A Treasure To Be Shared

[ 6 Minute Read ] A conversation the other day with a good friend revealed a shared experience. We both admitted to experiencing (tolerating?) Masses celebrated by a "Father Broadway". That is, a priest whose liturgical personality - actions, attitude, preparation or lack thereof - obscures the nature of the Mass. We struggled with being forced into the orbit of a priest whose wayward antics were wounding. We continue to pray for those priests in most need of God's mercy. We learned during our conversation that we both agree that, during the most frustrating moments, the obstacle or factor limiting our attentiveness to the worship of God was ours to own. We acknowledged that our inability to bear what we perceived as an insurmountable distraction required prayer for the graces needed to avoid unfair judgement and various unholy grudges. It is far too easy to find fault with another's behaviour. That said, sometimes one has to call it like he sees it. Leaving the Churc...

P.G. Wodehouse | Britannica "I just sit at a typewriter and curse a bit." P. G. Wodehouse P. G. Wodehouse is widely regarded as the greatest comic author of the 20th century. Hilaire Belloc, no less, called him ‘the head of my profession’. This high respect from his peers, past and present, is principally for his supreme command of the English language. Wodehouse wrote more than 70 novels and 200 short stories, creating numerous much-loved characters - the inimitable Jeeves  and Wooster, Lord Emsworth and his beloved Empress of Blandings, Mr Mulliner, Ukridge, and Psmith. His humorous articles were published in more than 80 magazines, including Punch , over six decades. Oh, and he was also a highly successful musical lyricist. PG Wodehouse Society In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse (1946) by George Orwell "There is an old saying that if you throw enough mud some of it will stick, and the mud has stuck to Wodehouse in a rather peculiar way." When the Germans made their ra...

OCCatholic Photo: Challenge Roddie Excerpts from the OCCatholic article: Anything But Ordinary Edited for length. Father Andrew Bartus is a member of the expanding ordinariate of pastors in Southern California and Orange County. But there is nothing ordinary about the 36-year-old priest. He is married, has four children and a day job as a history teacher at St. Michael’s Preparatory School in Silverado. And he is a full-fledged Catholic priest. [...] The ordinariate is a jurisdiction within the Catholic Church, much like a diocese, and created by the Vatican in 2012 for people in the Anglican tradition, who wish to become Catholics. Parishes and communities in the ordinariate are fully Roman Catholic, but retain elements of Anglican traditions and liturgy. Unlike former efforts to absorb the tide of Anglicans returning to the Catholicism, the ordinariate provides the new parishes and clerics with their own bishop and organizational body.   As a member of the ordinar...

The Catholic Register (Toronto) offers an article on well known Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster . Mother of seven home-schooled children (... that fact speaks to MacMaster's willingness to practice what she "preaches" ...), MacMaster's remarks are a useful guide to evangelization in the public square. The vehicle through which she communicates something of the Catholic Faith is, of course, her music. By reminding people that music requires a particular orientation of mind in order to appreciate it as a thing of deeper meaning than common distractions, she provides a meaningful witness to the necessity of having a habit of mind which allows one to approach life with integrity. Appreciating or embracing the spiritual life, like music, requires a mind willing to go deeper, a mind formed by beauty that recognizes and embraces beauty, a mind thus capable of embracing truth. How does one acquire that orientation to truth, to beauty and to goodness? God freely of...