holy Mother Church is made to look bad in the news.

Do you want to save the old church in the old neighborhood? Get in the car and go there to Mass every Sunday and get yourself registered as a parishioner. Better yet, get in the moving van and move to the city and get deeply involved in renewing the parish. Can't do that? You'd never do that? Okay, you have your reasons as do I, but unless you are willing to put your life and your family's lives where your complaints are; you ought to give the bishop a respite in the criticism. Put up or shut shut, dudes.

Oh and to the parishioners of those endangered parishes: God bless you for toughing it out in the city but please, please remember, Jesus is the reason you go to Mass, not becuase your grandfather worshiped in the same pew you are sitting in.

Where were you when....

I stole this meme from Lair of the Catholic Cavemen.

1. President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

I hadn't been born yet.

2. England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany - 4 July

This is soccer isn't it?

3. Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

I can't recall and I'm sorry about that.

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I was taking a nap when my mother called. I couldn't believe it and felt unreal all day.

5. Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

I was at work, a few blocks from the White House. I wasn't shocked. If you live or work in DC you eventually realize that one day the Big Bad Thing is going to happen and you pray that it will be quick. I figured that a major terrorist act would happen in America one day but the way they did was breathtaking. I remember standing on my balcony and watching bits of burnt paper from the Pentagon float by and realizing that America's long nap from reality was over.

6. The election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy - 19 April 2005

I was at work again. I stood up cheered. Then I sat down very quickly before anybody saw me.

Good news from the Vatican

Thank the Lord! It looks like the Vatican is taking strong disciplinary meausures with the priest who guides the "seers" of Medjugorje.

leave Bristol Palin alone

When I was in high school I knew two classmates who got pregnant. Both girls came from middle to upper class families. Their "nice", sophisticated suburban parents made them get abortions and although I managed to keep a blase expression on my face, inside I was shocked by that. One girl had two abortions, the other had one. One was incredibly bitter at her boyfriend for dumping her and leaving her to kill their child by herself. The other was just sad that the whole ugly business had to be done because her parents didn't want to be shamed in front of their friends. She was also upset because her boyfriend now seemed to have lost all respect for her. Both these girls knew what they'd done. Planned Parenthood couldn't convince them that they'd just shed some random cells.

Teenaged pregnancy happens. We are hard wired to breed when we are fertile. I am not saying that fornication is not a mortal sin. I am not dismissing fornication or making light of it in any way. I would never say or do that but out of wedlock pregnancy does happen. Our society just sweeps it and the poor innocent babies under the rug by forcing girls to add murder to the original fornication.

My grandmother gave birth to my dad when she was a teenager. She was unwed and could not marry my grandfather becuase he was already married to a relative of hers. It was the scandal of the county and no, my grandmother was not a good mom to her eldest son at all but I thank God she chose to give him life instead of sneaking off to the local abortionist. And she could've done that. Contray to the urban legends, the abortionists in my parent's little backwoods town were well known and were successful at what they did. My grandmother could've made her problem go away and no-one other than my great grandmother would've been the wiser. Give Bristol Palin a break. She has chosen to let her innocent child live. And that's all I have to say.

your choice comes with a price

"A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction between its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible among us.""Those who give potions for the destruction of a child conceived in the womb are murderers, as are those who take potions which kill the child. "

-Saint Basil the Great (A.D. 329-379)

God says, "Take what you want. And pay for it."--- sarcastic Spanish proverb