The Anchoress

For Pentecost - musings on the Trinity.

COME, Holy Ghost,
send down those beams,
which sweetly flow in silent streams
from Thy bright throne above
O come, Thou Father of the poor;
O come, Thou source of all our store,
come, fill our hearts with love.

Full text here

Another version, slightly different and with wonderful harmonies:

It is, of course, as I have written elsewhere, the 150th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearances to Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto at Lourdes.

Fr. James Martin, who writes beautifully about his experiences at Lourdes in his book, My Life With the Saints, has taken another trip there, to help out with the pilgrims and the masses and the baths, and here is what he says this time:

The best part of the trip? That’s easy: being with the generous Knights and Dames, the tireless volunteers and companions, and especially the hopeful malades. Each of the malades comes to Lourdes for different reasons and were at different places with their illnesses. (This year I heard anger for the first time, which struck me as bracingly honest and real). But all were hoping for some sort of healing—physical, emotional or spiritual. With all the good humor and faith of the malades, it’s sometimes easy for me to forget the deep emotions that lay just underneath the surface, but conversations can quickly turn serious over breakfast, lunch or dinner, or while you’re waiting in line for a bath. Tears come quickly at Lourdes and flow as fast as the Gave River, which runs silently past the Grotto.

Spiritual healings come frequently at Lourdes, but after I returne people always ask me about the physical ones. So: any miracles? Yes, though maybe not as dramatic as the 66 authenticated ones. For example: One man in our group had suffered from the injuries that occurred during the first Gulf War, and, as a guest of the Order of Malta, had come to Lourdes seeking healing. His eyesight, never good, had deteriorated since being injured. As he told me while we were waiting in line for the baths, as soon as he landed in Lourdes his eyesight somehow seemed to get even worse. Someone suggested he take off his eyeglasses to let his eyes rest. A few minutes later, he told me, he could see perfectly well. “Look,” he said, “I can read your nametag from here.” And he did, from a few feet away. “I haven’t been able to see that well for 25 years!”

What do you make of that? Well, as one character says in “The Song of Bernadette,” for those without faith no explanation is possible; for those with faith no explanation is necessary.

I suspect that the whole piece may be “entirely too Catholic” for some of my readers, and I apologize for that; but I found it a fascinating and entertaining read. I had hoped either my son or my husband would make it to Lourdes this year, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Ah, well. In God’s own time.

I did it again! Opened up dozens of interesting stories and blog posts and now I have too much to write about, so I’ll just link you to them!

Siggy brings us the Heavy Metal Puppy: you won’t believe your eyes.

GM Roper says we ought to be smarter than we’re proving ourselves to be. He’s quite correct.

Remember Sandy Berger and his theft of Top Secret documents on terrorism? The Clinton library ain’t talking about it. It’s amazing how many things the Clintons get away with not talking about. Library donors, Hillary’s exceedingly radical past, physical examinations, money bundlers…all the ways the Clinton administration got palsy with China…

Bill never minds talking about himself, though, and he’s reminding me a little of Gloria Swanson, here: “Somebody faints at nearly every one of these things now. At my age, I didn’t think I could make anybody faint anymore.”

That makes my whole spine shudder the way it did when reading about Madonna rubbing against Justin Timberlake. You want to say, “for cryin’ out loud, get a room,” even though Clinton is only talking about himself.

This Australian is more worried about Clintonian fibbing and Chameleon-like behavior than most Americans seem to be.

Mighty Christopher Hitchens asks a great question: Can Obama’s Wright problems be laid at his wife’s feet? Hitchens is right to ask it and we do deserve to know.

Nicedeb says the Italian newspapers are wondering if Bush is crossing the Tiber I don’t know if it matters; I like his international day of prayer idea, though.

Meanwhile, Curt Jester answers the question: Is liberal Catholicism dead? I’d say it’s in extremis. But I also think that if the “conservatives” in the church overcorrect and overplay their hands, the “liberals” may be pulled out of their death throes. At some point, “love” and “law” will have to intertwine and nurture together.

Bobby Jindal: love him, always did, and if he’d beaten Kathleen Blanco in the Louisiana governor’s race the first time and thus had a few more years under his belt in the state office, I’d say, “veep, hell, make him the top of the ticket!” I’d love to see him round out McCain but I don’t think it can (or even should happen) when his state clearly needs him. But then again the way this crazy primary season is going…well, you know my feelings. Meanwhile Baldilocks fears it looks like pandering.

My Elder Son is graduating but not walking - he’s had enough of the school and does not wish to hear Chuck Schumer’s address. We’ve heard it twice already and Schumer always uses the same speech, uttering the deathless phrase “GO FOR IT!” Son said he’d rather just go for dinner. I figured he should get SOME graduation advice, though, so I sent him a commencement address from P.J. O’ Rourke. H/T Betsy.

One for all the good teachers: Butter and Standardized tests - you’ll like it. Heartwarming.

And one of the worst teachers I’ve ever heard about.

The Swiss are concerned about cruelty and immoral behavior toward plant life. But don’t worry; abortion is still okay over there.

Don’t Cry for Me? Here we have Fausta on the vagaries of Latin America and Gateway Pundit has Bad News for Hugo Chavez and some US Dems.

Are Global Warmingists pulling a fast one? Duh. I like this video.

Obi’s Sister looks at the fact-challenged press.

It’s Little League Season! I so miss having a kid at the games! Danielle Bean writes about League-mom bi-location.

Bring back movie execs who grew stars? There is an argument to be made. And the comments are interesting too, especially about Garbo.

An Interview with Anne Rice, On Benedict’s visit and more. An interesting comments section, too.

Video: Intelligent Design argued entertainingly. H/T Matteo, who probably thinks I never read him anymore, because I link so rarely.

Video: A dedicated warrior sews and shows his softer side.

Father/Son video games: I really love the picture.

Gregorian chanting ‘can reduce blood pressure and stress’ reads the headline, and the story is both interesting and unsurprising:

Stress levels could be reduced simply by participating in some Gregorian chanting, researchers claimed today.

Dr Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, revealed that teaching people to control their breathing and applying the musical structure of chanting can help their emotional state.

He said: “We have recently carried out research that demonstrates that the regular breathing and musical structure of chanting can have a significant and positive physiological impact.”

The research involved five monks having their heart rate and blood pressure measured throughout a 24-hour period. Results showed their heart rate and blood pressure dipped to its lowest point in the day when they were chanting. Dr Watkins pointed to previous studies that also demonstrated such practices have been shown to lower blood pressure, increase performance hormone levels as well as reduce anxiety and depression.

The lecturer also runs Cardiac Coherence Ltd, a company that helps executives perform under stressful conditions. (H/T Chantblog

I wonder if this is one of those “ancient knowledge” types of things - something we intuitively understood once, but are now relearning through science? I recalled here the words of Abbess Benedict Nuss who founded the Abbey of Regina Laudis and never deviated from the monastic tradition of Chant, in the Latin, not the vernacular, saying: “I had an intuitive conviction that the Chant had the power to communicate the life of God as no other music does.”

I apologize to those who have asked; I have not been able to learn when this CD will be released in America.

A word from Denver’s Archbishop Chaput:

We need a lifelong devotion to prayer. Our spiritual life is the engine that drives the whole of our life. If we don’t pray, then we can’t claim to have a real relationship with Jesus risen from the dead. Prayer is a sign of our faith, that Jesus has not left us but is with us still.

O/T but interesting:

Vanderleun gives us an important heads up on the Tesla (I admit, I find Nikola Tesal fascinating and like seeing this car) and, more urgently, on a great downloading/viewing opportunity thanks to Maggie’s Farm:

…we’re going to be offering the terrific James Burke series The Day The Universe Changed starting this Sunday. One episode will be posted per night at 6 pm for 10 days. You can watch them at your leisure. They’ll stick around for another week, then they’re history.

Starts tonight! And for another sort of history - told via foodfighting, go here.

Last Snow of the Season? and oh, yeah, more on Ethanol.

Jeanette has the Dems in 7 seconds.

My car is giving me trouble, so while I’m chatting in the grease pit, take a look at the long version of the Jim Caviezel adoption story.

Eric Pavlat on teaching the Frankenstein novel.

The Sobran Method of teaching Shakespeare - very cute piece: When Joe was learning to read, I made him read aloud a single sentence from The Tempest:

“Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation.”

(You won’t find that one in books of great quotations. Never mind the context. Joe didn’t need context.)

Joe giggled madly. He couldn’t even finish the sentence. That was all I wanted. A naughty laugh. You know grandfathers. Incurably silly. Eager to corrupt youth.

(H/T Postmodern Papist

Also: Professor Bainbridge’s thoughts on Catholic educators and dissent, which takes on the drama-queening of some who seem to think being required to actually teach the faith at a Catholic school is just too damned oppressive. He also has a very thoughtful two-part exposition on Catholic Dissent and Minimum Wage.

The debate about Cardinal Egan and Rudy Giuliani goes on. I still say John O’ Connor would have handled things in a much more pastoral manner, and he wouldn’t have needed a push from Novak to do it.

Excerpt from God and the World; A Conversation btween Peter Seewald and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Seewald: Is faith, in principle, always present in man?

Ratzinger: So far as we can learn about the history of mankind, through excavations right back into prehistory, we can see that there has always been an idea of God. The Marxists had professed the end of religion. With the end of oppression we would no longer need the medicine of God, we were told. But even they have had to recognize that religion never comes to an end, because it is present in man as such.

This inner sensor does not, in any case, work automatically, like some piece of technology, but is a living thing that can either develop with the person or, on the other hand, become desensitized and almost dead. With a progressive inner fulfillment the sensor becomes ever more acute, more alive and interactive. In the opposite case, it becomes dull and, as it were, anaesthetized. Nonetheless, even in an unbelieving person there remains somehow a vestigial question of whether there is after all something there. Without taking this inner sensitivity into account we just cannot understand the history of mankind.

There was an article in the news the other day, and I thought I’d saved it, but apparently not, about how researchers are confirming the idea that our tissue, our cellular makeup, holds memories. When I read it I thought of this Ratzinger quote on the “idea of God” throughout the life of man, and wondered - as I have many times before - whether our deep inclination to consider God, and our longing for Him, is not rooted in that moment of creation when God “breathed into Adam,” the merest bit of himself, his essence. Does our instinct for God reside there, in that tiny divine spark that departed from Himself into us - burned, as it were, into our DNA; is it that spark that moves within us and keeps us questing and longing, the spark that intuitively finds comfort in the notion of Christ wishing to “reconcile all things to Himself?”

This is how I used to explain it to my kids:

“When we are Created, the Creator puts a bit of himself in us - the Divine Spark - think of one of those cartoons where the sun spits a ray of light somewhere. Imagine God spitting his light into us, “ptooooie!” For our whole lives, we have that inside us, and since it is the part of us that belongs to God, is made from God, we long all our lives to find our way back to God, to be reunited - to be whole. We are like plugs looking for the main outlet to which we can attach ourselves, forever.”

And I like what Merton said, quoted here:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.

There’s something wonderfully comforting about all of that mystery. Sometimes, when I am at Adoration, lost in the mist and bliss that feels like Heaven on Earth (and renders me mute for anything but praise) the connection - the sense of “home” feels nearly complete.

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.

There are so many illnesses, so many doctors, so many specialised treatments - and then there’s me, the priest.

I carry a little bag on my shoulder with Holy Oils, Holy Water, Holy Cards and, of course, the Blessed Sacrament. Nothing beeps or flashes. I go to each patient, one after the other, and only ever find one illness and only ever offer one cure.

I love this post.

Continuing the Q&A started here, although these questions become less about Giuliani as they go on…

Q: But Giuliani is an abortion supporter! There is no doubt about the state of his soul!

A: There’s always doubt about the state of someone’s soul, but let’s look at that for the moment. Rudy is a politician and he is “pro-choice”, but he does not currently hold office and - since he has never been either a legislator or a judge - his political stance has not in any way involved him in the procuring/legislating/legalizing of abortion availability. At the most, in his career, all Rudy has done is followed the law and done nothing to change it. That is not, perhaps, in the same league as a pol who legislates against the free-speech of pro-lifers or votes in favor of RICO laws being applied to them, or in any way makes abortions easier to come by. In that sense, the ‘big scandal’ then, is about his being divorced-and-remarried which - while rightly precluding communion - is hardly an earthshaking event within the Catholic community. He is nowhere near on par with Pelosi, Kerry and Kennedy who have actively legislated on abortion. We’re just focusing on him because Cardinal Egan - after some prompting - releasd his statement. As Deacon Greg rightly wonders:

If Robert Novak had never written on the subject, would Egan have said anything?

I’m betting he wouldn’t have. Cardinal Egan may be “correct” on this issue, but he’s basically been in hiding for most of his tenure in NY and I imagine he’d have hidden on this, too. What a disappointing successor to the Mighty John O’ Connor.

I must add, there was no sense of the pope - during his visit here - telling the Cardinal or the Archbishop - “hey, get your capos to withhold communion from those heretics.” That was not Benedict’s vibe at all. I got the sense that Benedict - who is a teacher of the first water - intends to teach us and he’d rather not have to battle headlines and hyperpartisan hysteria as he goes about it.

Q: Anchoress, you’re a hypocrite; you don’t mind Catholics in sin receiving communion, but you had a fit when Bill Clinton did it!

A: Well, I didn’t say I didn’t “mind” Catholics taking communion no matter what - I simply said there was another way to think about it that keeps me from getting upset. As to President Clinton taking communion, why shouldn’t I have minded that? He’s not a Catholic! What Clinton did was the equivalent of me going into a Hindu ceremony, partaking in everything I didn’t believe and then, when asked to respect their customs, saying “nah, come on, that’s not how I understand it.”

Q: My father left my mother and got the marriage annulled; the church said it wasn’t a Christian marriage but it didn’t mind taking their money and their volunteer help! The church has no business telling people about marriage when it’s run by a bunch of celibates.

A: If the marriage was annulled, that means the judicial body of the church, having examined it through testimony and evidence, found that the marriage was not “sacramental,” which is entirely different than saying it is “not a Christian marriage.” The church has the authority of Christ in teaching about marriage, and he - not the pope or some priest you hate - is the one who gave the demanding teaching in Matthew 19:

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate…I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”

Annulments are the response to Jesus’ admonishment - during the process what is determined is if the marriage was indeed “sacramental” (and thus “lawful”) within the church. Celibacy has nothing to do with it. You can read more about them here.

Q: Isn’t Confession just a “get out of jail free” card for Catholics?

A: Oh. How funny. Confession is a sacrament of the church, instituted by Christ and meant to instill abundant graces within us to both strengthen us against those sins for which we have a proclivity, and allow us the release and freedom whereby we are unshackled by naming the sin and accusing ourselves. In Matthew, Jesus told the apostles “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Even the pope has a confessor. In Romans, St. Paul said, “confession on the lips leads to salvation.” Some may argue that he was speaking only of “confessing Jesus on the lips” - well…perhaps…but perhaps he meant both. If you’re really interested, I have a whole category devoted to confession right here.

Q: What business does Egan have telling anyone else about sins when he shuffled pedophile priests around in Connecticut?

A: Well, I’m no defender of Egan, that should be clear, but I will say only this: he and many other bishops were quite frankly, “men of their times” in one respect - the pederasty that has so roiled us in the 21st century was not recognized as the high-rate recidivist crime that we understand it to be today. Recall that as recently as 20 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that these deviations in behavior could be “fixed” with therapy and a change of surroundings. Thankfully, our understanding is much more finely tuned, I think, these days, but it came very very late in the 20th century. It does not excuse what is abhorrent, but it does explain why - not knowing what else to do with these priests - some bishops thought therapy and moves would be the answer; some bishops dismissed the therapy and simply made the moves - all were excruciatingly bad decisions. That said, Egan is still the bishop, and he has - as near as anyone can tell, given his tendency to hole-up - been faithful and very careful in his handlings of these matters since coming to NY.

Last one, because it is irresistible - fresh and hot off the email:

Q: You’re writing about humility while exhibiting the sin of pride in daring to set yourself up as an authority. Who died and made you pope?

A: Heh. No one, thank God, and they never will. But I am appalled that anyone would think I’ve presented myself as any sort of authority. I’ve always been very clear that I don’t like apologetics or do them well, and that my thoughts are simply that: my thoughts. Anyone can buy a catechism and a bible and find out what the church teaches. An emailer once wrote that I “meander and imagine and reason and always end up squarely on Catholic Orthodoxy.” Maybe. I’ve only ever offered Catholicism as I know it and live it and understand it by my lights, and I hope I’ve done it without pride - although I’ll admit to sometimes being a little fractious while I’m at it. But if I am sinning in pride, I wonder if you’re not sinning in presuming to know that. Beams and splinters - ain’t they a bitch!

I wasn’t going to write about this because - while I know it gets a lot of Catholic blood running - I can’t get that excited about it.

SOME CLARIFICATION FOR THOSE WILLFULLY MISREADING ME: That does not mean I do not CARE about the issue. It simply means that I think we’ve all managed at times to insult and offend the Lord in various ways, and sometimes Eucharistically, and so I prefer to leave the scolding to the ones who seem most comfortable with it. While I’ve often been called a “self-righteous prig” on some issues (daring to disagree with some on solutions to the illegal immigration problem comes to mind) and I don’t mind wagging fingers politically, I’ve never been much of a spiritual scold. I know that’s true because I’m always getting scolded by other, better, Catholic and non-Catholic Christians for not scolding enough! Quite opposed to those charging me with “not caring,” I think I make abundantly clear that I do care, and I do both accept and support the church’s teaching here, and I agree that the complaints are valid. I simply respond to these things differently than others. If that’s wrong, well…Jesus knows there is no malice in my heart and will judge me as he will us all. END CLARIFICATION

But between some emails I’ve gotten from angry Catholic readers, confused (or smuppity) non-Catholic readers, and a few internet forum comments I’ve read that display both astounding anti-Catholic bigotry or a clear lack of understanding, I feel like I should. Here’s a can of worms I’d prefer not to open, but in doing so, I’ll stick to the Q&A style, since they reflect (or are directly taken from) my email.

For the uninitiated, there is a scandal of sorts brewing because former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani received Communion at the Yankee Stadium mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. Note that Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy all took communion at the mass at National’s Stadium without all this brouhaha. The reason we’re hearing about Rudy is because Robert Novak, took NY’s Cardinal Egan and DC’s Archbishop Wuerl to task, pubically scolding them for the fact that these grown-up Catholics, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy and Giuliani, communed.

Immediately after the column appeared, Cardinal Egan - who can’t retire soon enough for my money - released a statement criticizing Giuliani, most particularly for Rudy’s not abiding by what was apparently a private agreement between the two men, that he would not commune at the mass.

I know “conservative” Catholics tend to get scrappy on this issue, and more “liberal” Catholics tend to think it’s not much of a deal. Typically, I fall somewhere between the two, which is why I have no friends. So, here we go.

Q: What is the big deal, here? Isn’t Communion just a symbol and a way to “cleanse ourselves of sin?”

A: No and no. Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is a “symbol” of anything, but rather the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, truly Present. And Communion is meant to draw us into deeper and more personal interaction with Jesus; by the grace of the sacrament, we are strengthened both physically and spiritually and that may help us in our sinfulness, but it is not the “means” by which we “get rid of” the sins we have already committed.

Q: Does that mean all the people receiving Communion are in a state-of-grace and free from sin?

A: Not by a long shot. None of us can know the state of anyone else’s soul…but can assume some are. Those who have recently been to confession for absolution of their most grievous sins and participated in the mass (where the lesser sins of our everyday humanity and brokenness are absolved within the Rite) are in a state of grace, but plenty of people taking communion do not fit that “ideal”. In 1 Corinthians 11:27, Paul writes of the seriousness of the issue:

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord

For some Catholics, when a public figure receives “unworthily” this creates a public scandal; they fear that others in the church, seeing known proponents of abortion or divorced-and-remarried politicians take communion will both inspire others toward irreverence toward the Lord and weaken understanding of what the Eucharist truly is.

Q: And you think they’re wrong?

A: No, not at all. They certainly have a valid point, and intellectually I can go there. Emotionally, however, I always have a problem with Catholics pointing the finger at other Catholics and going, “ummmmmm…I’m telling!”

Q: Right, because in the end it’s between the politician and God!

A: Well…yes and no. It’s true that - ultimately - what Rudy did was “between him and God”, but - and it’s a big but - Rudy still publicly professes himself a Catholic, and so this is also between him and his Catholic community. This is the problem with community; it is something to answer to, in the same way that a Protestant pastor who leaves his wife for another must answer to his congregation, or a teenager who breaks the speed limit must answer to the judge. The rules are the rules, and Rudy, or Pelosi, or Kerry and Kennedy know full well that when they commune while the cameras are clicking, they’re deliberately riling that community up.

Q: So, you agree with the Novaks and the “conservative” Catholics, then?

A: Errrmrmrmrm…not really. As I said, I see their point, and it is a valid one, but there’s also that part about not knowing what is going on in one’s soul or in one’s heart - what sort of turmoil or even humility may be residing there. I know some would say that real humility would express itself in refraining from communing and, again, in the ideal that is precisely right.

But then there is Jesus, and there is this man or this woman. It seems to me that there is also a humility to be found in letting Jesus be Jesus and do what he does, in trusting that - whatever the condition of the soul of the receiver - Jesus is both larger and deeper than what we (or even the recipient) can know.

I keep remembering that Jesus said he “came for sinners; the well do not need a physician.” We must never be so protective of Jesus that we begin to think Him too small or fragile to be able to do the heavy lifting required to turn a heart. These pols know the score; they’ve had the doctrine explained. If they’re still receiving then we may assume two things - 1) that they are hard-hearted, do not care and wish only to score points with their constituents or 2) they are in dire need of a one-on-one encounter with the Living Christ - even if they do not consciously realize it or express it - and they will thus seek Him out, and take their lumps for it.

I think I will always err on the side of believing the best, rather than the worst of their motives, and give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re looking for the Encounter. And then we must remember, that Jesus had less patience for the Pharisee who stood at the front of the Temple and crowed about how he did everything just right, not “like that tax collector over there…” than for the sinner who kept his head bowed.

Q: So, then you agree with the “liberals!” You don’t think it’s a scandal.

A: Errrrrrrm….not really. There are lots of ways to scandalize a church or to desecrate the Holy Eucharist, and many people who are not public figures commune “unworthilly.” As near as I could tell Giuliani was the only one of the recipient pols caught on television cameras. I have to be honest, when I saw it, I thought, “he’s not supposed to be doing that…” but I also thought his mien and demeanor, his whole attitude was serious, thoughtful and yes, reverent - moreso than some of the others participating. I knew I was right smack dab in the middle of an abiding Mystery.

In the Apostles Creed, we’re told that Jesus “descended into hell” before he rose. In communion He descends into the hell of our own lives - all of our confusion, all of our sins those declared and those unfaced, all of our doubt, all of our love and our hate, all of our fear, our conscience, our deepest longings and our conscious and sub-conscious minds; our very souls - Jesus descends into it, and then we rise with Him. His very Blood courses through our veins.

This cannot leave us unchanged. Even if outwardly, we seem the same, inwardly, we have been penetrated. Some of us are very, very thick-walled; some of us have built astounding fortresses and battlements within us, and Jesus may very well want to go head-to-head, one-on-one so to speak, to tumble them. To descend into our personal “hells” in order to help us rise from them. He is, after all, the Divine Physician. Paul gave us an ideal and a basis for law. But Jesus has always been - ultimately - bigger than all of it.

And so, no…for all that I accept the validity of those crying “scandal,” I cannot cry it myself.

More to follow…here.