O might the hilarious reign of love begin

Source

As the calendar year draws to a close and Advent begins, it seems a proper moment for stock-taking and pondering. What do all of these disruptions, changes and challenges we seem to be constantly experiencing mean? What is this new world and how do we live in it?

Well, when you take time to sit with the Scriptures of Advent, you might be struck, most of all by the old news, once again, that all this supposedly unprecedented disruption, change and challenge is not new at all.

For most of human history, most people, even the wealthy, have lived on the edge of earthly existence, with very little sense of control. Life was precarious. High maternal mortality, high childhood mortality, high mortality, period. Populations subject to the vagaries of climate and natural disaster, without benefit of satellite or radar to know what’s coming. Famine, floods and pestilence always on the horizon of possibility, which meant, not that you’d have to put off a trip to the store and consider a week or month-long disruption of the supply chain, but that you, your children and maybe your whole village would  starve.  Brutal rulers, punishments and restrictions, pogroms and genocide.

And you don’t even have to reach back to the Middle Ages to find it.

In such a context, it is not difficult to remember that you yourself are not God, or even a god, that you don’t create your own destiny. With that understanding, it’s not so much of a challenge to live in the knowledge that any joy or contentment you can grab from life on earth will not – and cannot – be tied to material prosperity and peak physical health, for neither of those things will probably ever come to you at all.

For most of human history, it hasn’t been the full, satisfied college degree holder looking to scratch a vague itch of existential despair who’s been hearing the Good News. It’s been the peasant nursing constantly aching teeth, squinting to see through weakened eyes, middle-aged at thirty, working hard from dawn to dusk, remember dead children, hearing rumors of war, studying the skies, waiting and praying for rain, subject to the whims of human authorities.

If they could see us, reeling from our present-day troubles, they might well ask us, “Well…what did you expect?”

Source

Consider one of the traditional Advent Scriptures: Isaiah 63-64. It’s an astonishing outcry of a people in exile, a wild mix of all that every person feels in time of loss and crisis: What did we do to do deserve this? Why are we suffering so? Have we done wrong? Are we suffering consequences of that wrong? God is so harsh with us! God seems to be silent, hidden and absent? But….you know what? He’s our Father. We trust him. He’s like a potter, we’re clay. Go ahead, Shape us.

The voices come to us from 2700 years ago – 2700 years – questioning, railing and ultimately trusting – and it’s as if they could be speaking today

Well, they are.

Same human race, same struggle, same veil we yearn to lift, same ache in our hearts for peace, wholeness, life and love.

Same cry for a savior.

---

I’ve attached this poem to another Advent post in the past, but it seemed fitting here. Written at the end of World War II, the poet Anne Ridler says of it:

This poem, ‘Expectans Expectavi’, which is the title of a psalm, “I waited patiently for the Lord”, is about waiting, written at the end of the last war when the whole world, really, seemed to be holding its breath for the return of ordinary life, and all the soldiers from overseas, and I thought of it in the wintertime, at Christmas, with the carols and the children’s faces, recalling the refugees of the time. The poem happened to be chosen to be posted up on the underground, so although I never saw it myself, several of my friends have been surprised by it in the middle of a crowd of people standing up in the tube train.

Expectans Expectavi

The candid freezing season again:
Candle and cracker, needles of fir and frost;
Carols that through the night air pass, piercing
The glassy husk of heart and heaven;
Children’s faces white in the pane, bright in the tree-light.

And the waiting season again,
That begs a crust and suffers joy vicariously:
In bodily starvation now, in the spirit’s exile always.
O might the hilarious reign of love begin, let in
Like carols from the cold
The lost who crowd the pane, numb outcasts into welcome.

Advent is a reset, yes, but if we listen carefully to God’s Word and the lives of others beyond our own bubble of time and space, it can be a reset that anchors us more deeply in communion with the reality of the ebb, flow and crashing and burning of human experience, an experience that our privileged houses of sand manage to hide from us – those houses of sand Jesus warned us about for just that reason: they trick us, the rich man of the Gospel, into thinking we don’t need God…

…that we don’t need a savior.

And so we listen to the Scriptures proclaimed at Mass and in the Church’s prayer, we listen to the saints whose words are given to us during this season, and we’re reminded that none of this is about hoping and dreaming that someday life will get “back to normal” or that this particular type of suffering and difficulty will end and then peace on earth will reign right now, in its fullness.

It’s about acknowledging the mess – the mess that’s now and the mess that came before the present mess – and lifting up that mess to God, trusting that he will take it and somehow make good come out of it, a type of rescue, if you will. It doesn’t diminish a bit of our current suffering. It simply situates it and puts us into communion with others who have suffered – which is everyone.

And then, as the weeks of Advent pass, we listen to the cries and questions asked and answered over centuries past in the context of Word, prayer, song and art – it becomes clearer and clearer: Yesterday and today, the human family speaks from the same broken, suffering heart – and yes, He hears us. And look right here in the mess, just look: here he is.

Others have found him. Keep looking. So can you.

Source

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School Days

• Are you getting ready for school? Catechists, homeschoolers and Catholic school teachers are.  If you are of a mind to, please take a look at all the resources I have available for catechesis and formation.

• Do you work in youth ministry? Please check out my books for teens and young adults here.

• Are you planning adult education? RCIA? Consider these resources.

• If you really want to get strange looks, you could toss this out, something I’d forgotten about – that I have the pdf of De-Coding Da Vinci available for free here. Use as you like. All kidding aside, at the time, I thought that taking apart the hugely popular novel was a useful and engaging way to teach people about the origins of the Scriptural canon and some early Church history. Plus, it took me two weeks to write it, so not a bad use of time. Here you go.
• Are you teaching First Communion children this year? Take a look at Friendship with Jesus and Be Saints. 
• Are you teaching religion to elementary age students? Friendship with Jesus, Be Saints, Bambinelli Sunday, Adventures in Assisi, The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints, The Loyola Kids’ Book of Heroes. 
• Can you help catechists, Catholic schools and parish programs?  Consider gifting your parish, school or favorite catechist with copies of these books.  Click on the covers for more information.

Again – even if catechesis isn’t something you are personally involved in, any catechist, parish school, library or program would welcome a donation as a beginning-of-the-year (no matter when it begins…) gift.

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7 Quick Takes

—1 —

I was in Living Faith yesterday. And here’s a post with photos to illustrate the point of that entry. 

— 2 —

Here’s a forthcoming book that looks great!

The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

In this book, we walk the path of medieval science with a real-life guide, a fourteenth-century monk named John of Westwyk – inventor, astrologer, crusader – who was educated in England’s grandest monastery and exiled to a clifftop priory. Following the traces of his life, we learn to see the natural world through Brother John’s eyes: navigating by the stars, multiplying Roman numerals, curing disease and telling the time with an astrolabe.

We travel the length and breadth of England, from Saint Albans to Tynemouth, and venture far beyond the shores of Britain. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory.

An enthralling story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man and an extraordinary time, The Light Ages conjures up a vivid picture of the medieval world as we have never seen it before

Well, a bit overwrought, but if it enlightens folks, have at it!

Available in the US in November.

— 3 —

Speaking of books, as I mentioned before, I’ve been tracking my book sales since the Covid-soused pre-Easter plunge. (Tracking in the only way I can, through the metric Amazon provides authors, which tracks…something. I really have no idea what. I think it’s more than Amazon sales, but I’m not sure).

The cratering reached its worst point the last week of April, when sales this year were about a tenth of what they were last year. Maybe an eighth. No First Communions, no Confirmations, not much Easter visiting and associated gifting from grannies. This year’s sales lagged behind last’s until the second week of May when the tables began to turn.

All summer, slowly but surely, this year’s sales started to surpass last year’s. By mid-summer this year’s cumulative sales of all my titles (as recorded by this metric) were regularly double or triple what they were last year each week.

It’s interesting to me because it’s my way of tracking parish life – obviously what was happening was that parishes were slowly opening back up and beginning to celebrate these sacramental milestones again. And then, as summer waned, folks started looking for religious education materials and supplements. This week’s big sellers were Prove It God, Prove it Prayer (both with sales about ten times the usual – it seems to me that they were required by some classes or schools) and the book of Heroes (sales 7 x what they were the same week last year) and Sign and Symbols (3 x this week last year).

It’s fascinating because at this rate, my sales during this six month royalty period are probably, after a disastrous start, going to even out and end up being commensurate with last year’s.

As I said, it’s mostly interesting to me as a sort-of concrete way to “measure” Catholic parish and catechetical life in these very weird times.

And guess what – you don’t even have to pay a dime for this title!

Mary Magdalene: Truth, Legends and Lies – normally priced at an exorbitant .99 – is absolutely, positively free through Saturday midnight.

Pretty exciting stuff, all around.

— 4 —

Speaking of Catholic parishes and the pandemic, if you know of a parish that’s truly worked hard to serve the needs of its people and the community during this time – nominate them to be recognized for this! Here’s an article about the effort, and here’s the site.

— 5 –

Yes, there’s good news out here in Catholic land – I’ve tried to highlight some local parishes that I believe have really stepped up – but I also will co-sign Phil Lawler’s stance here:

As much as I applaud him for bringing our Eucharistic Lord out onto the streets of the city…

As much as I thank him for taking the lead (when so many other prelates remain silent) in insisting that religious worship is “essential activity”…

As fully as I agree with him that the response from city officials—or rather, their failure to make any response—is an insult to Catholics…

Still I wonder: If the archbishop thinks that the city’s restrictions are unreasonable—if he thinks that it would be safe to celebrate Mass for a larger congregation in the city’s cathedral—why doesn’t he take the obvious action? Why doesn’t he go into his own cathedral, invite the public, and celebrate Mass?

Before I go any further let me emphasize that I do not mean to single out Archbishop Cordileone for criticism here. On the contrary, I mean to praise him. The question that I ask of him could apply, far more pointedly, to all the other bishops and priests who have meekly accepted unreasonable restrictions on the administration of the sacraments—to the bishops and priests who have not raised public objections, have not mobilized the faithful, have not organized Eucharistic processions.

Give Archbishop Cordileone full credit for speaking truth to power: for telling the faithful who joined him last Sunday outside the cathedral that city officials “are mocking you, and even worse, they are mocking God.” Credit him, too, for the public campaign that has urged faithful Catholics to call San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed, and has already raised 17,000 signatures on a petition “asking the City of San Francisco to free the Mass.

But again: Why ask city officials to “free” the Mass? There is only one man who has the rightful authority to restrict and regulate the liturgy of the Catholic Church in San Francisco, and his name is Cordileone. If he wants to celebrate Mass for the public in his cathedral, he can do it.

But wait, you say. He can’t celebrate Mass for the public in his cathedral. It would be against the law.

To which I respond: what law?

— 6 —

Looking for a movie to watch or argue about? Check out Movie/Writer Son’s “Definitive Ranking of David Lean Films” here.

David Lean was a great filmmaker who grew up in the British studio system preceding the outbreak of World War II and became a director, hitched to Noel Coward, during the conflict. After working directly with Coward for four films, he broke out on his own and became one of the most important British filmmakers. His great epics tend to overshadow his smaller films, some of which are pretty much just as great, and that’s really why I do these exercises of running through entire filmographies.

Looking for a quick Halloween craft? Pick up this kit from my daughter’s Etsy shop!

— 7 —

Speaking of books, again – a few lists if you are poking around for something to read either now or in the future.

Micah Mattix’s ongoing bookshop of interesting forthcoming titles.

Looking backwards, the #1956Club – from my favorite “The Neglected Book Page”

For about five years now, Karen Langley (Kaggsy of Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambles) and Simon Thomas (of Stuck in a Book) have instigated a semi-annual event in which people around the world take a week to read and write about books published during a particular year. The next round, coming up the week of 5-11 October, will look at books from the year 1956.

1956 was a terrific year for what I might call good but not stuffily great books. Perhaps the best example is Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond, which won her the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and which is much loved for the spirit embodied in its opening line: “‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” This was Macaulay’s last novel; also appearing in 1956 is Anthony Burgess’s first novel Time for a Tiger, the first book in his Malayan Trilogy.

To encourage folks to take advantage of the #1956Club while also discovering something beyond what’s readily available for instant download or overnight delivery, I’ve put together this list of 10 long-forgotten and out of print books from 1956.

Go here for the list.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Bambinelli Sunday on the Way

Every year I take a few minutes and collect links to some of the parishes around the world who are celebrating Bambinelli Sunday. This is just a quick survey, and it’s so very gratifying to see this traditional continue to grow in popularity. All kudos to Ann Engelhart for seeing the possibilities!

More on the book.

The group in Rome that sponsors the St. Peter’s event…has gone Lego this year. Ah, well:

From B16 in 2008:

God, our Father
you so loved humankind
that you sent us your only Son Jesus,
born of the Virgin Mary,
to save us and lead us back to you.

We pray that with your Blessing
these images of Jesus,
who is about to come among us,
may be a sign of your presence and
love in our homes.

Good Father,
give your Blessing to us too,
to our parents, to our families and
to our friends.

Open our hearts,
so that we may be able to
receive Jesus in joy,
always do what he asks
and see him in all those
who are in need of our love.

We ask you this in the name of Jesus,
your beloved Son
who comes to give the world peace.

He lives and reigns forever and ever.
Amen.

 

 

St. Robert Bellarmine, Bayside, NY

St. Benedict, Covington, LA

Divine Mercy, Hamden, CT

St. Aidan Cathedral, Ireland

Holy Family, Belfast

Incarnation, Bethlehem, PA

Elizabeth Ann Seton, Shrub Oak, NY

St. Leo’s, Elmwood Park, NJ

St. Mary Newhouse

Holy Redeemer Ellwood City, PA

Sacred Heart, Eldon, MO

St. Teresa of Calcutta, Mahanoy City, PA

Suggested by the Archdiocese of New Orleans (headline has an error – refers Lent, not Advent)

Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, Ankeny, IA

St. Francis of Assisi, St. Louis

St. Pius X, Loudonville, NY

St. Sebastian, Greenbrae, CA

Assumption, St. Louis

St. Thomas Aquinas, Zanesville, OH

St. John Bosco, Hatboro, PA

St. Bridget, Framingham, MA

Transfiguration, Marietta, GA

All Saints, Milville, NJ

St. Jude, Atlanta

Mentioned in “Equipping Catholic Families.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catharines, ON, CA

Holy Ghost, Bethlehem, PA

Church of the Holy Family, Dunblane

St. Edith, Livonia, MI

Basilica of St. Mary, Alexandria, VA

St. Michael and All Angels, Diocese of Portsmouth, England

St. Michael’s Blackrock, Cork

St. Ignatius Loyola, NY, NY

St. Mark, Shoreham, NY

St. Thomas More, Somerset, MA

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Happy feast of St. John of the Cross! More about him here. 

 

— 2 —

If you haven’t read Catherine Lafferty’s First Things piece on the China-Vatican agreement – do. 

The details of the deal were not disclosed, but it seems that the officially atheist Chinese state has been given some say in choosing the country’s bishops, thereby determining the type of Catholicism shared with the people. All signs indicate that the state has very definite ideas about what kind of Catholicism that should be. This policy of controlling and exploiting the Church is called sinicization. The state even has a five-year plan, produced by the CPCA, for bringing the Chinese Catholic Church into greater harmony with Chinese culture and politics. The Chinese are being served a state-controlled ersatz Catholicism with Vatican approval.  

With this deal, the Vatican has brought the Chinese Patriotic Church back into the fold. But as for the faithful underground Church, which has guarded the faith with heroic courage for decades, nothing has been said. Like the inconvenient commissars of the Soviet past, it has been erased from the narrative. 

—3–

From Catholic World Report a very good piece: “A short defense of authentic synodality.”

 Let me be as clear as I can: everything going under the name of “synod” in Rome since 1965, and as recently as this October, is not a synod as the term is used (i) throughout most of Latin Church history in the first and most of the second millennium; (ii) in most of Eastern Orthodoxy historically or today; (iii) in much of the Anglican Communion; or (iv) in the Eastern Catholic Churches such as my own.

The reason for my claim is simple: synods are not thematic conferences discussing boutique interests of some group or other. Rather, synods are business-like affairs (rarely held in full glare of the world’s media) with powers of passing legislation and electing bishops (and in some cases disciplining them). The current statutes governing these so-called Roman synods of bishops permit them to do neither….

…Since Hermaniuk’s death in 1996, and even more since 2013, I would echo his (and Burke’s) frustration that these Roman gatherings are really languorous salons whose officials write loquacious documents that often read like drafts ripped out of Hegel’s rubbish bin and then tarted up with some sophomoric sociology. As a long-time academic editor, I have watched with horror at the undisciplined length of documents coming out of Rome for many years now. How I wish curial writers would master the lesson I often convey to my students: writing is an ascetical exercise of self-denial whose patron saint is John the Baptist. You must decrease your word count while increasing your economy and felicity of expression.

In the interests of economy, let me stipulate two things: first, for those who worry that the chaos of these pseudo-synods points to some flaw in synods as such, note well that the Eastern CatholicChurches are synodically governed without the shenanigans we have sometimes seen in Rome. Eastern synods—real synods—have mechanisms to prevent their being hijacked by a handful of bishops, or manipulated behind the scenes by a primate. They seek to maintain a tension between the primate and his brothers, so that if either fails—whether by domineering, or by declining to lead—the damage is contained and nobody can go rogue.

It’s an excellent, clarifying article.

–4––

From today’s Office of Readings, appropriately enough from St. John of the Cross:

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

  Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

  The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.

–5 —

The question of the weekend is going to be….will we make it? 

 

Well, I think I will – with old age, I find myself rising earlier and earlier with little pain. The younger son has indicated his determination to come as well, so we’ll see. Luckily, we live no more than 10 minutes from the Cathedral – with good traffic lights and crack-of-dawn Saturday morning traffic, it could be as little as five. Hopefully!

–6–

An astonishing obituary: Helen Klaben Kahn:

Ms. Klaben and Mr. Flores crashed in terrain that was waist-deep in snow, with temperatures as numbing as 48 degrees below zero. Without wilderness survival training, Mr. Flores adapted nonetheless. He wrapped Ms. Klaben’s injured foot in her sweaters, covered the openings of the cabin with tarpaulins and tried, without success, to fix their radio to send out a distress signal and build rabbit traps.

What little food Ms. Klaben and Mr. Flores had brought on board — a few cans of sardines, tuna fish, fruit salad and a box of Saltine crackers — was rationed and gone within 10 days. They drank water, some of it filtered through shreds of one of her dresses and boiled in an empty oil can. They ate bits of toothpaste that they squeezed from a half-filled tube — and virtually nothing else, they said.

“We’d pretend the melted snow was soup,” she told The Associated Press shortly after their rescue. “Some days it would be tomato, then beef, then all the other varieties.”

To pass the time, they read books, including a book of poems by Robert Service and a Bible. At times, Mr. Flores tried to convert Ms. Klaben from Judaism to his Mormon faith.

In early March, Mr. Flores left her for eight days — walking the treacherous ridge in snowshoes he had made of tree branches and wire — to find a clearing in the dense woods where they might be better seen from the air by bush pilots. He returned after finding a knoll about three-quarters of a mile away, and on Day 42 they set off for the spot, dragging a makeshift sled with their belongings.

–7–

Reminder: my short story. 

Also: Advent may be well under way, and so you’re probably not looking for Advent resources – but Bambinelli Sunday is coming soon, so check that out!

 

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Bambinelli Sunday 2018

Yes, it’s a thing. I’m amazed and gratified to report this: it’s a thing.

No, we didn’t start the blessing of the Bambinelli – I still am not sure who did, but it’s currently sponsored in Rome by a group called the Centro Oratori Romani. Here’s their poster for this year’s event:

And somewhere along the line, Ann Engelhart heard about it, connected the practice with her own childhood appreciation of the Neapolitan presipi, particularly as experienced through the Christmas displays at the Met -and suggested a book.

More about how the book came to be. 

So here we are!

Every year, I try to note some of the places doing Bambinelli Sunday – here’s this year’s partial list – which starts, right here, with the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham. The only order in this list is the order of search results. So here we go:

The Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis 

Divine Mercy, Hamden CT

St. Joseph, Mechanicsburg, PA

Liverpool Cathedral

Holy Spirit, Lubbock TX

St. Jude, Sandy Springs, GA

St. Gabriel School, Ontario, CA

Quinn Clooney Maghera Parish, Ireland

St. Francis of Assisi, St. Louis

Sacred Heart, Coronado, CO

Middleton Parish, Ireland

St. Catherine of Siena, Clearwater, FL

All Saints, Diocese of Plymouth, England

St. Senan’s, Diocese of Killaloe, Ireland

St. Augustine, Spokane

St. Bernadette, Westlake, OH

Ennis Cathedral Parish, Ireland

Nativity, Cincinnati

Killbritain Parish, Ireland

St. Edith, Livonia, MI

St. Brendan, Avalon, NJ

St. Brigid, Westbury, NY

St. Ferdinand, PA

St. Ignatius Loyola, NYC

St. Anne’s, Peterborough ON

Our Lady of Perpetual Succor, somewhere in Scotland

…And that’s all I have time to link.

Do a search for “Benedizione dei bambinelli” as well – you’ll come up with a slew. 

The point is that Advent and Christmas are about welcoming the Word of God into our lives – which means our homes. The blessing of the Bambinelli – which we bring from our homes and return there – is an embodiment of this.  As Pope Emeritus Benedict said in his 2008 prayer for the event:

God, our Father 
you so loved humankind 
that you sent us your only Son Jesus, 
born of the Virgin Mary, 
to save us and lead us back to you.

We pray that with your Blessing 
these images of Jesus, 
who is about to come among us, 
may be a sign of your presence and 
love in our homes.

Good Father, 
give your Blessing to us too, 
to our parents, to our families and 
to our friends.

Open our hearts, 
so that we may be able to 
receive Jesus in joy, 
always do what he asks 
and see him in all those 
who are in need of our love.

We ask you this in the name of Jesus, 
your beloved Son 
who comes to give the world peace.

He lives and reigns forever and ever. 
Amen.

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Very short takes this week. Look back over the course of the week for more posts on various things. Remember – if you’re thinking a lot about saints this week – as you might be – consider looking at my saints books, listed here. 

I don’t have many of those on hand here, but what I do have are loads of copies of the Bible Stories book and the Signs and Symbols book – as well as the Book of Days. If you’re starting to think Christmas gifts….check it out. 

— 2 —

So let’s get going with random articles on random subjects. Perhaps something will catch your interest. First, the secret lives of composers who work in trades:

I still have time to write. The same hours I had set aside when I was working my old side gig are as available now as they were before. I also find the creative juices get flowing during moments of solitude at work. I once experienced a wonderful creative rush while driving a truck through a mountain pass and had to immediately pull over and jot some sketches down. Many people say that the hours in the trades are long, and they sometimes are. But one of the benefits is that when I hang up my hard hat, I hang up the stress of my job with it. My work doesn’t follow me home. Instead, I go to choir practice, I open up a copy of The Well Tempered Clavier, I get out a pencil and some manuscript paper and dash some squiggles that will hopefully one day become something memorable.

Initially, I might have been resistant to heading into the trades because I was worried I would be giving up on music and my composition career would end with a resounding thud of failure. I was wrong. The only way you fail at art is if you stop doing it. There’s no reason a composer can’t be a plumber or an electrician instead of a teacher. All you have to do is keep writing.

— 3 —

John Taylor Gatto passed away this week. He was an essential critic of American education and an inspiration for many educational reformers, including those in homeschooling/unschooling. 

— 4 —

All of sudden this week, everyone was an expert on the 14th amendment!

Well, the good thing is that at least a lot of people got interested in learning more about the issue of birthright citizenship. If you want a balanced look at the issue, I can’t think of a better place than this lengthy article. 

The existing rule of unrestricted birthright citizenship has a number of advantages, as noted above. But it also opens the door to some practices (perhaps most notably, the various forms of “birth tourism”) that provocatively violate the consent principle at the heart of democratic government, as well as create perverse incentives for illegal entrants and overstays.

Altering the rule of birthright citizenship can be undertaken by congressional statute, as we have argued. But what kind of change would be reasonable? One of us (Schuck) has proposed a reform that promises to achieve a better combination of advantages and disadvantages. In place of automatic birthright citizenship, we could substitute retroactive-to-birth citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal-immigrant parents who demonstrate a substantial attachment to, and familiarity with, this country by satisfying two conditions: a certain period of residence here after the child’s birth, and a certain level of education of the child in our schools. (In almost every case, of course, the two conditions will overlap, and the schooling will assure at least a minimal level of proficiency in English and knowledge of American history and society.)

Reasonable people can differ about what the qualifying periods of residence and education should be, whether those periods must be continuous, and other conditions. (Australia’s 2007 citizenship law, for example, abolished birthright citizenship while creating an exception for a person “ordinarily resident in Australia throughout the period of 10 years” beginning at birth.) In Schuck’s view, completion of eighth grade should suffice for this limited purpose. Certifying compliance should be administratively simple. And during the interim period, the individual should have the legal status of presumptive citizen, with all of the attributes of citizenship for individuals of their age. The parents’ status would remain the same as under current law unless they can gain legal status through an expanded legalization program or otherwise.

One can easily imagine objections to this reform, especially by those who categorically reject birthright citizenship for this group on grounds discussed above. But two answers to such objections are compelling in our view. First, whether Americans like it or not, these children are now legal citizens at birth. The question, then, is whether an over-inclusive status quo should be retained. Second, the normative objections to their citizenship — that their connection to our country is imposed without our consent and is often adventitious, transient, and insubstantial — would be met by the proposed reform, whose enactment would provide the requisite consent to, and conditions for, their citizenship.

To be sure, the current climate presents the danger that political deliberations over any changes to current birthright-citizenship practices might lead to policies of heightened deportations of otherwise-law-abiding long-term residents, and of reduced legal immigration. We oppose both of these policies. But because controversies over immigration and birthright citizenship have only grown in recent decades and are likely to intensify further, we believe that the quest to find reasonable, humane compromises on these vital topics is more urgent than ever.

— 5 —

And what about that stupid “youth” Synod? Yeah, that. A couple of good (if by “good” you mean…”I agree with them” – but isn’t that always the way it is?) pieces that summarize what happened and what might happen and what It Means.

From Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher:

Did you sense that people who were advocating more tradition and orthodoxy, like the Africans, were shut down, perhaps?

No, I don’t think it was just the more traditionally minded who were shut down: We all were. The fact was that after our initial short speeches, it was almost impossible for bishops to get a hearing again in the general assembly.

 

Even in the free discussions?

The free discussions were very few, usually in the last hour of a very long day. On at least one occasion, that time was taken up almost completely by speeches from ecumenical representatives. On other days, various announcements intruded. And when free discussion did happen, only cardinals and youth auditors were heard; no bishops at all. You got your little speech at the start, and that was about it, when it came to the general assembly.

— 6 —

From Christopher Altieri:

In fairness to Francis, he’s been clear and fairly consistent with regard to himself and his habits and his tastes, right from the start. From his shoes (he has a guy back in B’Aires) to his decision to live in the Domus Sanctae Marthae (he likes being around people) to his habit of standing in the lunch line and chatting with people (he likes it that way), he’s been frank: he’s an old dog, unable and uninterested in learning new tricks — and as a leader, his established mode of leadership is a mercurial one that flies from extreme micromanagement to extreme laissez faire and rarely pauses anywhere in between.

His lieutenants and mouthpieces, however, promised an almost Aquarian age of transparency, listening, and participation: in a word, that the governance of the Church would finally be horizontal.

When Pope Francis promulgated the Apostolic Constitution, Episcopalis communio — the special law controlling the Synod of Bishops — one thing was clear when it came to the issue of any synod assembly conducted under the new legislation: the Pope would be in charge. As far as any final document on Francis’s watch is concerned, that meant the Synod Fathers would end up saying whatever this Pope will have decided to say they said:

If the new document makes anything clear, it is that Francis — whose “synodal” approach to governance has been the subject of much discussion — meant what he said when he told the participants in the III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops that “synodality” means being with Peter, and that “being with Peter” means being under him. How “synodal” is the Church Francis envisions? One short answer might be: as synodal as Peter says it is.

So, there has been transparency. At any rate, folks have what they were promised. Assured they’d be able to take their place, the bishops have now learned what that place is, and been instructed to assume the position. The vast majority of the laity don’t care much what the Church’s hierarchical leadership have to say about young people anyway, certainly not in the present circumstances of massive and daily burgeoning global crisis that has left the credibility of the worldwide episcopate in tatters, from the Pope down to the last auxiliary.

When it comes to “synodality”, not even the professional Catholic scribbling and chattering class could manage more than perfunctory frustration on behalf of the bishops, who were happy to roll over.

On Friday afternoon, with only a few hours left to read the draft, account for the modi — proposed amendments — and finish the document, the synod fathers repaired to a makeshift theatre to watch a talent show the young people organised for them. As one Vatican official quipped to me on Friday afternoon, “They’re not taking this seriously.”

— 7 —

And then, George Weigel:

None of this contributes to comity or collegiality; and whatever “synodality” means, it isn’t advanced by such boorish behavior. The cardinal’s aggressive stubbornness is also an insult to bishops who are every bit as much successors of the apostles as Baldisseri, but whom he nonetheless treats as if they were refractory kindergarteners, especially when they insist that they know their situations better than Baldisseri does (as on the abuse crisis). If Pope Francis is serious about making the Synod of Bishops work better, he will thank Lorenzo Baldisseri for his services and bring in a new general secretary—right away.  

After the Exhaustion

The Synod process seems designed to wear everyone down, thus making it easier for the Synod’s mandarins to get their way. So it’s not surprising that there’s a sense of deflation at the end of Synod-2018. There are also more than a few worries about how the Church is going to weather the rough seas into which it is being steered. Still, there was some very good work done here this past month. New networks of conversation and collaboration were built. Nothing completely egregious got into the Final Report, thanks to some hard and effective work. New Catholic leaders emerged on the world stage.

And there were, as always, many experiences of fellowship, and the grace that flows from the Holy Spirit through solidarity in a great cause.  In that sense I’ve been glad to have been here. And like others, I suspect, I’m grateful that Synod-2018 has given me a clearer understanding that business-as-usual is not an adequate model for the next months and years of Catholic life.

 

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Christmastime in the City – Day 3

And here, we are on Day Three of Christmastime in the City…

(Instagram summaries here…)

It was going to be cold. We all knew that. Everyone knew that. I’ve been cold before. I was born in Indiana. The formative part of my childhood was spent in Kansas. I lived in northern Indiana for seven years as an adult. I’ve been cold.

Still…this was cold.

The high in Manhattan on Thursday was to be around 20 degrees, so of course we weren’t going to be traipsing about the city (although my Birmingham friend did just that, and covered an impressive amount of ground, on foot, outdoors. But as I said, she’s a New Englander…), so that would be our Metropolitan Museum of Art day.

(Other options: We’d been to the Guggenheim last summer, as well as the Morgan Library. The Frick might have been another option, but I did want to see the Michelangelo exhibit, so the Met it was.)

We – including they have been to the Metropolitan Museum a few times, including some time this past summer, most of that spent in the ancient Americas and Byzantine holdings. The focus this time would be Michelangelo, as well as  the Medieval and Renaissance holdings, including the lovely Neapolitan Christmas tree and presipio that was part of Ann Engelhart’s inspiration for Bambinelli Sunday.

But how to get there? That was the knotty issue. For you see, the Met is not on a subway line, and “our” subway options didn’t take us easily to the east side. If the weather had been good, it would not have been anything to wonder about – take the subway to the Natural History Museum and walk across the park to the Met. It was about ten degrees. I wasn’t walking across Central Park in that. Sorry. So after checking out of the Leo House, taking our backpacks with us, then taking the subway up, we took a cab from the Natural History Museum stop  – five bucks, quick trip, no problem.

But in my efficiency, I landed us there early – as in twenty minutes early, and apparently not even near-zero degree weather moves the rulers of the Met to let the freezing, huddling masses in out of the cold even a nanosecond early. We crowded in an alcove entrance to the educational wing with a few dozen others until my oldest arrived – he was working that day, but he’s a Met member, so he stopped by on his way to work to get us in – once they opened – and Ann soon followed.

 

Highlights:

I do love all the Madonna and Child statuary at the Met. They are mostly all smiles, mother and Child – and there is just a sense of warmth in those rooms – warmth mixed with regret, since all of that loveliness should still be in churches and chapels, still being used as objects of devotion.

These galleries also were relevant to a project I recently completed. As I wandered, I found myself wishing I’d had a chance to visit in the midst of my writing, but I was also reassured that I probably got the gist of the subject correct…

I love this Visitation group – both Mary and Elizabeth have clear oval bubbles on their abdomens – the cards indicated that there were once images of the babies visible through each.

An interesting martyrdom. St. Godelieve – part of this larger piece. 

This was, according to the placard, a devotional crib for the Christ Child, probably given as a gift to a woman entering a convent or upon taking final vows:

The tree – not great photos, but I’m sure you can go to the website and see more:

The Michelangelo exhibit was very instructive and quite well done, helping us understand his development as an artist and his process.

After FOURTEEN DOLLAR HALF-BAGUETTES WITH A COUPLE OF PIECES OF HAM AND CHEESE on them  – Ann left, and we continued on up to the World War I exhibit – very, very good and sobering, of course. A presentation of visual art inspired by the experience of the Great War, the theme was, over and over, initial jingoistic enthusiasm brought up short by reality and suffering.

Museum Fatigue is a thing, of course. Think about it. Look at the maps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How can anyone “do” this museum, even in a day? Even if you could whizz through every room, what would you really see? What would you absorb? That’s why I don’t push it, that’s why we take our time. Even if this were our first, only or last time at this massive museum, I wouldn’t insist on pushing through and seeing “everything,” or even a lot.

It’s like all of travel, it’s like learning, and it’s like life. There’s this much  (spreads arms wide) that’s out there. One person can only fruitfully and memorably encounter and absorb this much (holds fingers close together). It’s much more fruitful to go slowly, contemplate and see a few things in a thoughtful way rather than racing through a checklist, glancing at images and taking a few selfies in front of the more well-known pieces as you go.

In the context of art, consider that every piece you see is the fruit of weeks if not months of work and a lifetime of creative thought and energy, as well as the product of a complex culture and social setting that’s different than the one you live in. A glance and a checklist is not the point. Contemplation and conversation that might lead to a broader, deeper understanding is.

So slow down. Look carefully. Listen. Talk about it. Think some more. And then go see something else – or go home and think about that one thing. I’m not telling you. As I have to do all the time, I’m telling me.

Coda:

We left the Met about 4:30, took a super slow M4 bus down to Penn Station – seeing more lights and windows as we went (speaking of checklists), found the Shake Shack, shared a table with a very nice pre-school teacher from Long Island, got on the train to the airport, arrived there, found the shuttle to the Doubletree, hopped on that, checked in, and leaving Boys with Screens, Mama went to the bar, took notes on the day and had a drink (or two) to help her sleep since a 3:30 AM alarm was in her future.

Coda II:

We did it! Woke up with our alarm, didn’t suffer too much, got the shuttle back to the airport, checked in for our 6:11 AM flight back to Atlanta. Which didn’t leave until 7. Arrived in Atlanta, got in the car, drove to Florida, dropped off boys with grandparents, aunts, uncle and cousins, then I drove to  Charleston where I’ve been all weekend with my son, daughter-in-law and grandson. I’ve been babysitting, going to the Children’s Museum, stopped by the Daughters of St. Paul bookstore, and to Mass at the Cathedral, where former Mayor Riley was the lector. I found him after Mass and introduced myself – he’s good friends with Bishop Baker, and had been in Birmingham a year and a half ago to present at a conference on racial issues. I spent some time this fall editing those talks into a form that we hope will be publishable as a book, so I wanted to meet Mayor Riley and thank him for his leadership of Charleston and wise words, particularly after the Emanuel AME church shooting – and I did – he was, of course, very gracious, pointing out to us Bishop Baker’s steeple atop the Cathedral – because of seismic and weather issues, there had been no steeple until Bishop Baker revisited the issue during his tenure there.

And now, back to Life in 2018!

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7 Quick Takes – Snow Day Edition

— 1 —

Well, this is…unusual.

It’s not the mere fact of snow. We’re not Texas, which got hit Thursday night. We do get snow here in Alabama and throughout the Southeast, just…not usually in early December. Our snow (and more treacherously, ice) comes in January and February.

But here it is:

When my son brought home Rumors of Snow on Friday earlier in the week, we both scoffed. Even the forecast called for no more than 10% chance of precipitation today. Well, I guess we hit that 10%.

Early yesterday evening, the schools announced a two-hour delay, and across the land, prayers were sent up that this was only a warning shot, a placeholder for something bigger and greater to come.

And they got it.

Now, here’s my ritual warning to hardy Midwesterners and New Englanders: Don’t mock us. It may seem silly to cancel school for, um, an inch (maybe) of snow, but listen: we don’t have masses of snow-clearing equipment around here ready to send out and blanket the county. It’s hilly – mountainous even. An inch of snow in the early morning falling on Alabama hills and mountains, with only minimal salt or ploughs at the ready is not the same as an inch falling in on the flat, fully prepared land of northeastern Indiana.

Although I will say, there’s no ice with this – the roads are just wet. They could easily be driven. But it is supposed to snow much of the day so eh, why bother? It’s Friday….

Update:

 — 2 —

And it’s the Immaculate Conception! Time for this annual gift from me – and the Monkees – to you.

I toss the same general post up every year. I don’t care. No need to search my brain for heartfelt spiritual metaphors from Daily Life™. When we have the Monkees!

Riu riu chiu, la guarda ribera;
Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera,
Dios guardo el lobo de neustra cordera.

El lobo rabioso la quiso morder,
Mas Dios poderoso la supo defender;
Quisola hazer que no pudiese pecar,
Ni aun original esta Virgen no tuviera.

Riu, riu chiu…

Este qu’es nacido es el gran monarca,
Christo patriarca de carne vestido;
Hemos redemido con se hazer chiquito,
Aunqu’era infinito, finito se hiziera.

Translation:

River, roaring river, guard our homes in safety,
God has kept the black wolf from our lamb, our Lady.
God has kept the black wolf from our lamb, our Lady.

Raging mad to bite her, there the wolf did steal,
But our God Almighty defended her with zeal.
Pure He wished to keep Her so She could never sin,
That first sin of man never touched the Virgin sainted.

River, roaring river…

He who’s now begotten is our mighty Monarch,
Christ, our Holy Father, in human flesh embodied.
He has brough atonement by being born so humble,
Though He is immortal, as mortal was created.

River, roaring river…

And the Kingston Trio:

More from Fr. Steve Grunow on the song and the feast.

— 3 —

It’s a good day to buy a .99 book on the Blessed Virgin, don’t you think?

— 4

You might recall that my 7^th grade homeschooler and I are reading The Yearling. He’s got a couple of chapters to go, but I finished it last night and was just about as wrecked as I was when I read it in 7^th grade and solemnly declared:

I repeat what I said a few weeks ago: if you’ve never read The Yearling – do. In a way it’s a young people’s book, but it did win the Pulitzer Prize. The writing is lush and some of the most powerful, evocative descriptive language you’ll find – and I’m a reader who normally – I admit – skips through landscape descriptions. I didn’t want to do that with Rawlings’. It’s a powerful, painful and true coming-of-age story.

As he reads his “school novel” – along with his leisure reading he’s always got going, I toss in some short stories and poetry a couple of times a week. This week he read “The Reticence of Lady Anne” by Saki and “The Death of a Government Clerk” by Chekov. He declared that he saw the twist of the first one coming well before the end, but was quite surprised by the second. The Chekov indeed gave us more to talk about. It’s short, amusing and ironic. The theme we dug into is: Okay, you’re worried and stressed out. But in your anxiety about that thing, are you missing the real thing that you should be worried about?

–5 —

Earlier this week, we took an afternoon at the Birmingham Museum of Art. You might have heard me rave about our local treasure before, but bear with me. It’s a very fine museum, with a solid collection that changes it up just often enough to stay fresh. There’s no admission charge, so if you’re a local you have no excuse not to visit regularly.

My son has been reading a lot about Japanese history, so we took time to revisit the very good Asian collection.

Take a look at this. Read the placard and enjoy the little rats fashioning the mallet. It’s a charming piece.

I’d seen this painting of St. Bernardino of Siena before, but never really stopped to study it. This time I did, and discovered that this was not simplistic hagiography. It’s something else – I’m not sure what – a commentary on the varied attitudes we bring to these moments? An observation of a scene? I don’t know if you can see it, but see what you can of the individuals gathered – they’re not all listening, in fact…most of them aren’t. I’m particularly taken with the boy hanging on the platform, and the friar slouched behind the preacher….taking a nap.

–— 6 —

Watching: Tonight we finish Lost, and I am of two minds about it. I’m sorry that we’ll be done – this has really been one of the best things the three of us have done together, apart from traveling. I’ll be sorry to leave this Lost crew behind, once again. But…it will be just a bit of a relief to free up some brain space and not have 75% of the conversations around here start with…”So what is that other reality all about???”

Maybe I’ll read a book?

I did watch all of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel last week and I wouldn’t recommend it. I had watched the pilot in the spring, found it annoying and disappointing and predictable, but decided to give the series another chance.  Well, that was aggravating. Not quite at a hate-watch level, but more at the: I really want this to be better, so I’ll keep watching hoping that happens. It didn’t. Very pretty to look at with rich period detail, but generally superficial both in human terms and in relation to the culture it purported to present. I’ve never watched a nanosecond of The Gilmore Girls, so I didn’t come to it as a fan of that show, but I was very open to the concept – upper-class 50’s Jewish housewife discovers a flair for stand-up comedy – but what emerges is not recognizably authentic in any way. I wasn’t watching people, I was watching a script being recited and cultural caricatures being embodied. Mad Men had its weaknesses, but the one thing it did right was the character of Peggy Olson, who began the series as a mousy, naive secretary, and ended it as a confident copy-writer, a transformation that was earned and authentic every step of the way. I wasn’t expecting that level of work here, but I was hoping for something a little closer than I got.

— 7 —

Bambinelli Sunday!

I just noticed that The Loyola Kids Book of Saints is priced at $7.25 on Amazon at the moment. I don’t know how long that will be the case – but there it is, if you’re interested.

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Bambinelli Sunday on the way

In Rome…

..and elsewhere. 

In the past, I’ve done posts in which I’ve highlighted parishes that are celebrating Bambinelli Sunday – but the numbers are rising to the point that it’s just more efficient for me to point you to this search result (searching for “Bambinelli Sunday” over the past month). Very pleased to see that the Guadalupe Shrine in Wisconsin will be celebrating!

It’s very gratifying. Not that folks weren’t doing this before, but I don’t think there’s any question that our book has a role in popularizing the practice – and all credit on that score goes to Ann Engelhart, who had the idea in the first place. 

 

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