Oops!

Forgot to mention that I'm on a brief vacation. Posting will be very sparse until Monday when the big travelogue hits the ether.

Apropos of nothing in particular

When I was a wee lad, the Lutheran service contained the following dialogue:

V: Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R: Who hath made heaven and earth.
V: I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’
R: And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

For a while I though the third line was a reproof to the congregation and the fourth line was a form of confessing that the second line was a sin. The incongruity of being required to sin by the form of the service troubled me a bit. Eventually I figured out that the third and fourth lines were a specific instance of what’s mentioned in the first line.

Huzzah!

Happy blogiversary to me. This blog started a year ago today. (I had another one for a while in the winter of '01-'02, but it's rightly buried and nearly forgotten.)

Before I was "Gregg the obscure", I was "Gregg the keg"

The Brewers Drunk
You are a closet alcoholic. You love to get all
pumped up and take dives into vats of beer.
You probably have cheesy facial hair as well.
You probably thank Anhuesier-Busch alot as
well.


What Baseball Mascot are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

George Weigel’s recent column mentions “Denver is arguably the most vibrant local Church in the country today” – an assessment that seems pretty valid from here. That being said, we aren’t without a large share of problems. Some are like those described in the latest post at the always insightful Mommentary, but some are worse yet.

This week, as is our custom when it’s really hot, we didn’t go to our usual parish, where air conditioning won’t be in until October. Instead we went to a large parish nearer the house – actually the parish for our geographic location. There are two priests there, but the associate is an immigrant with such a thick accent that we have a hard time understanding him, so we try to go when the pastor himself is celebrating Mass.

This time I was surprised to hear, right after the trope Kyrie, what sounded to me like a general absolution. The words used were: “May almighty God bless us and grant us all pardon and absolution of all our sins.”

So am I all wet? Was that a reasonable closing to the Kyrie or was it skirting impropriety (or worse)? Thanks!

All of ye are likely familiar with both The Catholic Nerd Blog and the recent geek test (44.97041%, major geek, thank you very much). Well now, in addition to being both a nerd and a geek, I’m also apparently a fogey. Saturday night the missus and I went to the Denver concert of The Irish Tenors. Most members of the crowd, and a large and crowded room it was, were a good deal closer to 60 than to 40. The fellows put on a good show, though through most of it we were quite concerned for their leader, Dr. Ronan Tynan, who said he was suffering a bit of altitude sickness. He missed a few songs and in the second half of the show had a stool to sit on. Most of the material was traditional Irish music. Some was original material and a few covers of other performers’ songs. They had an orchestra of around 40.

Lowlight: “My Heart Will Go On”. (But it did get rousing audience reaction.)

Highlights: “Red is the Rose “, “Go, Lassie, Go” (a/k/a “Wild Mountain Thyme” and the musical inspiration for my nemesis’ paraphrase of the Magnificat) and “God Bless America”, for which all stood and the audience joined.

Yikes!

Chances are you've already seen the above post from Mr. O'Rama, but on the off chance you haven't . . . (In case the blogger direct links are taking happy hour, it's his post about the new book on the Kennedys.) I've heard lots of people speculate that there was a curse on the Kennedys, but I've never heard anyone mention evidence of an actual curse until now.

The Dominican sisters who protested at a nuclear missile site and caused about a thousand dollars of damage to the site are up for sentencing in federal court today. (Apologies if the Denver Post link doesn’t work, that’s just the way they are sometimes.)

Yesterday I saw a “rally” of about twenty of their supporters. Per the article, there were about 150 of their supporters in front of the courthouse today.

Interesting tidbits I don’t remember seeing before:

[P]rosecutor Robert Brown enumerated the earlier arrests of the Roman Catholic nuns at anti-war protests: Carol Gilbert, at least 13 times; Ardeth Platte, at least 10 times; and Jackie Hudson, five times . . . [Srs.] Platte and Gilbert lived in Baltimore's Jonah House, an activist community founded by the late peace activist Philip Berrigan. {Sr.} Hudson lived in a similar community in Poulsbo, Wash.

Quote I expected to see (and did):

Asked if vandalizing the silo was illegal, [Sr.] Hudson said: "When someone holds a gun to your head or someone else's head do you not have a right and a duty to enter that arena and stop that crime?"

Methinks that St. Blog’s most prominent Dominican would find the use of that question in that circumstance to be disingenuous. I know I do. The sister’s statement implies that the mere possession of nuclear weapons by the U. S. government is a crime.

Anyone surprised to see Phil Berrigan mentioned? I didn’t think so.

UPDATE: One was sentenced to 30 months, one to 33 months and the third to 41 months. Tomorrow their supporters intend to repeat the actions for which the nuns were sentenced.

Since Monday my better half’s been out of town on a business trip (to Phoenix, of all the places to go in July!). She gets back this afternoon and I’ll be very glad of that. Still, the quiet has been a real blessing. Not just the paucity of conversation, but the absence of electro-noise from TV and radio. I’ve talked with my wife on the phone each evening, watched bits of a few baseball games and listened to about half of a cd, but other than that have been in a quiet house for the morning and the evening when I’m home and awake.

Now I like quiet a lot more than most people do. I rarely have any radio or tape playing in the car and I get up an hour before my wife so I can have some quiet every day. . Having even more quiet, rather than the constant barrage of infotainment, helps me to see that I’m really not that terribly important. I’ve got a streak of megalomania that needs combating. Quiet really helps. In silence I can see just how tiny I am. I think that’s part of why silence is so unpopular. I’m reminded of the scene in one of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide books where the ultimate punishment was for a person to be put into the Total Perspective Vortex, which would show the subject just how truly insignificant he is. Of course everyone who was subjected to that vision went mad. Why doesn’t silence drive me mad (if indeed it hasn’t already.)? Two reasons. First is that my insignificance is rather reassuring. If I had really big responsibilities, there’s an overwhelming likelihood that I’d screw them up quite badly. Since my life is so obscure, the chances for me to cause really serious harm isn’t as big as it could be.

Vastly more important, though, is that, as insignificant and as flawed as I am, the incarnate God still cares about me to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice. Silence can be a good reminder of the lasting things as much as noise can be a distraction from them.

In the past couple of months two houses on our street were put up for sale, one to the south and one to the north. Each one should be worth a bit more than our house, given their size, condition and amenities. I thought all along that the house to the north, which is in spectacular condition, should be worth a little more than the one to the south, which is in very nice, but not spectacular, condition. Oddly enough, both houses went on the market with the exact same asking price. I thought that price was probably about ten percent too high for the house to the north and about fifteen percent to high for the south house.

Over the weeks, the price of the nicer house dropped three times, each time by a larger amount than the time before. The final price seemed to be a bargain in today’s market. Sure enough, a day after the last price cut, an offer was made and it’s now under contract. The price of the other house was dropped only once, and that by a token amount.

So what?

The people who rigidly held out to get what they’re after so far have nothing to show for their efforts. The people who were open to getting something other than what they were seeking are nearly done with the ordeal and are preparing to move on. Too often when I face a problem, I doggedly pursue the solution I want, regardless of the lack of success. Openness to other solutions, particularly those that require some sacrifice on my part, is a surer path to real success.

Stopped in a little deli recently that was festooned with all manner of flotsam and jetsam of bygone political campaigns from FDR’s day up through ‘96. They were nicely bipartisan. The most intriguing items:.

1. A photo of an RFK rally with a prominent handwritten sign “Seek a Newer World”. OK I know the Kennedys were big promoters of going into space, but I never heard that settling humans somewhere other than earth was a big part of either of their platforms.

2. A Carter-Mondale poster captioned “Challenging Leadership for Challenging Times”. They didn’t really think that slogan through too well, eh?

3. A caricature of Nixon with an attributed 1968 quote along the lines of “Those who have had four years to seek peace and failed to do so should not be given a second chance.” Ouch.

There were several buttons from the unsuccessful 1984 (I think) Nancy Dick campaign for the U.S. Senate. Her son, Timber Dick (yes, that’s his real name!), was a failed candidate for Denver city council this spring. He probably wouldn’t have been a very good city councilman, but he would have made for some pretty funny headlines.

From Robert Fisk via Steven den Beste:

“The burned, bullet-splashed villa in Mosul, the four bullet-ridden corpses, America's hopes - however vain - that the death of Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay, will break the guerrilla resistance to Iraq's US occupation troops, all conspired to produce an illusion last night: that the unidentified bodies found after a four-hour gun battle between Iraqi gunmen and US forces must be those of the former dictator's sons - because the world wants them to be. ...

If he [Saddam] and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans”

Nearly two years later, Robert Fisk still produces material that cries out for Fisking.
Sentence one tells of a conspiracy of a building, four corpses and some putatively vain hopes. Mr. Fisk, inanimate objects are incapable of conspiring. Even hopes themselves are incapable of conspiring. Only people can conspire. For example, people who have positions in media can agree to publish only one particular point of view (for instance, reflexive hostility to western civilization). I can’t imagine any person with a functioning brain who would hope that the death of Uday and Qusay would be sufficient to completely break the current guerilla movement. Certainly some of the guerillas, motivated by loyalty to or fear of the Baathists, will back down. It’s pretty clear, even from here, that there are other guerillas who have other motivations. (A good post on how wars wind down is here.

Now the point of the alleged conspiracy was to produce “the illusion that the unidentified bodies . . . must be those of the former dictator’s sons”. Well, the bodies were identified by a Baath official who knew both men. Perhaps Fisk knows something that the US military (and the Baath elite) doesn’t so that he can proclaim this identification was wrong, but he didn’t mention how he could know it was an “illusion”.

Mr. Fisk says that people are claiming that the Hussein brothers are dead “because the world wants them to be”. He then goes on to say what he wants to happen: that the opposition Iraq will “grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans”. Weak logic, eh? The Saddam Hussein family fought the Americans and lost everything. There are other folks in Iraq for whom the same is true. If Q & U had escaped unharmed and were chatting on Al-Jazeera, then there’d be good reason to think that Iraqis would have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans. As long as fighting the Americans means dying, though, rational people (a group that includes most Iraqis, but apparently not Mr. Fisk) would be inclined to refrain from fighting.

Mark Shea is fond of saying “History can be summed up in two phrases: ‘What can it hurt?’ and ‘How was I to know?’” (see, for example, here). That’s a nice snappy way of saying that the unintended and unforeseen consequences of an act can be devastating. Today’s Denver Post has a story about people who are probably trying to do something good that is likely to have some bad consequences for the very people they’re ostensibly trying to help.

The Post’s direct links are notoriously unreliable, so here’s a summary. State civil rights authorities are launching an investigation into the potential disparate impact on minorities of current hospital billing practices toward uninsured patients. “Disparate impact” is the legal phrase for unlawful discrimination that isn’t necessarily intentional. If a practice ends up treating, say, ethnic minorities substantially worse than the general population is treated, then “disparate impact” can be claimed and, if the party in question is subject to civil rights laws, the authorities can order remediation. Many of these cases settle before trial. The Post story even mentions a for-profit hospital chain that has settled a similar case.

The theory seems to be that (a) hospitals bill uninsured patients differently than they bill patients with insurance and (b) members of ethnic minorities are more likely to be uninsured than are members of the general population, then the billing of uninsured patients discriminates against the members of ethnic minorities. The solution they’re seeking is (1) for uninsured patients to be billed at rates more like those used for insured patients and (2) for hospitals to pledge not to take some uninsured patients to court over collection issues.

Now here’s where the problems come in. In the ten years I’ve been in healthcare, every provider I’ve worked with bills uninsured patients at a higher rate than they bill insured patients for a pretty good reason. Providers offer insurance companies discounts as an incentive for getting paid promptly. In fact, a big part of my job is haggling over how many days (10, 30, 40, whatever) that a given insurance company should have to pay our claims. The insurers who send the most patients tend to get steeper discounts and longer periods for payment than the smaller insurers, kind of like the way Wal-Mart can buy butter a lot cheaper than your neighborhood bakery can. Volume discounts and discounts for prompt payment are standard business practices for just about every business and, as people are prone to forget, healthcare in the U.S. is still a business.

Every so often in my company there are folks (usually from a nursing background) who want us to establish lower rates for uninsured patients or, as they like to call them, “self-pay” patients. Every time the response is the same. Data ends up demonstrating that the so-called “self-pay” patients are often more accurately referred to as “no-pay” patients (or, at a minimum, “fractional-pay”). Since very few of the uninsured patients actually pay enough to cover the cost of providing service, those that do pay have to cover not only their own costs, but also those of the patients who pay little or nothing. (Yes, there is charity care and that’s an important part of the work of any healthcare provider, but as a practical matter there are to limits to the amount of charity care that any single provider can carry.)

The first part of the problem is that the proposed solution gives hospitals an even larger incentive to refuse treatment to uninsured patients. Most hospitals already are quite skittish about accepting uninsured patients for elective admissions. If the hospital is sure that they won’t have any way to enforce the payment obligation of the patient, that will mean more hospitals will require payment up front. Very few uninsured people will be able to receive care.

Worse yet, this could serve as further incentive for hospitals to close their maternity and emergency departments. Federal law requires hospitals that have maternity facilities to accept all women who show up in labor and hospitals that have emergency units to accept all patients who are experiencing emergencies. If a hospital sees that its survival is threatened by the bad debt generated by those units, it well may discontinue these vital services. There’s no reason to believe that this is intended, but it sure could hurt.

Well, I’ve always said that Kansas is flatter than a pancake Now the scientific community agrees. Still, Kansas isn’t as tasty as a pancake.

Now this really is a Hick town.

Yesterday Denver got its first new mayor in twelve years (only the fourth in my memory) -- John Hickenlooper. Best Denver mayoral name since the late Quigg Newton.

With the various posts about Fr. Chrysostom Frank and the new biritual parish St. Elizabeth of Hungary (Roman rite) and Ss. Cyril and Methodius (Russian rite), it suddenly seems a good idea to give a bit of background on the location of the parish – Auraria (not to be confused with the suburb named Aurora).

These days it’s the home of the Auraria Higher Education Center and its three constituent educational institutions: the University of Colorado at Denver (where I am working on the MBA), Metropolitan State College and Community College of Denver. The three schools share a library, student union and several other facilities. Most classroom buildings are dedicated to one school or another.

In 1859 shortly after gold was first discovered in what was then the farthest western extremities of the Kansas Territory, two towns were started near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. One was named St. Charles – I don’t know why that name was chosen -- but it was quickly renamed Denver City in honor of the governor of the Kansas Territory. The other was named Auraria, due to the gold that drew people here. It wasn’t long before the two towns merged into one, with the name of Denver.

The most lasting Auraria legacy was that its streets were laid out differently than those of Denver City so that, while most of the city has a grid of streets in the cardinal directions, most of the downtown area has streets that are forty-five degrees off from the compass points.

Auraria was one of the parts of town largely reserved to immigrants – at first mainly Germans and Mexicans. Over time it became predominantly Mexican. That made it easier for local politicians in the 1960s to take over the property, evict the residents and demolish most of the neighborhood to build the campus.

There are several reminders of the neighborhood’s past. A few houses were kept and turned in to faculty offices. Golda Meir’s girlhood home was moved in and made a conference center. Colorado’s first synagogue was kept - the building remains as an art gallery. The Mexican community had its own church, San Cajetano. That building is still there and has a computer lab that I’ve used. The church itself moved to a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in southwest Denver. The Germans had St. E’s and the Tivoli brewery. Both of those buildings are still around. There was also a parish for the Irish -- St. Leo’s -- but it didn’t survive. The Tivoli brewery hasn’t been a brewery for decades. It sat vacant for the 1970s and was an ill-fated attempt at a shopping mall in the 1980s. It’s now the student union complex and it works well as such. It’s even where I saw Jonah Goldberg speak in April.

BTW, I did get to a midday Roman rite Mass at St. E’s w/ Fr. Chrysostom the other day. As I expected, the Mass was said reverently and the homily was insightful. I was dripping sweat from the heat. On the way out I noticed a sanctuary lamp that I’m quite sure I hadn’t seen before. (For those who know the building, it’s in the St. Anthony chapel).

Was at Wal-Mart the other day and saw someone (I presume it was a woman, but I have no idea) in the most extreme of Islamic garb. Solid black head to floor. Sleeves so long that you couldn't see the hands. A solid black veil with an eye-slit so small I don't know how the person could see anything. All this on a 95 degree day. Didn't see any other people who seemed to be in a group with the veiled one.

Erik Keilholtz is a blogger who posesses great taste and style, especially for someone who's so far to the left of me politically ;-)

This will offend a whole different set of people

Listening to a little more Van Morrison and it struck me that some of his songs would actually be less inappropriate for liturgical use than much of what I know of from Marty Haugen, Michael Joncas, the St. Louis Jesuits, Rory Cooney and company, or any other number of favorites of the Ostensibly – er – Oregon Catholic Press (who advertise a new hymnal from “composers and text writers you trust” – at least Victor Lams’ nemesis Haugen wasn’t part of that list, but my nemesis was) At least with Morrison’s songs, it only takes changing a word here and there to get to something that sounds legitimately orthodox.

Not for the easily offended!

Courtesy of Relapsed Catholic and blog I like better than that one that later deleted the reference.

I wonder what the people on Trading Spaces whose bedroom was redone in a “tiffany box” theme think when they learn about this cultural permutation of the “tiffany box”.

I am an only child. That’s unfortunately common now, but was rare when I was born in 1963. I was also ahead of my time in that I was born to older parents. Mom was 44 when I was born. That’s much more common now than it was then. Wasn’t that my folks didn’t want to have more children, just that it didn’t work out until me. Mom especially was very interested in children. She was a perpetual fixture at those protestant mainstays: Sunday School and Vacation Bible School.

She died a year ago tomorrow. I wanted to have a Mass said for her tomorrow, but that date was taken so it ended up being today. When I got to the church, I saw that Totus Tuus -- a children’s program akin to Vacation Bible School, but firmly rooted in Catholicism -- was going on so there would be a passel of children there.

The other thing I’d forgotten about the date for this Mass was that it’s the commemoration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. The homily was quite fitting in how it spoke to the children and pointed us all to our Blessed Mother.

All very fitting for the Mass for Mom. Lux perpetua luceat eis, Domine.

More secular musical observations

“Take a vacation, fall out for a while,
Summer’s comin’ in and it’s goin’ outta style”
Cf. Mr. Steven Riddle or Mark Shea.

“Well, the first days are the hardest days,
don't you worry anymore
When life looks like Easy Street
there is danger at your door”

“Set out runnin’ but I took my time”

Picked up a Van Morrison disk yesterday. I forget how much I like his music. One of the songs was new to me -- “Whenever God Shines His Light”. It isn’t great theology, but it is great music.

Kudos to anyone who knows which one album contains the three songs quoted above. (Hint #1: they aren’t Van Morrison songs.)

CWN’s Off the Record mentioned an absurd recent statement by a group of Mennonites regarding abortion. Since I’m descended from the first Mennonite bishop in North America, Jakob Hertzler (I even have some books that were his although I’ve never had any affinity toward Anabaptist belief and my forefathers split from them in the early 19th century), this caught my attention.

The Mennonite Church USA’s site’s article contains lots more nuttiness than is mentioned in the CWN item.

1. “Mennonite Church USA delegates voted by a broad majority yesterday to approve a statement on abortion, affirming the sacredness of life and calling on the church to act with compassion on the issue.”
2. “Leah Ann Alcazar, who worked on the statement as part of a committee appointed by the church’s Constituency Leadership Council, said the committee knew it would be impossible to draft an abortion statement satisfactory to all. Instead, they focused on remaining consistent with Anabaptist values. She said there was no call for anti-abortion legislation because abortion is an individual choice and because outlawing abortion would not eliminate the issue.”
3. “The approved document states in part that abortion should not be used to interrupt unwanted pregnancies, and calls for a commitment to caring for infants who are brought to term.”

According to the first statement, this group believes life to be sacred. Good.

According to the second statement, “abortion is an individual choice”. If, though, life is sacred, wouldn’t abortion of necessity be a WRONG choice? What’s there to disagree about?

Also according to the second statement “outlawing abortion would not eliminate the issue”. So now outlawing murder, theft, rape and the like have eliminated those issues? Where?

The third is the best. “abortion should not be used to interrupt unwanted pregnancies” is priceless language. “Interrupt” implies a temporary pause in an activity that may later be resumed. Not likely you’ll find many pregnancies resumed after an abortion. If it’s not acceptable to terminate “unwanted pregnancies”, is it somehow licit to terminate those that are wanted? What about those cases, like those blogged of by Old Oligarch, where one parent wants a pregnancy and the other doesn’t? If it “should not be used to [terminate] unwanted pregnancies”, than what on earth should it be used for? If there’s no good purpose for it, then why should it be allowed at all? Particularly if life is sacred. What a mess!

It’s nice to know that the Mennonites aren’t for infanticide. Wonder how long that will last.

Had my forefather Jakob Hertzler (I forget just how many generations ago he was, and that info isn’t handy right now) acted on the tenets of what his successors in the Mennonite faith believe, there’s a good likelihood that I wouldn’t exist.

Looks like most everyone in St. Blog's has taken a summer siesta.

I'm listening to a south-of-the-border take on a gallows ballad -- The Mexicali Blues.

Two nice lines:
Cherish well your thoughts.
- and -
Is there anything a man don't stand to lose
When he lets a woman hold him in her hands

The big blogs (Amy and Mark, that is) have recently asked readers to mention things about Catholicism that are significant to them.

This is by no means as significant as the sacraments, but it’s an outgrowth of them.

The other evening my wife and I went to a parish festival in Northwest Denver -- not the parish mentioned in the link, their festival is next weekend (maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get to go there too!). We’d learned of it from the diocesan paper, as neither of us had any connection to the parish. Like most of northwest Denver, this neighborhood was once mostly Italian and is now mostly Latino. There were lots of older Italian folks (some with their kids and grandkids) and many neighborhood contemporaries. There was no ethnic tension at all, though. Had unspeakably tasty Italian sausage sandwiches and a nice pizza frita which, despite its name, is a dessert more related to the sopapilla than to what we call pizza. Could have had some good Mexican food too, had we had room for it. There were all sorts of entertainment options for young and old. There was an easy cordiality and sense of family that I’ve never seen at a secular festival. More than that, there was joy. Catholics – particularly those whose European connection to the faith is from Spain or Italy – are the most joyful of people, even when they’re sorrowful.

Oddest sight of the evening was the parish priest, who bears strong physical resemblance to a youngish St. Josemaria Escriva munching some popcorn and chatting with little children.

Ten years ago tomorrow I made the biggest mistake of my life. It was in a prideful overreaction to a slight at work. Today I faced a similar slight. I pray that I don't respond with a similar mistake.

This would probably fit better at The Catholic Nerd blog (then again, this blog could be considered a Catholic geek blog or Catholic whack-a-doodle blog or some such).

You just may be a Catholic nerd (or other fitting category) if you customarily keep candies on your desk as hospitality (on non-fast days) and the candy this week is caramels because Wednesday is the commemoration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

Ambiguity in Action

Annual event in town this weekend, "The Denver Black Arts Festival". When I first heard about it a few years ago, I really didn't know whether it was an arts festival featuring artists of a particular ethnic group or whether it was dedicated to the occult. The source of the info was a public radio station, so that really didn't offer any clue. As I eventually found out, it is a festival of visual, musical and performance art for artists of a particular ethnicity. There was a music and dance performance at lunch today and they were quite good. Very relieved that it wasn't a festival of "black arts".

Fr. Todd Reitmeyer's moved his blog here and so "A Son Becomes a Father". Great title for a blog that will surely be great itself.

Don't click this link with your mouth full!

This is one of the funniest things I've seen on the web. Ever.

Schmertz! Links aren't working properly. Scroll down to "The Lawyerous Mysteries".

Today is the commemoration of St. Benedict. Ran across an excellent prayer attributed to him:

Father, in your goodness grant me the intellect to comprehend you, the perception to discern you, and the reason to appreciate you. In your kindness endow me with the diligence to look for you, the wisdom to discover you, and the spirit to apprehend you. In your graciousness bestow on me a heart to contemplate you, ears to hear you, eyes to see you, and a tongue to speak of you. In your mercy confer on me a conversation pleasing to you, the patience to wait for you, and the perseverance to long for you. Grant me a perfect end - your holy presence. Amen.

This fits St. Benedict’s apothegm that prayer ought to be brief and pure.

Whenever I think of St. Benedict or of the Benedictines, I immediately think of the liturgy of the hours (formerly known as the Divine Office). You probably know about this already, but there’s a convenient website for the liturgy of the hours that even includes a downloadable version for PDA users: It’s Universalis. I’m not enthralled with the translation of the Psalter that they use, but it is a very useful site.

Thanks for dropping by

Found out that I'm going to interview for a pretty exciting new job with a different company. Also was invited to apply for a promotion at my current company. The promotion would entail lots of travel, which is decidedly a mixed blessing. The promotion would be to internal audit, a position for which I am quite suited by termperment. The external position would be a more logical step on my intended career path. Prayers that I would be guided into the right path would be most appreciated.

Superb post at Disputations. That, though, isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that there’s an instance here where John da Fiesole himself has said something that’s general enough that a distinction should be applied.

The post, which you really ought to read (and probably have anyway), discusses the various conditions a man may find himself in when either he or someone else possesses either a good or evil and he either wants or does not want for himself or the other person to have or not have that good or evil. (Whew!)

When he got to “If you have an evil and I want to have it”, he hit a few things at the same time.

First, let’s look at St. Maximilian Kolbe. He saw a fellow-prisoner unjustly condemned to death and voluntarily took that man’s place. He was heroic, sacrificing himself for his neighbor.

Next, let’s look at something that happens with a bit more frequency. Jack is a hedonist. Mack wants the trappings of Jack’s life, which are intrinsically sinful. Mack’s condition is more akin to envy than it is to any of the other conditions mentioned.

The real difference here is the one of perception. In the first case, the saint wants to have the evil intended for another in place of that person out of love for the other person. In the second case, Jack wants to take over Mack's evil not out of care for the good of Mack's soul, but because Jack mistakenly believes the objective evil of hedonism to be a good. (This paragraph added @ 3:27 pm MDT.)

So I find myself in the odd position of trying to distinguish and clarify something that comes from a man possessed of much more precision than I have.

After several very disappointing efforts, Jonah Goldberg comes through with a gem. In short - documents don't have lives of their own and we shouldn't act as if they do. There are, of course, applications of this insight in realms other than that for which it was written.

I should explain a bit about part of yesterday’s big post. The “grip and grin” comment was NOT a complaint about the “kiss of peace” – at least when such is done with decorum. (Sometimes the kiss of peace becomes a veritable circus, but that’s a separate issue.) It was directed against a more recent extraliturgical act that I’ve seen at a couple of otherwise decent parishes. Before the opening procession someone (it’s been a priest in at least one instance) asks all present to “welcome your neighbors to worship”. Seems to me that the liturgy best begins with the timeless invocation.

Hie Thee thither!

the new blog is Santificarnos. If divorce has played a part in your life or that of someone close to you, this blog's for you.

You’ve read about it at Miss Amy Welborn’s, Gerard Serafin’s and Sean Roberts’, but some odd circumstances combined to make me the first from St. Blog’s to attend the new Russian Catholic liturgy in Denver. I echo the sage advice found at Summa Contra Mundum -- if you have the opportunity, you should familiarize yourself with the eastern rite liturgy.

It’s a very reverent form of worship and I hope to have the opportunity to return. The people were very welcoming – in their manner through the liturgy and in saying hello afterwards. (Thank God there was no “grip and grin”.) Fr. Chrysostom Frank is a remarkable homilist – although I’m confident that his homilies in Roman Rite would be equally edifying.

I probably had an easier time than many visitors would because of my extensive interest in liturgy and ecumenical background. I was raised Lutheran and went through the Episcopal church (as high church as possible, thank you very much) on my way to Catholicism. The litany that would be repeated throughout the liturgy was borrowed and shortened by the Lutherans in their 1982 Hymnal –I had served as a cantor using that book, so that was quite familiar. Many of the a cappella chant tones were readily accessible, though some were quite strange and apparently not altogether familiar to even the regular worshippers.

That being said, I should have taken the opportunity to be better prepared for the liturgy. (I’m not speaking of the preparation for reception of the Blessed Sacrament, but of preparation for the way the Byzantines worship.) Fr. Chrysostom thoughtfully produced a leaflet on the etiquette of Byzantine worship, which was helpful. Unfortunately what I could see going on around me didn’t match what the leaflet described in terms of the gestures to be used. (That may be due to the limitations imposed by the space used for the liturgy.) I’m used to be clumsy in my day-to-day life, but being fairly adept at the gestures of worship. I was all thumbs. I’d suggest that it would be good if the etiquette leaflet could be updated to reflect what’s likely to fit the space that’s being used and that it be posted online (maybe at the Archdiocesan site?) so that Roman rite visitors like me could come in with a better feel for what to expect.

I was surprised that, even though I arrived about five minutes before the scheduled 11:00 am start, the altar party was already in place when I arrived. In addition to Fr. C, there were four servers in golden robes – one man and three teenaged boys. One difference in the Byzantine rite is that there’s an expectation that the faithful will attend corporate Morning Prayer before the Divine Liturgy. Had I known this in advance, I would have gladly conformed. I think the liturgy actually started just a bit before the scheduled time. I was seated pretty far to the back.

I’m not very good at guessing the number of people in a group, but if pressed I’d say there were between 60 and 90 – nearly all of whom were younger than me (I’ll be 40 in December). There were more women than men and quite a few children, all quite well behaved. No one was dressed very formally, but no one was in shorts, t-shirts, jeans or revealing outfits either. The women generally wore dresses that were both becoming and modest and men wore nice slacks and a dress shirt. Nearly every man wore a beard and those without beards mostly had mustaches. Mine was the only beard with noticeable gray or white. It’s probably a function of age, though it could also be related to the more rigorous eastern fasts, that nearly everyone (excluding me and one older lady) was thin. Oddly enough there was only one other tall person (noticeably over 6’) present. He was in front of me. I didn’t want to move over and block the view of the shorter folks behind me. That, combined with my constant reference to the booklet and leaflet and my position in the building, kept me from seeing many of the actions taking place at the altar.

The old St. Elizabeth of Hungary church was renovated in either the sixties or seventies, so the worship space will be enhanced over time. Right now its quite stark. I don’t know why the main altar wasn’t used, but after the liturgy Fr. C announced that they would be working toward having the same altar used by both rites in the parish – a great bit of symbolism of unity. The altar that was used was to the liturgical north of the main altar and not far elevated from the main floor. St. E’s has three aisles. The congregation occupied the pews to the liturgical north of the north aisle and the choir occupied the pews to the liturgical south of the north aisle. I didn’t get a good look at the altar proper at any point in the liturgy. In front of the altar were four icons on brass easels, from right to left – St. John the Baptist, Our Lady with her Divine Child, a bishop whom I couldn’t readily identify and Ss. Cyril and Methodius, the patrons of this community. There was also a round short pillar, the top of which was a dish full of sand. Two lit tapers were in the sand. The adult server often held a great processional cross aloft. Two of the younger servers held small icons on long poles at various points of the liturgy. Fr. C was vested in a very heavy brocaded white garment that looked something like a cross between a cope and a chausible. At the procession I noticed that Fr. C himself is a rather small man, but he has such presence about him that he seems bigger than he is. He’s strikingly handsome with a high forehead, piercing eyes, an aristocratic nose and a prominent chin. He wears a goatee and spectacles.

One benefit of being off to the side was that attention was diverted from the rather ugly windows. I don’t know if this was the reason that the north was chosen over south for the liturgy, but the corpus on the great crucifix over the high altar was looking directly toward the altar of sacrifice. On the wall behind the altar was a sixties-ish statue of the Madonna and Child. (This indicates to me that the liturgy was likely celebrated pretty much over the spot were Fr. Leo Heinrichs was martyred.)

In addition to the leaflet on liturgy etiquette, there were booklets with the text of the liturgy – another variant is available here. This was quite helpful as most of the texts would not be familiar to a westerner. There were many exquisitely beautiful prayers – especially the “O Lord, I believe and profess” prayed before the communion. The practice of saying your name (baptismal or chrismation/confirmation) to the priest so that he can say your name in the sentence “The servant of God N . . ., partakes of the precious, most holy and most pure Body and Blood of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ for the remission of his (her) sins and for life everlasting. Amen” makes the Eucharistic celebration yet more personal. It’s only the second time I’ve been addressed by my confirmation name. I prayed the printed Byzantine prayers for use before and after communion along with my own customary prayers for those occasions.

I was baffled by the frequent repetition of the litany that begins “In peace let us pray to the Lord”. Perhaps if I could have seen the accompanying actions, it would have made more sense to me. There were quite a few other practices that struck me as odd, like the use of the formula “the Pope of Rome” when praying for the Holy Father and the omission of the filioque. From the booklet, it appears that the services of a deacon would be a desirable enhancement to the celebration of this rite.

The chanting of the creed, even with the aforementioned omission, was one of the most amazing moments of the liturgy. The chant tone, which I don’t remember hearing before, was quite accessible so I was able to join in completely and unabashedly in harmony. Here was a point that demonstrated both the great similarities of the communities and the difference as well. In the Roman Rite we too often rush through the creed or else subject it to such musical ornamentation that it becomes nearly incomprehensible. Here it stood on its own as a clear declaration. The positioning of the creed – immediately before the Sursum Cor and after the dismissal of the catechumens – is brilliant.

The Great Entrance, which was conducted like the western entry procession but placed at the time of the Presentation of the Gifts, had a majesty to it that emphasized the sacredness of the sacrament in a way that’s too rarely seen in the western rite. The use of elaborate language and gesture, the rich vestments and the icons all add to the sense of the sacred, but it can also be exhausting. I’m quite confident that there was not more than ten seconds passed at any time during the 80-90 minute liturgy without some chant, prayer or speech.

However even after experiencing all the greatness of this liturgy, I know myself to be very much a westerner. While my better blogger Athanasius may say this makes me a bit of a girly man, I appreciate the pregnant pauses in the western liturgy and the greater ease at which one may lapse into private prayers. Familiarity with the liturgical texts allows me to pray glosses on them. There seems to be much less variation with the seasons in the eastern rites, excluding the variations at Great Lent and Pascha. I appreciate the “lesser” seasons and the other observances too.

When I received the Blessed Sacrament was the time I was most aware of my own western-ness. I wasn’t quite sure of the proper posture and whether the bow, which is second nature now, would be inappropriate (I bowed anyway). The confirmation name by which I was addressed is that of a Roman martyr. Receiving by intinction was foreign, as was kissing the base of the chalice. The prayer which I pray on receiving (Summe, Gloriose Deus is a distinctly Latin prayer. Staying standing, rather than kneeling, on return to the pew was decidedly odd.

I hope to attend Roman rite Mass at St. Elizabeth’s as well. This is a noble enterprise. I’m convinced that Fr. C is uniquely suited to this position and to the evangelization of the campus. He is a man of great natural gifts – articulate, personable and charismatic– whose love for the Lord is palpable. May his work be fruitful!

Mommentary has a superb post on folks who are overly aggressive in their use of fragrances. Seems that they're like Mithridates. They become so inured to the scent that it constantly takes more and more for them to register that there's enough. It does always tend to be someone who's been around a while. The worst offenders I know are all lots older than Miss Dashwood or even me -- probably in the neighborhood of sixty.

A few particularly notable posts that you’ve probably already seen as they’re at the rightly popular site of Gerard Serafin.

The earlier posts have to do with the recent establishment of a bi-ritual parish at the edge of downtown Denver. The existing parish of St. Elizabeth of Hungary is to also host a new Russian Catholic church. One pastor, the rather remarkable Fr. Chrysostom Frank (who chrismated St. Blog’s own Sean Roberts) will serve both communities. There is also a campus ministry to three educational institutions (University of Colorado @ Denver, Metropolitan State College and Community College of Denver) that share the campus on which the church is located. It turns out that Gerard has carried on a long correspondence with Fr. Frank. Check back here next week for more on Fr. Frank’s great new enterprise.

The other post gives note to converts in general (with several specific people mentioned too).

N. B. This blog will likely emulate many others by being scarce in the next week or so. Hope all have a safe any happy holiday!

A big month

July's a pretty big month.

Thursday is my parents' wedding anniversary.

Two weeks from that date is the first anniversary of my mother's death.

A little later in the month is the first anniversary of this blog.

The sixteenth is the last day of school for summer semester.

At the end of the month we're taking a little trip.

Lots to pray about too, especially Dylan and the people in Louisiana (like Fr. Bryce) who face challenges arising from the recent tropical storm.

This or that

1. Lemonade or Ice Cold Beer?
I have been known, off and on, as “Gregg the Keg”. Q. E. D.

2. Swimming pool or beach?
Sand is better than concrete.

3. Long weekends here & there, or a 2-week vacation?
I haven’t done the 2-week vacation since I was a wee lad.

4. Destination: Acapulco or Hawaii?
Never been to either, but would probably prefer to south of the border.

5. Destination: Mountains or Beach?
Mountains for a Sunday drive, beach for a long trip. (That’s what happens when you
live 20 miles from mountains and 800 from the ocean!)

6. Hotel/motel/B&B or camping?
I can take camping or leave it, but my wife loathes camping, so the decision makes itself.

7. Carefully planned vacation, or play it by ear?
Isn’t planning half the fun?

8. Sneakers or sandals?
I walk too fast for sandals to stay on my feet.

9. Air-conditioning or fans?
A/C baby! If ever I get rich, I’m getting a walk-in fridge to supplement the a/c!

10. Concerts in the park or baseball games?
Baseball games –even going to one w/ fireworks on Thursday night! (In sneakers and with plenty of cold beer while able to look at the mountains.)