04 January 2017

Islamic State in West Africa (formerly Boko Haram) Ongoing Updates - January 2017

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03 January 2017

A book you should read: The Proverbs of Middle-earth

The best commentators on the great J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium of Middle-earth cause you to return to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with a newfound ability to detect something you had previously overlooked and in this way help you find greater enjoyment in Tolkien's works. David Rowe is just such a commentator.

Clearly the fruit of a great erudition and of a devoted love, Rowe's recently released The Proverbs of Middle-earth (Oloris Publishing, 2016 [$18.00, 234 pages]), masterfully explores the "more than four hundred proverbial sayings" placed on the lips of the peoples of Middle-earth by the Professor (63). By deeply delving into the profundity of dwarves, elves, ents, men, and hobbits, Rowe uncovers for us a great treasure, helps us understand each of these races from within, as it were, and in the process helps us understand ourselves in a clearer light.

 In his brief forward to this book, Dr. Peter Kreeft says he is "as pleased as a pickle that I was sent this wonderfully Socratic book" (v), a book that "is really an act of anthropology" (iv). Whenever you find an enthusiastic endorsement from Dr. Kreeft, you know you are in for a treat, and this book is no exception!

Rowe begins his exploration of the proverbs of Middle-earth with a rather scholarly - though still readable - consideration of what a proverb is and is not. "Proverbs," he says, "are vessels of transmission, the ships in which wisdom sails" (ix). Because Middle-earth is filled with proverbs, Rowe rightly suggests that
What we quickly discover is that Tolkien did not merely create hundreds of erudite, apposite, and funny sayings - however great an artistic achievement that is - he also invented entire wisdom traditions in which these sayings belong. Just as different contemporary nations often have contrasting perspectives, so each civilisation of Middle-earth has a distinct worldview or philosophical culture. Each of these becomes apparent when we look through the lens of their proverbs: the national character and philosophy of each of Tolkien's cultures - from the small-minded pragmatism of rustic Hobbits tot he disciplined dignity of Gondor - has been written into their wisdom traditions. Tolkien's legendarium is founded on details such as these; its world created from the bottom-up, and therefore richly rewarding to those who take the time to dive in and investigate the depths (xiii). 
Of particular delight, are two of Rowe's three appendices in which he lists the proverbs (and those who speak them) in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, first in chronological order and second by the peoples of Middle-earth.

 I would provide you with summaries of his explorations of the proverbs of each of the peoples of Middle-earth, but I do not wish to rob you of the joy of discovery that comes with the reading the chapters without quite knowing what to expect.

Let me simply say that in The Proverbs of Middle-earth, Rowe brilliantly shines a light on an important aspect of Tolkien's writings hitherto largely unexplored. He helps us to see that "in the well-feigned history of Middle-earth, what is offered to us is wisdom and truth: not a simple lesson to learn, but over seven thousand years' worth of learned lessons to apply" (174). 

As he leads us through these learned lessons, Rowe takes us by the hand and guides us along the paths of wisdom and truth and opens for us a new and unexpected adventure.
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01 January 2017

Islamic State Ongoing Updates - January 2017

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A New Year's Resolution

If you have not yet settled upon a resolution for this new year, you might consider resolving to keep the following resolution:


On a more concrete level, you might consider resolving to read each of the four Gospels with this coming year. As you read the Gospels, they can change you so that keeping the above resolution will come more easily.
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Deacon Michael Friedel proclaims the Gospel at Papal Mass

A member of the clergy of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois was chosen to proclaim the Gospel during the Holy Mass celebrated by His Holiness Pope Francis in the Basilica of St. Peter in honor of today's Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.

It fell to Deacon Michael Friedel to chant the passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke in which the shepherds find the Holy Family just as the angel had told them (2:16-21).


You can see a few shots of Deacon Friedel during the entrance procession. The Gospel procession begins at 19:05. He did a very fine job!

Deacon Friedel is from Holy Angels Parish in Wood River, Illinois and is preparing for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He will, God willing, be ordained a priest of Jesus Christ this spring. Please remember him - and all of our seminarians - in your prayers.
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25 December 2016

Merry Christmas!


"Behold, admirable humility, that the Lord of the heavens should descend to the manger of brute animals."
- Saint Bonaventure
A blessed and merry Christmas to you and yours!
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24 December 2016

Homily - 25 December 2016 - The Nativity of the Lord - Do you know what the ox and ass know?

The Nativity of the Lord

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We come today heeding the call of those ancient shepherds who said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place” (Luke 2:15). This “thing,” of course, is what the choir of angels announced to them as they watched their sheep, namely, the Birth of the Son of God and the Son of Mary.

Centuries later, but many centuries before us, Saint Jerome made the cry of the shepherds his own and moved to Bethlehem to be near the place where the Lord Jesus was born. Being so near the place where Mary placed the Christ Child, Saint Jerome once cried out in frustration, “Oh, if only I could see that manger in which the Lord was laid!”[1] Jerome was a very good grumbler, though a holy one, and went on to explain his frustration, complaining:

As a tribute of honor, we Christians have now removed the mud-baked [reliquary] and replaced it with a silver one; but the one that has been removed is more precious to me! Silver and gold are appropriate for the pagan world.[2]

This tendency to improve upon the circumstances of the Lord’s Birth, to make them more appealing to our own standards, remains with us today as we sentimentalize Christmas. Even now, pilgrims who visit the relic of the manger housed in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome know something of what Jerome complained as they attempt to peer through the sparkle and glitz of the silver and gold of the reliquary to look upon the humble wood of the manger itself.

Centuries after Saint Jerome, and yet still centuries before us, Saint Francis of Assisi also desired to heed the cry of the shepherds and see the place where the Lord Jesus was born and the manger in which Mary placed him. Moreover, he wanted to help others do the same. This is why in 1223 he asked Pope Honorius III for permission “to portray the Child born in Bethlehem and to see somehow with my bodily eyes the hardship he underwent because he lacked all a newborn’s needs, the way he was placed in a manger and how he lay on the hay between the ox and the ass.”[3]

Nearly eight centuries later, we still erect Nativities in our homes, churches, and in public places so everyone who looks upon them might also say with the shepherds, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem” and see the manger in which the Lord Jesus was laid. Happily, this tradition is now embraced by many of our Protestant brothers and sisters who join us in using statues both small and large to envision what those shepherds beheld that caused them to return to their fields “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen” (Luke 2:20).

It is curious to note that Saint Francis requested two particular additions to our Nativity displays that neither Saint Matthew nor Saint Mark mention in their accounts of Jesus’ Birth, two additions without which our Nativities would seem incomplete. These, of course, are the ox and the ass.

A few days ago, I asked our Kindergartners what they could tell me about Christmas. As might be expected, they were quick to mention the presence of the animals. When I asked why the animals were there, one of them told me they brought gifts for Baby Jesus, a detail I must surely have known at one point and have since, sadly, forgotten. She told me the sheep kept the Holy Infant warm, the cows gave him milk, and the donkey brought him to Bethlehem. Perhaps this is why Charles Dickens once said it “is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when the mighty Founder was a child himself.”[4] Even so, this is not quite what Saint Francis had in mind. Why, then, did the little poor man of Assisi want the ox and the ass included?

MS Sloan 2468
While Saint Francis is the first person to portray the Nativity without painting or carving, he is not the first to include the ox and the ass in depictions of the Birth of Jesus. Many illuminations from the medieval manuscripts portray the ox and the ass closer to the manger than Saint Joseph, and sometimes even closer than the Blessed Virgin Mary. The ox and the ass tend to gaze upon the Christ Child with looks of warm affection and a sublime wisdom. These artists knew that many centuries before Saint Francis, Saint Jerome, and well before the Birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah foretold, “the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand” (Isaiah 1:3).

If we study the expression of the ox who looks upon his owner, what do we find he knows? The ox knows, firstly, that he gazes upon a great mystery, “an infinitely greater thing than anything” J.R.R. Tolkien said he “would dare to write.”[5] The ox knows that when he looks upon that Child, he looks upon the invisible God made unexpectedly visible. Of all of the Lord’s wonders, this is the most incomprehensible of all, that the omnipotent God would take unto himself a human face, that the Creator of all things would lower himself to become one of his creatures. The ox knows that he gazes upon “the firstborn of all creation,” “whom angels fall down before” (Colossians 1:15).[6]

The ox knew, secondly, that this invisible God made suddenly visible looks out upon his creation with his human face, with eyes full of compassion, knowledge, power, and tenderness. He looks upon all he has made and calls out to men and women with a word of love and of command. “You are my friends,” he says, “if you do what I command you” (John15:14). “Love one another,” he says, “as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “Be perfect,” he says, “as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). “These things I have spoken to you,” he says, “that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full” (John 15:11).

The ox knew, thirdly, that this Divine Child, who takes the risk of our refusing to love him, came to lead us out of our self-absorption and show us how to love fully and authentically. One manuscript depicts this in a striking manner. It shows the Child Jesus flying down from heaven already carrying his Cross. Truly, he has come this day “not to be served, but to serve,” to love us to the end (Matthew 20:28; cf. John 13:1). He calls us to set aside our own self-interest and imitate his selflessness.

All this we see in the ox’s face, but what do we find in the expression of the ass? We sing each year in that beloved carol by an unknown author, “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.” The ass knew that the crib of his master is the ass’ own manger. Yes, the crib of the Holy Child is nothing more than a feeding trough for the animals, but in this is contained a great mystery. This Child grew and called himself “the bread of life” and told us quite emphatically, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:35, 53). The Bread of Life was born in Bethlehem, a village whose name means “the house of bread” and was placed in a manger, not as food for the animals, but as food for those he came to save, as food for you and me.

The ox and the ass bellow and bray to us today, beckoning us to approach their manger so we might look upon the face of the invisible God made visible and know what they know. They call us to pause in silence and consider their questions: “Do you know your Master and his crib? Do you understand and know his mercy and love? Will you eat of him and be nourished by him to love as he loves?” They call us to ponder the tremendous love God displays in his Incarnation, to recognize that “God is so good that he can give up his divine splendor and come down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might touch us, give itself to us, and continue to work through us.”[7]

This Christmas, let us resolve to know the heart of our Master, to allow ourselves to be touched by and understand his love, to imitate his selflessness and allow it to work through us in all we say and do. If we open ourselves in this way to love and to be loved by this Child, then our lives will proclaim peace and good will to all we meet, bringing joy and gladness wherever we go. If we welcome the Birth of the Lord Jesus in this way, then we will have a very merry and blessed Christmas indeed. Amen!


[1] Saint Jerome, Homily on the Nativity of the Lord, 31. In Advent and Christmas with the Church Fathers. Marco Pappalardo, ed. (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2010), 52.
[2] Ibid.
[3] In Tomaso de Celano, First Life, XXX.84. In Brother Thomas of Celano: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi and The Treatise of Miracles. Catherine Bolton, trans. (Assisi, Italy: Editrice Minerva), 80-81.
[4] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave 3. In Stories for Christmas by Charles Dickens (New York: Platinum Press, Inc., 2003), 69.
[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, Draft Letter to Michael Straight, 1956. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed.(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 237.
[6] Christina Georgina Rossetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
[7] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 24 December 2005.
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23 December 2016

Catholic New World provides details of the exhumation of Father Tolton

The Catholic New World, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago has published an article detailing certain aspects of the recent exhumation of the Servant of God Father Augustus Tolton which I did not share when I wrote about standing at the feet of Father Tolton:
Canon law also requires [this is not technically correct, but I suppose it is close enough] that dioceses employ a forensic anthropologist, a medical examiner and archeologist [sic] in the process. Those three men worked on removing the remainder of the soil and uncovered Tolton’s body. It didn’t take long to find the skeletal remains. 
Over time the earth crushed the wooden coffin in which Tolton was buried. They discovered the casket had a glass top because they found a significant amount of broken glass mixed in with the remains. At the time Tolton died, glass-topped coffins were used for people of position or who were well known. In addition to the skeletal remains, the crews found other items such as metal handles and wood from the coffin, the corpus from a crucifix buried with him, the corpus from his rosary and a portion of his Roman priest’s collar. “The intent of all of this is preserving the remains we have of a possible saint. We want to make sure that anything that we find is preserved so it will go into a sealed casket and from the sealed casket into a sealed vault,” said [Roman] Szabelski.
After a brief discussion about how exhumations can differ one from another, the author of the article, Joyce Duriga, provides a few additional details:
As the remains were unearthed, the forensic pathologist laid them out on a table in a mortuary bag under which was a new priest’s alb. He pieced the bones together anatomically.
Bishop Paprocki led everyone in the rosary while that was happening. In addition to the skull, they found Tolton’s femurs, rib bones, vertebrae, collarbones, pelvis, portions of the arm bones and other smaller bones.
The forensic pathologist verified by the skull that the remains were of a black person. By the shape and thickness of bones in the pelvic area he was able to determine that the remains were from a male in his early 40s.
Once all of the remains and artifacts were collected, the process to reinter Tolton began. Priests from Springfield vested the remains with a white Roman chasuble and maniple, amice and cincture. Tolton’s remains were then placed in a new casket bearing a plate that identified him as “Servant of God Augustus Tolton,” along with his dates of birth, ordination and death. A document was placed on top of the remains attesting to the work done that day.
Then they wrapped a red ribbon around the casket and sealed it with a wax seal of the Diocese of Springfield. The coffin was in turn placed in a burial vault with another inscription. A second vault held the broken glass and coffin parts and both containers were reinterred in the grave. A closing prayer service wrapped up the solemn process.
The grave will only be opened again if Tolton is beatified, said Bishop Perry. No relics — pieces of bone or any of the other objects found in the grave — were removed that day. Relics can only be shared if Tolton moves on to the next stage in the canonization process — beatification.
Nearly two weeks later, I am still deeply grateful for the privilege of being present at the exhumation and am edified by the reverend work carried out that day.
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22 December 2016

St. Agnes Parish Christmas Schedule

As you gather with your family and friends to celebrate the Nativity of the Lord, we invite you to pray with us at St. Agnes Parish in Springfield.

Our Christmas schedule is as follows:
Christmas Day:
4:15 p.m. - Carols
5:00 p.m. - Holy Mass

9:30 p.m. - Carols
10:00 p.m. - Holy Mass

Christmas Eve:
10:00 a.m. - Holy Mass

May the Child of Bethlehem shine the light of his Face upon you, filling you with joy and peace at his Birth. Merry Christmas!
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HRH The Prince of Wales: For many, following Christ is "a daily stark choice between life and death"

For some years now, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has remained one of the few persons of high status to speak out against the increasing persecution of Christians throughout the world, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Thus far, his pleas on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ and of other persecuted groups have gone largely unanswered.

Three days ago, Prince Charles spoke out yet again and made a plea for us to remember those seeking to escape such persecution.

Please take a few moments to watch the video message he recorded at St. James' Palace:


Please also consider making a donation this Christmas to the papal charity Aid to the Church in Need which has a special concern and care for those suffering for their fidelity to Jesus.
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21 December 2016

Unwanted and returned Christmas gifts in the U.S.A. total nearly $263 billion

An article in this morning's print edition of the State Journal-Register titled "The not-so-perfect gift might be intentional" caught my attention. I found it online at the Portland Herald Press with title, "Michelle Singletary: Don't give a gift to send a message."

The author, Michelle Singletary, cites a research paper by Deborah Cohn, a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, who found,
One out of every three gift recipients in the U.S. returned at least one gift item during the 2013 holiday season with the total dollars of returned gifts estimated at $262.4 billion (not including fraudulent returns).
Frankly, that number shocked me. It should shock you, too.

Think about that for a minute. Nearly $263 billion in unwanted Christmas gifts. What does this say about the gratitude the average American feels toward the gift giver? What does this say about how well the average America gift giver knows the person to whom the gift is given? What does this say about how well the average American knows why we give gifts to each other at Christmas in the first place?

The current population of the United States of America numbers some 325 million people. If my math is correct, that means the average American returned gifts totaling more than $800. Each. Children, though, aren't returning gifts, so the actual figure must be higher. What kind of gifts are people giving to each other?

So far this year, most of the gifts I've received have been in the form of chocolates, Dr Pepper, and gift cards to Barnes & Noble (which are all perfect gifts for me). If years past are any indication, this will likely continue, and my gratitude will not be the less for it.

Are we trying to impress each other with the gifts we give? Perhaps.

According to Singletary, Cohn found that people tend to return gifts for one of five reasons:
  1. Gifts (presumably) given in an attempt to change a person;
  2. Gifts (presumably) given to you for me;
  3. Gifts (presumably) given in aggression knowing the recipient will not like it;
  4. Gifts (presumably) given purely out of an obligation; and,
  5. Gifts (presumably) given with the intention of showing off.
Let me just say that if you are giving gifts for one of the above reasons, you're doing it wrong (unless you're Bilbo Baggins about to leave the Shire and will never see any of the recipients ago).


We, as a nation, have drifted so far from the central tenets of Christianity that we do not even know realize the ridiculousness of what we have done to the celebration of the Birth of the Savior. We have turned our gift-giving into a mockery.

The magi offered the Child of Bethlehem their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to honor him as a priest, a prophet, and a king; they recognized who Jesus of Nazareth is and gave him appropriate gifts. How well do we know those to whom we give gifts? Is it really that hard to find a gift that will honor their personality and hopes, while at the same time demonstrating we value their uniqueness?

Perhaps this Christmas we should stop taking pictures of ourselves and engage those around us in real conversation. If we do, maybe next year we can give a gift from the heart, a gift that won't be returned.
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20 December 2016

Islamic State in West Africa (formerly Boko Haram) Ongoing Updates - December 2016

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