Ecce Agnus Dei...and then, a Miracle Occurred

Many years ago, long before I was Catholic, I knew a woman whose son had died when he was only a boy.   His death was a tragic one, and I often wondered how she could bring herself to speak of him so often, for she never tired of talking of him, describing his childhood as if he were still the toddler in the next room, the child she had held in her arms at Mass, cradling his face and turning him toward the altar during the Consecration, whispering gently to him to "Watch!  This is when the miracle happens!".   It is a story she told often, and one of which I never tired, despite the fact that I never knew her son, that I had no concept of the scene she was watching with her precious child. 

It is one of the first things that I watched for when I became a Catholic.  I had longed to feel the emotion I heard in her voice when she described this moment.   I, too, wanted to see the miracle.  I wanted to know My Lord in the Bread and Wine.  I wanted to recognize Him at that very precise moment when He is again with us, sharing His Body and Blood with us, making us whole by His Passion.  I wanted to see these things with the eyes of both the child in awe and the mother in faith.  

There is a beauty in this moment that is like no other on earth.  Our Faith teaches Christ crucified, His Body broken, His Blood poured, His Wounds marking Him Victim and Sacrifice for the many.  Yet at this moment He is lifted higher than the cross, His elevation in the Host marking Him victorious over it, and then comes the sole moment of gentleness in the tableau.  His Body is lowered, ever so gently, to rest again on the Altar.   It is such a private thing to see, the look of awe on the face of the priest who lifts Him high and then restores Him unbroken to the paten, as if He is once again being laid in the arms of His Blessed Mother.  This is the miracle another grieving mother described to me long before I could understand it.  This is what she recalls when she mourns for her child, that what he once believed he now beholds.  It is what marks us apart from men, this understanding of how Mary felt as she took her Son again into her arms, the recognition of the child in the man, who through no fault of His own was made to suffer and die in agony, in thirst, in nakedness, in abandonment, in shame.  

The bells ring and the moment passes, the priest continues the rite as it was begun, and we partake of Our Lord's Body and Blood.  Some receive Him reverently, some absentmindedly, some worthily, some not.  I imagine it has always been so.  I wonder who it was that lifted him down from the cross?  Was it Longinus trying to be kind to the old Jew from Arimathea or at least get him out of the way?  Did John clamber up to help?  Was Jesus first lifted a little higher to ease Him from the nails or were they pulled away from the wounds?  I like to think that He was lifted from them, leaving the cruelty of cross intact as He was restored once more to the gentle care of His mother.  She who bathed Him as a child would bathe the wounds of the Man.  She who swaddled Him in a manger would wrap Him in His Death linens.  She who witnessed His Death would know Him in His Resurrection.  She, Our Lord's most gentle advocate, her own heart pierced with sorrow, taking His disciple as another son at His command and turning John's face toward the cross as she cradles the Body Broken for us.  "Watch!"  she says.  "This is when the miracle happens."  

The Constant Crisis of When to Play the Bagpipes

I once heard that the definition of a gentleman was "A man who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't".

This "definition" is one of those phrases that has stayed with me, a metaphoric yardstick by which I measure my own actions around others.  Is this a good moment to let my companions know I can play the bagpipes?  Perhaps I shouldn't even let on that I own a set.  Is there ever a good moment to actually play them?  What if the silence left instead is awkward?  What justifies the sound of the bagpipes, that instrument jokingly labeled the missing link between noise and music?

What if someone else starts playing the bagpipes?  Do I try to discourage them discreetly?  Do I talk over the continuous, unbroken screech of Jacobite angst or do I wait politely for the sound to end before attempting a conversation that lures the enthusiastic one to lay aside his pipes and embrace a better loved instrument, such as harmonica or accordion?

Yet, there are times when bagpipes are necessary, times when nothing but the harshest sound will do.  There is a connection between the sound they make and the culture they inhabit, the customs they herald,  and the scenes they invoke.  Kilts, Auld Lang Syne, the Highlands, and Scotty sending Spock into the great void that will eventually lead to his rebirth.  Who can imagine a world without them, as unpleasant as they may sometimes be?

The sound of bagpipes grows on one.  Watching the Highland games, watching the ceremonial piping  of the haggis, hearing the old airs that convince one that there ne'er will be peace 'til Jamie comes hame, these things would be missing so much without the melancholy sound of the bagpipes.  The sound alone gives them authenticity, the world would lack something without that sound.

Sometimes, I think my purpose in life is to play the bagpipes.  Of course, I am not speaking literally, but I've often been told that while what I say may be true, it is often painful to hear.  Perhaps it's my delivery, perhaps it is that I am an Aries and haven't a clue how to be soft or subtle.  I only know that stating the Truth isn't often appreciated, and it can lead to all sorts of issues with others, be it a mere visible wince or losing one's "friend" status.

Hearing it isn't always pleasant, either. There have been more occasions than I can count that have left me feeling hurt, angry, and disgruntled, often due to the words of those dearest me, those friends, and yes, those priests, who play the bagpipes far too well and too often to be considered polite. They know the worth of the sound that is Truth, that which draws us closer to the society and culture of God, and the closer we get, the more appropriate is the sound of what we hear, until the day arrives that we actually yearn for it.

Here is our Culloden, what seems a lost cause but in which we must hope.  Here is the haggis that no one wants to eat, but without which our banquet would be incomplete.  Here is Truth, its perfect sound grating against the ears of a world that is used to only noise.

We can no longer afford to be gentlemen.

Mosquitoes, Other People's Children, and My Own Frail Nature

One of my favorite quotes has always been:  "If you think you're too small to be effective, then you have never been in bed with a mosquito."

Fairly self-explanatory, I think, as most of us have had the experience.  I think most of us have also had our George Bailey moments, when we wonder whether we make a difference to anyone, whether our being here is of any significance at all.  Of course, our friends and loved ones are usually anxious to reassure us, and those of us who have faith understand that there is a higher purpose that we cannot yet see, but there are times when we still doubt our own self-worth.

Which brings me to a child who will probably never know the incredible impact he has had on my life.

This started in March.  I overheard a conversation among a group of women that rather distressed me.  They were discussing a baby.  The mother, no longer a young woman, was being advised by her doctor that her unborn child was at enormous risk of being born with myriad disabilities.  His primary basis for this was her age.  He suggested that she consider aborting the child.  The conversation was very matter of fact, full of jokes about being called Grannie should she opt to carry to term, how hard she had worked to lose that last forty pounds, and how thoroughly inconvenient a baby would be with the other children just leaving home.  What made this so particularly horrendous for me was that she was already showing, and was cradling the child between her hands, one above and the other below the obvious bulge in her belly.

I wanted to say something, anything to discourage this woman from killing her child.  Instead, I went back to my office, sat down at my desk, and cried.

I found myself wanting to do something to save this child, to do something that would convince the mother not to do this thing, not to kill her child just because he might not be perfect. I wanted her to understand how damaging this would be to her own soul and happiness.  It wasn't just a matter of killing a baby, but of killing THIS baby, a child that would have a very particular and unique way of looking at the world, a child that might have her eyes, share her birthmarks.  A child that would grow into an amazing individual and make a wonderful parent or spouse, or maybe he would be a gifted artist or musician.  Perhaps he would just be that taciturn fellow who grumbles a lot but can always be counted on to help you start your car on cold mornings, and who always makes sure you're ok after a storm.  There was purpose there, cradled between her hands, a tiny being who could, and would, change the world in his own peculiar way, if she would only let him live.

"A person's a person, no matter how small."

This was a turning point for me.  At first I thought of how horrible it was that these women could discuss abortion so casually, as if it were not a big deal.  Something so evil, so intrinsically wrong, and they were discussing it as if  choosing between paper and plastic, just another decision to be made, another choice in the automat of life.

Then I started thinking of my own choices,  my own sins and weaknesses, most of them more damaging to me than to others, but something inside me suddenly wanted more than absolution.  I found myself needed to make reparation for the harm I had done with some of my stupid decisions over the years, for those things that had changed the course of my life and ultimately, lessened my purpose.  I could, finally, see the end result of my chief sins, and for the first time, I could see their impact in the world immediately around me.

It was a shock, and has led me to make some serious changes in my life, beginning with my prayer life and moving outward into my marriage. From there, it has taken on a momentum of its own, and seems destined to change my life into something it should have been long ago.

It has made me long to be holy.  Not in a pious way that finds me mumbling my beads and muttering prayers, draped in sackcloth and ashes beneath the feet of a gargantuan crucifix, but rather in how I live and in how I approach others.  I want to draw people to God by example, to show them what is good in life and how important life is, how very important life is.   There is so much good in all of us, not perfection, to be sure, but there is no one who does not reflect God in some way, shape or form.  We are all created in His image, in His likeness, and He formed us, each one of us, individually, placing us in our mother's wombs to be cradled as He was, to be born and to fulfill our place in His creation, that which we've already damaged so by our sins, and which we damage again and again in this, the destruction of our children.

And so I cried that day at my desk, drifting eventually into prayer, and from prayer to an examination of conscience that was more painful than anything I'd ever done.   It has brought me closer to the cross, and to God, and has reduced me to needing both in ways that I have never before admitted.

 A beautiful and healthy boy was born a few weeks ago.   He has ten little fingers, ten little toes, an incredible set of lungs and very intelligent eyes just like his mother's, already an influence upon this world, even before he was born.  

Someday, I hope to thank him.

Passionate Pianists, the Propers, and Something More than Taste

My husband is very fond of Chopin.  I, alas, am not.

It is not that I do not recognize the genius of his work, or even the beauty of the music, but to appreciate is not to necessarily enjoy.  I do not take pleasure in listening to Chopin.  

Such music pulls at my emotions and draws up the residual sorrow of the day, making me melancholy and peevish, restless in spirit.  There is no solution to such a mood for me, it spoils me for the company of others.

It leaves me, in a word, distracted.

It is an easy thing to do...distracting me with music.  It was a ploy my mother used often when I was young.  Waking a child is never easy, often entailing repeated attempts that result in general aggravation for all parties concerned.  She called me to the beginning of the day in another way.  She would play the piano, drifting through my favorite things to sing, knowing I would be lured from my bed by an irresistible urge to join her, and invariably, I did.  These are some of my fondest memories of childhood, sitting beside my mother on the piano bench, singing Southern gospel hymns until time to go to school, church, and yes, eventually, even college.

I grew up with this same distraction, readily yielding to it at awkward moments, finding my ear drawn toward music instead of the conversation of those around me and with me, finding it pulling me nostalgically away from the present into a past I would not remember without the intervening tunes that play in my head.  I equate everything with music, there is a melody for every event and every moment, and each one leads naturally to another, plotting the course of my thoughts, of my actions, and of my days.

It is one of the reasons I sing in choir and schola, sometimes acting as cantor or even trying my hand at the direction of music, although I have no great love for the last.  Music is a form of prayer for me, a way of transcending the thoughts of the secular world and reaching a place where there is nothing else but that which the music brings to mind.  Here the distraction is a good thing, it takes me from my everyday thoughts to those of a higher station, focusing my thoughts on the cross, on things eternal, and on the Mass.  It takes me from the mundane, in the most archaic sense of the word, and into the seriousness that is our eternity.

Music is an orderly distraction.  It is defined by clear delineation of tone, recognizable to both eye and ear, to fingers when played upon instruments, to feet in rhythm, to lungs, to throats, to the body as a whole.  It is a participatory art in every possible sense of the word.

In the Mass, it is even more particularly so, one of the many ways that this, my adopted Faith, differs from that of my childhood.

Baptist Hymns were random creatures, a few seasonal in nature, but most were selected much as the scripture of the day was.  Favorites surfaced most frequently, those found to be bland or difficult most often ignored. It was a pleasurable surprise to hear what was to be next on the day's selections, but there was no rhyme or reason in the selection beyond that of the songleader's personal taste.

I must confess, when I first became Catholic, I found this to be much the same, saving that there were more selections labeled as seasonal.   Yet, having been an Anglican in the intervening years between my childhood and my conversion, I had developed an understanding of what was an appropriate selection and what was not.   Much of what I heard was subjective in nature, focusing on the people, or expressing rather weird sentiments of social justice, even the lyrics of the better hymns corrupted for gender neutrality, that rather silly idea that using masculine pronouns was somehow demeaning to women.

I was not sure how to avoid this, how to correct it, how to go about educating those selecting this music that it wasn't worthy of the Sacrament.  I had no position of authority, still don't and have no desire for it, but I wanted the music here to do for my spirituality what music in general does for my life.  I wanted it to edify it, to improve it, to lift my heart unto the Lord.  I didn't need Eagle's Wings for this.  I needed something more ethereal.

Then someone introduced me to chant.

It amazed me to learn that this incredible sense of order existed within the musical world of the Church.  That here was an Introit, designed to focus the congregation on the priest's entry into the sanctuary.  That here was a Kyrie designed to focus our thoughts, not just on our own unworthiness, but on God's Mercy.  The Gloria proclaims in no uncertain terms Whom we are to worship.  The Gradual, the Alleluia and Tract, these frame the scriptures and prepare us to hear them.  Thus the Mass moves forward, each part in its Proper place,  each day with its own music, and each year finds it sounding fresh and familiar, a comforting combination that leads us from the steps of the altar to Calvary, to the victory of the Resurrection, to our own reception of our Lord while the Communion antiphon and verses echo  about us, providing that timelessness that is so like memory, and which is reminiscent of eternity.

Here I wake from worldly pleasures and sit with Our Lady, the ethereal strains of earthly music joining with the celestial ones above.  May God find our offering pleasing, may it distract Him from our failures, and May He show us His Divine Mercy as a sign of His favor.

Kyrie Eleison.  Lord, Have Mercy.  Amen.

Ex Tenebris in Lucem

There is something lovely about the natural interruption of darkness.

There is gentleness about it that doesn't come from Edison's inventions, a subtleness that soothes rather than disrupts, that softly leads the eyes to focus on shadows as they develop into shapes, things becoming visible when once they were invisible.


Light, that which enables us to see, that which dispels the terrors of childhood, that which allows us to go forward into the unknown with more confidence, our steps secure on the path we can see. It removes the need to feel the way before us with our fingers and toes, timidly, nervously, expecting the abyss or the stumbling block that always exists before us when in the dark, if only in our imagination.

Light, that which flickers beautifully in fire, warming our hearths and homes, adding a romantic glow even in the modern age that no longer sees the flames as necessary, but cannot quite abandon that which once separated us from animals, that which alerted nature to our superior intellect and mastery, our ability to create heat and illuminate our world setting us apart in this creation, the burning of oil and tallow allowing us to hold darkness in contempt, to do away with the fears of the night, to increase in learning, in art, to refine our pleasures and prolong our waking hours.


I remember when I first discovered liturgy, how thrilling it was to watch the darkness vanish at my first Christmas midnight service, the pastor of the Anglican Church having the theatrical taste to darken the church during the lessons and carols, entering as we left the dregs of Advent behind, led by candles into a church as he processed with the Christ Child born aloft, the light arriving with Our Infant Lord in a sensory overload, our being compelled to awe by the ritualistic beauty of both language, music, sign, and illumination.

So I became enamored of liturgy, the use of ritual, the comforting familiar sounds and phrases, the candles positioned and weighted, precise in their heights and even in the steadiness of their flames. Then there came the morning sun, illumining the various scenes in the stained glass windows, calling to mind those who were now in the Light, and who began, as we all do, in absolute darkness.

Those were my years of seeing "through a glass darkly".  There was the Light, distant and beautiful, the shadows around me becoming clearer each day, my beliefs, well established from my youth, becoming understood, growing to a fullness of Faith that took me far beyond the simplicity of Mere Christianity into the blazing Light which is Christ Crucified, Christ Resurrected, and Christ again on the altar, exalted and elevated in the Eucharistic Host.

It is a gradual thing, a generous thing, a gift both real and surreal, a promise extended each day to us, providing an eternal hope of a perpetual light that is just beyond us, there on the outskirts of our understanding, but not yet for our sight.

Language has no equal to God before us, He is is seen and unseen, He is welcomed and spurned, consumed and all consuming, exalted at our altars and abased in our world.  It is His Light that awes us, His is the Beauty our souls seek in the darkness that hides it among base pleasures.  

Lumen Christi.  

Reason would have it thus, that there is One Truth, that there is One God.   The Light of the World, the reason we face the East in expectation, the Presence we acknowledge with the subtle glow of a candle, constantly renewed before His altar.

Lumen de Lumine.   


The Light that shines in the Darkness, driving away all doubts and despair, giving us the hope of the life everlasting in the world to come.

Deo Gratias.  Amen. 

Cardinal Newman's Hushed World and a Busy Girl's Blues

Feeling a bit blue tonight.

There's no real reason for it, just the sort of restless disgruntlement that follows a wonderful week of doing what one loves, with the subtle letdown of knowing that one must now return to reality.

Reality, of course, entails a return to one's everyday life...the job, the commute, the news with the fluctuating bias depending on the sources of NPR, CNN or FOX.  It means watching two people eat lunch together while texting other parties, barely noticing the other except to be sure the check is split correctly.  It is listening to the useless debates over who can get married and who can't, as if marriage in the public eye holds any sort of significance at all any longer.  It is watching the rapid decline of common courtesy, human dignity, and viable civilization.

So how would I have it be, in my vastly superior attitudes and wisdom?  What view would I wish to see as I leave the sanctuary of my home and venture forth into society?

I would have the busy world be hushed.

It is one of my favorite expressions, this line from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman.  It conveys a sense of calm, a sense of wonder, a feeling of serenity that he seemed to possess in abundance and could invoke with a few well-chosen words.  It is not a cry for quiet, or for all things external to end, but rather that the senses be dulled to them, that they cease to matter, that we somehow transcend them.  It is one of those things that I somehow consistently fail to do.

One of my goals since Lent has been to improve my prayer life.  To this end, I have started new and somewhat uncomfortable private devotions.  I have set aside time to talk to the Almighty in both His language (Latin) and mine (Southern).  I have sought to befriend His Mother and His more faithful servants.  I have added daily Mass to my weekly routine whenever possible, as well as Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

It is in His Presence that I find the peace that the Blessed Cardinal Newman describes.  Before the altar of God, I find that the world is hushed, that the secular does not speak of its violence and horrors, or even of its pleasures and distractions.  There is no time here.  There is nothing to interfere with simply being in His Presence.

I needn't speak to God.  He needn't speak to me.  Just as I once sat comfortably in silence with my grandmother, enjoying the gentle sounds of her performing her usual tasks, so it is with God.  I can simply sit in His temple, before a monstrance, before the elevated Host, before His tabernacle with its shimmering candle announcing that God is here.  It is enough that He is.  It is enough for Him that I believe this, and that I can linger in silence, content in His company, watching with Him for one hour.  He asks so little of me, and I fail even in that, and even in my longing I fail Him, and so I find myself in sorrow, despising a world that no longer knows Him, not knowing how to correct this, and no longer wishing to be a part of it, even while knowing I must.

I would have a world that yields to quiet contemplation, that gives credence to Beauty and Truth, that applies Reason to its actions.  I would have it filled with that gentleness that seems to be dying away, that "keep calm and carry on" attitude that curbs the hysteria that we see in our daily surroundings.  I would want it to recognize what is good, not necessarily what is perfect, but what is worthy of humanity, what makes it civilized instead of merely human.  It is not enough to be sentient.  It is not enough to educated and enlightened.  The world needs to feel the longing for eternity again.  It needs to recognize that there is something other, something beyond, something greater, and it must mute its own voice to do this, as I must mute mine when in His Presence.

I would have it hushed, if only for a moment, for in that moment, God can place eternity, and the shades will lengthen, and the evening will come, and we will have peace at last.

Canopies, Kyrie, and Credo

Mass IX is my favorite ordinary.

Perhaps this stems from my Anglican days, for we sang this setting in English fairly often, dividing the parts between the men's choir and the women's, or, when available, between the men and the boys...and is there anything lovelier in English choral music than the sight and sound of boys in their choir robes?

It was a sad realization for me, when I first became a Catholic, to say goodbye to that pomp and beauty in the liturgy.  Even though we were being received in a "traditional" parish, there were no choir robes, no grand processions.  Antiphonal meant that the choir sang and a few brave souls in the pews below responded.  The organist provided lovely preludes and postludes, but there seemed to be few occasions for the truly glorious sounds that this instrument can produce...those tones both dulcet and dissonant that proclaim the presence of something greater than what the world can offer.

That was ten years ago.  A decade, as we know from our Rosary, is a powerful thing.  Each year brought changes to our world and to our liturgies.  Yes, there are individuals who refuse to acknowledge that the Church is only in the world and not of it, who have sought, whether with good intention or evil design, to change Her, to force Her sacred shape into a secular garment into which She cannot ever fit.

Tuesday of this week ushered in the next decade for Her.  For the first time in over forty years, the Diocese of Charlotte held a Solemn High Mass, attended by the bishop, bringing back to the Church that sense of ritual that I once thought lost to me, only now made greater for being in the One True Church, in the presence of the Real Presence, as it were.

Here was a canopy prepared for the bishop, heralded in by an organ fanfare of deafening magnitude and emotional depth, the sound indicating that this was an heir to the apostles of the Church, here to bestow his sanction and blessing upon this occasion.  Here the priests processed, draped in beautiful vestments, the acolytes approached the altar with militaristic precision, their movements as sharp as the creases in their cassocks.  Here the people sat in quiet anticipation, witnessing the pageantry and beauty of the Mass as it should be, reverent and beautiful, an occasion of unity, not just with those gathered here, but with all those who have come before us, and all those who will follow.  It was not a static moment, clinging to one place and time, but a consistent and eternal flow, guiding the Church toward her Lord, the anticipation of eternal bliss bound in this ritual, these rites.

It is a common but appropriate image that appeals to me, that of the Church as a Bride...beautiful, reverent, ideal, divine, eternal.  It is an image that inspires anticipation, yearning, and fidelity.  It is a moment in which every aspect of Her countenance should be at its best, from the coverings of Her head to the shoes on Her feet.  Her body, like those of many women, may not be perfect, but She should adorn it well for the occasion of offering it to the Bridegroom, her brocades, her silks and satins, the gold, silver and jewels of Her ancestors draped from Her ears and about Her hands, the glass slippers that fit only Her feet upon them, or perhaps those of ruby that can always take Her home.  She is pure, She is chaste, She is prepared, and She is strong.

She sings to Her Lord as She approaches,  Her introit of Latin keeping pace with Her feet.  She greets His steward with a cry of Ecce Sacerdos  as he goes to the high altar.  She begs the mercy of the Bridegroom's Father as His servants prepare the table, She sings the glories of Her Faith in Gloria and Credo, She chants psalms as She kneels to receive Her Lord, each time a marvel and miracle of grace, a moment that is bittersweet, for it is a foretaste only of Her eternity with Christ, and is all too fleeting here.

This is the moment when She is most set apart from the world, in Her worship.  It is the Mass, a liturgy rich in tradition, firm in promise, divine and holy in its descent from the hands of Christ Himself, His gift to His Bride, His Chosen, His Beloved.

Her Mass is always one of preparation for the moment that She is united with the Bridegroom, when the jeweled cup is held aloft by His servants, when the bread upon which She is to dine is exposed before Heaven, to become the Body and Blood of her King and Lord, and then to be offered to Her, a courtly gift of love that has no equal.  He not only said He would die for Her, He did die for Her, and makes the offering again and again in the rituals that are best suited to so great an occasion.

She is the focus of the pageantry as She travels the aisle toward the altar, but there the attention shifts to what she is accepting, to the Truth that awaits Her there, to the Sacramental graces that descend upon Her and make Her, no longer simply beautiful, but perfect.

Here there is perfect union, never with the world, but only with Her Lord, and She kneels before Him as the echoes die away, the Mass is ended, and She goes forth in peace.