In His presence, with the word "Hosannah"

If I could choose only one week out of my entire life to be in Rome, I would choose Holy Week. It contains the indescribably beautiful sense that arises when you turn your eyes to look at the Cross and Corpus you commemorate - and then turn to see the Pope, the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Nuns gathered together around Him. When you afterwards turn inside yourself with eyes closed, and join in prayer with the congregation of thousands surrounding you, pilgrims from every nook and cranny of the globe.

You know, then, in a very concrete way, that your Faith is not something abstract for you to spout out allegiance to and then forget. It is a something that demands to be lived. As the Holy Father has emphasized repeatedly throughout his pontificate, Christ is a person to be known. And you know that you are willing, with your mind and your heart gathered with those fellow thousands, to follow that call.



There is something intensely meaningful and necessary in the physical participation of the rituals of our Faith. It isn't about what you get from it. It's not about trying to rack up Grace Points or Purgatory Exemptions for yourself through the Give-A-Little-to-God Slot Machine. It's about the love. The love that is shown from placing yourself in God's presence - with the boredom and distractions that come with it. It's about sacrificing the thought of "What I Could Be Doing," and trusting that God is at work upon you. And it's about the sense of identity and commitment that arises when you do consciously yourself as a participant in the mysteries.



The Mass at Saint Peter's for Palm Sunday was one of such experiences. From the moment the first palm-bearers started processing up to the obelisk, followed by a stream of red cardinals and culminating in the arrival of the Holy Father, you received a profound sense that you were participating in something very beautiful, very sacred - and very necessary.


Pope Benedict XVI received a fair amount of media attention after the Palm Sunday liturgy, due to his strong words denouncing the kidnap and murder of the Chaldean Archbishop in Iraq Paulos Faraj Rahho. His words were as follows:

"At the end of this solemn celebration in which we have meditated on Christ's Passion, I would like to recall the late Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Monsignor Paulos Faraj Rahho, who tragically died a few days ago. His beautiful witness of fidelity to Christ, to the Church and his people, whom he did not want to abandon despite numerous threats, moves me to cry out forcefully and with distress: Enough with the bloodshed, enough with the violence, enough with the hatred in Iraq! And at the same time I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for five years have endured the consequences of a war that has provoked upheaval in its civil and social life: Beloved Iraqi people, lift up your heads and let it be you yourselves who, in the first place, rebuild your national life! May reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and respect for the civil coexistence of tribes, ethnic groups and religious groups be the solidary way to peace in the name of God"

The powerful emotion that carried these words was staggering. The media - Associated Press and Brietbart, among others - were quick to pounce on his address and say that the Pope denounced the War in Iraq again. To my understanding, it was less of a denouncement than an appeal to the Iraqis to congregate, focus, and work to end the violence of radical extremists - the ones who are continuing the bloodshed.

I'm posting a link this video clip - not so much for the coverage, but for a taste of the incredible music and the beautiful aerial shot of the Vatican during the Mass. The music was truly sublime. Buzz has it that music is better when the Sistine Chapel Chior isn't singing. Ouch.

Pope: 'Enough with the Violence' in Iraq

And finally, a link to the Papal Homily for Palm Sunday, "To Recognize God We Must Abandon the Pride that Blinds Us," compliments of the fantastic Catholic news-service Zenit. If you don't receive them in your inbox every day, sign up!

Papal Homily for Palm Sunday

Best lines:

"As Christians, all of this must make us think today: Is our faith pure and open enough that, beginning from it, the "pagans" -- the persons today who are seeking and have their questions -- can also intuit the light of the one God, can associate themselves with our prayer in the atriums of faith and by their seeking perhaps become worshippers? Does the awareness that greed is idolatry also reach our heart and our life practices? Do we not perhaps also allow idols to enter even into the world of our faith? Are we disposed to let the Lord purify us again and again, allowing him to chase out of us and the Church what is contrary to him?"

and

"But, as always from the fall of Adam, the failure of men becomes an occasion for a still greater commitment on the part of God's love in regard to us."

Does This Not Raise Some Questions? Journalistic Cowardice in the Abortion Debate

Artist Hanged Herself after Aborting Her Twins

As a woman, I find the above article insulting and infuriating for the questions it does not bother to ask.

Go ahead and read it. Then start breaking it down.

The headline in itself is enough to jolt your nerves. I don't know about you, but I hear "hanged" and something in me thuds. Then you read "Aborting" and "Twins."

We move on to the first line: "An artist killed herself after aborting her twins when she was eight weeks pregnant, leaving a note saying: 'I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum.'"

Conclusions a child (if God forbid they were exposed to this) could draw: This woman thought she wouldn't be a good mom, so she got an abortion. Getting an abortion ends your chance to be a mom. But the woman changed her mind about her qualifications and actions, and because of her consuming guilt, she killed herself. That raises up natural questions about the nature of abortion, such as: How many women feel this way after abortion? Do all women who go through it really want to abort their babies? Is counseling enough for women faced with this decision? Keep those questions in mind.

Then we move on to the third paragraph, also taken from the suicide note: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me, no-one else does."

For lack of a better way to say it: This line says it all. Or rather, the last three lines do. Those babies were real. The mother's grief following recognition of her act and its consequences is real too. There is raw emotion in those lines. And you have the image of what followed the note to validate it.

But the rest of the article does little to acknowledge this. The woman and her grief are practically moved aside. Instead, it focuses all of its attention on the first line: "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital." Paragraph after paragraph follows from the institutions, discrediting the woman's claim. How does the hospital answer? That's not true - the hospital followed procedure. They gave her the amount of counseling given to everyone else.

To the reader: does not that raise some questions?

Her mother is the only one who identifies abortion itself as the problem, not the counseling or lack thereof; "I believe this [getting the abortion] is what led Emma to take her own life - she could not live with what she had done."

No one - no one else - in the article addresses the fact that logistics on English Abortion Counseling Policies are NOT the issue at hand: the issue at hand is that a woman decided to perform the action of an abortion on her twin babies and subsequently killed herself from the grief. The matter worth probing into not WHETHER she got adequate counseling, but that the supposedly adequate counseling was not enough. The emotional distress and guilt she experienced - because of the nature of what she did - were vaster than any counseling could support or mitigate. Does that not raise questions about what abortion does to women's psychological health?

All the hospital appears to be concerned with, according to its representative, is the following: "I am satisfied that everything was done to make sure that Emma consented to the operation."

The implied message of the hospital's statement, which mirrors that of abortion clinics across the globe, is as follows: It's the woman's choice, so she can live with it. She requests. She consents. The hospital complies and performs the "operation." Thousands of women consent to it every day. Notice how the hospital - nor the article - does not issue a a single statistic about whether women normally experience these feelings of guilt after the "operation." No, all they have to say is: the woman consents. The hospitals and clinics wash their hands. It's on the woman's - 'Unsupported, lives alone, ex-partner aware' - shoulders.

Another line also shows the pervading mentality; according to a hospital doctor, "She had a long history of anxiety and depression. Despite my best efforts, she was not willing to see a counselor after the termination."

Two questions: Then why did they give her abortion in the first place? And would counseling erase the action she already performed? No. This speaks to something greater, which the majority of persons quoted in this article refuse to acknowledge. Why? Because, as the last two lines reiterate:

"Recording a verdict of suicide, Dr Carlyon said: "It is clear that a termination can have a profound effect on a woman's life.
But I am reassured by the evidence of the doctors here."

This should make women across the world furious. That no one is probing into the deeper issues at the heart of this story shows a fear and complacency on the part of the media that is damaging and insulting to women's health. The facts are there, the questions are clear - why is no one demanding answers?