a minor friar

St. Bonaventure's First Encyclical Letter

2009-07-14T16:15:00.003-04:00

Today I was poking around for something to read in preparation for the feast of St. Bonaventure tomorrow, and I happened upon the first encyclical letter he wrote to the friars after being elected Minister General in 1257. I think it's worth a re-issue! Check out some of the Seraphic Doctor's concerns for the brothers:

"All sorts of business transactions are going on, in which money, the archenemy of the poverty of our Order, is being eagerly sought, recklessly accepted, and even more recklessly handled."

"Certain brothers have succumbed to idleness, that cesspool of every vice, where they have been lulled into choosing a monstrous kind of state somewhere between the active life and the contemplative, while cruelly feeding on the blood of living souls."

"Many more are wandering about, intent primarily on their bodily comforts. They are only annoying the people they come across, leaving behind them scandal instead of good example."

"The construction of buildings on a lavish and extravagant scale is upsetting many brothers, becoming a burden to friendly benefactors, and leaving us prey to all sorts of hostile critics."

I guess the challenges and temptations we religious face are pretty constant over time!

These are from the translation of Dominic Monti, OFM, in St. Bonaventure's Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order, from Franciscan Institute Publications.

Overheard in the Monastery

2009-07-13T19:52:00.003-04:00

There were some good ones today:

"When Fr. Guardian got back from his vacation, I didn't know how to tell him that Mrs. Keenan had jumped out the window."

"Do you mind if I use the copy of First Things I found in the backseat of your car to start my campfire?"

The Holiness of Ordinary People

2009-07-13T19:16:00.003-04:00

I guess I've been kind of down on stuff lately; I can see it in all of the ponderous posts and mystifying of my frustrations in my writing. It's true that the parish priest trade--the life in which I now find myself--can be tiring and difficult. The hours are terrible, someone is always mad at you and calling you a rotten priest, wedding paperwork is tedious, sacrilegious "eulogies" at funerals poison your heart with boredom. You have to get up early and work in the evening. Nothing ever seems finished and there are always more fires to put out and another wedding or funeral coming in.

So it all begs the question: why do it? What keeps a person going? Well, the first answer is certainly a desire to love God and to serve him as best you can, responding to the vocation which is a such a gift and so wound up with God's merciful Providence in your own life. But day to day, on the natural level, what keeps me going and what helps me stay positive is the simple holiness of ordinary people.

It's the devotion of secret saints. People of all ages who would wouldn't think of going through a day without Holy Communion, or a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or the afternoon rosary. Thank you. I see you in church and you are my teachers. It's you in the confessional who are working your particular ascesis much harder than I'm working mine. Thank you for your encouragement and good example.

It's the beautiful practices of charity. People who save box tops and can wrappers in order that money be donated to some worthy cause. People who make secret donations to the parish food pantry. Folks who visit and check on their elderly neighbors.

It's the tremendous sacrifices of ordinary Christians. Adult children who give up opportunities, up to and including families of their own, to take care of sick or aged parents and siblings. Poor folks who pay the church's heat bill by the crumpled bills they stuff into the votive light boxes. It's the parents who work so hard because of the opportunities they want their kids to have. May my celibacy never make me ignorant of your sacrifice.

So as blue as I can get sometimes, and as heavy are my own temptations to arrogant criticism, I am humbled and grateful for the chance to work as a servant of the saints.

Roman Martyrology

2009-07-13T16:31:00.004-04:00

The Roman Martyrology is a recent discovery for me, and one that I know I will enjoy very much. For one thing, it has cured me of a long-standing bit of ignorance.

In our communities, each friar gets an annual celebration. For those who received names in religion, the name day is celebrated. For those of us who entered after the end of religious names (as well for those who reverted to their baptismal names when given the chance), we celebrate birthdays like the rest of the world.

I was always baffled by these name days. A lot of the religious names among us aren't saints you've ever heard of. They aren't in the liturgical calendar as most of us know it. So where did these name days come from? Well, now that I know the Roman Martyrology, I have found the source. For example, today over at the old friars' home they are celebrating the name day of Fr. Joel, whose name in the world was Dan. And there it is in the Martyrology for July 13:

In Palæstína sanctórum Joélis et Esdræ Prophetárum.

Catholic Conflicts

2009-07-13T07:29:00.004-04:00

The comments on yesterday's post reveal that I hit some neuralgic spots for us Catholic Christians. I've been thinking about it.

There have been several moments in the journey of my baptism when I have found things very different than what I expected. These experiences have almost always left me confused, and sometimes quite scandalized. My entrance into religious life was one of the hardest; so hard in fact that I needed to quit and start over.

Another, not unrelated crisis of expectation and experience, deeper and more seminal for who I would become as a Catholic, came upon me almost immediately after my sacramental initiation. I found, to my surprise and confusion, that one had to decide whom to listen to when it came to Catholic teaching and practice. I had entered a church that seemed to be full of conflicts. Liberal vs. conservative, progressive vs. traditional, radical vs. restorationist, the "spirit of Vatican II" against the continuity of ancient tradition, those who were derided as "70s priests" vs. those equally derided as "neocons." Being innocent and somewhat ignorant--as well as very scandalized by the whole thing--I hardly knew what to think.

It was even hard to know what was the genuine Catholic doctrine. One priest said one thing, and another priest something else. One confessor identified something as a serious sin, another as a minor sin, and a third as not a sin at all. One spiritual director would advise you not to believe anything you read in National Catholic Reporter, while another would warn you not to believe anything you heard on EWTN. When rubrics or parts of the Mass delineated in my hand missal were not included in the liturgy I attended, I would ask the priest about it. One priest would tell me that certain parts were optional, while another would assure me that they were not.

Fortunately, I found a solution to this confused and frustrating situtation, one that I now recommend to others: I empowered myself. I picked up a copy of the Catechism, which was new in those days, a Code of Canon Law, and an enchiridion of doctrine. (For this last treasure, read this and then buy this.) I read it myself.

Catholic teaching on faith, morals, and practice is not a secret. You don't have to wonder what it is, or if the priest or whoever trying to tell you something is trustworthy or knows what he is talking about. Be empowered and read it yourself. It worked for me.

My Internal OF vs. EF Ascesis

2009-07-12T08:44:00.003-04:00

Reading Matt's impressions of assisting at his first EF Mass got me to thinking about things.

When I first started to attend Mass in the EF on Sunday afternoons, it was purely out of curiosity and professional interest. On my reading of Summorum pontificum, our Holy Father had empowered the laity to ask for this form of Holy Mass, so it seemed to me only proper for me as a priest to be acquainted with it.

But what really hooked me was not anything about the Mass per se, but the people I observed and met. Here was the reverence I had been missing. Before Mass was not a cacophony of worldly conversations. Cell phones didn't ring, and nor were any answered during Mass. (!) Nobody here would need to be asked not to drink their coffee during the service. There was no anguish to be endured over irreverence before the Blessed Sacrament; everyone who entered or left the church was eager to make the appopriate reverence. I realized in my own Catholic heart that silence and reverence were things that had drawn me into the Church from the beginning, and I had forgotten how close they were to my heart.

So I went back; not so much for the Mass--though the EF itself continued to interest me on the intellectual and professional levels--but for the chance to pray with brothers and sisters who also just wanted to pray and join themselves to the Lord's sacrifice in quiet reverence.

For me, though, I have to keep myself from the thought that this is really a question of OF vs. EF or modern vs. traditional Roman rite. The scandalous lack of liturgical and sacramental catechesis and our terrible lack of reverence is not the fault of the newer form of Mass itself. This is to oversimplify and to ignore a very wide complex of questions and issues. It is eminently possible for a Sunday assembly to celebrate the Ordinary Form of Mass with all of the reverence that is due to the liturgy and to the Most Blessed Sacrament. Not that I have seen this in most places I have lived and prayed, but it is certainly possible.

There is a cultural struggle here, but it's one that is not reducible to OF vs. EF. These might be symbolic of several aspects of the struggle, but they are not the thing itself. This is just something I am trying to keep in mind these days.

The Spirit of Adoption

2009-07-11T10:30:00.001-04:00

From all eternity the overflowing divine Love seeks to adopt us into it's own blessedness and joy. Follow this link for my homily for this weekend.

Being Schticky

2009-07-09T22:24:00.004-04:00

I find that in the course of my ministry I have developed certain bits of schtick, formulaic ways of delivering a message in a humorous way. It's like bits of speech that get ingrained in my execution of various duties, and which I find myself saying over and over.

Here's my schtick for the end of a wedding rehearsal:

"Ok, everybody, I have good news, bad news, and an opportunity for you.

"The good news is that we have the privilege of witnessing one of the greatest acts of faith there is in this life. This is church, and in church we are about faith, right? Right? (I can't hear you!) These guys [the candidates for matrimony] are about to pledge their consent to each other forever, wagering the love they have experienced through each other against an unknown future. And there's no greater act of faith. So give them every reverence and respect, as you would any other sacramental revelation of God.

"The bad news is that this nuptial Mass which we will celebrate on Saturday does not satisfy your ordinary obligation to assist at Sunday Mass. So those of you who are Catholics get to go to church two days in a row!

"The opportunity is this: I'm not saying this applies to anybody here, but sometimes it happens that when people come to a wedding, they haven't been to Mass in a while. So, if this is you, and you would like to share in Holy Communion with our friends who will be newly married at that point, you should really go to confession. Pope Innocent III, in his decree Omnis utriusque sexus--it sounds like a hot document, right?--asked that each Catholic receive Holy Communion once a year, confessing any serious sins if necessary. So, I'll sit in the confessional for a while, just in case. Otherwise, have a great night. I hope these guys are taking you all somewhere good, and buying you a drink for the effort you put into this rehearsal. Enjoy yourselves and I'll see you on Saturday!"

That last part, about confession, I only started doing recently. The response has really surprised me, and sometimes I'm in the confessional for a half an hour or so at the end of a wedding rehearsal. I challenge myself at weddings and funerals to try to hook people back into the practice of their faith.

Four Days of Veronica Giuliani

2009-07-09T14:45:00.005-04:00

St. Veronica Giuliani is one of the great characters from our Capuchin tradition. Our current Roman-Franciscan breviary and sacramentary celebrate her feast day on July 10. The 1962 Missale Romano-Seraphicum celebrates her on July 9. This creates the curious situation of being able to celebrate the same saint two days in a row, in the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms, respectively.

Even more confusing, the 1942 M R-S puts her day on July 11, and her English wikipedia article puts it on the 12th.

Rosary Plan

2009-07-09T10:51:00.003-04:00

As a catechumen I learned this plan for the daily rosary: Joyful Mysteries on Mondays and Thursdays, Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, Glorious Mysteries on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Over the years, two things have interfered with this plan. First, I acquired the devotion to the Franciscan Crown rosary while I was in formation with the OFM. The Crown more or less duplicates the Joyful Mysteries (less the Presentation) so it can conveniently replace the Dominican rosary on the Joyful Mystery days. Second, the appearance of the Luminous Mysteries on Thursdays created a problem. That leaves the Joyful Mysteries with just one day, while the Glorious still have three.

Thanks in part to frequent and erudite commenter Ben in Denver, I have finally come up with a plan for the daily rosary that has been working for me:

Advent-Christmas: Franciscan Crown every day.

Lent: Sorrowful Mysteries every day.

Easter: Glorious Mysteries every day.

Ordinary Time:

Sunday: Glorious Mysteries
Monday: Franciscan Crown
Tuesday: Sorrowful Mysteries
Wednesday: Glorious Mysteries
Thursday: Luminous Mysteries
Friday: Sorrowful Mysteries
Saturday: Franciscan Crown

Problems in the Assesment of Guilt

2009-07-09T09:30:00.003-04:00

One thing I have learned in the ministry is that we are not good at assessing our own moral guilt and responsibility. Over and over in the parlor or the confessional, I realize that people have a hard time judging their own moral culpability well.

Many judge themselves to more guilty than they really are. For some this is grandiosity. They try to take responsibility for all kinds of difficulties and sins in which they are not a moral agent. Many times this is the root problem of those who come to confession to confess other people's sins. In their perverse desire for self-victimization, they want to take the blame for others. Thus the actual moral agent is absolved from responsibility, and our grandiose subject is freed from the discomfort of being angry with the one for whom she is trying to take moral responsibility. My suspicion is that this is the real root of the problem in many cases; to accuse the self is easier than being angry with another, so why not just pretend the guilt is our own?

Others judge themselves more guilty than they are because they are scrupulous. In the end, scrupulosity, too, is a form of inverted self-importance that makes one's own internal experience the subject of the spiritual life instead of God. So what if you are so full of sin and everything you do is tainted by impure motives? Did not the Lord promise to harvest the wheat along with the weeds and preserve the wheat unto eternal life? Isn't the goodness of God to the whole of creation so much more important than your sins, no matter how terrible? Sometimes scrupulous people don't believe in forgiveness and so have no use for God. Without an experience of God's love, there is nothing left to reflect on in the "spiritual" life but one's own goodness or badness. Sometimes they are guilty of angelism and deeply resent having to deal with temptations. At the root of all their useless guilt is the proud and entitled attitude that believes that if God calls us to be saints he ought to make us so without us having to suffer any temptations. Resenting temptations is very dangerous. We should be grateful for them.

On the other hand, many times people seem to think themselves less guilty than they really are. Perhaps they have decided that this or that habitual sin isn't mortal because its occasions are supposedly unavoidable or because they habitually lack "full consent of the will." Having decided that they are not in a state of mortal sin, they stop worrying about it so much, and fall into the state of presumption. But just because a serious sin might not be mortal in some particular case, it does not mean that the matter of the sin isn't grave. It might not be the spiritual danger of mortal sin, but it's still the serious responsibility of a grave disorder in one's life.

Others, in a curious opposite of the grandiose person, blame their sins on everyone and everything else, absolving themselves of their own guilt. Thus they are freed from any obligation to correct themselves. Sexual impurity is blamed on the television or the internet. Gossip, calumny, and detraction are blamed on the "culture" of the workplace or the neighborhood. Religious blame the mess of their prayer life on the alleged sorry state of the community in which they live. Sure, all these things fight against virtue, but we're supposed to fight back!

All of this has convinced me that examination of conscience is very important and needs to be retrieved as a practice. We can't be shallow about it; to examine our conscience is not just to notice what we feel bad about. It has to be a rigorous examination of our moral condition, of what is and what is not our fault.

Rambling Apostolic Rant

2009-07-08T09:45:00.005-04:00

The gospel for today contains St. Matthew's list of the twelve apostles, who are given "authority over unclean spirits" and entrusted with Jesus' own fundamental proclamation, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

Sometimes I think when it comes like a passage like people say in their hearts, 'Ugh, a list of names...whatever!' I know that some preachers feel that way, because I've heard them. But on the contrary, I say that a list like this places a very challenging and powerful claim before us.

The mission and authority of Jesus is handed over to a specific collection of people; real historical people who are named and identified specifically. The proclamation of the Kingdom, the Resurrection faith, and the authority passed on by Jesus are not the property of just anyone who decides he should have them.

This can be very hard for us Americans to hear; the do-it-yourself, independent attitude is very powerful within us. We have this idea that we only have to form a committee made of members who might or might not know something about the question at hand, and by some supra-rational process they will come to an infallible authority. Unfortunately, Christianity is not a do-it-yourself kind of thing. It is a proclamation and a faith given to specific community of persons, and remainig therein. To suggest that we can become Christians by ourselves, much less preachers and teachers of the faith without this community, is a form of Pelagianism. Here I'm reminded of one of my favorite ditties, Hilaire Belloc's Pelagian Drinking Song, which starts like this:

Pelagius lived at Kardanoel
And taught a doctrine there
How, whether you went to heaven or hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.

This is why it is important for us, if we want to be Christians in the best way we can, to find ourselves in one of the apostolic churches, those communions that derive concretely and historically from the Apostles to whom Jesus entrusted his mission and authority. By this we mean one of the 23 particular churches (rites) that make up the Catholic Church or one of the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox churches. Of course there are a lot of gray areas here; both Catholics and Orthodox have schismatic groups that have maintained apostolic succession, and some Anglicans and Lutherans claim it too. But why would someone place themselves in such an ambiguous place, much less settle for less by joining an "ecclesial community" with no realistic claim to derive from the Apostles at all?

For me, in the course of my own conversion, it became a no-brainer. Based on my reading of the Scriptures and first experiences of prayer, I had decided that I wanted to become a Christian. As I began to learn the history of Christianity and how sacramentality follows directly upon the confession of the Incarnation, one of the sacramental, apostolic churches seemed like the only possible choice. Being a European American, Latin rite catholicism was the clear option.

The Creative Melancholy

2009-07-07T16:48:00.003-04:00

My mind and heart work and discern at their best in a state I have come to call 'the creative melancholy.' For whatever reasons I have decided would be coarse to try to articulate, the music of the Pixies has always captured this mood for me.

As anti-emo as I am, I like Sense Field's cover of Caribou, the haunting and pretty opener from the first Pixies release, Come on Pilgrim. (1987)

Caritas in Veritate

2009-07-07T11:04:00.002-04:00

Be joyful all Franciscan hearts!

In his new encyclical, Caritas in veritate, our Holy Father uses fraternity as an economic category in his teaching on the progress of the human family.

I can't find the Latin to double check this. If anyone can supply a link, thanks!

Jacob Wrestles

2009-07-07T09:27:00.003-04:00

I know I have written similar posts before, but every time Jacob's wrestling with the Presence of God (Genesis 32: 23-33) comes around in the readings, I am just overwhelmed by the intensity of the passage as a model of prayer.

The incident happens at night, signifying the obscurity of the experience of prayer. Our intellect before the Divine Light is like the physical eye staring into the sun; it is blinded and becomes nearly useless; nothing can be made out in the intensity of the light. Divine Illumination is so bright that we only experience it as an interior darkness.

Jacob asks two things from the Presence with Whom he wrestles. He asks for a blessing, and this he receives in the form of his new name, Israel. Within his new name is his vocation, his calling and privileged role within the history of salvation and the economy of grace.

He then asks to know the name of the One with whom he is contending, and this he does not receive. "Why should you want to know my name?"

So it is with us in prayer; we receive one thing but not the other. Through prayer we receive the blessing of our vocation. Perhaps we will know only the very next step, but this is how it is with God. God is in eternity, and exists in an eternal Now, the nunc stans of the scholastic theologians. But this too is part of God's mercy; if our whole journey were revealed to us ahead of time, many of us would leave the path in dread. Nevertheless; this is the primary grace of prayer: to hear the quiet but insistent voice of God within.

But the Presence itself remains mysterious; indeed, He will seem ever more mysterious and alien over time. Our minds yearn to understand the experience of God, and this is nothing to be ashamed of, because it is the nature of the mind to want to know. But the understanding of the Presence retreats from us, and many times we leave our prayer blessed, but feeling as if we know less about who God is than when we started. "Why should you want to know my name?"

Finally, Jacob leaves the experience injured. Having been struck in his hip socket, he goes through the world with a limp from then on. So it is with all who set themselves earnestly on the path of prayer; the experience of God opens up a new wound in our being, and we are pierced with the knowledge that the world in which we have lived thus far is not the last word. We have lost the innocence of those who go through this life knowing only the visible world. As Ben Kenobi put it so well, "You have taken your first step into a larger world." After we become true practioners of prayer, we will always limp a little bit in this world, because from then on we will a always be alien and stranger.

St. Maria Goretti

2009-07-06T09:35:00.003-04:00

This morning was the first time I have had the opportunity to offer the Mass of St. Maria Goretti. (Last year her day was impeded by a Sunday.) Her feast day is always a little special to us Capuchins, because her murderer and attempted rapist finished his days on earth as one of us. I found a page on him in Italian, with a couple of pictures.

Preparing for Mass I was very grateful for the chance to pray with a saint who knew the suffering of sexual assault. As I composed the petitions for the prayer of the faithful in my mind, I was inspired to pray for all the victims of human trafficking, pornography, abuse, and every form of sexualized violence in our society, and for a renewed spirit of repentance among us priests for our own crimes against the dignity of children and young people.

Indian Orthodox Wedding

2009-07-04T15:05:00.004-04:00

We had a very ecumenical afternoon here in church, as hosts for a wedding for the Malankara Orthodox. I don't know how it was arranged, but I ended up being the host. I got a few blurry pictures:

First, the presiding priest gave an exhortation on the meaning and purpose of marriage:

Deacon Gregory incenses everyone. Ah...praying ad orientem.

The heads of bride and groom were blessed in preparation for the crowning:

Thank You to Readers

2009-07-04T08:55:00.005-04:00

I was delighted to see that a minor friar received quite a few votes for "best blog by a religious" in this year's Catholic New Media Awards.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers, support, and encouragement.

So here's the question for readers: now the voting is over, and not being the winner, do I leave the nomination badge up on the sidebar?

Thorns in the Flesh

2009-07-04T08:39:00.002-04:00

Spiritual obstacles can be spiritual opportunities if we use them well, avoiding self-pity and practicing our dependence on God. Follow this link for my homily for this weekend.

Memento for the Dead

2009-07-03T08:58:00.004-04:00

After ordination to the priesthood, it takes a while to really start praying the Mass. At first you are mostly nervous about remembering everything. But after a while you learn it all well enough to actually pray through the Mass, first on weekdays and then on Sundays.

One thing I've noticed over time is that certain prayers of the Mass bring people to mind for me. Two examples:

My grandmother, even though she wasn't a Catholic, used to watch the Mass on TV. She once told me that her favorite prayer of the Mass was the embolism after the Our Father: Deliver us Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming our Savior, Jesus Christ. So whenever I pray that prayer part of me thinks of her.

In the parish in which I was baptized (down the street from where I went to college) the pastor used to pray all the 'quiet voice' prayers out loud. I've always remembered how devoutly he said the priest's prayer of private preparation for Holy Communion: Lord Jesus Christ, with faith in your love and mercy I eat your body and drink your blood. Let it not bring me condemnation, but health in mind and body. Even though I've taken to praying the quiet prayers in Latin, and in Latin I prefer the other option for this prayer (Domine Iesu Christe, Fili Dei Vivi...), I always think of my first pastor at this point in the Mass.

There are other examples. I'm grateful for this effect. It helps me feel united in prayer with those from whom I have arrived in this world.

I do wonder if it will be the same when we finally get the new translations of these prayers.

Sweating Through The TLM

2009-07-02T22:32:00.005-04:00

I know this is a bit indelicate, but it's a real question.

In the offering of Mass according to the Extraordinary Form, the priest must maintain "custody" of thumbs and forefingers from the consecration through the ablutions.

Now let's say it's summer in the humid Hudson river valley. It's hot in church. Some parts of Father's body--"Brother Ass" as our holy father Francis called his--are covered in five layers of clothing and vestments. In the time between the consecration and the ablutions, it would seem outside of the spirit of the rubrics to pull one's hanky from one's cincture or sleeve, much less wipe one's face while maintaining custody of thumbs and forefingers. But then what do you do when, by the time of the prayers before Holy Communion, the sweat is stinging your eyes and you can't read the missal?

I am told this is what the maniple is for...but I don't want to wipe my sweaty face with fancy stitching, and much less with a representation of the Lord's Cross! Could a server do it, like someone might do for a surgeon?

I know this is kind of gross, but it's the sort of practical question that just presents itself!

Mmm...Rice

2009-07-02T22:19:00.003-04:00

Overheard at Indian Orthodox wedding rehearsal:

Priest: Just please remind everyone that we don't allow the throwing of rice.

Groom: Father, we're Indians! We have better things to do with our rice!

Dreams

2009-06-30T22:26:00.005-04:00

I've always been a good dreamer, and I usually remember at least something of my dreams. Though there is a ton of nonsense in this area, I do believe that reflection on dreams can be a useful tool for the spiritual life. For years I've been taking notes on them. Though an individual dream might remind me of something that needs attention, it's the general themes and recurring motifs in my dreams that I find most enlightening:

The most common theme or narrative of my dreams is a search or a quest. I'm looking for something or somebody. Within the movement of seeking it's often the paths that are the most vivid memory: roads, tunnels, ladders, forest trails, etc.

My dreams are more commonly outdoors than inside. Rocks are a common element: rocky landscapes, rocks that I have to carry, etc. Indeed I'm often carrying something in a bag or--for some reason--in a bucket.

I'm usually on my own in a dream. When I do interact with other people, they are usually people from the past rather than the present. The same goes for the places; they are most often places I used to live. (Since I have received my mail at eighteen different addresses in so many years since I went away to college, there are plenty of choices.) Encounters with others usually take the form of brief and jarring conversations, the kind that change things and the course of the dream.

I rarely eat in a dream. Nevertheless, if there is food in the dream, it is almost always Chinese food.

Sometimes I dream in black and white. Sometimes I'm reading the dream like a story in a book, instead of actually seeing it.

Thanks to Mary

2009-06-30T10:27:00.004-04:00

In recent months a lot of my interior energy has gone into a sort of impasse in my ministry, a complicated situation in which I did not know how to proceed well.

The night watchman is on vacation this week, so it fell to me to lock up the church last night. Going in around sundown and turning off the lights, I remembered that I had not yet finished my Crown (I pray the Franciscan Crown on days that I would otherwise give to the joyful mysteries of the Dominican rosary, namely Monday and Saturday.) So before locking up I made a visit to Our Lady's altar to finish my Crown, and I was praying for Mary's intercession in the trouble I'm going through.

Finishing the prayer, I started to close the windows and lock up. That's when a thought came to me, a practical suggestion I could bring to my pastor. Right away I knew it was a good idea and would help clear things up for me inside, but I waited until morning to bring it up. I've learned the hard way to let ideas sit overnight, even when they seem to be direct inspirations or the fruit of the intercession of Our Lady or another of the saints.

Today I brought it up, my idea was accepted, and I feel a lot better. Thank you, Blessed Mother, for your gentle intercession.

By Their Playlists You Shall Know Them

2009-06-29T11:04:00.002-04:00

I've had an iPod for about a year. I never really meant to have one, and I certainly don't need one. What happened was that one of the last summer's brides gave me a sizable iTunes gift card. The guardian said I could keep it, so there I was an iTunes user all of a sudden. So then I wanted an iPod. Saving up my "day off money" for a couple months, I was able to get a nano. I'm sure the bride in question was just trying to say thank you with a fun and hip gift, but if you look at my library as a whole, my poor iPod has been sacrificed to nerdy purposes.

In a year my libary has only grown to a few hundred songs, gleaned mostly from old CDs and free downloads. A couple of times I traded my loose change for iTunes credit through one of those change machines in the grocery store, but I really haven't spent much money on the whole thing, and for this I am grateful.

What's funny is that my iTunes library is dominated not by music, but by sung Mass parts in the Extraordinary Form, different gospel and prayer tone examples for practice, and imported language learning CDs.

So I'm really an intense rock and roller, walking down the street with my iPod, trying to get 1962 Missale Romanum prefaces in my ear, or trying to learn German or Italian. Oh well, I guess it's about growing up.