7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Today’s the feast of the Chair of St. Peter.

Last year, I was in Living Faith on that day. Here’s the devotion I wrote:

Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.

– 1 Peter 5:3

When I think about each of the important older people in my life (all deceased because I’m one of the older ones now), all are associated with a chair.

My father’s preferred spot was his desk chair in his study. My mother spent her days in her comfortable chair in the corner, surrounded by books. My great-aunt was not to be disturbed as she watched afternoon soap operas from her wingback chair. My grandfather had his leather-covered lounger, its arms dotted with holes burned by cigars.

From their chairs, they observed, they gathered, they taught and they provided a focus for the life around them. There was wisdom in those chairs.

I’m grateful for the gift of Peter, our rock. From his chair–the sign of a teacher–he and his successors gather and unify us in our focus on the One who called him–and all of us.

— 2 —

Tomorrow’s the feast of St. Polycarp:
He is in my Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints.  

—3–

Here’s Terry Teachout on Accessibility and its Discontents

I feel the same way, which is why I don’t have a smartphone. What’s more, I know that my ability to concentrate—to cut myself free from what I once called in this space the tentacles of dailiness—has been diminished by my use of Twitter and Facebook. Josef Pieper said it: “Leisure is a form of that stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still, cannot hear.” To be on line is the opposite of being still.

–4–

What does a conductor listen to as his country falls apart?

Here’s an interview with our Alabama Symphony conductor, Carlos Izcaray, who is Venezuelan:

At the top of his playlist? The turbulent “Symphony No. 10,” by Soviet-era composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

“This is a piece that was written just after the death of one of the worst tyrants in history, Stalin, and of course, Shostakovich had to endure many, many years under this regime,” Izcaray (@izcaray) tells Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd. “The movement … the second one, it’s got this militaristic, highly volcanic energy to it, that is very much attuned to the frustration that many of us Venezuelans feel. And if you listen to the end of the piece, there is hope at the end of the storm.”

That storm is a personal one for Izcaray. In 2004, he was kidnapped, detained and tortured by the Hugo Chávez regime.

“I went through very bad mistreatment of all sorts, physical and psychological, [I was] threatened to death,” says Izcaray, who also now conducts the American Youth Symphony in Los Angeles. “And what I went through is what many people are going through now in Venezuela. We’re talking about students who are leading the marches, we’re talking about political prisoners.”

Izcaray’s detention caused him to spiral into a “depressive state.” But through music, he was slowly able to rebuild his life.

“I was going to have my big debut with the National Symphony Orchestra as a conductor. Everything was shattered,” Izcaray says. “But after a brief period of just darkness, my friends and my family, my father especially, brought music back to the equation for me. It was a way to heal — both literally and physically, because I had nerve damage in my arm. Playing the cello — I’m a cellist — so by playing music, I got better.

“I think that since then I’ve understood many of the layers that were, until then, not discovered by me — the power of music.”

Interview Highlights

On the Francis Poulenc composition “Four Motets on a Christmas Theme”

“This is a piece that, to me, every time I listen to it, I just — it’s like rediscovering the miracle that is music. It’s a spiritual peace, it’s just sheer beauty. I just think this piece elevates me to a different frequency. [It’s] hard to describe it, and it’s just a couple of minutes long. But I really think that Francis Poulenc captured the most intimate and profound elements of what it is to be a human being and this relationship with music.”

–5 —

Don’t forget Weird Catholic!

–6-

Son #2 continues to post film reviews several times a week.

Summer Interlude (Bergman)

1776

The Homeseman

Follow him on Twitter

 

–7–

Sexagesima Sunday this week:

 

I’ve created a Lent page here.

 

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

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Lent Countdown

And you know – Lent is coming up. Two weeks from today!

Last Sunday: Septuagisima Sunday

Next up – Sexagesima Sunday. 

Here’s a page on Lent. 

Here are some Lent resources from me. 

Also – if you’re looking for a Lenten read, either as an individual or for a group – consider The Words We Pray. 

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Bunch of links this week. First – check out my posts on gender issues from earlier this week. To be continued either today or over the weekend. (Just click backwards on the post links above.)

Also – I have a bunch of mostly book-centered posts over at Medium. 

I was in Living Faith on Wednesday. Read that devotional here. 

Preparing dinner at a local shelter Monday night.

— 2 —

My hilarious and brilliant friend Dorian is blogging again – it’s a trend! Blogging is back!

—3–

Another friend, Villanova prof Chris Barnett has refashioned his blog – Theology + Culture. 

–4–

Good piece on the “Unfulwilled Promise of the Synod on Young People.”  I’d be more cynical than the author, but all that means is that he’s more charitable, and therefore a better person.

–5 —

Did you know that there’s been a spate of serious church vandalism incidents in France? Yup. 

–6–

Our Cathedral rector with an excellent post on “morbid introspection” as a spiritual danger. Spot.  On. 

A classic paradigm for prayer is ACTS — adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication. Where does morbid introspection fit into this? It doesn’t. Adoration centers mostly around praise. Contrition involves introspection, but turned back to God for his mercy and healing. Thanksgiving perhaps also involves introspection, as we thank God for the ills from which he has already delivered us and for all the other blessings he has given. Indeed, thanksgiving often involves praise. And supplication may involve some introspection as we ask for what we need — but praying for ourselves should usually be secondary to praying for others and the world, lest we end up becoming too self-involved.

If you struggle with a tendency to grow sad by focusing on your problems/difficulties, the advice that Fr. Kirby gives is right on, and I’ll paraphrase: cut it out, and praise God instead.

I’m reminded of some passages from St. Jane de Chantal that I’ve highlighted in the past:

Pray what does it matter whether you are dense and stolid or over-sensitive ? Any one can see that all this is simply self-love seeking its satisfaction. For the love of God let me hear no more of it: love your own insignificance and the most holy will of God which has allotted it to you, then whether you are liked or disliked, reserved or ready-tongued, it should be one and the same thing to you. Do not pose as an ignorant person, but try to speak to each one as being in the presence of God and in the way He inspires you. If you are content with what you have said your self-love will be satisfied, if not content, then you have an opportunity of practising holy humility. In a word aim at indifference and cut short absolutely this introspection and all these reflections you make on yourself. This I have told you over and over again.

–7–

Septuagesima Sunday! Check out this post!

I’ve created a Lent page here.

And don’t forget – .99 for my short story The Absence of War  – here. 

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

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Thursday

This is just going to be a digest day. I need a break from Big Blogging Thoughts. I have a story I really want to finish a first draft of this week because another one has started popping up in my head, fighting for time. I’ll return to gendered thinking on Friday. Maybe this afternoon is this morning is fruitful.

So:

Watching: Unfortunately, I spent a couple of hours night before last rewatching Mad Men again. I say “unfortunately” because I’ve already seen these episodes at least twice, so there’s no valid reason for me to spend some of my brief, valuable time here on earth with those people again.

But then it’s season 6 and we get Boss Peggy and the genius casting of Harry Hamlin as Cutler and Bob Benson.  And great, great lines like Roger Sterling,  trying to sort through his feelings about his mother’s death with his therapist:

“My mother loved me in some completely pointless way and it’s gone. So there it is. She gave me my last new experience. And now I know that all I’m going to be doing from here on is losing everything.” 

So, yeah, I got sucked in.

Stayed up too late. Again.

Reading: 

In recent New Yorker issues (checked out from the library) – an article on Nashville hot chicken – mostly about Prince’s, the establishment at the heart of it, but comparing it with latecomers, most notably the small chain Hattie B’s. We have an Hattie B’s near our house, and my youngest loves it. He probably would eat there every day if he could. Interesting to me was the cultural appropriation angle to the story – Prince’s being African-American owned and Hattie B’s started by white guys.  But – I have to say – going to the Hattie B’s near my house is one of the most diverse experiences in a diverse part of town in a diverse city.  Always a slight edge to African-American customers, usually an Asian group and most of the time at least one customer in a hijab.

This story by Emma Cline – evocative and depressing, which is fine, because life can be that way.

As I noted earlier in the week, I finished The Woman in White. Inspired by this post by Eve Tushnet, I started The Comedians  –  one of the few Greene novels I’d not yet read.

Oh – and you might remember that earlier in the week we were reading The Comedy of Errors in anticipation of seeing a production this Friday. Well, scratch that. Turns out the production is in a very small theater and is sold out. Sad!

Writing: 

I was in Living Faith yesterday. Here’s the driver who was the subject. Bought with his own hard-earned money.

I reposted a piece  on Flannery O’Connor’s book reviews on Medium. 

Here’s another son’s take on the film The Passion of Joan of Arc. Follow him on Twitter to keep updated on his movie posts and writing progress.

Joan’s eyes are wide with innocence as she navigates her interrogators’ questions, making them seem alternatively foolish and unserious. It’s both Joan’s strength and fragility, all told through Falconetti’s performance, that sells the conflict. We are with her from the beginning to the end, and it’s quite an emotional journey.

And of course, two long-winded blog posts. Just click back to the links at the top of this post for those.

Listening:

I stopped in Chick-Fil-A last night to pick up food for Son #4 since it’s Son #5’s church-thing-night where they feed him. I noticed this gaggle of women in there, all dressed in similar outfits – a little Boho, each wearing black hats with rims. They were clearly evoking someone or something and they sure were stoked, but I had no idea about who or what.

Shrugs. Gets a #8 Meal. 

After I got him his food, I headed back downtown. My destination was this concert – a free piano concert, an annual tradition at our Birmingham Museum of Art. M and I had attended last year. It was too bad he couldn’t go this year – but, hey – it was free and in the same vicinity as his church thing, so why not use that hour in an elevated way instead of killing time on a screen?

Well, traffic was horrendous. I was reasonably certain that the 2017 Van Cliburn competition silver medalist wasn’t attracting that kind of audience, so as I stopped at a light with a river of red taillights in front of me, I tried to figure out what was going on –

Ah – 

Fleetwood Mac 

Now it all comes together, not least the Stevie Nicks fan club in Chick-Fil-A. 

Well, I finally found parking a few blocks from the museum – really, I should have just parked at the Cathedral – and hustled down there. As I walked in the front door, applause echoed through the building, much louder than it should have been – the museum as a large auditorium on the ground floor, and this was just up the stairs, right in front of me.

And sure enough, the space that usually holds the tables for the museum’s restaurant was filled instead with rows of chairs with a baby grand at the head. As they were explaining as I snuck in the back, the piano in the auditorium was broken, they were unable to fix it, so here they were.

It was a lovely concert – although being in the back row on a floor that wasn’t graded meant that of course I couldn’t see anything. Which was fine – it forced me to really listen in a closer way.

He played:

César Franck | Harold Bauer Prélude, Fugue et Variation, op. 18

Johann Sebastian Bach Toccata in C Minor, BWV 911

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, op. 110

I will say that listening to my son play his pieces dozens, if not hundreds of times, has taught me a great deal about music and made listening in concert settings – which I always enjoyed anyway – even more interesting.

Contemporary Catholic motherhood talk is still miles better than secular talk, but still, it tends to miss a few beats, I think. The talk is still all about me. About how motherhood makes me a better person.

Well, it does, yes.

But the most amazing thing about motherhood – about parenthood – is the gift of cooperating with God, even unintentionally and accidentally – in putting unique human beings into the world, people with interests and gifts and their own weird journeys.

And, to bring it back around to a self-centered bullseye on this Valentine’s Day – how that expands our world, doesn’t it? To help create a community in which you’re enriched and grow by engaging with all that they engage with – their sports, their movies, their music, their work experiences, their people.

Who would we be without them?

 

 

 

 

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Saints of February 14

First, Sts. Cyril and Methodius.

B16, from 2009:

Wishing now to sum up concisely the profile of the two Brothers, we should first recall the enthusiasm with which Cyril approached the writings of St Gregory of Nazianzus, learning from him the value of language in the transmission of the Revelation. St Gregory had expressed the wish that Christ would speak through him: “I am a servant of the Word, so I put myself at the service of the Word”. Desirous of imitating Gregory in this service, Cyril asked Christ to deign to speak in Slavonic through him. He introduced his work of translation with the solemn invocation: “Listen, O all of you Slav Peoples, listen to the word that comes from God, the word that nourishes souls, the word that leads to the knowledge of God”. In fact, a few years before the Prince of Moravia had asked the Emperor Michael III to send missionaries to his country, it seems that Cyril and his brother Methodius, surrounded by a group of disciples, were already working on the project of collecting the Christian dogmas in books written in Slavonic. The need for new graphic characters closer to the language spoken was therefore clearly apparent: so it was that the Glagolitic alphabet came into being. Subsequently modified, it was later designated by the name “Cyrillic”, in honour of the man who inspired it. It was a crucial event for the development of the Slav civilization in general. Cyril and Methodius were convinced that the individual peoples could not claim to have received the Revelation fully unless they had heard it in their own language and read it in the characters proper to their own alphabet.

….Cyril and Methodius are in fact a classic example of what today is meant by the term “inculturation”: every people must integrate the message revealed into its own culture and express its saving truth in its own language. This implies a very demanding effort of “translation” because it requires the identification of the appropriate words to present anew, without distortion, the riches of the revealed word. The two holy Brothers have left us a most important testimony of this, to which the Church also looks today in order to draw from it inspiration and guidelines.

They are  in the Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints: 

Now, to St. Valentine.

Chad C. Pecknold is a theology professor at the Catholic University of America – some of you might have heard about the Twitter seminar he’s ran on St. Augustine’s City of God a couple of years ago.  Also a couple of years ago, he wrote a very good (public) Facebook post on St. Valentine, in which he takes on the modern assumptions that, oh of course the guy didn’t exist….mythology, legends….let’s take him off the calendar and make funny memes! Worth a read:

 Recently I read a skeptic claiming that medieval monks invented St. Valentine’s Day, which is a pretty common alternative to the fact that Pope Gelasius set his feast day on February 14th in Anno Domini 496. So little is known about him that even the Church, following the dubious claim of a book published in 1966 that the saint never existed, removed him from the liturgical calendar in 1969. It is an odd fact that his feast is celebrated (in a deracinated way) by the world but not the Church. Since a basilica was built over his tomb just 75 years after his death by Pope Julius, and relics from his body spread throughout the Roman empire, the evidence of his existence seems manifest to me.

MORE

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Monday

Reading: Well, I finished The Woman in White. It was..quite the read. Now, you know that if you don’t have a taste for dense Victorian melodrama, you wouldn’t even consider picking this up. But if you do have an interest in such things – you might like this. Or you might tire of it, as I did. I liked Collins’ No Name much better. As absurd as it was at times, it was still more grounded in reality than The Woman in White – it explored a more varied landscape of English society and it expressed a more focused outrage – at the helplessness of women within the British legal system.

The Woman in White is fascinating, however, from the perspective of history and literature. For Collins is quite creative in constructing the tale and in the narrative. He uses many different points of view and is meticulous in building a very complex structure of events.

One of the key differences between the two books has to do with perspective. No Name is essentially told from the narrative perspective (in the third person) of the wronged woman, the woman who has been deprived of any rights – and it is told as she is recouping what morality, if not the legal and social system owe her. The Woman in White‘s events are described in two stages: 1) what happened  and 2) one character’s attempts to discover what happened and bring the perpetrators to some sort of justice. I found the narrative stage of the No Name more compelling.

Both books are interesting for anyone – like me – who thinks about women’s issues as well as the nature of human freedom and action. When you read Victorian-era fiction – from Collins to Dickens to Trollope and the scores of others – you are struck at every turn by this question: human beings are born into structured environments. Of some sort. How do these legal and social structures restrict human freedom, how do they shape choices? Are they just or unjust? Would these characters be better off without them or do these structures reflect anything real about human nature – do they shape human activity in ways directed toward the good?

When you read fiction of this era, you might be tempted to take a condescending view: Oh, those Victorians, bound by complex legalities and oppressive social mores. We’re so much better off today!

Really?

Also read chunks of The Comedy of Errors  – alone and with boys. We’ll be seeing a production of it soon. Must prepare!

Also reading up on Spain. We’ll be heading there, not really soon – but before the end of the year.

Watching: I’ve been rewatching chunks of Mad Men this past week. I don’t really know why. I first rewatched much of the pilot and was struck – as I had been the first time around – how weak it was. Gorgeous to look at, of course, but the cultural stage-setting was so awkwardly obvious and condescending: Look at all the people smoking! The doctor is smoking! Much misogyny! 

I didn’t rewatch a lot more of that first season, which, as I recall, took time to get over that condescension toward the past (some critics claim it never did – I disagree). But I have been skipping through subsequent episodes – I fast forward through most of the domestic drama, and focus on the office material, which I always really enjoyed. I had problems with Mad Men – I always felt that the core of it was Matthew Weiner working out his negative feelings about his mother (Betty) – and there were a few weak casting choices (aka Weiner’s deeply untalented son) and, as I said, most of the domestic angst bored me, but there were so many great characters, it was a world I always enjoy settling into, the trajectory of the Peggy character was one of the most well-done I’ve ever seen on television, and there was that one episode where Roger made witty remarks – you remember that one?

Listening: Just found out that a drummer who played in my son’s jazz recital ensemble was part of a recording that won a Grammy last night! So I’ll be searching for that to listen to today.

Writing: Not enough. Never enough. Aargh.  Maybe look for another blog post coming up later.

Blog post on Lourdes – it’s Our Lady of Lourdes today. 

Well, I’ll be in Living Faith later this week. Wednesday, I think.

My son posted a review of Glass. 

One element of the film that’s received some derision is the buildup of the idea of the Osaka Tower and the great fight that will come. However, I think that buying into that premise is the audience missing the point of Glass’s philosophy. It’s not that comic books are real, but that they are born from events that then get blown up into something else. Superman couldn’t fly in the beginning Casey reminds Dr. Staple at one point. So, what we end up getting is the beginning of belief, the extraordinary feats of extraordinary people, far removed from the spotlight of a huge crowd. The final fight takes place in a parking lot in much the same way that, if Glass’s philosophy is correct, the inspiration for Superman lifting the car on the front of Action Comics #1 must have. It wouldn’t have been with millions of eyes on him, but with a small crowd.

And that’s the origins of belief. To take this in an explicitly religious direction for a quick moment, it wasn’t a multitude that witness Jesus’ transfiguration or resurrection, but a handful of believers who went on to spread the word from there. It’s an interesting idea, explored in an interesting fashion, and told well.

 

And then…preparing…I guess?

Next Sunday is Septuagesima Sunday, the first of the pre-Lent Sundays – the loss of pre-Lent is one of the most ridiculous changes that occurred in the wake of Vatican II.  When you read about it – say in this blog post I wrote – you see why. I always highlight this page from a 7th grade catechism – read the part to which the arrow leads. I love the lack of condescension towards young people. The assumption that they are simply part of the Body of Christ, with a mission. No catchy banners or t-shirts needed. Just the assumption, because they are baptized, that they are a part of this great journey.

 

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Our Lady of Lourdes

Today, of course is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

If you would like to share the story of St. Bernadette with your children, Loyola has my entry on her from The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints online here. 

Bernadette was afraid, of course, but it wasn’t the kind of fear that made her want to run away. She stayed where she was and knelt down. She reached into the pocket of her worn-out dress, found her own rosary, and started to pray with the girl. When she finished, the girl disappeared.

Bernadette didn’t know who or what she had seen. All she knew was that being there had made her feel happy and peaceful. On their way back to Lourdes, she told her sister and friend what had happened, and soon the whole village knew.

Over the next few weeks, Bernadette returned to the grotto and saw the beautiful girl several times. Each time she went, more people went with her. Although only Bernadette could see the girl in white, when the other villagers prayed with her in the grotto, they felt peaceful and happy too. Those who were sick even felt that God had healed them while they prayed.

During those moments in the grotto, the girl spoke to Bernadette only a few times. She told her that a pure, clear spring flowed under the rocks. She told her that people needed to be sorry for their sins. And near the end, the girl said one more thing: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

Bernadette had no idea what this meant. She repeated it to herself over and over on her way back to the village so she wouldn’t forget the strange, long words. When she told her parish priest what the girl had said, he was quite surprised.

Almost seven years ago, we spent a few days at Lourdes, as part of our 2012 Grand Tour.

We had just spent a few days at a gite near Montignac and the next stop would be another rental in the Pyrenees.

I didn’t know what to expect, since much of what I had read treated Lourdes with a dismissive air, describing it as “Catholic Disneyland.”

It’s amazing to realize that Lourdes has been a pilgrimage site for a century and a half.  If you ever get a chance, read a good history of the apparition and its consequences and uses by various parties within France and the Church.  It’s really one of the most fascinating events of modern Catholicism in which every aspect of this crazy, mysterious life on God’s earth comes to bear: God’s unexpected grace and movement among us; God’s power; our receptivity; our temptation to manipulate and distort; our fears; our hopes – answered in God’s grace.  Full circle.

(Also, if you have time and the inclination, peruse Zola’s Lourdes. Yes, he has his point of view, but as an account of what 19th century pilgrimage to Lourdes was like, it’s fascinating.)

Anyway, the town of Lourdes isn’t that bad.  Yes, close to the shrine, the religious souvenir shops selling the exact same goods (always a mystery to me) are crammed in shoulder to shoulder – but that’s what you find at Assisi and Rome around St. Peter’s as well. No different, just more concentrated here. The town, as I told someone going the next year, isn’t at all picturesque – if that’s what you’re expecting, forget it.  It’s a busy, ordinary modern mid-sized French town, not a picture-book charming village tucked in the mountains.

The view from the hotel roof, looking down on the river and the (mostly) hotels lining it. The green-lit building on the bridge was a bar, inhabited by Irish football fans – there for a match v. a Lourdes team – until *very* late.

But then the shrine.

I pointed out to the boys the presence of the sick and the pride of place given them.  For every Mass, every procession, every prayer service, the sick are brought in first by the volunteer attendants.  On the walkways, there are specially marked lanes for wheelchairs.  One night, we saw an older man in a wheelchair (being pushed by a young man) get so frustrated with an unaware pedestrian strolling along in the marked lane, he almost poked him with a cane, and would have if the walker hadn’t been alerted Monsieur, pour les malades by someone (er…me).

When I mentioned the place of les malades to the boys, they asked me, “Why?”  I was startled that I had to explain – well, I said, besides being simply polite and compassionate, it’s also a response to the presence of Jesus in those in need, it’s honoring that presence and obeying his command to see him there.  It’s a living expression of what Jesus said: the last shall be first – the sick and weak – like Bernadette herself –  being the last in the world’s eyes.

Les Malades.

They are first to the waters, first to the light, first to the Body because in their physical condition, we can see them, we Christ, and we can even see ourselves.  For we are all the sick, we are all weak, crippled, deaf, paralyzed, suffering, in pain, we are all dying and every one of us yearn to be whole.

And so every night at Lourdes, the darkness illuminated by our thousands of tiny lights, we walk, shuffle, stride, limp and are pushed toward that water. We go on, just as we have always done across time, everywhere  led by the One who bound Himself to this weak, suffering Flesh, awash in the womb of a mother

This was the line to go into the grotto. Just as he got there…this fellow was turned away. Pas du chien.

I bought the picture below at a shop well off the beaten path.  The artist made pictures like this and hand-crafted rosaries.  She said to me, “Now you can say that you bought something that actually came from Lourdes.”

(As opposed to..China.)

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