For Catholics, the Christmas liturgical season is just getting started. We’re only on day two! Christmas lasts from December 25th to January 6th, when we celebrate Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles represented by the Magi.

In England, from 1558 to 1829, it was illegal to be Catholic, not just to privately practice the faith. The Twelve Days of Christmas developed during this time as a coded Catechism to teach the faith to children. 

The “true love” mentioned in the song doesn’t refer to an earthly suitor, it refers to God Himself. The “me” who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of the expression of Christ’s sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so…” — Fr. Hal Stockert, The Origin of the Twelve Days of Christmas

The pear “tree” would also seem significant as representative of the Cross on which Jesus would allow himself to be sacrificed on behalf of God’s children.

On the second day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

The two turtle doves given by True Love represent the Old and the New Testaments. It’s my opinion doves were chosen to suggest the Spirit which inspired the writers of the two testaments. 

Interestingly, the Church jumps right from the Feast of the Nativity into three days commemorating three kinds of martyrs: Today is the Feast of Saint Stephen, who was stoned to death for professing Christ the Savior and whose martyrdom was willed and endured; tomorrow is the Feast of Saint John (the Apostle) who willed to be a martyr, but didn’t endure the martyred death of the other apostles; and Saturday is the commemoration of The Holy Innocents who endured martyrs’ deaths under Herod, but didn’t will it for themselves.

This is so characteristic of the dramatic, unexpected turns of the faith. The Nativity presages the Crucifixion which culminates in the Glory of the Resurrection. The blood of the martyrs (actual or metaphorical) is the seed of the Church. The penitential season of Lent leads to the Passion of Good Friday, which culminates in Resurrection Sunday, which kicks off the Easter season (the 40 days before Christ’s Ascension), which precedes the nine days (novena) of anxious waiting for the Advocate (the Holy Spirit) at Pentecost — the Church’s birthday. One could develop spiritual whiplash!

I thought you might like to know it’s not too late to sing Twelve Days and your other favorite carols, and to polish off those kolaches (yum, kolaches). You’re welcome.

Keeping you in suspense for Day Three,
WC

I’m feeling my age. It’s in my thumbs, among other parts. I’ve been developing arthritis in my thumbs for the last five or six years. When my mother was losing her memory, she’d say, “I’m losing my mind. It’s a good thing I had such a good one to start with.” I’m beginning to think the same about my thumbs. Surely opposable thumbs are one way we’re made in the image and likeness of God. Opposable thumbs are power and we miss them when they’re gone.

So, what am I grateful for, other than having had thumbs that work up to this point? Velcro closures. And I’m not talking about clothing. I’m mean those newfangled Velcro closures on plastic bags of dog treats and bird food, etc. One of these days, manufacturers of human consumables will wise up and start using Velcro closures on frozen berries and impossible to open potato chip bags and then I’ll really be in trouble!

I so despise the “zip-lock” closure bags, I’ve been known to pay more for the same product in a bag with Velcro closure (Bark Butter Bits for the birds). Whoever invented Velcro closures for plastic bags has my undying gratitude. Or, at least, my gratitude until I’m dead. After that, I don’t expect my thumbs hurting when I make that pinching motion will matter anymore.

How about you? What modern devices are you grateful for?

“It is plain every great change is effected by the few, not by the many; by the resolute, undaunted, zealous few. … shunning all intemperate words, let us show our light before men by our works.” St. John Henry Newman

I dunno, but this admonishment for the clergy might also pertain to politics. Ahem. (Yes, yes, I know Trump is not the best shunner of intemperate words, but his works on our behalf seem pretty solid. And he fights — resolutely, undauntedly, and zealously.)

Cardinal John Henry Newman was formally declared a saint Sunday in Rome. For those who don’t know, the designation of sainthood is given to people believed to be living eternally with the Beatific Vision in Heaven. These are the Catholic Church’s named saints, but many more unnamed saints make up the “communion of saints” we profess in our creed.

The saint’s life of virtue is what first brings him to the Church’s attention, after which his cause undergoes a rigorous process of investigation which can take decades or centuries. In order to prove his heavenly post at the Throne of God, he must have been shown to intercede in two authenticated miracles. Cardinal John Henry Newman’s cause was taken up after his death in 1890 and came to its fruition today.

More of Newman’s wisdom:

“She [the Church] fights and she suffers, in proportion as she plays her part well; and if she is without suffering, it is because she is slumbering. Her doctrines and precepts never can be palatable to the world; and if the world does not persecute, it is because she does not preach.”

Something to remember in these contentious times. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not trying.

The Model Priest for a Church in Crisis

Cardinal John Henry Newman: How did he become a saint?

What would it take to get you back in the pews? I don’t want an argument about the existence of God. This post is for the “fallen away,” the backsliders, the indifferent, and uncommitted who otherwise believe God is out there and takes an interest in us.

I was in that camp for better than the first half of my life. In fact, I was a pretty strident atheist, believing religion was just a way for the patriarchy to get in our underwear, blah, blah, blah…

Having kids made a difference for me. And, that was before I knew my girls had serious health conditions. Something about being responsible for the next generation gave me pause about what I thought I knew. My political conversion to conservatism and religious reversion to (cradle-)Catholicism were gradual and coincidental.

First came my intellectual assent. I know some very smart people who say faith can’t be a matter of reason. I differ strongly. I figured if it was good enough for William F. Buckley and John Paul II (and, later, when I learned about Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine), maybe my comparatively little mind should give it a chance. I tried on a Christian denomination (Methodist), but, while I loved the people and felt welcomed, the lack of Sacraments didn’t suit me. I needed the full immersion of my senses — smells and bells.

I ended up in a large parish with a charismatic pastor who invited me to take up Bible study with a group of ladies on Tuesday mornings. I went in expecting to be underwhelmed by the experience. I thought, “none of these (older) gals were smart enough to be engineers (like me) and, so, they must be pretty simple-minded and have a simple faith.” The experience was humbling. Sure, there are some people of simple faith in Bible study, but that turned out to be inspiring in ways I couldn’t have imagined. And there was more than enough smarts and wisdom to go around. I couldn’t even find my way through the scripture references for the first two years, let alone put it all together in a way that made sense. These ladies had it down.

However, once it did start to come together for me, my intellectual assent strengthened. The concinnity of Catholic teaching on scripture was so impressive and harmonious, I stopped doubting (although, I didn’t stop questioning) and let the Church be my authority instead of claiming it for myself. End of step 1.

Then, life happened, and my need for God became urgent. I knew we might be in for some suffering when my youngest was born and we suspected she had Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (aka the Elephant Man disease). I had no idea just how much suffering we faced, and it’s not entirely over yet. Little Miss Anthrope’s brain tumor is still growing and she starts the new medication next week to try to shrink it. Prayers appreciated.

So now I’ve moved beyond assenting to the teachings to actual faith, in the sense of trusting God no matter the struggle. Jesus didn’t promise us a walk in the park — he told us to take up our crosses. Step 2 — trust in God to keep it real.

The reason for my writing this post is an interaction I recently had with an unintentionally estranged nephew (I have a lot of nieces and nephews — we don’t talk often). He put up a Facebook post in which he showed pictures of his three boys (twelve and under) receiving the Sacraments of Initiation in a church in Portugal. He asked his mom (one of my three sisters and three brothers) if any of his aunts and uncles still go to church. He was looking for godparents. I’m the only one out of the seven of us.

He explained his reversion came about after caring for his destitute mother-in-law while she was dying of cancer. He and his wife moved her into their home and saw her through to the end. It brought home to him the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. And he wanted his boys to have the faith of their fathers to help them face the inevitable. Step 3 — loyalty to religious heritage.

So, what might do it for you? I’m asking because I’m sad for my extended family (not that I doubt their salvation — that’s God’s turf) and for our civilization. Religion is hard because it makes moral demands. And because God makes moral demands, religion produces a better, stronger people. People who understand sacrifice and try to make the most out of suffering. People who are cognizant of and grateful to the faithful of previous generations. Religion provides a school of virtue, even though most every practitioner falls short at one time or another. Where do you get that in secular culture?

Why aren’t you going to church? Too busy? The kids need to get to soccer or hockey practice and who’s going to drive them? You just need a break from the hustle and bustle of work and life? C’mon. Give me a better reason.

Religious faith isn’t just between you and God. It’s a communal activity. We are formed and fortified by our time with God and each other. That’s why we have an obligation to attend church. At least, that’s what I believe. You? What would it take to get you back in the pews?

Everyone is speculating on the recent spate of mass murders and the motives of the murderers. So, I figure you have the right to my opinion, too. My title is a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit. The Left has had murderous intent toward Judeo-Christian Western civilization for decades.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go!” If you’re of age, you remember this piece of (un)wisdom from the 1987 student protest at Stanford, but the sentiment is much older. In fact, it goes right back to The Beginning and rejection of a transcendent moral authority by Adam and Eve and, before them, Satan himself. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. How can we explain people who hold ostensibly “liberal” principles acting so illiberally as leftists do?

Quillette had an excellent explanation of Neutralization Theory using the case of Andy Ngo’s assault by “anti”-fa as an example in the article: Neutralizing Ngo: The Apologetics of Antifascist Street Violence. Some excerpts:

1. Denial of Responsibility: The Offender as Faultless for their (sic) Actions

… ‘ “It’s not a surprise a conservative writer was bloodied in a street brawl in Portland,” explains the standfirst to a piece at HuffPost, “far-right extremists have been freely hosting skirmishes there for years.” Implicit here is the idea that, because a skirmish has been “hosted,” the other side must participate, and that attacking a journalist somehow necessarily follows. Thus, it might safely be disregarded as mere distraction from what “really” went on.’

2. Denial of Injury: The Offense as Harmless

… ‘Others downplayed the assaults by emphasizing the milkshake and silly string elements, while reducing the rest to “a few punches” that “didn’t even knock him down,” or omitting it altogether. Some reduced Ngo’s injuries to “a few scratches and bruises,” while others speculated that the brain injury was a fabrication, based on as little as, for example, Ngo’s ability to send a tweet…’

3. Denial of Victimhood: Blaming the Victim

…’Others reached further back in time to characterize Ngo as a “doxxer” of Antifa members, an “Islamophobe” and “eugenicist,” who is responsible for a “kill list” of left-wing journalists, and so on. And, of course, some rationalized that he got what he deserved for being a “fascist”—a somewhat necessary connection to draw at some point, one supposes, when attempting to justify “antifascist” violence. However, its rhetorical utility runs deeper than simply drawing semantic congruence between the action and the target…’

[Speaking of “fascism”] ‘It is the (fittingly Orwellian) notion of “preemptive self-defense,” endlessly interpretable and applicable without the limitations of conventional language or logic, distilled down to a single epithet: “fascist.”’

4. Appeal to Higher Loyalties: A Wrongful Action Excused in the Service of a Greater Good

‘If antifascism can be vague—even deliberately so—about what it is against, it is murkier still about what it for. It is difficult to frame Ngo’s assault as just a broken egg for the sake of an omelet, when it isn’t clear what’s on the menu. However, as a creature of the Left and of modern society, it is important that antifascist actions are not framed as antagonistic to the values of the mainstream.

As such, it becomes very important to make clear—all else aside—that Andy Ngo is not a journalist. Or, if he is a journalist, his identity as a “fascist” supersedes that status…’

We might call this rationalization by demonization; or, moral dissonance resolution by delusion and denial. Lefties who proclaim the evils of “white privilege” and extol the virtues of Michael Brown (Ferguson’s “gentle giant”) will brutalize people of color for wearing a MAGA hat (ask Jahangir “John” Turan of Manhattan). Neutralization of that still small voice — a.k.a., conscience — is a necessary precondition for behaving so directly in opposition to one’s stated principles.

I’m attempting a psycho-social accounting and it’s difficult to express, but I’ll confess I hold the Left almost entirely responsible for our current condition. I give leftists more credit than some do. The lefties I know personally are highly intelligent, capable people. But, they’ve rejected the wisdom of the ages passed down through our Judeo-Christian cultural heritage and have embraced multiculturalism, identity politics, moral relativism, queer theory… whatever the demands of the latest lefty fad. Because they have no Yardstick by which to measure the good, the true, and the beautiful, and the inverse of those things, they’ve become their own, fully atomized moral arbiters. Moral chaos rules and isolation and disaffection are its handmaidens.

Everyone’s favorite atheist (now that Hitchens is dead), Sam Harris, goes so far as to argue that morality is grounded in science. He believes there is objective truth and natural moral laws which science affirms in observing the evidence of human and animal flourishing. But, who’s to say human flourishing is a good? Certainly not global warming alarmists who believe people are pollution — especially if they’re flourishing in advanced societies! Is it possible to be coherent, let alone objective, if you believe men and women are not only equal — they’re the same! Unless one is transgender, and then he’s totally a woman as distinct from a man.

The killers of El Paso and Dayton (and too many other locales) are living in a society which demonizes white males as racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, intolerant, transphobic, and bigoted… until the next victim group comes along we can tag on. Should we be surprised some young men choose to live down to such standards? To become the despised and deplorable?

“Disaffection” may be my new favorite word to describe the phenomena. These mass killers show no affection for the people they’re living among. The semiautomatic rifles they use are a distraction from the moral rot at the heart of their actions. The Dayton shooter was the more obviously morally depraved of the two. He shot his best friend and his sister in the car they’d used to drive him to the scene. Is it any wonder he signed his emails #HailSatan? The El Paso shooter appears to break the outright demonic mold in that he feared outliving his murder spree because he cared that his family would despise him for it. He heard a whisper from that still small voice. And then he ignored it.

When he was exploring a run for the presidency in 2008, Biden famously said: “I will shove my rosary beads down the throat of any Republican who says I am not a Catholic.”

I stand in awe of Joe Biden as a fellow Roman Catholic. Never have I known a coreligionist so utterly immune to conscience in the pursuit of the awesome power of the presidency. Not even John Kerry. Or the Kennedys. Oh… never mind. I thank God we Catholics don’t have to claim the Clintons! My sympathies to the Baptists (Bill) and the Methodists, for whom Hillary Clinton once taught Sunday school. Ack! Get thee behind me Satan!!

The above quote is taken from Fr. George W. Rutler’s piece in Crisis Magazine titled, The Strange Case of Dr. Biden and Mr. Hyde, in which he “destroys” Joe Biden. No, really, I sound jokey, but you must read the whole thing. Here’s a teaser:

Biden was given an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, in 2016, enriching his academic laurels which were tenuous after he placed 75 out of 86 in his Syracuse College of Law class, although he claimed to have been in the top half. But if politics is the art of the possible, one must expect artistic liberties. Drawing on, and perhaps exhausting, his information on Shakespeare, Biden said that his mistake regarding school grades, like his propensity for appropriating sources without attribution, is “much ado about nothing.” Academic rankings are not assurances of intelligence; in fact, Mr.—that is, Dr. Biden told a voter during a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 1987: “I think I probably have a much higher I.Q. than you.” Armed with such confidence, Biden has wrestled with his conscience like a Sumo wrestler, thudding against that “aboriginal vicar of Christ” and bouncing off. Free of constricting guilt, and unafraid of the foolish need for consistency which is the hobgoblin of those little minds with I.Q.’s less than his, Biden now presents himself to the public as a prodigy of rejuvenation. With hair thicker and teeth whiter, beyond the skill of frail Mother Nature, and armed with his lethal Rosary, he is ready to lead America like an eager Boy Scout helping an unwilling lady across the wrong street.

I don’t think I can add anything to that. Rutler has left Joe Biden standing naked in the public square, strategically clutching his Rosary beads and grinning that dopey Brite Wite grin.

In sadness, I note Henry Hyde (also Catholic) considered the Hyde Amendment his greatest achievement. Surely the Congressman knew that money is fungible and any tax dollars which go to Planned Parenthood for any reason are in support of abortion. The intention was good, but it’s the fruits that matter. How long, O Lord?