You could also add to the list:

• A good day consists of changing out of pajamas by noon
• A great day consists of changing out of pajamas and showering by noon
• Don’t feed the baby if she’s insisting on practicing raspberries
• Or at least don’t feed the baby at close range if you’ve already changed into your outfit for the day
• 8 a.m. is a FANTASTIC time to hit up Stop and Shop
• But eat breakfast first; otherwise you will succumb to horrible mistakes like microwavable Thai food in a box
• Don’t bother putting socks on the baby unless you want to be bending down behind the stroller every five minutes to pick up the little, pink bunny sock lying forlorn in the frozen foods aisle
• You might feel all hip and green prancing through the grocery story while pushing a stroller with a canvas bag slung over your shoulder, but when you add a half-gallon of milk, chicken stock, a box of tomato puree and a couple of canned goods to the load, that’s when the fun ends

or, “This is why I couldn’t handle cloth diapers.”

Anyway, a progression of my thoughts from approxiamately 2:20-2:35 p.m. today.

2:20 Hmm, Lucia sounds like she’s not going to fall back asleep again. Guess I should take her out so I can remove her mattress sheet and start laundry.

2:20:10, while walking to the baby room I’m so clever, timing laundry in between baby naps and already having pre-treated her poo-saturated clothes with enough Shout! to drown a small animal so that I don’t have to use up valuable baby-awake time (read: pre-metldown indicating the need for another nap) slaving over the laundry room sink instead of cleaning her sheets.

2:20:13 OMG IT’S EVERYWHERE; THERE IS POO ALL OVER THE BABY AND HER CLOTHES AND HER BED AND GAAAAAHHHH

2:20:15, while extricating the baby from her basinette, bringing her to the changing table, and trying not to hold her against me despite the fact that her arms and legs are flapping at an approxiamate rate of 5 flaps/sec. Child why are you smiling and giggling: do you know how revolting this is.

2:21 So much for the cute outfit I put you in this morning: white long-sleeved onesie, Old Navy floral smock and purple leggings from your grandma. Your father thinks it makes you look like a Floridian retiree, but you and I know better.

2:21:02 So….I was going to store this onesie away after today anyway….[furtive glance at the diaper pail] Yeah we’re just tossing it.

2:21:25 Oh gosh, is that a light brown smear I see on your forearm? And your foot? The one with which you just learned yesterday how to put in your mouth in order to suck on your big toe? How long were you alone with said poopy foot? Oh no.

2:21:28, while peeling away the utterly useless diaper, gingerly rolling it up and throwing it in the trash. And now we can add “bath” to the list of things to do before I start the laundry. Also: whoever said breastfed babies’ stools smell sweet was on drugs.

2:22 All right, sweetcheecks: Bathtime!

2:22:01 You’re adorable in your pink, naked state, but I only gave you a preliminary wipedown: Please don’t cling to me so tightly.

2:23 At least you like baths, right? You get a kick out of being sprayed with the nozzle! Are you peeing? Yes you are. You are now sitting in your own pee that is quickly gathering in a small pool behind your back, because the chub that is the middle part of your body so completely fills the narrow end of the tub that it creates an impenetrable seal for dirty water, or pee, to escape through.

2:24, after lifting the wriggling, wet baby (now clinging for her life to the sides of the tub, which means struggling for a second to stop her from lifting up the tub, too), dumping out the tub, and starting over. Phew.

2:24:05 Wash your feet…wash your arms….

2:25, washing her back while she plays with the shower head. Wouldn’t it be funny if you just turned that around and sprayed yourself in the face? Because you try to stick everything else in your mouth — why not the shower head? Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be funny.

2:25:03 Yes it would.

2:30 Woohoo! All clean! All dry! All clothed again in nice, clean clothes! And now…it’s laundry time! Into the jumperoo, babbio!

2:31, while giving the poo-smeared mattress sheet a stricken look. Oh yeah.

2:34, while lugging the laundry baskets down the hallway towards the door and scheming whether it’d be okay to leave the baby in her jumperoo while stepping into the laundry room 10 feet away, throwing the clothes in the washing machine and dousing the mattress sheet in stain remover: a two-minute, tops, ordeal.  Yes.

2:34:03 Is that poo on my shirt? 

2:34:04, on my way back to the room to change. I don’t even want to know.

“While the Tea Party folk are drowning moderate Republicans in the King’s Harbor and Democrats want to send Blue Dog Democrats to the pound for being too Republican, and even President Obama is putting away his Harvard-educated cool and handing out pitchforks to storm Wall Street, voices that call for anything other than angry ideological purity seem pusillanimous at best.”

This is true, I believe. But the story’s secondary headline is what makes it interesting to Catholics:

“The American propensity for self-sorting into like groups has led to impoverished Church community.”

We think of the “church-shopping” phase as a uniquely Protestant trend, one that involves weighing pastors v. worship bands, size v. ministries, or, if the searcher is really serious about a change, perhaps a total switch of denominations, too. We think, how lucky we are to be part of a Church that is universal — Mass at one parish is the same Mass at another. And of course, theologically, it’s true. So then, when my Protestant housemate last year (who, in the middle of her own church-shopping, was trying to decide how important it was for her to have a racially diverse church family) asked me if I’d go to the Catholic parish down the street, why did I say no? Because I thought it was weird that they had the female readers and extraordinary ministers revolving around the altar in albs, and I thought the homily was feel-good and wishy-washy, and the choir sang some horribly ’80s song about how we were all playing flutes and tambourines, and the church was maybe a third full at the main Mass, with retirees making up the majority of the congregation. What about the student parish? Because they mention “social justice” in their mission statement, but not “Christ.”

Why did I become a parishioner at the historic Catholic church downtown? Because it’s beautiful. Because the friars who serve it are orthodox. Because I think the regiment of all-boy altar servers at the 10 o’clock Mass is cool.

So, for better or for worse, I’ve participated to some extent in parish-shopping, and I suspect that most of my Catholic peers, to whom Catholicism means something, have done similarly at some point in their post-living-at-home lives.

The author points out the danger of this:

“Folks gravitate to certain parishes depending on their predilections. The home-schoolers might lean toward one parish, while the social justice folks migrate to another. Since many dioceses no longer require that a Catholic attend the parish in his geographic location, it is easier than ever to parish shop. If your tastes run to cassocks and rosaries, you will find a home. If you want to share communion with folks who are helping undocumented workers and AIDS babies, you’ll find a home, too.

Just not the same home.

There are many dangers to this, I believe. One is that we don’t encounter people who share our faith but think differently from us. And it makes us really irritated when we do encounter such people.”

The entire editorial is pretty short, so I recommend reading the whole thing to get the full argument. But this is what struck me most. Especially the part about becoming irritated at Catholics who think differently than us — as if we can’t comprehend how someone could not think “Lord of the Dance” is the worst excuse for liturgical music ever, or, horror of horrors, be a registered Democrat.

Is this editorial’s point, ultimately, idealistic? Is it unrealistic, in the state of the Church today, to expect every parish randomly picked off the map to be able to spiritually nourish its members, to fully and purely communicate Christ to them through the Sacraments? To convince the elderly, the youth, the young families, the traddies, the social justice types, the charismatics, everyone — that this is their home?

A friend was recently telling me about her parish priest, who, in his enthusiasm for the Traditional Latin Mass, has started gathering like-minded young adults in the area, promoting a traditional spirituality and making the parish a stronghold of All Things Latin in the region. I don’t have a problem with the Latin Mass. But what if those well-intentioned actions begin to alienate your original parishioners? (Like my friend, who would give her life for the Catholic Church, but — can you imagine! — doesn’t wear a chapel veil). What if what results is the impression of an us vs. them mentality, a bunkering down of The Holders of the Full, Full Truth against the liturgical liberals — you know, the ones who like “On Eagles Wings”? I do have a problem with that: because you’re giving the impression that there is the Church, and then there is the Church within the Church, and the latter is what the real Catholics belong to. Kinda Gnostic if you ask me. But anyway. Of course it goes both ways. And of course, doctrinal orthodoxy must be the standard in every parish. I’m not saying I didn’t have good reason to feel iffy about attending the student parish … I just think it’s sad.

Overall, I think this topic prompts more questions than conclusions for me. Namely:

• Luke made the point that there’s a difference between parish-shopping and parish-hopping. Is one worse than the other? What does it say about us?
• Should all parishes be uniform in terms of liturgy, ministries, congregation demographics, etc.? Or are our social justice parishes, charismatic parishes, traditional parishes, ethnic parishes, inner-city parishes, suburban parishes, etc., still a reflection of the universal Church?
• Or, to provoke more controversy…is this editorial just relativistic call for “tolerance” and “diversity” veiled in Catholic-speak?

No, I’m not becoming one of those people. I think after two years of flirting with the extraordinary form of the Mass, as well as the past year of going more or less regularly to an ad orientum novus ordo (good grief, we are pretentious) sung by a Yale-affiliated professional schola, I can make the completely subjective judgment that, while chant is beautiful, it is not always for me.

That said, this particular Mass is what was sung at our wedding, and I really wanted to hear it again — a) because, let’s be honest, I don’t even remember most of the homily, much less the music, and b) because what I do remember of the music is the Kyrie.

Unfortunately, I left the CD at work, so the only audio I can link to here is from YouTube. The shaky camera is incredibly distracting; don’t actually watch the video — just listen. (And then promptly stop listening when the dude starts warbling the first line of the Gloria )

Behold.

Why, of all moments of our wedding liturgy, has the Kyrie been seared into my mind?

Well, it was the first piece of music I could actually listen to that morning. I honestly could not even tell you what the entrance tune was. Yes, in effect, the Kyrie was a “breather” from the mad rush that had been my past three hours: dash to the hairdresser, stammer unbelievingly when the parking attendant was soooo slow to let me out of the lot because she saw my veil and wanted to ask questions about the wedding (are you getting married? y-yes. when? 45 minutes. where? *point to the steeple* — th-there! i need to go!), scramble into the dress just before the elderly priest barges in to demand the marriage license, panic and force my bridesmaid to fix my makeup after I essentially paint raccoon circles around my eyes, realize I hadn’t actually tried walking while wearing the dress while wearing my ridiculous three inch platforms, hang on to my dad for dear life while walking down the aisle to an organ tune I’d never before heard, dodge the Philippino guy who just jumped between me and my fiance with a camera and whom I’d never before seen, take Luke’s arm, climb precariously up to the altar, glance at the uber-serious Father Peter, attempt to pray the opening prayers …

Lord have mercy.

But even more than a chance to just breathe and let go of the chaos that preceded the wedding, I soon knew that the Kyrie – that penitential cry that cuts to the heart of our desire for God — was doing something else to me.

It was soaring, and it was carrying me into the Mystery, too.

There’s something about polyphony that makes me imagine the interplay of voices as a new Jacob’s ladder , weaving up and around the columns, walls and fixtures of the airy, Gothic sanctuary.

Standing directly in front of the altar — with my best friend to my left, my fiance to my right, our priest before us and the tabernacle beyond him, our dear friends and family behind us and the crucifix suspended above us — I felt that this is what it’s like to be a priest, turning to face the tabernacle with the people and feeling like he’s about to lean over and dive in to the living, rushing current of the Church’s prayer.

It was ethereal, and it transfixed me there, beneath the cross in my wedding dress, as I finally began to earnestly pray: yes, Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Over and over and over again. It was rich. It was timeless. Kyrie eleison, as I prepare to receive Your body; Christe eleison, when I hurt my husband in the future; Kyrie eleison, as we remember Your sacrifice and death.

I remember this Kyrie because I know others loved it, too — they came up to Luke and I at the reception, even the ones who we know have been away from the Church, and say, that Mass so beautiful. So sacred.

That made it all worth it.

This past spring, the religious education program concluded with a Mass for the students and families. The sole girl in my class sat next to me, and as we waited for Mass to start, we both regarded the statue of Mary displayed prominently above our pew.

Gaudy and Catholic kitsch this statue is not; it continues to strike me as one of the most feminine, colorful and vivid depictions of Mary I’ve ever seen.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” I whispered to the girl, who nodded and whispered back, “Yeah.”

Beauty matters. After a year of trying to teach my little class the Marian prayers, the Immaculate Conception, and what a womb is and why Jesus was the fruit of one, I could see the light flick on in the girl’s head as she beheld the most beautiful, most pure, most “blessed among women” in the history of the world. And I was so glad that, sometime in the history of the parish, someone decided to buy a really beautiful statue of Mary.

In highschool and early on in college, I was enamoured with the Romantics’ imagery of beauty and a life spent chasing it. But it wasn’t until I began to seriously gaze into the Catholic faith that’s been before me all along that I realized  just where — and with Whom – the source of beauty lies.

Whether it’s a bride caught off guard by a majestic Kyrie or an 8-year-old suddenly appreciative of Mary, every day the Church — a bride itself — is taken by this peerless beauty. I’m thankful to be part of that story.

The balut pictures are up on Facebook.

Why, why, why, dear countrymen, did you decide to make this the Filipino delicacy?

Of course, what Fr. Carron is referring to are those who witness, ultimately, to a very real, lived faith in Christ. Earlier he speaks of how “our hope, the salvation of Christ, cannot be something we’ve read and know how to parrot back well” — we need people, examples, of what hope looks like.

This resonates with me, although I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, a year-plus after leaving Steubenville — as more-than-eager/ready as I was to get out of there — I’ve come to appreciate, and long for, that beautiful companionship of faith and faithful friends that I experienced there and that Fr. Carron so eloquently describes.

Maybe it’s the stirring image of “people who incarnate in their lives” a real, grounded purpose for simply being alive — in the sense, as St. Irenaeus said, that this is “the glory of God.”

The line on faith not being “something we’ve read and know how to parrot back well” also strikes me. Actually, it kind of stings, because I got a B.A. for reading and regurgitating what I read about hope and the salvation of Christ, and because, yes,  a year-plus after graduation, I’m realizing how that’s not enough.

Attending my grandmother’s funeral and burial service, and learning more about her in the past two weeks from my family than I did from her in the past 23 years, I’ve turned these things over in my mind. Her name, Fidela, played often in eulogies and sermons over the weekend, especially in the priest’s homily during the funeral Mass.

I’m struck by the realization that, even as I sit and have a mini-crisis of faith in a small, overstuffed apartment that doesn’t even have a space for the three bowling pins scattered by the front door (where they have lain for the past three months), a woman whose life by every account was simply imbued with the meaning of her name has gone before. That even as I’m frustrated with the Rosary or my seemingly perpetual inattention and distraction at Mass, my mother’s mother faithfully prayed bead after bead while any one of her eight children crawled over her lap, attended Mass devotedly as often as she could — or via EWTN when bedridden — and, yes, incarnated “a light, a clarity,” by which the meaning of her life is revealed. Really, what strikes me most is that this — her faith — is what seems to be remembered and acknowledged first among my family, most of whom have fallen away from the Church.

“Man fully alive,” as St. Irenaeus put it, might seem incompatible with the ICU unit, a used ventilator and frail, scarred and weary lungs that eventually failed. But I think that just means there’s hope for all of us, and for me.

Symeon the New Theologian “had certain proof that the source of Christ’s presence and action in a person’s soul is love,” said Benedict XVI. “The love of God grows within us if we remain united to Him through prayer and listening to His Word. Only divine love makes us open our hearts to others and renders us sensitive to their needs, bringing us to consider everyone as our brothers and sisters and inviting us to respond to hatred with love and to offence with forgiveness.”

The first line literally made me pause.

“So much holy?”

Yee-ah.

So without ado, I give you what I don’t doubt is destined to become the latest greatest thing to hit FOPs since, oh I don’t know…”The ocean/is growing/the tide is coming in/here it is/here is our King…”

So much holy, so divine
Yours and so much mine
By the morning, light is Thine
Perfect by design

Mighty to man, light of the earth earth
He’s sending His Son to echo His worth
Breaker of sin, winner of souls
Every creature will know

Our God reigns over the heavens
Over the earth, Our God reigns
Praise His name, All still standing
All that was, all that remains
Our God reigns

Deepest Ocean opened wide
So shall love divide
In devotion to His bride
Standing by her side

Mighty to man, Binding to earth
He’s sending His Son to echo His worth
Breaker of sin, winner of souls
Every creature will know

Our God reigns over the heavens
Over the earth, Our God reigns
Praise His name, All still standing
All that was, all that remains
Our God reigns

So much Holy, So divine
Yours and so much mine

And now with my comments:

So much holy, so divine I am no grammar fiend, a la Michael or Claire. But this is just ridiculous. And to make sure I wasn’t making things up, I decided to check what, exactly, is the proper grammatical usage of “much.” Voila: http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/Determiners7a.cfm. It’s a quantifer — an adjective. Thank you fourth grade grammar for teaching me that that means it describes a noun — which “holy” definitely is not. So basically, within the first three words, this song falls into the “My Glorious” trap. What’s weird, though, is that it drops the “much” in the very next phrase, which mentions another adjective, “divine.” So why the “much” in the first place? Probably because Brandon Heath thought it sounded good there
Yours and so much mine I have no idea.
By the morning, light is Thine Is he just putting words together that rhymes with “divine”?
Perfect by design Yes he is.

Mighty to man, light of the earth Mighty to man?
He’s sending His Son to echo His worth interesting Christology. How do you make an emoticon raise a skeptical eyebrow?
Breaker of sin, winner of souls Ok.
Every creature will know dundundun…the chorus!

Our God reigns over the heavens
Over the earth, Our God reigns Way to finish the line by repeating yourself
Praise His name, All still standing Were we sitting earlier?
All that was, all that remains HUH?
Our God reigns WHAT ON EARTH DOES “ALL THAT WAS, ALL THAT REMAINS” HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?

Deepest Ocean opened wide No. He did not just try the awful “the ocean, it’s growing, the tide is coming, here it is!” metaphor for God.
So shall love divide <skeptical emoticon>
In devotion to His bride What the…
Standing by her side Is Christ the Ocean?

Mighty to man, light of the earth
He’s sending His Son to echo His worth Didn’t we decide it was heretical to call Christ an emanation of the Father? Just saying. Not sure if “echo” = emanation, but I’m pretty sure one-in-being-with-the-Father this is not. However, I’ll give Brandon the benefit of the doubt; after all, it’s an echo of His “worth,” not necessairily Himself, whatever that’s supposed to mean.*
Breaker of sin, winner of souls I admit, I kind of like that pair of images. Like, on a scale of 1-10, a 2.
Every creature will know

Our God reigns over the heavens
Over the earth, Our God reigns
Praise His name, All still standing
All that was, all that remains
Our God reigns

So much Holy, So divine
Yours and so much mine This is so painful.

What, Mr. Heath? What on earth is “yours and so much mine”? Jesus? The ocean? God’s reign? Who are you talking to? Me? Why is it “SO much” yours? Do you know what you’re singing about?

Look, I like praise and worship. I don’t think they all need to be densely packed with theological doctrine. One of my favorite praise songs, ever, is beautiful in its simplicity: I love You, Lord/And I lift my voice/To worship You/Oh my soul rejoice … But mashing together words that rhyme with “divine” and singing awful metaphors that cannot even pretend to relate to each other or God is not quite via media, either.

End rant, on to the dishes.

*Midway through the dishes (just before I broke the French press, actually…this is very sad news…), I thought about whether Christ would be an “echo” of God, or His worth, or whatever, in Eastern Orthodox/Catholic theology. I’m thinking no, but go ahead, Eastern Catholics (ahem, Greg, that would be you), tell me if Brandon Heath is here unveiling the mysteries of the filioque.

Anyway. If you want to hear the actual song on YouTube (complete with butterflies, kids leaping for joy and, I kid not, giraffes), here you go.

On a less frustrating note (although Luke’s getting perturbed that they’re tearing), we’re making Betsy’s recipe for Swedish pancakes…mmm.

This is beautiful and, between making me tear up and the description of his first launch into space, reminded me why the thought of being an astronaut basically consumed my middleschool years. Living near Cape Canaveral had something to do with that, too, I guess. Alas, AP Chem junior year of highschool dissuaded me from a science-orientated career forever, but I still think space travel is so romantic…