Ma Nature's lyrical with her yearly miracle

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Is Flint's last name "Dynamite", by any chance?

This is marvelis.

h/t Sobering Thoughts
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The Smorgasbord Stations of the Cross

Oy, I’m so very, very tired of these things. An elderly relative recently complained that in his parish they had to pray some hippy-dippy environmentalist Peace ‘n Justice™ Stations of the Cross. These have been around forever—well, since the late 60’s, but according to the Followers of the Spirit of Vatican II, that is when the Church really began.

More and more parishes are turning back to the many beautiful traditional versions of the Stations of the Cross. You know, the ones that meditate upon (as crazy as it sounds) the actual Passion of Jesus Christ, that guy who died on the cross to redeem all of creation. And not so that 2000 years on, we could bow down and worship trees.

But you still see the odd abomination around: The Wimmin’s Way of the Cross; The Wounded Earth Stations of the Cross; The Dustbowl Farmers’ Stations of the Cross; The Self-absorbed Teenagers’ Stations of the Cross (The 10^th Station: Jesus is stripped of his garments: we pray for those who feel ostracized because they can’t afford the designer clothing that everyone else is wearing); The Animal Rights Activists’ Stations of the Cross; The Morbidly Obese Dissenting Nuns Stations of the Cross. (Some of the preceding are real and some are made up, but the sad part is, you probably can’t tell).

I still remember suffering through my first such Way of the Cross. I was so irked that (of course) I had to write about it to purge myself. It was printed in the March, 1999, issue of Catholic Insight. How I wish such columns were out of date.

Hymn to St. Joseph

However you may see him...

HYMN

Great Saint Joseph, son of David,

Foster-father of our Lord,

Spouse of Mary, ever virgin,

Keeping o’er them watch and ward:

In the stable thou didst guard them

With a father’s loving care;

Thou by God’s command didst save them

From the cruel Herod’s snare.

Three long days, in grief, in anguish,

With that mother sweet and mild,

Mary Virgin, didst thou wander,

Seeking her beloved Child.

In the temple thou didst find Him:

Oh, what joy then filled thy heart!

In thy sorrows, in thy gladness,

Grant us, Joseph, to have part.

Clasped in Jesus’ arms and Mary’s,

When death gently came at last,

Thy pure spirit, sweetly sighing,

From its earthly dwelling passed.

Dear Saint Joseph, by that passing

May our death be like to thine,

And with Jesus, Mary, Joseph,

May our souls forever shine.

Melody: Hyfrydol 87.87 D

Melody: Rowland H. Pritchard, 1811-1877

Text: Slovak

Translation: Louis C. Casartelli

(See that? Text: Slovak. Go, Slovaks!)
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Passing this on

At Daria's suggestion. She writes, on her blog:

This poem, which is sometimes titled "Holy Saturday", is appropriate for the upcoming Triduum, but also for today's solemnity. Even if you are not a huge fan of poetry, I guarantee you will be moved by this one. If this your first time reading it, pass it on to anyone else you know who loves St. Joseph.

Limbo by Sister Mary Ada, OSJ

The ancient greyness shifted

Suddenly and thinned

Like mist upon the moors

Before a wind.

An old, old prophet lifted

A shining face and said:

“He will be coming soon.

The Son of God is dead;

He died this afternoon.”

A murmurous excitement stirred

All souls.

They wondered if they dreamed –

Save one old man who seemed

Not even to have heard.

And Moses, standing,

Hushed them all to ask

If any had a welcome song prepared.

If not, would David take the task?

And if they cared

Could not the three young children sing

The Benedicite, the canticle of praise

They made when God kept them from perishing

In the fiery blaze?

A breath of spring surprised them,

Stilling Moses’ words.

No one could speak, remembering

The first fresh flowers,

The little singing birds.

Still others thought of fields new ploughed

Or apple trees

All blossom-boughed.

Or some, the way a dried bed fills

With water

Laughing down green hills.

The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam

On bright blue seas.

The one old man who had not stirred

Remembered home.

And there He was

Splendid as the morning sun and fair

As only God is fair.

And they, confused with joy,

Knelt to adore

Seeing that He wore

Five crimson stars

He never had before.

No canticle at all was sung

None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song,

A silent man alone

Of all that throng

Found tongue –

Not any other.

Close to His heart

When the embrace was done,

Old Joseph said,

“How is Your Mother,

How is Your Mother, Son?”

May you have a blessed Solemnity of St. Joseph as you continue your Lenten pilgrimage.

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The most eloquent job offer

I have ever received. This is part of an email I received last month from the editor of The Record, a Catholic newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia.

One of our regular columnists... has recently asked to take a break from writing for us for a while, perhaps some months. [...] Would you be interested in coming on board for a while?

I have always tried to maintain the presence of an at-home mother columnist for a number of reasons, one of them being that it is one way of reaffirming the importance of mothers and motherhood in the face of a culture that regards this role as being a second or third-best option compared to other, perhaps more glamorous but ultimately less fulfilling roles, in the workforce.

The general brief is to to write pretty much on anything from the perspective of a mother who is a believing and practising Catholic. The Record is a big fan of Benedict XVI and his predecessors. We think the sometimes-difficult nature of the Church's teachings are there for good reasons and we're interested in writers who can be counter-cultural and help show that Catholic Christianity is not completely dumb. We're unashamedly pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family among other things but whereas many people think the Church is irrelevant and out of date we very definitely take the opposite view.

Gosh, how can you say no to that? And why would you want to? I start this week. I know DOH doesn't have many Australian readers who are in a position to support the paper version of this publication (it's been printing since the mid 1800s! Kudos), but everyone can access the online version and give the editorial staff positive feedback for the work they do to advance the New Evangelization. 

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Fourth Sunday in Lent

My kids were fooling around with the PhotoBooth thingy on my Mac, and one of them took this pic. I thought it was kind of cool and all inadvertently symbolic. The bracelets remind me of Christ's crown of thorns; the rays remind me of Divine Mercy; the hand is outstretched in praise, and even the old brass piano lamp makes me think of the monstrance. And of course, there is the Cross, unaltered, at the Centre of it all.

To mark an even dozen

Follwers, that is. One of my collection of what I like to term Flannery's Killer Metaphors. Gosh, but that lady could write!

(background: the protagonist has just taken a swig of moonshine)

“A burning arm slid down Tarwater’s throat as if the devil were already reaching inside him to finger his soul.”

Short story "You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead"

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Steynamite: It'll be like fertility drugs for your brain!

I will not even demand that the government pay for my ticket under the HHS (High Hilarity of Steyn) mandate, although  regular doses are critical for excellent mental health.

Here's your weekly booster shot.

Update: Thanks for the link, Mr. Steyn! (My simile was indeed meant as a compliment.)

Thanks also to Pundette  for the sidebar seat of honor.
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I bind unto myself today...

Here's one of my favorites, sung by the choir at our beloved St. Patrick's Basilica.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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DOH Danny Boy

Because every St. Patrick's Day needs a little Pogues.

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First it was the Mohammed cartoons

And now this. I love Denmark. Really really love it. And not just because their good people inspired the name for these:

Baked by Miss P. #3 Easter, 2010

But because they have funny journalists. The audacity of dope.



h/t Deborah Gyapong on FB. I know, I know. Why don't I just link ALL my posts to DG's blog and be done with it?
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Why is it

That when you go to the hairstylists, you ask for this:

But you end up with something like this:

Eeeeeeeeeeeek!!

or this:

...which is totally cute on David Cassidy... in 1974, but on a 40-something (extremely 40-something) mother of 7 in 2012, not so much.


(UPDATE)
Or this, which is kinda what it looked like after I tried styling it at home:

Hey, maybe if I wore a gold jumpsuit, no one would notice my hair!

Oy vay. Looks like I'm going to have to wear a ponytail till July (and thank the Lord that I still have enough to put into a ponytail). Or get it cut super-short, which (as Daria attests) makes husband sad. 

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Because every once in a while

You want to read something by someone who loves Mark Steyn as much as you do.

I, along with many others, almost died listening to Mark Steyn — from laughter. It’s rare to hear somebody make so much sense in such an entertaining fashion, although his cover of 1970s disco hit ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ probably won’t trouble the YouTube hit parade. But then again, you never know. Particularly if he sticks to that dazzling tie and ‘kerchief combo.

"Silence this Infidel" by Rowan Dean, The Spectator, Australia.

Mrs. B, next time he comes to Ottawa, we're going, even if we have to panhandle outside the basilica to afford our tickets.
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An uplifting celebrity story

Yes, you read that correctly. In a culture where marriage is sometimes non-existent, or some marriages last only 23 minutes, Jon and Dorothea Bon Jovi (yes, she took his surname--isn't that quaint!) celebrate a whopping 23 (twenty-three) YEARS of marriage this year. And they have 4 (count them, FOUR) children, who by appearance, seem to be their own flesh and blood. (Adoption is wonderful, BTW, as long as it's done for love of the child, and not to get onto the front page of People magazine).

I wish them well, and pray for another 23 years...

Read more: my latest post at "Family Edge" on MercatorNet. (Mr. Blurn will appreciate this story, because "You Give Love a Bad Name" is one of his favourite hymns.)
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An amusing snippet

...today on a quick car trip to Saskatoon for some tedious government business, followed by too many stops for other things. This was on the freeway en route to a mall, after having just bought a bunch of groceries in a horrible warehouse style store:

Mrs. Pinkerton (to Miss P #4): Do you remember that Jane Eyre series that we started watching on Netflix?
Miss P: Yes
Mrs. P: Well, I just saw a DVD of it in the grocery store--for $5!
Miss P: Did you buy it?
Mrs. P: No, Dad wouldn't let me.
Mr. P (indignantly): What?! That's not true! I never said a word about it!
Mrs. P (calmly): I can read your mind.
Mr. P (defiantly): Then what am I thinking right now?
Mrs. P (confidently): You are wishing you could just go home because you're tired and you hate shopping.
Mr. P (sheepishly): OK

End of conversation.

I had an unfair advantage. It's pretty easy to know what the average man in thinking when he's been up since 6 a.m. and he is smack in the middle of a multi-mall shopping jaunt with his wife and teenage daughter.
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Hola!

Oh, if only DOH had a category for "Shameless self-promotion --in Spanish." I was googling for an online article about a talk I'd given at a conference a few years ago, and came across this Spanish translation of one of my MercatorNet posts from last year, "Guys vs Men". But here it's "Hombres vs Chicos". Heh.
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Six little words

Explain SO much.

found at American Papist. H/t Deborah Gyapong on FB.

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Where has Gloria Purvis been all my life?

Not yet born, in all likelihood, since she's a couple of decades younger than I am. I was blown away by this video, which I watched at Deborah Gyapong's blog. May God send scores more like her!



Ok, after a little more digging, I found out she's co-hosting a new show on EWTN: "Authentically Free at Last." Sounds fantasic, and very timely.

Just in case your brain doesn’t hurt enough this morning

Seen recently in a nearby city, printed on a van belonging to a professional janitorial service:

“Business co-operation with us guarantees a professional attitude towards the duties you have entrusted us.”

I can think of a shorter motto: “We do cleaning, not grammar.”

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