tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541206186144229047.post7981925086143269580..comments2023-06-22T05:50:58.437-07:00Comments on Forgotten Altars: "Nature is My Church"Our Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02703005828897779835noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541206186144229047.post-33115931567811812732012-05-25T14:20:42.709-07:002012-05-25T14:20:42.709-07:00We've missed you, dear friend! But imagine lif...We've missed you, dear friend! But imagine life must be very busy for you...<br /><br />As usual, your comment strikes a familiar chord, especially when you talk about "ascribing meaning to something that is rather a fossil attached to our lives." You also bring up another point, and that is the tie between the land, the liturgy, and community. I laugh sometimes at our modern efforts to enforce community, and yet they are somewhat necessary in our detached state. <br /><br />On a more hopeful note, we pray that things are turning around. We've noticed a current, a desire in our Catholic friends to move towards a more authentic way to live the liturgy in day-to-day life. Even our secular/non-Catholic friends have expressed the desire to dig a bit deeper than where we are now...you see things like community gardens, farm tours, etc. becoming more and more popular. Who knows, maybe the land will be, in the end, the vehicle of conversion. I have to believe in my heart of heart that people want more than "machines and the dollar," as you so aptly put it.<br /><br />God's peace to you and yours!Our Familyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02703005828897779835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5541206186144229047.post-76382285338249994172012-05-23T11:03:30.949-07:002012-05-23T11:03:30.949-07:00At long last, I am glad to be back from my long ab...At long last, I am glad to be back from my long absence and ready to fill my comment with your praises. Because, praises are due. How clearly you see, friends, and how heartily I agree. <br /><br />I sit in Mass each Sunday, as well as many weekdays, and grieve that it feels as if we are ascribing meaning to something that is rather a fossil attached to our lives. This Memorial ought to be the summit of our week together, this altar the place where we literally bring our wheat and our grapes that will become the very Body and Blood for our sustenance.<br /><br />The fact that our daily life and the liturgical expression of our faith are so disparate seems to me the fault of two parties, namely, the bishops and theologians who hacked the liturgical calendar into its present state following the second Vatican council, as well as the secularist-rationalist-etc architects of our culture of death, who very deliberately shaped our daily lives into ones ruled my machines and the dollar.<br /><br />In our home, as I know in yours, we are trying to reclaim the rich life of faith that is our heritage. We bake the bread and mark it with the sign of the Cross, we pray the Divine Office (not often enough), we celebrate saints' days. Yet, how lonely our domestic church feels very often and how I wish we could walk every evening to the church for Vespers and march in Processions and meet in fellow parishioners' homes for novena prayers. I believe that Catholic life will return that in time, but it feels very lonely as we work for it. Grace and peace to your family in this Pentecost novena!Katie Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00036582789035678188noreply@blogger.com