St. Trinian's

There once were a series of drawings called "The Girls of St. Trinian's".  They inspired a movie called The Bells of St. Trinian's, with Peter Sellers.  It was a very funny movie, in a twisted way.

Now there is a movie called St. Trinian's.  It's out on DVD, and is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time.  I would say it's not suitable for kids under 12 or 13, but it is very, very funny.

Imagine a girls school, on the old british pattern, with the teachers markedly incompetent and uninterested, no discipline.  Just, anarchy, until the kids have to unite to save the school from foreclosure, through fraud, larceny, skulduggery and assorted felonies and misdemeanors.

Yep, it's that kind of movie, and it was hilarious.

If only Swimming Coaches Could Marry!

ESPN is going to air a report on May 2, an "outside the lines investigation".  The report documents the pervasive sexual abuse of swimmers by their coaches.

The report points out that Coaches were able to move from place to place to avoid prosecution, and other coaches and athletic personel who witnessed inappropriate activities didn't report them.  The report also mentions that parents ignored "red flags" so that their children could have a greater chance of succeeding in the sport, or didn't notice them.

The lid began coming off of this when a coach was accused and eventually convicted of abusing some 20 swimmers over a 30 year period.  A girl who was 14 came forward and testified that this man had abused her over 100 times. 

It's not just Priests.  Or religious persons, ministers and so forth.  Sexual abuse and exploitation of minors is endemic to our society.  After all, the Justice Department has determined that the place your kid is most at risk when they leave the house in school, and the most likely to abuse them are teachers.

The move  to slam the Church for sexual abuse doesn't only serve to dicredit the Church, it serves to distract from other places even more corrupt.

St. Mary's Church, New albany, IN

At. Mary's is an old parish.  Like many of the old parishes in the Ohio Valley it was started by German speaking immigrants to the region.  (Most of these immigrants were from what is now Germany--at that time it had yet to be united under the Kingdom of Prussia into the German Empire--but many were from Austria and Switzerland.)  This Church has been renovated but not wreckovated.  The art work has been restored, the paint refreshed, the mosaic work tended.  It's a beautiful old church.

Two years ago, we had a tremendous windstorm, of such force that it even blew over masonry walls.  The wind pressure from this storm damaged the spire of St. Mary's, to the extent that it had to be taken down for safety reasons.  That was a shame, and many, many people were saddened:  The spire of St. Mary's was built in the style of South Germany, a semi-onion shaped dome clad in copper.

Well, it's being rebuilt.  The structural postions are being framed in steel, lighter and stronger than the original framing in hewn wooden beams (which had suffered from moisture intrusion, I think), and sheathed in treated ply panels.  But it will eternally be a duplicate of the original.  My ride to town, (three days a week to to some low level, easy and undemanding volunteer work) takes me past the work site where the new spire is being fabricated, and they are now placing copper sheathing on the structure.

It will be lifted onto the tower in three parts, and secured.

St. Mary's is a historic parish, being the home parish of Cardinal Ritter.  It's also a working class parish--this is an area of the state with less up-scale Catholics than most others.  And these people, undistracted by recieving their post secondary education from the likes of Notre Dame and St. Mary-of-the-Woods, had the good sense to keep their church in tact.  If you're ever in the area, check it out.  It's not kept open, for secutrity reasons, but the staff will let you in through the office.

Watching: or Notes on the Natural History of Loisville

RAPTORS:   The F22 is one of the most impressive planes to watch I've ever seen.  I remember when I first watched F16s work, how impressive I found them.  But the F22 is so much more so!  It can manuever at low speeds then go into high speeds like nothin'!  Plus the sound of it's afterburners is so intimidating, it's weapon in itself.

HOT DOG CARTS:  The hot dog cart at 4th an Market has good dogs, plus Brats, Polish Sausage, Beef Franks, Trukey Franks, Spicy Sausage and Smoked Sausage.  It's the cheepest lunch down town too.

FLIRTY SKIRTS: The weather has been unseasonably warm--the high 80s, so lots of the young women (and some of the older women as well) are wearing light flirty skirts.  I don't know how to say this, but the combination of gusty winds as a front moves in and flirty skirts probalby isn't the best thing for their dignity.  (It does make for good girl watching....[I guess I might have to do some penance for that])

HAWKS AND FALCONS:  In an effort to control the rock dove population (that means pigeons, actually) the towns around here have imported Perigrine Falcons, and Broad Shouldered Hawks have come in on their own.  It's noce for me to be able to see them.

JOURNALISTIC DOUBLE STANDARDS:  I read in the Leo an article complaining about someone refering to Nancey Pelosi as a "stupid bitch" and how hateful that was.  Now I do not like Ms. Pelosi.  At all.
but I agree that she should not be so refered to even on someones personal web site.  However, I found the peice in the paper, (on the editors own column) to be a bit two faced, seeing as how they had a cartoon depicting Sarah Palin and Anne Coulter as stupid, (by facial features) Bikini Cage Fighters entertaining republican men. 

TOMMY CHONG:  Yeah, him, of Cheech and Chong fame.  They're coming to Louisville for their come back/reunited tour.  So the local alternative papers interviewed them as "cultural icons" and "leaders of comedy activism" so on and so forth.  Now Mr. Chong does have a living to make, so I don't begrudge him the interviews to stimulate ticket sales.  But I can't believe that he actually refers to himself as a Martyr for his 9 months in jail for being a manufacturer of bongs and drug paraphanalia.  I especially can't see him placing himself into the same catogory as Dr. Martin Luther King and President Nelson Mandela.  But he did.  In last weeks issue of the Leo.

AND FINALLY:  Spell checker ain't workin'.  So please excuse my ignorance of English Orthography, I am, after all, a Redneck.

Hey Mark W!

One--I gotta get your e-mail, we can't keep meeting like this.  People will talk.

Two--You may already have this, but if not here it is:

http://icelweb.org/musicfolder/openmusic.php

It has the chant and tone settings for the New Translation of the Ordinary Form. 

I went to a movie

I saw How to Train Your Dragon, with the grandbabies.  I will recommend it to anyone who wants to see a fun movie.  Predictable?  Of course.  But within the predictabillity of the Genre, it was creative.  It had enough humor to keep adults engaged, but was entirely OK for the kids.

Plus, how often do you get to see Vikings looking terrified?

I was going to...

...do some serious blogging today.  But after I checked out the news, read up on various issues and thought about them, the taste in my mouth was so disgusting I couldn't.

From Fr, Pfleger, to Cardinal George, to Detroit Mercy University, to the ongoing practice of twisting and distorting what ever documents or fragments of documents some sociopath with oppositional/defiant disorder calling themselves and "activist" can get on whatever public person they happen to be fixated upon, I just don't want to get into the fight today.

Rather, I think it's time we look beyond our distaste, and our outrage,  and see whether or not we can make a concrete difference in one place for one day.  How can I, on my own, make a difference in the climate of rage, igonorance and lies that has become the American Experience?  A difference in just one other persons day?

I think today I will stroll on down to the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and go to confession, then work on doing something rooted in truth, compassion and dignity for at least one other person today.  Just to get the taste of the news out of my mouth.

Communion Rails

I often shudder when confronted with anything labeled "community". Especially when this label is applied to Catholic institutions or groups. Now there is nothing wrong with the word "community", not with the existence of communities. But there is nothing inherently sacred about communities either. It's entirely possible to speak of the "Biker Community", the "Gay
Community", the "Medical Community", the "Special Operations Community" the "S&M Community" and so forth. So just to throw the label "community" at something, especially a gathering or congregation of people sharing the Catholic Faith is really not saying much. For our community to have any sort of sacred meaning or content, it must, first last and always, be based in Communio.

Our community, our meaning, is based in the person of Christ Jesus. And its' source, its' wellspring in our daily lives is the Eucharist. The Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, while creating an ontological change in us, an indelible and irreversible realignment within us, are only entries into The Mystical Body of Christ. The unity that Our Lord so fervently prayed for us to have is the Eucharist. And the Eucharist is confected in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The liturgy is not only the expression of our community, it is the source of our communio, that which gives our community meaning in both a social and a spiritual sense. And the summit of the Liturgy is the Mass. When our celebrations of the Mass are rooted in a notion of "community" that overlooks communio and the Communion of Saints it becomes subject to deformation. Whether this deformations takes the form of liturgical abuses, or even outrages like "clown masses", "puppet masses" or masses where the laity speak the words of institution or the silent abuse of simple rote participation and disengagement from prayer, it occurs.

The Mass isn't simply a ritualized reenactment of the Last Supper. It is, in a mysterious way, being at the foot of the cross. It is, in a mysterious way, being in the upper room on the first Maundy Thursday. And it is not a re offering of the Sacrifice on Golgotha. It is not a re offering of the Passover Meal of Holy Thursday. It is the self same sacrifice, the self same meal. It is always attended by a "great cloud of witnesses", by all the angels and all the saints. For all masses are the one Holy Sacrifice that brought us salvation, offered at the hands of Christ, our High Priest.

Christ is our High Priest, who "continually offers Sacrifice before God the Father". The Celebrants at our masses, our Parish Priests, are functioning in Personna Christi--they, while being ordained to priestly ministry do not confect the Eucharist on their own hook, it is their functioning in personna Christi, through the agency of the Holy Spirit that enacts the Mystery.

The Mass is a Mystery. It's good to remember that the word "Sacrament" comes to us from the Latin, and is a translation, attempting to bridge a conceptual difference between east and west, of the Greek word "Mysterion". And the Mass is celebrated as a Liturgy. Liturgy also comes from the Greek, and if you were catechized in the 70s, you were taught that it meant "the work of the people". Well, that's partially correct, but incomplete, for the word carries connotations of "Public works" and "civic duty" that get left out in the shorthand we of a certain age were taught. We need to keep this in mind.

And we need to realize that the Liturgy of the Mass is a participation in the Heavenly Liturgy described in the book of Revelations. When we assist at Mass, it is not the Parish Priest who offers the Sacrifice, but Christ our High Priest. I'm sure some of us can recall the Holy Cards and illustrations in old Catechisms that depict this very thing.

Our Community, our Communio, is bought for us in the Person of Christ Jesus. It is beyond our nature to share in the Eternal Communio that the Holy Trinity holds within itself. Jesus bought that entry for us, with the Body and Blood we consume in the Holy Eucharist, thereby taking Him into ourselves, and the other two Persons of the Holy Trinity with him. It is no accident, but a great sign, a great wonder, and an infinitely Theological event, that the Curtain was torn in the Temple when Christ died.

For Christ "bridged the gap" between Man and God that original sin opened. And he bridged it in His own person. Our Faith begins and ends with the person of Christ Jesus, fully human, fully divine, one person in two natures, in the gracious mystery of the Hypostatic Union and the Incarnation.

So now we have several pieces to draw together. The Sacrifice on Golgotha. Christ, our High Priest. The Heavenly Liturgy. And the Incarnation. Now please bear with me while I attempt to do just that (I know it's getting long! I'm the one typing it in!)

In the Orthodox Churches, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, there is a structure called an Iconostasis--a wall that separates the Sanctuary from the nave of the Church. I has a curtain that is opened dramatically at the appropriate place in the Liturgy, recalling the Curtain in the Temple. This was also, for centuries, the practice in the West. But eventually, the wall and curtain fell into disuse. But the reason for it's presence remained. For what we see and hear, what our parish Priest does, is a reflection of what is occurring in Heaven.

We have lost our Iconostases, but I don't miss them. Yet the Communion Rail is a vestige of them, along with the Baldichinos and, in some areas, the Rood Screens. These items in fact, are meant to separate us, the faithful, from the Altar, and the Sacred Actions that take place at the Altar. Because, in a real way we are separated from what is happening in Heaven, by our Mortal Nature, that will be overcome in the Resurrection, and by our sins an limitations.

But when we approach the Communion Rail something happens. Something wonderful. Christ Jesus, once again bridges the gap between God and Man. And once again he does it in his own person, under the appearance of bread and wine, he comes to us Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, that we shall have life within us. Once again , we are allowed to partake of his nature in the most basic of ways--we are nourished by his Body and Blood, and allowed through that Communion, to participate in the Divine Communio that gives our Earthly community it's meaning, it's identity and it's purpose.

The Communion Rail then becomes a potent symbol, and a tangible didactic tool, allowing us to experience in a sensate way the Mystery of the Incarnation, and it demonstrates to us, through the art of architecture, the wonderful Grace and Mercy that Jesus, our High Priest wins for us.

Yes, I think Communion Rails should be in churches. I don't think it's a heretical practice not to have them, but not having them eliminates an opportunity to experience, in a sensate manner, and to teach, through the symbolism of architecture, a profound thing about our faith: Jesus has opened for us, in his Person, the experience of Heaven, the experience of Salvation and the Experience of Divine Mercy, through his Sacrifice on Calvary's Cross, and the continual Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, here and in heaven. The Communion Rail manifests for us, the great love, the Divine Agape, and the function of the Incarnation. Not having them places these central mysteries into the background, where they can be missed. To the impoverishment of the individuals Faith.