Aurora Borealis

Mr. Tldz graciously agreed to look after the little guy for a bit this morning while I went off to church for a “Lunch & Learn” session on St. Paul in honor of the Pauline year the pope has announced.  It was a good session and really got me looking forward to the resumption of Thursday night Scripture study.  Hopefully I’ll be able to work that into the schedule regularly.

One little off topic point of annoyance came up.  We were conjecturing as to how Paul may have come to have Roman citizenship.  One woman in the class said, “Well, it could be like the politicians of today who say ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’  Like George Bush and Exon, financing his campaign.”  Really now.  As a conservative, it would never occur to me in a setting where we’re discussing St. Paul or something similar to say, “Well, maybe it was like Barack Obama and that outrageous Jeremiah Wright.”  I just wouldn’t think of throwing my politics into something like that.  Why do liberals feel so free to do so?  Mr. Tldz speculates, and I think he may be right, that liberals act on the assumption that everyone in any group they’re in agrees with them.

If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat: if he thirst, give him
water to drink:
For thou shalt heap hot coals upon his head, and the Lord will
reward thee.

Proverbs 25:21-22

To no man rendering evil for evil. Providing good things, not
only in the sight of God but also in the sight of all men.
If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all
men.
Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto
wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the
Lord.
But if the enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give
him to drink. For, doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his
head.
Be not overcome by evil: but overcome evil by good.

Romans 12:17-21

Last night we had the opportunity to attend a Mass honoring Fr. Fred, the priest who married us.  He is going off to be an Army chaplain.  He spent a couple of years in the Army before he went to seminary and his dad was career Army.  Now he’s going back as a much-needed chaplain.  I read somewhere that the Army needs 300 priest chaplains and has 90.  Fr. Fred’s parish, of course, and we will miss him.  They did a bang-up job at putting together a wonderful send-off, and I’m glad we were able to be there - two kids in tow.  (Yes, Foster Mulan has been here for a week.  More on that later.)

Fr. Fred gave one of his usual strong homilies.  It’s so nice to hear a priest talk about how much he likes being a priest.  And, as was often the case when he was my pastor, some of his message hit very close to home and was exactly what I needed to hear last night.  I’d been in something of a funk since the night before, and an hour of Eucharistic Adoration yesterday morning as part of IHM’s 40 Hours Devotion (in honor of the parish’s 50th anniversary and the building of our new church) didn’t help; but last night finally hit the reset button for me.

Not surprisingly, the Mass went long, and it really pushed Agent Murphy to his limits, given that it started around his normal bedtime.  We thought he might go to sleep, as is fairly typical for him during Mass.  But a new place provided just enough different stimulation (plus it was really warm in there) that he stayed wide awake.  So we didn’t even try to participate in the reception afterwards.  Fortunately, we got in position to be among the first in the receiving line to greet Fr. Fred.  I gave him a hug and shoved the Agent into his arms and snapped a picture before we hit the road.  Now one day when Agent Murphy is old enough to watch our wedding video and says he doesn’t know that priest, we can tell him that he met him once.

Agent Murphy was definitely over-tired.  Riding in the car usually soothes him, but he shrieked for the first half of our 45-minute trip home before finally falling asleep.  So we had a lazy morning today and skipped prayer vigil so we could all catch up on some sleep.

We heard from the day surgery folks at Eggleston today. Agent Murphy is scheduled to have his extra little toe removed on Friday at 10:15. We have to get there at 7:00 a.m. It will be an early morning, as he can’t have any milk after 5:00 a.m. and no Pedialite after 6:00 a.m. So I’ll get up around 4:00 to get some milk into him, and Mr. Tldz will give him some Pedialite around 5:30. And that will have to hold him until he’s awake enough after surgery to eat. He’s supposed to be back from recovery by about 11:15, and hopefully, if all is well, we’ll only have to stay at the hospital for another 1-2 hours after that.

The general anesthesia makes me nervous, but we have to assume everything will be okay. We caught up with our pastor after Mass this weekend and Agent Murphy duly received the sacrament of annointing of the sick.

The Catholic Church does not celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick on March 17 when that date falls during Holy Week, as it does this year. The normal thing to do, apparently, is to move the liturgical celebration to the first available day after Easter, but that would push it out to April 1 this year. A number of dioceses have taken differing approaches on how they’re approaching the feast day this year. It’s worth noting that moving the date up to before Holy Week did take Vatican permission. Fortunately, this sort of thing doesn’t happen again till 2160, so we will only have to worry about St. Patrick’s Day falling on a Friday during Lent between now and then.

The law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening, observing—as far as quantity and quality are concerned—approved local custom.

Poenitemini, “On Fast and Abstenance”, III.2.

I’m amazed at how much one has to dig to find this statement of things. Mostly the official documents just assume that one knows what the word “fast” means. Of particular note, it’s interesting that the fast mandated for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday is so vaguely specified. The custom in the United States is to interpret the “quantity” for the two other meals as though they may not add up to the size of the main meal. That’s a reasonable and, I’d even add, a laudible interpretation, but it’s not specifically required by Poenitemini directly. Perhaps indirectly, since it really does seem to have the force of local custom. (And it’s pretty much what we’ll be doing at La Hacienda this lent, making the appropriate exception for Mrs. Tldz’s nursing of Agent Murphy.)

103 Q. What do you mean by grace?

A. By grace I mean a supernatural gift of God bestowed on us, through the merits of Jesus Christ, for our salvation.

“Supernatural,” that is, above nature. “A gift”; something, therefore, that God does not owe us. He owes us nothing, strictly speaking. Health, talents, and such things are natural gifts, and belong to our nature as men; but grace is something above our nature, given to our soul. God gives it to us on account of the love He has for His Son, Our Lord, who merited it for us by dying for us. “Merits.” A merit is some excellence or goodness which entitles one to honor or reward. Grace is a help we get to do something that will be pleasing to God. When there is anything in our daily works that we cannot do alone, we naturally look for help; for example, to lift some heavy weight is only a natural act, not a supernatural act, and the help we need for it is only natural help. But if we are going to do something above and beyond our nature, and cannot do it alone, we must not look for natural, but for supernatural help; that is, the help must always be like the work to be done. Therefore all spiritual works need spiritual help, and spiritual help is grace.

From An Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism.

We went to our church’s baptism preparation class a few weeks back on account of the child Mrs. Tldz is due to birth shortly. We wanted additional clarity after the class on some of the basic terms involved in the sacrament. When you’re looking for concise definitions of Catholic ideas, the Baltimore Catechism is often a great place to start. (When you’re looking for inspiring elaborations on those ideas using the long, varied and rich tradition of the church, then turn to the more recent Catechism, by way of contrast.)