February 2011 Archives

This video by the Slovak group "Peter Milenky Band" features the Jesus Prayer and scenes from the Byzantine-rite Church:

Our music director gave the choir a week off, so I went to another church this week.

It didn't get off to a good start, 'cause when I arrived, their choir was practicing a song in which they were congratulating us all about our "diversity" and wanting to "sing a new church into being." So from diversitie, they went on to heresie.

To my relief, I saw on the hymn board that they were going to sing it as a recessional ditty, and that would solve the problem. I wouldn't have to be under the same roof with them while they were singing it; I could just leave quickly after the dismissal, in case God were to drop the Big One on them.

Anyway, I like the pastor there: he preached well, and he talked about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Mass was not completely as usual, because he performed a baptism for an infant, and the steps in that rite were interpolated into the Mass at various points.

At one point, he spoke about the duties of the parents and godparents: that little Sean Joseph needed to "learn the difference between good and evil and how to choose evil and avoid good, and someone is going to have to teach him to choose evil and avoid good."

Huh? So maybe they were singing a new church into being after all? Nah.

I don't know if anybody else noticed his verbal flub. I couldn't help chuckling and making a "swap those two things" gesture. For whatever reason, he paused, and then went on with his explanations, and didn't have any more glitches.

A friend who used to direct music at that church told me later: don't worry, they'll probably never sing that song again: the pastor detests it.

Like I said, I think he's a good guy.

How hard can it get to feed the poor? Pretty hard.

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

"We don't really know what they want, we just think that they don't want us down there feeding people," said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

And Kathy Barton, Houston's spokeswoman for the Houston HHS department said this:

The regulations are all the more essential in the case of the homeless... because "poor people are the most vulnerable to foodborne illness and also are the least likely to have access to health care."

Pretty outrageous that private citizens are forced to stop doing charitable work because the government assumes the worst if you don't have the magic permit.

The silver lining here is that the Houston city council is talking about adjusting the statute so that people like the Herrings are exempt.

This evening I translated the Holy Father's homily for the Feast of the Presentation after Fr. Mark posted the original Italian text over at Vultus Christi. Here it is:

HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI

Vatican Basilica
Tuesday, February 2, 2011

Dear brothers and sisters!

The meeting of the two Testaments

In today's Feast we contemplate the Lord Jesus, whom Mary and Joseph present at the temple "to offer him to the Lord" (Lk 2:22). In this gospel scene the mystery of the Virgin's Son, consecrated by the Father, having come into the world to faithfully accomplish His will (cf. Heb. 10:5-7), is revealed. Simeon points him out as a "light to enlighten the nations" (Lk 2:32) and announces with a prophetic word his supreme offering to God and his final victory (cf. Lk 2:32-35). It is the meeting of the two Testaments, Old and New. Jesus enters into the old Temple, He who is the new Temple of God: he comes to visit his people, bringing obedience to the Law to fulfillment and inaugurating the last days of salvation.

The light that comes to enlighten the world

It is interesting to observe closely this entrance of the Child Jesus into the solemnity of the temple, into a great hustle and bustle of so many people occupied by their duties: the priests and Levites with their turns at service, the many faithful and pilgrims desiring to meet the holy God of Israel. But none of them realizes a thing. Jesus is a child like every other, the first-born son of two very simple parents. Even the priests prove unable of grasping the signs of the new and particular presence of the Messiah and Savior. Only two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, discover the great news. Led by the Holy Spirit, they find in
this child the fulfillment of their long waiting and watching. Both contemplate the light of God, who comes to enlighten the world, and their prophetic gaze opens into the future, as an announcement of the Messiah: Lumen ad revelationem gentium! (Lk 2:32). In the prophetic attitude of the two venerable elders, the entire Old Covenant expresses the joy of meeting the Redeemer. In the face of the Child, Simeon and Anna grasp intuitively that He is the long-awaited One.

(Continue reading at Vultus Christi.)