Vocations: Expect a Miracle

What a marvelous idea to inspire vocations!




I found this clip on one of the Youtube channels for the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, the sisters sponsored by my grandfather's family in the Congregation of the Precious Blood, who ironically also sponsor St. Joseph's College, to whose care I've entrusted my youngest son.  He starts classes today, and I pray that he may prosper and grow in his first year, and find a new home and nurturing environment.

< "Expect a Miracle" was the theme of the Cleveland FEST 2010 . The FEST is held on the first Sunday of August on the Borromeo Seminary grounds in Wickliffe, Ohio. The FEST is sponsored by the Office of Vocations and the Diocesan Office of Cleveland. It is day dedicated to all Vocations. >

On names and naming - for Zac & Barb

My baby brother and his beautiful bride infanticipated this past July. The baby boy is my seventh nephew, and he comes a year after my parent's first great-grandson. I was very curious to see how the child will be named. I'll never forget how much my brother helped me (he even stayed in my house to care for my toddler on Thanksgiving night when I went into labor with his brother, poor kid!) for all those years when Curt was sick, how he cared for my boys the night they lost their dad, and then all that he did to help my two fatherless boys for so many years afterwards. How very wonderful that he'll finally get to play Santa for his very own baby boy, after all of the years he spent Christmas morning with my little ones! 

My baby brother's name is James John (Paul), but that isn't the name anyone calls him.  

First picture of nephew

I nicknamed him 'Zac' when he was a toddler, since he was my mom's last baby.  My mother had screwed up, you see when she named him.  He wasn't in alphabetical order with the rest of us:

Cindy - David - Janet - Karen - Robert - Ronald.....  
AND ... ZAC!!!

Names are important.  We have many Davids (David Todd, David Scott, David Joseph, Joseph David) and a lot of Josephs (Joseph David, Joseph, Jeffrey Joseph, Kevin Joseph, Ronald Joseph, Stephen Joseph) in both my family and my late husband's family. My mother Antoinette is named for her grandmother Antonia, and we have variations of Anthony (Anton, Antonio, Antonia, Antoinette) on both sides of my family.  

Most of the folks where I live now, especially those I know through church, get mail from the email address based on my nickname.  My family email, however, is the 'Spudzmom', based on a different family nickname. Who is the Spud, you ask?  Well, it's a good story and I know my bro' has probably forgotten most of it, so it's worth remembering. 

When I was pregnant with our first child, we didn't find out the sex of the baby in advance, but my husband and I referred to the unborn child as 'Boris' because we were sure he'd be 'good enough' (remember Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons?) and his dad's family was from the Ukraine. We agreed on 'Stephen' (my godson brother's confirmation name) but we fought like the dickens about a middle name. I wanted 'Joseph' to name him for three of his grandfathers:  his dad's first name, my dad's middle name, and my mom's father. My clueless husband, however, was adamant that he wanted to name his firstborn son after the kid in the ET movie, and would brook no argument on the point.  When Stephen was born by C-section, I'd ripped my IVs out, thrashing on the table when they unexpectedly hit me with nitrous oxide.  As my husband stood beside me with his pants totally soaked in my blood, I told him, "your son's name is Stephen Joseph".  At that point, I could have actually named him 'Boris' and would have gotten no argument!

When I got pregnant the second time, my husband jumped thru hoops because he wanted to name the baby 'William'.  So, he made up one rule after another to force me to bring that name up.  First, he insisted the child's first name couldn't be the same as anyone else in the family.  Then, the name could not start with the letter J (do you have any idea how many great boys' names that rules out!)  As a last resort, he trained our toddler to pat my belly and refer to the unborn child as "my brother, Billy".  Unfortunately for him, he didn't know about my Uncle Bill.  I told him that it was OK for the baby to call the baby 'William' but that it had to be his middle name.  All of the stupid rules he'd stuck us with really limited us in choosing his actual first name.  We both really liked 'Ricky', but that's the name of our brother-in-law.  So we chose 'Patrick' so that we could call him 'Ricky' if 'Billy' didn't stick. 

So, we named him 'Patrick William', but everyone called him 'Billy'. The hospital nurses got really upset, because my records said my name was 'Cynthia' but they had to remember to call me only 'Chrys' and my baby's name said 'Patrick' but they had to call him 'Billy'.  Good thing I didn't introduce them to my brother Robert that we all call 'Shawn' or my baby brother 'James' that we all call 'Zac' or the poor girls would have probably quit.

Anyway, my husband always called the older boy 'Chief' because he let him be the boss of the house. Our second baby was very blonde like his daddy, so he looked like a bald little Mr. Potato Head.  He promptly became 'The Spud'.  When we joined AOL, we were SpudzMom and SpudzDad and I have kept that screen name ever since.

Birthday picture, July 2011

Dominus Vobiscum

“The time has come to renew that spirit which inspired the Church at the moment when the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium was promulgated. The seed was sown … the seed has sprouted…” In a word, the acceptance of the new Missal is “a moment to sink our roots deeper into the soil of tradition handed on in the Roman Rite” ~ Pope John Paul II, Vicesimus Quintus Annus, #23

I had a lot of sympathy for those who joined the 'Why don't we just say wait' movement about the upcoming change in translation philosophy affecting English-speaking  Catholics. I think that I even signed the petition, since in a time when the Church here in the U.S.A. is so fragmented, the very LAST thing that we need is something new to fight about!  One thing that is absolutely driving me batty is charges that the current mass propers are 'wrong' somehow, that they were not translated properly or that the devil hijacked the translation or some other such nonsense.  The following video does an excellent job of dispelling these rumors being spread in some circles.

A New Translation: Why and How?

In this video, Monsignor James P. Moroney explains the whys and the hows of the new missal. He is a faculty member of Saint John's Seminary and serves as Executive Secretary to the Vox Clara Commission. A consultant to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Monsignor Moroney is a Priest of the Diocese of Worcester and Rector of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

 


http://www.catholictv.com/shows/default.aspx?seriesID=114&videoID=1511

Consistency, sincerity, and honesty are very important to me.  I will find it very difficult to let the words they bid me to say flow from my lips:  so difficult, in fact, that I am seriously considering switching to a Spanish-language mass on Sundays during Advent this year.  My main problem is that the way that we modern speakers of English now use only one 'you' instead of the two forms that the Romance languages use.  Further, what we hear today when someone uses the intimate, familiar 'you' has exactly the opposite connotation of the original prayers.  The words "Thee" and "Thou" are rarely heard, and then usually only addressed to heaven.  The connotation of the archaic language is that of a great gulf between us and those we address.  That's not what the meaning is at all in the Missal.  The relationship we hear is that of a country peon on his knees prostrate as the emperor's procession passes, and that has absolutely NOTHING to do with our relationship to the Christ. Our union with Our Lord isn't one of bowing and scraping, but that of the most intimate embrace between Bride and Bridegroom; through Jesus, we share in His intimate relationship with Our Father and the Holy Spirit.

My opinion is that the long clauses, flowery phrases, and use of words never heard at all in daily discourse in the new translation will bring us FARTHER from the sense of the Roman missal, not closer.  In the long run, the change will most probably decrease mass attendance and result in even more disaffected youth than we have today.  If it is true, as many believe, that our catechesis has been deficient over the past twenty years when the Ordinary has been intelligible, when even more schooling will be required for active participation at mass, is it reasonable to expect a better outcome?

One change that I think might be fruitful would be to leave the traditional greeting "Dominus vobiscum" between the priest and the congregation untranslated in the latin rite, and to also revert to the original Greek in the Kyrie.  Requiring the Latin the Agnus Dei during Advent and Lent also would preserve the echoes from the past that are important in handing on our faith traditions and inspiring feelings of continuity with the whole communion of saints.  Only a tiny minority within our ranks have any family tradition of praying in the Latin language, however, so most of the suggestions I've heard seem very counter-productive.

Latin scholars are very rare.  Many of our worldwide vernacular translations of the Roman Missal are no longer made directly, but through an intermediate language.  In most cases, that language is English. While I recognize this need of the universal Church to have an "authoritative English translation" from which the mass propers can be faithfully translated, the Pope and his bishops ask too great a sacrifice of everyone in the English-speaking world in adopting that translation as the words we pray at mass.  Those who speak English as a native language in Nigeria, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, etc. shouldn't be treated as if they share only one cultural heritage, and enforcing only one language translation for the propers has that effect.