Reading (and Writing) Tally at Midpoint in the Year

It's the last day of June - midpoint in the year.

In the last few days, I finished three books: How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman, The Confessions by Saint Augustine, and The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

Herman's book was fun as I explore my Scottish roots. He found every possible connection to Scotland that he could; sometimes it seems as if he was stretching things to make those connections, but it was still enjoyable and informative.

The Confessions was actually a reread - though it's been 47 years since I read it. I was actually reading it in installments as spiritual reading every time I volunteered at the St. Padre Pio Chapel, but I got close to the end so I finished it off. When I read it back in 1974/75 it was one of the books that helped me rediscover my faith. It is still a powerful book, spiritually enriching and mentally stimulating.

The Pinocchio book was actually due to an article in the June issue of Smithsonian about a new translation of the original Italian tales by Collodi. I was familiar with the Disney version, not the original, so I got an earlier translation from the library. An enjoyable read, and much needed lighter fare after St. Augustine! It was interesting comparing the original to the more sanitized treatment Disney gave the story. 

Those three works bring me to 33 for the year so far. I am not trying to best my record for last year (95). Heck, at this point last year I had 53 works under my belt! I'll just keep plodding along reading whatever catches my attention.

After hearing about a Jeopardy contestant who had been keeping records of pages read since the 1990's, I decided to start that this year. My current count is 6,775 pages.

I have other reading that I do. I subscribe to a number of magazines: Smithsonian, The Saturday Evening Post, Gilbert (G. K. Chesterton), Star: Saint Austin Review, Scifaikuest (science fiction poetry) Frogpond (haiku). I generally read them all cover to cover.  

In terms of writing for this blog, this is my 128th post. Last year by this point I had 169! I have been involved with some writing projects that have kept me busier this year. Plus, I resurrected a Chesterton-related blog for which I had been a team member. We each agreed to try to contribute a post a week, with each of us taking a day. I was Thursday - which amused me because Chesterton's most famous novel was The Man Who Was Thursday. The other members all drifted away, and I stopped posting too. Last August, I decided to begin posting more regularly to keep it alive. I've done 20 posts on that blog so far this year; last year at this point, I had done ... 0. 

Onward to more reading and writing!

Pax et bonum

Amos Clerihew

The prophet Amos

is justly famous

not for his cookie baking skill

but for informing a corrupt king of God's will.

Pax et bonum

Images from the Abbey

We went to the Abbey of the Genesee today. I took a few pictures. 

The island in the pond.

Christ on a fence post  

The abbey graveyard with simple crosses 

The Abbey is one of our favorite places to visit. I've taken so many pictures in the past I decided to limit myself this visit. 

Pax et bonum

Saint Thomas More, Secular Franciscan

His belief that no lay ruler has jurisdiction over the Church of Christ cost Thomas More his life.

Beheaded on Tower Hill, London, on July 6, 1535, More steadfastly refused to approve King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage and establishment of the Church of England.

Described as “a man for all seasons,” More was a literary scholar, eminent lawyer, gentleman, father of four children, and chancellor of England. An intensely spiritual man, he would not support the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Nor would he acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church in England, breaking with Rome, and denying the pope as head.

More was committed to the Tower of London to await trial for treason: not swearing to the Act of Succession and the Oath of Supremacy. Upon conviction, More declared he had all the councils of Christendom and not just the council of one realm to support him in the decision of his conscience.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

Blessed Jutta of Thuringa, Secular Franciscan

Today’s patroness of Prussia began her life amidst luxury and power but died the death of a simple servant of the poor.

In truth, virtue and piety were always of prime importance to Jutta and her husband, both of noble rank. The two were set to make a pilgrimage together to the holy places in Jerusalem, but her husband died on the way. The newly widowed Jutta, after taking care to provide for her children, resolved to live in a manner she felt was utterly pleasing to God. She disposed of the costly clothes, jewels, and furniture befitting one of her rank, and became a Secular Franciscan, taking on the simple garment of a religious.

From that point her life was utterly devoted to others: caring for the sick, particularly lepers; tending to the poor, whom she visited in their hovels; helping the crippled and blind with whom she shared her own home. Many of the townspeople of Thuringia laughed at how the once-distinguished lady now spent all her time. But Jutta saw the face of God in the poor and felt honored to render whatever services she could.

About the year 1260, not long before her death, Jutta lived near the non-Christians in eastern Germany. There she built a small hermitage and prayed unceasingly for their conversion. She has been venerated for centuries as the special patron of Prussia.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

Blessed Raymond Lull, Secular Franciscan

Raymond Lull worked all his life to promote the missions and died a missionary to North Africa.

Raymond was born at Palma on the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea. He earned a position in the king’s court there. One day a sermon inspired him to dedicate his life to working for the conversion of the Muslims in North Africa. He became a Secular Franciscan and founded a college where missionaries could learn the Arabic they would need in the missions. Retiring to solitude, he spent nine years as a hermit. During that time he wrote on all branches of knowledge, a work which earned him the title “Enlightened Doctor.”

Raymond then made many trips through Europe to interest popes, kings, and princes in establishing special colleges to prepare future missionaries. He achieved his goal in 1311, when the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of chairs of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean at the universities of Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca. At the age of 79, Raymond went to North Africa in 1314 to be a missionary himself. An angry crowd of Muslims stoned him in the city of Bougie. Genoese merchants took him back to Mallorca, where he died. Raymond was beatified in 1514 and his liturgical feast is celebrated on June 30.

-  From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

First Post-Roe Rally; More Pro-Life Work Ahead

We held our first Post-Roe Stand Together for Life June 25. We celebrated the overturning of Roe and the recent successful effort to halt a Planned Parenthood center in Henrietta, but we also recognized that there is work ahead. 

More than 70 neanderthals - as Governor Hochul called us - gathered as they have every last Saturday of the month to pray, witness, and get updates. 

Although Planned Parenthood has been stopped for the moment in Henrietta, they will likely seek another site, so we will have to be vigilant.

Meanwhile, Governor Hochul and the Democratic-controlled legislature are intent on turning New York into an abortion mecca - with taxpayer funding to help women get here and get abortions. So the elections this fall are vitally important.

On the other hand, those women flooding to our state also gives us an opportunity to reach out to more women to offer help, support, and alternatives to abortion.

That means we need to volunteer, to witness, to speak out, and to provide support for the ministries and organizations helping women. 

And, of course, we need to keep praying.

We need to increase our efforts to stop abortion, and to let true justice roll for women and their unborn children.

They will need our help in the days ahead.

Pax et bonum

Neanderthals for Life

Pax et bonum

Meet Some of the Neanderthals, Governor

Governor Kathy Hochul has made her support for abortion very public - and a prominent part of her campaign for reelection.

She recently declared - 

"This is the United States of America, where freedom and liberty are supposed to mean something It’s the rock upon which we are founded … except in the eyes of some neanderthals who say women are not entitled those rights" - NY Gov. Kathy Hochul

I thought she'd like to meet some of the local neanderthals.

Pax et bonum

Venerable Matt Talbot - Secular Franciscan

Matt can be considered the patron of men and women struggling with alcoholism. He was born in Dublin, where his father worked on the docks and had a difficult time supporting his family. After a few years of schooling, Matt obtained work as a messenger for some liquor merchants; there he began to drink excessively. For 15 years—until he was almost 30—Matt was an active alcoholic.

One day he decided to take “the pledge” for three months, make a general confession and begin to attend daily Mass. There is evidence that Matt’s first seven years after taking the pledge were especially difficult. Avoiding his former drinking places was hard. He began to pray as intensely as he used to drink. He also tried to pay back people from whom he had borrowed or stolen money while he was drinking.

Most of his life Matt worked as a builder’s laborer. He joined the Secular Franciscan Order and began a life of strict penance; he abstained from meat nine months a year. Matt spent hours every night avidly reading Scripture and the lives of the saints. He prayed the rosary conscientiously. Though his job did not make him rich, Matt contributed generously to the missions.

After 1923, Matt's health failed, and he was forced to quit work. He died on his way to church on Trinity Sunday. Fifty years later, Pope Paul VI gave Matt Talbot the title venerable. His liturgical feast is celebrated on June 19.

Pax et bonum

Jane's Revenge Makes Threats.

Jane's Revenge threatening violence. Where are the state and federal administrations' voices speaking out against this? 

You have seen that we are real, and that we are not merely pushing empty words. As we said: we are not one group but many. You have seen us in Madison WI, Ft. Collins CO, Reisertown MA, Olympia WA, Des Moines IA, Lynwood WA, Washington DC, Ashville NC, Buffalo NY, Hollywood FL, Vancouver WA, Frederick MA, Denton TX, Gresham OR, Eugene OR, Portland OR, among others, and we work in countless locations invisibly. You’ve read the communiqués from the various cells, you’ve seen the proliferating messages in graffiti and elsewhere, and you know that we are serious.

We were unsurprised to see thirty days come and thirty days pass with no sign of consilience or even bare-minimum self-reflection from you who impersonate healthcare providers in order to harm the vulnerable. History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes, and we’ve already seen such stanzas where medical autonomy is stripped away, humanity is increasingly criminalized, and merely surviving becomes largely untenable.

Your thirty days expired yesterday. We offered an honourable way out. You could have walked away. Now the leash is off. And we will make it as hard as possible for your campaign of oppression to continue. We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack. We are versatile, we are mercurial, and we answer to no one but ourselves. We promised to take increasingly drastic measures against oppressive infrastructures. Rest assured that we will, and those measures may not come in the form of something so easily cleaned up as fire and graffiti. Sometimes you will see what we do, and you will know that it is us. Sometimes you will think you merely are unlucky, because you cannot see the ways which we interfere in your affairs. But your pointless attempts to control others, and make life more difficult, will not be met passively. Eventually your insurance companies, and your financial backers will realize you are a bad investment.

From here forward, any anti-choice group who closes their doors, and stops operating will no longer be a target. But until you do, it’s open season, and we know where your operations are. The infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive. We will never stop, back down, slow down, or retreat. We did not want this; but it is upon us, and so we must deal with it proportionally. We exist in confluence and solidarity with all others in the struggle for complete liberation. Our recourse now is to defend ourselves and to build robust, caring communities of mutual aid, so that we may heal ourselves without the need of the medical industry or any other intermediary. Through attacking, we find joy, courage, and strip the veneer of impenetrability held by these violent institutions.

And for the allies of ours who doubt the authenticity of the communiqués and actions: there is a way you can get irrefutable proof that these actions are real. Go do one of your own. You are already one of us. Everyone with the urge to paint, to burn, to cut, to jam: now is the time. Go forth and manifest the things you wish to see. Stay safe, and practice your cursive.

—Jane’s Revenge

Pax et bonum

Saint Albert Chmielowski (Secular Franciscan)

Born in Igolomia near Kraków as the eldest of four children in a wealthy family, he was christened Adam. During the 1864 revolt against Czar Alexander III, Adam’s wounds forced the amputation of his left leg.

His great talent for painting led to studies in Warsaw, Munich, and Paris. Adam returned to Kraków and became a Secular Franciscan. In 1888, when he founded the Brothers of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Servants to the Poor, he took the name Albert. They worked primarily with the homeless, depending completely on alms while serving the needy regardless of age, religion, or politics. A community of Albertine sisters was established later.

Pope John Paul II beatified Albert in 1983, and canonized him six years later. His liturgical feast is celebrated on June 17.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

St. Anthony of Padua

The gospel call to leave everything and follow Christ was the rule of Saint Anthony of Padua’s life. Over and over again, God called him to something new in his plan. Every time Anthony responded with renewed zeal and self-sacrificing to serve his Lord Jesus more completely.

His journey as the servant of God began as a very young man when he decided to join the Augustinians in Lisbon, giving up a future of wealth and power to be a servant of God. Later when the bodies of the first Franciscan martyrs went through the Portuguese city where he was stationed, he was again filled with an intense longing to be one of those closest to Jesus himself: those who die for the Good News.

So Anthony entered the Franciscan Order and set out to preach to the Moors. But an illness prevented him from achieving that goal. He went to Italy and was stationed in a small hermitage where he spent most of his time praying, reading the Scriptures and doing menial tasks.

The call of God came again at an ordination where no one was prepared to speak. The humble and obedient Anthony hesitantly accepted the task. The years of searching for Jesus in prayer, of reading sacred Scripture and of serving him in poverty, chastity, and obedience had prepared Anthony to allow the Spirit to use his talents. Anthony’s sermon was astounding to those who expected an unprepared speech and knew not the Spirit’s power to give people words.

Recognized as a great man of prayer and a great Scripture and theology scholar, Anthony became the first friar to teach theology to the other friars. Soon he was called from that post to preach to the Albigensians in France, using his profound knowledge of Scripture and theology to convert and reassure those who had been misled by their denial of Christ’s divinity and of the sacraments..

After he led the friars in northern Italy for three years, he made his headquarters in the city of Padua. He resumed his preaching and began writing sermon notes to help other preachers. In the spring of 1231 Anthony withdrew to a friary at Camposampiero where he had a sort of treehouse built as a hermitage. There he prayed and prepared for death.

On June 13, he became very ill and asked to be taken back to Padua, where he died after receiving the last sacraments. Anthony was canonized less than a year later and named a Doctor of the Church in 1946.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

Saint Joachima

Born into an aristocratic family in Barcelona, Spain, Joachima was 12 when she expressed a desire to become a Carmelite nun. But her life took an altogether different turn at 16 with her marriage to a young lawyer, Theodore de Mas. Both deeply devout, they became secular Franciscans. During their 17 years of married life they raised eight children.

The normalcy of their family life was interrupted when Napoleon invaded Spain. Joachima had to flee with the children; Theodore remained behind and died. Though Joachima re-experienced a desire to enter a religious community, she attended to her duties as a mother. At the same time, the young widow led a life of austerity and chose to wear the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis as her ordinary dress. She spent much time in prayer and visiting the sick.

Four years later, with some of her children now married and younger ones under their care, Joachima confessed her desire to a priest to join a religious order. With his encouragement, she established the Carmelite Sisters of Charity. In the midst of the fratricidal wars occurring at the time, Joachima was briefly imprisoned and later exiled to France for several years.

Sickness ultimately compelled her to resign as superior of her order. Over the next four years she slowly succumbed to paralysis, which caused her to die by inches. At her death in 1854 at the age of 71, Joachima was known and admired for her high degree of prayer, deep trust in God, and selfless charity. Joachima was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1940, and canonized by Pope John XXIII in 1959. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on August 28.

From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

Speaking of January 6

Some important events that took place on January 6:

1412 – St. Joan of Arc was born. She was later the victim of a sham trial with biased judges and false evidence.  

1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves. (The marriage was later annulled and she outlived all the other wives.)

1839 – The Night of the Big Wind, the most damaging storm in 300 years, sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.

1878 – Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois (not Chicago)

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted to the Union as the 47th U.S. state. (It's still going and growing)

1919 – Theodore Roosevelt charged up his final hill.

1924 – Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs is born  (He stopped picking in 2012.) 

1929 – Mother Teresa arrives by sea in Calcutta, India, to begin her work among India's poorest and sick people.

1994 – Nancy Kerrigan is attacked and injured by an assailant hired by her rival Tonya Harding's ex-husband during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. (Why? Why? Why?)

Pax et bonum

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter - Secular Franciscan

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter

Called to fight for his country as a Nazi soldier, Franz eventually refused, and this husband and father of three daughters—Rosalie, Marie and Aloisia—was executed because of it.

Born in St. Radegund in Upper Austria, Franz lost his father during World War I and was adopted after Heinrich Jaegerstaetter married Rosalia Huber. As a young man, he loved to ride his motorcycle and was the natural leader of a gang whose members were arrested in 1934 for brawling. For three years he worked in the mines in another city and then returned to St. Radegund, where he became a farmer, married Franziska and lived his faith with quiet but intense conviction.

In 1938, he publicly opposed the German Anschluss--annexation--of Austria. The next year he was drafted into the Austrian army, trained for seven months and then received a deferment. In 1940, Franz was called up again but allowed to return home at the request of the town’s mayor. He was in active service between October 1940 and April 1941, but was again deferred. His pastor, other priests, and the bishop of Linz urged him not to refuse to serve if drafted.

In February 1943, Franz was called up again and reported to army officials in Enns, Austria. When he refused to take the oath of loyalty to Hitler, he was imprisoned in Linz. Later he volunteered to serve in the medical corps but was not assigned there.

During Holy Week Franz wrote to his wife: “Easter is coming and, if it should be God’s will that we can never again in this world celebrate Easter together in our intimate family circle, we can still look ahead in the happy confidence that, when the eternal Easter morning dawns, no one in our family circle shall be missing—so we can then be permitted to rejoice together forever.” He was transferred in May to a prison in Berlin.

Challenged by his attorney that other Catholics were serving in the army, Franz responded, “I can only act on my own conscience. I do not judge anyone. I can only judge myself.” He continued, “I have considered my family. I have prayed and put myself and my family in God’s hands. I know that, if I do what I think God wants me to do, he will take care of my family.”

On August 8, 1943, Franz wrote to Fransizka: “Dear wife and mother, I thank you once more from my heart for everything that you have done for me in my lifetime, for all the sacrifices that you have borne for me. I beg you to forgive me if I have hurt or offended you, just as I have forgiven everything…My heartfelt greetings for my dear children. I will surely beg the dear God, if I am permitted to enter heaven soon, that he will set aside a little place in heaven for all of you.”

Franz was beheaded and cremated the following day. In 1946, his ashes were reburied in St. Radegund near a memorial inscribed with his name and the names of almost 60 village men who died during their military service. He was beatified in Linz on October 26, 2007. His “spiritual testament” is now in Rome’s St. Bartholomew Church as part of a shrine to 20th-century martyrs for their faith. Blessed Franz's liturgical feast is celebrated on August 9.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum

Blessed Angeline of Marsciano

Blessed Angeline of Marsciano

Blessed Angeline founded the first community of Franciscan women other than Poor Clares to receive papal approval.

Angeline was born to the Duke of Marsciano near Orvieto. She was 12 when her mother died. Three years later, the young woman made a vow of perpetual chastity. That same year, however, she yielded to her father’s decision that she marry the Duke of Civitella. Her husband agreed to respect her previous vow.

When he died two years later, Angeline joined the Secular Franciscans and with several other women dedicated herself to caring for the sick, the poor, widows and orphans. When many other young women were attracted to Angeline’s community, some people accused her of condemning the married vocation. Legend has it that when she came before the King of Naples to answer these charges, she had burning coals hidden in the folds of her cloak. When she proclaimed her innocence and showed the king that these coals had not harmed her, he dropped the case.

Angeline and her companions later went to Foligno, where her community of Third Order sisters received papal approval in 1397. She soon established 15 similar communities of women in other Italian cities.

Angeline died on July 14, 1435, and was beatified in 1825. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on July 13.

- From Franciscan Media

Pax et bonum