High Holy Days

For our Jewish brothers, Rosh Hashana began last Friday evening. Lizzy and my sweetheart and I are thinking of going to the Shofar blowing for Yom Kippur which will be on Monday evening at Temple Beth Shalom here. An email went out from Campus Ministry that said Gonzaga students had all been invited to attend their high holy day services. For those of you who may not be familiar with the shofar, or have never heard one, there is a virtual one here. (Link courtesy my sweetheart, who is really interested in Jewish culture.) The same link will take you to explanations of the days and their traditions. So, happy new year, and if you needed a reason to repent or to celebrate, here you are!

In the Bag

Following the example of Terry Teachout and some folks in St. Blog's, we now present Jane's "In the Bag," the five books/CD's/works of art I'd take with me if I had to leave right now, not the things I'd necessarily like you to think I'd like, but the things I happen to like at the moment and can actually remember the names of.

Book: Collected Novels of Jane Austen

Book: An Anthology of Jewish Folklore

CD: The Green House (Gray Larsen and Paddy League--flute, bodhran, melodeon, and guitar)

CD: Ella Fitzgerald: Pure Ella (a compilation of hits from several different Decca albums)

Book: A Modern Mephistopheles (Louisa May Alcott)

Today I got the strangest e-mail from my ex-boyfriend. I haven't talked to him in the four months since we broke up, but for some reason he decided to send me a snotgram. So here, for your viewing (and/or mocking) pleasure, the inspired words of my idiot ex-boyfriend.

Lizzy:

Since you broke up with me, I have attempted to be as patient as possible, enduring everything you sent my way in the hope that we could return to the friendship we had before we decided to try for a relationship. Instead, you have decided to torment me by teasing me with your periodic conversations and I've reached my limit on them. I can not and will not accept your delibrate attempts at hurting me anymore because it is hurting other people besides me. I still consider you a friend, despite everything you have done and if you ever have a problem or just want to talk, then yes I will be here for you. But otherwise, please, just let me go and live my life.

Goodbye Lizzy.

I'm not sure when I did any of these things--if I did them at all. And I prefer being accused for things I've actually done. I was expecting this directly after we broke up, not after four months of silence!

I don't think I'm going to dignify this with a response.

Keys

I have two new keys on my key ring today: the keys to the elevator door and elevator operating system for the music annex, so that I can move my harp without having to check out the keys each and every time.

This means that, in addition to my car keys which I keep separately because I don't use them everyday, I have a key to the outside door of the dorm, a key to my room, a key to my mailbox, and a key to the annex classroom, plus a swiss army knife that I use too often to take it off the ring. Six keys. If I get any more, they won't all fit in my pocket.
I think that the fact that I have to have so many keys is a pretty sad commentary on our society. The classrooms in the music buildings have to stay locked, presumably less someone destroy the piano or steal music stands, or write something untoward on the blackboard. Why would anyone do these things? Or can you think of other reasons why the classrooms would be locked?

I can't leave my harp in a practice room. It might be stolen or harmed in some way. Why? If students are trusted with the pianos in the practice rooms, why not a harp? It's almost as non-portable as an upright piano. After all, have you ever looked inside an upright piano?

We can't leave the exterior door of the dorm unlocked. Some stranger might wander in and peek at the girls in the showers or something. We can't leave our room doors unlocked because our neighbors or their visitors or the janitorial staff might steal all our stuff. My mailbox is locked because someone might steal my mail. I wish people could be trusted to just leave other people's belongings alone. Then, I wouldn't have a pocket full of keys jingle-jangling everywhere I walk. But they're better than remembering numbers for those code-punch-in doors.

Please pray for Sara, a young woman who was hit by a car last Thursday. She was a good friend of some girls I know here. She passed away last night after being taken off life support. Lizzy is sort of in shock, because even though she didn't know the girl, we've all been following the news for the past few days, and Sara happens to be the name of Lizzy's good friend who died a month ago.

Mass in a small space

Daily Mass last Saturday was interesting. It's usually held in Jesuit House chapel, but the Jesuits were having a day of prayer, so we had to use one of the side chapels. The side chapel was not bigger than our dorm room: probably about 8x15, and we managed to cram at least 20 people in there. It was pretty amazing to have Mass at such close quarters. I had to stand right at the side of the altar, about three feet from the priest. At the end of Mass, Father commented that it was "like the early Christians." Except for a few of the older and infirm people, we all stood, knelt, or sat on the floor for the whole Mass. I didn't really sit: stuck to kneeling or standing. Overall, it was a pretty special experience. Mass at close quarters is awesome. Mass in a cathedral is awesome. Actually, Mass is just awesome.

Vote

Yesterday, Gonzaga students voted for class representatives to the GSBA. I almost didn't vote, because I was thinking more about all the classwork I have to make up after being sick for 5 days. I wandered into Crosby heading to check my mail, and was accosted by two female students who asked if I'd voted yet. "It only takes two minutes. You get a cookie if you do."

Wow. I'm being bribed to vote, and with chocolate-chip or peanut-butter cookies no less. The really sad thing is that it worked. It was 11am, and I hadn't had breakfast yet. I was hungry, the cookie was virtually free. It would only take two minutes. Esther would kill me if I couldn't honestly tell her I'd voted for her. So I voted. My friend Esther's name was the only one on the whole ballot that I recognized. I didn't understand any of the ammendments to the GSBA laws, I just circled "yes." There were spaces to write-in candidate names, because the sophomore class is so lazy that there aren't as many people who want to be in student government as there are spaces. Maybe we should just populate California with college sophomores. Then the gubernatorial race wouldn't be a problem. There might only be one candidate, or maybe none at all. Wouldn't that be interesting...

I got my cookie, and went down to check my mailbox, which was empty.

Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director points us to this article about a conference on sacred music held at the Franciscan University at Steubenville.

The following paragraph really struck me:

"The sweetness of the music — the Mass setting by Victoria and the contemporary motets of Robert Kreutz and Charles Callahan — left a silence so reverent that many of the hundreds of students, instead of rushing off after Mass, took advantage of the moment to kneel in prayer as if reluctant to leave the presence of their Beloved."

Now, I have to admit, references to Christ as the Beloved have always fascinated me, but they've always been a little bit foreign. It was a lovely phrase, but I had no feelings associated with it. Since meeting my sweetheart, it has taken on new meaning. I guess I have a "reference point" now. I know what it's like when I say goodbye to my sweetheart. It's hard to leave. I don't want to walk out that door and drive away, but I know I have to. I also know that I can come back soon, and that I'm thinking about the next time I'll see him even before I leave the room.

However true this is of my sweetheart, it is so much more true of my Beloved. We are together at Mass in such an intimate way, and I am often (though to my shame, not always) reluctant to leave the chapel afterwards. I would probably rather fall asleep in the pew and stay all night than leave, but I know I need to go home, finish my homework, and sleep in my own bed.

I'm not always reluctant to leave because, even though I love Him, sometimes I get frustrated. My intellect is so limited that I don't always understand what's going on. What am I supposed to do with my life? Why did I have the stomach flu for almost a whole week? Why won't my posters stay on the wall like they're supposed to? Where am I going with this post?

I suppose that these might be strange thoughts to stem from reading an article on a music conference, but, as it says above, I am a Catholic and a Musician. They're both crucial to my identity, and they're always intertwined in my own imagination. I can't think about one without thinking about the other. When I play, I think of God. When I'm reading for my religion class, I'm thinking about a musical setting of this passage, or where this theory fits in my very musical view of the world. So, if I start talking about music and end talking about God, or vice-versa, try not to be surprised.

Other quotes

Quotes from people who are not Lizzy:

"If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out."

"And then Denethor gave a squishy EEEK."

"I'm shocked to learn that Greek dancing hasn't caught on in Spokane!"

"I only have one brain cell, and it's on vacation."

"The life dictated by the 3 evangelical councils is...the Socratic life."

"I'm full of people like that..."

"Are the badgers doing aerobics?"

"I'm a peanut-butterist!"

"Novus Weirdo"

"He's almost perfect. I just don't know what the almost is yet."

"We're not normal, we're just the way everyone else should be."

No Athletics Department for Vanderbilt

This associated press article was mentioned by my music theory teacher in class this morning. Vanderbilt is eliminating its althetics as a seperate department. The program will now be under central university administration, and the budget is being cut. This is being done because the school's chancellor has declared war on the "wrong culture" of sports which he believes prevails at universities.

My professor did not mention anything to do with my school in connection with this article. He stated that it was "interesting," and "a brave move." He also told us that the school's chancellor (and I don't know how he knows this) has been getting letters and phone calls 50-1 in support of the move. This is definitely contrary to anyone's expectations. Dr. Schaefer did say to us that he thinks that a lot of schools might not survive such a decision, Notre Dame for instance.

The sports culture is very strong at Gonzaga. A book about the rise of our basketball team over the last ten years went on sale in the bookstore this spring, to great hype. It was much the same at my high school. Needless to say, it brings a lot of money and attention to the school, but I have to ask, is this really what a university wants to get attention for? Especially a Catholic one?

I'd much rather Gonzaga be known for its outstanding choir. We do have a really awesome choir, and they're going on an 8-day tour of France next summer along with the Schola, which is an almost unique entity among American universities. Yet, hardly anyone knows that we have a fantastic choir, or some really brilliant, first-rate philosophy professors, a unique program of sacred music, a pretty fantastic history, and sports other than basketball (for instance, a prize-winning women's crew team). At the moment, to the outside world, Gonzaga=basketball. And that's sad.

In Exaltatione Sancta Crucis
5:00 Jesuit House Chapel, Gonzaga University

Prelude: Voluntary V (Stanley)
Processional: Vexilla Regis
Introit: Nos Autem
Kyrie: Mass XVI
Gloria: Mass VIII
Gradual: Christus factus est
Alleluia: Dulce Lignum
Credo: Credo III
Offertory: Christus Factus Est (Anerio)
Sanctus: Mass XVIII
Agnus Dei: Mass XVIII
Communion:Per signum Crucis
Motet: God So Loved the World (Goss)
Postlude: Basse et Dessus de Trompette (Clerambault)

Celebrant: Rev. Paul Vevik, Pastor, Mary Queen Catholic Church

Lizzy Quotes

"Lizzy on a half-shell."

"We're a genius!"

"Nietzche was a catechist!"

"I'm a music theory heretic!"

"Do you notice that the hall is always quiet except when we're laughing like lunatics?"

"I don't wanna date a heretic!"

Just a few of my personal favorites. *big grin*

Crud

Woke up this morning with severe chills, and still had nausea for the fourth day. I was very scared, so called my Mommy, called my RA, and got myself to the Emergency Room at Sacred Heart Hospital. My first time in the ER. They stuck me full of holes, looked at my blood, asked me tons of questions about my symptoms, and put me on an IV. After two hours, the doctor said it was probably just a virus and it was taking me a little longer than normal to recover from it. Not terribly different from what the nurse at the Health Center here told me on Wednesday. The good news is that he gave me a prescription for the nausea, so I won't have to deal with that in addition to being weak and light-headed. Haven't had a real meal since dinner on Tuesday, and very much looking forward to being back on solid food. Hopefully tomorrow.

Prayer Request

I've been sick to my stomach for 3 days now, and I'm still not sure why. Supposed to see the Dr. at the health center this morning. Prayers would be appreciated.

Confession

There have been a few posts about good and evil going around St. Blog's, by Eve Tushnet, and Amy Welborn.
My experience:

Evil possesses a person. Oftentimes, they have no idea to what extent it possesses them. Even some people who seem to others to be good, kind, caring, generous, pure, forgiving, and patient may be enslaved to evil. I do not believe that anyone can know how tightly bound they are by these chains until they make a thorough examination of conscience and speak their sins out loud, in the Sacrament of Confession. I certainly did not know.
Like most people, I suppose, I'm still a slave to my favorite sins. It's hard not to be discouraged when I find myself repeating the same list over and over in the confessional. But I know that I am a little less enslaved than I used to be. How do I know this? Now, I can admit to my sins. It wasn't that way for a long time, most of my short life in fact.
My parents did not take me to the church for confession, because my parent's weren't married in the Church until I was 13, so obviously they didn't go themselves. I made my first confession just before my First Communion when I was 7, and that was the end of that until I was 11, when I went to a school that actually set aside hours each month for the students to receive this sacrament. I think I went once or twice a year after that until I was 17. Why so infrequently, when it was available twice a week at my parish, and at least monthly at my school?
The very idea of going into a confessional made me sick to my stomach. I would get so nervous, I'd start shaking. And from the time I was 12, there was this one sin I could never admit to. I'd go, but I'd hold back, and it did not feel like I held back of my own will. I was so captivated by this sin that I could not speak it aloud, even when I knew only God was listening. I was barely able to admit to myself that it was even a sin.
My worst experience was probably with a priest who admonished me for one sin for almost five minutes, while I knelt in the torturous certainty that what I hadn't told him was so much worse than what I had. If what I had told him really merited a reproof of this magnitude, how awful must the other sin be! This only made admitting it even harder.
Finally, last year, I was able to confess everything. Since then, I have gone to confession almost monthly. I still get nervous, but I no longer tremble or feel ill, and I no longer spend an hour weeping in my room afterwards. I fall, and I know my sins are great, but I can rejoice in the knowledge that I am forgiven.

Other people think I'm good. I've been praised for the virtues I mentioned above, even by my parents, who theoretically know me better than any other (ordinary) humans. Little do they know. But at least now I know that breaking chains is possible, though years of tears and heartache may precede it.

Sin isn't one chain that binds you. It is many chains, and they tend to be intertwined. You have to break through them one at a time. Some are stronger, thicker, harder to break than others. Sometimes breaking one makes it a lot easier to break others, but other times the Devil is just waiting to throw another chain at you and see if it holds. All the chains can be broken, though.

AGGGGGHHHHH

I do realize that the music department is not trying to make my life difficult, but they're succeeding anyway.
I am the only harp performance major in the living memory of the music staff here. To their knowledge, there has never, in the 100+ year history of Gonzaga, ever been a harp student other than me. Needless to say, they were not quite prepared for me. Because my instrument is large and and takes a lot of time to move, I have to keep it in the classroom where the orchestra, which I play with, rehearses. Now, practice rooms are open to students 24-7. They do not operate on a schedule. But classrooms do. The building is only open from 8am until 9pm six days a week, and closes at 6pm on Fridays. I have a key which opens the door of the classroom, but not the exterior door of the building. So I am limited to these hours, which normally I would not object to. I'm not one for practicing at 2am. I prefer to be alseep then.
Today I went to look at The Book (*diminished chord plays*) which contains the schedule for the classroom which I practice in. It's by far the most popular of the three classrooms. Well, it's booked virtually every hour of the weekdays. 2-4pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays is free, which is a good time for me. But on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the only time it is free is 8-10am. This is bad. I'm supposed to practice two hours a day, but I have a class at 9am those days, and it's a ten-minute walk. So, subtract that from the one free hour and it leaves me with 50 minutes practice those three days. Less than half of what my teacher expects, and less than half of what I really need.
So, I blocked out that time in the book so that everyone knows I practice then. But I could only pencil it in, because any faculty member can take over that time if they want to. All I can say is, they had better not. I'm playing with three of the five major performing ensembles this winter, and getting neither credit nor payment for two of them. This in addition to my mandatory solo work as a music major. At least I have a little leverage with that: if I can't practice as much as I really need to, I can tell the two most important men in the department to buzz off and take their harp parts elsewhere. They won't like that, because professional harpists cost upwards of $125 an hour.

This is excellent! The Hokey Pokey, as Written by W. Shakespeare Jane and I had a blast with it. I especially loved the use of the word "Sinistral." Anyway! Go check it out!!

Jane's Hell

People who haven't read any Jane Austin
Circle I Limbo

DMV Employees
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

CogMeat
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

OCP Employees
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Liturgists
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Whoever designed the showers in this dorm
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Heretics
Circle VII Burning Sands

Irregular verbs
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Relativists
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Rain!

At noon today, eight people stood in the rain in front a statue of our Mother and said the Angelus. It was the best turn out we've had so far this year, probably because today is the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.

At the Newman-Stein Fellowship meeting last night, there were about fifteen new people. This is excellent. We have a new advisor, Dr. David De Wolf of the Gonzaga Law School, who is also (I believe) the advisor for the Gonzaga Witness, our campus Catholic newpaper. (The newspaper for which I hope to be writing an opinion piece soon, please see post of 1 September.)

I'm very glad it's raining, because in Spokane, rain means it's not hot. Cold is much better than heat. If you're cold, you can always put more clothes or blankets on (yes, I have been known to wear a blanket), but if you're hot, there's only so much you can take off before you scandalize everyone, and even then, you still might be too hot. In addition to this, I'm vain, and winter clothes are more flattering. Reason #3 to like cold weather: people are less likely to want to play sports at social events and more likely to stay inside and talk or watch a movie, both of which are more fun for me than sports (so I guess this makes me selfish in addition to being vain). For teachers, it's good to have weather that's not so good, because students are less likely to be distracted by wanting to go outside and enjoy nice weather. (At the first snow, all bets on this are off. I love snowball fights!)

Music for Mass: Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
5pm Jesuit House Chapel, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA

Prelude:"Poco Lento" from L'Organiste (Franck)
Processional: Allein Gott in her Hoh' sei Ehr (Zachan)
Introit: Iustus es Domine
Kyrie: Mass XVI
Gloria: Mass VIII (de Angelis)
Gradual: Beata gens
Alleluia: Domine exaudi
Credo: Credo III
Sanctus: Mass XVIII
Agnus Dei: Mass XVIII
Communion: Vovete, Sicut Cervus (Palestrina), Lucis Creator (hymn)
Postlude: Allegro (Kittel)

Mass sung by Fr. Gary Uhlenkott, SJ, Ass. Prof. of Music, Gonzaga U.

The Wrath of Conchita

Every year, we have a retreat at this great mansion off campus. Ghost stories about the place are a dime a dozen, so it's always an interesting experience to play "Murder in the Dark." Several of the stories are about a housemaid named Conchita, who died under mysterious circumstances. According to the stories, she and the Master of the House were having an affair, and his wife had Conchita disposed of. However she perished, there is an eerie portrait of Conchita in the room she is said to have died in (or fallen from), and if you disturb her portrait in any way, she will haunt you or cause bad things to happen to you. Also, if you sleep in that bedroom, supposedly she'll visit you in the night.

Our retreat was themed after Scooby Doo. Raggy! Relp! Ra Rhost!! It was very fun, but some of our clues were hidden behind her portrait. And just as Freddy was telling us whodunit and why, he turned and noticed a Fire in the Library! So we had to "Break Glass in Case of Emergency," call the Fire Department, AND Campus Security. Watching the Fire Truck come up the fancy curved driveway was an amazing sight.

We figured that it's the Wrath of Conchita. Someone disturbed her portrait, so she had to punish us by sending electrical fires. The caretaker who normally is in the house next door wasn't there for whatever reason, so if we hadn't been there, the place probably would have gone down.

She wanted to burn the place down, and she would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for us meddling kids and our director named.... Dr. Ed!!!

I got my car washed today, and now it's raining. Of course.

Links to what we consider to be our "classic posts" (actually, so far, they're only from me), have been added down toward the bottom. If there's another post you remember that you'd like to see there, let us know!

Nichols' Looking at the Liturgy Ch.3

The third chapter is titled, "The Idiom of Worship." Fr. Nichols begins with a quote from Canon Vigo Demant (of Christ Church, Oxford, and contributor to T.S. Eliot's Christendom Group), which may soon become one of my favorite quotes: "When the Church begins to proclaim the Gospel in a secular idiom she may end by proclaiming secularism in a Christian idiom." "Idiom" can be taken to mean several different things, and Fr. Nichols discusses the following categories:
Architecture "For the last forty years Catholic architecture has been dominated by the school of thought known as 'radical functionalism'... Not only by virtue of its dedication but also because of the purposeive Christian intelligence of its builders, a church should be a vehicle of grace for those properly disposed to dwell in it...In modernist vocabulary, a door, for instance, is simply that. It cannot address the pregnant processes of entering, crossing thresholds, transition, and passage and therefore cannot speak, as in the mediaeval period it did to Durandus and Abbot Suger of St. Denis (authors of important tratises on building) of the person of Christ."
Language "That outstanding student of patristic language Christine Morhmann [has] described the whole of the earliest eucharistic terminology in Greek as 'deliberately isolated from the language of everyday life'...There is an argument here either for the retention of an otherwise unusual sacral language (Latin, Church Slavonic, premodern Greek) or for the preservation of a relatively archaic and high version of the vernacular, marking off a difference from secular language use."
Music "And yet of course the Roman rite is essentially a chanted rite...Pius X saw Gregorian chant as the classical or paradigmatic music of the Church, though it need not be exclusively performed. Still, to serve as a paradigm, the "classic" music must of course be available, known, and used...What has replaced the chant and polyphony does not bear too much thinking about [the first place where I think I really disagree with him]."

"What we are witnessing here is not simplay a secularization of the idiom of Christian worship but the expropriation of the Liturgy from the Church altogether, in favor of its recreation by particular groups that cannot claim to represent the ekklesiastikon phronema, the sensus Ecclesiae."

What Fr. Nichols is saying is what most of us already know, that the Mass should be truly divine and separate from the world; a gate into eternity, but we have made it human and of the world; a gate leading nowhere but where we already are. A door that is just a door.

This time we're really a genius!

Jane and I are a genius, in case the title wasn't clear enough. Today, in addition to NSF BBQ-ing, we went on what we hope is the last of our dorm shopping. We now have a fridge, a fan, and some incredibly sweet fake stained glass. It's just a piece of plastic that clings to the existing window, and it's very pretty.

Very Important Note: Jane is good with assemblying things. I have a tendency to read the directions very thoroughly and slowly and then attempt a careful assembly, but she dives in and knows just what to do. The only problem is that we now have a lot of big things. I really don't want to think about how I'm going to get all this junk home, especially since at the end of last year, I was not in any mood to pack systematically. Oh well. Might as well enjoy it now! :-P

BBQ!

This evening holds in store probably my last barbeque of the summer, the annual Newman-Stein Fellowship BBQ. We serve freshmen lots of free food, and hope that they like us enough to come to the meeting on Sunday night. Lizzy and I are leaders (along with one of the seminarians) of a small-group this year, so we'll try and make lots of new friends and try and sift out who might end up in our group.
NSF is the ultra-super-Catholic student group on campus, and we currently have whole-group meetings every other week, and small-group meetings the weeks in between. The small groups are for discussion. Currently there is the advanced group (run by us this year!), the women's group, the men's group, the charismatic group, a "faith-sharing" group (no clue what that's supposed to be), and the faith-inquiry group. That last was formed for students who have not been well-educated in their faith or are questioning their faith.
This year, we're going to be reading "We're on a Mission from God" by Mary Beth Bonacci, donated by Ignatius Press (this is why I advertize them so much--I've had a lot of free books). Our "advanced" discussion group will hopefully be supplementing this text (which should be an easy read, if it lives up to Ms. Bonacci's other efforts) with Church documents and other selections.

A footnote of warning about Ignatius Press orders: They have to get the money for all these books that they give away from somewhere. That somewhere is by selling your address and probably your email address when you order from them. My family has started getting Catholic junkmail. I was reminded of this when my sweetheart divulged to me that his household had received a solicitation for money to further the cause of the canonization of Padre Pio, from a priest who came across as, well, fanatical. Since my sweetheart's mother is not well-disposed toward Catholicism, this set back the peace talks a bit. So, if you are ordering things from Ignatius Press and would prefer that other people not get hold of your Catholic junkmail, get a P.O. box.

Nichols' Looking at the Liturgy Ch.2

The second chapter of this book is titled "The Importance of Ritual." Fr. Nichols, with the help of some social anthropologists and sociologists, dismantles the idea that less is more when it comes to ritual. Echoing Professor David Martin of the London School of economics, he says that the "popular local heresy" of the "cult of choice" results in "a dangerous and destructive imbalance." Directly from Martin, "What is done by rote and performed in ritual provides the necessary substratum of experience on the basis of which experience becomes possible."
Quoting from Kieran Flanagan (yes, this book does read like a book of quotations in places), "The relationship of rite to the cultural was far more ambiguous and complex than was understood at the time of the Council...Only recently has a form of sociology emerged that could offer a means of understanding liturgical operations in a way that is compatable with their theological basis."
"To a sociological eye, rites work best when they are repetitive and formalized, so that the liturgical actor can practice a certain forgetfulness of self, 'playing into' his role...Rites that do not allow a sense of distance deny to the people, paradoxically, a means of appropriating the act of worship, crippling them just at the point where they could be taking off Godward by a leap of religious imagination. For liturgical actors, though presented within a social frame, have to convey properties of what lies beyond that frame, a rumor of angels."

Essentially, in the eyes of sociologists, the reform of the liturgy undertaken immediately after Vatican II came just a few years too soon. Had they waited ten years, the sociologists would have been telling the liturgists that simpler, understandable rites with plentiful options are not actually better for the human community. We are creatures of ritual and lovers of mystery. As Fr. Nichols said, the Church forgot this just as the sociologists discovered it.

On the Wrath of God
or, Jane and Lizzy's Fun With English

The principle parts of smite (what God does to you when He's mad):

You already know that smote is the past tense of smite.
Smore: God smote you a whole lot.
Smiter: what God does to a bishop He's mad at.
Smelted: God was so mad, he made you smell like fish.
Sminted: you've been turned into a coin.
Smitten: you suddenly have really warm hands.

We're convinced that the cafeteria has put something in our food.

Strange Dream
I did not mention twenty minutes ago my odd dream of last week. I had a nightmare that I was in the Communion line at my former parish, and was offered first the Host, the Precious Blood, and then a chocolate milkshake. I was horrified at how many people bypassed the chalice in favor of the "blessed milkshake." I've definitely been reading too many books about liturgy.

Back Home

Gonzaga really does start to feel like home. I now live with a lot of girls I already know, and more friends are just a five-minute walk away. Dr. Ahrend, our sight-singing teacher last year and this year, hugged Lizzy and me when we saw her in the music building today. She's very nice. Dr. Schaefer already has plans for me to play with the choir at Christmas. It's good to be back.

I suppose my big news is that I'm an aunt...again. My brother and his wife welcomed fraternal twins into the world last Thursday. Italian-Irish kids: Giacomo Connor and Diletta Siobhan. They have a three-year-old brother, Alessandro Liam. This makes three neices and four nephews for me, and my dad is thrilled to have seven grandchildren. Pray for the parents, though; I expect their sanity is going to suffer with a toddler and two infants.

Help With My First Newspaper Article?

I'm going to be writing an opinion piece for The Gonzaga Witness about why music is important to the Catholic identity of Gonzaga, and how the university is handicapping itself by not supporting its performing arts, i.e., build us a proper theater and come to our concerts. It's supposed to be 500 words, but I've only got 250, so if anyone has suggestions especially as to good quotes about why music is important to the Church or to Catholic universities, I'd be grateful.

Jane and Lizzy Strike Again!!!!

We are back in the dorm and all set for adventures! (Jane apologizes for her lack of blogging; that's an adventure in itself, and we haven't been here 2 days!) So watch out for the adventures of Jane and Lizzy Part 2!