"Resting on an air mattress, on a big lazy lake

of my own subjective desires." --Bishop Robert Barron.





Last night at Mass I had a moment in which I felt quietly and powerfully - not for the first time - that quickness, that haste, that hinge, that total hairpin turn in the conversion of St. Paul. Who in using their imagination and empathy, combined with the reflection of their own conversion experience (which is never finished in this valley of tears), can't picture what it would have been like, even just a little, for Saul?

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them SKYBALON, that I may gain Christ..."

Look up "skybalon", by the way.

He said WHAT!

“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” --Pope Francis

I agree

I agree

Plug

I order my scapulars from the Sisters of Carmel in Colorado. They make really good scapulars. Brown. 100% wool.

I`m not associated. Just wanted to let anyone know, if you want good scapulars, they`re great.

Great words from the Holy Father

I say this not to scare you, but simply to say that our life is today: now or never. I think of this: tomorrow will be the eternal tomorrow that never sets, with the Lord forever – if I am true to this day; and the question that I put to you is the same the Holy Spirit is putting to all of us, i.e. 'How ought I to live, this day?'

'Today' is played out in our hearts. Are our hearts opened to the Lord? To me it always strikes me when I find an older person – often priests or nuns – who tell me, 'Father, pray for my final perseverance' – 'But, you did well all your life long, all the days of your 'today' are in the service of the Lord, and still you are afraid?' 'No, no, my life has not yet waned: I want to live it fully, I pray that the day arrives full, full, with a heart strong in faith, and not ruined by sin, vices, corruption.'

Today does not repeat itself: this is life – and the heart, the open heart, open to the Lord, not closed, not hard, not hardened, not without faith, not perverted, not deceived by sin. The Lord has met so many of these, who had closed their hearts: the doctors of the law, all these people who persecuted Him, put Him to the test to convict Him – and in the end they managed to do it. We go home with these two words only: how is my 'today'? The sunset can be today, this day or many days later. But how are you, my today, in the presence of the Lord? And how is my heart? Is it open? Is it firm in the faith? Is it led by the Lord? With these two questions we ask the Lord for the grace to which each of us needs. --Pope Francis, Homily 1/12/17

The Church adopts what is good/best in cultures

It seems to me that because Tuvan throat "overtone" chant frequently employs multiple notes/sounds simultaneously in the vocal chords of the chanter that it is objectively a superior form of chant to all other forms of chant, be they Gregorian or otherwise.

The more notes being chanted at the same time in the single individual the better. The "noble simplicity" of one note being sung at any given time by an individual singer in a sequence of single notes, and a choir of different voices singing those same notes or different notes at the same time, is not as rich and complex as it would be if each individual in that choir was singing multiple notes at any given time or at the same time.

It doesn't seem out of the question that people can learn this form of chant, and that it be adopted into a liturgical canon of the Church.

Why not?

We should put in all of our best, and it seems that having to chant multiple sounds simultaneously requires great devotion.

Spike is Best