Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

I collect words. I love words of all kinds but I particularly like words that nobody else loves or wants. Words that have been consigned to some dusty corner of usage and slapped with the label ‘archaic.’ I am darkly suspicious that ‘archaic’ is a modern code word for ‘too much trouble to learn.’ I also like words that feel good when you say them. ‘Hemidemisemiquaver’ is the latter. Frankly, I am amazed that this word was not previously part of my working vocabulary. Just in case you are wondering, it is the superior person’s word for a sixty-fourth note. (An eighth note is a ‘quaver’, a sixteenth note is a ’semiquaver’, and a thirty-second note is a ‘demisemiquaver.’) There is no good reason for me not to already know this word. I have more than a little musical training. The word is not an archaic term that is tucked in the dark corners of some dusty novel or dictionary. According my my Merrian-Webster word of the day email this is a British word.

So what I want to know is this. Why have the British (you know who you are) not shared this word? Oh SURE, slap us around for not using that stupid ‘u’ in words like ‘color’ and ‘behavior’ while you hold out with gems like ‘hemidemisemiquaver.’ Sigh, I can see that little rebellion of ours was oh so necessary….

I also want to know why if you could call it a ‘hemdemisemiquaver’, why on earth would you settle for ’sixty-fourth note’?

I saw this question on Yahoo! Answers today.

Why does God punish gays for “leaving the use of women” but recompenses priests who take no use of women at all? : I mean the bible tells us clearly to take use (see verse below) of women and multiply and have kids. But both gays and priests reject women. According to the same bible, both are going against the nature. Gays reject women, and choose men. Priests reject both men and women (some choose boys) and choose celibacy.

Romans 27 “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error.”

Now I have seen a lot of objections to priestly celibacy but I have never heard anyone claim that celibacy was a rejection of women and equivalent to homosexuality. Did I miss something in the Bible? Is there a positive requirement to have sex? If someone voluntarily gives up sex that is an objective evil, equivalent to sexual relations outside of marriage with someone of the same sex? That just doesn’t make sense to me; however, I often see people claim that priestly celibacy is not just a bad idea but wrong. And I would like to address that.

First, priestly celibacy is a discipline not dogma. In fact, not all Roman Catholic priests are celibate. When an ordained and married priest converts to the Roman Catholic Church from a religious tradition with a valid priesthood such as the Orthodox faith, they are still allowed to exercise their ministry in the Catholic Church. And tomorrow, the Vatican could lift the requirements of priestly celibacy just like they changed the pre-Communion fast requirements from midnight of day before to one hour before receiving communion.

I have frequently heard the argument that priestly celibacy is “not scriptural.” Some people look at Genesis 1: 28 “Be fruitful and multiply” as a scriptural argument against celibacy, but it s cleat that this is a general requirement for all of humankind and specific exceptions are not in violation of the admonition. Jeremiah is told by God not to marry (ch 16) and Jesus spoke favorably of celibacy:

Matthew 19:11-12: “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom it is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God . Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Honestly I find this one verse to be a powerfully compelling argument for celibacy. How does anyone look at the words of Our Lord himself and then claim that celibacy is wrong? Or a “man made tradition”? Celibacy is a voluntary discipline encouraged by Our Lord himself. No man in the Catholic faith is required to be a priest and take vows of celibacy. The Catholic Church does not forbid marriage or service to the church by married people. The Catholic Church however, does take he words of Our Lord in the gospel with great seriousness. Arguably with greater seriousness than many of orur separated brothers and sisters in faith. How many other Christian groups take the words of the gospel with such faith? Where else do we find so many people willing to follow Our Lord and renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God ? Ironically, the person who asked the question above quoted St. Paul and St. Paul explicitly spoke in favor of celibacy:

1 Corinthians 7:7-9  “Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire.”  

1 Corinthians 7:32-34 I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

In Revelation we again see consecrated celibacy in 14:3-4

“They were singing (what seemed to be) a new hymn before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn this hymn except the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been ransomed from the earth. These are they who were not defiled with women; they are virgins and these are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been ransomed as the firstfruits of the human race for God and the Lamb.”

The image is heavenly and we know from the words of Jesus that there will not be marriage in heaven, perhaps this is a reference to their state of life on earth. Nevertheless it is clear that celibacy is again portrayed as a desired state of life. If God commands celibacy of Jeremiah, Jesus commends the practice, and St. Paul reinforces it, and we see it portrayed in images of Heaven in Revelation on what basis is celibacy “not scriptural”?

Then of course, there is the idea that somehow if a man is celibate he will become homosexual or a pedophile or some kind of sexual predator. I personally find this to be incredibly insulting to men in general. Those who posit this argument would have you believe that men are such weak creatures that voluntarily abstaining from sex would make them so unable to control themselves that the only possible solution is to prey on children. And frankly, the idea that abstaining from licit heterosexual relationships will make someone homosexual is completely without merit. Ok heterosexuals out there; raise your hands if you think that sexual abstinence would cause you to prefer sexual relations with a member of your own sex? Didn’t think so. Would sexual abstinence make you desire sexual relations with a child? Didn’t think so.  In fact a study in the Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa reported that “most of the middle-aged pedophiles have had significant adult sexual activity.” Fifty-eight percent of the pedophiles in one study had at least one child, while other research indicated that “more than two-thirds of the married pedophiles in their sample had children, with an average of two to three children per subject.” (cited here see footnotes 45 and 46)

Far from being unnatural, priestly celibacy imitates the state of life chosen by Jesus. It celebrates sacrifice for a greater good. It allows a priest to serve the church with minimal worldly distractions. The fact that some priests fall sort of the goal is to be expected. There are hypocrites and sinners everywhere. The fact that so many good and faithful priests triumph in this difficult sacrifice for the kingdom should be proof of God’s grace in their lives. The kind of faith that allows such selflessness should be praised. This discipline is faithful to ALL of Sacred Scripture and stands as a positive witness that whenever Our Lord sets us a difficult task, He grants Grace in abundance.

Catholic Answers: How to Argue for Priestly Celibacy; Understanding the Priest Scandal

Our homilist yesterday asked us to remember our Confirmations as he spoke about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, I spent some time in uncomfortable remembrance. You see I was a reluctant convert. I knew God had led me to the Catholic Church (probably to “fix” what was wrong with them don’t you know?…sigh…yes, I was that arrogant.) and I was getting confirmed mostly because that’s what I was “supposed” to do. I was confirmed with a class of teenagers who were being confirmed as part of the normal Catholic growing up process and the adult in charge gave me a choice of being confirmed in alphabetical order with the rest of the class or being confirmed last. I picked last. When I got to the bishop he looked at me and said “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” I was not amused. I also told my mother-in-law that there was to be absolutely no “big deal” to be made about this because I was already Christian thankyouverymuch. I was determined not to have anything to do with excessive Saint veneration and I figured choosing whatever Saint was already associated with my middle name would do quite nicely thankyouverymuch. Quite frankly looking back at my disobedient and ungrateful attitude, I am surprised God did not strike me dead instead of granting me the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But as bad as my attitude was I didn’t reject the Sacraments outright. I was at least honest enough at that point to be saying (halfheartedly….didn’t want to be a total hypocrite don’t you know) “Lord I believe, help Thou my unbelief.” I am also living proof that if we don’t want the power of the Sacraments working in our lives we had best seal the doors, and pile furniture up against it because if we leave even a tiny crack for the Holy Spirit to pour out Grace into our lives that’s exactly what is going to happen. No matter how undeserving and how ugly we are, Our Lord is willing to bestow grace upon grace upon us if we are even slightly willing to receive it. I may not have been a grateful recipient of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out on me at my Confirmation but Our Lord honored the Sacrament and bestowed them anyway.

I also sat and contemplated “choice” of a Saint for my confirmation name. At the time, I did enough research to discover that Anne (my middle name) was the grandmother of Our Lord and the source I read indicated that she was sometimes considered a patron of teachers because she was obviously such a good teacher for Our Lady. At the time I was intending to attend college to become a teacher at the time so it seemed as good a choice as any. I didn’t see much value in researching my choice much further. Since then as I have become increasingly unhappy with my attitude regarding my Confirmation and my cavalier attitude toward choosing a confirmation saint and on Sunday I sat musing on it all.

Our Lord was good enough to ignore my bad attitude and unrelentingly insist that I stay put in the Catholic Church. The Sacraments conferred grace in spite of my reluctance. And as I sat and meditated, I realized just how much of a Saint Our Lord’s grandmother is (rimshot). I’ve never paid much attention to her, at first because although I might be Catholic, you weren’t going to get me to jump off the deep end with those Catholic extremists and have my own personal Saint and then the shame of it all was a little more that I care to face on a regular basis. But I think she’s been interceding for me in spite of me. Isn’t that JUST like a good grandmother? It turns out she’s not an official patron saint of **teachers but then it turns out that I wasn’t headed for an official classroom but motherhood and a homeschool classroom. Coincidence? Or just another example of how God pours out Grace in spite of ourselves? Probably time for a long overdue “Thank you.”

**St. Anne is the patron of the following: Adjuntas, Puerto Rico; Brittany; Canada; carpenters; childless people; Detroit, Michigan; equestrians; France; grandparents; homemakers/housewives; lace makers; lost articles; miners; mothers; Norwich, Connecticut; old-clothes dealers; poverty; pregnancy; Quebec; Santa Ana Pueblo; seamstresses; stablemen; sterility; Taos, New Mexico; turners; Marsaskala

Sequence to the Holy Spirit

Come, O Holy Spirit, come!

From Thy bright and blissful Home
Rays of healing light impart.

Come Thou Father of the poor,
Source of gifts that will endure
Light of ev’ry human heart.

Thou of all consolers best,
Of the soul most kindly Guest,
Quick’ning courage dost bestow.

In hard labor Thou art rest,
In the heat refreshest best,
Solace givest in our woe.

O most blessed Light divine,
Let Thy radiance in us shine,
And our inmost being fill.

Nothing good by man is thought,
Nothing right by him is wrought,
When he spurns Thy gracious Will.

Cleanse our souls from sinful stain,
Lave our dryness with Thy rain,
Heal our wounds and mend our way.

Bend the stubborn heart and will,
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful who in Thee,
Trust with childlike piety,
Deign Thy sevenfold gift to send.

Give them virtue’s rich increase,
Saving grace to die in peace,
Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia.

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Christ Jesus, before ascending into heaven,
You promised to send the Holy Spirit to Your apostles and disciples.
Grant that the same Spirit may perfect in our lives the work of Your grace and love.
Grant us the Spirit of Fear Of The Lord that we may be filled with a loving reverence toward You.
the Spirit of Piety that we may find peace and fulfillment in the service of God while serving others;
the Spirit of Fortitude that we may bear our cross with You and,
with courage, overcome the obstacles that interfere with our salvation;
the Spirit of Knowledge that we may know You and know ourselves and grow in holiness;
the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten our minds with the light of Your truth;
the Spirit of Counsel that we may choose the surest way of doing Your will, seeking first the Kingdom;
Grant us the Spirit of Wisdom that we may aspire to the things that last forever;
Teach us to be Your faithful disciples and animate us in every way with Your Spirit.
Amen.

And grant us a powerful Spirit of Unity, that we may witness to the Love of Christ in our lives. Help Holy Spirit to let Jesus in us speak through us and for us. Bring the world to yourself and the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Amen.

Joee Blogs - A Catholic Londoner shares his pictures of a Mass in the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey Since we are not surrounded by the ruins of the Reformation in the United States (or anything else either for that matter….our “ruins” tend toward urban blight), it never occured to me that Catholics in other countries might say Mass in the old landmarks. I really REALLY like that idea and not that you need my approval but….carry on! The demise of St. Augustine’s Abbey was part of the Protestant Reign of Religious Tolerance in England and I very much like the idea of reclaiming the ruins for Our Lord and his One Church.

And this reminds me of a line in a homily given by a dear old priest who has gone to his reward. He spoke of visiting some very beautiful old church in England and with mischief in his eye looked at us all and said. “They took it from us you know.” We all laughed, but you know what? They did and that fills me with a profound sadness for the lives and livelihoods that were lost. I mourn for the loss of a lifestyle of faith that Catholic churches and monasteries provided for the communities they served. Instead of church bells and prayers to mark the passage of the day, we have our clocks and watches. How much better is that?

Thank you kindly to Fr. Longenecker for directing me to Joee Blogs in the first place.

Maria Goretti - Survivors Prayer

Dear God, we ask you to help us find healing and peace in our life.

Grant us hope in these times of trial. May Maria Goretti who was strengthened by Your Grace join with us in prayer for healing of all victims of abuse, particularly those abused as children or young adults.

Fill us with your Love so that as Maria prayed for her attacker, we too might have the courage to pray for the true conversion of our abusers: that they might seek Your Mercy through prayer and penance.

Loving God, pour into our hearts and lives your healing Spirit, that the sacredness of every human person might be respected and protected as the precious image of God.

Help us to live in the peace which Maria Goretti had found in Christ and in the love of his mother Mary.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Maria Goretti - Prayer for Those Suffering From Abuse

Dear God, we ask you to help all those who suffer from abuse. Help them find healing and peace in their life.

May Maria Goretti who was strengthened by Your Grace join with us in prayer for healing of all victims of abuse, particularly those abused as children or young adults.

Grant us your Love that we might reach out to them in Your Name with hope in times of trial.

As Maria prayed for her attacker, grant us the grace to pray for the true conversion of all involved with the abuse: that they might seek Your Mercy through prayer and penance.

Loving God, pour into our hearts and lives your healing Spirit, that the sacredness of every human person might be respected and protected as the precious image of God.

Help us to live in the peace which Maria Goretti had found in Christ and in the love of his mother Mary. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thank you kindly to the Diocese of Tyler Texas 

More of my best/most life-changing books.

In homeschooling and parenting books, I highly recommend Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson. The Clarkson’s Our 24 Family Ways has been quite a practical help is establishing guidelines for behavior in our home (I have a much older version than the one I hav linked). “We use words that build up and bless.” Season’s of a Mother’s Heart has been temendously encouraging to me when I have been struggling.

I’ve had a long time fascination with books on the holocaust, particularly first person accounts. Playing for Time by Fania Fenelon, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, and Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (which I read LONG before the movie thank you very much) are among my favorites. The Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess and Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert J. Lifton are the two best glimpses into the banalness of evil and how very ordinary great evil can look in the eyes of those who commit it.

Inspiring religious reads: The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme is the book that inspired the Audrey Hepburn movie and a fabulous read. If monasteries and convents intrigue you, I recommend An Infinity of Little Hours by Nancy Klein Maguire. On Being Catholic by Thomas Howard sparkles with the joy of being Catholic. John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father by Peggy Noonan makes me wish I could grow up and write like her.

The Catholic apologetic book I nominate as the “Most Likely to Yank The Rug Out From a Non-Catholic” is Jesus Peter and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy by Scott Butler, Norman Dahler, and David Hess. This is not necessarily the book I recommend first or to everyone but it settles a lot of issues for a lot of people that I work with. For a readjustment of pespective regarding Catholic church history, I recommend How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods Jr. Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells by Matthew Gallatin is the book I suggest to those who are expressing vague discontent with philosophical unerpinings of Protestantism. It’s written by an Orthodox author but just jam-packed with questions you wish you’d asked yourself a long time ago.  

Paradigm books. These are books that have provided me with a useful paradigm for understanding or explaining something. In Tolkien: Man and Myth, Joseph Pearce does an amazing job of weaving Tolkien’s biographical details and his literary legacy and given me an amazing workable paradigm of myth that I find useful in discussing the Bible with atheists and funamentalists alike. Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr. has written three books that finally vindicate the Greeks from the mainstream academia’s notion that they just didn’t know as much as we sophisticated modern folks. I’ve always hated traditional academic explanations of Greek myths. Somehow I just couldn’t buy into the idea that the Greeks were just so simplistic that they needed these stories to explain the world around them. (Yes, I know it’s not quite that simple.) There always seemed to be something lurking below the surface that I couldn’t quite grasp. His ideas of the symbolism in Greek myths and their connection to the symbols in the Bible is intriguing and I don’t really care is mainstream academia agrees with me or not. The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble, Athena and Kain: The True Meaning of Greek Myth, and Athena and Eden: The Hidden Meaning of he Parthenon’s East Facade were all fascinating reads. Genesis unlocked my understanding of Greek Myths kind of like the Liturgy did with Revelation in Scott Hahn’s The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth. If you want to try to explain why good things happen to bad people The Problem of Pain has some indispensable ideas. 

Yes I do read fiction every now and then. Father Elijah by Michael O’Brien was one that I read with a highlighter in my hand. I loved it! I read Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce annually. I love time travel in fiction and will read even very bad books if time travel is a part but the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is a favorite. I will warn you there is plenty of marital activity which surprisingly is confined to the bounds of marriage or portrayed as not a Good Thing otherwise. The hero and heroine marry early and…gasp….stay married! I also like Dean Koontz and am really enjoying his Frankenstein and Odd Thomas series. I also really like F. Paul Wilson particularly any of his Repairman Jack novels and the Adversary Cycle that started with The Keep. Now before anyone jumps all over me with “How can you READ such garbage?” I will tell you that I have been challenged by very religiously conservative people to describe how I can manage to walk away with good things from these darker novels and I win….every. time. They say, “Ok, YOU can read them but nobody else.” To which I say, “If you don’t like dark novels don’t read them.” I personally have temptation issues with eading in areas that most people do not and I stay away from what tempts me!  

Authors I just really like. Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesteron, Pope Benedict XVI, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Howard, Thomas Dubay, and Peggy Noonan.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something but that’s it for tonight!