Angeli et amici: Sanctissimi Cordis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi

In the collect of the Mass for the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus we pray:  "O God, Who in the Heart of Your Son, wounded by our sins, mercifully lavish upon us the infinite riches of love, grant, we beseech You, that as we offer Him the faithful service of our devotion, we may also show forth fitting reparation." In that spirit a precariously pious little altar boy penned a pithy poetic prayer.

 

A Soliloquy Before a Sanctuary Lamp

Closed are my eyes, joined are my hands

Listening for the beating of the Sacred Heart

Faith seeking understanding

Returning love for Love 

Kneeling before the silent tabernacle

Devotion burning like a sanctuary lamp

Belief in the Real Presence brings me here

Though I may nod during my vigil

Comforted by the Divine Prisoner

Returning love for Love 

Kneeling before the silent tabernacle

Devotion burning like a sanctuary lamp

In the quiet I hear my name, like a sunbeam through the rain

Human comforts are naught; human frailty abounds

But in the taberacle Thou art there to ease the pain

Never permit me to be separated from Thee.

 

Mr. Screwtape
You're waiting for the punch line, that's right.

Here it is: The preceding piety was inspired not by neither Aquinas nor Alacoque but rather by Susanna Hoffs and The Bangles.

 

That yardstick ruler is getting a little too close for comfort....

Angeli et amici: In Ascensione Domini

The Society of Saint Hugh of Cluny, once upon a fictional time, in order to raise funds for their worthy apostolic endeavors raffled off a brand new Lexus. Stu and Jill really wanted to win so they decided to ask some revered priests to pray a novena. The Benedictine monk said: "Ut In Omnibus Glorificetur Dei! Yes, my children, I will gladly pray a novena. But please tell me what is a Lexus?". The Franciscan friar said: "Pax et bonum! Sure I'll pray a novena but what's this Lexus thing?" The Jesuit priest said: "Wow! Lexus. What a great car! But what's a novena?"

The primordial, prototypical and primary Novena in the Catholic Church is the one begun on the Friday after Ascension Thursday addressed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity preparatory for the great feast of Pentecost which throughout the centuries has been richly indulgenced by the Sovereign Pontiffs and is recounted in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.  A favored formulary that may be fortuitously followed follows: 

First Day: Almighty and eternal God, Who hast vouchsafed to regenerate us by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given us forgiveness of all our sins, vouchsafe to send forth from heaven upon us Thy sevenfold Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel and Fortitude, the Spirit of Knowledge and Piety, and fill us with the Spirit of Holy Fear. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Second Day: Come, O blessed Spirit of Holy Fear, penetrate my inmost heart, that I may set Thee, my Lord and God, before my face forever; help me to shun all things that can offend Thee, and make me worthy to appear before the pure eyes of Thy Divine Majesty in heaven, where Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the ever Blessed Trinity, God world without end. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Third Day: Come, O Blessed Spirit of Piety, possess my heart. Enkindle therein such a love for God, that I may find satisfaction only in His service, and for His sake lovingly submit to all legitimate authority. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Fourth Day: Come, O Blessed Spirit of Fortitude, uphold my soul in times of trouble and adversity, sustain my efforts after holiness, strengthen my weakness, give me courage against all the assaults of my enemies, that I may never be overcome and separated from Thee, my God and greatest Good. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Fifth Day: Come, O Blessed Spirit of Knowledge, and grant that I may perceive the will of the Father; show me the nothingness of earthly things, that I may realize their vanity and use them only for Thy glory and my own salvation, looking ever beyond them to Thee, and Thy eternal rewards. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Sixth Day: Come, O Spirit of Understanding, and enlighten our minds, that we may know and believe all the mysteries of salvation; and may merit at last to see the eternal light in Thy light; and in the light of glory to have a clear vision of Thee and the Father and the Son. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Seventh Day: Come, O Spirit of Counsel, help and guide me in all my ways, that I may always do Thy holy will. Incline my heart to that which is good; turn it away from all that is evil, and direct me by the straight path of Thy commandments to that goal of eternal life for which I long. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Eighth Day: Come, O Spirit of Wisdom, and reveal to my soul the mysteries of heavenly things, their exceeding greatness, power and beauty. Teach me to love them above and beyond all passing joys and satisfactions of the earth. Help me to attain them and possess them for ever. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

Ninth Day: Come, O Divine Spirit, fill my heart with Thy heavenly fruits, Thy charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, faith, mildness, and temperance, that I may never weary in the service of God, but by continued faithful submission to Thy inspiration, may merit to be united eternally with Thee in the love of the Father and the Son. Amen. Recite one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and seven Glory Be's

In the Cenacle the Apostolic College, singularly and sacredly selected by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, was marvelously maternally ministered to by the Mother of God who thereby earned the sublime dignity Queen of the Apostles, which is liturgically celebrated on the Saturday within the Octave of the Ascension. A range of Religious ranks  practice devotion to Our Blessed Lady under the title Regina Apostolorum, including the Pallotines, the Marianists, and particularly the branches of the Pauline Family founded by Blessed James Alberione viz., the religious congregations of the Society of St. Paul, the Daughters of St. Paul, the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd, and the Sisters of Mary Queen of Apostles; the secular institutes of Jesus Priest, Saint Gabriel Archangel, Our Lady's Annunciation, and Holy Family; and last but not least the Union of Pauline Cooperators. An altogether appropriate appeal authored by Alberione appears appended:  "Hail, Mary, our Mother, Teacher and Queen. In your goodness, listen to the petition which we present to you according to the will of Jesus: "Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest." Turn your merciful eyes upon the five billion people living on this earth. Many of them are wandering in darkness without a father, a shepherd, a teacher. God made you an apostle to give Jesus, Way and Truth and Life, to the world. By having recourse to you, they will find the road that leads to Jesus. Through you may all Catholics work with all their strength for all vocations, for all apostolates! Through you, may all the faithful work for all unbelievers, all the fervent for all the indifferent, all the Catholics for all non-Catholics. Through you, may all those called correspond, may all apostles be holy, may they be welcomed by all men and women. At the foot of the cross, your heart expanded to welcome us all as your children. Obtain for us an apostolic heart, modeled after your heart, the hearts of Jesus and St. Paul, so that one day you may have us all, apostles and faithful, around you in heaven. Bless your spiritual son and daughters, Mary, Teacher and Queen."

Preparing this package of potent imprecations reminds one that it is customary for the Faithful on Ascension Thursday, in commemoration of the summit of the Mount of Olives from which the Only Begotten forty days after His Resurrection returned to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, to climb a hilltop for a picnic and enjoy some scrumptious sort of fine feathered friend at the holy day repast for upon this day unto Heaven Christ "flew"!  

Mr. Screwtape

Angeli et amici: In Tempus Rogationibus

In a lamentably lost hallowed halcyon age before the scurrilous scourge of invading immigrants known as yuppies, the noble neighborhoods of the fabulous Five Boroughs were, ofttimes intrepidly indeed in spite of the infernal interfering inconveniences of the Master Builder,  divinely defined by the blessed boundaries of its parish church.

The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Ascension Thursday form a special triduum known as the Rogation Days wherein the Faithful are commanded to fast and the Litany of the Saints is chanted "to ask God's mercy, appease His anger, avert His chastisements manifest through natural disasters, and ask for His blessings, particularly with regard to farming, gardening, and other agricultural pursuits."

The marvelously merry medieval English had a quaint custom on these days known as beating the bounds.  "In former times when maps were rare it was usual to make a formal perambulation of the parish boundaries during Rogation Week. Knowledge of the limits of each parish needed to be handed down so that such matters as liability to contribute to the repair of the church building, and the right to be buried within the churchyard were not disputed. The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys along is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible since sometimes boundary markers would be moved, or lines obscured, therefore a folk memory of the true extent of the parish was necessary to maintain integrity of borders by embedding [seems like sometimes, literally!-Editor] knowledge in oral traditions.  Village and parish were coterminous." 

Upon the conclusion of the the pious perambulation the return to the placid precincts of the parsonry would feature the obligating opportunity for the church wardens to raise revenue by hospitably hosting the mirthful merriment known as the parish-ale!

Mr. Screwtape

Angeli et amici: Commemoratio Septem Dolorem Beatae Mariae Virginis

Once this ridiculous redactor took a slight summer sabbatical from the then-almost daily scribbling schedule of entertaining e-pistles. An esteemed recipient, a holy Reverend Sister of an intrepidly inspired Institute, quizzically queried this twerpy typist regarding the surprising suspension to which one, tongue firmly-in-cheek, readily replied: "Don't worry. I'm always full of fresh ideas!"

Philosophy, or perhaps more accurately, the search for philosophical novelties has been justly labeled the German vice. With relative facility an enlightened enumeration of the more reliably renowned (or infernally infamous) delightful doctors of philosophy engendered in the Teutonic lands could be constructed harmoniously reminiscent of the beloved Biblical lists of "begat". Let's start with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his optimistic Théodicée; followed by Christian Wolff who just about single-handedly made German the international language of scholarly research; then we have the impeccably immortal church steeple gazing Immanuel Kant and his fun and friendly followers: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Johann Godlier Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Friedrich Schleiermacher,  and the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; which of course leads to those yucking yahoos, the Young Hegelians: David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Carl Nauwerck, Arnold Ruge, Max Stirner, and that dizzyingly dynamic duo Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx; and of course we can't forget those cantankerous Neo-Kantians: Arthur Schopenhauer, Jakob Friedrich Fries, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Friedrich Albert Lange, and Hermann Cohen; and practically in a league all his own, the premature obituary writer Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who lead to, well let's just say that the toothbrush mustache was pretty popular in the days of the Charlie Chaplin silents.

Had he lived, this Friday, the twelfth of April would have been the seventieth birthday of a profoundly personal, influentially important, "philosopher". Settling in the northwest corner of the former Kleindeutschland, being a registered parishioner of the German national parish of Saint Anne's and toiling diligently at the rightly revered restaurant Lüchow's my "Papi" taught me in that silent way that was uniquely his own much wisdom that I distill to this day. His middle name reflected the fact that occurring in the week in which he was born was the beautifully pathetic (in the proper sense of the word) feast of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors in Lent. His absence, in all veracity, haunts me but only inasmuch as it is a catalyst for one to live as a practical Catholic gentleman. All we need do is to peruse the preceding paragraph to see how a previous generation can fortuitously form (or maliciously malform) a succeeding generation.

And I'll drink to that tantalizing thought with a cold can of Rheingold!

 

Mr. Screwtape

 

 

 

Mr. Screwtape

Angeli et amici: In Dominica IV in Quadragesima seu Lætáre

A quiet revival undertaken during the recently concluded eight year reign of Benedict XVI was that of the beautiful bestowal of the Golden Rose, which is customarily blessed by the Roman Pontiff on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent. While now generally conferred on shrines, in its most recent history it was given as a token of the Pope's esteem and paternal affection to Catholic royalty, particularly the ladies viz., princesses, queens and emperesses. Which, of course, brings us naturally to Mother's Day and no, not the one started by Anna Jarvis.

 

Mothering Sunday, the affectionate appellation arriving from the United Kingdom, developed from the late Medieval English custom of apprentices and young servants being given leave and returning home to visit one's mother church, that is the one where they were baptized, on Mid-Lent Sunday. The intriguingly illuminating Introit of the Mass provides the liturgical foundations for the obliging observance: "Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. Psalm: I rejoiced because they said to me, We will go up to the house of the Lord." Obviously since they made the journey to their hometown and with maternal imagery appearing again in the epistle read at Mass the youngesters positively paid an especial visit of gracious gratitude to their mothers in the natural order. Often the employer would provide the lad or lass with some spare shillings to provide for some fresh flowers or the classic confection forever associated with this day, also known as Refreshment Sunday, simnel cake. The fruity fare is topped generally by eleven marizpan balls representing the Apostolic College (obviously minus the Iscariot), although this accidental allegorical accretion has been decried by some as a vicious Victorian versimilitude. While its origin has been tried to be connected to pardoned prentender to the throne (because he was a then ten year pliant puppet of Yorkist rebels) and royal baker Lambert Simnel this theory unravels almost as quickly the unfortunate usurpation since simnel cakes are mentioned in literature a few centuries previous. The medieval Oxford philogist John de Garlandia posits that the name most likely derives from the Latin word 'simila' meaning fine, of course refering to the white flour used in the mix and possibly to the rich ingredients found in the recipe. Another legend surrounding the precocious pastry eaten on the Sunday of the Five Loaves suggests that the name came from a sister (Nell) and brother (Simon) who wanted to make a cake for their mother. One wanted to bake the cake, the other to boil it. They decided to do both and bring them together in one which became the Simnel Cake. Decisively dumping these meandering musings let us turn to that vivaciously virile vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, Robert Herrick, for the last word on this essentially ecclessiastical marvelous Matronalia:

I'll to thee a Simnell bring,

'Gainst thou go'st a-mothering,

So that when she blesses thee

Half that blessing thou'lt give me.

Mr. Screwtape

Angeli et amici: In Feria Sexta Quattuor temporum

Those divinely domiciled in the delightful Diocese of bustling Bismarck should by now be amicably acquainted with the Ember Days. For those not so fortunately favored, His Excellency, Most Reverend David Kagan gives a succinctly sanguine summary which may be accessed here: http://bismarckdiocese.com/dakota-catholic-action/bishopsbriefs/EmberDays/ (There is a minor mistake about the number of Rogation Days but that is the subject of another e-pistle come Paschaltide). In addition to being devoted days of fasting, Quarter Tense are also designated days of abstinence. So while I don't know how many Japanese restaurants there are in the capital of North Dakota let us go to the diminutive Diocese of bucolic Brooklyn if for no other reason that there are several dozen eateries to choose from while continuing this ecclesiolgical exposition. Lovingly led by the resilient and redoubtable Francis Xavier, the brave Black Robes of the Company of Jesus arrived with the enterprising Explorers of the Sixteenth Century to a very feudal Japan. The one definitively defining trait that has surely simultaneously singlehandly both gotten out of and into a whole holy heap of trouble Jesuits of every generation is that of inculturation. Gastronomic gratitude is great because this example worked out well. On the days of Las Temporas the good Fathers ate no meat, only seafood, therefore the Japanese Christians developed the tasty treat known as tempura.

 

And so that's the answer to the question: "What are we having for lunch today?"
Mr. Screwtape