Our Newly Canonized Pope Saints!!

What a wonderful gift to the Church that these two saints are now officially recognized as such.  In heaven, in the presence of Christ, they will certainly be praying for us, and bringing us many blessings.

Saints John Paul II and John XXII, pray for us, bless us and intercede for us to Christ our Lord!

Is Caring for the Poor Optional?

From St. Gregory Nazianzus:

I am terrified by the left hand of the divine Judge, the goats, and his rebukes from his seat on the throne: they are judged and put at his left not because they stole, committed sacrilegious robberies or adulterous acts, or perpetrated some other forbidden act, but because they did not take care of Christ in those in need.

Thank you to Fr. Z for this!

St. Joseph - Protection, Love & Tenderness

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph.  St. Joseph is the chaste spouse of the Virgin Mary, the adoptive father of Christ, the protector of the Church, and the patron saint we chose for our family.  To celebrate, we went to a special Mass in honour of St. Joseph at a Carmelite monastery  nearby.

The feast of St. Joseph is especially important this year since today was the inaugural Mass of Pope Francis, and, as Pope Francis so touchingly points out, the name day of his predecessor, His Holiness Benedect XVI (Joseph Ratzinger.)

The image of St. Joseph (as seen in this post) reflects the combination of protection, strength and decisiveness with obedience, love and tenderness which is so rarely found to that degree in a human being.

Finally, here's an excerpt from Pope Francis' homily given during his inaugural Mass:

 

Today, together with the feast of Saint Joseph, we are celebrating the beginning of the ministry of the new Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Peter, which also involves a certain power. Certainly, Jesus Christ conferred power upon Peter, but what sort of power was it? Jesus’ three questions to Peter about love are followed by three commands: feed my lambs, feed my sheep. Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross. He must be inspired by the lowly, concrete and faithful service which marked Saint Joseph and, like him, he must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-46). Only those who serve with love are able to protect!

Read the full homily here.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Church, Playa del Carmen

Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Playa del Carmen

The parish where I first saw joining the Catholic Church a real, feasible action was the parish church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Playa del Carmen (Paroquia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe.)  This church (both the building and the people) holds a special place in my heart.  It was (and still is) like a home along the journey.  Perhaps it could be compared to Rivendell somewhat; it's not the destination of the journey, nor is it Paradise or even the most important place in the journey, but it has offered me a place and time of rest, consolation and safety along an otherwise perilous road.

Nestled in the middle of Playa del Carmen's first (and least reputable) slum, its off-white steeple with stain-glassed windows rises above half-built concrete homes with fiberglass roofs, haphazard stores, taco carts and greasy little restaurants where thick smoke pours out of the chimneys from the chicken roasters.

The building itself is beautiful.  This is not because of the contrast to the slum around it; in fact, it would probably be more beautiful standing by itself or in a large spacious yard so you could actually see the whole thing.  But the surrounding neighbourhood is part of the church, as the church is part of it.  Many of the people who worship there live in these homes and the parish offers (to all who seek it) care, education, teaching in the Faith, blessings and the Sacraments of the Church.  The old Irish priest who started the parish about 20 years ago is respected and called "Father" by everyone I know of.  My point is; the parish and the community are inseparable.


Likewise, the building and the beautiful things which have happened there are closely bound to each other.

I think the building would be described as a neo-mission style. (Excuse the out-of-focus images; I'm getting used to using a completely manual lense.)

The Sanctuary

The main image, below the crucifix, is the Virgin of Guadalupe (patroness of the parish, and, of course, Mother of the Church), the Virgin Mary as she appeared to a native at the time of the Spanish Conquest. On each side of the image of the Virgin, you will see:

Christ as a Child with St. Joseph (the patron of our family.)

St. Juan Diego, the native Mexican to whom the Virgin Mary appeared.

 For nearly 2 decades the church was without windows.  Now, little by little, stained glass is being installed:

The steeple, looking south.

The 8 windows in the steeple and the two windows below it depict the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe appearing to St. Juan Diego.  The large one in the picture above shows the Virgin Mary giving the saint roses.  The bishop had been doubting that these appearances actually happened, so the Virgin Mary gave the roses as a sign to be brought to the bishop; at that time roses didn't exist in the area where the appearance took place (Mexico City), so the only explanation could be a miracle.

St. Juan Diego, showing the roses to the doubters. (Below the steeple, south)

Archangel Michael (north side, next to the sanctuary)

This is newest stained glass image, installed this summer, entitled, "Who is like God?"  The words of the Archangel Michael as he casts Satan from Heaven, who had claimed to be like God. (The anguished face of Satan is hidden behind the woman singing in the choir.  But you can see his wings.)

East end, opposite the sanctuary

This image is also dear to our family; St. Joseph, Christ and the Virgin Mary as the Holy Family.

The lower row of windows throughout the nave of the church still do not have glass; however, the upper row of 12 windows (6 on each side) offers some of the titles of the Virgin Mary.  My favourite is this one:

 "Refuge of Sinners"

 

One of the Stations of the Cross

One of the confessionals (There's one on each side, near the back entrance.  Confession is heard during Mass.)

A view from the main entrance, looking towards the sanctuary.

The main entrance.

 The tables in the foreground are where homeless people, low-income workers eat during the week.

Side entrance (north side)

West end of the building.

Another image of the face of the Virgin of Guadalupe can be seen above the windows of the church offices.  The blue tarp is the area where people eat breakfast after Mass. (It's redundant and pointless to call it "socializing" or "fellowship;" for Mexicans every time you eat it's socializing and fellowship!)

This area is actually the plaza which serves primarily as the patio for the parish school, of which I didn't take pictures.  The school will need a post in itself.

St. George Kills the Dragon

I recently realized that my 4-year-old son didn’t realize that dragons are bad.  Over the past while, he has taken a liking to reading parts of the Hobbit. Instead of reading from beginning to end, he chooses the part we’re going to read by looking at the maps or drawings in the book, asking about different things he sees, and then requesting to read a part of the book about the item that caught his interest.

From early on, he was intrigued by the dragons he saw on the maps (Thror’s map, etc.)  So we’ve spent a good deal of time reading about the dragon. We first read the chapter where Bilbo enters the mountain for the first time and chats with Smaug the dragon.  So far so good.  My son asked to repeat this chapter various times, since he enjoyed it and he likes the illustration at the beginning of the chapter (a water painting by Tolkien himself.)

After a while I convinced him that we could read another part about the same dragon.  So, I read the part in which Smaug flies out to the lake town, destroys it, and is finally killed by the archer Bard, crashing down on top of the town itself into the lake.

At this point, my son perked up, looked at me and eagerly asked, “What happened to the dragon?”

“Well, he died,” I explained. “The archer shot him with an arrow, and he fell into the lake.”

“Why?” he asked.  I saw a sad expression on his face and tears started gathering in his eyes.  He was sad that the dragon had died.  I realized at this point that he didn’t know the dragon was evil.  So I explained that the dragon was destroying the town and killing people, so the archer had to shoot him to save the town.  He thought about it, but still looked doubtful and sad.

After putting the book away I thought about it, and remembered why he was sad about the death of the dragon.  The only dragon he had known of so far was the dragon in Shrek, who was a standard fairy tale dragon guarding a trapped princess to start, but turned out to be a sensitive being who falls in love with Donkey.  In the end, she helps save the day and is clearly one of the protagonists and heroes of the story.

Shrek is slightly different from the trash stories about vampires and werewolves that so many people like now (and have really nothing to do with vampires or werewolves); Shrek is a light-hearted spoof; it takes knowledge of standard fairy tales for granted and turns the stories on their heads.  It’s not a story to be taken seriously, but it has it’s humour about it, for those who know the fairy tales.  However, there’s one major problem with the idea; children don’t know the original fairy tales any more.  My generation, for the most most part, does.  We at least saw the Disney versions of fairy tales (as deficient as they are), and the watered down children’s books that are based on illustrations rather than narrative, even if we never got anything better.  At least we have some idea of how they work.  However, my generation of parents isn’t giving fairy tales to their children – not even the watered down versions.  Children think Shrek is funny, but they don’t understand that it’s making fun of another genre of stories.  It’s a genre they don’t know.  They don’t know that the dragon is a spoof on fairy tale dragons who kill heroes; the king she kills is unmanly wimp, and a mean one at that.

Shrek isn’t really important, but it was the cause of my son’s fair tale confusion; he got the spoof without getting the original, and simply thought that’s how dragons were.  The next day he asked for the same passage of the Hobbit again.  This time, I especially pointed out that this was a different kind of dragon from the one in Shrek, a bad one.  He listened carefully.

“That dragon was breaking houses, right?” he asked. “He was bad, right?”  He wasn’t sad this time, and seemed to understand what was happening somewhat.  Since then, we’ve read this chapter a few times, and re-read the previous one, placing some special emphasis on the greedy nature of the dragon as well (I point out the big pile of gold he sleeps on and that it was stolen.)

My son learned that dragons are bad just on time; shortly afterwards a friend gave us an icon of St. George killing the dragon.  Examining the icon, he pointed out to me, “This dragon is bad, like the one in The Hobbit.  He’s not a good one like in Shrek.  That’s why St. George is killing it.”

The icon and St. George are, of course, far more important than the fairy tales, yet The Hobbit helped give him some sort of understanding of what was going on.

The icon has a special meaning (in a double sense) for my son.