You are currently browsing the daily archive for July 28th, 2009.
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Click for full size. This was an actual conversation.
[Addendum by Brian]
This is actually a really remarkable analysis of a massive cultural problem. I’m going to have to do a writeup on this later.
[Addendum by Kevin]
THAT’S WHAT I WAS HOPING FOR! I might as well, but seriously, good stuff here.
I always thought this was a duet!
Am I the only one who finds 90% of EWTN unbelievably dull? I always get excited when I visit a relative who has a satellite dish, and then when I actually put the channel on, it’s just a bunch of people praying out in a field. I mean, yeah, there’s the occasional flash of brillioans, but by and large, that channel is made of pure valium. I’m not being critical for the sake of being critical, but to me it raises a real question:
Catholicism is for me the most stupendous, exciting, adventurous thing out there. It’s full of human and divine drama, a star-spanning saga about death and love and the meaning of life, with an astonishing array of kings and prophets and martyrs and divines, wars fought and prisoners redeemed, all under the banner of Christ. It goes from Adam to Abraham to David to Christ, the slow and sure opening of redemption to the world, and the perpetual parousia of the Eucharist — it’s all and endless and breathless voyage. So why is it so boring on TV?
Well, well, well. Looky here. Perpetual adoration has returned to Boston for the first time in forty years!
To see the image of God in Boston, a passerby need only look up. Two billboards featuring the Eucharist displayed in a monstrance tower over the streets in Brighton and East Boston. The words under the image read, “The Son’s rays for your soul.”
These advertisements are meant to get the word out about the return of perpetual adoration to Boston after a 40-year absence. St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine on Boylston Street will mark the start of adoration with a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption.
Notably absent is an explanation of why perpetual adoration vanished in the late 1960’s, although any thinking person on either side of the aisle can probably guess that one within at least a standard deviation: in the late 1960’s, Catholicism imploded. Previously-vital Catholic communities collapsed, previously-beloved devotionals were scorned, and previously-pious men and women just said “well, whatever,” and got on with getting on. Probably seen as some sort of arcane throwback or somehow distracting from the real point of the Eucharist — which was supposed to be fostering community because, I mean, this was the Sixties — adoration would have been quietly boarded up and forgotten. But now –
The effort to bring perpetual adoration back to Boston is a direct response to the call of Pope Benedict XVI to have spaces dedicated to prayers for vocations and the sanctity of priests during the Year for Priests which began in June and runs to June 2010. St. Clement’s will be the designated site in the Central Region of the archdiocese.
Van Damm said the inspiration for his involvement came from his own need to adore the Lord in the Eucharist. Van Damm said adoration has “re-ignited” his faith and given him much peace.
– now we’re slowly realizing our ancestors weren’t a bunch of primitive obscurantists who hadn’t yet been enlightened by Today’s Latest Truth, but people who, ya know, had figured a few things out. I am pleased to say we’re now one step closer to just sort of pretending the Sixties never happened, or at least getting over them as the Most Amazing Thing Ever.
What should I write of my arcane little rituals?
Of water and of oil and of prayers
uttered silently and privately?
How should I speak of them,
without ripping their potency out
from their chests like hearts
dripping fire?
I can say nothing of them, no, not a word.
To tell much is to say little things
that can never wrap themselves
around the aroma of olives,
sweet on my forehead.
You were there, too, though you didn’t see,
because the lights were dim — no — off,
save a rice-white flicker-flame and a little
dip of a window. I was quiet, or I yelled
a little too softly-so. It was cold,
but I was wrapped in red stripes,
and my head was covered
before God.
Did I make promises? Yes. But wait.
That’s not fair. I’ve made so many,
spilled them off my tongue wet and spirant
and deathly, full and richly, but
never quite matched. My mouth, then,
is no mean instrument, no measure,
no scale. Could it weigh
all it says to him?
No, I’m stuck in my own head.
But drums drum, and I chant a little chant.
I know so little Greek.
It’s eventually going to come up. I’m not sure how or when, whether it’s going to be some offhand remark or prayer that sets the ball rolling, whether it will be me or her that takes first offense, but it’s coming, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. As you may recall, I havent recently found myself embroiled in an interfaith, or at least inter-denominational, relationship. I’m quite Catholic, and she’s what I like to call super-duper Protestant. I believe in regenerative baptism, she believes it’s all symbolic. I believe in the real presence in the Eucharist, and she hadn’t even heard of the concept. I believe in the Church, and she believes in the Church, but the definitions following those words only vaguely match up. I’ve tried to explain the communion of the saints, and either I did a bad job or she has gigantic cultural blinders on, because she didn’t get it. She tried to explain her whole deal at RIHOP, and either she did a bad job, or I have gigantic cultural blinders on, because I didn’t get it.
At some point, I think it’s going to occur to us that we can’t really pray together. I mean, I think we both have an awareness of that, clearly enough of one that I can point that out as a potential problem, but no, I don’t think I fully understand the scope of it. There is ultimately a giant part of ourselves that we’re unable — not unwilling — unable to share with the other. She invited me to RIHOP again, and I really had no interest in going. I invited her to mass, and she seemed less than enthused about the whole thing. And yet, here we are, trying to make this relationship work, while the best part of ourselves seems cut off from the other. How can this be overcome?
This is another part of practical ecumenism. It’s sometimes called being “unequally yoked;” there’s a profound issue creeping upon us, and I hope by God’s grace we’re able to deal with it. Does anybody out there have any advice or experience in this area I could use?
