On the Feast of Stephen





I know it isn't St. Stephen's Day (impeded) anymore, but it was when these photographs were taken. I didn't have time to blog until now because my husband's parents were here and we were entertaining them, but they've now gone home and all is quiet. Our little part of North Carolina doesn't usually get much snow--only one or two inches a year, and usually in January. Our St. Stephen's Day 7-inch snow was very unusual, and we have really enjoyed all of it! Brody had great fun, and everything looked so beautiful. The snow is nearly melted now, which is great, because the roads are clean and we didn't have to buy de-icer for our steps.

Yesterday was my 26th birthday, and today we saw "Voyage of the Dawn Treader," but I think those are subjects for another post.

Prayers to St. Francis



If you read this, please say a prayer to St. Francis for our little dog. He was diagnosed with epilepsy yesterday. The disease is usually manageable in canines as it is in humans, and often with the same kinds of medications. Since he has only had two fairly brief seizures that we know of, we have chosen not to medicate him for now. We pray that there will be no major episodes. A

A Dog




Since October we have been the pleased owners of a two-year-old poodle mix. He is a little insecure; he cries and trembles when we get ready to leave the house and he knows he's not going, and he very much does not like strange men. He likes women well enough, but we had our priest to dinner last night and it was more than an hour before the dog could be in the same room with Father without barking or growling and baring his teeth. I hope the dog was not abused by a man, but we don't know.

He is a cute little dog, pictured here with the much-beloved toy pumpkin sent to him by my husband's aunt.

A House and Yard

We moved into our first house six weeks ago, and the landscapers have now come and gone. When we arrived, there was a shed and some trees in the backyard, along with the remains of some old landscaping. The lot our house sits on is on a corner, and one of the streets immediately winds around, so our lot is sort of like a peninsula with street on three sides. This means that everyone could look right into our backyard. Not anymore!



The landscapers put some quite large wax myrtles along the back there. Building a privacy fence was not really an option, because with the yard facing the street, it is considered to be a front yard by the city. That means the fence can only be four feet tall. Plus, solid fencing can be very expensive! So we have a deer fence, which will keep a dog in when my parents come to visit or if we get a dog of our own, and is almost invisible. The plants provide the privacy. Most of the plants that were put in flower, too! There are lots of daylilies (which are edible--you knew that, right?) and azaleas, along with gardenias and camelias and all sorts of things. There are also three very tall holly bushes, to match the holly that was already in the front yard. Free Christmas decorations!

The front yard, like almost everyone's front yard around here, has a couple of pine trees. Unfortunately, ours seem to be the only ones not producing pine cones. I guess we'll have to go rooting in the neighbors' yards if we want them, and we do want them. They're nice for decoration, but also useful as kindling for the fireplace. My husband occasionally makes candles, and pinecones covered in leftover beeswax are excellent fire starters.

Papal Visit to Edinburgh

As I was watching the live video feed from thepapalvisit.org.uk I saw the His Holiness go out to meet schoolchildren in the street after arriving at the archbishop's residence. It looked like this was a spontaneous decision made by the Holy Father--the guards and his entourage appeared briefly confused and were almost running to catch up with him. It is wonderful that he went out to meet the school kids. Many of them were obviously tremendously excited about it, waving their Scottish and Vatican flags enthusiastically.

The live webcast is great because there is, at least at the moment, no commentary. The music they're playing right now while running highlights from earlier is kind of annoying, but since there is no commentary it's not a problem to mute it and add your own music.

Incidentally, I still love the Holy Father's red shoes. I like the combination of the white outfit and red shoes--it's what I wore at my wedding. I also love the new tartan made up for the papal visit to Scotland. I'd love to have a shawl made of that.

The Tale of the Bells

My husband unknowingly opened up a can of worms when he used the organ's zimbelstern as Sanctus bells. The music director is asserting his authority--the organist is not to take any requests or suggestions from the priest that have not been cleared with the music director first. The young parochial vicar, according to the music director, has a big ego, cannot work within the parish's power structure, wants to dress up the liturgy with Tridentine trappings and bring the Church back to pre-Vatican II times. Yeesh. The music director is a very good musician, a decent composer, and has a lot of experience working with choirs of both adults and children. He's also a fairly nice guy. Unfortunately, this attitude is exemplary of a lot of folks of a certain age, generation, and experience. He lived through the changes of the '60s and '70s and as an active church musician was intimately involved in those changes. He has nostalgia for some of the music he sang as a choirboy, but he also has some issues with clerical authority. He remembers those 15-minute Masses because he served them, and he is afraid that 15-minute Masses are what happens when priests are allowed to plan their own liturgies without the assistance of professional liturgists and committees of lay people. He's not wrong about that, but he's not exactly right, either. I won't go over that issue now, since probably all four or five people who read this blog know the arguments and perhaps have dealt with these issues in the past.

The main point is, the liturgical laws of the Church as a whole and of the local church (the diocese has published norms about this) say that Sanctus bells are recommended. Also, priests have the right to request that these norms be followed. It is probably true that the parochial vicar should have brought this to the attention of the music director rather than making a direct request of the organist. It is also true that using Sanctus bells should not be a divisive issue that warrants a mention in an employee review. The fact that it has become a divisive issues tells me two things: first, that the music director is interested in asserting his authority, and second that there is a real division in the parish of which the Sanctus bell controversy is merely the latest manifestation. This whole thing feels like a cake that broke coming out of the pan, and someone has frosted it in hope that no one will notice. Unfortunately, the organist who didn't know about the crack put the cake under a bright light, and as the frosting warmed up the cracks started to show. Fortunately, as long as he keeps his head down, this should blow over without lasting consequences.

Coast to Coast

The title does not refer to the oddball late-night radio show, but rather to my recent move. My blog partner, Lizzy, moved to the East Coast a few years ago, and my husband and I have now joined her on the Atlantic shores! Not only are we now living on the East Coast, we are living in the South. This should be interesting! My husband has his first full-time job as a church organist at a Catholic parish in the diocese of Raleigh (I won't be disclosing the parish name or the town where we live).

Today was my husband's first official day as the new organist, and he has already stirred up a controversy! The parish music director is in his sixties, and I think the pastor (Msgr) is too, but we and the parochial vicar (Fr. M) are in our twenties. Fr. M is a NAC grad and fairly conservative--for instance, he sang many of the dialogues, collects, and part of the canon today. My husband, noting the lack of Sanctus bells, used the organ's zimbelstern as makeshift Sanctus bells. The music director chewed him out for it after Mass and said that the pastor had decreed no bells would be rung, so for the next Mass the zimbelstern was laid to rest. After the second Mass, Fr. M (who is on for most of the Masses because Msgr is on vacation) said, "Why no bells? I liked them!" My husband explained that he'd been told not to, and Fr. M frowned. "I'll send an email to your boss," he said, "and you can use the bells at my Masses. I wasn't aware that Msgr had any opinion on Sanctus bells."

Obviously there is some kind of generational disconnect here. The music director also informed my husband that "None of the churches on the East Coast use Sanctus bells anymore" which I know for a fact is not true. I can name at least half a dozen in New York alone that use bells. The young organist and the young priest clearly have different ideas about how liturgy ought to go from the older music director and the older priest.

We will have Fr. M over next week to bless our new house (and it's an actual house, with a yard and friendly, quirky neighbors--I'm going to the neighborhood watch meeting on Thursday and planning my vegetable garden). We'll try to get him to stay for dinner, and talk about life at the parish. I know he can only be forthcoming to a certain degree, but maybe it will give us some insight into people and situations that we might need to be careful of. Wish us luck!

Prayer Request

Would you please keep in your prayers S. and T., siblings who have just lost their father? They lost their mother several years ago. T. is 30, but S. is only 15. Their father's live-in girlfriend has run off and abandoned S., and T. does not have a stable enough job to support a younger sibling. It is hoped that S.'s godparents will be willing to step up to the plate, but so far they have been reluctant. Also, S. has not always made good choices in friends, possibly partly because of being motherless. Hopefully being totally orphaned now will not contribute to further poor choices.

This is a tough situation for S. and T. and we are all very concerned about them.


Please also keep me and my husband in your prayers. We are job-hunting, and if one or both of us get jobs we will be in the market for a new place to live as well (if jobs are not forthcoming, we'll have to live with family for a while).

Good Homilies and Bad Music

Yesterday at St. Victor's in West Hollywood, frequent guest priest Fr. Vincent Lopez, OP (pictured) talked about the recent media coverage of abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church. He gave real statistics, pointing out that 4.2% of American priests over a number of decades have been the subject of credible accusations, but that the secular media makes it seem like 90%. He talked about how the protocols for dealing with cases have been tightened and and made clearer in the last several years. He ended with a fervent prayer that the percentage of all adults who abuse children, priest and lay alike, will soon be reduced to zero.

I am not sure whether the homily was an appropriate time to give this information--I would have preferred a typed letter. On the other hand, the congregation were very appreciative. One woman I spoke to after Mass said, "It's so good to hear the real statistics from a study, and what's really being done to protect children. My non-Catholic friends are very critical, and I haven't known how to respond to them. Now I feel like there's something I can say."

It's great that there is so much information online about protocols and statistics, but even in our hooked-up world, there are people who don't get their news online. The information must be made available in other media so that as many people as possible will be able to answer the secular media's falsifications. So thank you, Fr. Vincent, for speaking up. I do believe that you live up to your once-name in religion, Fidelis.


On another note, one of my friends was confirmed at Good Shepherd church in Beverly Hills last night. Congratulations, Cindy! I was unable to attend, since I had to provide music for Mass at St. Victor's, but I was able to go to the celebratory party afterwards. Amidst the congratulations were a number of complaints about the music at Good Shepherd. The general consensus was that the whole production was a bit of a circus. I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but it was very gratifying to hear more than one person console Cindy about the music saying, "It's ok, you can go back to St. Victor's next week." When will the people who plan music for these events understand that badly-performed, 15-years-out-of-date pop music is not appealing to young people or most anyone else? The Church recommends the music it does because it is right, and it works. Learn this, or go the way of the dinosaurs.

Terra tremuit!

The earthquake that rocked Mexicali about twenty minutes ago shook our building pretty hard for at least a couple of minutes. Even now the chain on my bedside lamp is still swinging, and I keep imagining swaying, but nothing fell off our shelves. I hope everyone in Mexico is ok, although it's such a big quake that it's unlikely everything is hunky-dory. We'll hear reports in a couple of hours, probably.

On the one hand, having an Easter earthquake is kind of nifty, given the connection to the Terra tremuit text. On the other hand, having a 6.9 earthquake is not at all cool.

A blessed Pascha to you all, and pray that those nearest the quake's epicenter will also have a blessed, peaceful, and safe Easter.