School is back in session now, and no doubt many students across the country are discovering what my 5^th graders learned when I first began teaching religious ed several years ago: their teacher is not all that skilled.

However much it may or may not be successful in practice, there is good reason that professional teachers take all those courses in a classroom management and teaching techniques – teaching to a large group is a real skill, not nearly as forgiving as the one-on-one of tutoring or homeschooling.  A love for the students, knowledge of subject, a passion for teaching, these are necessary.  But even with these essentials, given a dozen or two tired, restless kids, each coming to the subject with an entirely different knowledge base, the devoted but inexperienced teacher can still crash and burn.

I eventually got the hang of the classroom setting, and by the end of the year had at least one student who liked me. (I found this out through the grapevine – my particular students were not the type to hand out compliments too liberally.) Meanwhile, I had instructed my students from the very beginning that for their own sakes they ought to consider praying for me, and an internet friend and experienced teacher recommended I take up a devotion to St. John Bosco. Duly noted.

(My long-distance mentor also gave me some very helpful teaching tips.  Thank you Pam.)

***

There is, however, a much more obscure saint that I think is worth considering as an additional aid for those of us who really need an extra measure of divine assistance in this department.

Back in August I was a bit surprised in my reading (Butler’s Lives again) when I came across the story of St. Cassian of Imola. [Date unknown, but thought to have really existed all the same. If you google him, you’ll find accounts offering a wide variety of possible dates. Traditional Feast day is August 13^th.] I tend to think of saints as being competent in whatever it is they undertake; it appears from the legend that although this St. Cassian was quite good about the business of being martyred, he was not so sucessful in his career as a school teacher:

A violent persecution being raised against the church, he was taken up and interrogated by the governor of the province. As he refused to sacrifice to the gods, the barbarous judge, learning of what profession he was, commanded that his own scholars should stab him to death with their iron pens. He was exposed naked in the midst of two hundred boys, ‘by whom” says the Roman martyrology, “he had made himself disliked by teaching them.”

The narrative continues, of course, with a graphic description of saint’s martyrdom – fodder for your next horror film or halloween costume.

There is reason to beleive the account of St. Cassian’s death is legendary, but not to worry: regardless of the historical facts, we can be can be content to observe that St. Cassian was associated with the story for some good reason, perhaps as a hint to us that his eternity is available for the coming to the aid of beleagured educators.

The book came.  Woohoo!  It looks readable.  Fun.  Appropriate for junior readers like myself.  As Mr. Boy observes, “It is thinner than the other book [Jesus of Nazareth]”.  Exactly the kind of book I really really love.  I’ll try to get the review up for the 3rd Friday of October on this blog, because it is very appropriate reading going into All Saints.

OH look, good news: McCain Suspends Campaign to Help With Bailout

Link provided by an internet friend, who also posted Obama’s response, but that was in a video format that I’m not much on linking.  But you can go find it.

Hurray for senators who do what senators are supposed to do.  And here’s to hoping that what they decide to do is sensible.  For example if the solution were compatible with *either candidate’s* economic platform, it probably would make more sense than the ‘Hey let’s make the taxpayers buy all those bad mortgages’ method.

(Or maybe we need to keep working on this concept.  Could we develop a law where elected officials are required to buy all our bad investments at what price we need to stay solvent?  Wow, this could keep the economy rolling and solve the retirement/social security problem all at once. )

Okay, okay, I know there are logical reasons why people think it is important to bail out the mortgage loan industry.  I am not persuaded of those reasons, but I’ll quit making fun.  I do realize the buyout-rescue impulse is based on genuine concern for the liquidity of the financial markets and all that.  Important stuff.  St. Matthew pray for us.

Candidates likely ‘no-shows’ in bailout vote

So I don’t usually blog much politics, because I don’t follow the news that closely.  But this, wow.  Even I am not this out of touch.   We have two *senators* running for president, both on a platform of reform and change. Both talking about the great things they’re going to do for the economy.  And they might not even show up to *vote* on the #1 biggest economic issue we are facing today?

Take a look at their campaign websites ( http://www.johnmccain.com/ and http://www.barackobama.com/index.php ).  Not a word (as of this writing) about the mortgage loan crisis.  Or if it’s there, it is mighty hidden.

Where’s the leadership, gentlemen?  You say that as president you can work with Congress to get things done?  Prove it.   You say you care about the ordinary taxpayer and you mean to change business-as-usual in Washington?  Show us.  Have you not noticed that both your proposed economic plans will be completely sunk if this bailout goes through?  What’s your *new* plan?  How are you gonna lower taxes, Mr. McCain, with this kind of bill on the rolls?  Where, exactly, are the funds for big economic plans going to come from, Mr. Obama, if we are busy sending all our spare pennies to big investment firms?

If you were president, I would expect you to be busting your tail to get the *right* legislation through Congress.  Instead you tell me you are ‘monitoring the situation’, and that you’ll show up if the party really needs you?   Is it because you know, campaigning is just so much more taxing than actually running the country?  Because you’ll have so much more free time to take charge and take action once you are actually president?

I expect when it comes down to it, both candidates are cowards.  They know that one or the other is going to win the election, and that presidency is, in a close race, theirs to lose.  They know that if they take a stand now, make a bold move now, they might lose votes.   So they won’t.  They will both quietly pretend that nothing is really happening, and go shake hands and kiss babies and listen sympathetically to flood victims and working class voters tell their sorry tales.  (Why do I say this? Go look at their campaign sites.  This is the ‘news’ they have for us.)  It’s almost got the feel of a gentlemen’s agreement — they both are *equally capable* of using their position as senator to take some initiative . . . and they both do nothing.

One way or another, a month before the election, we get to see what these guys are made of.  We get to see the kind of leadership and decisive thinking they have to offer our nation in a moment of crisis.  And there it is: nothing.

The good news is, I got accepted at the Catholic Company to be one of their reviewers. Yay! I love reviewing books.

More good news: They are still accepting reviewers.  That could be you.  Learn more at:

http://www.catholiccompany.com/content/Catholic-Product-Reviewer-Program.cfm

The bad news is, when I went to pick out my first book, I *thought* I was clicking on ‘product information’ when I saw a title called The Fathers.  Because I was thinking that of the choices available, the new teen novel sounded about my speed (I have teenaged godchildren.  I have to keep up with this stuff).  But I wanted to just take a look at this other interesting title before I made a final decision.  But I accidentally  made the final decision then and there.

Which means good news: I’m supposed to be getting a free copy of the holy father’s new book. (Oh yeah, *that* book about the Apolostic Fathers.   Oops.)

Bad news of course being that I am now required to *read the whole book*.  In order to review it.  Ack!  This is work!  I meant to do something fun!  By which I meant, something easy!

The good news is, it should be good for me.  Truth is, I did want to get the book.  I just couldn’t justify buying it until I finished Jesus of Nazareth, which is still sitting in my living room waiting for me to finish it.  Not dusty, I might add, because several other neglected books were sitting on top of it.

Not sure which blog I will put the review on yet.  We’ll see.

Good news for you: The Catholic Company ( http://www.catholiccompany.com/ ) is offering a free shipping coupon.  Here is the note for the announcement e-mail:

On a much happier note, we have a special offer this week for your blog readers.  We are offering free shipping from now until Midnight Sunday…on any size order.

If you think that this is something your readers would be interested in knowing about, then please spread the word.

1. Simply place an order. You can place this order through our website, by phone, by fax, or by mail.

2. Use this coupon code: BLOG

If you order online you will type in the coupon code during checkout. Simply type BLOG in the coupon code box located at the bottom of the payment page.

If you order by phone simply tell the coupon code BLOG to your customer service agent.

If you order by mail or fax simply include the coupon code BLOG on your order form.

*Terms and conditions: This offer cannot be combined with any other offers. Applies to U.S. delivery addresses only. Applies to standard shipping only. Cannot be used on orders already placed or on backorders. Offer expires at 12:00 midnight, Eastern Time on Sunday, September 28, 2008.

By the way, I am all about supporting your local catholic bookstore, if you have one.  So nobody go neglecting a real live starving bookstore owner on account of free shipping at an internet company.  (Even if they do send me a free book that will make me have to pay attention and think for a change.)  After all, your local shop doesn’t charge shipping ever, if you just go pick it up yourself.  But if you are an unlucky soul who *needs* to order online, there’s your coupon.

Running a bit behind schedule here – no drama, just a lot of ordinary life all at once.  Will try to put up the book review this afternoon.  If that doesn’t pan out, I haven’t the faintest idea when I will do it . . . but next week *looks* normal, so worst case scenario we miss a week and pick up with the schedule from there.

To read certain introductory works on life in the middle ages, you might get the feeling that medieval Europe was a strong-armed theocracy, where Stepford kings and Stepford peasants droned “Yeeess, Biiishop” as they together marched with glazed eyes towards the few courageous free-thinkers who’d been ferreted out of hiding and gleefully prepared for execution. Here’s an excerpt from Medieval Life (Dorling Kindserly, 1996, Bridget Hopkinson, editor), from page 30, “The Church”:

“The Catholic Church was at the center of the medieval world . . . it governed almost every aspect of people’s lives . . . For many, life on Earth was hard and short, but the Church said that if they followed the teachings of Christ, they would be rewarded in heaven. This idea gave the Church great power over people’s hearts and minds.” [Elsewhere on the page you can see the illustration of heretics being burned, with corresponding explanation.]

In contrast, spend an afternoon poring through the old four-volume Butler’s Lives of Saints, and you get quite the opposite picture – a Europe that is only barely Christian, and constantly forgetting what little of the faith it has learned. However much bishops and abbots might be entirely mixed up in the affairs of state, they are no more ‘in control’ than their secular counterparts in the constant struggle for land and power. (Contrary to myth, this edition of Butler’s Lives does not indulge in romantic revisionism. Where it reports legend, it will tell you very plainly what is legend, what is verifiable fact, and what is educated guess. You may be able to find a book that will retell history as if medieval Europe were a glorious interlude of catholic-paradise-on-earth, but Butler’s Lives is not that book.)

A book that explores the importance and the limits of church influence in pre-conquest England and Normandy is Queen Emma and the Vikings. This is a biography of the woman who managed to be queen to both her first husband king Aethlered of England, and to the Danish king Cnut who overthrew him. In telling the story, Harriet O’Brien also shows the tension between the desire for approval from religious leaders that lends legitimacy to a conquering ruler, and the confidence that said approval does not require a strict adherence to the less convenient bits of church teaching.

It is a surprisingly persistent tension. Witness today the insistence with which Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden claim their catholic heritage, all the while publicly rejecting elements of church teaching. There is nothing preventing either one from saying, “As a faithful Episcopalian it is my belief that . . .”, and yet they and countless other catholics cannot quite bring themselves to shake their catholic heritage*.

There must be something to this.  I wonder if there isn’t an inborn sense of a need for religious approval and belonging that transcends time and place and culture; an intuition so strong that rational agreement with the actual religion is no obstacle?  Even when there is very little at stake — contemporary American society is hardly a place where membership in a particular denomination is a prerequisite for public office.  Something to think about more.

Meanwhile, I’m reading 1215: The Year of the Magna Carta, a book for adults that I will review next week. One thing I am enjoying about the book is the exploration of the mixed-up situation of church and state, belief and practice, that characterizes the era in question. And here is an excerpt that illustrates that tension – the struggle of an ordinary sinner who is trying to find the way to keep to church teaching, but is all the same powerfully caught up in the values of the wider society to which he belongs. We read (p.17):

It was sign of status to be accompanied almost everywhere, even when in the bath or the privy. Even so, there were a few things that people preferred to do alone. According to the historian William of Newburgh, writing in the 1190’s, when the doctors advised a seriously ill archbishop of York that his only hope of recovery lay in having sex – many doctors believe in the restorative power of the sexual act – the archbishop took the young woman they provided for him into his private room (secretum). But when the doctors examined his urine the next morning they discovered he had not, after all, followed their advice. He explained to his friends that he could not break his vow of chastity – not even for medicinal purposes – and that he had pretended to do so in order not to hurt their feelings.

I can relate to the archbishop. And I think that ultimately when we talk about ‘the power of the church’ in any given time and place, we need to remember we are speaking of a church composed of millions of people, all of them in their own special spot on the scale of ability to follow church teaching – me and the troubled archbishop of York, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and St. Thomas Aquinas, Nancy Pelosi and King Cnut. Pick any one of us and convince yourself we are representative of all the other catholics of our time and place, and it might make for a fun horror movie, but it doesn’t really tell us much about history.

*I am not, by the way, the sort of catholic who wishes the less-practicing would shape up or ship out.  I do wish Pelosi and Biden would get on board with church teaching, but I’m not quite persuaded that sitting in Episcopalian pews will speed the conversion process.  Then again, maybe so.  A question for wiser minds than mine.