Community Singing

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce is a book club book.  It's a cute story and the characters are darlings.  The main character is Frank, who loves music, vinyl records, his mother and his independence.  He had a bohemian mother and always longed to be "normal."  Whatever that is.  But he idealized the perfect family and never achieved his ideal.  But he comes as close as anyone.  Then there's Ilse Brauchmann, who drives the readers and the story characters crazy with her mysterious identity.  When we do learn her story everything makes sense.  But that's when we lose her.  She goes home.

That was a terrible day.  The world ended for Frank.  His store, his life, his home, his business were all destroyed in a fire on the very day Ilse left.  Later we learn that Frank sank into the nether world.

In the background was a developer who constantly harassed the few businesses on Unity Street.  Father Anthony's religious goods store had little business.  Maud the tattoo artist barely made a living.  The Williams brothers owned a funeral home where no one was dying to get into. Kit worked for Frank and didn't seem fit for any other job. It was a sad street except for one important, redeeming feature.  These business owners loved what they were doing and loved and took care of each other.  They vowed never to move.

Then Ilse left.  The fire happened.  The stores on Unity Street sold to the developer.  And nothing was the same.

Ilse went home to her parents in Germany.  She makes a comfortable life and when her parents die, she reminisces.  She remembers Frank.  She wonders how everyone was doing.  Ilse takes a vacation to go back and look up her old friends. 

Evidently, Ilse never read Thomas Wolfe.  You can't go home again.  But Unity Street wasn't exactly home.  She wanted it to be, but that dream was burnt up.  When Ilse went to look up her old friends, they had all moved and she couldn't find them.  Then she coincidentally recognized a disc jockey's voice and found Kit.  Kit located Maud and Father Anthony.  They pieced together what they knew of Frank's whereabouts. 

It was sad.  Frank was working in a cheese and cracker factory.  This was entirely out of character for a man like Frank.  He had no home and once in a while could be found hanging around his old neighborhood and sleeping on the floor of his former store.  His old friends decided to help him.
Frank always ate lunch at the same place.  He loved music. So Frank's old neighbors plotted a Flash Mob.  People spontaneously would start singing Bach's "Alleluia".  That would get his attention!

Not only did it get his attention.  It got Ilse and Frank back together.  The neighborhood friends were happily reunited, very happily reunited.

The story ends with Frank and Ilse owning a music store together as man and wife.  And everyone lives happily ever after.

What's not to like with a story like that?

Grace Touching our Innermost Mind

This morning's readings for the Book of Maxims by Saint Isidore ties in with Lectio Divina.  Here  are some:

Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us.  Both are good when possible...

If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly.  When we pray we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.

All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.  By reading we learn what we did not know; by reflection, we retain what we have learned.

Reading the holy scriptures confers two benefits.  It trains the mind to understand them; it turns man's attention from the follies of the world and leads him to love of God.

Learning unsupported by grace may get into our ears; it never reaches the heart.  It makes a great noise outside but serves no inner purpose.  But, when God's grace touches our innermost minds to bring understanding, his word which has been received by the ear sinks deep into the heart.

Christus Vivit

Ha!  A journalist asked if the Vatican really expected to reach young people with a 183-page papal document, as reported in The Pilot.

Easy!  Just put it on social media.  Make a comic book out of it.  Make Videos.  Rap it to a song. And oh yeah, read it.

Suffrages

What's the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word, "suffrages?"  I bet you are thinking along the lines of voting.  I think of the women suffragettes who fought for the right to vote. but the first, or earlier meaning of the word is "prayers."

There is a relationship.  Suffering is involved in asking for voting rights and prayers for the suffering is asking God for help.  That is the original meaning. 

From the Catholic Dictionary:

The prayers prescribed or promised for specific intentions. More particularly, suffrages are the Masses, prayers, or acts of piety offered for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed.


and this site quotes the Summa Theologica:

71. Suffrages for the Dead

1. The word suffrage really means a vote.A suffrage is a vote, or a request to God, that some good actof ours have its merit bestowed on another. A suffrage is a gooddeed cast, like a ballot, in favor of someone. All the faithful aremembers of one body which is the Church. And, as in a living body,one member may be assisted by another. Such assistance is asuffrage. So much we know from the doctrine called the"Communion of Saints." But one member cannot actuallyreplace another; one member of the Church cannot save the soul ofanother. One member may, and should, help another, not only bygiving him good example and praying for him, but by performing goodand meritorious deeds, and ascribing the benefit of these toanother.

2. The prayers and suffrages of the living, offered forthe souls in purgatory, are of benefit to these souls. This we knowfrom the infallible teaching of the Church, and also from scripture(II Machabees 12:46): "It is a holy and wholesome thought topray for the dead that they may be loosed from theirsins."

3. Even those who are in the state of mortal sin may dosomething for the souls in purgatory. For the deed donemay have a value apart from the status of the doer of thedeed.

4. Suffrages offered by the living on behalf of the soulsin purgatory are deeds of charity, and, as such, they confer abenefit upon those who perform them. Says Psalm 34: "My prayershall be turned into my bosom."

5. Suffrages, however, can be of no benefit whatever tothose who are in hell. The lost souls are changelessly beyond allaid. They are under debt of eternal punishment, and no suffragewith its gift of temporal satisfaction, can be of any avail.

6. It is a point of the faith itself that the suffrages ofthe living help the souls in purgatory to pay their temporal debt.For purgatory does the work of satisfaction that a person couldhave done in this life, but died without doing, or withoutcompleting. Temporal punishment can be paid off; we on earth canhelp pay it for our brethren in purgatory who can merit no longerfor themselves.

7. Infants in Umbo cannot be aided by suffrages. For theseinfants are not under any debt of punishment for actual sins. Wecannot relieve temporal suffering where there is no suffering torelieve.

8. Suffrages are called so because they help,just as a vote helps toelect a man. Now, we cannot help thosewho have achieved the glory of heaven. One cannot help another toget home if he is already at home. So we do not offer suffrages onbehalf of the saints.

9. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the share we have inthe general prayer of the Church, and almsgiving, are notable worksof charity; therefore, these are powerful suffrages.

10. Indulgences granted by the Church and made applicableto the souls in purgatory can be gained by the faithful on earthfor the benefit of the holy souls. And indulgences thus gained aresuffrages.

11. St. Augustine says that the burial service for thedead, with its solemn ceremonies, is rather a consolation for thesurvivors than a help for the departed. And yet the burial serviceas prescribed by the Church contains many prayers for the dead, andeven Holy Mass which is offered for the departed soul. Further, theceremonies themselves may stir observers to pious thoughts, andlead them to pray and offer suffrages for the dead. And thus,"to bury the dead," is indeed a work of mercy. And assuch a work, it is a suffrage.

12. It seems most reasonable to suppose that suffragesoffered for one definite person are a help to him rather than toanother who is perhaps more worthy of help. For the suffrageoffered derives its value not only from the deed done, but from theintention of the doer of the deed.

13. Suffrages offered for several souls are divided amongthe souls. It is quite unreasonable to think or say, as some havedone, that such suffrages are of as much value for each of theseveral souls as if they were offered for that one soul alone.

14. General suffrages (those offered in general for thesouls in purgatory) are certainly of profit to the holy souls. Buthere again it is unreasonable to say that neglected souls find ingeneral suffrages such help as makes up to them all they have beendeprived of through neglect on the part of those who should helpthem.

The Birthplace of Religious Freedom in America

Maryland is the birthplace of religious freedom in America.  Lord Baltimore, who was Catholic, established the Maryland colony as a haven for religious toleration, and historians now regard Maryland as the birthplace of religious freedom in the United States.

This article in the Pilot explains how it happened.  The settlers landed on St. Clement's Island and celebrated Mass as thanksgiving to God.  There's a cross made by one of the early settlers, called St. Clement's cross that was just found, after 400 years.  It is displayed on St. Clement Island.

Add to My Eulogy

For some reason, Alfred Lord Tennyson's poetry is resonating with me, today.  Crossing the Bar reminds me of the Viking custom of sending the dead person on his boat, out to sea.  I picture Waquoit Bay's current carrying me out to Cross Rip in Vineyard Sound.
Tennyson added Crossing the Bar to the end of his books.  I'm thinking of adding it to my eulogy.

Sunset and evening star
    And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,

        When I put out to sea,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

      Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

      Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,

      And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

      When I embark;

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

      The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

      When I have crost the bar.

Faith in Doubt

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

Fyodor Dostoevsky 

I've had this quote on my wall for years.  Sometimes I doubt the existence of God.  Mostly I don't.  Sometimes I doubt that God loves me.  Mostly I don't.  Sometimes I doubt that God turns bad into good.  But then I'm proven wrong.  

This morning I read Faith in Honest Doubt by Alfred Tennyson and he says it so much better than I.  

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinai's peaks of old,
While Israel made their gods of gold,
Altho' the trumpet blew so loud.

Some people think one should never doubt God. They are correct of course.  But I think it is human, so very human, to doubt the existence of God.  Yes, doubt displeases God, but He loves when we come back, as I always do.