March for Life, 2023

I was able to make the March for Life again this year.  There was some doubt.  First at the beginning no one was sure if there would be a march, so the usual organizer on Staten Island didn’t organize transportation this year because Roe had been overturned with the Dobbs decision.  Then a few weeks before the March date, I got an email from an old organizer who used to arrange it.  She said she would be getting a bus.  My only problem: I had a business trip that same week and I wasn’t sure if I would be home by Thursday night.  March for Life is always the third Friday in January—January 20^th this year—coinciding with the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.  Well, by God’s grace the business event ended a day early and I was home by Thursday night.  Tired as I was, I got up at four in the wee hours of the morning and met the bus before departure time.

This year was different.  Instead of Mass on Staten Island before departure, we had Mass in D.C. upon arrival, a Mass for the whole contingent from the NYC Archdiocese.  Definitely it was way more than our single bus.  It was a lovely Mass at a beautiful church (St. Patrick’s) celebrated by a wonderful auxiliary bishop who had attended the first March for Life fifty years ago.  Unfortunately I did not catch his name.  I do remember he started his homily by pointing to his face and saying, “Look at this face.  Do you think this face is old enough to have been here fifty years ago?”  And then he went on to describe how he was involved with the very first March.  Here’s a picture of St. Patrick’sChurch in Washington, DC from the back looking toward the altar.

 

The Church was full.  Here’s a picture of the church from the outside.

Then we had to walk about three quarters of a mile to the Washington Mall where a stage was setup for the speeches.  This year’s theme was, “Next Steps: Marching into a Post-Roe America.”  There were great speeches.  You can see the list at the March for Life website and you can YouTube any speech or the entire event.  The memorable speeches were from football coach Tony Dungy and his wife—they mentioned they have adopted eleven children!—from Connecticut State Representative Treneé McGhee, who as a black woman railed against the inherent racism in the pro-abortion side, and of course the keynote speaker, actor from the TV series, The Chosen, Jonathan Roumie.  I’m going to post Jonathan Roumie’s speech here, but I encourage to listen to them all.  Roumie’s speech is more religious than anticipated for a mixed audience, so I leave it up to you if you want to listen to it.  He’s apparently a devout Catholic.

 

There were some great passages in his speech.  Let me post a couple.

 

They say we live in a post-Christian society. I reject that. You can reject that. Change the culture by impacting the culture. Embrace that which is bigger than you — He who gave you abundant life and He who has called you by name; do not be afraid. Mute the noise of the popular and embrace the counterculture of Christ’s love, and the message He offers you: The road is wide which leads to destruction and many will enter it. So enter through the narrow gate, my dear friends, for therein lies the kingdom of heaven.

And

We are under an assault on our sense of virtue. We’re enduring an affront to the innate holiness we are all imbued with, and called to, and an attack on the family structure and the sacredness of the gift of life.

 

But as ones created in the image and likeness of God who is Himself love, we are charged to be the standard bearers who defend and preserve the dignity of every human, but especially the most vulnerable which begins with the initial stages of life and continues throughout the entire cycle from conception through that phase we all aim to enter into our golden years, followed by the final stages of our earthly existence.

You can read from a transcript here.  

The crowd was huge as usual.  I’ve heard it said this was one of the largest.  So much for ending these marches.  Here are a few pictures where I tried to capture the scope of the attendance, and I admit the pictures are woefully inadequate. 

One of my favorite things to do at the March is to look for novel signs.  I’ve got a bunch but I’ll just share a few.

Here’s a much unexpected one, “Pro Bikers for Life,” and they were in their black leather biker gear. 

The Nashville Dominican Sister were there, as every year.

I have a special love of the Dominican Sisters.  As usual there were people from other countries, but here is a group from Poland.

And a Muslim young lady, who was on our Staten Island bus, showed that this goes beyond one religion.

Finally what would a march be without a marching band? 

 

I love the pageantry, I love this movement, and I love this event.  If Washington D.C. is too far from where you live, there will be state and city march events this year.  You will enjoy attending if you do.

Sunday Meditation: The Beatitudes

Today we come to Jesus’ greatest sermon.

 

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,

and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.

He began to teach them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you

and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

Rejoice and be glad,

for your reward will be great in heaven."

~Mt 5:1-12

The first part of the sermon are the Beatitudes, eight keys to happiness.  Bishop Barron’s homily explains them well.

 

Let’s look at the first and third since they are similar but promise two very different things. 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.”

To be poor in spirit and to be meek are nearly synonymous, are they not?  And yet one promises heaven, and the other promises land.  How are we to understand this land?  Pope Benedict XVI explains it.

 

“The Israelites spent forty years in the desert to arrive at the Promised Land. After they were taken captive to Babylon they waited seventy years to return to their own land. Land is always associated with right worship. Moses’ original demand of Pharaoh was to let the Israelites leave Egypt so they could worship in their own way. The Israelites were exiled to Babylon because they had abandoned right worship for idolatry. So yes, the promise of land is literal in the Old Covenant, connected with faithfulness to God’s covenant. The land is, as Benedict calls it, “a space for obedience, a realm of openness to God, that was to be freed from the abomination of idolatry.” The idea of land was gradually broadened. The Samaritan woman inquires of Jesus: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus replies, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father . . . . But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” (Jn. 4:20-22) The king who rules “from sea to sea” promises a universal place of worship and obedience to God. Thus the land is no longer a piece of earth, but the whole earth, and that is Christ’s Church. Does the beatitude then refer to the land in a physical or a spiritual sense? Again—both, the one and the other.” (Jesus of Nazareth: From Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, pp 80-81)

Of all eight beatitudes, the third is the only one that is not beyond this world.  And yet it is!

Matthew Monday: Our First Professional Basketball Game

I had never attended a pro basketball game in my life.  I was never really a fan.  I might watch a few minutes on TV but I never had any allegiance to a team.  Then you have a son who likes basketball, and for some reason he becomes a fan of the Brooklyn Nets.  So for the past couple of years we followed the Nets through the newspapers.  It doesn’t hurt that I grew up in Brooklyn.  It’s a thrill to have a home team I can root for.  I never considered the other New York teams home teams for me!  

So in the last few years the Nets made some big trades to get some star players and they competed for the division. Today their two big superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving remain on the team and they have added some quality depth to help them out.  This year they started off losing, replaced their head coach, and then won something like 20 out of 21 games.  A super streak.  Unfortunately Kevin Durant got hurt recently and they have struggle to win as many as they lose with him out.  So they have fallen back a bit, but hopefully he’ll be returning soon.

We went last Sunday on January 15^th, and they were playing a below .500 team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.  Why did we pick that game?  Well, the prices of the big name teams were a lot more expensive, and so for a seat in my price range ($100/seat) we got better seats for the Thunder.  When we bought the tickets, we didn’t know Kevin Durant would be out.  That would have altered our choice, but what can you do?  Them’s the breaks.

The Barclay Center, the Nets’ arena, is in downtown Brooklyn, which has limited free street parking and very expensive pay parking.  So I gave Matthew the entire Brooklyn experience.  We drove into Brooklyn into my old neighborhood and took the subway to downtown to the arena.  I tried to take a picture of Matthew on the elevated subway platform, but he refused to cooperate.

I also took a picture of the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower.  This was iconic for me growing up in Brooklyn.  For the longest time, this was the tallest building in Brooklyn.  According to Wikipedia it was the tallest from 1929 to 2009 and spans 41 floors.  Brooklyn has gotten a few skyscrapers since then, but we don’t have the same fetish for heights that they do in Manhattan.

 

The Barclay Center isn’t all that picturesque, but its short height does make for an interesting contrast with its surrounding environment.

Here’s the view from our seats.  It looked closer than the camera makes it seem.

 

The little snot finally let me take his picture inside.  He’s proudly wearing his Nets jersey.

One of the ushers took our picture.

So we got to go down to court level during warm ups.  I think this is Day'Ron Sharpe, a backup forward.  But I’m not entirely sure.  Here’s a photo and a video clip.

 

 

Here’s the one video clip we got of game play.  The red are the Thunder and white Brooklyn.

 

 

The score was close most of the game, but unfortunately Nets lost 112-102.  But it was still a lot of fun.

Sunday Meditation: By the Sea of Galilee

This is a very complex Gospel.  There is way more within this that we simple readers of the Bible can surmise.  Hang in there and Dr. Brant Pitre will open this up.

 

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,

he withdrew to Galilee.

He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,

in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,

that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet

might be fulfilled:

Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles,

the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,

on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death

light has arisen.

From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

 

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,

Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,

casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.

He said to them,

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

At once they left their nets and followed him.

He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,

James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.

They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.

He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father

and followed him.

He went around all of Galilee,

teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,

and curing every disease and illness among the people.

~Mt 4:12-23

 

First, enjoy a dramatization of the passage.  It will make it much more visual.

 

Dr. Brant Pitre explains it thoroughly.  It again takes two videos.

 

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

 

Art: Double Trinity with Saint Augustine and Saint Catherine of Siena

This painting was highlighted in last month’s Magnificat (Dec 2022) magazine with an analysis by Fr. Gabriel Torretta, O.P. 

 

 

 

I was really smitten with this work.  The artist is anonymous but from Peru and from the Cusco School   The painting, Double Trinity with Saint Augustine and Saint Catherine of Siena, is dated between 1700 and 1730.  I was surprised when I looked up Peruvian Baroque art to find just how rich and superb it is, but this painting may be the crowning achievement.  The Wikipedia entry on the Cusco School explained its origins:

 

The tradition originated after the 1534 Spanish conquest of the Peru,[1] and it is considered the first artistic center that systematically taught European artistic techniques in the Americas. The Spanish contribution, and in general European, to the Cusco School of painting, is given from very early time, when the construction of the Cathedral of Cusco begins. However, it is the arrival of the Italian painter Bernardo Bitti in 1583, that marks a beginning of the development of Cuzqueño art. The Jesuit introduced in Cusco one of the fashionable currents in Europe of the time, Mannerism, whose main characteristics were the treatment of figures in a somewhat elongated way, with the light focused on them.

 

A Trinity in art is of course when an artist renders the Holy Trinity of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  A Double Trinity is when you couple the Holy Trinity with the trinity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—the Holy Family.  That is what you have here.  The scene is supposed to allude to the finding of the boy Jesus at the Temple after being lost (Luke 2:41-52), and the Google Arts and Culture entry mentions how His parents hold him tightly from the experience.

 

The coordination of the clothing pattern and colors of the holy family is striking.  The patterns are very similar but each individually unique.  The two parents seem to have the same shade while that of Jesus’s is lighter—perhaps suggesting youth—but if my eyes are seeing correctly the shade and pattern of Jesus matches that of God the Father’s sleeve.  The similar colors create a diamond shape between the holy family and God the Father with the Holy Spirit binding them in the center.

 

Interestingly here the Holy Trinity is rendered vertically with God the Father looking down and Jesus looking up. The holy family, on the other hand, is aligned horizontally with their eyes looking down at Jesus.  The vertical and horizontal lines notably form a cross with all eyes turned to Jesus. 

 

The artist also includes St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Catherine of Siena in the foreground, on the extreme sides of the canvas.  Fr. Gabriel rightly points out that this makes the painting a Triple Trinity since Jesus and the two saints form a third triangle.  Why St. Augustine and St. Catherine of Siena?  Google Arts and Culture suggests that it may have been the personal preference of the whoever commissioned the painting, and that may be.  But there may be an additional element which may more thought to the painting.    

 

Both St. Augustine and St. Catherine are holding hearts.  Now it is no coincidence that these two saints would hold hearts as part of their iconography.  St. Augustine famously said in his Confessions, “My heart is restless O Lord, until it rests on thee.”  One of St. Catherine of Siena’s most famous mystical experiences was when she lay in a coma and had her heart taken out by Jesus (mystically of course) and replaced with Christ’s heart.  So heart becomes a thematic element of the composition, and with that in mind we can see that not only are everyone’s eyes turned toward Jesus but so is everyone’s heart: God the Father through the Holy Spirit, and the two earthly parents having just found their lost child.  When we gaze at a beloved, it is through eyes but those eyes are linked to our hearts.

 

This painting is a magnificent achievement, worthy of any Italian Renaissance artist.  Who knew that such art was being created in seventeenth and eighteenth century Peru?

Music Tuesday: Jeff Beck, Rest in Peace

Last week on January 10^th we had the passing of one of the greatest electric guitarist ever, Jeff Beck.    From his Rolling Stone magazine obituary:

 

JEFF BECK, THE blues-rock innovator and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who revolutionized how the guitar is played, died Tuesday at the age of 78.

 

Beck’s family confirmed the former Yardbirds guitarist’s death Wednesday. “On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing,” Beck’s family said in a statement. “After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday. His family asks for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.”  

It was tremendous loss for all of us.  He contracted the deadly disease, but before that he looked superb and was playing better than ever.  I can’t possibly outline his entire career.  Read the Wikipedia entry.  His initial entry into the spot light was following Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page in the Yardbirds.   Here’s how Wikipedia describes The Yardbird’s series of guitarists.

The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, all of whom ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists.

Frankly, in my humble opinion, out of those three great guitarists, Jeff Beck was the most talented.  Here he is as lead guitarist in what might have been The Yardbird;s greatest hit, “Heart Full of Soul.”

The Rolling Stone article describes Beck’s evolution from blues to psychedelic rock to jazz fusion.  Jazz fusion is what I think he excelled at and created avant-garde following.  He certainly is not as well-known as Clapton and Page, and that’s because he is a musician’s musician, a purest.  Salon had a retrospective article with his passing on what made his guitar playing special. 

 

The praise Jeff Beck, who has died aged 78, received from indebted musicians during his lifetime already read like unbridled eulogies. Eric Clapton had called him "the most unique guitarist," Steve Lukather (Toto) "God's guitarist," and Joe Satriani "just a genius."

 

Jazz great John McLaughlin described Beck as "the best guitarist alive," Steve Vai as "unique in the most superlative use of the word," and Noel Redding (Jimi Hendrix Experience) as his "personal favorite." Queen's Brian May said Beck "radically changed" his view of the guitar.

 

Beck's fame was not drawn from a catalogue of hit songs (though there was, of course, Hi Ho Silver Lining), nor from a cushy decades-long residency in a mega-band (though there were many supposed offers). Instead, he was a guitarist's guitarist who seemed to be the humble protagonist at the center of a plethora of seminal moments in pop history.

“The humble protagonist,” that is such a perfect description.  In the interviews I sampled, he was truly a humble man and certainly not an egocentric rock star.  He had a hobby of restoring and repairing antique cars, and by hobby I mean he didn’t pay someone to restore them.  He did it himself.

Here is an interview interweaved with a retrospective of his career.

There are lots of videos of Beck playing with rapid speed and intensity, but I found him shining even more with the delicate pieces.  Here he with “Where Were You,” his own composition.

Here’s another of a song you know the lyrics to but on which his instrumental captures the song and I think even transforms the song, The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” 

 

He makes the guitar sound like a human voice.  Here’s how the Salon article described his technique.

 

He had an intuitive musical ear and technical control for sophisticated jazz harmonies, pitch inflection and melody, as well as a wide timbral finesse – from a barely audible fragile touch to a wall of dense noise. He interacted with amp feedback to turn the guitar's usual "pluckiness" into anything from mechanical growls to uncannily vocal timbres, to other-worldly sustained flute sounds.

 

Beck's commitment to these dimensions manifested in his idiosyncratic technique. He abandoned a plectrum for direct contact with the strings, ensuring that every note was distinct, different and mattered.

 

He would simultaneously control the whammy bar, volume and tone control of the guitar which – with the combination of harmonics, off-fret slide and left-hand inflection – explored an orchestral range of sonic possibilities. Always pushing and never complacent, each record explored new territory and musical affordances.

Here is a sample of work.  From his 1975 album, Blow by Blow, “You Know What I Mean.”

 

From his 1976 album, Wired, the Charles Mingus piece, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat."

 

Here’s one of his classics, “Going Down,” originally recorded in 1972 as part with The Jeff Beck Group, but here performed live in 2013 with Bret Hart and an almost all female group.

 

Finally here is a piece he combines all his skills, and even finds joy in a young female bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld, complimenting his playing with her own solo.

 

Notice his expression at Tal’s playing.  He was such a good, humble soul.  His playing is now for the Lord.  Until I get to attend that concert I will miss his music.