Travels



Amy and I have been on the road all this week. Tuesday I met with one of our authors in downtown Chicago then we headed off to Milwaukee, WI for an evening baseball game at the relatively new Miller Park. There were few in attendance (I think they announced a crowd of 11,000 but there were hardly more than 5,000 there). The mighty Florida Marlins won handily 12-4. Before going to the game we stopped in at the Cathedral in Milwaukee which underwent a renovation a few years ago. Amy has commented that I don't particularly care for the "Mother of the Church" statue, so let me clarify why.



First it has long been a tradition in the Church that any statue of Mary is always linked to Christ (Our Lady of Fatima is one exception that comes to mind though)--Mary is either holding the child Jesus or is pregnant with Him. This Madona seems to be just, well liberated--not encumbered with child either in her arms or womb. Her hair flies freely giving the notion of fleeing (repression, patriarchy?) and of course historically hair exposed would connote Mary Magdalene not Mary the Mother of Christ. My main problem with the image is that it strikes me to be linked to an idealogy not true devotion to the Mother of Christ and the Mother of the Church. The other statue to the right of the sanctuary is of Blessed John XXIII, again I have no problem with this image except that it clearly is trying to send a message of reform etc. (reform that I am all for by the way but not necessarily in the way that Archbishop Weakland would have conceived of it). The focus of the chuch is organ pipes something that shows the triumpth of musicians as liturgists in the post Vatican II church. Another interesting note about this cathedral is the centrality of the altar and ambo but the relatively obscurity of the "cathedra"--the bishop's chair.



One reflection that I had after this visit was how the ambry has become such a featured focus of new church's. In old church's you would have had a hard time locating the receptical for the holy oils, now adays it is a featured site, often lit with big glass jugs holding more oil than could ever be used in a year for annointings. The other is the centrality of the Baptismal font, usually done in the name of reclaiming our liturgical roots but the church's that I have visited from the fourth century did not have a baptismal font in the entrance of the church but rather in a hidden separate room where they could be done away from the congregation. The novelty of putting one in the entrance is purely a creation of modern liturgists. So we have the exaltation of music, oil and water and exile of the Lord Jesus Christ present in the reserved Blessed Sacrament--I wonder what that says about reform?



On Friday, we visited an Eastern Catholic church in our search for a Catholic Carmelite monastery in Munster, IN. More on this when we get back from our book signing in Lansing, Michigan today. We'll be at the Rosary Book Store in Lansing today from 1-3 signing all those great Catholic books we've written! If you are in the area stop by and say hi!

Buying a Car and the Internet



I have always hated looking at cars and dealing with sales people. I realize they have to make a buck but there is so much dishonesty that goes on that it really is hard to trust anything that anyone tells you in a dealership. The internet helps the buyer a whole lot. I have learned more in the past 24 hrs about the scams that dealer pull off than I ever could have imagined. There are sites that you can find by doing a google search for "buying a new car" that will probably make a lot of you, like me, feel like an absolute idiot for past buying experiences.



I would like to single out one dealership that has a glowing reputation for being "customer friendly", namely the local Saturn dealership. First of all the quality of the Saturn cars that I have test drove is pretty bad. They seem incredibly "cheap." One that I test drove on Saturday had already been dented up. When the salesperson came to give me the costs on a sheet that included a "free DVD player and screen" the price had inflated by nearly three thousand dollars from the sticker price. Well upon closer inspection they (the notorious ever present "manager") had tacked on a stain protection plan for nearly a $1,000 extra and the entertainment package was about $4,000 dollars minus the $978 DVD player--so I had been lied to and frankly that is all it takes for me to have an impression of Saturn that will not go away anytime soon.



But back to the internet and car buying...



Besides learning all the tricks that are going to be played on you, the internet offers you the opportunity to research the reviews and other timely information on the car you are looking at--giving you an upper hand when actually test driving it. There is so much to learn and it is all here online for you to learn it.

Dubrovnik, Croatia



The Pope is in Dubrovnik, Croatia today. I've been to Dubrovnik twice in my life, both times in conjunction with a visit to Medjugordje. The first time I was there in 1989 it was part of Yugoslavia the second time it was just beginning to become part of Croatia.



Several things I remember about Dubrovnik are: that it lays claim to St. Blase of blessing of the throats fame--they sell candles there that are a unique twisting of two big candles into a "u" shape. I used to have a set but I think they were left behind in a church somewhere along my life's journey.



The other thing that I remember was a huge reliquary that included a ton of relics located in the Cathedral, including a large reliquary containing the arm of St. John the Baptist. The most impressive or questionable relics contained in this display were two both dealing with infants.



First there were the relics of the Holy Innocents martyred by King Herod. Sure enough there were little skeletal remains contained in a glass box but it would take a great amount of faith to believe that they were actually the "holy innocents" but after years of reflecting over this I have come to see that there is no doubt that they contain the bones of holy innocents who died before their families were ready to see them go.



The other "questionable" relic there is the "diaper" of Jesus. Now I admit I have never researched the question in the Anchor Bible Dictionary to see whether babies wore diapers in Palestine at the time of Christ and if they did who had the foresight to keep Jesus' diaper packed away when He no longer required it. But again my doubt has turned into faith that the relic of the diaper of Jesus points to the humanity of the Son of God at its most rudimentary expression. As cute as babies are they are capable of creating quite a mess and its left to an adult to clean up. God humbling Himself even to that point makes the mystery of the Incarnation even that more real.



I had hoped that the Pope would remark on one or the other of these Dubrovnik specialties but I looked and he did not...so I have.

Musings



I'm reading a "new" Thomas Merton book that is very good. I'm not sure if it has been released yet since I think I'm reading a review copy. The book was one that he worked on in 1959 but sat unfinished until in 1968 he finally got around to making a few corrections.



Trouble is that he had specified in a trust in 1967 that if he died this manuscript (at that time unfinished) should never be published. He left the corrected and finished copy with a priest friend and asked him to have some cloistered Carmelites read it for their review. They loved it, but in the meantime Merton never returned to pick up the manuscript, his body came back in body bag from the Orient.



The priest friend in his grief rather forgot about it too, until in the 1970's when he discovered the manuscript that the Carmelites had returned and their glowing recomendation of it. He wrote the Abott of Merton's Monastery and informed it that the book should be published as Merton had conveyed this wish to him before leaving on the trip that took his life.



Trouble is that oral testimony does not override a written will for obvious reasons ("well Daddy told me just before he died that he wanted me to inherit the farm not junior"). So the manuscript went unpublished until now. The change has come about because Cisterician Studies has published bits and pieces of it over the years and it is felt that to do the text justice the final edited version should be released.



I've read a few chapters so far and it is very good!



The name of the book is The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation

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Amy Should Have Posted This One







I'll let her explain why.