Is Our Lady Weeping?

Notre Dame, for many America's flagship Catholic University, announced, "President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday) in the Joyce Center on campus." As Senator Obama and presidential candidate, Notre Dame's commencement speaker had the most extreme pro abortion position in the Democratic Party which has become the party of abortion in America. As President he has already rescinded the Mexico City policy. The church has been quite clear that Catholic universities should not give public honors to those who are aiding and abetting the slaughter of the innocents. Maybe Father John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, does not consider Notre Dame to be a Catholic university. He did also allow the Vagina Monologues, albeit in a classroom setting.

The University will confer degrees on approximately 2,000 undergraduates, 420 MBA students and 200 Notre Dame Law School students. When President Obama speaks at the commencement, wouldn't it be grand if those grads catechised the speaker? What if vast majority of the grads in the audience had on their mortar boards a picture of a baby with a caption "Do I get a choice?"

THE CHANTS OF THE VATICAN GRADUAL by Dom Dominic Johner

THE CHANTS OF THE
VATICAN GRADUAL
By Dom Dominic Johner

Dom Johner's work on the Vatican Graduale is probably the best work available to understand the church's go-to liturgical music (too infrequently gone to these days.) It was translated from the German by the monks at Collegeville in the good old days. It is one of the great fruits of the original Liturgical Movement.

The Church Music Association of America has made it generally available. It is in the form of a 510 page pdf file. If the above link does not work for you, cut and paste this into your browser:

http://www.musicasacra.com/pdf/chants_johner.pdf


From the "Translator's Forward:"

In response to many requests for a book descriptive and explanatory
of the Gregorian Mass chants, the monks of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville,
Minn., undertook the translation from the German of Dom Johner's work: Die Sonn- und Festtagslieder des Vatikanischen Graduate, under the above title. In the foreword the author indicates the scope of his work. He writes: "The present work is intended chiefly to serve as
an aid to the prayerful rendition of the variable chanted parts of the
Mass. At the same time it aims to be a guide for the worthy and artistic
rendition of those chants which have been handed down to us from an
age of strong faith and noble taste." Chant is essentially a form of worship
offered by the faithful and as such is an integral part of the liturgy.
It is intimately connected with the very source of all Liturgy, the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, and attempts to interpret and express in music the
sentiments which the text expresses in words.
Individual consideration is given to the texts of the Introit, Gradual,
Alleluia-verse, Tract, Sequence, Offertory, and Communion. These texts
are given in Latin and in English, and are arranged in parallel columns.
They are studied in their historical and liturgical setting, and their sentiments
of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, gratitude and penance, are
pointed out and developed. In this sense also the intimate relationship
existing between these various texts is indicated; all are integrated into
a unified whole and referred to the life of Christ and His Church. Following
this short meditation, the author analyzes the musical score accompanying
the text, and attempts to show how Gregorian Chant interprets
these various sentiments and gives adequate expression to them—
in short, how Gregorian Chant is the prefect yet simple medium of translating
religious emotion into the language of music.


An indispensable condition for the intelligent use of this book as a
guide for interpretation is the simultaneous use of the Vatican Gradual,
since musical notation has not been included in the present work. However,
only a minimum and very elementary knowledge of Gregorian
Chant is necessary for the fruitful use and understanding of the book.
Further knowledge is given in a very significant Introduction, which
describes the structure and expressiveness of the variable Mass Chants.
The original German, as also the English manuscript, have been made
the basis for a very successful summer school course in the study of Gregorian
Chant. The book might adequately be described as "a study in
the appreciation of Gregorian Chant."

My thanks to Dallas Gambrell for the link!

Mosaics!

Shawn Tribe at the New Liturgical Movement found a neat site with ancient mosaics.

From Revenna (yes my favorite!): is this St. George?

What Is the Difference Between a Bikini Top and Underwear? The Right to Shop.

Casuarina Square is the largest shopping center in Australia's Northern Territory. Australia is a country in which the temperature can get hot and clothes can get scarce. This apparently led to a bit of a misunderstanding.

Barbara Rilatt, a nurse, and her husband Neil, both 28, went shopping. She was wearing a bikini top (see Exhibit A to the right), he a tank top. A lady security guard asked if they had a T-shirt to cover up Ms. Rilatt's upper body otherwise she should leave.

It's not that bikini tops are banned in Casuarina Square, but the security guard thought Ms. Rilatt was in her bra. The shopping center manager, a Mr. Ben Gill, explains, "If someone was wearing underwear, then we would ask them to cover up...If she was wearing a bikini, we have made an error."

I guess you have to draw a line somewhere.

Ms. Rilatt was upset. "How could you offend someone by being comfortable?" she said. "It is fine to wear your jeans down your crack, but not to wear a bikini top?"

The lady has a point there.

Still I am sympathy for the security guard. With styles' demolishing the distinction between underwear and outerwear, decorum is becoming a tricky concept. Decollage is in (or should I say out?) Pop starlets wear outfits they are mostly out of and even the TV newscasters and the lady with the recipes on cable wear necklines plunging toward their belly buttons.

I would hate to be the one charged with writing the rule leaving bikini tops in and bras out. And what do I do about those tops that look like negligees?

Now if Mr. Rilatt had shown up in the kind of spandex swimming trunks I see men wearing on Aussie beaches, I might have asked him to cover them up with some boxing shorts!

The second picture is of the stalwarts of the Bondi Life Saving Club. I choose these young men to model the style over some other pictures unsuitable for a respectable web site.

Did Benedict Expect Praise?

Did the Pope err in allowing four "traditionalist" bishops back into communion with the Catholic Church? Mary Sanchez thinks so when she writes in today's (2/3/09) Wichita Eagle, that "Healing a schism is one thing, but readmitting right-wing nuts like Williamson is of dubious value to the church."

With Ms.Sanchez I deplore Bishop Williamson's foolish and prejudiced views on the Holocaust and politics as does the Vatican and Bishop Williamson's own Society of St. Pius X. Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society, has forcefully rejected "The position of Bishop Williamson [which] is clearly not the position of our Society. Antisemitism has no place in our ranks. We follow fully God's commandments on justice and charity and the constant teaching of the Church. Antisemitism has been condemned by the Church. So do we condemn it."

Christ gave his church the mission to save sinners and fools as well as those who are more enlightened. Benedict's decision, far from an endorsement of such views, is a courageous attempt to heal a division in the Body of Christ that never should have happened. In too many places the reforms after Vatican II were implemented with great insensitivity toward ordinary traditional Catholics. It is heartbreaking to read the accounts of Catholic intellectuals like J.R.R Tolkien and Evelyn Waugh who suffered through much callousness and sacrilege in the 1970s. Treating those so abused as pariahs led to schism and, tragically, drove some few off into the weird fringes.

Benedict seeks to heal the break by being inclusive. Let us pray he succeeds.