Merry Christmas

I send to all readers of this blog heartfelt wishes for a blessed and joyous Christmas! What we have heard for the past stretch of time bears repetition here: "All of the oracles of the prophets foretold him, the Virgin Mother longed for him with love beyond all telling, John the Baptist sang of his coming and proclaimed his presence when he came." I humbly pray that we all might be able to take some bit of that longing for Christ expressed in that prayer and allow it to transform our lives. As they say, a baby changes everything. Please also take a moment to enjoy the music below. It is Tomas Luis de Victoria's version of O Magnum Mysterium which was sung as the communion hymn last night at midnight mass at the cathedral. Once again; Merry Christmas!

 

For unto them a daughter was born on this day in 1993

That daughter, born to my parents, was my dear sister Kayla, who today reaches her legal adulthood by turning eighteen. Shortly, we will commence with the traditional cake and ice cream which, I must say, looks delicious. Below is a photo we found of me and my sister when we were little up in Marquette in the Upper Peninsula. Happy Birthday Kayla!

Feed the World (Do They Know it's Christmastime?)

"Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which means "God with us." - St. Matthew 1:23

It is a startlingly simple verse. In St. Matthew's forthright proclamation, we see the entire economy of salvation in one sentence: God has come to dwell among us, his people. The sentiment is echoed elsewhere, in the Revelation to St. John: "And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God is with men: and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people: and God himself with them shall be their God" (Rev. 21:3). In both instances - in the first coming of Christ as an infant in a manger and the second coming of Christ as king at the end of time - we see God coming to us. This is the fundamental fact of Christianity: we seek God, and God seeks us.

But, upon further inspection, we see that the work of the Trinity has not confined God to the beginning of the first millennium and the end of days, God is constantly reaching out to us through the work of his Holy Spirit in the Church. Most obviously, His sacramental presence in the Eucharist turns both of these verses into statements of present fact rather than fulfilled and yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy. Let us consider the Eucharistic dimensions of both circumstances.

In his birth at Bethlehem, Jesus reveals a number of things about his continued presence among his people. Firstly, Bethlehem is a place-name which means "House of Bread", which of course has obvious Eucharistic overtones. Furthermore, the manger must not be overlooked - it was a place where animals came to feed. Are we not animals to one another without the constant grace of God? And, even further, we must consider that Bethlehem was the city of David, the king. Christ is the new and eternal king, who reigns over the universe forever. David had wished to build a proper temple for sacrifice. God would not permit him for he had ruined his purity by waging war. God instead chose Mary, the pure virgin, to bring forth Christ the eternal temple, priest, and sacrifice - Emmanuel. Micah 5:1 proclaims something to this effect: "And you Bethlehem Ephrata, are a little one among the thousands of Juda, out of you shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity."

St. John in recording his visions in Revelation describes the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven as a bride prepared for her husband. The wedding feast of the lamb described in the surrounding chapters paints us a picture of perfect communion with the Lamb of God - a communion foreshadowed during each mass when we receive the Lamb of God in the sacrament.

God is not confined by time. By his very nature, God is eternal, and he acts in eternal ways. "Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today: and the same for ever," says the author of the letter to the Hebrews. God, when he came among us as a child in a manger is the same as the God who will establish his communion with us at the end of time in the eternal banquet of the Lamb. This is the same God, who by the power of his spirit, manifests himself in the Eucharist, at every mass, every day, around the world, "from the rising of the sun, even unto its setting."

The oracle of the prophet Isaiah, repeated by St. Matthew, is daily fulfilled: "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and she shall name him Emmanuel, God is with us." The eternal manna daily comes down from heaven to feed the world, just as it did 2,011 years ago in Bethlehem, and just as it will in the untold future when Christ returns in glory. This year for Christmas, consider all of the blessings God has given us, and take special note of the blessing of the Eucharist - God with us.

Mumford and Sons for the End of Advent

We are in the home stretch of Advent now, with Christmas exactly one week away. I discovered this song today by one of my favorite bands of late, Mumford and Sons. It is a cover of the old hymn "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." Do enjoy!

End of Semester Diary

We have been ever so frantic on this side of the computer screen in recent days. With deadlines, due dates, and exams a-plenty, it has been hard to look forward to the coming weeks at home and the coming months in Australia. That said, I have managed to scrounge up a good deal of time to spend with close friends. It is times like these, after all, that give life its sweetness.

On Friday of last week, I was pleased to be able to attend a small Christmas party at a friend's home in Newcastle, Indiana - which is approximately thirty minutes south of Muncie (longer, if by some stroke of fate, all of the bridges across the White River are in a state of construction). Newcastle is one of those towns that could be the county seat of any of those rural counties that stretch from Pennsylvania to Colorado - a pleasant place full of welcoming people. She had invited several of us down to enjoy the particularly Midwestern pleasure of a social gathering in a barn. Pool was played, convivial conversation was enjoyed, and an all around good time was had by all. We retired to the house for the night, and were treated to a sumptuous country breakfast in the morning before heading back to Muncie, which plays the part of our Caput Mundi for nine months out of the year.

The rest of Saturday was quite frankly spent looking out the window in studio and accomplishing very little. It is a curious thing that during first and second year we were deprived of windows in our studios - to our considerable consternation, but, now that we have them, they end up being more of a curse than a blessing. It's no matter though, the project was eventually completed with great fanfare in the middle of the night on Sunday.

Saturday evening brought its own special delight - that of the Muncie Civic Theater's production of the classic holiday musical Scrooge! Our esteemed friend and colleague, Heather, played the role of townsperson very convincingly, and we all marveled at the assortment of headdresses such a role entails. Long story short, seeing the traditional tale of Ebenezer Scrooge performed was a fantastic way to begin to ease ourselves into the Christmas spirit!

Up early on Sunday morning - had the curious feeling that I ought to be productive all day long. Now, when struck with this feeling, I typically roll over until the feeling passes, but I was feeling especially ambitious for one reason or another. Off to 11:15 mass at St. Francis, which was said by the Most Reverend Timothy Doherty, Bishop of Lafayette-in-Indiana. His Excellency was installed quite recently in this diocese, and was surprisingly young and energetic (as far as bishops go). I am quite confident that he will continue to be a strong and wise shepherd to the local church.

The saying of mass by the bishop would perhaps not merit more than a sentence or two, but a most interesting and embarrassing episode accompanied me on my way to meet His Excellency after mass. You see, we have been stricken of late with a plague of sneezes that has produced quite violent results. Now, being a person of good manners, I endeavored after mass to greet the bishop and thank him for coming to Muncie and saying mass. I walked up to him and he said hello, and I was just in the midst of replying, when in the middle of the word "bishop" some trickster demon awoke within me the plague of sneezes and I sneezed quite vigorously. Needless to say, the accompanying "bless you" from His Excellency was probably the most meaningful one I'll ever get.

After recovering from the societal faux pas of sneezing on one of the successors of the Apostles, the rest of the day was spent laboring on various projects here and there, with very little time for anything leisurely. Monday was crit day for our studio projects, so we dressed up nicely and endured all manner of provocation from the faculty. The two bright spots of the afternoon were the cheese and cracker spread and the children from the Project School in Indianapolis who had come up to see our designs for a high school adjoining their grade school. They were quite fun.

Monday concluded with an evening get-together at the home of our studio professor. It was nice to enjoy the company of our studio colleagues in a non-pressurized setting, and to talk with our professor in a non-formal, non-architectural way. All in all, a good way to round out what has sometimes been a tumultuous semester in the Architecture Building.

Presently, final exams are upon Ball State. As we speak, hundreds of students are huddled in all manner of nook and cranny in the library, hopelessly attempting to cram their noggins full of information to be spewed out tomorrow morning. I, on the other hand, having undergone the more hellish demands of the semester last week, am engaged in different, but nonetheless important tasks. One such undertaking is responding to a questionnaire about Australia which was emailed to me. It was regrettably composed in Comic Sans, so one had to spend a good deal of time reformatting the thing so that a proper font could be used in an aesthetically pleasing way before it could be sent back. I am not sure if I can trust these people to get me across the Pacific in one piece if they are clinging to such childish things as Comic Sans.

We head back to the Great Lakes State on Thursday, and cannot be more excited to be home for the holidays at long last! We are looking forward with great expectation to a Christmas break brimming with happy times with family and friends before we depart for adventures on the opposite side of this ever-spinning globe.

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Dante and the Virgen de Guadalupe)

One of my favorite songs of the season is the German carol "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen" which is often translated into English as "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming." The second verse, roughly translated into English without poetic license reads:

The rosebud that I mean, of which Isaiah told is Mary, the pure, who brought us the floweret. At God’s immortal word, she has borne a child remaining a pure maid.

Thinking about this song the other day, I thought it particularly appropriate to link the image of the rose described in the lyrics to the feast we celebrate today, that of Our Lady of Guadalupe. To remind you of the story, I turn to the infallible Wikipedia for its narrative of the events:

Two accounts published in the 1640s, one in Spanish and the other in Nahuatl, tell how, during a walk from his home village to Mexico City early on the morning of December 9, 1531 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Empire), the peasant Juan Diego saw a vision of a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, surrounded by light, on the slopes of the Hill of Tepeyac. Speaking in the local language, Nahuatl, the Lady asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor, and from her words Juan Diego recognized her as the Virgin Mary. Diego told his story to the Spanish Archbishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, who instructed him to return and ask the Lady for a miraculous sign to prove her claim. The Virgin told Juan Diego to gather some flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill. It was winter and very late in the season for any flowers to bloom, but on the hilltop (which was usually barren), Diego found Castillian roses, and the Virgin herself arranged them in his tilma, or peasant cloak. When Juan Diego opened the cloak before Zumárraga on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and in their place was the Virgin of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the fabric.

Roses were instrumental in the miraculous apparition that occurred in 1531. Our Lady has long been addressed by the title of Rosa Mystica or Mystical Rose in the liturgical life of the Church. Dante added his ideas when he described the highest heaven in his Paradiso as a magnificent rose (of which the Virgin Mary had the highest place). This rose was the closest any created creature could come to the presence of God himself.

Now, I am no mystic or philosopher, but I can suspect some reasons as to the rose being such an important symbol throughout history. There is a pious legend that says that all of the roses in Eden had no thorns. The roses we know are very beautiful flowers that are blemished with thorns, just as humanity is blemished with sin. So, the rose, in a way, points to our spiritual journey toward God's presence, where all of our blemishes will be taken away, and we will stand before God's throne as the unique beautiful creatures that we are.

We can be comforted by this thought when we consider God's hand in the "pruning" process. Last week for the mass of the Immaculate Conception, we heard in the Gospel that "nothing shall be impossible for God." If God can be born of a virgin, if that virgin can be created as an unblemished rose, if that virgin can appear to a Mexican peasant to confirm God's presence among his people, what reason have we to doubt the power of God in our own lives? No matter how down we get, or how far away from God we are, nothing shall be impossible for God, if we but let him prune us of our thorns.

Help! I'm allergic to Rick Perry!

The social media sphere has erupted in the past few days over an ad that Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry released. The video was met with an almost fanatical acerbic reaction, as if Mr. Perry had called for the abolition of the continent of South America or something. And just what did Mr. Perry say? He voiced his opposition to the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and he expressed his dismay at the government's bullying of religious organizations of late. Now, let me voice my political disclaimer: I do not identify with the Republican Party, and I tend to view Rick Perry as a juvenile politician at best.

That said, I find it a bit disquieting that many of the same people who berate politicians for their supposed lack of civility are the first to jump on Rick Perry's dissenting opinion. Is this man not allowed to have his morals influence his politics? Thomas Jefferson, no fan of the organized religions of his day, was the first to point out that democracy cannot exist without virtuous citizens. Heck, even the pagan philosophers like Aristotle realized this fact. Why, when a similar sentiment comes from a Christian from Texas do some Americans boil over?

In my mind, there is legitimate room for debate on each of the issues Mr. Perry brings up in his campaign ad. If we truly believe in free speech and free exercise of religion as described in the First Amendment, Rick Perry has every right to voice his opinions as informed by his conscience - that's how democracy works, or should work in theory. But, it seems of late that this democratic dialogue is being increasingly stifled. We are to tolerate and approve of everything and everyone except those who voice religious or moral objections to certain policies or behaviors - those we must berate and scold for their benighted views.

Could Rick Perry's ad have been more eloquent? Could it have focused more on the pressing issues of the day - the economy, war, etc? I think yes is the answer to both. Was Rick Perry's ad offensive and mean-spirited? If you are offended by those different from you, then perhaps it was. Savor the irony here.

You are all fair, my love; there is no flaw in you

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation for all Catholics. It is on this day that we recall the conception of Mary without sin in the womb of her mother, Anne. God, in his mercy and providence, preserved Mary from all stain of sin from the moment of her conception onward, so that she would become a sanctified vessel for bearing Our Lord. 

Our Lady, under the title of her Immaculate Conception has been invoked as patroness of the United States since 1792, when John Carroll, the first bishop of Baltimore (and the first Catholic bishop in the United States), asked her special protection for the nation. Pope Pius IX formalized this act in 1847. It is to her, especially on this memorial of her conception, that we Americans should ask for her intercession before God's throne for the sake of our nation. 

Since Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is our patroness, we have honored her in this country with the building of a spectacular church in our nation's capital. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. is truly an architectural monument of great beauty. It is the largest Catholic church in the United States, the eighth largest religious structure in the world, and the tallest building in the District of Columbia. Construction began in 1920 and was completed in 1959, though interior decoration continues to this day, with the main dome's mosaics yet to be completed as planned.

I have had the great privilege of visiting this splendid basilica during the course of a high school trip to Washington to take part in the March for Life. It is truly an awe-inspiring and beautiful place. The architecture is a curious - but successful - mix of Byzantine and Romanesque motifs. One gets the feeling that the architects took the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and melted them together. Marian symbols and quotations abound, and the crypt is lined with chapels devoted to Our Lady under her many titles. The crypt also displays several other pieces of interest, most interestingly the papal tiara of Pope Paul VI. 

The photo shows the high altar and the sanctuary decorated for Christmas. The mosaic in the apse (i.e. the background of the photo) is a particularly stern depiction of Jesus in majesty.

Prepare for Mitten War, Wisconsin!

We even have a children's book about it for God's sake!

Wisconsin does not often raise our ire, for it is generally an agreeable place with a charming dialect. However, recent shenanigans have made it abundantly clear that Wisconsin can no longer be trusted as a neighbor to the one and only Great Lakes State. The reason for this interdiction is the recent use of the mitten as a symbol of Wisconsin on the state's tourism website. Is nothing sacred?! Michigan has had exclusive claims on the mitten-shape since time immemorial! We Michiganders point out our hometowns on our built-in maps - our hands! Does Wisconsin possess this venerable geographical and anatomical heritage? I think not! I have just attempted to persuade my hand to form a shape similar to the state of Wisconsin, and was met with much resistance.

Now, I know a few people from Wisconsin, and have even lived with one. They are very nice people (please pronounce "nice" with as many long i sounds as possible). But, none of them has ever uttered the regrettable heresy that their state looks like a mitten. It's unthinkable. Very few things can rouse me this level of indignation, but - along with a call to deport the cast of Jersey Shore - I say we boycott Wisconsin, and anything of it, including cheese, if necessary, until this tragedy is brought to a happy conclusion!

If you wish to view the unholy image in question, do so at your own choosing. I will not be posting a link here, for these are respectable pages that shant by profaned by such undignified URLs. 

Haydn's "Te Deum" for the Empress Marie Therese

We have been rather too neglectful of Joseph Haydn, the Austrian composer of the classical period. His work is often overshadowed by the other giants of the era, most notably Mozart. This is Haydn's "Te Deum" for Empress Marie Therese. The "Te Deum" is an ancient hymn of praise originally written by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in the Fourth Century. This particular version is quite joyful and happy. Enjoy!