Foreclosure Fiasco

It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings and I ain't singin' yet.

Truly, I don't even know where to start and I have no intention of recapping (here, anyway), every conversation I've had in the last couple weeks with my mortgage company. Suffice to say I am outraged. Never in my life have I ever dealt with such unethical business practices. If I had, I would have switched companies immediately. But herein lies much of the problem; we consumers do not have that ability when it comes to mortgages.

Oh, sure I could refinance under a different lender. Right. With $85,000 in negative equity in a house now worth even less than the negative equity? Right. Sure. That'll happen.

Let me hit a few high points for you:

1. First the mortgage company wouldn't work with me because I called them BEFORE I had missed a payment. I called IN ADVANCE knowing that I was hitting financial trouble and asked for a solution in good faith.

2. They gave me only one option: a 3 month forbearance. I wanted to make payments or partial payments. They told me no, then when I pressed the issue, I got a reluctant "OK but you have to call this number and do it over the phone."  Me: "But won't there be an additional fee for that?"  "No, not while you're in a forbearance."  OK, fine, I made some partial payments, again, in good faith, and EVERY TIME I CALLED I had to reassert why I was making a payment, what I had been told and that there shouldn't be a fee. It was a battle EVERY TIME.

3. At no point was I ever informed that my payments, which were being withdrawn from my bank account, were not being applied to my mortgage.

4. At the end of my forbearance period I received a letter stating that my monthly payment had not changed and then asserted I was nearly $3k in arrears. I was not told not to make my October payment with the payment coupon they sent to my house with the admonition to "remit $920 to this address."  I did what a reasonable person would do and made my regular payment. No, wait..I actually made a bit more than my regular monthly payment. Again in good faith.

5. I spoke with the company to advise of the payment being sent and they told me they would apply it to what was in arrears and any future payments would be taken in order. That's when I got the foreclosure notice.  And the letter said I had until November 5, but on the phone, they told me November 4.

6. My family member sent me a check to help and I called the bank to make that payment. I had to go through the entire re-hashment of the entire mess. I called informing them immediately that I would like to make a payment to bring my account current and gave them the amount. They tried to tell me I only paid $750.  Um...WHAT?!

7. Then they informed me about the "holding account" and asked why I hadn't made my October payment. WHAT!?

8. Then they informed me that they'd received my payment and sent it back and that I would be responsible for October late fees even though the payment had been received on time. WHAT!?  They said it was my fault. WHAT!?

9. Then they forced me to pay $17.00 in fees to pay the amount to make my account current. I could not make my October payment at the same time because the money had already been taken from my account.  (yes, really)

10. Today I called to make my October payment and rehashed the same dang thing AGAIN. Several times, in fact. Because my account is current but October's is merely "late", I tried to pay online, then through the "SpeedPay" option which has a fee but a lesser fee. No. I had to call the collections department and my only option was to pay them via phone with another $17.00 fee.

11. And that's when I was informed of the "Appraisal Charge".  Um...what appraisal might this be? I was informed that was done in August without my knowledge but I was responsible for the cost. No, I said, that is part of the company's overhead, cost of doing business. Why is this being passed on to the customer? No choice..I have to pay it anyway or my account would not be brought to bear.  Oh, and what does this appraisal consist in? She tried not to answer my question but I forced the issue in no uncertain terms. They talk to neighbors and look at my house to see if I'm living there. How can they tell if they don't talk to me? What neighbors did they talk to. Really? How do they know anything by doing an "appraisal" like that?

12. So I pay the extortioner just so I can stay in my home and finally get them to concede to not charge me the "late fee" for October.

13. We finish the call with me paid up fully on my home, and in fact, beyond fully to date since they've now deprived me of a few utility bill payments I'll have to delay to December now. So much for Christmas gifts, family.   And then she says to me, "Why were you behind on your October payment?"

14. That was it. I went off, and right through the roof and I let that woman hear ever bit of my very directed rage (without profanity, mind you. I'm quite proud of myself for that particular restraint.)  I informed her that I had, in fact, as I told her, made my payment which they SENT BACK. I informed her that her company needs to communicate better, that they need to provide better payment options and in fact, if they are limiting options, need to inform the customer of the same. I informed her that had I not been sent that coupon that a reasonable person would believe indicated regular payments should resume on paper, I would not have made a payment that would be rejected. I informed her that it is THEIR FAULT ENTIRELY that I was behind on my October payment and in general, their entire process is  incomprehensible and clearly deceptive.

And then she told me the company would take "my feedback" into account.

15. I hung up and immediately began making inquiries as to which department in the State of MN I needed to contact in order to lodge a formal complaint against this mortgage company for deceptive, manipulative, and predatory business practices. A friend put a call into someone he knows at the Attorney General's Office to see if it's there, or if there is another department to contact. Or even multiple.

Here's the thing, y'all. I've worked in the business world. Many people hate auto insurance, and yeah, I get it and I've had bad experiences there, too, both as a customer and as a rep. But one thing I knew on the job: I was there to serve the customer and often had to bend over backward to help them out of some jam, even if the jam was their fault. Our different departments communicated easily and if I couldn't see some information, I could obtain it with a quick phone call and help the customer that way. Or if need be, directly transfer the customer to the person who could help them.

The mortgage company? No. Not interested in helping. In fact, clearly drooling over the idea of flipping my home in a neighborhood that already stands quite empty. Folks, if I move out, NO ONE is moving into this place. It'll remain just as empty as the others surrounding me.  They did everything they could to make it impossible to pay my loan, and in the end, I actually had to pay them in order get them to accept my payment to them!

This is not ethical! And it wouldn't be happening if consumers had more rights and could hold these companies accountable as we do other businesses.  Don't like your auto insurance - switch companies. Don't like your bank where your checking account is held, cancel the account and open one in a different bank.

Don't like your mortgage company - oh, well, sucks to be you. Even if you can refinance under a different company, there is NOTHING to prevent them from selling your loan right back into the black hole you left. As a consumer, you have NO rights which is why these companies don't help their customers: they get paid the same whether the customer stays in their home or lands on the street. There is no competition and every single customer is over a barrel. How is this NOT racketeering?

Now, I won't be quitting my job and becoming a hippie in order to hang out downtown any time soon. I'll continue going to work and trying to pay my bills, as I always have. I'm glad to have a roof over my head. But I will stand up and be counted to any department that will hear and register this complaint, and I will sign my name to it and hope to God every other person out there having to deal with this crap does the same thing.

For now, I have a home. Thank God for my family scraping the bottom of their own barrels to help me; one of them actually skipped a few bills this month on my account. I didn't know that until the check was cashed and signed over. I didn't know.

This is ridiculous. I just have no more words.

/rant

PS: God bless my family!

From Hell

Spiders are from Hell. They are demons sent to torture us in small ways. Think about it.

My long-time readers will remember a couple posts on the topic of spiders.

The first was aptly entitled Spiders so I offer this excerpt:

Fast forward to my new townhome. For the first couple years, I lived in holy terror of the bushes. They were COVERED in funnel webs and sheet webs, spiders entered my house through microscopic cracks and I considered purchasing a S&W .45 semi-auto and staking out the doorway in order to blow every creeping spider into oblivion. Or purchase a blow-torch. Or Aqua-Net and a lighter.

Every morning as I stepped outside with the dogs, I feared walking into a web that covered the doorway. As it was, they covered the doorbell and made the bushes look like a horror-movie version of cotton-candy. Vanilla flavored. I idly wondered if I sprayed the bushes with food coloring, could I SELL the webs as a fair treat?

Spiders on a stick.

Read the rest; for once it's not a long post but it has the benefit of big, colorful pictures of spiders. Go ahead. I dare you!

You may be asking yourself, "What prompted this random post about the demonic nature of spiders?"

Well, my Google+ friend (I'm not naming him as I'm not sure if he's public or not) posted a photo of a spider sculpture demonically placed directly across from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, Canada. The spider happens to sport a huge egg sac crawling with baby spiders ready to overcome the world. Or at least the square.

Or perhaps it is actually an allegory of an allegory of the dragon discussed in colorful detail in the book of Revelation; the dragon waiting to eat the child of the Lady, forcing her to flee to save him from the spider's dragon's terrible jaws.

I bet if we really look at the original Greek, the term for "dragon" would mean:

 "huge giant gargantuan leviathan sickening drooling snapping aggressive funnel-and-sheet-web-weaving venom-bearing creepy crawling destructive poisonous vindictive rabid syphilic leperous flesh-eating hairy scuttering scaling ebola-and-tetanus-bearing kracken with eight legs building an ecosystem out of nasty rotten cotton spun out of its rear end in order to snare unsuspecting or misdirected innocents in order to entrap them in said cotton (not silk because silk is pretty) in order to suck blood from them for eternity just for sport and to get back at God for stepping on the snake that tempted Eve and suckered Adam."

Yup. That's what "Dragon" means in Revelation. It's all there. Really.

Spiders are creatures straight from Hell.

I once had a dream about it, and sin was the vehicle that carried the spider allegory. It still haunts me, and I STILL dream of spiders and spider-like creatures when I need to go to Confession.

Oh, yes, God knows how to remind me of Hell and how I will be spending it if I continue to reject Him.

I will be spending it with spiders, dead and alive, large and small, and I will NEVER be able to escape them!

The worst part about it, is this: if in life I become comfortable with them, that is the sign that in death, I will suffer eternal separation from God in their huge giant gargantuan leviathan sickening drooling snapping aggressive funnel-and-sheet-web-weaving venom-bearing creepy crawling destructive poisonous vindictive rabid syphilic leperous flesh-eating hairy scuttering scaling ebola-and-tetanus-bearing kracken with eight legs building an ecosystem out of nasty rotten cotton spun out of its rear end in order to snare unsuspecting or misdirected innocents in order to entrap them in said cotton (not silk because silk is pretty) in order to suck blood from them for eternity just for sport and to get back at God for stepping on the snake that tempted Eve and suckered Adam with no hope of ever escaping to a dragon/spider free eternity.

In order to understand this statement, check out my eternally-haunting dream from 2007, Attachments to Sin:

I turned away and went to find my spray bottle, a spider repellant, which I hoped would kill all the spiders that still lived, even unseen, in that terrible thick web. First I went to the garage where I was careful to cover all corners and the entire door with the fine spray. Then I went to the large wall/door in my home and sprayed it down, aiming especially at anything that moved. When done, I put the bottle away then returned to the conglomeration of spider webs, trying to figure out how best to deal with the mess.


Even as I stared at it, I realized that for some reason, I was not as horrified as I should have been; I am complete arachnophobic. I HATE spiders, they freak me out and give me nightmares. (case in point!). Yet I was somewhat disaffected by the overabundance of these horrible creatures and the home they had made in my very house!. I thought this kind of complacency to be odd, even in the dream.

*shudder*

Read the rest. You'll never look at spiders or sin the same way again.

Maybe you're still thinking I'm some sort of crank case.

I ask you this: Why do I think this post makes you think differently than you ever did before?

Yup. I'm a crank case. But that doesn't make me wrong.

Think about it; Spiders are a creation of God designed to reveal the nature of evil and Hell.

1.  Some spiders are *cough choke vomit*  pretty  *choke choke choke Heimlich choke cough* in some twisted way, and attract people...well...who are attracted to that sort of...uh... *choke* beauty *choke..someone give me oxygen* !!  Ugh.  That's all I can say about that or I'll drop dead right here on my own blog.

2. Have you ever seen the morning sun, as it rises, reflect upon the dew droplets innocently caught on the predatory reflecting the new light, the dew droplets like perfect victims pearls, revealing the incredible artistic, ingenious design of the death trap ?

[Note to self: get rid of anything resembling pearls. They now remind me of dew drops being sucked to eternal torture in a demon's lair]

3.  Spiders retreat and set snares for their prey, just like demons. All the creatures who find their violent end in a spider's web or outside his trapdoor have to do is go about their daily business of flitting from flower to flower or shade to shade, only to find the horrific countenance of deformed ickyness pouncing and latching onto them in all their nasty hairy skitteriness only to suck the life from them at leisure. It's a terrible, painful death involving liquefied organs.

No wonder they've spawned so many horror flicks. Just like they spawn their young and take over the planet.

4. Spiders and their lairs spawn and then attract innocent children who are fascinated by their surroundings and see only the pretty colors. Just like sin. Sin is pretty too, but it ensnares the soul and sucks the life out of the human who also mistook it for a shiny bauble.

5. The biggest spiders are found in the hottest places on earth: the tropics, the desert. Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, etc etc through the Amazon, then Africa, the Middle East, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand....you get the picture.

Hell is HOT. That's why spiders live there on earth, too.

6. There are 6 points, the number of imperfection, ergo: God created spiders, and because every facet and creature of His creation has theological import, it's obvious that spiders were designed to remind us of Hell.

Spiders Demons weave pretty webs but reproduce in astronomical proportions; whatever "beauty" can be attached to a spider is merely an allegory for Satan and his minions and his horrific residence.

Spiders and Demons are the same thing and should be handled in the same way they handle us: violently.

Maybe that's why the Saints said we must "do violence"  to ourselves in order to rid ourselves of sin. After all, demons, by seeking to separate us from God, do violence to us, and spiders are, by nature, bloodthirsty, violent creatures.

I will never again feel guilty about "wasting" ammo on a spider. They're great for target practice.

I just wish the neighbors would relax about it.

What?

The Word Can Speak for Himself: Stop Being So Dramatic!

Point 1: Lectors vs Readers

I am a huge proponent of using proper terms in the proper settings. The word "Lector" is one of them. Canonically (ie referring to Canon Law), there is no such thing as a "Lector" in our parishes, and no, Vatican II did not do away with this appointed position. The reality is this: only men can be appointed  Lectors, although the 1983 Code of Canon Law allows uninstalled men and women both to READ during the liturgy, and for both, it is a privilege. Still, only MEN can be appointed, and so I find it both insulting and irritating that we continue to call READERS "Lectors" as this misuse and overuse of terminology denigrates the Office of Lector itself, and leaves us to wonder if the Readers at Mass are in fact installed Lectors or are just filling the role because the Bishop refuses to install the proper men or because not enough have stepped up to the plate.

I suspect it's more a lack of education on the part of all lay people. I had to pay thousands of dollars and get a Master's degree to obtain this simple information that should be readily available and explained to the general populace of any given parish. It's not like Canon Law is a secret.

Lest someone protest, indeed, as a Minor Order it was suppressed, but the new Code did NOT suppress the installation of the position or the obligation upon those installed to serve in that capacity during the Liturgy. Ergo, if an installed Lector is in attendance at a given Mass, there should not be an uninstalled Reader performing the liturgical role.

Point II: Dramatic Readings of the Lectionary

It has become the fashion at my parish for the readings to be read dramatically, according to the whims of the canonically not-installed Readers, both male and female, although I cringe to admit the problem seems to have been introduced by a woman.Still...the virus seems to affect men, too.

Nearly every time I have attended Mass at my parish within the last year or so, I have had to look around to see if, in fact, I was present at a "Concert" given by an Elocutionist as portrayed in "Anne of Green Gables."

To be clear; I am not saying the readings should be proclaimed in a monotone! That is just as awful! Rather, I am merely suggesting that those doing the Readings for the Mass each week follow the description given in the GIRM, paragraph 56:

"The Liturgy if the Word is to be celebrated in such a way as to promote meditation, and so any sort of haste that hinders recollection must clearly be avoided."

Yes, indeed. However, pausing dramatically after every few words and over-emphasizing every third word a la melodrama does not meet the theological understanding of "meditation". It falls to "dramatic interpretation" and is TERRIBLY distracting!

So as not to be uncharitable, I quote the continuing context of the GIRM, paragraph 56:

"During the Liturgy of the Word, it is also appropriate to include brief periods of silence, accommodated to the gathered assembly, in which, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the word of God may be grasped by the heart and a response through prayer may be prepared. It may be appropriate to observe such periods of silence, for example, before the Liturgy of the Word itself begins, after the first and second reading, and lastly at the conclusion of the homily." 

This puts the first part in context. I suspect that the more dramatic Readers tend to read the first part of this paragraph (assuming they have actually read this very important document) and stop there, thinking that their idea of "meditation" and "silence" is the proper one. Therefore, we in the pews are afflicted by their own PERSONAL reading versus their reading of the Word for the rest of us, who are trying to meditate upon it.

Appreciation for a Role Carried out Appropriately

One of the things I most loved about my  various monastery and convent visits was this: they all understood meditative reading in accordance with the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Not a single Sister got up and read according to her own interpretation. Certainly her voice rose and fell for general emphasis, but it was always carried out to foster our OWN meditation, so that we could allow the Holy Spirit to emphasize words and phrases...not the reader.

Every time a Dramatic Reader takes the pulpit in my parish, I consider fleeing. The first time it happened, the woman actually looked at the audience congregation and BEAMED at us as though we were supposed to applaud. And I suspect that were it not for the venue, we would have out of pure reflex. I seriously hadn't heard such vocal inflection since the melodramatic celebrity Elocutionist in Anne of Green Gables. I had to look down to see if I was wearing white gloves and a formal gown, wondering if perhaps Anne herself would get up to give us her rendition of "Our Lady of Shallot" or "The Highwayman" right there in the middle of the Liturgy.

Since that time, this behavior has become all the rage of our parish Lectors  Readers. When certain personages step up, I confess I inwardly groan and pick up the missal, realizing that I need to read it for myself and entirely tune the Reader out until she or he has completed their torture routine. If I don't pick up the book, I miss the reading entirely as the drama is just far too distracting to understand what God is trying to  say to me (other than to pray for my lack of patience and to pray for the person reading...yeah, I got THAT loud and clear. Anything else?)

I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. We in the pews have a right to speak up, too, and it's not proper to throw tomatoes at Mass or cut the cords to the sound system. That kind of thing is generally frowned upon.  Unfortunately, it has become the culture in our parishes that those who speak up, even gently, are cranks, and no real criticism is tolerated, for fear it might hurt someone's feelings.

God forbid someone in a liturgical role is introduced to the GIRM and therefore has their feelings offended by official documentation.

The Readings at Mass are not meant to be read as though proclaimed in a theatre, but are meant to be proclaimed in a worshipful setting, open to be received by the people in the pews, all ranges of people. There is a place for drama, but the Word of God doesn't need any help from we lay people; He can stand alone just fine on His own if the Readers would only stand aside enough to let Him speak.

I long for the monastery, and the sober, truly meditative reading of the Word of God, in the Office, in the Lectionary, and pray that one day, our lay Readers will also cultivate an appreciation for this lost, yet simple, art of proclaiming the Word to the Faithful devoid of their own personal dramatic interpretation.

Heat Lightning

I didn't grow up with luxuries like air conditioning, and certainly not anything like central air. Summers for us were hot, humid and still, and when the wind blew, like the old adage says...it didn't blow anyone any good. A rising wind in summer was just training for storms, and the heavy pit in my stomach always grew heavier when darkness fell and with it, the wind, for I knew what was coming.

I grew up in a gentler time where the elements had more force but less surprise. Although the setting was Illinois, it wasn't much different than Mississippi in terms of summer heat and humidity, and our version of Boo Radley was an old guy named "Frank" who had a sledding hill in place of a cool tree.

We could go on all day about our respective characters and their motivations, but I have to admit, even having moved north, one of the most disconcerting works of nature, one that is so seemingly harmless, is the very same as that which I watched as a child, certain I would be sick in any moment.

We used to sit at our big living-room window and watch what Mom called "heat -lightening" shuttering in the sky across the river and beyond. Even miles and miles away, it lit up the shapes in the clouds and highlighted the barn over the river yonder, with its silver roof and weathered gray boards holding it up. I can still hear the haunting screams of the tanker trucks rumbling along the highway that ran by the barn, echoing over the stillness of the river to yawn in our still and silent back yard, embracing us with both comfort and warning.

Mom tried to decrease my fear of the storm by showing me her enjoyment of the far-away lightning, a freak of nature and science, natures fireworks appearing without thunder, without rain, without wind. She described it as the sparks we saw when pulling fresh laundry out of the dryer; lightning produced by heat and friction, God having a good time with static electricity.

I think at one point she described it as Angels doing laundry.

Her timing was bad, though; my brother had taken it upon himself to ensure that any static electricity whatsoever made its way to me at his hands, whether through a snap of a hot towel or feet rubbed on the carpet. As such, for me, such "lightning" was never harmless, but another set of creative torture devised to terrify me anew.

No Such Thing as Harmless Lightning

Perhaps my childhood instincts were correct.

In our culture, we have been lulled into the non-scientific belief that "heat lightning" is harmless. Those faint flashes from far away do seem to be nothing, but sometimes they get a bit close, don't they?

The fact is this: there's no such thing as lightning without a storm. Where we see the flashes of light, someone is suffering the onslaught of thunder, rain, maybe hail and wind. We may not be the ones touched by that particular storm, but we cannot sit back and pollyanna happily about its harmlessness. Not while people are being swept away a county or so away from us.

In recent  years, the flashes of lightening have become more and more brilliant, nearly blinding us, and we seem to have turned down the volume to the thunder that accompanies it. That's not to say it isn't there, but rather, that we have chosen to be dulled to the sound, that we have given into happy childhood myths designed to comfort fearful children...not rational adults.

There are many myths floating around our world today most directly with regard to people of Faith: some say that Religion is meant to be seen on one's own time but not heard otherwise. Others say that any revelation of belief in God is merely a revelation of weakness in an individual who refuses to use his or her intellect. Yet the most common bit of cultural heat lightning is this:  that we as Christians have no right to "impose" our beliefs upon someone else or society at whole.

Raise your hand if you've heard this modern adage. Raise your OTHER hand if you've stated YOURSELF the following: "I believe X, but even though I am Catholic I have no right to impose my beliefs about X upon others."

Keep 'em up were we can see 'em!. You're busted and about to be convicted of being both illogical and anti-Christian, no matter what you profess to be. Way to be a sellout!

Our OBLIGATION as Christians by our Baptism and the promises that accompany it is that we WILL "impose" our beliefs and values upon the society in which we live. This is a matter of fairness and objectivity, for each and every religion and group does the same. 

What is so sociologically and culturally fascinating, and horrific, in our society is this: that the majority (Christians) refuses to carry this out. We have the right and OBLIGATION according to our own fundamental beliefs to impose what we know to be True upon the society in which we live, in order to influence it for the better and more importantly, to save souls.

Yet, the mantra of our age is to stand cowed to the moral minority repeating roboticly, "I really believe in marriage between one man and one woman, and I am personally opposed to abortion, and I know we should keep Sundays holy and not use it for profane things like shopping and unnecessary labor...but I can't impose my beliefs upon others...."

To this I answer:

Why the hell NOT? As long as we refuse to impose the Truth upon our society, we become the whipped dogs of the minority imposing THEIR beliefs upon US...and we don't even have the gumption to bare our teeth!

The fact is this: the stuff we thought was harmless "heat lightning" and lulled us into complacency has become an imminent EF-5, destroying the moral culture of our country with the same efficiency as the real one that laid waste to Joplin, MO only a month ago.

My friends, it is our moral OBLIGATION to impose our beliefs and values upon our culture, politically, personally, through policy, through law, through debate, through education, through any moral means.

Ironically, although we made the promise we will do this at our very Baptism, and sealed to do so at our Confirmation, do you know the ONLY group that refuses to "impose" in our modern world is also the ONLY group losing numbers to religious oblivion is....Christians.

No wonder "gay marriage" (what a misnomer) is on the plate before us; if we had imposed our beliefs with the same conviction the homosexual activists had imposed their beliefs upon us, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Food for thought...

Oh, and by the way...stop chewing your cud and start IMPOSING before it gets any worse! 

It's not just heat lightning, folks. Just because it's not striking YOU doesn't mean thousands haven't already been lost to the whims of static electricity from the sky and all the destruction that accompanies it.

The Daze of the Life of Adoro

Where to even start this post?

Perhaps it's best to begin with Mom, who sent me an early birthday gift with the explicit instructions to go shopping for new summer clothing. No, Mom can't afford to send me money, but she did and wouldn't take "no" for an answer, therefore I set out to do as she asked.

First, on Saturday, I went to get a haircut because my mane is way overgrown and resembles something like a worn out mop with weirdly cut bangs. (Hey, I got sick of them and chopped them!)  At best, I get my hair cut only once or twice per year, and because of that I used to "splurge" at a real salon and pay $35-40 plus tip. I figured, hey, for as little as I get it done, why not? That way I knew I had a good cut, they'd style it and I'd look awesome and my hair smelled great all day!

Well, given my financial situation, I gave up my salon "splurges" in favor of the cheap places. Fantastic Sam's did an OK job and I thought to go back to them. But while running errands on Saturday I happened to be directly across from Great Clips. Even though I swore I'd never go back there again, I decided to suck it up and go inside. Once there, I had to pay extra for the hair wash (ok fine), and decided on a whim to take off even MORE hair than I had planned initially. You see where this impulsiveness is going, don't you?

Yup.

I hate it. I don't mind the length, but I've discovered my hair is now curly and it's terrible because I broke a rule a friend in my past laid down for me. I used to go to her for my cuts when she was at an Aveda Salon where she was trained. She told me to never let anyone, and she meant ANYONE touch my hair with those nasty layering shears (whatever they're called). She said my hair had to be layered with a scissors and the tool would wreck it.

She was right. It looks awful, won't do what I want and now I just look like a worn out mop with the frizzled edges cut off with a dagger of some sort. Although my bangs look better now.

Well, that's what you get for $20.00, I guess. (Interestingly enough I got a better cut for less at Fantastic Sam's, although it wasn't anywhere near salon quality).  *sigh*

Oh vanity, my vanity!

Background info on what is to come....

A few weeks ago I went to the eye doctor for the first time in about 4 years because I received the notice to renew my driver's license. I have terrible vision and live in holy terror that I won't be able to pass the vision test, so I thought it best to stop in at the doc and pay for new glasses or contacts if needed. Coupled with eye strain of late, I was sure I was due for a new prescription. Over $100 later and no real update. Great. And I'm paying most of it, maybe all, out of pocket entirely without hope of reimbursement.

The good news is that instead of getting those nasty dilator drops on a really bright impossibly sunny day, I decided to go for the retinal scan, and that was the COOLEST thing ever! And the doc can see more, and now if I and murdered and disposed of in a weird way my remains can be identified by my retinal scan if my eyeballs are still intact. How awesome is that!?

But I digress....

One of the reasons for my slum-salon visit on Saturday, of course, was this big buildup for my visit to the DMV to renew my driver's license. I figured that if my photo is going to look horrible anyway, I really didn't have to have bad hair, too.

Joke's on me, I guess. Bad pic and worse hair than if I'd just gone in with my self-cut bangs and frizzed out barn mop.

Although I passed the eye test, no problem. *whew* !

Today, and Today Alone

My first stop today was the DMV to fulfill that dreaded task, then on to the rest of my list.

I'm not like other women: I hate shopping with a passion, but I knew I must obey my Mom especially given her sacrifice, so took myself to Kohl's with sincere hope of finding something.

Please allow me to be clear:  I hate hate hate summer-wear shopping with a greater passion than at any other time of the year because the stuff on the racks is tiny, even the things with sleeves are not really sleeves, and, well, let's face it: clothing doesn't look good on me at all. I'm no fashion bug and if I were rich I'd hire a personal shopper/ private investigator  because I'm sure even the highest end stores on the planet wouldn't have anything I could actually wear. In fact, I'm certain they'd forbid me to wear their for fear I might tell someone the name of the store and they'd lose all their business. Designers would flee from me in utter horror.

The only reason I wear clothes is that I'd look even worse without them and more than Designers would flee in terror. They might run then come back with harpoons and throw nets at me while calling me "Moby".

Meanwhile, back at the chain store....grabbing a few items of interest, certain they wouldn't fit but bound and determined to give my shopping experience the good ol' college try, I headed for the fitting room to try them on. Somewhere in the middle of my rejected and soon-to-be-rejected pile, a woman and her daughter came in and entered the stall next to mine.

I heard the daughter say, "Mom, you know that door has a handle."

The Mom: "And how many grimy dirty hands have touched that handle today alone?"

Daughter (pause) "Ew."

The Mom: "Yeah. Exactly."

In my growing irritation and crabbiness I had to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from saying aloud, "Gee, I wonder how many people have tried on these clothing items before we did? I sure hope everyone who comes here showers before trying on clothing, and hope they don't have mites or scabies or lice or syphilis..."

But I remained silent and rolled my eyes at the germophobe instead.

Dang it! Why do I feel so itchy all of a sudden?

So, having no luck at Kohl's, I was cranky and crabby and sad and wanted only to be home reading a book and avoiding people. So I went to Goodwill. It couldn't possibly be a worse experience, right? I had to find SOMETHING, and with my go-to place a bust I needed a shot in the dark.

Well, I did find a couple things at Goodwill and bought them, but they weren't the kind of things Mom had in mind, although they will be useful to me this summer and will probably impress my co-worker with my fashion prowess resulting from her artistic influence. That has limited scope, though, and is not going to pass the Mom-test.

(As an aside: Goodwill is the only place I've ever been where my charm doesn't earn me eye contact and a return in charm from the cashiers. They all behave as though they are working in a naughty store and are ashamed of themselves for working there and for the shoppers who come there. Having been in a naughty store, I can tell you those employees were much more "customer friendly" when they should have been avoiding  eye contact at LEAST as enthusiastically as the people of Goodwill try to do. Just sayin'.)

So after failing once again to charm the mysteriously ashamed employees of Goodwill, [and seriously, even the DMV employees were more joyful and personable - isn't that an oxymoron?] I headed to the Library and nearly tripped on a boy heading back in from the bathroom, carrying a huge key and walking along in shoes at least two sizes too large for him. He scuttled (or galumphed?) past me through the door and I couldn't help but watch his gait in those big athletic shoes, wondering what his mother was thinking by providing shoes like that. He was going to wreck his knees!

Then I just shrugged. Hey! Who am I to judge? I just came from Goodwill with my own version of poorly-fitted clothing!

My last stop was the grocery store. For at least two weeks I've been craving a root beer float but without the ingredients, my hands were tied. I didn't feel like dealing with Dairy Queen, so I looked for a small container of vanilla ice cream. Nuthin'. Seriously the only vanilla I could find was in half-gallon and above! With a sigh I bought the cheap stuff and a small bottle of A&W and paid for that and the other items on my list.

Now I'm back at home, staring at a livingroom covered with cotton from the latest toy to have its innards removed by Apollo the foster dog. I'm looking at stacks of junk mail that needs to go away and old things that need to be shredded. I have a sink full of dirty dishes from the last thing I cooked yesterday morning before I rushed off to Mass and work.

Today, in spite of the fact it's my day off, thanks to my failed and hated shopping expedition, from which I have emerged only to have to explain to Mom that no amount of money in the world will provide a good photo of me well dressed for her, I'm crabby and sad and bitter and angry. Maybe now she'll take back the amount I didn't spend between Saturday and today, and give this up as a lost cause.

I think maybe it's time to put on my worn-out cross-trainers, put new batteries in my CD player, grab some tunes, and go for a long walk while daydreaming all sorts of adventures and impossibilities.

*sigh* 

Sometimes the life we live in our imagination is the only cure for the hardness and bitterness of life under our feet. 

Annoyance and the Saints

Hold onto your hats and your pews, friends! This post is going to be half rant half meditation!

Some days I just weep for the state of our parishes and the souls within them - and the very fact that our fallen nature has created our circumstances. Which, ironically, is why we go to Mass.

This morning I attended Mass, arrived early in order to pray. Several others arrived as well, as the church was relatively quiet. Then some families arrived with their fussy children, and more people arrived, and then came a couple who sat behind me, loudly talking to each other.

Recollection gone.  I tried to "offer it up" and be patient. I failed miserably.

They continued with mindless chit-chat, almost in my ear. Or both ears, as it were. I was resigned to the fact this is what Mass was going to be like, until I heard one of them comment, "I really don't like children."

To my surprise, rather than being angry, I was overwhelmed with sadness. Dislike children!? I realized many young ones were crying at that moment, and there was a child in front of me actively playing and talking to his mother. But they didn't bother me nearly so much as the couple behind me talking loudly and stating how much they dislike children.

I'll admit I used to get distracted by children, and quite annoyed by them. Over time, though, I have come to not really notice if they are crying, but rather, if they are silent. A parish devoid of children is a dying parish. I thank God my parish is vibrant and filled with the cries of children! Glory be to God! Alleluia!

And then comes this couple desiring to quash that, while their behavior was far, far worse.

Yes, I was annoyed.

I was annoyed by many things today, and struggled to pray. The music was so theologically bad that I missed the psalm and had to page through and read it for myself.  As the Feast of the Ascension is transferred to the 7th Sunday of Easter in my diocese, today's Gospel, MT 28:16-20 proclaims:  (say it with me!)

 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

So, did you catch that? Jesus told us to GO FORTH AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM AND TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THAT JESUS HAS COMMANDED US.

Then our communion hymn sang about bread, and our closing hymn was "As A Fire is Meant for Burning", containing the words:

Not to preach our creeds or customs,

but to build a bridge of care,

UM, WHAT!? How in the world does that line up with the Gospel COMMAND to preach our creeds and customs?

How do we celebrate the Ascension, hear the command of Christ to go forth and evangelize, and then leave church having just sung that we just have to be nice to everybody, but for the love of God, don't, under any circumstances, preach our faith or baptize anyone!??????

Folks, it's no wonder Catholics aren't out there evangelizing and living out today's Gospel command: we undermine ourselves before we even leave the building.

Here's the danger in singing such bad music:  the Arian heresy spread by music. The Arians were great marketers and spread their bad theology through a catchy tune. That overcame the True teachings of the Faith, thus confusing people and leading them into heresy. The brain remembers and repeats music (ever got a bad earworm? Yeah, exactly).  So thousands of people are going to leave today singing all about how we should be nice but never evangelize.

Yes, that annoys me. And it SHOULD. It should annoy YOU, too. It explains a lot about the state of  many Catholics today, doesn't it?

Meditation on what it means to be annoyed

Today, as I fought those annoyances, as always, I tried to think about the Saints. People are people in every age, and Saints were  people, too.

It is a temptation in our age to glorify the Saints so much so that we forget their humanity. We read their writings and we are in awe of their holiness, seeking to learn from them how to follow Christ. If they can do it, WE can do it, right?

Unfortunately, we fall into this weird trap of thinking the Saints were somehow robotic and didn't get annoyed, or angry. We seem to think the Saints were nice to people all the time, and that's why they became Saints: that they learned not to "feel" anything.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Saints were all human beings and you know what? They got ANNOYED with people and situations! And I'm really glad I don't have to hear what St. Padre Pio would be saying about the music we sing at Mass in our age! I'm glad I don't have to watch St. Thomas Aquinas roll in his grave. I'm glad I don't have to withstand the fiery preaching of St. Paul or the ranting of St. Jerome.

Did you know that St. Francis de Sales had such a massive temper that after his death, they found GROOVES under his writing desk, where he took out his frustrations by scratching the underside repeatedly in effort to control his anger?

And yet, we read his writings, all of which are so gentle and wise. We are led to believe that he was always calm, recollected, and no, not ever angry.

No, St. Francis de Sales was a human being like the rest of us, and he got annoyed.  Without looking at who he was as a human being, we divorce his writings from him as though they could stand alone and be enough. The truth is that St. Francis de Sales, as well as other Saints, wrote from experience, they wrote through their temptations, and they wrote in such a way so as to preach holiness to themselves as well as to others. They were not separate from their spiritual direction; they lived it, too.

It was actually a consolation to me today to reflect upon the humanity of the Saints.

Is Being Annoyed a Sin?

Often I read about liturgical abuses or other things that set people off, and there are always a few jokers in the various com-boxes who suggest there is something wrong with the person who is annoyed. Maybe that's true; we are all sinners, and we do often let our annoyances turn into some kind of personal sin.

I think more often, though, the opposite of that criticism is true:  there's something missing in a human who refuses to be annoyed, for they are repressing their own humanity in a false understanding of what it means to be holy.

It is not a sin to be annoyed or irritated. It would qualify as a passion, I think. It's not anger, but can lead to anger, and anger alone is not a sin. The emotion of annoyance or irritation is simply that: something that tells us something is wrong. Compare it to a bug bite: when we are bitten, we are tempted to scratch at it because it itches! It can be really awful, and so we think about that bite and ponder it and feel that itch and then scratch and scratch until it finally bleeds, and maybe we keep scratching even THEN. And then it might get infected.

Or... we could just feel the annoyance, realize it's there and there's nothing we can do about it, or maybe spray a little Benadryl on it to control the histamine reaction. The bug bite is still there, but we've chosen a different way to handle it.

See the difference? Annoyance is nothing more than a spiritual bug bite. We can zap it by embracing it with virtue or we can scratch at it and let it get infected. The latter is a sin. The former turns it into a path to holiness.

At Mass today,  I hold that I was right to be annoyed: by people talking loudly when they should have been observing silence out of respect to others, annoyed by people claiming they hate children (loudly), annoyed by bad theology. If we aren't annoyed by those things, then we are completely unaware of what Mass is about. That's a problem. Annoyance is actually a gift from God. It is what we DO with annoyance that makes a difference.

We will all struggle with that for our entire lives. Mass equips us through the Sacraments and through the experience of other people who are fallen just like us.

How did the Saints react?  

It is important to learn from the Saints: how did THEY handle things that bothered them, rightly or not?

When we take a look at their writings and biographies, we witness that they sought to overcome their annoyances through practicing the Virtues. They practiced patience by not turning around and slapping offenders who mouthed off in church. They practiced fortitude by being patient throughout the Mass. They considered how much God loves even the most annoying among us. They resolved to love children and their haters more in order to overcome hatred in themselves. When confronted with bad theology, they sought to educate others so that they would know the Truth about God.

 The Saints, when annoyed,  looked to God and said, "Dear God I am so annoyed right now I could spit! Most Adorable Jesus, please grant me peace so that I might love others as you love me in spite of my own faults!"   

The Saints struggled just as we do. That doesn't mean they weren't holy: it means they learned how to handle annoyance and not allow it to degenerate into sin.  They didn't entertain it, but tried to let it change their hearts, not to a position of denial, but as a revelation of Truth and Divine Charity.

St. Catherine of Siena wrote in her "Dialogue" that we obtain every virtue through other people. She knew this well: she was annoyed sometimes, too. She was highly annoyed by the Pope during the Avignon captivity and called him to conversion, and back to Rome in no uncertain terms.

Let us all learn to handle annoyance by following the example of the Saints. We should not fear annoyance, but embrace it and allow it to change our hearts so that we might grow in faith, hope, and charity.

May God grant us all the grace to become Saints through the annoyances in our lives.

Just Words?

Recently, at work, I was giving a very brief presentation about the upcoming changes to the Roman Missal, explaining the reasons for it and what those changes would be. The woman with whom I was speaking responded in anger and shock. She thought the new translation was ridiculous because of the cost of the replacement of books, and didn't see why the words of the Mass really mattered anyway.

"They're just words!" she exclaimed in self-righteous sarcasm, rolling her eyes to make sure I got her point.

All I could do was just shake my head at such a juvenile response, for indeed I did get her point; that I shouldn't waste any time tossing any more pearls before swine. Just words? Really?

When are words "just words"?

Words are powerful. What's that old adage?  Oh, yes, right: "The pen is mightier than the sword." If the pen is writing mere words, how in the world can they cut so deeply and have effects that last throughout history, affecting people from generation to generation? Anyone ever heard of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution? Or the famous 1st Amendment guaranteeing "free speech"? If words are "just words" why have an Amendment protecting them?

Anyone ever heard of Martin Luther's theses? Were those "just words" or didn't they create a schism that exists to this day and continues to splinter?

How do people end up being sued for libel over "just words", especially when their crime destroys reputations and lives? How can so many priests, like Fr. Gordon MacRae, among so many others, end up in prison as the result of slander if that slander is "just words"?  How many people have gone to the electric chair, guillotine, firing squad, or some other equally unpleasant way of death, innocent or guilty, when the verdict of "GUILTY" is just a mere word?

Words can destroy people - they have that power.

They also have the power to get unqualified people elected to the Presidency by the fluke of media propaganda. But...it's "just words". So I guess that result is meaningless.

Words have the power to begin wars, to free slaves, to install Kings, to change history - and even re-write it such that people will believe the lies simply because it is in print.

Words have the equal power to reveal Truth even in the face of the worst deception, and in so doing, set people free from intellectual bondage.

Words can encourage, elevate, support, uplift, inform, educate, and bring tidings of great joy to a world lost in darkness. Words revealed the Birth of Christ to the poor Shepherds - but they were "just words", weren't they?

Then we come to the Mass, where we come together in worship of the Almighty God. Are the prayers of the Mass, the prayers we utter in the desperation of our hearts and souls, the prayers uttered in praise and thanksgiving...are those "just words"?  If so, why are we there?  If they're "just words" why should God listen? 

In the Sacrament of Baptism, when we are baptized "In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit", if they are just words, then we are "just sinners" and not children of God.

In the Sacrament of Confession when the priest says, "...I absolve you in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit", if those are "just words", then we are not forgiven and never can be.

And the Consecration: when the priest, through the power of the Holy Spirit, utters the words that change the bread and wine into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ - are those "just words"? If so, then Christ is not present and He lied to us a long time ago.

If they are, in the famous statement of Flannery O'Connor, if those are mere, meaningless words, "Then to Hell with it!"

Oh, right...her words were "just words", too. Yeah..I guess words don't really have any meaning. They certainly don't affect us at all, do they? Words have no power, no meaning. They don't do anything. We have the power of speech for no reason whatsoever.

What about the Bible, the "Word of God", and Jesus, "The Word Made Flesh" who dwelt among us?

I guess Jesus has even LESS meaning, then, because He is just "the Word", not even worthy of an "s" to make Him plural.

Just words. Right.

There's no such thing as "just words".

Fire PSA and Warning

It's no secret that we here in the Midwest got a whole boatload of snow, everywhere, containing and followed by a whole lot of wind that created a bunch of really interesting drifts.

For the most part, the snow has been moved out of the way by the City or County or State (depending on where you live) but the government is not responsible for your own personal property.

I can't even COUNT the number of houses I have passed on residential streets in my last two weeks of travel about the Twin Cities in Minnesota, that have front doors blocked by those original drifts.

Look, Homeowners, I know what you're thinking:

You only shoveled your garage door or your ailing/elderly/young single mother's driveway because it's all you/they use and is critical to you/them.  I'm the same way...most of my coming and going is through my garage door, or, well, if I had a house with an unattached garage, I'd be using the door off the driveway.

Very few people actually USE their front doors, and as such, that door in a single family home is usually very neglected.

You're risking your life and the lives of your entire family to ignore that door.

Imagine This:

One night you wake up to the sound of your intact smoke alarms, and slowly, you realize the acrid scent being registered in your nostrils, tastebuds, and throat belongs to an actual fire in your castle.

You realize that the fire is coming from a burner left on in the kitchen, and while you don't recall leaving that burner on, nor does your husband/wife or children, there it was, and it has alighted some oil that was not cleaned off the stove, and that heat caught a picture on fire - one your daughter gave you tonight which you planned to hang on the refrigerator in the morning.

Instead, that picture acted as a wick and transferred the rapid oxidation to the curtains over the sink, which set the boxes intended for the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal alight...and their contents...and spread to the other curtains on the other kitchen window, the door, and the rug you purchased in Africa on your honeymoon.

That same fire sends a spark and alights your Christmas tree, blocking your exit through the garage door and/or side door while it sets the other continuous decorations alight.

Your only way out is the front door, and you go about waking and herding your family towards the front door - the only exit.

Yet when you get there, you are faced with a mountain of snow you never bothered to shovel, even though that storm was 2 weeks ago almost to the day, and it's completely blocking the door. You can toss your newborn out through the crack, but is that a GOOD idea when he sinks through the snow and then the heat from the house causes the tip of the drift to collapse upon him, covering him in an avalanche?

In the meantime...

The Fire Department arrives and approaches your house, watching as they hook up the Engine to the closest hydrant, which they have to take several minutes to locate and then dig out since neither you nor your neighbors did so.

It takes them awhile to do this, even as they try to lay a tank line to the most accessible door, including the consideration of the most likely place for survivors.  They look at the side door and lay a line there, but realize that if they open that door, they might actually directly cause the deaths of anyone inside, and of course, can't actually ENTER there....so they look to the front door...which is covered by snow.

They can't hear the cries of the baby you tossed beneath the roar of the consuming fire. They don't know he's there no matter how loudly you scream because they can't hear you either, between the fire, the engines, their turnout gear and the sound of air from their tanks.

Realizing they have no entrance from the plowed area, they try to access the blocked front door,  and the windows...but they can't get there through the drifts and the powerful hose really just turns snow into powerful waves of ice in your front lawn, forming bars against your house while you kneel on the floor, pounding against what you thought was an exit, sinking further and further, trying to protect your children from the encroaching smoke and heat.

You gasp your last breaths as you watch the pulsating blue and red lights glow through the drift you didn't bother to shovel, and that's where you realize your children are now too late to save.

Across the Street

Mr. Neighbor a la Snowblower stands, in shock, watching the Fire Department try to access your home. He's the one who happened to be awake and called at 1:00 am, and he's the same guy you spoke with regarding the snowdrift blocking your front door. He has one to match, because neither of you thought it important since neither of you has EVER used the front door of your home but for an occasional formal event.

Yet Mr. Neighbor stands there, horrified, witnessing this sin of omission as the Fire Department labors through your front lawn to get to a door, a window, and the newborn encapsulated in a drift that should never have been present.

He watches the Fire Department labor through the stuff he could have eliminated, and watches you and your dead family being brought on stretchers through the snow, just as the light comes into the sky, and gives his testimony to the police and to the NEWS...all for want of a little flat tool that would have prevented that mass-family funeral he will attend  a couple days after Christmas.

And none of your family or friends will remember Christmas the same way again, for instead of the birth of Christ, they will remember the drift of snow over the doorway to life and they will forever recall your absence...your stupid, stupid absence.

SHOVEL OUT YOUR FRONT DOORS, PEOPLE! 

On the Subject of Ranting

...here's something I hope you'll REALLY like!  :-D

I Am the Dog, Baby

I was going to write about something else tonight, but instead, I have a rant. Sit down and hold on to your hats.

A few years ago, a reporter wrote an article in the Religion section of the local paper and by the wording, made it sound like a decision of our Bishop was "personal" (note the spelling). There was a HUGE outcry in the blogging world as everyone slammed the Bishop for making a "personal" decision with regard to a certain popular priest.

I went to the article itself, found the phone and email of the religion reporter and CALLED her to ask about the quote generating so much bandwidth. Was it "personal" or "personnel"? Which?  The spelling made a huge difference.

She returned my call and explained it was an editorial error: it wasn't a "personal" decision of the Bishop, but a "personnel" decision belonging to employer/employee, and that meant all the bloggers having hissy fits were hanging out with egg on their respective faces.

I think I actually made that phone call and got the answer while in the presence of actual bloggers, but it was so long ago I can't remember. I'm getting old. Memory is second to go, they say.

Refusal to Reason

I've noticed a pattern, and I've been a part of it myself.

We go to Mass, at this or that parish, and not always our home parish. Whether it is "home" or some other, with the ability to speak to our "online friends" through Social Networking, we often bring our complaints. This alone is legitimate. We often experience liturgical abuses and need to vent, ask questions to see if what we noticed is legit or an abuse, or maybe we have nowhere else to go to explain our frustration with the lack of reverence we may witness in a given Mass.  It is legitimate to vent those frustrations, as long as we don't let those frustrations, or worse, anger, control us.  We should be asking for help not to further our vice of anger, but rather, to help us overcome our vices, to affirm what is wrong and help us to do or react in ways that give glory to God.

All too often, all I see, or all I do is "vent", slam, and yes, even calumniate.

All too often, when others do so, when questioned, they tend to either back down or refuse to go to the source.

My friends, this is not reasonable. It is, officially a sin, for it is contrary to the intellect and will, and therefore, it is an offense against God.

We really need to examine our own consciences regarding our intentions when we use social networking. Even tonight a friend of mine brought to issue a reasonable question for which that person refused to seek the truth.

The incident called me to look into my own online affairs and question how many times I have sought "answers" while refusing to ask the questions of those who so offended us all. It really is so much easier to go to others of our own mind than directly ask the questions of those we think are offending.

It really is easier to run away like Judas than confront offense as directly as Christ.

Matthew 18:15-17:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refused to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him to be you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Canon Law follows this procedure, requiring that the person (usually a priest or bishop) allegedly offending is first confronted before the person making the complaint goes to the Bishop or other proper authority.  There is great reason in this: it is to prevent the sin of defamation of character, to keep from someone being slandered in the eyes of others. The procedure itself, via scripture or via Canon Law (which is one and the same in this case) is to ensure the examination of conscience and purity of heart in the one making the accusation.

Online Danger of Calumny/ Detraction

Too often, online, we tend to vent our frustrations without actually seeking a response and without actually wanting to go to the work of confronting an offense.

As a parish worker, I relate to this on two levels: as a blogger and as a parish worker who sees offense but doesn't have any official capacity to correct it.

It IS very frustrating, but more and more, I am becoming aware of the damage done by those with a voice who either don't know or won't follow the charitable procedure of confronting the offender directly.

Too often, names and situations are smeared through Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, and Blogs, without the person speaking ever to bother to go directly to the one being "confronted" to address them directly.

All too often, those using Social Networking (again, I am guilty, too) fall back on our own laziness so as to bitch and complain without any real intention of correcting a problem.

Recently a friend, one both online and in real life brought up an issue in a parish she attended. She asked a good question, and one that needs to be asked and addressed according to the theology of the Church.  The question asked is one that could be charitably sent to the "offender" and perhaps answered. This friend refused to do so and made every argument not to, even refused to let me send the (charitable!) email or note, and then told me that I "didn't have a dog in this fight."

What "fight"?

If there' s a battle involving the liturgy that is Universal, if there's a battle involving the Theology of the Church, e.g. the Truth of Christ, I AM the Dog, Baby.

SO ARE YOU! 

Telling me that I don't have a dog in this fight means that you're telling me I'm not Catholic.

Are we not the Mystical Body of Christ?  If one of us suffers, do the others remain immune? If you experience a horrible liturgy at one place and refuse to tell anyone, do I suffer more or less than you do if I attend there after you have passed by and refused to do nothing about it, saying that I "don't have a dog in this fight."?

If a heretic farts in the wind, aren't we ALL downwind? 

Doesn't that happen every day and aren't we all sick of the smell?


Listen, ya'll, whether we know each other personally or not, we're all together in this mess. If we are Catholic, we are members of the Mystical Body and if there is a public offense against theology and liturgy, it hurts us all and we have a duty, obligation, and right to question it.

Don't EVER tell another Catholic that they "Don't have a dog in the fight" or that their concerns regarding an objective theological/ liturgical matter are insignificant.

To do so is an insult to the entire Body of Christ.

Y'all, you ARE the Dog, and if you're not in the fight, Christ is not your King.

Amen.

Vocational Advice Married People Need

MEN:

Before criticizing your wife's faults, remember she could have married Jesus and laid down her life in an offering of love, praying for your eternal salvation with every breath she takes. Nothing is more intimate and worthy than that kind of sacrifice.

WOMEN:

 Before criticizing your husband's faults, remember that he might have become a Priest in an offering of love and saved your soul through the Sacraments. Nothing is more intimate and worthy than that kind of sacrifice.

MEN and WOMEN:

You BOTH settled for a paltry, worthless [if you don't understand the sacrifice it symbolizes] ring, and an even more worthless "unity candle" (if you used this stupid symbol) taking Eternal Vows to lay down your lives FOR GOD and TO EACH OTHER in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing is more intimate and worthy than that kind of sacrifice, and nothing else lays the foundation for other Vocations.  What? Do you think Priests and Religious drop in a hailstorm, flow down the Nile and end up in the local school teaching your kids about Salvation?

Get over yourselves and stop your bitchin' about each other.  We children of divorce are tired of hearing about your tiresome adolescent angst. What, are you still 13?

Grow up!

If you're not called to the Holy Vocation of Marriage, don't have sex (ever!) and don't take the Vows of Marriage! If you're already married, you made a decision and a Vow before God and you are Called, formally, to GETTING EACH OTHER TO HEAVEN!

Stop whining!  It was your bed; lie down in it and either have children or live a celibate marriage, but stop making the rest of us suffer for your adolescently-inspired decisions.

And don't scream at me in the combox for slapping your hands.

You're lucky I don't slap something else with something much harder!

That's all I have to say about that. My divorced mother and deceased father would approve. And before you accuse me of being a hypocrite, please let me invite all fellow hypocrites such as yourself to Mass with me this weekend; there's always enough room in the pew for one more!

Stuff I'm Against

Terry Nelson at Abbey-Roads tagged me for a meme several days ago (I KNOW!) and I'm finally getting around to getting it done. 

He posted a whole slew of stuff (well, 3 things) he's against and has invited the rest of us the do the same. So batten down the hatches and hold on to your toupees, here it comes:

What Adoro is Against:

*  I'm against stupid drivers. If you don't know where you're going, coming to a sudden stop on a  busy freeway in order to BACK UP in order to turn onto an exit ramp you missed is NOT the thing to do! Further, if you're going to screw up, do it quickly and get out of the way. Oh, and if you rear-end someone, do NOT explain to your insurance company that the guy you hit, yeah, the one who came to a stop perfectly safely only to be sent to the hospital by YOU, did not "give you enough time to stop." Really?  Ever hear of maintaining a safe distance?  Yeah...it's State Law.  Did you actually PASS your driver's test or did you steal the test out of the hand of a 16 year old who actually studied for it? 

*  I'm against schnockered and pickled jerks-for-neighbors with apocolyptically-loud motorcycle engines revving them (yes, REVVING) in the red-line for extended periods at 3 -3:45 am early on a Tuesday morning when most of the world is sleeping. (I'm against this same BS in the middle of a nice afternoon, too. There is no reason for that kind of idiocy.)

* I'm against ice storms that pack so much ice down on the sidewalks and driveways that it is necessary to turn the neighborhood into a luge course just to get around. 

* I'm against mandatory pickles on hamburgers. What is UP with that?

* I'm against "modern art". It may be modern but it sure ain't Art! It needs to go the way of "Art Deco" which also wasn't art and shouldn't have ever become "deco". And don't give me any flap about the popularity of "Retro-crap". It was crap then, it's crap now, and the only reason to do something in "Retro" is to make fun of it.

* I'm against the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative" in conversations about Catholicism as the terms are political and have NO PLACE in Catholic conversation.  I resent having to use those terms just to be understood and to constantly, when using the terms, have to state why they are inappropriate, and what's more, I hate the fact there are factions within the Body of Christ and I wish people would wake up and stop trying to politicize that which is supernatural, holy and so far beyond politicization that doing so just makes the "camps" look stupid.  (See my last bullet point before you comment.)

* I'm against Abortion, Planned Parenthood, the moral depravity that made this obscene horror "legal" in our country and keeps it going, and the outright battle to rip and shred innocent children and harm their mothers in unseen but agonizing ways while supporting the salvation of seals and whales and the Arabian Ocean Fig Bush growing somewhere in the Alaskan tundra. Seriously, life is so devalued here that even stuff that never existed has more legal protection than any given human life!

*  I'm against "grooming" dogs to look like other animals. Seriously?  Your golden retriever is NOT a lion and is completely embarrassed by that weird clip-job you gave him. Have some respect for your best friend!

* I'm against the high price of sushi only because the high price means I can't afford to eat it very often.

* I'm against bloggers who do nothing but rant all the time. Or even sometimes.  Right. I'm completely against what I'm doing right now.

* I'm also against hypocrites.

I'd talk about more stuff I"m against, but as I'm a faithful Catholic, was a Firefighter on 9/11 and watched 300 fellow firefighters die that day, and have clearly stated my position on many issues of Faith and Morals in the course of this blog, if I said anything else it would be redundant.  I agree with everything Terry said on his blog as far as what he's against, and he said it better, anyway.

As far as tagging, well...the feisty bloggers have already been tagged in one fell swoop.  So if you're feisty, mad, and damn it, you aren't gonna take it anymore, go ahead and tag yourself, leave the stuff YOU'RE against in the combox or a link to your own blog regarding the stuff you're against!

And don't  yell at me if you disagree with my list. Just add me to your list of stuff you're against.

I need the notoriety and attention your sputtering anger will bring to my blog.

No Such Thing as "Pro-Abortion Catholic"

There is no such thing as a "Pro-abortion Catholic".   Catholics are pro-life and this IS an infallible teaching that belongs to the Deposit of Faith.

You CANNOT be CATHOLIC *and* "Pro-Choice"!

The "Pro-Abortion aka Pro-Choice 'Catholics'" seen in politics and in political organizations are people who have chosen to separate themselves from the Church in deep passionate love of their own will, ambition, and preferences, and as such, are no longer members of the Mystical Body of Christ through a very grave sin.    Therefore, they are not "Catholic".  They are people who are, for personal gain, misappropriating the Title and claiming a Privilege of being Catholic that does not belong to them by their own CHOICE.

Seriously, I find it hard to believe ANYONE claiming to be a PRACTICING Catholic (every Sunday, Holy Day of Obligation, Confession once per year, Holy Communion in state of grace during Easter Season as a bare minimum according to our precepts) would believe abortion is morally justifiable.

I don't care who you are!  If you willfully and publicly dissent against and advance teachings that contradict the Faith and Morals of the Catholic Church, you have separated yourself from us all,  and therefore you may be "Catholic" in name and by baptism (for by virtue of this, there is always hope...I'm a sinner, too, and screw up a LOT), but you LOSE the right to proclaim in conjunction with a public life and advancement in the eyes of others, a Faith you obstinately REFUSE,  ESPECIALLY if  you're using it for your political advancement to purposefully fleece those who are even more uncatechized than you!

I don't care if you're a politician, a DRE, a homosexual activist, or a housewife in rural Alabama with a blog and a little time and a column in your diocesan newspaper:  if you dissent on grave matters and KNOWINGLY and INTENTIONALLY advance your dissent through your own formal teaching...you aren't Catholic in anything other than name, and that is only by God's grace...in which you are publicly and personally refusing to partake.

That's your Choice, my friends. 

Yes, you do have a Choice...agree with God or disagree with God.

To Conceive a Child...or control your passions and keep your pants on so that you won't conceive a child.  Abortion is NOT the answer to animal passions. It's the epitome of a barbaric, tyrannical society.

To support abortion and claim Catholicism is demonically scandalous and you will NOT find support for it in the official teachings of the Church. The fact that Tertullian or Origin or St. Augustine or St Thomas Aquinas said some things in their theological musings a long time ago doesn't contradict the fact that the constant and persistent Magisterial teaching of the Church from the beginning of Christianity (ie the Church which was born out of the side of Christ) has been that abortion is morally incompatible with Christ.  Period.  You don't get to disagree with that without entering into grave sin.  Consider yourself informed now of that fact if you were previously claiming ignorance.

As a reminder, three things constitute grave (mortal) sin, which destroys the virtue of charity and renders one severed from God:

1.  The object of the sin is a grave matter (abortion is murder, even atheists agree on this because the fetus is a CHILD, a human being.)

2.  The matter is committed with full knowledge.   (The reference above...if someone is a sincerely practicing and DEVOUT Catholic, it means they have FULL KNOWLEDGE that a sin is grave and separates one from a relationship with God.)  Note that the teaching doesn't leave room for wishy-washy "opinion".  It is OBJECTIVE and BINDING.

3.  The matter is done with deliberate consent.  Active support of abortion in politics, in procuring, etc, is a willfull choice..unless forced by others contrary to one's own will. Thus it means that a woman who is forced into abortion has not committed sin. Those who forced her are DAMNED if they don't repent. Period.

No, I'm not mincing words. God is the judge, not me, and I'm not stating this to or about anyone in particular.

(More info on the morality of abortion and other common issues from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) can be found here.) 

It happens:  mothers and  fathers of pregnant daughters, families and inconvenienced boyfriends force girls/women into abortion.  Because it is legal and available and "safe".  Those women then suffer for this act against their own conscience, for the baby they wanted...but no one else did.  The women in question didn't sin....those that forced them...DID.  And as scripture tells us...Vengeance is the Lord's.  And He cares deeply for those who suffer so much.

Yes, abortion DOES harm women and it harms the children they conceived and allowed to be flushed down the toilet through use of the Pill (because that's what it does), through vacuum-suction and chemical uterine murders, etc. And it harms the fathers who helped, with the mother and God, to bring them into existence so that they could be torn to pieces in the womb in the Sacred Name of "Choice".

I'll close, then, with my starting point for we have come full circle:   There is no such thing as a "Pro-Abortion", or in politically correct warm fuzzy terms, "Pro-Choice Catholic". There is only such a thing as a prideful politician or activist who has usurped a Privileged Title for the advancement of themselves and in detriment to all of Christianity and to the Mystical Body of Christ, from which they have divorced themselves through their faithless ideological and outright demonic position.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Choose your place. Choose your politicians...just know that if they claim to be Catholic, there's more to check than the title they take for themselves in order to win your vote.

Further info:  Father Malloy, SDB at A Shepherd's Voice ALSO says you can't be Catholic and "Pro-Choice". As does, famously, Father Corapi. (I couldn't find a link to a You Tube or article that gave the full quote, but it's one he's famous for!)   


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Celebrity Worship

One of the things about our culture that drives me crazy belongs to the Cult of the Celebrity.  I simply don't understand it.

Fair Warning:  this post is NOT going to be among my most popular; in fact, I am quite certain I will be losing readership over this one. Don't say you weren't warned, but you knew what I was when you started following me.  If you haven't been offended by my opinions, then you haven't been following long enough.

If I'm not honest, I'm not Adoro.  Just sayin'

Teen Celebrity Infatuation:

As a teen, of course,  I went through that particular phase of infatuation, writing letters to a few chosen male celebrities which were never answered (oh, thank God for that, I so wish I could forget those letters!), and went so far as to hang pictures of them on my walls. But I passed through that phase and moved on with my life. Admittedly, it was in moving on that I also let go of wanting to be an actress or famous person myself.

At that point, I finally began to see celebrities as people just like me with all the very same failings. I discovered at the same time, that if I was in the public eye, it wasn't comfortable, not fun, not glamorous, and actually...seemed overall to be quite ridiculous.

Over the years I've met a few celebrities, both secular and Catholic, and found them to be...well...average people.  I liked them just fine, but didn't find anything there to make me turn myself inside-out with adulation in their presence.

Yet I continue to see people rolling like submissive dogs peeing all over themselves when they read the words of this or that Catholic celebrity.

Clearly, as this is a Catholic blog, I'm focusing mostly on the ecstatic behavior of the average internet Catholic in the internet presence of some Catholic celebrity.

Seriously...it's downright embarrassing to witness.

Now, certainly, Catholic celebs don't have the worldly panache of the seculars, nor should they. And indeed, those held in high esteem are wonderful role models, based on what can be witnessed in the public eye.

Still, even with a good example, I don't see anything of them that is worthy of the public worship that is given to them day in and day out. I don't see why people find they need to hang on every word, or work so hard to be noticed and approved by this or that Catholic celebrity figure. It's almost like some people think their existence and very Catholicism must be recognized and ratified by some of these celebs in order to be authentic. 

I wonder at the reaction to these people, whose gifts given by God have placed them in the public eye, giving them a certain "Catholic Celebrity" status, and who, to so many, seem to be the final word on ANYTHING going on in the Church.

It fascinates me.

It fascinates me especially because I am sure that most of them, if not all, would not WANT the adulation of the masses, and probably didn't ask for it, and would further prefer that people NOT hang on their words.

Admittedly, though, I wonder at a few of these Catholic celebs who seem to crave that adulation and beckon it onward. The sad thing is that I've seen it not only via the internet, but also in person, in, for example, the "cult of the priest". There are certain priests who have a certain following of people who apparently see him as a kind of Savior...and will follow him ANYWHERE he goes. (I am not speaking here only of the internet, but also of a certain few priest-cults in my own diocese. But lest you are Protestant...check out the cult following of the charismatic pastors of the "Free Churches" in this area. Yeah..you suffer the same scourge and spiritual danger Maybe even MORE so for there are fewer of you.) 

Ew. Creepy.  

What I don't understand is WHY this behavior isn't so creepy over the internet? Isn't it the same thing?

I am seriously concerned that good, knowledgeable Catholics spend so much time hoping for the approval of certain Catholic "celebrities".

I am truly amazed that, in the past when I happened to criticize this odd obsequious behavior directed toward a certain personality, I was villified and quite literally admonished to "SHUT UP!", and even further, was calumniated by my accuser who said that all I talk about is "this" topic.Yet I had only brought it up once before with the very same question:  "What's the big deal about X Catholic Celeb?"

No one has been able to give me an answer, and so in place of the answer, they chose to insult me with an ad hominem attack...which I expect on this post as well, even though I've not given any names.

I'm sure all my readers have their favorite Catholic Celebrities, and some of you assume I'm talking about YOURS.

So I'll let your comments reveal what's in YOUR heart: who do YOU worship? And why will you tolerate no criticism against your hero or heroine?

And what does your lack of tolerance reveal about your own spirituality, lack thereof, your attachments, and how far you've fallen from Our Lord and His Mother if you're so ready to shut down a legitimate question about a mere mortal man or woman celebrity?

Seriously...if you rely so heavily upon some celebrity, whether it is an internet celeb, a priest, or an alleged visionary such that any legitimate criticism of them and their humanity pisses you off, it's a sign you need to get a grip and spend more time at Mass, Confession and Adoration and LESS time on the internet peeing all over yourself in hopes of being noticed.

That's all I have to say about that. Let the hate mail begin...combox is open for discussion.

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P.S. ~ The com box is NOT a litter box. If  you have need to relieve yourself, I suggest you find appropriate facilities elsewhere.  

Thanksgiving: What, Exactly, Are We Celebrating?

Adviso! This is one of those epically long posts that might qualify as "Story time with Adoro". It's part rant, part history, part Adoro being Adoro. So settle in with a leg of turkey from your annual sacrifice, some mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean hotdish with French's onions on top, a dinner roll, cranberries and a nice glass of Riesling or Gwertztraminer or maybe a Pinot Noir, because you aren't going anywhere any time soon. Don't say you weren't warned. Even my UK and Australian readers may want to read this one...your ancestors might be involved, too.....

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Every single year it happens: we Americans get together and exclaim over cutesy Pilgrim and Indian figures worshiping a cheap plastic squash holding court in the center of the table while we eat great quantities of food and then nap because we can't move our engorged bodies, so besotted are we with triptophan and wine.

Every single year, as we ramp up for this "Holiday", while we use the word "Thanksgiving" officially, the REAL meaning of the day is summed up in popular parlance: "Turkey Day".

Yup. It's all about the Almighty Turkey. As Fr. Charles succinctly observes, we even make sure those who cannot afford one to worship ( uh, I mean roast) have one, or a few, if need be. Not ham. Not chicken. Not roast beef. TURKEY. As the good Father says:

People start to show up at the door of the church to "get their turkey" with a spirit similar to the one that brings out the hordes to "get their ashes" or "get their palms." It cracks me up because turkey is actually very cheap as edible proteins go, and not without hazards and pitfalls when it comes to preparation. It's a symbolic thing, I know, a graced transaction that has more depth of meaning than economic need reveals.

In a thousand years, archaeologists are going to dig into our decaying yet somewhat-preserved belongings and our literature and our celluloid (film) and ascertain that we, as a culture, one day out of the year lose our minds and worship one of the dumbest and most useless animals on the planet.

I remember as a child, a CATHOLIC child, learning in public school about the Puritans who were escaping England in search of "religious freedom". Their biggest enemy: The Big Bad Catholic Church, under the auspices of the Church of England, but really...it was the "Romanists" they hated the most.

These poor innocent people, thanks be to God, arrived on the shores of the New World where they nearly died as a result of their ignorance and complete inability to survive. We all remember the story of Squanto, the nice Indian who taught them about corn.

I still remember decorating a paper bag and making a headband with "feathers" in his honor in school. I loved the "Indian" stuff. The Pilgrim things always seemed lame to me. Maybe it was because they were slandering my religion and I was on to them even before I realized how far their hatred of us went.

But I can certainly say I NEVER knew that it was at the hands of the Catholic Church that the Pilgrims survived...through the intercession of Squanto.

This information isn't contained in popular History. I don't know why. It's one of the BEST stories I've ever read about history, and I read it today, and reproduce it, in part, for you thanks to the good Fr. MacRae, who hails from his unjust imprisonment:

"Before boarding the Mayflower, the Pilgrims were called 'Separatists.' The religious 'persecution' these Puritan Fathers of America came here to flee consisted largely of their wish to expunge the remnants of Catholicism in the established Church of England. Philip Lawler summed this up in his book,The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture" (Encounter Books, 2008) :

“ …the Puritans were campaigning against the lingering traces of Catholicism. Decades of brutal persecution – first under Henry VIII, then under Elizabeth I – had eliminated the Roman Church from English public life in the sixteenth century; the country’s few remaining faithful Catholics had been driven underground. For the Puritans, that was not enough … They were determined to erase any vestigial belief in the sacraments, any deference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy.” (The Faithful Departed, p. 22).

G.K. Chesterton once famously remarked, “In America, they have a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims. Here in England, we should have a feast to celebrate their departure.”

Despite their disdain for Catholicism, it is one of the great ironies of American history that the Mayflower’s Puritan Pilgrims owe their very survival in the New World – indirectly at least – to the Catholic Church.

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Are you intrigued? Read on:

In 1614, six years before the arrival of the Mayflower, Captain John Smith (the same man rescued by Pocahontas in another famous tale) led two vessels to the coast of Maine to barter for fish and furs. When Smith departed from the Maine shore, he left a lieutenant, Thomas Hunt, in command to load the smaller ship with dried fish.

Without consultation, Hunt sailed his ship south into what is now called Cape Cod Bay. Anchored off the coast of Patuxet (now Plymouth) in 1614 Hunt and his men invited two dozen native villagers, including Squanto (Tisquantum) aboard their ship. Once aboard, the Indians - as the Europeans came to call them were forced at musket point into the ship's hold where they were chained. Kidnapped from their village and families, Hunt too them on a six-week journey across the Atlantic.

Not all the captured Indians survived the voyage. Those who did survive, Squanto among them, were taken to Malaga off the coast of Spain to be sold as slaves.

Fortunately for Squanto – and, later for our pilgrims – Spain was a Catholic country. In 1537, Pope Paul III issued “Sublimis Dei,” a papal bull forbidding Catholic governments from enslaving or mistreating Indians from the Americas. The Pope declared that Indians are “true men” and could not lawfully be deprived of liberty. The papal document declared that any Spanish intervention in the lives of Indians had to be motivated by benefit to the Indians themselves, and not to the Spanish

As a result, the Catholic Church in Spain strongly opposed mistreatment of Indians and opposed bringing them to Europe against their will At Malaga, Thomas Hunt managed to sell several of his Indian captives before two Catholic priests intervened. The priests seized and rescued the unsold Indians, including Squanto who somehow convinced the Spanish speaking priests to return him home.

Take note of the year: 1537. Note that in the meantime, Mexico was also being colonized by the Spanish, Missionaries were being sent, and note well that the Catholic Church was then and has ALWAYS been against slavery. This information will arise in another post more specific to that topic.

Go to Fr. MacRae's post to read about how Squanto (Tisquantum) found his way back to his Native soil to find his entire tribe dead, and, as the only Native American fluent both in their languages AND in English, convinced the Native leader, Massasoit, in what we now recognize as Plymouth, Massachusetts NOT to kill the Pilgrims, but rather, to allow him to speak for both.

It was because of Squanto that the Pilgrims survived. It was because of the Catholic Church that Squanto survived and returned to save them.

You won't read about that in school. Are you WILLING to read about it NOW and fall on your knees in Thanksgiving for God's Divine Providence? Go back and read the ENTIRE POST Fr. MacRae has to offer.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

I don't intend this post to be about the anti-Catholicism of the Pilgrims. Regardless of their hatred of us, of their faulty ideology and their complete ignorance, we owe them a debt of gratitude. These people risked their lives, many lost them, and it is because of them, in part, that this country was born. We owe them thanks for what they did, we should be offering prayers for their souls (because as they don't believe in Purgatory there is no one praying for them but us) and we owe Thanks to God for all He has done to make this country great.

It seems to me, though, in reality, we owe a far greater debt, to the Native Americans than we do the Pilgrims, for it is the Natives of this country who helped our founding families live, when they COULD have allowed them to simply starve to death. Yet, it seems to me that those who were branded as "savages" for so long were far more humane than those they harbored and taught to survive: the pathetic, ignorant, weak, anti-Catholic-to-the-death pilgrims.

Still, I'm not entirely sure that the Native Americans would look upon Squanto as a hero, and sadly, we who are of European descent have never been taught of his entire history and role in our survival. This is a HUGE disservice, both to the Native peoples and to our own ancestry. Can it be surmised that Tisquantum's actual life story is not presented to children or to the larger American audience because of the ties to the Catholics and Catholic ideology that saved him from Protestant slavery? It would be impossible to share his story without discussing what was behind it, and it seems to me it has been very purposefully suppressed. Why else would a nation fail to mention such a fascinating and epic life story of a man who united two worlds?

Such a history from the experience of a REAL hero is quite inconvenient to the romanticism and perfection of our founding Protestant European "saints" isn't it?

Five Kernels of Corn

We have to ask anew, after all this, WHAT, exactly, are we celebrating each year? How can we know if we've forgotten or have NEVER KNOWN our roots? All most of us know is the romanticized comfortable version of the first people to touch the shores of America, which doesn't tend to recognize the people who were already here and who enabled us to survive. It doesn't tend to mention, in the history books, the Hand of God who orchestrated the survival of our ancestors, or the heroic actions of real people like Tisquantum (Squanto) who gave his fiat to God in true charity, on behalf of the most destitute; our ancestors.

Our entire Nation is built upon poverty in every form.

A few years ago, one of my professors gave us a Thanksgiving lecture in the midst of our Scripture class, and I've never forgotten it. I can't forget his passion or the tears in his eyes, or the tears that fell from my own during his lecture. I was deeply moved. It should be mentioned that my professor had been raised and had been a Pastor in a Protestant religion, but had converted to Catholicism, so perhaps had a particular pain in his heart at the disunity and war that has always been present at the heart of America.

I posted this a few years ago but find it necessary to post it here again today, in its entirety. You can find the original here:

Many years ago, a ship set off from Europe, seeking greener pastures, a land of promise. They landed off course in winter, but decided to remain and eke out their new existance, and indeed, there the people settled. Their code was basic; the Lord is your God, and those who do not work shalt not eat.

That winter, food was rationed, and these completely unprepared people were also completely unequipped to battle for survival. Were it not for the intervention of the Native peoples, they all would have perished. During their worst days, all they had to eat, PER DAY, was 5 kernels of corn. Many died that winter.

And yet, they still had to continue working for survival, even under those rations:

FIVE. KERNELS. OF. CORN.

Some of them survived, and their new friends taught them how to plant corn and how to survive in this new land. When they had their first bountiful harvest, they celebrated. And it was not for only one day. NO! They celebrated as in Biblcal times...for a week! But they remembered their previous winter, and so to begin, they were each rationed 5 grains of corn, as a reminder. It was a solemn moment. There they were, before a repast fit for Kings and their Courts, and yet, in humility, they remembered their moments of the most abject poverty. They remembered the lives lost, the terrible journey, and the friendship and hard work that enabled their survival.

They knew they owed their very lives to God. And only 5 grains of corn was enough to remind them of their humble positions before their Maker.

Deuteronomy 8: 1-20

1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

6 Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

DO NOT take the Lord's mercy for granted. Do not make your "Thanksgiving" a moment of self-praise about what YOU have accomplished and built. Remember that the Lord, your God has given you EVERYTHING that you have, to the very air in your lungs. As you sit around the table before a sumptuous repast, remember our forefathers and what they suffered, remember your own moments, if you had them, of absolute poverty, and remember that all you now have is a gift. Invite God into your celebration, and if it so helps, as you offer your Thanksgiving prayers and blessings, set before you 5 grains of corn. And Remember whom you serve, and who it is who holds you in existance...and Praise Him.

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Thanksgiving, 2009

My friends, Give thanks to God for what you have received. Remember the humble roots from which you spring. Remember the sacrifices of the pilgrims, the origin of our nation, the importance of our Catholic faith, so ignored and even vilified with regard to the founding of this country. Take pride in who you are as Americans and remember that many martyrs made this country great. Remember the heroism of the Native Peoples who taught our beloved ancestors to survive, recognizing that were it not for them, we would not be who we are.

God bless you all, have a blessed Thanksgiving, and let the five kernels of corn forever remind you of the humility of your roots and the hand of God in your very being in ever single moment.

Give thanks to God...His mercy endures forever!