I just offered my first practice extraordinary form low Mass in our chapel this afternoon. It will take me some time to be graceful with all the gestures and to associate the gestures closely with the prayers. I’ve also got some memorizing to do!
When I’m in Mexico, I’ll probably practice the ordinary form of the Roman Rite Mass in Spanish. This year, it would be great to learn the roles of Subdeacon and Deacon at solemn high Mass as well.
I still have not received a call from a supervisor at ASUS. Of course, I’m leaving for Mexico tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll be able to make any progress until I get back. I may try to email them.
America magazine had a contest awhile ago to write an essay on the theme “the case for God.” I thought about entering it, but I had plenty of things that I was obliged to write, and I didn’t think my chances of winning were that good.
Now, if the theme is simply about proving God’s existence, that’s not exactly fresh. It’s been done. Also, once we come to know that God exists, what are we supposed to do? Walk away from the chalkboard, brush off our hands, and call it a day? The choice of legal vocabulary for the theme, however, seemed to me to imply something more than proving God’s existence; it seemed to presume God’s existence but without regarding his authority. It seemed to beg whether man needed God anymore. Not just atheism, but God-is-dead-and-we-killed-him nihilism.
My entry would have put the theme on trial, so to speak. Honestly, “the case for God”? Are we, his creatures, judges while the onus lies on God to prove himself to us? Read Job. How prideful can we be?
After debunking the theme, my essay would have gone on to discuss the time when God really was on trial and we really were the judges. Remember that? Even Pilate said, “I find no case against him.” God did die, and we killed him.
In the end, the essay would have been about our pride and God’s humility.
Cat-5’s name is now officially spelled with a hyphen.
When I woke up this morning, my family had a cat. He’s six weeks old and the kitten of a feral cat that lives near Mom’s place of work. Apparently, she and her co-workers divided up the kittens last night, and she brought him home early this morning when she got off work (around midnight).
We spent the morning trying to come up with names.
The following were my initial suggestions:
Cat 5
Catilina (The Roman conspirator)1
Catullus
My brother suggested:
Rorschach (The cat is white with nearly symmetrical black blotches on its back.)
Garbage (Like a cat from The Office.)
We came up with many more, but these were basically the “A List.”2 In the end, we went with these names (except for Catullus, because I didn’t want to name the cat after a dirty poet), and drew one randomly. The result?
The cat is now named “Cat 5.” It’s a bad networking joke. It was also inspired partially by this User Friendly comic strip:
1 If I ever got a dog, I would name him Catilina and teach him commands in Latin. Sede! Recumbe! Surge! Dic! Veni! Mane! Etc. I could even train him like Father Veit’s dog, Maggie, to find things for me: “Affer claves!” (Maggie can find keys among other objects. It’s really amazing) If he misbehaved, I would get to shout things like, “O tempora! O mores!”
2 We also thought about making terrible puns on “cat” or “kitten” or even naming him after a UNIX shell command. Of course the cat command would be appropriate, but then people would just think we were lazy. Another Roman name could have been “Cato.”
Well, if all goes well, I’ll have a new laptop before too long. I really like the extensibility/cheapness/do-it-yourself factor of desktops. For some reason, I also like the quasi-retro “computers must be large and boxy” feeling of desktop computers. Nevertheless, I’ve been convinced by two years of sitting by the lion1 and not working, paying attention in class, taking notes by hand, and several days of laptop-less thesis work in the library that a laptop is the way to go. As added motivation, the Fox Box2 is just getting slower and some of the sounds it makes are getting worse. I would fix it (because it’s a desktop) like I have in the past, but it needs new parts, and it’s just not worth it to upgrade this thing anymore because technology has improved so much.
Anyway, the laptop also comes with a mission: Get a refund for the copy of Microsoft Windows(r)(tm) that comes with it.
That’s right, I’m going to attempt to get reimbursed for the Microsoft tax. My plan consists of: filming (if possible) or at least photographing myself opening the box and not agreeing to the EULA, calling customer service, and taking it from there.
No matter what happens, I’ll definitely chronicle the experience here.
2 My computer’s name is “The Fox Box.” I’ve started retro-nyming it “The Fox Box version 1.0.”
85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don’t get scores that high! Good show, old chap!
Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know “no” from “know.” Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).
I served Low Mass according to the Missal of John XXIII last Friday. I was what we call Acolyte 1, that is, the Epistle side acolyte.
Everything went well except in preparation for the Lavabo when I was at the credence table. I couldn’t find the towel, and so I went to the sacristy, hoping that a sacristan would meet me there with a towel (I was in the sacristy that does not have such things in it). However, I gave up, and when I got back to the sanctuary, the other server had the towel. Apparently, it was on the table right in front of me, but I didn’t see it!
I remembered all the prayers as well, even the Confiteor, which I was worried about because it has changed in the newer Missals, so it’s easy for me to get tripped up. I thankfully remembered to omit omissione.
The Kenrick Alumni Dinner was last night. For this occasion, some of my classmates and I made a video, which was shown to the alumni and seminary community. I think it went over pretty well.
The premise: The class of 1957 made a film about what the seminary would be like 50 years in the future, i.e., 2007. This film appeared on an obscure ecclesiastical television show entitled “The Rectory.” Our video is (ostensibly) a segment of that television show, which includes the video from the class of 1957.
You can watch Seminarians in the Third Millennium on YouTube.
Seminarians in the Third Millennium is in various formats on my Kenrick website.
Evan (Billy O’Malley) Harkins’s blog: Galea Salutis.
Anthony (Narrator, Smoking Seminarian #2) Ochoa’s blog: Sonet Vox Tua, including his post on the topic.
Nick (Video Editing and Encoding, Rev. Schmitz, S.J.) Winker’s blog: Clever Title Goes Here.
Revelation 12:4:
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
Today is the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. At the Planned Parenthood facility this morning, it seemed very appropriate to reflect on the angels and their role in the world.
Christ calls Satan “the prince of this world” (John 16:11) and tells us that he came “to defeat the powers of darkness.” There is, indeed, a certain type of dominion which Satan has over the world because of original sin. This dominion, of course, is by no means absolute, but it does mean that God permits the apostate angels to interact with human beings to some degree.
The fallen angels hate man. They regard a creature who is both spiritual (like them) and material (like the animals) as grotesque. Of course, they hate very much the Incarnation when God took as his own a created human nature, and they hate Christ and Mary, whom they could never induce to sin. They hate especially that man is in the image of God and this, not only in his spiritual faculties but even in his body. Most of all, they hate man because he is in the image of Christ, who is true God and true man.
They know that their time is limited and that they can have no final victory (Matthew 8:29), but they enjoy causing human suffering and causing men to sin. They enjoy causing death out of hatred for Christ, who is the life (cf. John 8:44). Indeed, the Gospel is a “Gospel of Life.”
Abortion–especially in its magnitude–must be seen as having diabolical roots. Certainly, we human beings are responsible for abortion and it comes from the hardness of our hearts, but I have no doubt that the demons promote abortion very actively. While we may commit abortion out of fear, or ignorance, or selfishness, the demons have a much more perverse agenda.
Not only is abortion always a grave sin, but it is a sin of parents against children and of society against the family. In this way, abortion defaces the image of the Blessed Trinity which exists in the human family through marriage and sexual reproduction, and man begins to regard himself as nothing more than an animal–beyond any possibility of love. Abortion, too, is often sold to us as a lie (cf. John 8:44): it does not tell the truth about what man is. Abortion may tell us that an embryo is not a human being–which lies about human nature–, or it may tell us that some human beings have more value than others, which tells us that the source of our value is not God.
The good angels, however, work to tell us the truth and to protect man. Let us not frustrate their efforts. Indeed, the Incarnation of Christ was made known “by the message of an angel” and we know that the angels participate in Christ’s victory over the apostate angels.
Revelation 12:7-8:
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
