Other

Confessions of a Crazy Schoolmarm tagged me with the book Meme. I think I did this once before a year ago, but I do love books.

How many books do you own? I went to public school and so don’t do higher math.

Book(s) I am reading now: Well since I just finished the Pope’s book – the following books are back on track.

1. The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church by Sr. Sara Butler, MSBT
2. The Bad Catholic’s Guide To Wine, Whiskey, And Song: A Spirited Look at Catholic Life and Lore from the Apocalypse to Zinfandel by John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak
3. Mysterious Island (via my iPod) by Jules Verne
4. Shadow & Claw: The First Half of ‘The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

Books I’ve read recently: I wrote a program that I use to track my book reading and books to get that is still under development, but it does make it easy for me to answer this question for the last two months from then to now.

• Dorothy L. Sayers – Whose Body?
• John C. Wright – Mists of Everness
• John C. Wright – Orphans of Chaos
• Raymond Arroyo -Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality
• John C. Wright – Fugitives of Chaos
• Stephen Coonts – Deep Black: Jihad
• Larry Niven – The Draco Tavern
• Gene Wolfe -The Knight
• Jules Verne – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
• Gene Wolfe – The Wizard
• Baroness Emmuska Orczy -The Scarlet Pimpernel
• Rafael Sabatini -Captain Blood
• "E.E. ""DOC" Smith -The Skylark of Space
• Michael Flynn – Eifelheim
• John C. Wright – Titans of Chaos
• Scott Hahn – Hail, Holy Queen
• Neil Gaiman – Stardust
• J.R.R. Tolkien – The Children of Hurin
• Anthony Destefano – Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To: Divine Answers to Life’s Most Difficult Problems
• Scott Hahn – Reasons to believe
• Tad Williams – Shadowplay
• Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: (Bible and Catechism are given) To make it easy for myself I will make two lists for this question. Though the answer to this question can easily change daily based on mood.

Non fiction:

• Handbook of Christian Apologetics – Peter Kreeft with Ronald K. Tacelli
• Theology and Sanity – Frank Sheed
• The Confessions – St. Augustine
• The Life of St. Teresa of Avila by St. Teresa of Avila
• Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton
• Adventures in Orthodoxy by (now Fr.) Dwight Longenecker
• A Father Who Keeps His Promises: God’s Covenant Love in Scripture by Scott Hahn
• Transformation in Christ: On the Christian Attitude by Dietrich Von Hildebrand
• The Cure D’Ars Today: St John Vianney by George William Rutler
• Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

  Fiction:

• Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tokien
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The Icewind Dale Trilogy by R. A. Salvatore
• A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
• Most ot the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• The Dune Series by Frank Herbert
• Asimov’s Robot novels.
• Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
• Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright
• Declare by Tim Powers

If you live in the United States, England, or Wales you know what today is. It it is the Feast of the Rant that today is not Ascension Thursday. Last year the Bishops of England and Wales joined the U.S. in moving the Ascension to Sunday so I welcome those who live their to commiserate with us. On the "Feast of the Rant that today is not Ascension Thursday" it is traditional for bloggers in these countries to gripe about the movement of this feast especially newer bloggers who have not yet posted on this subject. Though if you live in Bishop Bruskewitz’s diocese than today is a Holy Day of Obligation.

Though I think we should add a new tradition to the "Feast of the Rant that today is not Ascension Thursday" in that those who do not already go to Daily Mass go to Mass today anyway. You really don’t need any special reason to want to go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but if you need one then celebrating the Ascension with the rest of the Catholic world is a nice bit of solidarity. Joana Bogle also suggests going to Mass today. This is the only type of Mass protest that is acceptable. It would be wonderful if more and more people each year did choose to go to Mass today and celebrate with the rest of the universal Church and lead by example so perhaps the bishops were led by this example and rethink the minimum weekly dose of Catholicism mentality. You know – we can’t expect you to make a sacrifice to go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In between rants perhaps we can even pray for our bishops today.

For those bishops who think the laity can’t be bothered with going to Mass two times within a week I have but one thing to say to you – Ash Wednesday.

Now for both a lighter and deeper tone here is what I think is an appropriate paragraph from the Holy Father’s wonderful new book Jesus of Nazareth in the chapter on the Our Father prayer p. 150.

And in this light, we now understand that Jesus himself is "heaven" in the deepest and truest sense of the world — he in whom and through with God’s will is wholly done. Looking at him, we realize that left to ourselves we can never be completely just: The gravitational pull of our own will constantly draws us away from God’s will and turns us into mere "earth." But he accepts us, he draws us up to himself, into himself, and in communion with him we too learn God’s will. Thus, what we are ultimately praying for in the third petition of the Our Father is that we come closer and closer to him, so that God’s will can conquer the downward pull of our selfishness and make us capable of the lofty heights to which we are called.

So let us today also ascend in prayer and resist "The gravitational pull of our own will" or as Chesterton said (and the Pope also quoted last year) "Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly."

Update: man with black hat weighs in.

I have Pope Benedict’s new book Jesus of Nazareth in my hot little hands. Though I am not sure how somebody like myself goes about reviewing the Pope’s book. I feel like Wayne and Garth in Wayne’s World 2 bowing down before Aerosmith shouting "I am not worthy."

Catholic Warrior tagged me:

1. Male or Female: Male
2. Married or Single (or religious): Married
3. Dream vacation: Catholic Answers cruise to Europe and the Middle East
4. Birthplace: Manhattan, Ks (Born on an Army base and only lived there six months)
5. Area I live in currently: Jacksonville, Fl
6. Someone you wish you could meet: The pope
7.
Biggest "pet-peeve": I don’t keep peeves, they make lousy pets.
8.
Favorite Religious devotion: The Rosary
9.
Favorite Saint (besides the Blessed Mother): St. Teresa of Avila
10. Favorite sport that you play: Computer Golf That you watch: Football
11.
Favorite food: Ice Cream
12. Tridentine or Novus Ordo: Any reverential rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I also love the Eastern Rites especially the Maronite Rite.
13.
Would you (or are you) home school or public school: Pubwick Skool
14.
How many kids do you have: 2
15.Ever been in an auto accident: Yes, though none serious and the hit and run when I was on a bicycle was part of the 2×4 that God got my attention with.
16.Ever seen a pope in person: No
17.Languages that you know fluently: English, C++, C#, VB, Java, Javascript, Clipper, and a slew of old DOS based database languages.
18.Last movie you saw in theatres: Pirates of the Caribbean II Next one you are planning on seeing: Spiderman III
19.Favorite Blog: I take the Fifth. This is too much like Sophie’s Choice.
20.Your thoughts on Barney, the Easter bunny, and Santa Clause: A cage match between the first two would be great. As for St. Nicholas who can’t love a reported heritic-punching saint?

A reader in reference to a post on a true renovation of one parish wrote to tell me me about a new church being built, St. John Neumann Parish in Farragut, TN. The present church is also the site of the site for Knoxville’s indult Mass.

There are pictures available here of the construction as it is done and it certainly looks like a quite promising cruciform style church.

Fr. Erik Richtsteig placed this in his bulletin.

Over the last month or so, several incidents have occurred that necessitate reiterating the obligation for each parishioner to work to keep our church clean and new. Parents have allowed children to draw on the baptismal font with crayons, to draw on the pew seats with pens, to walk on the pews with shoes, to litter the pews and floor with snacks, and spill drinks with no effort to clean up afterwards. Lest you think this is just a problem with careless parents, older people have used the kneelers as foot rests, failed to replace the missalettes and hymnals in the pew racks, and left their trash in the pews.

Our church is the house of God. It must be treated with care, reverence, and respect. (It is not a playground or a family room!) Please observe the following rules:

1-No gum is to be chewed in the church.

2-Silence cell phones before you enter the chapel.

3-Save conversations for the entrance area or the social hall.

4-Please do no let children draw in the church with pens, pencils, crayons, or markers.

5-If your small child must have a snack during, it is YOUR responsibility to clean up after them. Also, no snacks that are sticky or have the potential to stain.

6-Please no juice or milk in bottles. Water only in the church.

7-Don’t let children walk on the pews wearing shoes or to stand with their shoes resting against the pew seats.

8-Kneelers are for kneeling. The are not footrests.

9-Straighten up your own pew before you leave. Replace books in the rack, take any trash with you, and leave the kneelers in the upright position.

All parishioners, please help us keep these rules. If you see someone who is out of line, please gently remind them of their obligations.

So few seem to understand kneeler etiquette, especially when going to Communion and you know there are others that will need to shuffle past your kneeler left in the down position. Though it is easy enough to do the toe-kneeler-life as you go by so that others following you don’t have the same problem.

I have seen less problems with food, though sometimes there is the leftover Cheerios you sometimes notice or other cereal fragments.

In some churches it seems that as soon as Mass ends you could use a decibel meter to measure a gigantic increase in the noise level. I don’t know if there is any true causal relationship to what I have observed, but I have noticed that parishes with the more pop style music and less reverent liturgies are also the ones that have the largest problems with noise after Mass.

Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell of Stargate SG-1 in reference to the Ori scriptures.

"We’re saying that book got’s about as much truth in it as the Da Vinci Code.

Jimmy Akin reports that Dr. Francis Beckwith, the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has returned home to the Catholic Church.

Not surprisingly anti-Catholic apologist James White is not happy about it, though it must not be quite the shock of when his sister Patty Bond crossed the Tiber.

John Gibson tagged me with the "6 weird things about yourself" meme. I was hit with this one last year, but I can always draw on more weird things about myself.

• I have autographs from both Isaac Asimov and Ted Nugent.
• I strap a laptop on my exercise bike to work out while reading blogs.
• I wrote an application just to track the books I read, when I read them, and to maintain a list of books to get.
• I once converted a walkman into a guitar amp while at sea long before I had heard of anybody else doing this.
• I have dressed up like W.C. Fields and Groucho Marx and have done impersonation of them.
• I use to knit, embroider, and crochet.

For any inclined commenters tag yourself in the comment box.

As a long time fan of Rush since the seventies I eagerly awaited their new release Snakes & Arrows which arrived in stores today. For the most part I really like their first full length studio album in several years. Musically this album is one of their finest. It has a bit of the feel of "Farewell to Kings" to it but the CD stands totally on its own with a lot more acoustic guitar work mixed in. Snakes & Arrows certainly does not sound tired and is really quite a good effort for a group that released their first album in 1974.

I was also interested in the new album because previously it was reported that drummer and lyricist Neil Peart was writing on faith.

The artist tells Billboard.com his lyrics for the as-yet-untitled set were greatly influenced by his motorcycle journeys throughout the United States, chronicled in the new book "Roadshow: Landscape With Drums."

Peart says he was struck by the ubiquity of religious billboards that have sprung up on America’s highways, which got him thinking about some weighty topics. "Just seeing the power of evangelical Christianity and contrasting that with the power of fundamentalist religion all over the world in its different forms had a big effect on me," he says.

"You try to put your own way of seeing the world into some kind of congruence with other peoples, and that’s difficult for me," he admits. "I mean, I see the world in what I think to be a perfectly obvious and rational way, but when you go out into it and see the way other people think and behave, and express themselves on church signs, you realize, ‘Well, I’m not really part of this club.’"

"I looked for the good side of faith," Peart says. "To me it ought to be your armor, something to protect you and something to console you in dark times. But it’s more often being turned into a sword, and that’s one big theme I’m messing with."

Well I am horrible at interpreting lyrics as to their meanings which for most rock is probably a good thing. Though reading through the lyrics for the new CD it certainly appears that Neil Peart did not find too much on the good side of faith. For example in The Way the Wind Blows.

Now it’s come to this
It’s like we’re back in the Dark Ages
From the Middle East to the Middle West
It’s a world of superstition

Now it’s come to this
Wide-eyed armies of the faithful
From the Middle East to the Middle West
Pray, and pass the ammunition

…Now it’s come to this
Hollow speeches of mass deception
From the Middle East to the Middle West
Like crusaders in unholy alliance

Now it’s come to this
Like we’re back in the Dark Ages
From the Middle East to the Middle West
It’s a plague that resists all science

I had hoped for better from Neil Peart, oh well. Though it is only the above song and one called "Faithless" whose lyrics are annoying, but there are three instrumentals. The instrumentals have a different feel to instrumentals on previous albums. You can always expect a lot of guitar virtuoso work from Alex Lifeson and the one titled “The Main Monkey Business” is no exception.
Lyrics aside if you like Rush you will like their latest offering.