Earlier today, someone on what Sitemeter tells me is an EWTN-assigned IP address typed the following search string - "ewtn a network gone wrong"

Hmm...sounds like someone down there is disgruntled.

Posted by Justice at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lent, starting in just over 24 hours, will be one of the most interesting ones for me. The primary sacrifice this year around is in the area of drink - I'm sticking to just water. It will be tough, as I do so love pop, but since I've already gone about two weeks without it, I should make it through just fine. Yes, the lack of caffeine through the middle part of the semester may not be the brightest idea in the world, but I'm sure God will take care of that problem. Thus far, the side-effects have been almost unnoticeable, and I doubt they'll get any worse.

The Eastern Catholics here - and those who like to pick up on those devotions - will undoubtedly put my efforts to shame, which is a good thing (I believe the Ruthenian Rite is the one represented among my usual dinner group). I might learn a thing or two from them this Lent.

Incidentally, monsignor messed up the Lenten dates this year, swapping the fasting days for the abstinence days. For the purposes of clarity:

Fasting* Dates - March 1, April 14
Abstinence** Dates - March 1, March 3, March 10, March 17, March 24, March 31, April 7, April 14

* Not really "fasting" fasting, but just eating only one full meal and no more than two little snacks.
** This just means avoiding meats. Fish are allowed, hence the ubiquitous fish fries that will be springing up.

Posted by Justice at 9:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Steubenville has one of the more volatile gas markets I've seen. Up until early last week, we were sitting around $1.97 a gallon for regular - among the lowest prices in the nation. That spiked 32 cents in one night to $2.29, right around the average, fell 5 cents to $2.24 during the week, and today is at $2.35. It's times like this that I'm happy I don't have to buy gas.

Posted by Justice at 9:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There is a lesson from parish consolidations, courtesy of some observations with the consolidation going on in Steubenville. The city itself has had a massive population exodus, meaning that eight parishes serving a Catholic population of just over 6000 is too many (by contrast, there were 5 parishes and just over 10000 Catholics 50 years ago). On the plus side, it appears weekly Mass attendance in the 8 parishes stood around 67% when the Diocese did its studies.

Of the eight parishes, it was decided to consolidate six of them into one new parish, which would serve as the new cathedral church of the diocese. The curious lesson here, though, is that the parish which at the same time has the largest number of parishoners (1589), has been the only one to grow in size in the last 50 years (+93%), and which has the largest Sunday Mass attendance (1244) - Holy Rosary - did not survive the consolidation process. Reading the report, it appears that the two parishes that survived - St. Peter's and Holy Family - did so because they were the oldest (and a historic) parish and the newest parish, respectively.

Something tells me this same kind of pattern is going to hit in the Buffalo diocese later, as it's probably going to impact some larger parishes and cause some pretty hard feelings, especially if there was a recent capital project. But unlike here, the Buffalo diocese's problem is primarily a shortage of priests, whereas this is mainly a demographics problem - the Steubenville diocese has the same number of diocesan priests as in 1950, it just has a third fewer Catholics in the area.

Posted by Justice at 6:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Franciscan's annual vocations fair came around yesterday, featuring a host of different orders manning a table. It seemed that about every other table was featuring a group of Benedictines or Dominicans. Most of them were passing out stuff - I think I ended up with about three books by the time I got out, and I never even looked into what the women's orders were passing out.

Although most of the orders participating were dressed either in habits or clericals - and on the younger side - apparently one group of sisters didn't get the memo, sending a pair of older women in ordinary getup. It hardly needs saying that they were receiving less interest. Although there were a few cassocks floating around, the FSSPs, who were listed as one of the participants, never showed, leaving the Dominicans to win the POD dressing title.

Incidentally, Fr. Leon from the Buffalo Diocese was also there. It was apparently his last day as vocation director, as he's been assigned as a pastor in a new parish - an abrupt shift, seeing as he was confirmed in that post and appointed to a different parish less than 6 months ago. In a less than hopeful sign, he has no idea who his successor will be, and it doesn't sound like one has been named. In these days of declining vocations, I don't think it's prudent to let that post sit vacant.

Posted by Justice at 8:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It's been an exhausting last few weeks, and the pace isn't likely to let up much, if any, before the Spring Break begins on March 10. The two major pressing concerns are a 10-page book review on two books on Pope Benedict XVI, and a midterm in Theological Foundations (2 essay questions, I get the set of 8 eligible questions tomorrow), along with reading 4 books (including one of the B16 ones I need to finish), and writing three smaller papers. This weekend will hopefully be when I get back on track as I am now current - more or less - in 3 of 4 classes.

The more distant threat is the 4 research papers looming at the end of April and beginning of May. I've hardly had time to start any of them as yet - Spring Break is probably going to be spent entirely on them. I'm hoping that as I get caught up, more time will be available to spend on these.

In more positive news, however, discipline has picked up, which will doubtless make the stretch run easier. I really don't want this turning into an extended month-long crisis of little sleep, endless work, and broken health, a threat I'm more mindful of these days.

That means posting here will be more infrequent, and probably less in depth.

Posted by Justice at 10:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

At Mass today, just after the consecration of the wine, one of the children nearby - and there are a plethora of them at St. Peter's - began babbling. They soon got out the words "Baby Jesus!"

That was as unexpected as it was uplifting to hear.

Posted by Justice at 5:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In the last two weeks, I will have read nearly 1000 pages from my books. And I will still not be caught up. There is no rest for the wicked, as they say. Andy, if you happen to be reading this, I have far more sympathy for your plight with work loads being under the gun myself.

Hopefully, since this week's reading lets up a bit, I will be able to catch up, at least to the point where I can free up time to work on those semester-long papers.

Posted by Justice at 9:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I highly recommend Pope Benedict XVI's Nature and Mission of Theology, which is an insightful read on much of what has gone wrong with theology and the world in modern times. His discussion of pluralism is particularly good, as is the explanation about why Marxism became so rampant in theology. Interestingly, he is not as opposed to pluralism as he is made out to be, and makes distinctions between what is acceptable and what is not in pluralism.

A selection of great quotes from the book:

- Faith has the right to be missionary only if it truly transcends all traditions and constitutes an appeal to reason and an orientation toward the truth itself.

- When truth is not a value in itself which merits both active interest and the expenditure of time independently of its results, profit can be the only criterion with which to evaluate knowledge.

- The real choice of our time has become the freedom of production and the freedom of the truth. But the freedom to produce, unchecked by truth, means the dictatorship of ends in a world devoid of truth and thus enslaves man while appearing to set him free.

- The freedom of truth belongs not merely accidentally but essentially in the context of worship, of cult. Where the latter no longer exists, the former ceases as well.

- The mass media are fostering a tendency toward homogeneity in thought, speech and behavior which would have been inconceivable in earlier periods.

- The very act of fixing the common reference point - faith - makes plurality in theology possible.

- It seems to me that we have before us a typically Western restriction and legalistic reduction of the notion of faith which radicalizes certain one-sided developments which began to make their appearance around the High Middle Ages.

- If today the entire liturgy has become the playground of private "creativity", which can romp at will just as long as the words of consecration are kept in place, at work is the same reduction of vision whose origin lies in an erroneous development typical of the West but quite unthinkable in the Eastern Church.

Posted by Justice at 7:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I suppose this marks a new low in the claims of discrimination lawsuits - the state of California's state high-school exit exam is being called discriminatory in a lawsuit that seeks to keep the test from preventing students from graduating.

Well yes, all exams are discriminatory, in that they seek to find out whether or not the student knows the material. If an exam can't do that, it's not worth bothering. I can sympathize with the fact that kids are being left behind by a failing public school system, but high school degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on if the system doesn't have an effective mechanism for weeding out those who can't meet the minimum standards.

As for the idea that the state's denying students an equal education, there's a point there, but that's due more to the nature of the public education system itself and the apathy in parts of society toward education. Lousy teachers are protected by tenure rules - and really, if oversight is anything like it was back home in a pretty good district, they could probably get away with mass ceribricide without anyone noticing - although in fairness, if the parents haven't done their job before their kids get to formal schooling, they're already starting way behind the curve.

Posted by Justice at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What gives? Why should the simple presence of organ music in a Mass cause the chapel to be half empty? Geez, you'd think there wasn't any Jesus at the one Mass during the week that dares to be anything other than a guitar led youth-style Mass. I noticed the same phenomenon last week when there wasn't any music for one of the noon Masses.

Try to be traditional and the flock will scatter. Great message.

I'm ticked.

UPDATE: Well, as if someone knew my feelings over today's events, I was passed a little sticker today from a fellow student at Franciscan, Kevin Symonds (whose blog is now on my blogroll). This sticker is now posted over on the sidebar, aptly titled "Society for No Praise and Worship Music During the Sacred Liturgy."

I've reached my limit - it's bad enough this style of music and worship can be near-suffocating on campus, but I've tolerated it up to now. But with the continued liturgical problems, exacerbated by Life Weekend's nonsense, the jerking around of the usual organist, the complaints against the schola's occasional presence, and now the shunning of Masses where P&W music isn't played, I'm sick of putting up with this without getting the same kind of tolerating charity in return.

Posted by Justice at 1:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well, this is mostly dead on. The pop wars with the downstaters at college were always fun, since they persisted in their error no matter how many times we corrected them. Not only do we have discussions over pizza places, we tend to be very critical of the wings they make outside of town. Most places make lousy wings - if you bake them, anathema sis!

HT: DD.

Posted by Justice at 1:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is a picture I took while on the March for Life trip a few weeks back. I think it's an awesome lighting effect.

Amazing what you can get when you play around with the options on the camera.

Posted by Justice at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I made it!!!

Yes, this probably doesn't make sense to most people reading this, but it refers to a long personal milestone that's been several years in the making, and which was finally achieved as of today. A few people out there might know what this refers to, although by and large, it would probably come as a surprise.

I am not allowing comments or trackbacks for this post, though you are free to send comments by e-mail if you wish.

Posted by Justice at 10:52 PM

Yikes! This week has been a killer for me, though that's largely due to my own fault of not getting enough sleep (and I'm not even playing World of Warcraft this semester...amazing how other ways to waste time arise).

I wrote a paper this week on the Letter to Diognetus, one of the oldest extant Christian writings. Although I had trouble staying alert during the class discussion, I don't seem to have taken the same angle as anyone else...which either means I badly misread the document, or just that I had a different take than everybody else.

I'll try excerpting for a blog entry this weekend if I have time, though tomorrow is going to have time blacked out to pay a visit to Pittsburgh to visit the massive relic collection there, and Sunday of course will have Super Bowl fun. As this is Steelers country, it will be a riot if they win and a depressing atmosphere if they don't.

N.B. - Here is the text of the Letter to Diognetus, helpfully the same translation as I used, by Cyril Richardson, originally published in 1953 (I am more than a little annoyed that I paid for a book that was already freely in the public domain - news to pass on to the instructor for the benefit of future students). In my analysis, the thesis of the whole letter is found in the beginning of Chapter 8, "before he came, what man had any knowledge of God at all?" Also, my thesis blithely ignores the critical conclusion that the final 2 chapters were written by someone else - hence allowing me to use the Genesis imagery there to reflect back on preceding material - since my thought is that whoever added them is likely to have meant them to complement the first 10.

Posted by Justice at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack