The Anchoress

You’ll note the ad for VISION Vocation Match at the right sidebar. They were recently profiled on CBS Evening News (you have to go here and press the “Featured on CBS News” button) as part of a story on late vocations to the priesthood, and on how the church in America is hopeful that the visit of Pope Benedict XVI will help inspire more people to consider the priesthood or religious life.

That is not a completely silly hope. If you scroll down a bit at Roman Catholic Vocations (the blog has a long intro section) you’ll find this story about a fellow who is about to be ordained thanks to seeing John Paul II with about 800,000 other people, during the remarkable 2002 World Youth gathering in Toronto, which so energized the ailing pontiff. And it is almost commonplace to hear young sisters and nuns talk about how they heard the call for their own vocations during a papal visit to their country, or a WYD.

Actually, the Diocese in NYC is reporting a “tsunami” of inquiries and applicants for the priesthood since Benedict’s visit. This is a good thing.

In other news, Benedict has ordained an Iraqi. Recall last year we began to see Christian Iraqis coming home and practicing the faith, encouraged by their Muslim neighbors.

The very interesting Rosalind Moss, a Catholic convert who was born into a non-religious Jewish household, then became an Evangelical Christian before crossing the Tiber, is forming a completely new religious order in St. Louis, Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope. She’s describing a fully habited, traditional order contemplative/active, meaning they will have a strong commitment to and basis in prayer - both in community and privately - but also a charism “in the world.” This will be interesting to watch. There are quite a few new religious communities (both male and female) emerging - and all of them seem to be reclaiming some of the devotions and counter-cultural trappings that were lost in the 1970’s (all while keeping technologically current - but Moss’s seems to me to be one to really keep an eye on. They’re not all about youngsters, either.

And monastics are going gangbusters, too, with the strictest of orders desperate to knock down walls and add cells for incoming vocations. This gang gets four new postulants this summer.

Karen Hall is joking around on her blog that when her husband dies, she is becoming a Carmelite. What’s weird is, I hear that “when my husband dies, I’m becoming a nun” stuff from more women than you’d suspect, lately. And it is becoming less rare all the time.

As I wrote back here:

“Contemplatives want to do the work of active orders, the active orders of lay people,” said Abbot Bernard.

“Perhaps the lay people will turn to contemplation,” said Abbess Catherine.

“Then they will need the very grilles your progressives are seeking to take down; renew the solitude and silence, the prayer we are letting decay with all this busyness. They should read the Rule - and the Council documents that tell us to go back to our sources - but it seems they cannot read anymore, not with their minds.”

“Yes. They have forgotten the meaning of things,” said Dame Agnes.
- In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden, published 1969.

Everything goes around, like a wheel, back and forth, like a pendulum. Every movement inspires a correcting movement. That’s how things stay balanced.

see more crazy cat pics

The other day - for reasons I don’t understand - I tripped through the blogosphere Q & A style, and people seemed to like that.

So, here are some more:

Q: What is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s motto for this session of Congress?

A: Well, I am not privvy to the great-woman’s thoughts, but it would appear to be, “Mr. President, tear down any economic advantages you might be pursuing for us, and while you’re at it, please make us as vulnerable to the oil-producing nations as you possibly can. Also, get this stuff put into the bible, ASAP!”

Q: Bill Clinton said Saddam had nukes, but it turned out he didn’t. But that wasn’t a lie, like it was when Clinton and all Democrats Bush said Saddam had WMD…but now it looks like Syria had gotten ‘em, somehow and um…North Korea helped. But I thought North Korea was on board with the Clinton/Albright “framework” which was all “we give you nuke stuff and you stop making war noises and go dance a foxtrot with Maddy” or something and now…how…what?

A: I know, I know, it’s confusing. I don’t fully understand it either but Syria and NoKo were building something bad - heaven only knows how they got the materials - and Israel had to go over there and blow the thing up for us, which they did, Shalom, Israel! There is only one narrative you have to take out of this whole strange story: George Bush cannot pronounce the word “nuclear” and so obviously, this was, is and always will be his moronic fault and failing.

Q: If Obama has to talk about his Weather Underground pal, shouldn’t Hillary have to talk about her husband’s Weather Underground pardons?

A: Now, you stop picking on Hillary, she never knew what Bill was up to in that Oval Office because she was, you know, dodging sniper fire and solving the troubles in Northern Ireland! And besides, Bill pardoned a-lots of people and some other far worse terrorists, so, you know, you be cool. Nobody wants to hear that crap! Besides, the Clintons version 2.0 is totally transparent-like and Hillary’s all down with Mary and stuff, right now.

Q: If you don’t support Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy, does that automatically mean that you are suffering from a toxic form of cynicism?

A: Of course not. If you don’t support Barack Obama it means you are a racist; unless you are a woman over 55, in which case you are both racist and age-ist and a man-hating victim of oppression who wears comfortable shoes. And as far as I am concerned, and I don’t care who knows it - there is NOTHING WRONG WITH WEARING COMFORTABLE SHOES. I do so, myself, and I have pretty feet, with no corns or bunions.

Q: What’s the deal with these monks getting a recording contract and now these singing priests and all that? Are those damn Catholics fixing to infiltrate popular culture again? Is a remake of Going My Way in our future?

A: As to “Going My Way,” never having been a fan of Der Bingel, I hope not. As to the rest of it, I highly doubt that Hollywood will be expending any dough making inspiring or uplifting stories including beautiful and efficient nuns who impact wayward girls, or manly, faithful priests who make a difference, when the more negative and sensational stereotypes - though unprofitable - are so very tantalizing and much more in line with their bleak worldview, which permits neither wonder nor joy. Although, if a buck is to be made, all bets may be off. “Toxic Cynicism” is more rampant in the entertainment industry than in Washington DC, although it’s a near thing.

Q: Is there any good news coming out of Iraq? Or Afghanistan?

A: Yes and yes. And yes.

Q: Is Jimmy Carter (for whom you voted in 1976) the most repellent ex-president, ever?

A: Gosh, let me think. Bill Clinton went overseas and criticized our efforts in Iraq, but he’s still Bill, you gotta love/hate him; and Jimmy Carter has said much worse things and may be in violation of the Logan act, besides, so yes. I say yes.

Q: Are “peace” activists really peaceful people?

A: Some are. I have on my desk a review copy of a book by a Jesuit priest who is so pacific he’s making me feel clammy, but having lived through 1968 and that whole era where people went around glassy-eyed saying, “Peace! Love, man,” while saying and doing some profoundly graceless and unpeaceable things, I’d say, a lot of them are just phoneys looking to belong to something, or for something to be angry about.

Q: Is Cinnamon the new cure-all that’s “good for what ails you?”

A: I’m sorry, your urethra cannot like it!

Q: On a personal note: cats or dogs?

A: I like them both very much, but there are differences.

If you’ve never read the remarkable book The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, you really should consider it. It’s not just for Catholics; it is a tremendously readable autobiography of a brilliant man on spiritual sojourn. One of those books you pick up and have difficulty putting down. I quote some of the book - and share how it made me think.

Here is a video about Merton and the evolution of the book

My L’il Bro Thom and I were remembering that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith it was evidently part of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s job to read all of the distressing and detailed reports coming from the US as the church investigated the pederasty scandals which roiled us in 2002. Upon becoming pope one of the first remarks Benedict made pertained to “rid the church of filth”. Only Andrew Sullivan seemed not to have understood Benedict’s meaning.

Today, before he has even landed, the pope has expressed the feelings of all of us re this matter:

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday he was “deeply ashamed” of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and will work to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood…Benedict spoke in English on a special Alitalia flight from Rome to Washington, answering questions submitted by reporters in advance.

“It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.”

“I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” the pope said.

Benedict pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Catholic Church….”It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”

Actually, although those who use these terrible scandals as a justification for unending hate will not acknowledge it, the church has taken serious action to prevent such abuses in the future, and the writers and watchdogs for these “zero-tolerance” policies are the laity, themselves, and the serious scrutiny is not limited to clergy; lay volunteers and ministers are all checked out and - at least in most diocese - must undergo a training session to spot and report anything that seems remotely suspicious to them.

Fortunately, the pederasty scandals have not specifically impacted vocations to the priesthood, says James Martin, SJ. In America, as elsewhere, vocations are slowly rising, although as Deacon Greg points out here, you wouldn’t notice it in coastal America. Our midwestern and southern seminaries are bursting, but on both coasts, things look unpromising, and most of our priests are now coming to us from Nigeria, India, China, Central America, Poland and the Philippians. That says more about our materialistic society, I think, than about the priesthood itself. A while back I wrote:

Common sense says the numbers will continue to very swiftly drop for the next 5-10 years, as the vowed religious from the pre-Vatican II heyday of vocations (more priests, nuns and monks from 1930-1960 than ever before or since in the history of the world) begin to reach their culminations and die.

Articles like this stay focused on that huge mid-twentieth century aberration and neglect the truth that religious vocations are a radical and counter-cultural way of living that have - by necessity and design - always been “minority” lifestyles, lives lived in service to the church and the rest of the world. So, really, things are simply returning back to “normal” in a manner of speaking.

I read somewhere - I think it was at National Review, but I can’t find it - that worldwide there are more seminarians now than at any time since 1961. If I can find that link I’ll post it.

Meanwhile, Benedict has a heavy 6 day visit before him, and he’s no spring chicken. I suspect travel does not energize him as it did his predecessor:

Benedict is known as an intellectual and introvert.

“He doesn’t quite get the same energy from crowds that John Paul II got,” said Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “John Paul II was extroverted and got energy talking to people, and the present Holy Father loses energy. He has to rest between all these encounters.”

Any introvert will understand that; I sure do, and I sympathize.

Inside Catholic notes that nothing Benedict says will ever please everyone.

Mosaic of Sts. Perpetua & Felicity, Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC

Thanks to Bender, today we read a most interesting and impressive story.

St. Perpetua and her friend St. Felicity were martyred in Rome; Perpetua, who was nursing her infant, left what is believed to be the first autobiographical diary written by a woman, of her time of oppression for her Christianity:

. I suckled my child, which was now enfeebled with hunger. In my anxiety for it, I addressed my mother and comforted my brother, and commended to their care my son. I was languishing because I had seen them languishing on my account. Such solicitude I suffered for many days, and I obtained for my infant to remain in the dungeon with me; and forthwith I grew strong and was relieved from distress and anxiety about my infant; and the dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere.
2.1. After a few days there prevailed a report that we should be heard. And then my father came to me from the city, worn out with anxiety. He came up to me, that he might cast me down, saying, “Have pity my daughter, on my grey hairs. Have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be called a father by you. . . . Lay aside your courage, and do not bring us all to destruction; for none of us will speak in freedom if you should suffer anything.” These things said my father in his affection, kissing my hands, and throwing himself at my feet; and with tears he called me not Daughter, but Lady. And I grieved over the grey hairs of my father, that he alone of all my family would not rejoice over my passion. And I comforted him, saying, “On that scaffold whatever God wills shall happen. For know that we are not placed in our own power, but in that of God.” And he departed from me in sorrow.

More an their martyrdoms, here.

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity are among our most honored of Saints; they are included in the Litany of Saints along with Mary and Michael the Archangel and the better-known heroes of the faith, Mary Magdalene, Francis, Dominic, Teresa of Avila, Catherine, etc.

It always amuses me when I hear the “DaVinci Code” nonsense about how the Catholic Church “suppressed” the holiness and heroism of its women. From the first, the Church empowered women and freed them in ways that had been unimaginable before - and yes it has honored these women equally. The Virgin Martyrs - so often treated to disdainful snorts in an age that can only jeer at virgins and think ill of them - were women who declared themselves “free in Christ” and thus no one’s chattel or bargaining chip. At a time when women were wives or whores and not much else, they said they were something else entirely and consecrated themselves to Christ and put themselves to use in His service, all of their own free will. Women like Perpetua and Felicity died rather than have their consciences dictated to them.

In a way, that is “true” freedom - the freedom to declare oneself and be oneself, no matter the cost, and cost it does.

As I wrote a while back:

…Heavens! Anyone can serve in full-time ministry if they really want to - without ever being ordained. I’m thinking of some of the great women of our so-called ’sexist’ church who managed, without ordination, to minister autonomously and so effectively that they renewed the face of the church. Catherine of Siena counseled not only the lay men and women around her but the pope as well - while writing extraordinary treatises. Theresa of Avila managed to reform an order, to build scores of monasteries for both men and women, without waiting around for someone to tell her she could, and without insisting that her own terms be met before she could give her all. It was the same with Hildegard of Bingen, who only wrote music, plays, books on medicine and so much more, in an era where women – at least secular women - didn’t aspire to such things because the secular world was not open to it, as the church was.

And dare I point out - though none of these women spoke from a pulpit, their words still echo and reverberate - their voices were never silent. While it’s easy to label the church ’sexist’ I am not entirely certain she has earned the name. Since the dawn of Christianity, within the church, women were educating themselves and others, writing books, imagining and then building schools, hospitals, policies and procedures. These were women of unqualified brilliance who understood that their calling - all of our callings - began with ONE calling, the most fundamental: to love, and to - out of love - do that which we can do, humbly and with gratitude.

Perpetua and Felicity were fore-runners of the Christian woman who was neither virgin or nun but still consecrated to Christ by virtue of faith. Today I ask them to pray for all of us modern women (and men!) living in the secular world, to help us stay strong in faith, and courageous when life seems particularly hard and unjust!

Slightly off-topic, reader Nora sends this video of a fast-growing order of new Catholic sisters.

Related:
John Paul II and Women
More Debunking of the JPII held-back-women myth
Prod Mary
It starts not with a give me, but with a please take
Jaw-Droppingly Stupid and Offensive
Our Lady of the Air Kiss
St. Catherine and Manly Men
A Word from St. Catherine of Siena

I’ve been so fortunate as to pick up a few ads for the blog, and I always like to give my advertisers a mention. Note, if you’re thinking about becoming a nun or priest, there’s an ad up about it at the top of the right-hand column!

The Vision site is unusual, I think, in that it works like one of those relationship e-match sites, only it tries to survey you and help you find the religious community that suits your needs and interests. Once upon a time, if you had a hankering for that life, you just joined up with the nearest vowed gang in the neighborhood. Pretty interesting, this modern world of ours.

Of course, you see my monk coffee ad - I can’t say enough about that coffee; the smoothness got me through my ’sugarless coffee’ Lent! I would be interested to know what those of you who have ordered it think; do you like it as much as I do? As with Amazon, when you order through that link, I get some appreciated pennies in my coffer, so I thank you!

Finally, a word about the new “Wedding Labels” ad ; it is actually part of a site called My Own Labels (you see the text below the ad) and it is for more than wedding labels, but none of their other banners fit my sidebar (see below) They also create CD Labels, Wine and Beer labels (for you folks who brew your own), and canning or craft labels - all sorts of labels! I never knew there were so many ways to label things! I love the site and enjoy exploring all they offer, including recipes and gift-packaging ideas. This is becoming my favorite site; I’ll likely be ordering some bookplates from them as a gift for someone. As with the monk coffee, heading over there through here makes the tin cup clink, clink, clink, and I thank you!

It must be a wonderful thing to receive your holy habit just before Easter.

Over at Moniales, the Dominican Nuns share a video of a bit of celebrating the investitures of Sr. Deepa and Sr. Giang, now Sr. Veronica Marie and Sr. Joseph Maria, respectively. Very cute to see Sr. Veronica not quite used to responding to her new name. I guess that can take a while.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, we see a slideshow; three Sr. Maralisa, Sr. Julianna and Sr. Marie Rachel receive the habit of the Carmelites of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus of Los Angeles. These “active” Carmelites take the habit in the last few months of their novitiate, so they will be making their first vows in just a little while. The cake is adorable. Seems like an especially happy community. Their blog post is here.

The Dominican nuns of Summit, NJ come into Holy week with two new novices.

Let us pray for Sr. Veronica Marie and Sr. Joseph Maria and for their families!

Fr. Corapi hears his own father’s confession:

Yesterday I extolled to you the wonders of Mystic Monk Coffee (I am enjoying a hearty mid-day cup right now); today I bring you another Easter/Mother’s Day gift idea: Nun Soap.

A New Jersey paper is writing up the bubbly efforts of the good Dominican Nuns at Summit, (whose prayers support us all) as they supplement their income with the craft.

Sister Mary Catharine said the nuns have experienced a fair amount of trial and error since they launched sales of the soap last fall in the small gift shop in the vestibule at the shrine, at the corner of Springfield and Morris avenues, a block west of downtown. Currently 21 sisters reside there.

As an example of mistakes that turned into learning experiences, the sisters offered the tale of the first attempt at swirling.

“Well,” Sister Mary Catharine asked, “can you picture a shop rag? It turned out sort of gray, like solidified toothpaste. After awhile, though, you just get to know how to do it.” Sales slowed down after the holidays, and these days they make soap about once a week, with plans to launch new scents in time for spring and Mother’s Day.

Hmmm…can’t wait to see what they’ve got up their sleeves!

I’ve used the soaps and like them very much; my husband takes them gentlemen’s scents with him in his gym and travel bags, so he always smells nice when he comes home!

And since we’re talking nuns and monks, Deacon Greg highlights a piece on the role parents play in forming these necessary folk, and Roman Catholic Vocations (scroll down a bit) has a piece on the surprising and heartening uptick in those numbers.

Gerald informs us that Padre Pio has been exhumed and looks pretty good for a guy dead 40 years.