It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins (2 Mach. 12:46).

I love November, yet it is a bittersweet love. This is the time of the Liturgical Year when the Liturgy is focused on the Four Last Things: Death, Heaven, Hell, and Final Judgment. This is a time when I contemplate my mortality. Am I ready to die? Am I ready for my Final Judgment? This month I’m taking a particularly close look.

This is also a time that I am reminded of being part of the Mystical Body, the Communion of Saints, and I should be praying for the Faithful Departed. Even though All Souls’ Day was yesterday, praying for the dead continues. During November the Church also focuses on our Faithful Departed, and Purgatory.

There are many near me that have lost loved ones, and some very recently. I attended a funeral on Friday of a schoolmate from high school, who died suddenly. Two other friends just lost one of their parents on All Saints Day. And many others come to mind, as it was only last year when we lost very dear friends. And then those online friends who have suffered great losses in the past months. My thoughts frequently turn to those friends who are left with that hole in their heart and in their daily lives. I pray for their comfort, and that their family member may quickly go to Heaven, if they aren’t there already.

There’s something special about this month. I am finding myself with constant reminders during the day to offer extra mortifications and prayers for the Poor Souls. Sometimes it is manifested in episodes that test my patience, and a little voice reminds me “Remember those Poor Souls!”

I find I am more sentimental during this month. Songs I hear transport me back, remembering family and friends that have died. I try to make that a chance to offer a prayer for their souls. It might have been many years since they died, but I am comforted by the fact that there is no time with God, everything is present with Him, and no prayers will go to waste.

The Church provides such extra special indulgences applicable only to the Poor Souls. See the following links:

1. Praying for the Dead and Gaining Indulgences During November
2. Visiting a Cemetery on All Souls Day, Memorial Day, or on the Anniversary of Death or Burial
3. Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, the section entitled The Memorial of the Dead in Popular Piety

On my sidebar I’ve added All Souls, which is a chapter from The Feasts of Mother Churchby Mother M. Salome, which I found so inspiring. Also don’t miss Karen’s post where she shares my favorite quote from C.S. Lewis on Purgatory.

Last year I gave suggestions for November Requiem Music and talked about All Souls Day. I still haven’t found a cd recording of Dies Irae, but today we were listening to New Liturgical Movement and The Recovering Choir Director for the Dies Irae. After the Exsultet, it is my favorite chant.

On the front of the program for the funerals in our parish is this wonderful quote from St. Augustine.

Of necessity we must be sorrowful when those whom we love leave us in death. Although we know that they have not left us behind forever but only gone ahead of us, still when death seizes our loved ones, our loving hearts are saddened by death itself. Thus the apostle Paul does not tell us not to grieve but: “Not to grieve like those who are without hope.”

Let us grieve, therefore, over the necessity of losing our loved ones in death but with the hope of being reunited with them. If we are afflicted, we still find consolation. Our weakness weighs us down but faith bears us up. We sorrow over the human condition but find our healing in the divine promise (Sermon 172, 1).

Eternal Rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Halloween is tomorrow? Where did October go?

I have to admit, I’m tired, and not in the spirit to do anything for the next three days. Can I admit I was secretly hoping for some excuse to just skip Halloween? I know, I get the Bad Mother of the year award. Although my sons aren’t old, I feel like I’ve been doing this “routine” forever. Looking at my archives, I think I must feel this way every year. And I am eerily beginning to sound like my mother (“I’m too tired”).

I’m one of those moms that celebrate All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween secular style. If you’re looking for inspiration, it’s not coming from me this year. I enjoyed reading Karen’s and Barbara’s posts — definitely inspiring and fun.

We’re doing jack-o-lanterns tonight, recycling last year’s knight’s costume for older ds and a Nittany lion costume that is a little snug for younger ds (which will be too hot for 70 degree weather). Trick-or-treating will be brief with Daddy, while I man the candy and visitors.

Both posts above link to an older article I wrote with my mother years ago. While I look fondly on those memories, I have to admit I haven’t celebrated an All Hallows’ Eve party in many years. Since I’ve had children we celebrate the triple days — the secular Halloween sans scary, and then All Saints and All Souls. A lot of the years Halloween night has been spent visiting grandmothers or other friends letting them share the joy in seeing our little boys dressed up. So many good memories visiting Grandma on Halloween.

I really loved Sally Thomas’ The Drama of Hallowmas at First Things. I have always seen these three days as a unit. And to me, they fall into the categories of the Communion of Saints. As I wrote before:

The Communion of Saints is the union of all the faithful on earth (the Church Militant), the saints in Heaven (the Church Triumphant) and the Poor Souls in Purgatory (the Church Suffering), with Christ as the Head. They are bound together by a supernatural bond, and can help one another. The Church Militant (those on earth still engaged in the struggle to save their souls) can venerate the Church Triumphant, and those saints can intercede with God for those still on earth. Both the faithful on earth and the saints in heaven can pray for the souls in Purgatory.

Sally’s idea of the unity of three days made me see this connection with the Communion of Saints. All Saints Day is definitely celebrating the Church Triumphant, All Souls’ Day (and all of November) is dedicated to the Church Suffering, and Halloween, even celebrated in secular style, is our day — The Church Militant. Celebrating in a secular fashion fits in with our position as Church Militant. We are all intertwined, praising, praying, and suffering together (depending where we are). It’s beautiful.

So perhaps now I’ll feel a little more inspired and enthusiastic. The big question tonight — how shall I decorate my Pumpkin Moonshine?

I admit I’m a little slow on the uptake.

I remember in school not understanding why pencils were always fallling on the floor. I remember teaching first grade and not understanding why pencils were always falling on the floor. I remember being frustrated, even as a young girl, not understanding why did we have to take so much time out for picking up pencils?

Today I finally, completely, understood, when my son was picking up his pencil that he had accidentally dropped — for the tenth time in the short span of lessons. Why is it dropping? Because he’s flipping, twirling, rolling, biting, tossing, batting — anything you can do to an inanimate object – that pencil. And this is happening at any moment in the lessons.

It’s a boy thing.

I told my husband my little epiphany, and I didn’t even have to complete the sentence. He said right along with me: “It’s a boy thing — you have to play with the pencil.”

NOW I get it.

My 6 year old periodically through the day will stop what he’s doing and say “I love you, Mommy.” Sometimes it’s at the oddest times, which to me makes it more special.

But this morning over breakfast, he repeated it again, “I love you, Mommy.” And then he added “I wish I could just tell you that all day.”

My heart is overflowing.

It’s been a while, but I had started writing notes from In Silence With God by Benedict Baur. The previous posts are Tough Love and More Tough Love.

This section touches on Semi-Voluntary Sins (Chapter v). The last one will touch on self-love. These are the sections of the book that has really got me thinking and examining myself particularly from these points. How much of my life is motivated by self-love (or ego, or pride)? How much of my failings are semivoluntary sins — bad habits that must be eradicated? I am thinking Charlotte Mason’s approach on building habits is needed right about now.

Father Baur discusses semi-voluntary venial sins, which are in a different class than voluntary venial sins. Many people have abhorrence of sin and aren’t committing anything deliberately, but….

At the same time these people are necessarily constantly aware of certain faults causing them much humiliation, and sometimes anger and annoyance to others. This, despite all resolutions, despite every effort on the sinner’s part to avoid them. These are not intentional sins, but semivoluntary, in character. In a wider sense, they may be said to spring from weakness.

There are three kinds of semivoluntary sins, he explains.

1. Sins of haste – due to absentmindedness, with decisions made either habitually or rashfully, without consideration.
2. Sin of Surprise — certain situations “such as an emergency, a sudden upset, a nervous impulse may precipitate us into an act of disobedience to God, whether we approve or not.”
3. Sins of Weakness — “nervous agitations causing loss of patience, resolution, and will power.”

He says our personal programme should be:

Never consciously and deliberately to commit a premeditated venial sin, and to avoid the semivoluntary sins and failings as much as possible.

Easier said than done, of course. He doesn’t leave us hanging, but continually reminds us that nothing can be accomplished without grace. We can’t do this by ourselves, ever. It is important for us to regard all sins, including the semivoluntary, with abhorrence (great word!). When we do fail, we must have an immediate sense of guilt and remorse. The semivoluntary sins can be used as a tool for “means of greater self-knowledge and self-abasement.” His suggestions on how to combat sin:

1. Prayer — because only grace can accomplish the triumph against sin
2. Adopting right principles — Have some personal rules regarding the “small” things.
   (a) Have a conviction that venial sins is “an insult to God, a thing that God hates and abominates with His strength and His holiness. Venial sin is disobedience to God…”
   (b) Use the sacrament of Penance frequently, because the grace gives us strength against relapse.
3. Adopt a “constant watchfulness” over all our senses — “over our thoughts and fancies, over our wishes, desires, attractions, affections, and habits.” If we don’t impose this watchfulness and control over our senses — “over gluttony, the tongue, moodiness and revenge, of contention, pride, criticism, and the belittling of others” — we’ll never gain the upper hand over venial sin. Alongside watchfulness, includes Mortification and Spirit of Contrition
4. Keeping Hearts Burning with Love ABOVE ALL – Most essential to keep Love as the goal, which is higher than just avoiding sin. “Love gives us strength to make the necessary sacrifices, to offer up the necessary renunciations, joyfully to reject this and that, returning a decisive NO to all the many promptings of self-love and keeping alive the alertness necessary to prevent ourselves from falling into even the smallest transgression.”

What I like most about this book is that I can see everything in an outline form. Is it a visual thing? I like to see the order, and how it progresses. When I read a book, I like to be able to take the book backwards to the skeleton points. And so, because Father writes this way, I’m learning things that I have probably read before but never sank in as deeply as he relays them. Perhaps it’s also the time of life that I’m reading it — never is any coincidence what is put in front of me. The Holy Spirit works in many ways.

The semivoluntary sins passages was super helpful. I never knew how to classify that outburst of anger that happens before I even can think. Now I get it.

And I know years ago, when I’ve tried starting spiritual books like this I would get discouraged. As I mentioned before, it has helped that I have kept St. Therese’s Little Way in mind. I won’t let myself become discouraged by the enormity of this task. I am too little and weak to accomplish all this. I can only do what He helps me do…and in Him I will put my complete confidence. (Read my favorite book of all time, I Believe In Love by Jean C. J. d’Elbée to understand this.)

When I pass those bins of new bargain books and frequent used book sales and stores, I like to think of the authors. It’s a tough world out in the publishing business, so I hear. I know there are different types of personalities of authors, but the ones I think of are the ones that seriously take the creative and writing process. That book is their “Baby” — inspiration and perspiration, working with the Creator, going through all the publishing hoops — the book is finally presented to the public. There in the public is revealed an intimate part of this person — his thoughts, his creativity.

I can see one has to learn to be thick-skin if planning on publishing. Humanity is a varied lot, with lots of differing opinions and interests. What really fires me up and inspires me might not be someone else’s cup of tea. There will be bad reviews, nominal reviews, or even worse…nothing. The book can bomb.

I can see how an author must strive to discern if the criticisms were because of poor composition, inferior presentation, weak arguments, lack of marketing, bad timing, or just lack of shared interest. Is the author open enough to constructive criticism to change and improve? Is he/she also aware to not take things personally, and launch defensive program. If he/she was pleased with their work, there shouldn’t be defensiveness. I can see an author would need to pray for grace to not let this disturb the peace or stymie the further creative juices. As one who contemplates foraying the world of published authors, I try to keep these things in mind. And I do see how these same things apply to other ways of writing or communicating.

But what really started me thinking about this is wondering how do authors feel when they see their recently published book being resold (used) for deep discounts? Or seeing new copies reduced for sale (Ignatius Press sometimes have deep discounts on titles, for example, and B&N and other book stores have sale books). I love to find bargains with used books, but I always have a twinge of sadness when I see a newer book, one that I think is fabulous, reduced to a low price. Sales happen, I know, but when a book is in demand, usually the demand keeps the price relatively the same.

How does it feel when it’s your own work?

I’ll close with a little message to all my favorite authors. If I buy your book on sale or used condition, there’s nothing personal. I still want your book, and I still value your writing. Really, the personal message is that I’m trying to make more authors happy by having more money to go around to “share the love” with more authors.

This year I had the privilege of meeting Linda Nelson, who runs Sacred Heart Books and Gifts. She had graciously invited me to speak at the Kansas City Catholic Homeschool Conference this June. I mentioned how much I enjoyed my time at the conference, and shared some handouts and a section of my speech.

Sacred Heart Books and Gifts has a vast selection of books for home education, but also Catholic books for spiritual enrichment. The prices are really good all year round, and the customer service is unsurpassed. But now, the Christmas in October Sale has a wide variety of books discounted 20% off.

I recommended a few books to Linda (that I have recommended before) that I find very helpful tools in living the liturgical year at home, and these are featured in the sale:
The Year and Our Children by Mary Reed Newland
A Continual Feast by Evelyn Vitz
Saints: A Year in Faith and Art by Rosa Giorgi
Celebrating the Church Year with Young Children by Joan Halmo
An Introduction to the Liturgical Year by Inos Biffi
Gregorian Chant Master Class by Theodore Marier
Adoremus Hymnal and cd

I also noticed books by one of my favorite spiritual authors, Jacques Philippe, are on sale. And while these aren’t on sale, they are still discounted: the two titles by Benedict Baur, Frequent Confession and In Silence With God. The latter is the one I’m reading and finding so helpful. And my favorite daily companion In Conversation with God is also discounted everyday prices.

Happy shopping. I love supporting Catholic family businesses.

My favorite planners are in and ready to order! For many years I’ve been ordering and using Michele’s Catholic Woman’s Daily Planners. I’ve compared others, but no other kind fits for me. I love having the Catholic feasts of the Liturgical year, the readings of the day, quotes from Catholic spiritual writers included in my planner. I love having my Catholic faith permeate my days, but I also want a nice, simple planner, with lots of space to make it fit to my needs.

And isn’t the cover absolutely beautiful?

This year I switched to the school year planners, but I intend on purchasing a few of these for gifts. My husband commented one day “Hey, your planner has the feast days! I wish mine did.” He uses a small pocket planner, and these won’t fit in his pocket. This summer Mary Ellen gave me a great suggestion: “Buy one for his office that he just leave open on his desk.” Brilliant. And, there are both women’s and men’s planners available.

Don’t delay in ordering–these are popular planners!

I recently acquired The Ageless Story: With Its Antiphons pictured by Lauren Ford, a slim children’s picture book on the boyhood of Christ, beginning with his grandmother, St. Anne. Printed in 1939 by Dodd, Mead, and Company, Inc., it was the Caldecott Honor Book in 1940 as the most distinguished American picture book for children for that year. I was enjoying other works by Lauren Ford and saw that a description of The Ageless Story mentioned Gregorian chant antiphons. Gregorian chant in a book with a secular award? This I had to see for myself.

The book is rare, but it’s a gem. I have an ex-library copy, lacking a dustjacket and a little worn on the binding, but the pictures are gorgeous and full-color, and yes, there are Gregorian Chant antiphons. The music itself is also a work of art, with the chant hand-calligraphed, with gorgeous illuminated Initial Capitals. The Chant is Solesmes style, with the front matter explaining “Grateful Acknowledgement is made to Société de Saint Jean L’Evangeliste for permission to use rhythmic signs of Solesmes.” I couldn’t find any images of the chant, but did find a site that had a few of her illustrations from this book. My scanner isn’t working yet, so I couldn’t share any here.

However, I wasn’t excited only because of the illustrations in this book. It was the introductory letter that really grabbed me:

Dear Nina,

This book is dedicated to you because you are my goddaughter and godmothers are made to bring everything that there is about God to their godchildren as far as they are able.

Of course, you know the story of the boyhood of Christ in the Bible, the most beautiful story in the world. I have copied this music and painted these pictures because they make it come real.

The music is called Gregorian music. It is the true music of the church. It very nearly got lost and it pretty badly got spoiled and this is the reason why—

If you want to know, it is the reason why everything gets spoiled. It was pride that spoiled it. There came a time in the turning of this funny world when men became very pompous (that time is called the Renaissance), when men went back to what the Greeks had done, and the Greeks were worshipers of the body. After that, Church music that you could sing and I could sing, and painting and architecture and all the beautiful things to do with God, lost their spirituality and became humanistic. That is why a Fra Angelico Blessed Virgin looks to be a Heavenly Soul and the Boy is all pure and kingly, while a Raphael one is just a good human mother with a good, fat baby boy.

Now the music again. That is why they wove patterns all around the simple music—because they thought it needed to be more grand. It was beautiful music but it all became so complicated that they had to have special singers to sing it and, just like the Raphael Madonnas, it became good, human music and gradually lost its spiritual quality. And it became so difficult that it moved upstairs into the organ loft and that is why you and I just sit downstairs and listen.

Don’t think that Gregorian music wasn’t sung any more. It was still sung in the Convents but the copyists became careless and forgot to put in the rhythmic signs so that it was wrongly sung and it all had to be discovered again.

One day a little boy, smaller than Denise, was walking along the river bank in Solesmes with his nurse. Every day he walked that way. And he saw the ruins of the great old Benedictine Monastery reflected in the river. Gradually the ruins became built up again in his mind until he grew up and became a monk, Dom Guéranger, and started to rebuild those ancient ruins. He found something else necessary, too. He began to rebuild the ancient music. It was hard work. Dom Pothier and others came to help him—and then Dom Mocquereau. The monks at Solesmes are still working on it. They found the old illuminated manuscripts—the very oldest ones. They had to compare them all. They sent the monks all over the world to copy them. An American lady that your Aunt Lauren knows came there. She studied very hard and she has made it possible for many children to learn it in Europe. Soon children in America will be singing it, too. You won’t be able to sit down at the piano and play it. You won’t be able to sing it yourself now either—but some day all the children will.

Gregorian music is not like the music you know. Even the scales are different. This isn’t the book to teach you how to sing them. You can get other books for that. This book will make you accustomed to seeing this music.

It hasn’t any chords and the words are very important. They can’t be translated because translation makes the words get out of place. This music is like the flight of a bird—on important words, like God or Mary, it will rise and hover in the air a minute as though it were holding its breath—and then come quietly down and slip off peacefully before you know it.

Now I want to tell you why I made the pictures as I did. You will see landscapes that you know, roads that you have taken, the Baby Jesus is born in the barn down the hill. It is because He belongs to you and me. He is living inside you and me. He is living inside our hearts, just as the barn is. A stable is a stable. If it isn’t the kind of stable we know, it doesn’t look like a stable to us. The barn that Jesus was born in would look like a cave to us but it looked like a stable to Him. If Jesus doesn’t look like a little boy, like the boy next door, He won’t seem like a boy to you and He won’t look real. He really wore a woolen dress, you know—like a girl to us, but a real boy’s suit to Him. But there is something an artist can do to keep him from looking just like a good, fat, little boy, and Christian artists have always done this thing. An artist can try to think about Him all the time. He can keep on thinking about his being God, and how God lends us everything we have—our talent, our paint brush, our life—how He gave us His own life, every bit of it, because He loved us. If an artist will try to do this, the Little Boy in the picture will look all pure and kingly and His Mother will look like a Heavenly Soul.

God bless your darling Heart.
Auntie Lauren

Bethlehem, Connecticut

Interesting notes on the humanistic Renaissance, and I would have to agree with that shift of focus. Raphael created beautiful works of art, but the focus was definitely different than Fra Angelico. While so much was so much good that came out the Renaissance, I do tend to prefer the medieval mind. (She has such wonderful thoughts on how to keep pride out of being an artist—all for the honor and love of God!)

I love the way she describes the chant; her words paint brilliant sketches that enable the reader to understand just how chant should sound. But it’s her account of the monks at Solesmes and the American Lady that surprised me most. How wonderfully she describes those monks at Solesmes and their sacred work. The “American lady” she mentions—it has to be Justine Ward. (More on her at Wikipedia.) These people are among the Who’s Who in Sacred Music and the Liturgical Movement! Years ago I was introduced to Justine Ward through the Ward Method (and have talked about it here several times), and here is Ms. Ward in a children’s picture book. Amazing!

Bethlehem, Connecticut, is the home of Regina Laudis, a Benedictine Abbey of contemplative nuns, and they are known for their art and for Gregorian chant. Was Lauren Ford influenced by these sisters? With a little searching found the artist took the founding sisters in her home before the abbey was built. Ever watch the movie Come to the Stable with Loretta Young? is the cinematic rendition of the foundation of that abbey! More information found in the book Mother Benedict: Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis by Antoinette Bosco.

From the aforementioned book Mother Benedict I found that Lauren Ford was an Oblate of the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes and had been to the Abbey in France several times. Since the book was published in 1939, seven years before Mother Benedict came to America and founded the abbey, the connections with Solesmes and Justine Ward were formed before she met the sisters. In fact, that is how the artist came to host the sisters. Justine Ward was a friend of Lauren Ford, and she also helped establish the abbey. And if I had read Mother Benedict (it’s on my shelf), I would have learned this earlier.

From a gallery biography, I learned a little more about the artist/author/illustrator. Lauren Ford was sent to France with her uncle at the age of 9 to study painting. “Uncle Lawrence’s tutelage, the medieval art of France, and the magic of the liturgy and Gregorian chant of the monks of Solesmes, began to shape young Lauren’s artistic and spiritual development. She would eventually become a Catholic, taking simple vows as a Benedictine Oblate, and an aesthetic and spiritual force for good through her art and philanthropy.”

After reading so much by Justine Ward and other writers in the early Liturgical Movement about the primacy of Gregorian Chant, seeing the music texts that were used in all the parochial schools, I can’t help but wonder what happened? Lauren Ford was sharing a vision of so many others in the Liturgical Movement, that “Soon children in America will be singing it, too. You won’t be able to sit down at the piano and play it. You won’t be able to sing it yourself now either—but some day all the children will.” Were they close? Where did it fail?

I do pray and have high hopes that Justine Ward’s vision “That All May Sing”—especially “all the children”—will happen now with our new liturgical movement. One child at a time. And I’ll start with mine.

Before I finish, I thought I would list the antiphons contained in the book:

I Hodie egressa — Antiphon at the Magnificat, Second Vespers, December 8 (From the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

II Nativitas – Antiphon 2, Vespers, September 8. (From the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

III Virgo prudentissima — Antiphon Magnificat, First Vespers, August 15. (From the Assumption)

IV Ave Maria — Antiphon 2, Vespers, March 25. (From the Annunciation)

V Intravit — Antiphon 2, Vespers, July 2. (From the Visitation)

VI Hodie Christus — Antiphon Magnificat, Second Vespers, December 25. (From the Nativity of Our Lord)

VII Hodie beata — Antiphon Magnificat, Second Vespers, February 2. (From the Purification)

VIII Vidimus — Antiphon Communion at Mass, January 6. (From the Epiphany)

IX Crudelis Herodes — First verse Hymn, Vespers, January 6. (From the Epiphany)

X Puer Jesus — Antiphon Magnificat, Second Vespers. (Sunday within the Octave of Christmas)

XI Post triduum — Antiphon 1, Second Vespers, Holy Family. (Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany)

XII Descendit Jesus — Antiphon 3, Second Vespers, Holy Family. (Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany)

I know this book is expensive, so I’m not advocating running out and buying a used copy. But do see if you can borrow a copy from your library, even through Inter Library Loan. It’s a treasure to see how the Liturgical Movement was extended to all of culture of society—even to a beautiful child’s picture book.