Spiritual warfare: within the ranks

It's understandable that we ought to expect to be at war with a secular culture, with a world that doesn't acknowledge the Ownership of the Creator and who is determined to have things their own way in flagrant defiance of the Creator's "terms of service," if you will -

But when we see the battles brought into the Church itself, it's shocking.

The Church - how do I begin to express the multiple dimensions of what it means to be Church? Bride of Christ, Deposit of the Faith, home of the Faithful, the place where God enters time and place in very specific ways, through the liturgy and very literally through the Eucharist - the training ground where we're supposed to be equipped for life in the world, the place where we're supposed to be prepared and shaped and made ready to face Eternity......

And so often it seems we're finding the Church to be on the side of the world. Well, particular priests, catechists, liturgists and other leaders - sad to say - have adopted practices in flagrant violation of the Rules of the Church. We hear of priests badly counselling couples about abortion and artificial birth control, sexual experimentation, divorce - too many priests even reduce the Holy Eucharist to mere symbolism.

Music and liturgy are seriously crippling the Faithful and retarding their growth in Grace. I've worked with a well-known (in my diocese) music director twice, and both times, in the pep talk he gave his choir, he told us all to "go out and have a good time, because it's all about you!" I wanted to stand up and shout, "IT IS NOT ABOUT US! IT'S ABOUT THE CREATOR OF THE COSMOS COME TO US IN THE EUCHARIST!!!" but I was a guest and I kept my mouth shut.

Have you read some of our most popular songs, lately? Frightening, the heresies we are injecting to the consciousness of the Faithful through horrid music! Music that is narcissistic (or "Isn't God so lucky to have us!"), that reduces the Eucharist to mere symbolism, that promotes a social activism divorced from theological grounding...

And that doesn't even take into account the lame, banal, trite and saccharine songs that were all I could find in Louisiana, seven, eight years ago (can anyone say "Glory and Praise Songbook"?)

We are in such a crisis, in this Nation - a crisis of Faith and of Culture. I'm not into politics, but you don't have to be a political scientist to see that our upcoming elections have far too much at stake to be taken lightly and unintelligibly. We Christians must be salt and light in the world, or the world is lost and without hope.

We must deliberately, intelligently engage in knowing our Faith, in entering the act of Worship and in living consistently as the sons of adoption.

Tagged again...

Write a memoir of your life in just six words.
Post it on the blog.
Tag 5 others.

As seen on Digi's blog.
and Angela Messenger's -
Angie's memoir:

THE LORD WAS MERCIFUL TO ME.

I think I'd have to say, hmmmmm -
1. When I failed, He abandoned not.
2. Not being loved, but loving, transfigures.
How's that?
Whoever wants can pick up the thread for yourself, okay?

Cheers to Father Neuhaus

... for pointing out, during EWTN's coverage this morning, that the liturgists arranging the Mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington appear never to have read the multitude of articles, interviews, and other works of the Holy Father on Church Music.

It is also evident, nay obvious! as I am listening to the performance during Mass of that black gospel song that the person responsible for this music as also never troubled himself or herself to read Musicam Sacram or the GIRM or any other document governing music and worship -

This is such an embarrassment! The Holy Father deserves so much better than this - Our Eucharistic Lord deserves better -

Am I a selfish pig for hopinghopinghoping that this sparks horrendous mess results in some serious oversight and overhauling of American liturgy???

The Journey of the Magi - TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Il Papa has LANDED

He's here! Here on American soil at last - I was having my nails done when ABC News interrupted the broadcast of Oprah (Hallelujah!) to show the arrival of the Holy Father. I watched, enthralled, for several minutes after my nails were done and baked and dried - 

Did anyone else watch in awe as this 81-year old man almost trotted down the steps from that jet? 

What an amazing man! 

H/T to Eddy for helping me pull things into line to be able to stream EWTN's broadcasts for this historic visit -

More Tanner artwork -

Well, Grace, you did it - you sent me looking for more of Tanner's work. This is Tanner's Two Disciples at the Tomb -

Tanner's Annunciation -

It's back. When I changed templates for the blog, the background painting, Henry Tanner's Annunciation didn't transfer, and it's taken SEVERAL tries to figure out how to bring it back!

I love this painting. Don't remember where I first learned of it - I heard about it through Fr Benedict Groeschel and my friend Matt at about the same time. Learned this week that it's in the museum of Art in Philadelphia, and got a very intimate glimpse into what it means to actually get to stand in front of the painting and look at it, from one who has done it numerous times, so often, in fact, that he came to refer to it as "his painting" to his sons. "Let's go look at Dad's painting...."

I love this painting. The setting is so simple, so homey. There's no opulence or grandeur here. The wall hangings and the rug are clearly homespun, the floor local earthenware tiles - it's a simple home. It's a believable home - the rug has been kicked up and doesn't lie flat on the floor - Mary (like me) has not made her bed yet that day -

I love this painting. Look at that angel! No anthropomorphised European males with chin-length, curled-under hair and incongruous wings sprouting too-thinly out of their backs. No! This angel is decidedly Other-Worldly, he conveys all the Mystery of those beings of fire and light whom God uses as His Messengers -

I love this painting! Look at Mary! - no beatific Arian, pale, anemic-looking, frail; this Mary is dark, young, strong; she fits Steve Ray's description of her as "a tough little Jewish girl with dirty feet!" She looks like a young teenager who might be undergoing all the trauma of changing hormones and the onset of puberty. Look at her hands, her face - incredulous - as Matt said, she looks as if she might be asking, "Are you sure you're at the right house?" But you can see in her face the coming of that great Fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word."

You know how this painting feels to me? It feels as if I might have been there, as if I might have just rounded a corner through one of those archways and witnessed it all for myself. I feel the reverence and awe of being an accidental witness to one of the holiest moments in all of human history.

Wow.

More on liturgy and music

This is too good not to share - and Thanks! to Matt for sharing -

Opera!

He could be anywhere between the ages of 25 and 60, possessing a yuthful appearance but such incredible presence and power, not to mention expertise, that defies youth. And he, Maestro Francesco Maria Colombo, is conducting an opera Gala with the Opera Company of North Carolina this weekend.

It is my first experience singing opera.

Odd business, this. I'm the descendant of the Puritans, almost 100% English (a little Dutch thrown in a few generations back), with that stiff upper lip and deeply ingrained reserve the English are noted for - not to mention the traditions of self-denial and constraint of the females of the American South. And here I am singing opera choruses by Italian composers, being instructed by this Maestro to emote, to feel in the music as I'm not "supposed" to feel in real life.

"More sex!" he commanded for the women's trio of the Triumphal March from Aida. "Ladies, put more sex into your voices - use hormones!" We laughed, a little nervously I noticed.... how does one put sex into the voice????? But we appear to have succeeded; maybe those among us who have sung opera before know what he meant.

He told us to put more soul into "Patria Oppressa" (the Lament of the Scottish Refugees from Verdi's MacBeth) "It is the saddest thing Verdi ever wrote," he told us (and I'll take his word for it) - "the audience should be in tears!"

Emotion! Unaccustomed, a bit frightening -

We rehearsed ... was it last night or is it still tonight? I got home at midnight, the cat woke me up at quarter til four... - here I am, posting - with the orchestra and soloists. Wonderful cast! (See here) Simply magic. I don't know Italian, and I don't know how a true proficient would rate these singers, but for my money (considerable with gas at nearly $3.30/gallon and that long drive to and from Raleigh) these men and women are outstanding - clear, impassioned, gifted...

The music touches something in me, and it's a bit scary. I found my thoughts going places I didn't want them to go, listening - places of such intense feeling that I am almost afraid of. I was taught to suppress feelings, to control them - but for me it's gone too far, I've lost the ability to cry even when it is appropriate and needful. During the rehearsal I felt frighteningly close to tears several times. I'm a little (!) concerned that I might break over and shed tears during the performance -

and, once begun, not be able to stop.

It occurs to me that there is something cathartic and therefore therapeutic about this music - I only wish I had a mentor to teach me how to use it well.

Better, thank you all!

The back is better, thank you for caring - went to the chiropractor Friday and got an adjustment -
Still "on ice" part of the time, and I missed the glorious concert with the NC Symphony this weekend - Bach! I missed singing Bach! (wailing, here) -
But I did make it to Mass and choir rehearsal this morning, and made it through okay - early mornings are a little tight and unpleasant, but as I move around a bit things get a lot easier.

More musings soon - being laid up and unable to do much is great time for the brain to wander in all sorts of interesting directions......

which is worse?

-being in severe pain from a pulled muscle, lower back? or
-being alone while in such straits?

someone flip a coin -

Way to go, Louise!

I almost wish I were British, so I could cast a vote for my friend Louise Bagshawe for Parliament.

I "met" Louise a few years ago on one of my favorite Catholic websites. Her passion for politics, and her keen knowledge thereof, not only impressed me, it intimidated the daylights out of me!

Then I find out she's one of Britain's best-selling "chick lit" authors - and she very kindly sent me a copy of a newly published book a few years ago (I still have it - one of my "treasures")

To top it all of, she's a darned serious Catholic. She gets the issues in a Catholic moral sense -

So when I learned she's running for a seat in Parliament, I cheered - and now I'm sharing it with you!

Remodeling work

Yes, I've changed templates. So much in my life, in my self, is changing the past couple months, the pink of the old template was annoying me to pieces! LOL

I also wanted a format that would be easier for me to manage on my own, without having to plague dear Christine every time I wanted to change something in the sidebar. She is lovely to help me out, but I like being independent where I can't reciprocate service.

I'm undertaking a parallel course at home. I was sitting in my mother's rocker a month or so ago, knitting, and it suddenly occurred to me, in a complete non sequitur that I don't own a single chair that a man would be comfortable sitting on! and then I began to look around and to realize that my ersatz cottage look was too fussy and cluttered and had become annoying to me - almost overnight!

So, as with my house, so with my blog - a cleaner line, more subtle and sophisticated (just like the New Me!)

and more to come -

h/t to Angie for telling me about the changes here at Blogger that allow me to do all this.

but in the interest of fairness -

We were talking at the restaurant a couple weeks ago, and someone said something about raising kids, and I turned to the friend sitting to my left and said how grateful I am (especially since I didn't get to have a second family) that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom with my daughters.

A fellow sitting across the table heard me and proceeded to turn the conversation into an argument that SAHMs don't necessarily make all that much difference - while my point was that it had mattered to ME -

My daughers' first words were spoken to me. When they took their first steps, it was into my waiting arms. There was no "Miss Judy" my children couldn't wait to go see in the morning, or to give me a detached report of all that I had missed in my children's lives when I picked them up ten hours later.

No! The essential milestones of my daughters' lives were witnessed and celebrated by me - and often by their father.

Which brings me to a confession in the interest of fairness:

We were young when our daughters were born. Sarah, the younger, was born one week before my 24th birthday; Dan is just a couple months older than I. He was in school and holding down a full-time job to support us.

But he agreed that being a mom was the most important thing I could do, and he made those sacrifices and more and I never heard him complain about them. And, when our daughters were small, he was very involved with their little lives; it was his ritual to tuck them in at night, and it was with him, not me, that Christy explored metaphysical concepts ("Daddy, what is dead?")

Since receiving the Declaration of Nullity from the Diocese of Charlotte and the Archdiocese of Atlanta, I've been able to remember, without sting or bitterness, that there were some very good moments in our life together. I couldn't, before.

Does the authority of the Church go so far as this, even - to bring about this deep a healing?

You bet She does! and I'm ever more grateful for being part of Her.

more thoughts on being the ex-wife of a homosexual

Talked on the phone with my friend Molly last night. Molly is also the ex-wife of a homosexual man. We talked about the risks and anxieties of re-entering the dating world after our experiences, which are so similar as to be uncanny: married young to sons of Protestant/evangelical pastors; the marital dynamic mirrors one another's, and we both feel we were lucky to escape with our sanity more or less intact.

At the moment, for Molly, it feels decidedly less. She's dating a man she met in Church, and as they spend more time together and she becomes better acquainted with him, sees more of his personality and his character, she suddenly doubts her ability to discern.

After such experiences as ours, which common sense tells us any normal or rational person would surely have seen through and avoided early on, we doubt ourselves to a sad degree. We don't quite trust our own judgment, have to analyze data and experience to a molecular level.

The recurring theme in our conversation last night was what is normal masculine behavior, and where does it cross the line into trouble? Having spent so much time in such close, exclusive proximity to decidedly abnormal male behavior, we distrust our ability to recognize and to discern what is healthy and what is not.

Case in point: I married a seriously pathological drunk, second time around - was so blinded by the overwhelming relief that he was, at least, straight, that I didn't have all my mental gears operating normally to be able to recognize that he was simply oozing with spiritual sickness, was a chronic and elaborate (and rather gifted) liar, that he was looking for someone to take care of him rather than a genuine life partner, that he was mean as a snake and about as trustworthy as one.

Both Molly and I were married to gay men who transferred the full responsibility for the failure of our marriages to us. We were too needy, we had unrealistic expectations, unreasonable and idiotic ideals... We couldn't help internalizing the condemnation heaped on us, and so now we are afraid to love and to trust.

"He said so-and-so. Is that okay?" We've got our radar up for warning signs of misogyny, deceit, and more serious psychological disturbances. Where does his need for affirmation end and his egotistical disregard for our needs begin? Where does his anger at his former wife end and a more over-reaching contempt for women in general begin? Is he eager for me to know his mind, or is he demonstrating a chronic need always to be right? Am I expecting too much???" These are some of the questions that haunt our waking moments, and often even our dreams.

The really infuriating thing that I come across from time to time is the realization, the reminder, that our exhusbands do not care about the damage they have inflicted on us. Somehow, they rationalize and justify it so as to make us to blame even for the abuse. My ex-husband continues to insist to our daughters that our divorce had nothing whatsoever to do with his being gay, and that I was solely to blame for his decision to move out of the marital home.

Both Molly and I wonder whether we've been so damaged that we'll never be able to enter into a truly spiritually healthy relationship with a good man.

I really don't get it

A woman posts on a forum - she's dating a Catholic, he says his faith is important to him... now they're talking about marriage and he's telling her she needs to go through a nullity proceeding... and she's all upset, admits in her posts that she knows nothing about Catholicism.

All the time they've been dating, and she hasn't even been curious about something he says is important to him

Okay, somebody tell me: Which one of them is the stupider? Him for courting a woman who knows NOTHING about his Faith, or her for not trying to learn before now?

Mid-Life Crisis?

The woman at the web forum was talking about her mid-life crisis, evidenced by her sudden and irrational yearning for a red sporty convertable.

My mid-life crisis is being answered very practically, in going back to school, in giving way to latent ambitions and longings.

ROME is my "red convertable." I hope to be there in less than three years, studying, not just being a tourist visiting all the touristy spots, but really living there in a little apartment, shopping in local markets, cooking - the whole nine yards.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone, I believe. There's the inner knowledge that there's only one man in the world for me, and recent events cause me to question my vision of him, make me wonder whether he is only a beautiful construct of my imagination - and I know I'd not be satisfied with less than I saw him to be. Better to be alone than "bound in chains of law to one I loathe." (thanks, William Blake, for that wording) -

Meantime, I live out my midlife crisis by ordering some clothes in online outlets and buying three new pairs of shoes to support my poor falling arches - LOL - and wearing perfume even when I'm home alone and splurging on a sweet variety of flowers at the Fresh Market this week because I know I need them for my very spirit, and wearing skirts and tops to work this week, not the slacks and plain and practical tops I'm accustomed to wear because they're so "practical."

My new glasses proved their worth as I was driving home from Raleigh, last Tuesday, the day I picked them up. The anti-glare coating is an extravagance, but it was raining and nasty, and I could really tell a difference in how things looked and felt and my fatigue level (from squinting and being tense) was hugely reduced.

It's slow going, but I really am enjoying this life revision process very much. Since receiving the notice of the nullity of the marriage to The Fairie Prince, I've enjoyed a new decisiveness about myself - an ability to walk into a room, target an item (say, certain clothes I've been wearing for ages, or the hairdryer Rusty had before we were married, or even the broken stereo that only plays radio any more) and say "This has GOT to go!" - no prevaracations, no guilt for the extravagance and impracticality of the decision... just relief and joy.

I'm learning this new computer - will take and download some journalling type photos soon.

Gosh! it's good to be me!

Prayers for Hope

Hope is one of my girlfriends from that website that shall henceforth remain nameless (until I forget I resolved never to mention it again LOL) -

Got an email from her a few minutes ago - she is scheduled for an angiogram tomorrow morning, Friday, 2/22. Some weird physical feelings had her uneasy, so she went to the doctor, just to play it safe -

The first round of tests were concerning, so this angiogram It could be as simple as false readings on the first tests, all the way to major trouble requiring surgery.

Hope's a young woman, in her 30s I'm sure. Please hold her in your prayers. Update will be posted as soon as I have one.

Belmont Abbey in the News

I don't understand why some people simply Do Not Get It.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26877
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26873&cb300=vocations

God bless our dear friends at Belmont Abbey for taking this stand. Pray for the College President and for Abbot Placid as they face a whole lot of heat from an anti-Christian world.

And check the archives for my visit to Belmont!

Hank

Hank entered into Eternity late in the afternoon, Wednesday, February 13. His wife of 56 years was with him, and she told me it was a gentle, peaceful passing.

I've watched Dorris over several months, and it has seemed to me she has been growing in radiance and peace. Hank's health had not been good for a long time, and he'd suffered quite a bit. Anxiety had taken a toll on her. But recently, the lines in her face have smoothed out and her smile has been sweeter and her countenance, also. It has seemed as if she'd taken on a literal glow.

This is an amazing gift of Grace, to be carried in such a way.

I ache for Dorris, parting with a life companion like this. I learned at the funeral Mass yesterday, they'd been together since she was 17. Their lives were so wholly connected with one another -

I have to confess, though, that I envy her even this pain. Dorris has had a privilege I covet - of being able to serve, in such full self-donation, a man she loves, of literally handing him to the Father in those final instants of his earthly life. As much as she misses him, as hard as the days ahead will be, there is still something precious that she has given of herself that any woman would want to be able to give the one she loves.

IN SCHOOL!!

Doin' the Happy Dance - well, my heart is; my knees simply will not cooperate. I'm afraid I'm looking at surgery - will have to see an orthopedist when my financial aid disbursements roll in.

But I'm not blogging about my yucky knees. I'm blogging about -
SCHOOL!!!!

My first three courses arrived on Wednesday, and I've listened to the first two lectures in all three and begun reading the assignments in Plato's Republic and in Henri de Lubac's (the very name has me in awe) The Splendor of the Church.

This same course that requires de Lubac also has a supplemental package containing... POETRY - T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets), Tennyson, John Henry Newman ("Dream of Gerontius") -

Poetry in a theology class!

Which got me thinking - and of course poetry belongs in a theology class. Theology is poetry, the only possible medium for speaking of the Eternal, the Ideal, the Beautiful, the Ineffible. Prose is the language of pragmatic things, the delineations of rules, regulations, and measures. Only Poetry can move beyond the practical to the glories of the Mysteries of vast, eternal things.

I've now got a new medium for reading the Catechism (required in two of my courses- Theology of the Church and Sacraments) - although that great work is arranged in Paragraphs, it is no more Prose than Aquinas' Corpus Christi hymns; it is Poetry, through and through. And suddenly it is ever so much friendlier to my heart.

Name Meme - Thanks, Angela!

Rules:
1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.

2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name).

3. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name.

L-Loyal (fiercely)
E-Educated (and becoming more so - thank you, Franciscan U!)
I-Intelligent
G-Giddy (over annulment and starting school!)
H-Happy - yes, I really am!

Do I really have to tag FIVE PEOPLE????
If you don't have a blog, answer #2 in the Comments box -
Laura Rios, Courtney, Sinead, Adoro, Randy (if you still read)

How many memes do I owe Angela? LOL -

All the same - here's a sharing making the internet rounds -

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? not that I know of

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I don't remember - too long ago, evidently

3. Do you like your handwriting? most of the time, yes

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAL? ham sandwich with tomato soup

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? YES-- 2

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? You betcha!

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM ALOT? publicly or privately? - not much in public.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? no

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? NO - HELL, NO!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? rice chex

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Sometimes

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? not physically, but emotionally I thin I'm too strong.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? What! There's more than one flavor??? (Chocolate! )

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their eyes

15. RED OR PINK? Both

16. BEACH OR MOUNTAINS? Yes

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My daughters

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? YES

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? khaki slacks, white athletic shoes

20 WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Roast beef, potatoes and pintos (this was Thursday night, by the way, when I first answered these!)

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The radio - WCPE - a production of Verdi's McBeth

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? grey

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? ripe pine straw, rain on upturned earth,

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Steven

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes - and have for a long time!

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Whatever my friends are watching... except "wrestling" and NASCAR

27. HAIR COLOR? greying dark ashe blonde

28. EYE COLOR? mostly green/hazel

29. Do you wear contacts? No

30. FAVORITE FOOD? yes

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? HAPPY ENDINGS

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING ? navy blue

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? summer

35. HUGS OR KISSES? from whom? Frankly, I suspect I've forgotten how to kiss..... sigh.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Chocolate anything

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? not sure I'm going to forward it

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

39. Which book are you reading now? Plato's Republic. Yes, it's for school.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? no mouse pad - I'm using a laptop

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? I can't watch tv right now - broken remote so can't get the one channel I receive here.

42. FAVORITE SOUND? rain on a tin roof

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? BEATLES

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Monterey, CA.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I don't know what it is - all my talents are shared with so many people....

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Pinehurst, NC

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? All of them

48. WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? 8:37 pm

Ash Wednesday noodlings

Like one of my email friends said, Ash Wednesday has "snook up" on me, too. I still have Christmas music rolling around in my mind, it seems, and here, today, we begin the hymns of penance and sorrow for our sins.

Lent is a season for prayer, penance, and works of service. My prayer life is getting a hard start. It seems as if this week a multitude of prayer needs have come to me, via email or personal conversation. Hank's heart surgery was Monday - Steph's pneumonia hasn't responded to treatment - another friend knows someone with MRSA - a friend's romantic relationship isn't what it ought to be - another suffers terrible food allergies - - -

Just what I don't want to do: pray for other people! I'd much rather wallow in the self-indulgence of my own disappointment than take my eyes off myself and look at the sorrows of others! I want their prayers, not to exert myself for them!

It's cute and clever to joke about giving up chocolate for Lent, but the real issue is the one I've been confronting this whole past week: self-denial, not in petty indulgences like chocolate, but in real issues of egotism and selfishness.

Thankfully, I've begun spiritual direction from a retired priest settled in this area. Fr. John has recommended I begin with reading St. Augustine, and so I've dug out the Confessions for my Lenten devotional reading. I loved Augustine when I was in college, twenty years ago. I'll ask him, when I see him next week, about St. Francis de Sales, whose Introduction to the Devout Life had caused me to seek him out in the first place.

I know, too, that during this Lenten season I shall have to take a deep breath and pay a visit to a couple of the more difficult and unpleasant people in my life. I've been procrastinating for so long, they may throw me out of the house before I can do more than say hello. I shall try not to take personally, or hold a grudge against, any ugliness that might arise in the course of our time together.

It is, after all, about killing that self-centered bit of the ego - or is it the Id at this point? Let it be crucified with Christ -

Draft: Laura's Theory of Dating and Kissing

Terribly raw, this theory - very much in process. But I was in a discussion in which one of the participants was sort of gushing about kissing (er, making out, in the old 70s vernacular) her boyfriend -

and I was kind of surprised how much the conversation embarrassed me and left me feeling uneasy. Surprised??? Honeychile, I have had a secret affinity with Ado Annie from Oklahoma! for years - I'm jist a girl who cain't say 'no' -

But being Catholic changes the way a gal looks at things, more even than turning 50. After all, turning the half-century corner didn't do a darn thing to my libido - my inner vixen is still alive and well, thank you very much. And I can get downright drunk on kissing.

No - a Catholic who has even a passing acquaintance with John Paul II's Theology of the Body is awakened to an idea more glorious than anything the world and popular mores can conceive. Such a promise makes it highly desirable to sacrifice the temporarily and superficially thrilling as an investment toward the achieving of the idea's Realization.

So -

What I have decided upon in certainty is this: (1) A Kiss ought to mean something, not just be a mindless and cheap form of entertainment. (2) Hand-holding and cheek kisses are sweet, wholly-neglected demonstrations of affection that need to be rediscovered and practiced more liberally.

(3) The experience of intimacy of lips on lips is so profound that it should never be cheapened into recreational snogging.

Our grandparents were from a generation that associated kissing with engagement. I'm not sure I want to go that long before being kissed, but by and large I approve of the concept - See #3, above.

Right now, I'm thinking that it would be blissfully sweet, should He Whom My Soul Loves and I discover we love one another, to seal our understanding with a kiss - and maybe exchange a chaste kiss good-night at the end of a date, after that. But I'm not sure that is exclusive enough.

What do you think? Influence me with your opinions!

Big bold new post on one of the websites I visit:

VALENTINE'S DAY IS COMING.

Turn my stomach, why don'tcha?

Look. I hate! "Hallmark Holidays," those commercially-driven occasions built up for the sole purpose of selling specialized goods - and making those of us left out of the game feeling lower than dirt.

Valentine's Day, Mother's Day... I used to tell my daughters that every day is Mother's Day for me. With a good man who loved me, whom I loved, every day would be Valentine's Day -

We don't need these stupid commercial "holidays" to compensate for neglect of 364 other days during the year - or to remind the rest of us what we don't have.

I wish life were as simple as knitting - as easily repaired, as easily ripped-out and started over.

I've been teaching myself to knit since early November, and I enjoy it - but my early scarves were ripped out several times and started over until I got the knack of it. They were all in a simple garter stitch (all-knit). A "fun fur" scarf can be measured in terms of a few hours; a real scarf, 6"-8" wide, in days. It took a couple of weeks to work up the wide shoulder throw -

I just ripped out a skein and a half of work, representing more than two weeks' work, on an afghan. It's my first effort at stockinette stitch - alternating rows of knit and purl. Purl isn't as hard as I thought it would be -

but it's a big project - I cast off 250 stitches on size 9 circular needle - and somewhere in there I dropped a few stitches, and got distracted and went backwards instead of forward and just generally made a MESS. So I ripped it all out and later this evening I will sit and carefully cast on another 250 stitches and start over... for the fourth time.

If only life were so simple. Yes, it's a nuisance to rip out a skein and a half of yarn and to anticipate my fourth start with 250 stitches to cast on (my least favorite part of a project, so far); but I can start over, and the final project will not reveal my beginner ineptness, my careless mistakes... at least, not nearly so flagrantly as my earlier efforts. When I am done (in five years, at this rate!) I will have an afghan that can drape across the back of my couch and any visitor to my home can admire.

But life - there is no unravelling life mistakes or re-knitting a bad row. We have to go on, knitting and purling, adding what we hope will be good fixes (but even fixing is an advanced skill) and, no matter what we do, a careful eye will always be able to pick out the flaws in our work. There will be no perfect, unflawed life tapestry - we can only hope and pray that our mistakes will be blended in with growing skill and a lot of love and faith, and so give depth and contrast to the whole. I hope my good stitches, in future efforts, will make up for the dropped ones, the mis-counted ones - even though the good work can't un-do the bad.

Not Valid

Dear Ms. Lowder:

It is my pleasure to inform you that we have received a decision from our Appeal Court which upholds the decision in your favor given by this Tribunal that your marriage... was NOT VALID under the law of the Catholic Church....

The Second Instance decision is signed and dated January 16, 2008 - exactly twenty years to the day after he and I separated.

The mercies of God are immense.

I won't be going back to the restaurant where the old crowd had taken to going after rehearsals.

Actually, it's a gay bar. No, it's not a seedy place, the prices are quite reasonable, the food is terrific, and the sanitation grade is quite high.

I mentioned my intention to one of the men in our circle, not a Catholic, but active in his own church, and his response was, "Yeah, the cigarette smoke was really bad in there tonight."

I couldn't explain to him, because we are operating out of such different paradigms, that the cigarette smoke was the least of my worries (singers always worry about smoke) -

It was the spiritual climate of the place.

I had to get up and walk around a bit to find the waitress, which gave me a look at the establishment's clientele: young adults, mostly - the men downplaying their masculinity with unisex attire, or sporting long hair and think pointy goatees that looked as if they might have been theatrical makeup on such think, immature faces. A couple of them, I had to glance to see whether they had Adams Apples - the women demonstrably ill at ease with their womanhood, hiding it behind oversized, shapeless clothes, bad haircuts and a defiant lack of makeup -

All looked haunted, troubled. There was among them none of the animation that characterized our own group. Even those I saw laugh lacked real animation; their laughter did not reach their eyes.

This experience was so consistent with the observations I have made of my ex-husband since he came "out" - the secondary issues of homosexuality have not been publicly explored or discussed - I've never heard them admitted.

I have come away from this restaurant more convinced than ever, by empirical, personal demonstrations, of the truly disordered nature of homosexuality and its destructive effects on individuals and on society.

St. Michael, pray for us!
.

Lookee here!

Did I mention that the NC Master Chorale has a page on MySpace? Here it is!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl

Twenty-eight years ago - can I possibly be old enough to have a 28-year old daughter? - very shortly after midnight, I gave birth to the answer of so many prayers and longings. Christian Joy - and her name was more fitting than her father or I could have possibly have anticipated during those waiting months of my pregnancy. She was exquisitely beautiful with dark and brilliant eyes and an intense gaze, even in the moments immediately after her birth when she was wrapped in the hideous green hospital blankets and placed into her father's arms because I was violently trembling from head to foot after the effort of pushing her into the world. The bonding connection between them was electric, visible. I was never able to share it.

She grew up sweet, intense - We took her to church the Sunday after her birth on Tuesday morning, and as Ruth began the opening notes on a full-bodied organ prelude, her eyes flew open with, we thought, alarm - but it wasn't alarm, she seemed to be taking in the very vibrations of the notes, she seemed even in her neonatal limitations to take pure joy in the sounds. She early demonstrated a sweet and lilting voice and a passionate love for music which has never been usurped - she is currently majoring in music, in fact.

In the third grade she was diagnosed with a learning difficulty, and she applied herself to overcoming it with quiet diligence.

When she was four years old, we hosted a Backyard Bible Club in our home, and the children made little cloth books to help them remember the essentials of the Gospel. She was sitting in my lap one evening, she wanted me to help her remember the order of the story so she could tell her grandparents, who were coming to visit the next day. We went through the story a couple of times, she was really very good at telling it -

On impulse, I said, "Some day, Christy, you will want to give your heart to Jesus, too, just like it talks about in the little book story you've learned." Her little face, always so expressive, told me everything. "You want to do it now?" and she nodded. And there in my lap, she made a simple, direct offering of herself to God.

May God honor that offering, and my dedication of her and her sister from the womb, to His service, His glory, and bring her to the Fullness of His Kingdom and the Joy of His service. May her life become a living epistle, bringing many to the Kingdom.

Life begins at 50 -

The Tribunal's Declaration of Nullity, received a little over a month ago, has had a wholly unexpected effect on my spirit, on the way I see myself and my own life; it is as if Mother Church, speaking through Her tribunal, has declared not only the attempted marriage null, but also the scorn, ridicule and contempt experienced for those years, which has followed me as a foul oppression even twenty years after we separated (January 16, 1988).

All of life is sweeter, and I feel liberated - and the difference is being seen, and responded to, by my local friends.

I'll be starting Graduate Studies from Franciscan University soon - within the next week or two, I think -

So much to look forward to - ! So much to be grateful for, to rejoice in!

and here is another poem from Joseph Pearce's Flowers of Heaven -

Vox Ultima Crucis

Tarry no longer; toward thine heritage
Hast on thy way, and be of right good cheer.
Go each day onward on thy pilgrimage;
Think how short time thou has abiden here.
Thy place is bygged above the stars clear,
Noon earhly palace wrought in so stately wise.
Come on, my friend, my brother most entere!
For thee I offered my blood in sacrifice.

(John Lydgate (ca. 1370-1450)

A different sort of epiphany

According to the dictionary, an epiphany is not only a manifestation (from whence we get the word "Epiphany" for this Feast of the Three Kings) but it is also an unexpected revelation. I had two of those today - one a joy, the other humiliating.

The first came as I sat, knitting and pondering this new spirit I've been experiencing in recent weeks. It is hard to describe, but suddenly I have felt as if I have awakened from a very bad dream to find that life is sweet and full of promise, and that I am lovely and lovable, worthy of all beauty and goodness -

and I realized today that, in declaring the nullity of my marriage to my first husband (I will for the moment refrain from sarcastic nicknames), Mother Church has in a very real way nullified the abuse I endured for those years. The power of the sarcasm and contempt, the sneers and neglects, the "Don't touch me! You know that bothers me!" - all the occurrences of "I'm busy" (watching tv?) "don't bother me - no, I don't want to ... (talk, go for a walk, sit together on the couch, hold hands, whatever) - all the manifestations of utter, contemptuous misogyny that I was convinced were personal, deserved, due to my own unworthiness -----

evaporated in the warmth of the words - "we decree the publication of the sentence declaring the nullity of the marriage...."

I didn't realize how deeply I had absorbed Dan's loathing, until now.

And that leads to other ponderings about the power of men - but that will be fodder for another post, another day -

The humiliating epiphany is the realization that I selfishly, thoughtlessly, desperately clung to my men friends while going through this process - a truly uncomfortable attachment for them, I realize now - drawing on their strength and dignity and approval and affection and their very being to cling like a life preserver when I thought I would drown in the misery of reliving the marriage, while working on the questionnaires. I think they have understood, though, and have forgiven me - and I pray God bless them abundantly in recompense for their generosity of goodwill toward me during those bleak, agonizing (are there enough adjectives in the dictionary?) horrid months.

and that leads to other ponderings... etc. (wink)

On the Feast of the Epiphany -

I can't help thinking of this glorious poem, by Christina Rossetti:

In the bleak midwinter,
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him
nor earth sustain;
heaven and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
in the bleak midwinter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels
may have gathered there
cherubim and seraphim
thronged the air;
but his mother only,
in her maiden bliss,
worshiped the beloved
with a kiss.

What can I give him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man,
I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him
give my heart.

---

Words: Christina Rossetti, 1872

Happy New Year, Everyone -

Sinus infection has me feeling yucky, but otherwise the New Year is off to a wonderful start.

I am going to ask tmsharel and Karl to take their little mutual admiration society elsewhere. Karl has found my email link at the top of the page and is now plying me with emails detailing personal and private things that are none of my business. A friend has taken a google look, and Karl is, to put it mildly, obsessed, and has been for years.

I pity his ex-wife and his children, being humiliated with such unmanly behavior. I am angry at Karl for violating the sacred trust given him in his children. I am angry at him for continuing to burden me with long diatribes that violate the sanctity of marriage. I am angriest of all because he calculates to place his children in the middle and to insist they take sides.

This is not mentally or spiritually healthy behavior. I suspect it is only the tip of the iceburg.
This little melodrama is tedious, and is hopeless of a satisfactory resolution.

Final post for 2007

I spent today in a glorious way. I got out around lunchtime and ran errands - put packages in the mail, picked up my silk blouse from the cleaner's, had a bite of lunch -

Visited a local discount shop (SteinMart, if you must know) and decided that commercial tastes leave a great deal to be desired, these days. Why do plus sized women's clothes have to be so horribly ugly? It's bad enough they are sooo B-I-G, surely they could be in reasonable prints and colors and fabrics and even shapes - not these garish multi-colored bizarro prints in weird manmade fibers looking like something out of a 60s acid trip. I wanted a decent, 3/4 length or long-sleeved top in bright jewel tones, not orange, not black leopard or psychadelic throwback insanity. I gave up and left the store with all my money unspent.

I went into Fresh Market to satisfy a week-old craving for Brussels sprouts. All they had was tiny ones about the size of a marble, on a stem - one stem left. I bought a small triangle of Brie and a loaf of sourdough bread.

Then I remembered - I'm still not in the habit of remembering the used bookstore up at the end of the highway - and I do love a good browse in a used bookstore. There, I hit paydirt. I found a book on philosophy that I'll be able to use in school, a book on the sermons of John Henry Newman, one on herb gardens from Rodale Press. I found music - a book of piano sonatas, books on organ music (someday I will have an organ to learn to play) - novels by Rosamunde Pilcher, whose personal note to me arrived on Christmas Eve (I wrote her several months ago, on impulse, after reading Coming Home and The Shell Seekers and she actually write me back!) and Rumer Godden and George Eliot and - oh, goodness how can I keep track of it all!

I came away with two massive shopping bags full of the most wonderful books - for $31! Now, with a cup of tea, and the living room vacuumed and the trash carried out, I am ready to bid the old year farewell.

It's been a rich and satisfying year. Even a glorious but unrequited love has enriched and blessed my life immensely - and that is the worst thing that has happened this year. There have been new friends adding richness to an already full circle of good friends - discoveries of new gifts and new callings. There have been "love letters from God" in the form of bluebirds and deer in the back yard, rainbows, and glorious rains. There have been hours of satisfying work, and a great many pats on the back from people whose opinions matter to me.

There is much to look forward to in 2008. I'll be starting school in a couple of weeks, and that will be a great adventure. There will be new things to write, new friends to love -

I always want to end a post with something wise, but I'm sadly lacking in that department tonight. I'm simply filled with contentment, and looking forward to what God has waiting for me in the new year.

God bless you all, and give you great joy this coming year.

If you want your comment posted -

Sign it.

I've gotten still another unsigned Anonymous comment this morning in response to Karl. Writer, you want to try again, put a name to it, I'll publish it.

However, I'll also tell you (again) that I left out part of his original post which includes identifying information about his ex-wife. And I'll tell you that you've only heard one side of the story: his. And I'll probably say a few other things that would just make everyone mad, but that I think would need to be said in the interest of fairness. Because this post I'm holding in reserve smacks too much of posts I've read on single's sites, praising a man you don't know in order to impress him with your own loyalty and "admiration."

Look. I've already pointed out that maybe Karl's ex-wife isn't presenting herself for Communion. or that maybe she and her second husband are living as brother and sister - that these things are Not. Our. Business. Nobody has bothered to reply -
and what needs to be said is, "Yep, there's a lot more to the story here than we've been told."

But you're right - Karl needs to come Home to the Church. Not because the Church needs him, mind you, but because he needs the Church. He needs to come home to the Church because the Church is true.

To Ms. M - an apology

Since you couldn't very well leave me an email address, let me take this opportunity to publicly apologize to you. I do remember you - well and warmly - not only from the parking lot but also from the product meeting, shortly before your little one was born.

I also remember well your warmth of affection and devotion for your mother and your siblings.

I remember conversations with your mother, which apprised me of aspects of your mother's life which your father's comments herein reveal either lack of knowledge or a simple not caring. These facts about your mother's life have a great deal to do with her standing with the Church at this time, and they are not my concern, nor even your father's - but hers and G's and their Confessor(s) .

The fact remains: your father has left the Church, and while he rails against your mother, he is no less culpable for his own choices. His original comments post implored me to appeal to the Roman Rota in my nullity situation for the sake of my soul's salvation (which I will not do, as homosexuality is very much a black-and-white issue, unlike the "lack of due discretion" grounds named in your parents' petition) and yet he has left the Church he appealed to.

There appears to me to be an alarming inconsistency in your father's words and choices. Either the Church in Rome is the True Church which, despite the human errors of certain of her representatives, deserves his loyalty, or it is false, in which case his resentments are senseless. Actually, they make no sense anyway - he speaks of the Church forcing your mother into obedience? by which it reads as if he expects the Church to force her against her will to reconcile with him or to abandon her second family.

Remember: it was only after re-reading your father's post and going to the web link he sent me, which details the history of the nullity process, that I recognized him as your father - which you have just confirmed for me. (Did he recognize me before posting?) There is no justification for his forcing himself on my acquaintance as he has done; his resentments toward your mother are far too obvious; he seems only to want to be sided with in horror: oh, how horrible a woman she is, and how careless the Church is for letting such a situation go undisciplined!

I can't do it. Your father is seriously in error.

Please be assured of my continuing respect and affection for you and the whole of your family. That includes Karl.

Laura

Moving right along...

It's pouring rain here since before dawn. I love weather, and we've sure needed this rain - the entire Southeast has been under a miserable drought for over a year now - and hadn't fully recovered from our last.

Twice - Christmas Night and this morning, I've heard thunder. The old wives' tale down here is that if you hear thunder in a winter storm, you'll have snow within ten days. Interesting.

I mentioned Leaves of Heaven in an earlier post - a happy "accident" if I've ever had one - and I thought perhaps a poem might be a nice thing to share -

Oscar Wilde is known for his delightful plays (The Importance of Being Ernest, among others) and, sadly, for his scandalous life. But before he died he did become a Catholic - and the following poem is his:

E Tenebris

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Responding to Karl - too many nullity decisions?

Karl wrote, in part, in a comment that I have since deleted:

I am a former Catholic due to the liberal practices of the Catholic Church regarding marriage, divorce, adultery, nullity...

Do not be sure of the nullity of your marriage unless Rome renders the decision.

American Canonists are notoriously liberal.

The Catholic Church accepts my wife and her lover as a couple in your neck of the woods in North Carolina, in spite of two Roman Rotal decisions holding our marriage as valid. So the priests ignore them and tell my wife she just could not prove it.

She could not prove it BECAUSE it IS VALID!

So, I left the Catholic Church, after seventeen years of asking it to ACT to help heal our sacrament, which is a real joke about these things.

You can be nearly certain that you will obtain nullity, but you are gambling with your salvation so its up to you. Send it to Rome to be sure, no matter how long it takes or what it costs.

Just my two bits, as a lifelong Catholic, I am 53 now, who knows what truth means.

This is not said to hurt you. I care. How many men do you know who remain faithful to their adulterous spouse because they meant their vows? I am eighteen years abandoned but I meant what I said. But the Catholic Church mocks my faithfulness. I will remain faithful to her as well, I just cannot live with her either.

God be with you,

So wrote Karl in a comment to my post on my nullity process. I deleted his comment from that page because he went on to add potentially identifying information of his former wife. In fact, the more I think of it (this is my 3d edit of this post) the more I am certain that I am acquainted with his ex-wife.

First of all, I think it's incredibly arrogant to presume to know more than Mother Church. Sinfully arrogant.

Secondly, in very general principle, one must remember that civil law, which governs divorce, has been almost chokingly rigid until only about twenty-five years ago. People could not leave marriages without visual evidence of adultery - either photographic, or the testimony of a professional investigator. Non-support, violence, innumerable acts that made life burdensome and insupportable were difficult and humiliating to testify to, publicly; many people simply endured rather than air their dirty laundry in open court.

What people like our friend Karl, here, must ask himself is how many men and women were in canonically invalid marriages that Civil law would not allow them to escape? How many arranged marriages, for example, undertaken under coercion rather than free will, occurred in past eras? Marriages between members of royalty, for example, were often politically expedient rather than ecclesially cherished.


Less generally, Karl seems to think that his conduct after the marriage should have validated the marriage; however, it is issues existing at the time of the wedding that determine the validity of a marriage. We see, in a link Karl provided and which I have deleted in order to protect the parties, a nominally Catholic couple, both strong-willed and unwilling to consider wiser counsel; engaging in sexual relations prior to their marriage and, in fact, the ex-wife was pregnant at the time of the marriage - all issues which would hinder a full understanding and ability to enter into a sacramental marriage. In fact, the "lack of discretion" issue seems well-established in the testimony, based upon that engagement history - although the Roman Rota declared on April 17, 1997, that nullity could not be proven based upon the evidence.

Note: Nullity was not denied; it was simply held as not affirmed. Thus, Karl and his ex-wife are in a sort of nullity netherworld - and he is right in stating that his ex-wife was in serious error to have remarried under these conditions.

Now, Karl has asserted in his message that the priests of the Raleigh diocese are ignoring this decision and accepting his ex-wife and her "lover." If this is the woman that I believe it is, there is more to the story than Karl has included in his passionate narrative. She may not be presenting herself for Communion, she and her husband may be living together as brother and sister... there are several factors here that we are not told, nor is it, for present discussion, any of our cotton-picking business.

However, the fact is that Karl has left the Church - and although he says he left because of this nullity issue, the testimony bears out that the couple were not very serious about the Faith prior to the marriage and had, in fact, united with a nonCatholic religion during the marriage. This fact makes me sad; it seems to me that this decision is a self-centered bit of a temper-tantrum.

Karl is accountable to God. The Catholic Church is the One True Church, established by Our Lord while he was upon the earth. The Church is God's instrument, and it is incumbent upon Karl to reconcile himself to the Church, and not to be distracted by his former wife's choices, nor to use them as his thin excuse for his own rebellion.

Come on Home, Karl. Let go, detach, from your former wife's choices, and fling yourself into the great and gracious arms of Grace.

obstacles -

I was supposed to meet with a retired priest this morning to discuss beginning spiritual direction, but the sinus ick I've been plagued with for the better part of the week seems to be settled in and it has me by the throat - literally: laryngitis.

I'm terribly disappointed. The more I read in St Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life the more convinced I become that my old habits as a former Protestant are self-defeating; I need help - to know myself more honestly and to learn to live a holy life, to be a holier woman. This particular retired priest, too, is a lovely gentleman, one I think I will love to work with. Another priest friend of mine recommended him highly, said he had found him to be an excellent Confessor. So I have been more eager about starting with Fr John today than almost all the Christmas festivities.

It's a huge step, this acknowledging that I need help. I've always had to at least convey an image of some sort of perfection and superiority; now I get to be just the opposite. It won't be easy for me, but I think it's time. Yeah, it's definitely time.

Merry Christmas!

Mass tonight, Mass tomorrow morning -
I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

for, although He was God, He did not count his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men,And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:6-11)

God bless and keep you all -
Love,
Laura

From the "I Don't know whether to laugh or cry" file -

In light of recent waves of politically correct anti-Christian sentiment in the public arena, I am glad to see this. I only hope it's not too little, too late.

H. Res. 847

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

December 11, 2007.

Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;

Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;

Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;

Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;

Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its Judeo-Christian roots;

Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;

Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God's redemption, mercy, and Grace; and

Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

Attest:

Clerk.

---

I saw this at our local Catholic bookstore, and my spirit wouldn't rest until I'd made the splurge and bought it. Merry Christmas, Laura!

This book is utter joy. It doesn't contain insipid saccharine verse like Helen Steiner Rice - it's full of genuine legitimate, literary-quality poetry from men and women like Hildegard of Bingen, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Geoffrey Chaucer -

Even that prolific genius, "Anon." is here.

Do yourself a treat - check this one out.

One more week 'til Christmas!

I'm overwhelmed - where is the time going!!!???

I'm in panic mode because half my little choir is going to be away for Christmas. We're not even planning a Christmas anthem - because there are only three people to sing at either Mass.

It ought not to be like this. People complain about the lack of variety in our music, but when I have only six singers, and most of them travel extensively (my parish is mostly retirees, this being a retirement/resort area of the country) and all of them are mortally afraid of singing something different from what everyone else is singing - which eliminates harmony singing - what can I do?

I'm thinking of trying to solicit singers from the area high schools. There's a lot of antiCatholic sentiment in this area, though, and I don't think it will give me many new voices. Worth a try, I suppose.....

Any ideas?

Confession - it really is good for the soul

That doesn't make it easy or comfortable, of course. Which is probably why - along with residual obdurate Protestant independence - I haven't been to Confession in months. (how many? none o' your biznez!)

But I did go today. I'm engaging in an online book study of St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life with a group of women I've met via a couple of Catholic web sites. We spent two weeks discussing issues surrounding Spiritual Direction, and this past Wednesday we were on Ch. 5 - detaching from our sins.

It's the very act of confession that I find awkward. I can think and pray on my way to the church, in line waiting my turn to confess, using a superb examination of conscience, and have my list of sins settled in my mind (and occasionally on paper) - but as soon as I get into the Confessional my mind goes into a disorderly blur.

Still, as Msgr I counselled me this evening, in order to do battle against my sins, I've got to use the arms available to me - and Sacramental Confession is the ultimate weapon known to mankind.

This is part of that spiritual warfare I've been writing about in recent months. We begin with ourselves, because if we don't we're just blowing smoke. We work on ourselves, we reach toward perfection, in order to become more fit and better trained for the battles beyond our own minds and souls.

I said, in a discussion of the promotion of contraception in Third World countries, recently, that we can't export a commodity we don't possess. In that case, I was referring to a national sense of reverence for life; in this case, I am thinking of radical, countercultural holiness. Sanctity.

If we want to make a difference in the world, we have to strive for a difference in ourselves. The work begins with Confession.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE - Part IVa - Arming Ourselves

We expect to see antagonism toward the Church within the world; what is shocking is when we see it within the ranks of the membership.

The reasons for this are multifold, but for now I'd like to focus on one concern: issues of catechesis. People receive rotten, incorrect catechesis during their formation, or they misremember what they were taught, or Sister/Father Rebel throws out the ubiquitous "Spirit of Vatican II" excuse for abandoning uncomfortable teachings (like the ban on artificial birth control, or the need for Sacramental Confession, or the reinventing the Eucharist to be only a symbol which we all surpass).

We see a LOT of this in the South, where Catholics have always been a minority population, and most Catholics are transplants (usually Post-Vatican II retirees) from other parts of the country. The dioceses of New York, I'm discovering, are almost certain to send the South poorly catechized individuals who heartily resent the use of Latin even during heightened seasons such as Advent and Lent - "We did away with that junk after Vatican II!" one indignant parishioner told me as he quit the choir.

Actually, we did not - but the retention of Latin is not my point.

It is truly heartbreaking to see such rancor and competition within the Church, within our own parishes - but it ought not to surprise us. After all, Jesus Himself warned us that, in the Last Days, "if it were possible, even the elect would be led astray."

If we wish to be able to Fight the Good Fight, as Paul said, we need to be prepared to fight on all fronts, home (within the Church) and "abroad" (the world). We need to be able to give a good account of our Faith wherever it is needed. This means we really do have to know our Church. We have to be well-acquainted with our Catechism and our Bible, to keep abreast of new document releases and old ones. A nodding acquaintance with Church History isn't a bad idea, either.

We also have the obligation to be working not only on the intellectual conformity to the Church, but also on the transformation of our characters.

I have a feeling I'll be blogging about this quite a bit in the coming weeks, as I prepare to being work on my MA-Theology from one of our major Universities.

May God raise up many well-equipped workers in His fields.

and Almost Free -

The Diocese of Charlotte has notified me that the ruling in my Petition to determine nullity of my first marriage (to the Faerie Queene) is Affirmative -
that is, that the marriage is, according to Canon Law, Null -
and my file has been sent to the Archdiocese of Atlanta for review and hopeful ratification.

The difference in my spirit is amazing - there's no anticipating what this is going to feel like.
Deo Gratias!

SPIRITUAL WARFARE Part III - Entering the Conflict

There’s a story that has been around for years: you can place a frog in a pan of cold water that is slowly brought to boil while the frog complacently adapts to his environment – until it kills him. The analogy is frighteningly apt. Ninth grade students reading Elie Wiesel’s Night are appalled at how the Jews of Germany, Poland, and other parts of Europe refused to believe the warnings sent to them by witnesses of Nazi atrocities against their people. “That’s dumb!” they say almost as one voice.

Yet such complacency, such disbelief, is our own sin. We have allowed atrocity to build on top of atrocity and we have not stood in the gap and cried “Foul!”

In the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, President Bush stood before our nation and warned us that the war we had entered into, on terrorism, would be exceedingly difficult precisely because it is a war against an attitude, a philosophy of destruction, and not a sovereign nation or specific king. In the same way, we as Christian people are called to be engaged in a battle for souls – a battle not against individual men and women or armies, but, against attitudes and philosophical constructs that lead to the injury and destruction of the immortal soul:

St. Paul urged the Ephesians: “… we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand….” (Eph. 6:10-13)

A deceitful view of the truth, common in our culture, says that all opinions have value, all ideologies are of equal merit. This is a worldview that tells us it doesn’t matter what we think, what we do, or how we live.

After all, it whispers and sometimes shouts, God only wants us to be happy!

No, dear friends. God does not want us to be superficially “happy.” God wants us to be good, so that we can be supremely happy with Him through all eternity.

Despite what we have been told by prevailing “wisdom” – which insists that I have “my truth” and you have “your truth” – there is only one Truth – and it is revealed to all of human history through the Person of Jesus Christ and through the agency of His Church. The issue is whether we are going to be faithful and obedient to the Truth or whether we are going to, by default, become complicit with the Enemy. We must recognize this and adapt our attitudes accordingly. There will be no middle ground.

We are called to be a countercultural people, in the world but not of it. This is not a popular or easy path. It means that we have to be engaged – deliberately engaged – in trying to know and to conform ourselves to a standard of thought, conduct, and feeling that the world is telling us is old-fashioned, archaic, and even repressive. It will require the engagement of all three of those dimensions – thought, conduct, and feeling – to combat the evil in our midst.

When we were baptized into the Church, into the Christian faith, we received, as Paul says, our adoption as joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8: 15). We are now citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven – in exile in this world, but eagerly awaiting our call Home, where we belong with Him. He is our Heavenly Father, but He is also our King. We are called to honor the laws, customs, and loyalties of our Homeland, even while we are in exile, as did the Children of Israel during their exile to Babylon. Like them, we are strangers and sojourners, having relinquished citizenship in this world in exchange for a Heavenly citizenship; we must therefore honor our first loyalty to God.

This loyalty is not popular in the world. Our eccentricity points out the destructiveness of a worldly, pagan culture and makes its residents uncomfortable. We will face a lot of misguided but well-intentioned opposition and downright hostility. The Enemy of our souls will make many attempts to get us to renounce our identity as sons and daughters of God.

The means he will use are manifold. Each of us has his particular weakness – lust, love of wealth and luxuries, self-aggrandizement, love of power – and it is to these that the Enemy appeals to us as individuals. What tempts me to stray from fidelity to Our Lord may not be what tempts you, and it hardly matters; the Enemy will address us personally.

We must begin our defense against the Enemy, and our offense against his domination of our culture, by changing our minds; old attitudes, the old complacency, will not do for us any longer.

It is astonishing to see how many verses in the Scriptures directly address the issue of our thoughts, our minds, and our orientation in the world but not of it:
Be transformed by the renewing of your minds – (Rom. 12:2)
Whatsoever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. (Phil. 4:8)
Be not conformed to this world… (Rom 12:2)
Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility to God? (James 4:4)
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. (I John 2:15)

As we change our attitudes, our ideas, we must also take action.

We must never grow weary of defending the defenseless by our opposition to abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and embryonic stem cell exploitation. That is obvious – but it is only a beginning. We must also defend the dignity and worth of all human life, in the aged, the infirm, the culturally and socio-economically deprived.

We must also defend what is decent and honorable in our culture and oppose all that is mediocre, salacious, and banal. As inconvenient as it is, as bitterly uncomfortable as it makes us, we must face head-on the fact that our culture is becoming desensitized to sin – just like the frog in the pot of water. The mediocre and banal – if not the utterly salacious – entertainments that we feel entitled to enjoy are like a termite infestation eroding the moral and spiritual fiber of our culture.

We must not make excuses for careless self-indulgence. When we engage in activities, recreations, and conversations that make a mockery of the best of our identity as Catholics, we give that round of battle to the Enemy. It’s no good saying of a television show that glamorizes adultery or violence, “Oh, it’s just TV, it doesn’t really matter.” It matters a great deal; TV and other mass entertainments have been a primary means of desensitizing the culture to sin, evil, and coarseness.

Parents, particularly, must be diligent to protect the minds and souls of their children. Catholic parents who allow their children to watch MTV, BET, movies that glorify violence, and other aggressively contemptuous entertainments fail in their duty to train their children’s minds, characters, and consciences. Parents who do not challenge their children’s schools’ use of novels like Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, with its unchallenged contempt for others (both peers and those in positions of authority, particularly for religious), and its masturbatory references, fail in their duty to safeguard the minds and imaginations of their children and to preserve in their communities an adherence to the Christian standards of common decency that have shaped and defined those communities to the present day.

Moreover, we are defending not only our own children, but the children of those parents who are not doing their duty or living as active Christians.

When anti-Christian voices in our communities threaten the values and symbols we hold dear, we have an obligation to raise our voices in protest against the few dominating the many. We have an obligation to remind our elected civic leaders that the Constitution does not support freedom from religion, and that the voice of the majority chooses the policies and representations of our communities.

In every way imaginable, we have an obligation to seek and to conform to godly principles – as citizens, neighbors, and consumers. Our countercultural influence will not be nearly as effective if it is not all-encompassing, to the best of our ability at any given moment in time. What I am prescribing here will be an ongoing, developing endeavor, for the rest of our lives.

Finally, all our actions must be wholly undergirded with prayer. In prayer we touch the Mover of the Cosmos; in prayer we effect networks of change on a grand and an infinitesimal level. Our ideas and our actions become grounded and fused through prayer. Most of all, in prayer we enter God’s own presence – and in that Presence we ourselves are transformed. That ongoing transformation is what makes possible the change in mind, heart, and action we are being called to undertake.

Our culture is no longer dominated or governed by the principles of Judeo-Christian morality. Our identity and our values as Catholics are being challenged with increasing hostility. Battle lines are being drawn more dramatically with every passing week – between the friends of Christ and His enemies. The distinction between darkness and light, right and wrong, is becoming more dramatic.

Complacency will place us in the position of spoiled salt, to be thrown out (Mt. 5:13) or the lukewarm, who will be spit out of His mouth in Judgment (Rev. 3:16).

We truly are at war, as Paul says. – Therefore, grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power Put on the full armor of God so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics… That is why you must take up all God’s armour, or you will not be able to put up any resistance on the evil day, or stand your ground even though you exert yourselves to the full. So stand your ground, with truth a belt around your waist, and uprightness a breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet the eagerness to spread the gospel of peace and always carrying the shield of faith so that you can use it to quench the burning arrows of the Evil One. And then you must take salvation as your helmet and the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God. (Eph. 6:10-17)

May He find us faithful to the very end.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE, Part II - Signs of the Times

Somehow, throughout the modern era, good Christian people have stood quietly by and allowed the whole fabric of our society to be undermined by people holding a worldview hostile to Christianity. We have allowed those hostile to religion to dictate to us how we may or must act in the name of “love,” and we have tragically acquiesced. We have allowed ourselves as a culture to adopt a quietism or passivity that has spread as a sort of moral anesthesia even among Christians.

Our entertainments – movies, radio, television – have injected new situations and attitudes into the culture. New norms of morality have been introduced and effected a major cultural paradigm shift, by sheer dent of audience numbers.

And this has happened because good Christian people have been lulled to sleep by an obscene, pagan idea: I have my truth, you have your truth, and it is incumbent upon you to be “nice” to me and let me have my way. You, Christian people, have to be “nice,” and let me do what I want, without criticism. And so evil has again come to dominate the world and our culture, causing us to have more in common with the pagan world than with the predominately Christian culture of even fifty years ago.

I can by no means provide an exhaustive list of the indicators and consequences of the change in our cultural paradigm, but I do offer for your consideration the following:

• The development of multiple means of artificial birth control and the overwhelming cultural acceptance of those means, which have combined to remove sex from the realm of marriage and procreation and to place it in the exploitive arena of depersonalized recreation.
• Legalized abortion, on demand and unrestricted throughout the duration of a pregnancy.
• Euthanasia, presented as a “compassionate choice” to end suffering of the terminally ill or seriously injured. (This is also known as “terminal medication.”)
• Overall lack of respect for the aged and infirm and a tendency to get them “out of the way” through institutionalized “homes.” This is also leading to an increased acceptance and practice of euthanasia.
• The simultaneous masculinization and cultural objectification of women through the misguided manipulations of radical feminism and the mass marketing of pornography.
• A glorification of homosexuality, to the point of “legalization” of gay marriage and adoption and the establishment of gay student organizations, even on high school campuses.
• A love of violence as entertainment. Our movies, television shows, and much of our popular music (rock and hiphop, especially) thrive on the portrayal and prescription of violence as a solution to conflict and personal dissatisfaction..
• A growing verbal violence through the acceptance of profanity in our entertainments and, consequently, in our public conversations.
• A love of the sensational – for example, the celebrity cult. For years, actors and actresses had to adhere to strict “morality clauses” in their contracts; now, the tabloids are filled with the irresponsible exploits of celebrities. Once characters who sinned eventually faced the consequences of their wrong-doing (think of Greta Garbo’s Camille); now all manner of sin and aberration is touted as glamorous and desirable, a normal part of culture and of a “healthy” and glamorous life.
• The vilifying of religion and religious. Formerly, Hollywood treated religion with respect (think of Boys Town, I Confess, and other movies strongly featuring religious characters and themes); now the religious are often the villains, or at least maladjusted foils in the movies in which they appear.
• A cultural ridiculing of traditional moral values. It is not enough that “alternatives” are presented to the nonbeliever; now Christian people must be ridiculed and insulted for holding fast to traditional moral values such as chastity, celibacy, sobriety, and simplicity.
• The promotion of worldly acquisitiveness and valuation and the elevation of the material over the spiritual.
• The dramatic decline of academic standards in our schools and the resulting decline in young people’s ability to engage in rational thought and make responsible, informed, considered decisions. We are raising generations of children that will blindly follow where the “experts” tell them they should go.
• The increased love of the banal and mediocre. Look again at our entertainments and see where there is any genuine talent, ability, or artistry to be found in them. Sarcasm increasingly passes as humor (thank you, Roseanne) and sentimentality passes for wisdom (thank you, Oprah).
• Instant gratification is expected as our native birthright.
• The growing contempt for menial labor and for those who perform it.
• The forced removal of prayer from our public schools.
• The revision of American history to whitewash over the influence of the pursuit of religious freedom in the population and founding of our nation. A growing number of high school graduates do not know that our celebration of Thanksgiving has anything whatsoever to do with God or the pursuit of religious freedom.
• The denial of the influence of the Ten Commandments on law and social policy, manifested by the forced removal of the Ten Commandments from the public venue, such as our area courthouses.
• The forced removal of Nativity scenes from community and public buildings, in the name of “freedom from religion.”

Spiritual Warfare - Part I

This article was published as "Spiritual Warfare" by 4Marks magazine on May 1, 2007. I am assured by the editor, Dan Flaherty, that there is no conflict with my publishing the article elsewhere. I offer it here over the next few days as an installment of continuing thoughts on the matter. - Laura

Fighting the Good Fight
Living as a countercultural people


We are at war. No, not the war that is on the evening news each day, centered in Iraq and Afghanistan; this is a war closer to home, engaging each and every person – with dire and mortal consequences.

It is a war for our immortal souls – and the battleground is our minds.


In the early years of the Christian era, Christians were a decidedly unpopular minority in the known Western world. Their presence was uncomfortable to the status quo; they worshipped a single God who, they insisted, had become man, died and rose again. They rejected the myriad of local deities, so when trouble fell on a city the Christians could be blamed for having offended the gods. In Rome, where the Emperor was deemed a god, the Christians’ refusal to pay homage in the accepted ways became a much more personal offense.

In those early days, Christians were scorned, persecuted, arrested… and condemned to death. Atrocious, horrific deaths.

Out of this hostile climate, the apostles’ writings were easily accessible as more than simple metaphor: fighting the fight, wearing the armor of Christ, engaging in spiritual warfare. The images used by St. Paul in particular provided a multi-dimensional reality easily applicable to the spiritual life; the spiritual and the physical were very much integrated.

When a person from a pagan culture became a Christian, the conversion was a complete turn-around from his former life. Nowhere is this more vividly illustrated than in St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians. Corinth was such an infamous center of moral depravity that even the pagan classical world vilified the most outrageous depravities by associating those behaviors with “playing the Corinthian.”

Yet Corinthians came to Christ and were transformed (I. Cor. 6:9-11)

With the Christian conversion of the Emperor Constantine, circa 312, things began to change. Christians were no longer vilified and persecuted but were recognized as respectable members of society. The Christian influence began to spread throughout the world, above ground and in broad daylight rather than in stealth among the catacombs. The Christian worldview became the socially accepted norm throughout much of Western Civilization for the next 1800 years.

It seems that the pinnacle of a Christian world would have coincided with the Victorian era, when European colonization of Africa and Asia opened the remaining “dark continents” to the infusion of the gospel - by Catholics as well as Protestants - where it had not traveled before (or at least not in many centuries). This was an era in which all decent people were expected to be churchgoers, regardless of their denomination or sect. Laws governing morality were solidly based on the Ten Commandments, and social mores conformed to Judeo-Christian morality, at least publicly.

Of course, this Christian influence has not been without challenge or opposition. Whereas in the apostolic age embracing the Christian faith literally meant embracing a likely death sentence, when Christianity became socially legitimated, it became possible for people to profess a faith they didn’t actually hold. Moreover, throughout history dissenting voices were raised in various cultures and in various ways. Selfish hedonism existed side by side with monastic asceticism. Chaucer’s friar rode side by side with the monk and the young theology student. Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Galileo - philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment - were contemporaries of St. Francis de Sales. Yet Judeo-Christian moral and religious values had become the defining elements of civilized society.

Then, in the Victorian era, that pinnacle of Christian socialization and reform, of manners and decency, German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, set the world on its ear by declaring “God is dead.”

It didn’t matter that Nietzsche was on the brink of insanity or that he died in a lunatic asylum; the boldness, the defiance of his statement caught like wildfire. Marxism appealed to a different sort of rebellion. God began to become unpopular again, as first the intellectual elite and then the moral reformers (like Margaret Sanger) became bolder and more outspoken in their contempt for the Christian faith and its accompanying morality.

World War I left many artists and philosophers disillusioned, and their works reflect their anguish at the state of the world. The concept of a Post-Christian era was raised very quickly; Ezra Pound dated his Post-Christian calendar from October 31, 1921, the date James Joyce finished Ulysses.

It takes time for ideas to filter from the elitists to the masses, however; among many sociologists and theologians, the consensus seems to be that the decline of Christian influence on the world reached its crisis point when the Anglican Church stood as the first religious body to formally acquiesce on the issue of contraception. Until that time, all Christian peoples and churches had deplored the use of contraception as a dire opposition to the will of God. From that point, society began a rapid descent into socially accepted depravity.

Better than a birthday -

is a special anniversary.

On November 3, I celebrated the Fifth Anniversary of my reception into Christ's One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Someone said to me that I'm no longer a newcomer, but I do believe if God allows me to live, with all my faculties intact, for another fifty years, I'll never exhaust the riches of this glorious Faith - or, indeed, ever be anything other than a neophyte.

Still in process of applying to Franciscan Univ. - time is flying and I'm not sure where it's gone. But I will have everything DONE this weekend.

Also - VERY big news - my Advocate in my nullity proceeding has written her brief, and my file has gone to the Defender of the Bond and the Judge for a decision. I'm told I should have the entire thing resolved (down to and including the Second Instance) in a couple more months - perhaps by mid-January.

Things are happening rapidly. I'm rather dizzy by it all.

I only pray that Christ will be glorified.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAKE!!!!!

Christine - you gave me a cake! I know I couldn't have eaten the whole thing all by myself!!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO IT????? LOL