Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Carrying on


Have a cup of tea and relax! How is your Lent going? Have you had to rethink your Lenten sacrifices or practices? How about staying cheerful in spite of them, and engaging people in a friendly manner?

For me, Lent is going fairly well and Lent-ishly this year. I find I can do very well without either YouTube or Facebook. I think I saw a meme on Facebook once that showed a box of cigarettes with the Facebook logo, captioned: "Social Cigarettes." I suppose it is. I was certainly at the point where, when anxiety kicked in, off I would go to Facebook to 'calm down.' But I don't need to be up on everybody's business all the time, after all. As for YouTube, "Aw, this three-minute video is a well-deserved brain break!" too often had been turning into, "What, have I really watched so many videos already?!" So, so long to both of them until Easter.


Unfortunately, I don't anticipate having any time to make pysanky this year. Still, I have lots of photos of ones I made in 2011. That was a great winter/spring for crafts. Imagine getting off of work at 4:30 pm! I did not sufficiently appreciate the early hours I had then. (Well, to be honest, I did some days but not others, so given a chance to return to those days, I would make sure I appreciated them all!)


However, all is not lost. To give my artistic inclinations more tools and training, and to force myself to leave the confines of my home office and be with real people, I enrolled in an oil study class. Actually, by the time I thought of it, the session had already been going for three weeks, but the teachers are friendly and flexible, and so I was able to join anyway. I never painted with oils before, or learned how, so it was a little daunting at first to walk into a classroom full of students at various levels, seemingly all working on the finishing touches to very respectable oil paintings. (Since then, I've been getting there on time and sitting by the other beginning students.) Anyway, it has since become one of the things I look forward to most each week.

That's all for now. Busy day ahead with Aqua Zumba at the end of it!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Getting warmed up

Happy Valentine's Day! It's very interesting that it falls right at the start of Lent. Of course, it was bound to happen; any late 16th-century kindergartener could have deduced that February 14, 2013 would be the day after Ash Wednesday of the same year.

All the same, don't you feel something a little jarring? Whether it's Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day, perhaps you have a sense of something being off, when the day in question falls in Lent. How do I deal with that?, you might ask yourself. Will I celebrate it with flowers and chocolate or green beer, or will I look wistfully on as the unchurched continue appropriating the celebrations for themselves?

The answer, I think, is already given to us. As Chesterton observed, there is no other such great contradictory religion as Catholicism. Here we have two very (seemingly) contradictory events: Valentine's Day, no longer an official feast day, it is true, but still a day very much rooted in Catholic heritage and one or two saintly people named Valentine– a holiday on which love is supposed to reign supreme, and people give themselves leave (or feel obligated) to show their affection in extraordinary ways– and Lent, a period of mortification, prayer, and giving. In fact, on closer inspection, they are very well suited for each other. For what is love without sacrifice? And what is sacrifice without love?

If you are perplexed about the former question, look no further than the superficial traditions and guilt-trips our culture has tacked onto Valentine's Day. The latter question is less accessible, precisely because this culture has divorced sacrifice from love, and when it uses 'sacrifice' at all, it means things like "paying more taxes so we can spend more money on every level... for the kids" or soldiers who "sacrifice for this country" without any further elucidation.

Love and sacrifice. They go together. Put aside time today to do something that will add warmth to your Lent.


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Ash Wednesday


Remember, man, that thou art dust,
and to dust thou shalt return.

How is your fast going? Father Z asked the same question, and from the comments it looks like a lot of people are going at it with great intensity! 


Remember not to be like John Dashwood, though.

John Dashwood: In such cases, I would rather do too much than too little.

Whereupon his wife replies: There's no telling what they expect. The question is what can you afford?

And so, in a matter of minutes, John is persuaded not to offer his poor relations any monetary assistance whatsoever.

In an alternate universe where John Dashwood was Catholic, I can see him being similarly persuaded for the sake of one thing or another to make no alteration to his Ash Wednesday meals, either. Such is the power of selfishness and a feeble will!


All of this (self indulgence) is behind us now. You and I enter the desert of Lent and endeavor to put our better selves back in control of the body and its hundreds of cravings and demands. This is not only for the sake of self improvement (for which we should always be striving), but more importantly so that we can become Christ to the world and make it a more beautiful place.



We are temples of the Holy Spirit, and such temples are not the work of one day, even a very pious day, of fasting and abstinence, supported by prayer, and showing its harvest in almsgiving. Every sacrifice helps, though. 

I am convinced that one of the best small sacrifices one can offer during this time is the sacrifice of cheerfulness. Yes! It's natural to be cheerful at Easter, but it's easy to give ourselves a pass during Lent. After all, we need to grit our teeth in order to tighten our belts, don't we? 

No, we don't. Especially now, when all the world seems swathed in despair and every road looks like a dead end, it is a great thing, however small, to persevere in being cheerful with everyone we meet.



A word in your ear. If anyone would like to make me a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte for Easter, I accept!

Monday, February 11, 2013

Tu es Petrus


Everyone by now should be aware that Pope Benedict XVI is abdicating the See of Peter effective February 28th, 2013.

What he must have been suffering in contemplating this move! I understand in some small way how it feels to go day after day fully fatigued, but how much more our Pope! To have so many cares on his shoulders, to be exhausted, and yet to feel keenly the duty he owes Our Lord and His Church... "Tu es Petrus." These words must have echoed back to him as he prayed for light and guidance.

In the end, he received an answer. I have full faith that the Pope knows what he is about, and his abdication, followed by the succession of a new Bishop of Rome, is for the best.

I hope dear Papa Ben may soon return to his beloved Germany, and be blessed with a quiet life of prayer and contemplation, secure in the knowledge that he has done the Lord's will, and that the Holy Spirit will continue to guide the Church.

This is Novus Latium. It is fitting, therefore, to repost the following video, which is in Latin.


I'm sure I am not the only one who is very sorry to lose this wonderful, humble Servant of the Servants of God. You might wish you could give him a hug; I certainly do. Well, we can send him many spiritual hugs through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, to which we will be reapplying ourselves in earnest anyway when Lent starts on Wednesday. It would probably be a good idea to offer our prayers and sacrifices this Lent in a special way for the Holy Father, the Church, the conclave, and the next successor of Peter.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Conquering frivolity

Frivolity. American society is saturated and sick with it. For those of us who observe this with dismay, it seems there is little we can do to remedy it. The serious are always mocked by the frivolous, though not always without some justification. We will have long to wait, indeed, if we hope to see the benefit of our good example working in others– at those times when we are able to show a good example, that is, instead of being distracted or succumbing to the expedience of anti-social behavior to carry us through another weary day.

Distraction has stealthily become the sole attraction of survival, I think, for many Americans. For us, the routines of life, the things we spend the most time doing, and the places where we spend most of our time, have long since failed to inspire. In our jaded eyes, merited or not they take on the appearance of prisons, and every escape is welcome.

With few exceptions, it is difficult to find any place without distraction. Homes are filled with a constant inflow of all the noise, imagery, and information that computers, tablets, TVs, and radios provide. Even the gym has its tasteless pop music rolling while an array of flashing TV screens command unwary eyes. Advertising is as vile as it is ubiquitous. It is sometimes difficult to understand how any sensible person would subject himself to wasting 30 or 60 minutes watching a program, punctuated by commercials, which is in itself blatantly promoting some poorly thought-out attitude or lifestyle under a watery veneer of what passes for drama, humor, or romance. Noise in the car and in the shops, promotions on packaging, bags, and receipts, and everything in gaudier color, more distasteful lettering, and more obnoxious voice and appearance in order to be noticed above the rest of the din. Above all, let there be no simplicity, no rational thought.

Of course, we all say we're seeking peace, even if we do not use quite those words. Everyone is "just so busy," he could simply collapse with relief on the weekends if he had not even more demands on his time then than during the week. Still we long to get away from it all, think longingly of an extended vacation, mean to try yoga, mean to implement some new dietary advice, mean to "get organized" so that we can figure out how to extract any remaining drops of sanity to spend on the supposed improvement of our lives.


It would be grave folly to believe this way of life could be sustained, but I fear the great mass of people leading it cannot think past their immediate circle of primary distractions... money and bills, work, fuel, and social networking, to name a few. In fact we have joined that "mass of men [leading] lives of quiet desperation" so eloquently described by Thoreau.

Thoreau also wrote that he wanted "to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life..." Neither do any of us!

I will not attempt an exhausting amalgamation of the many self-help books and articles available as my own unique and branded path to fix everything wrong with the world. I may simply observe that without the essentials of a deliberate life, all advice is in vain. And what are the essentials of a deliberate life? Here are five.

1. Stillness and Quiet
We must demand some period of quiet reflection every day, even if it is only 10 minutes.

2. Prayer
Every day.

3. Reading
For pity's sake, turn away from the screen, put down the glossy magazine, and read a good, old, honest-to-goodness work of literature that will give your mind some meat. Be warned, however, that the consistency of meat is quite different from mashed peas.

4. Human Interaction
Meet people's eyes. Talk– and listen. Sometimes dare to imagine yourself as playing a supporting role in someone else's life. A community of bellyaching, belligerent, budding celebrities is no community at all.

5. The Outdoors
If you can't remember the last time you went outside for anything other than driving somewhere or catching a train, put the devices to sleep and go see what's out there. For all our admiration of the natural and organic, we may sometimes forget that people were made to live on this planet, breathe its fresh air, and feel its earth (or snow) underfoot.


"You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!” “Thank goodness!” said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.