You're Darned Right It Was Cold!

You're darned right it was cold. It was 22 degrees below zero that morning of March 3, 2003, when I left Fortune Bay resort and casino at Lake Vermilion for 9 o'clock Sunday Mass in the nearby town of Tower. The crunching, squeaking sound my boots made breaking through the crust of the super-frozen snow as I walked from my car to the church struck me as one I hadn't heard for a long time. You don't hear that sound unless the temperature is below zero, way below zero. You never hear it where I live now in San José, California.

It warmed up a bit later though, so that by the time my son and I left the resort for the Duluth airport around noon, it was "only" 17 degrees below.

At around five p.m. California time, we arrived back at San Jose terminal C. Terminal C was the old fashioned one (modernized since then) where you still had to walk down a set of stairs to get off the plane. A woman on the stairs below us complained about the 55 degrees above zero cold, and we were conspiratorily amused.

There's a bit of nobbery in those of us who have learned to tolerate extreme weather. My former husband and I once bought a button that read "40 below keeps out the riff raff," when we lived near Fargo, North Dakota. We joked with our friends that it was ironic. 40 below hadn't kept us out . . ..

It had been great being back in Minnesota. Most people were very friendly. I never saw Theresa, the bride, look so radiant and happy. She and Shane, the man she married, looked to be very much in love. Theresa was 32 or so, close to the age of my son, Liberty. Liberty and I had met Theresa while we all were entertainers in the late 80s at the Minnesota Renaissance festival.

I grew to especially like Theresa out of all the high schoolers who were the Renfest's street performers, because of her sweet friendliness and because she went on to earn an art degree too, like me. I saw a little of myself in her creativity in other ways too. We sew, we paint, we both go down strange creative side alleys. When I saw her beading moccasins, I thought of my own interest in Native American culture in the 60s, and the beaded necklaces I'd made.

And I loved her for her hospitality. We had visited her a few times when she lived in North Hollywood for a few years after she graduated from Reed College in Oregon. She had also stayed with us a few times when we lived in Milpitas, CA, and I had stayed with her once in an apartment she was renting in the Grand Avenue area of St. Paul.

Theresa is of Italian-Swedish and other European ancestry. The man she married, Shane, who was 26 at the time, is an Ojibwe Native American. The tribe is also called the Chippewas; those who speak the native tongue call themselves Anishinaabeg, "original people."

The couple met at a pow-wow. I was surprised to find out that when Theresa moved back to Minnesota that she became one of many non-Native Americans who regularly participate in pow-wows. I also found out later that non-native enthusiasts who like to attend public powwows and who are enthusiastic about Native American religion and culture are called "hobbyists" or "Indianthusiasts." They introduced me to three wedding guests that Theresa had met through Native American enthusiast chat rooms, and who had never met Theresa and Shane in person before..

One woman, Mia, flew there all the way to attend the wedding from Sweden. Another hobbyist named Lynn drove up from Missouri with her husband.

Theresa's parents were delighted with Shane because they were praying that Theresa would meet a good man. He and I didn't hit it off, but everyone in the family was unanimous in proclaiming Shane to be the nicest man they had ever met.

In that part of the north country, the resident population seems to be pretty evenly mixed between dark-haired Native Americans and blonde Scandinavians, predominantly Finnish, and you also find a sprinkling of middle class city people of a slightly wider range of ethnic backgrounds who have vacation or retirement homes up there. Theresa's family fits in the latter category.

The couple planned to have two weddings, an Ojibwe wedding and a Lutheran one.

On Saturday, with five hours free before the Lutheran church wedding, I drove up to Ely to look around. I had lunch there in a cafe. Ely is at the end of the road at the north end of the United States, on the edge of a huge network of lakes that is called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and is shared with Canada.

The decor and offerings in the cafe in Ely wouldn’t be out of place in Palo Alto. The people, though, that’s another story. The queue at the cafe's counter was made up of a group of middle-aged couples with teen-aged kids, all with high red color in their cheeks from the wind chill and all wearing snowmobile suits reeking of snowmobile fuel. Some of the grown-ups were reeking of another kind of alcohol fuel.

I asked the blonde young female counter clerk who waited on me, "Is this a hangout for snowmobilers?" "It is, now," she dead-panned. I quipped, "I saw all the snowmobiles in the alley. I feel weird because I drove here in a car." She blurted out, "I feel weird selling them beer." When those words first came out of her mouth, she looked a little surprised at herself for speaking so frankly, then seemed relieved when I laughed.

The spectre of news stories of accidents caused by alcohol-impaired snowmobilers hung unspoken between us for a moment.

Snowmobilers on frozen Lake Vermilion

A group of 40ish, trim, nice-looking, mostly blond women (non-snowmobilers by the looks of them) in the booth behind me talked of many things. It came up that a friend of one of the women, named Arla, recently had a baby that was 10 lbs. 11 oz. The speaker said that her own daughter didn't realize how lucky she was that granddaughter Frankie was only 6 lbs. 8 oz. There was a thoughtful pause.

Talk moved to one woman's bout with breast cancer. "I am doing fine," she told them. "Did you keep them?" another woman asked. "Oh no, I don't have anything to do with that sort of thing." Another chimed in, "Some women have ceremonies. They bury them." "Oh, not me," the survivor said again. The drawn-out Minne-soh-ta pronunciation of the "O" sound was particularly strong this time when she spoke. "I don't hold with that sort of thing." "Me neither," agreed another.

Many think the way that many Minnesotans typically pronounce a stressed drawn-out "O" is an influence from the Swedish language that was spoken by the immigrant forebears of many of the local white residents. At a talk by an Ojibwe artist at the Minneapolis Art Institute one time I heard the artist claim that the elongated "O" in the Minnesota accent is actually borrowed from the Ojibwe language.

Talk in the booth behind me moved to plans for the women to brunch together again with their husbands along the next morning. "Are you going to church?" someone said. Nobody said anything in reply. The silence was a little uncomfortable. Finally someone volunteered a chipper: "I can pray at home." There was a little titter. To ride on the success of that remark, "If you go, say one for me," added another woman.

Typically, the talk was full of quips, but since dry humor is favored in Minnesota over any other sort, their mutual appreciation did not include anything so overt as a laugh.

As for me, I had already checked the Mass times for the next day at the nearest Catholic church. 

I must have taken the wrong road out of Ely on the way back because I got lost  in blowing snow on two-lane roads lined with pines and birches, for over an hour. When I got to a tee in the road and saw signs pointing left to Babbitt and right to Embarrass, I waved down two men in a pickup truck. They told me that I needed to go right and drive to a crossroads with a flashing light--to catch a road that would take me back to where I was staying. They drove off towards Babbitt, and I drove off towards Embarrass.

I started wondering how long it would be before the crossroads. The men hadn't given me a clue. Minnesotans' minimalism in directions-giving is a big contrast with the detailed California approach. When someone gave me directions in California before the era of map applications on smart phones, I'd start writing on a slip of paper and always run out of room.

"You'll pass a Bank of America. Then there'll be a Baker's Square on your left." "Should I turn?" "No, no, keep going. A few streets down you'll see a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on your right. That will be Santa Clara Street." "Should I turn there?" "No. Keep going until you see a Hollywood Video, make a U-turn at the next light, turn into the second turn off behind the Marie Callender's. . .."

I always wanted to say, "Cut to the chase. What's the street address of the place where I'm supposed to meet you? What are the names of the streets where I'm supposed to turn? And which way, right or left. Spare me the landmarks, puleeze."

But Saturday I would have appreciated a landmark or two. Not that there were any that a city dweller like me would recognize. How would I know when I had gone too far? After driving another 20 minutes, not seeing another soul or a town, I started doubting. Maybe they had been putting me on? I tried to call my son to tell him to catch a ride to the wedding with someone else, but there was no cell phone service out there.

I didn't realize exactly how slippery it was until I braked when I spotted a small store on the side of the road and spun completely around. When I got control of the car again, I parked and walked through the snow to where a 50ish blonde man was standing in the doorway of the store looking out. I opened the storm door and asked directions again through the inside door. The man tersely told me the same thing the other men had told me, that at the crossroads up the road, now only a few miles away, I should make a right.

After a pause, he asked significantly: "Did you just make that big circle out there?" He gestured towards my tire tracks in the snow, and looked into my face to gauge my reaction. I looked where he pointed, and I blithely said, "Yah! I've lost my knack of driving on ice after 13 years in California." As I looked at him while I talked, I could see that my nonchalant reaction was not what he wanted. I continued anyway, "Thank God there wasn't anyone else on the road." He turned away from my attempt at an ingratiating smile, and dismissed me with a motion of his hand, lifting it up to his shoulder and then flinging the palm down towards the ground.

Back in the car I finally started to feel how shook up I was. At the same time I began to realize the man had waved me away because I hadn't been properly chagrined by his remark.

As my face got red, I thought that driving through woods in a snowy afternoon wasn't turning out to be as much fun as it had seemed at first.

I recalled then that the expectation among Minnesota mens seems to be that women should be exceedingly apologetic about things--even when they haven't done anything that could be construed as being stupid. A skit by Minnesota humorist Garrison Keillor came to mind that included a woman serving a superb meal and apologizing for how bad it was. My conclusion was that I just hadn't been apologetic enough for that surly storekeeper.

As I neared the flashing light for my turn off, I realized that I had forgotten to ask to use the store's phone to call my son. Finally I saw some signs for the resort. Just a mile from the resort, even though I was driving even more cautiously by then, I ended up gliding down an ice-glazed hill while I braked to no effect.

When I'd left Minnesota 14 years earlier after living there for 19 years, I had been an expert ice driver. I've often bragged about how I'd barrel along highway I 94 in icy conditions at almost the posted speed limit while semi trucks were going off the road to the right and the left of me. But that was when almost all cars had rear wheel drive and brakes that you pump. Because I was driving a rental, I just didn’t know what kind of brakes I had. "Do I have anti-lock brakes? Should I be slamming the brakes or pumping them?"

Because of my few seconds of hesitation, I was lost. I tried steering into the direction the car was sliding, but that didn't change anything. The road curved to my right, and the car's continued unstoppable glide towards the left edge of the road was so gentle I hoped that the curb would stop it. But the momentum was just enough to carry the car up and hang it up on that curb. I couldn't rock the car out of the snow (another winter driving technique I had once gotten to be really good at) because the tires couldn't get traction.

I waited a little while and when nobody drove by, I got out and hiked the remaining half mile to the resort. The real cold snap hadn't hit yet, so it was only about 25 degrees above zero. Not too bad.

And so it came about that I missed the Lutheran wedding while the Fortune Bay maintenance staff was pulling my car off the curb.

Fortunately, my son had caught a ride with the groom's cousin and her husband, who had arrived late from the Twin Cities and had rushed up to their room to change. When Liberty had asked the desk clerk what to do, she called the couple in their room, and they agreed to take Liberty with them when they went to the wedding.

Incidentally, I also found it interesting that most of the employees at the Indian-owned casino resort are white, including the Finnish man who cleaned our room.

At the church wedding and the reception, as I learned later, Theresa wore a traditional European-style long white dress. She also wore her own hand-beaded moccasins underneath, mostly, she said, because she would tower over her groom if she wore heels.

Both myself and my son had already attended a Ojibwe ceremony for the couple the day before. It had been held at the new Nett Lake Reservation community center that had been built with profits from the casino. Theresa had worn a homemade sleeveless, burgundy velvet dress trimmed with hammered brass circles, along with the same moccasins. Shane had worn a  burgundy velvet vest, also sewn and beaded by Theresa. The groom had also worn a backwards sports cap with a Nike swoosh and Nike athletic shoes.

The ceremony had featured an Eagle feather held by an elder almost the whole time and a drum, which the elders asked us not to photograph. One of the two elders who officiated said that the drum had its own spirit.

Serendipitously enough, the New Yorker I had bought at the San Jose airport to read on my flight there, had featured a short story by Minnesota writer Louise Erdrich, who writes fiction about the Ojibwe people. The story was about an antiques dealer who steals an Ojibwe drum that resonates inexplicably without being struck. Images of drums with strong powers still lingered with me.

The drum at the ceremony was about two feet across, the sides painted with colored circles within circles. At the center of each circle was a painted stylized arrow, pointing up, looking somewhat like an arrow you would see on a box to indicate "this side up."

Both elders mentioned that the groom handed tobacco to the elder when he had asked the elder to lead the ceremony. The elder who started the ceremony told us that he once had a question about why tobacco was used. "We get our questions answered by dreams or visions," he continued. In a dream he had learned that when Manitou, their name for the Creator, had created man, tobacco was already growing for man to use in communication with Him.

The other elder said that tobacco is like picking up the phone and getting connected to the Creator, without having to dial a bunch of numbers. The first elder lit a pipe full of tobacco and prayed and pointed the smoking pipe to the spirits of the North, South, East, and West, and to the Earth and the Sky. At that, he pointed the pipe up to the vaulted ceiling of the room.

At first, I thought, well that's a bit silly.  We pray to God, and God talks to us without using tobacco. But then, I thought, the Catholic use of incense is a little bit along the same line, isn't it?  I looked up incense in the book of Revelation when I got home.

And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel." [Revelation 8:3,4].

Incense for Catholics is a symbol of the prayers of the saints before God.  Our prayers rise like incense to heaven where the angels offer the smoke of the prayers or the saints upon the golden altar before the throne of God.

As I pondered the points of harmony and dissonance, I idly watched the clouds of tobacco smoke rise in the warm, room air. That's when I noticed a  partly deflated balloon from a previous event was caught in one the four large dream catchers with spray painted feathers that were hanging from the peak of the ceiling.

I remembered that when I stayed with Theresa the last time in St. Paul, on my way out to Mass in the mornings, I noticed that her morning prayers involved tobacco and some sort of feathers.

Later, I told my son, tongue in cheek, that the pack of cigarettes he smokes every day must be getting him in touch with the Creator twenty times a day. He didn't seem convinced. Taking my tongue out of my cheek, I sometimes mull about a pet theory--that addiction to tobacco and its health consequences could be seen as a subtle revenge that Indians have had on the white man.


The way I understood what the elders were saying, the couple had originally requested an Ojibwe wedding ceremony. Both elders talked about how that before Christianity marriages weren't formally contracted. The Ojibwe word for living together means married. One of the elders told a story about how his own mother had once used the word about their own relationship to annoy him.

One of the bride's cousin told me after the ceremony that the original elder who had been asked to perform an Ojibwe wedding ritual had dropped out when he discovered that the couple was going to have a Lutheran wedding the next day. The two elders who had officiated at the ceremony that day were called in as last-minute replacements. One of them spoke about how he had driven overnight down from a reservation in Canada.

Together they decided to hold a "recognition" ceremony instead. Theresa's cousin was relieved, she told me the next day, because she is a Christian and she believed that the way it turned out meant that God had prevented their marriage from starting with a pagan wedding ceremony. Good point, I thought to myself. That was probably a very good thing.

At the end of the elder's talk, before a buffet that included several kinds of wild rice and venison dishes and a cake dyed bright blue and decorated with bright yellow frosting, the bride and groom held a giveaway. At first there was a little confusion, because the elder thought that the goods for the giveaway were going to be bundled up and sent to another village far away, as is usually done. After the couple's intention was made clear, the bride and groom distributed their gifts around the room.

Theresa handed me a set of yellow towels. We were all invited to dance, and so I danced around in a circle with the others who were willing to join, holding up my yellow towels in one hand, while the elders drummed in the middle and chanted.

My son and I both agreed that giving gifts to others in honor of one's happiness at such a milestone in one's life is a very nice thing to do.

Nia from Sweden, Theresa, and Shane, outside of the Nett Lake Reservation Community Center after the recognition ceremony

The next day, at the wedding reception back at the casino/resort, two blond bar hostesses told me that they had taken the short way to work by driving from a town on the other side of Lake Vermilion across the 2 ft. thick lake ice. A road is kept plowed across the lake all winter.

As people chatted after dinner, some of the guests at my table told me it had been a mild winter, and the ice hadn't been as thick as usual. They also told me that because of the thinner-than-usual ice, a young couple had recently died in Lake Minnetonka (250 miles further south near the Twin Cities). After the couple drove onto the lake to "go parking," their car went through the ice. To make matters worse was what the divers discovered when they were pulling up that couple's car. At the bottom of the cold, cold, lake, they found another car containing two drowned teenage boys from a similar accident a few days earlier. Nobody had reported them missing or had realized what had happened to them until then.

Back at my home in San José, crocuses and roses were blooming in the front yard. In this part of the country, people who were seeking to find their identity outside of their own culture were more likely to be attending a Grateful Dead concert than a pow-wow, more likely to die of a home invasion robbery than by having their car break through ice and sink to the murky bottom of a lake.  If they were smoking anything in search of a way to reach a spiritual state, it probably was marijuana.

It sure was, I thought rather obviously, a different world out there.

---

Theresa sent me this photo the next Spring of Jessieanne, their first child, at her first powwow, in a dress and moccasins sewn and beaded by her mother.

The Amazing Online Breviary at DivinumOfficium.com

Divinum Officium (divinumofficium.com) is absolutely the best website I have ever seen for the traditional Breviary. Hard-to-use design makes my hackles rise, but this site is so well done, easy to use, and complete that even I can't find fault with it. I think it's a treasure.

The default language option is English, which brings up Latin and English side-by-side. I began to be curious about why the three language options in a pull-down menu at the site used to be Latin, English, and Magyar.  Only recently did I discover that this beautifully organized, option rich, and brilliant work was developed and maintained originally by a Mr. Lazlo Kiss. Kiss was a computer engineer who was born in Budapest, Hungary. That explains the Magyar option. 

During Mr. Kiss' lifetime, there was no information about him or the origins of the site to be found on the site. But, after Mr. Kiss's sudden death in 2011, the site was taken over, maintained, and expanded  under the auspices of "The Divinum Officum Project," by a diocesan priest and three software engineers. Since then, they added information to the bottom of the page that describes the site's origins and makes it clear what a prodigious amount of effort Mr. Kiss single-handedly put into the site. When he retired, according to the brief biography now available, Mr. Kiss dedicated his time to provide "free access to many different versions of the Divine Office (or breviary), the traditional daily prayer book of the Roman Catholic Church."

Left: Italiano and Deutsch have been added to the language list.  

One thing that amazes me is that you don't just have to settle for one version of the Office.  Options range from "pre Trident Monastic," through "Rubrics 1960" [which the Institute of Christ the King uses and so do I], through 1960 Newcalendar. The Credits link brings up a page that details which sources were used. 

Deo gratias for this amazingly useful and useable work of programming and user sensibility that was selflessly done, as the current authors of the page have written, for the goal of  "promoting the worship of the Triune God through the Divine Office."
 
The start of Matins for today's feast of S. Stephani, Protomartyris (St. Stephen, the first martyr). 

The Christmas Eve I Met St. Francis in Assisi

Natale in Assisi
Christmas Eve Day 1999

The Assisi tour had not originally been on our itinerary. Our pilgrimage leader had squeezed it in at the last minute. We arrived in Assisi mid-morning, and due to our guide's too-tight scheduling, we had only a few hours before we would need to leave again. Our hotel, the Michelangelo, back in Rome about two hours drive away, was preparing a traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and we needed to be there in time to eat it and then walk the few blocks to St. Peter’s for the evening’s main event and the focal point for my long-planned trip to Italy -- the opening of the Holy Door and Midnight Mass to inaugurate the Holy Year, the Jubilee 2000.

Even though our stay in Assisi was brief and botched and harried, I still remember it as a high point of my life. Especially because, even after such a short visit, I feel that made the acquaintance of Francis, the patron saint of Assisi from the 13th century. So much so that every once in a while, I still think his name as I would that of a beloved friend: “Francis,” “dear Francis.”

Our first stop was just outside of Assisi, at the town of Santa Maria degli Angeli, where we got out of our motor coach to visit the basilica of the same name. The area is called the Porziuncola, or little portion. St. Francis and his monks used to worship in a tiny chapel called Saint Mary of the Angels (which is what Santa Maria degli Angeli means in Italian). And they had lived close by in primitive little huts.

We stood together outside in the cold for a few minutes while our leader made arrangements about something or other with someone inside the basilica. A few of us drifted off to get something hot to drink.

Around the little traffic circle where we waited there was much to see. A chubby 60ish Italian woman on a bicycle wearing a kerchief and a trench coat waited for the light to change .

A manager scene was set up in the middle of the traffic island. Since it was the day before Christmas, and since it was St. Francis who first conceived the idea of celebrating the birth of Jesus by reproducing the manger, naturally we saw several mangers in Assisi, including a life sized one that took up much of the city park.

In an earthquake in Assisi in 1997, interior walls in both St. Mary of the Angels Basilica where we were waiting to get in and in the Basilica di San Francesco (Basilica of St. Francis) crumbled. By the time of our trip, restoration had been almost completed on both basilicas.

But the reconstruction was not quite done. In the area in front of St. Mary of the Angels, fences of orange netting surrounded piles of pieces that had not yet been restored to the fallen walls. And even though there was no evidence visible to the tourist, thousands of people left homeless by the earthquake were just getting by in temporary housing for many years later.

We couldn’t take photos inside the basilicas, but I can tell you that once we got inside St. Mary of the Angels, we found a surprise. Dwarfed in the middle of the floor of the huge basilica stands the tiny little chapel (now richly decorated) where St. Francis worshipped with his monks. A few yards away is the even smaller Chapel of the Transition, built later around the hut where St. Francis died. When he knew he was about to die, he stripped himself naked and laid on the bare ground covered with a borrowed cloth, wanting to keep faith with his beloved Lady Poverty until the end.

What would he think of all the splendors of marble and art erected in honor of his memory? I wondered. I know I am not at all original in noticing these contrasts, but they stayed on my mind as we got back into the tour bus and rode up the long hill to Assisi.

It is an understatement to say that in the middle ages cities prized their saints. The Catholic Encyclopedia (in the online 1907 edition) records that during Francis’ last days, the city fathers of Assisi dispatched strong guards with him wherever he went, to prevent his body being stolen by Perugia, a rival city, “which would thus enter into possession of his coveted bones.” Francis told his followers that he wanted to be buried in the Colle d’Inferno, a hill outside the city where criminals were executed. Did they listen? The answer came with the sight of the double basilica as it came into view at a turn in the road. Obviously not.

In 1236, ten years after Francis’s death, one basilica was built followed later by another basilica built on top of it, and together they make up the impressive building we saw that day. The basilicas were built to accommodate the huge throngs that came to honor Francis, whose bones are now in a crypt beneath the lower basilica.

We rushed up from the parking lot into the lower basilica. Before we went to the upper basilica, some of us did a detour when we saw a sign leading to the crypt.

St. Francis’s bones are in a simple wooden coffin above an altar on which many long white tapers are burning. I dropped a donation into a slot, and then I stood in line with others to lay candles for each of my relatives and some friends in a basket at the altar. A monk at the desk to the left rises every so often looking bored, and he blows out the current set of candles, replacing them with others from the basket.

It was a relief to pause and kneel there peacefully for a while close to the physical remains of the holy man of Assisi and to pray. That's when I was surprised to feel I was present with him; in some indescribable gentle way, he became my fast friend at that instant. From what happened in my heart there that day and the similar feeling of meeting that occurred when I got close to the bones of St. Peter on another day on the same tour, I came to glimpse why the Catholic Church has so much veneration for relics of dead saints. Twice in my experience, being close to the physical remains of the saint brought me close in spirit to the saint himself.

At the museum at the crypt next door to the chapel is another striking relic, one of the actual patched robes that St. Francis wore. Two donation boxes stand at the door of the museum, one for the restoration of the art works, one for the housing of those left homeless by the quake. I left more money in the second one.

Our group regathered in a nearby cafe for a quick snack and a brief introduction to our local guide. Everyone was surprised that I ordered gelato, but that was my first and it turned out to be my only chance to try the authentic Italian iced treat. Public opinion was right this time, the cold gelato did not sit well with the cold of Christmas Eve.

Once we left the basilica, we saw hardly any other tourists. We trooped behind the local guide through picturesque cobbled narrow streets to the main square, where we peeked into the Temple of Minerva from the time of Augustus, now covered with a church called Santa Maria sopra Minerva (St. Mary over Minerva). We walked past a prespe, a life sized manger scene in the town square.

As we walked around, local passers-by and our guide greeted each other with the Italian Christmas greeting, “Buon Natale. Buone Feste. Tanti Auguri.” which, loosely translated means, “Happy Christmas, Good Feasts, Good Wishes for the New Year.”

Above one doorway was a Madonnina, little Madonna. We saw many many of these images on the streets and corners in Italy, all different and all beautiful in their unique way.

After we parted with our local guide, our pilgrimage leader told us we could go shopping and to meet her back at the bus in an hour.

My son found a little shop that sold address books and sketchbooks made from hand-made paper and called me in because he knew I'd like it too. After a while he went out to look at something else. When he came in again to find me (he told me this later), I must have been in the back of the shop, and he didn’t see me, so he left again, and then we lost track of each other.

After I emerged with some gifts, I strolled with my camera in hand, stopped at a few more shops, where I was always the only customer, always heading back down the hill towards where the bus was parked. At the chamber of commerce I met a nun whose order runs a guesthouse, whose business was only just then picking up again after the quake. We both got a free poster there, my favorite souvenir. The poster shows the basilica and the ancient forts above the city against a blue and starry sky. Natale in Assisi, 1999, it says: Christmas in Assisi, 1999.

My progress was slow, because my feet hurt, because my path was down very steep streets, and because there was always another photo to take.

I wasn’t sure of the time because I didn’t have a watch, but I thought I was doing all right. I also thought I’d run into my son any time soon.

When I did catch up with my son again, I was standing at a fork in the road at the bottom of one steep street. I was wavering about which of two possible even steeper streets would be the right way down to the parking lot.

My son was frantic. It was 10 minutes past the hour. At 5 minutes past, the pilgrimage leader had announced to everyone in the bus that she would give me 5 more minutes and then leave without me.

It goes without saying that the ride back to Rome was tense. The leader was pouting because she had had her heart set on squeezing one more stop in, at a chocolate factory, and my tardiness had foiled her plans. Everyone was mad at me. I guess they wanted to stop at the chocolate factory too. I was sorry that my dawdling had made my son upset, but I was mad too, at the tour leader and at the mad rush she was putting us through that day.

Just for the drama of it, I sometimes try to imagine what it would have been like to have been stranded as a stranger in Assisi on a cold Christmas eve with very little Italian and no way to get back to Rome.

But of course, that didn’t happen.

The sunset over the Umbrian hills was gorgeous.

Back at Rome, we rushed some more. We rushed to dress before dinner, rushed through the dinner, greatly offending the waiters who watched us with disdain while we gulped the specially prepared food for Christmas Eve and rushed out the door. Then we rushed to St. Peter’s Square. And then we waited.
Our leader had assured us we had tickets to be inside the basilica for the Mass, but the day before the organizers had told her that the seating was first come first served. After more than an hour in line with thousands of others, we finally got directed into seats outside, after all. At least there was no more rushing. We stayed right there in the same seats in the chill night air until the mass was over at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning.

We could see the ceremonies that were going on inside on giant TV screens near the Holy Door. We actually saw much more than we could have seen if we had been inside. At one point, the Pope walked past the open door, and then stopped and waved to us all outside. The 40 degree temperatures and discomforts didn’t matter. We all cheered.

I didn't even mind very much that I caught the flu and spent several days during the next week in bed in my hotel room. I could hear the bells of St. Peter's as I drifted in and out of a fevered sleep.

Delaying Gratification for Deeper Joy

I only learned within the past ten years about how the Advent and Christmas seasons have traditionally been observed in the Church's liturgical year. And I'm guessing there are many others who are as in the dark about this topic as I was. To share what I've learned, I've written several times in different blogs about observing Advent and the Christmas season (as in this recent post Top Ten Thoughts about Advent from Fr. Rutler). This post is a collection of snippets from other posts I've published about the season.

Following is an example about how treasuring Advent has led me to a deeper joy when Christmas comes and the traditional time of celebration begins, which is an excerpt from a Christmas letter I posted at my blog catholicpunditwannabe.blogspot.com in 2009.

Thoughts About Celebrating the "Holiday Season"

It seems to me that the 'holiday season' is celebrated almost in a frenzy. Besides the frantic 'holiday' shopping (which usually includes many personal purchases--retailers count on them!) we engage in the constant creation of, purchase of, and indulgence in 'holiday foods and beverages,' accompanied by the din of 'holiday songs.'

The intoxication comes to a screeching halt on the actual day of Christmas. As soon as the profit motive dries up, the frenzy stops, and a blessed peace descends.

The good news is the less I decorate and the more I avoid holiday celebrations, the more I treasure the four week cycle of Advent. I get thrilled by the Advent readings in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Masses, which remind me of the Love that was behind the First Coming and will be behind the anticipated Second Coming of Christ.

My partially self-chosen poverty of having an undecorated house, eating a minimum of pre-Christmas treats, avoiding holiday parties and cookie exchanges and the like, all lead me to a deeper joy when the penitential season of Advent is over and when finally we reach the proper time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the Baby God. The Church gives us a long time to celebrate, until Candlemas on Feb. 2, during which time we can have our decorations and our feasting, for 40 whole days. In this and many other areas of life, it seems to me, waiting and self control only makes the satisfaction deeper and more meaningful. And that alone, after all, might be a very good reason for keeping Advent."

Here's another bit along the same lines from this blog at Christmas: It's Not Over Til It's Over:

Christmas is a season not a day.

In spite of what most people seem to think, the time before Christmas is not the Christmas season. On Christmas Day, the season is actually just beginning.

In the culture at large, the weeks before Christmas are a time for celebration, with lots of excitement from the Christmas music, lights, decorations, and parties.

In the Church year, the four weeks before Christmas are a time of preparation for the celebration of Christ's birth, a time of sober waiting. These four weeks of waiting start on the first Sunday of December and are called Advent, which means "coming." Advent is so important to the Church that it is the start of the liturgical year. During Advent, we anticipate the celebration of the First Coming of Christ that starts on Christmas Day, and we also are reminded to be ready for Christ's expected Second Coming at the end of the world. The Advent vestments are purple, the color of penance. The Christmas vestments are gold or white, to show our joy.

It seems to me that to observe the real spirit of the season, Christians should only start the singing of Christmas hymns and carols on Christmas Day, and hold off on the decorations and the parties until then. The festivities can then continue throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas up to the Feast of the Epiphany. Or even longer.[caption id="attachment_6527" align="alignright" width="226"] Epiphany by Hieronymous Bosch[/caption]

The Twelve Days of Christmas end January 5. The Epiphany, which is also called the Feast of the Wise Men, is celebrated on January 6. At my house, the wise men finally arrive at my manger scene on January 6 after they have been wandering around the living room ever since the creche was put up.

But Christmas is not over even at Epiphany.

In the traditional liturgical year, the Christmas season ends forty days after it starts, on February 2, on a feast day that has been called many names because it celebrates many things. The feast has been called Candlemas because candles are blessed at the Masses that day. The Purification of Our Lady in the Temple is a second name. In the Jewish religion, a woman presented herself for purification at the temple forty days after the birth of a male child. The Presentation of the Child Jesus is the current title of the feast. When Christ was carried into the Temple forty days after His birth to be dedicated to God as required by Jewish Law for every firstborn son, He was recognized by an old man named Simeon and by an old woman named Anna, who had been waiting years for His coming. In some traditions, the feast is also called The Meeting because of Christ's meeting with the prophet Simon and the prophetess Anna.

These thoughts just skim the surface of all the rich symbolism and significance of these feasts. And there are several more feasts during this time that I don't have time to go into now.

The point to remember is that the Catholic Church dedicates a long time, the symbolically important number of forty days, to the celebration of Christmas, and, contrary to public opinion, the celebration does not end on December 25.

This St. Ann Choir Poster from 2013 publicizes the Mass of Candlemas

And here is yet another snippet from my post at Dappled Things Deep Down Things blog last year: February 2 A Feast of Manifestation, Purification, and Candles:

Differences of opinion about when Christmas actually ends are nothing new. For example, here is a poem from colonial Williamsburg:

When New Year’s Day is past and gone;
Christmas is with some people done;
But further some will it extend,
And at Twelfth Day their Christmas end.
Some people stretch it further yet,
At Candlemas they finish it.
The gentry carry it further still
And finish it just when they will;
They drink good wine and eat good cheer
And keep their Christmas all the year.

The gentry in the poem were missing the point: by drinking and eating as if it were Christmas all year, they weren’t celebrating the feast of Christmas any more, just gormandizing. Just like we moderns do . . .. But at least none of the people in the poem would be likely to take the Christmas tree down and throw it out the day after Christmas. They’d hold out at least until January 2, “When New Year’s Day is past and gone.”

And finally, there's this from another Dappled Things blog post from last year On the Thirteenth Day of Christmas 20 + K + M + B + 14:

Parting Thoughts about Christmas, from a Surprising Source

I came across the following apt observations about how Christians should celebrate Christmas, at an atheist website, of all places:

"Conservative evangelical Christians complain about people taking the “Christ” out of Christmas, but they seem to forget that they have already taken the “Mass” out of Christmas (Mass being a service including Holy Communion). When was the last time a prominent figure on the Christian Right has argued that Americans should remember to attend Mass on this Holy Day? … This is just one of many masses that have been excised from the season. . . . So, the next time a Christian insists that we put the Christ back in Christmas, tell them that they should also:

· Put the Mass back in Christmas

· Restore Candlemas

· Restore the Feast of the Epiphany

· Restore the Advent season

· Restore gift-giving to the real Christmas season, which occurs after Christmas day

· Don’t put up a Christmas tree until Christmas Eve — if at all

· Use Christmas as a day of contemplating Christ, not for engaging in commerce"

When I write about this topic, I am trying to correct misunderstandings and to help other people grasp the beautiful significance of feasts that has been obscured in a commercially oriented secular Christmas. I hope to bring to light and show off some riches from the treasury of the Church's traditional observation, to give to others some glimpses of the joys of Christmas that they may have never seen before, joys that can only be experienced fully by humbly observing the sober time of preparation that the Church calls Advent.

To close, I want to give G. K. Chesterton and Fr. George Rutler the last words, from a sermon Fr. Rutler prepared for the Second Sunday of Advent.

FROM THE PASTOR
December 7, 2014
by Fr. George W. Rutler

It would be hard to think of any writer in the last several generations who celebrated Christmas as heartily as G. K. Chesterton. It was precisely because of this, and not in spite of it, that he said with a severity not characteristic of his benign personality: “There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes.”

Dangerous, that is, because the rush neglects the deepest mysteries of life which are the stuff of Advent meditations: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell; and by that neglect we are abandoned to a life of anxiety, unable to know why we were made or what we are to become. Disgusting, that is, because rushing Christmas spoils the appetite for higher things and tries to replace holy joy with entertainments that quickly become boring.

Just finished designing this poster for the San Jose's Immaculate Heart of Mary Oratory's upcoming Christmas Party, which, I'm happy to say, will be held on the Third Day of Christmas

The Supreme Beauty of Spiritual Things

 Photo credits: Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco ( http://sanctatrinitasunusdeus.com) and Roseanne T. Sullivan

On June 20, 1921, noted architect Ralph Adams Cram gave an address titled "The Test of Beauty" to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard University. During his address, Cram lavished praise on the Pontifical Mass (Missa Pontificalis in Latin), which is an elaborate form of the traditional Roman Catholic Mass that has seldom been celebrated during most of the past sixty years. A convert from Unitarianism to Episcopalianism, Cram is perhaps best known for his design for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He was also a prominent member of the Anglo-Catholic movement, and he wrote and spoke extensively as an ardent advocate for Gothic architecture. In spite of the fact that he never became a Roman Catholic, he was an equally ardent admirer of Catholic liturgy. Cram was so renowned in his field that he wrote the article on "Gothic Architecture " in the 1909 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia.

In his peroration at the end of his address at Harvard, Cram posed this rhetorical question, "What was the greatest synthesis of beauty, made operative through art, that man has ever achieved?" He went on to summarize the main premise of his talk in his answer, "The answer is very simple: it was a Gothic cathedral of the thirteenth century during a Pontifical High Mass. . . . Every art raised to its highest point was here brought into play in one place and associated in absolute union with the greatest beauty of thought, emotion, and action that have ever been the possession of fallen man. . . . And all were for the exposition and realization of the supreme beauty of spiritual things; the durable love of God for His children through the Sacrifice of Calvary, eternally renewed upon the altar, and the veritable presence of His Spirit through the miracle of the Mass[1]."

On Sunday September 14, 2014, on the Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross according to the 1962 liturgical calendar, more than four hundred worshippers filled the pews of Star of the Sea Church in San Francisco for a historically resonant liturgical event, when San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone celebrated the first Pontifical Mass held in that city for close to sixty years.

The Pontifical Mass was celebrated on that balmy September evening in that beautiful church at the northwest tip of the San Francisco peninsula very much the same way as Pontifical Masses were celebrated around the world before the Second Vatican Council. Star of the Sea Church is a parish church that was finished in 1917 using the best materials the working-class parish could buy[2], during Cram's lifetime, and while it is not a cathedral and its arches are Romanesque rather than Gothic, it was an appropriately lovely setting for this modern-day Pontifical Mass.


The Pontifical Mass was to celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the seventh anniversary of the implementation of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s motu proprio  Summorum Pontificum, which affirmed that ceremonies and rituals like the Pontifical Mass are still valid and an important part of the Church’s rich heritage. The Mass, which was advertised as "one of the treasures of the faith," was coordinated by the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco with music by the Golden Gate Catholic Boys Choir.

The elaborate gestures, the large number of ministers, the multitudinous details of the vesting of the celebrant and of the ministers, and the order of the ceremony, all were followed according to how they are spelled out in the Caeremoniale Episcoporum (Manual of Episcopal Ceremonies[3]) from 1916.

The Pontifical Mass is the Mass of a bishop, and all the highly regulated, complex details of this Mass are fraught with meaning. Taken together, the details are designed to make up a system of visible, material signs that point to the invisible, spiritual realities of a bishop’s office.  As is true about how we come to understand many important things, we don't grasp the importance of something as complex as a Pontifical Mass without having been taught what it means.  The goal of this post is to explain some of the rich meaning of what occurred that night.

Why is it called a Pontifical Mass?

It is not commonly known, but the adjective "pontifical" does not refer exclusively to the pope. A cardinal, archbishop, bishop or abbot is also referred to as high priest, or “pontiff.” The celebrant of a Pontifical Mass is said to be “pontificating.” The related term “pontificals” refers to all the vestments and ornaments the bishop wears and uses when he pontificates at the Pontifical Mass.

A Pontifical Mass at the Throne represents the summit of the Roman liturgy. It is the paradigm for the Roman Rite.  As Canon Olivier Meney of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (who assisted at the Mass) recently explained, “The Low Mass is a reduction of the Solemn High Mass, which in its turn is a reduction of the Pontifical Mass at the Throne.”

In contrast, in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, which is the form almost exclusively celebrated since Vatican II, the Pontifical Mass seems no longer to be seen as a model for all Masses. Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who was largely responsible for the new Mass that was promulgated in the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of Pope Paul VI, has been quoted as saying that the low Mass of a priest is now the normative Mass.

Elaborate vestments and liturgical items, such as those worn and used during the Pontifical Mass, are not, as some mistakenly think, a form of vain clerical dressing-up, but on the contrary, they are  rich in symbolism. The truth is that in ceremonies like this, the individual is minimized, while the power of the priesthood is emphasized. If we understand and meditate on the symbols, they can lead us to think more deeply about the role of the priesthood as it was instituted by Jesus Christ.

Before being vested during the Pontifical Mass, the bishop takes off the vestments he usually wears as a prelate of the Church. He then is clothed ceremonially with vestments that stand for the full power of the priesthood, which belongs not to himself, but to his role as a bishop.

What does “at the Throne” mean?

At Star of the Sea, Archbishop Cordileone celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Throne. The term “at the Throne” is used when a Pontifical Mass is celebrated within the jurisdiction of a bishop or archbishop. During the Mass, the celebrant sits at a throne at the altar.

If a bishop celebrates a Pontifical Mass at a cathedral or church outside of his own jurisdiction, he either celebrates "at the faldstool" (a faldstool being a portable folding chair) or "in choro" (in choir).

The privilege of "Pontificating" on the Throne is only allowed to all Cardinals outside of Rome, to the Pope's Apostolic Nuncios and Legates in the territorial jurisdiction they are assigned, and to Bishops and Archbishops within their Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions.

Because the archbishop was visiting Star of the Sea and did not celebrate at his cathedral, it was necessary to construct a temporary throne on the gospel side of the altar. The archbishop’s shield was mounted behind the chair with a gold-embroidered baldachin (canopy) above it.


Why all that vesting at the Throne?

One unusual and elaborate aspect of the Pontifical Mass was the ceremony called “vesting at the throne.”


Before the start of the Mass, the pontificals were laid out on the altar. Servers ceremoniously removed each of the pontificals in turn from the altar, and waited in line to present them to the archbishop. Sacred ministers helped vest him.

The pontificals included buskins, an amice, an alb, a cincture, a stole, a tunic, a dalmatic, and a chasuble, along with the bishop’s pectoral cross, ring, and crosier, which bishops always use, plus two types of mitre worn by the archbishop at different points during the Pontifical Mass, along with a gremial and gloves[4], [5].

The vesting ceremony is rich in symbolism of the bishop’s humility. It reminds the bishop and everyone present of Christ’s words to St. Peter after His Resurrection to indicate how Peter would die, when He said that one day Peter would not be able dress himself and go where he wished but that someone else would dress him and lead him.

The ceremony is so powerfully evocative of humility that one bishop said that first time he was being vested for Pontifical Mass, “he felt like a lamb being dressed for slaughter.”

Vesting with the amice

Amen, amen I say to thee, when thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. – John 21:18

When the celebrant is divested of the vestments he wore when entering the church[6], he is symbolically stripped of the trappings of the world and loses his personal identity. When he is then subsequently ceremoniously vested in the pontificals, one after another, the bishop is clothed in the new man of which St. Paul speaks in his letter to the Ephesians and is covered from head to foot in the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ.

If so be that you have heard him, and have been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus: To put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error.   And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth." – Ephesians 4:21-24.

Bishops at Pontifical Mass wear the vestments of a subdeacon (the tunic), deacon (the dalmatic), and priest (chasuble) all at once because in the bishop, as medieval liturgist William Durandus wrote,  “the degrees of all the Major Orders are most eminently present.”

Vesting complete

Each pontifical has its own prescribed prayer[7]. For example, as he was being vested in the buskins (liturgical stockings), the archbishop prayed the following prayer.


How long since the last Pontifical Mass in San Francisco?

Beginning when His Grace was installed as Bishop of Oakland in 2009 and continuing after his appointment as Archbishop of San Francisco in 2012, Archbishop Cordileone has celebrated Pontifical Masses in several other locations around the archdiocese: at the Oakland apostolate of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in St. Margaret Mary Church in 2009 and 2011, and at St. Monica Church in Moraga to celebrate the official opening of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a new foundation of the Discalced Carmelites in the Diocese of Oakland in 2012. For several years, the archbishop has also celebrated Pontifical Masses on the last day of the Napa Institute's Conference at The Meritage Resort in Napa. His Pontifical Mass on September 14, 2014, was the first such Mass Archbishop Cordileone celebrated in the city of San Francisco.

Fr. Mark Mazza, former Star of the Sea pastor, was asked recently if he knows the date on which the last Pontifical Mass was previously celebrated in San Francisco. Fr. Mazza replied, “The reformed Mass with its new order would not appear until 1970 in the United States,” but, in the United States, changes to the Mass began at the end of November 1964, on the First Sunday of Advent.  For this reason, Fr. Mazza added, “I would presume that the last Solemn Pontifical Mass using the 1962 Missale Romanum and the Pontificale Romanum was in 1964, now over fifty years ago.” Fr. Mazza added that since even before the Second Vatican Council, Pontifical Masses “were not always that common,” the time elapsed since the last Pontifical Mass in the city could easily have been closer to sixty years.



How did this event come about?

The planning for this year’s Pontifical Mass began almost exactly a year earlier. During a dinner on September 13, 2013, which Fr. Mazza and the members of the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco hosted at Star of the Sea for Archbishop Cordileone, the Traditional Latin Mass Society asked the archbishop if he would celebrate a Pontifical Mass at the parish. Eventually the date was fixed to be the Sunday of the weekend of the archbishop's pastoral visit to the parish this year, which occurred September 13 through 15.



What does it all mean?

Beauty existed, and was infinitely desired, and within certain limits was supremely achieved under paganism, but with Christianity it was given a new content and a new function. The passion for perfection remained, but it was how a new perfection revealed in Christ; the joy in labor and creation remained, but it was now a new joy, for it was irradiated by the motive of worship and of sacrifice. -- Ralph Adams Cram, "The Test of Beauty."

If art is, indeed, as I have said, one of the really great agents of civilization, the Church is preeminently the place where its work may be made most effective. . . .  Each art is fine in itself, but a great and beautiful church, living with pictorial and sculptured decoration, where the sublime, appalling mystery of the Christian Faith is solemnized through the assembling of all the other arts — music, poetry, drama, and ceremonial —- in one vast, organic work of art built up of every one of them raised to its highest level of possibility, and all fused in one consummate opus Dei, this is in simple fact and in plain speech, the greatest artistic achievement, the most perfect proof of man's divine nature thus far recorded in the annals of humanity.[8] -- Ralph Adams Cram,"The Artist and the World."

For Cram then, the meaning of the Pontifical Mass on September 14, 2014 would be found in the synthesis of all of the beauties of the church, the ceremony, the vestments and the music, each of which contributed to the creation of an act of sublime worship expressing our love for God.


In his homily, Archbishop Cordileone reminded the mass goers to keep in mind that the beauty of the Pontifical Mass should not be an end in itself. Alongside of the love of God that is fostered during the celebration of the Eucharist in such a reverent ceremony in such a beautiful setting, our love of our neighbor must also be fostered.

Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. -- Matthew 22:36-40

Following are some excerpts from Archbishop Cordileone's homily:

Our spirituality and stewardship are the practical way we live our Christian faith in the world.  Our faith is not to be left inside the walls of this beautiful church. We are all awed and inspired by the beauty of the ceremonies here in the celebration this evening. . . .. We all love this liturgy, but if it doesn’t make a difference, it becomes nothing more than a neat hobby. A neat one. But a hobby.  It is meant to transform us into a deeper love of Jesus Christ.
Here we experience the beauty of Jesus Christ in the beauty of the Church’s liturgy so that we might recognize the beauty in those in the world around us, in those who are poor. Sharing those gifts with them, in works of charity, works of justice. We have ample opportunity here in our community. Here in this parish, right across the street, is a very good and powerful ministry to women who find themselves in crisis situations[9]. Mothers with young children or expectant mothers. Sharing our gifts. Understanding their needs. [We need] to see the beauty of Jesus Christ in them and to lift them out of their moment of crisis, out of their own fear, so they might encounter the Jesus who we encounter here and who we share with them.

The poor are found right outside the front door of the church

---

You can view the complete homily here and see many more photos of the Pontifical Mass here, thanks to the work of the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco.

---

1. "The Test of Beauty" an address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard University on June 20, 1921. By Ralph Adams Cram. Harvard Graduates' Magazine, Volume XXX. 1921-1922.  Copyright 1931. The Riverside Press Cambridge, Mass.
2. You can look up unfamiliar terms in a glossary for all the ornaments and vestments that is in the Manual of Episcopal Ceremonies, along with instructions for the order of the Pontifical Mass and the titles and roles of each of the sacred ministers. By Rev. Aurelius Stehl, O.S.B. Published 1916 by St. Vincent Archabbey Press, Latrobe, PA. It’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in details of the Pontifical Mass.
3. Here is an example from the history of Star of the Sea parish of the "no-expense spared" mentality that Catholics of modest means used to have when it came to building parish churches. "The statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, each costing $500, were made of pure Carrara marble in Italy and shipped to the United States at great expense." -- "The History Of Star Of The Sea Schools." By Sister Mary Dorothea Quinn, 1958. The statues were purchased at that great price in 1917.

4. Additional information about the official costumes of prelates is available online at Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church: According to Roman Etiquette” by John Abel Nainfa. Published 1909 by John Murphy Company, Baltimore. This is another fascinating read.
5. Simple pictures of the alb, stole, maniple, cincture, and chasuble are available in coloring book format at ”Learning About Priest Vestments (Free Printable e-book and Activity)” at Catholic Inspirations. Web. Retrieved September 24,2014. Also useful is this site, which presents information about the vestments, from the book, Mass and the Sacraments by Fr. John Laux, M.A.  Benziger Brothers 1934. And last but not least, here is a reprint of a Catholic Extension book called "Father Peter Cutouts" that children (and maybe some adults) could cutout and color to learn (or relearn) the vestments and articles used during the Mass (free subscription required for access).
6. During a Pontifical Mass, a bishop may wear a cappa magna (great cape) when he enters the church. If so, the cappa magna is removed before the Mass begins and put on again after the Mass is over. Archbishop Cordileone did not wear cappa magna on September 14. Some people criticize the cappa magna’s rich fabric and extraordinary length as a wastefully expensive example of the most extreme sort of ostentatious, effeminate, clerical finery.  This blog from the Daily Telegraph of London spoofs those who react with hostility to the cappa magna, but it also has spectacular photos of cappae magnae worn in the past and in the present day by dignitaries such as Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Spellman, Pope St John XXIII (when he was Archbishop Wotyla), and Cardinal Pell.
[caption id="attachment_6073" align="alignright" width="1024"]

Cardinal Raymond Burke wore a Cappa Magna for Institute of Christ the King Ordinations in St. Louis in August 2014

The cappa magna in the setting of the Pontifical Mass actually signifies the worldly finery that the bishop puts aside before being humbly vested in the pontificals. Following is the prayer a bishop says when removing the cappa:

7. The ministry of art, pp 135, 136. By  Ralph Adams Cram. Copyright 1914. The Riverside Press Cambridge.
8. The prayers for vesting of the pontificals are given in an easy to read format at the New Liturgical Movement in The Pontifical Vesting Prayers  of the Usus Antiquior December 29, 2011 web (retrieved September 24, 2014).
9. Star Community Home for women in crisis situations is a project of Catholic Charities CYO that is located in the former convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet at Star of the Sea. Archbishop Cordileone is the Director of the Star Community Home for Women's Board of Directors.

Disappearing Christmas Gifts of my Childhood

Seeing a post this morning about the dangers of the Ouija board jogged my memory of a particularly Thurber-esque aspect of some of the Christmases of my childhood. I'm thinking of the times when my two sisters and I lived off and on for years at a stretch with my father's sister, Agnes, her husband, Ray, my father's immigrant Irish widowed mother, Grandma Sullivan to us, and my cousin, Marybelle. Sometimes Uncle Ray's mother, Grandma Corder would be on a long-term visit from Arksasas while we were there and live with us all too.  Uncle Ray's Arkansas' roots account for cousin Marybelle's name, which was previously not heard of in Boston, where we all lived. 

My fireman father, Joseph, had died in a firetruck accident when I was two years old, my sister, Martha, was one, and my other sister, Joe-anne, was about to be born the next month. It was part of the gloomy secret-filled atmosphere of my childhood that my mother would be gone away for long stretches of time. I would be shushed up or the subject would be changed if I tried to ask questions about her.

My rakishly "tall, dark, and handsome" uncle was a barber in a rundown part of Boston, on Commonwealth Avenue near the downtown police station. After Uncle Ray would come home from work every evening, my beautful red-headed aunt left for work. Even though her name was Agnes, we called her Peggy, because she had taken care of a nephew when she was a teenager and he was a toddler; he called her Peggy since he couldn't pronounce her name, and the name had stuck. One  of the jobs Aunt Peggy had over the years was sterilizing instruments at Brigham and Woman's Hospital on the night shift. We were fed and clothed sufficiently but were not well off, and my  aunt and fond grandmother used to shop for bargains at Goodwill and at Woolworth's or the five and dime. 

One Christmas we got a Ouija board; I think Aunt Peggy must have found it at Goodwill. I remember Grandma Sullivan saying something disapproving about how the Ouija board was supposed to have something to do with demons, but my modern-thinking aunt and uncle pooh-poohed that. We were halfway hoping that demons might answer us when we played with the board one day, not knowing that we were really in danger. But we didn't get any answers, and we got bored and lost interest. Thank God for that, since exorcists report that many of the exorcisms they perform are from demons that were summoned by Ouija boards. Maybe it was my Grandma's frequent rosary prayings that kept them away.

In any case, I never saw the Ouija board again after that one experiment.

We didn't see it again because my aunt's odd idea of keeping our toys from cluttering up the house was to throw them away! 

Before we went to Mass on Christmas Day, we would race into the parlor around 6 a.m. and tear open the wrappings on a pile of gifts from under the tree. From the emphasis on quantity over quality, I think now that the value of all the paper and ribbon used to wrap them might have been greater than the value of all the presents combined.  For the rest of the day, after we got home from Mass, we'd play with whatever toys we'd gotten--and then we would never see them again. Only sometimes, some of the games would stay. Aunt Peggy would stick them away in a closet.

I only realized my aunt's idea of housekeeping was to toss things away years later. Most of the gifts we got were usually used from Goodwill or cheap from the dime store, so tacky and uninteresting, we didn't even miss them. We were never asked, what do you want for Christmas? -- except for the few years we were living with our mother.

When my mother came back when I was about 6 and and took us to live with her in another kind of gloomy secret-ridden environment, where we were hiding out from the aunt and uncle and grandmother, her Christmas gifts to us were bought new in the department stores and those were keepers. But that's another story.

On one Christmas when we weren't with my mother, in the parlor near the tree was a four foot tall lumpy package that turned out to be a dolly when it was unrapped. Not a doll, a dolly of the kind you move furniture around with. (I found out just now that they usually are called hand trucks.) 

That's right, Aunt Peggy and Grandma had picked up a red dolly from Goodwill. I remember my uncle saying to my aunt that us kids wouldn't like it. She told him, "Ma thought the kids might like to play with it." Uncle Ray was right, we didn't like it.  We just ignored it until it went away.

By the next day, it had disappeared like all of the other ephemeral Christmas gifts we got from them, and so we never saw the dolly again either.