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This article is designed to make everyone angry with me… This is a collection of random thoughts and ideas in the wake of the Dobbs decision. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the amount of smug self-righteousness on Facebook (on both sides of the issue).

I was startled Saturday evening when walking toward the kitchen—a spider darted across in front of me. It wasn’t a huge one, but also not a tiny one—perhaps an inch in size. But it was the biggest spider I’d ever seen inside the rectory.

These words come from the First Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation, and they are prayed just after the Consecration. We ask: “Be pleased to keep us always in communion of mind and heart, together with Francis our Pope and Thomas our Bishop.” This is not always so simple as it seems.

We are told that there likely are multiple “universes” beyond our own, some of which might be “parallel universes,” with all the different choices of our own place being made and followed through. We learn that there are possible “wormholes,” portals through which we might be able to travel virtually instantaneously from one portion of our universe to another, or perhaps from one universe to another (I think of the travels “Between” as described in Ann McCaffery’s novels, or the Wood Between the Worlds from C S Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew).

The celebration of Pentecost is the celebration of the birth of the Church. The outpouring of the Spirit was the driving force that empowered the beginnings of evangelization of the Good News of salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Oh, the joy!

This was actually the title of a wonderful course in Scriptural/Sacramental theology that I had when I was in Rome, at the Pontifical Atheneum Sant’ Anselmo, while doing my advanced degree. The professor, Fr Odasso, was a gentle and effective teacher, and all of us were grateful for him (and for a large number of the other professors we had).

The 25th of most months is a day of importance to me (and often to many others). Everyone knows the 25th of December, of course. And the 25th of April is my birthday. The 25th of March is the Solemnity of the Annunciation. January 25 is the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul (and the publication date in 1841 of John Henry Newman’s famous “Tract 90,” written while still an Anglican, to show that a catholic-leaning Anglican could still swear allegiance to the “39 Articles” of the Church of England (yes, he got into huge amounts of trouble for this one!).

Everyone knows (or should know) the three “theological virtues”—Faith, Hope, and Love/Charity. They are highlighted by St Paul at the end of I Corinthians 13. I personally love the way St Francis of Assisi prayed for them: “Give me right (correct) Faith, certain (confident) Hope, and perfect Charity.” You are probably also familiar with the “iconography” of these virtues: the Cross, the Anchor, and the Heart. The first and last are pretty self-explanatory; Hope is represented as an anchor because of a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews (6:18b-20—you can look it up!).

This was a refrain when David Brancaccio was the host of NPR’s “Marketplace.” Of course, his “numbers” were the Dow, NASDAQ, & S&P. I’ll want to be a bit more liturgical.

The last several Sundays we have heard messages from the Gospels that, if we were paying attention, should have shocked us.

Easter! The time of “Alleluia/Hallelujah” (“Praise the LORD”)! Eight weeks (an “octave” of weeks) of joy to offset the six weeks of sorrow and repentance that was Lent. The fifty days of celebration that are, for Christians, the equivalent of the fifty years that marked the Jewish year of Jubilee, the year of restoration and liberation and peace. The Catholic tradition of the Holy Year (beginning in the year 1300), marked every fifty years, was a reflection of this.

We of a certain age remember the TV show “That Was The Week That Was,” familiarly known as TW3. It was a satirical look at the news, presented as only the BBC could do. It had a short life; pity, that.

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners. Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. –Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England What do we love? What do we desire? In what ways are our wills and affections “unruly”?

Babies and small children are pure beauty, love, joy—the truest in this world. But the thorns are there of night watches, of illnesses, of infant perversities and contrariness. There are glimpses of heaven and hell. –Dorothy Day Which do we see first and focus on: the joy and beauty and love, or the thorns?

I hope some of these passages can help in focusing the remainder of the Lenten days (after all, we’re almost half-way home)

The 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote a beautiful piece entitled Verkärte Nacht—“The Transfigured Night.”  Originally it was a chamber piece for string sextet, later expanded to be played by a full string orchestra.  I know you don’t care, but my recordings of these pieces are by the Juilliard String Quartet and Friends, and by the Chicago Symphony with Daniel Barenboim.

The word “Lent” actually comes from Old English, and it means the spring season. That term came to be adopted/adapted to refer to the season of pre-Easter penitence (which, of course, typically falls in spring).

Two of my favorite British poets (OK, I have a number of others, too) are Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and George Herbert (1593-1633). Both were filled with the spirituality of Christian life and belief. Especially for this weekend of Mardi Gras and its prelude to Lent, I offer a poem from each of them to help us enter into Ash Wednesday and the following days of penance and resolve to reform.

This Tuesday is the Feast of the Chair of Peter. What are we celebrating? Not necessarily a physical chair (at least, not only that) but rather the teaching authority from which the chair flows—the “cathedra” not only of the bishop of Rome but also of the Church at large. [Ironic footnote: the true "cathedra” should be sited in St John Lateran as this is the official cathedral of Rome—oh, well!]

This title actually doesn’t refer to “older” and more “modern” saints—it’s actually a reference to some of the ones whose intercession we asked last weekend and this weekend. I want to consider St Jerome Emiliani and the Seven Founders of the Servite Order. After all, even if we ourselves know little about them, they’re in the liturgical calendar and so are worth learning about.