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A lot going on around here this week – both in life and in this space.
Life: Some changes. Let’s just say that Covid did a number on everyone, including college students – especially freshman who found themselves tossed back home just when they were getting rolling and connected. So here we are, and it’s fine. Probably more than fine.
This space: Attention to some posts I’ve written about the TLM, etc. More coming later.
We’re now in a bit of an in-between time. We’ve started English Literature, music is continuing, as it always does, AP Statistics is happening once a week in a tutoring situation, but the other classes don’t start until early September.
What shall we do?
I really don’t want to fly anywhere. For sure, I don’t want to fly out of the country because of the negative COVID test requirement to return. You never know what will happen and I don’t want to be caught in quarantine in Costa Rica or Mexico or something. Or anywhere.
And flying within the country would require, upon arrival, renting a car, which is a crazy expensive proposition these days except in a few areas.
So we’ll drive somewhere.
Next week, probably. Not sure where, but somewhere.
The following week’s destination is set and reserved, but I’m itching to get out now…..so where shall we go?
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The rest of these takes will be consumed with movies. For over the past few days, we watched a few of them, since College Guy would be leaving us. I took it upon myself to mandate films. Not anything particularly spectacular, but simply films that I thought all three of us would enjoy – even on rewatching – and might not watch on our own.
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The Freshman– a logical choice considering we had just (re) watched Apocalypse Now a short time ago, and they’re very familiar with the Godfather franchise.
As I said about Blast From the Past, there’s always uncertainty whether any film will hold up, especially comedies. Well, this one did. I could pick out elements that could have been improved, but it is what it is – or was, and considering it didn’t ask too much of my time, I’ll allow it. Amusing, gently satirical, people willing to mock themselves and their personas, plus giant lizards. People tend to focus on Brando in this film, but I was far more entertained by Maximilian Schell as the crazed maybe-exotic-game-chef Larry London.
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North by Northwest – seen by everyone before, but really (if they’re honest) not very well recalled by the two younger of the viewing audience.
What can we say?
A gem with delightfully sly sexual innuendo pretty much throughout. and a killer mid century mod house on top of Mount Rushmore, which of course is impossible.
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Midnight in Paris – watch at the behest of one of our crew who was convinced I would like it, despite my well-known Woody Allen boycott. “Just pretend someone else directed it,” he said. And given this past year’s deep dive into American literature, with its emphasis on Hemingway and Fitzgerald – well, he was right. I did enjoy it, even if the characterizations of the artists flitting about were a bit formulaic.
“It’s about living in the present,” he said, “Just like you always tell us.”
Well, yes, I do.
Well, yes we should.
Living in the present – and in dialogue with the past…..
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The Lilies of the Field . This was last night, our final night all together here. Not only is it a good movie – based on a fine little novella – but their big sister played in a high school production of it our first year here way back in 2008, starring as the Mother Superior – along with Nick Borroughs as Homer – who’s now on Broadway!
So that was entertaining for them to think about.
(And she’s a public defense lawyer in the juvenile system….folks…you just never know what those kids on stage will end up doing, do you???)
Anyway – if you haven’t seen The Lilies of the Field – go find it and watch it, and share it with your children. It’s a lovely, simple film about human beings working out what it means to be faithful, and discovering how much trust in God means trusting in each other.
And it’s one more little, tiny snapshot of pre-Vatican II Catholic life – the nuns being the least of it. Most interesting is the situation of the townspeople, who have no “shappel…” but most go to Sunday Mass celebrated off the back of a truckbed by a priest who wears sunglasses in the New Mexico sun and grabs a cigarette in his trailer afterwards.
Love . It. See. It.
Another lily – a Lily of the Mohawk:
Just outside of town, though, a shrine is blooming in the desert. The St. Kateri Rosary Walk, about a 10-minute drive from the center of Gallup, is to be a testament to the faith of native peoples in a city known as the “Indian Capital of the World.”
Ground was first broken on the shrine in August 2019, and steady progress on construction has continued since, largely in the summertime.
The hope is “to help create a spiritual centerplace for our native brothers,” said Patrick Mason, a member of the Osage Nation and Supreme Secretary for the Knights of Columbus. From Gallup originally, Mason has been involved with design and fundraising efforts for the shrine. ….
“This was (Our Lady of Guadalupe’s) territory before it was actually acquired by the United States,” said McCarthy. “She’s the greatest missionary in the history of the Church,” he added, referencing the conversion en masse of millions of Native American peoples following the 1531 apparitions to St. Juan Diego. ….
There are also plans to retrieve a boulder from Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City, the site of the Guadalupe apparitions, and walk it up from Mexico City across the border and to Gallup, to be placed in the middle of the plaza at the shrine.
“A touchstone to the actual spot, we’re hopeful,” said McCarthy.
Most of the construction on the shrine happens in the summer, when groups of college-aged young men work through the diocese and Southwest Indian Foundation in the Catholic Pueblo Revival Internship. The men follow a daily schedule of prayer, work, and recreation, and receive academic credit and a stipend in exchange for their service to the shrine.
“Knowing that the building methods are completely traditional and they’ll last for forever” is a highlight of the work, said one intern, Joe Meyers.
The day for the interns begins with a rosary at 6:45 a.m. Their work day is from 7:30 to 3:30, weather permitting, and meals are taken together in the retreat dining hall. The day closes with Night Prayer at 9 p.m., and there’s an option in the evening for daily Mass in town most days.
The men also take a class on Christian virtue, with credit available through Thomas More College.
The program “is quiet, and contemplative,” said participant James Lafave. “We do Night Prayer every night at 9, and that for me has been probably the highlight of every day, just reflecting on the day, and looking back on things that you’ve been thankful for, and sitting in the silence.”
Living at a retreat center, working and praying and eating together – the life of the men working on the shrine resembles a kind of pseudo-monasticism, reflected Bishop Wall at the July 14 Mass.
Charlotte was Both 