Furthermore…

Music Director making an announcement:

“We are forming a new Praise & Worship group. Anyone with musical talent need not apply!”

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I got a story today on some kind of news feed that comes into my computer unsolicited. It was about how the British Museum is going to be loading its Codex Sinaiticus (oldest Bible manuscript) pages onto the Internet, giving scholars a look at early material that has largely inaccessible until now. I was reading this with some interest when I discovered there was attached a gaggle of follow-up comments that had poured in, mostly hateful snobbery about how Christianity, Catholicism and the Scriptures as we have them are malicious fabrications and hokum foisted on the world by dark conspirators. Just then I was brushing up a bit on last Sunday’s readings, in preparation for our weekly faith enrichment meeting, so it was a strange experience to come across at such a time these snarly arguments presented as the last word in ripping away the veil of ecclesiastical deception.  Fun though!  It came across to me as getting a chance to eavesdrop on conversations in Hell, each devil trying to outdo the other in vitriolic accusation against belief.

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 Stern principal to young teacher:

“I’ve been hearing some troubling reports, Miss Palette, that you’ve been mentioning Creation in your art class!”

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One of the mindsets that was instilled in me by my Catholic elementary

education was an fearful aversion to visiting churches of other denominations

or listening with an open mind to their representatives. That is not to say

that I felt no curiosity about or attraction to their programs. I might see a sign

outside a church with an intriguing ‘teaser’  title of a sermon (”Can Angels Fly?)

and think it would be interesting, but no, that’s for them, not us.

Later in life I took to reading and listening to non-Catholic religious things.

They would go down pretty well with me if they were presented as thoughtful

comentaries on life, but as soon as I got the impression they were framed

as expresions of  a certain denomination’s or pastor’s theology, my receptivity

and sincerity would switch off, and everything came across as hollow

tendentiousness.

I don’t like this inability to hear others sincerely. It is akin to the knee-jerk tradings

of pre-formed opinions that goes on between political and ideological opponents,

never ceding a point, just blindly fighting off any admission of weakness. 

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Teenager to mother:

“My WWBD bracelet? It means, ‘What would Britney do’!”

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Last night our church showed this movie about a couple of mixed-up girls whose adolescent antics caused chaos at a 1960s boarding school run by nuns. Aristole decreed that a play should have what he called ‘unity’ of time and space, which this does, and for that reason it pleased our little group, even without the usual dollops of sex, violence and car crashes dished out by Hollywood nowadays. The term had not been coined at the time of its creation , but this was certainly something of a chick flick. It provided less of a nostalia trip than I expected, for much of what constituted elite school life back then still dominates the landscape today - rustic locations, lumbering school buses, stately buildings, well tended estates. But the clothes and hairdos were definitely transported from the past, along with the 60s mores. But mssing were today’s youthful preoccupations with looking sexy, having boyfriends, hooking up, contraceptive protection, and appearing cool.

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Church Board meeting leader:

“Then it’s decided: we will tolerate no use in the church of the a-, b-, c-, d-, e-, f-, g-, h-,  i-,  j-, k-, l-, m-, n-, o-, p-, q-, r-, s-,  t-, u-, v-, w-, x-, y- or z-word”

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I noticed that in the Chaplet of Divine Mercy we address the Father and speak of the Son, for Whose sorrowful passion’s sake we ask God to have mercy on us. It seems not too far a stretch to conclude that the mercy would be bestowed by the Holy Spirit, Who is often identified with love, of which mercy is an expression. Otherwise, it seems that the Holy Spirit is not being acknowledged and included within the great and popular devotion. I wonder if St. Faustina’s writings address this question.  She told how an inner voice taught her in 1935 to say this prayer on
ordinary rosary beads:

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Catholic apologist picking up phone to address issues raised by callers:

“Apologist here. What is your misunderstanding?”

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On a Catholic radio program today I heard that someone had filed a report about the Would Youth Day saying that the prostitution operators or whatever they are called in Sydney, Australia, where the world’s oldest profession is legal, have made arrangements to bring in more girls, or tricks, or slaves, or whatever they’re called. The radio moderator found this doubly distasteful,  both because it doesn’t seem likely that the World Youth crowd would be likely clients, and the report seems to be an attempt to mock or give Catholics a black eye.

The extras are probably for the secular press corps.

Laudably, the moderator also called for a little journalistic  investigation of where the second stringers are coming from, whether they are participating or their own free will, and whether or not sex trafficing, child abuse, or any of the other usual associated evils are abroad. Kudos, Drew Mariani of Relevant Radio!

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