Everybody Talks About Daylight Savings Time, but Nobody Ever Does Anything About It

With apologies to Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that short night.

Our age should burn and rave this lessened day;

Rage, rage against this ludicrous Spring rite.

Though we are pow'rless over wing'd time's flight,

Our Time Lords shun the rule of old Sol's ray;

Do not go gentle into that short night.

Aurora wonders at sad mortals' plight,

What dawns on men who think to hold time sway?

Rage, rage against this ludicrous Spring rite.

And Helios in his chariot laughs outright.

Shouts Sol Invictus who bids longer day,

“Do not go gentle into that short night.”

What fools those men who think that they have might

To quicken pace of time or it belay.

Rage, rage against this ludicrous Spring rite.

And you who slumber sound, your given right,

When you are 'wakened when you still would lay,

Do not go gentle into that short night,

Rage, rage against this ludicrous Spring rite.

                                                 Janet Cupo

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The clock pictured above belonged to my father, and hangs over the mantel of my resurrected living room. If you look carefully, you will see that it does not show the same time as the anniversary clock on the mantel, which was given to us when we married 42 years ago. At this point, both of the clocks are correct twice a day. The anniversary clock stopped shortly after our first anniversary, but that, fortunately, was not prophetic. (Well, after all, it is an anniversary clock and not an anniversaries clock.) The big clock works, but it makes a loud sound. My husband likes this. It makes me crazy.

I wish you could see the marquetry on the clock better. If you click on the picture, you can see it a bit better.

AMDG

St. Martin de Porres

Most humble Martin de Porres, your burning charity embraced not only the poor and needy but even the animals of the field. For your splendid example of charity, we honour you and invoke your help. From your place in heaven, hear the requests of your needy brethren, so that, by imitating your virtues we may live contentedly in that state in which God has placed us. And carrying our cross with strength and courage, may we follow in the footsteps of our blessed Redeemer and his most sorrowful mother, so that at last we may reach the kingdom of heaven through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

As some of you know, I have a link to a novena to St. Martin de Porres on the sidebar. Every single day that I've ever checked the stats, there has been at least one person who has reached this blog by doing a Google search for St. Martin--often there will be 6 or 7. Even when I go long periods of time without posting, I get comments from people about St. Martin--usually something brief. Up until recently, most of what I knew came from a children's biography that I read to my daughter, St. Martin de Porres, the Story of the Little Doctor of Lima, Peru, by Mary Fabyan Windeatt, and various things that I've read online.

Then, a couple of months ago I finally read a book that I picked up at a book sale long ago, Saint Martin de Porres, Apostle of Charity, by Giuliana Cavallini. While I was reading the book, I couldn't help but notice that Ms. Cavallini refers to St. Catherine of Sienna constantly, and so it was no surprise to me to find that she was chiefly known for her scholarship concerning St. Catherine. She was apparently very well know in her field, in fact, there is a letter to her on the Vatican website from John Paul II congratulating her on an award that she had won because of her research.

Her study of Martin is drawn from the testimony given during his canonization process. There was a great deal of information because even though he was not canonized until 1963, there were official investigations into his sanctity very soon after his death when many people who knew him were still living. I had wondered when I read the children's book about St. Martin if it was accurate, and I find that in every case it was.

I started to write this post two or three weeks ago, but there was so much I wanted to say that it was overwhelming. Then the other day, it occurred to me that instead of trying to write it all at once, I could use the novena prayers as a spring board and talk about one aspect of Martin's life every day. I probably won't write about him on 10 (including this introduction) consecutive days, but who knows.

The prayer at the beginning of this post is the prayer that begins each day of the novena. Bill and I have prayed this novena over and over again on our way to work in the morning ever since 2008, so I have said this prayer hundreds of times. It sounds like you typical novena prayer, but it wasn't until I read Ms. Cavallini's book that I began to understand how splendid his example of charity really was, or how very difficult it would be to imitate his virtues. Likewise, the daily prayers seem pretty standard, but I've come to see that they barely give one a glance of St. Martin's life. I hope that what I write in the next couple of weeks will bring him to life for you a bit.

The above picture is over the door which separates the sanctuary of St. Peter's Catholic Church in Memphis from the Shrine of St. Martin. The painting is based on a statue that's in the chapel. I don't get to go there often because it's 40 miles from my home, and it's almost always locked except for the the daily Mass at noon on weekdays. It's a very lovely little chapel, very simple and conducive to prayer. If any of you ever come to Memphis, I will take you there.

AMDG

Thursday After Ash Wednesday

It was another unbelievably busy day at work, then babysitting after work, and then more work that came home with me. Once again, I'm sitting here typing when I ought to be in bed. So, I'll be brief.

Several months ago I volunteered to be the lector at a funeral because the family didn't have anyone that wanted to read, and this led to my being a frequent lector for daily Mass. It's been nice because I pay much more attention to the readings than I might if I were in my usual distracted state in the pew.

Today, I'm struck by the juxtaposition of the readings from Deuteronomy 30 and Luke 9. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells us:

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

And Jesus says:

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

We have to choose life over death, but the life we choose is much more than, " a long life for you to to live on the land," and can only be reached through death. We choose life by choosing the cross. 

And while I'm thinking about it, it's time for 40 Days for Life in many cities, which is a great way to choose life and pick up your cross. I've mentioned before what a great resistance I had to doing this, but I think if you volunteer for just one hour, you will see it in a whole different light. The website says the event is taking place in 253 communities. You can read more about it and maybe sign up here. If you don't want to pray in front of a clinic, please pray at home.

AMDG

The End of the Day...And a Little Off-Center

I had hoped to begin this post with a picture of my ash-blessed forehead with its little smudge centered neatly over my left eye. I think that my good friend who placed them there was too gentlemanly to move my hair out of the way. Unfortunately, my phone was set to save the picture on itself instead of on the memory card, so the only way I can retrieve it is to email it to myself, and I can't email from my house, so you will just have to use your imagination. It was probably an apt symbol for my day.

I had great plans for Ash Wednesday, I really did, but an eclectic collection of circumstances contrived to prevent them from becoming reality. For instance, I had promised myself that I would write something fairly substantial (if not lengthy) on this blog every day during Lent, and I find myself on the very first day with very little time and less ability to concentrate. None of this was my own fault, or indeed, anybody's fault. It's just the way things worked out. Of course, if I had given it a bit more thought, I would have realized that today was likely to turn out the way it did. 

What worries me about all this is that it has the potential to undermine all of Lent for me if I let it. I've always been a sucker for the suggestion that if you don't begin something perfectly, you might as well give up. When we were first married, Bill used to laugh at me because when I made a mistake on something I was writing, even if it was on the first word, I would throw the piece of paper away and begin again. I got over that a long time ago, but still, if I don't start on January 1, or Monday, or by some arbitrary deadline, it's hard to believe that it's worth starting anyway. Whoops! Messed up Ash Wednesday. Well, better luck next Lent.

Once, about twenty years ago, I was able to observe this way of thinking taken to sad and obsessive lengths. I had observed a young woman at Mass who was never still. She was constantly flipping her hair over her shoulders, or adjusting herself in some other way. Then one night, she was in the adoration chapel during my hour. She asked me if I would say the Rosary with her because she wouldn't be able to finish if she said it alone. Every time she made a mistake, or a perceived mistake, she would have to begin again with the Creed. I was worried that we would make a mistake and I would be stuck there all night, but somehow we made it through. The experience was rather frightening, though, because I could see how close some of my behaviours were to hers. I realized that if I didn't put a stop to it, I could easily slip over the edge.

So I guess I'll just have to persevere in my efforts and see what I can do in the next 39 days (We're not going to quibble here about it being really more than 39 days.) This makes perfect sense because the one thing that we learn from Our Lord's Passion and Resurrection is that if we mess up the first time around, He makes it better than it would have been to begin with. Also, there's this encouragement from St. John Chrysostom's Easter Homily.

If any have toiled from the first hour,

let them receive their due reward;

If any have come after the third hour,

let him with gratitude join in the Feast!

And he that arrived after the sixth hour,

let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.

And if any delayed until the ninth hour,

let him not hesitate; but let him come too.

And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,

let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,

as well as to him that toiled from the first.

AMDG

Switching Roles

I'm writing this from a hospital room where I am waiting for my husband to return from cataract surgery. I've been to the hospital as a companion/driver for my mother and one of my daughters, but this is the first time I've been with my husband. While I have been in hospital for one thing or another something like 14 times since we have been married, this is the first time he has had surgery. But wait. I just remembered that once a long time ago, he participated in a study and I had to sit with him then. Still, it's odd to be on the other side, sitting in an empty room and waiting. 

Empty, of course, because they take the bed with the patient. There's an patient-less room next door with a bed that looks awfully tempting, since we left home at 5:15 a.m., but I will restrain myself. If I mess up the bed, they might charge me $5K for the room.

I'm not going to write much more, because it occurs to me that my time might be better spent in praying for Bill, but I did want to mention one more thing. For some reason, Blogger does not have a Recent Comments widget anymore, so when visitors come to the blog, they can't tell if anyone has said anything lately, and if the comment was made on an old post, no one ever sees it. This is okay, except that often people find this blog because of the St. Martin de Porres novena, and sometimes they ask for prayer. So, if those of you who visit on a regular basis would check that page on the sidebar occasionally to see if there's a prayer request there, I would appreciate it. There's one there now from yesterday. And, of course, please say a prayer for Bill. I'm not worried, but as I have found out, you never know.

AMDG

Running Toward Lent

Every year about this time, I begin yearning for Lent. It can't get here fast enough for me. I always feel as if I'm hung all about with rags and in need of washing, and I can't begin to get cleaned up until Ash Wednesday.

You would think that I could just go ahead and get a head start on things, but it just doesn't work. It seems to me, and I'm pretty sure I'm correct in thinking so, that the season of Lent enables us to do things we could never do before. Suddenly, I can go without salt, or get up early to pray, or quit playing Free Cell, or all sorts of things that sound good like a good idea, but never quite pan out in Ordinary Time. Things that seemed impossible before become almost easy. I'm not saying that it's easy to not eat salt, but that it's easier to persevere in not eating salt. (You can see that I'm being haunted by the specter of salt-less days.)

There is one thing that is really difficult for me in Lent, and that is meatless Fridays. This is peculiar because: a) I actually like meatless meals and it's not unusual for me to go without meat more than one day a week, and b) I hardly ever eat meat on Fridays anyway. Still, Fridays in Lent seem to come with their own penitential burden. For five days a week for eight years, Bill and I passed by a restaurant that was cooking barbeque on our way home. On 253 days a year, we sailed past without even noticing. Then came the first Friday in Lent and we would both say at the same moment, "Oooh, that smells sooo good," and thus it went through Good Friday. 

I'll also add--just to make your Lent a little more punishing--that while I was looking on the USCCB website for the officially worded rules about fast and abstinence for the bulletin, I found a Q&A page that went counter to what I've heard about Sundays in Lent in recent years. 

Apart from the prescribed days of fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and the days of abstinence every Friday of Lent, Catholics have traditionally chosen additional penitential practices for the whole Time of Lent. These practices are disciplinary in nature and often more effective if they are continuous, i.e., kept on Sundays as well. That being said, such practices are not regulated by the Church, but by individual conscience.

Try not to hate me. Actually, it doesn't say that you must give up those things on Sunday, but still I will have it in the back of mind nagging at me.

In case anyone is interested, there is a link to the meditations on the Stations of the Cross that I wrote in 2012 on the sidebar.

AMDG