Joseph's First Communion

Joseph was confirmed and received his first communion (at 6:33 PM) on Sunday, April 19, 2009, Divine Mercy Sunday. He was confirmed by Bishop Thomas Olmsted at St. Thomas the Apostle parish. The reading was the one about Doubting Thomas touching the wounds of Christ.

Blessed is the one (like our Joseph) who has not seen yet still believes. The image below by Caravaggio is amazing.

St. Ambrose

My last post concerned the Immaculate Conception whose feast day is celebrated on my twin's birthday. I've often complained that my sister gets to be associated with the Virgin Mary while I, having been born on December 7, am forever linked to "a day that will live in infamy"--Pearl Harbor Day.

December 7 is also the feast of St. Ambrose, someone I've mocked for having been named, well, Ambrose. My friend Cory insisted that, in spite of his delicate name, Ambrose was in fact a "Bad- A" and bought me a print of a copy of the picture shown here to prove it.

This painting is called "St. Ambrose and the Emperor Theodosius" by Peter Paul Rubens*. It shows Ambrose facing down the Roman Emperor, Theodosius, after he massacred a bunch of women and children in Macedonia. St. Ambrose denied the emperor entry to the cathedral at Milan and refused to lift the emperor's excommunication until he made public penance. This might not be a bad policy to adopt with some of our more "ardent Catholic" politicians. . .

Ruben's disciple, Anthony Van Dyck, painted an almost identical painting to this one. It's this copy that I now have a matted and framed print of, thanks to Cory. I would have included it in the post, but the best version I could find had a digital watermark.

*not to be confused with Pee Wee Herman

"More Spacious Than the Heavens"

Our family had dinner at a Melkite Catholic church on Saturday night. Part of the evening included a tour of the church.

The Melkite Church is in communion with the Roman Catholic Church (they acknowledge the Pope as the head of their Church), but their liturgical traditions come from the East, not the West. Icons figure very prominently in the way they worship, especially icons of Mary, the Theotokos (the “God-bearer”).

The sanctuary of a Melkite church is very different from that of a Latin (Roman) church. Most notably, there is no crucifix behind the altar. Instead there is an icon of Mary similar to the one pictured here.

This type of Marian icon is known as Platytera, which literally means “wider” or “more spacious”. In the Eastern Church, Mary is venerated under the title, Platytera ton ouran. In English, this title is literally “more spacious than the heavens”. Mary is given this title because, unlike the heavens/universe, Mary, the Mother of God, could contain God and did for the nine months leading up to Christmas.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and Christmas is only 16 days away. It seems to me to be a fitting time to open our hearts to the one who was “more spacious than the heavens”. In doing so, we also welcome the One she carried within her.

Happy Feast Day, Olivia!

When the little girl with the intoxicating smile pictured on the left was born, I quipped that the family martini finally got its olive. My mother-in-law thought I was being flippant. Then she realized I was just being unfunny. Anyway, today is one of the many days that we celebrate around here because today is the feast of Blessed Olivia.

Below is her entry on catholic.com's website. I don't know exactly how much about this Blessed is "pious fictional legend", but we're going to celebrate anyway. Our little lady does some pretty unbelievable stuff herself, so maybe it's something that goes with the name...

Bl. Olivia
Feastday: June 10

Olivia is a derivative of Olive whose feast day is June 10th. According to pious fictional legend, she was a beautiful girl of thirteen, of a noble Palermo, Italy, family who was carried off to Tunis by raiding Moslems. They allowed her to live in a nearby cave but when they found that her miracles and cures had converted many Mohammedans, she was imprisoned, tortured, and after converting her executioners trying to burn her to death, was beheaded.

When I read that entry to her, Olivia thought it was pretty cool. She said, "It's like the olive tree gets its head chopped off when it gets cut down." That's our Olivia. Very serious, very grave. She is the polar opposite of Sophia in that she has a pretty strong morbid streak. She's always asking to see gruesome things. Once she made us TiVo surgeries just so she could decide if she wanted to be a doctor. (She'd make an excellent doctor or nurse--she always takes care of her siblings and parents when they fall ill.)

Lately, Liva has been sleep walking. She wakes up completely distressed and comes to us muttering "it's just hard...it's just hard." We don't know if she's dreaming about math or Goldilocks' first mattress--maybe she's contemplating the challenges of converting the Mohammedans--but it's pretty entertaining.

On a side note, I can't believe how beautiful this kid is (the picture doesn't do her justice). Even when she's completely delirious, she looks gorgeous. I fully intend to send the names of any of her potential suitors to the vocations directors of multiple religious orders. I'm not sure I can part with her.

Sophia's First Communion and Confirmation

One of the many things that I've neglected to write about is my daughter Sophia's First Communion and Confirmation. She received both sacraments on April 26th, 2008. She was so beautiful and so excited, it was truly inspiring.

I'm thrilled that our bishop has lowered the age of Confirmation. As a former high school teacher, I can confirm that our young people need as much grace as they can get. Going into adolescence equipped for battle just makes sense to me.

The ceremony was pretty funny. The Dean, Fr. Chuck (who confirmed the children on behalf of Bishop Olmsted) had such a hard time getting decent answers from the kids when he questioned them that I wanted to ask him how long he had been in dentistry.

"What do we receive when we're confirmed? Bobby?"
"The gift of Confirmation!"
"Good, Bobby, but when we get the gift of Confirmation what do we get?"
"Confirmed!"

It went on like that forever. He finally got them to start listing the gifts of the Holy Spirit and some were dubious. I don't think St. Paul mentioned the gift of Niceness.

Sophia chose St. Josephine Bakhita as her confirmation name. Here's what she wrote about her on the prayer cards we made as party favors:

St. Josephine Bakhita was born in the Sudan, captured by slave traders at
age 10, and lived most of her life as a slave. She was tortured severely—beaten, burned and forced to work very hard. Despite all of this, she saw the wonderful works around her and wondered what master could have made them.

Although she did not know the name of God, Bakhita always knew He existed. She was sold many times and eventually ended up with nuns in Italy. It was there that she learned the name of God: Jesus Christ, her "Good Master." She was so happy to know Him that she served Him with her life. She forgave her kidnappers and torturers and had great love for everyone she met.

I chose St. Josephine to be my confirmation Saint because of her bravery, her
longing to know Jesus, and her great love for Him.

St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us!