Catholicae Testudines

Best Halloween Party Ever

More accurately, an All Saints' Day vigil celebration with the Dominican friars. Will blog more when I'm not so tired.

Don't forget All Saints' Day, either. Technically not an obligatory holy day of obligation this year due to its proximity to Sunday. However, you may wish to think of it as a "holy day of opportunity" (thanks, Pat).

All Soul's Day

All Soul's Day is coming up. As a meditation I propose to you the All Soul's Day sequence, Dies Irae, which you probably won't hear in church, since the sequences are optional now. Not that there is a sinister plot or anything, but it has the same difficulties for modern Americans as the other great sequences (i.e. Pange Lingua - Holy Thursday, Stabat Mater - Good Friday, Lauda Sion - Corpus Christi, and Victimae Paschali - Easter), only more so - it's in Latin, which most people probably wouldn't understand (and a translation would result in an artistic and devotional travesty), it doesn't pull any punches about the Last Things, which makes some people uncomfortable; and between the inelegant translation and the loss of the traditional melody you might as well just sing another song anyway. Which is our loss, because the songs that replace it probably don't have the richness of tradition and probably just aren't as good.

You might not be aware of it day-to-day, but the Catholic Church is the single greatest conservator of man's artistic endeavors (I speak not of Catholic pop culture, mind you, but of small-t tradition). What is more, she turns these arts to the service of man's most noble action: the worship of God. Thus they are raised even higher than the greatness they had merely in themselves.

The Dies Irae is an outstanding example of this. It is arguably the finest poem to come out of the Medieval period. Look at the end of the Catholic Encyclopedia article to see a small sampling of the praise heaped on it by hymnologists Catholic and non-Catholic alike. It is also associated with one of the distinctive and moving melodies ever written. It has inspired numerous classical pieces and been borrowed by countless movie scores, yet it has never been improved upon despite its simplicity. You can hear a clip of it here, or I'm sure there would be someone at the CSC who could sing some of it for you.

The Dies Irae has a reputation, especially among those who don't speak a word of Latin, as a "gloom and doom" song. It does indeed have quite a bit of doom, as it is about the end of the world and the last judgment, but it is only gloomy for those who are not sorry for their sins. Like the judgment itself, it is good for the good and bad for the bad, and rather frightening for all inasmuch as all are sinners and God is God. It is a song about great and terrible things because it is about the great and terrible Day of the Lord. It is a song full of love for God, sorrow for sin, God's justice and mercy, and hope.

It is notoriously difficult to translate well, but here are some links to English translations. They of course miss the nuances of the Latin, but I know there are a lot of budding Latinists at the CSC, so with the hints given by the English they will get at least some of it. Also, I shall try to hyperlink some of the biblical references that I notice, but almost every line is an allusion to at least one Scripture passage, so I might not be able to fit them all in (indeed, to get more Bible-y, you'd have to go with Mass or the Bible itself). Some of the more general ones about expressing contrition and praying for mercy I did not bother to find a specific verse for, but you get the idea.

Dies irae dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sybilla

Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum
Coget omnes ante thronum

Mors stupebit et natura
Cum resurget creatura
Judicanti responsura

Liber scriptus proferetur
In quo totum continetur
Unde mundus judicetur

Judex ergo cum sedebit
Quidquid latet apparebit
Nil inultum remanebit

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus
Quem patronem rogaturus
Cum vix justus sit securus

Rex tremendae majestatis
Qui salvandos salvas gratis
Salva me fons pietatis

Recordare Jesu pie
Quod sum causa tuae viae
Ne me perdas illa die

Quaerens me sedisti lassus
Redemisti crucem passus
Tantus labor non sit cassus

Juste judex ultionis
Donum fac remissionis
Ante diem rationis

Ingemisco tamquam reus
Culpa rubet vultus meus
Supplicanti parce Deus

Qui Mariam absolvisti
Et latronem exaudisti
Mihi quoque spem dedisti

Preces meae non sunt dignae
Sed tu bonus fac benigne
Ne perenni cremer igne

Inter oves locum praesta
Et ab haedis me sequestra
Statuens in parte dextra

Confutatis maledictis
Flammis acribus addictis
Voca me cum benedictis

Oro supplex et acclinis
Cor contritum quasi cinis
Gere curam mei finis

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce Deus

Pie Jesu Domine dona eis requiem

Amen

Halloween costumes

For the record, Sarah Sweeney makes a positively charming nun.

Terps Win!

Let me try that again...

That's right, our boys emerged from their slump and played like we always knew they could, "shell-shocking" the #5 ranked Seminoles. Everything clicked tonight. The score at the end may look a little close, but Maryland was in charge the whole game. Easily the most exciting Terps football game in my years here.

Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis!

Politics stuff

If you have been following the news, or know students from another country, you may be under the impression that Europe is unanimous in loathing President Bush with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

Not according to Germany's (indeed Europe's) most popular newspaper, die Bild-Zeitung, which has endorsed him for reelection.

Here is Davids Medienkritik with an English translation of the ten reasons. Via LGF.

Just showing you that there is diversity of opinion in Western Europe, too. My guess is you probably won't hear about this on the evening news.

Just when I thought the cake had been taken...

Planned Barrenhood strikes again. Obviously I had no idea of the depths of their depravity. I'd be willing to bet most people don't, either... Blogger credit to Dawn Eden, who's on a roll.

Is it just me

or does Osama's rhetoric sound a lot like the rhetoric of the American left?

No way!

Dawn Eden does it again, this time bringing us something that is beyond parody: a contraceptives video game from Planned Parenthood to teach kids about contraception. That's right. You heard me. It's called "BirthControids." It features a very phallic spacecraft and a very bad physics model, assuming this is outer space that the ship is traveling in (that part is kind of vague). Ironically, the game taught me that regardless of how strong the birth control, it is no match for my mighty, um, spaceship unless an STD should intervene by causing my sudden and violent death. If you win, you are "punished" with a really grouchy crying baby, which I thought was incredibly asinine, but about what I expected from PP.

Fr. Sibley: Why don't they make an abortion video game? Might hurt sales, though.
Dawn Eden: "When confronted with Planned Parenthood's brand of sex education, the only way to win is to not play the game."

N.b. While you're there, read the two posts right below, too.