Category: Religion

First Sunday of Advent, 2012

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This Advent is the first anniversary of the new translation of the Catholic mass. I was planning to write something here about how the transition has gone perfectly in the parishes I’ve attended. Then today at mass, the priest forgot a line in the Gloria. Oh well. Let’s see where we are in another year.

I enjoy experimenting with Advent prayer guides, but this year I’m keeping it simple and just following along with Give Us This Day, a daily prayer book I already use. I’ll also be listening to any Advent talks that Susan Stabile posts.
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Free Advent kit offer

Each year for the past few years, we’ve assembled an Advent wreath from scratch, scrounging candles from drawers and the supermarket, attaching them to a dinner plate with hot wax, and covering the rest of the plate with branches from the nearest evergreen.

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This year I’ve bought a bunch of candles and plasticine so I can make a better wreath. In fact, I’ve bought more than enough, so if you’d like to make your own wreath, I’ll mail you enough candles and plasticine to do it. Send your address to pieandcoffee@gmail.com with the subject line “Advent.” I’d really like to get these in the mail by November 27, so please let me know ASAP.

Other items:

  • This month the US Catholic bishops endorsed the Vatican making Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, a saint. Dorothy is one of my greatest heroes, a woman who gave her life to serving the poor and speaking out for justice and mercy. She’s also a controversial candidate for sainthood, not only because she was a pacifist and anarchist, but because she famously said: “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” Here’s a good article on that with thoughts from Fr. James Martin and from Robert Ellsberg, who worked with Dorothy near the end of her life and edited her published letters and journals.
  • Every year I encourage my Christian friends to take a mild step to “put the Christ back in Christmas” by not shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Julia Smucker makes a similar argument, with a big helping of theology.
  • Can’t believe I forgot to mention: The best Wal-Mart/Black Friday project yet, Mark Dixon’s My 49 Hours at Wal-Mart.

Worcester Catholic Worker community celebrates 25 years on Mason Street

Worcester Catholic Worker, 25th anniversary

Folks from far and wide packed the kitchen and every other nook and cranny downstairs at 52 Mason Street tonight for a mass marking the 25th anniversary of the Saints Francis and Thérèse Catholic Worker community relocating to the house in 1987. Mass was celebrated by retired Worcester Auxiliary Bishop George Rueger.

It was fantastic to see so many Central Massachusetts lay Catholic communities represented, as well as so many people from other communities of faith and action.

See also:

Founders of the Saints Francis & Therese Catholic Worker community
The founding members of the SS. Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker. Back row: Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, Justin Duffy, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy. Front row: Carl Siciliano, Sarah Jeglosky, Dan Ethier.

Carl Paulson, RIP

Carl Paulson, legendary stained glass artist and Catholic Worker, has died.

Carl Paulson
Carl Paulson and Worcester Bishop Robert J. McManus at the 2008 Catholic Worker National Gathering in Worcester. Carl was recognized at the event as “the oldest Catholic Worker.”

The obituary below was sent in by Ken Paulson.
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Song for Holy Saturday

Written by James K. Baxter, 1958.

When His tears ran down like blood
I was sleeping in my clothes

When they struck Him with a reed
I cracked a very clever joke

When they gave Him a shirt of blood
I praised the colour of her dress

All the way up the hill
We were laughing fit to kill

When they were driving in the nails
I listened to the steel guitar

When they gave Him gall to drink
We were sipping the same glass

When He cried aloud in pain
We were playing Judases

When the ground began to shake
We pulled up the coverlet

Clean confessed and comforted
To the midnight mass I come

You who died in pain alone
Break my heart break my heart
Deus sine termino.

Holy Week mass schedule, St. Peter’s Parish

Today begins Holy Week, known to me as “a grand liturgical celebration,” known to many children as “the week we spend too much time in church.”

Here’s the schedule for St. Peter’s & St. Andrew’s in Worcester, which I am posting as much for my own reference as anything else.

Holy Thursday: 7pm mass at St. Peter’s. The big multi-lingual mass. Afterwards, eucharistic adoration at both St. Peter’s and St. Andrew’s, then visiting 7 other churches as a parish.

Good Friday: Separate from the parish, the SS. Francis & Therese Catholic worker will have their annual “contemporary” stations of the cross, gathering at 52 Mason St at 11:30am. “Join us in a walk to reflect on contemporary examples of Christ’s suffering. Soup and bread to follow.”

On the parish level, stations of the cross inside St. Peter’s at noon, followed by outdoor stations beginning at St. Peter’s School at 2pm.

7pm liturgy at St. Andrew’s.

Holy Saturday: Easter Vigil mass 7.30pm at St. Peter’s.

Easter Sunday: Regular mass schedule, including 11:30am African mass at St. Andrew’s.

Catholic Myopia

When President Obama proposed legislation that would require Catholic institutions to include contraception in their employee health plans, the hierarchy went ballistic. In our diocese, the bishop wrote a very forceful letter, which every pastor was required to read at Mass, urging all Catholics to contact the White House and express opposition to the proposal. Under a banner of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, Catholics raised such an outcry that the President backed down and moderated his proposal.

Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, explicitly forbade artificial contraception. That ban is still part of Catholic teaching, and bishops must promote it, especially when some of what falls under the label “contraception” involves abortion, but the vigor of the hierarchy’s campaign against the Obama proposal raises serious questions of moral priorities.

The last time an episcopal letter was read in all the parishes involved the issue of gay marriage, and the time before that involved abortion. Again, the Church has clear teachings on these issues which bishops are obligated to articulate, but the degree of opposition given to them dwarfs other concerns.

A friend of mine once mused, “I think you have to pay fines for your sins to get into heaven: a half million dollars for killing, ten thousand for stealing, a hundred for lying, and a quarter for masturbation.” The hierarchy seems to be standing this paradigm on its head.
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