Names

I’ve had a difficult relationship with my names in my life. Growing up as a boy, my last name was not viewed as terribly masculine. One teacher in my high school, returning a corrected history quiz (0/5) early in my junior year, gruffly said, “Flowerday, eh? After this grade your name should be Mayday.” 

The resulting laughter from my classmates was a strong motivator, as I was determined enough to score 84/85 for the rest of the quarter. Mayday indeed.

My German teacher liked my name, and when we had to adopt German names for class, Blumentag sounded a lot better to me than the English rendition. But then again, German is such a delicious language. Everything sounds macho auf Deutsch, even flowers.

The story of my given name is part of family lore. My parents were unable to conceive for almost thirteen years after they were married in 1945. My mother’s doctor was a close friend and while the details of the medical condition/treatment were never shared with me, my parents held Dr Todd in very high regard–eventually I came along, plus a sister and brother to follow. I never knew the man, as he tragically died in a traffic accident around my first birthday. I sometimes wished I had a different, more mainstream name, but that wish has faded as I’ve grown older. I’ve grown accustomed.

When I was being instructed for baptism, Father McCarthy suggested I needed a saint’s name. He suggested Thomas, as it was close to my own legal name. I don’t know how it came to me, but in some  kind of a Zechariah moment I counteroffered “Joseph.” And so I had a baptismal patron.

Years later a friend preached on the two Josephs at a daily Mass–the husband of Mary and also the patriarch of the book of Genesis. She spoke of them both being dreamers, and I immediately attached myself to the notion of “Joseph the Dreamer.” As I’ve explored that through the years, I’ve tried to come to terms with both the good (a devoted obedience to God and care for a spouse and child) as well as the not-so-good (an arrogance that sets teeth to clench and nearly justifies dropping an obnoxious soul into a well).

The young miss seems not to care too much for her name, as she occasionally changes it depending on her environment. At the library where she volunteers, she is identified as “Brie.” Last year at camp, it was “B.T.,” and when she introduced herself to the new pastor last summer, it was as “Taylor.” I don’t always understand females, especially the young adolescent brand of them. But I understand a certain reticence to a name. I understand that very well.

How about you readers? Have you a good or troubled relationship with your given names or even the saints associated with them? Do you wish you had a different one? Have you changed your name ever?

 

Benedict’s I-Team

Pope Benedict names a predictable slate of prelates from high-profile dioceses to the investigation team for Ireland. I suppose if you have to go toe to toe with a cardinal on his questionable behavior, the Bishop of Juneau lacks the heft. Still, a traditional solution isn’t drawing universal acclaim in lay circles:

Terrence McKiernan, founder and president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks church records on abuse cases, said an apostolic visitation was by its nature a secretive approach that recapitulated the fundamental problem underlying the sex abuse crisis. “To employ a secretive process to solve a problem caused by secrecy,” he said, “seems to us problematic.”

While some are noting and nodding at the high-profile bishops on the I-Team, I’m sure two or three Irish hierarchs are relieved they won’t have to face down either a lay psychologist or a parent.

 

Excommunication: How Effective A Strategy?

Phoenix bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, depending on where you settle in the Culture War, is either a pro-life hero or a pro-life dupe who should resign. Interesting thread in progress at dotCommonweal. This post is going to be a bit scattered, and as you read you may realize why.

I’m less willing to tread into the waters of whether or not last November’s separation of mother and fetus was advisable. I’m not a medical doctor. I certainly don’t know the actual medical facts in the case. I do sort-of have a dog in the fight, though. My daughter’s cardiologist (three of them, actually) have said that with her heart condition, she would not be able to bring a pregnancy to term without grave danger to her life. No woman with her heart condition and restorative operations has ever given birth to a full-term infant.

I was paying attention when I heard about my dad’s heart disease, and certainly when I was informed about my daughter’s. A deformed or diseased heart can weaken. It might be that six, twelve, or twenty weeks of pregnancy present little danger to a person. Or the accumulated strain takes years off the end of a life. The increased stress placed on the heart is gradual, and my understanding is that this can affect other body functions. If my daughter were to turn up pregnant sometime in the next four years, my sense is that I would need to hear from the doctors a little more than “she will die.” I would want to know the whole story on what happens. And sure, there’s always hope for a miracle. And heroism. My wife and I have already discussed this matter, and she’s fairly firm about what she’s going to insist on doing. 100% chance of dying–that’s a no-brainer. And after the young miss is old enough to decide for herself, I will accept whatever decision she comes to.

So let me plop down this moral conundrum for you. Suppose a person decides to try the heroism route and bring a child to term. Then suppose well into the second trimester, it becomes very obvious that the mother’s life is in immediate danger. Is it better to try to bring a child to term only to change one’s mind when the child is grown enough to be considered near-viable? Or should such pregnancies end as early as possible, before heartbeat, brain activity, or the determination of individuals (multiples or single embryo) takes place?

So my sense of bishops, who have been neither husbands or fathers or medical doctors, making pronouncements in these areas is very, very unsteady ground. And we all know it. That they have a mastery of Christian morality–this might be questioned in a few quarters–is a vital part of the discernment in difficult circumstances. Any reasonable person would concede bishops and theologians know (or should know) the theology behind the situation. Is there a shift when the certainty of death is less than 100%? We know that acts of omission carry the same gravity–we cannot stand by idly and allow death. It seems to me that a standard was asked of the woman religious excommunicated that churchmen are unwilling to apply to Pius XII for not being a hero. (Or saint?) Enough of the medical stuff–let’s get to the Catholic sensibility on the matter.

Bishop Olmsted has shown a history of mercy when a human being is killed. Does the death of a fetus carry more gravity than the death of an adult human being? Is it easier to forgive when the victim is less cute, innocent, or accidentally run down?

As for the automatic nature of this excommunication–if it’s automatic, why does it require a bishop to announce it? If they did construction work on the chancery road, it would be automatic that employees or visitors would use another entrance. Does the bishop make announcements about this kind of administrative matters?

As for the advisability of making this matter public: does it allow pro-choice activists to point out the clumsy lack of compassion for the women involved? In other words, does this harm the pro-life movement more than it helps. And let’s be honest: for too many Catholics, they care little for the theology or biology involved here. They can’t slap aborting women or their doctors, so they’re glad enough when somebody else gets it instead.

And maybe Bishop Olmsted has no choice. Does canon law stipulate he must announce automatic procedures? Does someone go down a checklist, and Sister Margaret McBride had little swishes against her on all canons? If so, there was no judgment applied here. It might as well have been the chancery janitor making the announcement.

I see losers on all fronts on this one. Mother loses baby. Hospital loses what seems to be a valuable employee. A bishop’s credibility is eroded: show mercy to a retired bishop, but let the hammer fall elsewhere. The pro-life movement stokes the doubt of those it wants to convince. One year ago, the polling numbers looked good. I hope Gallup or somebody does another poll soon. It would be fascinating to see where the numbers come down after this incident.

That said, let’s not kid ourselves about the polls. Voters will not decide abortion for others, only for themselves. The polls are only a pep rally cheer. More pro-life people might hope to persuade their loved ones and friends. But that’s about it. It would seem to me that shifting polling numbers indicate that more Americans would choose to bring a pregnancy to term. Ultimately, there’s no law, civil or natural, that says that 51% number can’t climb to 100. My worry is that Bishop Olmsted has just flicked a few percentage points off that majority. Unfortunately, that might translate to real numbers at the abortion clinics.

 

More Open

PrayTell linked this blurb on a study of political blogs across left and right. When one gets to the level of single blogs, tendencies tend to break down. It would be easy to find a liberal blog that was close-minded, pouty, and tedious compared to the many fine conservative group blogs out there. Statistics would suggest it would take slightly less time to find the reverse comparison.

I’ll echo Fr Anthony’s invitation for people to e-mail me and forward a post or suggestions for topics to cover. I’ve only been invited once to assist in a conservative blogging effort, but I have no problem with suggesting they … or liberal Catholics … contribute to this e-effort.

 

The Weekly Weeknight Mass

My current parish is the second in which I’ve ever lived where the liturgy schedule features one of the weekly Masses regularly scheduled for a weeknight. And it’s big.

We draw up to 175 for a 10PM Thursday Night Liturgy (TNL), and apparently the tradition goes back several pastors. Last September, our pastor tossed out a “statistic” at Sunday 7PM Mass encouraging students to attend, “43% of St Thomas student parishioners meet their future spouse at TNL.” Four days later, we had a high attendance watermark–183.

Can any readers relate experiences of any other Masses like this? Most parishes with schools have a weekly morning Mass for the student body. In my last parish, attendance was usually higher than on any given Sunday Mass. Of course, six-hundred-plus kids were on the school clock, not necessarily God’s time. I don’t think our TNL has the same feel as a school Mass.

My home parish during my grad student days had their own TNL. 7PM was a much more reasonable time. The story went that it was begun because most parishioners preferred organ and choir on Sundays, and a folk group had nowhere to sing. So an “informal” Mass was provided for young adults. By the time I arrived in 1982, this liturgy routinely drew 200 to 300 people–many parishioners, but also people from around the city and ‘burbs who found a certain appeal in the experience.

Some observations from both parishes:

- You would think that having Mass on a weeknight offers certain flexibility with readings and all. And it’s true: often one can elect to celebrate a votive Mass. But my old parish and new stick to the daily Lectionary.

- Observances like Easter Thursday cause some headscratching. Our associate pastor was particular about reciting the Creed a few weeks ago. But the planners bumbled the singing of the Gloria. So we had a very “traditional” Confiteor-Kyrie-Gloria all recited in the introductory rut. Yuck.

- My experience with these Masses is that they tend to be very formulaic, more than the Missal suggests. At my old parish, I once commented that Thursday Night Mass was more formal and restrictive in its practices than Sunday Masses. The parish receptionist protested my opinion until I noted that every week after Communion, the first announcement was always the same. The priest first asked for birthdays, then anniversaries. He always asked. It was always in that order. We never deviated. We weren’t turning conservative, I assured her; it was only the human love of ritual and good order.

- Bishops seem to like a weeknight liturgy when they visit. Since I’ve been in Ames, my archbishop (above) as well as the new Des Moines bishop have come to preside. Back in my old parish, we had three bishops visit in my six years there.

- Masses in which people come to worship because they choose are simply marvelous. I’m sure the appeal is similar for that TLM at the Basilica this past Saturday. It wasn’t a Sunday obligation. The community was diverse, spirited, and intentional. I’m convinced that intentionality is the key to vital liturgy, and by that token, a vital faith community.

Your thoughts? I’m especially curious about your experiences.

 

LTP Offers MR3 Site

Liturgy Training Publications has their Revised Roman Missal site up and running. One interesting feature is “Your Story.” Comments are up for a diocese and a few parishes and what they’re doing.

At PrayTell, Fr Anthony Ruff offers this observation:

I have a hunch: it won’t be pastorally feasible to implement an unpopular liturgical translation anytime soon. I’m sure church officials must be thinking about all this and considering the best thing to do. Let us keep them in our prayers.

A few things on this:

So far, it’s only the English-speakers that are fussing, as far as I’ve seen. Ireland will have serious problems, yes.

I don’t expect bishops to swerve, even if a train wreck were in the cards. To Rome certainly, these are two different issues entirely. Full speed ahead is what I expect from the curia, and the bishops have no sway in any of this.

I appreciate the hard work and loyalty from leaders in publishing and theology on the new Missal. It certainly gives lie to the suspicion on the part of some reform2 folks that the new translation would be sabotaged. As it has been true for the past five decades, progressives take the lead–unafraid about challenges and obstacles.

 

Summit Fallout

I’ve caught a few reports from the “outside” as the Irish Bishops’ meeting concluded yesterday. I was surprised that the official reports from Rome seemed to miss the mark on culpability and why the laity are so upset. With charity, I suppose I can attribute it to Rome’s skittishness about criticizing bishops directly.

Zenit focused its feature story on Pope Benedict’s travels and statements. Playing to the home crowd, I would guess, and not to the angry mob at the cathedral door.

The CNS report includes some statements from Irish bishops that show a bit more insight as to the gravity of their situation:

(Cardinal Sean Brady) said that there had been “a failure of leadership” on the part of the Irish hierarchy …

Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher said that until now the Irish church had been marked by “a culture of secrecy and confidentiality” that the bishops would now work to overcome.

Bishop Colm O’Reilly of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, in a recent homily:

It is a time for undoing, insofar as this is possible, the damage our sins have done, for what is done and what we have failed to do. It is a time for a new beginning.

On the other hand, Rock reports on the negative fallout from the meeting. Maeve Lewis, director of Ireland’s One in Four:

It is deeply insulting to survivors to suggest that they were abused due to failures of faith, rather than because sex-offending priests were moved from parish to parish, and those in authority looked away while further children were sexually abused.

And Andrew Madden, the first Irish victim to go public:

It would appear that self preservation and damage limitation for the Catholic Church is still a higher priority for Pope Benedict and the Bishops than the concerns and wishes of people who had been sexually abused as children by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin over many decades, and that hardly represents change.

I can only conclude that the Catholic Church remains a disgraced, discredited organisation that seems to be entirely incapable of responding in any intelligent, meaningful way to the findings of the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy Reports.

I think it would be beyond reasonable expectations that anything substantive was going to come out of this meeting. The fact that people are angry about it shows there’s still a pulse left in the relationship between Catholics and their bishops. The bishops need to worry when anything they say and do produces yawns.

 

Pets a Problem?

On the whole, I don’t think so.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with Father John Flynn’s commentary “For the Love of Pets.” In the Christian tradition, affection and respect for animals has been considered a sign of sanctity. Cruelty to animals is widespread in the world, and too many human beings have abandoned their God-given responsibilities as stewards of animals.

That’s not to say that some individuals don’t take affection for pets to extremes. Cloning pets, personhood initiatives, excessive expenditures for funerals–all speak to the great emptiness in human beings: loneliness.

Margaret Somerville:

In other words, if animals become persons, human persons become animals.

I don’t think so.

Many animal-obsessed persons turn to pets for a variety of reasons, most having to do with circling themselves with a degree of emotional safety and comfort. I hardly think that such people are out to place their entire species in subservience to others. We could do a lot worse than to support efforts to moderate the cruelties of the world. To both people and animals.

 

Day 3 – The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 2010

(This is Neil)

Theme:  Witness through Awareness
Text – Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days? (Luke 24:18)

Readings
1 Samuel 3:1-10 Speak, Lord, your servant is listening
Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd
Acts 8:26-40 Philip proclaimed to him the Good News about Jesus
Lk 24:13-19a …their eyes were kept from recognizing him

Commentary
Growing in faith is a complex journey. Many people in our world today lead busy lives and have lots of pressures and responsibilities. It is easy to miss God’s revealing love to us in our everyday life and experiences. The more pressure and activity we surround ourselves with, then the greater the possibility of overlooking what is in fact before our very eyes. Like the two disciples in the gospel, we sometimes think we know what is real, and try to explain our view to others, yet we are not aware of the full truth. In our world today we are invited to be aware of God in the surprising and unlikely events of life.

In our Old Testament reading, we hear how God calls and invites Samuel to bear witness. Samuel first of all has to hear this word. Hearing requires an open disposition and a willingness to listen to God.

This desire to hear God’s Word is also experienced by both Philip and the Ethiopian in the reading from Acts. They witness to their faith by responding to what is asked of them at that precise moment in time. They listen attentively and respond accordingly.

The psalm of the Good Shepherd reflects the quiet trust of the one who is aware of the tender care of God, Who gathers the flock and leads them to green pastures.

During this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we seek to be aware of God in our everyday events and experiences. We meet people who are familiar and others who are strangers. In these encounters we learn from each other’s spiritual experiences and so get a new view of God’s reality. This awareness of God’s presence challenges us to work for Christian unity.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd, You encounter us and remain with us in everyday life. We pray for the grace to be aware of all you do for us. We ask that you prepare us to be open to all you offer us and bring us together in one flock.

Reflection Questions
1. When have you been aware of God’s presence in your life?
2. Are you aware of global celebrations and tragedies, and how might our churches together respond to these?
3. Is being aware enough, or is there something more that you might do in order to give witness to your faith?
4. How do you make yourself aware of God when the reality of God’s presence does not correspond to your expectations?

 

2,010 or 20-10

The question came up on the radio this morning: how are you pronouncing the new year?

Two-thousand ten?

Twenty-ten?

 

A Christmas Wild and Sweet

 

Christmas greetings to you readers from our household, humans and pets, to yours. May you all find God’s blessings, wild and sweet, in all the celebrations of faith and family in the season ahead. Let the songs be sung, especially this one.

 

Dress Up

Deacon Greg picks up on the seemingly endless discussion on what to wear to church. I’ve never felt particularly insulted by plummeting dress codes in church–I see it all over. When I walk back from the ISU libbrary, I often pass through a hall of honor at the Memorial Union. A sign asks men to remove caps and hats. Men wearing hats inside, shirts not tucked in–those were habits I never seemed to pick up. I don’t understand them, but then again, I never cared much for hats, nor the feel of a belt buckle on my skin.

On the other hand, I never quite connected with the “give honor to God like you would a king or a president” argument. Who chums with royalty on a weekly basis?

I wonder about a number of factors at work here:

- Western culture is shifting from formality in just about every aspect of life. The way people dress at work, at school, in uniform–it’s all heading away from norms of the past decades and centuries. People can pontificate as to why this is happening, but it’s undeniable and not reversing itself anytime soon.

- Climate change. … Just kidding.

- I count my wife’s input on this one. I do notice other women, and I can’t deny the occasional distraction, even in church. But as a man, I take responsibility for my eyes, or for my occasional failure. My wife says I’m generally well-behaved, speaking for the eyes. I know there are times when I consciously focus on a woman’s face if I’m having a conversation. And if I have an opportunity to watch from afar, I figure there’s a lot more to look at. I think the culture promotes men watching women as part of enhancing the corporate profit motive. As far as what some would consider provocative women’s dress in church–it’s not a choice I would make, or approve of my daughter making. But it’s not a choice that’s going to be a bother to me, either.

- Is the loosened dress code for church part of a “low christology” familiarity with God? Isn’t it good people who come to church feel closer to God? They don’t see Mass as an old-fashioned high society function with celebrities.

- Dress codes at wealthy churches seemed to have changed more than they have in poor churches. But they’ve changed all over.

- Is the fuss about dress really about clothing? It’s sort of like the President Jenkins initiative to join the March for Life. If he were really a pro-lifer, he and ND would have been front row with a sign the past forty years. If he were really pro-life he would engineer a South Bend jailbreak for all the anti-Obama protesters. Would people really be happy with polo/golf shirts tucked in and demure tops, or would some be making the case for suit coats, ties, hats/doilies, and hem lines at the ankles? In other words, is it a complaint generated just to complain about something? And if it is, does it imply something more deeply dissatisfying about the Mass that what people wear?

 

Musical Ping Pong: It’s An Old Game

I note and commend a newcomer to the blogosphere, Jerry Galipeau. His site, Gotta Sing, Gotta Pray has already drawn the attention of some reform2 musicians. Jerry is an editor with WLP (one of the Big Three or Bad Three, depending on your outlook) so it will be useful, I think, to read the perspectives of someone who is steeped in liturgical publishing.

He’s been discussing the oft-visited issue of utilizing modern musical forms from the secular sphere for liturgy. Same ol’ discussion, but with a new character in the cast:

What I did not want to do with this blog was enter into a kind of ping-pong game, exchanging volleys of liturgical and conciliar documents until someone’s paddle missed the ball and the other person simply “won.”

 

Movin’ On Up

Lots of joy in two dioceses in getting new bishops. Funny how the reports never mention the feeling of the people left behind by their old shepherds.

Let’s compare one forsaken diocese, Ogdensburg, metro area population 109,809, with new diocese, Syracuse, metro area population of 732,117.

Or the other forsaken diocese, Saginaw, metro area population 403,070, with the other new diocese, St Louis, metro area population of 2,803,033.

I know that the diocesan boundaries don’t match the metro populations. Ditto the Catholic populations served. But isn’t it curious the new places have about seven times as many people as the old ones? I wonder what the old-style bishops would think.

 

Good Friday 2009

Antarctica is as far as anywhere from the cradles of Christendom culturally if not in geographical fact, but I love this stark image with the ice plains and Mount Erebus in the background. A thought from the 6th century Syrian hymnographer, Romanos:

Let us lay aside all tiresome arguments and attach ourselves to the one on the cross.