John Schultz: November 2004 Archives
Or do is this a true patriot?
Great-Grandmother Being Deployed to Iraq
"I volunteered," said Lena Haddix... "I wanted to do something for the country, because I was always left behind taking care of the children."
This snipet of "hocus-pocus Catholicism meets pop-culture and gets paid for it" guarantees we'll be seeing images of the Virgin Mary in all sorts of things...
And here's the winner of the most counter-productive devotional statement of all time:
"I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God," Duyser, a work-from-home jewelry designer, said in the casino's statement.
there's a Web site for everything.
"At first I didn't think it was a woman. I thought it was just a cleric I didn't know. Then when her beard began to slide off and her voice grew soft during a scuffle we found out she was a woman," the sheikh said.
This weekend, my wife and I were at a little town on a river in eastern Virginia. The parish church probably sat 200 people and had only one Mass on Sunday morning because the priest has to say Mass at a mission parish early in the day.
Here's some highlights:
Mass was packed and had people standing in the lobby. We arrived about 15 minutes early and made it just in time to find two seats in the choir loft (no choir in the loft - just additional seating.)
Mass was 35 minutes long with full music.
About 50% of the attendees were over 70.
There's a bunch of devotional groups at this parish. There's a glass-encased Infant of Prague outside, there's a Marian group, among others. It was nice to see that even though Mass was brief, the parish seems to have a strong devotional life.
The inscription on base of the Infant of Prague statue read "Get this silly outfit off me!"
The organ had full tremolo on. I turned to my wife and said "Hot dog!" and she said "Where are my roller skates?"
There were many, many Bush/Cheney stickers on cars in the lot.
There were big signs in the lobby area that said "You can't be Pro-Choice and Catholic!"
My choir will be doing the Ralph Vaughan Williams "Antiphon" from Five Mystical Songs on Christ the King. If you don't know that set of songs, you should load up WinMX and poke around. Or go to the library. Or hit Amazon.com.
It's a pretty tough piece: the parts are high, there are many key changes, the organ part is a beast. We managed to learn the parts last night, so we should be in good shape for a week from Sunday.
Here's the text:
Let all the world in every corner sing,
My God and King!
The heavens are not too high,
His praise may thither fly:
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
My God and King!
The church with Psalms must shout.
No door can keep them out:
But above all, the heart
Must bear the longest part.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
My God and King!
'Fired Up' Kerry Returning to Senate
Aides Say He Wants to Act as Counter to Bush,
and Possibly Run in 2008
Andy Card gave the Kerry folks an ultimatim this morning - concede with dignity because Bush is going to make a Victory speech today. They can't be silent and the "every vote must be counted" is getting ripped based on how many provisional ballots are in Ohio and the fact that they are provisional.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.