Names mean something. In the ancient world, the cauldron of cultures where Israel took shape, all words were performative: they called into existence what they described. Names and titles defined relationship. One’s true name was a word of immense power, guarded carefully. To entrust another with one’s name was an act of the deepest intimacy because of the vulnerability such a revelation implied. Tonight we chant the second of the O Antiphons, and we invoke the Messiah by one of... Read more
Tonight they begin, the seven prophetic antiphons chanted before and after the Magnificat at Vespers. Each invokes the Messiah by one of his scriptural titles, and each calls on us to prepare a place for him–at his coming now and at his Final Coming–with an attitude that demonstrates our readiness. So, for December 17, O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. O Wisdom, who... Read more
Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. —Alfred Tennyson, “The Passing of Arthur,” from Idylls of the King What changed that day was everything. Yes, with apologies to post-Boomers, this anniversary—like the past 50 years—is all about us. Of course we remember Where We Were, and not just because that was the day nonstop media coverage sprang to life to... Read more
When the story of the hard life and lonely death of former Duquesne University adjunct Margaret Mary Vojtko first lit up the Internet (prompted by labor lawyer Daniel Kovalik’s September op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), attention focused on the harsh treatment of adjuncts by universities in general, and the supposed Grinchishly unChristian treatment of this adjunct by Catholic Duquesne in particular. Beyond tweeting #IAmMargaretMary in righteous solidarity, very few saw Madame Vojtko as anything more than an elderly poster child... Read more
Saw this Reuters story, Catholic rebel Kueng, 85, considers assisted suicide, today courtesy of my Patheos neighbor Frank Weathers, who’s painting pillars and has no time to comment on those who like to pull them down. Hans Kueng, Roman Catholicism’s best known rebel theologian, is considering capping a life of challenges to the Vatican with a final act of dissent – assisted suicide. Kueng, now 85 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, writes in final volume of his memoirs that... Read more
It’s Tuesday, and Pope Francis is smacking gobs again. We’re still waiting for a better English translation of his latest published conversation with La Repubblica founder Eugenio Scalfari , but it’s safe to say there’s a lot of seasickness aboard ye olde Barque of Peter this morning. Again. My gob has been so far pretty unsmackable, but a few pull quotes from this latest piece made me reach for the spiritual Dramamine. One, in particular, seemed to be a... Read more
When will writers bent on revealing the shocking / faith-shattering / never before heard or imagined / this proves you believers are stupid / all of the above facts about the “historical Jesus” ever learn that it doesn’t matter? The worship and love Jesus’ followers have for him, the witness and sacrifice and courage and charity he inspires in them, depend not one whit—not a jot or a tittle, to put it scripturally—on what passes for objective historical fact. The... Read more
While we in the US—Catholics, the media—are still parsing and praying over last week’s papal interview, Pope Francis himself is wasting no time in issuing marching orders (H/T The Deacon’s Bench). “Am I indifferent or is it like someone in the family is suffering?” he asked. He asked everyone to be honest with themselves and respond in their hearts: “How many of you pray for Christians who are persecuted” and for those who are in difficulty for professing and defending... Read more
No matter how you spin it, the papal interview published last Thursday has prompted some remarkable soul-searching. When that seed fell on the good ground here in the Patheos Catholic neighborhood and environs, it was as though the spring rains had come to California’s high desert. Something impossibly beautiful is blooming in the way that Catholics of all ages and conditions and walks of life and places on the gameboard are wrangling personally with what they hear in Pope... Read more
Hear this! A pope went out to give an interview. And as he talked, some of his words fell to the media, and those birds gobbled them up before they could even be heard. Others of his words fell to those who didn’t understand his context. They received his message with joy, but the first time it occurred to them how difficult it would be to live by those words, their enthusiasm withered like seedlings in a drought. Some of his... Read more
Egregious Twaddle
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