Jen’s Journal

No, I’m not going to gripe about people not participating in the Mass once again.  Rather, I want to share with you some neat auditory experiences that I’ve had while walking through the halls of AI recently.

AI is a pretty small school, and it’s sometimes difficult for small schools to cultivate diversity, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.  Just last week, I was wandering through the downstairs corridors when my ears were caught off guard by a strange sound.  Fr. Jose Santiago was on the telephone in his office speaking Spanish.  I thought to myself, “hmm, you don’t hear that around here very often.”  Then the next day, I was walking through the Commons, and I heard another strange language.  One of our students had spent the previous year volunteering in Haiti, and he was speaking Creole to another student whose family is from Haiti.  How exciting!  We hear Latin, Greek, and Hebrew thrown around in our classes, but it’s nice to hear some more modern languages being spoken at AI, too.  We could probably hear Vietnamese as well as different African and Indian languages and dialects as well.  We are truly a microcosm of the Church!

People Singing

When you go to church, what do you hear?  A choir or cantor singing?  Lectors reading?  A priest preaching?  Do you hear the people around you?  Perhaps you hear the babies crying or the children crunching on Cheerios.  Or maybe you hear the chewing of gum, the opening and closing of Purell bottles, the occasional chit-chatting among friends and family members.  Amidst all of this sound, however, do you hear what I hear?  Do you hear the silence?

I’m not talking about something spiritual or contemplative here.  Would that I were!  Instead, I’m talking about the silence that I hear coming from my neighbors at Mass when it comes time to sing and respond.  I just don’t understand why people don’t participate in the Mass.  There really is no excuse.  Most churches have missals of some sort that include the prayers for the Mass (and these are definitely available online, if no where else).  And, if people are self-conscious about their singing ability, they can always sing quietly or at least mouth the words.  But instead, far too many people spend their time in church staring blankly in front of them, lips held tightly together as if life depended on it.  Even some priests seem to fall into this habit of silence.  Why?

When I was a child, I went to Mass each Sunday with my mother and grandmother.  They didn’t have Children’s Liturgy of the Word at my parish back then and I probably spent a good part of the Mass playing with the bulletin or the hat clips on the pews, but there is one way that I could participate in the Mass.  I could sing.  As a kid, it was kind of fun.  Little kids love singing.  And those songs that I sang quickly made their home in my memory.  In fact, they became so ingrained that, when changes were made over the years to the translations of various hymns, I always got confused because the hymns were different than when I learned them.

With such an early experience of singing in church, one might suspect that I went on to join the choir at the various parishes that I’ve attended.  This is not the case, however.  I’ve never thought that I could sing especially well, and I’ve never had a desire to sing in a choir.  But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t sing.  I just do it from the pews.

It makes me sad when I sit in church today and see children not singing.  But, I can’t blame the kids.  Because their parents aren’t singing either.  Would if the parents did sing, however?  Could they get their little kids to be a little less bored with church through music?  The music at church might not be appealing to a middle schooler, but I don’t think little kids know the difference.  To them, singing is singing.

There are many reasons why people should sing and respond at Mass.  But, getting kids engaged in Mass shouldn’t be overlooked.  The girl next to me today stared at me as I was singing.  Maybe she thought I was odd.  Or that my singing was bad.  But, whatever the reason, I hope that she came away intrigued.  And maybe some day she’ll be singing herself.

Have you ever noticed how certain words tend to be associated primarily with certain times of the year?  For example, we don’t often speak of jack-o-lanterns at Easter or fireflies in the dead of winter.  For the most part, it seems that these time-specific words fall into the category of nouns, but there is at least one modifier that also appears to be time-specific: merry.  According to dictionary.com (I know, it doesn’t sound as nice as “the Merriam Webster dictionary,” but we’re in the age fo the Internet now), the word ‘merry’ means: 1) full of cheerfulness or gaiety; joyous in disposition or spirit; 2) laughingly happy; mirthful; festively joyous; hilarious; 3) to be happy or festive.  These definitions seem like they could apply to a variety of occasions throughout the year, and yet, we really only use the word ‘merry’ to refer to one occasion – Christmas.  Just as sure as Christmas music and Black Friday door-busters, November and December are never without their ‘merry.’

There’s something about ‘merry’ that people seem to adore around this time of year. It has even become part of a religious and political statement.  I, however, am not one of these merry-lovers.  In fact, I am downright anti-merry.  Why, you may ask, do I have such a problem with such a seemingly innocuous and positive word?  Well, I’m not sure.  But I think it has something to do with my personality.  You see, I am not really the festive type.  It’s not that I’m not happy or joyful or that I don’t like to have a good time.  But, I guess I just tend to be a little more serious about things, a little more solemn.  Maybe it has to do with all of the serious things I’ve had to deal with in my short life so far.  I don’t know.  But whatever the reason, I’m not the type to dress up as an elf and lead the Christmas carols at the office Christmas party.  I’m the type that would prefer a simple candlelight Advent prayer service.  And so, I don’t like ‘merry.’

Used without permission. Sorry.

My issues with ‘merry’ may also have something to with the connotations that the word stirs up in my mind.  To me, it smacks of commercialism and drunken holiday parties and mall Santa Clauses.  It just doesn’t seem to fit with my images of the scene in Bethlehem.  Was Christ’s birth joyous and happy and blessed?  Of course!  But merry?  I don’t know.And while we’re on the topic of holiday words that bother me, let’s add the word ‘holiday’ itself to the list.  Like ‘merry,’ ‘holiday’ isn’t a bad word in and of itself, and it in fact has a very good origin.  Turning to dictionary.com once again, we find that ‘holiday’ originated before 950 and comes from the phrase ‘holy day.’  The problem with ‘holiday’ in modern America, however, is that it, too, has a connotation of commercialism and and anything but holiness.

If I dislike ‘merry’ and ‘holiday,’ then how do I prefer to greet people around Christmastime, you may ask?  The answer is: Happy Holydays.  ‘Happy’ could also be substituted by joyous or blessed.  And Holydays could be changed to Christmas or Hanukkah and the like for individuals of certain faiths.  But, I think this phrase keeps the focus on the holiness of our celebrations without stripping them of fun or joy.  What about those who don’t celebrate holidays as religious?  I don’t know.  I hope that in some way all people can find holiness, or at least giftedness,  in each and every day of their lives.

So, Happy Holydays to you all.  And you can still be merry if you wish!  I won’t complain too much!  Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick note to highlight one of our alums.  Orin Johnson, MA ‘08, and his musical partner Shannon Cerneka, were recently featured in a news article in the Belleville Messenger, Belleville’s diocesan newspaper.  The duo is planning to play at NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference) in Kansas City, and they are getting ready to release their newest CD Alright Now.  This news release also led to the duo being mentioned in a news blurb on the Catholic News Service website.  Congrats to Orin (and his wife Erin, a current AI student) and Shannon!

AI Alum Orin Johnson

I’m hoping that this feeds to the AI Facebook page.  We shall see!

I can’t believe it’s November already.  The time seems to fly by so quickly.  At the same time, it’s sort of felt like Fall/Winter for most of the semester here in St. Louis.  I don’t know why it has been so unusually rainy and cold here over the last few months (October was the wettest on record!), but the weather does not have me looking forward to winter.  Unless there is snow.  Maybe snow will brighten things up a little.

My life has been pretty crazy over the past few months.  I think I posted earlier about my mom’s illness.  She has continued to be seriously ill, with recurring infections and their consequences.  Two heart valves need to be replaced now and infection ate away the ball of her hip.  We’re also trying to prevent the mortgage company from foreclosing on her house.  It’s hard to pay the mortgage when you have no income!

People often wonder why God allows bad things to happen to good people.  I wonder that, too.  But somehow I have to trust that He has things under control.  If I can’t trust God, then I’ll go crazy worrying.  And ultimately, while it’s so difficult to lose things that you have worked hard for or hoped for, etc., losing those things doesn’t mean that the world is ending, that there is no hope in life.  It just means change.  Major change.  But change that can be faced and endured.  And hopefully change that will increase faith and awareness of how much we need God and others in our lives.  “Without me, you can do nothing.”

Peace.

After re-reading my last post and taking in some more wisdom from class discussions this week, I decided that I should probably make an addendum to what I previously wrote.  That is, I didn’t mean to imply in my post on free will that humans can freely do all things if they just try hard enough.  Human effort alone is not sufficient.  God’s grace is always necessary.  That being said, it is our task to seek God’s grace and to be open to that grace as much as possible so that our will can more fully be aligned to the will of God and that our actions towards good might continually assist our growth in virtue.  The more we seek God’s grace and allow it to transform us, the more free our will becomes and the more our entire being is directed toward what is good and true.  We just can’t forget that we have some part to play here, some responsibility for our actions.  We can’t just do whatever we want and then blame God for not giving us the grace to do good.  We have to turn towards what is good and work with God’s grace to do good.

In several of my classes recently, we’ve been discussing the concept of freedom as well as a traditional Catholic understanding of the make-up of the human soul.  (Regarding this latter topic, I’m referring to things like the differentiation of the soul into the internal sensations, the passions, the intellect, and the will.)  And these discussions have gotten me thinking about the way we generally live today in modern-day America.  We Americans pride ourselves on freedom and the ability to choose many of the facets of our lives.  We choose what we will do, who we will be, where we will live, what values we will hold.  Now, compared to some countries where personal choice is not something that is generally supported or allowed, the situation of Americans sure seems great.  We have a freedom on a societal level that others in the world do not.  But, is freedom really just about a choice to do this or that?  Does choice involve merely doing what we feel like doing at a given time or is there something more?

It seems to me that choice always involves an act of the will.  And a truly free act of the will is based not just on our emotions or our dreams and imagination and senses but on our intellect as well.  That is, an act of the will that is a direct result of only the emotions suggests that a person isn’t truly and wholly free as a full human being but is rather controlled by one part of his or her self -  in this case, the emotions.  A truly free human being is able to take the data directed toward the will by the emotions and imagination  and senses and subject that data to the rational intellect whereby it is weighed against a broader conception of truth, an understanding of truth that is grounded in reason as well as divine revelation.  When the person can weigh all of this data and act in a way that is most in line with the truth, then the person is acting out of freedom.

So, what does this have to do with modern day Americans?  Well, it seems to me that too often, we Americans act not out of a careful consideration of truth, but simply out of an awareness of our emotional or sense-based desires.  And we think we are making a free choice to do what we want to do.  We don’t realize, however, that we really aren’t acting freely, but are allowing ourselves to be slaves to our emotions or senses which may be feeding us half-truths.  And we forget that in every situation, we still have a will which can be directed by something other than emotions and senses.  Just because we feel like doing something, that doesn’t mean that we have to do it.  We can decide to do something else.  I may feel like eating chocolate cake for dinner, and it might taste really good and put me in a good mood for the evening, but I can look at my desire to eat that chocolate cake and say to myself, “now, Jen, that chocolate cake has x amount of fat and y amount of calories and it’s mostly made of sugar.  Eating that cake will not be beneficial for your health.”  And I can choose to not eat the cake.  It may not be easy, but it is possible, particularly with the grace of God which continues to free us the more we seek it.

I need to hear this message as much as anybody.  Let us all pray for the grace to use our wills freely and in the light of truth.

Earlier this year, I had great plans in mind for the summer.  I wanted to take classes, visit Africa, make some money at work, catch up on some of those unread books on my bookshelf.  But apparently, life had other plans!  First Africa didn’t pan out.  I was a little bummed, but figured I would just get more of a chance to relax instead.  And then my mom got really sick.  And that has sort of occupied my life since Mother’s Day.

It kind of sucks when your mom is sick.  Especially when your father is dead, you are 25, and you live hundreds of miles away from home.   But, despite the ups and downs of this summer (which still continue), I am at least comforted in some way by an awareness of God’s Providence.

Yes, yes, I am partial to Providence.  I went to the school named after it, afterall.  But, I really do believe in God’s Providence.  For example, I was really set on going to Africa this summer, and I tried several different routes to get me there, but nothing worked out.  I could have said, “Geez, God, I want to go to Africa and learn new things and do good for people, so why are you not making this work?”  But if God had listened to my wishes, I would have run into a huge dilemma when my mom got sick, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to make the trip anyway.  So, really, God was looking out for me.  He knew that I needed to be with my mom this summer.   It’s not that my desire to go to Africa was bad in any way, but the timing just wasn’t as right as I thought it was.  Maybe the time will be right at some point in the future, but who knows?  Only God.

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In other news, we’re now off to a new semester at AI!  This is my third year… eek!  The time flies by!  Look for more frequent updates in the months to come.

As most people probably know, there has been much controversy lately regarding Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama as this year’s commencement speaker.  While I haven’t been following the story intensely, I’ve gathered from the headlines that there have been protests and public statements from people on both sides of the issue.  In addition, the former US Ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon, has declined to accept the college’s prestigious Laetare Medal for service to the Church and society because of the college’s decision regarding Obama.

Though on a much smaller scale,  this type of situation regarding a campus speaker whose views are opposed to that of the Catholic Church recently occured at my alma mater Providence College, as well.  As one of my friends pointed out, the Whispers in the Loggia blog posted an entry yesterday about this issue.  It seems that a student group had invited former Congressman Tom Tancredo, a proponent of aggressive controls on immigration, to speak on campus, but the college decided at the last minute that the former congressman would not be allowed to speak due to his beliefs on immigration which are directly opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Providence.  Tancredo has publicly spoken out against the Pope on this issue, but he is not himself a Catholic, at least not any more.

These two cases are but a few examples of the types of situations that have been arising all across the country as Catholic institutions grapple with the issue of free speech and the importance of upholding Catholic doctrine.  For what it’s worth, I’d like to offer my personal take on the issue:

That a Catholic school finds it important to publicly uphold a Catholic teaching is commendable and reassuring.  If we can’t count on Catholic institutions to promote Catholic teaching, then who can we count on?  That being said, I wonder if preventing speakers with views contrary to those of the Catholic church – particularly if those speakers are not themselves Catholic – is the proper way to do this.  Because if we prevent one person from speaking at a college due to their views, where do we draw the line?  Should we not only reject the voice of the politician but also that of the actor who stars in a morally questionable movie or believes in a faith opposed to the Catholic faith?  Should we refuse to hire non-Catholic professors at Catholic universities?  Can we not sponsor interfaith dialogue events?  Should we only care about views on moral issues or are doctrinal issues important as well?

Ultimately, it seems to me that there must be some way for Catholic schools to both be open to the views of those who are opposed to the Church while also making it it clear that the school and Catholic teaching does not agree with views of that speaker.  What ever happened to the Dominican tradition of disputatio?  Can’t we support free speech while also promoting Catholic Truth?