There's a Space for You

In the hallway outside our chapel, there's a 'family tree' of Franciscan saints and blesseds (click to enlarge):

There's St. Francis and his early companions at the root. St. Clare is on the first branch on the right. After all, she did call herself St. Francis's "little plant."

One of my favorite things about the tree is that there is an empty space:

There it is. Nestled among St. Joan of Valois, St. Joseph Cafasso, and a Gandulphus and a Hugh that I haven't been able to identify for myself, there's an open space.

When I pass by the picture with another brother I sometimes point to the space and say, "There's a space for you."

It's true. There's a particular space for everyone on the family tree of sanctity. Each human life is a unique and unrepeatable creation. And since, as St. Thomas teaches us, grace perfects nature, the graces God desires for each of us are also unique and unrepeatable, as will be the sanctity and the saint that they produce.

So let's embrace our grace and sink into our space, becoming the unique and particular saint that God has created us to be.

Of Toothpaste And The Superlative Universe

When I buy toothpaste for myself, one of the brands I often choose is the Colgate that says, "Great Regular Flavor." It's not that I give any thought to the product itself; I'm just amused by the claim as a piece of language. I find it a funny example of the overreach of the language of advertising, the overlapping uses of 'regular,' etc. It's 'great' but it's also 'regular.'  It's a superlative world we consumers live in; the regular (read: ordinary) is great.

Italian Homework Win

A couple of days ago there appeared here in the friary a Brazilian diocesan priest to make of himself, like me, a beginning Italian student. Tonight he arrived at supper with a vocabulary list containing the various names of things related to food and meals. The brothers seemed to find this very entertaining, and enjoyed pointing out and displaying instances of the various terms: plates and bowls and glasses, forks, knives, and spoons, bread and wine and cheeses, fruits, vegetables, pasta and meat. But one little trouble was encountered when an item was found on the list that was not in evidence in the refectory: la birra.

Well, apparently unwilling to be shown up by someone's Italian homework, Father Guardian summoned his minion to the head of the table, who then scurried off and returned moments later with a chilled bottle of Beck's for anyone who wanted one. This was all very surprising to me, as I have lived in this friary for almost six weeks and have never even seen a bottle of beer, much less been offered one.

So I guess it pays to do your homework. Who knew?

Scoop Salvation

In religious life there are certain rules that are neither written or ever spoken, but which--at least in my experience--are universally observed. Sometimes the strictness and regularity with which they are observed can seem inversely proportional to any imaginable utility. For example:

In religious life we tend to have the powdered sort of laundry soap, the kind that comes in a big box. In the box comes a little plastic scoop by which you are supposed to measure the soap into your wash. Here's the rule of religious life: when the box becomes empty, it is thrown out, burned, or recycled, depending on local law or custom. The plastic scoop, however, may not be thrown out, but must be placed into the next, newly opened box of soap.

Never mind that the new box comes equipped with its own scoop. Now it will have two. When this box is empty, its two scoops are transferred to the next new box, which will then have three. And so on. I have observed the results of the careful observance of these procedures in every friary to which I have ever been assigned.

I don't know how to process is interrupted, but I have seen as many as six scoops in one box of soap.

Padre Pio's Many Gestures

Our friary has a statue of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, which is no surprise given that we are Capuchins. What's funny about it is that his right hand attaches to his forearm with a square peg. Because of this, the friars being the friars, poor Pio might be found with his hand in any one of four positions:

The "nice to meet you"

The epiclesis

The collection

And finally, a favorite of somebody in this house, "The screwball"

Ad Obj. 1

O.k.; this is when you know you've been reading too much scholastic theology.

This morning I go downstairs for breakfast and look in the bread box. When I see the package of 'Everything' bagels, something like this thought immediately comes to mind:

To the objection that it is impossible that a single bagel could subsume everything, we must say that 'everything' is understood in multiple ways.

Soteriological Hijinx in the Friary

Coming downstairs this morning, I noticed that the crucifix over our refectory table was missing. In its place was a ransom note: $20,000 was to be dropped at a certain corner in our neighborhood, or Jesus would "get it."

I don't know what it was about but nonetheless I thought it somewhat odd and hard to imagine any meaningful sense in which Jesus could 'get it' any more than he already has in the Passion and death he endured for us, and I noticed how the demand tried to reverse who is paying a ransom for whom. As as a licensed dispenser of sacred doctrine, I had to amend the note.

I wrote: 'Jesus already got it, and paid us back with a New Creation.'

No ransom is demanded of us, for one has already been made for us.

Water

This new friary where I live has had a lot of problems with water. Yesterday I got my first taste of it. In the afternoon I went down to the basement to take my little walk on the treadmill, and there it was. It didn't look like much, but it turned out to be almost twenty gallons by the time I had vacuumed most of it up. Just that little bit of water was trouble; I spent the time trying to pray for the people in the floods in Pakistan.

Water can be very destructive. It's heavy, gets dirty, and it ruins things beyond repair. It's a good reflection for us when we think about baptism. Just as the positive natural powers of water like cleansing and refreshment are present for us in the supernatural grace of baptism, so also the more frightening powers of water: in our baptism we are drowned, we go down into the death of Christ and the old Adam is left dead at the bottom of the Jordan. If his distractions and concupiscence come with us out of the water, that's on us; the original sin is gone, though its injuries remain as we try to recuperate through the life of prayer and the sacraments.

In the course of this journey of recuperation, whether we finish it here on earth or in purgatory, we are freed from the fear of bodily death. After all, we already dead.

A Note to Religious Superiors

Just a friendly note to superiors of religious houses, and to myself should I ever become one (may God forbid it.)

Sometimes you get ideas that must be rejected and temptations that must be resisted. One of these is the thought that wouldn't it be nice to have more than one set of flatware. There could be one just a little nicer than the other--but still in keeping with our state--for special occasions, you think. Something for a day of 'greater solemnity,' to borrow a liturgical term. You must reject this idea, as sweet and devout as it may appear.

The average brother, though his life is based on the appreciation of many subtle distinctions of theology and of the spiritual life, cannot fathom, much less see, the distinction between a soup spoon and a tea spoon, or between a dinner fork and a dessert fork. A fortiori, he will be unable to distinguish your slightly more solemn flatware from the set meant for everyday use.

Since the whole plan will only lead to tedium and annoyance for the kind brother who decides, as a study break on a quiet day, to clean out the crumbs from the kitchen drawers and straighten up their contents, leading him unawares into the terrible task of not only separating the tea spoons from the soup spoons and the dinner forks from the dessert forks, but having to do so multiplied by two different sets of both, you better just forget about the whole idea.

(I don't know if the situation is any better for women religious.)

Telephony Talion

Four years and two friaries ago, I was given the ministry of telephone menu administration in our little community. One of the friars had changed rooms, so I had to change the menus. As I was recording the new menu, one of the brothers (the room changer, not incidentally) entered the room just as I was pronouncing his name. "He rules!!!," came the response to his own name. His outburst could be heard in the background on the recorded menu, and I left it there.

Well, the telephone administrator for my new home, a friar who doesn't live here but in another friary nearby, came by this morning to update the directory and and add me to the phone menu. As anyone knows who has ever had to record a phone menu, especially one that has a lot of different names, titles, and numbers, your rarely succeed on the first try. You sit there recording and re-recording until you remember everyone and get it just right. After all, it's your voice that greets the world outside. Thinking it rude to abandon my brother at his task (I was the only one home), but not wanting to stand over his shoulder when he was trying to concentrate, I went around the corner to the kitchen and started to cook up a quesadilla. It was almost lunch time anyway, and besides, maybe I would have a chance to offer something to my confrere.

As fate and the gods of telecommunications would have it, I fumbled a cutting board with a crash just as my own name was being recorded. "I'm leaving that in there," says the friar, "I had the whole thing right at last, and it's your own fault."

Overbooked

This is going to be one crowded guest room!

Anglican Rosary

One day last Easter season an Anglican religious brother stopped by the parish office looking for some holy water from the Easter Vigil. Why he wanted our holy water, being an Anglican, I wasn't sure, but I gave him some that I had saved for my personal use.

In thanksgiving he gave me an object that he called an Anglican rosary. It's one of those nylon cord things, small and rugged, designed to be used rather than admired. There's only one knot where the three should be near the cross, and only seven in each "decade."

I don't know if it's blessed, though I doubt it.

Anyway, I was cleaning up some junk in my office and came across it again. I don't know how to use it, and doubt I would if I did.

Anybody want it? Leave me a comment with an address. I won't publish the comment, but I'll send you this "Anglican rosary."

Cute Nun Shoes and Cheap Missals

Snooping around tonight I made quite the fun discovery: a Kenedy Official Catholic Directory from 1943. It's amazing to look at the advertisements; you can tell how much construction was going on around church institutions here in the U.S.A.

A couple of the ads caught my eye in a particular way. Red Cross Shoes, "Accepted by the Reverend Sisterhoods for 50 years." Where are the hipster sisters who wear these?


And how about this? If you, unlike me, have $460 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you can order the famed Benziger Bros. altar missal from Preserving Christian Publications. Here it is for $30! A four-volume Breviarium Romanum is advertised below, starting at $32, but you'll want to get the leather cases for $3.75 each. I have to admit that the covers seem expensive. I got a very good leather cover for my "economical edition" Liturgia Horarum for just 10 euro the last time I was in Rome.


It's also interesting to note how few advertisers are still in business today. The exceptions: Red Cross Shoes, Mont La Salle altar wine, Cathedral and Will & Baumer candles, Verdin bells, and, of course, the Kenedy directory itself.

Stuck into the book I found a very elegant printed invitation to a "Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving" for the occasion of the golden jubilee of ordination of one Right Rev. Thaddeus W. Tierney to be celebrated on Sunday, June 3rd, 1951. I suppose we can safely pray that he rest in peace.

...Broke the Chains of...?

This is a counter-symbol to Easter in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin.

As soon as it's mid-morning in France, I'm calling the semioticians.

Smells Like Lent

I have read that smell is the sense most connected to memory. Even if you didn't know it was almost Lent, you would know by now here in the friary, as the smell of last year's palms being burned into this years ashes is everywhere.

A Cool, Dry Place

Any prayerful person will concede that much of the economy of grace remains hidden from us in our pilgrimage through this life, but did you know that St. Francis is also the patron saint of dehumidifiers?

And You Thought She Was In Heaven

Today I went into one of the monastery storerooms to look for a new toothbrush. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

It's really amazing what you can find lying around an old religious house!

Finds

A lot of religious poo-poo life in a big, institutional style monastery. It has its advantages, though. For one thing, they are great repositories of random stuff, some of which you might need.

For example, in a couple of days I'm leaving for a pilgrimage to Assisi, Rome, San Giovanni Rotondo, and a few other sites of Franciscan and Capuchin interest. This morning I was thinking about what I might still need for the trip, and I thought of four things:

1. A small, new notebook to write a travelogue for our communications office
2. A portable Italian dictionary
3. Travel-size laundry detergent
4. A copy of the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos volume of St. Francis. It's several times smaller and lighter than its English language counterparts and thus better for travel.

I found all of them without even leaving the house. So thank God for big, old, institutional religious houses.