Jonah's Idioms

I generally enjoy the writing of Jonah Goldberg of National Review and the American Enterprise Institute. He usually manages to mix irreverence with clear thinking in a humorous way that incorporates lots of elements of popular culture. He is also capable, when he wants to, of writing very seriously. I’m just now finally getting around to finishing his great book, Liberal Fascism.

A few years ago, Jonah wrote a column, The Tyranny of the Clichés, in which he argued that many members of the commentariat over-use the cliché. It has, he wrote, become a substitute for argument, and those who resort to them are taking a dangerous short-cut. I’m paraphrasing here, and it’s always possible that I’ve misunderstood what he was actually saying. We shouldn’t always assume that a cliché is true.

If clichés are subject to abuse, then surely metaphors and idioms are as well.

I’ve noticed that certain idioms seem to be getting used with increasing frequency by Mr. Goldberg. This was acceptable when the recurring term was “feckless crapweasel,” a phrase that was practically synonymous with those upon whom Jonah was heaping his duly-earned scorn. But he’s sprinkling other phrases into his columns that, frankly, are distracting me from whatever point it is that he’s trying to make. If another commentating is making an argument (or an assertion without an argument) based on faulty logic, it’s “nonsense on stilts.” If people are getting excited over what Jonah considers to be a minor matter, they’re “getting their dresses over their heads” over something that’s “not worth going to the mattresses” over. On the other hand, if Jonah thinks it is important, he’ll fight “hammer and tongs.”

I don’t mind idioms or memes. I use them myself, because they often evoke a complicated idea in a few brief words. But they only work for a targeted audience which is able to recognize and follow the reference. Since I write for myself, I don’t have to worry about whether anybody else can understand what I’m saying. As long as I understand it, my target audience is satisfied. Jonah’s audience, on the other hand, is huge, and just because he might know what he’s saying doesn’t mean that his audience does. And that’s just annoying.

The Zombie Within

Way back in my formative days, a zombie was a 2 HD undead creature easily turned by a mid-level cleric. If you understand that sentence AND you read my blog, then either you weren’t as damaged by the experiences of your formative years as many people warned or you picked up a helm of opposite alignment somewhere along the way. Since those years, zombies have arguably seen even more success in the popular culture than even vampires (which were also undead, but much harder to turn). All those other undead (skeletons, ghouls, ghasts, ghosts, specters, wraiths, and especially liches) must be terribly envious (at least the ones that can think).

Zombies have become so popular in film that they now have their own genre. The slow-moving, dim-witted animated corpses with a hunger for brains weren’t menacing enough, so Hollywood turned them into viral monsters, sometimes with the ability to jump and climb walls (I’m thinking here of Resident Evil and I Am Legend zombies). What is common to zombie movies is the massed horde nature of the zombie attack. No matter how many you drop, they just keep coming, threatening to overrun the entire planet and wipe out the human race. Discussions abound (seriously!) on how to survive the zombie apocalypse and defeat the zombie horde.

I am a zombie…

Whoa! Put down the shotgun! I’m only speaking metaphorically. Sort of.

St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father , we too may live a new life.” You know what I’m talking about: it’s the whole death to self and life in Christ thing. The zombie part comes in when my self won’t stay dead. Just like the worst of the horror movie villains (Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers – take your pick) I just won’t stay dead.

Every time I think I’ve finally put a stake through the heart of my selfish desires (I know, the stake through the heart isn’t zombies, it’s vampires) and can live happily every after as a good Christian, the beast that is me comes roaring back to life. I have discovered that the second rule of zombie combat is iterative. For the uninitiated, the second rule is double tap: if you shoot the monster, and it falls apparently dead at your feet, you don’t go over and poke it with your toe, and you definitely don’t drop the gun to embrace the helpless woman you’ve been protecting – you put another slug in it. The iterative part is that you can never stop putting slugs into it. If you understood the 2 HD zombie that I started the post with, then you’ll also understand that this is like the classic troll – it regenerates.

So maybe I’m really a troll.

Wait just a second, though. I said that the common element in the zombie movie genre was the massed attack by a horde. I’m not going to suggest anything like multiple personalities, but certainly there is a figurative horde of vices, sins, and imperfections that have to be dispatched one at a time, and sometimes it seems like there’s some double-teaming going on. You drop the zombie to your right, forget to double tap before turning to engage the zombie on your left, and before you know it, the zombie you thought was slain is on your back, trying to gnaw through your skull to the tasty brains within.

Oh, how I wish that it didn’t have to be this way. I wish that I could just nuke it from orbit (to switch metaphors yet again) and just incinerate the whole horde. I wish I could just set the fundamental option switch to “Christ” and live happily ever after rather than having to continually modulate frequencies ala Geordi La Forge. I don’t know whether everybody’s an undead troll at heart, or just me.

What I do know is that, although I might be splattered with zombie juice and occasionally lose my footing, I haven’t forgotten that I’m still human, and that my humanity has been redeemed by a perfect atoning sacrifice. A sacramental armory assures that I won’t run out of ammo, so that battle will continue as long as I have the will to fight.

Bring on the zombies!

Don't Do That!

Over at the First Thoughts blog, Joe Carter posted on Friday an admittedly subjective list of things a man should never do. I am guilty of some of them.

I admit that I enjoy playing video games. After a long day in the cubicle, it can be remarkably soothing to sit down to a good first-person shooter. It is necessary, however, to set time limits, because the temptation is always there to play just a little longer in order to complete the next objective. The real fun, as noted by one of Joe’s commenters, comes from playing with my kids. Split-screen co-operative or head-to-head play is a blast. I find these interactions to be much more enjoyable than board games.

I am also guilty of cutting my own hair, although I am at a complete loss as to why that’s on the list. I cut my own hair because (a) it saves money, and (b) nobody else does it right. This just might be the one thing that I can do for myself with more satisfaction in the result that if I had paid someone else to do it. Where is the shame in that?

As for the first item: I reluctantly agree. Ultimately, it’s hard to come up with any good that can come from it. It ranks right up there with watching television – including sports broadcasts.

Wearing the Collar

The Catholic Education Resource Center has posted an article that originally appeared in the June 1995 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review concerning the wearing (or not wearing, as the case may be) of clerical clothing by priests. After quoting the relevant sections of the 1994 Directory for the Ministry and Life of Priests, the authors (a monsignor and a priest) give 23 reasons why a priest should wear his collar. They then provide and rebut 14 common arguments against wearing the collar.

To priests who always wear the Roman collar we say: keep it up! To those who do not we say: take stock of the value which this seemingly insignificant piece of vesture possesses. Be aware that the priestly work you now do will not suffer but will be enhanced when you dress according to the venerable custom of the Church.

(H/T: Rich Leonardi)

Corapi in Cincy

A few people have asked me what I thought of Fr. John Corapi’s event in Cincinnati on Saturday. I don’t doubt that they expect me to say that it was great. The fact is, though, that I was disappointed. I fear that the man has become a rock star, throwing red meat to receptive audiences for the price of admission. From the moment he walked out on stage with a beard that was much too dark, I couldn’t help but think that something just wasn’t right. We were seated close enough to the stage that we didn’t need to rely on the jumbo-tron video displays, but his bald head and his black goatee kept making me think of his resemblance to Vladimir Lenin.

Fr. Corapi has evolved. In the older programs shown on EWTN, he is often seen wearing a gray habit, and as he speaks, you can see a twinkle in his eye. There was no twinkle in the eye of the hard man that spoke at the Cintas Center on Saturday. The gray habit was long ago replaced by a pressed black suit and French cuffs.

During the course of the day, we learned that Fr. Corapi owns a home in northwest Montana which he paid for with a million-dollar lawsuit settlement. He drives a fast car with lots of horsepower and keeps a loaded .45 in the glove compartment. He also rides a fat boy Harley Davidson motorcycle, owns a boat of unspecified size, and vacations in Key West. He works out six times a week, twice with a female physical trainer, and has lost seventy pounds and increased his strength by a hundred percent in the past year. The weight loss prompted him, at his charitable best, to donate two large bags of “fat clothes” to the local Salvation Army. I can only assume that the donated clothes did not consist of old habits and clericals. I don’t know why he chose to share these personal bits of information, but they did nothing to enhance his credibility as a witness to the gospel.

The four talks that he gave during the course of the day (which will probably be available for purchase at the discount rate of $99 from his website in a week or two) were based on the social teaching of the Catholic Church. He did touch on most of the principles of that teaching. Much of what he said, however, amounted to prudential judgments, and, while I agree with most of those judgments, he presented them as being what the Church teaches. It would have been great material at a TEA party event, but this was hardly billed as a political rally.

The crowd was enthusiastic, leaping to it’s feet whenever Corapi took the stage and cheering whenever he spoke of the disincentives of socialism and when he referred to the government in Washington as “the big drug dealer.” He seems to be fond of St. Paul’s exhortation in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Completely unmentioned was the practice of the early Christians, as related in Acts 2:44-45, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.”

At one point, he recounted a meeting with Mother Teresa of Calcutta shortly before she died. She described to him all of her poverty, frailty, and dependence upon others. Then she described how God had established her order in over 500 houses and, through them, touched the lives of tens of thousands of dying and forgotten people in Calcutta alone. “Go”, she said, “and do the same!” Fr. Corapi seems to believe that he’s doing that through his preaching and his production company, but I can’t help but think that maybe he missed the point.

Unaffiliation

Patrick Madrid doesn’t seem to be holding anything back in expressing his disgust with the duplicitous life of Fr. Maciel, the posthumously disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi. I can remember attending a Regnum Christi retreat or conference around the year 2000 when Mr. Madrid was in attendance. Having recently published his second or third Surprised by Truth volume and having appeared on EWTN, he was a bit of a celebrity. The Legionary priest who was going to give him spiritual direction joked that Patrick was going to convert him and put his story in the next book. I relate this anecdote only to point out that Patrick hasn’t always been a critic of the Maciel legacy. Like many of us, he was, at least for a while, fooled by appearances.

The veil was torn, however, and now the whole Maciel affair constitutes a festering wound on the Body of Christ.

Accusations of misconduct by Maciel had been present for many years, but could not be proven. In the absence of indisputable evidence and in light of the apparent good fruits produced by the order and the movement that Maciel had founded, the accusations against him were dismissed as calumnies – baseless charges leveled by enemies of the gospel. The problem is, at least some of the allegations now appear to have been true, and it was the defenders of Maciel who were calumniating his accusers.

A year after Maciel’s death in 2008, it was revealed that he had lived a double life and had fathered at least one child. All those who had previously been encouraged to look to him as an example of holiness and tireless devotion to Christ were thrown into a state of spiritual turmoil and forced to re-evaluate everything that they thought they knew about their service to the Church through the Legion or Regnum Christi and everything upon which Maciel had left his mark. Some within the movement insisted that the approval of the order’s constitution by the Holy See was imbued with a degree of infallibility and that, as flawed a man as Maciel was, the Holy Spirit could still work through him to produce a great gift for the Church. Last year, the Vatican conducted an Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries of Christ. A statement released by the Vatican at the conclusion of the Visitation noted that Maciel’s was “a life devoid of scruple and of genuine religious sentiment.”

I’ll leave it to others far more clear-thinking than I am to discuss what the future might hold for the Legionaries and Regnum Christi. George Weigel seems, to me, to be among the most lucid commentators on that front. However, over the last few weeks it became increasingly obvious to me that I needed to decide what, if anything, I would do. I found that I could not read the phrases “Maciel” or “Legionaries of Christ” or “Regnum Christi” without flinching.

The gospel reading from a few weeks ago was Matthew 7:15-20. When I read it, I was stunned into reflection upon the current mess. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Is this not an apt description of Maciel? “By their fruit you will recognize them.” When rotten fruit was presented to us, we denied it. We denied that it was rotten, or claimed that it came from some other tree. Then we pointed to the fruit that was still on the tree and claimed that it was beautiful and good to eat. Such good fruit couldn’t possibly come from a bad tree, could it? But Our Lord continues, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”

So there you have it. If I were speaking to any other person, I would advise him to steer clear of any fruit from a bad tree. It isn’t necessary. There are plenty of good trees to pick from, so why take a chance? Are you going to trust yourself to discern the goodness of the fruit when you and so many others were wrong about the tree?

So what stopped me? It can only be the thing that brought me into the Regnum Christi movement to begin with – the individual persons with whom I share a common theological perspective and a desire to see an authentic gospel proclaimed. They are my friends, and I want them to remain so. I very much enjoy our discussions, and I feared that if I were to leave the movement I would find myself – alone. (Except for my dear wife, of course, who is shackled to me for better or worse.) I already feel like an alien in my parish, and if I had to give this up, I would be completely on my own, or so it seemed.

What attracted me to the movement is not unique to the movement, but was largely borrowed from other sources and packaged together as a collection of best-practices. There is no other group in our area, as far as I am aware, that offers the kind of interaction that occurs at our Encounters (in which we reflect upon the Gospel and discuss a case of life) and Study Circles (currently Jesus of Nazareth, by Pope Benedict XVI) or the spiritual depth of the retreats (other retreats that I’ve attended have been distressingly shallow). However, I could not ignore the counsel of Christ. Whatever apostolic zeal I once had has already been greatly eroded by the scandal, and I didn’t see how it could return if I remained within a movement founded under such circumstances. There will forever be a cloud of uncertainty and doubt over the order and movement, thanks to the actions of the one who was called Nuestro Padre.

And so, what began with a letter requesting incorporation into the Regnum Christi Movement ends with a blog post announcing that I cannot, in good conscience, remain a member. I harbor no ill will toward other members, whom I still consider friends. Nor do I think any less of them for coming to a different conclusion than I regarding their own future in the Movement. Many of them have experienced the Movement as a vocation. I never have. I hope that they can understand and respect my decision.

Slinging Mud

My wife and I are going down to Cincinnati tomorrow for a conference being given by Fr. John Corapi, and somebody responsible for pulling off the even (the promoter?) is slinging mud. Is it too much to ask for a little class, charity, and authenticity from those claiming to be Catholic paragons?

Note that I am disappointed that it is virtually impossible to get material featuring Fr. Corapi without paying for it. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been spoiled by Catholic media outlets on the web that do not charge for their content, or at least offer some content free of charge (Mt 10:8).

The Rocks at the End of the Lake

Joseph Bottum, in Drifting Toward the Rocks, finds an interesting metaphor for life, and a lesson regarding complacence, in a trip to the lake with his daughter.

Then the man on the inner tube awoke with a shout as the rocks brushed his feet—sitting up suddenly, too hard and too fast, so the inner tube squirted out to flip up in the air behind him and dump him with a splash into the shallow water. I think it must have been painful—those broken stones down at the end of the lake are sharp—and he yowled, scrambling along on hands and knees after the inner tube, trying to stand up and stumbling each time as the rocks sliced at his tender feet, before he finally caught up with the spinning tube and surged across it, belly first, puffing like a loud and startled walrus.

Read the whole thing.

Allegorical Samaritans

The gospel for this Sunday (15th Sunday of Ordinary Time) was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. By happy coincidence, I just happened to be re-reading Chapter Seven: The Message of the Parables from Pope Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth. The Holy Father argues that we can't rule out reading the parables in an allegorical sense and we can't limit the meaning of the parable to just one salient point. He then goes on to give a more in-depth consideration to three parables, one of which is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In an allegorical sense and Christological focus, the wounded man is humanity, and the Samaritan is Christ.

God himself, who for us is foreign and distant, has set out to take care of his wounded creature. God, though so remote from us, has made himself our neighbor in Jesus Christ. He pours oil and wine into our wounds, a gesture seen as an image of the healing gift of the sacraments, and he brings us to the inn, the Church, in which he arranges our care and also pays a deposit for the cost of that care.

It just so happened as well that our celebrant at mass today was a visiting Comboni missionary who spoke about the missions in Africa. Africa was also a subject of reflection in Benedict's comments on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The topical relevance of the parable is evident. When we transpose it into the dimensions of world society, we see how the peoples of Africa, lying robbed and plundered, matter to us. Then we see how deeply they are our neighbors; that our lifestyle, the history in which we are involved, has plundered them and continues to do so. This is true above all in the sense that we have wounded their souls. Instead of giving them God, the God who has come close to us in Christ, which would have integrated and brought to completion all that is precious and great in their own traditions, we have given them the cynicism of a world without God in which all that counts is power and profit, a world that destroys moral standards so that corruption and unscrupulous will to power are taken for granted. And that applies not only to Africa.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

I stumbled upon this little gem over at the First Thoughts blog, and thought it was amusing enough to share. There is a line that goes "Catholics dress up for mass and listen to Gregorian chants / Atheists just take a pass, watch football in their underpants." Alas, they give us Catholics too much credit. Around here, most Catholics (or at least those in white collar professions) dress less formally for mass than they do Monday through Friday for work, and I think that I would have to drive at least 45 minutes to reach a parish that uses Gregorian chant.

The atheists, though, have rock and roll.



H/T Joseph Bottum

Hosea

The non-Gospel readings from the Lectionary this week have been from the book of the prophet Hosea. Many years ago, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, did a series on the Old Testament Prophets for EWTN, and like so many other EWTN programs, the audio is available in MP3 format. In four of the episodes (Hosea’s Marriage; Hosea Puts Israel on Trial; Sins of the Past, Sins of the Future; and Yaweh’s Tender Love), Fr. Pacwa discusses Hosea – its context, its historical references, and its application to us today.

I encourage you to give it a listen to enhance your appreciation of this week’s readings.

A Blogger's Aphorism

I was listening to a segment of Uncommon Knowledge this morning when I heard something remarkable (and hence, I am going to remark upon it). Guests Mark Steyn and Rob Long were discussing Ronald Reagan with host Peter Robinson. As President, Reagan made substantial hand-written revisions to the speeches that were prepared for him. Before becoming President, Reagan wrote his own speeches, and it is evident in his collection of letters that he devoted considerable thought to developing a coherent philosophical world view.

Rob Long, at one point, utters an aphorism: "How do I know what I think until I see what I write?" This aphorism, more than anything, sums up very handily why I bother with this blog.

An Island of Western Civilization

It’s always nice to see one of your own views expressed by somebody that lots of other people actually pay attention to. I have, in the past, expressed (even if only to my dear wife) some of the rough similarities between the modern state of Israel and the Crusader Kingdoms of the 12th and 13th centuries. Israel is, as the Crusader Kingdoms were, a relatively small island of western civilization surrounded by a sea of Middle Eastern Islam. The Crusader Kingdoms lasted a few generations before falling to the armies of Saladin. The state of Israel hasn’t been around that long yet.

Ross Douthat pointed to some of those same similarities recently in a column (“Israel and Outremer”) for the New York Times, although he prefers to use the French term Outremer. It was nice to be able to read his words and think to myself, “Yeah, I already though of that.” Now if only I could think of a way to communicate it as clearly as he does. Please note that, by most accounts, the eventual demise of the Crusader Kingdoms was not entirely unprovoked. The only provocation required of Israel, it would seem, is its existence.

Gnip-Gnop Snap

One of my most vivid childhood memories of my father is, sad to say, not a happy one. Nevertheless, I find in it a measure of my dad's love and the pressure that he must have felt in providing for us.

I was the baby of the family, with three older sisters, the closest of whom was nearly six years older than I was (and am - she will always be nearly six years older than I). For Christmas one year when I was a child somewhere under ten (I might have been five, or I might have been eight - the memory's not clear on the age), we received a Gnip-Gnop game. Gnip-Gnop is, of course, ping-pong spelled backwards. The game was basically a plastic box with a transparent top. A divider with three holes separated the box into two sides, each of which had three paddles for launching the ping-pong balls within the box toward the divider. The point of the game was, I think, to get all of the balls onto the other player's side of the box. As you can probably predict, the game pretty much amounted to two players pounding furiously on their paddles, and it must have made a terrible racket.

My dad, a carpenter by trade, worked hard, especially in the summer. Construction opportunities often dried up in the winter, leaving him under-employed. He would try to make up for it by working longer hours and additional independent jobs during the summer. His only relaxation would come in the evening after dinner, when he could read the newspaper and watch the news or listen to his beloved Reds on the radio.

In the evening of my memory, Dad was trying to relax on the couch. It must have been in the latter half of the 1970s, when the U.S. economy and the whole world seemed to be going to hell. And it must have been shortly after Christmas, when Dad wasn't making much money and he and Mom were pinching every penny to pay their bills and support their family. My sister and I were on the floor, pounding away on the Gnip-Gnop when Dad just snapped. He got up from the couch, walked over to where we were, and kicked the Gnip-Gnop against the wall, leaving me and my sister stunned.

I don't remember what happened next - whether Dad returned to the couch or left the room - but I don't think that any words were spoken.

Why, you might be wondering, would I bring up a memory like this on Fathers Day, and even claim that it is evidence of the depth of a father's love? First, because this is the only memory of this kind that I have. Second, Dad's anger and frustration was directed at the game, not at us kids. Third, the timing and circumstances of the event, in retrospect, make what happened understandable, if not excusable.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they must take up their crosses daily. As I drove to mass with my daughters this morning, I reflected that I good homily point for today would be the way in which fathers are called daily to take up their crosses and deny themselves for the sake of their families. I saw my parents do that, and Jesus never said that the cross would be easy. It's not. As a salaried engineer, I've never faced the kind of shortages that confronted Dad nearly every winter, and yet I still find myself pressured by feelings of inadequacy when the bills come due. I don't do it as well as my own dad did. I've snapped at my kids many times, and I can only hope that those aren't the times that form lasting memories for my children. It is in fatherhood that I've truly come to appreciate my own father.

Happy Fathers Day!

Elisha's Oxen

For some strange reason, I used to hear or read 1 Kings 19:19-21 and picture poor Elisha in a field by himself behind a plow pulled by a team of twelve oxen. Every time I heard the passage, I would think to myself, "That's a lot of oxen to be pulling a plow!" Now it seems clear to me that Elisha was out there with at least eleven other guys, each pushing a plow that was being pulled by a pair of oxen yoked together. Elisha, as the son of the owner of the field, was not only supervising the others, he was working alongside them.



The thought that Elisha would slaughter a whole team of twelve oxen always seemed exorbitant and, yes, a little wasteful, especially with property that probably was not his, but his father's. However, in my new understanding, when he slaughtered his yoke of oxen, it was one twelfth of the total that his father had commited to the working of the field, and the people that ate from the sacrifice were the servants that he was supervising.

Swagger Wagon

Toyota has a creative advertising series for their Siena minivan. I even saw one that featured Victoria Stillwell (the dog trainer) that aired on Animal Planet. I have mixed feelings about the Siena family. The mom and dad seem very obnoxious and self-centered, but I still thought that the video below was hilarious.

With the backing of Toyota, the productin values in this parody video are excellent. I wonder whether there's anything like it for the Chevy Express 3500 (15-passenger) van club.

Swagger Wagon

The Unbearable Cross

Please let me apologize now, for I'm about to get curmudgeonly for the second straight post.

I must have unreasonable expectations because, like Rich Leonardi, I tend to have preconceived notions regarding how priests ought to dress, and I prefer that my priest look like a priest. Unfortunately, I've grown accustomed to picking up our diocesan newspaper to see pictures of priests and religious who are indistinguishable from any common lay person (or even a mild-mannered atheist). A few years ago, I underwent a personality profile for the Archdiocese. I had to drive down to Cincinnati to meet with a Franciscan priest to discuss the results. I went to an office in a commercial park, where I met a man with short cropped hair who was dressing in loafers, khaki pants, and a polo shirt. I never would have guessed he was a priest if I hadn't been told before hand.

Is there a persecution going on, about which I am totally unaware? This isn't Elizabethan England or Soviet Russia. I've never worn a Roman collar - is it really so uncomfortable that men who are eager to take up their cross and earn the privilege to wear it now can't take it off fast enough?

Fr. Charles Conner records many programs on Church history for EWTN. I clearly remember one program on St. Charles Borromeo. When he became a bishop and was placed in his diocese, he found that the formation and conduct of his clergy was badly in need of reform. Among the faults listed was a fondness for secular clothing.

It doesn't seem like that long ago when vocations offices were including the simplicity of the wardrobe among the benefits of choosing the priesthood as a career (maybe that career option focus was part of the problem). As a priest, you'll never have to think about what you're going to wear! Unless, that is, you're off-duty. In that case, you'll need one closet for your clericals and another for your "normal" clothes. Fortunately, you won't have to share your closet with anybody else!

There is a T-Mobile commercial that asks what it's customers want. It shows a priest standing in front of a sausage stand. "Unlimited texting," he says. "Why, you think we don't text? We do." The commercial works because you can see that he's a priest, even though he's not engaged in any kind of priestly duty. Remove the collar, and the scene falls apart.

In the film Saint Ralph, there is a young Salesian priest who, before becoming a priest, was an olympic runner. When Ralph wants to know why he gave up running, he says it is because Salesians don't run - they'd look silly doing it in cassocks. The young man loved running, but he saw his vocation to the priesthood as being far greater in value. (Note: it's been years since I've seen this movie, and it's possible that I'm misremembering the scene.)

As I said, I'm probably being completely unreasonable in suggesting that priests ought to dress in a way that identifies them as priests. But what do the bishops of the United States say?

Complementary Norm: The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in accord with the prescriptions of canon 284, hereby decrees that without prejudice to the provisions of canon 288, clerics are to dress in conformity with their sacred calling.

In liturgical rites, clerics shall wear the vesture prescribed in the proper liturgical books. Outside liturgical functions, a black suit and Roman collar are the usual attire for priests. The use of the cassock is at the discretion of the cleric.

In the case of religious clerics, the determinations of their proper institutes or societies are to be observed with regard to wearing the religious habit.

Canon 288 exempts permanent deacons from the clerical dress requirements of canon 284. The national norm cited above was promulgated on November 1, 1999, with an effective date one month later. The norm was signed by the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as the General Secretary, who at the time was Reverend Monsignor Dennis M. Schnurr. Schnurr is now the Archbishop of Cincinnati. That's him, in the photo below, on the right with Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk.

Corpus Christi 2010

So how was your Corpus Christi celebration? Mine was, sadly, about what I’ve come to expect.

The celebration of Corpus Christi was established by Pope Urban IV via papal bull on September 8, 1264. It was to be celebrated annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The feast was further ratified by Urban’s successor, Pope Clement V and at the General Council of Vienne in 1311. Corpus Christi was explicitly established to extol the love of Our Savior as expressed in the Holy Eucharist. In many places, the celebration was transferred from the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to the second Sunday after Pentecost, and in modern times, the name was changed to The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ to emphasize that both the body and the blood are present in the Eucharist.

Clearly, the emphasis is Eucharistic – the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament and the love with which Our Lord gave us that enduring presence for our food.

Good liturgy not only makes present to us and allows us to participate in the sacred mysteries, it also, through the many signs incorporated into the rite, edifies us. Immersion in good liturgy is a form of catechesis.

I have to preface my statements of disappointment by noting that I attended mass on Saturday evening because I wanted to run in a 10K on Sunday morning. It is possible, though I have my doubts, that the Sunday masses were different.

In lieu of Psalm 110, which is intimately tied to the first reading story of Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine, our “sung Psalm response” was based on Psalm 40 (“Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will”). Not that there’s anything wrong with Psalm 40, but it doesn’t have the same clear connection to the readings.

The wonderful sequence before the Gospel was completely omitted. The missal even allows for a shorter form of the sequence, but even that was apparently too much for our celebrant. I raved about the sequence last year (when I attended at a different parish) and used it as an opportunity for catechizing my own children.

The closest we came to hearing a homiletic word about the Eucharist was a blessing of the (Extraordinary) Ministers of Communion. There was next to no emphasis on the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Rather, the emphasis was placed on our generosity and sharing (yes, there was even a suggestion that the multiplication of the loaves might have been a “miracle” of getting people to share what they had brought, rather than a foreshadowing of the generous outpouring of God’s grace in the Eucharist) and relaxing (because Jesus had the people sit down) with one another.

No processions. No hint of Thomistic theology regarding the Eucharist. Was it valid? Sure. Did it satisfy my Sunday commitment? Of course. Was I edified or inspired? Eh, not so much.

Bartimaeus and Me

Reading the story of Bartimaeus is, for me at least, an occasion for introspection. I am Bartimaeus, but without his depth of faith. Bartimaeus is the blind man that Jesus encounters outside of Jericho. The story is related in the 10th chapter of the gospel of Mark, and was read this past Thursday.

Bartimaeus was sitting and begging when he heard that Jesus was passing by. I might be sitting in my cubicle at work or, worse, sitting at home idling time away in front of the television or playing games on the computer.

Bartimaeus recognized who Jesus was and called out to him. I like to think that I know who Jesus is, ut am I willing to call out to him, or is there an element of the Pelagian heresy in my personality. There is a part of me that thinks I should be able to overcome my faults on my own, as if the grace of God is wasted upon me because I don’t exercise the self-discipline, discernment, and docility to take advantage of it. What keeps one from calling out as Bartimaeus did? Is it some vague desire to appear respectable and self-sufficient? That’s not working out so well for me.

Those accompanying Jesus tried to quite Bartimaeus, but he only called out louder. Bartimaeus did not fear becoming a spectacle, and he persisted in the face of discouragement. Too often, I am turned away by the slightest resistance.

Jesus hears Bartimaeus and has his followers call him. The same people who were telling him to be quiet now tell him to cheer up because he is being called. It’s true, sadly, that members of the Church can be obstacles to reaching Christ, and yet He still chooses to act through them. Jesus could have called to Bartimaeus himself. He did not. As frustrating as our interaction with the Church might sometimes be, it is through His Church that He desires that we be saved.

Bartimaeus is already way ahead of where I would be. Now he jumps up and rushes to Jesus. There is no hesitation and no caution. I, on the other hand, am overly cautious, always wanting to preserve the option to go back, to minimize the risk. Were I in the place of Bartimaeus, I would be debating with myself about whether to call out in the first place, and would only reach a decision after the opportunity had passed and Jesus was out of earshot.

When Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, Bartimaeus asks simply for sight – the healing of his infirmity. If only we all might know what it is that keeps us from the Kingdom, the rush unhesitatingly to Jesus to seek the cure. I think that I have some idea of where my greatest failures of virtue lie, and I think that I’ve asked in prayer to be relieved of these defects. That they remain whispers into my Pelagian heart that the fault lies with me, and therefore it’s up to me to bring about the change. I’m left precariously balanced between despairing of my own weakness and trusting that God’s mercy and grace can overcome it.

“Your faith has healed you,” Jesus tells him. I do believe Lord, increase my faith! I ask not for my own sake, but that your name might be glorified. I ask for the sake of my wife, my children, and all to whom I might be a source of scandal and an obstacle to closer communion with you. Fill me with a healthy hatred for the things that keep me from rushing to you and, like Bartimaeus, following you along the road.

Random Observations

A few random observations:

1. The older I get, the more my knees hurt after I run. At this rate, I'll be crippled by the time I'm 60.

2. Why is it that I'm always at least a day behind in any novena that I attempt?

3. Yahoo recently featured photos of 51 Miss America hopefuls (sorry, can't find a link). All of the pictures were "safe", yet not one gave any hint of clothing. In other words, every one looked like a head shot of a naked woman. Why?

4. There's a lot of Obama fear out there. Otherwise sensible people think that President Obama is going to destroy the United States. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, I take comfort in the man's executive incompetence. Even though his goal might be a post-American world without a super-power, he just doesn't have the organizational skill to make it happen. He will (and is!) certainly make a mess of things, and the clean-up will be long and painful, but it's not the end of the world.

5. The questions that need to be answered regarding the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: What caused the explosion? Was it the same failure that caused the malfunction of the cutoff device, or was it a separate, coincident failure? Was the failure (failures?) a design flaw or operator error? Are other rigs at risk? What could have been done to prevent this, and how do we ensure that it won't happen again? Did anybody act in a criminally negligent manner? And, of course, how do we recover and contain the leak?

6. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is broken. As the club of nuclear-capable countries grows, where, when, and by whom will the first use be seen?