So we get a call at the restaurant. Our cousin Anthony is back in Brooklyn and is at the store. He had just celebrated his first Mass as a Catholic priest as I had previously spoken about before.
Well he wanted to celebrate Mass in Lee Lee's Valise. So we finished up and went back to store.
He had already set up. We had chairs set up and the wife and I and our two employees got ready to hear Mass. Just then the window washer guy showed up. I told him to take a hike and locked up so we wouldn't be disturbed.
The Mass was beautiful. I did the readings and Anthony blessed us and the store. (And all the clothes so if you buy one you will get a special blessed dress....just sayn'). Since it was once a Mafia social club back in the day it could do with a little blessing.
It was a wonderful service and a great way to end the day. With all the crazy something spiritual and good came at the end to remind us what was really important.
And he got to use his good chalice. Cool.
23 comments:
God bless you all, Trooper.
We pray for vocations at Mass every week. It's nice to see those prayers answered in your cousin Anthony.
John Cardinal O'Connor had a prayer for priests he composed in 1995 that opens,
Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests.
You have given them to us for OUR needs
We pray for them in THEIR needs.
And another prayer for priests concludes,
They guide us and they always try
To support and comfort when we cry
Please, Lord, be their shelter and their cover
And Bless them always and forever.
Amen.
He did a mass in the store?
"He did a mass in the store?"
Eh, MEN!
Were there any large bras around during the mass.
tits.
From Pneumonia to Pneuma!
A One of a kind moment for sure.
The Head Honcho in charge of making Something from Nothing is also on the books as the first clothing designer to use animal prints.
For Such a One to be remembered and celebrated in such fashion, with the big bras hanging around as testimony to abundant goodness, is high praise indeed!
If Anthony would have waited until Saturday, your Sunday obligation would have been covered. If my Catholic education serves me..there is a Holy Day of Obligation coming up?
It's interesting how I show up with vanilla-flavored Catholic sentiments, MamaM with what used to be called "Natural Religion," and ndspinelli with a useful, workaday observation.
Now all we need is one the EBL's commenters to launch an anti-Cathoic screed, and Simon to come on with Latin quotes from the Catechism and maybe some Canon Law, and we'll pretty much have exhausted the subject.
Not so fast, Tim. And speaking of fast...did you maintain your Eucharistic fast? You said you were called at a restaurant...
Indeed we did Ruth Anne. Anthony is new at this and he is very fussy. So it took forever for him to get it exactly right. Well over an hour from the last spoonful of gelato. Just sayn'
Well, I forgot to include Ruth Anne to keep us on the straight and narrow!
Jeter's 3000th is a homer. If memory serves so was Boggs' 3000th. However, Boggs couldn't shine Jeter's shoes..maybe w/ his bad rug?
...what used to be called "Natural Religion
What is it called now?
Well, that's what my 18th century friends commonly called it. Now, Crack would call it "New Age," and launch his own screed. But that's been launched so often, I feel like I'm living next to a boatyard.
Nevertheless, when it comes to matters of spirit and religion, I like to think of myself both as Catholic and "catholic" in the small "c" strict sense: If someone acknowledges that this isn't necessarily a WYSIWYG, at once random yet clockwork Universe, and that things aren't what they seem, well, I think we're at least starting to get somewhere.
What the MamaM said is age old. It comes right out of the Big Book, the one the Pope himself refers to as the Word of God.
The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters. There's the Pneuma, the living, moving Spirit, energy and breath of God
For Adam also and for his wife the Lord God made long coats (tunics) of skins and clothed them. There's the Clothier and Garment Designer
I am a wall around a city, my breasts are towers, and just looking at me brings him great pleasure. There's the Lover of Abundant Goodness.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them
There's the promise of the One who graces such celebrations with Presence and Peace, as real and ethereal as Pneuma.
One common subject in 18th century literature was a comparison of "Natural Religion" as practiced by various exotic savages, native Americans first and foremost, with "Revealed Religion," i.e., Christianity. Addison has at least a couple of his Spectators devoted to this, and even Swift and, earlier, Dryden got in the act. The ultimate expression was probably David Hume's "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion."
Nowadays, what our Baroque and Enlightenment predecessors called "Natural Religion" is mostly identified with the "New Age," but I think that's very historically incorrect.
In any event, one of the hallmarks of European attempts to map various "native" religions onto Christianity was just what MamaM wrote: Something in non-Scriptural terms that corresponds nicely, in fact, to Scripture.
We know now that at not all such actual expressions can be legitimately made to paraphrase Christian Scripture, but writing them as if they could was, as I say, a fine occupation for such as Joseph Addison, in order to sell more of his papers to a sentimental public.
Another point is that expressions of "Natural Religion" in the late 17th and 18th centuries had often two diametrically-opposed goals: First, the demonstration of God's existence by the inklings of Him found among even the basest savages (as they might say at the time), and, by extension, as in Mama M's example, how stories and traditions among these savages could be similar to revealed Scripture. This strengthened Christianity by showing it to be the ultimate refinement upon natural tendencies given all men by God. Jesus' sacrifice had finally freed man from the slavery of sin and offered redemption to a mankind that had been waiting in anticipation—as demonstrated by the "natural" tendencies of people throughout the world who had not yet heard the Word of God.
The other use of "Natural Religion" was the opposite. It argued the superfluousness of Christianity, for, if such tendencies exist among members of the human race generally, they must be the most "natural" religious expression, and we can be done with the excesses of organized religion. Like today, it was common for people in the 18th century to say there were "spiritual," but who wanted nothing to do with organized religion.
As I say, real dialog can often be had with people who think like this. But it's much harder to talk with hardened atheists, who believe the Universe is entirely material, and that we're just accidents of complicated computers that just happen to be made out of meat.
I'll leave those to Father Anthony, who is the real professional here.
I don't mind arguing with the materialists per se about whether there's a spiritual component to existence, except for two things:
1. If there isn't, what is it that's doing the arguing?
2. You gotta keep having the same argument with them, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, which is a little silly, when you think about it.
Good points, Blake. You're obviously from the cut-to-the-chase school of metaphysics.
Speaking of cut-to-the-chase, civilized style, my two previous comments, taken together, are a good example of why you should not write anything in the same room with a wife and son watching "Miss Marple" at full volume while discussing the fine points in loud voices.
Mass in a dress shop reminds the MamaM of this story, reportedly told by Cardinal Martini, the Archbishop of Milan
The story has to do with an Italian couple that's getting married. They have an arrangement with the parish priest to have a little reception in the parish courtyard outside the church. But it rained, and they couldn't have the reception, so they said to the priest, "Would it be all right if we had the celebration in the church?"
Now Father wasn't one bit happy about having a reception in the church, but they said, "We will eat a little cake, sing a little song, drink a little wine, and then go home." So Father was persuaded. But being good life-loving Italians they drank a little wine, sang a little song, then drank a little more wine, and sang some more songs, and within a half hour there was a great celebration going on in the church. And everybody was having a great time, lots of fun and frolic. But Father was all tense, pacing up and down in the sacristy, all upset about the noise they were making. The assistant pastor comes in and says, "I see you are quite tense."
"Of course, I'm tense. Listen to all the noise they are making, and in the House of God!, for heaven's sake!"
"Well, Father, they really had no place to go."
"I know that! But do they have to make all that racket?"
"Well, we mustn't forget, must we, Father, that Jesus himself was once present at a wedding!"
Father says, "I know Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet, YOU don't have to tell me Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet! But they didn't have the Blessed Sacrament there!!!"
Yeah but they sent him our for more wine.
That guy is my friend Jesus.
Aha! The one who did the prompting in that story was also a MamaM!
She may have even been wearing on her face a smile similar to the one the woman in front of the belly is wearing. Some styles never change.
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