I know this
is a few days late, but this meditation has been brewing all weekend through my
busy, hectic workdays and my dear husband’s slow ones. But this is not for him – he already got the
Star Wars trilogy for Father’s Day and one custom card complete with a
hand-drawn Darth Vader from our six-year-old.
No, this is
for the Fathers that probably don’t get many chances to go fishing or get
pancakes in bed or have grand cookouts for Father’s Day. This is for priests.
Today’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It’s also the beginning of what’s become an annual caffeine withdrawal headache. The things I do for penance…
Don’t Cheer
Don’t cheer, damn you! Don’t cheer!
Silence! Your bitterest tear
Is fulsomely sweet to-day. . . .
Down on your knees and pray.See, they sing as they go,
Marching row upon row.
Who will be spared to return,
Sombre and starkly stern?
Chaps whom we knew – s0 strange,
Distant and dark with change;
Silent as those they slew,
Something in them dead too.
Who will return this way,
To sing as they sing to-day.Send to the glut of the guns
Bravest and best of you sons.
Hurl a million to slaughter,
Blood flowing like Thames water;
Pile up pyramid high
Your dead to the anguished sky;
A monument down all time
Of hate and horror and crime.
Weep, rage, pity, curse, fear –
Anything, but . . . don’t cheer.Sow to the ploughing guns
Seed of your splendid sons.
Let your heroic slain
Richly manure the plain.
What will the harvest be?
Unborn of Unborn will see. . . .Dark is the sky and drear. . . .
For the pity of God don’t cheer.
Dark and dread is their way.
Who sing as they march to-day. . . .
Humble your hearts and pray.– Robert Service
As we celebrate today the Solemnity of the Ascension, we likewise commemorate the first novena. After the Ascension the Apostles gathered together with the Blessed Virgin, praying nine days until the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Church recalls this event with a novena, especially that novena promoted by Pope Leo XIII for the reunification of Christianity. Because Pentecost is the birth of the Church, we take this occasion to implore that the full number of the faithful be brought into the "one fold". There are links below for a popular novena to the Holy Spirit (although any novena will do) and the ancient Hymn "Veni Creator" (with translation by Oratorian Fr. Caswall). Join us in prayer for the unity of the faithful, and that this Pentecost may be an occasion of great grace.
novena
Veni Creator Spiritus music
Veni Creator Spiritus mp3
Come Holy Ghost (translation by Edward Caswall, CO)
N.B. There is a partial indulgence attached to any public novena before Pentecost. If this blog community is saying it, is this novena "public"? Oh, who knows. Do it anyway.
During the Easter Triduum, the University Newman Clubs will be collecting donations to support the Christian communities and sacred places of the Holy Land. As we enter the holiest time of the year, it is important to remember our Christian brethren in the Holy Land, who are living and working in the very place of Our Lord’s life, passion, and resurrection. All of the money collected will be used to assist in the preservation and protection of the sacred shrines of the Holy Land, and to assist our fellow Catholics living in the birthplace of Christianity.
If you would like to contribute, cash donations can be given to any Newman Club officer after any of the remaining Holy Week events at CMU, or left at the front desk of the Newman Center. If leaving a donation at the Newman Center, please mark the envelope with “Newman Club Holy Land Collection” or something similar, so we know what it’s for. All monetary donations will be forwarded to St. Paul Cathedral by Steven Kesslar, the Pitt Newman Club VP, on Monday.
In Christ,
Tracy Llenos
CMU Newman Club Secretary
