Abbey-Roads2

The Hawthorne Dominicans… leaving St. Paul, Minnesota…

What a group!  The most generous women I have ever met.  They live what once was referred to as a semi-cloistered life, devoted to the Eucharist, living the Dominican charism of prayer, study, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the most Holy Rosary, with unequaled dedication to caring for the terminally ill cancer patient. 

Beyond hospice.

Their Cancer Homes are free - totally free - no charge to patients or their families, pride of place is given to those guests who cannot afford care in any other nursing situation.  The nuns do not accept State or Federal funding, nothing from the United Way, and have operated their homes completely dependent upon Divine Providence and the generosity of donors.  They will not even accept gifts of gratitude from patients or their families.  The Sisters homes are all state of the art medical facilities and comfortable homelike living environments for those whose lives are ending.

Total life care.

The nuns literally serve their patient-guests, treating them with dignity and love, without concern for religious affiliation, race or lifestyle.  They were doing the work of the Missionaries of Charity before Mother Teresa established her order.  They work seven days a week, sometimes working double shifts, to personally care for their patient-guests.  It is a generous life, founded by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, in NYC.  Rose took the religious name of Mother Alphonsus, and her cause for canonization is currently underway.

Our Lady of Good Counsel Free Cancer Home, St. Paul, Minnesota.

I heard from a social worker a few weeks ago that the Cancer Home in St. Paul is closing.  The Home was founded by Mother Alphonsus’ protege, Mother Rose Huber in 1941 on Pearl harbor day, December 7.  Today a lady from my parish confirmed  for me the Home may not be closing entirely, although the Dominican Sisters will indeed be leaving.  Supposedly the Archdiocese is working on a plan to keep it open, although it may not remain a nursing facility exclusively for cancer patients.  Nothing is decided as to its future, and they continue to accept patients.

Leaving St. Paul.

What is certain is that the Sisters will be leaving.  Such sad news.  It is the third Home the Order has closed in the last decade.  Five more Homes remain open.  (I do not know the dates for closing OLGC Home.)  Obviously there are not enough vocations to replace  the Sisters who are aging, incapacitated, or dying.  Please pray.  Pray for vocations, and pray especially for the good Sisters of the Hawthorne Dominicans.  Young women - drop out of college, quit your career, stop serving in a 9-5 job at your parish and really minister to the poor - forget dating and travel, even leave your boyfriends - for Christ.  If you are widowed and your children are grown, enter the Hawthorne Dominicans.  The sick and the poor need you.

The Church needs you… we need you.

With the loss of Catholic hospitals founded and operated by religious congregations, along with the closing of health care facilities such as the Cancer Home in St. Paul, we are experiencing first hand the terrible effects the decline in religious vocations has upon the Church, often resulting in the subsequent elimination of spiritual solace and Christian charity millions of Catholics once took for granted - many even considering it a right.  Pray for vocations.

Links:

Rosary Hill Home and Motherhouse.

Rose Hawthorne

Our Lady of Good Councel Home

Cries and whispers.

I read somewhere that it offends God if we pray, “O Lord, why was I even born?  It would have been better if I were never conceived.”  If you think that through, you can understand why it would offend Him.  But today’s Mass reading from Job is not offensive, because the prophet allows for his birth, his existence - which is a gift from God - though he wishes to forget that day.  He simply wonders, laments aloud his circumstances.  It is a cry from the depths of his very soul, moaning and weeping dry, brittle tears, in the terror of the night of faith…  Confronting false friends who accuse and contend with him, in their misguided efforts to console.

Why did you let me live?

I have often asked that… recalling those times when I was almost killed, or very sick: but only God can answer such a question.  It is similar to Job’s prayer:  “Why did I not perish at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?  Or why was I not buried away like an untimely birth, like babies who have never seen the light?”  And later he questions:  “Why is light given to the toilers, and life to the bitter in spirit?  They wait for death and it comes not; they search for it rather than for hidden treasures, rejoice in it exultingly…” (job 3)

“Rejoice in it exultantly…”

I think of that ending line in terms of what the mystics say about interior joy, though it is often not felt.  It is a mysterious grace in the midst of this long loneliness… difficult to grasp - perhaps impossible, until we meditate upon the quote from Job, St. Therese of the Child Jesus loved so much:  “Though He should kill me, I trust Him still.”  Trust.  Hope.  A certain interior joy is present in those words, poured out in love. 

And yet she cautioned her sisters to take the medicines away from the patients bed, lest, in their agony and longing for death, they use them to overdose and kill themselves.

This evening is the transitus of our little St. Therese of Lisieux, a saint who surely understands us in our failures, weaknesses, and sufferings. 

Don’t try to stop me!

Seriously, pray for all the people who will lose their jobs, their homes, maybe even their lives, in this financial crises.

Photo source.

The following quote has haunted me since I read it:

“Of course people don’t want war. Why should a poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best thing he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” - Hermann Goering (Thanks to Western Confucian)

Then today I read this:

“Thus far, history has not yet given humanity a just war. Despite philosophical or theological rationalizations, there is no such animal as a just war. Only fools say otherwise. Only clowns wear smiles during war. And only those, whose business is war, rejoice when war is actually waged.” - Oscar Cruz, Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan (Thanks to Rorate Caeli)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!

“Stay sober and alert.  Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, solid in your faith!” - 1 Peter 5:8-9

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him we humbly pray and do thou O Prince of the Heavenly Host cast into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl the world, seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

No blog is an island… the NCR take on Catholic blogs.

National Catholic Reporter’s Patrick Gallagher wrote a very good article, or “guide to Catholic blogs” recently.  The consensus - pretty much what I usually say.  Pointing to the relatively few readers the average blog has, I am sure Gallagher took this quote from one of my favorite cantankerous-old-men in the blogosphere, Jeffrey of Roving Medievalist, when he asked, ““How many of your friends and neighbors read Catholic blogs?”  (Jeffery was probably putting me down at the time.  LOL!)

Most of the blogs Gallagher cites are those I rarely read, except for Vox Nova and Fr. Z - I check them out every day at least twice.  Fr. Zuhlsdorf just passed the 4 million mark on WDTPRS today - congratulations Father!  You really are number 1!  Anyway, Gallagher also notes Vox Nova is perhaps one of the only ‘liberal’ Catholic blogs, while most of the others are pretty traditional.  I think the very traditional blogs may be those Fr. James Martin SJ is referencing here:  “Some Catholic blogs are a place to trade mean-spirited insults about Catholics with whom the bloggers disagree. Some of the more vituperative blogs seem barely Christian, let alone Catholic.”   Whereas Gallgher goes on to affirm:  “A majority of Catholic blogs are “traditional” or “orthodox,” resisting changes in the church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and seeking a restoration of pre-Vatican II liturgy, architecture and common devotions. Frequently, these blogs are also politically conservative.”    I pretty much agree, although “resisting changes since Vatican II” is an exaggeration for the most part - resisting innovations in the “spirit of Vatican II”  would be more accurate. 

A few of my favorite issues the article brought out:

“The Internet is not a vacuum, and no blog is an island. Bloggers frequently link to other blogs, repeating items and often adding their own take. The overachieving Christopher Blosser, who participates in several blogs through his Ratzinger Fan Club Web site, says of this information sharing: “The Catholic blogosphere, like the blogging world in general, is a vehicle for rumor-mongering and rumor-quelling.” More pointedly, John L. Allen Jr., of the National Catholic Reporter, said some Catholic blogs “provide a vehicle for a lot of bogus information to enter the public bloodstream.”

While bloggers often link to other blogs or other media to build ideas, some aim to destroy, as Fr. Martin indicated earlier. Most bloggers will argue, with some justification, that they are attacking the argument, not the person. While that’s generally true, it’s easy to see how the venom directed at someone’s words can sting the speaker and his or her supporters. Even more, it’s blog readers who cross the line. Most blogs include comments sections — “comboxes” for short (not for nothing does the word resemble “combat”), where readers can add their own thoughts, and sometimes no holds are barred. When Gerald Augustinus of the otherwise reliably orthodox “Cafeteria Is Closed” blog wrote of his support for gay rights this past March, he was hit with a barrage of hostile comments that went on for a month. A sampling: “Whether or not you realize it, on this issue you are a pseudo disciple of Satan!” “As to your new militant pro-sodomite stance, I will be reporting these posts of yours to the Catholic League as soon as possible. … Hope to see you soon at your own personal auto-de-fé. You brought this all on yourself. Apostate.”

Fr. Martin suggested that blogs let us meet our “fellow Catholics.” I find that blogs can be enlightening, infuriating, dispiriting, enriching and informing. A lot like my fellow Catholics.” - NCR 

Yeah.  So now I know what a nutcase I come across as to the average reader.  How embarrassing!

And the sweetest one of them died 30 years ago today.

Remembering John Paul I.

(Thanks to Fr. Z  for the  reminder.)

And dissimulation.

One of my very worst traits is that I have no patience with inconsistencies.  (Having grown up in an alcoholic-dysfunctional family can be blamed for that.)  For instance, I absolutely hate it that Church policy says that homosexuals cannot be admitted to ordination to the priesthood, and yet they are - with all sorts of excuses to support it.  (Yes, yes.  I understand if a man renounces homosexuality and agrees to live according to Church teaching, and there is no occasion for scandal, etc. - then a dispensation can be made.  I got that message.) 

That said, I can’t understand how  a homosexual man can be so easily fired from his job as a choir director for a parish  (the same job that provided health benefits, house payments, and a retirement plan), while another high profile, so-called gay-lifestyle-advocate  man can be received into a highly distinguished Order in the Roman Catholic Church.

By a Cardinal yet.

Cardinal Egan will be inducting gay-lifestyle promoter Peter Rapanaro, the director of “My Big Gay Italian Wedding” into the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem this Saturday. -   Blog source  By now, a done deal.

So what is the Equestrian Order?

The announcement explained it thus:

The honor is being bestowed on Mr. Rapanaro for his ceaseless lifelong dedication of service to the Diocese in which he has performed thousands of marriages, christenings and funerals, bringing both joy and solace with his God-given voice. His televised masses, locally on Channel 55 WLNY TV and Telicare Stations Channel 10 and nationally on EWTN stations, bring his vocal gifts to an even larger audience.

“The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre” is reserved solely for those practicing the shared faith with the Sovereign Pontiff his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. The Investiture ceremony requires the pledge of Defense of the Faith with a Profession of Faith. Mr. Rapanaro will be the featured vocalist at the Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and will be honored at a black tie dinner later this day, at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel. - Source

On their high horse.

Now it should come as no surprise that the Order most likely has its share of gay people on their roster - they just may not be public about it.  I don’t know if this Rapanaro guy is gay, but as his work reveals, he certainly does seem to be something of an advocate for the gay lifestyle.  (The Equestrian Order is also very much about money and status - but of course - it would be unfair if I did not mention they do great good and provide a genuine service to the Church.  See links below.) 

Mixed messages.

The great inconsistency I see here is this:  A man who worked for years for the Church loses his job at his parish because he lives with his partner.  Fine - if it was a scandal to the faithful, then something had  to be done.  Yet to then turn around and discover that lavish honors were conferred on another man, whose work itself may be a source of scandal - albeit in a different diocese - the inconsistency and injustice is obvious.  One man’s career and reputation is destroyed, while another with a similar profile is exalted by the Church.  It is difficult to understand how Church teaching is clearly affirmed by such actions. 

Although to object is to be labeled a bigot.

Really?  Tell that to men and women who have freely renounced homosexuality, joining other chaste and celibate men and women of every state and situation in life, to follow Christ.  Those who have refused to compromise with worldly standards, and who have denied their very self as regards relationships and friendships, even jobs and positions, for the sake of the Gospel.  And although leading chaste and celibate lives in fidelity to Church teaching, they often continue to suffer discrimination just because they are suspected of being gay.

How easily the spirit of the world slinks its way into the center of Christian families, religious communities, institutions and the clergy.  That spirit of compromise, because of the love of pleasure, luxury, honor and fame.

Links:

Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

The Oath Against Modernism (The Knights and Dames take this oath.)

“We’re alike me and Cat…”

Abbey-Roads One

It isn’t really new at all, just going through a new incarnation.  It will be totally about me!  LOL!  Most blogs are totally about the author(s).  But since I’m back at the drawing board, it may as well be my arts blog  - and my anything goes blog.  It won’t change that much and of course it will still be Catholic - because I am Catholic - although I will be linking to many sites that are not - art you know.

I can’t be boxed in.

I suppose Abbey-Roads One  will just be more personal and opinionated - and I will no longer self-edit because of concern  about reader’s sensibilities;  Hurt feelings and all of that girly-girl stuff.  Thus, if you are easily scandalized - don’t go there. 

That said, Abbey-Roads2 will remain the pre-emminent  “conservative blog for peace” it has always been!  ;) 

(I crack myself up!  Don’t go changin’ to try to please me…)