As I said before, saints’ days, most holy days and special topics (movies, books, gender, TC, synod) are and will be collected elsewhere. These posts are taking it month-by-month. More links at the end of the post.
Catholic life and tradition has a lot to say and do when it comes to parenthood – in ways, if you think about it, that aren’t sentimental and take into account the limitations of human parenthood and root us, no matter how messed-up our families are or how distant we feel from contemporary ideals of motherhood – in the parenthood of God. Live in that hope, share it, and be formed by that, not by commercially-driven American pop culture.
A Catholic Laywoman’s Viewpoint (5/11)
When looking for a printable version of [Hemingway’s “The Killers] , I came upon a “reprinting” of the original Scribner’s publication, so I happily printed it out – all the better because it had illustrations.
What I hadn’t noticed until yesterday, when we talked about the story, was the piece that directly followed it. It’s an essay by one Grace Hausmann Sherwood called “A Catholic Laywoman’s View-Point.”
Sherwood, from my brief research, wrote a couple of books – one a volume of poetry, and the other, a history of a religious order.
I’m going to type out the introduction and then just toss up images of the rest of the piece here. It’s a bit scattered – it seems in part to be a general apologetic for the seemingly counter-cultural aspects of Catholicism as well as an explanation for the role of women in Catholicism. I think anyone who’s interested in Catholicism, religious history, social history and women in religion will find it useful.
It’s also a helpful antidote to the caricature of pre-Vatican II Catholicism as a closed, inner-looking system, Sherwood frequently points to analogies and subversive justification for Catholic practices and beliefs in other faiths and in the secular world, and has no problem in saying, for example, that a Catholic woman is bound by beliefs that seem strange and unnecessary to other women, “as good and often much better Christians than herself..”
And of course, most interesting – and depressing for the current moment – of all is that there was actually a time in which it was perfectly normal for a major, national, popular magazine’s pages to lead directly from stories by Ernest Hemingway to an essay by a religiously observant woman explaining her faith.
The Altar of the Algorithm (5/20)
…the most counter-cultural, pastoral thing we can do for our kids is to fight this, and to tell them again and again that this is not real life or connection and their worth is absolutely unrelated to their social media impact, even within their own circle of friends.
And that it’s largely a waste of time – sorry, it is – and a net loss for actual human flourishing and connection. I’m convinced of this, no apologies.
And to fight it, not just through our words, but through our actions as well, as purported evangelizers and ministers and such – every chunk of time you encourage your followers to spend listening to you online is a chunk of time that’s those followers are not engaging with the real people around them.
Pasting Labels and Folding Mantles (5/25)
The other day, my organist son substituted at the local Maronite Catholic parish. It was Pentecost, and the young priest preached an excellent homily.
The content that’s produced by …producers on media platforms that seeks your attention and time, that draws you in, that creates a narrative designed to hook you in, drama to get invested in – whether it’s my weight loss journey or watching my kids grow or following my pregnancy or joining us on our RV trip or home reno project. Not to speak of getting you involved in endless, fruitless arguments that change no one’s mind, ever.
All of that can be encouraging and even educational. But it can also be a massive time-suck from which you emerge, dazed, and perhaps saying to yourself – did I really need to spend all that time watching random people I don’t know and will never meet talk to me about their morning routine or show me what they wore last Sunday or gripe/brag about their kids?
Charlotte was Both 