Today is the First Sunday in Advent, the first day of the Christian liturgical year, so Happy New Year! Today is also the first anniversary of my son's and my confirmations into the Church in 2008, so it is the beginning of our second New Year as a united Catholic family. This first year has been quite a journey.

At Drawn to Catholicism, a commenter to the Happy New Year cartoon said that his/her New Year's resolution is: Hope, pray, and don't worry. I think I am going to adopt a version of that:

Pray without ceasing, over everything, in everything.
Trust--hope--in Our Lord's goodness and love, without ceasing.
Don't worry--don't let the darkness of depression or fear overtake the light.
Strengthen everyone in your circle of influence.
Abide in God.

Thank you to all our veterans who have served our country with honor and self-sacrifice, even when derided by the very persons whom you have defended.

In November, Catholics remember and pray for the faithful departed every day, so it is very meaningful to me that both Veterans Day and Thanksgiving fall in November. Today I am remembering my father and his two younger brothers who all served in WW II. For various reasons, I am the only person left to remember my father's service, to recall what it meant to him and what it cost him, and to give thanks for the effect his service had on his life and the lives that he touched.

My father and his brothers were the "Sons" in the family small contractor firm "Wm. Brad and Sons", and each was a master in one trade and very good at the others. They enlisted in 1944, after finally either persuading their wives that they needed to do so or declaring that they were going to do so. This was after the famous "Private Ryan" incident, so they were split up into different services based on their individual talents and abilities. One ability that set them apart was speaking multiple languages. At home they spoke Hungarian (their dad) and German (their mom) as well as English. In addition, my father was a natural polyglot who spoke and wrote six languages when he enlisted (he was the extended-family scribe to all the relatives in The Old Country.) Uncle Joe, the eternal-optimist youngest, was a master plumber who could fix anything; he ended up in the Navy, serving in the Pacific. Uncle Bill, the middle brother, was a fabulous raconteur, a master electrician, and a small and wiry man; he was chosen to enter the Army Air Corps and to work in Intelligence, parachuting into Hungary to work with the Resistance there. (He joked that he looked emaciated enough to pass as a native.) My father, Frank, was a quiet, introspective man, a master carpenter who also had the gift of being able to study a building or carving or molding and be able to sketch it and know its dimensions, then to be able to carve it to absolute perfection. He could also imitate any singer (his Dame Joan Sutherland singing the Queen of the Night aria was incredibly realistic and would get me into hot water later in life....that's a story for another time.) But the ability the services were most interested in was his skill with a rifle. It turned out that, from hunting with his father and extended family, he was a marksman of great skill, and the 'look-measure' ability played into that. He was sent to Okinawa in the Army. (He picked up Japanese in a month or so and never lost it; another 'another time' story.)

Dad had two assignments. One was as quartermaster for his post deep in the jungle; the other was as a marksman. He only talked about his days as a quartermaster, and even then rarely.

You know how families have a family language and a family code, embodied in phrases that one's parents and grandparents use constantly? My Dad's phrases all revolved around God, honor, and family:
"Do your best to serve The Man Upstairs or get out of the way." (He always addressed Our Lord directly as 'Sir'.)
"Your word is your honor--always keep it, always." ("If you get tricked into giving your word to something rotten, get out of it right away and make it right.")
"I don't care if you're black, brown, pink with purple polka-dots: do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, own up to your mistakes and fix them, always leave a place cleaner than you found it."
"Take care of your family and the people attached to you who have no one else to take care of them."

Dad hated the grinding poverty and starvation of the Okinawans left behind by the war--women and girls of every age, men over 70 and boys under 12--and he did whatever he could to alleviate their suffering when he could. He had a very deep compassion for the boys, who had no one to teach them how to be true (honorable) men and were having to act like men long before they should have to do so.

He was thrice 'busted back' in rank for allowing the villagers to scrounge in the post's dump after the soldiers had been issued new blankets or boots or jackets or whatever--he could not understand why perfectly good items should be burnt instead of being given to the needy, and so 'failed to secure' the dump's gate, even after being ordered to make sure that "the enemy" got not one scrap from the dump. Dad didn't see an "enemy"--he saw people trying to take care of themselves and their families with no means of support. The standoff between the CO and Dad ended only with Dad's enlistment ending.

The use of his marksmanship was never talked about, and only after his death in 1992 did my mother tell me what she knew. Dad was often sent to inter-service marksmanship competitions which he apparently won more often than not. He would come back to the jungle post with small items that he knew people needed; he would repair or build things for the villagers. But what hurt him the most was having to be a sniper. Toward the end of the war and during the occupation of Japan, there were Japanese soldiers who holed up in the jungle and would kill anyone--man, woman, child, Japaness or not--who walked/rode along the tortuous roads. My father would be sent out to 'deal with' these 'crazies'. Mum told me that when Dad found his 'target' he would pray, "Sir, just one shot, please." His book had 167 targets, all with the notation "one shot" and, in much tinier letters, "thank You." Mum said he knew that he had discharged his duty honorably, but that he grieved every day that his duty had involved taking life, even to protect others, both 'us' and 'them'. He had a Purple Heart and tons of medals for competitions and for his 'excellence' in his job; we never saw them until after his death. While my uncles would tell stories about their experiences, in which they always found cameraderie, friendship, and grace and heroism under pressure, Dad never talked about his.

After Dad returned from overseas, he suffered some family losses, not because of what he'd done but because of other people's actions. I believe that those losses, coupled with his experiences, are why he very quietly became a mentor and surrogate father/grandfather to two generations of boys. He took a break from this while raising the two children he and Mom adopted in the 60's (me and a younger boy), but after we left home, the pastor would point out to him boys in need, and he would bring them into his manly orbit: fishing, fixing up the church and elderly people's homes, building all sorts of things for the community, pruning trees and shrubs and digging and planting vegetable gardens, all the sort of men's work that was second nature to him but less and less commonly pursued as the neighboring community became less and less rural and increasingly white-collar. He was the one that the Vietnam vets (including some of my cousins) would come and sit with at the old dining room table, and go away comforted and strengthened. He was a member of his local VFW post, where he and Mum were a fixture at the Tuesday night live-music-and-dancing-after-dinner night, and never missed cleaning up veterans' graves and putting out flags on Memorial Day and Labor Day. A quiet, undemonstrative, faithful man, doing what he could in his sphere of influence.

At the wake following his funeral in 1992, I was approached by a stream of men between 15 and 55, a few in uniform, each of whom said, "Pat, I know you don't know me/maybe you don't remember me, but your dad saved my life/turned me around/saved my marriage/brought me back to God." The familiar faces were a surprise; I stopped counting the unfamiliar faces after I reached 30.

Thank you for reading this far, and helping me remember my father. May all our veterans and our servicemen and -women find their way to being the men and women they were created to be by our Heavenly Father. May we learn from them, and remember those who have gone before, give thanks for them, and pray for them.

Today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced the imminent promulgation of an Apostolic Constitution which will create a ordinariate within the Catholic Church for Anglicans/Anglo-Catholics/Episcopalians who wish to convert to Catholicism but maintain certain elements of the Anglican worship tradition: read it here.

This probably means very little to most of the world, but to Anglicans around the world, it is the opened arms of the father of the prodigal son of Our Lord's parable. Much prayer and discernment and decision-making remain, but a choice has been offered in great love.

Thank you, our gracious and beloved Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. Ut unim sint!

Thanks be to Thee, O Lord our God.

From the Holy Father's comments following a piano recital of great works played on seven historical instruments:

Music, great music, gives the spirit repose, awakens profound sentiments and almost naturally invites us to lift up our mind and heart to God in every situation, whether joyous or sad, of human existence. Music can become prayer. Thanks again to those who organized this beautiful evening. Dear friends, I bless you all from the heart.

Last night the priest celebrating Mass preached on, among other things, Beauty and Truth, and the power of Beauty to lead us to Truth if we search diligently. This is an idea that resonates with me in every aspect of my life, particularly musicianship, stitching, and gardening.

Gardening and stitching each produce a finished product which is the visible, tangible result of the effort put into them. The beauty of a stitched work is set and can be enjoyed at all times, while the beauty of the garden changes from day to day. Music, on the other hand, can only be experienced in the Now while it is taking place.

In gardening, the spirit of hope informs our work--we weed and plant and prune today so that tomorrow and tomorrow there will be fruit and beauty.

In stitching, we encourage each other to bring pieces to completion, and rejoice in each other's finishes. The spirit of hope is present as we stitch as well. I used to sign my stitching-groups e-mail with "Every stitch a prayer", as my late mum would say over the quilts she and other ladies of our church would stitch for charity. May all our stitching be a repose and a prayer, and the finished pieces likewise.

In music, I often think how, for us liturgical musicians, we often have difficulty praying while making the music for which we are responsible, and the 'end product' is fleeting. May the music we make invite prayer and become prayer, even as we must pay attention to doing the work of creating it. May it lift our hearts and minds to God and focus our attention on Him and not us.

My husband and I are admirers of St. Thomas More (which is, from the Heavenly Point of View, very funny on my part, since I was raised Anglican but detested Henry VIII), and I recently found this prayer of St. Thomas' on a Catholic homeschooling blog:

O Lord, give us a mind that is humble, quiet, peaceable, patient and charitable, and a taste of your Holy Spirit in all our thoughts, words, and deeds.

O Lord, give us a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you. Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation and all dullness in prayer.

Give us fervor and delight in thinking of you, your grace, and your tender compassion toward us.

Give us, good Lord, the grace to work for the things we pray for.

— St. Thomas More, 1478-1535

How often do we fall into the mode of "God give me patience and I need it RIGHT NOW!"? :-)

Certainly there are things for which we pray that only Our Lord can work on, but for my part I see places where I need to be doing my share of the work, by His grace.

Small act by small act...stitch by stitch...brick by brick...note by note...

Gratias ago tibi, Liz, at http://hfclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/
for St. Thomas More's prayer.

Actually, the title is a bit of a misnomer..."Songs my mother taught me" is a very sweet song by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, about learning songs (and about life) from one's mother. My mum couldn't sing. When singing while playing as a four-year-old, she had been told, "You sound like a frog--stop that!" and she was never able to get over that. (I was told that story when I was a teenager looking at becoming a musician and teacher, and it went into what I call my "mental little black book of things I will never do as a teacher/conductor/parent"--never tell anyone they CAN'T do something if they are trying, because it is humiliating and definitely unChristlike, and you will probably create the inability. Much later I read ed psych research that confirmed creating difficulties for kids.) So mum never taught me to sing, and never sang at anything louder than a whisper, even though she had a great ear and loved music. But my mum taught me how to stitch, and to crochet, and knit, and quilt (only the applique part took), and to do liturgical embroidery in real gold and silver and silks and pearls...

As many of you know, I have been very slowly clearing out my late mum's stuff. With a hundred quick stops at the storage unit, I had finally gotten down to just furniture the last week in June, so I hired some nice local movers to bring that back to my garage. (If you're in the Triangle, I'd be happy to make a recommendation.) I'd managed to take bags and bags of stuff to Goodwill and partially empty the garage, but now it's back to full.

But I keep coming across the neatest finds. I've found birth certificates and baptismal records for Mum's aunt--the one she was named for--and her paternal grandparents, plus my dad's parents and grandparents (these last ones from Germany and falling apart). Holy cards in Latin and English and German, some just 'everyday' cards, many of them ordination commemorations or anniversaries, some memorial cards of people I vaguely remember and people I never knew except in stories.

But best of all, I keep finding mum's stitching projects. I'll post the interesting ones as I get time. Here is the first one. It's a Dimensions crewel kit (not cross stitch) from 1987 done with floss of puppies, with the picture preprinted so that the stitcher can see how the stitches are supposed to create fur.



Mum only finished two of the puppies.



We're not dog people (my son and I are allergic to furry creatures), so I want to give away this project to someone who will finish it and love it. I have the cover picture from the kit, the chart which shows which color goes where, and the pre-painted linen, but no floss. (It may turn up later...)

If you would like to enter the giveaway, leave a comment by 12:01 a.m. Monday morning, and I'll have DS pick a number at random to choose.

Whatever your tradition, I hope that your Holy Week and Easter have been as meaningful and joyful as ours. As I am a pastoral musician, it's been a busy two weeks, but such blessings!

Two weeks ago, on Passion Sunday, the St. Timothy's choir sang Charles Wood's beautiful St. Mark Passion. The area was under a high-wind advisory, and when we came to the part where the choir sings the tumultuous, "And they laid their hands on Him, and took him; and the disciples all forsook Him, and fled," the high winds caused a blink in power followed by a minute or so of no power at all. The organ, the wind chest of which is filled using an electric motor, sort of wound down into groans, and the choir kept going, God bless them! It reminded me of the organ 'symphony' in Dubois' Seven Last Words of Christ during the rending of the veil of the Temple and the graves opening...Did I say that I am extraordinarily blessed by the singers whom I direct, everywhere I direct? My St. T choir regulars are a group of most willing and good-humored singers--not a big ego among them, just joyful music-making--and we had the "three young guys" (classically-trained singers, the brother and two friends of our [also classically-trained and fabulous] soprano soloist) with us, which is always a treat.

On Palm Sunday, Schola Vox Clara sang for the Extraordinary Form Mass at the cathedral, which included the palm procession and all the hymns (Latin and English) sung a cappella (in the Extraordinary Form the organ is silent from Ash Wednesday to the Easter Vigil). This is 'my' other group of wonderful singers, who come together from several area parishes to support the EF and to help renew traditional music within the Catholic Church.

Back to St. T's on Maundy Thursday, with John Stainer's God so loved the world and the Procession to the Altar of Repose through the sweetly-scented garden full of blooming azaleas, singing Pange lingua. I think it must have been such a setting when Our Lord prayed in the garden for His Father's will to be done--such a contrast between the spring blooming and the stark reality of what the Father asked. "Jesus, with the Law complying, keeps the feast its rites demand; then, more precious food supplying, gives Himself with His own hand."

Good Friday the schola sang Palestrina's Improperia (Popule meus) at Sacred Heart, Dunn (our home parish), during the Good Friday Liturgy, which also included the chanting of the Passion according to St. John in Latin, the Adoration of the Cross, and a Cristo Muerte procession through the streets of town. Then we dashed up I-40 to St. Timothy's, where the St. Timothy's choir sang the St. John Passion of William Byrd (in English) and Goss' haunting O Saviour of the World. (My brain kept superimposing the Latin on the English and I think I'm going to have to write it up that way for next year.)

The most meaningful part of the liturgies of the Triduum, for my husband and me, is the Exsultet, sung in the candle-lit darkness of the Vigil on Easter Eve. Father Z has the most beautiful translation and a podcast of it here. I've been the cantor who sang this many times, so it was a great joy to be able to listen to Fr. Parkerson chant it and simply enjoy that great hymn of praise, and enjoy our first Easter as a united Catholic family.

This morning, it was back to St. Timothy's for the Easter Celebration. We had strings and brass in addition to our organ, and the music was, as usual, grand and glorious. We sang the Oldroyd "Mass of the Quiet Hour" (the one labeled "Third Communion Service" in The Hymnal 1940) with the orchestration I did several years ago, and the wonderful Macfarlane Christ our Passover. (Yes, I know it's a barnburner, but if we can't proclaim the Resurrection and our redemption with trumpets and strings on Easter, when can we? And only one 19th/20th c. American/Victorian piece at a time is not an embarasse de richesses, IMNSHO.) The main anthem of the morning was Jane Marshall's My Eternal King, which I think is a new all-time favorite and must-do for the choir (it was new to them this year). There is a lovely free mp3 of it here, and a simple commmentary on how Ms. Marshall came to compose it here. Ms. Marshall has a splendid compositional gift which she places at Our Lord's service with great humility.

(And I managed to stitch for a good hour or more on Angel of the Morning en route to Sacred Heart on Friday--somehow very appropriate!)

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!