Daily Gospel – 1:2:13

Daily Gospel – 1:1:13

“I couldn’t stand another hour of daylight.”

 

So, get this.

I’m driving around yesterday in downtown Oakville.  Sting’s “Bring on the Night” (not The Police version, the Blue Turtles version dontcha know) pops on the iPhone.  I glanced upwards to witness one of the most beautiful tapestries I’ve ever seen etched into the dusk.

Whisps of yellow, swathed orange… fire-red… indigo… and then, black.

The cusp of darkness.

And then, I hit the two backwards arrows on the iPhone.

Rewind.  Park that puppy right back to the start.  Right back to the beginning of a song from a band I’ve been enjoying immensely since Christmas of 1980.

I’ll never forget the moment I opened up that album on the morning of December 25th some 32 years ago.   (Son-of-bitch, I’m old!)

Zenyatta Mondatta.  It may have been the Police’s third studio album, but it was the first album I ever called my own.  “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”‘s blaring on the radio that winter had this 12-year old savagely working at the useless decorative wrapping that was only providing to be a nuisance, hindering me from the musical gold that lay inside.   Those memories aren’t easily discarded.  It was that seminal moment under a Balsam Fir that vaulted me into a deep love affair with music, and particularly, 80’s super group The Police.

That next summer, I had used money I had saved up to purchase BOTH Outlandos D’Amour and Reggatta de Blanc – the first two in The Police Anthology.  (And no, I had NEVER received an “allowance”.   Thank God.)  On “Regatta”, much was made of “Walking on the Moon” and “Message in a Bottle”… and justifiably so!  But my favourite song on that album was, and is to this day, “Bring on the Night”.  Rock-reggae back beat…  Stewart Copeland’s impeccable work on the high-hat…  Andy Summers’ deliciously delicate fingerwork on the Strat…  Stings emotion-laden vocals…

Emotion-laden.  Brimming with emotion.

Gordon Sumner’s lyrics.  Ah, yes.

“The future is but a… question mark.”

Fast-forward to a late Thursday afternoon drive in downtown Oakville… in a freakin’ Smart car, no less.

Fast-forward.  And hit “play”.

And then… something, near mystical, happened.  I started listening to the words.  I was enraptured by the soon-to-be night sky, and aurally taken by the words that emanated from the iPhone.  And as senses-overload kicked in, one person almost literally jumped into my mind.  Or, maybe it was my soul?

St. John of the Cross.

And then, I was awash in tears.  I’m not kidding you.  It was like a faucet had been opened up, full-blast.

“The afternoon has gently passed me by
The evening spreads it’s sail against the sky
Waiting for tomorrow, just another day
God bid yesterday good-bye.”

Bring on the night.

The dark, dark night.

The dark night of the soul… which leads us to a blinding light, that does not blind.

I sometimes wonder how, physically, our irises will respond to the Beatific Vision… if we will even have “irises”, as we’ve known them.  Have you ever contemplated how unbelievable the human eye is?  I’m not going to even bother trying to use words, for we’re venturing into “God territory”.

We know what it’s like to suffer a blast of sunlight right into the face, and how we shield our eyes from it.  We also know how lost we are in utter darkness.  How golfball-big our pupils get, even though we don’t see it happen.

Well then, how do we even begin to submit to the experiences of one Juan de Yepes y Álvare?

A story of darkness… overcome by light.

And, I didn’t know Thursday that Friday would be his Feast Day.

Who would become  – by ONLY the grace of God – St. John of the Cross, Juan should have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.  But, thanks to his father, that didn’t happen because Gonzalo decided to forego making money hand over fist for silk merchants, for the hand of a woman who was not only an orphan but was of lower class.  Steeerike, three.  Thanks, dad.
Juan’s dad dies.  His older brother dies.  In financial shambles, Catalina moves herself, Juan (John) and Luis out of town so that she can find work as a seamstress.

There is nothing wrong with a boy following his mother, as John did with Catalina.

And there is nothing wrong with a man following a woman, as John of the Cross did with Teresa of Avila.  Yeah.  THAT Teresa of Avila.

Ah… the story of holiness.

For the sake of brevity, I would highly recommend you read the rest of the story… but allow me to get back to “eyes”, “darkness”, and “soul”.

John wasn’t a revolutionary, but was treated as such.  He was a counter-reformist who seeked deeper spirituality for the world he loved.  But wayward Spanish Carmelites would have none of John’s “holier-than-thou” nonsense.  Why didn’t God allow him to be a boon to the Carthusians?  Why go to Medina del Campo, in the first place?   Why the priesthood?

“God, sometimes you don’t know what the heck you’re doing”, said no holy person ever.

So, on December 2nd, 1577, these lax Carmelites apprehend John and lock him away in a prison.  Dank, filthy, cramped.  Ten feet, by six feet.  Yeah, John.  Good luck with that.  We’ll see ya when you’re broken down to the world.

But to quote The Grinch (not the Karloff Grinch version, the Carrey Grinch version dontcha know), “WRONG-OHHH.”

Within the confines of that tiny cell, John broke down alright.  Broke down to the Will of God.

Under those horrific circumstances, St. John of the Cross – by candlelight and unworthy writing materials – (and I bitch and moan about not keeping up with my blog…what a flippin’ embarrassment I am.) scrawled minute parts to his poem, Dark Night of the Soul.

Ah, the sheer grace.

For 9 months, he connected deeply with his Saviour – in a means few have ever known – before busting out.

For.  Nine.  Months.

St. John got sick during his stay.  He should have died.  But God had plans for him.

That God… always with that “saving souls”, thing.

John played a pivotal role in finding common ground amongst the Carmelite order.  And while Teresa of Jesus would die a few years later, John would forge ahead in his capacity to spiritually direct and help establish monasteries… and get on the nerves of the Vicar General of the Discalced Carmelites.  All in a life’s work, for John.

Shortly after being stripped of his post by the Vicar General, and out-posted to Andalusia, Juan de Yepes y Álvare died of a bacterial infection.

He died.  And went to Heaven.

St. Paul talks of how eye has not seen, nor ear heard, or heart fathomed what God has in store for us… if we love Him.

Listening to The Police on a Thursday evening in the season of Advent, a season in which we sing if Christ dispelling the night to show His face, my eyes, ears, and heart were flooded with the beauty of holy suffering… my soul stirred by the love that God has for His beloved.

It all reminded me of how we are living in dark times… special times, in which Saints are being forged.  As Juan de Yepes y Álvare fully understood, God always has His hammer and chisel at the ready… and while His blows hurt, they are TRUE.

We KNOW this.  His blows are true.

St. John of the Cross.  Pray for me.

I beg you.  Pray for me.
post-script
And no.  Sting is not Catholic.  But he should be.

 

 

 

In the “not-so-United States” of America, the embattled state of Michigan finds itself in the media spotlight.

The “RighttoWork” legislation should be drawing the attention of Pro-Lifers, too.  Because… well, hey… Steven Crowder loves life.  Particularly his.

Of course The Economist has used “anti-union” verbiage to describe the… uh… impasse.

Right.  Because “Right to Work” is about as anti-union as “Traditional Marriage” is anti-gay.

The beat goes on, MSM.

Anyway, south of the border, Michigan is one hot mess.

Up here in Canada?  Quebec continues to stick its left foot in “it”.

You may have read here, what I think of Quebec and where it’s headed.

Well, just days after the news of religious liberty being infringed upon broke, LifeSiteNews has this on something that already reared its head in California not too long ago.

The payoff? – “Proposing an intervention aimed at changing sexual orientation … could corroborate the false belief that being gay is abnormal.”

Abnormal.  Intrinsically disordered.

It may be semantics, but either way, it puts official Catholic Church teaching on the front burner.

Or, rather, on the stake.

There was a time when Quebec sat as a jewel amongst provincial jewels in Canada.

It is evident that not only has that image been tarnished beyond recognition, all signs are pointing towards the utter destruction of that once proud culture.

This isn’t melodrama, folks.  This is fact.  Hordes of businesses continue to make their exodus to more promising prairie lands.  Individuals and families have long seen the writing on the wall.  Fact – according to a 2011 census, for the first time in our country’s history, more people are living west of Ontario than east of the Ottawa River.

Many will point to a Quiet Revolution that has morphed into a roaring secularized lion as the reason for Quebec’s demise.  Some will wag a chastising finger at the burgeoning cultural snobbery that has become the hallmark of said ‘revolution’; an attitude that ran rough-shot on the last vestiges of a humble people rooted in Catholic traditions.

Ah, yes.  Catholicism.  The bane of the left… and of the homosexual Michel Foucault and his post-structuralist leanings, bent on helping transform the Quebecois into a modernistic monolith, even while draped in the hair-shirt called Confederation.

That damn Canadian “identity”.  That damn Catholic Church.  Quebec, come hell or high water, was gonna see this thing through.

And as history would have it, the degradation of a culture is seemingly in its final stages.

I’d say the not-s0-‘belle Province’ has become a laughing-stock, if not for the fact that its course took another sad and twisted turn yesterday.  Once again, the dunce cap was fitted, this time courtesy of a Court of Appeal decision that stomped all over religious liberty.  At the heart of the matter, is a state-imposed Ethics and Religious Culture course that is extra-light on the ‘religious’, and hammer-heavy on the ‘state’.  All the private school in question wants is to teach the course from a Catholic perspective.  The nerve of those Jesuits.  Honest-to-goodness Jesuits, too.  The education minister wants teaching neutrality.  What that means, essentially, is that Catholic teaching must be sacrificed at the altar of the secular humanist.  There is no back seat on this bus.  It’s all, or nothing.  And this is the conundrum all those who hold to faith, face.

Remember that Quebec government-funded “Registry of Homophobic Acts” from this past summer?  Remember how it was lauded as a “world first”?  This is the road that Quebec is travelling.  Decide to raise a sign on a street corner proclaiming  “Marriage = one man, one woman”, and you run the risk of being deemed “homophobic”.  Even though people are finally waking up to the fact that the term “homophobia” makes no sense whatsoever.

But in Quebec, fighting “homophobia” is hard work.  Expensive, too.  To the tune of $7 million a year.  I wonder if that price -tag has been adjusted somewhat now that there is a particular Jesuit boys school on tenterhooks, faced with the dilemma of either taking the fight to Canada’s Supreme Court or standing down against the schoolyard bully.

As it is, Quebec has almost cleared all those Catholic stones from its passway.  Almost.

No longer a jewel, it stands as a type of  faux diamond, thanks to the false teachings of so-called progressives birthed from revolution.

One of its off-spring had this to say about the future of Canada in relation to Quebec – “I always say that if, some time, I believed that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper, and it was going against abortion, and it was going against same-sex marriage, and that it was moving backwards in 10,000 different ways, maybe I would think about making Quebec a country.”

Promises, promises, Justin Trudeau.

Promises, promises.

Weeks after I used the term “idiot” to describe the antics of Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe (by the way, the rolling tide of hate has subsided while the YouTube views has ebbed to a modest 8,000 hits), Bill Whittle drops an “idiot” bomb, or three, in his latest instalment of Afterburner.  Don’t be fooled by the caption.  Bill was just being “nice”, when he entitled his piece “Unserious People”.

Friends, this is called “righteous indignation”.  And it is what is desperately needed in this desperate age of money-grubbing politicians and family-squashing social progressives.

Obama.  Reid.  Pelosi.  Cameron.  Kluwe.

Idiots.

All of them, doing Walter Duranty proud since 1932.

It’s a question worth asking someone from the other side of the marriage debate.  A fair question, actually.

And it goes something like this – “If you truly believe so-called same-sex marriage is a “right”, then why aren’t you lobbying for it in all facets of society”?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked that question on social media, only to be met with silence or scorn.  I mean… really.  It is incredible how vocal SSM proponents can get about re-defining marriage and then, at times, completely back away from the whole church idea.  And I’ve heard it all.  “You Catholics can have your (expletive deleted) church wedding!”  “I wouldn’t step foot in your (expletive deleted) church if you paid for our reception!”  And so on, and so forth.

These people simply can’t handle the gravity of the question, because it opens up a whole, whoppin’ can of “religious liberty” speak.  And they don’t want to tread there.

Not yet, anyway.

It is my opinion that infiltrating the church has always been a part of the agenda.  Why?  Well, even while it is completely fallacious to compare today’s gay marriage “rights” to yesteryear’s black civil rights, let’s understand this one thing when analyzing the whole “we don’t need your churches” rebuttal – no black person lobbying for equal rights was saying, “hey, it’s okay if I have to sit in the back of the bus in North Carolina, just as long as I don’t have to in California.”

When it comes to “rights”, it’s an all or nothing situation.  That’s why the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to take up the challenge of deciding the constitutionality of marriage is so massive.  The Union cannot go on accepting gay marriage in some states and completely banning it in others.  If gay marriage proponents think it can, they are either being disingenuous, or are tethered to their living room banister, having never ventured out of state.

Something’s gotta give.

Oh.  And as for nobody in the movement is trying to change religious institutions (I got that on Twitter last week), you might want to read how British PM David Cameron views gays being excluded from religious ceremonies.

For those who hold fast to one man/one woman, do not fear.  But be aware… be bold… and be immersed in a healthy prayer life.

Because it looks like gay “marriage” is getting ready to darken church doors.

If this 8th-grade girl gets her way, Hasbro will buckle to the pressure and make an Easy-Bake Oven for boys… just in time for Christmas.
Fruit-cake, anyone?

Don’t like where I’m going with this one?  Think it’s something out of some sick Sci-Fi thriller starring Donald Sutherland alongside alien pods… with extra soy sauce?

Well, my little Food Network freak, you’re way off base.

Only Pro-Lifers need apply on this little nugget of bullion from Scientific American.

It just so happens that the little cluster of cells growing inside a mommy’s tummy isn’t just some inanimate nuisance that might get in the way of that long-desired promotion down at the plant.

Here.  Let me quote the article.  “The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought.”

Yup.  Apparently scientists have discovered children’s cells inhabiting mothers’ brains.  Body-snatching?  Nah.  Just natural science.  Just the mystery and beauty of life and creation, as only the Creator could design.

Awe-flippin’-some.

And it doesn’t stop there.  The folks in the ultra-white lab coats also believe that cellular transference through nursing may be occurring every time a babe takes to teat.  As if life-sustaining nutrients weren’t enough.

Like I said.  Un-freakin’-believable.  Or, something like that.

Crazy stuff… crazy…

…

…

Oh yeah!  The Chinese food reference.  Almost forgot.

So, I finish reading the article and immediately Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion” pops into my brain.  For yours truly, it’s always been one of those songs in which I expected to find some profound, hidden message extolling the relational beauty between mother and pre-born babe.  I mean, heck, one should expect to glean such depth from the lyrical majesty that is one half of arguably the greatest folk music duos of all-time.  Right?  Right?

EEEEHHHHH! (game-show buzzer sound)  Wrong.

Upon research, it was revealed to me that the germination of said ditty came from an experience at a Chinese restaurant.  Mr. Simon was digging on a chicken and eggs dish called “Mother and Child Reunion”.  He told Rolling Stone in 1972, “Oh, I love that title. I gotta use that one.”

That’s it.  I’m not kidding.  No underlying theme connecting mommies to their burgeoning bumps, with a reggae back-beat.

“And the course of a lifetime runs… over and over again.”

Lyrical gold… wasted, on a bed of fried rice.