On Thursday I visited the NDGS campus to return a book, look around and go to Mass, since, as part of student life, there is a Mass for students 7:00 – 7:30 PM Tuesday and Thursday. I arrived ten minutes early and entered the tiny chapel thinking I’d sit in the back and ease into what was to be my very first non-holy-day-of-obligation Mass ever.

The small chapel was too small and too well lit to slink in unnoticed. Immediately the priest, Father Andrew (or Father Paul), greeted me and asked if I would do the reading, offering a big blue opened book for me to examine. I tried to duck it but his command of English added to his perplexed response to my shyness. I was a student there right? Yes, well, so, ok, sure why not.

He ordered me to sit in the front which was about 2 paces from the door. The chapel supported about 16-20 kneelers in a narrow white room; an altar stood at the front practically the width of the room itself. I knelt, prayed, fidgeted. At about one minute before the hour I was still the only one in the chapel and I figured I’d be the only one participating that wet, rainy evening.

I am constantly amazed at the ability of Catholics to defy Normal (Gaussian) probability distribution functions when it comes to arriving at church. In any other earthly process, some people would show early, most arriving at the appointed time followed by a balanced number of stragglers to create the famous “bell shaped” curve scientist rely on. No, the Catholic function is more like a Rayleigh distribution with extremely narrow standard deviation up to the very, very start. Seconds before the hour the chapel was suddenly full with about nine other students, ALL of them sitting in the rows behind me.

This was a very bad arrangement. I was alone in front unable mimic the still slightly unfamiliar posturing required at various points of the Mass made more precarious by the unusual situation that all my familiarity is the Latin Mass. No worries, since I had with me a handy-dandy laminated card with all the English responses. “Hiding” in the front row with a laminated card must have seemed ridiculous among these hardcore, seasoned, veteran, orthodox Catholics. I might as well have been in a papal conclave, that is, with a laminated card for Dummies.

Soon it was my turn to read scripture, a passage from Malachi. I think I did OK. But the Psalm? Probably needed to give others a chance to learn the responsorial once or twice –do you think? Good news: no one set fire to me. I realized another gaff when the sign of peace was offered. I turned to get up from a knelling position to offer peace realizing that everyone else was already standing. You know, I was getting this vibe….

Then Communion, which I’ve started to receive in hand. I promised myself that I would always take Communion by mouth in the traditional way not realizing that my extreme nervousness in going up to receive  tenses me up so much I can barely stick my tongue out. Add to that a foreign hand coming toward my face creates a recoiling reflex that I can’t quite control. It was so bad I started closing my eyes after saying Amen. At some point I simply decided that someone was going to get hurt and I might as well take it by hand—not so orthodox but permitted, at least for now.

It wasn’t long before I heard these merciful words, “This mass ended”

Deo gratias.

The chemical execution of innocent civilians by Assad is met with the usual outrage from the international community. Just to pick a fight, I will suggest to a secular audience that Assad is not an evil, murderous head of state, but a misunderstood progressive too far ahead of his time.

Outraged? Let’s take a look at a similar incident in recent weeks that barely made the news.

Nancy Verhelst was euthanized in Belgium according to the local euthanasia laws. Was this person terminally ill? No, unless the law can be contorted to suggest that we are all terminal, it’s just a matter of when. Was this person suffering immense physical pain? No. Was this person at the end of life or over the threshold of life expectancy? No, Verhelst was 44 when the state took her life.

So why did the state kill an innocent, healthy member of its nation? The story behind Nathan Verhelst is certainly tragic. Identifying as a male (Nathan born Nancy), Mr. Verhelst was rejected by her parents and led a confused life. A recent botched sex change operation left Verhelst feeling like a monster, despondent beyond hope and prompting a decision. The state granted Verhelst her wish. She was euthanized. Pizza was promptly ordered, a soccer game was watched and life went on—except for Verhelst.

Life is cheap and human life is the cheapest of all. We live in a progressive world in which the right to choose extends to the unwanted child that lives half a century. Doctors who are charged to do no harm, harm by frivolous operations, plastic surgeries, abortions, infanticide and assisted suicide. Extrapolation of such progress leads one to believe that anyone who is despondent and finds life unbearable should end it all with a barbiturate potion complements of an expanded “healthcare”. This could include post-partum women, love frustrated teenagers and the melancholy. It could easily be applied to anyone in the prison population unable to cope with confinement as the ACLU banes religious material everywhere to remove all hope.

Allow me to personalize this issue. As a 15 year old in prehistoric 1980 I wanted to end my life. I was a short, prepubescent punching bag with no prospects for female companionship. I was diagnosed with lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy that left me a monster: no hair, bleeding mouth sores, extreme nausea and pain. In modern day Belgium I would be of applicable age and able to enroll the state in my rash decision to terminate my life. The consequence would be both temporal and eternal and societal.

My point is this: in form, the resources of the state can be legally used to put to death an innocent, healthy member of its society.  So why condemn Syria?

If Christians read the Bible at all, they are not likely to read the preface of any edition they use. Seriously, what mook reads the preface of any book, let alone that of the Bible?

Apparently, the one writing this blog.

But what is found in the preface is quite interesting. The preface provides background as to when the new translation of the Bible was commissioned, by who and why. The production of a new translation of the Bible is a work, well, of Biblical proportions. A lot of people are involved requiring lots of time and money. And with so many sensitivities as stake, it takes a great amount of delicate work, quibbling and scholarly knowledge.

Some time ago, I read the preface of the New International Version (NIV) which revealed the mechanisms set up to create this very good English version of the Bible. It involved scholars from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. To “safeguard the translation from sectarian bias”, these scholars came from many denominations: Anglican, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Brethren, Christian Reformed, Church of Christ, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Wesleyan and “other churches”.

Anything strike you? Long ago, I wondered why no Catholic scholars were involved. I supposed those “other churches” could have included them but I think it would have been a tremendous oversight to push the largest segment of Christianity into the also-ran category. No—I sort of conjectured that they weren’t invited or that they would have nothing to do with it or perhaps a combination.

I’ve only owned my thick, red New American Bible (NAB)— a Catholic commissioned translation — for a little while, having bought it at a used book sale in Vienna this year for pennies. I was surprised to see that the translation came after the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritus of Pope Pius XII in 1943 which set out to summon new editions from original manuscripts. It has a preface too and I expected it to say, rather snootily, that only Magisterial Catholics in good standing were involved in the effort and no heretics other Christians were allowed to help. But now here I quote from the preface:

The collaboration of scholars who are not Catholic fulfills the directive of the Second Vatican Council, not only that “correct translations be made into different languages especially from the original texts of the sacred books,” but that, “with the approval of the church authority, these translations be produced in cooperation with separated brothers” so that “all Christians may be able to use them.”

That surprised me—pleasantly. And let me just add an additional endorsement for the NAB—not only is it a very good English translation for all Christians, it comes with seven extra books!

Lay Catholics are frequently characterized by their lack of first hand Bible reading and knowledge.  As a Born Again Orthodox Roman Catholic with a large familiarity with Bible verses from my previous traditions of Christianity, I can say that this characterization is rightly deserved.  Over the course of time, devout Catholics will hear almost the entirety of the Bible through the Liturgy of the Word, but might crack their Bible once in a lifetime, if at all. Whereas Protestants routinely tote their Bible to service, Catholics never[1]. At my own confirmation, one of the seven readings from scripture happened to be Isaiah 55, the whole chapter, which I can recite from memory (KJV). Now this sort of ability was normative in my previous spiritual life of Bible churches. Catholics with the same ability would be regarded as oddities if not scholars of the Church. But there is no official reason for this lack– on the contrary and to the surprise of many non-Catholic Christians—the Church encourages individual Bible reading and study.

I just finished reading an encyclical[2] called Spiritus Paraclitus by Pope Benedict XV (this is XV and not the most recent XVI) issued on September 15, 1920. This encyclical came on an auspicious anniversary, the 1500^th anniversary[3] of the death of St. Jerome who fervently translated Holy Scriptures from a number of ancient languages and sources to produce the Latin Vulgate Bible, the principle Bible translation for the Church for almost as many centuries.

The encyclical recounts the life of St. Jerome, the Great Doctor, and his zeal for Scripture and the Church. It urges readers to also cultivate a similar love and practice of regular Bible reading. Following are separate quotes of St. Jerome extracted from this promulgation:

We have got, then, to read Holy Scripture assiduously; we have got to meditate on the Law of God day and night so that, as expert money-changers, we may be able to detect false coin from true.

Every day she should give you a definite account of her Bible-reading . . .For her the Bible must take the place of silks and jewels . . . Let her learn the Psalter first, and find her recreation in its songs; let her learn from Solomon’s Proverbs the way of life, from Ecclesiastes how to trample on the world. In Job she will find an example of patient virtue. Thence let her pass to the Gospels; they should always be in her hands. She should steep herself in the Acts and the Epistles. And when she has enriched her soul with these treasures she should commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch, Kings and Chronicles, Esdras and Esther: then she can learn the Canticle of Canticles without any fear.

Read assiduously and learn as much as you can. Let sleep find you holding your Bible, and when your head nods let it be resting on the sacred page.

I will tell you another thing about her, though evil-disposed people may cavil at it: she determined to learn Hebrew, a language which I myself, with immense labor and toil from my youth upwards, have only partly learned, and which I even now dare not cease studying lest it should quit me. But Paula learned it, and so well that she could chant the Psalms in Hebrew, and could speak it, too, without any trace of a Latin accent. We can see the same thing even now in her daughter Eustochium.

Finally, Benedict XV himself exhorts: “Hence, as far as in us lies, we, Venerable Brethren, shall, with St. Jerome as our guide, never desist from urging the faithful to read daily the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles, so as to gather thence food for their souls.”

Finally and in my humble opinion, if Catholics are going to be influential in the conversion of other Christians, they better know the Bible and what the Catholic Church teaches about it.

I’ve heard it said that God sometimes speaks to us through music. For me it took several centuries to realize it.

Even as a teen I would abstract the vocal portions of classical pieces, regarding them as the tones from just another instrument—like the timbre of a flute or violin. It’s never been important that I understand the language to appreciate its musicality. Increasingly, though, I’ve come to recognize that many pieces from my collection are straight from the liturgy of the Mass and serve as an archaeological record of Christian worship and its preservation.

J.S. Bach’s (1685-1750) Mass in B minor was very familiar, having purchased the English Baroque Soloists recording (1990 Archiv Produktion) long ago. I was particularly in love with the Et in unum Dominum composed as a duet for soprano and alto voices. Of course I recognized some of the words but did not recognized that the entirety of the Credo – the Latin version of the Nicene Creed which was crafted at the first ecumenical council in 325 AD — had been broken up into a number of musical compositions. At the time I knew something of the Credo but not the entirety and certainly not the Latin form as I do now.

Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) Selva Morale e Spirituale is an anthology of liturgical pieces published in 1641 and one of my favorite works/recordings (1993 Capitol, Andrew Parrot, Taverner Consort). Punctuating every work is the Glory Be, which I only just realized after learning that prayer in its Latin form: “Sicut erat in principio…” As it was in the beginning…

Palestrina’s (1525-1594) Ad Coernum Agni Providi by the Brabant Ensemble (2013 Hyperion) has vocal portions one could mimic with poorly-tuned glossolalia. During a lengthy portion, after a pregnant rest, the bass soloist heralds the “Gloria in excelsis Deo” familiar to most Christmas carolers¹ but immediately followed by a greater choir carrying the work forward in elaborate polyphony—quite astounding. Now, the Latin words that followed were not all that intelligible to me at first. But suddenly one day, during a listen in the car, it occurred to me what they were: “Et (et) in terra (terra) pax hominibus…” — the Greater Doxology sung every Sunday immediately after the Kyrie in the Latin Rite.

Missa in gallicantu by Thomas Tallis (1505 – 1585) one of England’s greatest composers, appears on Christmas with the Tallis Scholars (2003 Gimell Records). For fourteen tracks on that compact disc one can hear, verbatim, the same words sung by the congregation at the Solemn Latin Mass every week including this portion called the Sursum corda which dates back to the third century AD:

Vocalist (Priest): Dominus vobiscum.

Choir (People):   Et cum spiritu tuo.

Vocalist (Priest): Sursum corda.

Choir (People):   Habemus ad Dominum.

Vocalist (Priest): Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.

Choir (People):   Dignum et iustum est.

Going back even more…

A recording by the all-female Norwegian Trio Mediaeval called Worcester Ladymass (2011 ECM Records GmbH) is a votive Mass to the Virgin Mary composed around 13^th and 14^th centuries and attributed in part to W. de Wycombe. Among the short and beautiful devotional motets are the expected liturgical components like the Kyrie and the Credo. The very interesting part is that this Mass was reassembled from the Worcester Fragments, once sheets of sacred music bundled together later to be torn asunder under King Henry VIII and his Dissolution of Monasteries in the first part of the 16^th century. In this particular case of destruction, the Worcester Fragments survived as book binding material and were reclaimed in later centuries when things cooled down politically and theologically.

Unbeknownst to me for many years, my collection of sacred music spanning late medieval to early baroque has been serving as a record of what Christians had been doing at church for centuries and, at least for Catholics, hasn’t changed appreciably. As far back as Hildegard von Bingen, 12^th century abbess composer, early sacred music acts as an archive of the liturgical and the theological. The same elements, particularly in Latin, can also be heard through the works of Busseron, Rosenmueller, Schutz, Rovetta, Demantius, Mazzocchi, Lassos, Mouton, Ockeghem and countless other composers spanning centuries.

At least for me, God had been speaking to me for decades using a language that was several centuries old: sacred music. But only recently have I really started to hear Him.

The 23rd Shimane Grassroots Summit (July 1 – July 8) was to be the fulfillment of a promise I made to my daughter Kolleen that I would take her to Japan one day. When I picked up the brochure about this annual gathering I had little idea what it was all about. But the opportunity arrived at an auspicious time: Kolleen had just turned 18 and would be graduating high school just before the event. And as she was to begin the adult chapter in her life, I figured I would not have another opportunity. The price was unbeatable too. We were going.

I could not have staged a better way for us to see Japan. The opportunity afforded us the usual tourist experiences at restaurants, hotels and attractions but also, more importantly, the unusual experience of being injected into the life of ordinary Japanese including a brief homestay. On July 4 we were untethered from the safety of hotel amenities and were bussed to a local community center, a junior college and also a middle school where I witnessed several things that would make sense in any school here:

• Session in summer. The Japanese are educated all year round.
• Uniforms. Even the shoes were uniform because everyone wore the indoor slippers. There were no activist t-shirts, grunge or any distractions that belied attitude or social status.
• Cleaning. On our arrival every student had a broom, brush, mop or sponge in their hand. It was Friday and the school was being cleaned—not by the staff, not by paid janitors but by the students. And I don’t mean half-heartedly. As I approached the stairwell, a girl was literally on the floor polishing an area with a cloth. Another thing I noticed: no signs of vandalism.
• Choral duty. We were ushered into a music room where all the students sang. We were given sheet music to sing along too. They sang very strong and very well—what a great thing to do.
• Identity. Despite all the activities that annealed their society, it struck me that rather than loose individual identity, the Japanese have much more understand of who they are and what they do and why.

Our visit to the middle school ended ceremoniously with songs, closing statements and—how
humbling—many gifts and solicitations for our autographs. Before the Grassroot Summit, I had never heard of Matsue City or Shimane prefecture. But now I will never forget these places and the students at that middle school.

I just finished a remarkable book called Triumph by H.W. Crocker III and have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church, like the nation of Israel, is miraculous in that it exists at all.

Throughout the centuries, the Catholic Church has endured schisms, heresies, persecution, attacks, murder and genocide in Europe and throughout the world. Today, despite the Vatican being one of the smallest political units on the planet, the population of the Catholic Church is, ironically, 1.2 billion people.

No doubt that the most cutting portion of the book was the centuries of the Protestant Reformation. Having been a non-Catholic Christian for decades (I never considered myself Protestant in the sense that I was protesting the Catholic Church at least consciously) it was still difficult to read. Up to the point Luther, Calvin, Zwingli started making noises, the pillars of Protestantism had already been erected and dismantled in heresies that were around as early as St. Augustine and the first centuries AD.

Some of the striking tidbits:

• Atheism is just a logical extension of Protestantism
• Despite his criticism, Voltaire was a practicing Catholic
• The Jesuits taught the great minds of the Europe
• Erasmus was as critical of the Catholic Church as Luther, but never supported the Reformation
• Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism
• The Catholic mind subverts state to the church, the Protestant mind subverts the church to the state. The former kept political corruption in check, the latter can’t do anything about it.
• Of the nations of Europe that have a Protestant pedigree (Scandinavia, England, Germany) the portion of those that attend church are disproportionately Catholic. Most everyone else in those countries don’t bother.
• Pope Pius XII saved, conservatively, 760,000 Jews that would have otherwise been killed by the Holocaust. Of the number of Jews that Hitler had at his disposal, this number represents one third of those that escaped death during those years of the 20^th century. No nation or individual comes close to that claim.
• During the 10^th century the chances of you being murdered was one in three, if you were pope.
• Thomas Moore persuaded his son-in-law, a Protestant, to convert back to the Catholic Church. King Henry VIII was a devout Catholic—the Anglican Church expanded under Queen Elizabeth, his successor.
• King Henry VIII had the bible translated in the vernacular and distributed to the people. He revoked this once everyone’s private interpretations created the usual chaos.

Triumph is a must read for every Christian. Catholics will certainly like it; Protestants will find it difficult to read.

I deleted my Facebook account today and it was long overdue. Here are the reasons:
•    It was a frivolous time sink. I can think of many other things I can do or should be doing.
•    Corporate Facebook is not to be trusted. I’d rather trust the NSA with my personal data.
•    Just another attack vector for hackers and cyber threats.
•    Who needs propaganda when you have Facebook? Social media is the propagation of disinformation and half baked news. No one reads books anymore or the real news for that matter.
•    Benign posts were mostly of idle glimpses or what my friend’s kids were doing, easily summarized in conventional year end newsletter. It was rare that a benign post might also be interesting.
•    Malignant posts made unilateral remarks about traditional people, particularly men, fathers and husbands, lampooning conservatives, Christians and traditional values all while claiming to be tolerant. At first I thought Facebook might be the marketplace of ideas among rational and respecting persons. No—it’s basically a high school food fight.
•    George Takai. I never friended Sulu but would still get his crap on my newsfeed anyhow. I wonder if he weren’t gay would people find him as interesting.
•    My own posts, as creative and rare as I tried to make them, were seldom liked or commented and then by my immediate family. With some streams, I’m sure they got lost in the noise, and there is a lot of noise.
•    The temptation to argue, fight and eventually transgress was too great for me. I have little self-control, especially when it comes to *(*&$# imbeciles who parrot whatever they read in the New York Times, the Mary Sue or Gawker.
•    Lack of reciprocity. I unfriended people who I liked / commented on their posts with no indication that they ever cared or saw anything I did.
•    It amazes me that grown men and women feel the need to use, let alone type, profanity, indicative of a society that is out of ideas, civility and language skills.
•    A lot of my very smart friends don’t use Facebook. I think they are on to something.
According to policy, my account will be dead in 14 days. I’ll check to make sure it really is so.

Some years ago I volunteered to be  treasurer of my daughter’s travel soccer team. In order to secure the services of a professional coach a large sum of money needed to be amassed from the participating families ahead of the season. Based on the commitments I reckoned the amount each family should pay and acted on their good faith. One father was particularly slow in sending me his payment which he eventually did after a great deal of feet dragging and importunity. As the season began it was evident that the team was barely holding together: attendance at practice was sparse and dedication was almost non-existent.

After the first week of practice I got an email indicating that this wishy-washy father wanted a refund—that his daughter couldn’t play after all and so forth. The problem: the check to the coaching staff had already been cut. Furthermore, an avalanche of defectors would mean a dwindling number of families would be stuck holding the bag of an expensive soccer season that would amount to personalized training. Basically a full refund wasn’t possible. The die was cast.

With the utmost diplomacy, I explained in a private email to this individual why a full refund could not be issued. This did not sit well with the father and after some bantering, he responded in a hostile email deliberately copying all the families of the team as if that would curry favour.  The structure of the message was designed to aggrandize the writer as a rich corporate so-and-so who lived on a massive estate in Great Falls with money to burn while I was some petty poor slob attempting to extort money out of him to subsidize the team. I responded privately:

Dear ______,

Congratulations on being rich and important. Given the differences in our zip code there is a high likelihood that you indeed have more assets and wealth than me. You have many more acres of prime real estate and drive a Mercedes Benz. Your kids are all brilliant and go to the best schools in the land. Well done, well done.

Perhaps it is no accident that the date of this reply is April 10—a most peculiar anniversary for me and not one you are likely to encounter in many lives. On this day, I commemorate the fact that I am the “richest man I know”. You see, many decades ago, when I was a teen, April 10 was the day a surgeon removed a malignant tumour from my neck. This was the start of an ordeal that put me in touch with my own mortality.

On this day I celebrate the fact that I am alive once more around the sun. I celebrate graduating from high school and college. I celebrate that I lived long enough to get married and have a family. I celebrate that I was able to sire children when that should not have been possible at all. I celebrate the prosaic things in life because I understand how really important those things are when they are suddenly unavailable.

I know that money may buy the choicest food but can never buy appetite. Money may provide the best health care but doesn’t always buy health. Money may buy an Ivy League education but cannot buy wisdom—apparently.

Congratulations again on being rich, but, no matter how much money you amass, you will never be richer than me.

The Treasurer

At first I wasn’t going to take on a confirmation name, typically that of a saint of the Catholic Church. The reason was simple: I really don’t know much about the communion of saints and their lives well enough to knowledgeably select one as my patron.

When I revealed to a long time Catholic friend (it had been a while since we communicated) that I was going to be confirmed in a few days at the Easter Vigil he tossed out a few names at me to consider even though I never solicited any. He suggested Thomas Aquinas, St. Joseph and even Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. But the fourth one registered with me: Thomas More. That one was familiar…

I had recollected a quote from the book Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens which curiously I posted on this blog precisely a year ago on Sunday March 25 2012 (I was confirmed Saturday March 30 2013 almost a liturgical year later). Had you told me back then that I would become a  Roman Catholic in one years time I would have laughed in your face.

Here is that quote:

In their utter reverence for oaths, men of [Sir Thomas] More’s era were in my view as superior to us as the builder of Chartres Cathedral were to the builders of shopping malls. Our ancestors’ undisturbed faith gave them a far closer, healthier relation to the truth – and so to beauty – than we have.  Without a belief in God and the soul, where is the oath? Without the oath, where is the obligation or the pressure to fulfill it? Where is the law that even kings must obey? Where is Magna Carte, Habeas Corpus or the Bill of Rights, all of which arose out of attempts to rule by lawless tyranny? Where is the lifelong fidelity of husband and wife? Where is the safety of the innocent child growing in the womb? Where, in the end, is the safety of any of us from those currently bigger and stronger than we are?

I am confirmed with the name of Saint Thomas More.

Wild.