"100 Totally Awesome Blogs by Catholic Priests"

Occasionally, I get comments on something I have posted - often comments from people I do not know, which is encouraging, I suppose, since it means people are actually reading what I write here! I also sometimes get some comments (or at least "likes") on Facebook, where I routinely link this blog. Beyond that, I have absolutely no idea, how many people might be actually reading what I write here. But, in the nature of what this is, I think that not having a known and identified audience is ok really. I just write what I write because I find it wothwhile to do so. If others in turn find it worthwhile to read it, so much the better!

 

But this past week I received a message from CatholicDatingSites.net, which defines its core mission as being "to encourage safe dating among Catholic singles." Since I am not exactly in that category, that's a site I had never had occasion to hear of before! Anyway, it seems that, being a Catholic-oriented site, CatholicDatingSites.net also occasionally compiles lsits of other "Catholic-themed sites" for its audience. This week it has complied a list of what it calls "100 Totally Awesome Blogs by Catholic Priests." And City Father has made that list! One can find the full list at: http://www.catholicdatingsites.net/100-totally-awesome-blogs-by-catholic-priests/

 

I took a quick look at the list. It is, as it says, a listing of 200 blogs by  Catholic priests. ("Catholic priests" here also includes 4 bishops and a cardinal! So I am certainly in some good company!) The list describes the blog thus: "Fr. Ronald Franco, a member of the Paulist Fathers, writes about world events, political happenings, and Church news."

Thank you to whoever took the trouble to compile this list for judging my modest words worthy to be included! And thank you to all who read my these pages!

True Cross

In the contemporary Church calendar, today is kept as the feast of the Apostles Philip and James. Those of us above a certain age, however, can well remember when today was celebrated as the feast of the Finding of the True Cross. The old 2^nd Nocturn from the former feast of the Finding of the Cross recounts how St. Helena, Mother of Emperor Constantine, came to Jerusalem to seek the relic of the Cross at the traditional site of Calvary, which the Romans had rededicated to Venus after the defeat of the Jewish rebellion. The old 5^th Lesson tells how, after excavations led to three crosses being found, the Bishop applied each of them to a seriously sick woman, who was immediately healed after touching the third cross, thus identified as the True Cross of Christ. The 6^th Lesson further describes how, after reserving a relic of the Cross in the Basilica built on the site in Jerusalem, St. Helena sent another part of the Cross to Constantine, who put it in Rome’s Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. The Santa Croce Basilica, on the site of St. Helena's Sessorian Palace is located not far from the Lateran. It contains a rennovated Reliquary Chapel and an interesting Chapel of St. Helena (photo).
The Golden Legend some really imaginative legends identifying the actual wood of the Cross with the actual wood of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Such legends may have been inspired by the more serious connection which classical Christian spirituality suggests between the Tree, which was occasion of Adam's fall, and the Cross, which was the instrument of human salvation. The liturgy itself encourages a kind of parallelism between between Adam's tree and the Cross, itself perhaps inspired by the Pauline parallelism between Adam and Christ. Thus, in the Preface of the Holy Cross (which used to be recited more frequently than it is now), the Church prays: For you placed the salvation of the human race ont he wood of the Cross, so that, where death arose, life might again spring forth, and the evil one, who conquered on a tree, might likewise on a tree be conquered, through Christ our Lord. The Ambrosian liturgy of Milan employs similar imagery, combined with a reference to Moses' staff: Once through the fruit of the forbidden tree, we fell; now through this tree Christ cancels all our guilt. The power of this wood was once foretold in the staff that Moses wonderully uplifted to open a saving passage through the waters and drown the enemy beneath the waves. On the tree of the cross our Redeemer hung, becoming accursed for our sake, to snatch us from the ancient foe and lead us from death's dominion into eternal life. (We Give You Thanks and Praise: The Eucharistic Prefaces of the Ambrosian Missal, tr. Alan Griffiths, 1999).
Admittedly, such highly symbolic language hearkens back to a more imaginative, bygone age. Even so, the realities which such symbolic language is intended to highlight remain at the center of Christian life - in any age.
The Easter season still has lots of lamb imagery. It used to have a lot more Cross imagery than it now does. Not only was there this feast of the Finding of the Cross on May 3 (suprressed since 1961), but there used to be a regular "Suffrage" of the Cross in the Eastertime Office. That  Commemoratio de Cruce explicitly celebrated the link between Christ's Cross and our own resurrection.

Penmanship

When I was in elementary school, our report cards included a grade for penmanship. Of all the subjects, penmanship was generally my weakest. In an age when elegant handwriting was valued and cultivated, I had what one relative described as "an immature handwriting."The one main point in its favor was that I tended to write relatively large letters, which whatever their level of maturity are generally easier to decipher than smaller ones. In college, grad school, and again later in seminary, I had to take notes. (Writing clealry beats printing for taking notes, although I suppose once could argue that shorthand would be even better!) As a teacher I wrote comments on students' papers. Now, however, I hardly ever write anything other than my signature. An occasional scribbled note to myself and an occasional carefully written note on a greeting card are about the extent of my need for penmanship skills today. 

 

I was, however, amazed to learn that "cursive writing," as it is technically called, is less and less required in schools or even taught. When I get greeting cards from my younger relatives, they are invariably printed. The sentiments expressed are just as welcome, but there does seem to be something lacking in a printed note. It might as well be typed on a computer! But does it really matter? 

 

Yesterday's New York Times hosted an interesting debate on the topic. A USC Education professor argues against mandating the teaching of cursive. "Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades. Very small proportions of adults use cursive for their day-to-day writing. ... Additionally, there is little compelling research to suggest the teaching of cursive positively affects other student skills enough to merit its teaching." At the other extreme, a University archivist notes the relative permanence  (and attractiveness) of traditional letters as opposed to such transient phenomena as email and argues "Cursive writing is a long-held cultural tradition in this country and should continue to be taught; not just for the sake of tradition, but also to preserve the history of our nation."

 

That latter argument resonates with me emotionally. Yet, as we all know, with new things constantly being added to the curriculum, other things have to go, and so it behooves advocates to be able to advance practical as well as esthetic arguments!

 

The other two participants in the debate the more middle-of-the road positions. On the anti-cursive side, a handwriting expert argues: "Handwriting matters, but not cursive. The fastest, clearest handwriters join only some letters: making the easiest joins, skipping others, using print-like forms of letters whose cursive and printed forms disagree. Reading cursive matters, but even children can be taught to read writing that they are not taught to produce. Reading cursive can be taught in just 30 to 60 minutes -- even to five- or six-year-olds, once they read ordinary print. Why not teach children to read cursive, along with teaching other vital skills, including a handwriting style typical of effective handwriters?" Finally, for the defense, an Occupational Therapist makes the case for cursive's benefits beyond actual writing. She contends: "Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of e-mails, texts and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing. As a result, the physical act of writing in cursive leads to increased comprehension and participation."

Now I really would like to believe that. In other words, as is so often the case with competing claims, I want to believe that the "facts" support my intuitions.In this case, I want to believe the occupaitonal therapist's claims because they buttress the argument of the archivist! On the other hand, given the realities of the way we actually communicate today, I don't think one could justify givign penmanship anythign liek the emphasis it used to get - nor do I care to subject future generations to the stigma I had to endure for having "an immature handwriting." But (much as I would like every school child to learn to conjugate Laitn verbs even absent any expectaiton of ever much using them), I would like to hope schools will continue to expose future generations to the skill of handwriting - and th epleasures of penmanship.

For the full text of the debate in yesterday's New Yoirk Times,
go to ://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130501

Crowning the BVM

We crowned the statue of Mary on the campus of our regional school this morning. I'm the school's hebdomedary this week; so it fell to me to preside at this annual event. First we had a very crowded Mass - crowded especially with proud parents of 1st Communicants who were wearing their 1st Communion outfits again today. Then, after Mass, we went singing in procession outside to shrine erected for the prupose, where the student individually placed flowers in vases in front of the statue. After singing the Magnificat, we sang the traditonal May hymn, during which an 8th grader put the floral crown on Mary's head. Then we recited the Litany of Loretto, after which we sang yet another hymn, and lots of pictures were taken to the great joy of all involved.

Our parish "May Crowning" will take place this coming Sunday. Weather permitting, our procession will have three "stations." We will walk outdoors, singing the Litany of Loretto, to crown our outdoor statue, then return to the church to venerate the image of Mary Salus Populi Romani, which graces our shrine designated for prayer through the intercession of Isaac Hecker, before concluding at the side altar for the May hymn and crowning of the main Mary statue.

May Crownings hearken back to a time of vibrant Catholic communities, when the parish was the center of the neighborhood - socially as well as spiritually. Upward mobility and suburbanization eventually changed all that, and reviving the rituals of the onetime "Catholic ghetto" may seem to some more like an exercise in nostalgia. But there is more than nostalgia involved when the time-honored rites that formed earlier generations and nourished the faith and hope of saints are revived. They may not work exactly the way they did in that storied once-upon-a-time (which wasn't actually all that long ago), but they still hold out the promise of linking life in this world with the heavenly liturgy which we have been hearing described these Easter season Sundays in the Book of Revelation. In that sense, sich rituals are less a nostalgic evocation of a romantically remembered past and more like a glimpse into the eternal future which we believe has already begun in the Resurrection and for whose fulfillment in all of us we so fondly and confidently have our hope.

Orange

                                             

After 123 years, the Netherlands has a king, - Willem Alexander, who acceded to the Dutch throne and the headship of the royal House of Orange today upon the abdication of his mother, Queen Beatrix. She had been the third in the trio of Dutch Queens to reign in the Netherlands since 1890. The first of those three, Queen Wilhelmina, was one of the great symbols of wartime resistance to Hitler. Along with King Haakon of Norway, Charles DeGaulle of France, and Winston Churchill, she chose not to be on what then appeared to many to be "the right side of history" in 1940").

King Willem Alexander's grandmother, Queen Juliana presided - tearfully - over the independence of Indonesia and the effective end of the Dutch Empire. In its time, however, the Dutch Empire had once mattered on the larger world scene. Reminders of that are the orange bar on the flag of New York City (an acknowledgment of the Dutch role in the founding of one of the world's greatest cities) and the orange stripes on my academic gown (a celebration of the Dutch royal house, the House of Orange, and its pivotal role in England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, which ousted that country's last Catholic king and solidified the supremacy of Parliament over the monarch). 

King Willem Alexander's wife, Queen Maxima is an Argentinian by birth. It's been a good year for Argentina so far!

The House of Orange links the modern Netherlands back to William the Silent's 16th-century revolt against Catholic Spain. By royal standards that's a short span of history. Some other reigning houses boast a longer lineage and link their 21st century peoples back a thousand or more years. It is one of the functions of royalty to connect and bind. Obviously the connection back to the nation's past binds a people to their heritage and is an important value in itself. But royalty also connect and bind their people in the present. Commenting on the recent British funeral of Margaret Thatcher, someone questioned the propriety of so much state ceremonial for a mere politician - the argument being that, unlike royalty, whose role is to unite a nation, politicians divide it.

In today's world, perhaps an additional symbolic function of royalty is that kings and queens do not choose their jobs, but receive them as a civic calling, a secular vocation. That makes royalty a wonderful witness to the value of a life focused on something bigger than oneself, something so ncessary for civilization but so unvalued in today's world.