What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

I mentioned on Plurk/Twitter that I was going to make what I call "spaghetti al seminario".  This is pretty simply stuff and you can put it together with brutal speed. 

The name comes from the fact that in my seminary in Rome we got this stuff all the time.  We got horse all the time too, but that is another story.

Get the water, with salt or chicken/beef broth in it started right away.  Begin browning some ground beef… or horse, as you please in a good sized pot.  Your carrots and onions will add a lot of volume. Season a bit with course salt and ground pepper.  I work with a pretty hot surface and like the darker flavor the browning gives.  This is 96%lean beef.  I have some elk in the freezer that would have been perfect.  Use a higher fat content if you want.



Meanwhile, chop up carrots, onion and garlic.  Don’t be fancy.  Just whack away.  This is rough and ready.



Add the veg with olive oil.  Season again, stirring to cover with oil and pick up some brown.



At this point I added some beef stock and sweated it down a bit.  You can use a little of the paste type of stock/flavor too.

When most of the liquid was gone I added my canned tomatoes. 

In this case the tomatoes were San Marzano and they were a gift from a reader here from my Amazon Wish List.  Many thanks to TG of MO who checked the wish list and sent the flat of San Marzano tomatoes!



Chop up the tomatoes right in the pan.  Don’t worry about breaking them up finely.  The cooking will take care of a lot of that.  At the end I like to have some identifiable pieces with a rough and ready preparation like this.

My oregano, which I brought in before the first freeze, has gone the way of all flesh.  I therefore used dried oregano from my summer plants.  Also, dried oregano has a very different flavor.  Work with caution.  I added finely ground hot red pepper, animi caussa.  Season it to your liking. Use a little lemon juice if you want to keep the salt down and still brighten it up.




I added a little more beef stock and then put the fire to low and let it reduce for a time the merciless way: I was hungry.  If you use the paste form of stock you can work faster, though I like some time for everything to integrate.



When I am making an express sauce like this, the fast and cruel way, I will often let it rest a minute or so just to see if it is going to separate a little, get watery.  In that case, I crank up the fire again for a bit.  This can be a little harder to gauge when working with whole or fresh tomatoes. 

Finish with grated Parmigiano and ground pepper and a drizzle of good peppery first press olive oil.  Garnish ad libitum.

If you want, you could cook your pasta (I recommend spaghetti for this, rather than penne or rigatoni) to just the underdone side of al dente and then finish cooking it right in the sauce.  That can produce some nice results and the starch from the pasta can take care of some of your texture if the sauce needs more reduction. I didn’t do that this time.  That technique permits the sauce to permeate the pasta a bit.  Think about it. 

Your pasta is going to taste like what you cook it in, right? 

Just a tip.  Try it.

Ecco.  "Spaghetti al (Fr. Z’s) seminario".  Un primo piatto sia veloce sia sostanzioso.



The carrots impart a sweetness that contrasts well with the salt and dark tones of the beef.  Furthermore, they greatly increase the volume of sauce!  Excellent for many guests and it keeps the cost down.

Serve with a modest but sturdy Italian red such as Santa Cristina.   This doesn’t need a fancy wine.  I would avoid anything light and fruity such as the incoming Italian novello or Beaujolais.  Stick to the drier and structured end of the spectrum.  A Chianti would work.  But you can always do as the Romans do and wash this fast plate down with a cold sharp white, in the style of the Castelli Romani, which was all we got in seminary.  Try a cold bottle of Frascati.

Having crusty bread to scrape the bowl will help.  This is called "fare la scarpetta" or mop the plate/bowl.  Literally something like "doing the little shoe thing".  The image has to do with the shape of the heal, like the piece of bread cut in a slice off an oblong loaf and then halved.  "Fare la scarpetta" is not done in a fancy place or formal meal.  I can assure you it is done in a Roman seminary.

If you want a variation when it is well reduced, add a little heavy cream or half and half as it is resting and blend it in. Yum.

Many "slow food" style Italian recipes will work with beef and at least some carrot as well as milk or cream.  This is the fast method when you need lots of food in a pinch. 

Reverend Fathers, you can whip this up in no time when hungry seminarians descend on your rectory.

May God bless you all abundantly for this New Year of Salvation.

Have any resolutions?

From a priest friend and reader in an e-mail entitled simply:

In honor of Fr. Z, I’m tying one on tonight, and tomorrow morning!

Happy New Year!

I love it when a priest is determined to tie one on to celebrate the New Year!  In public too!

One of you readers caught the partial eclipse of the blue moon!

Very cool.

As view from Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, GB at 1928 local time.



Another, a priest friend, sent this from Ascona, Switzerland at 2010 GMT!

During 1st Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, with the singing of the Te Deum for the end of the year, the Holy Father said, in my translation:

Dear brothers and sisters, Rome needs priests who will be courageous heralds of the Gospels and, at the same time, will reveal the merciful face of the Father.  I invite young people not to be afraid to respond with a complete gift of their own being to the call that the Lord extends to them to follow the road of the priesthood or of consecrated life.

A look at the prayers for tomorrow’s Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in the 2002MR.

COLLECT (2002MR)
Deus, qui salutis aeternae, beatae Mariae virginitate fecunda,
humano generi praemia praestitisti,
tribue, quaesumus, ut ipsam pro nobis intercedere sentiamus,
per quam meruimus Filium tuum auctorem vitae suscipere.

This prayer was in the pre-Conciliar Missal and, slightly different, in the Gelasian Sacramentary for the Assumption of Mary on 15 August (xviii Kalendas Septembris). 

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O God, who by the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary
bestowed upon the human race the rewards of eternal salvation,
grant, we beg, that we may perceive her interceding for us,
through whom we merited to receive Your Son, the author of life.

Now, please forgive me, but I must include the laughably deficient lame-duck version from…

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God our Father,
may we always profit by the prayers
of the Virgin Mother Mary,
for you bring us life and salvation
through Jesus Christ her Son…

Let’s now move on to the so-called “Prayer over the gifts”.   This following prayer was not in the pre-Conciliar Missal, but it does have an antecedent in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary within the body of prayers for September in what appear to be a collection of prayers for the ordination of bishops (“in natale episcoporum”).

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR)
Deus, qui bona cuncta inchoas benignus et perficis,
da nobis, de sollemnitate sanctae Dei Genetricis laetantibus,
sicut de initiis tuae gratiae gloriamur,
ita de perfectione gaudere.

The super useful Lewis & Short Dictionary gives us a fascinating piece of information about initium.  Along with “a beginning, commencement” it also means – this is so cool – “secret sacred rites, sacred mysteries, to which only the initiated were admitted”.  

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God our Father,
we celebrate at this season
the beginning of our salvation.
On the feast of Mary, the Mother of God,
we ask that our salvation
will be brought to its fulfillment.

A lot is going on herein this elegant Latin prayer.  First, the priest acknowledges that all good things have their beginning in God.  We are His instruments, truly involved, but He is the one who brings them to a good completion: He perfects them through us.  The sicut…ita construction sets up a proportional relationship between the two clauses.  Just so, we ask God 1) to grant to us to rejoice in the fact of God bringing good things to completion and perfection and, moreover, 2) to grant that we in like manner may revel in the mysterious things He set in motion to begin with. 

Furthermore, the context of this prayer is a) the Christmas Octave feast of the Mother of God, focused on Mary’s maternity of the divine Person Jesus Christ and also of His Church, us, the members of Christ’s Body and, moreover, b) the raising up to God of the good fruits of the earth God gave us and we worked with our efforts, and His imminent transformation of them through the priest’s words and actions.  God begins every good thing.  He uses us who cooperate with His plan, and He perfects all things for our benefit and His glory. 

Notice the de…de…de, all three of which point to the causes of our joy: i) the solemn feast of and fact of Mary’s divine Motherhood, ii) the mysterious gifts (even this Mass itself – initia) accruing to the initiated (baptized and in the state of grace) from God’s free gifts, iii) their perfection/completion.   It is super hard to convey the impact of this prayer in English without getting really wordy.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O God, who kindly begin all good things and bring them to completion,
grant us, now rejoicing over the solemnity of the Holy Mother of God,
so to delight about perfect completion,
as we are glorying about the initiatives of Your grace.

We come to the end of Holy Mass.  Those who were able to do so received Holy Communion.  There follow a time for reflection and perhaps exaltation of the soul in song.  

It has been years since we looked at Post communion prayers, so let’s review what they are. 

The context of Mass for the Post communionem has a structure similar to contexts of the Collect and Super oblata. 

In each case there is movement from one place to another in the church: the entrance procession, offertory procession, and the procession for Communion. 

In each case a choir or schola traditionally sings a psalm with antiphon (see what you lose when you lose Gregorian chant?). 

In each case the priest makes introductory silent prayers: the “prayers before the altar” in the older form of Mass, the hushed prayers (audible in the Novus Ordo) while preparing the paten and chalice, and finally the orisons he softly recites while purifying the sacred vessels after Communion. 

In each case the pattern of song and prayer conclude with the priest’s audible prayer, always introduced with an invitation of Oremus… “Let us pray” (and in the traditional form of Mass with the 1962MR the courteous and elegant greeting Dominus vobiscum preceding each invitation). 

The pattern is present in proclaiming the Gospel: the priest or deacon’s silent prayer for grace and worthiness, the procession with the Evangelarium, the greeting, reading, and sermon, the invitation to pray the so-called “prayers of the faithful”, followed by the concluding prayer by the priest.  The structure is the same in all four instances.  

In fact, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) distinguished four sections of the Mass, the last of which after Communion was called the gratiarum actio, the “thanksgiving” (cf. ep. 149,16).  In contrast to the Eastern rites (and unlike this column sometimes) the Roman Rite is characterized by concise, spare language.  However, for many centuries until the Novus Ordo the Latin Rite’s Mass had a double closing consisting of prayers of thanksgiving and of blessing.  Happily these post Post Communion blessing prayers have been reinstated to the 2002 edition of the Missale Romanum during the season of Lent after an absence of some thirty years… which restoration makes me wonder how “upset” people in the pews will get from such a radical change!  After all, the addition of a prayer makes Mass longer!  And, for heaven’s sake, those blessing prayers were conspicuously absent from Mass for a venerable three whole decades, a tradition of not praying! 

But I digress….   

The style and structure of our Latin Post communionem prayers is virtually the same as that of the Collect and the old Secret or Super oblata.  These are prayers of petition addressed to God the Father through the Son (per Dominum nostrum).   They focus on our gratitude to the Father for all His blessings, especially the continual gift of His Son in Holy Communion.  So, the Post communion thanksgiving embraces the Communion of all the faithful, laity and priest together.  This was so even in the centuries when people received Communion rarely during the year.

So, at this point in our New Year’s Day Mass, in honor of the Mother of God, the priest, who during Mass is Christ the Head of the Body, speaks for the whole Body, the Church, raising prayers of thanks to the Father for the fact of and effects of the Eucharist, singing:

POST COMMUNION (2002MR)
Sumpsimus, Domine, laeti sacramenta caelestia:
praesta, quaesumus,
ut ad vitam nobis proficient sempiternam,
qui beatam semper Virginem Mariam
Filii tui Genetricem et Ecclesiae Matrem
profiteri gloriamur.

This is based on a prayer in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary but it was not in an edition of the Roman Missal before the Council.  An odd thing about this prayer is that it has a colon at the end of the first line.  Colons were often an indication for how to sing the prayers, though they were expunged the editions after the Council.

LITERAL TRANSLATION
O Lord, we happy ones have consumed the heavenly sacraments:
grant, we beseech You,
that they may be advantageous unto eternal life for us
who exalt to profess blessed Mary ever Virgin,
Mother of Your Son and Mother of the Church.
 
ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father,
as we proclaim the Virgin Mary
to be the mother of Christ and the mother of the Church,
may our communion with her Son
bring us to salvation.

A couple weeks ago in my column for The Wanderer I spoke of the work of Christine Mohrmann.  Also, I have on various occasions opined that sometimes it is okay for something you know to be a translation to actually sound like a translation.

This is from, Whosoever Desires, a group blog by young Jesuits.   They seem to be getting the right ideas!

In Praise of Clunky Translations

On November 17 the USCCB approved the final segments of a new English version of the Roman Missal.  A few have already criticized the Vox Clara translation as “slavishly literal” (here) [Imagine!  A "Slavishly literal" translation!  O the humanity!] and disrespectful of the “natural rhythm and cadences of the English language” (here).  On purely grammatical and stylistic grounds, I am actually inclined to agree with these criticisms.  However, a recent rereading of Liturgical Latin, Christine Mohrmann’s slim classic from 1957, has reminded me that slavish literalism and barbarous constructions have always been a hallmark of Christian liturgical language.

Mohrmann—at pains to show that early Christian Latin was hardly the Latin of the “common man”—notes that biblical Latin was marked by precisely those stylistic features most criticized in the new Roman Missal:

The earliest Christian Latin, like the Greek, bears a strong Biblical imprint.  The translating procedure, however, of the earliest translators, does not markedly differ from that employed by the translators of the Septuagint.  We find the same word-for-word method of translation which differed so radically from that recommended by Cicero.  The Latin translators of the Bible show the same reverence for the original text which had also been a guiding principle of the Septuagint translators.

Barbarisms, neologisms, and foreign idioms abounded in the first Latin translations of the Bible.  This translation philosophy naturally spilled over into Latin liturgical texts.  Besides Hebrew barbarisms such as “Amen” and “Alleluia,” Mohrmann singles out words that were plucked from their profane use and almost entirely retooled for Christian prayer, words such as confiteor, gloria, credo, and humlitas.

Mohrmann also observes that, even when Jerome re-translated the Bible, he was more concerned to account for the shifting sensus of Latin words than to update archaisms or recherché diction.  Jerome naturally saw that, in view of the effects of time on language,

some changes were obviously necessary to conserve the purity of meaning.  When the old words rendered the meaning accurately, these words were preserved. For instance, when there was a general movement to replace the old words magnificare, honorificare, and clarificare by the “European” term glorificare, Jerome will have nothing to do with it, because in his opinion the use of the words threatened with extinction does not endanger the original meaning… [consubtantial] We may say that Jerome, like Ambrose and Augustine, had a sincere appreciation of the biblical style, and he tries to leave it intact and maintain it as far as possible.

If Jerome were apply this translation philosophy to the English Missal, he might leave a rare or archaic word like “gibbet.”  [Of maybe even…. gulp… "ineffable"?] On the other hand, he would probably update Holy “Ghost” to Holy “Spirit,” since recent shifts in the English language freighted “ghost” with a cargo of eeriness and malevolence.

On Mohrmann’s view, the net effect of this conservative tendency was actually creative.  Christians slowly forged a sacred language, one perhaps less apt for instantaneous communication, but one more apt for corporate expression.  This second function of language was no less important:

Whereas … language used primarily as a means of communication normally strives toward a degree of efficiency … language as expression usually shows a tendency to become richer and more subtle.  It aims at becoming, by every possible means, more expressive and more picturesque, and it may try to attain this heightened power of expression both by the coining of new words and by the preservation of antiquated elements already abandoned by the language as communication.

In this connection, English speakers might call to mind the solemn “thy’s” of the Our Father and the stern “thou-shalt-not’s” of the Decalogue. [Gosh!  We did a poll about that here, didn’t we?] They might also contrast the expressiveness of a cup that “runneth over” to that of a cup that merely “overflows.”

In fact, compared to the slavish deference that the first Latin “missal” showed to the Hebrew Scriptures, the respect that the Vox Clara translation pays to its Latin forebear is actually very slight.  For this reason, the aura of the sacred will be faint.  The new translation does, however, begin to give due consideration to the expressive power of language.  To this extent, it joins the age-old mainstream of Christian liturgical piety.

Once again, our cup runneth over.

"Runneth" twice in one article?

Tooo haaard!

Good work men.  WDTPRS kudos.

In a FOXNews story:

HONOLULU —  Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains on Wednesday, a Honolulu television station reported.

Paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing, KITV reported. The station, citing unnamed sources, said the 58-year-old Limbaugh was taken to The Queens Medical Center in serious condition.

 

Read the rest.

Space Weather News for Dec. 31, 2009

BLUE MOON ECLIPSE:  For the first time in almost 20 years, there’s going to be a "Blue Moon" on New Year’s Eve.  In Europe, sky watchers will witness an even rarer event—an eclipse of a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve.  What are the odds? Probabilities and observing tips may be found at http://spaceweather.com.

 

A blue moon is the 2nd full moon in a calendar month.

From NASA we read this:

 

If you told a person in Shakespeare’s day that something happens "once in a Blue Moon" they would attach no astronomical meaning to the statement. Blue moon simply meant rare or absurd, like making a date for the Twelfth of Never. "But meaning is a slippery substance," says Hiscock. "The phrase ‘Blue Moon’ has been around for more than 400 years, and during that time its meaning has shifted."

The modern definition sprang up in the 1940s. In those days, the Farmer’s Almanac of Maine offered a definition of Blue Moon so convoluted that even professional astronomers struggled to understand it. It involved factors such as the ecclesiastical dates of Easter and Lent, and the timing of seasons according to the dynamical mean sun. Aiming to explain blue moons to the layman, Sky & Telescope published an article in 1946 entitled "Once in a Blue Moon." The author James Hugh Pruett cited the 1937 Maine almanac and opined that the "second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon."

That was not correct, but at least it could be understood. And thus the modern Blue Moon was born.

Blue moon has other connotations, too. In music, it’s often a symbol of melancholy. According to one Elvis tune, it means "without a love of my own." On the bright side, he croons in another song, a simple kiss can turn a Blue Moon pure gold.

 

But back to the eclipse:

 

On Dec. 31st, the Blue Moon will dip into Earth’s shadow for a partial lunar eclipse. The event is visible from Europe, Africa and Asia: map. At maximum eclipse, around 19:24 Universal Time, approximately 8% of the Moon will be darkly shadowed. Click on the image to launch an animated preview:

Blue Moons are rare (once every ~2.5 years). Blue Moons on New Year’s Eve are rarer still (once every ~19 years). How rare is a lunar eclipse of a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve?

A search of NASA’s Five Millennium Catalogue of Lunar Eclipses provides an approximate answer. In the next 1000 years, Blue Moons on New Year’s Eve will be eclipsed only 11 times (once every ~91 years). So this is a rare event, indeed.

 

Very cool.

 

 

Want to have a chuckle while looking at a serious issue?

Serious for the Lutherans, that is.

You remember the ELCA decision last summer about homosexual clergy and same-sex unions?

I picked up on the site of First Things their replay of a piece in the Lutheran Forum Letter by the nephew of the late Fr. Neuhaus, Pastor Peter Speckhard, entitled … Temple prostitution: a modest proposal.

Pastor Speckhard may have learned from his uncle to be a master of the absurd to underscore a point.

First, he explains the Lutherans have some big problems, namely…

• —Inability to retain or reach out to young, single people, especially men. ...
• —Failure to use the gifts of the laity. Sure, it is easy to use the gifts of creative, educated, energetic, talented people. ...
• —Declining revenue. ...
• —Legalism. ...
• —Biblicism. ...
• —Irrelevance. ...
• —Worship without impact. ...

Big hurdles, nicht wahr?   Pastor Speckhard has a solution.

Temple Prostitution!

Sure, some will object.  Blah blah blah.  As he points out with deadly satire, there may be Scriptural grounds for objections but, hey…  

The Biblical writers never foresaw or contemplated sanctified, faithful, God-pleasing prostitution in the churches and thus never wrote about it.

We also have to consider "interpretive nuance" and "love", which conquers all.

Go read the piece and have a good time, for free!

In effect, this type of mordent commentary truly strips away the whatever clothing the emperor/ess may have retained.

I wonder if the whole wymyn priest movement thingie understands that this is the direction they are headed.

Just askin’

Between various bouts with the keyboard today, I took a few photos of the every busy birds at the feeder.

Lots of black and white these days.


Though other muted colors come around.



I am glad to see some House Finches back.  They were gone for a while, perhaps on that same cruise the Chickadees were on.  Not with Celebrity, I hope.



poing!



Once in while I catch some bird just hanging out. 

This Nuthatch, during a lull, just sat there, looking around for the longest time.



Similarly, I caught this woodpecker actually dozing upside down, pretty much motionless for a few minutes.

Like I said… just hanging around.



I feed the birds from your donations.

You might remember that there was a dust up in the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan.  Some parishoners of Our Lady of Fatima were trying to get their pastor, Fr. Jeffrey Robideau, removed.  

So often these stories about about a conservative-minded priests who begins to effect changes in a parish and aging-hippie parishioners rise up against him no matter how diplomatic (or undiplomatic) the pastor has been. 

And it is almost always from liturgical changes.  

That makes sense, of course.  When you change the liturgy, you are making statements about faith and morals.

Sadly, in the past many bishops pretty much by default sacked the pastor, thus contributing to sacerdotal morale and that special bond that exists between bishop and priests. I think those days are passing, by the way.

From mlive.com comes this update with my emphases and comments.

Catholic bishop says priest will stay at Michigan Center church despite complaints from parishioners

By Jackie Smith
December 28, 2009, 11:36PM

The Catholic Diocese of Lansing will keep a controversial pastor in place at a Michigan Center parish, more than a month after parishioners sent a petition asking for his removal. 

Some 150 members of Our Lady of Fatima had asked Bishop Earl Boyea to remove the Rev. Jeffrey Robideau. Last week, the parish and diocese sent letters to parishioners saying that Robideau will stay.

In his letter, Robideau acknowledged that some of his decisions have prompted members to leave the parish. Robideau, 42, was appointed in July, replacing the Rev. Andy Dunne.

"While I am saddened and sorry that people have taken offense, I continue to understand that a transition from a pastor of 30 years to a young, zealous pastor like myself is difficult," he wrote.  [Could it be that there was an old supporter of the Spirit of Vatican II in that post who let lay people have more authority?]

Included in parishioners’ concerns were Robideau’s decision to disband the church’s choir [Very often a problem in a parish for a new pastor.] and his apparent refusal to train girls to perform altar services [Entirely within his right] or hold church committee meetings. [Depending in what they mean by "committee", that could be a point.]

"It is clear that the pastor has the prerogative to make the decisions in these matters," Boyea stated in his Dec. 17 letter. [God bless him.] "You are no doubt aware that in our diocese, as in any diocese, priests will vary, within the guidelines established by universal or diocese law, in their choices in these matters."

Helen Navarre, a longtime member of Our Lady of Fatima, said she found the response discouraging.

"It seems as though none of the problems we have will be solved," she said. [Actually, they were resolved.  Just not in the way she liked.] "I don’t give up very easily. I will continue to go there, hoping things get better." [And I am sure she will be a source of joy for all concerned.]

Navarre said she understood Robideau’s authority to make decisions, but said the change is just too drastic for some.  [Drastic?  When you read or hear "drastic", what comes to mind?  This stuff?]

"Our church has been just like a big family and everybody’s worked together to have what we’ve got now," she said.

In the letter, Boyea told parishioners that he and Robideau "consulted about all the matters which you have raised and discussed every one of them." Much of its content regarded parish finances over construction, specifically a $1.3 million project that could put an addition on the church to seat a total of 940. The project’s planning, he said, is still being discussed.  [Okay, that is a good thing to discuss.  But church design isn’t a matter of a vote for everyone.]

Michael D. Diebold, a spokesman for the diocese, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Robideau also defended many of his actions in a Thanksgiving letter to parishioners. In his letter, Boyea also mentioned Robideau’s sincerity in bringing parishioners back who have left. [Good!]

Navarre is skeptical over whether they would want to return.

"Each Sunday it seems like there are fewer and fewer people in attendance," she said. "My personal opinion is they never will (return) as long as he’s there."  [There’s a fine response.  It remains to be seen if the new pastor will attract new people.  The reporter apparently didn’t care to explore that.]

It is a sad fact that some changes are painful.

I have in mind St. Augustine’s description of the Christ as medicus, physician.  Sometimes painful correction is received in life.   The saint describes, nevertheless, that the doctor doesn’t stop cutting just because the patient is screaming for him to stop.

You might stop for a moment and pray to Mary Mother of the Church for that parish, the priest, and the bishop.

In the now defunct but still relevant series The West Wing there is an episode in which the staff must chose figures for new US postage stamps.  Witty political correctness ensues.

At the time of the actual run of the series, the staff of the The West Wing seemed pretty far to the left.  These days, however, Pres. Bartlett and helpers seem like right-wing extremists compared to the present denizens of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Well… maybe not Josh….

You might have seen the episode in Season 2, "Galileo"....

Chief of Staff Leo is walking with the darkly snarky Toby, Communications Director and amped-up terrier Josh, Leo’s deputy.  There is going to be a landing of a Mars probe called Galileo

LEO: Walk me out.
Josh and Toby get up and follow Leo.
JOSH: Oh Leo, ask me how long a Martian day is.
LEO: No, I don’t think I will. Toby, do you know how a stamp is chosen?
TOBY: A stamp?
LEO: Yeah.
TOBY: No.
The three walk out of mess.
LEO: You’re gonna learn.
TOBY: Why?
LEO: The Postmaster General needs your help.
TOBY: Why?!
LEO: The Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee has…
JOSH: There’s a Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee?
LEO: Yes.
JOSH: Made up of members of the There-But-For-The-Grace-of-God-go-I Club?
LEO: You want to mock people or let me talk to Toby?
JOSH: I want to mock people.
LEO: The Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee has recommended to the Postmaster General that
Marcus Aquino be put on the next stamp issue.
TOBY: You know who he is?
JOSH: No.
LEO: He’s a former Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico and a Korean War hero.
TOBY: Then what’s the problem?
JOSH: He advocated statehood, right?
LEO: Strongly advocated it.
TOBY: Give it to somebody else!
LEO: No.
TOBY: Please?
LEO: This is a public face thing, and the Postmaster General wants your help!
TOBY: Well he can wait on a line around the block! Even while I have two of my 20 teller windows are open!
LEO: Make a recommendation by the end of the day.
TOBY: Yeah.
They stop walking.
LEO: [to Josh] What are you smiling at?
JOSH: Nothing, I just… Toby got the stamp assignment. [chuckles]
TOBY: Leo, I might need some help.
LEO: Take Josh. [goes into an office]
TOBY: Thanks. [to Josh] Congratulations, you’re choosing the next stamp. [leaves Josh alone]
JOSH: Wow, that happened fast.

His rebus gestis, a reader sent me a link to the site of the United States Postal Service where, lo and behold, we find this surprise about a new stamp for 2010.

Mother Teresa.

She is right up there with actress Katharine Hepburn, Negro Leagues Baseball and the Cowboys of the Silver Screen, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and William Hart. 

You ask: William Hart but no John Wayne?!  I guess the Duke has a stamp already.

The USPS explains (with my usual … but this time a little more skeptical… treatment):

With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, who [and here I think we have the true reason for the stamp…] received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.  [It is probable that two things are going on here.  First, the Obama Administration is continuing its in efforts to suborn Catholics.  Second, in honoring a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the President is honoring himself.]

Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. [A fact Macedonians always point out.] Drawn to the religious life as a young girl, she left her home at the age of 18 to serve as a Roman Catholic missionary in India. “By then I realized my vocation was towards the poor,” she later said. “From then on, I have never had the least doubt of my decision.” Having adopted the name of Sister Mary Teresa, she arrived in India in 1929 and underwent initial training in religious life at a convent in Darjeeling, north of Calcutta. Two years later, she took temporary vows as a nun before transferring to a convent in Calcutta. She became known as Mother Teresa in 1937, when she took her final vows.

Following a divine inspiration [Surprised at the language?  Remember: This stamp might not really be about Bl. Teresa after all.] and deeply moved by the poverty and suffering she saw in the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa left her teaching post at the convent in 1948 to devote herself completely to the city’s indigent residents. [Sorta like a community organizer!] Two years later, she founded her own congregation, the Missionaries of Charity. Like Mother Teresa, the nuns of the new order wore white saris with a blue border rather than traditional nuns’ habits. In addition to the traditional vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty, they took a fourth vow of wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor. “In order to understand and help those who have nothing,” Mother Teresa told the young women, “we must live like them.”

When Mother Teresa accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize—one of her numerous honors and distinctions—she did so “in the name of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the lonely,” and convinced the organizers to donate to the needy the money normally used to fund the awards banquet. Well respected worldwide, she successfully urged many of the world’s business and political leaders to give their time and resources to help those in need. President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985, [And now a different President gives her a stamp!] the same year she began work on behalf of AIDS sufferers in the U.S. and other countries. In 1997, Congress awarded Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal for her “outstanding and enduring contributions through humanitarian and charitable activities.”

Mother Teresa died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, and is buried there. She had been a citizen of India since 1948.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress awarded Mother Teresa honorary U.S. citizenship. [I didn’t know that.] As of February 2009, the honor has only been bestowed on five others. Winston Churchill received it in 1963, Raoul Wallenberg in 1981, William Penn and Hannah Callowhill Penn in 1984, and the Marquis de Lafayette in 2002. With the exception of Hannah Callowhill Penn, each of these figures has also appeared on a U.S. postage stamp: the Marquis de Lafayette four times (1952, 1957, 1976, and 1977), William Penn in 1932, Churchill in 1965, and Wallenberg in 1997.  [Well!  There’s the reason she is on the stamp, right?]

The stamp features a portrait of Mother Teresa painted by award-winning artist Thomas Blackshear II of Colorado Springs, CO.

Okay, folks, there’s my cynical reading of the story.

I am still glad to see Bl. Teresa on the stamp.

His rebus gestis, quidquid id est timeo Albae Domus adiutores et dona ferentes.

In your discussions of things ecumenical, remember to refer to Pope Benedict as "the Pope of Christian Unity".

A reader alerted me to the following piece In the Canadian daily The Globe and Mail by Ian Hunter,
Ian Hunter is professor emeritus in the faculty of law at the University of Western Ontario. 

My emphases and comments.

The big news: The Pope welcomes disaffected Anglicans

Will Oct. 20 be remembered as the day when the Berlin Wall of religious separation began to crumble? [I like that image.]

Ian Hunter

From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 2:04AM EST

With year’s end fast approaching, columnists and pundits will hold forth on what was the most significant news story of 2009. The story I nominate is unlikely to bulk large in their consideration, unlikely even to be mentioned, but I suggest that the most important story was Pope Benedict XVI’s overture to disaffected Anglicans. [Certainly the big story in religion.]

The story really begins a couple of years earlier, when a group of breakaway Anglicans (most had left the church after 1977 over Anglican ordination of female priests) who call themselves the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) petitioned Rome en masse through their primate, Archbishop John Hepworth.

The TAC, whose size is estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 souls worldwide, asked for full communion with Rome without preconditions or demands, while expressing the hope that it might be possible to retain traditional Anglican liturgy and hymnody. Their petition was cordially received at the Vatican, but for many months, there was only silence.

Then, [TA DA!] on Oct. 20, the response of Pope Benedict XVI was a decisive, magnanimous “Yes.” The subsequently published Apostolic Constitution (Anglicanorum Coetibus) confirmed that TAC members will be permitted to join collectively and will be allowed to retain the liturgies and traditions “that are precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith.” Small wonder that Archbishop Hepworth called the Pope’s offer “generous at every turn … very pastoral” and “a beautiful document.”

TAC bishops and congregations will consider and vote on the Vatican’s offer in a series of national and regional synods to be held early next year.

This means, in practice, that a place will be made within Catholic liturgy for Thomas Cranmer’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer – considered by many to rival William Shakespeare’s plays as the apotheosis of the English language. [Meanwhile, we are still using the lame-duck ICEL versions… "O God, you are so big.  Help us to be big like you."]  Also to be welcomed is the rich treasure of Anglican hymnody. All of this is (to paraphrase Hamlet) “a consummation devoutly to be wished,” and it was greeted as such by many thoughtful Catholics and Anglicans of my acquaintance.  [As the incoming Anglicans raise the liturgical level, everyone’s standard will be shifted upwards.  As the tide rises, all boats rise.]

The immediate benefits are obvious: [1] First, the Catholic Church will be strengthened by an influx (no one can yet say exactly how many) of committed, orthodox Christians. The priests who arrive with them will be men following Christ’s instruction to leave everything behind – job security, income, pensions and, in some cases, families – to follow Him. [Do I hear an "Amen!"?] These priests may help to alleviate, to some extent at least, what is in danger of becoming a chronic shortage of Catholic vocations.

Until 2006, I was an Anglican. By the time I left, I had grown sick of hearing colleagues whimper about the growing apostasy within Anglicanism but doing nothing about it. Well, now they can do something. Pope Benedict XVI has called their bluff. The destination was always there; now, there is a bridge to cross over. [And the Pope is the "great bridge builder".  He unites.  He is the Pope of Christian Unity.] No one need jump; no one need swim. It will be fascinating to see who crosses and who stays put; those who stay put should be heard from no more.  [Do I hear an "Amen!"?]

Yet I also have reservations.

First, I worry that the liberal element within Catholicism, particularly in North America, will do all it can (which could be considerable) to frustrate this welcome initiative. There are some Catholics who would rather move the church in the direction of Anglicanism, even Anglicanism in its death throes, than to see orthodoxy strengthened.  [And they are welcome to leave at any time.]

Second, it is unclear how Rome will reconcile its traditional teaching (e.g. on the invalidity of Anglican orders) with this new initiative. [I think that will be fairly easy to resolve.  Will there really be any Anglican clergy who object to being ordained by a Catholic bishop?]

Finally, it is unclear whether this rapprochement with Anglicanism is only the first step of an initiative to all orthodox Protestants; in other words, [watch this!] is Pope Benedict XVI signalling that the ecumenism of the 21st century is not more pointless dialogue with the decaying husks of old-line Protestantism, but rather a new beginning with any ecclesial community willing to engage with Rome on historic Christendom? [Well said.]

I hope this is so. If it is, then the Pope’s Oct. 20 announcement will be remembered as the day when the Berlin Wall of religious separation began to crumble; the wall erected five centuries ago – on Oct. 31, 1517 – when Martin Luther affixed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. If we have lived to see that breach healed, to witness the Christian church finally taking seriously Jesus’s prayer that “they may be one, as I and the Father am one,” then this is the most important story of 2009.

Ian Hunter is professor emeritus in the faculty of law at the University of Western Ontario.

Great piece.

Comments?

Today would have been the 89th birthday of Msgr. Richard Schuler, pastor and musician. 

He labored in the dark years after the Council to keep sound liturgy alive, promote proper sacred music, foster vocations to the priesthood, and hold the line against both heresy and stupidity.

In this Year of the Priest, would you take a moment to pray for the repose of the soul of Msgr. Schuler? 

Many people in places far and wide indirectly owe a lot to his work, though they might not have ever known him in life.



And… an interesting tidbit.