Aliens in This World

Here’s Cantiones Sacrae, an interesting book of Latin hymns and “devotional chants” for the whole church year, arranged for simple harmony. There seem to be huge numbers of settings for “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum” and similar hymns. The real piece of awesomeness is that it has a hymn specifically for St. Stanislaus Kostka. (Man, these Jesuits stick together….) Also, for St. Aloysius Gonzaga.

There’s some music also apparently designed to be sung _over_ private Masses, which seems… unnecessary.

But anyway, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, which doubtless those people more musical than myself will understand better than I and find useful.

Musica Sacra: Monatschrift is another Catholic hymnbook I found on books.google.com. All the forematter is in German, but the hymns seem to be mostly in Latin. There seem to be hymns for pretty much every feastday.

Enbrethiliel has a good post up about animals and God. (It must be good; she links to me.)

It is lucky for dogs that we Catholics accept Jewish scriptures written in Greek — because Jews in Israel didn’t think much of dogs, but the writer of the Book of Tobit thought that of course Tobit should have a dog. So if you’re Catholic or Orthodox, pets are scriptural. If you’re not, you have to rely on human tradition.

Here’s an interesting article on the Book of Tobit in the Dead Sea Scrolls and St. Jerome’s tail-wagging addition.

Cats have been important helpers of humanity for a long time, and Pope Benedict XVI isn’t the only churchman who’s liked them. For example, there’s the 9th century Irish monk at Reichenau who wrote a little poem about his cat, White Pangur (Pangur Ban). (More translations.) Apparently Pangur Ban (along with his monks) is a main character in an old kids’ Celtic fantasy series by Fay Sampson. Looks interesting.

There are still beguine houses (beguinages) and beguines in Belgium.

I want one, darn it. Or a house of canonesses.

If you like looking at holy cards, here’s a “blogue” all about French ones. Of course, it’s in French, but I think you’ll get the general idea.

Bad news: I missed the season finale of Avatar, the Last Airbender, and all the latest episodes, too.

Good news: In a stunningly sensible move, someone has hired David James Elliott (Harm on JAG) to play a medieval knight in a medieval knightly romance miniseries named Mirabilis.

Carney’s translation of “Is mebul dom imradud” (By an anonymous monk, about 1000 AD.)

A shame on my thinking
How it wanders away
It will cause me embarrassment
on Last Judgement day.

At psalm time it rushes forth
on a pathway that’s odd
running, raving, misbehaving
in the presence of God.

To merry women’s company
(the unvirtuous kind),
through wood and through cities,
faster than the wind.

When road is smooth it travels
merrily and gay,
but passes just as easily
the impenetrable way.

It needs no ship to journey
and the seas go by,
jumps with but a single leap
from solid earth to sky.

Put a fetter on its leg,
chain it to prayer?
Yes! But in a minute’s time
it’s no longer there.

Little use in beating it,
plying whip or rod:
like an eel’s tail it slips away
from my grasp and from God.

No chain and no dark dungeon
will hinder its course;
it laughs at seas and fortresses,
is mocking of force.

Dear Christ, lord of chastity,
chain thinking in place
with power of Spirit septiform
and all His grace.

Make, great elemental God,
the heart be still,
that You be my only love
and I, Your will.

May I come to Christ at last,
and then to see
that He is no unsteady thing,
nor wandering, like me.

At the Friday night prayer vigil that was just shown live on EWTN, the Holy Father had a very good homily about the Holy Spirit. He leaned heavily on St. Augustine, and commented that he didn’t really understand the Third Person of the Trinity very well until he read Augustine’s writings about Him. So… I guess we know what I’ve got to read on the Church Fathers, on the Maria Lectrix podcast, don’t we?

(I’ve been pondering doing something on the Holy Spirit for a while, actually. Maybe a year and a half, maybe two. Nothing like being prodded!)

I’m not sure exactly what work/s by Augustine the Pope was referencing, though. When Vatican.va gets the speech text up, I’m sure it’ll be in the notes.

Btw, I’m not complaining about Vatican.va. For once, they have really been on the ball. Just now, all the Pope’s talks were up except the prayer vigil one — and that one was just delivered about an hour ago.

UPDATE: According to the homily notes, the Pope is recommending De Trinitate.

“The Fathers of the Church loved to see the Scriptures as a spiritual Eden, a garden where we can walk freely with God, admiring the beauty and harmony of his saving plan as it bears fruit in our own lives, in the life of the Church, and in all of history.”

– Benedict XVI, Homily at St. Mary’s Cathedral

I should mention, too, that the whole homily seemed to get its inspiration from the big west window in St. Mary’s Cathedral, which apparently features Mary as the New Eve giving an apple to the baby Jesus, the New Adam.

The Holy Father took up the theme, mentioned in his first WYD speech, of humanity as the heart or center of Creation and the creatures. (He also used the more traditional “apex”; but people are programmed to scorn the idea of Man as summit of Creation. So the “heart” idea gets the same concept across, but in a way which doesn’t freak people out.

This time, he pointed out more definitely that not only do humans wound Creation directly, by doing bad things to it, but also by doing bad things to each other and themselves. Humanity is part of Creation. Anything that diminishes humans thereby diminishes all of Creation.

So if we love the environment, we need to quit sinning! Seriously, though… even from a utilitarian standpoint, that’s pretty much what it amounts to. We can’t separate ourselves from Creation, or pretend that we can treat ourselves like crap, ripping away our own human dignity and oppressing ourselves, and still be able to treat everything else with love and respect. Mystically, too, we are connected to the world.

One of the old signs of saintliness was always a genuine love for animals coupled with the ability to give them orders, to which even wild animals responded with love and respectful obedience. This reversal of the Fall and return to something like Eden is part of what we are called to do, as co-workers with the New Adam.

The Pope trying on a policeman’s hat in pictures 25 and 26. (We forget that his dad was a policeman.) Followed by the Pope and his staff looking at animals, while Msgr. Ganswein peers smilingly at some kind of goanna, in picture 29, and Aussie lifeguards posing next to a picture of the Virgin and Child in picture 33.

We see why they closed the streets of Sydney at picture 17. Followed at picture 20 by a pilgrim sleeping, guarded by the Red Lion of Luxembourg. (Barry argent and azure, a lion rampant gules, armed, lengued and crowned or.)  Picture 26 provides us women with yet another reason to be glad to be Catholic! Picture 39 shows us some very brave young people. Picture 59 shows a nun eating a bun. Picture 66 shows non-liturgical Scottish dancers.

I haven’t read the book (and I’m pretty sure it’s not… um… to everyone’s taste… probably not mine, either….). But there aren’t many comedy-mystery books that come with a theme song you can download before reading the book, and which are embedded with Catholic traditions that Catholics like me are too young ever to have experienced.

So, from the author/publisher’s “blag”, an explanation of his song “Angelus of Doom”:

Speaking of Angelus of Doom, I’m rather proud of something in the song, something that no one has commented on — and no one probably will. First, some background for those who may not have read the short story entitled “The Angelus of Doom” in my book THE TOTAH TRILOGY. The story involves a young bell-ringer (me, at the age of eight in 1955) who (spoiler alert!) miraculously saves the day by ringing the Angelus improperly. The Angelus is a bell-ringing ceremony practiced three times a day in Catholic ritual. As is explained in the story, it consists of this sequence of rings:

I wish I didn’t have to brag about this myself, but hey, that’s what a blag is for. Click on the underlined Angelus of Doom to hear the song.

Mr. Fender also runs Ramble House, an independent publisher of all sorts of mystery books (yay!), mystery book reviews by the late great Anthony Boucher (yay!), and miscellaneous other stuff (some more miscellaneous than others… ew…..) Anyway, it’s a site worth a look and listen.

Until the Cold War looked like it was pretty well over, Ascension Parish in Kettering went to church in a bomb shelter. Nope, I’m not kidding. Well known fact. Had a big bomb shelter sign on the wall and everything. Almost as good a memento mori as Mass in one of those bone chapels.

Now you can see it over at the Catholic Telegraph’s photo blog!

The current church is one of those round things, except it also has a spire. It’s not hideous, just boring and inadequately statue-d. (And the choir placement is kinda stupid, though it could be worse.) You can tell where the altar is, though, which is always good.

You can amuse yourself during homilies by pondering what fresco should be painted onto the acoustic ceiling tiles. A modernized baroque tromp l’oeil representation of Heaven welcoming the Savior with apostles gaping down below would do nicely to cover the immense expanse of  blank whiteness.

The bomb shelter church currently serves as some kind of undercroft/cafeteria/parish hall. Sigh. No love for the things of my childhood, you unimaginative people.

Sometimes it’s a bit discouraging to read blog posts by students taking college-level history courses. Otherwise intelligent and empathetic people suddenly lose their faculties to reason and feel, and you watch them swallowing the most amazing codswallop.

It gets worse when you add religion to the picture. You might think this would only be a problem with profs who are anti-religion, but alas, no. Even in areas where people are hostile to all kinds of believers in general, and certain kinds of Christians in particular, there’s some pretty strange stuff being promulgated.

For example, let’s take the topic of monasticism.

Now, you might think that this is a no-brainer. even for the most secularist history teacher. Both in its Christian and (VERY DIFFERENT!) Buddhist forms, organized monasticism is clearly a pretty genius idea for human society. There’s always going to be a lot of people around who aren’t interested in getting married (or who can’t get married for various reasons). In many societies, these people are considered to be either useless eaters, dangerous troublemakers, or the poor relation you can make slave for you. But that’s poor utilization of human potential, ne? So you organize them, use their talents, give them purpose and a home, and then you also don’t have single/widowed old people dying alone and being found only by their smell.

You would expect Christian history teachers at Christian colleges to be much more excited about monasticism. People surrendering their lives to God? Personal relationship with Jesus? Spiritual athletes? Following the evangelical counsels? All kinds of good fruits? Lots of Protestant work ethic… er….

Anyway, of course a lot of the founding Protestants were partly protesting against monasticism (or seeking to justify breaking their vows, instead of just asking to be released from them like a normal disgruntled monk). So a lot of Christian colleges want to teach church history, but need to explain that monasticism = bad.  (This isn’t always true, though, and there has been a good amount of dabbling in, and serious practicing of, monasticism lately by Protestant groups.)

Apparently the standard complaints nowadays are that monasticism made folks too passive and reclusive, especially in the East. (Maureen mentally consults Byzantine history, and laughs her head off.) Also, that it went against God’s will that we all spend all our time in the world, preaching the Gospel the exact same way. (Which is why monastics produced all that spiritual and temporal fruit, of course.)  It was divisive for people seeking to be “perfect as your Father is perfect” to go off together. (And how dare Jesus have called the apostles away from their homes. Shame on Him.) Finally, monasticism isn’t explicitly outlined in the Bible in every detail, so it must be wrong to practice. (Neither are Christian colleges explicitly outlined in the Bible. Why’s your prof work at such an unscriptural place, and your textbook publisher sell it books?)

Sigh.

49 minutes of gorgeous sights and sounds. Yes, it’s in Spanish, but… if you don’t understand Spanish, watch it anyway. There’s a lot of Spanish history to learn in this one, as well as a lot of contemporary stuff to look at.

At Hymnos Debitos Canamus (”Let us sing fitting hymns”), there’s a blogger putting up literal translations of the Latin hymns used for the Liturgy of the Hours. I don’t want to ignore the nice singable translations out there, but sometimes you wanna know exactly what it says, not just hear a generalized translation.