Quick Looks at Two Good Books for Advent

Can you believe that we are in the final days of the end of the liturgical year?

As much as I love Ordinary Time (and I love Ordinary Time), I actually am really looking forward to Advent. I feel it will be so calm and meditative and ... I have absolutely no reason for thinking so. Work is still nutty, as it should be at this time of year, and there is Christmas shopping and the Beyond Cana retreat prep continues apace and then there's the podcast and guest reading for StarShipSofa and ...well you get the idea.

However, I'm going with the power of positive thinking and going to try hard to make at least my prayer time calm and meditative and connected to God. As it should be always, indeed, but with the special emphasis on looking forward to Jesus, the Light of the World, as well as reflections on Last Things.

Which is all a very long introduction to these two books that I've meant to tell you about for at least a week now. (But craziness at work, etc. ... so ... ) Maybe, just maybe, my sense of calm is due to having been reading these and thinking about them.

The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved
by Gary Jansen

Your beloved knocks. The door opens. You meet Mom.

And she turns out to be the nicest person you've ever met.

She welcomes you into the family, and she radiates kindness and beauty. All that worrying, all those moments of self-doubt subside, and in a matter of seconds you feel excited to be in her presence. You look around and don't see the father, but you sense that he is everywhere in this home.

Now let's take a step back. You have never experienced a love like the one you have with your beloved, and, while you feel an openness, you admit to yourself that this person can be a mystery to you. You have questions. It's not that you don't feel close to your beloved, it's just that you begin to hunger and thirst to know everything about this love that has come into your life. And to be perfectly honest, you feel intimidated, because your beloved is such a complete person, and you feel more often than not, less than whole.

What were you like as a child? What were your parents doing before they had you? What were your friends like? Did you ever get lost? What were some of the loneliest times of your life? Why did you come into my life?

You've held off asking some of these questions of your beloved, but here in front of Mom, you feel strangely comfortable to let loose. It's as if she is standing there ready to embrace you and help you understand everything. Who better than your beloved's mother to answer all these questions swirling in your mind? Who better to provide insight than the woman who carried your beloved in her body for nine months and who experienced the pain and joy of bringing her child into the world?

You begin to ask all your questions, and this woman who you've just met seemingly transforms into your own mother. She smiles and takes down a scrapbook and the two of you begin looking at pictures. This is a picture of me when I first found out I was going to have a baby, she says. This is a picture of my cousin and me, we were both pregnant at the same time. Here's one right after the birth. So many people came to visit us. Here are a few pictures of a wedding we attended, and this is a picture of . . .

So you sit in her presence and page through the scrapbook of their lives. These pictures tell stories, and you begin to understand what was once a mystery. You feel this family's happiness, their sorrows, their illuminations, and the glory of their lives. Allof a sudden, the worries, the fears, the doubts, the brokenness, the distractions that you seem to feel on a daily basis fall away snd you are transformed by love.

That is the Rosary.

I have admitted before that I have an on-again, off-again relationship with saying the rosary. However, even during the "off" times I notice that when I have to make a difficult phone call, I am saying a "Hail Mary" under my breath as I dial. It reminds me that I am to be a disciple as she was the most perfect disciple ... it gives me calm ... and, hey, it can't hurt to have Mary saying a prayer for you!

This book made drove away the "off" time even though it is simply a decade or two during my morning prayer walk. Perhaps that is because it is elegant in its simplicity, just as the rosary really is if we do it without complicating matters. Gary Jansen introduces us to the rosary in his own life, gives us the basics, and then provides some lovely art as a meditation aid for each of the mysteries. Even in this basic format he give us much to ponder, as with the excerpt above. That put Mary in a whole new light during my meditations.

Not only is the book lovely but it also reaches out to other than Catholics. I always am curious about how people from outside Catholicism explain devotions that are seen as being strictly "Catholic." Jansen does such a good job that it will help slough off any labels put on this timeless meditation on Christ's life, death, and passion. Highly recommended.

Christmas with the Holy Fathers
Compiled by Peter Celano

=================
Light in Darkness
Pope Pius XII
Christmas Message, 1942

His light can overcome the darkness, the rays of His love can conquer the icy egoism which holds so many back from beoming great and conspicuous in their higher life. To you, crusader-volunteers of a distinguished new society, live up to the new call for moral and Christian rebirth, declare war on the darkness which comes from deserting god, of the coolness that comes from strife between brothers. It is a fight for the human race, which is gravely ill and must be healed in the name of conscience ennobled by Christianity.

=================

The Lesson of Silence--A Prayer
Pope Paul VI
Reflections at Nazareth
January 5, 1964

The lesson of silence: may there return to us an appreciation of this stupendous and indispensable spiritual condition, deafened as we are by so much tumult, so much noise, so many voices of our chaotic and frenzied modern life. O silence of Nazareth, teach us recollection, reflection, and eagerness to heed the good inspirations and words of true teachers; teach us the need and value of preparation, of study, of meditation, of interior life, of secret prayer seen by God alone.

It is easy to see from the two samples above, the messages of past Holy Fathers during Advent and Christmas are timeless. Both those excerpts give us so much food for thought, good reminders of how to recenter our lives, how to reorder our priorities rightly. As our modern lives are even more chaotic and busy than of times past, this is the perfect time to pick up this little book for regular contemplation during Advent and the Christmas season. These meditation-sized pieces come from as far back as Pope Saint Gregory I the Great (590-604) right into current time with our own Pope Benedict XVI. They are divided into sections covering: Advent (Including the Feast of the Immaculate Conception); Christmas Eve, The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord (a.k.a. Christmas); Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God; and The Feast of the Epiphany. It is surprising how many topics can be covered under those categories. All of them looked like things that I needed to be reminded of and many of them I have taken to prayer since reading them. You may find the same for yourself. Highly recommended.

Worth a Thousand Words

Life Magazine photo from 1949: Chinese Nationalist Troops Retreat to the Yangtze River, China.

I Realize That I've Grown Used to Life Without the Kids

Certainly that is the case when it concerns my grocery shopping. Both girls are coming home for Thanksgiving break and when I read over my list, combined with necessary Thanksgiving feast supplies, it looked to me as if I were preparing for an army to descend upon us.

Not that they eat so much, after all. But it is doubling my usual shopping which I finally had gotten used to cutting down to size for two and, it must be faced, that there are some things which they consume more of than we do. For instance, my old habits of buying 2-3 gallons of milk weekly, instead of the current 1/2 gallon ...

However, the extra scurrying and buying and laying in of provisions makes me feel celebratory in advance. That is a nice thing and no doubt about it.

Also, I was at the store when I suddenly realized that I will have the perfect chance to try out Sara Roahen's recipe for Turkey Bone Gumbo. She very kindly sent an email and then some of her recipes after reading my review of her book. I probably will have to freeze the carcass and make it the weekend after as Hannah has requested Mexican food and my family's tradition of chef salad (with turkey, blue cheese dressing and crumbled bacon ... mmmm, crumbled bacon ....) must be satisfied before they return to college next Sunday. However, the prospect of trying out that recipe is exciting also. (Y'all know that sometimes it takes very little to get me going ...)

Good News for TAN Books and Catholic Book Lovers

TAN Books has been struggling financially for some time. They have been bought by Saint Benedict Press which from a perusal of their website looks like a good match.

Worth a Thousand Words

Breakfast Nook by the talented Belinda Del Pesco

Christ the Messiah: Who Do You Say He Is?

Although Jesus as Messiah is not something that I would normally reflect upon, I have been doing so for some time, prompted by a Jewish acquaintance's assertion that Jesus does not fulfill a specific requirement.

She maintains that Isaiah 2:4 is perfectly clear on the criteria one would have to meet to be a messiah:

He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.

Isaiah 2:4

Therefore, in her view, to make a messianic claim Jesus would have to end all wars and disband all standing armies.

I want to make it clear that this acquaintance is an honest truth-seeker. I honor her constant seeking. These are merely the musings that her commentary in blogging and podcasting have prompted within myself.

Now this acquaintance is relatively learned in the ways of Christianity and Catholicism. Certainly she is much more well read in these than I am in Judaism, which would be to say that I don't really know about Judaism except for background material learned for scripture study. That sort of knowledge doesn't necessarily relate to modern day Jewish theology, I realize.

My first reaction would be to say that I regularly have to beat a sword into a plowshare in my own heart as I realize my own stubborn, extreme reactions to the people around me. I have gotten better at making these realizations before I "raise my sword" and definitely try not to "train for war" as I once would have. In my own view, this is an ongoing process not only for myself but for all Christians as we work our way homewards. In that sense, Jesus fulfils that prophecy because, let me tell you, I never would have credited my inward changes and striving to improve my "warlike tendencies" before becoming Christian.

Moreover, I am left in in a somewhat similar position to this acquaintance who openly admits, "I don't understand the Holy Trinity." I, myself, don't really understand taking one line of the Bible, possibly out of context, and holding it up as a requirement. I look back at how very many times God has surprised the heck out of Old Testament figures and wrought surprising wonders for them. Often this results in a new understanding of what one thought was already understood. I mean to say, think of Abraham having to go up to the point of sacrificing Isaac. Or the labyrinthine way that Joseph (of the coat of many colors) wound up saving his people during that famine.

Looking at this background information about Jewish expectations for the Messiah just increases my mystification. How can one solidly say that there is a concrete definition when we can see these myriad interpretations by the many learned people over history?

Background: Messiah, Christ

There is a temptation to define the meaning of the title “Messiah,” or “Christ,” in terms of who Jesus is, and to presume that this is the meaning that the word messiah had for Jews at the time of Jesus. The situation was more complex, however. The Hebrew word messiah is a noun meaning “anointed one,” that is, a person anointed, or smeared, as with olive oil. Israelite kings were ceremonially anointed, as were high priests. Thus a king could be referred to as God’s “anointed” (Psalm 2:2). Based partly on a prophecy of the prophet Nathan, an expectation developed that an anointed descendant of David would play a decisive role in God’s plans for his people; Nathan had prophesied to David that his throng would “stand firm forever” (2 Sam 7:16). David’s dynasty came to an end with the Babylonian conquest of 587 B.C., and Jews were under foreign rule for the next four centuries.

In the two centuries before Jesus, there was a resurgence of hopes for rule by a descendant of David—a messiah. Alongside various expectations for a kingly messiah. Jewish writings from this period spoke of other messianic figures; there was no single clearly defined picture of a messiah. One Jewish group, the Essenes, expected God to send two messiahs: a kingly messiah descended from David and a priestly messiah descended from Aaron. Most messianic hopes had a political dimension: God would bring an end to Roman domination. Some expected God to bring the present age to an end and to usher in a new age. There was no expectation that a messiah would suffer: the “servant” of Isaiah 52:13-53­–53:12 was not identified with the Messiah before the time of Jesus.

Jesus was ambivalent about being called the Messiah. On the one hand, he could accept it, because he was establishing the reign of God as God’s agent. On the other hand, popular understandings of what a messiah would do usually included the overthrow of Roman rule, and that was not Jesus’ mission. Jesus clarified what it meant for him to be called the Messiah through his teachings, death, and resurrection. The New Testament, written in Greek, uses the Greek word for “anointed,” as its most common title for Jesus, so much so that it evolved from being a title (Jesus the Christ) to being virtually a second name (Jesus Christ).

Bringing the Gospel of Matthew to Life by George Martin

It was when I was first thinking about all this that I came across this reading in the Liturgy of the Hours. It was some time ago as I have been pondering this on and off for some time. I really did laugh out loud when I got to "for Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom...". It was so in keeping with the multiple arguments I'd heard for the "beating swords into plowshares" from this particular acquaintance.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside."

Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Of course, who would know the Jewish mindset as well as Paul who was not only thoroughly trained but spent plenty of time sparring with Jews and Gentiles as he spread the Gospel.

I do know that it takes more than study, more than verses and proof, to even have an inkling of Jesus. It takes a leap of faith in addressing to him the question, "Are you there?" "Who are you?"

That is foolishness to those who have not done it. I praise God that I was so prompted to make that leap myself. It cannot be proven but must come to be in each person's heart as they experience God one-on-one and wrestle with the questions that keep them on the path to the fullness of truth.

If My Life Were A ...

... Short Story

... Play

... Poem

... Novel

Then which ones would it be?

That is the little game that Enbrethiliel was playing. It took my fancy as these things do.

It is one thing to say that one has a favorite in these categories and quite another to find one which reflects some essence of one's life. That makes such a question quite an entertaining one to fall back upon in moments of spare time.

The interesting thing is that the answers have quite surprised me. Actually, I also was surprised that I thought of the answer to the poem first of all, considering that I am not crazy about poetry.

I haven't thought of a play yet. I have not actually seen tons of plays, it occurs to me, and therefore I am suffering from a paucity of material. However, I continue musing on that ...

So I will answer these one at a time.

If my life were a poem it would be...

The King's Breakfast

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"
The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, "Certainly,
I'll go and tell the cow
Now
Before she goes to bed."

The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told
The Alderney:
"Don't forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread."
The Alderney
Said sleepily:
"You'd better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead."

The Dairymaid
Said, "Fancy!"
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
"Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It's very
Thickly
Spread."

The Queen said
"Oh!:
And went to
His Majesty:
"Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?"

The King said,
"Bother!"
And then he said,
"Oh, deary me!"
The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
And went back to bed.
"Nobody,"
He whimpered,
"Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!"

The Queen said,
"There, there!"
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, "There, there!"
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
"There, there!
I didn't really
Mean it;
Here's milk for his porringer,
And butter for his bread."

The Queen took
The butter
And brought it to
His Majesty;
The King said,
"Butter, eh?"
And bounced out of bed.
"Nobody," he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
"Nobody," he said,
As he slid down the banisters,
"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

Alan Alexander Milne

Why the heck is this my life?

The question would center around whether or not the king is a fussy man.

If you contend that he is, then I have much in common with him as I have definite preferences for practically everything. Quite often, if I can't have it the way I like it then I might just as well go back to bed.

Not that I would go back to bed. I also would not skip breakfast. However, I might just skip the toast altogether.

That was the past Julie D. (The pre-Christian Julie D. ... and, to be honest, some of the Christian Julie D. as well).

If we declare that the King is not fussy but just knows what matters and what is right to put on his toast ... essentially knows how to hold out for the truth of what makes toast its very best ... well, can't we all see that part of me? The one that digs in her heels for what is true and will put up a bit of a fight to make her point?

Also I believe that I essentially am a person who would slide down bannisters regularly in an expression of joy, should there ever be any bannisters around.

Now, that was as fine a bit of "reading into" as I believe can be done with a children's poem.

Wortth a Thousand Words

Board game: Il novo e piacevole gioco del pela il chiu (known as: 'pluck the owl')

Found at BibliOdyssey where there are many other board games of antiquity to peruse.

I Keep Seeing References on Food Blogs About to How To Manage a Meatless Thanksgiving

First of all, what are these people? Communists?

Secondly, if a vegetarian can't find plenty of delicious vegetable dishes at a standard Thanksgiving feast then they're just not trying hard enough.

Or not going to the right house. C'mon by ... we'll fix you up.

I opened the book and saw ...

First a bit of context.

Catholic Bibliophagist reviewed one of William L. Biersach's books featuring a Catholic priest solving murders. It sounded something out of the ordinary and our library didn't have anything by that author. Eventually I found a second-hand copy of the first in the series online (they aren't cheap and I was shopping around to try to find the lowest price) and ordered it.

It took some time for the book, The Endless Knot, to arrive. Every so often I'd remember it and then wonder if I didn't actually order it but just thought about ordering it. Ah well.

Yesterday, however, it showed up at my door. To my surprise (yes, this is where you came in, dear readers), I opened the book and saw, handwritten on the title page:

To John Zmirak

It was a dark and stormy night ...
... even if it WAS Christmas!

Endlessly knotty,
William L. Biersach
Christmas 2001

John Zmirak?

I knew that name!

He co-wrote the very entertaining "Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living" and it's sequel, as well as various other articles that I'd read around the blogosphere.

How likely was it that such a very Catholic book would have been inscribed to another John Zmirak? How likely is it that there even is another John Zmirak ... that's a pretty unusual name.

Anyway. I found it a delightful surprise and a "virtual reality" sort of link to an author I enjoy.

Nice!

(Though only on page 26, I'm enjoying the book immensely so far ... despite having noticed the odd device mentioned by Catholic Bibliophagist in the review, it doesn't bother me.)

An Unexpected Treat

I got to sit next to my friend Heather last night in Scripture Study. I just don't get to see her enough (or ever, let's face it) so that was a real treat.

It also reminded me that I don't think I have pointed y'all to her blog, The Practicing Catholic, nearly enough. She's got many thoughtful pieces that I have enjoyed reading and gotten a lot from. Check it out.

Because I'm So Busy I Present ... Hitching a Ride

This is hypnotically entertaining whilst simultaneously bringing a smile to any animal lover's lips.

Worth a Thousand Words

Clark Gable

Of course.

Found at Mental Floss Blog where you can also find a list of 10 facts about Clark Gable.

Humanae Vitae ... A Fresh, Vibrant Look at Married Life

As a stop gap while our next book was being ordered (A Jesuit Off Broadway), our Catholic women's book club read the encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae. It is the 40th year since Pope Paul VI released it, as most Catholics who browse the blogosphere are well aware.

Like most, I was vaguely aware of the contents but only through hearsay. I was blown away to find it a masterpiece of logic, reason, and thorough understanding of what a married couple strives for in their lives together.

This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.

It is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself.

Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death. This is how husband and wife understood it on the day on which, fully aware of what they were doing, they freely vowed themselves to one another in marriage. Though this fidelity of husband and wife sometimes presents difficulties, no one has the right to assert that it is impossible; it is, on the contrary, always honorable and meritorious. The example of countless married couples proves not only that fidelity is in accord with the nature of marriage, but also that it is the source of profound and enduring happiness.

Finally, this love is fecund. It is not confined wholly to the loving interchange of husband and wife; it also contrives to go beyond this to bring new life into being. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents' welfare."

It was interesting the the group spanned young, single women; recently married; someone who is having her fifth child; and ... me, who will celebrate 25 years of married bliss next year. All of us found so much to relate to and were highly impressed by the care and regard the Pope had put into this piece. Moreover, 40 years later, we looked back and were mightily impressed as well in the breaking of the naturally intertwined cycle of marital love and the "generation of life" mankind broke so much more. I now have a much better understanding of why people say that contraception is what led to abortion. When one thing is taken casually in order to make life more convenient, then it begins a way of thinking that leads to casual convenience in other ways that do not hold life as sacred.

As well, because of my involvement for the past few years in our parish's Beyond Cana marriage retreat, I was able to see how this encyclical has so much of the essential understanding necessary for our marriages to be able to elevate us to the best that we can be ... rather than settling for second-best.

This is the barest of skimming of what we discussed.

I highly recommend that if you have not read this important document in a thoughtful fashion, that you take it up and do so. Do not be satisfied as I was to read what others say about it. Read it for yourself.

If You Count Every Number Twice ... You've Got Global Warming!

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. ...

Read the whole story here. Via John C. Wright.

Worth a Thousand Words

Puerta en Roma.
Originally uploaded by drews32 and found by me in the Flickr Door Pool.

One Guy. One Composer. One Story.

Five minutes of telling Star Wars while spanning John William's movie scores ... highly enjoyable music and creativity (and, yes, you will also laugh).

Starting to see this around but Theophany All Over's headline made me listen.

New Online Faith Forum - From Loyola Press

In an effort to provide a place for people to share ideas and be inspired, Loyola Press has started an online community where you can start faith conversations, swap ideas, connect with old friends and new, and grow in your friendship with God.

We invite your readers to visit the forum which will be open this Friday, November 14th. It's simple – all you & your readers have to do is just login and let the conversation begin!

I actually got signed up but have been too busy to do any talking. It looks pretty good though and should be a good place to have some interesting conversations. Check it ou!

The work, she is overwhelming me ...

... so I will just be popping in briefly, at least until tomorrow.

Makes me glad that I posted a nice goodie that will pop up mid-morning for your enjoyment.

Worth a Thousand Words

Turtles Sunning by Hey Jules who knows how very much I love turtles, especially stacked in the sun!