Yesterday, instead of the homily at Mass, we had a taped homily from Archbishop Sean Cardinal O'Malley introducing the "Catholics, Come Home" program the Archdiocese of Boston is launching, and asking for support for it. While I could gripe a little bit about the liturgicality of having a taped homily instead of a live homily, with concomitant complaints about using projectors and such devices in church, period, those are my own quixotic peccadilloes. What I want to write about here is the program being introduced. Again, I could talk about its probable effectiveness, and how it concerns me that television and radio advertising is the main thrust of the program, but that's not what interests me. What interests me is my own involvement.
Or, perhaps I should say, "lack of involvement." I am involved simply by reason of being a Catholic in the Archdiocese of Boston--or I should be. If I truly took to heart the principal of loving obedience to my pastor (that is, the ordinary of the diocese, my archbishop), I would be doing as he exhorted: inviting those Catholics who have fallen away from the faith to come back.
However... I'm not. Okay, it's true enough that the homily was yesterday and the only person I've seen since then is my girlfriend. It's also true that I live in a foreign city 3000 miles from home, and I don't actually know if I know any lapsed Catholics. However... it's also true that even if I did, my efforts would be timid indeed as far as encouraging them to come back to the faith goes. Timid, if in fact I had any efforts at all.
This isn't just me selling myself short. It's also a recognition of the fact that my immediate family all goes to Church, and that my friends, if they are Catholic, tended to formed at Church or in seminary--thus, they're still going. So I've never really had the opportunity to learn how to invite people back. It goes further than that, however. I'm not much good at inviting people to do anything. I'm petrified of imposing on people, and thereby making them reject or dislike me. Taken into the realm of the faith, this has a crippling effect on my ability or desire to evangelise. Put simply, I am far too polite to ever want to suggest that someone should abandon their faith (or lack thereof) and join mine--and this is despite the fact that all my friends know me as both opinionated and archetypally Catholic.
It's not a problem that's going to solve itself any time soon... and it makes me sad that I'm no longer in Alberta, because at least there I had strength in numbers. Jesus was quite right to send out his disciples two-by-two. In Boston, I have no partner, and indeed barely know any Catholics. That's something I need to work on, and as this is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, it seems a most appropriate intention.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Enabled Christianity
Today I went to Mass for the first time in two weeks, because last week I was in the middle of a bad cold, and didn't have the energy to walk to Mass, and back again--certainly not during winter. In any case, it seemed the prudent thing to do, to avoid infecting the rest of the congregation.
It was, in any event, a legitimate reason to not go to Mass, but it's one of a handful of times that I remember missing Sunday Mass. All the same, as I was walking back from Mass, I was thinking about the fact that it's winter and how, what with Boston having had a blizzard last week, that it would be temptingly easy to make excuses not to walk the 15 minutes to Church.
This led me to think back to being in Edmonton, when I probably would have made it to Sunday Mass, even feeling like I did last week (which may not have been so kind of me). I don't think this is because I used to have more spiritual fervour, though the part of me that feels guilty about having left seminary wants to push things in that direction. After some consideration, I think it might have had more to do with the ease with which I could get to Church in Edmonton. In other words, even when I didn't live down the hall from Sunday Mass (at seminary or in the rectory), I still owned a car.
It's funny how today's technological paraphernalia, which is quite often the cause of making it harder to be Catholic today, has been, in my case, part of what made it easier to stick with the rhythms of Catholicism. In other words, I have my own little brand of "cultural Catholicism," born in western Canada, which is still a fairly congenial climate for being a religious person, compared with the rest of North America, and keyed to the routines and capabilities of that culture--including the ability to drive places.
So, like Quebec in the 1970s, or Boston in the 2000s, I've going through my own mild version of "cultural fallout." Although I don't expect it to devastate my personal spiritual life in the same way Quebec or Boston, as a collective, felt it, I can sympathize a little bit more than I did before. Hopefully, I can also take their large-scale examples as warnings of what to watch for in my own microcosm.
It was, in any event, a legitimate reason to not go to Mass, but it's one of a handful of times that I remember missing Sunday Mass. All the same, as I was walking back from Mass, I was thinking about the fact that it's winter and how, what with Boston having had a blizzard last week, that it would be temptingly easy to make excuses not to walk the 15 minutes to Church.
This led me to think back to being in Edmonton, when I probably would have made it to Sunday Mass, even feeling like I did last week (which may not have been so kind of me). I don't think this is because I used to have more spiritual fervour, though the part of me that feels guilty about having left seminary wants to push things in that direction. After some consideration, I think it might have had more to do with the ease with which I could get to Church in Edmonton. In other words, even when I didn't live down the hall from Sunday Mass (at seminary or in the rectory), I still owned a car.
It's funny how today's technological paraphernalia, which is quite often the cause of making it harder to be Catholic today, has been, in my case, part of what made it easier to stick with the rhythms of Catholicism. In other words, I have my own little brand of "cultural Catholicism," born in western Canada, which is still a fairly congenial climate for being a religious person, compared with the rest of North America, and keyed to the routines and capabilities of that culture--including the ability to drive places.
So, like Quebec in the 1970s, or Boston in the 2000s, I've going through my own mild version of "cultural fallout." Although I don't expect it to devastate my personal spiritual life in the same way Quebec or Boston, as a collective, felt it, I can sympathize a little bit more than I did before. Hopefully, I can also take their large-scale examples as warnings of what to watch for in my own microcosm.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Motivation?
There are two facts you need to know in advance of this post. The first is that I've been working on an article for publication, which is due Saturday. The second is that we've had a snow day Boston-wide today, and the power was out most of this morning and afternoon.
As long as the power was out, I was antsy about the fact that I could not print off my paper and start editing it--an antsiness not helped by the fact that I started reading the previous volume of the book I hope to be a part of in its next form.
Now that the power is on, however... I am trolling the internet instead, completely unconcerned. At the very least, even if I don't get to work right away on editing, you'd think I'd print it while the power's still on... but no.
O technology, how you do not make our lives more efficient...
As long as the power was out, I was antsy about the fact that I could not print off my paper and start editing it--an antsiness not helped by the fact that I started reading the previous volume of the book I hope to be a part of in its next form.
Now that the power is on, however... I am trolling the internet instead, completely unconcerned. At the very least, even if I don't get to work right away on editing, you'd think I'd print it while the power's still on... but no.
O technology, how you do not make our lives more efficient...
Monday, January 10, 2011
Post-Christmas
I just finished saying the Office of Readings and Mid-Afternoon Prayer, and as a result, I was reminded forcibly that today is the first day of Ordinary Time in the 2010-11 liturgical year, since I had to dig into the dimly light outskirts of my closet's upper reaches to find Volume III of the Liturgy of the Hours*. Consequently, instead of just banging out yet another barely-focused on and soon forgot recitation of the liturgy in which I barely paid attention to what was being said**, I was forcibly reminded by the physical effort of finding the next volume of the breviary that today marks a major change.
It's interesting, looking back, that this Christmas season was among the best I've ever had in terms of emotional observance. By that I mean that Advent felt like Advent almost right until Vespers I, Christmas Eve, and that Christmas felt majorly festive right through Vespers II of the Epiphany. Part of the credit here goes to the general lack of Christmas music in my life. As entirely too much of a hermit focused on post-class papers, I managed to avoid Christmas carols before leaving Boston. Not that I didn't spend time with my girlfriend... it's just that we don't listen much to music together. What's more, the whole "offend no one's beliefs, have a Happy Holiday" thing is so pervasive now (and maybe especially so in Boston) that even out shopping and such, I don't recall actually hearing any Christmas carols in public--just "Silver Bells," "Jingle Bell Rock" and other secular tunes.
It also helped, once I got back to Canada, that my family was somewhat sick of Christmas music, so it was hardly ever playing. The music returned Christmas Eve or so, just in time to mix with "Midnight" Mass***, and put me in the mood
This holiday mood was then nicely prolonged by coming back to Boston halfway between Christmas and New Years, and getting Christmas all over again (or rather--Christmas Still). Indeed, if it hadn't been for my girlfriend and her family, this might have been the first Christmas since I was 5 that I did not get LEGO, as my own family felt, quite understandably, that a plane ticket home was mostly present enough. Finally, the early date of the Epiphany (Boston, like Edmonton, celebrates the Epiphany on the Sunday after Jan. 1st--whether that's a US-wide rule is something I don't know without looking up). In other words, Epiphany ended the highly festive part of Christmas nice and early, before the glow could wear off.
However, the "spirit of Christmas," to use an over-used but accurate phrase, shouldn't end with the Octave, or even with Epiphany, any more than the spirit of Easter should end with Low Sunday, or even the Ascension. Nor, for that matter, does finishing Vespers II on the Feast of the Baptism mean that Christmas is "over" in the sense of "done, filed away, and left with the ornaments in a dusty recess of our mind's basement until next December."
On the contrary! From a liturgical point of view, forgetting and ignoring Christmas now would be like moving on to Part II of a book, and forgetting everything that happened in Part I. From the start of Advent until the end of Easter, the liturgical calendar tells the story of Christ's earthly life, from the anticipation of His birth to the mission of the Church after His ascension. In this first period of Ordinary Time, separated from the weeks following Pentecost, we can and should, have our minds on the "ordinary" years of Jesus' life between his Incarnation and His death--in particular, perhaps, the "ordinary" years of His ministry, which will crop up in the gospels of the coming weeks.
Historically, there was a period when the Christmas season extended all the way to Candlemas (Feb.2nd, the Feast of the Presentation), and while the Church no long considers the period between the Baptism and the Presentation to be part of the Christmas season, but rather part of Ordinary Time, there are one or two vestiges of the old practice, most notably in the continued recitation of the Alma Redemptoris Mater after Night Prayer--a recitation begun at the start of Advent.
In a way, the fact that Ordinary Time has begun feels appropriate to me, because the ordinary life of the school year resumes in the next week, or has already. Nonetheless, unless one has spectacular amnesia, it is a new ordinary time that is conditioned by what came before, by the break and rejuvenation that happens over the holidays, and to the spiritually minded this surely includes a renewed focus on the Incarnation of Jesus and His many epiphanies--epiphanies that are ever added to in the lives of His followers throughout the world.
*A note to the curious: I was able to avoid having to this for Morning Prayer because I was at my girlfriend's apartment seeing a friend off most of the morning, and I keep my one-volume Christian Prayer there precisely so I don't have to carry the current part of the four-volume set every time I go.
**9/10 of prayer is showing up, I remember Archbishop Collins saying, but it would be nice to get beyond 9/10 a bit more often...
***Which is to say, alas, "10:00 pm Mass."
It's interesting, looking back, that this Christmas season was among the best I've ever had in terms of emotional observance. By that I mean that Advent felt like Advent almost right until Vespers I, Christmas Eve, and that Christmas felt majorly festive right through Vespers II of the Epiphany. Part of the credit here goes to the general lack of Christmas music in my life. As entirely too much of a hermit focused on post-class papers, I managed to avoid Christmas carols before leaving Boston. Not that I didn't spend time with my girlfriend... it's just that we don't listen much to music together. What's more, the whole "offend no one's beliefs, have a Happy Holiday" thing is so pervasive now (and maybe especially so in Boston) that even out shopping and such, I don't recall actually hearing any Christmas carols in public--just "Silver Bells," "Jingle Bell Rock" and other secular tunes.
It also helped, once I got back to Canada, that my family was somewhat sick of Christmas music, so it was hardly ever playing. The music returned Christmas Eve or so, just in time to mix with "Midnight" Mass***, and put me in the mood
This holiday mood was then nicely prolonged by coming back to Boston halfway between Christmas and New Years, and getting Christmas all over again (or rather--Christmas Still). Indeed, if it hadn't been for my girlfriend and her family, this might have been the first Christmas since I was 5 that I did not get LEGO, as my own family felt, quite understandably, that a plane ticket home was mostly present enough. Finally, the early date of the Epiphany (Boston, like Edmonton, celebrates the Epiphany on the Sunday after Jan. 1st--whether that's a US-wide rule is something I don't know without looking up). In other words, Epiphany ended the highly festive part of Christmas nice and early, before the glow could wear off.
However, the "spirit of Christmas," to use an over-used but accurate phrase, shouldn't end with the Octave, or even with Epiphany, any more than the spirit of Easter should end with Low Sunday, or even the Ascension. Nor, for that matter, does finishing Vespers II on the Feast of the Baptism mean that Christmas is "over" in the sense of "done, filed away, and left with the ornaments in a dusty recess of our mind's basement until next December."
On the contrary! From a liturgical point of view, forgetting and ignoring Christmas now would be like moving on to Part II of a book, and forgetting everything that happened in Part I. From the start of Advent until the end of Easter, the liturgical calendar tells the story of Christ's earthly life, from the anticipation of His birth to the mission of the Church after His ascension. In this first period of Ordinary Time, separated from the weeks following Pentecost, we can and should, have our minds on the "ordinary" years of Jesus' life between his Incarnation and His death--in particular, perhaps, the "ordinary" years of His ministry, which will crop up in the gospels of the coming weeks.
Historically, there was a period when the Christmas season extended all the way to Candlemas (Feb.2nd, the Feast of the Presentation), and while the Church no long considers the period between the Baptism and the Presentation to be part of the Christmas season, but rather part of Ordinary Time, there are one or two vestiges of the old practice, most notably in the continued recitation of the Alma Redemptoris Mater after Night Prayer--a recitation begun at the start of Advent.
In a way, the fact that Ordinary Time has begun feels appropriate to me, because the ordinary life of the school year resumes in the next week, or has already. Nonetheless, unless one has spectacular amnesia, it is a new ordinary time that is conditioned by what came before, by the break and rejuvenation that happens over the holidays, and to the spiritually minded this surely includes a renewed focus on the Incarnation of Jesus and His many epiphanies--epiphanies that are ever added to in the lives of His followers throughout the world.
*A note to the curious: I was able to avoid having to this for Morning Prayer because I was at my girlfriend's apartment seeing a friend off most of the morning, and I keep my one-volume Christian Prayer there precisely so I don't have to carry the current part of the four-volume set every time I go.
**9/10 of prayer is showing up, I remember Archbishop Collins saying, but it would be nice to get beyond 9/10 a bit more often...
***Which is to say, alas, "10:00 pm Mass."
A New Year, a New Start?
Well, it's been over two years since I last posted on this blog... and I'd mostly forgot it existed. It's been a long time since I wanted to share my thoughts this publicly. However, this weirdly long semester break (apparently American colleges often have a whole month off in the winter--odd!) has meant a bit too much time browsing other people's blogs and such, and I'm motivated to start gushing my musings onto the Internet again. Sorry, the Internet.
The big news right now is the shooting of the Congresswoman in Arizona, and the death of six bystanders thereat. Six bystanders: three seniors, a judge (ironically appointed by a Republican president), an engaged young man, and a 9-year-old girl. It's... mind-boggling.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend just got back a bill for bloodwork tests done as a job prerequisite. While she had insurance. Hello, lots-of-money-owed. As a Canadian... I just don't get it. Seriously. Don't get it.
Calling me a left-winger will never be accurate, as long as support for abortion remains a hallmark of being left-wing, but it's abundantly clear that calling me "right wing" isn't going to work any better--especially here in the States, where even the lefties are rightier than in Canada. Perhaps it's a case of too much time in academia, and now Boston academia, with osmosis as a result...
I am aware this post is a bit disjointed... but that's the joy of having no readers--you're not responsible to anyone, right? Besides... I've got 2+ years of nothing blogged to bridge, and you'd be a fool to expect it to transition neatly.
The big news right now is the shooting of the Congresswoman in Arizona, and the death of six bystanders thereat. Six bystanders: three seniors, a judge (ironically appointed by a Republican president), an engaged young man, and a 9-year-old girl. It's... mind-boggling.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend just got back a bill for bloodwork tests done as a job prerequisite. While she had insurance. Hello, lots-of-money-owed. As a Canadian... I just don't get it. Seriously. Don't get it.
Calling me a left-winger will never be accurate, as long as support for abortion remains a hallmark of being left-wing, but it's abundantly clear that calling me "right wing" isn't going to work any better--especially here in the States, where even the lefties are rightier than in Canada. Perhaps it's a case of too much time in academia, and now Boston academia, with osmosis as a result...
I am aware this post is a bit disjointed... but that's the joy of having no readers--you're not responsible to anyone, right? Besides... I've got 2+ years of nothing blogged to bridge, and you'd be a fool to expect it to transition neatly.
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