It's almost twenty-two years since I first tried to pray the rosary. Since then I've had a lot of them; some break, some get given away, others go missing. Still others that seem extra special for some reason or other get hidden away before they break. I tend to identify them with where they came from, who gave them to me, or who blessed them.
May 7, 2013
May 3, 2013
RIP: Jeff Hanneman
I had known about his unfortunate illness, but I didn't realize how serious it was.
For better or for worse, Reign in Blood--much of the music for which Hanneman wrote--changed my life. I still listen to it sometimes. One time a while back I found myself listening to it on my little old iPod (which I have thanks to a gracious Yonkers bride who gave me an iTunes gift card) as I walked the path around the Collegio Internazionale San Lorenzo da Brindisi here in Rome. I stopped as I recalled how, twenty-one years before, my decision to become a catechumen had come out of a brooding daily routine that often included a nocturnal walk around the outer path of Connecticut College while Reign in Blood played in my Walkman. Maybe I'm boring. Maybe I know a classic.
Though at times the devil has gotten into it to stir up a vainglory that made me forget other, more important graces, it's still true that the music epitomized by what Jeff Hanneman gave us was indeed a remote preparation for greater graces God has given me, by making me realize that the ordinary thing, in this case the music that everybody else was listening to, wasn't what I really wanted.
Requiescat in pace. May his family and friends have strength and comfort in these days.
For better or for worse, Reign in Blood--much of the music for which Hanneman wrote--changed my life. I still listen to it sometimes. One time a while back I found myself listening to it on my little old iPod (which I have thanks to a gracious Yonkers bride who gave me an iTunes gift card) as I walked the path around the Collegio Internazionale San Lorenzo da Brindisi here in Rome. I stopped as I recalled how, twenty-one years before, my decision to become a catechumen had come out of a brooding daily routine that often included a nocturnal walk around the outer path of Connecticut College while Reign in Blood played in my Walkman. Maybe I'm boring. Maybe I know a classic.
Though at times the devil has gotten into it to stir up a vainglory that made me forget other, more important graces, it's still true that the music epitomized by what Jeff Hanneman gave us was indeed a remote preparation for greater graces God has given me, by making me realize that the ordinary thing, in this case the music that everybody else was listening to, wasn't what I really wanted.
Requiescat in pace. May his family and friends have strength and comfort in these days.
April 30, 2013
Capuchin Evangelization
Today we observed the optional memorial of Blessed Benedict of Urbino, a Capuchin preacher and founder of shelters for homeless people from the later sixteenth century. Today's memorial of Pope St. Pius V is optional even here in Rome, much to my surprise.
In his Office of Readings we were given the beginning of the ninth chapter of the Capuchin Constitutions of 1536. When I read the first line, L'evangelizzare la Parola di Dio (the modern Italian rendering of the original, lo euágelizare la parola di dio), of course I began to think about evangelization and the 'new evangelization' to which we are called in our time.
April 25, 2013
English
Today I had to prepare a mailing to all the English-using circumscriptions (provinces, vice-provinces, custodies, delegations) of the Capuchin Order. It's something like forty percent. That doesn't mean that they speak English in all those places, just that English is used for official communication with the General Curia. (The other choices are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Polish.)
It's a fascinating exercise in the place and power of the English language in the world and especially in the life of the Catholic faith:
The piles, from largest to smallest, are for India, Africa, North America, Asia, Oceania, the Near East, and Europe (that is, Britain, Ireland, and Malta.)
Such an illustration also helps me see how the recent new translation of the third edition Roman Missal into English was an even bigger deal than I realized.
It's a fascinating exercise in the place and power of the English language in the world and especially in the life of the Catholic faith:
The piles, from largest to smallest, are for India, Africa, North America, Asia, Oceania, the Near East, and Europe (that is, Britain, Ireland, and Malta.)
Such an illustration also helps me see how the recent new translation of the third edition Roman Missal into English was an even bigger deal than I realized.
April 19, 2013
Proper Calendar of the Diocese of Rome
Here in Rome today is the feast of Pope St. Leo IX, who is remembered mostly for being pope at the time of the mutual excommunication of the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054. It was the occasion of my discovering something I've been mildly interested in finding since being here: a proper calendar for the diocese of Rome. I don't know how up to date it is; one notices right away that it isn't recent enough to include Pope Blessed John Paul II. Of course there are a lot of saints that also appear on the universal calendar but are celebrated at a different level of solemnity in Rome. And, of course, I can't help but point out the presence of two Capuchins.
Nevertheless, here it is, after the jump. Optional memorials are in italics, feasts in capitals, solemnities in boldface capitals, como Dios manda.
Nevertheless, here it is, after the jump. Optional memorials are in italics, feasts in capitals, solemnities in boldface capitals, como Dios manda.
April 16, 2013
Homo Novus Novit
The news from Boston started appearing just as I was about to go offline for the night. I haven't been sleeping so well lately, so I tried to pray for everyone, those who were killed, those who were hurt, the scared, those responding. I started to think about how fragile it all is; in my own life-moment before moving here to Italy, one of the most refreshing little islands of peace was my few minutes of standing at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston at six in the morning, waiting for the bus that would take me to South Boston for the seven o'clock Mass at St. Brigid's.
April 14, 2013
Trees, Horses, and Crayons
One of the curious things about praying the Scriptures in a new language is that you are constantly reminded of questions of translation. Today there were two big ones.
First, this morning I started my week as lector for Mass. Practicing and then proclaiming the first reading for today (Acts 5:27-32, 40B-41) I was a little thrown each time by the Italian of verse 30, which translates xulon as croce, 'cross.' I'm much more accustomed to the word 'tree' here, as it is in the RSV or as it is heard in the American lectionary today:
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree.
It makes a difference whether you say 'tree' or 'cross' there, doesn't it?
Second, something else reminded me a fun story.
Today in the Office of Readings we have, in the book of Revelation, the opening of the first six seals. I took a course in Revelation back at the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology, one of a handful from which I emerged feeling like it had helped me understand Christianity better at a basic level. As we progressed through the book, for a little fun, but also, I think, to help us keep in mind the visual nature of the narrative (it is, precisely, a vision after all) the professor would hand out photocopies of pictures of Albrecht Dürer's famous woodcuts of the various scenes. One of the students began to return to the following class, having colored in the Dürer with her crayons. It was very amusing to me to see her trying to show her coloring to the professor. It seemed to me like the good Jesuit, a distinguished scholar of the New Testament, didn't know whether to be charmed or appalled. Or maybe that was me projecting.
In the course of the coloring project, a problem eventually arose when we came to the opening of the fourth seal and the appearance of the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. The first three Horsemen had been easy enough to color: white, red, black. But the fourth, the chlóros horse, had presented a difficulty. In English, it's often rendered as 'pale,' but chlóros might also suggest something like green. Not knowing what to do, the poor student had left the horse empty of color, but had brought her box of crayons along to class hoping that the professor might, in his expert opinion, choose for her the one that most approximated chlóros. I don't remember if a decision was made.
Perhaps the old pale/green/pale-green question of the fourth horse is further complicated by the fact that nowadays we associate the color green with life and flourishing, not with the identity of the fourth Horseman, Death. If we didn't keep our dead in refrigerators or put makeup on them, maybe it would make more sense to us.
I was reminded of all this during the Office of Readings because in Italian the fourth Horseman is said to be verdastro, a word I'm sure I didn't know before this morning. My most valued dictionary says it means, 'greenish, greeny.' I didn't know that 'greeny' was a word, so I guess I've made progress in two languages today.
First, this morning I started my week as lector for Mass. Practicing and then proclaiming the first reading for today (Acts 5:27-32, 40B-41) I was a little thrown each time by the Italian of verse 30, which translates xulon as croce, 'cross.' I'm much more accustomed to the word 'tree' here, as it is in the RSV or as it is heard in the American lectionary today:
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree.
It makes a difference whether you say 'tree' or 'cross' there, doesn't it?
Second, something else reminded me a fun story.
Today in the Office of Readings we have, in the book of Revelation, the opening of the first six seals. I took a course in Revelation back at the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology, one of a handful from which I emerged feeling like it had helped me understand Christianity better at a basic level. As we progressed through the book, for a little fun, but also, I think, to help us keep in mind the visual nature of the narrative (it is, precisely, a vision after all) the professor would hand out photocopies of pictures of Albrecht Dürer's famous woodcuts of the various scenes. One of the students began to return to the following class, having colored in the Dürer with her crayons. It was very amusing to me to see her trying to show her coloring to the professor. It seemed to me like the good Jesuit, a distinguished scholar of the New Testament, didn't know whether to be charmed or appalled. Or maybe that was me projecting.
In the course of the coloring project, a problem eventually arose when we came to the opening of the fourth seal and the appearance of the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. The first three Horsemen had been easy enough to color: white, red, black. But the fourth, the chlóros horse, had presented a difficulty. In English, it's often rendered as 'pale,' but chlóros might also suggest something like green. Not knowing what to do, the poor student had left the horse empty of color, but had brought her box of crayons along to class hoping that the professor might, in his expert opinion, choose for her the one that most approximated chlóros. I don't remember if a decision was made.
Perhaps the old pale/green/pale-green question of the fourth horse is further complicated by the fact that nowadays we associate the color green with life and flourishing, not with the identity of the fourth Horseman, Death. If we didn't keep our dead in refrigerators or put makeup on them, maybe it would make more sense to us.
I was reminded of all this during the Office of Readings because in Italian the fourth Horseman is said to be verdastro, a word I'm sure I didn't know before this morning. My most valued dictionary says it means, 'greenish, greeny.' I didn't know that 'greeny' was a word, so I guess I've made progress in two languages today.
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