I enjoy reading Adam's blog because he includes such delightful phrases as:
"dear 2005,
what the mary poppins took you so long, you filthy slut?"
and
"dear mother nature,
you are a repugnant whore."
Or perhaps I am simply amused by the entities to which he addresses his letters.
I meant to post this over a month ago, but I never got around to it. Now I post it simply to avoid posting anything real.
Why is it that I can never think of words like "repugnant" when I'm writing? I know what all these words mean, and I even know how to spell them, but can never come up with them at the appropriate times. Apparently my brain is a dictionary, not a thesaurus.
I didn't have a bad day, but sometimes I'm not sure what to think about things. I should be sleeping now, so I can wake up and shower and go to Mass on time like a good girl, and then I should go to the Rite of Election at St Amelia's for this year's RCIA candidates. Maybe meet the bishop, that would be neat.
I remember Rite of Election last year, a little bit. I remember there was a lot of music and singing. There was a band. I'm not fond of having a band at church, and I remember being a little disappointed to see the band at all, because I had heard that there would be "beautiful music", and the praise band was NOT what I was expecting. There were liturgical dancers there too, and if you spent any time at the board where I hang out, you would know why I found them to be both amusing and disturbing. Really it all seemed very new-agey, not helped by the fact that the church building itself is one of those horrible 1970's-architecture buildings that just doesn't even look like a church. I have been ultra-conservative super-trad girl in a lot of ways since my conversion began I guess. But new-agey never did anything for me. Praise bands never did anything for me. When I found Tradition I dove right in and drank the feeling of being part of something ancient, something rich in history, something brimming with beauty passed down through ages. If you look into the simplicity of the Mass all on its own, you find that it is so old and yet constantly new. It is constant, it is unchanging, it is always. And it is so beautiful. I guess when I think of "beautiful music" I just don't think of praise bands and liturgical dancers. "Beautiful" is a much deeper word, it goes beyond time, beyond place. "Beautiful" is unchanging. Something which is "beautiful" today would have been "beautiful" 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, more; likewise, something which was "beautiful" then is still "beautiful" today. In terms of music, "beautiful" has nothing to do with the instruments, everything to do with the melody and the meaning. I'm not saying that a praise band cannot make "beautiful" music, only that praise bands seem so often more caught up in the sound of the day, in the trend, in the songs that all sound the same after awhile. When I think of "beautiful" I think of, for example, the entire congregation singing Agnus Dei a capella. I remember the praise band being at the Rite of Election, but I don't remember a single thing they sang.
The part I really remember most clearly was the part that involved me, where the bishop (well, last year it was the stand-in because we didn't have a bishop) asked the sponsors whether they supported the candidates coming into the Church. I was looking into Joe's eyes at the time, and there were tears in them. It is amazing to think about it, because I didn't care who else was there, the other candidates, the RCIA leaders, I couldn't have cared if they were there or not, individually they didn't matter, but what did matter were me, my sponsor, the bishop, and the whole Church. I didn't care individually who was present at the time, because it was the Church Body as a whole that was accepting me, and yet it was so important to have all of the people there as the Church's representatives. It's hard to explain.
I guess what it means for me right now, is that tomorrow it's true that the candidates will not care one way or the other whether I attend the Rite of Election. It won't matter one bit to them. But I should go, as a member of the Body, as a representative of the Whole, because it is my duty to welcome them on behalf of everyone. By myself and as myself, I am insignificant. But I am part of something greater.
How this blog came from enjoying Adam's writing down to profound thoughts about the Rite of Election, I'll never know. I guess that's the great thing about blogs.