Another Visit

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Brian H. Gill

This household’s Christmas tree lights were lit last night.

We’d kept the tree, decorations and all up well past Epiphany to be ready for a visit that started last night.

Number two daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter arrived yesterday. We had a good visit, opened (slightly belated) Christmas presents, and stayed up later than is our habit. Or should that be are our habits?

The two adults set off to another destination this morning, so we’ll have an extended visit with granddaughter. I’ve read a few age-appropriate books with her, #3 daughter and wife have played with her. And at the moment I’m enjoying hearing her play: two rooms over.

On the ‘up’ side, we’re having a fine visit. On the ‘not-so-up’ (notsoup???) side, I don’t expect to be getting much writing done. But I do expect to enjoy the next few days.

Slightly-related posts:

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Another Storm

Posted on January 18, 2020 by Brian H. Gill


(Like the song says, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful….”)

There’s a Winter Storm Warning in progress this afternoon, which may become a blizzard if the storm sidesteps a tad. Either way, it’s not a day to go for a leisurely stroll.

Folks on morning radio recited a long list of school closings and event cancellations.

None of which affected me. Not directly.

My weekly hour at the St. Faustina Adoration Chapel was yesterday. It was sincerely cold, a bit windy but no snow.

About the Adoration Chapel. We’re not adoring St. Faustina. I’ve talked about that before. (December 13, 2019)

Sauk Centre’s city website (saukcentre.govoffice2.com) includes a Snow Emergency statement:

“Snow Emergency
“Effective at 11:00 p.m. on Friday, January 17, 2020, a Snow Emergency has been declared for the City of Sauk Centre till 11:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 19, 2020. Vehicles parked on the street are subject to ticket and towing. *On street/overnight parking is not allowed.*”

Makes sense to me. And I hope that folks who have vehicles but not reserved off-street parking find spots for their cars and trucks.

While I’m thinking of it, hats off to the folks running snow plows, emergency services: and working at stores and businesses that are open today.

Today’s Storm and Perceptions


(From National Weather Service, used w/o permission.)
(National Weather Service’s early afternoon map. (January 17, 2020))

The current storm — it’s expected to taper off Saturday evening — and others like it are part of the Upper Midwest experience.

I’ve spent the bulk of my life in this area, and grew up on the Minnes0ta-North Dakota border. For me, this is “normal.”

Other folks probably have different perceptions. Like the fellow I saw while living in San Francisco. I was walking to work. To a bus stop on my way to work, actually.

Anyway, I was wearing a windbreaker and a cap: more than enough to deal with the mildly cool temperature.

This other fellow was walking to some destination: wearing a snorkel parka with the hood extended, hands in the parka’s pockets. Maybe he’d lost a bet. Or thought he looked cool in the metaphorical sense. Or something else. Or maybe it really felt that cold to him.

Oddly enough, I don’t remember any wannabe prophets declaring that our usual winter weather is an anger-prone God’s judgement on us.

Maybe because it is our usual weather. Which has encouraged us to have equipment and procedures ready. And that’s another topic.

I’ve talked about weather, scapegoating and the Siloam tower before. (February 23, 2019; November 17, 2017; September 17, 2018; August 27, 2017)

What’s Next?

On the other hand, this sort of weather raises a question: what are we doing here?

Why did my ancestors decide to live in a place where water is a mineral for much of the year?

Denouncing non-tropical human settlement as an affront to the Almighty is an option.

Provided I take an ‘if God meant us to fly, we’d have wings’ attitude. And hope that nobody notices where I live.

Besides, I’m not bothered that humans can’t survive here without technology. Fire and clothing, at a minimum.

Partly because we have the necessary tech. The environment next to my skin is at a pleasant 77° Fahrenheit. Thanks to clothing, insulated walls and a furnace.

That temperature’s right around daytime conditions in part of humanity’s homeland. It’s a little cooler there at the moment, and an hour to two past midnight.1

Getting back to why humans moved here, and elsewhere. As I see it, we’re here because we’re human. Humans, some of us, travel. We wonder what’s over the next hill, and I’ve talked about that before. And probably will again.

Meanwhile, more snow has fallen. And I haven’t decided what to write next in the post I’d planned to work on today.

Maybe I’ll come up with an idea tomorrow. Then again, maybe not.

Not-necessarily-related posts:

1 Definitions and conditions:

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The Baptism of Jesus, and My Kids

Posted on January 11, 2020 by Brian H. Gill

Last week I said “we celebrate our Lord’s adoration by the magi, his baptism and the wedding feast at Cana.” I’d been talking about Epiphany.

So how come this Sunday is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord? It seems redundant.

Basically, it’s because I’m a Catholic and an American. And because it’s been two millennia since our Lord gave Simon a new name and scary responsibility. (Matthew 16:16–19)

Quite a bit’s happened since then.

The Pax Romana ended with Commodus and the Year of the Five Emperors. (Yes, American politics could be worse.)

Constantine decriminalized Christianity. The Roman Empire transitioned from major power to nostalgic memory.1

Charlemagne was a major player in Europe when Pope St. Leo III was kidnapped.

A couple of Charlemagne’s envoys, backed by considerable muscle, interfered. Pope St. Leo III said Charlemagne was Emperor of the Romans on Christmas in the year 800.

Likely enough, that’s when Charlemagne started calling his territory the Römisches Reich or Imperium Romanum, depending on which language was appropriate in context.

Either way, it’s “Roman Empire” in my language. It wasn’t the Holy Roman Empire until the Imperial Diet of Cologne’s 1512 decree. Or 1557, when Frederick I Barbarossa’s empire was called “holy” in some document.2

Like pretty much everything else involving humans, it’s complicated.

I’ll give Charlemagne and Frederick I Barbarossa credit for political savvy. “Roman Empire” arguably held considerable mystique in the early 9th century. The same goes for “Holy Roman Empire” in 1512. Or 1557. Or whenever.

I also think Voltaire had a point.

“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
“This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
(Voltaire, via Wikiquote)

Fast-forward about seven centuries from Charlemagne.

The Renaissance was getting traction. And someone you probably never heard of painted a triptych for Jan Des Trompes — a city treasurer with even less name recognition.

Anachronism


(From Gerard Davic, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Detail of Gerard David’s ‘baptism’ triptych. (ca. 1505))

Around the time Leonardo da Vinci was working on the Mona Lisa, Gerard David painted a triptych of our Lord’s baptism.

Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish or Flemish Primitive artist. He was unimaginative. Or a mere imitator of greater artists. Or progressive. Opinions vary.

He had a successful career, died in 1523 and was forgotten. Until the 1860s, and that’s another topic.

Anyway, Gerard David put Jan Des Trompes and his family in the baptism triptych. Plus St. Elizabeth of Hungary and others. Understandably, I figure, since Jan Des Trompes commissioned the piece.

There’s a lot of symbolism and imagery going on here, but what jumped out at me was the anachronistic clothing.

The Trompes women and girls are wearing what someone at the University of Vermont called “transitional gowns” — “Moving towards the square neckline, full sleeves, natural waistline and separate bodice and skirt construction of the 16th century.”3

And they’re wearing hoods. Sort of.

Everyday Clothing and Monastic Uniforms

European men’s and women’s headwear varied from utilitarian scarves to escoffions and hennins — those things that look like birds’ nests and steeples.

Liripipes, too. And guimpes.

Apparel above and beyond reason inspired sumptuary laws. Lawmakers probably had other motives, too.

Rules about clothing and accessories have been around at least since Zaleucus wrote that a freeborn woman couldn’t have more than one slave tagging along, unless she was drunk. The freeborn woman, that is. And I’m drifting off-topic.

The Trompes headgear might be wimples, if they’d wrapped around the neck and chin. The headgear, I mean.

The ladies’ wardrobe was normal for moderately prosperous women in Europe during the early 1500s. But not the river Jordan’s banks in John the Baptist’s day. To my eye, it’s like a picture of Charlemagne in a belted tunic accompanied by someone wearing a jumpsuit.

Five centuries after Gerard David painted them, the transitional gowns and hoods look vaguely monastic.

That’s because many of today’s monastic uniforms began as everyday clothing. And everyday clothing has changed since St. Pachomius defined the Pachomian habit.

More than a dozen centuries after St. Pachomius, we’ve accumulated a vast supply of traditions (lower-case “t”) and rules. Some of them are still in use, some aren’t.

If the traditions didn’t exist, my guess is that members of a monastic order starting today would be wearing jeans and flannel shirts during the 25th century.

And that’s yet another topic.4

Jesus at the Jordan

Matthew, Mark and Luke talk about our Lord’s baptism. (Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 2:21–22)

John’s gospel reports what John the Baptist said about Jesus.

John the Baptist’s description of the Spirit coming down like a dove sounds like what’s in the other three gospels. (John 1:28–34)

Some “Baptism of Jesus” pictures look like Gerard David’s. Some don’t. Artistic styles have changed at least as much as clothing.

But the “Baptism” pictures I’ve seen have one thing in common.

Pretty much everyone present is presentable. They’re the sort of folks you’d expect to see in a Bible study or church choir. Decent. Well-respected.

The Pharisees and Sadducees who came to the Baptist were presentable. By conventional standards. John the Baptist offered another perspective.

“When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?…”
(Matthew 3:7)

That must have stung.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were rubbing elbows with tax collectors, (Roman) soldiers and prostitutes. (Matthew 21:32; Luke 3:10–14; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 535)

And this itinerant preacher with scruffy clothes was calling them a brood of vipers?!

Maybe I’m being unfair about their motives. Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism might have realized that their lives didn’t match their clique’s squeaky-clean standards. And have been willing to admit it and repent.

Jesus on Nazareth was another matter. Our Lord didn’t need “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3:3)

So what was Jesus doing there?

I figure our Lord was identifying himself with sinners and starting his public ministry with a memorable and significant event. Our Lord’s baptism with water also prefigured his baptism by blood. And ‘fulfilled all righteousness.’ (Catechism, 528, 535–537)

There’s more to it, of course.5

Baptism, Rescheduling and Something New

Baptism is important. Necessary.

It’s the first sacrament.

My baptism freed me from consequences of a really bad decision made by the first of us.

About that: Original sin isn’t the notion that we’re garbage. (September 19, 2018)

Our nature is wounded, not corrupted. We’re still made “in the divine image.” (April 23, 2017)

My baptism was a rebirth in the Spirit. It makes entering the kingdom of God an option for me. (Catechism, 1213–1274)

Like I said, baptism is important. Necessary. For me.

For Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the Living God, not so much.

Not for the same reasons, at any rate. God’s God, I’m not. Although I accepted God’s offer of adoption, and that’s yet again another topic. (April 21, 2019)

Which gets me back to Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

Celebrating that event started as part of Epiphany. Centuries rolled by, and folks in my branch of Christendom got focused on the Magi during Epiphany.

I gather that rescheduling the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord as a separate celebration happened in the 20th century.

That probably upset folks who liked the Tridentine Calendar. And the Tridentine Calendar probably upset folks who thought the Council of Trent was a bad idea.

Then, in 2002, Pope St. John Paul II added five luminous mysteries to the rosary. The Baptism of our Lord is the first of them.

The Tridentine Calendar, Vatican II and Pope St. John Paul II’s luminous mysteries changed how we worship. Changed details. But not the essential details.6

An “Indelible Spiritual Mark”

Again, I think baptism is necessary.

It’s the sacrament that makes it possible for me to enter the kingdom of God.

When I became a Catholic, I didn’t have to decide whether or not to be baptized.

My parents had baptized me as an infant, in a mainstream Protestant church.

Baptism is a one-time thing. Mine left me with an “indelible spiritual mark” that can’t be erased. Or repeated. (Catechism, 1272)

Baptism isn’t a ‘get out of hell free’ card or a guarantee that I’ll enter heaven.

I have free will. I decide to act as if what I believe is true — or not. Then, at my particular judgement, I’ll decide whether or not to finally accept salvation. (Catechism, 1020–1050; 1730–1742)

Opting out of heaven strikes me as a daft idea, but it’s possible. (September 30, 2018; March 11, 2018)

Options, Knowledge and Hope

Given how I see baptism, you’d expect that my kids would have been baptized.

Four have been. Two haven’t.

My wife and I lost Joy in a miscarriage. Elizabeth died just before birth. The family almost lost my wife that time, too.

In each case, our child was not baptized.

I’m not happy about that.

But I don’t see how I could have arranged for them to receive the sacrament.

Things were hectic both times: particularly with Elizabeth’s stillbirth. And each time I didn’t know something was amiss until after they were dead.

The rules say I shouldn’t delay baptism if an infant is in danger of death. (Code of Canon Law, Book IV, Part I, Title I, Chapter III, 867–868)

But baptizing someone who’s already dead? That’s not an option. Not for Catholics.

So, what’s happened to my two dead children?

The short answer is — I don’t know.

I’ve seen assertions that Catholics believe unbaptized infants go to hell. Maybe some Catholics believe that, but it’s not what the Church says.

The last I checked, the Church’s position on unbaptized infants is that we don’t know. And that the matter is still being discussed.

The notion that unbaptized kids go to hell probably comes from scholarly speculations during Europe’s Middle Ages. Putting it simply, the situation is not simple. Anything but.7

Looking at it from another angle, it is simple.

I couldn’t have Joy and Elizabeth baptized. They’re dead. So I must do what the Church does: “…entrust them to the mercy of God….” (Catechism, 1261)

Which is pretty much what I have to do about myself. And that’s still another topic:

1 “The grandeur that was Rome” (“To Hellen,” E. A. Poe)

2 Empires, politics and all that:

3 Anachronistic art:

4 Clothing, rules and change:

5 Baptism of Jesus:

6 Baptism and a feast:

7 What we known, what we don’t knonw:

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Christmas Continues

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Brian H. Gill

This blog still has “Christmas 2019” and a photo of a snow-covered Marian garden in the sidebar.

Some Americans take their Christmas decorations down promptly after December 25.

Others do so directly after Epiphany.

I’m an American, and I’ve still got that “Christmas 2019” photo up? An explanation may be in order. Or maybe not. I’ll explain, anyway.

I figure we’re still in Christmastide, which could have ended with Epiphany.1

But didn’t, apparently.

My region’s Christmas 2019 – 2020 calendar shows the Christmas season running until next Sunday, when we celebrate our Lord’s baptism. Again, sort of.

I’ve talked about that before, and plan to do so again:

1 asdfasdfasdf:

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