Six Geese a'laying

 Merry Christmas, folks! I say that without fear of contradiction on this sixth day of Christmas, which is within the octave, which makes it, liturgic-technically still Christmas.
 During the recent  holiday, nee Christmas, season I was ready to back the National Rifle Association if it can get Florida -- which hasn't seen an NRA law it doesn't like -- to legalize standing your ground against Muzak. If -- upon hearing the first notes of the macabre "Jingle Bell Rock" or the misbegotten "Feliz Navidad" -- I could open fire at the speakers, I would buy a Glock no later than Nov. 1 next year.
 I remember when the Christmas music anachronistically played during Advent occasionally adverted to the birth of Jesus, but those days are over, and now it's aisle-to-aisle jolly holly as lugubriously as imaginable.

 However. Advent is over, and I'm in full Christmas mode. (What's wrong with everybody else?) So I thought I would share three  presents with you:
 First, an English carol that Fr. Imbelli, I think, gifted us with several years ago. I am re-gifting it because it is so incredibly English it makes me want to eat treacle. And I hate treacle, I think.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRobryliBLQ

 Here is an older one. These boys also have those impossible collars:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlMVzsELjK8

Finally, the 12th day of Christmas is Epiphany, which conveniently lands next Sunday. This gift is  the poet (who, I suspect, couldn't sing) reciting his poem about the cold coming the Magi had of it. As only he could. Thanks to BBC for recording it. (You will hear the scratch,)
 
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCVnuEWXQcg

Wolcum Seintes, Lefe and Dere!

These days of post-Christmas always make me think of this Middle English poem, Wolcum Yole.  It has its origins in the 14th century. The author is anonymous, as far as I know.  It is famously set to music  by Benjamin Britten, as part of his choral work, A Ceremony of Carols.  It is worth reading the other poems, from a similar time frame, which were incorporated into Britten's work.

Wholly Innocent?

Scriptural Events, Meaning, Interpretation and Problems

Ever since Christianity's inception, Christians have reflected on, discussed, proclaimed, taught and debated the meaning of the mysteries that comprise its core beliefs, such as the Incarnation, the Cross, the Resurrection, sacraments, and the word of God.  Of course, those mysteries are rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  It seems likely enough that even his contemporaries were trying to make sense of his words and deeds.  Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the New Testament understands that interpretation is discernible throughout the New Testament itself, as Paul’s letters and the so-called Letter to the Hebrews attest.  The Gospel texts themselves are not straight reportage; they contain interpretive passages, such as Matthew’s citations of Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled, Mark’s interpretation of the parable of the seeds and the sower in 4:13-20, and the commentary that John intersperses at various points in his gospel, such as the famous verse at 3:17 (“God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son …”).  And beyond those specific passages, it’s recognized that each of the four canonical Gospels were written as theological interpretations.

Within Roman Catholicism, theological reflection and interpretation over the course of two millennia has resulted in the construction of a capacious edifice of systematic theological thought.  That edifice, as a source and an elaboration of truth, is a reason to rejoice.

Yet paradoxes, ambiguities and contradictions persist. 

On Purposeful Cluelessness

I happened to read this article  yesterday in our regional daily news. The author is Michael Barone, the conservative pundit, to be distinguished from Michael Barone,  the host of NPR's program Pipedreams, which I like, featuring pipe organs of the world.
Anyway, the picture accompanying the article is of sleeping newborn babies, which is appropriate enough, since the story appeared on Christmas Day. The subject of the article is the declining fertility of Americans, which is headed to an all-time low, dipping below replacement levels. From Barone's article:

God Help Us! Please!

I can see that Jim P. has taken care of the sacred sense of the season, so how about the mundane?

Mid-day today, I read the Raber's Christmas Letter, apparently resurrected after some years of quiescence. Witty, touching, and down-to-earth, why not request a copy from our correspondent Jean Raber.

And speaking of Christmas correspondence: Cards from nephews, nieces, and grandparents and friends has turned up a crop of photo cards featuring children (and a few babies). I have been struck by how many of these children are white. What a coincidence! So opening the mail today, I was delighted and relieved to have Mary and Harvey Flad's letter with a family photo of many African-American and Asian children,--along with a few whites..talk about diversity! Thank you Flads. I notice in retrospect there are also some Asian-Americans among other cards...and the Rabers have a number of multi-colored cats. We change slowly!

The tiniest family letter (3 x 3) came from CWL publisher Tom Baker and Sue McSorley; their letter has shrunk as the daughters and cats have left home. I am hoping that when and if there are any progeny, Tom will return to the larger format filled with wry observation on being the father of daughters. In the meantime, tiny is good.

Our own progeny have gone off to the "other family" for Christmas...such a sad side effect of the license to marry!  As a result, my anxiety schedule is off tempo, which makes me very anxious! Result: we will be eating dinner out.

We did have Schubert's German Mass for the all the common parts. Even if English doesn't fit Schubert's meter, it was glorious, and unusually, the congregation sang! Christmas carols and hymns bring the body together. Maybe we should sing them all year round!  Drown out the Fraudster in the White House.

Merry Christmas to the NewGathering community

Christmas began early for me this year - I served as a deacon at our parish's 3 pm Vigil mass.  It's the so-called "children's mass" - the children's choir sang, and the priest called the children up during the homily to sit on the sanctuary steps; he then engaged them in the homily.  As it is every year, it was by far the most crowded mass of the year for us - there were easily three times the number of worshipers that we would get at our most well-attended Sunday mass.  We had two overflow rooms set up with closed circuit televisions and probably could have used more space.

A pregnant time

This is my homily for this weekend, the 4th Sunday of Advent, Cycle C.  The readings for this weekend are here.  The Gospel reading for this weekend is the famous meeting of Mary and Elizabeth commemorated in the Catholic church as The Visitation.

Old, young, expecting

I am preaching this weekend.  This isn't actually the homily I will be giving tomorrow - it's a draft which I wrote out and then set aside.  So I'm offering this as an Advent reflection.  I'll post the text of the actual homily after I've put the finishing touches on it.  The Gospel for this Sunday is the story of the Visitation - the readings are here.

-----

This is such a remarkable scene in today’s Gospel reading: a pregnant older woman, and a pregnant young woman, drawn together in a meeting that erupts into praise and joy.

The very first episodes in Luke’s Gospel aren’t about Mary and Joseph and Jesus; they’re about Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah and their baby, who will be named John and who is known to us today as John the Baptist.  Luke tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were good people, but they had no children, and Luke explains that it was because Elizabeth was barren.  In biblical times, “barren” wouldn’t have been a neutral term; it was more like a term of reproach – as though Elizabeth had failed, was somehow less of a woman, for not having borne children for her husband.  Today, with our much greater medical knowledge, we may wonder whether the root cause was really Elizabeth’s biological issue, or whether it might have been Zechariah’s. 

500 priests, and other thoughts on the Illinois preliminary report on clerical sexual abuse of minors

Yesterday, I posted about a new report on Catholic clerical sexual abuse, released by the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan.  My overall view is that the report is credible, and that it's devastating for the church here in Illinois.  Here are some additional thoughts, in no particular order:

One shoe drops in Illinois

It's been noted here at NewGathering that, in the wake of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury's report from earlier this year on the sexual abuse of minors in Pennsylvania dioceses, a number of state Attorneys General are investigating dioceses in their own state.  Among them is my state, Illinois.  Today, the Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, released some initial results from that investigation.

Gaudete

... even if it's a day or two late (sorry, life has been busy lately).  The coming-around of the Third Sunday of Advent this year coincided with a passage I ran across recently.  This is from Joseph Ratzinger, wearing here neither papal white nor his cardinalatial red, but rather scholarly black, or perhaps even the robes of the Socratic sage.  Here he is on joy (I have taken the liberty of breaking up a lengthy paragraph into several shorter ones to make this passage more readable):

Snowflakes roastin' on an open fire

 You know that scene in Shakespeare's Othello when the clueless galoot smothers Desdemona? Wouldn't it be better -- doncha think? -- if she pulled a stiletto out of her garter and stabbed him. And then ran down the hall and offed his chum,  too? Happy ending! And politically correct.
 Get Burbage on the phone now.
 I reached the end of my rope with the furor over "Baby, It's Cold Outside" also here. 
It turns out that the duet -- which my mother, who could spot smut in a song at 20 paces, loved -- is about date rape. Hashtag Me, Too, it's gotta go. I shall not engage in close textual analysis, since you can hardly be sentient without already having been subjected to it. But I will say that the Most Offending Line  -- "Say, what's in this drink?" -- was a cliche everyone used whenever they said or heard something silly or accidentally mispronounced a word. I think I first fell back on it while drinking ginger ale at the age of 9.
 I know the Moderns weren't around when I was 9, but,  glorioski! throttling the song is more an  assault on history than protection for sensitive  co-eds. As far as that goes, the song never deserved to be hyperventilated over. It's just a clever duet, not a Heritage.
 All right. What's behind this is the appalling Broadway reboot of My Fair Lady.

Is the ACA Toast?

'Twas the week before Christmas, and the Grinch paid a visit....
In this morning's news was this little surprise , at least it was a surprise to me. From the article:

"The Affordable Care Act could be headed back to the Supreme Court for the third time after a federal judge in Texas ruled Friday that the law is unconstitutional.

Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued the opinion in a lawsuit brought in February by Republican officials in 20 states led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Those officials contended that the entire law should be stricken because Congress earlier this year repealed the fines known as “shared responsibility payments” that people without health coverage had to pay under the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. O’Connor agreed."

The Joys of Juxtapositions

One of the great pleasures of newspaper reading is discovering two items that have nothing to do with one another, except in one's own mind.  This morning's NYTimes produced a juxtaposition, at least in my brain.

How are Nancy Pelosi and Theresa May alike and unalike? How are their political circumstances alike and unalike? Do the like and unalike tell us anything about the political cultures in which Nancy and Theresa operate?

The Pelosi story concerns her "frenemies" relations with Steny Hoyer (the House Democrat's second in command). He will not accept the deal she has made with the newbie Dems to turn over speaker command in 2022. Hoyer isn't having it; he will not give up second-in-command in 2022, nor turn down the speakers job, if offered. (Ignore the fact that both will be in their eighth decade!).

The op-ed on Theresa May is subtitled: "She has Britain’s grudging respect. And not much more." Of course, it is about Brexit! May is not popular, and never was. She took on an impossible task, boxing out radical Brexiters like Boris Johnson, and carryied on with the (small majority) mandate from the UK voters to exit the EU. The deal she negotiated is not popular, and has no majority anywhere is parliament, nor with the voters. Still, she has "carried on" like this is WW2, earning the grudging respect of the English, if not the Scottish or Irish.

This week Pelosi proved herself a superior match to the President (whether or not you approve her tinkling skunk metaphor) and she has cut a deal with the newbies, half of whom will be gone in the 2020 election. May has proved herself a match to all her critics, pro and con, in wrenching a Brexit deal that is likely to fall to a second referendum. In their own way each has "carried on," and each has earned respect, even if grudging, of their fellow countryman. In that, they are alike.  Unalike? You tell me!

The biggest Marian feast, unknown to gringos

 When I arrived for our regular 6:30 a.m. Wednesday men's group, the church parking lot was filled like Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday combined. The crowd was there for the morning festivities for Our Lady of Guadalupe, which began at 5. I had gotten up at 4:20 thinking I might go, but since my Spanish is buenos dias to non-existent and temps were in the 40s, I decided to read Matins and the Office of Readings for the day in English at home instead.
 This is only the second year for our celebration of Guadalupe. A couple of miles east, at St. Julianna's, this has been going on for years. Inside the church they build a climbable model of Tepeyac, with cactus and Spanish bayonet, and roses and the statue at the top, sing the Office, recite the rosary, listen to a Mariachi band, drink hot chocolate and eat whatever. They start at 4:30. We have gotten only as far as the Mariachis and a 5-foot in diameter model of the Basilica near Mexico City, with changing lights. And a Mexican flag. Long way to go here.
 Real long way to go, compared the the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, Ill., a few miles north of Deacon Jim. They were preparing for 300,000 pilgrims today. They usually top 200,000. The Basilica near Mexico City that Mary asked for in 1531 was already overflowing yesterday as I saw on Spanish TV while having lunch. Every Mexican singing star, no matter how short her skirt, was there to sing up a storm together for Our Lady.
 All this goes on under the noses but beneath the notice of most non-Hispanic Catholics. I was thinking this morning about how Mary picked out the poor, disregarded Indian Juan Diego instead of the Spanish bishop of Mexico City to create a new church in the new world.
 And I was thinking of how her image -- surviving all these years in a medium that lasts 20 years tops -- is the Statue of Liberty for Mexicans and Central Americans sitting at the border where our own successor Hispanic majesties argue over how big a wall we need to keep them out. And I was wondering why writing "deed" on a piece of paper authorizes people who have the paper to look down on people who don't. And things like that.
 As the country gets browner I suspect the gringos will find out about Our Lady of Guadalupe. Some places you see what looks like the image, but when you look more closely you see that instead of the real tilma's downcast Indian eyes, you have wide open Scandanavian blue eyes. I guess the real thing is a tough sell in some quarters.
 That will have to change. So will we.

Prayer Request

Near NewGathering community,

Rachel Ouellette, one of our contributors here at NewGathering, is having issues posting at the moment and asked me to pass this along.  She and her family have received some devastating news: her grandson is dying.  Understandably, she is very distraught, and is requesting our prayers. 

Leftovers

We hit a milestone last night: we ate the last of the Thanksgiving turkey.

Dialing down expectations

On February 21st Pope Francis will convene a summit of the presidents of bishops' conferences from around the world to address the clerical sexual abuse crisis that has sprung from smoldering embers to active conflagration again over this past year.  As the date for the summit approaches, John Allen at Crux has published a news analysis warning us that any hopes for a dramatic, game-changing set of policies are apt to be frustrated.

The calm of German politics

As I wrote in a recent CWL column ("A Little Less Stupid"), following the politics of Germany and the UK is a sharp (and welcome) contrast to the mosh pit of our own. No doubt, the two countries are infinitely interesting apart from their politics, even if many of our ancestors fled their famines, abusive practices, and dictatorial laws.  But as I argued in the column (or, better said, conjectured) their histories of the last century may have sobered everyone up, making policy-making more enticing than war-making.

Not to say the two countries (and the EU counterparts) don't have serious problems. They certainly do!  PM Theresa May is hanging onto office by the skin of her teeth as Parliament debates her Brexit deal. Chancellor Angela Merkel in the midst of losses in several local elections announced she would resign as head of the CDU, which she has.  Today a new party leader, Annegret Kamp-Karrenbauer, has been elected. She is said to be much like Merkel in her approach to Germany's political challenges.  AKK's election as head of party makes it likely that Merkel will stay on as Chancellor at least for a time and keep the EU from flying apart.

What I find calming and impressive about all of this is the attitude that political issues can be dealt with by political processes and solutions. The ups and downs of decisions and policy making do not require hysteria, nervous breakdowns, and multiple justifications every time the leader opens his mouth. (You know who I mean! --a case in point: Rex Tillerson talks about what it was like to deal with the president).

So two cheers for the UK, Germany, May and Merkel, who carry on in the best democratic and liberal tradition for which we were once a shining example. Alas!



What Now?

• 
  Illustration by Mitch Blun

Can Christians lie? Evangelical protestants and "harmonization"

An interesting article in Religion Dispatches about how "good" christians like Sara Sanders can lie for her boss and have a clear conscience.

 https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches/2018/06/29/can-christians-lie-fundamentalist-bible-interpretation-shaped-truth/



I had never heard the term "harmonization" in reference to biblical interpretation until I read this article.


White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently defended President Trump’s new policy of separating children from their parents at the border, claiming that “the law” requires this procedure. As the Washington Post explained in a couple of carefully-researched articles, Sanders’ claim was incorrect, and her and other Administration claims about the policy earned them a “Four Pinnochios” rating, the Post’s highest rating for dissembling.

A year and a half into the Donald Trump presidency (well, before that too), we’ve come to expect routine deception from the President—as well as, to use the more technical term from Philosophy, “bullshit.” But what about dissembling from the White House spokesperson, a known evangelical Christian whose Southern Baptist preacher father Mike Huckabee advised her “to be honest” as the press secretary—or other Christians serving in the Trump Administration? Could a Christian lie?

Obviously, Christians can lie—like other human beings. But sometimes they do so in specific ways grounded in faith. Many fundamentalists’ faith practices include the ability to “harmonize” uncomfortable facts, and the history of creationism gives us some clues as to how it works.

Full article explains what harmonization means to evangelical christians in interpreting the bible and in "interpreting" Trump..

Benefits and contributions

Workers and their families should be made secure against unemployment, sickness, accident, old age, and death. Individuals have the first—but not the sole—responsibility to secure their future. Personal savings and private pensions are two important elements in achieving that security. 

 -- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, A Commitment to All Generations: Social Security and the Common Good 

As Catholics, are the following financial news items anything we should care about?  Within the last six trading days:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 600 points a week ago today when the Fed chairman indicated that interest rates may not be going up much farther
• The Dow jumped another 300 points on Monday, on initial news that the US and China had agreed to ratchet down their trade war
• Yesterday, the Dow gave back those gains in reaction to adverse news on an interest-rate indicator called the yield curve which may be signaling a coming recession, coupled with reports that the US-China trade deal may not get done, with the president tweeting, "I am a Tariff Man".

Hoist by his opponent's petard

 I don't think we need to say much about President George H.W. Bush, since everybody everywhere is saying almost all that needs to be said. But one thing I haven't seen said -- and if I haven't seen it, it must not have been said as much as it should have been -- is this: Bush lost for Reagan's sin.
 Bush had accurately named what was later called Reaganomics when he called it "voodoo economics." It grew out of a truism (tax rates can be too high or too low) drawn on a cocktail napkin with mathematical-looking precision but lacking any kind of rigor that would make it useful. In 1980 Bush named it and shamed it.
 As vice president, he had to keep his mouth shut while his principal lit the fires, beat the drums and found someone to put a magic asterisk in the budget. Then when he became president, the voodoo destroyed him.
  Everybody everywhere knows he said "voodoo economics" and everybody everywhere knows he lost in 1988 because it really was "the economy, stupid." But not everybody seems able to connect the dots: Bush knew what would happen, and when it happened he did what was good for the country, not what was good for GHWB.

 Voodoo economics was tried again, by Bush 43, and it blew up just in time for Obama to deal with it. It was tried for a third time, by outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan (signed by the fat man who grasps economics as easily as he reads hieroglyphics), and we will see who has to deal with the inevitable fallout. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time, sheesh.

Friendship and peace

I'm a bit of a rare bird on NewGathering - I'm conservative.  But we're friends (I think and hope).

Tragic Anniversary

Those of you who are present and past Chicago residents are aware of the fire that destroyed Our Lady of the Angels school, sixty years ago today.  In this tragic fire,  92 students and 3 nuns lost their lives, and many others were scarred for life, physically and emotionally. What you may not be aware of is the ripple effect that touched school systems all over the nation.  It upended and changed safety standards for schools; and never again has there been a school fire which claimed so many lives.