Alas I am not in Venice.
As I depart NYC once again, I am happy to have gotten all my errands accomplished. Late flights give me almost a full day.
The trek from the door to LGA via Uber (the driver was an Egyptian Copt who had some interesting observations) and the lounge took just under 30 minutes. It’s worth the later night on the other end.
Errands included picking up more bags of frankincense for the TLM thurible. This stuff comes in fairly large rocks. We use a coffee grinder to create powder and to get most of them down to about pepper corn size. The smoke is amazing, though it does dirty up the thurible more quickly. We have to stay on top of that lest the celebrant have schmutzy hands or – quod Deus avveruncet! – gloves.
I have joked for years around Epiphany that though there is a blessing for gold, frankincense and myrrh, since I didn’t have any myrrh, I couldn’t do the blessing. Now I have no excuse.
Talking with a priest friend today, I learned of a new and interesting book.
John Courtney Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition: How the CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Program Changed The Catholic Church by David A. Wemhoff
Since I wanted to go to a favorite place for lunch, we took the opportunity to visit a church that I hadn’t yet seen, Holy Redeemer, a Redemptorist parish.
Pretty much un-wrecked. There is the usual altar on a thrust stage nonsense, but it could be corrected. My friend noted that once altar rails are gone, they have to put up warning signs about not going into the sanctuary and about alarms, etc.
Then we sought out the location of the Dorothy Day site, Maryhouse, where The Catholic Worker was situated (I think).
Lunch… borscht.
A variation on a Ruben sandwich with a Ukrainian thin sliced ham. It was a really good sandwich, but… a Ruben… with ham? Really? Maybe it should be called something else? Perhaps a… Cornelius? Thoughts?
Here’s a Ruben.
Anyway, I worked in a short needed nap, watched the interesting town hall on Fox with the dem candidates while I packed, and hit the road.
BTW… I forgot to post this the other day but in the Brooklyn Museum I saw a stained glass window either the Church Militant and Triumphant made for the Paris 1900 pavilion and paid for by the US government!
Before I forgot to post it.
And now we board after fits and starts.
What do I mean by fits and starts?
Texts from Delta Roulette I’ve received over the last few hours.
Meanwhile my app showed variously 9:15 – 8:59 – 9:05 – 9:35 – 9:15 – 9:30
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Your aircraft was probably moving around due to a lack of gate space from the Ground Delay Program they had earlier….in any event, at least you made it!
Next time you’re in NYC, please consider visiting St. Monica’s Church at 413 E. 79th St. It’s quite beautiful on the inside. I came upon it quite by accident one day. The doors were opened so in I went and WOW! I couldn’t believe the transcendent beauty of it. You’ll feel as if you’ve walked through a time portal into the past. I couldn’t help wondering if the Archdiocese has forgotten it’s there :-)
Scotch tape in the seatback pocket?
“Ladies and gentlemen, in the event of an emergency during our flight, the cabin crew will come on the intercom to inform you which parts of the plane need to be taped back together…”
So you re going to have yourself a myrry little Christmas.
That book is intriguing, both title and subtitle. It would be interesting to see how Wemhoff portrays the host of interesting characters from the early Cold War period, such as the Dulles family, and what the effect, intentional and unintentional, of this political warfare campaign had on certain participants of VCII.
Delightful incense news! Myrrh is so distinctly different from frankincense (in the strict sense of that word), that it may be well worth having the choice on different occasions. (I wonder if there are rules, or recommendations, where the liturgical use of myrrh is concerned?)