https://jimbowman.substack.com/p/old-scores-forgotten-in-a-german?sd=pf
Author Archives: Jim Bowman
Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.
His daughter for a horse, Greek philosopher’s fascination with pseudo-Egyptian origins, dynamite teachers who abide no nonsense, Mailer’s white Negro?
1996, Black matters matter, school matters, what to do, what to do? Praising and complaining., Where’s Papa?
School principal talks nonsense, Mrs. V. talks bureaucrat-ese, the Evanston High experience, the Hemingway lesson, the Lefkowitz book, Afrocentrism . . .
5/1/1996 Blithe Spirit revisited: Churchgoing, the handshake of peace, the Christian myth, Mary Lefkowitz taking on the Afrocentrists in advance of critical race theorizing . . .
Church Reporter: Sinful sermons
Priest: Attacks against Carmelites of Philadelphia are ‘part of greater war against contemplative religious’
Make it part of an offensive against recognition of the supernatural?
Our commentator puts the case of the Carmel in Philadelphia in a larger context of the crisis in the Church which started with the Second Vatican Council, and he issues a sort of battle cry, calling Catholics to resistance.
Down with the sacred, up with the world we know and can do something about!
The Man Who Could Not Pray, a believer and his journeys in the way of prayer
Chapter One, The Man Goes to Church
Minister Friendly . . . The man dropped into church on Ash Wednesday for his annual reminder that he is dust and unto dust he will return only to be told by a feverishly smiling woman-with-ashes that God loves him, or something in that line. She did not tell him to have a nice day, he silently thanked her for that.
He believed God loves him and did not object to being reminded of it. But what about “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return”? He believed also in resurrection, but what about death? It comes first, doesn’t it? Medieval monks kept a skull on the desk before them. As just such a reminder, he presumed.
This wasn’t the man’s first happy-face reminder on Ashes Day. Funeral masses had not involved black vestments for ages, giving way to white ones, which…
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Skies are cloudy and gray? Only gray for a day . . .
Wrap your troubles in the awareness of God . . .
Were the Society of Jesus to be dissolved, Ignatius once conjectured, it would take him 15 minutes of prayer to reconcile himself. Francis de Sales was once asked how long he went without being aware of the presence of God; his response, too, was 15 minutes.
For both masters, abandonment and holy indifference capture how they lived their lives and instructed those who follow them. To put it bluntly, each will spot us 15 minutes to get refocused on letting God lead us and not vice versa.
. . . and dream your troubles away? Not exactly. Something better here? You don’t know until you try it.
WHIPS AND NAILS We Jesuit novices of 72 years ago got to Palm Sunday in our Long Retreat meditations and then a second break day, 17 or 18 days into the retreat. Now the Third Week . . .
. . . on the passion and death of Christ—Mel Gibson stuff, imagining it all in detail.
When Gibson’s movie came out, I was not tempted to see it and did not, having already spent a week immersed in this gruesome denouement. Shades were drawn again, mood turned somber, laughter disappeared, the novice master did not smile.
For five or so days, we went chapter and verse, line by line through the grim tale. We imagined details—whips, nails, betrayal, agony of prayer, submission to the will of the father, burlesque-like denial by Peter, the sorrows of the mother, the loyalty of the women friends. . . .
Read the rest here. . . .
Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground 