Bad Homilies

We've all been there at the mass where our heads were suddenly stunned into a religious stupor by something said after the Gospel.  You know what I speak of, not the long homily, not the goes everywhere homily, not the it's not a homily, it's a reminder that we're due for an annual appeal lecture, but the BAD homily. 

The BAD homily is not theologically unsound although that sometimes happens, the BAD homily leaves children puzzled and adults struggling.  The BAD homily gives mental cotton candy when there ought to be Beef Wellington.  

Everyone talks about BAD music and BAD music choices.  There are the Haugen Haters and the This Isn't Catholic American Idol, just sing the song critiques a plenty.  I will suffer bad singing, out of tune guitars and even poorly thought out synthesized accompaniment because of the sincerity of the hearts in there pitching.  I will wince and mentally chafe at someone singing Mary Did You Know because the answer is YES! But the homily is part of the meat of the mass, where we're forced to dig deeper into our lives and apply the gospel.  It is supposed to grip at our hearts and our minds.

So you might be wondering...what happened?

Yesterday was the Feast of the Epiphany and we went to a late mass not at our home parish owing to the logistics of the day.  Squirmy baby syndrome had set in in earnest and I ferried one soon to be joined by a second to the cry room wherein a loudspeaker provided any adults who strained their ears with what was going on in the mass. My middle son came in as well for support. 

I thought I was hearing things as the priest described a mountain climber who had suffered a fall and was suspended on the side of a mountain and how he finally decided to pray and heard God say, "Let go." and he feared falling so he didn't but prayed again and God said, "Cut the rope."  He got out his knife but couldn't bring himself to do it and thus was found the next day frozen to death a few feet from a foothold where he could have safely weathered the night if he had followed God's instructions and cut the tether.  This was 1)obviously not true as how then would we know God spoke to him or that he refused to trust and 2) deeply annoying.  It bothered me so much I googled it this morning and the story is there on the internet.http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/cuttherope.html

This was the Feast of the Epiphany!  You want to talk about having Faith? The Kings left their homes. They left their families.  They followed a star.  They showed up at a stable.  They saw a baby with two peasants, a carpenter and his young wife, in a stable.  With animals and straw and all of that!  And they knew that this was a new King. That this was The King.  They gave their treasures.   My brain exploded when my son said, "I don't think God would do this, it makes Him seem rather mean."   What am I supposed to do? I told him at the time, he was probably right and how could it be true if we know about it unless the poor guy suspended on the rope took the time to write it all down before he died.  (It's not noted so I'm guessing no).  At that moment I felt like the opportunity to plant seeds had been squandered in a sense for this mass.  

And then the final blessing came and asked that we use charity.  So I'm there struggling mentally, deciding not to ask about it in the reception line, to just get going and talk later to my husband and older children. They all agree it puzzled them, but no one is as bothered as me.  I'm obviously still bothered.  So I had to ask, Why?

Everyone screws up. I get it and I'm willing to give a mulligan to the occasional misfire off day.  But the problem with bad homilies is that's what we remember from the mass.  We do not remember staying steeped in the Eucharist or how our daughter sang the First Noel full throated, or how our youngest son said the Alleluia.  What sticks, what stays,what gnaws is "Cut the rope." a macabre story easily found from a Non Catholic Internet site is being substituted for reflections on the Feast of the Epiphany.  I want to let it go but then part of me sets her teeth and says, this is a parish full of growing souls and I don't want them becoming disenchanted, uninvested in the star because the star has been made out into something far less interesting. 

What to do?  Beg any priest considering an assist from Google for homily preparation to vet the sources for their Catholicism and avail themselves of the 2000+ years of writings from the saints and the martyrs and holy men and women who have come before, instead of tagging leap of faith and running with the first story of 1,070,000 results that shows up? Talk to the priest himself?  Forget it? I'm still uncertain I'm being charitable even by discussing it.  Rant rant rant! Right Right Right. Rant some more.  My brain goes on and I'm still bothered.  I'm still not letting go.   And then God says...BINGO!  Sherry....cut the rope. 

Sheesh.
Yes. I know. 
That's how God works.   Some of us (me) get to the stable a bit later than others. 

Time for another (for lack of a better term) Catholic Rant

Recently, I read a piece discussing the possibility of a coming Schism within the Roman Catholic church, between those who feel we have lost our way since Vatican II, and those who feel, we are losing our way by correcting any abuses  that came from misunderstandings or deliberate reinterpretations from Vatican II. It also discussed people pulling away because the Catholicism they wanted to practice, did not fit within the confines of a singular political ideology.

I thought about the idea of the Church becoming smaller, and it pained me.  I thought about people walking away from the Church, remaking the liturgy in their own image and that hurt too.  I wondered, what was it that made the left and the right so angry; and it seemed so simple, that they were not the only, and that they mistook themselves for the whole body of Christ and saw the rest as to be discarded, lopped off as not part of what is the Universal church.  The humorist in me thought, if you aren't irritating someone with your Catholicism, you're probably doing it wrong. 

We are the great condundrum of the world, We believe in a God who becomes man and is still God, a God who suffers, who loves of all things, us.  We believe in both justice and mercy, not an either or,  in ending capital punishment and abortion, in the redemptive value of both the Republican and the Democrat, in purgatory, Heaven and yes, Hell.  We know we have the capacity to get ourselves to only one place absent God's grace, and that it is only by having a relationship with God, that the other two are available as possibilities. 

As Catholics, we have long thinkers about everything.  We believe people should wait until marriage for sex, and then be open to the possibilities for children.  We're fallen ergo, we're very limited in our understanding, so much more limited than we think. So when we are full of feeling and self, it is fortunate that we have this long history, this long great story of all the stories of faith to fall back on, to see that what we think now is not so different, so alien from all that has come before. 

It is folly to assume our mere existence validates our opinions over the likes of Saint Thomas Moore, Saint Augustin, Saint Thomas Aquaintas, Blessed Mother Theresa, Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Francis of Assissi, Blessed Pope John Paul the Great, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, Saint John, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Padre Pio, Saint Katherine Drexel, Saint Edith Stein, Saint Maximilian Kobe and all the other saints that could make this the longest blog entry in Blogger history. The collective wisdom of 2000+ years of people of good will, diamond type faith that has been battle tested, and ratified through trial, examination and study, ought to trumph our google's worth of understanding of anything about how one lives life, in this or any other century.

It does not matter what the topic is; some want women priest, some want contraception not to be a sin, some want only Latin masses, some want whatever it is they do, to be ratified as right, some want the Church to only do one thing; whatever that is; but whatever it is that the individuals want, it is a single thread of the cloak of Catholicism, as versus the whole garment. Some want to pull out threads, others to add new ones, still others to cut everything up and start anew stiching an outfit that looks nothing like what has come before.  Every thread of every life that has become part of the Catholic story reveals something of the greater story of our faith.  We have deathbed converts and cradle Catholics, martyrs and hermits and every walk of life from every flavor of the world.  We have saints that were great sinners first, great warriors, great leaders, saints that were lawyers, Kings, widows, Queens, mothers of many, and even children.  So we ought to consider our history stronger, our story longer than the mere trials of the moment. 

But we also perpetually froget that we are  a fallen people.  It is human nature to be limited in capacity to see, to hear, to say, to think, to understand, to give and to love. We always want less than what God wants for us. We always love less than God; we always love less than God created us to love, we always limit our love, we always try (unsuccessfully) to limit God's love, to name the terms. The Church is right on this issue, but way way way off on that, it is the Holy Spirit speaking through Saint Paul here, but not here, here he is a victim of the time in which he lives and the culture. We do not understand beyond ourselves except through grace, except through the Holy Spirit burning away our pride, our preconceptions, our capacity to self decieve and mistake our feelings and wants, passions and politics for wisdom. If we understand that saintliness of the soul is available to all who want to love God with the whole heart, we will not need to believe in miracles.  We will know there are miracles, 1000 miracles in a life on any given day, and so we will march bravely forward with great hope in our chests.  But we think we lack that mustard seed so we will not even test the waters on which were we to fully trust in Christ, we could walk to Him.

But I see signs everywhere of great fire, of great faith, of great passion for God.  And I see it most in the growing more crowded pews, and the returning again and again despite everything of the faithful.

So I do not believe there will be a schism, despite the calcification of souls, despite the agitation on the right and the left for smaller vessels that more reflect them than Christ.  I trust the Holy Spirit will help shape what is to come.  While there may be splinterings from the cross, I do not think they will stand the test of time, they will irritate as splinters do.  I think people sometimes confuse their own staleness of faith with the reality of the Church. The church is not a floaty tranquil easy place, it is a building within our hearts that brings joy through service, peace through love, and grace to weather what would otherwise be, an unbearable life.  The tranquilty and peace come from love which is active, rather than as an innate part of the package, which is boring.  God will not let us become dullards in our faith without a fight.

But going back to the idea of a schism, I sat there considering, "What sliver of Catholicism could I surrender?" and the answer was none.

X-Men: No Class

Warning: Spoilers of a sort. I am ranting away, got my Catholic feminist hat on; buckle up!

I love the X-men.  As a kid, I bought them faithfully from 8th grade on; indeed I met my future husband because we both collected comic books.  I spied an X-men on his dresser when a group of friends had dragged me to this quad of boys' room for pizza.  We spent the next two hours discussing in nerdy detail, the plot twists and variant characters of Marvel's band of teenage mutants.  It resulted in me not leaving with my friends and getting a gentelmanly offer to walk me home in the rain to my college dorm across the street. (It was a mile and a half walk).   The result was a college romance that began three days into school and has lasted since, bringing 10 children in its wake.  

So not that I've established my bonifides as a fan, let me say I went to see the movie "X-men: First Class" last night with my best friend/husband and while I enjoyed the film, I have to pause and say "Boo. Hiss.  Baby, we've got a long way to go." to the producers/director/writers of this film. 

The men were beautifully rendered; complex and compelling with a gradual growth in maturity, friendship and accomplishment.   The story was great as you understood the relationship between Charles and Eric (Magneto) and the development/mistakes of the fellow male mutants that included humor, challenge, failure, loss and revenge.  There was much to recommend.

However, there were also five women in the movie as main characters; Mystique, Moria McTaggert, Magneto's Mom, Emma Frost and a girl who became a villianess who never warranted even a code name or a regular name.   With the exception of Magneto's mom, who was sent to the concentration camp and then shot before her son, all the other women were either naked or stripped to their very sexy lingerie.

I realize it's comic books, but it's 2011 people.  Garters people?  Really? 

Emma Frost wore that sort of corsette and not much else other than an occasionally discreet cape for playing peek-a-boo with the boys reading the magazine in the comic books of yore, so when they introduced the Hellfire Club, she was as dressed as she came in the original. 

Naturally, Moira McTaggert is a CIA operative trying to bust this secretive club and so she dresses as part of the entertainment to blend in; there are just scads of scantilly clad ladies walking everywhere in this club, but the back drop is Vegas and so we're not supposed to think too much about it. 

The nameless mutant woman with dragon fly wings who shoots acid naturally works as a stripper.  She gets called Angel as a nickname as a form of comic book irony. (She's a stripper but she's got a holy sounding name.  Cue titters).  We're supposed to feel her struggle and decision to become part of the bad group of mutants as a misguided attempt to maintain control over her world, as protection against being an object because of her mutant ability just as being a stripper allowed her to have control over her beauty by being the director of her sexual power beforehand.  Bleah. 

Then there's Mystique; a woman who has blue scaly skin, auburn red hair and yellow eyes.  She first comes into Charles Xavier's home as a ten year old thief but naturally, she's au naturale.  We're not supposed to think too much about this either, as she's Les Miserable type poor and Xavier's ultra aristocrat rich and offers her a home.   It's set in the 1950's but again, and maybe my studying of history is weak but I don't remember naked ten year old urchins running around Connecticut in any studies of that time period, blue, mutant or otherwise.  She later morphs into a beautiful blonde to blend in, but attempts and fails to seduce Xavier and the Beast as she walks around in a terry cloth white robe whenever she decides go blue to be "the real her."  She eventually gets to bed with Magneto who actually says, "I want you to be free."  Got that?  Get naked and you're real.  Get in bed with a man and you're free.  Ugh. Boo.  Bad. Stupid. Irritating. Annoying.  All of that. 

As a side note, neither Mystique or Angel even bother to train to hone their abilities or advance, while the men are shown struggling and engaged in self discovery about the limits or lack thereof of their gifts. They just watch.


I was mostly annoyed because X-men is part of my own story and I'd like to have been able to tell my older kids who also love Manga and superheroes and read comics and play hero clix and Yugi-oh! and Magic that they could go, but I don't want my daughters thinking this is what women do.  And I don't want my sons thinking this is what women should do.  So I can't say, "Go, you'll have a blast."  I can't say, "It's just mental eye candy."  Because the film sends a message I don't want and that ought to have gone extinct long before the Cuban missle crisis that is set as the backdrop of this storyline. 

Here's the bottom line, Hollywood needs to evolve it's mental DNA past using women as a backdrop and making their sexual coming of age in the bedroom as the ultimate manifestation of a female's identity.  This should be older than old by now, and this sort of idea should not get a reboot by virtue/vice of a remake of an old comic. 

For those who say "Hey Sherry, it's the X-men.  Lighten up."  I'd say, "It could have been so much better if they'd just grown up a bit."   Sigh.

It's Time for My Annual Halloween Rant....

Those who have been with this blog from it's beginning, (It's three years this October), know that every year, we go all out for the holiday, and every year, I subject myself to the annual pilgrimage to the tacky costume store.  Last year, I stayed on hold for two hours to complain about a costume that would be considered vulgar and desperate even in the red light district of Amsterdam.    The quest to find outfits that neither pimp my girls or gore/gross me out for my boys while allowing for some sense of fun and dignity has almost forced me to learn how to sew.  

The kids, being kids, are always interested in being something new, and recycled costumes take real salesmanship. We have remade existing outfits from one thing into another, a ring wraith into a witch for example, an elf into a knight, and a princess into a fairy, but this has always been after a serious search at said costume store for alternatives.   Fortunately, my kids are starting to get wise to the idea that this store is really sort of sad with it's obsession over costumes for "adults" and I use the term loosely, gross and goth displays that are front and center next to the toddler section, and exceptionally limited options for boys (Star Wars, monsters and superheroes), and girls (princesses, witches and as my daughter explained it, weird girls) --she means slutty but doesn't know it.  

Of course, no trip to such a place is complete without the accidental discovery of the profoundly wrong; and while my oldest and I took pains to seclude the masses, I still found what had to be the single most objectionable costume in the store while searching for a viking costume.  If there is a worse one, I really don't want to know --a priest costume with a built in springy phallus dubbed "The Happy Priest."   Ha. Ha. Ha.  Anti-Catholic, crude and a sight gag all in one.   I complained to the manager that this was bigoted, crude and inappropriate in a store that sells to teens and toddlers or for that matter, Catholics or anyone with a hint of decent sense.   He pointed out that he didn't order the items, these were simply what was sent.   "That's a cop out." I told him, and he gave me the business card for the general office of the company.  Unfortunately, I had already purchased 7 of the 8 items and had the last item we needed in my daughter's hands when I found this repulsive item or I would have walked out.

I have sat on hold.  I have sent an email.  I am still trying to lodge a complaint with an actual person.  In the meantime, that sewing machine is starting to look not nearly so scary as the prospect of rewarding a company that thinks so little of children's sensibilities or anyone else's for that matter.   

And Now, Equal Time

Anyone who thinks sexual morals discarded as easily as a wardrobe do not have an effect outside the two people enaged in the throws of whatever, need only look at the most recent example, the South Carolina Governor and his girlfriend in Argentina.

If you read the injured wife's piece as posted on Real Clear Politics, it is a beautiful reflection of what this man has lost, and it isn't his position of power in the world, but the relationship, the communion with a good woman and their four sons. Four young boys who must be heart broken to see suddenly themselves taller than their father at tender ages, and who now must shoulder a burden unasked for, trying to defend their broken family from an unloving prying world while each nursing their own individual highly concentrated pain they do not understand.

As an outsider, we can easily scorn, easily condemn, and easily judge, but this wife still loves this man and as outsiders, we should honor and mirror her behavior. Hers was a holy response to a complete betrayal, without being a doormat or an enabler.

In an age of instant access but no actual intimacy, this is what we as a society have, 24-7 armchair coaching/commentary on anyone and everyone who falls into the public eye. So keeping one's dignity when one is emmeshed in an undignified situation becomes difficult. She has managed it.

He has not.

In an age of blackberries, twitter, facebook, cellphones, Youtube and cameras placed everywhere, no one should consider themselves capable of living an anonymous life. And no one should be certain their worst moments as human beings won't become the subject of fodder for millions; least of all, politicians and people in positions of authority.

Perfection in our public leaders should not be a prerequisite of electability, but honesty and ethics ought to be at least skewed in the right direction. On a tangent, I have to rant, "Where to the Republicans go to find these sorts of people?" There have been moments when I have heard people remark that "This is the best." and then they reveal something, a school, a book, a show, a movie, a politican. And my first thought almost always is after I've read/watched/ listened, tasted, "If this is the best there is, then MAN are we in trouble." But I also know that my heart likes to try and harden, to be clever and cynical and that I have to beat that impulse down with a stick on a daily basis, but the world keeps giving me targets.

And then I remember, this is one family put under a microscope because of one family memebers' supreme stupidity and lack of moral and political judgment. I don't care how respected he was six days ago, he was stupid in his life and careless with those he professed to love. Dumb is the only word that is charitable in this circumstance. It is difficult not to want to unleash a score of seemingly righteous word rage on this person.

Fidelity is the first obligation of a spouse. It ought to be a willingly given given. Mark Sanford may have been a competent governor, but he put a woman before his wife, before his sons and before his God. Fortunately for him, his God and his wife love him enough not to strike him down, but those who do not love him, have struck and will continue to do so. If he had any sense, he'd understand that he is the most fortunate man in the whole world if he only lost the Governorship and the mistress. But if he had that same sense, he probably would have recognized, he had everything and surrendered it willingly for the wrong things.

I'd excoriate the man except I'm tired of all these cads and all these cackling harpies who glory in the destruction of a family as much as they do the emoliation of a career for political reasons, or because it justifies their own behavior, or because they hate the morals professed to be held true by those who have fallen.

So I've made a promise to myself to be restrained the next time and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, regardless of political affiliation, because stoning the adulterer is not good for any of us, and this world encourages emotional and intellectual stoning. The men who left the adulteress behind had been the recipients of Christ's mercy as much as the woman herself.

I know I shouldn't have enjoyed raging at the Democrats for lining up to defend Bill Clinton, and I shouldn't stand with the firing squad to shoot Mark Sandford, because we aren't called to set fire to people, only to light the world on fire with the purity and holiness of our spirits and our lives.

And I've made myself a promise to give up being a snark about this President. This does not mean I will not disagree or fight to articulate why I disagree with his policies when I disagree with them, only that I don't get to be mean to satisfy my own spleen with ooh...that's a good line, that will get 'em type commentary.

Being funny by being clever and catty and making being funny a goal just to get attention is self serving and soul scorching, and I have to remember that for me, humor is supposed to be merciful, healing. Humor without mercy is satire, and I conceed, I have a natural progression, from quips to bites, from Horace to Juvenal, from Pope to Swift. The humor gets more acerbic and less merciful the longer I focus on a subject. The truth of the matter gets lost in the shuffle of clever phrases for the sake of a few comments and a few extra hits on the blog counter.

So pray for this broken family and all those who do or do not make front page news or go viral, to be healed by the only thing that can, God's love.

Sherry's Catholic Rant

We just got cable and high speed internet and I feel harrassed. There are now 400+ channels on two televisions that I have to watchdog, and three computers that need supervision. Ack.

So I'm tired, and after reading about how the Boston Catholic hospitals are going via a collaboration, allow for abortions and sterilizations, I'm feeling testy. http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/06/boston-archdiocese-affiliate-health.html

Fair warning.

How did we get to this point?

Because of Catholics like Kmiec and Sebelius and Kerry and Pelosi and Biden. Their error is compounded by their prominent status in public life. Their misstatements and willing complicitness in furthering the forces that favor abortion and its ugly relatives of birth control, sterilization and contraception that divorce the great power and beauty of sex from its purpose and nature bring whole families to nothingness and all without apparent culpability.

So I like the new Shepherd of Saint Louis. And he understands that denying communion is making whoever is denied face the reality of their own faulty moral living/moral reasoning to believe that they are in communion when they are not. It happens. We do fall into error, and correction is how we find our way back. Love requires that sometimes we be firm, especially when the matters are of moral significance. If you wish to experience the Eucharist, be in communion with your whole heart and not just the part that wants what it wants, the comfort of the bread of Jesus' words, without the requirement that they be applied to one's actual life, the body. It is correction, not bullying.

Intimidation is the tactic of the enemy, who wants us at each other, who wants us denying Christ in each other in all things. We may create a society that feeds the hungry, cures the sick, cares for the orphans and shepherds the Earth. But all of these acts shall be dust if they are not the reflection of love, of Christ. If you've ever met a bitter teacher or a burnt out nurse, you understand how what once was a joy and a beauty and a gift, has become a distorted awful shadow of its former self. This is what we head towards when we think that the service trumps the motive, or the motive trumps the service.

The former leads to jaded cynics who perform the acts without heart, and the later to fanatics who despair and either forfiet their values or dwell steeped in perpetual self righteous anger. We are Catholics, it is not random that our most Blessed Sacrament is the Eucharist, and that all our sacraments focus on furthering the Communion of the soul to its Creator.

Given the recent events, the media has suggested that pro-lifers tone down the rhetoric. That we should use fair minded words.

So tell me, if we go out to the desert and whisper into a muffled room that has no outside access, "Abortion is wrong." would that be okay or is that too inflamatory? Because we wouldn't want to be intimidating. What about that "Silence=Death" slogan that was real popular a few years back, didn't you guys mean that? Isn't that still true? And so pro-life causes are linked to the awfulness of the murder of a man who committed awful acts, and we are equally censured for praying outside of places where these acts occurr, or for daring to speak our opinion in the political arena. You can be Catholic, just don't act like one or talk like one. How then do we witness?

Do we witness by imitating our esteemed academia? Like Notre Dame? or Georgetown?

Catholic Universities and politicians never asks the less faithful to understand the other side, arguably, what should be, their own side. No other faith as practiced by it's argued intelligencia seems determined to give all manner of deference to everyone else except, those in their own church who follow the Church's prescribed teachings. We too, are not in communion as we ought to be. There is a broken quality to our fellowship in the Church. I guess these broken elements, these must be where the nail prints are in the Body of Christ. We see the holes. We cannot help but wince.

The fact is we all need our Savior, and He is Christ, and none other.

I don't remember Jesus saying, "Blessed are the open minded or Blessed are the reasonable. Rationality above all, is key."

Catholics are not Vulcans.

We're supposed to love beyond reason. We're supposed to surrender all to Christ. We're supposed to use our minds and our bodies and our hearts to reflect God's love to others, by our modesty, by our humility, by our passion, by our charity, by our kindness, by our clarity, by our truthfulness, by our good counsel, by our good actions and by our whole way of relating to others in all things.

That's not reasonable. That's Radical.

And it was so frightening that the Romans threw those who believed it to the lions for entertainment. It is so frightening, it was persecuted in Russia and is outlawed in China. The radical concept that God wants communion with us, goes in the face of a State that seeks to define all members within it by their contributions, status and fidelity and seeks to be all things in God's stead. We all know, relationships require something of us, and the ultimate relationship requires all from us. Communion.

Pray for all of us in this damnable mess, only the healing power of Christ via the Eucharist, only His Mercy can make us whole and holy.

We now return you to your more reasonable and funnier blog. This has been a Sherry Catholic Rant.