The Magnificat Says Mary Knew

I’ve been studying the Greek 101 course on The Great Courses, off and on. (Not very diligently. Basically, whenever I’ve got enough brainpower.)

Not long after the bit where you realize you can understand the first five lines of the Iliad, the second episode about dactylic hexameter includes a portion of Luke’s Gospel, where Gabriel speaks to the Virgin Mary. And yesterday, thinking about it, I noticed something that connects to the Magnificat.

St. Gabriel says about the son that Mary is being asked to bear, “He will be great.” (Literally, “Houtos estai megas,” He will be big/great/important.)

Some people say that Mary couldn’t have known Who her son was. But St. Elizabeth knew right away. The Spirit of the Lord came upon her, and she cried out in a loud voice (“krauge megale“) that Mary was “the mother of my Lord.”

Well, obviously the Holy Spirit had done a lot more quality time with Mary, by overshadowing her, and God Himself was right there inside! Prophecy might occur!

So what does Mary say about her unborn son?

“Megalynei he psyche mou ton Kyrion.” (Literally, My soul makes the Lord big, or My soul displays/proclaims that the Lord is big.)

Mary is clearly alluding to her promised son being the Lord Himself! And then she underlines it, saying as a pregnant woman:

“Hoti epoiesen moi megala ho Dynatos.” (The Mighty One has done big things to/at me.) Like in her womb. Getting big.

But wait, there’s more! In Luke 1:58, after Mary had gone home and Elizabeth had given birth, the neighbors and relatives of Elizabeth heard that: “…hoti emegalynen Kyrios to eleos autou met autes, kai synechairon aute.” (“….that the Lord was magnifying His Mercy with her, and they rejoiced with her.” And notice Gabriel’s greeting being echoed with “chaire.”) So literally, the double meaning was that the Lord had been staying at her house, working on getting big!

Probably this is old news to a lot of you, but I’ve never heard it pointed out before. (And this allusion pattern is probably why some scholars are super-anxious to deny Mary’s composition of the Magnificat — because it shows that she understood what was going on, and was a Bible-contemplating poet as well as a prophetess.)

It would make sense for Luke to back up Mary’s allusions with at least one of his own, because that would show his audience that he also understood what was going on. It also rounds out the story, by alluding to elements of the Annunciation at the announcement of John the Baptist’s birth and name.

This will probably be a better-sounding Marian argument if you say “great” instead of “big.”

UPDATE: The Greek word “megas” is used in the Septuagint to translate Hebrew “gadol,” great (or big!). The Greek word “dynatos” is used to translate Hebrew “gibbor,” which can mean “mighty,” “the Mighty One” (as in Zephaniah 3:17), or “warrior.”

St. Marisol?

This is a common Spanish name that doesn’t get much pop culture explanation. It’s really “Maria Soledad,” a name honoring the “Virgen de la Soledad,” the “Virgin of Solitude” or “of Loneliness.” This is a title for Mary as she was on Holy Saturday, mourning her Son. One of the interesting Spanish features is that they show Mary wearing a rosary with a prominent cross, so that the rosary draws attention to her long-empty belly. She is alone.

(Our Lady of Sorrows is the more common title in non-Hispanic countries. That’s where the name “Dolores” comes from.)

There’s a lot of devotion to Mary under the title of “Soledad,” especially in France and Spain, and in Mexico. It was associated closely with the women of the royal families, who often survived their sons and husbands. In Madrid, there’s also a miraculous painting on cloth of this version of Our Lady, “la Virgen de la Paloma.”

The Paloma Virgin is a neighborhood miracle. In 1787, some kids found the discarded painting (which is a little smaller than a paperback book) and started tossing it around. One of the neighbor ladies on Paloma St., Isabela Tintero, was scandalized and confiscated the little painting. She took it home, cleaned it, got it framed, and put it on her front door. Then she started using it as her prayer station for saying the Rosary, and other neighbors did too.

And then people’s prayers started getting granted.

Word of the miracles got around, and the little side street got flooded with people praying. Mrs. Tintero gave up her house to be an unofficial chapel for the painting, but they still couldn’t fit everyone into the house. The locals built a real chapel. They founded a big festival on August 15, along with the Feast of the Assumption. There was a famous operetta/zarzuela using the festival as a backdrop. And so on. She is the patron saint of Madrid’s firefighters as well.

But it’s not all funsies, being a shrine. The parish suffered five martyrdoms during the Spanish Civil War, which are currently part of a new sainthood cause. All the martyrs were killed for being part of Catholic Action, a club for supporting Catholic identity and teaching, or the Asociacion Catolica de Propagandistas, an apologetics and teaching club. There were two priests: the Servants of God Fr. Jose Bermudez Tome and Fr. Andres Rodriguez Perdiguero; and three lay members of Catholic Action: Marcelino Panizo Celorio, Marcelino Panizo Rodriguez, and Fernando Estevanez Teran.

Yesterday, tragically, there was some kind of explosion at an adjoining Caritas home for elderly people and for visiting priests, on ground owned by the parish. Four people were killed: two still-unidentified passersby in the street, a 35 year old parishioner named David Santos who leaves behind a wife and four kids, and a 36 year old priest, Fr. Ruben Perez Ayala, the parochial vicar, who had only been ordained for a year. Debris hit the roof of the church and the back courtyard, but it’s otherwise okay. None of the old people were killed. They think it was a gas explosion. Please pray for all the dead and for their families.

St. Taylor?

For all you young men, young ladies, Taylor Swift, and Taylor Marshall — there’s Blessed Hugh Taylor, martyr.

In fact, he was the first person martyred by Bad Queen Bess under the law naming all priests as traitors, as opposed to claiming that specific priests had done specific non-priest traitorous things. We don’t know much about him, but we know he came from Durham, snuck out of England, studied at Rheims, and became a missionary priest. He was caught or betrayed soon after re-entering England. Then he was hung, drawn, and quartered on November 26, 1585, in the city of York. (Blessed Marmaduke Bowes died on the same day.)

But there’s another Hugh Taylor, who is probably a saint, but who doesn’t seem to have had any cause. This Hugh Taylor was a Carthusian monk who entered the London Charterhouse in 1518. He was a “Conversus” lay brother who did the work to help the other monks live their life of strict prayer and silence, as hermits within a monastery. But he was known to be not only charitable, but also a man whose prayers were answered favorably by the Lord, who had visions and dreams, who made true prophecies, and who was consulted by everyone in need, including people who didn’t like him.

One day Brother Hugh was in his room when Jesus came to talk to him, in a full apparition. They talked and talked, and then Hugh remembered that he was supposed to meet one of the other monks in the workroom, and help him with a project. So Hugh begged Our Lord to excuse him until he could come back, and went and kept his promise.

And when he came back to his room, Jesus was there, and told him how pleased He was that Hugh had gone to help his brother — more pleased than He had been with anything Hugh had done before.

Brother Hugh Taylor died on September 30, 1575. Many of his Carthusian brothers would go on to martyrdom, including the Prior, St. John Houghton.

Still Hanging Out with Apponius

Yeah, I need to finish Beatus. But I just feel really discouraged, because a lot of my early notes went missing.

Anyway… I’m working on Apponius and Song of Songs, which has always been one of my other favorite books of the Bible. Everybody knows that this is a book about God’s relationship with His people (ie, the Jewish people, and thus with the continued and enlarged qahal, the Church). But apparently everybody on the Internet wants to talk about it as simple Hebrew love poetry, or simple stuff about men and women. Because that’s the “literal meaning.”

Look. It’s not the “literal meaning” if the text is full of Biblical allusions about God and Israel. The literal meaning is “I’m writing a sacred poem about God and Israel, but turning up the marriage analogy to 11.” And that’s why God lent the author inspiration, and inspired everyone to put it in the Bible.

Jewish synagogues chant this thing ON PASSOVER. A lot of them chant it EVERY SATURDAY at certain parts of the year. They’re not singing “Girl, You Know It’s True” or “The Star of the County Down,” okay?

(Oh, and spoiler alert. Beautiful women do not appear to 18th century Irish poets and beg to be rescued. It’s Ireland. It was always Ireland. It was never about girls and poets.)

So I did finally find a Jewish video series on the actual factual literal meaning, from Chabad on their “Jewish TV” channel. A lot of nice nuggets that… um… well, deep Jewish theology is usually easily transferable to the Church, Jesus, etc.

For one thing, we’re told that the rabbis said that the name “Solomon” in this text was to be interpreted as the Name of the Almighty. Well, “Solomon” means “Peace.”

And of course, “He is our Peace.” (Eph. 2:14) He’s also the Son of David, and the Divine Wisdom, so calling him Solomon is exactly true. And… yeah. I think we know where this is going.

Another Rule of Thumb Explanation

Victorian Farm: Christmas Special has a segment on milling with a windmill, and the miller says that you adjust the gap between your grindstones according to the feel of the ground meal coming out. Allegedly, you catch the meal between your finger and thumb, and then determine the adjustments by “rule of thumb.”

Still think it’s a carpenter term for using the thumb as a rough ruler, but milling works too. I’ve also heard that it’s a way to check beer temperatures.

The “size of stick to beat your wife” is a pretty ridiculous legend, as the only measuring story I’ve found about that was in Islamic law. And I seriously doubt medieval English people cared what sharia law thought. Oddly, though, there are some late stories about English judges who allegedly decided cases based on the false etymology! So yeah, urban legends are dangerous things….

Explanation of the Day

“Nut brown ale does not contain any nuts.”

OTOH, for everybody who keeps claiming that “nut brown skin” and “nut brown hair” are descriptions of black people in medieval England… the brewery describes nut brown ale as being “dark amber” in color. Basically, it’s beer-colored; it’s just a slightly deeper reddish brownish yellow. So anybody with a decent tan, or someone with reddish blondish brown hair (as opposed to mouse or dark brown). Clearly the nut in question wasn’t a walnut, because “walnut” is a separate descriptor, associated with walnut shells and walnut-stained hands.

I can’t help you with “brown as a berry,” but apparently juniper and cedar berries are brown.

Um. Yeah. Thanks.

So I just got invited to join a “Fiat 90” program, which is 90 days of ascetic practices for Catholic laywomen.

Except….

Let’s guess how many of these ascetic practices have any relationship to the practices of historical Catholic lay ascetics.

Bing bing bing bing! Not very many!

And the ones that are historical are the exact ones that I physically can’t do, or have no way to manage. So yeah.

I don’t want to say it’s stupid, because it looks like an interesting program for, say, Catholic college students. But you get stuff like “eat only three meals a day with no snacks and fast from meals on Wednesday and Friday” and “do certain exercises every day,” and I’m thinking, “Kids, I have to eat when I can, or I faint. And I run around like a maniac lifting and kneeling and reaching as part of my job.” They have “Sleep seven hours a night,” and I’m thinking, “Kids, I’m middle-aged. It doesn’t matter when I go to bed; I’m going to wake up in six hours.”

Then they also want things like “Go to Confession every week,” which basically means that your group doesn’t go to a normal American parish, with Confession available only on Saturday from 4 PM to 5 PM. Apparently this got changed to “once a month,” which is still a pretty heavy burden on your typical US parish, but might get done.

The one that is really hilarious is “I will limit my texting.” I have a dumbphone. I can barely, barely text in emergencies, and it takes me ten minutes to send a message.

I am pretty clearly not the intended audience…. But it’s beautiful that these girls are trying to respond to God’s call, amend their lives, and discern His will.

Good News: Bad News: Winx

Netflix is doing some horrendous live-action adaptation of Winx Club. There’s a trailer. Nice visual effects and a couple of cute monsters… but otherwise, it has nothing to do with the Italian comic or cartoon. The director apparently hated the original show, and has decided to do a darker, “more realistic” version that looks like Lovecraftian Riverdale meets Firestarter. And just to put a capper on it, they jettisoned several of the most popular main characters (Tecna, Flora), turned Musa the fairy of music into a fairy using headphones to block out other people’s thoughts, and cast a bunch of late twenties actresses to play barely teenaged teenagers. Oh, and they turned several characters that happened to be non-white into white characters. Which is weird, even for 2020. (But hey, they took the characters’ iconic clothing colors away, so why keep the iconic skin and hair colors, even if it’s a sentai team thing?) And there are apparently no fun/ridiculous fashions, because in 2020, nobody is allowed to have fun.

Good news, though: There’s a fan-voiced, fan-cut “The Winx Abridged Show.” It’s pretty funny. (Not for kids – this is that phase in the fandoms when all the original kid-viewers are now in college or have jobs.) The episodes basically assume that you’ve watched a fair number of the original seasons, as well as the World of Winx episodes on Nickelodeon. But it’s accessible even if you’ve only watched a few episodes (or seasons).

Israel: The Short Version

Modern Israel is weird because the settlers of modern Israel were weird. Holocaust survivors with PTSD and a thirst for revenge, or extremely current skills at fighting for the Resistance, or for various militaries, were blended with people who were basically farmers or tradesmen or merchants who had never fought anybody. People of every political stripe not just from one country, but from all over the world. And weirdest of all, the Jewish kibbutz folks who wanted to be Jewish Communists who spoke Hebrew but didn’t know bupkis about the Bible, and who actively prevented smart kids from pursuing higher education. (But couldn’t stop them from joining Israel’s army.)

Modern Israel is weird because a lot of the “Palestinian Arabs” were actually resettled there by the Ottoman Empire, somewhere around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Often by pushing indigenous Arab/Israeli Christians or Muslims off their land, or out of their houses. People don’t talk about this. (And actually, a lot of Middle East problems come from this forced resettlement stuff happening everywhere on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire. In Armenia, as we know, it ended in genocide.)

Modern Israel is weird because it’s a small enough country that a lot of people know each other. People can be at each other’s throats in their parliament, but also be relatives or college friends or army buddies.

Another reason that modern Israel is weird is that they tend to have an “ourselves alone” attitude, just like modern Ireland used to have. It’s not that they’re not good allies, because they can be. It’s that they’re going to consider their own self-interest first, mostly because they know that historically they’ve been messed with, and that people continue to mess with them today. But honestly, that’s how the US does things also.

The US did some amazingly nasty or unhelpful things to Israel, early on and at random times down the years, and Israel has occasionally done nasty or unhelpful things in return, or at random times. That doesn’t make them not our ally; it makes them slightly more our ally than France. 🙂

If we have a State Department or intelligence analyst paying attention, we should be able to keep Israel on our side without putting ourselves into bad positions. When Israel has weird political parties in power (okay, that’s all the time!), we should be able to figure out their goals and be ready for what they might want to do. But it’s okay to have allies that are not clones of the US.

Fun with Kidney Stones

If you’ve never had kidney stones, keep doing what you’re doing. If you have, here’s some interesting info.

Basically, as long as you are hydrated, your kidneys are usually able to cope with everything you do and drink. But large crystallized compounds called kidney stones can form under the following conditions:

1: Not enough calcium in your diet, or coming into the kidneys, to bind to the little oxalates and push them along. So potentially you have a big gang of lonely oxalates hanging out temporarily in your kidneys. If you pee them out, you’re okay. But if you don’t, they get together and form crystals as soon as other stuff shows up.

2. Too much calcium without enough water, which turns into calcium crystals in the kidneys, that don’t get out if they get too big. (And then when oxalates come along, they bind to these crystals, and suddenly you have a really big kidney stone.) Calcium oxalate crystals being formed in your digestive system is normal, but having them form in your kidneys is the most common kind of kidney stone.

3. Too much cystine in your kidneys, period. Cystine, an essential amino acid, usually isn’t a problem unless you have cystinuria, a fairly rare genetic disease that messes with absorption.

4. Too much calcium phosphate in your kidneys without enough liquid. Those lonely calcium crystals can also get together with phosphates and make calcium phosphate crystals, or even join calcium phosphate with existing calcium oxalate crystals. This means you have a lot of calcium and not enough oxalates in your tummy… and something else going on. Urinary tract infections, but also other kidney problems or hyperthyroidism.

5. Uric acid crystals that actually turn into stones. Bad, bad dehydration is what causes this, or really acidic urine, or certain diseases. They can actually treat it short term with baking soda/bicarbonate of soda antacid!

6. Struvite stones = magnesium ammonium phosphate. Caused by really alkaline urine, which doesn’t usually happen unless you have an infection somewhere. They give people stuff to neutralize the pH and deal with the stuff in the stones.

If this isn’t a good recap of what I’ve read, read up on it for yourself.

So basically, it benefits you to eat/drink lots of calcium, so that the oxalates bind to it in your tummy instead of in your kidneys.

And you should drink a fair amount of water every day, so that all the various kinds of crystals do not form in your kidneys, and don’t get to the point that they are big masses that don’t dissolve easily.

And you should urinate and clear things out, because otherwise your kidneys will just work hard to concentrate everything into uric acid crystals, while all the other crystals have more time to get together and cause trouble.

If people know they tend to get specific kinds of kidney stones, their doctors will have specific recommendations. (There seem to be a lot of ins and outs, often based on what you are already taking in vitamins, prescription drugs, etc. Excess Vitamin C can turn into oxalates, and Vitamin D pills often include extra calcium.)

But what else helps?

The juice of citrus fruit and melons contain citrates, which can also bind to calcium in your kidneys and help you pee it out, and thus keep oxalates moving on out of the kidneys instead of making stones. This is one reason why lots of multivitamins and electrolyte drinks contain potassium citrate.

Nuts, potatoes, chocolate, black tea, beets, rhubarb, bran flakes, currants, leeks, summer squash, sweet potatoes, tomato soup, grits, tofu, Concord grapes, and spinach are high in oxalates. But they also tend to make you urinate, which usually is good for kidneys. So you have to think about levels. Eat/drink calcium with them, basically, and don’t pig out every day.

(In the UK, where people usually drink tea with milk or cream, they don’t have to worry about black tea oxalates as much. But remember, almond milk is also a nut.)

Or you could look up other tonics to encourage urination, that don’t include oxalates. (Just don’t use peppermint tea, as some people have good luck with it, but it seems to bring on kidney stones in others.) “Palo azul” or “azul tea” is a bark-based tea that is supposed to do wonders, but I don’t know anything about it. Green tea or oolong tea is a lot easier to find, and apparently fights stone formation. (They are both low in oxalates, because of how they are processed after picking.)

Eating too much meat or too many carbs and sugars, all at once, can stress out your kidneys. Don’t do that, or don’t do it for days and days in a row.

Don’t stress out. Some people’s kidneys don’t work well when they’re unhappy, angry, anxious, etc. (Probably stress hormones.)

Resveratrol fights kidney inflammation and helps your kidneys keep pushing junk out. It’s found in peanuts (a nut!), cocoa (chocolate!), grapes, blueberries, strawberries, mulberries, bilberries, and cranberries. In grapes, it’s only present in the skins, which is why red wine has resveratrol and white wine mostly does not. (The skins are strained out of white and rose wine at an earlier point in production.) But your body metabolizes resveratrol and doesn’t grab a lot of it, which is why there are pills.

Drink water and go to the bathroom regularly. Seriously. Then you don’t have to remember this stuff.

Ruth Lyons

Today on Channel 5 from Cincinnati, they re-broadcast a documentary from 2011 about the legendary Midwestern television host, Ruth Lyons. (Ruth Lyons: First Lady of Television.) It was fascinating, because she basically had the force of personality to ignore sexism (or inertia) and push her way to the top… and people loved it! She just did stuff instead of thinking about it, and she gently trolled others instead of being trolled.

She went from a job playing piano on WKRC radio, to emergency guest host, to on-the-spot reporter of the Great Flood of 1937. She wanted to do more news, but ended up becoming WKRC’s program director; and then took over the field of variety entertainment at lunchtime for housewives, on a new rival television station, WLWT.

Needless to say, nobody previously had known that housewives needed a variety entertainment and talk show format at lunchtime. Or a tv host who tested the products she was supposed to advertise, and refused to accept sponsors whose products stunk… and revealed the stinkage on the air.

She was a gifted, prolific songwriter (every week there was at least one new song by her), a good pianist in many styles, and a serviceable singer, but she had a real eye for talent and was interested in pushing people to the top. There was a reason that agents tried to get their clients on Ruth Lyons’ 50-50 Club. Back then, the Tonight Show was okay, but it was Ruth Lyons who sold albums and theater tickets.

She was beloved for speaking her mind, and her show had no color line. All her guests were her guests, who sat next to her on her rocking loveseat. She touched off controversy in 1963 by spontaneously dancing with a famous black singer, and then delivering an on-air talk the next week about how she had been getting nasty phone calls. The next week, the station was flooded with supportive phone calls instead.

She also pranked the All-Star baseball game in 1957, getting her audience to send votes for the entire Reds starting lineup, and thus creating an all-Reds National League All-Star team. (Needless to say, the voting rules changed the next year.) She apparently also wrote the lyrics to “We’ll Rally ‘Round the Reds,” to the tune of “The Battle Cry of Freedom.”

But after tireless years, her sister died of cancer, and then her adopted daughter was also diagnosed with terminal cancer. She had a stroke and started to get better… and then her daughter died in 1966.

Lyons tried to come back to work, but was physically weak and mentally fragile. She ended up breaking down on the show one day in January 1967, when her young friend Carol Channing was on, and Channing had to try to help her regain composure on live television. Lyons and her doctor decided she should retire, so she did. That day. She was a decisive lady.

From then on, her younger co-host Bob Braun helmed The 50/50 Club, which became The Bob Braun Show, and went on for years and years more. That’s the show I grew up with. His son Rob Braun worked in Cincinnati TV news as an anchor.

Lyons lived quietly in retirement, suffering a series of strokes that made her speech hard to understand, but also writing a memoir that was a local bestseller. She died in 1988.

Besides the daytime talk show, her greatest legacy is probably the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund. Originally founded (as the Ruth Lyons Children’s Christmas Fund) to provide Christmas presents for poor kids who were stuck in the hospital over the holidays, it grew to provide all sorts of resources for kids and for hospitals in the Midwest. I still have my stuffed dog toy from when I was in the hospital, and plenty of people across the region can say the same.

Here’s an earlier documentary from 1988: Ruth Lyons: Portrait of a Legend.

Ruth Lyons Tribute in several parts, from Norwood Primetime Television, on December 6, 1985. Features many of her staff and singers, including Cliff Lash, her bandleader, who transcribed to sheet music all the songs she wrote by ear.

Here’s a half-hour of excerpts by the producer from Ruth Lyons: First Lady of Television. It includes the story of how Cincinnati and Dayton ended up with more color tvs per capita than a lot bigger cities in the rest of the US.

Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund is accepting donations. Every cent that you donate will go directly to hospitals and kids; there is no administrative overhead at all. “Happy Birthday, Ruth Lyons” tells the story.

Ten Tunes of Christmas: Ruth Lyons. The whole album. It sold more than 500,000 copies, back in 1958. And yes, of course Candee Records was Ruth Lyons’ own indie label!

“Sing a Song of Christmas” by Ruth Lyons, sung by her and her tv show staff. From the album.

“Wasn’t the Summer Short,” written by Ruth Lyons for Johnny Mathis.

“Have a Merry Merry Merry Christmas,” written by Ruth Lyons. Also from the album.

“Christmas Is a Birthday Time” by Ruth Lyons, sung by Ruby Wright.

“Let’s Light the Christmas Tree” by Ruth Lyons, sung by the Lennon Sisters.

“Christmas Lullaby” at about 7 minutes in, sung by Marian Spelman, for whom Ruth Lyons wrote the song in 1961. This seems like a really appropriate Christmas song for this crazy year, and I think all you parents will like it.

“Once Upon a Christmas Time” by Ruth Lyons, from her album It’s Christmas Time Again.

Another Tom from Ohio’s Youtube channel seems to have the most Ruth Lyons songs of anyone!

WLW Radio’s simulcast of The 50/50 Club, from 11/22/1963 (the day of JFK’s assassination). The bad news doesn’t arrive until the whole show is over, and another show is about to begin. No special guests, just in-house fun with the audience.

Ruth Lyons’ Coffee Cake recipe.

Mother Cabrini Day!

Today is the feast (okay, the memorial) of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (aka Maria Francesca Cabrini, Cecchina Cabrini, and Francesca Saverio Cabrini), a religious sister who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and emigrated from Italy to the mission fields of the United States. Along with her sisters, she gave tireless care to the American poor of every denomination, as well as setting up many Catholic schools, parishes, hospitals, orphanages, etc. After untiring service that stood in contrast to her tiny frail body and extremely high, cute soprano voice, she died on December 22, 1917, from the after-effects of catching malaria in Rio de Janeiro, ten years before.

As a legal immigrant who became a citizen of the United States, she was the first US citizen to become a saint, in 1946.

Cabrini and her sisters were wonderworkers with their prayers, which isn’t proof of sainthood but doesn’t hurt to show good fruit in their lives. This was seriously downplayed in the last half-century and more, particularly by those putting forward Cabrini as a saint of “social justice.”

Well, sorry, but you don’t get a St. Martin de Porres without the supposedly-embarrassing signs and wonders. The more practical and hands-on the saint is in charity, the more likely that signs and. wonders will happen.

(Activism doesn’t seem to produce saints or wonders, as it is a side-activity to charity, or even a way of blocking ordinary citizens from helping their brothers and sisters, calling on government to replace neighborliness. There are government-bureaucrat-type saints, but not many. Usually martyrs.)

The sad truth is that a lot of the secular products of Cabrini’s hard work have been closed down and destroyed. Orphanages have been decentralized into foster care, which has been good for most kids but has promoted abuse of others. Charity hospitals were closed down for lack of personnel and lack of vocations, or lack of interest by dioceses, or changes in the law and liability; or they have been sold off to businesses, which then often closed them down for being in unprofitable areas of cities. Inner city parishes are bare of parishioners, because everybody moved out to the suburbs. Parochial schools are no longer owned by the sisters and are no longer free to the poor, or no longer in existence.

But that’s not Mother Cabrini’s fault, is it? The same people who want her as a saint of social justice are the ones who have largely turned Catholic charities and action into “make the government do everything” activists, and who have no problem with government regulations that have largely outlawed traditional forms of charity. Making the poor jump through government hoops isn’t very charitable, and doesn’t fill people’s needs in anything but the roughest way. And Catholic adoption services are not allowed to match Catholic babies with practicing Catholic parents, even though matching by “race” is apparently the most important thing in the world.

Mother Cabrini lived and worked in New York, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Seattle, and many other cities that were once prosperous, but have now collapsed, or been damaged by riots. We should invoke the prayers of our friend and neighbor (and fellow voter), St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. But we also should start to give and pray and do more, ourselves, without waiting for some agency to do it.

Cabrini was once reluctant to start running charity hospitals and medical ministries, because she thought that wasn’t her order’s job. She would just help raise money, and help another order to do it. Then she had a dream where she saw Our Lady dressed as “Consoler of the Afflicted,” but nursing the sick in a hospital, with her dress pinned up to give her freedom of movement. Mary sternly told Cabrini, “I am doing what you refuse to do!” Cabrini took the hint.

Are we refusing to do God’s work, refusing to help our neighbors directly?

In a move that went largely unnoticed due to riots and COVID restrictions, in 2020 the state of Colorado renamed Columbus Day “Cabrini Day.” I can’t decide if that was stupid or smart, in current year. Regardless, I think it’s pretty funny to have a secular US saint’s day, especially one set up by SJWs; and personally I would push it as far as it would go.

(No offense to Columbus, who suffered great obloquy in his own time and today for trying to stop abuses of Native Americans. Why do you think he lost his government jobs and got imprisoned?)

She was a farmgirl, and never lost that practicality. Cabrini earned her own teaching license and thought she was going to live a single, secular life or would marry, much like most girls today. But God had other ideas; the saint teaches us to listen. Cabrini is also a model for today because she was refused entrance to two religious orders, once because of her health and once because she was considered to be “too useful to spare” by her parish priest, who was a friend but also got it wrong. Cabrini had to found her own religious order in order to follow God’s will, another activity discouraged today. But the good side was that she did gain a lot of administrative experience in her own hometown.

The super-freaky thing was what happened next. Her pastor asked her to help out for a few weeks at a charitable orphanage. He thought she would make a good fixer. She ended up stuck there for six years — first with three jerks supervising her, who all thought they were Cinderella’s stepsisters; and then as boss to those same jerks, who suddenly thought they were Cinderellas. Yeah… become a saint or break. But again, this shows Cabrini’s sympathy for those who are governed badly. She learned to look out for herself and others, to have a strong will, and to understand the dark side of human nature.

And then her bishop looked into the sitation, got her out of it, and suggested she found her own order — a missionary order, since she had a missionary heart.

Which she did, and then didn’t put up with any of that crud which other people had put her through. (She seems to be one of the few modern foundresses of religious orders who didn’t get mistreated by mean girls and would-be Iagos in her old age.) Even though her bishop and her old pastor both thought her order should be missionaries to Italy, she knew that her order was called to go out far away. Without defying anyone, her will to follow God’s will for them remained adamant. The same thing happened when various bishops told her she should not go to Rome and get his permission to send sisters to foreign parts. She did not defy them, but she consulted a canon law expert, learned her rights, and went to Rome. (And was told in a dream to go, by Baby Jesus. And got her permission, even though Pope Leo XIII told her that she was needed in America, not in Asia as she had planned. And then she used her papal permission to trump other bishops… very politely.)

As was said about her by Mons. Aristeo V. Simoni, in his introduction to The Life of Mother Cabrini, American Saint by Mabel Farnum, “God sometimes leaves His children in the dark so that they may see His [guiding] stars.”

But she took a more cheerful view. Cabrini’s idea was that we take the good things God gives us, use them as best we can at the moment, identify the problems and fill in the gaps when we can, but not worry too much about what is currently lacking. Her prayer when things were needed was, “Sacred Heart of Jesus, we thank thee.” She also insisted that “Missionaries are joyous! They have every right to be, because they are Christ’s.” Even when the seas were rough on the sisters’ voyage to America, she took it as both a test from God, and a sign of God wishing to bless them when they passed the test.

When she needed more sisters, she asked the religious order that had run her school to send them any sisters who weren’t fitting in or who were unhappy with the life. In her house, these “misfits” became valuable sisters, and holy. Her Rule insisted that there was no need for ascetic penances beyond the common life of Catholics and sisters, because “Religious life in itself offers every chance for sacrifice. There is no need to seek further for crosses.”

But whenever the sisters had nothing left of some supply, and no money to buy more, Mother Cabrini would ask them just to check the cupboard one more time — and there it would be, even though the cupboard had been completely bare. Or there would be money in the desk drawer, once or twice.They were not begging sisters, though they did beg when it was needed. But most of all, they always lived in dependence on God.

If you can get access to hathitrust.org, follow the link to Farnum’s book. It is charming and not too rose-colored.

And it also tells the story of how she surprised and conquered the archbishop of Buenos Aires, and got her way for her order…. Her Colegio Santa Rosa is still at work.

The Martyrs of Nice, France

On October 29, three churchgoers at the Basilica of Notre Dame de l’Assomption were attacked and killed by an Islamic jihadi, in hatred for our Faith. They’re not even the first modern martyrs killed by jihadis in Nice, but their case is even clearer than usual.

Vincent Loques, layman, sacristan, 55, was a devoted husband and the father of two children. He was known for his “friendly face,” and for being available at the basilica all day, every day, for the last ten years.

Brahim Aossaoui, his killer, had waited outside the basilica all night, according to his mother who had received a text in Tunisia that did not reveal his other plans. Loques unlocked the basilica doors at 8:30 AM and let Aossauoi in, as he would let anyone enter in the morning. Once the doors were open, Aossauoi slit Loques’ throat. It is a gesture of contempt associated with halal animal slaughter.

Nadine Devillers, laywoman, 60, was happily married and known for her “strong and pure heart” and her “kindness.” She was from Draguignan but moved to Nice at age 18. She was a regular at the basilica, a daily Massgoer. She died close to the baptismal font, stabbed and nearly beheaded.

Simone Barreto Silva, laywoman, 44, was a Brazilian immigrant to France who had lived there for 30 years, and was the mother of two children. She broke away from her attacker, despite her wounds, and made it all the way across the street to a cafe, where she asked for help. As she died, she asked those around her to tell her children that she loved them.

(It is worth saying the owner of the cafe, Brahim Jelloule, was also a Muslim, but he dragged Barreto Silva inside his cafe and tried to save her.)

Those who die martyrs for Jesus’ sake will go straight to Heaven. These people are now with God, and they are our friends.

Martyrs of Nice, pray for us!

A Whole Month for Helping the Dead!!!

Pope Francis and the Curia actually listened to the world’s bishops, and they have reinstituted Pope Benedict’s generous grant, adding the entire month of November to the Halloween through November 8 octave for visiting cemeteries and praying for the dead.

So from October 31 through November 30, you can visit any cemetery (not just Catholic ones), pray for the dead, and earn them a partial or plenary indulgence.

“The usual conditions” apply. Which means that to get the dead their full plenary indulgence, you need to go to Confession and receive Communion at some point before, during, or after the month. (Usually it’s a period within about 21 days. So you could go in October, go in December, and still cover the entire month of November. You also have to maintain a state of not being attached to sins, even if you happen to sin, and you have to pray for the pope’s intentions on the day you go to Communion and/or Confession.

But what if you don’t? What if you mess up or leave out some of the conditions?

Partial indulgence. Still good for the Poor Souls or any other dead person.

Basically, the Church wants you to pray for the dead, an.d to have a good excuse for calling on the Church’s treasury of prayers and other good things. So the idea is to make it super-easy and generous.

But you have to go in person.

There’s another plenary indulgence for praying for the dead in a church or oratory, which is normally available only on All Soul’s Day, but which has also been extended to the entire month of November. Homebound or vulnerable people can pray at home before a picture or statue of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, or they can offer up their own sufferings as an act of mercy.

So you can grab either of the two indulgences every day in November, for the dead!

NOTE: Jesus said that people would not just be subject to justice for their sins, or mercy and forgiveness of their sins, after they died and were judged. He said that there were earthly consequences to our sins, and that we have to pay those back in some way after we die, “to the very last penny.” (Lk. 12:59)

An “indulgence” is basically a promise, on the authority of the Church as Christ’s Bride, that this payback part of Purgatory would be taken care of, by Christ and the members of His Body. Most of the time, we are encouraged to acknowledge our own sinfulness, and to do various prayerful activities that provide partial and plenary indulgences for ourselves. This month, we do it for the dead, whether those we know or those we don’t.

You can seek an indulgence for “one of the souls in Purgatory,” or name a specific person. If the person you name is already in bliss in Heaven, or sadly is in Hell instead of Heaven/Purgatory, some other soul will get helped.

When you help those in Purgatory, they will help you with their prayers. Ask them for intercession if you have special intentions that you need help with. This is a beautiful manifestation of the Communion of Saints, and someday you will meet up with these folks in Heaven and on the New Earth.