Smells Like Hulk Spirit

The upcoming Avengers movie has inspired a line of men's fragrances. You can smell like a superhero! Who needs Axe when you can smell like Captain America? Old Spice isn't as old as the Norse God, Thor!

But then there's also Hulk cologne. I've never thought of a superhero who looks like this:

To be something I'd want to smell like. I haven't had a sample, but I imagine eau de Hulk being a mixture of dirty hair, bacon and unrepented rage. In other words, the same scent as "roommate".

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth...

Now you're gonna think it every time.

School's starting back... back to procrastination!

In honor of school starting back for the spring, here's a procrastination flowchart. Any of it look familiar?

Truth hurts, doesn't it? Ha ha. 

(click image to enlarge)

Seriously, though, CCM wishes you the best during this spring semester. Remember to come out on Wednesday nights for Good Cheer (every Wed., 7pm at The Library). Also, Eucharistic Adoration will continue each Tuesday night at the church, from 6:00pm until 8:00pm and the ever-popular Rosary Walk will begin again on Thursdays, at 5:30pm at Pat Lamar Park.

The Lost Letters of the Vatican Dictionary

The Vatican Insider has published an online Vatican dictionary. The site promises that  you can understand your faith's terms from "A divinis" to "Zucchetto"!

However, there are still a few letters not accounted for.
J, K, Q, W, X, Y have no words as of this writing.
No "juris"? And don't we have lots of "q" words?

Not to fear, I've come up with some of the missing letters from the Diocese of Jackson and thereabouts. I even made child-friendly flashcards to go with them! The rhymes are a bit off but I'm not a poet, and I know it.
Wow..now that rhymed.

How clean can you kiss a leper?

Every once in a while, a row will be kicked up concerning the liturgy by a group of parishioners who don't like the Latin, hate a bigger church with younger people and don't care for change at all.
Hrmmmm...
A group of old white people who hate foreign language, expansion of borders, young people and change?
Wow.
We gots Tea Party!

But yesterday, we sang a few congregational songs that should surely soothe the savage beasts.

One of the songs we chose has sort of a sing-songy melody and a little Janet Jacksony.

The song is called "The Summons" and the melody is an old Scottish theme called "Kelvingrove".

I did a little looking into Kelvingrove and found out that it's the tune of a ditty called "Oh the Shearin's No' for You". Which isn't about sheep, as the singers of "Burning Bridget Cleary" say in their intro to our next video, it's about a man who tells his wife "she's too old for fun". Give a listen.

Further back, as if that song weren't dreary enough, it seems the original tune was about a rape. The story is how the victim was forced to marry her assailant as she was pregnant from the attack:
Well I'll no kill you deid my bonnie lassie o
No I'll no kill you deid my bonnie lassie o
No I'll no kill you deid, nor will I harm your pretty heid
I will marry you with speed my bonnie lassie o


I guess marriage is better than being deid.

The liturgical adaptation of Kelvingrove, The Summons, has some equally disturbing bits to it.

No, the disturbing part isn't the rapid fire old folks chorus or the womyn priestess. It's the overabundance of loving, touching and leper-kissing that skeeves me out.

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the pris’ners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?
  
Is it just me or when a guy sings that song and even if you know it's about Jesus it makes Jesus seem creepy and needy? And a bad pick up artist.

And to the demands of Lord Touchtouchmethere, I have to answer a resounding "NO". I ain't kissing no lepers clean. I don't think I can. I don't even think I'm canonically allowed to kiss a clean leper.
And who's the 'you' I'm hiding? And why is the 'you' in quotes? What makes that you so special?

I'd expect better out of the composer. I mean, this from the guy who sang "Christmas Katie" and "Can't Get High"?

John Bell of Widespread Panic

Oh..wait...wrong John Bell.

This is the John Bell who wrote it.
John Bell is the most prolific composer of liturgical music from Scotland's Iona Community; his songs are noted equally for their solid theology, their concern for justice, and their ease for congregational singing. His work is distributed in the U.S. by GIA Publications
Iona. Justice. Congregational Singing. GIA. Wow, even Widespread would think this is too far out.

Ughh. There is nothing wholly scriptural, catechetical or just about this song. If I was in a park or maybe a skate park and sang it, I'd be tazered and Batman'd. Litmus test for Jesus songs: You can sing them around children without being pepper sprayed. This one fails.

Liturgical music for a while was all about touching, hugging and dancing but, to quote the old song:
Tak' the buckles frae yer shoon, my bonnie lassie o
Tak' the buckles frae yer shoon, my bonnie lassie o
Tak' the buckles frae yer shoon, for you've married sic a loon
An' yer dancin' days are done, my bonnie lassie o

Catholic chic: Saints for Sinners... groupon!

I've written before about Saints for Sinners - the eye-catching medals straight from the heart of New Orleans. If you don't own one of their hand-painted medals, you should. And for a limited time, they have a groupon which allows you to buy two medals for the price of one. Great deal.

Do I get anything for this shameless product plug? No.

But I'm always willing to get the word out on ways that we can reclaim our Catholic identity. Wearing a saint medal or a Miraculous Medal is one definitive way to do just that. Plus, they're just cool.

I've bought these medals both online and in New Orleans and can vouch for the superb customer service and quality product that Rob provides. Just wanted to pass on to all our readers, the fact that with the groupon, you can get a great deal on a great medal. Good stuff all around.

Happy Festum Asinorum!

The Venerable Ass

Today on the medieval calendar, Churches celebrated "THE FEAST OF THE ASS".This politically incorrect tale tells us more:

The 'Festival of the Ass,' and other religious burlesques of a similar description, derive their origin from Constantinople; being instituted by the Patriarch Theophylact, with the design of weaning the people's minds from pagan ceremonies, particularly the Bacchanalian and calendary observances, by the substitution of Christian spectacles, partaking of a similar spirit of licentiousness,—a principle of accommodation to the manners and prejudices of an ignorant people, which led to a still further adoption of rites, more or less imitated from the pagans. According to the pagan mythology, an ass, by its braying, saved Vesta from brutal violence, and, in consequence, ' the coronation of the ass ' formed a part of the ceremonial feast of the chaste goddess.

 
An elaborate sculpture, representing a kneeling ass, in the church of St. Anthony at Padua, is said to commemorate a miracle that once took place in that city. It appears that one morning, as St. Anthony was carrying the sacrament to a dying person, some profane Jews refused to kneel as the sacred vessels were borne past them. But they were soon rebuked and put to contrition and shame, by seeing a pious ass kneel devoutly in honour of the host. The Jews, converted by this miracle, caused the sculpture to be erected in the church. It takes but little to make a miracle.
http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/jan/14.htm

There also was a corruption of the liturgy on this feast day that went like this:

 

Mass was continued, and at its end, apparently without awakening the least consciousness of its impropriety, the following direction (in Latin) was observed: In fine Missae sacerdos, versus ad populum, vice 'Ite, Missa est', ter hinhannabit: populus vero, vice 'Deo Gratias', ter respondebit, 'Hinham, hinham, hinham.'(At the end of Mass, the priest, having turned to the people, in lieu of saying the 'Ite missa est', will bray thrice; the people instead of replying 'Deo Gratias' say, 'Hinham, hinham, hinham.')*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Ass

The more things change...

I made up some downloadable Feast Day cards for all of you to print up and, maybe this Sunday, pass on to your Ass at Mass (rhymes!)!

Front

Back

*hinham must mean "hee haw" in Latin. Still sounds funny.

Popular Catechetics Lied To Me, pt 122

James Joyce used an ipatch to do his writing. Haha...

January 13th is the anniversary of the death of novelist, James Joyce (d. 1941). Joyce was an Irish writer, poet and, to make this about us, an influence on William Faulkner by introducing the "stream-of-consciousness" style of writing. Later known as "blogging".

During my days in seminary, there was this cute thing hip-young priests, short-haired sisters in Birkenstocks, and poofy haired housewives-cum-theologians known as DRE's, would say: "As the writer James Joyce said, 'Catholic means '"here comes everybody"''" or the even bolder, "As James Joyce wrote in his work Finnegan's Wake, 'Catholic means "here comes everybody"".



Not willing to admit that I haven't read any of Joyce's works nor familiar with Ulysses, I would laugh knowingly and puff my pipe in the drawing room along with the other lads. In my smoking jacket and slippers.

Today, thinking of Joyce's quote, I decided to check it out on the internet. The only thing that is said about him defining "Catholicism" as "Here Comes Everybody" comes from people saying he said it. Religious people. DRE kind of people. Jesuits who wear turtlenecks and use clay chalices. Holy smart people. Who wear stonewear around their neck. Smart.

But no Joyce scholar has said it and it comes up nowhere in Joyce's quotations. There's even a discussion on a dead Amy Welborn site that argues the invalidity of the statement and THE PLOT TO CORRUPT THE CHURCH by using it. But, then again, the Open Tabernacle (sic) uses it for their theme. Themes. Muhahaha. How DRE'y!

A catechetical (sic) book named for a quote that wasn't about the Church

A book on Catholic education (sic) named for the quote not meant about Catholicism.

Turns out, on the Welborn link, someone had the presence of mind to READ JOYCE and find the quote. Nothing. So the blame goes to Flannery O' Connor (I've read her stuff, by the way) who also said no such thing.

Much to my suspicions, it was untrue. And Joyce? Far from being portrayed as a struggling Catholic, was sort of comfortable with non-belief or at least a belief in a benign God who was not really invested in humanity. Or that's what the internet says.

LOL CATZ NOES MOAR THEN CATUKISTS!

Internet, Internet. You shatter again the illusions of my neo-Catholic upbringing. What's the next veil to drop? Gonna tell me that Tai-Chi isn't a Catholic form of bodily expression like the Spiritual Formation director told me in seminary? Women were not deacons in the Church like the seminars on vocations say?  I guess you'll tell me that liturgists aren't building up the city of God with glad tambourine!

Touch me with your truth, Google. I shall be healed.

Catholics have been Tebowing for centuries!

Anyone else having problems with the new year?

La Befana: Christmas Witch

I was doing a bit of reading on Epiphany customs and ran across the custom in Italy known as "La Befana". The legend goes that a woman, Befana (short for "epiphany") was invited by the Magi to go see the Christ-child. She refused to go but later regretted it so now she travels around the world seeking the baby and doing favors for children on the eve of Epiphany. And she travels on a broom!

La Befana, the action figure!

More here. and here.

And if you like your witches a little cuter, then check out this video from a Bella Befana!

I'm more religious than spiritual. I just don't like disorganized spirituality.

His name is Janus..haha

January! The great two-faced god Janus looks wistfully at the past while facing the future which may inspire many of us mere mortals to make resolutions for the new year. We have seen our past and want to change for the future. So we resolve.
We resolve to exercise. We resolve to go to church. We resolve to lose weight. We resolve to not drink. We resolve to give up cigarettes. We resolve to not butter the monkey. Resolve. Resolve. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeesolve.

Now some of us follow through. I'd suspect a small percentage but some actually do what we resolved to do.
Some actually try and decide, for whatever reason, it's not for us or just not working out. Off goes the spanx and on with the sweatpants. Done. Pass the mayonnaise.
Some....and this is to my point...some of us decide that if we were to keep our resolution, something must change. And what must change is EVERYTHING BUT THE PERSON HIMSELF!

Be free of all possession. Shop now.

And so, every turn of the year, I get a visit. From a seeker. One making A JOURNEY. One who wants to get back into Church BUT...the Church isn't making it easy on them. Y'see, the journeyer is more SPIRITUAL! They don't care for ORGANIZED RELIGION! They don't like the RULES! They just want to COEXIST! And have a bumper sticker to prove it.

So let me go over my SPIRITUALITY FOR THOSE WHO ARE MORE SPIRITUAL talk:
1. We're all spiritual. Spirit is raw, untapped and untamed. Like the mind and body without discipline. As the mind must be trained by reading, thinking, logic, and problem solving and the body corrected through diet, exercise and training, the spirit has to be trained as well. It has it's own innate talent but needs training. It's like...well, let's say...it's like Dexter.

Nunanannananananaah (Bionic man noise)

Ecce homo!* You see the sinewy determination, the primal strength and if you gaze long enough can even see the vapor trails emanating from his swift form.

Spirit.

But all that talent in the rough needs to be trained and honed. Tempered and tested. Tugged on by a big moustachioed man.

Owies!

2. Religion is the trainer and proving ground of spirituality. It's the goal posts and the sidelines. It's the 2 minute warning and the call under further review. It takes that native energy and makes it fit for cooperation, corporation, selflessness and pursuant to a goal. It puts it on a team and sets boundaries which in turn draws admiration from others. Because to see talent exercised within the parameters of order is what packs stadiums. It is organized. It's organized spirits. It's a franchise!**

I believe a man can fly

To just watch a guy run unbridled, probably not gonna make the ESPN lineup. However, those who prefer their spirits to run free don't care who watches. So let those spirits run free. Stride with abandon.  Let the wind carry your feet! Text and drive! Rock on!

Spirituality without religion is this guy. Maybe EXACTLY like this guy. Nice speedos, Aquababy!

*which means "behold the man". Just wanted to clarify.
**Ok, so the whole excellence analogy fails with the Chiefs but you get the message.

Turns out, hipsters kinda like us.

The Local Voice

I picked up the local hipster paper, The Local Voice, while buying some last minute Christmas gifts (ie: liquor). Like most privately published weekly papers in cities or college towns, it highlights bands, entertainment, harps on sports and beats up politicans, and is highly inbred with in-jokes and referencing the groovy crowd in a if-you-don't-know-this-person-then-you're-not-cool way (like the Jackson Free Press or Mississippi Catholic..ha!).

Strangely, for the otherwise leftist stance, the Local Voice is VERY pro-Colonel Reb. Odd that a symbol retired due to it's implied insensitivity to race and culture is the unofficial mascot of the paper. He's fun to draw, I guess.

Just the same, the year end issue is the one I grabbed and yesterday, while looking it over, I noticed that the LV had a LOCAL FAVORITES of the year section. I was surprised by some of the results:

Wiggum gotta gun!

 In the FAVORITE Clergy member, turns out, I'm like #11 in Honorable Mention. WOOO HOOO! Considering the Public Servant Category has "None of Them" as their third, that's saying something. I'm like the Chief Wiggum of clergy!







But even better, there was a CHURCH category!

Next to the Liquor Stores and over the Tattoo Parlor, FAVORITE CHURCH in the Number 3 position is
ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST!
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH!

Next year, let's get number one. Imma grow a soul patch and make ironic references to My Little Pony and joke about something that happened at Main Squeeze that you had to be there to know. The choir will wear flannel shirts and moustaches and what was once donuts and coffee on Sunday morning is now tofu and PBR.

LET'S DO THIS!

Family Pictures

+JMJ+

This is the last sweet image you will see in this post

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Usually (although not traditionally), this feast is celebrated on the first Sunday within the Octave (8 days) of Christmas. Sunday, however, is the first of the year which means we celebrate Mary, Mother of God. Her feast day, a Holy Day of Obligation, trumps the feast of the Holy Family. In such case, the Friday before the Sunday is reserved for the Holy Family. That's why we have it today. I know, sort of took me by surprise, too. I mean I got up and opened the Ordo and BAM! there it was. This. Morning. I think there should be some alert system for this. 

Anyway...

In honor of the many beautiful depictions of the first Christmas portrait, I give you the HOLY MAGOLY WHAT IN THE NAME OF FRESH HELL IS THAT FAMILY DOING? family portraits...

How come the dog is the only uncomfortable one in this pic?

Mom used Christmas as a cry for help during mid-life

This is why Santa smells like cough syrup

In a family of men, the mulleted one was called "Sugar"

"No, I'm just clumsy and if she hits me, I deserve it. Really."

Hey, Dad, this isn't time for the Facebook photo!

Merry Christmas, LSU!

12 Days of Christmas as Comics

12 Lords a Leaping. Get it?
More here.

For the more traditional take on the 12 Days (which are "codes" for the days between the Feast of the Nativity until Epiphany), check out this explanation:

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” celebrates the official Christmas season which starts liturgically on Christmas Day and ends twelve days later on the Feast of the Epiphany. “My true love” refers to God, “me” is the individual Catholic. The “twelve lords a leaping” are the twelve basic beliefs of the Catholic Church as outlined in the Apostles Creed. The “eleven pipers piping” are the eleven Apostles who remained faithful after the treachery of Judas. The “ten ladies dancing” are the Ten Commandments. The “nine drummers drumming” are the nine choirs of angels which in those days of class distinction were thought important. The “eight maids a milking” are the Eight Beatitudes. The “seven swans a swimming” are the Seven Sacraments. The “six geese a laying” are the Six Commandments of the Church or the six days of creation. The “five golden rings” are the first five books of the Old Testament called the Torah which are generally considered the most sacred and important of all the Old Testament. The “four calling birds” are the Four Gospels. The “three French hens” are the Three Persons in God or the three gifts of the Wise Men. The “two turtle doves” represent the two natures in Jesus: human and divine or the two Testaments, Old and New. The “partridge” is the piece de resistance, Jesus himself, and the “pear tree” is the Cross."

http://catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=3465 

But the idea of Darth Vader leaping? Still cool.

 

Ok, now Beiber has finally made parents mad...

Nevermind the quasi-squicky love affair with Selena Gomez when he was a minor and she a legal adult. Nevermind the haircut that every boy had to have to get a girl's attention, preferably an age appropriate girl. Nevermind even the pregnancy accusation.

Justin Beiber...doesn't...believe...in...Santa. Never did. He's done it now.

My mom always told me there wasn't a Santa," Bieber says in a new interview with AOL Music. "This was her logic: She thought if I grew up knowing about Santa then finding out he wasn't real, that it would be like she was lying to me. And then when she told me about God, I maybe wouldn't believe her."
Applauding his mom, Pattie Mallette, and her decision to be "straight-up and honest with me all the time," Bieber insists he kept the holiday spirit alive for his childhood pals. "I didn't tell my friends or ruin it for anyone -- I was a good kid!" he tells AOL.

Unbelieberbeiber

 Hrmph...My mom told me there was a Santa and I went along with it. Now I don't believe in Santa. The story goes that if you're good, Santa will give you some swag. If you're bad, you get nothing. Well, when I was a kid, the bad kids got racing cars, dirt bikes, bb guns and dogs from Santa. I got cool stuff too but never a motorcycle. Santa gives bad kids great stuff.
So I don't believe a word of it.
God, on the other hand, gives us what we ask for.
Maybe I shouldn't be so comfortable with that....

Hobbit Trailer ONLINE NOW!

Get in line now. Only 365 days away.

SARCO RE

So, just revisiting the "ERO CRAS" article (below), I got to thinking, "What if the code was supposed to be read as it is sung instead of working backward?" Donning my Tom Hanks Mini-mullet and doing some DaVinci coding, the words appear "SARCO RE". Since I have a seminary education from the 90's, I know no Latin or Greek (but have learned gathering hymns in Hawaiian and Vietnamese!) so with that unknowledge at hand, the mystic term appears "FLESH AGAIN" by using bad Greek scholarship.

SARCO RE, SUCKAS!!!

Which, if we believe Christ is coming again, presumably in the flesh, then that works out.

CARNIVAL! It's not racist if it's in South America.

 Also, since the Christmastide ends with the celebration of CARNIVAL ("farewell to the flesh" in loosely based Latin that I did not study) then it works there too.

But wouldn't it be cool if it also meant this?

ZOMBIE SANTA! SARCO RE! BRAINZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

(Probably none of  this page would be here had seminaries listened to canon 249.)