Abbey-Roads2

Remembering the dead.

November is the month Catholics do this, remember the dead in prayers and suffrages for their repose.

Pictured here is a photo of the “Purgatory Museum” in Rome. I’ve never visited it, but I’ve seen other photos. It’s interesting; scorched footprints and other signs of souls having visited from purgatory to implore prayers.

Padre Pio encountered souls from purgatory, as did St. John Mascias and many other saints. St. John Mascias was reputed to have freed thousands of souls from purgatory by his prayers, especially the rosary of Our Lady.

Halloween is a time when people love to retell ghost stories. I listened to a few on the radio in the car as I drove home tonight. It’s fun to listen to ghost stories.

This morning I arrived early at work and few employees were there yet. I heard a baby crying. I thought someone had brought one of their children to work, yet this was a baby, everyone there had older children - and no one had brought their children to work today. I looked outside, no one was on the street. I asked if anyone else heard it, no one had. I thought it may have been a radio - but it wasn’t. It was eerie. What if…

In high school, my friends and I used to sit in another friend’s car, at night, outside a house that resembled the architecture of the Dakota in NYC - the building “Rosemary’s Baby” was filmed at. The house we sat outside of is alleged to be haunted. We sat for hours, freaking ourselves out thinking we saw something. It was so fun. The house is still there. It used to be where a witch lived and a gathering spot for people in the occult. In fact, a few years later, when I worked at Dayton’s, it turned out that a couple of co-workers, the Director included, used to meet at the house. They were wiccans, or as I came to refer to them, bitches. Very decadent and nasty people they were.

One of our friend’s Dad was a meter reader for the city and this haunted house was on his route. He claimed many unusual experiences in that house. The only one I can clearly remember is that something knuckled him on his head when he was in the basement reading the meter - and he left immediately. He had another story about seeing something, a figure standing on a stairway, that suddenly disappeared. That is pretty much why we sat outside the house late at night in high school scaring ourselves.

Down that same avenue, Summit Avenue in St. Paul, was an old house our 6th grade teacher, Sr. Lillian, told us was haunted. She said it had been torn down and exorcism salt had been sprinkled upon it. Later a school for handicap children was built on the spot and it was called Christ Child School. She was a nun, so we had to believe her.

I’ve never seen a ghost - or a soul from purgatory - but the stories are cool.

Kids like the occult - they are fascinated by it. It is reason to guard, or guide their reading and entertainment. I think of “Harry Potter” - I appreciate the fantasy, but if I were a kid, I’d want to be a witch after reading it. I would definitely delve deeper into the occult as a result.

It is interesting that the root of the word ‘fascinate’ comes from the French, ‘fasciner’ meaning to entrance or charm, as in witchcraft, while our modern usage of the term still relates to the meaning, to be bewitched or held spell bound.

Fascinating!

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Crucifixion, Thomas Eakins

“In his own pain and agony, Jesus helps us to grasp the mystery of human pain;
the mystery of our own wounds, our fragility and our brokenness,
our fear of rejection or of having no place in society…

We do not need to live our entire lives angry
with our past or with our weakness.
We do not need to be resentful towards our parents,
our society or the Church
because they have hurt us.
We are called to discover that no pain is ever useless.
Nothing is lost.
Jesus welcomes everything that is broken.
If we give him our weakness
he will transform it into a source of life. -Jean Vanier

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An ‘All Hallows’ Meme (Memes are kind of high school, don’t you think? Who cares - it’s Halloween.)

Fr. Martin Fox (Bonfire of the Vanities fame - a blog name I wanted!) tagged the first 5 people who acknowledged reading his post - so I’ll do it - especially since the joke I posted earlier today on this blog wasn’t well received. (It was so funny - for me.)

If you were invited to a Halloween/ All Saints Day Costume Party, which saint would you dress up as and why? (The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, is not an option.)

St. Benedict Joseph Labre. Because he wore trousers and I like him - he was a wonderful contemplative and layman. I’d be much crazier than he actually was however - I wouldn’t show up at the party.

Which saint or other person would accompany you to the party?

St. Raphael Archangel, because he is the patron of pilgrims and he knew how to cook fish.

What famous quote would help others identify you?

“Lice? What lice?”

Describe your costume.

Ripped and torn too tight knickers over torn tights with a Franciscan cord, a Seinfeld pirate shirt under a a filthy waistcoat with a rosary around my neck. Bed hair like Joe Trojack’s, and little plastic glitter bugs all over my clothes and in my hair.

Which movie or film best depicts the life of this saint?

A Robin Williams film about a crazy homeless man - unfortunately, I can’t recall the title. It wasn’t about St. Benedict, but Robin’s character reminded me of him - or people like him.

What is your favorite book written about this saint or that he or she has written?

His biography - the title or author I can’t remember, in addition, the writings for the process of his canonization, of which I have a very old book, in French, that I can only read with great effort.

As Fr. Fox wrote, I tag the first five people who acknowledge reading this. (No one reads this blog, so I guess it ends here.)

If a crazy blogger speaks in a forest, does anyone hear him? Is he still crazy?

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Or rather, the Monastery.

The monastery may be likened to a spiritual meadow, or oasis amidst the spiritual wasteland of our world. Shown here is a rather bleak photo of the monastery I was a member of for a short time as a novice, New Melleray Abbey. It’s an old community living there now, very small compared to the 150 members residing there in the 1950’s. (With approximately 35 monks or less today, some believe it is a community heading for extinction, but the monks have experienced such a drought of vocations in the late 1800’s or so as well.)

When I left, one of the monks drove me into town so that I could get my connection home. His advice for me came in the form of a psalm, Psalm 1 to be exact. (He had memorized the entire psalter.) Today’s responsorial psalm is Psalm 1:

Happy the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent (scorners)
But delights in the law of the Lord
and meditates on his law day and night.

I haven’t always followed these counsels. Most of my friends, well, many of my friends, have been relatively irreligious people, they would say they were ’spiritual’ but not religious. Most of these friends are no longer part of my life - due in part, to irreconcilable differences. I never preached to them, but my faith seemed to have been an irritation to them in many cases. Others may have been able to “blow it off” - my Catholicism that is, nevertheless I realized they were not a good influence in my life.

A co-worker said I was influenced by my liberal friends and their political views; to some degree I am, yet not governed by them. A person may speak and understand French, but that doesn’t mean he is French. One may be sympathetic to liberal ideas, even understanding them, without adhering to them, or being ruled by them. I no longer sit in the company of scorners, nor the insolent self-righteous.

Another dear friend mentioned in an email that he and his wife wondered why I am so solitary, why I am not very social. I rarely find any rapport with the religiously doctrinaire either. They can be just as annoying as my more secularized friends. Both groups have a propensity for absolutes. The way that leads to eternal life is indeed narrow, and sometimes those on the way of perfection are as well. The scorners, the scoffers, and the insolent are not always those outside the Church. especially when they believe they are more Catholic than the pope.

I don’t like to debate and argue and scoff all of the time - it’s annoying. My best friends respect my solitude, and they know I love them.

I like my solitude. A Carmelite once told me that solitude does not preclude friendship. Neither does silence imply one does not speak.

(The meaning of Las Vegas is ‘the meadow’ or a sort of oasis.)

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Pictured, Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, a saint with mental illness.

I cannot remember where I heard or read that phrase; “the sin of the Gentiles is they lack charity.” I assumed it was from Romans - yet I searched every translation available many times without finding it. I may have had a dream years ago wherein I heard the words. I don’t know. For at least 30 years the phrase has ruminated in my heart from time to time. It re-emerged in my thoughts again today - probably because I was thinking of Jean Vanier and his life with the disabled.

The wounded and vulnerable among us call out to our vulnerability, exposing our fears of pain and loss and failure. It is written that love casts out all fear, thus, if we do not love, if we have not charity, we close ourselves off from those who need us.

Anger and contempt can result in apathy - which, I think can be a form of violence in itself because of its injustice. Our world is full of it. It strikes me that we need to lose in order to win. In the United States, we hate to lose.

We so need to understand our relationship with the less fortunate, the disabled, the “losers” of our society, who cry out for relationship. Our fear of relationship is our fear of the pain that may be encountered in the exposure of our own vulnerability. Or perhaps causing us to experience our own brokenness - that which we expend so much effort to deny. In the case of the self-sufficient, it may be a prideful conceit refusing to acknowledge weakness in others, lest it contaminate their self-sufficiency. I guess that is pride - the pride of life.

I’m simply thinking about these things today.

I obviously cannot express them well.

However, I think all the sins of my life have had their root in the phrase, “The sin of the Gentiles is they lack charity.”

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Along with the mentally ill, and anyone else with some sort of handicap or disability?

In the history of man, we have relegated people with disabilities to anonymity, segregating them from normal society. Think of leper colonies, mental institutions, what have you. Or families, such as the Kennedys who put their daughter Rosemary in an institution after a botched lobotomy. (A family rich enough to care for her at home by the way - yet she was an embarrassment for them. Although, it was very common to institutionalize people with disabilities in those days.)

We often ignore the handicapped, or pretend we don’t notice. Some of us complain that they have special privileges, such as prime parking spots, or automatic doorways and special restroom facilities.

In today’s Gospel, everyone was trying to get rid of the blind Bartimaeus, rebuking him and trying to silence him. How many times did Christ’s very disciples try to get rid of the pesky lame; the woman with the hemorrhage, being one of them. “Get rid of her.” they said.

In modern times, Nazi Germany tried to get rid of anyone with mental disabilities. The Holocaust started out with the extermination of the disabled and elderly. That mindset is not too distant in our age known as the Culture of Death. While we legislate concessions for the handicapped in the business world, requiring employers to make accomodations in the workplace for those with disabilities. That is a good thing, albeit some employers resent it, along with other employees who feel themselves somehow discriminated against by the implementation of these special privileges.

This morning I remembered Jean Vanier, the founder of l’Arche. L’Arche is a community that began in France by the Canadian born Vanier. He invited into his home people suffering from severe mental handicaps. He lives with them in a family setting, caring for them, but above all providing a safe place where they might live in dignity, ennobled by the love and compassion of Jean Vanier and his co-workers. He never condescended, or pitied them, rather he treated these brothers and sisters as fellow human beings with value and purpose.

What is their purpose - why does God permit this? They have a purpose, to be sure, otherwise God would not have called them into existence. I sometimes wonder if they are not God’s very precious gift to humanity. That they are here to teach us how to love, to exercise ourselves in charity. To illustrate for us what is important in life, that our success, our status is fleeting. When I meet such people, I am deeply touched by their innocence, their candor, and in many instances, their joy.

On the other hand, there are those who are angry and loud, their disabilities exacerbated by unacceptable behaviors, as well as alcoholism or drug abuse, or some other moral failing, for which they are not completely responsible. These people seem to be the most challenging to love, much less tolerate. These are the ones many of us say should be locked away. Yet these too are invited to the Heavenly Banquet, these are the children Jesus says we must allow to come to him, not hindering them, these, as with Bartimaeus, he commands, “Bring them to me.”

We live in a country wherein most pets have a better life than the homeless, the mentally ill, and the marginalized poor. Yet one would think, that these animals we treasure as part of our family, could teach us to care even more for others who may be dependant upon the charity of others. After all, we are not above cleaning up the bodily eliminations of our pets, feeding them, caressing them, supplying top medical care for them. Yet for some reason, we can easily dismiss a person with special needs, ignoring them all together. When, if we could embrace them in their disabilities, look into their eyes and see our own humanity, in all of it’s frailty, we might be free enough to love, to compassionate, to exercise ourselves in charity with the donation of our very self.

“I will gather them from the ends of the earth, with the blind and the lame in their midst.” 1st reading of the day, Jeremiah 31.

The blind and the lame will always be in our midst - it is their vocation - they are our helpers on the way to Heaven. Let us strive more deliberately to love one another - even the seemingly most unlovable amongst us.

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Nothing is impossible for God.

A book by Nancy Klein Maguire about “the trial of faith of five young men in the Western world’s most austere monastic order.” It deals with five young men who entered the Carthusian Charterhouse at Parkminster in Britain in the 1960’s. I found it on our reject shelves! Books decided against for the catalog are placed there. It was the galley copy as well - which means we got it early in the year. It’s one of the hottest books of the year as regards monasticism - and we are not carrying it.

I’m reading it now and I will be ordering it for the Store.

Reading short snippets of the book left me nostalgic - if only I could have died at the Chartehouse in Vermont when I was there, since I could not enter. Just looking at the photo of the Carthusian in his cell breaks my heart.

The one account I began reading caused me to reflect on the proper candidate for Carthusian eremetic life, as well as for other forms of contemplative life. It is a high standard to meet if one wishes to be enclosed for the rest of one’s life. The person generally needs a stable family background, to be free of psychological disorders of any kind, and able to live chastely. Of course, a person needs to be deeply in love with Our Lord Jesus Christ and longing for an intimate relationship with him through prayer - even to the point of complete detachment from one’s personal devotions and manner of prayer. Then comes obedience.

The candidate must be willing and able to take direction and live in obedience, allowing himself to be taught, as well as guided in the spiritual life.

Good vocations come from good homes. The thought kept going through my mind. One may have every quality and every virtue necessary for Carthusian life, yet if there is any lack of stability that has affected the candidate’s life, from early childhood onwards, the fellow will have a rough time of it and most likely will not persevere.

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and your Mom is your girlfriend.

A week or so ago, on ‘Good Morning America’ there was a spot about mothers and daughters hanging out together, going to clubs, drinking, all the things a young woman would do with girlfriends her own age.

Many mothers may have always wanted their daughters to be their best friends, and they raised them to be. When that happens, it is easy for boundaries to become blurred; inappropriate behavior gets overlooked. The mother abdicates her role for the sake of having a friend.

I have relatives who are mother and daughter and go on trips together, hang out together, shop together, do everything together - they are best friends; night-clubbing buddies.

Often, but not always, the mother is divorced and the daughter is single. They shop together, dress similarly, and party together. It’s creepy. Imagine being with your mom when two guys hit on you both. Or just out night clubbing, and you both drink too much, and you are both loud mouthed, and obnoxious. It’s weird.

What has happened to some mothers that they relinquish their position as role model, guide, mentor, and safe refuge and counsel? It’s not always a divorced mother who acts thus. What is the root of it? Is the mother living vicariously through her daughter? Or does she want to retain her youth by becoming her daughter’s girlfriend?

Maybe it is another indication of the breakdown of the family and the corruption of morals, so prevalent in our culture. Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me, good mother and daughter friendships should retain a semblance of propriety and hierarchy. A daughter isn’t a sister after all.

It’s a curious phenomenon, happening with greater frequency. Of course, maybe it’s just me, my parents were the last people on earth I wanted to hang out with.

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- At a gay bar.

Driving home from work tonight I noticed a car ahead of me with rather entertaining bumper stickers - a profusion of them. (Why would you wreck your car with any type of bumper sticker?)

The woman had a rainbow “Z” or Harry Potter mark. A “jesus fish” with the word “pagan” enclosed. Another one that said, “My other vehicle is a broom”. With an assortment of other GLBT stickers. I always see these cars in St. Paul it seems, it’s really a dyke town over there. (The dykes seem to get into wearing their politics on their cars. Oh well, it is provocative.)

So I wondered - are lesbians so much into paganism and witchcraft? It must be the illusion of power they are after. Or maybe all witches have been dykes? Whatever, I realized Halloween, the dark side of Halloween, is really a gay holiday as well. (I wonder if psychological disorders, such as ‘gender identity’ confusion and ‘arrested development’ have anything to do with it?)

Nevertheless this is the season for Drag Balls; drag kings and queens delight in this holiday - it’s the hi-light of the year for some. However, as I said, depending upon the gay bar, every night is sort of a Halloween. The leather bars have men in costume all of the time, leather chaps, vests over bare chests with numerous piercings, wierd quasi motorcyle/Nazi type costumes, etc. There are other bars with nightly drag shows and male strippers. Most people in a gay bar are in some sort of drag - even if they look like a regular guy or gal. It’s a sexually charged, superficial milieu.

What is it however, about paganism, or nature worship, that attracts the gay community? Is “New Age” spirituality gay, or is it just inclusive? If Wicca is nature-religion based, how do unnatural sexual acts fit in? It seems contradictory in essence. At the same time, it may demonstrate the “diabolical delusion” inherent in such a spirituality.

Years ago, nearly our entire Presentation Department, along with Marketing (at Dayton’s-Marshall Fields) would attend the drag ball. (Mainly because co-workers were attending in drag - and you had to see them!) I was very young. It was fun, no one has hotter music than gay people, the drinks were loaded, you could ’smoke’ if you wanted to, with other drugs available in the men’s room. It was like Carnival. You don’t have to be gay to attend - did you ever see the film, “The Bird Cage”? It’s like that.

Obviously, GLBT people have their cult. I imagine that is one reason why they hate the Catholic Church. The Church could never recognize such a cult, much less such a spirituality. (Although some gay-friendly, so-called Catholic Churches and communities do so.)

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