St. Thomas a Becket

On this feast of St. Thomas a Becket, I'm reminded of a discussion that took place in History of England early in the semester. Our professor asked us, "Who do you think was right? Henry or Thomas?"

In my typical trouble-maker way, I replied, "Thomas, because Henry had no right to be meddling in the Church's affairs as he was. In [some document that I do not remember the title of] Henry was attempting to control not only the appointment of clergy and hierarchy but even who could and couldn't be excommunicated! These are strictly spiritual matters, in which the king has absolutely no say."

Dr. Kennedy nodded gravely and responded, "Does anyone think Henry was right?"

A lone student (non-traditional, in his mid-thirties, making this all the more tragic) answers, "I think Henry was right . . . because Thomas shouldn't have been messing with his guys."

St. Thomas a Becket, I think you clearly win that one. Ora pro nobis!

Gregorian Chant Rides Again

From an interview with Monsignor Valenti Miserachs Grau, President of the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music.

Via Cantemus Domino

Stubborn

Human beings are stubborn little creatures. Some days, I marvel at the patience God must have as He watches us live our lives and mess up along the way. I think that for many people the most dangerous thing we engage in is simply looking at the mistakes we make and doing nothing better than crying over them.

There's no denying that it's stupidly hard some days to pick up and learn, especially when you feel like you've royally screwed up in a little thing that has the potential to affect the rest of your life. In my case, all my hopes for graduate school are hanging in the balance right now because I've made poor choices about how I use my money and time. I'll be frank: I'm terrified for what happens to me after graduation now. What if I've messed up some major part of God's plan for me by being thoughtless?

See how easy it is to be paralyzed by our past? Especially if you happen to have the cross of a melancholic temperament, that sees the "deep" in just about everything, it's unfortunately effortless to dwell on what happened before and compare it to what ought to have happened.

But that isn't in my control anymore. I can't let myself be stopped by what might have been or what might be. All I have is right now, the choices that I make in this instant. God grant me the grace to remember it--and that sometimes losing one opportunity brings us another, better one.

Let the Festivities commence!

Time for another photograph from the archives. This one is the statue of St. Joseph that watches over my family’s driveway—the one that I couldn’t get up when I came home for break yesterday in spite of three valiant attempts and a ton of stuff in the trunk. A lovely statue, at least.

So now that classes and commencement band are completely, truly finished, I can set about working on my own personal projects for break: a couple editings for The Edward Website, a couple writings for the same, brushing up on some Latin in hopes that Notre Dame will forgive me only having one year of Latin instead of three and still admit me into their Medieval Studies Institute, reading on the relationship between the Church and art in the Middle Ages, and so on.

I'm also working on a research study with one of my writing professors, studying the attitudes of high schoolers towards writing in high school and in college. It's been very interesting so far, even if somewhat slow in completing. One hundred forty surveys, each containging around sixty questions to enter. Long work, but rewarding.

I am also considering doing one more revision of this piece and submitting it to Latin Mass magazine for publication.

Merry and Blessed Christmas to all if I don't post again before then!

It's the Least Wonderful Time of the Year

The greater portion of my day was spent scrawling notes frantically for a History of England take-home final I'm trying to finish for Tuesday morning. Four hours later, my brain is much, but I think I now actually have a grasp on the evolution of the king/parliament relationship. Pisses me off to no end that my history professor has to bash every Catholic king that sat on the throne after Elizabeth. They may as well have been evil incarnate to him. I suppose I got him back in my own twisted way, though; every time the book would talk about "subversive papists" or some such nonsense, I made sure to sarcastically pipe up, "Gee, those awful, nasty papists; got to watch out for them," in the ensuing in-class discussion. Heh. Turnabout is fair play.

I have one final tomorrow--Advanced Composition--and then H of E is due Tuesday morning. Hopefully then I can begin to reclaim some brain cells and write more regularly and more coherently again.

Art Renewal Center

This Center supports what many of us have suspected all along: that "new" art is nothing more than worthless crap produced for purely commercial purposes.

Anyone know of any groups supporting similar studies in music?

The Church and Reason

I'm currently working on one of my most challenging projects from this semester: a rhetorical analysis of the Council of Trent's decree on the Holy Eucharist. I'm so glad that I chose this topic, though; it is amazingly interesting to actually write out rhetorical syllogisms pulled from the text and see that even based on cold, Aristotilean logic, these doctrines make sense (provided you accept the premises on which they're based). Good stuff.