random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

• One of my neighbors is a Protestant. She spent half an hour talking to Rocky about Pope Francis and her opinion of him was pretty low. It wasn't the usual Protestant theological ignorance either. Everything she said  was about his political meddling and his trip to Egypt and Rocky said he couldn't come up with a single defense.
  
  
• I just found a blog that has daily recordings of the Lauds from the Divine Office. 

• If you meet a little girl whose non Christian parents are from  Cameroon, Uganda, Niger, Ghana, Togo, Iraq, Benin, Yemen, Central African Republic ,Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania ,Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali, Eritrea, Egypt, Djibouti, Guinea and most especially, Somalia chances are that she's been or will be mutilated. Parents used to send their daughters home for "a visit" to get it done because they knew this didn't fly in America. Now we have doctors who are cocky enough to do it right in here.
  
  
  
• Sometime this Summer I think Rocky and I will visit the Benedictine monastery in Richmond and see if we can get a viewing of their Shroud of Turin exhibit. 

• St. Padre Pio's relics are going to  be at St. Ann's in Arlington, Virginia in May. 

• In your charity could you please pray for the repose of the soul of one of my mother's neighbors? I'll call her Mrs. Stone. About two years ago she took up with a man who was young enough to be her son. Her friends tried to warn her that this was dangerous but she refused to listen.  Eventually, Mrs. Stone's neighbors and relatives realized that they never saw her anymore and that whenever someone tried to call or visit her, the gigolo always had an excuse as to why she could not come to the phone. Finally someone called the police and she was found in her bedroom in a near comatose state.  She died in the hospital the next day.  Mama is pretty upset about this.

• The Orthodox have married priests and yet they have  had pedophilia cases. Rabbi's get married and yet rabbi's have been arrested for seducing boys.  In order to avoid the mess of a dating pastor some  Baptist congregations never  hire a pastor unless he shows  up to the first interview already married. The situation of the married preacher having sex with women members of the church is such a common story it's the subject of many, many jokes, books and films. Those married preachers have been caught with under-aged boys and girls too.  A lot of church's have had scandal, misery and financial expense over the Youth Minister.
  
  The pervert who enjoys sex with pre-pubescent children or teenagers is a crafty monster.  He will assume any disguise in order to get access to them. He will marry a woman he has no sexual interest in just to get at her children and in some cases, their friends. He will join organizations that cater to children. The Boy Scouts have paid out a lot of money due to  predatory Scout Masters.  Numerous Summer camps have had "trouble" with married and presumed normal, camp counselors molesting the young campers.  A new story about teachers and their students seems to make the headlines every day. Dedicated perverts have sat for years in seminary  classrooms and gotten themselves ordained in order to  hide behind a clerical collar or cassock. Do you actually think that sex with a woman or even just a farcical marriage can cure perverted sexual desires? That's about as pitiful and dangerous as the South African men who cling to the filthy superstition that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS.
  

All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain by Randy Engel--- a sobering read

“If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.”

----from “The Murder at the Vicarage” by Agatha Christie

I was reading the Restoring DC Catholicism blog and saw a post about Randy Engel's latest article. Miss/Mrs.(?) Engel is the author of the The Rite of Sodomy — Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church,  and she  is as close to the fictional Miss Marple as you’ll find in Catholics circles. In the Christie novels the villains never gave Miss Marple any thought right up until the moment she connects the dots for everyone. Randy Engel has been an investigative journalist for nearly five decades and now with her long article,  "All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain, ”  she's doggedly connected a very messy pile of dots. If you’ve ever spent money on Church Militant TV, Fr. Paul Nicholson or to E. Michael Jones you need to read this. If you are curious as to why even some of the most gentle and fair minded  Catholics get apopletic  about Opus Dei, you need to read this.  It is not a defense of Michael Voris but an assessment of some things in and left out of the book E. Michael Jones wrote about him last year. It's an unnerving article that will probably be ignored by most of Catholic blogland and that is too bad. One thing I don't understand is this: many devout Catholics if asked about Opus Dei will say that while they don't necessarily want to join it,  St. John Paul II embraced it and that's good enough for them. If CMTV is/was  a media apostolate of OD why hide it?



PS
I wrote to Miss Engel with Oakes's questions and  a couple of my own. I don't know if the email address I found is still active or how often she checks it but hopefully she'll get back to me. 

How was your Triduum?

On Holy Thursday we went to our parish and Rocky ushered. On Good Friday we visited St. Francis de Sales in DC. It's a tiny little church with a priest who is a remarkably good confessor. After St. Francis we picked up my mother and headed to the Franciscan Monastery for the burial of Christ service. To our amusement we saw two people from St. Rita's among the crowd. My mother and I enjoyed watching a fat baby in the pew ahead of us who discovered that she could crawl under the pew and escape until her father noticed and caught her.

For Easter Vigil we went to a Josephite run parish, St. Vincent de Paul in DC. It was the sweetest Easter Vigil we've ever  been  to. The people were so genuinely happy and kind and the young African priest sang the Exsultet beautifully and preached well. I hope to go back to visit them.  Suburban parishes have more parking and are in better neighborhoods but the people can be very cold. Visiting a small parish in a tough neighborhood can be a truly joyful experience. 

Easter

Holy Saturday

Good Friday

The Hours of the Passion by St. Alphonsus Ligouri

P.M. 5-7 8 9 10 11 MIDNIGHT 1 2 3 4

Jesus, having taken leave of Mary, celebrates His last supper. Jesus washes the feet of the Apostles, and institutes the Most Holy Sacrament. Discourse of Jesus; He goes to the Garden of Olives. Prayer of Jesus in the garden. Agony. The sweating of Blood. Jesus is betrayed by Judas, and is bound. Jesus is led before Annas. Jesus is taken before Caiphas, and receives a blow in the face. Jesus is blindfolded, struck, and scoffed at.

A.M. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 MIDDAY 1 2 3 4 5 6

Jesus is led to the council, and declared guilty of death. Jesus is taken to Pilate, and accused. Jesus is mocked by Herod. Jesus is conducted to Pilate, and Barabbas is preferred to Him. Jesus is scourged at the pillar. Jesus is crowned with thorns, and exhibited to the people. Jesus is condemned to death, and goes to Calvary. Jesus is stripped and crucified. Jesus prays for His murderers. Jesus recommends His spirit to His Father. Jesus dies. Jesus is pierced with a lance. Jesus is taken down from the Cross, and delivered over to His Mother. Jesus is buried and left in the sepulchre.

Palm Sunday

After Mass while Rocky and the ushers were cleaning up I sat and made palm crosses and a crown of thorns. Eventually one of the young newly wed ladies came up and asked me to show her how to do it so I passed on a traditional craft.  

There are a lot of palm craft videos out there but I've found two that are my favorites. I still can't make a decent looking beehive.

Dark was the night, cold was the ground

Purple Robe

There’s a story so unkind in the Holy book we find

And it tells how Jesus stood alone one day

False accused and there condemned yet they found no fault with Him

The man who wore the scarlet purple robe

Purple robe my Savior wore oh the shame for me he bore

As He stood alone, forsaken on that day

And they placed upon His head piercing thorns and blood stained red

His raiment was a scarlet purple robe

In the common judgment hall he was mocked and scorned by all

And a tear of sorrow fell upon His cheek

Soldiers of the wicked man smote Him with their evil hand

The Man who wore the scarlet purple robe

Words of truth that day were plain from the lips of Pilot came

In this man I find no reason He should die

But the multitudes replied let Him now be crucified

The man who wore the scarlet purple robe

...Scarlet Purple Robe by the Stanley Brothers

So it's come this.. random thoughts on the mad world on a Saturday night

A lot of people in blogland have been shocked and appalled by the video of the dancing Franciscan that has recently surfaced. I was not. I've seen this act before. Certain branches of the Franciscans have been pulling this stunt for years. It seems to be a grafted on part of their charism. Back in the 80s  I was in high school and in religion class we were "treated" to a one man show on the life of St. Francis. The actor portrayed the great saint as a disgusting flake who twirled and gyrated all over Italy while picking flowers. I was repulsed and it that show was meant to convince the boys in my class that they might have a Franciscan vocation it failed. Certain Franciscans took that crap act to heart and so we get to see brothers and priests prancing around the church on occasion. Now to business. What do you do when your priest suddenly busts a grand jete? Leave! Act as if the devil just jumped up in the middle of the floor -- because he has-- and haul yourself and your family out of that parish. Father Flaky and Brother Chorus Boy act like this because we allow it. I don't care if you've been in this parish since the 60s. I don't care if your great grandpa built the pew you're sitting in. I don't care if your grandmother's likeness is immortalized in the stained glass window behind the altar. Leave these parishes and take your money with you and then Bishop Wimpy will take notice. Letter writing and muttering in the car won't cut it.

St. Francis, pray for us

The Pope went to a porta potty so the media and locals stood around and took photos as he entered and left. One report even felt the need to include the length of his visit. This whole idolization of a pope as if he were a rock star has reached a new level of idiocy.





The Vice President wisely does not meet women alone and does not go to parties without his wife. The same people who cheered Bill Clinton are mocking him. What a mad world. My husband also doesn't go to parties without me and he doesn't eat with or have one on one closed door meetings with his female co-workers and staff. When I eat lunch with men it's in a group, never one on one.  It only takes one misunderstanding or flat out lie to ruin your life. Most working people with an ounce of sense already know this.

Stabat Mater