19 More Days.

St. Nicholas Nicholas is the great patron of children and of Christmas giving. He lived in the fourth century. Santa Claus is a short form of St. Nicholas. This famous saint was born in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. After his parents died, he gave all his money to charity. Once a certain poor man was about to abandon his daughters to a life of sin because they did not have the money for a dowry. Nicholas heard about his problem. He went to the man's house at night and tossed a little pouch of gold through a window. This was for the oldest daughter. He did the same thing for the second daughter. The grateful father kept watch to find out who was being so good to them. When St. Nicholas came a third time, the man recognized him. He thanked Nicholas over and over again. Later St. Nicholas became bishop. He loved justice. It is said that once he saved three men who had been falsely condemned to death. He then turned to their accuser. He made the man admit that he had been offered money to get rid of the three men. St. Nicholas died in Myra, and a great basilica was built over his tomb. Many churches were dedicated in his name. When his relics were brought to Bari, Italy, this city became a famous shrine for pilgrims from all over Europe. Nicholas is the patron of sailors and prisoners. With St. Andrew, he is the patron of Russia. The great charity of this saint has become legendary. Is there someone in my life who needs my love and generosity?

No Content Yet Today

Just a pretty picture of Mother and Child. I'm not used to seeing Asian portrayals of the Virgin and Child, so I scanned this when I got home yesterday. It's on the cover of Today's Missal, the Advent-Lent edition, which I was fortunate to get a copy yesterday. Our parish uses "Breaking Bread" which only gives synopses of the readings and my mom likes to follow along so I'm giving her this copy. I thought I'd get her a Sunday Missal for Christmas but I'm not sure yet.



Photo credit: It's a 20th Century painting on oil from The Korean School. I thought it was pretty.

So glad it's just wheat and water.

I'm still giggling about my dream about the priest handing our bagel slices as Communion at Mass. I think I'm even more amused that I yelled at him for doing it in the dream. I still wonder about the state of my unconscious mind sometimes. I think I do my best writing when I'm sleeping.

Anyway, way back when, the Carmelite nuns here in town used to bake all our communion bread, but from what I understand they don't do that anymore. Their numbers are dwindling and they just can't. So I know for my parish, our bread is ordered. I wonder if we get them at the place in the video below? And the bread that the priest breaks tastes better than the little round hosts. Though... paraphrasing one of the guy's in the video says, it's not the taste that counts.

Watch. Enjoy. This video is really fascinating. First seen at Deacon's Bench who saw it someplace else.




Now... I shall go watch TV. I have the first of the two Stargate SG1 series ending movies and I feel like getting lost in SciFi fantasy for a while.

North American Anglicans to Split

According to the BBC, the Anglican Church in North America is going to split and form a more traditional fold in the US and Canada. This news doesn't surprise me. We've been watching the Episcopal church struggle lately. I also didn't expect that these more Conservative Anglicans would knock on on Rome's door or cross the Tiber en mass. I think we'll see handfuls of priests and bishops, like New Mexico's Bishop Steenson cross over, maybe one parish or so but that's probably it. Of course, I can't predict a thing so maybe we'll see more, but only God knows.

With all the uproar about female altar servers, (I'm following a post at the Deacon's Bench) can you imagine what would happen if the Swiss Guard actually allowed women to serve?

Just a little snark for the day.


h/t to Clerical Whispers for the article. That blog is like my guilty pleasure. I can't imagine how Father has time to compile all the news he posts. I'm glad he does. He posts everything-- good, bad, sad-- and I read it all. Well, at least skim it. ;-)

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him...

I'm compiling some links for this post. First off, over here is a beautiful page of Creches from All over the world. Deacon Greg over at The Deacon's Bench posted a news story about a Czech nativity set being reassembled in Dayton Ohio. I'm sort of a Czechphile-- it's kind of a long story-- which I don't need to go into now. Needless to say, I surfed around the site (link posted in the original article and here) and got lost in looking at the different Nativity sets. I find them all so incredibly fascinating.

Also at the site, there's an article about the tradition of Native American nativities in New Mexico. I've yearned to have one. When I used to go to Indian Market, I'd look longingly at the sets, but couldn't then and still can't afford one. There are pictures there and as well as in the main page of International Creches.

My mom's current nacimiento. I wish I had better picture.

My mom had an old set that her aunt bought bit by bit. I thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. She's long since put it away, but perhaps I should pull it out of the box this year.

I have two nativity sets of my own. One I got last year for Christmas. It's a Spanish Colonial set, though it's a mass-produced piece by a re-known NM artist, rather than an original. I can't even fathom what it would cost to own an original Charlie Carillo. Mine is the set on the right. My other set, which I haven't put up in years, is a Costco special. I had to color the Virgin Mary's hair from blond to brown with a sharpie marker. It's generic, but the figures are pretty enough. I used dress it up with lights, cedar branches when I put it up. I'm thinking of digging it out, unless I get my mom's old one, which looks a bit like the Fontanini sets.

Hee... a google image search lead me to a Little People nativity set. And not to be outdone, but Catholic Supply of St. Louis has a variety of Nativities, from the classic, tasteful ones, to the downright awful ones. I'm easily amused you know.

Tradition has it that St. Francis put up the first creche.
I think the nativity is a probably the most visible reminder of what the season should be about. Granted, we know that's not how it actually was, but it's still a wonderful image, isn't it? The madness that has become of the Christmas season is a disgusting display of greed, selfishness and a complete and utter lack of respect toward one's fellow man, woman or child.

Belonging Without Believing

Interesting study about Jews, religion and affiliation. The study states that one can be an active member of a religion and not really believe. There are also statistics comparing Christians, broken down by types-- evangelical, mainline protestant, Catholic as well as the unaffiliated and Jewish.

I'm skimming it now but thought I'd mention it.

One of the things I found interesting is that evangelicals are more apt to believe in miracles than Catholics. The social findings are interesting. Nothing too shocking.

Watch This Space...

I have a post running around in my head, but I don't think today is the day that I really want to make a ranty, mcranty post about stuff that's bothering me. I'm not having a crisis of faith or anything like that, but I'm just angry and upset. I'm also having a hard time reconciling my beliefs. How can I love something so much and feel bitter and hurt at the same time? I'm angry but I don't know where or how to direct that anger. What I'm angry about is irrational and I'm not sure I can articulate just right. So, I'll mull it over a little bit longer and come back to this post later.

He Was A Community Organizer, You Know...

Live Journal is down. So much for the transition going smoothly. It figures when all is said and done, it goes down unexpectedly when all is supposed to be well and good. I posted this there, I think, can't see if it actually posted.

Well, Father James Martin, SJ, is one of my favorite Contemporary Catholic writers. Apparently he speculated how Jesus might do on a job interview with the Obama Transition team. It's here at belief.net. You don't even have to be Catholic or religious to enjoy the humor of it all.

My cousin actually applied for a job in the administration. She was a paid staffer for the campaign. We all got a laugh at the questionnaire. Even I couldn't answer it perfectly and I'm almost a saint. ;-)

Something I've Always Known...the First Thanksgiving Was Catholic

Spanish settlers and Native Americans celebrated the first Thanksgiving in Florida. Deacon Greg Kandra made mention of two earlier Thanksgiving Celebrations in his blog today. In his post, Is Thanksgiving a Catholic? he finds the answers to the question. Read his post to see the original article.

Of course it was and it makes complete sense that the Spanish Catholics would offer a Mass of Thanksgiving, when arriving in the New World, since Catholicism was (I still think is) a huge part of Spanish culture.

My ancestors didn't come over the Mayflower. They weren't Puritians, Pilgrims, or Protestants of any sort. They were Catholic and yes, they celebrated Thanksgiving long before the Pilgrims did.

My dad's ancestors arrived in what is New Mexico in 1598, but led by Juan de Onate, that that particular Thanksgiving was held in El Paso before they made the journey north, so, I claim ties to that one. Though, I know that the Spanish celebrated the first Thanksgiving in Florida 30 years earlier. These are things I've always known, simply because growing up in New Mexico, I was always away of Spanish, Catholic history in the New World because I had teachers who made sure we were versed in our own history. In my text books, the arrival of the Spanish in the New World covered maybe the first couple of pages and was never mentioned again. I knew because my parents made sure I knew the history and I also knew because I took classes in New Mexican history, though while I always I knew, it always seemed like no one else did.

Now, Onate is not without controversy. Still, without his daring expedition, the establishment of the first coloney here, my ancestors may have never come to New Mexico and who knows if I'd even be here. A couple of links about him here and here.

Photo: reenactment of the Onate Thanksgiving in El Paso. Taken from here.

It's In My Head

While doing some minor story research for my failing attempt to do this year's NaNoWriMo story, I stumbled upon this article from a Cuban American writer who was a Shabbos Goy back in his youth for the Jewish families in his Brooklyn neighborhood. It was a really sweet article and definitely worth a read. I don't know where I first heart about "The Shabbos Goy" if it was something I read or someone mentioned, but it was nice to read someone's personal account.

I know a lot about Judaism, but like a lot of things, I know enough to get me into trouble. For this story I'm working on my characters are half-Jewish, raised by mostly secular Jewish father and a Jewish mother by conversion who was raised Catholic and converted before she met the father. The characters are actually part of my fictional universe and are cousins to my other characters in my other stories. They're the children of the second oldest daughter on my story-family tree. I really think will turn out to be a really interesting character in the end. I'm really just fleshing them out, trying to figure out who they are and I have a loose plot brewing in my head, which will incorporate a lot of the family history that I know, but haven't written or compiled for this particular story. While I don't think religion is going to play into the story much, I do need to look up spellings and definitions of terms and words for the story. I need to make the characters as real as possible and I need to explore what life would be like growing up in their family.

Being curious by nature, I follow links everywhere around the Internet. Maybe one day I will actually stay on a website long enough to learn something. Or better yet, get off the Internet and read something!

I'm tired today... so I'll just link to this story at America's blog In All Things about the rise of Anti-Catholicism. Maybe I'm spoiled or just pretty damn lucky because growing up here and when I grew up I never experienced any anti-Catholicism. Sure, I had former Catholics try to convert me to their new found religions, but I don't recall them ever saying anything that was anti-Catholic. Maybe I'm living in my own little world where everything is sunshine and roses and I never noticed it. Nah, I don't think it existed here growing up.

Although, I do remember every fall, on the night of the Burning of Zozobra, a group of Bible believing Christians would pass out flyers saying how we were participating in a pagan ritual, that if we didn't repent or proclaim Jesus to be our Savior we'd all be doomed. There wasn't anything that was anti-Catholic about this particular protest, and there really wasn't anything particularly Catholic about burning this puppet, also known as Old Man Gloom. I mean, historically, the Catholics in Spain have burned effigies for many reasons, but I don't believe those were what inspired Will Schuster, the artist who created Zozobra, to burn this puppet. I also haven't been in years, so I don't even know if they come out and protest.

The only place where I've experienced or seen blatant Anti-Catholicism is on the Internet. It doesn't take long to find it. I usually stumble upon something anti-Catholic at least once a day. I'm also tired of seeing google ads on Catholic blogs and websites with links to the crazies at the most holy family site.

Watching Secrets of Mary Magdalene on PBS. I'm finding it to be a more scholarly retelling of the "Da Vinci Code" perhaps, it's giving the "Da Vinci Code" credence. I'm not overly impressed and I honestly don't believe in these theories of Mary Magdalene. Yes, I believe she existed, no I don't think she was the prostitute in the gospels, and she was important in Jesus' life and his ministry but I think they're reaching on just about everything else.

Ack... they actually called her Mrs. Jesus in this special. Oy.

Regarding one of my stories: Mary Magadalene, as the repenant sinner, is a quite important image for me to reference in the story.

Holy Bagels, Batman!

I will be the first to admit that Communion has been on the brain lately. The only thing is, this has nothing to do with the recent comments about who should or should not receive, it has nothing to do with the election or anything like that, but out of the weirdness that is my mind, I managed to dream that the priest had concecrated bagels instead of unleavened bread for Holy Communion. In my dream it was very clearly one of the priests from my parish. It didn't seem like it was my actual church but after dropping the "real hosts" on the floor, he managed to give out bagel slices instead. They were toasted and buttered. He also gave me a plain one and a poppy seed bagel. I got really upset as they were crispy and I kept saying this is wrong... you're going to drop Jesus everywhere, that it was unholy bread and not the Body of Christ at all. He seemed truly unconcerned. Sitting next to him was one of the sisters who works in the parish. They were sitting behind a table like it was a bake sale. They had the chalice sitting between them and handed it out really irreverently, like it was fruit punch or kool-aid. It was totally bizarre.

I do recall thinking or saying in the dream that Jesus tasted good and that left me with a very discomforting feeling. I shudder as I write this. I remember when I was a kid we were told by the nuns in Catechism class not to even chew on the host, that I can't actually imagine tasting it. ;-)

I do admit that the host that the priest holds up and breaks during the consecration tastes better than the little round ones that are kept in the tabernacle. I don't know what the difference is and I don't think the Carmelite nuns here in town bake the bread anymore.

I actually thought about emailing the priest to tell him all about this dream, but I don't think I will. As amusing as I think it might be, he might think totally differently.

Blogrolls...

A real life friend of mine wants me to recommend to her some good Catholic blogs. I am going through my blogroll here and those on my google reader to see what I think she might like. I read a whole range of Catholic blogs, maybe that's why I'm going insane. Some I like because more for the pictures that get posted than for content, some I read for just the content, I even read some conservative ones but skip the comments, unless I haven't had breakfast, ;-) . I really dislike the condescending, holier-than-thou bloggers (clergy and laity) that I've discovered.

I've given up forums for the most part. I do have to admit though, that they were quite helpful when I was doing some research for my novel, but then I stumbled upon a blog written by a young priest and he had tons and tons of great posts with historical, religious, and useful information. His blog has folded, but I did enjoy reading it while he posted. He didn't allow comments, so it made for an enjoyable read. I've found a few that I like almost as much. I think I'll probably update my blogroll to reflect my current joys and faves.

If anyone has any suggestions to add to this list, let me know.