Cherish Your Innocence

Pro-life work is the protection of innocents, and the work of examination of conscience. To be pro-life is to examine one's conscience, asking: do I cherish innocence? Do I love the innocent above all things?

What gets my respect: cynical worldly-wise cosmopolitanism, or sincere innocence?

Even 'beauty' is an inadequate articulation for innocence. Innocence has the preciousness, the vulnerability, and small fragility of eidelweiss, but like eidelweiss is enthroned on mountains. Suited to the heights.

Crowned with its own power and, in the end, its vindication over artifice, insincerity, and plotting manipulation, over sloth and mediocrity.

One of the many pro-life works, I submit to you, is singing. 

Singing together, particularly folk music, protects innocence, and cultivates it. Grown men singing together? Moreover, singing a song the refrain of which is:

"Ah dee doo, ah dee doo dah day. Ah dee doo, ah dee day dee. He whistled and he sang, 'til the green woods rang! And he won the heart of a lady."

or

"God bless America! Land that I love! Stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with the light from above."

Simplicity and abandonment of artifice are good for men. Moderating our damnable self-awareness and self-importance.

Singing together protects what innocence you have, and can even restore you to innocence. Especially when you sing with friends, who know you and have forgiven you, innocence is undeservedly restored. It is difficult to be forgiven, and to have the humility to accept innocence again from Our Lord, because we don't deserve to have it returned. Our friends know we are not innocent in ourself, and that our innocence is entirely their gift and the gift of Christ. To return to singing together, indebted so to their compassion and solidarity, is humiliating in the creative sense. Man, when he has built himself up falsely, must be made low in the sense that he is made to see the interior reality. His indigence of soul. Then his friends can help Christ raise him along with Him.

It is hard to sing with those who know your faults, but this is the best singing because it can never again become the farce that pop music is. You can never again be puffed up. You can only enter into what your friends offer, and work your way into innocence again, in fear and trembling. It takes humility to allow yourself to feel innocent again, when you are forgiven, remembering this innocence is always Christs, and to an extent the innocence of your friends who forgive you.

Those who know me know well that I am not the catalyst for innocence in our band. I have had to be converted over many years to really see what innocence requires. The singing always had the possibility, though, for Christ to use it. It was waiting to be a means by which He would give me His innocence, if I knelt and whispered, 'depart from me, Jesus, for I am a sinful man.' Watching the words that my friends were speaking, singing so that each one of us would be heard, listening so as to harmonize, relying on the greater skill of others to support my effort.

In thinking about our singing, I began to realize how little I cherish my own innocence, or respect the innocence of others. I began to realize, even that I unconsciously esteem people based less on their innocence than on their cleverness or attractiveness, or their charisma, or the pleasure of their company.

I must cherish innocence. It must have my respect, not in the conceptual way, and especially not in a patronizing way. I must esteem it as my sinful nature would esteem one with clever worldly competence, ability, and power.

I must root out all in me that is cynical and does not protect the innocence of others. All words, all the ideas I suggest, all my conversation, all my songs, all my arguments, all my ideas must bow before the innocence of the other person. Their innocence is the property of God, and I must never trespass there again.
 
I shouldn't use curse words where others can hear them. I shouldn't laugh at T.V. shows that lampoon innocence, or snicker too worldly-wise at weakness. There is a big difference between sighing with affectionate patience at our foibles, and being entertained by mediocrity and even sin.

Most of all, I shouldn't scandalize others, not even in 'educating' them on the 'real world'. I have in the past been a source of too much reality, if by that you mean mediocrity and sin, and that shames me. Everyone knows about it but forgives. Accepting innocence given, and making that innocence your own leaves you always indebted and the worldly-wise and proud can never do it. It means you can never be cynical towards others again.

And when we are innocent or have had innocence given back to us, we must protect it.

The Importance of Our Custom of Altar Boys: "Husbands Love Your Wives, As Christ Loves His Church"

    Our parish families find themselves in the frustrating situation of being without pastors. Too often today parish churches are being closed. This is a call to come together, as the Apostles did after Pentecost, in prayer with our Blessed Mother.  We will rise to the challenges that this loss brings—and it is a loss, for the ordinary life of Christians is to have a home parish in which to worship with their spiritual father, the pastor.  The Holy Spirit will enable us to rise to the challenges if we ask Him.

     We must ask The Holy Spirit to open our hearts to His answers. This frustrating situation calls for our conversion. It asks us to examine the road we have taken for decades as a parish and as a Church that led us to have such few spiritual fathers, so few priests. And not just sacramental priests, but so few fathers in the home, such challenges to motherhood, such neglect of children and their souls.

    There is not enough time here to examine all of the cultural mistakes we have made that led us to have fewer and fewer priests, and ultimately fewer and fewer Christians.

    But we can look at one part of the bad culture, the bad way of life, we have been living, that has led to our vocational breakdown. 

    We men have rejected the way of life for which we were created by Our Father, to which we are called by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

     When fathers step forward and suffer for their families, when men have the courage to be keep faith, when men live their God-given vocation to be fathers and husbands, servants of their brides and children, the culture is strong. The Church is strong.

    

When bishops, priests step forward and are strong leaders, who fast, suffer, do penance for their children, who protect their bride, and teach their children to love their Mother, the culture is strong, and the Mother, the Church is strong. Spiritual Fathers, Spiritual Husbands do this by fasting, penance, prayer, and by the love-poetry that is reverent, loving liturgy.

    A zealous team of altar boys, with a strong esprit de corps is one of the fundamental ways to rebuild our parish, and return our Church from its current vocational breakdown.

    It teaches our boys and young men the discipline of Spiritual Fatherhood. It is the natural capstone of such work as the boy-scouts or sportsmanship. These cultivate the good natural husbandry in young men. In serving Holy Mass, our young men take these natural virtues and grow them through the discipline of God’s service into spiritual husbandry, into Christ-like manhood.

    In serving Holy Mass, our boys learn humility, teamwork, and discipline, as in any good work. But in proximity to the sacred mysteries, and hopefully in proximity to a devout priest, they learn that Christ must be at the heart of their manhood. That He is the Lord, their God. They learn that they must love God with their whole heart, their whole mind, their entire soul, and all their strength. They learn that the greatest enemy they must convert is their own pride. In the liturgy, they learn the love-poetry of their Mother, the Church, and their greatest hopes become united with her. God willing, they become priests, to fast, and pray for their family the Church. Or, God willing, they bring the women with whom they fall in love to their Mother, the Church, to ask her to bless their new wives and mothers and children with the love and power of Her sacraments and worship.

 To plant the seeds for a time when all Christian vocations are strong again we must maintain such traditions as men serving at the altar. We must bring our men into proximity to the service of the altar so they can learnto suffer and to lead like Christ. We cannot abandon this time-tested way. It will bear fruit not only in vocations, so that, God willing, we will one day never lack for pastors; it will bear fruit in the vocations of all families, as our boys are raised up to become spiritual heads of domestic churches. Glory Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto

Our Custom of Praying Mass 'Ad Orientem': The Theology of The Body and Liturgical Conversion

Our Custom of Praying Mass ‘Ad Orientem’: The Theology of The Body and Liturgical Conversion

     “ When we rise to pray, we turn East, where heaven begins. And we do this not because God is there, as if He had moved away from the other directions on earth, but rather to help us remember to turn our mind towards a higher order; that is, to God.”  

         

-- St. Augustine

     Our custom of praying Holy Mass ad orientem, that is, to the liturgical east, is of very great importance to us. Just as the Latin suggests, this custom orients our prayer in a way that so many of us have found deeply consoling.  This orientation in prayer has had a fundamental impact on our spirituality. It is a praying according to a theology of the body.

     The importance of this custom could be looked at from a historical point of view: the Mass was always prayed this way from the days of the Apostles until very recently. St. Augustine always referred to this turning together to the East in prayer at the end of his homilies, praying aloud to the people, “Conversi ad Dominum (turn to face the Lord).”

    It should make us think, if we find ourselves in a place where what was the universal custom for Catholics for the entire history of our worship, now strikes us as bizarre, irritating, and even unhealthy and unfitting. Worshipping in the same direction as the priest is not an eccentricity of a particular locale for a few hundred years, but the way Christians worshipped God always and everywhere for our entire existence.

     But the strongest sign of its importance is not in history, but here today. It is in the spiritual formation it has given us.  Facing God together with our priest during the Eucharistic prayer creates a solidarity between all of us, as we turn to God together. With a united face, we converse, through the words of our priest, to God Himself.

     This has been so consoling and uplifting to us because it has brought out and shown light upon our conversation with God. It has revealed that our conversion to Him, our conversation with Him, in the Mass is so real.

     We begin the Eucharistic prayer with our priest, turning towards our unseen God together. Suddenly this God so distant now appears as the priest raises the Blessed Sacrament. God the Father, before distant in our minds, is made present by our offering the Sacrifice of His Son to Him.

    Praying the Mass with our priest, as we face together to God, gives room for God in the Church. As St. Augustine says, not because He “has moved away from other places,” but because knowing that God is there before us all, priest and people together, “turns our mind to a higher order, that is, to God.”

    This custom is a great way in which we have lived the theology of the body, in which spiritual truths are made incarnate. We converse with God, we convert to God, in our souls and hearts, as we convert physically to God with our bodies. We need these incarnate ways of praying, and this custom has been so fruitful for our spiritual lives.

     And we do this not just as individuals, in a private spiritual life alone, but as a Church, together. And together with our priest, who is one of us, and our representative as well, presenting what is in our hearts (Sursum corda!) in words spoken towards, not “the wall”, but towards God.

    We are made by God with bodies, and we learn to convert to Him and converse with Him in our souls by first converting our bodies to Him.

Oh! Praise God!

The Liturgical Movement

     "The central idea to be realized by the Liturgical Movement is the following: 'To have the Christian people all live the same spiritual life, to have them all nourished by the official worship of holy Mother Church.'
      The means to be employed toward this end are of two kinds. The first have reference to the acts of worship itself; the others to the liturgical activity exercised outside these acts.

The Acts of Worship

In this field, the members of the Liturgical Movement desire to contribute with all their strength to the attainment of the following aims.
1. The active participation of the Christian people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by means of understanding and following the liturgical rites and texts.
2. Emphasis of the importance of high Mass and of Sunday parish services, and assistance at the restoration of collective liturgical singing in the official gatherings of the faithful.
3. Seconding of all efforts to preserve or to reestablish the Vespers and Compline of Sunday, and to give those services a place second only to the that of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
4. Acquaintance, and active association, with the rites and sacraments received or assisted at, and the spread of this knowledge among others.
5. Fostering a great respect for, and confidence in, the blessings of our Mother Church.
6. Restoration of the Liturgy of the Dead to a place of honour, observance of the custom of Vigils and Lauds, giving greater solemnity to the funeral services, and getting the faithful to assist thereat, thus efficaciously combating the dechristianising of the rite of the dead.

Liturgical Activity outside of cultual acts

A. Piety

Consecration of A Home To The Sacred Heart of Jesus

1. Restoration to a place of honor among Christians of the traditional liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas Time, Lent, Easter Time, octaves of feasts, feasts of the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and the great missionary saints of our religion.
2. The basing of our daily private devotions, meditation, reading, etc. on the daily instructions of the Liturgy, the Psalms, the other liturgical books, and the fundamental dogmas of Catholic worship.
3. Reanimation and sublimation of the devotions dear to the people by nourishing them at the source of the Liturgy.

B. Study
1. Promotion of the scientific study of the Catholic Liturgy.
2. Popularisation of the scientific knowledge in special reviews and publications.
3. Promotion of the study and, above all, the practice of liturgical prayers in educational institutions.
4. Aiming to give regular liturgical education to circles, associations, etc., and to employ all the customary methods of popularisation to this end.

C. Arts
1. Promoting the application of all the instructions of Pius X in his motu proprio on Church music.
2. Aiming to have the artists that are called to exercise sacred art, architecture, painting, sculpture, etc. receive and education that will give them an understanding of the spirit and rules of the Church's Liturgy.
3. Making known to artists and writers the fruitful inspiration to art that the Church offers in her Liturgy.

D. Propaganda
1. Using all means to spread popular liturgical publications that show the import of the principal part of the Liturgy: Sunday Mass, Vespers, Sacraments, Liturgy of the Dead, etc.
2. Reawakening the old liturgical traditions in the home that link domestic joys with the calendar of the Church, and using for this end especially the musical works composed for such purposes.

Heads of Families Might Revive the Ritual of Washing The Feet of Those In Their Home

   
To all Catholics we address a burning appeal in favor of the activities that aim to realize as far as possible the program of liturgical restoration we have here outlined."

---Dom Beauduin, from 'The Liturgical Life of The Church'

    "With the disappearance of the mentality that produced that mode of life, the Liturgy is found to be no longer a part of the life of the people.  In its place have arisen those expressions of devotion which are to the Liturgy what every modern corruption is to the reality for which it is substituted.  There is need for reform-- but at which end shall the reformers start?  They have apparently attempted to cure the disease by removing those symptoms only which appear on the surface.  There can be no doubt-- any parish priest can verify this-- that even to this day the prayer which is offered up publicly is of a nature which is consonant with and produced by the culture of the congregation.  You may cut down their 'devotions' and drive them to Vespers in the evening, but their attendance, as a general rule, at these services is unnatural and incompatible with the principles upon which their daily life is built.  It  is these which must first be changed."  

---Anonymous

Chartreuse

Speaking of Spiritual Water, here is a good documentary on the abbey at Chartreuse, home to the Carthusians (note the etymology of the name):

the famous liquer invented by the Carthusian Fathers, making us 'chartreuse' with envy

Chartreuse, where the Fathers have arguably perfected the eremetic life, living "all alone in their own little home" distilling spirits "from the mountain stream."

Oh! The Water! Spiritual Water and The Sacramentality of Van Morrison

Van Morrison has a good song called, "And It Stoned Me."

     I propose that it is one of those classic post-modern (in the sense of post-modern as reaction against modernity) contemplations. While Morrison chooses to present the things, and the story, romantically, illuminating them and bringing them to our attention, he poetically leaves their inner nature still implicit. He speaks for them only so far, letting his praise of them illuminate them, and giving them the opportunity to speak for themselves.

     Good poetry does not impose meanings, but nurtures moments, and things, and stories. The poet adds his breath to the things, so that they are enabled to speak for themselves. Does this mean that poetry and ultimately their subject matter are without their own being? That they echo the evocation of the caller/poet, or absorb the prejudices of those to whose attention they are drawn (the hearers?).

     I do not think so. But this post-modern poetic approach to subjects does require alot of trust from the singer, and from the hearer. We must trust to let things speak for themselves. Trust that their very real, objective truth can only be fully, or at least most fully explicated if they are allowed to develop from within. 

    Does that mean that 'interpreting' or explicating a story, or things, or moments "kills" it and imposes by analysis the prejudices of the poet or listener? Does this impose, and down-shout the song?

    I hope not. Rather, I like to think that explicating  is a form of 'naming', of bringing the true self of the story into fruition by bringing it into relation. Moreover-- since a moment, a story, and the things of the story are not just themselves but also the warp and woof of the relationship between the poet and the hearer, and moreover between all three and their Creator, Who is the great context of all such things-- explicating, unveiling, naming are the conversation by which we help things become known to themselves, and our selves to our selves, and each other to each other, and each other and our selves to the Primary Poet who is cultivating and illuminating us.

"Half a mile from the county fair
And the rain keep pourin' down
Me and Billy standin' there
With a silver half a crown
Hands are full of a fishin' rod
And the tackle on our backs
We just stood there gettin' wet
With our backs against the fence 
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Hope it don't rain all day 

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me 

Then the rain let up and the sun came up
And we were gettin' dry
Almost let a pick-up truck nearly pass us by
So we jumped right in and the driver grinned
And he dropped us up the road
We looked at the swim and we jumped right in
Not to mention fishing poles 

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Let it run all over me 

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me 

On the way back home we sang a song
But our throats were getting dry
Then we saw the man from across the road
With the sunshine in his eyes
Well he lived all alone in his own little home
With a great big gallon jar
There were bottles too, one for me and you
And he said Hey! There you are 

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Get it myself from the mountain stream 

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like Jelly Roll
And it stoned me
And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like goin' home
And it stoned me"

     I propose that this song is not just about the sacramentality of water (that would be an obvious proposition given the well-known mystical emphases of Van Morrison's songs), but about the Sacrament of water.

     Two fisherman (they go by twos, of course) are on the way to the festival (how Pieperian). So they are also pilgrims. Aren't we all always on a long trek in search of a feast, a rest in boisterous harmony? They are in the normal existential mode, that of begrudging the water, hoping it "don't rain all day." Water in this fallen world is usually a nuisance, even something to be feared. It will ruin our plans for work or for fun.

    The two fisherman encounter someone on the way (to Emmaus?). Here something strange takes place that changes the whole song: Morrison doesn't explicate this conversion, this ineffable moment, because it can't be explicated. By the end of the verse this encounter with "the driver", a joyful fellow pilgrim, has transformed the fisherman, and the song. No longer do they hope it doesn't rain all day; now they realize they are dry, and are overjoyed at the opportunity to encounter the Water. The hospitable pilgrim brings the fisherman to a pond, where they do not fish, but leap in, clothes, gear, and all. A baptism.

     Suddenly the two fisherman want to be immersed. They never knew before how parched they were. 

"Oooh! The water!

Ooooohhh! The water!

Oh! The water...

Let it run all over me."

     Now the fisherman are going home, and singing. But even then, though they are cleansed by baptism, they lack sustenance; their 'throats were gettin dry.' Suddenly from across the divide of the road (the way, the via vitae) they see the "man with the sunshine in his eyes." Is he a saint who faces the Sun? Perhaps, but He may be The Father who also faces the Son, to whom "the driver" and their journey have brought them. The Father, who "lived all alone in his own little home," Absolute, Ineffable, but Who can now be reached.

   And what does The Father give them? Water in "a great gray gallon jar", which is clearly moonshine. Uisge Beatha. The Water of Life. Spirits! Spiritual Water! This is not rain, that comes and goes, nor a pond, that is still, but comes "from the mountain stream" (for which deer long, as our souls thirst for Him). From the fast flowing, sparkling, many-tongued stream, flowing from on-high from the rock, from the spring. Streams are alive, speaking, and eternal. The pilgrims have been given the sacraments.

   And it 'stones' them, with the ecstasy of being at home.

     

The Lubber's Mark

The following is an excerpt from 'The Cruise of The Nona' by Hilaire Belloc

     "With the afternoon the wind freshened, and, as it freshened, went right round by north to a little east of north, whence it blew steadily enough, and gave us about four knots at the fall of darkness.  My companion had never held a tiller, but he was a very expert at all sports, and I thought to myself, "I will see whether so simple a thing as steering a boat cannot be easily accomplished by a man at the first trial. Then shall I be able to get what I badly need, which is a little sleep."  So I lighted the binnacle lamp, I explained to him the function of the lubber's mark, and gave him the point on the card which he was to keep on the lubber's mark.  I said to him: "If it comes on to blow a little harder and the card swings, and the boat tends to yaw a little, don't mind that, but keep the lubber's mark on the average at the point I have given and that will be enough."  He said that he understood all these things, and for the first time in his life set himself to steer a ship.  But, I, for my part, went down to sleep, confident that if it should come on to blow at all hard it would awaken me there and then, so no great harm could come.  
     
     I slept for many  hours, when suddenly I was awakened by my companion giving a loud cry of astonishment.  I tumbled up on deck quickly, and I found him pointing at a light which shone brilliantly upon the horizon, dead on our bow.  He said to me: "Look, look, there is a light dead ahead!"  I said to him: "Of course!" and that it was the light of Strumble Head, outside Fishguard; and I asked him what he would have expected.  I had given him his course, and naturally, he had lifted the light in good time.  But he, for his part, could not get over it;  he thought it a sort of miracle.  He kept on repeating his amazement that so clumsy a thing as a tiller and a rudder, and so coarse an instrument as an old battered binnacle compass should thread the eye of a needle like that; it was out of all his experience.  It is true that he had not been disturbed by and current or strong tide, but even had he been so, he was bound on a clear night to make that light not much off either bow.  That things should turn out so gave him quite a new conception of the sea and the sailing of it, and he talked henceforward as though it were his home.  

     This corroboration by experience of a truth emphatically told, but at first not believed, has a powerful effect upon the mind.  I suppose that of all the instruments of conviction it is the most powerful.  It is an example of the fundamental doctrine that truth confirms truth.  If you say to a man a thing which he thinks nonsensical, impossible, a mere jingle of words, although you yourself know it very well by experience to be true; when later he finds this thing by his own experience to be actual and living, then is truth confirmed in his mind:  it stands out much more strongly than it would had he never doubted."