The #2 Thing Anyone Can Do to Help the Church

There are two myth-making forces at work in the McCarrick scandals. One is denial. Clinging to the idea that there are a few bad apples, and they are just so very sneaky and that’s why they got away with their crimes.

The other myth is that the good guys can fix this. We imagine we can run over to Costco and pick up the plenty-pack of Accountability Spray, and with enough elbow grease the house will be squeaky clean again. Everyone pitch in!

If the Church is a house, myth #1 is that the fridge is a disaster and needs to hauled to be the dump, can’t decide whether to fumigate the couch in the den or just burn it, and let’s rip out that musty carpet in the back bedroom — then everything will be fine again. A few cobwebs and a squeaky staircase? Typical old house. Relax.

Myth #2 is that sure, we belong on an episode of Hoarders, but if we call in the team we can all work together until the junk has been cleared out and the walls and floors are all scrubbed down.

That’s not what we have. What we have is extensive rot in load-bearing walls.

What does the rot look like? It looks like this comment from the fabled orthodoxy-wonderland Diocese of Lincoln:

I’m glad someone has finally spoken about this. A fellow-seminarian (now-priest) and I were tormenetd by MK’s [Msgr Kalin] behaviors for a long while. Our experience was part of what led +Fabian to order that at least 2 people accompany MK on the stadium walks. I wish it weren’t true, but it is.

What was happening is that Msgr. Kalin, who was both diocesan director of vocations and director of the University of Nebraska Newman Center, was molesting his students. The former student explains:

Since you seem to be afraid to read between the lines, I will state it plainly: repeatedly asking to touch and be touched in inappropriate places, asking for “French kisses”, and doing these actions without being given permission — to say nothing of the entire grooming process by which these actions/gestures were normalized. I finally said something after my friend walked into the chapel literally *shaking* after one of these episodes, because until then, I thought it was just me. It was at that point I woke up to how twisted the whole situation was and had been for some time. Now, think about the fact that this is coming from the person who made himself your confessor and spiritual director.

UPDATE: Here is an account of Wan Wei Hsien’s experience that provides a clearer timeline of events.

This is the same Msgr. Kalin who was the picture of a balanced commitment to priestly chastity in an interview for American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America’s Most Powerful Church:

When I asked Kalin about homosexuality, he said, “I get to know a candidate pretty well before I recommend him to the seminary, and if I think someone is an active homosexual, I’ll take him aside and we’ll agree that the priesthood isn’t for him. On the other hand, Bishop Flavin always said that he didn’t care what someone’s inclinations were, as long as he was sincerely committed to a chaste life.”

American Catholic by Charles Morris, p. 387

Predators cover their tracks.

A healthy, sane person would react to such betrayal with shock, despair, and disbelief. If the lone-predator myth were true, then when Msgr. Kalin’s deception was uncovered, a clear-thinking supervisor would do a thorough investigation and either exonerate the accused or determine the man was not competent for ministry.

What was bishop Fabian Bruskewitz’s solution to this problem? Require seminarians to only visit their director in pairs.

That’s right: The bishop understands that the director of seminarians can’t be trusted alone in the room with a seminarian . . . but he still thinks the man is competent to direct the formation of the diocese’s future priests?

This is the behavior of people in abusive relationships.

***

Here’s an interesting article in that it shows you the shiny veneer of a dysfunctional family. Compare the key players in that happy vocations story to the names in Rod Dreher’s efforts to dig out the facts on the Kalin case (quoted above). Gives you pause for thought.

***

People in abusive or dysfunctional relationships behave in insane ways. There is constant blame-shifting, avoidance of responsibility, and generating of excuses and distractions to cover over the real problems. Anyone who tries to speak reason or point out real problems becomes the enemy. The status quo must be preserved. Everyone tied up in the abusive relationship has somehow come to believe that their safety is threatened if anything disrupts their twisted, tormented way of life.

So seminarians are sent to see their director in pairs.

A generation of priests in one of the most boomingly orthodox dioceses in the nation were formed by a notorious lecher who was left in office after his crimes were known to the bishop.

That’s not about McCarrick. That’s about Bruskewitz. Different theology, different politics, different dioceses . . . same problem. All across the nation and around the world, whitewashed pillars of the church are decayed to the core with this rot of abusive and dysfunctional relationships.

***

I and others who have been writing about the McCarrick fallout get letters from church-workers, clergy and laity alike. We get thanked for our open, outspoken coverage of the bishops’ failure of leadership. And invariably there’s a coda: “I can’t say anything myself. I have to be careful.”

Yes, I know about that. I know about being pushed out of a parish ministry because I held someone accountable for a gross failure of common sense where child safety policies were concerned. I know about silence and “discretion” that involves never, ever, speaking up with plain answers. I know about people accused of sexual crimes against children threatening lawsuits if you share public information about the status of their legal case . . . even as they are in the process of inviting your own children to their home.

I know about that.

***

I also know that things are complicated. I know that false accusations happen. I’ve been the key witness in a case defending an innocent man against an egregious and absolutely fabricated, revenge-motivated accusation. I know that decent people get overwhelmed in difficult situations, and we don’t always handle the moment in the best way. I know that sometimes you are under the gun and you do something really dumb, and you regret it later, and you resolve to never do it again. I know that sometimes you examine a situation carefully, and you still come to the wrong conclusion about the best way to handle it. I know that sometimes you just don’t understand how serious a situation is, and you don’t treat it with the gravity it deserves. Stupid happens. It happens to all of us.

***

Here’s the difference between stupid and dysfunctional: Healthy people don’t build their lives around defending and perpetuating stupid.

***

So what can anyone, in any state of life, do in response to the rot of abuse and dysfunction in our Church?

Of course #1 is to fast and pray. You know that. You don’t need a blog post about it.

The response that hurts is #2: You have to act like a healthy person. You have to refuse to be part of the cycle of dysfunction and abuse.

The only way for the Body of Christ to be healthy is for members of that Body to be healthy. The gangrene stops here.

***

That’s not fun. It gets ugly fast, because the dysfunctional people will pull out every weapon they have to fight your insistence on sane behavior. You can expect lying, evading, shunning . . . the works.

What does it mean in parish life? It means you might not have much of a parish life. It means that you might become the persona non grata, because you refuse to play along and pretend everything is fine. It means you or a family member might be denied the sacraments.

***

Oh no! In that case—

Think about it. You’re afraid that if you refuse to sin, and if you refuse to be party to perpetuating sin . . . you’ll be cut off from the grace of God?

That’s not how God works.

How God works is that He rewards His prophets by having them thrown into a cistern. He rewards His son’s obedience with the Cross. But His grace is right there the whole time.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain.

Praying for Terrible Bishops

Up at the Register: How to Be Catholic When Your Bishops Are Not. I am not gentle in this one. A faith that depends on eyes-half-shut and pretending all is well in the Holy Catholic Church will not withstand the present onslaught, unless you’re extremely expert at lying to yourself. I don’t think lying to yourself is a good option.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about praying for your bishop. Here’s a thing to understand: Your bishop was chosen for his cowardice.

Perhaps over the years you have wondered why your bishop seemed unable to accomplish much of anything. You might have wondered why every statement out of the diocese was more watered-down than a glass of ice cubes on a summer afternoon. You might have wondered why your parish and diocesan leaders seemed to find the clear and certain teachings of the Catholic faith just. so. difficult. to. praaaaactiiiiiiiiice.

Now we know. It turns out that in the eyes of the Church’s top leaders, fecklessness in a bishop is not a bug but a feature.

With Cardinals like McCarrick at the helm, it’s a miracle the clergy accomplish anything at all.

Well, God can use that.

Because you know how God shows off? By doing His work through the crappiest instruments He can get.*

Are you a terrible person? Then God can use you. You can pray things like, “Lord, I am almost as wretched as my faithless, weak-kneed toad of a bishop, and so I know what dreadful danger he and I both face. Indeed, were I in his shoes, I might be even worse than he. After all, Satan hates bishops even more than he hates me. Under full attack from the enemy, I’m not sure I’d last half an hour. So if you could somehow spare us both from eternal damnation, and maybe even accomplish a few miraculous acts of virtue through us, I’d be most appreciative.”

Alternately, if you aren’t already praying from the Liturgy of the Hours, give it a look. A sample from this morning:

Lord, listen to my prayer:
turn your ear to my appeal.
You are faithful, you are just; give answer.
Do not call your servant to judgment
for no one is just in your sight.

The enemy pursues my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me dwell in darkness
like the dead, long forgotten.
Therefore my spirit fails;
my heart is numb within me.

I remember the days that are past:
I ponder all your works.
I muse on what your hand has wrought
and to you I stretch out my hands.
Like a parched land my soul thirsts for you.

Lord, make haste and answer;
for my spirit fails within me.
Do not hide your face
lest I become like those in the grave.

In the morning let me know your love
for I put my trust in you.
Make me know the way I should walk:
to you I lift up my soul.

Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will
for you, O Lord, are my God.
Let your good spirit guide me
in ways that are level and smooth.

For your name’s sake, Lord, save my life;
in your justice save my soul from distress.

Chicken Soup it is not.

***

Editing notes on the Register piece:

If I could do it over, I’d write “feckless simpering” instead of “simpering fecklessly.” Sometimes we aren’t perfectly concise in our haste.
I regret that I did not write myself out a list of synonyms for the word “putrid,” as it occurred to me I should. I woke up this morning with the stark realization that I had missed quite a few.

Well, that’s how it goes sometimes. We live to write another day.

Artwork courtesy of Wikimedia, public domain. Bouguereau, I had know idea you had this in you!

*Hence the existence of bloggers.

What Doesn’t Protect the Church

I’ve been writing about the allegations of sexual molestation against Cardinal McCarrick over at Patheos:

Soldiers for Christ Hiding Under the Bed is about the connection between covering up for sexual predators and the inability of the Church to be an effective witness to wider society. Not a surprising connection, but one that needs to be made.

Promiscuous vs. Predatory: How to Tell the Difference is a response to the suggestion that McCarrick was guilty of simple sexual immaturity, not predatory molestation and sexual harassment. It contains links to my growing collection of essays related to the topic of abuse in the Church.

Rod Dreher has been covering this topic as well, from the point of view of a journalist who investigated McCarrick in the past, but was unable to pull together a story he could break. In Uncle Ted & The Grand Inquisitor, he shares a disturbing comment he received from a reader:

We MUST protect our brand, our shield, our faith!

I fully support Pope Francis and his softened tone, and even swipes at capitalism because the media love him. And image is everything. Similarly with Cardinal Dolan, I will fight to the death to defend him, and would go to extreme lengths to protect him because he is so well liked in the leftist NYC media.

In short, we must handle these issues swiftly, legally, but privately! As a successful advertising executive in NYC I am looked up like an alien because I am a weekly mass attender, and a conservative. I am respected by my liberal media friends because I loathe the Trump-Palin-Brietbart wing of my party, and trumpet my cause in a more Bill Buckley.

Image is everything, and when it comes to the One True Church we MUST protect her!

Dreher’s reader is wrong.

Let’s see what the Bible has to say about fighting the Church’s enemies:

¹¹Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. ¹²For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. ¹³Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. ¹⁴So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, ¹⁵and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. ¹⁶In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all [the] flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:11-16

What are our weapons? Truth, righteousness, the Gospel, faith, salvation, and the word of God.

Covering up for sexual predators does not fit on that list.

If the allegations against Cardinal McCarrick are true, the man should have been removed from pastoral ministry decades ago. By all means, when you see a priest, or anyone, doing what they ought not be doing, if no laws are being broken, begin by confronting the sinner privately. We all sin. Would that we were all given the chance to quietly confront our own failings and rectify them.

But when you have evidence of decades of predatory behavior, with untold hundreds of clerics at every level of the hierarchy complicit in silence and cover-up, and how many lives of young men ruined by the crimes inflicted upon them . . . there is no quietly cleaning this up. “Discretion” does nothing to help the Church. There is a time for genuine public penance, and now is that time.

Dreher’s reader is correct: the Church’s image matters. But when we hide behind some limp notion of “handling things privately,” the rot festers. No one is fooled. The public rightly views us as hypocrites of the worst sort.

So let us instead make the Bride of Christ holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before Christ. That image, and that image alone, is the one for which we should strive.

Artwork via Wikimedia, Public Domain

My St. Anthony Story for Today

So I have this devotion to St. Anthony that is mostly about finding things. Typical Catholic.

This spring the relics of St. Anthony toured the Diocese of Charleston, and of course I had to go. My specific prayer request was about figuring out (“finding”) my new small-v vocation, now that my last homeschooler is in school. I’ve been feeling the waters in a lot of different directions, but nothing was quite coming together. A lot of things were definitely NOT coming together.

So yesterday afternoon after four days forced offline, and a period of prayer and fasting as well (though not as much prayer as I’d like to be able to say I accomplished — just small and targeted prayers), in the space of an hour I got an e-mail accepting a book proposal for a book I can write this summer, and one for a teaching job that starts in the fall. Perfect combination: I can write this summer while being with the family, and then have work in the fall about the time the manuscript is done.

(No announcements yet — details and contracts still need to be hammered out.)

This morning I got up, and you should know that my usual routine is to make a hot beverage and open the Scriptures, either picking up from where I left off in the Bible (Ezekiel at the moment), or from the day’s Mass readings, or Morning Prayer with iBreviary. One or another, it just depends. I had to shake off some scrupulosity and give myself the freedom to just go with whatever was going to work that day.

So today while the hot water was supposedly warming up, I was sitting in front of the PC goofing off, Missal in my lap to go sit outside and pray the readings once the drink was ready. (You can talk to people online first thing in the morning, no problem, but everyone knows that Jesus wants you to have your hot drink in hand before you converse with Him. Yeah right. Cue Coffee with Jesus.) Eventually I figured out the kettle wasn’t plugged in, eventually I remembered I was supposed to be praying instead of reading online, and thus eventually I made it out to the porch.

Hitch: My bookmark in the Missal wasn’t on the right day, and I was too lazy to go back inside and look up what day we’re on.

But hey, there are saints days in the back, so I figured, I’ll go see if anyone’s having a feast today.

Hitch: That requires knowing what day it is.

But I did some hard thinking (rather than go inside and check the date, hmmn) and remembered that yesterday was the 12th, I think, so that made today most likely the 13th. I flip to June 13th and who should the saint be but . . . St. Anthony of Padua. My guy.

But interestingly, my edition of the Daily Roman Missal doesn’t talk about St. Anthony finding your parking space for you. What it talks about is this: Here’s a saint who was a phenomenal evangelist. He preached from the Scriptures so thoroughly, with such a reliance on the Gospels, that he got called the “Evangelical Doctor.”

Whoa. St. Anthony I barely knew you.

And yes, I’d read the biography before, but it went in one ear and out the other — great Franciscan saint, middle ages, preaching or miracles or something, blah blah blah. Mostly you could count on him to find things, and also one year one of the kids in my class did a great St. Anthony costume for religious ed. That was truly all I remembered.

I mean, come on, find my hotel for me, that’s all I need.

But also, I asked for his intercession on the question of my vocation. And on the vigil of the feast day (which was already the feast day in Padua), I got invited to:

Write a book on evangelization.
Teach in a school where evangelization and Scripture study are the top priorities.

Sooo . . . yes. Ask and you shall receive. Mind whom you ask for help, though.

Some short biographies for those who want to parse out yet more parallels:

St. Anthony at the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

When You’re Failing at Lent

Here’s an actual thing I prayed Sunday morning at Mass: “Jesus, please help me stop failing at Lent.”

I wouldn’t say I’m a pro at Lent any year, but this year is hitting new lows in the spectacular failure department. One of the particularly depressing features is that things I used to be good at in previous years — this prayer routine, that bit of self-denial, those important tasks — I’m not hitting them like the imaginary composite “perfect Jennifer” does in my head. Pick the best Jennifer features selected over 30 years of Lents, feasts, and ordinary times, mash her together into a collage called “You Should Be Able To Do This No Sweat,” and then stand back and despair.

That’s not the point of Lent.

For those of us on the Lent Failure Track, this is the point: Discover again how much you need God.

Hidden Years in the Spiritual Life

Over the last week I’ve been proofing the paperback version of the new book. For those who aren’t familiar with it, the book walks you through an examination of your life with respect to the four ways of loving God — heart, soul, mind, and strength. (There’s a review here — thanks Patrice!) So here it is Lent and I’ve written this great retreat that is ideal for use during Lent, and I’m thinking to myself: If there is one thing Jennifer does not need to be doing right now, it is this retreat.

I have been thinking because my life is already very full, and I don’t need to think up new things.

But I’ve been proofreading the paperback version, and as a result I sort of ended up doing an abridged version of the retreat in my brain. The abridged version consisted of me noticing select passages that scream JENNIFER LISTEN TO THIS!!!! and then me getting an extremely clear idea, after reading all the words in the book, of exactly what it is I need to be working on in my relationship with God right now.

What I need to be working on is not glamorous. God asks us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and some corners of those four parts of ourselves are not impressive. I don’t think, “Wow, I would be SO HOLY if only I worked on _[thing that needs attention]_.” Foundational issues don’t amaze. It’s like a building. The bulk of the technical genius is hidden from sight.

The Things You’ll Miss If You Don’t Have Them

Yesterday was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon around here, perfect for getting out for a bike ride or a walk in the woods or doing something fun with the kids. Instead, the Superhusband spent his few hours of time off work replacing the toilet in the kids’ bathroom.

He could have gone out and done some Dad-activity that was easy for everyone to appreciate. If you’re the dad playing soccer at the park or pitching balls, everyone’s like, “Wow! What a great dad!” Replacing the toilet is like, “Wow! Look where the toilet used to be! It’s another toilet!” You do all that work and there isn’t much to show, because that work is an investment in nothing happening in the future. You’ll know the new toilet was worth it because: Nothing. There’ll be a lack of toilet-related drama and that’s it.

Lent-Lite

That’s what it’s like in Remedial Lent. Lent is falling apart because you need to make some adjustments. A good penance will bore and annoy you, but it works. You suffer a little, but mostly you just suck it up and do fine. When you’re failing at Lent, something needs to change. Probably something you don’t really feel like working on, because if you felt like working on it, you would have dealt with it from the outset.

So God is good, and He lets you try your thing. And then you start failing at Lent, and when you finally break down and beg for help, God reminds you of the other thing. The more important thing. You can’t believe it’s the more important thing, because surely something as small as that, or as ugly as that, or as intrusive as that, isn’t what Lent is all about, right? But you were failing at Lent. It’s because God needs you to work on loving Him in this other area you’d rather not.

When you decide to give your whole self to God, you have to give the not-so-shiny parts too.

Artwork: Christ in the Garden, Jeremias de Decker, 1656. Via Wikimedia [Public Domain].

The Disconnect After You Realize Abuse is Happening

There are two extra torments after you realize you’ve been party to an abusive relationship:

You wonder why it took you so long to realize what was happening.
You wonder why other people can’t see what is now so obvious to you.

When you realize that you’d been duped for so long, you can end up blaming yourself. Surely you should have seen the warning signs. Surely you should have been smarter than to get pulled along with all this.

When you experience the frustration of seeing so clearly what others are still denying, all sorts of other, complicated dynamics ensue.

You might second guess yourself: Are you the crazy one? Are you blowing this out of proportion? You’ll no doubt hear from others that yes, you’re just “being dramatic” or “making a mountain out of a molehill.”

You might feel betrayed by friends or family members who should be supporting you, but instead are loyal to the abuser and are denying anything significantly wrong has happened.

Unless your friends on the other side of the divide are truly magnanimous, you will probably lose friendships. Even if you are still civil to each other, it won’t be the same as before.

It is quite likely that you who have called out the abuse, or who have merely refused to cooperate with it, are suddenly under attack.

***

All these things are the fallout of the nature of abusive relationships.

By definition, the abuser has sought to normalize his or her behavior. The only way abuse gets perpetrated in the first place is by the abuser somehow convincing people the behavior is acceptable. One of the reasons we don’t recognize abuse when it happens is that the abuser has done his or her best to make sure we don’t recognize it.

Another reason is that abusive behavior falls on a continuum. Just how far over the line someone has strayed is not always easy to discern. It can be hard to judge where on the continuum you’re sitting. We all sin. We all have our weaknesses. We have to live with one another, and it’s normal to show mercy and give the benefit of the doubt.

And finally, false accusations do happen. We who are honest rightly want to avoid jumping to conclusions and criminalizing imperfect but not predatory behavior. Those who are dishonest will in turn exploit every weak spot to cultivate doubt about the seriousness of the abusive behavior, and to cast the critics in the worst possible light.

Oh and then there’s the fact that those who have recognized the abusive behavior are themselves flawed persons who don’t necessarily know the best way to handle the situation.

***

So all this stuff happens.

It is horrible.

But it’s not something you can blame yourself for. It’s just part of wrestling with the beast.

Artwork via Wikimedia, Public Domain

March for Life 2018

Between the Metro & the March and a museum visit, we walked 7.5 miles today.

Turnout was enormous. The column of marchers extended as far as you could see, filling the streets.

One of the things people do is come in groups with matching hats, or scarves, or t-shirts, or sweatshirts — and in one case, yellow ponchos. Many of them are very memorable. The March is so big that you’ll see thousands upon thousands of people, and then when you are walking to a Metro station afterwards, you’ll see groups gathered waiting for their tour bus that you never saw the entire day until you passed each other post-March.

There were a couple marching bands along the route. (Sound quality is my phone, not the band – they were super.)

The atmosphere varies as you go, but it’s always friendly and peaceful. We prayed along with part or all of various Rosaries and Chaplets of Divine Mercy being led by participants:

As the roads widen and narrow, and people walk at different paces, you end up here and there, walking alongside all kinds of different people.

We ended up stopped for a bit next to this group in blue sweatshirts:

The baby on the back of the sweatshirt was actually on last year’s March, in-utero, then born prematurely, and now doing great. The adult hand in the picture is the father’s hand:

The caption at the bottom is: No hand is too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.

***

And something amusing . . .

All dogs go to Heaven. All youth groups go to Air & Space. US History gets its share, too.

Somehow the first time I went to DC for the March I imagined we wouldn’t be allowed into the museums during the March. I guess I figured we were the rabble that had to be kept away from the innocent visitors.

Actually: As long as you comply with the rules & regulations for the museum of your choice, you are welcome to come inside.

And hence this year I confirmed that if you want tranquility, and a surprising number of Dominicans, go to the National Gallery. You’ll spend $40,000 on lunch in the cafeteria (but it’s decent food). But maybe also you will be able to personally identify the person in art who looks most like yourself.

This is me & my kids a few years ago:

It’s not so much the precise physical resemblance as the Oh my gosh, someone has painted a picture of my life. And yes, we’re as tired as we look. Here’s a version not from my phone:

The kids are little taller now.

All photos & video by Jen Fitz except that one you can find on Wikimedia, Public Domain.

Snowpersons for Life

What do you when the interstate becomes impassable on your route to the March for Life? Pull over and make Phyllis, the snowperson. Why yes, the pro-life movement is young — and happy to be alive.

FYI if you didn’t see it over at the Register, this is what happened at our state March for Life, when a non-denominational Christian tried to talk my son and his friends out of being Catholic.

When You Need Christmas Carols

This afternoon we’re going caroling with our friends (and you can too)! The way I buy out of the obligation to bring something good for the potluck is to bring the music instead.

The booklets I put together back in 1998 for our first caroling party are starting to get a bit ragged. This is our year to refresh, and I suspected CCWatershed could help, since they were my source for Advent music a few weeks ago for the dread homeschool music-minutes.* For those who were in on the Advent Music brainstorming session on Facebook, the answer is that I went with “Creator of the Stars of Night.” Some people I live with were skeptical that young children could be counted on to quickly learn such a thing, but my class of monkeys had the hang of it by the third verse. So I maintain that one is a great choice for kids who can read words — simple tune, easy range, repeat repeat repeat.

But for the neighbors, we need Christmas Carols. CCWatershed did not disappoint. I searched around and found their link to ACollectionofChristmasCarols.com. If you go to that site you can choose the format that works best for you. If you’re going out caroling on short notice, what you want to do is download the free PDF and print out just the pages you plan to sing from to make your booklets. If you want the whole shebang, you are way better off to purchase the book version from whichever of the several options best meets your needs.

So You Want to Go Caroling, You Said?

Let me give you a couple tips on how to organize your music.

When you ring on someone’s doorbell, you don’t want to make them stand there forever. You also want them to have a vague idea of what it is you are singing, so your ragtag bunch needs to choose wisely. Here’s the formula:

(1) Pick out six or seven carols that everyone and their brother is likely to know, and which are easy to sing. If your neighborhood has many people who do not celebrate Christmas, include some generic winter-season festive music in your line-up. You do not win hearts to the Gospel by irritating and offending people.

(2) Choose two or three verses to sing for each song or carol. For slow songs like “Silent Night,” make it two verses. For quick, peppy songs you can do three. Decide ahead of time and make a note.

DO NOT TRY TO SING MORE THAN ONE VERSE OF “THE FIRST NOEL.” Why yes, I am shouting at you. Trust me: Nobody in your group knows how to match the words to the melody in the subsequent verses. It will be a disaster. Don’t do this. “The First Noel” is a great song to not ever ever ever sing with your friendly neighborhood carolers. Just never. Leave that one at home.

For “We Three Kings,” sing the first and last verse. You may sing all five verses at home with your friends. The police will be right to issue you a citation if you pressure your neighbors into standing there listening to the entire saga king by king. First and last and no one’s gonna hunt you down and egg your house.

(3) Make yourself sets of three-song combinations. #3 is always “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” #1 will be something lively, and #2 is where you can put “Silent Night” or any song that drags out a little. As you go from house to house, rotate through the combinations. If someone asks you for more than three songs, you can always throw in another one.

(4) Use common sense when assessing whether to ring the doorbell and what to sing. If lights are off, don’t ring. If there are Christmas decorations up, it’s reasonable to assume the residents celebrate Christmas. FYI, the full lyrics of “Let it Snow” plus one verse and refrain of “Jingle Bells” is about the right amount for your non-Christmas houses. And my apologies gentle reader, I live in the Bible Belt, I don’t have a second secular-set to propose, because we don’t usually need even the first set. I’m sure your kid’s school Winter Concert playlist includes some suggestions.

(5) If you are clever you’ll order your music packets so that the carols are in order and you can just keep cycling through the packet and inserting “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” from memory. (Stick it on the last page in case the Chinese exchange student shows up and needs the words. You can separate out your “Christmas” rotation from your “Secular” rotation as well. A post-it note in the packet could help.)

(6) The We-Wish-You finale (or “Jingle Bells” for non-Christmasers) is important not just because it works well for signaling to the neighbors that their time of redemption is at hand, but also it means that your toddlers will always have something they can sing at each house. Little kids do pretty well just dragging along and humming about Harold Angel, as long as they can belt out We-Wish-You with gusto for each song. “Away in a Manger” is good for little ones who’ve been made to learn it at Sunday School, and “Angels We Have Heard on High” works well because the pre-literate crowd can join in on the In Excelsis Deo.

(7) Pack flashlights.

Enjoy!

Artwork Courtesy of acollectionofchristmascarols.com.

*Dreaded no longer. That class is going great ever since we switched formats. It turns out some of the wild monkeys are shockingly happy studying Tantum Ergo. And speaking of CCWatershed: I noticed the Cathedral in Charleston is using the Saint Isaac Jogue Pew Lectionary and the Pope Francis Hymn Book. Both of them look great. Recommended.

Solemnity on a Friday!

December 8th is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. In addition to being a holy day of obligation (translation: Go to Mass!), its status as a solemnity means that on years when the day falls on a Friday, the usual obligation to do penance on Fridays is lifted:

Can. 1249 The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons.

Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Let the bacon be served.

If you live in the US, your bishops already gave you the bacon-option, but it’s penitential bacon:

Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.

Way back in 1966, the US bishops determined that if abstaining from meat isn’t penitential enough for you, outside of Lent you are free to substitute some other penance:

28. In summary, let it not be said that by this action, implementing the spirit of renewal coming out of the Council, we have abolished Friday, repudiated the holy traditions of our fathers, or diminished the insistence of the Church on the fact of sin and the need for penance. Rather, let it be proved by the spirit in which we enter upon prayer and penance, not excluding fast and abstinence freely chosen, that these present decisions and recommendations of this conference of bishops will herald a new birth of loving faith and more profound penitential conversion, by both of which we become one with Christ, mature sons of God, and servants of God’s people.

The whole document is worth reading. But not tomorrow! On solemnities, we feast.

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