The Musings of a Magyar

Picture these on a bulletin board at a marine corps boot camp:

• Our 8 mile run with full gear is cancelled because it’s a little warm out.  Besides, we spent time yesterday practicing our marching in formation, and we wouldn’t want to force you into something two days in a row.
• We recommend you fall in for daily calisthenics at 7am, but it’s voluntary.  You can substitute some other act of exercise instead, at your own discretion.
• Instead of the weight room being open 7 days a week, it will only be open for 30 minutes to an hour on Saturdays, or by appointment.
• Survival training has been modified  Rather than force people to subsist on a singe C-ration and  whatever bark and berries you can scrounge up for the next week, we will simply serve box lunches instead of hot food in the mess hall.  Dinner and breakfast remain unchanged, and second helpings of pie and cake will be made available at the evening meal.
• Persons who misbehave or perform poorly will no longer be assigned duties to peel potatoes or scrub bathrooms with toothbrushes or told to drop and give 50 push-ups.  Revised punishments for bad behavior include losing tv privileges for 1hour or standing at attention for 10 seconds.

My goodness, we may as well just surrender now.

What’s sad, though, is that the each of the above absurdities has an analogue in the current penitential practices of the church.  Here we are, the Army of God, the Church militant, and we’ve grown flabby and weak, and we’re getting worse by the year.

I shudder to think of what will be considered penitential practices by the time the next generation gets to be adults, given how much has changed in just the last few years.  Consider:

• Fridays.  Used to be mandatory days of abstinence from meat as a sign of mortification.  Now, the USCCB recommends some sort of voluntary penance on Fridays.  Right, and the various medical associations recommend that I eat five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables and get 30 minutes of exercise every day. 
• Lent.  Again, all voluntary now, except for no meat on Fridays (unless dispensed because it’s St. Patrick’s day and you want your corned beef) and “fasting” on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Oh, and “fasting” is essentially defined as “no snacks.”
• Ember Days.  Gone.
• Holy Days of Obligation.  Many are now transferred to Sunday (Epiphany, Corpus Christi, and Ascension Thursday in some areas) to minimize the inconvenience to the faithful, leaving us with six left: Christmas; Mary, Mother of God (1/1); Ascension Thursday (where not moved to Sunday); the Assumption (8/15); All Saints (11/1); and the Immaculate Conception (12/8).  Three of the six are waived as days of obligation if they fall on Saturdays or Mondays — you’re pretty much guaranteed that at least one of these will fall one one of those days.
• Penance after Confession:  I went the other day and was given ONE Hail Mary.  One. Okay so I wasn’t confessing grave evils, but come on, a single Ave Maria is hardly penance.

There isn’t much left to throw out, but I wonder what we’ll be left with by the time I’m old and gray.

I think I’ll make this a multi-part post.  Coming up:  speculation on how bad it could get, hopefully with my usual attempts at humor thrown in, and then some more musings on where to go from here.

Caution:  adult themes discussed ahead.

I was reading one of those “where do the politicians stand” fact sheets that seem to proliferate (hmm, pro-life, proliferate…) this time of year.  It struck me that many candiates who respond with a pro-life view respond that they oppose abortion except for rape, incest, or to protect the health of the mother.  And that got me wondering about those exceptions, and what kind of moral grounds one could have for them.

In the case of “health of the mother,” I think of the three it’s the easiest to argue for.  You can argue based on the principle of double effect that the abortion is an unintended side effect, and I believe that’s been done several times already.  I suppose this exception needs to be extremely clear that “health” refers to the imminent death of both mother and unborn child to be morally justifiable, as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.  But would “health” include dubious mental health claims — if I have a(nother) child I think I’ll go nuts — or even physical health claims — I might gain weight and have higher risk of a heart attack and diabetes?  At any rate, well-defined, I guess this one can pass.

The rape exception is shakier I think.  But if I recall a discussion from Bible Study correctly years go, some have made arguments that immediately after a rape one could engage in certain, uhh, cleansing procedures to flush out the bodily fluids illegally deposited by the rapist.  The basis for this is to prevent transmission of various diseases that could result from such activity.  I would assume, then, that certain measures immediately following a rape may be morally permissible, again based on the principle of double effect.  But I can’t see why five or six months after the attack there would be moral grounds to abort the unborn child.  But I freely admit I’m not nearly as educated in moral theology here as I should be, so I could be wrong about the finer nuances of this.

Where I have a hard time altogether is the case of incest.  I don’t understand why that should be a permissible exception to an overall ban on abortion.  I understand there are genetic risks associated with not having enough branches on the family tree, but as I see it, the act(s) was/were consentual or not.  If it was not consentual, then you qualify for the rape exception, and can argue from there.  But if it WAS consentual, then I don’t get how it can be justifiable to abort the pregnancy.  Yes, there is a risk of genetic problems, and there may very well be a psychological/social stigma that the family has to deal with, but I don’t see that outweighing the right the child has to life.  I think somone once mentioned that “incest” is narrowly construed to mean cases involving minor children.  But minors are incapable of giving consent, so you’re back to the rape case.  So I’m really at a loss here, because I don’t see how just because Uncle Ralph is also going to be Grandpa Ralph you have grounds to abort the unborn child.

Granted, we’re nowhere near having to worry about these semantics, given that we seem to have either “pro abortion” or “against abortion but” as our choices in most elections.  But wouldn’t it be nice if we got to the point where the choice was between two candidates who support a ban on abortion with varying exceptions, rather than a choice simply between someone in favor of or someone against, to whatever degree?

…a normal trading day on the Dow Jones Industrial Average was movement in the ±100 points range, and movement of 200+ points in either direction was noteworthy, and 300+ points was a rarity?

Hard to believe that was only like two or three weeks ago….

Last night was the “living rosary” at church, and since it’s always held on a Wednesday, we had to take the PREP kids.  Which is good, because otherwise the church would have been pretty empty. 

Because it seems EVERYTHING that happens in a church these days has to end with a closing song — there can never be just “go in peace” or a quiet recessional or even “th-th-th-th-that’s all folks” — we sang “Hail Mary Gentle Woman” as the closer.  Not the worst song out there by any stretch, and we did have Hail Holy Queen and Immaculate Mary in the lineup, so whatever.

BUT, what is with the second verse?  Blessed AAAAARRRREEEE YOUUUUUU among women, Blestinturnnnnnnn, all women toooooooooooooooo?  How does the second follow from the first?  I don’t see the connection.

The angel Gabriel calls the BVM ”full of grace.”  St. Elizabeth says “blessed are you among women.”  In the Magnificat, Mary says “behold, all generations will call me blessed.”  So yes, Mary is Blessed among women.  Fine.  Now, from that, how is it that ALL women are blessed?  How does all women are blessed follow from the fact that Mary is Blessed among women?  I don’t get the connection.

Remember this post when I said the following:

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….  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.

Well, last week, I was reflecting on this, and realized that we hadn’t heard a particularly annoying setting of the Ordinary.  I think it’s the “Mass of Glory.”  It’s a strange setting, kind of gospel-y in a way, but what I really don’t like is how the emphasis really is on the accompaniment (which works best on piano, NOT organ).  In other words, the focus isn’t on what’s being sung/prayed, but rather the musicianship behind it.  Unfortunately, it’s almost a rather catchy tune, and I guess a lot of people like it.  Anyway, I realized it’d been over a year since I’d heard it, and I was quite happy with the Mass of Creation and the Heritage Mass settings that we’d been alternating between, and would not have objected if this setting got thrown into the dustbin for good.

Sure enough, this Sunday, we got to the Sanctus and I hear the opening bars of the Mass of Glory Setting.  AAArrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!! 

Okay, so you know what I REALLY don’t like?  The setting of the Ordinary in Latin!  That’s right, that basic chant tone is just awful, and I hope to never hear it again.  Oh, and I really don’t like the Tantum Ergo; what an awful hymn.  And while we’re at it, if I never hear Holy God, We Praise Thy Name again, it’ll be too soon.   

Someone help me come up with some off-the-wall liturgical dances to go along with these treasures, okay?

Bishop Martino of Scranton has written a pastoral letter for Respect Life Sunday.  It is, in my opinion, quite good.  Please read it.  In addition:

At the direction of the Most Reverend Bishop, this letter is to be read by the celebrant at all Masses of Obligation on Respect Life Weekend, Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5, at the time of and instead of the homily.  Moreover, a copy of the letter should be circulated with all parish bulletins on this same weekend.

I’m not sure about the propriety of swapping out the homily for a letter from the Bishop.  But I am, in this instance, willing to suspend my normal perfectly proper liturgy, pig-headed Steve obsessions in this instance.  So, even though it may not be liturgically proper, I’m not averse to this.

Once you’ve regained your breath, climbed back onto your chairs, and/or picked your jaws up off the floor, keep on reading “below the fold.” (more…)