Advent Carols

Now this I really could listen to all day.

Also awesome? USCCB’s Festival Of Lessons And Carols. Check it out.

Advent ,

Community? What Community?

The National Catholic Reporter editors write that: “Catholic women who have discerned a call to the priesthood and have had that call affirmed by the community should be ordained in the Roman Catholic church.” I find the editorial distressing because it is yet another indication of how very fragmented our Church has become. We each live in our respective bubbles, utterly incapable of hearing each other.

The editorial includes the assertion that “the sensus fidelium is that the exclusion of women from the priesthood has no strong basis in Scripture or any other compelling rationale.” I do not believe the editors are deliberately twisting the concept of  sensus fidelium and so I must conclude that they are instead unable to see beyond the limits of their particular segment of the faithful.

They seek the ordination of women whose call to the priesthood has been affirmed by the community. What community? The community of their readers, no doubt. But our Church is much, much larger than any one particular group, no matter how intelligent or caring.

It is heartbreaking that the editors of the National Catholic Reporter are so isolated that they see it as their job to represent the faithful rather than to build consensus.

Regardless of one’s thoughts after studying Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, we should all be in communion with enough of our Church to see that our views are not shared by everyone.

If you are either shocked that anyone could write this editorial, or else horrified that anyone might even disagree with it, I challenge you to explore our great Catholic world. Volunteer with different people. Visit a parish that does everything in all the ways you can’t stand. Read all the popular Catholic books you’d normally avoid. I don’t care how you do it, but please consider participating just a little in the fullest Catholic community possible.

Yes, we are confused. Yes we are broken and inclined to break others. But we are the Church, and there isn’t much point in trying to fight about things such as ordination if we can’t even realize that Catholics with other views exist.

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Advent: On Light and Seeing Poverty

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.

You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing, As they rejoice before you as at the harvest, as men make merry when dividing spoils. For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, And the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed, as on the day of Midian. For every boot that tramped in battle, every cloak rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for flames.

For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.

His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, From David’s throne, and over his kingdom, which he confirms and sustains By judgment and justice, both now and forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this!

. . .

From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Isaiah, Matthew)

One of my favorite bloggers lives in an area of very real poverty. A while ago another commenter asked her whether it was visible or the sort of hidden poverty which one has to search out. She replied that it is the obvious sort, but I cannot help wondering how many others could live where she does and not see it at all.

It also made me think of the various places that I have lived, and the relative visibility of the poor anywhere.

When we were first married, we lived in a place which should have been excruciating for any Christian. We found an apartment which was unusually cheap for the area and allowed my husband to walk to work. We lived with all of the benefits of wealth with little of the costs.

The next town over people went without food. Our parish had everything. Its sister parish, less than five miles away, had little. Our priest would thank someone for their generous gift which allowed the purchase of incredibly expensive new altar vessels at the same time as the cracked paint on the walls of the other parish would fall onto their broken kneelers.

A year later we moved to a place where the poverty was impossible to ignore, because we shared it, even if we had too much potential to really live it. I eventually learned to not even hint about it on my blog, for I was too weak to handle the incredible responses of those who truly believed that the wealth around them was typical everywhere in our great nation.

Next we moved to a town thought of as “bad” by outsiders, and “good enough” by locals, because we all knew how much worse things could be. Our closest neighbors had four children in their one bedroom apartment. I knew that they were safe and had enough space.

Now we live in a much nicer place–a place where I can walk down the street to my apartment alone without people thinking that I must be a prostitute. And it is so easy to be blind, to walk in darkness, ignoring the poverty that surrounds us.

Two mornings each week, I get in our car and drive past the home improvement store. I drive because I can. I could take the bus, but that would require me to get up an hour earlier and I would rather sleep. And so I sit comfortably in my car as a group of men sits at the edge of the parking lot, waiting.

Like the parable of the workers, these men are waiting for work for the day. I don’t like to think about it. I don’t like to think about how I benefit from their suffering. I don’t like to think about the fact that I am part of the systemic evil which grants them so little protection if someone decides to not pay them. I don’t like to think about the fact that they can’t find any jobs, let alone ones that use the full range of their gifts.

I cannot fully ignore these men, but I act as if I never saw them. And I am quite confident that I have successfully ignored the vast majority of the material suffering around me. I walk in darkness.

During Advent we pray for the light of Christ to shine on us, a people in darkness. Yet, whenever the light comes, it comes with the call to repentance.

Light brings rejoicing, but we are not seeking the trivial celebration of one who has never suffered. Instead we seek the joy of those liberated from the yoke of selfishness, from the weight of living for ourselves while others suffer.

And so we pray: come, Lord Jesus! Fill us with your light and free us from our sins.

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What I Wore Sunday: What I Didn’t Wear Sunday, and Advent Music Fights

Happy Advent, y’all!

This picture —>
pretty much expresses my confusion with the season. I’m thinking that pretty soon the fine ladies at Fine Linen and Purple are going to have to add some new rules to the What I Wore Sunday link-up in order to prevent such wretched pictures from being a part of it…

Ehem.

Anyway.

Advent is a season of joyous penance. It is a season which has so completely lost its meaning that even the bishops are rather vague about what should be done. Their most ancient statement on penance says that we need liturgical renewal rather than austerities. It is unclear what that really means, and equally unclear whether such an approach has done any good.

We are left with the knowledge that “Advent is a period of devout and expectant delight.” And “Advent (like Lent) includes an element of penance in the sense of preparing, quieting and disciplining our hearts for the full joy of Christmas.”

I don’t have answers, but I suppose that our little traditions always show what we really think, even when we say we have no answers.

We will have our typical seasonal changes such as eliminating certain foods during the week and giving to charity what we can trim from the grocery budget. But then on Sundays we will celebrate with lovely food and peaceful evening prayers.

Today I grabbed my purple dress to wear because, well, what else would I wear?

I wore wretchedly uncomfortable black tights to church, but pulled them off in the car on the way home (no I wasn’t the one driving). If it were Lent I would have been more conflicted about the penance of uncomfortable clothing. But this is Advent, so I will go for simplicity which gives time to focus on things other than clothing, whether uncomfortable or beautiful.

When we got home my husband turned on his favorite Advent music.

We have very different taste in music. I do not want to spend each evening of Advent listening to that! I would much rather listen to something like this:

What can I say? Clearly God put us together to help us learn from our differences.

In all seriousness, I cannot find a version of O Come, O Come Emmanuel that I really love. The Civil Wars version is beautiful:

But it isn’t the perfect classic version that I really want to hear on repeat throughout all of  Advent.

So, can you help me out with a link to your favorite version of your favorite Advent song?

Catholic Quirks , , ,

Pure Religion and All That

The Body , ,

Natural Family Planning: Average Length of Abstinence Required to Avoid Pregnancy

Yet another post about things I tell my sisters… about Natural Family Planning (NFP) and abstinence. 

.  .  .

This may be difficult for you to believe, but at some point you are likely to encounter people who are even more of the NFP cheerleader type than I am. You will hear them talk not only about the tremendous benefits of NFP, but also toss around stats.

Even pretty charts hint that reality can be complex

They will refer to the great blessings that come from the “week” of abstinence each month. They will be entirely sincere, and most likely speaking from personal experience.

Smile.

Then thank God for your mother who taught you the most important skill of listening known as In One Ear And Out The Other.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a literal week of abstinence for healthy young couples seeking 99% effectiveness at avoiding pregnancy. The real fertile window is about six days plus typically an additional three days to verify the end of fertility, resulting in nine days of abstinence as the absolute minimum. Real world averages look more like a week and a half to two weeks.

Unless you are using high-tech methods of fertility determination, you can expect a minimum of ten days of abstinence required to avoid pregnancy each cycle.

Some day you will likely find that this is no longer the case and you will note that your observations have changed to an actual week of fertility in any given cycle. When this happens you should have another serious conversation with your spouse about your family planning goals. It is likely that either you are using NFP in a less effective manner (which is absolutely fine if it is what you want!) or that your fertility is declining (which happens to us all eventually).

Averages are, of course, just that. You may live for years with slightly reduced fertility which requires less than a week of abstinence to avoid pregnancy. You may also live for years with hormonal quirks that routinely require you to abstain for closer to 75% of any given cycle when you need to avoid pregnancy. But if you are healthy, you can expect 10-14 days per cycle to be routine.

.  .  .

Please Note: this post is just what I tell my sisters. There are certainly people with better training  who would disagree. Check here for the best counter-argument I have seen. Unfortunately I have to chalk it up as compelling without being convincing, but you may live in a different world.

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The Women of Jerusalem

The first time my then fiancé and I prayed the Way of the Cross together it was lead with one of John Paul II’s meditations. In the past few years I have only prayed the Stations during Lent, rather than Fridays in general.

Such a pity to neglect such a powerful way of prayer most of the year!

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.

But Jesus turning to them said,
“Daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children.
For behold the days are coming when they will say,
blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore
and the breasts that never gave suck.
Then they will begin to say to the mountains,
‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’
For if they do this when the wood is green,
what will happen when it is dry?” -Luke. 23:28-31

Here is a call to repentance, true repentance, and sorrow at the reality of the evil that has been committed. Jesus says to the daughters of Jerusalem who are weeping at the sight of him: “Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children” (Lk 23:28). One cannot merely scrape away at the surface of evil; one has to get down to its roots, its causes, the inner truth of conscience.

This is precisely what Jesus means to say as he carries his Cross: he always “knew what was in man” (cf. Jn 2:25) and he continues to know it. That is why he must always be for us the closest onlooker, the one who sees all our actions and is aware of all the verdicts which our consciences pass on them. Perhaps he even makes us understand that these verdicts have to be carefully thought out, reasonable and objective (for he says: “Do not weep”), while at the same time bound up with all that this reality contains: he warns us of this because he is the one who carries the Cross.

Lord, let me know how to live and walk in the truth.

Prayer , , , ,

On the Blessing of Relationship

I took back my last post “On Avoiding Blessings” because I was unable to be clear. In its place I give you parts of two comments received:

From waywardson:

The best analogy that has made it all make sense for me is that faith is to be a relationship–a friendship. Scrupulosity is the obsessive boyfriend/girlfriend. Lukewarmness is the casual acquaintance. Friendship is different from either of these.

The balance is natural in our interpersonal relationships–well, most of the time. But it’s easy to forget that when talking about faith.

And from Mark S.:

 Like Waywardson, I think that living a truly Christian life has relationship with God and each other at its core. Personal actions such as taking medicine or careful stewardship of your finances so you have a future are responsible and actually praised in scripture.

The real worry in anything has more to do with a person failing to build trusting, loving relationships with God and the people in our lives. If any action leads us toward rejecting or marginalizing another it is probably leading one astray. The converse would hold as well. We are called to follow the Lord together as his pilgrim church; we each walk together bringing what is needed to help our fellow disciples. Some are disabled, some old, wise, strong, mild, delicate, rich, poor. What a crew we are! But God is among us and we have each other. In that context we see how we are his children and siblings to each other.

My needs become an opportunity for your gift. Someone can be strong when I am weak. Many inspire by bravely doing whatever God asks of them, living as celibates, having kids, not having kids, being martyrs, missionaries, contemplatives, working folks who pray.

My job is to continuously be in communion with God and my siblings in Christ. From there I can simply follow my heart sine I know it confirms with his. I pray we all grow deeper in that communion.

Community ,

Another Sort of Cross

Luca Signorelli’s Crucifixion fills me with pity for our Lord.

Click to enlarge

It is so very crowded. So noisy. So busy.

Here Jesus is trying to take on the sufferings of the entire world, and we can’t even give him a moment to do so in peace?

Wise ones talk about dark nights of the soul, and feelings of emptiness and the silence of death. Yet for me it seems that there is little worse than the noxious noise of this world which just will. not. shut. up.

So I pity the dear God of this painting who is pierced as a dead man in a ridiculous crowd.

And I wonder whether Jesus finds within me a similar sort of crucifixion in my pathetic tumult.

My Christ
When you come to me
And give your life for me
Inside of me
May you find peace
And raise me to new life in the most blessed joy of silence

The Soul , , , ,

Feast of Saint Cecilia

Make my heart immaculate that I might not be put to shame.

O God, who gladden us each year
with the feast day of your handmaid Saint Cecilia,
grant, we pray,
that what has been devoutly handed down concerning her
may offer us examples to imitate
and proclaim the wonders worked in his servants
by Christ your Son.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen. (C&P from iBreviary because I am lazy today)

Perhaps read the story of Saint Cecilia here if you are struggling to remember why your heart should be gladdened today with the celebration of Cecilia’s feast.

Saints , ,