Happy New (Liturgical) Year

First Sunday of Advent

In days to come, the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream towards it; and many peoples shall come and say: "Come, let us climb the LORD's mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths." For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

(Isaiah 2:2-3)

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O tempora!

It is a dark day for American higher education when college teachers can no longer distinguish Christian heresies from racist ideologies. Our correspondents inform us that a professor at one of our nation's institutions of higher learning recently informed her class that Nazism was based upon "Aryanism" (sic?), "an early Christian heresy which taught that Jesus was a white European male."

Clearly it was the spread of this pernicious heresy that nearly consumed the early Church, leading St. Jerome to write ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est and St. Basil to exclaim:

"Our afflictions are well known without my telling; the sound of them has gone forth over all Christendom. The dogmas of the Fathers are despised; apostolic traditions are set at nought; the discoveries of innovators hold sway in churches. Men have learned to be speculatists instead of theologians. The wisdom of the world has the place of honor, having dispossessed the glorying of the cross. The pastors are driven away. grievous wolves are brought in instead, and plunder the flock of Christ."

A lone student who was brave enough to point out that Arian and Aryan shared nothing in common beyond a mere phonetic similarity was quickly silenced by the teacher, who refused to recant her confused beliefs. St. Athanasius, ora pro nobis.

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Happy Thanksgiving

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, He has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.

G.K. Chesterton, 'All Things Considered.'

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Grab Bag

I'll soon be heading home to Rhode Island for Thanksgiving break! But first, a few news items worth mentioning.

The latest from Diane, via my mother:

...we went to Decastro's for a few things and then proceeded home along Middle Road, a route we seldom take. Shortly after we turned, she proclaimed, "This is Hedly Street!" So I said, "Diane, you have quite a memory! You are something else." And she said, "I AM DIANE! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!!!!!"

Congratulations to Grace Wells who was received into full communion with the Church last weekend in California. And who recently got engaged!

Congratulations also to former roomie Neal Holtschulte for his 2nd place finish in the X-C Division III Nationals.

And finally a quote from the saint of the day, St. Columban, Irish monk and missionary (d. 615) affirming the allegiance of the Irish Church to Rome. It is the source of the inscription in the chapel of Our Lady Queen of Ireland in the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

I shall not be dismayed; it is praiseworthy to be dismayed for God's sake before men. If I am heard, all shall share the profit; if I am set at naught, mine shall be the reward. For I shall speak as a friend, disciple, and close follower of yours, not as a stranger; therefore I shall speak out freely, saying to those that are our masters and helmsmen of the spiritual ship and mystic sentinels, Watch, for the sea is stormy and whipped up by fatal blasts, for it is not a solitary threatening wave such as, even across a silent ocean, is raised to overweening heights from the ever-foaming eddies of a hollow rock, though it swells from afar, and drives the sails before it while Death walks the waves, but it is a tempest of the entire element, surging indeed and swollen upon every side, that threatens shipwreck of the mystic vessel; thus do I, a fearful sailor, dare to cry, Watch, for water has now entered the vessel of the Church, and the vessel is in perilous straits. For all we Irish, inhabitants of the world's edge, are disciples of Saints Peter and Paul and of all the disciples who wrote the sacred canon by the Holy Ghost, and we accept nothing outside the evangelical and apostolic teaching... For we, as I have said before, are bound to St. Peter's chair; for though Rome be great and famous, among us it is only on that chair that her greatness and her fame depend.

(from a letter to Pope Boniface IV)

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Today in History

On this day in 1626 Pope Urban VIII dedicated the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome. Completed after 176 years of construction, the present-day St. Peter's stands on the site of the fourth century basilica of Constantine, which in turn was built above the circus of Nero, as illustrated. St. Peter was crucified in this circus around the year 67 and tradition has always held that the two successive basilicas on the site were built upon his tomb. Excavations beneath St. Peter's in the 1940's, originally begun to extend the existing space beneath the high altar, uncovered a network of tombs, both Christian and pagan, which once comprised a Roman cemetery immediately to the north of Nero's circus. One of these tombs, directly beneath the high altar, was found to contain what are very likely the mortal remains of St. Peter himself, rediscovered centuries later in precisely the spot tradition had placed them.

My visit to Rome this summer included a tour of the excavations, or Scavi. Walking the ancient streets of a Roman cemetery just beneath the marble floors of the basilica was a powerful encounter with what George Weigel calls the Grittiness of Catholicism, the inescapable sense of historical reality in a place where the apostolic foundations of the Church are made tangible across the centuries.

Chesterton once wrote, "There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth." I like to think that it was in such a moment of hidden mirth that Jesus spoke His wonderful play on words to Simon Bar-Jonah:

"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." (Mt 16:18)

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Joe's First Organ Recital

Scheidt: Da Jesus An Dem Kreutze Stund Boellman: Verset II from Heures Mystiques Telemann: Christ Lag in Todesbanden Boellman: Verset XXIII from Heures Mystiques

...performed by yours truly at today's Studio Recital in Thompson Chapel, also featuring fellow organists and assorted flautists. I started organ lessons about a month and a half ago in lieu of the violin lessons I had been taking previously, when it looked like the latter weren't going to work out this year. It's great fun, especially after having gotten hooked on the instrument this summer in Austria.

Click on titles to download recordings in .wma (Windows Media) format.

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All we like sheep have gone astray

Do not say, to justify your estrangement from the holy table, 'that you have too much to do.' Has not the Divine Savior said: 'Come to Me all ye that labor and are exhausted: come to Me, I will relieve you.' Can you resist an invitation so full of love and tenderness? Do not say that you are not worthy of it. It is true that you are not worthy, but you have need of it. If our Lord had been thinking of our worthiness He would never have instituted His glorious sacrament of love, for no one in the world is worthy of it - not the saints, nor the angels, nor the archangels, nor the Blessed Virgin...but He was thinking of our needs. Do not say that you are sinners, that you are too wretched, and that is why you dare not approach it. You might just as well say that you are too ill, and that is why you will not try any remedy nor send for the doctor.

-Saint John Vianney (via Surekha)

The Eucharistic Meditiations

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Ut Unum Sint

Today is the feast of St. Josaphat, a 17th century Bishop and Martyr. Not to be confused with the legendary character of the same name, the Josaphat in question was a Catholic priest of the Byzantine rite and a tireless worker for Christian unity, particularly reunification with Rome. Many converts were won by his teaching and example, both before and after his martyrdom by an angry mob on 12 November 1623. In 1876 he became the first Eastern saint to be canonized by Rome.

In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity. Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say, with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.

Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Polock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honour or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore world-wide unity to the Church and he realised that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.

Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him “the thief of souls”.

(from the Office of Readings for November 12, quoting the encyclical Ecclesiam Dei of Pius XI)

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Sunrise, Sunset

"Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isnt going out. He says its colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon. ...Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"

-Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (via Mariana)

More pictures at WSO's PhotoShare.

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Eat Your Heart Out, Linnaeus

Borges describes "a certain Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush; (l) et cetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies." J. L. Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, E. Weinberger, Ed. (Penguin, New York, 1999), pp. 229-232. (Via Surekha)

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The Darndest Things

My correspondents inform me that my little sister Diane has been up to it again.

"Mommy! I read all the pages of this book! What a appetite I am!"

(Doing a puzzle of the United States) "This is quite a nice thing to do!"

and a few via Gretchen at Pensamientos:

while playing with dolls/toys, Diane says (in her silly high-pitched voice) "Oh, baby fell down.....I will cry. Let's take a boat ride. NO LET'S NOT! OOOOOh, you want these things! Oh.... four, five six, seven....wheeee! I did it! (singing) Holy, Holy Holy, Lord God Almighty, curly in the morning....."

Daddy: Diane, are you cheerful and happy?
Diane: No
Daddy: Are you a thug on the the prowl?
Diane: Yes

Gretchen: Diane, what happened to your manners?
Diane: My ate them.

Someone: Diane, what are you going to be when you grow up?
Diane: A belly-button flower.

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Tied for Coolest Thing Ever

...according to Monsieur John. What's the other one, John?

http://emvis.net/skycutter40-1.wmv

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"A Different Home"

The Williams College Concert and Chamber choirs, of which I am a humble member, presented an all-Estonian program last Friday evening in Thompson Chapel. Not to be confused with Molvania, the tiny nation of Estonia is situated on the Baltic sea and is reputed to have more choirs per capita than any other country in the world. The program included several folksong settings (from the evocatively titled "Dung-Throwing Song" to the haunting "Suitors from the Sea") in addition to sacred and secular compositions of recent and contemporary Estonian composers.

Many of us older choir members were in fact privileged to have visited Estonia while touring in the Baltic two years ago. The highlight of our visit was undoubtedly the colorful song and dance festival in the rural village of Keila, but the capital city of Tallinn (above left) was also the site of many memorable moments. On one particular evening, a medieval restaurant in the Old City was treated to an impromptu performance of Renaissance drinking songs courtesy of myself and other members of the Elizabethans who happened to be in attendance, much to the delight of the patrons (whose applause was immediately followed by a request for "Happy Birthday") and of the staff, who gave us free drinks. Other incidents bordered on the surreal, notably the sushi delivery truck pictured at left and the posters advertising Mr. T's T-Party ("I pity the fool who doesn't come to my T-Party!").

If you're thinking of visiting this fascinating country, which I strongly advise if you happen to be in the neighborhood, I recommend the ferry from Stockholm on a summer evening. Just watch out for those Estonian pirates.

More choir pictures on WSO's Photoshare.

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One State, Two States, Red States, Blue States

One state

Two states

Red states, Blue States

Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.

Some are old.

And some are new.

Some are sad.

And some are glad.

And some are very, very bad.

Why are they sad and glad and bad?
I do not know. Go ask your dad.

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Feast of All Saints

For all the saints, who from their labours rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed;
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

(All you holy men and women, angels and saints of God:
orate pro nobis. )

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