I was going to title this “Of Baseball Caps and Electric Blue Thongs", but figured it wouldn’t fit in the title area of my template. Dressing for Mass. Yes, this is an area of severe culture shock, not just to Protestants looking into a Catholic Church for the first time, but also for Catholics themselves if they come from another country.
Picture this: It was Holy Thursday of this year...
The post below is a prayer request – here’s the link. I got this message today:
I have no doubt that the prayers of you, your family, and every other person who knows about this- are what is getting me through this. And it is those same prayers that have brought us this assistance as well.
What assistance, you ask? They’ve found an attorney that will at least give them some advice. This is great news. Hopefully, this new attorney is heaven sent, to counter the diabolical origins of the whole situation. [To those that know the whole story, this has long been seen as a story with diabolical origins.] If we keep at the prayers then the truth will eventually come out. That’s mainly what I’ve prayed for in this situation myself; that the truth comes out, that a lawyer be found, and that the family remain strong throughout this.
Several years ago, a Pentecostal coworker of mine asked me, with furrowed brow, about the title “Co-Redemptrix". I rattled off an answer – something like, it’s just a theory that some people talk about, but isn’t really going anywhere. Turns out, I was right, but I don’t think there is any element of Catholic theology that can lead to more confusion. So, let us explore the idea of the Co-Redemptrix.
Yes, they're very basic. But I'm going to try to make a comprehensive list eventually. That way, should anyone ever want to print off the whole thing on a single page it will be possible.
I'll also eventually do something for the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet in both traditional English and Latin. Eventually...
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
[A note about the translation on this. The last sentence of the Latin version does not translate into English very well. "et in sæcula sæculorum" technically means something like "age upon ages", or something like that. It's often translated as "world without end," but that really doesn't convey the idea correctly (and I'm fairly certain the theology is a bit off as well). "And ever shall be" sums it up rather nicely and without the repetition found in the Latin.]
Pater noster, qui es in cælis:
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat Regnum Tuum;
fiat voluntas Tua,
sicut in cælo, et in terra.
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos
dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen
In nomine Patris, + et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
In the name of the + Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
I've been snowed under with other things this morning. I'm not going to have time to do a proper post. I thought, instead, I'd start posting some Catholic prayers in traditional English. These are typically used prayers, but in an older form of the language than you would find in most parish environments.
I'll do a couple today and a couple more tomorrow.
By the way, these are the same prayers listed in the Compendium of the Catechism that came out a few months ago. The Compendium strongly recommends memorizing them in Latin. Personally, I think Latin and traditional English are a very strong combination.
If you have some time, head over to Nate's blog and have a look at his Choosing Life series. Go when you can sit a spell. He's on Chapter XI, I think.
Nate is a genuinely good guy who has arrived at his current state of life via the Third Circle of Hell. He also knows his stuff as well as anyone you'll find on the web (better in some cases). He's a convert, reconvert, counter-convert...well, I think he'll agree that his conversion continues.
Nate - there was a time when I would have told you that you had your head...well...someplace other than on your shoulders. But you seem to have come through and found a bit of peace along the way. I am proud to call you a brother, and I wish you all the best.
This is, without doubt, the strangest post I’ve ever written. In two and a half years of blogging, this is the only time I’ve ever tried to write a post that didn’t say anything. But in this often twisted world, such is the spot in which I find myself. You see...
The most common place a Protestant is going to encounter culture shock is at the parish level. You walk into a Catholic Church for the first time, expecting to find heaven on earth, and you sit down. The choir strikes up Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken", a grinning priest shuffles up the aisle after stopping the procession to talk to a teenager he knows. The parishioners yawn. Later, the homily deals with the dicey topic of what a pair of teenage girls thought about a particular “chick flick". You join hands during the Lord’s Prayer, and sing the Great Amen to a tune that would make Joani Mitchell proud. The Eucharistic prayers are rattled off as fast as is humanly possible, the Body and Blood of Christ are raised before the assembly for a hair longer than a tenth of a second, and lay people are left to hand out the Eucharist as the presiding priest takes a seat. The weary parishioners yawn, seemingly oblivious. “This Mass is ended…" is intoned wearily by the shuffling priest a mere 42 minutes after the introduction. You wander out into the bright morning light, stunned, and in your reeling mind is one thought: “my God, this is Catholicism?"
All this has happened to me personally – in a single Mass.
Welcome to After Abortion. This is a blog that I had on my roll for a long time. Unfortunately, I've missed linking to a lot of people since my return.
And a hearty welcome to an old friend: Nate Nelson. If you've followed Nate's blogging career for long you must you know he's a moving target. I'll try to keep the link pointed to the right place.
Give both a visit and tell 'em Mark sent ya.
Now I have to figure out scotch (something I've never drunk), find a list of clothiers who can retailor that Gucci outfit into something that looks more like K-Mart (would Target work?), and wean people from golf while extolling the virtues of bowling (I do rather like bowling on occasion). The phrase book is going to be tough: "Romish as She is Spoke". Personally, I think I'll leave that to Jeff Miller.
Ah, the stereotypes we overcome in life...
I know exactly what’s wrong with the Catholic Church. In the interest of full disclosure, I will divulge this secret here, for all the world to know. Hopefully, this will allow us to get to a point of understanding on what Catholicism is or is not.
Here is the secret...
An Episcopal priest on another blog said that people swim the Tiber because the grass is always greener. That is not always the case. Next week I'll run a series of posts about what to expect on this side of the Tiber if you decide to take the swim.
Culture shock and more, next week on Rafting the Tiber...
This link will take you to an article by the Right Reverend William E. Swing, Episcopal bishop of California. This article has been widely quoted and dissected by various blogs, but fisking it really isn’t the point. The point is - what lies behind Bishop Swing’s words?
Here’s a response from the 5th century:
"If one yields ground on any single point of Catholic doctrine, one will later have to yield later in another, and again in another, and so on until such surrenders come to be something normal and acceptable. And when one gets used to rejecting dogma bit by bit, the final result will be the repudiation of it altogether." - St. Vincent of Lerins
The title of this post, “Veritas, quid est Veritas?" are words spoken by Pontius Pilate during his questioning of Jesus of Nazareth. They are Latin for “Truth, what is Truth?" Pilate knew Christ to be innocent – that was the absolute truth, the reality of the situation. But Pilate had another truth to consider – his own. His truth was complicated, and rooted on the whims of Cæsar and the changing fortunes of his temporal life. He was, in short, a man of weakness.
It seems to me that the words or Pontius Pilate echo in Bishop Swing’s article. Does the truth of this world lie in the ever-evolving human view of what a church is (any church, not just the ECUSA)? Is truth pliable, and adaptable to a situation or a cultural whim? Is the truth something that can be altered to fit our own personal lives more fully?
Or does the Truth of this world lie in the Word made flesh?
From A Friendly Questioner in the comments below: Thank you, Mark. Well, Anglicanism and Catholicism have been split from each other these 500 years, but are still quite comprehensible to each other, like the Norwegian and Danish languages. The creator of that split was a bloody, whim driven, thieving, lecherous tyrant, whose legacy if repudiated by a modern Anglican makes that Anglican a repentant large "C" catholic in good stead, no extra lessons needed, or does it?
Greetings and warm wishes to those who stopped in here last week. It always amazes me how many people come by from different corners of the world; the web is a strange and sometimes wondrous place. In addition to the large number of American’s, there were lots of others. Here’s a very small sample:
78 people from Canada
34 from Australia
16 from China
9 from New Zealand
8 from Finland
4 from Israel (praying for peace in your homeland)
2 from Ireland
2 from Austria
2 from Hong Kong
American Beauty -
“Look at me, blogging in the shower. This is the high point of my day. It’s all downhill from here."
Napoleon Dynamite -
“I'm Rex, founder of the Rex Kwan Do self-defense system! After one week with me in my dojo, you'll be prepared to defend yourself with the strength of a grizzly, the reflexes of a puma, and the wisdom of a blogger."
Gladiator -
“If you find yourself alone, blogging in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already irrelevant!"
I picked these off of a single combox on MCJ. They are from the post where Christopher Johnson was kind enough to announce the existence of this blog. Here’s a brief sampling:
I have seen this come up on several blogs: people say that they can’t swim the Tiber because of the way Catholics see Mary. Some of the first objections are to the term “Mediatrix of all Graces" They think that Catholics see Mary as an equal to Christ. The confusion is compounded by the term “Co-Redemptrix" that is often mentioned but little understood, thinking that this puts Mary in the position of a second redeemer.
We’re going to deal with the Mediatrix of All Graces first, and then in a separate post I’ll get into the Co-Redemptrix idea.
Let me put this very plainly: Catholics do not believe that Mary is a Mediatrix of All Graces in any way that makes her an equal to Christ. There are some problems of language here. Allow me to explain.
“…there often comes to them, through their imperfections, a certain kind of secret pride, whence they come to have some degree of satisfaction with their works and with themselves. And hence there comes to them likewise a certain desire, which is somewhat vain, and at times very vain, to speak of spiritual things in the presence of others, and sometimes even to teach such things rather than to learn them. They condemn others in their heart when they see that they have not the kind of devotion which they themselves desire; and sometimes they even say this in words, herein resembling the Pharisee, who boasted of himself, praising God for his own good works and despising the publican."
St. John of the Cross
Dark Night of the Soul
(Book 1, Chapter 2, Paragraph 1)
Given that this blog often attempts to speak of spiritual things in the presence of others, this struck me as being very appropriate to post here. I have been guilty of all these things at one time or another in my blogging life, so I remind myself of this quote often.
Today's entries, after much work over the weekend, got blasted. The file was fine yesterday, but is somehow corrupted this morning.
Computers are our friends...
Computers are our friends...
Computers are our friends...
Check back this afternoon and I'll try to recreate the entries.
Since Chris Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal is writing about it in his on-going “Anglican Investigator‿ series, I thought it might be a good idea to touch on the Spirit of Vatican II and what it means to Catholics.
Needless to say, this could easily be a rather confusing post.
It's capable of withstanding vast amounts of abuse. Here are some examples I got by e-mail today:
This idea has brought up a great deal of passion each time I’ve mentioned it. It is, however, such an important concept that I want to mention it early in the existence of this blog. When I wrote about worthiness before, I got one of two reactions. First, people shouted at me, “How dare you say such a condescending thing."? Second, people wrote to me privately to say, “That’s exactly how I felt for many years."? So, I would like everyone to keep a level head when reading this post. It is an important concept, especially for Anglicans.
I will remove any comment, and ban any commenter, that stops by to leave nothing but mean spirited words. If you want to lambast me, or anyone else that comes by here, then don't expect to be treated fairly. By all means, debate is good - even heated debate - but spite for spite's sake won't last long.
I am a convert to Catholicism. Now, what the heck does that mean?
As a convert, I went through a program called RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults). In my area, RCIA starts at the beginning of September and runs through Pentecost. You are officially received into the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass, where you partake of two sacraments – Holy Eucharist and Confirmation (and Baptism, if you weren’t previously baptized). Technically speaking, Easter Vigil Mass concludes your conversion.
Or does it?
I guess I should say a thing or two about what I believe. It wouldn’t do for a conservative Anglican to be led astray by a liberal Catholic. Since I claim to be an orthodox Catholic, it might help to define that just a bit.
My library consists of books by the following authors (the order is by number of books in my book cases):
Josef Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Karol Wojtyla / Pope John Paul II
Henri de Lubac
Frank Sheed
St. John of the Cross
Mark Shea
St. Louis de Montfort
St. Francis de Sales
Scott Hahn
Karl Keating
These are the authors to which I refer when putting something on this site. If you can’t find enough orthodoxy to suit you in the pages of these books, well, I’m afraid I can’t help you.
I also believe that the language of prayer should be more formal than the language of everyday speech. The prayers you see on this site will be, when I get a chance to post them, in Traditional English. What is Traditional English, you ask? It’s the language of Donne and Shakespeare. The reason for this is simple: Lex orandi, lex credendi - As we pray, so we believe.
From Liturgicam Authenticam:
27. “...words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue of this very fact, that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities."?
This guides all the translations you will find here. And, yes, I do many of the translations from Latin myself. Unfortunately, much of the English speaking Catholic world, does not put much stock in the language of prayer. Well, I’m doing my bit to help correct that.
I am here because I am a convert to Catholicism from the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA). My going from the ECUSA to the Catholic Church was a long journey, filled with every emotion known to man. It was a journey measured in decades, not in weeks or months or years. Along the way, I had some help; the woman I would eventually marry, a priest to whom I would eventually make my first and darkest confession, a priest that eventually confirmed me, a sponsor who later became a deacon. A great many Episcopalians have recently started a similar journey themselves. Among other things, this blog hopes to help them along that path.
I was raised in the Episcopal Church. I was even an altar boy for a while when I was nine or ten years old. This was back in the late 60s and early 70s, and as you know, it was a very different church in those days.
By the time I was 17, I was involved in a youth group that met at the local Episcopal cathedral. During the time I spent going to the cathedral, my views of the church changed dramatically. I noticed quite a few things that were not right – this was during the last half of the 1970s. They began to teach and accept things that, even at my tender age and without much religious education, seemed to go against the Bible and what my grandmother had taught me about God. Eventually, I left the cathedral, the church, and religion in general. The details of the departure are unimportant. The point is that I left.
By the time I met my wife, I was a hodge-podge of religious ideas, with no real conviction beyond the Trinity and the Lord’s Prayer. I was not much of an Episcopalian in those days, but I wasn’t much of anything, really. I was, deep down inside, miserable on a whole host of different levels.
A great many people use a swimming analogy to describe their conversion. Some people might say that I “swam the Tiber"? when I converted to Catholicism. Others might say the same with Anglicanism by “swimming the Thames"?. To keep that metaphor going, when I left the Episcopal Church I leapt into the Thames expecting to swim somewhere – but I had no idea where to go. As a result, I sent more than 20 years spiritually treading water.
The actions of the Episcopal Church over the past three years have left a great many people thinking about swimming somewhere as well. The problem is - many don’t know where they’re going any more than I did back in 1979. Not knowing is hard; I know, I’ve been there. I do not want others to suffer in the same fate that I did. Trust me: You don’t want to spend 20 years trying to decide if you’re swimming the Tiber or drowning in the Thames.
Please understand, I am not asking or telling anyone to convert. Yes, I feel that the depth of the Catholic Church is staggering once you come to appreciate it. Yes, I think Catholicism is a great gift, and that any orthodox Anglican can find a home here if they open their heart to the whispers of the Spirit. But no, I would not presume to tell anyone to convert.
I chose to call this Rafting the Tiber for a reason, but not the one that might be obvious. This raft will not take you to Rome. It’s more like a life raft anchored in the middle of the river – it is intended to help keep you afloat, give you a place to catch your breath, but not intended to get you there. Eventually, if you feel the pull, you will have to leap in and swim the last leg yourself. That leap is a leap of faith, and that’s not something that I – or any other blogger – can provide for you.
I do ask that you keep your minds open. Many of the comments I’ve seen Anglican blogs have been incorrect. What you think you know about Catholicism may not be the reality of Catholicism. And, hopefully, therein lies the fun of this blog…
I do hope that there will be a bit of fun along the way as well! I’ll keep the blog going as long as I can and as long as it remains useful. I’m sure we’ll discuss other topics as well. Blogs tend to have a life of their own, so who knows…this one may become something else over time. We shall see.
I’ve also got a little help. Kevin Miller, professor of theology and blogger at HMS, is going to stop by from time to time and help out with some of the more technical issues that might crop up from time to time.
So, let the adventure begin!
