Update from Catholic Online: "Earlier we posted a misquote from our sources. We originally attributed
the statement "a professional well-equipped army" to Pope Francis. This
quote is correctly attributed to the Chaldean Patriarch, Louis Sako.
Pope Francis has joined with Christians facing genocide in Iraq and
Syria, calling upon the world to join him in "Prayer and Action' to
bring peace to the troubled region. Calling for international action, he
has asked the world to "stop these crimes."
By Catholic Online
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Pope Francis, widely appreciated as a practical and realistic man, is calling for an end to the violence in Iraq.
Referring to military action, Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, the Vatican's nuncio to Iraq, told Vatican Radio, "This is something that had to be done, otherwise [the Islamic State] could not be stopped."
Such a call is virtually unprecedented for a papal envoy in modern times, but our age is an extraordinary one and the Islamic State has no interest in a bargaining table. Instead, the Islamic State is bent on genocide and barbarism, ruthlessly exterminating anyone who opposes them.
On Sunday, Pope Francis said he held "dismay and disbelief" over what is happening in Iraq.
"The situation is going from bad to worse," he warned.
Meanwhile, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad said, "There is a need of international support and a professional, well-equipped army. The situation is going from bad to worse."
Pope Francis and Patriarch Sako are not the only clerics calling for swift and decisive action to end the genocide in Iraq. The Episcopal Vicar of Iraq, Canon Andrew White, managed to visit the town of Qaraqosh under cover and personally assess the situation in that community following Islamic State capture.
His words are chilling. "Today, Qaraqosh stands 90 per cent empty, desecrated by the gunmen of the fanatical Islamic State terror group now in control. The majority of the town's 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred.
"The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches."
Canon White reported that one woman had her finger hacked off after she could not remove her wedding ring fast enough. A caretaker of one of White's parish churches in the community said his youngest son, aged five, was hacked in half as he watched.
A child, just five years old, hacked in half alive, before his father. The boy happened to be named Andrew, after the vicar himself.
The atrocities are real. The genocide is real. That the press barely reports on them is absolutely baffling. However, even the most religious, peace-loving figures are recognizing that this is not a usual evil. Normally, conflicts arise because of ancient grievances and they can be talked over and hashed out. Warring factions tire of burying their sons and eventually dialogue and other pressures forces peace.
However, the Islamic State has recruited fighters from most of the world's nations and more arrive every day. They are motivated by an aggressive, rabid interpretation of Islamic scriptures. Most notably, they are consumed with bloodlust and willing to commit and publicize every atrocity. This attracts sadistic men from across the Islamic world to their cause who commit even more atrocities.
These men don't have to be told what to do. They murder on their own accord, for pleasure.
Where is the rest of the world? Where are the UN resolutions? Where are the condemnations from the world's Islamic countries? Saudi Arabia? Where's the edict or the fatwa? Why isn't the world combining forces against these terrorists?
This is the purest form of evil the planet has seen in generations. They cannot be reasoned with. As all Christians do have a recognized right to self-defense in the face of an existential threat, the time has come for all Catholics to join with Pope Francis and the Christians of Iraq and Syria in 'Prayer and Action' with the intent of ridding the world of the evil of the Islamic State.
Link:
Showing posts with label Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Army. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2014
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Here Rests in Honored Glory - The Mass and the Tomb of the Unknowns
By Ann Barnhardt at Barnhardt.biz
HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.
Those are the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Here is a video of the Changing of the Guard.
I think we can all agree that the Tomb of the Unknowns, the 24/7
guarding of the Tomb, and the intense precision of the ceremonial
rubrics are one of the most excellent things in American culture. The
old saying goes, "You may judge a nation by how it treats its fallen
warriors." In an otherwise degraded and despair-inducing society, the
Tomb of the Unknowns is a beacon of cultural light and hope.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is also extremely instructive, and believe it or not, it instructs us about . . . the Mass. The reason the Tomb of the Unknowns instructs us today about the Mass is because the Tomb of the Unknowns rubrics originally came FROM the Mass. For those of you who have never seen a pre-1968 Tridentine Mass and are used to the clownish, degraded, irreverent Novus Ordo Masses of the last 45 years, or of Superfun Rockband church, I hope the sense of reverent awe and solemnity you feel when watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns helps you understand what exactly it is that has been robbed from you.
After watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns above, I want you to imagine the guards walking about casually, maybe wearing a partial uniform jacket, but with jeans and sandals. Imagine the guards walking out and introducing themselves, "Hi, my name is Lieutenant Jones, but you can call me Jake." Then the guard might say something like, "Isn't it a beautiful day today? It sure was rainy yesterday. I had to wear a rain jacket. I'm so glad you all could make to my shift today. I'm going to be guarding the tomb for the next few hours, and I know that it can sure get BOOOORING! That's why I have asked a local band to come in and play some music for you guys, because I want this to be A FUN EXPERIENCE for all of us!"
If this happened, you would be shocked and disgusted, right? Do you understand that what I have just described is a watered-down comparison of what has happened to the Mass? The Mass went from being even more reverent than the rubrics of the Tomb Guard to what I just described above - and many times even worse than what I described above.
Let's walk through some of the many parallels.
The soldiers are in full dress uniform, meticulously turned-out and maintained. They are not in combat gear that soldiers would use to walk a patrol in Afghanistan. The Tomb guards are doing something DIFFERENT, and thus their uniforms reflect that. Really, what the ceremonies surrounding the Tomb are is the highest form of ART. It is living ART, not consisting of a mere two-dimensional representation, not consisting of inanimate objects, but ART consisting of human beings in action. The uniforms, the gait, the precise rubrics, words, gestures and movements - these all combine into a perpetual work of art that not only moves and inspires the people who witness it, but also accomplishes the goal of making tangible a RESPECT for and a REMEMBRANCE of all of the fallen unknown soldiers. The Tomb Guards walk their patrol whether anyone is there to see them do it or not. It isn't a show. It is a service. It is a liturgy.
Here Rests in Honored Glory . . . Part 2
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - May 28, AD 2012 12:09 PM MST
The Mass is exactly what I just described, except that the Mass is the most perfect artistic action in the universe because the Mass is the artistic creation of God Himself. The Holy Spirit taught the Church the Mass. The Mass is art that is so perfect that it actually causes something to happen - it causes Heaven and Earth to touch, it causes time to be bent such that the moment of "now" touches and intersects with the moment of Calvary 1979 years ago, and it causes bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, made PHYSICALLY PRESENT. Man calls down God, and God, in His infinite love, responds and fully submits in complete love, making Himself present on the Altar both at the moment of His death, and in His resurrection, so that He may go into us physically as Food.
In the Tridentine Mass, the priest observes "custody of the eyes", never looking around and NEVER looking out at the people. Like the guards, priests are supposed to keep their eyes on exactly what they are doing without distraction. The Guards at the Tomb wear mirrored sunglasses to block out all eye contact. Priests are supposed to keep their eyes DOWN or CLOSED, with a couple of exceptions such as just before the consecration when they are to look up to Heaven. This is like the Guards' rubric of looking from side-to-side very deliberately when inspecting the rifle and the relieving officer. Did you catch that?
Priests are also supposed to walk with a very deliberate gait - slow, measured and reverent in exactly the same way the Tomb Guards walk in a slow, deliberate, reverent gait.
Priests are only supposed to say very specific words - no improvisation, no modifications. The Guards are the same way. They have a very strict announcement that they make at the changing, and they have very strict words that they say when telling people to be quiet and observe reverent silence (there is a YouTube video of that happening, look it up.) There is no chatting or extemporaneous speech. In the Church, the command is "Say the black, do the red," in reference to the layout of the Roman Missal with the words of prayer in black and the instructions for the intensely precise rubrics, down to every gesture, in red.
I would analogize the exaggerated heel-clicking movement that the Guards do to the genuflecting of the Priest (and servers, and laity, ahem) to the rubric of ALWAYS genuflecting to the right knee EACH AND EVERY TIME the axis of the Tabernacle is crossed. In many Catholic Churches, the Tabernacle, which is the center of the Church - heck, it is the center of the universe - has been moved off to the side, or even hidden in a sacristy. Where a Tabernacle is present, Our Lord, physically present inside, is largely ignored. I have never seen a Novus Ordo priest consistently observe the loving rubric of genuflecting to the Tabernacle every time the plane is crossed. In fact, most Novus Ordo priests wander around the sanctuary with their backs turned to the Tabernacle while they put on their "performance." This would be analogous to the Tomb itself at Arlington being moved "out of the way" and instead a stage being erected upon which the Guards would perform. It makes you sick to think of that happening at Arlington - but that is largely what has happened to the Mass.
There is even an analogue in the Changing of the Guard ceremony to the Consecration of the Host in the Mass. Did you hear it when you watched the video above? It comes at the 2:36 mark. A rifle is fired, its report thus commemorating the moment of death of the Unknowns. In the Mass, the moment of consecration and transubstantiation are the report of Christ's words spoken by the priest:
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.
(This is My Body.)
Finally, the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns:
HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD
This is analogous to the words of the Mass:
ECCE AGNUS DEI, ECCE QUI TOLLIT PECCATA MUNDI.
(Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.)
In the Mass, Christ is alive, physically present in the Eucharist, veiled under the mere appearance of bread and wine. At the Tomb, the Unknowns remain dead - only their memory, veiled in anonymity, is honored and made present.
The point is this: if we all know and understand and FEEL the power of the excellent, excellent ceremonial rubrics of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, if we understand the power of "living art", and we understand how important the concepts of reverence, solemnity, precision, dignity and beauty in movement and action are in the context of the Tomb, why, oh why, do we continue to tolerate the lack of reverence, the lack of solemnity, the absence of liturgical precision and dignity and the resulting UGLINESS that has been unleashed on the Mass, which is not just a mere memorial of Calvary, but is Calvary Itself, physically present, and Our Resurrected Lord physically present?
The Tomb of the Unknowns merits the excellent, beautiful, solemn, reverent, disciplined ceremony of the Guards.
Our Lord, Crucified, Risen and physically present to us deserves INFINITELY MORE excellence, beauty, solemnity, reverence, discipline and dignity in His Mass.
Demand it. Now.
Link:
HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.
Those are the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Here is a video of the Changing of the Guard.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is also extremely instructive, and believe it or not, it instructs us about . . . the Mass. The reason the Tomb of the Unknowns instructs us today about the Mass is because the Tomb of the Unknowns rubrics originally came FROM the Mass. For those of you who have never seen a pre-1968 Tridentine Mass and are used to the clownish, degraded, irreverent Novus Ordo Masses of the last 45 years, or of Superfun Rockband church, I hope the sense of reverent awe and solemnity you feel when watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns helps you understand what exactly it is that has been robbed from you.
After watching the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns above, I want you to imagine the guards walking about casually, maybe wearing a partial uniform jacket, but with jeans and sandals. Imagine the guards walking out and introducing themselves, "Hi, my name is Lieutenant Jones, but you can call me Jake." Then the guard might say something like, "Isn't it a beautiful day today? It sure was rainy yesterday. I had to wear a rain jacket. I'm so glad you all could make to my shift today. I'm going to be guarding the tomb for the next few hours, and I know that it can sure get BOOOORING! That's why I have asked a local band to come in and play some music for you guys, because I want this to be A FUN EXPERIENCE for all of us!"
If this happened, you would be shocked and disgusted, right? Do you understand that what I have just described is a watered-down comparison of what has happened to the Mass? The Mass went from being even more reverent than the rubrics of the Tomb Guard to what I just described above - and many times even worse than what I described above.
Let's walk through some of the many parallels.
The soldiers are in full dress uniform, meticulously turned-out and maintained. They are not in combat gear that soldiers would use to walk a patrol in Afghanistan. The Tomb guards are doing something DIFFERENT, and thus their uniforms reflect that. Really, what the ceremonies surrounding the Tomb are is the highest form of ART. It is living ART, not consisting of a mere two-dimensional representation, not consisting of inanimate objects, but ART consisting of human beings in action. The uniforms, the gait, the precise rubrics, words, gestures and movements - these all combine into a perpetual work of art that not only moves and inspires the people who witness it, but also accomplishes the goal of making tangible a RESPECT for and a REMEMBRANCE of all of the fallen unknown soldiers. The Tomb Guards walk their patrol whether anyone is there to see them do it or not. It isn't a show. It is a service. It is a liturgy.
Here Rests in Honored Glory . . . Part 2
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - May 28, AD 2012 12:09 PM MST
The Mass is exactly what I just described, except that the Mass is the most perfect artistic action in the universe because the Mass is the artistic creation of God Himself. The Holy Spirit taught the Church the Mass. The Mass is art that is so perfect that it actually causes something to happen - it causes Heaven and Earth to touch, it causes time to be bent such that the moment of "now" touches and intersects with the moment of Calvary 1979 years ago, and it causes bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, made PHYSICALLY PRESENT. Man calls down God, and God, in His infinite love, responds and fully submits in complete love, making Himself present on the Altar both at the moment of His death, and in His resurrection, so that He may go into us physically as Food.
In the Tridentine Mass, the priest observes "custody of the eyes", never looking around and NEVER looking out at the people. Like the guards, priests are supposed to keep their eyes on exactly what they are doing without distraction. The Guards at the Tomb wear mirrored sunglasses to block out all eye contact. Priests are supposed to keep their eyes DOWN or CLOSED, with a couple of exceptions such as just before the consecration when they are to look up to Heaven. This is like the Guards' rubric of looking from side-to-side very deliberately when inspecting the rifle and the relieving officer. Did you catch that?
Priests are also supposed to walk with a very deliberate gait - slow, measured and reverent in exactly the same way the Tomb Guards walk in a slow, deliberate, reverent gait.
Priests are only supposed to say very specific words - no improvisation, no modifications. The Guards are the same way. They have a very strict announcement that they make at the changing, and they have very strict words that they say when telling people to be quiet and observe reverent silence (there is a YouTube video of that happening, look it up.) There is no chatting or extemporaneous speech. In the Church, the command is "Say the black, do the red," in reference to the layout of the Roman Missal with the words of prayer in black and the instructions for the intensely precise rubrics, down to every gesture, in red.
I would analogize the exaggerated heel-clicking movement that the Guards do to the genuflecting of the Priest (and servers, and laity, ahem) to the rubric of ALWAYS genuflecting to the right knee EACH AND EVERY TIME the axis of the Tabernacle is crossed. In many Catholic Churches, the Tabernacle, which is the center of the Church - heck, it is the center of the universe - has been moved off to the side, or even hidden in a sacristy. Where a Tabernacle is present, Our Lord, physically present inside, is largely ignored. I have never seen a Novus Ordo priest consistently observe the loving rubric of genuflecting to the Tabernacle every time the plane is crossed. In fact, most Novus Ordo priests wander around the sanctuary with their backs turned to the Tabernacle while they put on their "performance." This would be analogous to the Tomb itself at Arlington being moved "out of the way" and instead a stage being erected upon which the Guards would perform. It makes you sick to think of that happening at Arlington - but that is largely what has happened to the Mass.
There is even an analogue in the Changing of the Guard ceremony to the Consecration of the Host in the Mass. Did you hear it when you watched the video above? It comes at the 2:36 mark. A rifle is fired, its report thus commemorating the moment of death of the Unknowns. In the Mass, the moment of consecration and transubstantiation are the report of Christ's words spoken by the priest:
HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.
(This is My Body.)
Finally, the words engraved on the Tomb of the Unknowns:
HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD
This is analogous to the words of the Mass:
ECCE AGNUS DEI, ECCE QUI TOLLIT PECCATA MUNDI.
(Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.)
In the Mass, Christ is alive, physically present in the Eucharist, veiled under the mere appearance of bread and wine. At the Tomb, the Unknowns remain dead - only their memory, veiled in anonymity, is honored and made present.
The point is this: if we all know and understand and FEEL the power of the excellent, excellent ceremonial rubrics of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, if we understand the power of "living art", and we understand how important the concepts of reverence, solemnity, precision, dignity and beauty in movement and action are in the context of the Tomb, why, oh why, do we continue to tolerate the lack of reverence, the lack of solemnity, the absence of liturgical precision and dignity and the resulting UGLINESS that has been unleashed on the Mass, which is not just a mere memorial of Calvary, but is Calvary Itself, physically present, and Our Resurrected Lord physically present?
The Tomb of the Unknowns merits the excellent, beautiful, solemn, reverent, disciplined ceremony of the Guards.
Our Lord, Crucified, Risen and physically present to us deserves INFINITELY MORE excellence, beauty, solemnity, reverence, discipline and dignity in His Mass.
Demand it. Now.
Link:
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
"Just Flew in From Atlanta and Had to Share..."
"I was on a 5:45 PM flight from Atlanta to Newark, NJ on Delta tonight. As I went to my seat in row 44, I passed by a young man in fatigues (he was in row 42) and, as any Freeper would do, thanked him for his service and asked him if he was going to be home for the holidays. He said "yes I will be" and I wished him a merry Christmas and took my seat.
As we were landing, the flight attendant said that we had a young army man just back from Iraq who was coming home to his wife and two kids for the holidays and could we all remain seated so he could get off the plane first.
The entire plane erupted in applause (he was a bit embarrassed in his humility), but when the plane got to the gate NO ONE MOVED and he got off first to ANOTHER round of applause." - Pharmboy
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