O Wisdom, O holy Word of God

Today marks the transition of which we spoke yesterday to ‘Late Advent,’ the immediate preparations for the Birth of Christ at Christmas.

To mark the shift, the antiphon for the Caticle of Mary moves to the so called ‘O Antiphons,’ so called because they all begin with ‘O’ and a title from the Old Testament for the coming of the Messiah.  Today’s iteration:

O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care.  Come and show your people the way to salvation.

In college, we would chant these to the ancient chant tones, which were haunting in the beauty.  As they date to at least the Fifth Century, these are some of the oldest tones still in use, and I wish I still had that little sheet describing the tones.  Alas, too many moves.

In today’s Antiphon, we harken back to the very dawn of Creation to see the Word of God spoken and all things were made.  But yet the power of creation is always tempered by the Love of God, which draws us deeper into His very mystery.  Our path to salvation is about to open anew!

Transitions

In case you’ve noticed, the daily readings up to today for Advent haven’t been what’s expected, most likely.  We tend to expect those intimate examinations of the Holy Family preparing for the birth of Jesus, May and Joseph making the long trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Angels singing from the heavens.  Yet, we have heard much more about John the Baptist’s testimony and word about Jesus, and what Jesus says about John the Baptist, than we have heard about Jesus’s birth.  Today’s readings bear that out:

Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you,
tax collectors and prostitutes
are entering the Kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
you did not believe him;
but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
Yet even when you saw that,
you did not later change your minds and believe him.”

Tomorrow, we start ‘Late Advent’ and will hear more about the proximate preparations for Christmas.

 

Edit for speeling

Top Ten

Over at the Son Rise Morning Show Blog, I’ve jumped on the Catholic blogwagon by listing what I think are the Top Ten Most Fascinating Catholics of 2008. Here’s an excerpt:

1. Pope Benedict XVI:Inexplicably charitable in his decimation of the dictatorship of relativism, I’m still waiting for this guy to disappoint me. His visit to the United States this year put the Leader of the Free World in schoolboy mode. He’s reviving interest in liturgy, Scripture, and the Church Fathers. I heart my German Shepherd.
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5. Chase Hilgenbrinck: It’s not the kind of thing you hear about every day: a Major League Soccer star leaves a professional athletic career to start seminary, but that’s exactly what this young man did. After a successful soccer career in Latin America, he was traded to the New England Revolution. However, after less than a year with the Revolution, he left it all to pursue a vocation to the priesthood. We’re excited to hear about what God does with this young man.
—————
9. Tim Russert: When Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden argued on “Meet the Press” that the Catholic Church has held ambiguous views on abortion through the centuries, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in wishing that Tim Russert were still alive to put a holy smack down on them. Among political journalists, he had no equal. He had a knack for sifting through jargon and getting the truth out of politicians, which is a significantly more daunting task that most people realize. Requiescat in Pace.

For the full list, click here. Please feel free to add your own nominations in the combox below…

M. Swaim

Upon The Feast Of St. John Damascene

“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God….’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory.”

Patron against iconoclasm, ora pro nobis!

M. Swaim

Grade-School Football

As a transplant to Cincinnati, I’m just not up on all the parishes and schools and football rivalries, even after almost 20 years. Though I do have the Elder-Moeller-St. X thing figured out — I think.

But grade school football, itself, is new to me. I don’t even know if there WAS grade school football where I grew up. Until a couple of years ago I didn’t know kids strapped on pads and donned helmets in third and fourth grade. Boy, do they!

My son just finished his second year of football playing for the CYO Division II City Champion Reserve team, the St. Bartholomew Panthers. He knows a lot more plays than I do (not a difficult feat) and he can play several positions (much more impressive). He’s learned a lot about sportsmanship and working hard and being gracious in victory and don’t I sound like a greeting card? But it’s true. We’ve played all around the city against kids of all backgrounds, on back-lot fields like our home field and in spectacular stadiums such as the truly amazing Summit Country Day complex.

Remember that great scene in Rudy when the Notre Dame football team says the Hail Mary, and then the priest says “Our Lady of Victory –” and all the players shout, “Pray for us!” Well, our team doesn’t do that. But they do pray the Our Father together at every practice and before every game. And at a time when churches everywhere seem more and more the province of women and whispey, “spiritual” men, I find the prospect of 22 hardy young men in football gear saying the Our Father to be a reassuring one. The Catholic church is for everyone.

SBAA Panthers (Reserve) Say the Our Father

Our Amazing Selves

The other day, during yet another hymn to what Fr. Richard Neuhaus calls “Our Amazing Selves,” I had to take a break. I’m not proud of it, but I got up and fled to the little alcove in the vestibule that a statue of our patron saint, Clare of Asissi, shares with some folding chairs (and, formerly, the recycling).

It’s a small but very beautiful alcove, and our statue is large and a very beautiful statue. Narrow stained glass windows gave only a mute blue glow. I looked up at St. Clare and prepared for a little pouting session for My Cranky Self.

“You were a contemplative,” I thought to her. (I believe that the saints possess telepathic powers.) “You repelled a Muslim army with a Host. You spent your whole life praying for everyone. Is this what you had in mind?”

I’m not sure exactly what I meant by “this” — everything, I guess. Everything that frustrates me and gives me high blood pressure about the liturgy, my fellow American Catholics, myself, and the whole sorry world, for that matter. Substitute your own concerns.

Because the answer — and I did get an answer — was “yes.” Clare and the Poor Clares down through the ages have prayed for us, whatever we choose to do out here outside the convent walls. They pray for us because we need it. Like soldiers who fight so that the next generation of kids can be spoiled and can squander their freedom if they want to, they are also in battle.

So, chastised, I went back to my pew. The Poor Clares are praying for us, in Cincinnati and around the world. We all have a battle to fight, and that’s the best place to start.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

So, did you hear the one about how holiness is only for priests and religious?

Yeah, I haven’t either, and today’s saint proves the point that holiness is open for all.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a princess, queen, wife, mother, widower, and saint.  She died in the year 1231 at the tender age of 23, and was declared a saint a scant 4 years later!

How to achieve such a remarkable run?  Easy!  She was married while still a teenager, which was rather common in those days, to a prince of Thuringia, within modern day Germany.  Her husband was assassinated, leaving her the widowed queen with three small children.  However, she did not let that stop her.  She became a Franciscan Tertiary (a lay person associated with the charisms of a particular order, her poverty.)  In iconography, she is always depicted holding loaves of bread as she gave away large stores of food the poor of her day and age, while she kept to a strict schedule of fasting and prayer.

For her life, she was declared patronness of widows and Catholic Charities.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Pray for us!

- Father Schnippel

Two Last Things

“Wow!” my daughter whispered to me after the homily Sunday. “It’s not every day someone actually tells you you might go to Hell!”

No comments about the desirability of this state of affairs, please. The point is that I don’t remember hearing anything about Hell in the homily, beyond a mention of the “four last things” — death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Father spoke about death, and told a moving story about what he became convinced was his own father’s deathbed vision of Heaven.

But in the car, and again at home, our daughter repeated the same thing. “It’s not every day someone actually tells you you might go to Hell!”

Several months ago, I heard a CD by Catholic motivational evangelist (for lack of a better term) Matthew Kelley. He suggested starting every mass by praying to hear one vital message in the readings, liturgy, or songs.

I think my daughter heard hers, while I heard mine. At 14, my daughter is steeped in the relativism of our culture. We are careful what she watches, what she listens to, who she hangs around with, and what she does. But you can’t get away from the pervasive cultural message that nothing is really bad, no one is really wrong, and everything just comes down to a choice between many options — all of them valid. At her age, it’s a revelation to be told by a sane and credible person you respect that yes, there really is a Hell, and yes, you really could go there.

I’m older. I fell for relativism — and I’m still in recovery. I know there’s a difference between a bad choice (taking an extra donut in the break room) and doing something bad (taking an extra $20 from petty cash). Doing bad things makes you a bad person, being a bad person has consequences, and human nature means even the best of us do bad things. You have to hear that bad news before you can hear the good news — after all, who needs salvation if there’s nothing to be saved from?

Father said a lot about purgatory and cleansing fire — yes, in Cincinnati! — but what they lead to is Heaven. So while my daughter heard the sobering message that Hell is real, I heard the good news of salvation. Two last things. More than enough for one day, I guess.

flickers of hope

As we walked down the street to our church Sunday evening for the Pro-Life Pumpkin Memorial, John and I both whispered prayers for the wind to calm. The cooler temperatures were bearable, but the gusting winds would never allow for all those pumpkins to be lit. We arrived to the front of our church along with several other hundred who had gathered. The folk group was singing/playing beautifully, and the kids unbundled just enough to sample some cookies from the refreshment table. We chatted briefly with friends and family, then found a spot near the street light pole to sit with the kids up front.
The teens organizing the event, started with a few abortion statistics. May we find hope in the fact that the number of abortions have declined since last year, but still 3,600 babies die every day in the US from abortion. There were 400 pumpkins on the steps, each memorializing 9 of those babies. Our parish priest, Fr. Rick prayed with us, and music continued as the teens proceeded to light the 400 pumpkins…with only a slight breeze. Prayers were answered as the wind had been calmed! Thank you Jesus! I got goosebumps as the crowd of hundreds sang together “Hail Mary, Gentle Woman.” It was just beautiful. Afterwards everyone was welcome to take a pumkin (or several) home with them to light and show support for Life. We pulled our little red wagon home, this time in winds that nearly pushed the little ones over. Thank you Lord, for allowing the calm, if only for 1/2 an hour!
I am so inspired by the youth of our parish, and hopeful that this ugly battle for Life will one day end. I continue to remain optimistic that the ProLife ticket will prevail next Tuesday.

Pumpkins for Life

Several youth in our Minster, Ohio parish of St. Augustine have once again organized a Pro-Life Pumpkin Memorial to be displayed on the steps of our church.  400 pumpkins are carved with a cross and lit to represent the children killed by abortion.  It will take place this Sunday, October 26th at 7:30pm.  What a unique and amazing show of support for life!  I am truly inspired by these amazing teens who work so hard to get the message out.  You can see pictures of last years event at http://www.pumpkins4life.com/index.pdf  Hope to see you there!    ~jamie