Abbey-Roads2

Actually - it’s “Glamorama” week at Dayton’s-Marshall Fields - oops! Macy’s now. At least Macy’s continued “Glamorama” - a Dayton invention carried over when they acquired Marshall Fields. (I hate Macy’s - never liked the store, not even in “Miracle on 34th Street”, much less in “Auntie Mame” - those are old movies for you toddlers. And professionally speaking, the NYC flagship store was never done well and couldn’t hold a candle to Dayton’s in it’s golden age with Andrew Markopolous - I was there!)

Anyway, a co-worker whom I respect, whose sister worked for - I believe - Calvin Klein in NYC and whose mother looks like a jet-set fashionista, (Neither would endorse these designs.) approached me with the idea of selling modest fashions in our Store. He directed me to his friends website. This site and the other I will refer to both look so 1950’s and dated, it’s hard to imagine they would attract anyone under 70 years old.

This white dress photo is representative of the fashions they offer - made in Vietnam - by who? For how much money Kathy Lee? It looks like ‘farmer in the dell’ clothing. I know modest clothes are hard to come by, but I’d rather have my wife or daughter go vintage than buy clothes that look like this. These are not fashionable clothes. If a young girl or young woman were to wear these she would look like the late Queen Mother from the British Royal Family.

Anyway - there is no way we will be selling or promoting clothes like these anytime soon. We stop at chapel veils.

Another co-worker, well a couple of them, also like this site “She Maketh Herself Coverings” - the site is so lame I can’t bring myself to post any photos. Looking at these sites makes me think of my friends who joined a community called Hutterite Bretheren - I always asked them, “Do you have to wear those outfits?” I mean it’s bad enough that they left the Church to join a Protestant group, but the clothes…

I think some Catholics must be headed in that direction as well. They claim to be offering fashionable clothes, but fashionable when?

Well, I did it, I told my co-worker I’d at least mention the website on my blog - I deleted the name out of respect for the proprietors. (I hope he doesn’t make his wife dress like this! Gosh! It’s just creepy! I’m going to our Christmas party just to talk to his mother and find out what’s up with him - and I’ll still be able to leave before the dinner.)

The “Drive Time Divas” on 107 FM, Lori and Julia, daily at 3-6PM.

Yeah, I listen to the show - I discovered it by accident while driving home one night about a year ago. Lori sounded to me like the “Cat Lady” from a bit on KQ. I listened because it was like overhearing women’s conversation in a powder room. I was curious - is that really what women talk about? (Men often want to know, since they usually can’t figure out what they just said.) Sometimes it’s pretty funny - LOL funny.

Niether woman is very intelligent - probably good business women, but they are not that bright. They continually mispronounce and misuse words, that are obviously “too big for them”. Lori really does believe she is a diva, sort of a fashion expert. I don’t know if it was Lori or Julia who sold shoes at Dayton’s in Downtown St. Paul, always one of the “B” stores of the corporation. St. Paul has never been remarkable for many fashionable divas as far as I can remember. The girls are indeed very “St. Paul” so that could be another tag line for them after the John Gielgud quote. (Actually Lori is from the Duluth-Superior area - and she does like to bowl, in fact she is on a league.)

Anyway, last evening they were at “Uber Baby”, a maternity store not far from my house in South Minneapolis. Lori said she was wearing a pregnant styrofoam stomach. The jokes came around to Halloween, she said she was going as a pregnant nun and Julia could be the priest who got her pregnant. The jokes got worse, as is usual. Lori’s been married about 4 times before and obviously has been a pretty sexually active chick. Their conversation always devolves into the type of sexual conversation that one would be more apt to hear amongst adolescents in a locker room. I flip the station when it gets that bad. (The evening before Lori was talking about big cucumbers.)

Lori and Julia seem to be rather typical of some modern working women - not the executives, rather more the office types in their cubicals - or at least their large audience may be tempted to think they typify these types; they are pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-promiscuous, self absorbed, narcissistic - gosh, what else? Julia is the Catholic one, she went to St. Gregory’s in St. Paul as a child, now however, I think she probably attends St. Ambrose in Woodbury. I’m fairly certain she does not know her faith all that well.

As you might have guessed, I’m growing weary of their mindless banter…but I’ll be back now and again for a laugh on the drive home.

The priest with the stigmata.

I painted this icon of Padre Pio several years ago, before he had been beatified. It now resides in the exquisite “Winter Chapel” attached to the Church of St. Louis, King of France in St. Paul, Minnesota. It hangs across from the confessional. It is a chapel filled with fine art and architectural detail, so I am honored that it was chosen for the space.

I painted it one day after a vivid dream the night before, a dream that seemed more like a vision. In the dream, I was in Moscow’s Red Square and entered the cathedral of St. Basil. When I looked up, the dome exploded off, and there was Padre, in the sky in this pose, blessing the world, the sky behind him all aflame, red and golden.

I never expected him to be canonized in my lifetime. It seemed only very traditional and pious Catholics continued to pay any attention to him after his death. I more or less hid my devotion lest I be considered one of these people. Priests and monks I knew were suspicious of Padre Pio, his charismata, his seemingly pre-Vatican II spirituality, as well as his chapel veiled followers. I never told anyone when I went to his tomb to venerate his relics, which was a great grace for me. Since my early childhood I had always hoped to visit him, but it was only after his death that I was able.

Then John Paul II declared this man a saint, the man other popes were suspicious of and who preferred silenced and out of the way, which his bishop and superiors did for a time. As a saint, held forth for the entire Church to venerate, he has become a figure open for all Christians to revere, with the example and witness of his life to instruct and guide the faithful in the way of holiness. He was something of a prophet, holding on to the solid traditions of the Roman Catholic faith, the very same sacred traditions being renewed in our day.

Pray for us St. Pio, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.

[Prints of the icon may be obtained from Bridge Building Images.]