Yesterday, I was corrected by a 3 year old.

To set the stage:  I had gone over to Paul and Sophie’s to ostensibly help them with their packing efforts, but also to visit and such.  The kids were “concelebrating” Mass together.  Actually, I think each was offering his own Mass a la the days prior to Vatican II — though they were using the ordinary form (Paul and Sophie apparently not yet having instructed them on the Tridentine expression of the Roman rite). The hard part was listening to both homilies at once.   Granted, it was easier to sift through two simultaneous homilies being offered by a 5 and 3 year old and get more meat out of them than it is to digest a single homily offered by some clergy, but that’s off the point.  Anyway, rerailing this train, the Rev. D was using a GIA hymnal as his Sacramentary and after going in peace and singing a rousing chorus of Christmas carols (I guess the kids really like Christmas music all year round.  Which explains my nickname ”on the feast of Steven”), I started to look through the GIA hymnal to see what they had to offer, since I’ve always been stuck in parishes/”faith communities” that used the Outlandishly Crappy Publiciation hymnal.

I was rather impressed to see some of the hymns kept a few more verses than OCP manages to include, but I was rather shocked at some of the songs that were present.  By now, Paul was playing a game with D and L, while Sophie was joining me in poking fun some of the songs, either because of awful lyrics, poor translation, or cheesy tunes.  (Note to the VeggieTales, if you ever run out of silly songs for Larry, may I suggest a copy of the GIA hymnal?)  We got to one that talked about the Fire of God, Titanic Spirit or some such nonsense.

Forgetting that there were children in the room, I exclaimed “that is really really stupid.”  L promptly admonished me saying that I used a naughty word and shouldn’t say things like that.  Whoops.  I said I was sorry for using a naughty word, and luckily Paul and Sophie didn’t sentence me to any corner time.

Now that I’m in my own forum, I can say it again.  That is a really stupid song.  Plain and simple.

Here’s my fear though.  A few weeks ago at dinner with friends on a Friday, we got into quite a rant about that Haugen-Haas special “Gather Us In [even though we're already here].”  I had done a rather humorous interpretive liturgical dance to accompany the silliness of the latter verses (not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away, but here in this place a new light is shining, now is the kingdom, now is the day).  The next day, I’d heard the Gilligan’s Island theme song, so of course I sang Amazing Grace to the tune (it works — try it).  Well, Sunday came around, and wouldn’t you know it, the gathering song was “Gather Us In” and “Amazing Grace” was on deck for the offertory or Communion.  I suppose that was penance for having mocked both songs previously.  It does not seem to work if I try to mock “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,”  a Latin setting of the Gloria, “Panis Angelicus,” et al., which is rather sad.

So today I was worried that tomorrow I’ll be forced to hear about a Fire of God that is a Titanic Spirit.  Even though we don’t use GIA hymnals, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone copied the song off the Internet and pasted into the back of the OCP’s just because.

However, I just realized a saving grace.  I’m scheduled for the 7:00am Mass tomorrow.  There is no singing at that Mass.  Deo Gratias!

Two things that, I think, would make the presidential debates a much more worthwhile exercise.

1. The moderator should be allowed to interrupt the candidates when they overtly dodge the question and force them to return to the topic.
2. The pundits of the various news organizations should call them to task in the “post-game analysis” for not answering questions directly.

And as usual, I would like to actually see details of the “plans” that these folks have that will somehow cut our taxes to nothing while simultaneously throwing money at just about everything out there.

This past weekend I attended a conference down at the Seminary in which Fr. Benedict Groeschel gave a series of talks on “Where Pope Benedict XVI With the Gospels and St. Paul.”  It was an all-day affair, starting at 9am and concluding with a Mass at 4:00 celebrated by Bishop Thomas.  I was invited by the Vocations Office (along with a few other guys), and the Vocation Director arranged for Bishop Thomas to eat dinner with us afterward in the refectory.  It was a long day, but very insightful on so many levels.

Fr. Benedict is quite witty, and I took note of quite a few of his jokes, in hopes of being able to recycle some of them down the road.  He gave the usual quips about the Spirit of Vatican II.  “I’ve never met this spirit, so I’m not sure what it looks like.  I imagine it’s either a polergeist playing pranks or a vampire sucking the life out of the church.  Either way, I carry around a pistol with a silver bullet in it, just in case I happen to meet up with it.”

One comment that was especially interesting was in discussing St. Paul.  Of all the people in the Bible, we learn more about St. Paul in the Scriptures than anyone else save Christ himself.  And we also see Paul’s character shining through his letters.  And so on the one hand you have the line from 1 Corinthians where St. Paul says Love is patient, love is kind, it’s not quick-tempered, it doesn’t brood over injury, etc., but on the other you read his letter to Timothy where he says Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm – God will repay him for that.  I hadn’t ever thought about that before, so it was pretty insightful.

He called the comments Nancy Pelosi on Meet the Press made “STUPID” but was sad to say that she probably had some kind of “Catholic” educator or cleric teach her the view that she has.  Actually, he went on quite a tear about the contemporary Catholic education system, and how devoid it has become of Catholicity, to the point where colleges are going so far as to remove the Catholic basis altogether; a fact that he deemed larceny.

What got me the most was he was extremely blunt in denouncing a lot of the bunk that’s going on today.  But, he was also adament in claiming that while this is all going on, and it’s awful, a good deal of the people involved in such crap are acting out of sincerity and true conviction.  They’re wrong, but he is quick to avoid condemnation, which is definitely I’m sure a character flaw on my part.  “God-willing I ever make it to Purgatory, I know I’m going to spend a good deal of it in the company of Fr. Richard McBrien and Sister Joan Chittister, and we’ll probably spend our Purgatory reading the Summa Theologiae in Latin.”

The Mass was great (it’s hard not to when you’re in St. Martin’s Chapel and there’s a bunch of sems serving) and having dinner with the bishop afterward was certainly a memorable experience unto itself.  All in all, a great day.

PREP (formerly known as CCD) started last night.  I was looking over my class list, particularly the section where important medical information is listed.  It’s good to know if someone is diabetic, or allergic to nuts, or prone to seizures.   Fortunately, I have none of that.

What I do have, however, is a child who is allergic to augmentin.  That’s great to know.  After all, as a catechist, I routinely bring a variety of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to class with me to dispense as I see necessary.  Susie, you sound congested; here’s some Sudafed.  Timmy, your head hurts?  Tylenol, Asprin, or Advil?  Wait, I’m out of children’s ibuprofin…do you weigh more than 100 pounds?  What’s that Bobby, your throat hurts?  Could be strep.  Here, have an antibiotic.  Oh wait…you’re allergic to this one; try some Azithromycin instead.  Mary, you look sad.  Here’s some Zoloft.

Now, onto the Ten Commandments……

My latest liturgical thorn-in-the-side has been the absolutely awful “general intercessions” that we often have foisted on us at Mass.   My parish has a loose leaf binder called “Commentary and General Intercessions” published by Liturgical Commission Publishing, which we use for daily Masses.  Somebody writes custom ones for Sundays, but Monday-Saturday we go with the canned intercessions. 

As with anything produced by liturgical ‘experts,’ you can usually expect there to be a certain cheesiness to everything.  Their suggested general intercessions are no exception, and on any given day I usually laugh with one of my fellow sacristans over how poorly worded one or more of them are, or how stupid of a topic they try to convey.  For example, sometimes the structure is so convoluted that you would think Yoda wrote them.  Others contain such excessive, superfluous, confusing, unneeded, overexaggerated linguistical structure that could be much simpler, less redundant, not as confusing and easier to read to the point where one wonders and surmises if the male and female human beings who think about and develop the ideas and put them on  paper might somehow be remunerated based on some sort of physical measurement of their end result, to wit a fixed monetary quantity for every distinct conglomeration of letters. (On reading these, one of us will roll our eys and say something like “so in other words, some are so wordy that you think the authors get paid by the word.”)   When I’m reading, I always have a temptation to preface the General Intercessions with “I’m just reading these; I didn’t write this crap.”  And, I’ve been known to tweak the wording on occasion if I notice bad grammar or something particularly distasteful.

Yesterday, however, the book had one with a cheese-factor sufficient to supply Wisconsin for a year:

For all who are working to remove the splinters and beams [emphasis original] from their lives, may God’s grace give them necessary strength, let us pray to the Lord.

True, the gospel was Jesus’s admonition about finding splinters in others’ eyes when you have a beam in yours.  However, both of us rolled our eyes at that one.  I told my friend (who was the lector that day) that I would probably burst out in laughter on hearing that.  She was worried about keeping a straight face on reading it, and vowed that she wouldn’t be looking anywhere near me at the time.  We tried to come up with a way to alternate the wording a bit so it’d be more palatable, to no avail.  So, I said it’d be a shame if, in the course of reading the intercessions, she “accidentally” forgot to read one of them.

Mass begins.  We get to the General Intercessions.  I close my eyes.  This lulu was supposed to be the third of five.  I bite my lip as #1 is read.  I clench down harder as #2 is read.  I prepare to wince.  And then #4 is read, and the congregation is spared.  Thanks be to God!

NOTICE

Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

I mean no offence toward the Baptists, or toward any other Protestant/ Christian (non-)denomination with this post.

A question came up while driving to Florida and coming across a bunch of random churches along the way.  Why is it that you only ever see the First Baptist Church?  There’s never a Second or Third or Fourth.  At least not that I’ve seen.  It’s like you’re either the First Baptist Church, or you start going into other modifiers.  (Tabernacle Baptist; Covenant Baptist; Emmanual Baptist; Calvary Baptist; Bible Baptist — and then you get into some real strange ones, but I’m trying to be charitable here.)

And how come there are so many “First Baptist Churches?”  I would assume the “first” Baptist ecclesial communion was founded several hundred years ago, pretty far away from Lower Middleofnowheresville, so that confuses me too.  They can’t all be first, can they?

Question:  How many PennDOT workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Answer:  20.  One to remove the old lightbulb.  One to put in the new one.  Six to stand and watch these two operate.  And 12 to set up all the signs, barricades, and traffic cones.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Pennsylvania has some infatuation with excessive warning signs and reduced speed limits in construction areas.  Last week I took a car trip down to Florida, and the contrast between how PA handles construction zones and how the rest of the states on the I-95 corridor handles them is amazing.

(more…)

So, since the last post, I’ve been a little busy.

• My mom’s cousin came to visit from Hungary
• My sister got married two weeks ago
• I took a mini-vacation of sorts to Florida and a few points in between
• A friend from college got married this weekend

That doesn’t seem like much when you put it down on paper like that, but it’s been a crazy few weeks.  Each of the above events probably warrant a post or more of their own, but there’s the highlights of the last few weeks of craziness.  Now I can look forward to going back to work to relax.