Eucharistic Adoration Documentary

A woman and her husband have created and produced a new documentary on Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration which is titled "Watch With Me". I was highly impressed with the preview and wanted to recommend it to the blogging community. Here's the post where the trailer video is embedded. View it and see for yourself.

Good Friday Reflection Through Music

Perhaps Good Friday,the most somber and grave day of the year, is a day that can be given to prayer and some private musical reflection. Here are three pieces that I find reflective of the character of this day. If you have 15 minutes for reflection, please stay a while.

The first piece is Adagio in G Minor by Tommaso Albinoni (9:54). Whenever I hear this selection I instinctively associate it with Good Friday and Our Lord's Passion. It begins very quietly; with a distinct feeling of a purposeful and trudging movement. Waves of pathos build slowly and finally reach a crescendo. The end comes with a quiet and sweet violin. If you close your eyes and picture The Way of the Cross...

The second piece I favor on this day is Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie. (3:28) After the Lord's death there is an emptiness that is not reconcilable: the feeling is more than loss, it's uncertaintly and misunderstanding. The work reflects a mild dispirited confusion where the final phrase is slightly discordant. This piece is also slow (lent) but not as heavy as the first. For me it reflects the despair of time in between death and resurrection.

My final selection is somewhat more hopeful. It is Schumann's Traumerei. (2:28) It's performed by the master pianist Vladamir Horowitz in Moscow.This is a favorite among the Russian people whose history has been filled with tragedy. The piece conveys sadness but its ending is more encouraging: it is peaceful and we know that we are reconciled. I enjoy the quiet appreciation and reassurance on the faces of members of the audience. They are recollected and witness an attentive spirit. They are vulnerable and open to the music's message.

We adore you O Christ and we praise you, Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

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Picture a Spiritual Journey

Recently I came across a website that touted the effect of web graphics and design. It's called CSS Zen Garden. I highly recommend it if you have a hi-speed connection. If so, you get to alter the look of 'static content' and gauge your reaction to very fast changes in presentation. [ I have no idea of the science or technology involved.]

Right on the spot I decided to insert a picture in my title bar. This is a key to understanding how I behave. I'm given to impulsiveness; but at the same time, what I 'allow' myself to do 'impulsively', actually has some 'consideration' behind it. For instance, the image chosen has been on my hard drive for a couple of years. I have studied and viewed it on occasion and simply enjoyed it as a saved image. Now as I have uploaded it I ponder it even more carefully and see nuanced aspects to what I had previously glossed over.

This is a spiritual journey - is it not? I love the vegetation shown above. It's more than barely alive and yet it has an impoverished look somehow. It's not quite a barren scene, but it implies a struggle to stay alive.

The mountains on the horizon beckon me with a feeling of purpose and destination: a journey of ascent in due time. The sky is expansive: it feels thick and clear with a little touch of foreboding. Here's something very new that I've just discovered: a sparse and slightly worn path that transects laterally in between the two stands of trees. Yes, I'm quite sure it's a path.

Do you have any images of your spiritual journey?

Super Bowl XLII: The Divine Drama

I have the distinct blessing of living in the right place at the right time. Meaning I live nearly equal distance from Foxboro Stadium and the Meadowlands…the home fields of the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. This is the prophesized land where ..."father-in-law is divided against son-in-law; co-worker against co-worker"…you get my point.

This Super Bowl has some of the greatest hype going for it. Can the lowly and ascending Giants who were thrilling and near spoilers in the final week…can they beat 'THE PERFECT TEAM' in a rematch? (Enter your Prophecy on the sidebar poll) Now I occasionally 'allow myself' to pull for the Pats…but when it comes to a head to head matchup…well it's definitely… Go GGGGGmen !

As I'm normally given to spew 'spiritual reflection' I needed to spin the topic in order to turn this into a theological matter. Two simple questions - the first is: Is it right to pray for your team to win and for your opponent to lose? I looked this up on the Vatican website and can find nothing in canon law to form an opinion.

I had to look to a secondary source…a baseball hall of famer…a man of honorable note...the legendary catcher...Yogi Berra. In one of his books he tells of an incident in which an opposing batter came up and made 'the sign of the cross' with his bat over home plate. Yogi quickly took his catchers mitt and rubbed out the batter's supplication. He looked up at the batter and while pointing to heaven said something like…"Why don't you just let Him watch the game?" Yogi should have been elevated to the clerical state of deacon, at least, for such a profound instruction.

So, based on the oral tradition of Yogi, I am strictly prohibited from praying for my team to win...and yours to lose. Nevertheless, I do believe it's OK to undermine our opponent's confidence: and for this I seek divine guidance.

Second question: Who's going to win Super Bowl XLII? We'll here's how I figure. My lifelong sports obsession, the Giants…have everything (supernaturally speaking) going for them.

Do you think I've gone off the deep edge? Can't I see the inevitability of America's most overwhelming and perfect team 'clocking' the G-men? My answer: You don't understand divine drama.

First of all, consider that the Giant's early season drubbings were a lesson in humility. From this they have groveled in the dirt and began to make acts of contrition and exhibit signs of a back and forth conversion. Those with 'eyes that can see' and 'ears that can hear' know that the lowly G-men ultimately were 'baptized in the final week of the season with their loss to New England and have subsequently risen to new life'.

The final game of the regular season was all the more revealing as each team broke the 'rules' of the game: when they had 'put everything on the line' in a game that should have been played with backups and substitutes. One played for 'perfection' the other for 'honor': and both earned their reward.

America was given a foreshadowing of the Superbowl when the NFL Network was 'forced' (by divine intervention mind you) to air the game which would have been hidden from view of most fans. Indeed, it was shown on nearly every conceivable TV network: thus bringing football's best game of the regular season to the entire nation. For that alone we should give thanks.

It gets even better: There is absolutely no belief or sympathy for these ignored G-men. They were despised by each and every sports commentator who consistently picked against them. Like broken slot machines the opposition logos lined up: all Buccaneers; all Cowboys; all Packers. Is that not, in and of itself, a sign of divine favor?

They took out the Bucs who were favored; only to be deemed 'lucky'. They stood in the breech to withstand the crybaby Cowboys (Oh, sweet merciful justice!) and still were given no credit. They passed and kicked bricks, disguised as pigskins, in absolute zero temperature; where no material object is supposed to move. In doing so they stunned over 70,000 Packers fans who were transformed into frozen popsicles in the hallowed stands of Lambeau field. Can I hear an AMEN!

All of this happened on the road while quietly setting an all time NFL record for most consecutive road wins: which is a direct allusion to surviving and maturing in 'biblical exile'. Even the Holy Father penned an encyclical on HOPE in time for this football season. (Of course, those who are 'perfect' don't need 'hope', now do they?)

Finally, the quarterback: Isn't it written (1 Sm 16: 7,12) that the older brother; the one with lofty stature [actually both Peyton and Brady fit the bill] was to be rejected and that the 'ruddy youth' would be anointed as the true leader of the chosen team?

My father-in-law doesn't buy any of this. My wife, reasonably detached from all this, utters the only supplication worthy of any consideration: 'O Lord, please don't let my dad or husband have a heart attack watching the game.'

Stay lowly and humble dearest 'Gints'…relish your status as decided underdogs. For thou shalt venture into the air conditioned desert once more…Yea, O Giants, thou art heading for the Promised Land.