Friday, March 20, 2009

On Pride, Pt. 3

Today's Morning Prayer gives us the following petition, addressed to Christ:
Corrige mentes nostras rebelles, nosque magnanimos effice.
In English: "Correct our rebellious minds, and make us magnanimous" or, as it is in the ICEL tranlation: "Discipline our rebellious minds: make us great in spirit."

ICEL sometimes does a pretty good job.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

On Pride, Pt. 2, as promised

From the Introduction to Tiina Nunnally's translation of Kristin Lavransdatter:

Sigrid Undset later explained that Kristin's greatest sin is not the fact that she succumbs to her sexual desires and yields to the amorous demands of her impetuous suitor before they are properly married. Of much greater import is Kristin's decision to thwart her father's wishes, to deny the traditions of her ancestors, and to defy the Church; her worst sin is that of pride. The scholar Marlene Ciklamini notes that 'in medieval times the most egregious sin was superbia, or pride, setting oneself up as the arbiter of things human and divine, or, to express it another way, loving oneself more than God.' Kristin's constant struggle to integrate a sense of spiritual humility into her strong and passionate nature underlies much of the dramatic tension in all three volumes of the novel.

I might add that superbia isn't the most egregious sin only in the middle ages, but in our day as well.

Litany of St. Joseph

Taken from Our Lady's Warriors.
Litany of St. Joseph
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have
mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father
of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy
on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us..
Holy Mary, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Renowned offspring of David, pray for us.
Light of Patriarchs, pray for
us.
Spouse of the Mother of God, pray for us.
Chaste guardian of the
Virgin, pray for us.
Foster father of the Son of God, pray for us.
Diligent protector of Christ, pray for us.
Head of the Holy Family, pray
for us.
Joseph most just, pray for us.
Joseph most chaste, pray for us.
Joseph most prudent, pray for us.
Joseph most strong, pray for us.
Joseph most obedient, pray for us.
Joseph most faithful, pray for us.
Mirror of patience, pray for us.
Lover of poverty, pray for us.
Model of artisans, pray for us.
Glory of home life, pray for us.
Guardian of virgins, pray for us.
Pillar of families, pray for us.
Solace of the wretched, pray for us.
Hope of the sick, pray for us.
Patron of the dying, pray for us.
Terror of demons, pray for us.
Protector of Holy Church, pray for us.
Lamb of God, who take away the
sins of the world, spare us, O Lord!.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of
the world, graciously hear us, O Lord!.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins
of the world, have mercy on us. .
V. He made him the lord of his household.
R. And prince over all his possessions.
Let us pray. O God, in your
ineffable providence you were pleased to choose Blessed Joseph to be the spouse of your most holy Mother; grant, we beg you, that we may be worthy to have him for our intercessor in heaven whom on earth we venerate as our Protector: You who live and reign forever and ever. R. Amen.
Here is a sound recording of it from EWTN.

Here it is in Latin from saint-joseph-detroit.org:

LITANIAE SANCTI IOSEPH

Kyrie, eleison.
R. Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison.
R. Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.
R. Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, audi nos.
R. Christe, audi nos.
Christe, exaudi nos.
R. Christe, exaudi nos.
Pater de caelis, Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Fili, Redemptor mundi, Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Spiritus Sancte Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus,
R. miserere nobis.

(R. for ff.: ora pro nobis.)
Sancta Maria,
Sancte Ioseph,
Proles David inclyta,
Lumen Patriarcharum,
Dei Genetricis Sponse,
Custos pudice Virginis,
Filii Dei nutricie,
Christi defensor sedule,
Almae Familiae praeses,
Ioseph iustissime,
Ioseph castissime,
Ioseph prudentissime,
Ioseph fortissime,
Ioseph obedientissime,
Ioseph fidelissime,
Speculum patientiae,
Amator paupertatis,
Exemplar opificum,
Domesticae vitae decus,
Custos virginum,
Familiarum columen,
Solatium miserorum,
Spes aegrotantium,
Patrone morientium,
Terror daemonum,
Protector sanctae Ecclesiae,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. parce nobis, Domine.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. exaudi nobis, Domine.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
R. miserere nobis.
V. Constituit eum dominum domus suae.
R. Et principem omnis possessionis suae.
Oremus
Deus, qui in ineffabili providentia beatum Ioseph sanctissimae Genetricis tuae Sponsum eligere dignatus es, praesta, quaesumus, ut quem protectorem veneramur in terris, intercessorem habere mereamur in caelis: Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. R. Amen.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

On Pride, Pt. 1

I'm going to post a couple of things on the sin of pride. I think rebellion against the Father is the chief and root cause of human woes, and it manifests itself in a plethora of ways. The first quote is from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church:
27. It is in the free action of God the Creator that we find the very meaning of creation, even if it has been distorted by the experience of sin. In fact, the narrative of the first sin (cf. Gen 3:1-24) describes the permanent temptation and the disordered situation in which humanity comes to find itself after the fall of its progenitors. Disobedience to God means hiding from his loving countenance and seeking to control one's life and action in the world. [Emphasis mine]. Breaking the relation of communion with God causes a rupture in the internal unity of the human person, in the relations of communion between man and woman and of the harmonious relations between mankind and other creatures[29]. It is in this original estrangement that are to be sought the deepest roots of all the evils that afflict social relations between people, of all the situations in economic and political life that attack the dignity of the person, that assail justice and solidarity.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Irish Music tonight in Milwaukee

If you like good Irish/Scottish music, you might try the Shinigans in Milwaukee tonight. Here are the details:

Shinigans include two of my children, Therese on fiddle and vocals and Nate on guitar and keyboard.

The Shinigans

Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Time: 7:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Derry Hegarty's Pub
Street: 5328 W Bluemound Rd
City/Town: Milwaukee, WI

Here is a link to their CD. http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=148338460496&h=u_TEP&u=cneVk. Their current music is more trad than the CD. I have no idea if you have to have Facebook to hear these.

Waugh vs. Undset

Our high school literature group discussed Waugh's Brideshead Revisited the other night, as Love2Learn Mom reported. I find the book, and Waugh in general very tedious. I am too much a dinosaur, I suppose. I just find myself completely out of sympathy with the whole disillusionment environment of the upper class English in the time of the decline of the Empire. I just want to say to the spoiled brats, "Go do something worthwhile!" There is enough disillusionment in real life for me to want to read more about it. I know, you can argue that the message is actually one of hope in the face of the experience of disillusionment, and I'll buy that, but what my soul needs is a belief in the possibility of real heroism, purpose, direction in this life. That is why I am so glad that the next book we are reading is Undset's Kristen Lavransdatter. I've already read the first chapter of the first volume and I feel like I'm breathing fresh air again after the stale air in Waugh's world. Lavrans is someone I'd like to emulate both as a man and as a father. There is no one in Brideshead I'd want to emulate.

That is why I am such an admirer of Servant of God John Paul II. He was able to live a truly heroic, manly life in the very 20th century that Waugh was writing about. (I'm not canonizing his every decision or action, by the way. I am pretty disappointed about his apparent inability to confront the crisis in the Legionaries of Christ head on). Lavrans wasn't perfect, either. It does say in the intro of the new translation that Undset patterned Lavrans after her father.

St. Mary's in Port Washington

I'm not smart enough to be like "Lucy," of City of Steeples or the Holy Whapping gang, reporting on churches I've visited with photos and very knowledgeable details. I do want to comment on a church my wife and I happened upon while in Port Washington, Wisconsin the other day. Just north of downtown Port Washington, which is right on Lake Michigan, on a little hill is a Gothic revival church, St. Mary's. The parish is over 150 years old. I don't know what year the church was built, but it is very stately. The work around the altars is white, rather than the Bavarian woodwork I'm used to at St. Anthony's in Milwaukee. There are paintings on the side walls in the sanctuary. The one I was able to identify was the Annunciation, so a presume the others are also paintings of events in St. Mary's life.

What I wonder is how church's choose which saints to have statues of. For instance, St. Mary's has St. Henry, St. Barbara, St. Dominic, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, among others. They also have, in the back in a corner, a small shrine to Our Lady of Consolation. Which consists of a very porcelain doll like St. Mary with a blue, Infant of Prague like dress, holding the baby Jesus, who is also dressed in a similar "dress," The funny thing is his little, chubby feet sticking out from under his skirt, just dangling there.