Thursday random

I am currently struggling with a post on Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and Stella Maris. I’ve read them both, have heavily tagged books in front of me and therefore should be ready to go. But, as I told someone earlier this week, these are books that I can either write 3000 words on…or two paragraphs. Either could do justice, but nothing in between could, it seems. And I really don’t want to write 3000 words. On this, at least.

So, so random while I puzzle that out and write other things as well:

• This is beautiful, beautiful: Sisters train lay Catholics for ministry to LA’s sick and dying:

Thanks to multiple surgeries, Diaz is now tumor-free and making good on his promise to St. Maria Soledad and the religious order she founded, the Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick. 

Two years ago, he asked the LA convent if it was willing to create a companion lay fraternity. Mother Provincial Alicia Hermosillo agreed, with one caveat: that Diaz help with the recruiting effort. 

That led to the establishment of the Fraternity of Lay Sons and Daughters of St. Maria Soledad last October, making it only the third such chapter in the United States. After a yearlong formation process, members, just like the sisters, will visit the sick in their homes to provide care and comfort.

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• I just discovered the work and webpage of Sharon Kabel – librarian, researcher, editor – who does some very interesting projects. She’s currently working on an open source project cataloging the periti of Vatican II.

Some wrote hundreds of volumes; some wrote nothing. Some faced criminal charges, some are on the path to sainthood, some left the Church. One became pope!

Despite being the most important religious event of the last century, the Council remains curiously under-documented in certain aspects. To date, there is no open access list of all known periti.

This project fills that gap, and hopes to shed light on a group of men whose influence can still be felt, inside and outside of the Catholic Church.

• Following her on Twitter led me to the Twitter feed of the Hand Missal History Project and its website, which has a lot of great posts.

Forgotten English rituals –

This series (link is to the first part) on the history of and controversies about the use of microphones in Catholic liturgy. It seems minor, but when Marshall McLuhan questions their role and impact, maybe it’s worth thinking about.

• Maybe the book doesn’t need to be “disrupted:” – Some thoughts on the techno book revolution that never seems to come

• Absolutely

I wrote a whole book about it, and, still, my mind reels when I think about the extent to which AP is a scam.

— Annie Abrams (@anndaraabrams) January 24, 2023