Cheating Death

Good evening!

Let me start off this post by thanking God that I am alive to write it. Saturday, I had a brush with death and I still can't fully wrap my head around what happened.

I'm watchin' you...

It all started on Friday when my hubby and I went to visit our friend to provide emotional support and act as witnesses because Child Protective Services was invading her house on totally bogus charges made by a former acquaintance. He contacted CPS and made up outrageous claims to get back at her for getting rid of his stuff which he had dropped off at her house and refused to come back and pick it up when she told him to (he also texted and emailed her what he was going to do, so there are legal grounds for prosecution against him for this too). Thankfully, our good deed worked and the CPS caseworker closed the case. After the caseworker left, my husband took our friend to get some cigarettes and she accidentally left her phone in the car. None of us realized that she'd done this, and it wasn't until we got home and I was cleaning out the cupholder when I saw it was there. Since it was getting dark and my hubby had to change out the grommet on the gas tank (it was very worn and leaked fuel every time we filled the tank more than halfway), I figured we'd go by her house the next day and drop it off before going to Confession. It was her only working phone and I didn't want her to be stuck without it for long.

Saturday was spent doing housework and working on the car (the gas tank was fixed, but that damned electrical short has returned!). We were aiming to go to our friend's home first and then to Confession in the evening, but first we had to stop and get gas. My husband and I observed that the tank itself was in good condition (there was not a spot of rust or perforation anywhere inside that tank when I looked into it as my husband was replacing the grommet the previous day), and he wanted to see how much gas it held when completely filled. The screen at the pump read 24 gallons when my husband had to manually stop the pump because the tank was overfilling. He was thrilled because that meant our cholomobile's gas tank was a full-size tank appropriate to a C-body Mopar (they ranged in size from 23-26 gallons)!

And that was when all hell broke loose.

As my husband was pumping air into the rear air shocks, he saw to his horror that the fuel line had ruptured on the car! Gasoline was spilling onto the concrete and if the leak wasn't stopped, the scene could get deadly in a hurry. My husband got under the car and stuck his finger in the leak to stop it while I ran into the store with the baby in one arm and a 5 gallon bucket in the other to fill with water and wash off the gasoline that was now dousing my husband. One of the assistants in the gas station also came to our aid by filling up the bucket with water and pouring it on my husband, getting me the number to a local cab company so I could call and get a ride to the nearby auto parts store to get replacement fuel line, and calling the fire department to help contain and manage the highly flammable mess.

Kaboom!

Fortunately, the cab arrived at the gas station within 10 minutes and transported the baby and I to the auto parts store. The cabbie was kind enough to wait for me in the parking lot while the boy at the register cut me a foot of replacement fuel line (Even though I had part of the original line with me for reference, I would later discover the line the teenage boy at the store sold me was the wrong size, but I didn't realize it until much later after we got home). The fire department was just leaving when I came back and paid the cabbie for his service. They had sprayed my husband down with a soapy foam mixture to wash the gasoline off of him. His clothes were ruined and he sustained first degree chemical burns on parts of his back (gasoline is a corrosive solvent!), but the situation was under control. The gas station's manager threw some sandy substance onto the ground to absorb the water and gas mixture, and my husband put the new fuel line in place. Once it was attached, we went straight home. Our visit to our friend would have to wait till Sunday. After we got home, my husband checked the vent lines of the tank and saw that they were leaking too, but this time, the situation was not as critical. The leaking vent lines were replaced, but it was mostly just overflow from an overfilled gas tank.

As we were driving home, my husband explained to me the gravity of what had just happened. Since gasoline is so flammable (and people are notorious about not following the anti-smoking instructions posted at gas stations), and here he was doused in the stuff, a careless customer who was smoking or talking on a cellphone could have set off a spark which not only would have turned my husband into a human torch, but also turned our car into a gasoline-filled bomb. The baby and I could very easily have been caught in the blazing inferno, as well as other customers and their cars. The fire department would have been dealing with casualties and alot of destruction. In fact, just before they left, the firemen thanked my husband for his quick thinking to get under the car and plug the line before calling them because his action had saved lives and property.

Angels watchin' over me

I used to wonder about how I'd react when faced with my own mortality. Would I be indifferent? Would I fight back or cry? Would I be relieved to finally cross over the threshold so few return from? Well, here I was, one spark away from meeting God face to face, and I was...numb. I'd been so hopped up on adrenaline, racing to get the replacement fuel line and water all while toting the baby in one arm, that the idea that I might die because of the gas fumes igniting didn't even register on my radar. Even now, a few days later, I still can't believe how close I came to meeting a grisly end. And, that was without anything actually happening. My guardian angel was working overtime to make sure nothing happened to us, or anyone else.

As for our friend's phone, we got it back to her on Sunday afternoon before we went to church. She was freaked out when I told her how close we came to getting barbecued on Saturday evening at the gas station because of the ruptured fuel line. Unfortunately, she couldn't come to church with us, but she was glad to see we were ok and to have her phone back.

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Juneteenth

Happy Sunday, dear readers!

While the rest of the country celebrated Father's Day, my family did not.

We celebrated Juneteenth instead.

A brief explanation of Juneteenth. Pic found here

Juneteenth is a Texas holiday commemorating the emancipation of the Black slaves in the state. The name is a combination of June and nineteenth, the date the emancipation was first celebrated formally in 1865. It was my husband who introduced me to this holiday in 2012, and he told me how when he was a younger man, he used to celebrate the day by eating fried chicken, watermelon with salt, and drinking cheap shitty beer. While his idea of celebrating Juneteenth came from the racist tropes of Blacks that he'd grown up with in Texas, I didn't mind eating fried chicken and a watermelon on this day. I'm not a big melon eater, but I've had watermelon every year on Juneteenth since 2012, even if beer and fried chicken were out of the question.

I did my bbq-ing last night. Pic found here

What surprised me most about my husband's choice of celebratory foods was the watermelon with salt. I knew about watermelon being seasoned with sugar (my grandma did that), and chili powder (the Mexicans did that), but not salt. Apparently, this is something only Texans did as my husband did not recall anyone in Louisiana seasoning their watermelons with salt (they did pickle the rinds, however). I didn't particularly care for the taste of salt and sweet watermelon the first time I had it, but I've grown to tolerate it.

Forget Father's Day. Sure dads are important, but the holiday has become so commercialized that it's been rendered worthless. Thank goodness my husband isn't crazy about parent-themed holidays. At least with Juneteenth, it was a holiday we could spend together as a family and somewhat relate to since both of our respective peoples (Irish and Serbs) had been utilized as slave labor over the course of history by various Western European powers. Today happened also to be the hottest day on record (a whopping 115 degrees Fahrenheit!), so it was a good day to stay inside and feast on leftover London Broil, baked beans, and watermelon. I had to kick myself out of bed super early so we could go to church early in the morning in order to get our Sunday obligation to attend Mass out of the way before it got too hot out.

And that was how I spent my Sunday.

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The Interview

Happy Sunday, dear readers. I got a pleasant surprise at the Carmelite church tonight because the African priest who's last Mass I'd attended had been so terrible (he was VERY long-winded and rambling) that I almost designated him as the first African priest I DIDN'T like, redeemed himself by being concise and orthodox with a stirring sermon about virtue. I was most pleased to see that his connection to the Holy Spirit was strong tonight. I usually have a very positive opinion of African priests (Indian ones too) because the ones I've met were well-catechized, orthodox and usually more intelligent than the average American priest I encountered. I suppose he was having a bad day that time and it just happened to be the first Mass I saw him in. Oh well. He's back in my good graces now and life can continue on as usual.

On Thursday, my husband had a job interview. He applied to work as a janitor at a local Presbyterian church, and the office called him in to be interviewed. Since there were errands to be run, I tagged along on this dreadfully hot day.

It may surprise some of you to learn that despite my die-hard Catholicism, this was not the first time I've been to a Presbyterian church. When I was growing up, my family joined an up-n-coming Serbian Orthodox church in the suburbs close to my home town. Before then, we'd been either going to the churches in the city of Chicago or the monastery in Lake County. Since the church parish was still so new, we didn't have a proper church of our own, so the managers were renting out the side chapel of a huge Presbyterian church in Deerfield, IL. I don't remember much about this place since I was a kid during the time we went there, but I remember the chapel being small, dark, and dusty with cobwebs on the windows. However, the building it was connected to was quite large. There was a hall behind the choir area which led to a kitchen and that was where the coffee hours were held. The basement was huge because that's where the Sunday school, Serbian language/culture, and dance classes were held and where the caretakers lived (they would regularly complain about the rambunctious kids banging on the door that led to their living quarters). I also remember my Serbian language teacher taking us on a tour of the building where we went past the double doors in the basement separating the part where the side chapel was to the main building, seeing the school classrooms there, and going into the actual main church itself. I don't remember exactly what the interior of the church looked like, but I remember there being alot of nice woodwork and it was dark. The second time I was in a Presbyterian church was when I was in 6th grade. It was for a comparative religions class which also included a trip to a local mosque and the huge Presbyterian church which was located in my hometown's downtown. Like my family's starter church, this local Presbyterian church had some nice dark woodwork inside and lovely stonework on the outside, though I remember looking at the tiny medicine cup-sized communion cups and kitschy-print missalettes in front of me in the pew and thinking this place looked more like the bank my parents did business with (at the time) than any church I was familiar with. There were crosses and banners proclaiming the glory of God, but not a single crucifix could be found anywhere.

Playing with her sunglasses

On this trip, I would not be checking out the church. I would be sitting in the office waiting area while my husband was interviewed. The secretary was kind and got the baby and I some water, but just like my previous trips to Presbyterian churches, the property was huge (this one was large enough to sustain a proper school). While the actual office itself was roomy and light with bright cabinets and clear windows, the waiting area was kinda dark. It had dark woodwork with kitschy stained glass depictions of biblical scenes and Christian themes lining the top of the room, but there was an entire wall which was designated as a sort of gift shop with trinkets, books, handmade quilted items, fair-trade coffees and mugs with the image of the church printed on them all for sale. The office waiting area itself was not very big, but it was large enough to walk around and the baby could crawl on the carpet without interruption. There was also a large china cabinet that held some mementos off to the side behind the chairs and on the coffee table in the middle of the room were two copies of some Billy Graham evangelical magazine keeping a "bible" company (I put bible in quotes because it wasn't exactly a Bible. It was selections from the Bible arranged to form some kind of storyline). I skimmed through the magazines and the "bible", but the baby kept me from delving into too much of this heresy by crawling around on the floor.

After the main office lady called my husband to the back for his interview, I walked around the waiting area and looked at the various things on display, both in the china cabinet and a nook across from the door. It was in the china cabinet that I first noticed a book with Cyrillic writing on the cover. Given my Slavic background, it piqued my interest and I took a closer look at it. On the shelf where the book was, I also noticed a pair of cloth dolls dressed in traditional Russian costumes half-hidden behind a folded sign explaining the items on display. I couldn't tell exactly what the dolls costumes looked like or where they were from in Russia, but I had the impression that the costumes were pre-Kievan Rus, based on the headdresses. On the shelf below was also a lacquered cup in traditional floral patterns. Below the Russian mementos was a display from Romania. There was either a place mat or a belt woven in a traditional pattern underneath a small Romanian flag and a plaque from the city of Timisoara.

The china cabinet. Not pictured: Russian cloth dolls in traditional costumes. Also, what is it with Presbyterians and dark wood?! It's too East Coast for this part of the country

The contents of both the Russian and Romanian shelves, the display signs read, were donated to the church by evangelical bible societies doing missionary work in their respective countries. I began feeling my blood pressure go up in anger as I read the sign on the Russian shelf which stated that the book which caught my attention was apparently a Russian bible and that it had been donated by a family evangelizing in Russia on behalf of the Wycliff Bible Society. These maggots have NO business poaching my people away from the REAL Church, just adding fodder to their CIA/Masonic front! I may have been suspicious of Protestantism in my previous life, but my conversion to Catholicism and subsequent marriage to my husband introduced in me a militant hatred of them, with bible-thumping evangelicals taking the lead in the hate list. Also, while reading Cyrillic is slow-work for me, the book did NOT say "Bibliya" or "Holy Bible" on the cover. It said "Hosh Habar", which Google translate says means "Aromatic Message" (Google also suggested that it was in the Kazakh dialect, which I thought might explain the costumes on the dolls, but an image search didn't match up any costumes from Kazakhstan that were remotely close to what I'd seen). Fortunately, I had the baby to look after and she provided a much-needed distraction to keep me from raging and destroying that cabinet.

Finally, after about thirty minutes or so, my husband came back. I refrained from saying anything about what I thought of the Presbyterians until we had left the church property, keeping the subject limited to his interview. My husband felt positive about the job interview, but gave it a 50-50 chance that he would be hired. He told me he was interviewed by three people, which I thought odd because if you're a qualified candidate for a job, you typically have only one interview with whoever is the person doing the hiring. Once we were out of the parking lot and away from any prying ears, I told my husband about the Russian mementos and how furious I was to see my people being led away from the Faith. I also complained how the decor in the office was in bad taste because it was dark wood with cheesy stained glass images, to which my husband surmised that because Presbyterians are outside of the Church, they can never know the true beauty of the Faith and can only resort to making copies of what they think it should be.

Well, it's been a few days since the interview and we haven't heard anything back from the Presbyterian church. My husband assumes it's a no-go and has proceeded to apply for other means of stable employment. The temp and inventory counting jobs are few and far between right now, so he's been trying to get more regular employment. So far, he's been canvassing for a political office, but that job ends the first week of July. Time to keep looking.

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Memorial Day

Greetings!

While I did not get the chance to do any baking during this weekend's last stretch of semi-cool temperatures, I did manage to have an interesting Memorial Day.

'Murica. (This was once a profile picture for some Tea Party guy I followed on Myspace back in the day. I only just now discovered I had saved it)

I hadn't planned on doing anything special except domestic duties and cleaning off the bbq grill, but then my husband had the inspired notion that we should go to Mass that morning. Not because it was Memorial Day and we should engage in idolatry of the military, which is what this day is REALLY about, but because the soup kitchen where my husband did his community service has a Mass that takes place every Monday at 10AM. My husband had been to the soup kitchen Mass a few times, but I'd never witnessed it. Even though it was too early for my liking, I decided it was worth it.

We arrived at the soup kitchen and took our seats on the back porch patio a few minutes before the Mass began. The soup kitchen was once a single-family home and had been converted for the purpose of doling out food to the homeless and impoverished, but some reminders of its previous incarnation remained. A few of the staff and regulars recognized my husband from his visits there, some of whom I'd only met for the first time that day. The priest himself was an old left-wing Redemptorist from Boston who now ran a retreat center out in the boonies. Since the soup kitchen is affiliated with the Catholic Worker movement and is run by a pious Catholic who found his way to the Church through the unlikely path of Karl Marx, I expected there to be no patriotard/Murica troop worshiping on this property.

Vintage communist poster

The Mass itself was pretty uneventful, but even though I didn't feel threatened or harassed, my demon meter went off the second we parked the car and stayed on the entire time we were there. Basically, I felt like there were dark entities lurking around the periphery which made me feel uneasy, and some outbursts from the homeless men hanging around watching the Mass lent credence to that hypothesis. Now, I am well aware that within the homeless community, the rates of mental illness are through the roof largely because our mental health care system in this country is atrocious and its really easy to fall through the cracks; but, that being said, my knowledge of demonology tells me that people who are mentally unstable are more vulnerable to demonic influence because their condition provides a hook that demons can use to manipulate the individual to suit its needs. That being said, however, not every mentally ill homeless person is under demonic influence; only some are.

After Mass, we got a food box and went home. The Lord heard my recent craving for bagels and home baked bread, and boy did we get some! We were also blessed with some gourmet potato salad, green beans with mushrooms, fruit salad, and a blueberry pudding cake. Most of it was day-old stuff from local grocery stores, but they were still edible. A number of people complemented how nice our cholomobile looked too. Arizona lends itself to being an ideal place for older vehicles because the dry climate preserves them well.

And that was how I spent my Memorial Day.

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Byzantium

Greetings, dear readers!

Owing to the diurnal schedule my husband has had to keep all week for work, we decided to go to Mass at an earlier time this past Sunday. I selected a Byzantine Catholic church here in town since it was a place I had been wanting to visit for a while.

Lady of Czestochowa

The first time I had ever heard of Eastern Rite Catholicism (which is what the Byzantine church in this post follows for its liturgical structure) was when I was in my early teens and my dad told me about an Eastern Rite church he'd visited in college. My father, who despite his hatred of Ukrainians for their obnoxious nationalism, had a few relatives who married into Ukrainian families and it was through this route that my dad had the opportunity to visit an Eastern Rite Catholic Church after a friend of his cousin invited him to go. Even though he had been raised Russian Orthodox and indoctrinated with all the cultural anti-Catholicism that comes with being Russian, my dad had visited Catholic churches on a few occasions. He had an idea of what to expect, but at the same time he wasn't sure what he'd see. He came away from the visit feeling ambivalent. He recognized the Eastern layout and was cool with that, but he wasn't crazy about praying for the Pope.

I first became aware of a Byzantine Catholic church here in southern Arizona around 2012, when my good friend with whom I sat and passed out pro-life literature on the main lawn of the University of Arizona campus, mentioned them to me. There were a few women in the Latin Mass church we attended who were former parishioners there, he informed me. Given my Serbian Orthodox background, the existence of a Catholic church structured in a way I was familiar with piqued my interest, but receded to the back burner of my mind as the concerns and dramas of life took over. The Byzantine church would continue to periodically pop up on my radar over the next few years, but it didn't really register until recently after a near-altercation between my husband and a rude parishioner at our Carmelite church. I figured now was as good a time as any to come and check the place out.

I did a side part, and then from there I did this crown braid. Obviously, Sunday morning's version of this hairdo was neater than this. Its been in for a few days

View from the back. This style is actually a little bit harder than it looks

In a sharp departure from my usual protocol, I actually dressed up nicely for church. Normally when I go to church, I wear my Lady Guadalupe tshirt with pants and topped off with my Lady Guadalupe bandanna. This outfit has been my default Sunday attire for the last three years. Today, however, because we were NOT going to our usual churches, I decided to put on a good first impression. I wore a nice dress and did my hair specially for the visit. I did not pack my bandanna, as I didn't think I needed it.

When we first arrived, I marveled at how small the church was. It was tiny compared to our usual churches, though realistically, it was about the size of a single-family home. We entered inside and took our seats in the back. The altar setup was very reminiscent of my childhood, though the icon wall hiding the altar was not nearly as large or elaborate as what I had grown up with. A reader and a deacon were standing at the altar doing some pre-Mass readings, but shortly after we sat down, the priest came up to greet us. Since we were new, he handed us a missalette to follow along with the Mass. I skimmed through the missalette while the baby blew raspberries at some old ladies sitting next to us. Were it not for the wording being a little different than I remembered, it could very easily have been something I recognized from my youth. As the people came in and took their seats, I recognized a number of people from the other churches we went to, including a fellow ex-Latin Mass goer! I was also pleased to see lots of children, from a newborn baby up to school-age.

With today being Pentecost, I was pleased to hear that the entrance song to kick off Mass was the same song my favorite Carmelite priest, Fr. Thomas Koller, used to sing for the entrance song whenever it was his turn to say Mass. The rest of the Mass that followed was different from what I remembered, but then again, it had been over six years since I had set foot in an Orthodox church and I had all but forgotten how a liturgy went. The music sounded different from what I had grown up with too, even though content-wise, it was the same. The priest delivered an excellent sermon, though I wound up having to leave halfway through it because the baby got cranky and needed her titty break. Thank goodness there was a kiddie ghetto, and there were quite a few toddlers of varying ages in there.  The baby got distracted by the other toddlers and wanted to play, but the one toddler she did play with kept pulling my daughter's hair, a move in which her mother and myself stepped in to separate the girls from each other. It wasn't out of malice that the other toddler was pulling my daughter's hair. The toddler herself didn't have much hair on her own head, so seeing a head full of hair on a person similar in size fascinated her. Guess my baby's luscious mop of wavy brown hair is irresistible to both biggers and littlers alike!

As for Communion, it was distributed by spoon, just like how I remembered; though I'd forgotten just how far I needed to tip my head back so that the priest could dump the wine-soaked piece of bread into my mouth. I also tried not to chew on the bread, as per what I'd learned in my Catechism class. As I passed the icon arrangement set up in the middle of the church (there's a name for it, but I can't remember what it is), I noticed a few bowls behind the icon which were covered in thin towels with geometric Slavic embroidery. It made my heart jump with joy. At the end of the Mass, we went up to the priest for the final blessing and we had our foreheads annointed with myrrh. It smelled nice, but it was different from what I remembered. The myrrh of my childhood had a far sweeter smell, as opposed to the soapy one offered here.

Russian embroidery motifs

Finally, after the long Mass was over, we went into the hall for some coffee and snacks. We socialized a bit with some of the other parishioners too, but we couldn't stay long because my hubby had to work that evening and the baby needed to go home for a nap. The ones we talked to seemed to have come to the Byzantine church as a last-ditch effort to find a reverent parish and save both their souls and sanity. I met a family who were also ex-Latin Mass churchgoers (though the church they had attended at the time was way up in the foothills of the mountains, just barely within the city limits) and the time just didn't work out with their schedules. We were also recognized by a young couple from the Carmelite church, who also shared our displeasure at the chaotic behavior of the Mass attendees there. We rounded out our visit by chatting a bit with a friend of ours from the Latin Mass church who we saw there, and talking to the priest. He seemed like a nice, intelligent man who had a strong connection with the Holy Spirit. After I mentioned my background in the Serbian Orthodox church, the priest told hubby and I that there were actually a few couples at this church who were like us: one Serbian spouse and one Catholic spouse, and the decision to attend Mass at this church was sort of a compromise in honor of each sides religious traditions. I didn't think to ask him, but I wonder if he celebrated Slava for these particular parishioners.

Overall, my experience at the Byzantine church was a positive one. There wasn't a magic "aha!" moment indicating we'd found a home parish when we were there, unlike the first time I'd set foot in the Latin Mass church; but it marked a turning point for me because I could now go to an Eastern church and the negative memories I associated with it from forced attendance in my youth didn't bother me anymore. Hubby and I resolved to return here again soon.

Not mine, but it says "Born in America, but my heart is in Serbia"

The Church isn't fond of it, but occasionally, my diehard Serbian nationalism leads me down some strange and wonderful paths. I love the Catholic Church dearly, but I want my children (and husband) to know their culture and celebrate it. I may have serious disagreements with my family, but one thing they were adamant about was not forgetting our culture and that is probably the one thing I can truly thank them for.

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May Day

Happy Sunday, dear readers!

On this first of May, be thankful for the workers who are the real driving force behind the economy, not trickle-down-piss Reaganomics with its fetishization of the rich.

Workers of the world unite! Pic found here

But, in spite of my socialist leanings, hubby and I celebrated May Day by going to Sunday Mass at the church we were married in. After last week's trip to the Carmelite church ended with my husband coming to within an inch of knifing a rude parishioner who cut in front of us with his children in the Communion line, it was time to reevaluate where we went to Mass. As much as I love our Carmelite church, the fact is that people there do not behave reverently while in the presence of the Lord! They talk, they clap for the mariachi, they come and go whenever they please and have no respect for order. It's largely out of ignorance that they behave this way, and I have my disagreements with the homeboy padre who is the administrator there about how to go about correcting this huge problem. Our homeboy padre is a saint compared with alot of the other American priests I've met, but he's not terribly bright. I don't want to stop going there because I do feel that the Lord wants hubby and I to be there so that we can provide a good example to others on how one should behave in God's house, but it's so frustrating! It's easy to fall into despair when seeing how bad the modern church has become.
I've had a long history with the Carmelite church because I was going there for Sunday Mass long before I became a Catholic and it was there that the seeds of Catholicism were firmly planted in my heart. I do not want to abandon it because despite the bad behavior of the parishioners, they uphold traditional Mexican Catholic practices and don't deviate from orthodox Catholic dogma. That counts for something, right?

It's hard being a priest. You've got to evangelize, educate, and counsel people when they're spiritually vulnerable. It's a job made all the more difficult when your parish is ignorant of God.

Fortunately, the Lord rewarded our decision to go to our wedding church when a dear family friend came. He brought with him his good friend whom we helped move into her apartment a few months ago. The woman was delighted to see how much the baby had grown, and since it was before Mass, she got to sweet talk the baby in French for a bit (she was born and raised on the Caribbean island of Martinique, where the dominant language is French). We were worried about our friend for a while because he'd gotten himself caught up with a heretical outfit that under the guise of being pro-life, was pushing overpriced rosaries of poor quality and some condemned "visions" of the Virgin Mary to boot, but with this appearance, it helped put hubby and I at ease. After Mass, the woman told me that she had recently been attending our wedding church for the last few weeks because she wanted to come back to the Church. I knew she'd been away from the Catholic Church for a long time, but now that she is elderly she wants to have her spiritual affairs in order. She let me know that she'd recently contacted a priest at the church to arrange for a Confession, but had yet to hear back to set a date and time. This being the Year of Mercy, now's as good a time as any to recommit to living a lifestyle in accordance with the teachings of the Church and partaking of the Sacraments as often as possible.

Take that, Pebbles Flintstone!

And, most importantly, the baby got to radiate lots of cuteness beams! Her hair is finally long enough on top for me to make a ponytail of it, though the back of her head still has a ways to go before I can make a tail out of it. And to think, when she was here, my mother wanted to give the baby a haircut!

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A Tale of Two Churches

Hello dear readers. I hope your Sunday has been going well.

While I'd planned on going to our Latin Mass church today, we overslept (it's a little hard to wake up early and get to church when Mass is at 10AM) and went to our favorite Carmelite church instead. In a way, I'm glad we went there instead of our Latin Mass church. For one, there was a class that had been preparing for First Communion and today they got to participate in the Sacrament for the first time. Due to the occasion, the parking lot was overflowing and we had to park in the lot of an auto shop across the street and run through the rain to get inside and find a seat. It was lovely to see all the boys and girls wearing their white suits and fancy dresses to mark their first step towards full participation in the Church. It makes me look forward to when my daughter will be old enough to have her First Communion too. If I can't afford to buy her a fancy white dress for her First Communion, then I will compromise by getting her the nicest white dress I can afford and giving her lots of mendhi instead.

Our homeboy padre distributes First Communion

After the Mass, our homeboy padre then invested the First Communion kids with their Brown Scapular. This is a common Catholic tradition that originated from the Carmelites in which a necklace of brown string with small brown flaps made from a Carmelite wool habit is ritually placed on someone's neck. It stems from a vision in which the Virgin Mary gave the scapular to San Juan de la Cruz with the instruction that anyone who wears it (and says the proscribed prayers daily) until death will not burn in hell (the wearer must also make a serious attempt to live their life in accordance with the Church's teachings and participate in the Sacraments as well). Contrary to what some might think, a Brown Scapular is not a good luck charm. As our homeboy padre instructed us in one of his sermons, the Brown Scapular is more like an insurance policy-if you want to be protected from something bad (eternal damnation), you have to make your monthly (daily) payments.

Our homeboy padre invests the Brown Scapular on the First Communion recipients

Unfortunately, these were the only two clear images I could get of the ceremony. Every time I turned the flash off, the pictures would come out horribly blurry, no matter how still I held the camera

Once we got home and had lunch, I turned on my computer to relax and see what was new in the world while the baby took her nap. Just last night, I'd visited a "Traditional" Catholic website (which I refuse to link to and give them more traffic than they already get) and read their predictable freakout reaction to Pope Francis' latest papal work, Amoris Laetitia. Normally, I don't bother commenting on this particular website because I feel my IQ lower by a few points every time I visit (they occasionally post some good stuff, but for every one good article there are one hundred articles of pure paleo-conservative puddery. Also, playing the game "find the logical fallacies" with every article I read really makes me question the intelligence of their writers ), but I felt compelled to respond because the writer included a video of a South Indian Jesuit priest who dances bharatanatyam as part of his ministry, calling his performance feminine and heretical. As someone who is a longtime lover of India and has diligently, independently studied its many cultures, traditions, and religions over the last thirteen years, I pointed out to the writer what the priest was doing, some background on the dance, and that the priest had simply modified a traditional South Indian religious temple dance to be a tool of evangelizing Catholicism. India, as the priest pointed out in the video, has a long established tradition of dance as a part of worship unlike in the West where dance is viewed more or less as a secular activity. Needless to say, my attempt at educating the readers about something outside of the realm of the White Anglo-Saxon/northern Europe/'Murica did not go over well. So much for instructing the ignorant...

This exchange served to highlight something that has bugged me ever since my hubby and I reestablished regular attendance at the Latin Mass church. I've become more and more aware of an attitude among both the parishioners attending the church and Traditional Latin Mass-promoting writers/websites online who view the Latin Mass as an exclusive club. If you belong to a certain socio-economic strata (middle/upper-class), live in the "right" areas (the suburbs or suburban areas within city limits) and have the "right" political views (right-wing conservative/fascist), then you are welcome to come. In other words, if you are a Catholic WASP, you are preferred company and all Others need not darken the door. There also appears to be a racial element to this elitism, as anyone (or anything) that is not western European or sufficiently "White" is bad. It's not just the example of the bharatanatyam-dancing Jesuit, but closer to home, our Latin Mass parish is overwhelmingly ethnically White. There are some Mexicans and a Chinese, but I have observed that just about all of them are married to White families and have adopted the bourgeois attitudes that come with being a middle-class White person in America. The one old-school Mexican is relegated to being the usher because he's as brown as the parish will tolerate; they have him collecting the money and making sure the door to the kiddie ghetto isn't locked during Mass.

Wise words from Matthew. Pic found here

This kind of pharisaic attitude bugs the shit out of me because I love the Latin Mass. I wish it were made more available so that others like my pious Mexican neighbors and friends might know and benefit from the graces that come from this particular aspect of the Body of Christ. But, with assholes like the Latin Mass outfits I've encountered in life and online, I can see why many Catholics never hear of the Latin Mass and if they do, they perceive it as being snobby or otherwise unavailable to them. I'm not convinced, but I'm seriously beginning to wonder if the Latin Mass is being used as a front for unsavory elements to invade and split the Church. My husband believes it to be so, based on an encounter he had about seven years ago.

My hubby told me of a man he met in late 2008 who attended the 8AM morning Mass at the Latin Mass church every day. Eventually, this man quit coming to the Latin Mass church and at his last attendance, he told my husband that this church was full of freemasons. My husband didn't believe this man and continued to attend Mass at the Latin Mass church for a few more years until I came into his life. Now, he is sure the man he met all those years ago was right. My husband had his suspicions, but it took our marriage to blow the cover on everything. Our marriage, exile and return, as well as the presidential elections have combined and created a perfect storm to unveil something sinister lurking at the Latin Mass church where we first met and baptized our child. The inmates have, quite literally, taken over the asylum and driven away all but a few who have intelligence and aren't barking fascists.

So now, to save our souls and sanity, we must step back from the Latin Mass church once more. We will still continue to visit, but not as often as we did before. We will continue to attend our Carmelite church as per our usual arrangement, but now we've added the church where my hubby and I got married to our rotation. Our daughter's godmother goes there, Mass is at a reasonable time, and the priest who married us is the rector. It's painful to have to break up again with the Latin Mass church, but a big part of belonging to a church is what kind of people you go to church with. It's one thing to go to Mass, but there is a major social aspect to being a part of a parish. I could never understand why people just say "I'm just here for Mass" because by not getting to know who is a part of your faith community, you're missing out on a crucial part of being Catholic! It's good to be around people who can help you to grow in faith and provide support when needed.

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Easter Weekend

Happy Easter to all of you! Christ has risen, indeed He has risen!

Like Christmas, it has been an exhausting 24 hours. In a move of boldness, I did something I never thought I would do for Holy Saturday-I wore a hijab to church.

The day I donned a hijab

What propelled me to do this was a combination of fashion (I was wearing an abaya-like Kashmiri kaftan and that tan pashmina shawl paired well with the garment), piety (my Carmelite confessor suggested a penitential activity for Holy Week, and I decided veiling my hair would be it), and homage to Jesus' Semitic roots (contrary to the popular narrative, the term "Semite" is not exclusive to Jews. It encompasses Arabs and North Africans as well).

Despite watching many a Youtube tutorial on how to wear hijabs, my hijab wasn't particularly well done because I'd put it on while in the car with only my hand mirror to guide my pin placements and it was my first time ever doing this. It was also hot and kind of itchy because it was made of wool. I was admittedly a little worried about wearing it in public because I thought somebody might mistake me for being a Moslem and shoot me, given how badly maligned Moslems are in American society. Fortunately, no such thing happened and it was a huge relief. In fact, nobody even paid much attention to me. Besides, I've worn saris and babushkas to church, so why should a hijab raise a stink?

Canon Bill (in purple cloak) getting ready to bless the fire

In what may be an ominous sign from God, the priest and the novitiate assistant had a tough time getting the Easter candle to light

Finally!

The Holy Saturday Easter vigil is a VERY long service. It starts, however, with the holy fire. Basically, the priest blesses a special fire and lights the Easter candle with its flames. Canon Bill, however, had a tough time getting the starter candle lit. He would get it close to the hot coals and flames, but the wick wouldn't take and the candle was fast becoming a melted mess. My husband speculated to me that God was telling us something, though he wasn't quire sure what the message was. I speculated that the message was to get a lighter or a stick since this candle was pretty well useless now.

Lumen Christi, Light of Christ (note: the church is completely dark; this was just the flash from my camera)

Canon Bill blessing the baptismal water

Blessing the baptismal water

The baby INSISTED on crawling around in the kiddie ghetto

After enough tries and a new candle, the Easter candle was finally lit and we then proceeded to enter the church. We got candles to hold and we lit them from the Easter candle. It was at this point, however, that we had to go up to the kiddie ghetto because the baby became quite restless. We spent the rest of the Mass up there. Fortunately, there was only one other family with children so it wasn't too crowded. We did periodically take turns going downstairs to get a break because the baby absolutely wore us out with her crawling and noisemaking. My husband finally took the baby outside because it was becoming uncomfortably hot upstairs in the kiddie ghetto and she was really starting to act up. She wasn't the only child who was misbehaving, though. The small children of other families were acting up too. Even I was becoming restless. It's hard to sit still for three hours during a religiously intense service like Easter vigil. People can bitch about bringing kids to church, but how else can you expect them to learn how to behave in church if they don't go?

Needless to say, when we got home, we were all pretty exhausted.

The altar at our Carmelite church all decorated for Easter

Today, Easter Sunday, was spent at our Carmelite church. It was a much happier time with good music and an inspiring sermon. The baby behaved herself mostly well and slept through the last third of Mass. Afterward we purchased a few sacramentals from the Holy Land, which were being sold outside in the courtyard by a few Palestinians. Our cholomobile got a specially blessed crucifix and my husband got himself a new rosary. From church, we then went to Panda Express and got lunch to celebrate Easter since it was too hot to cook and neither of us knew what to eat.

Me wearing my famous pink sari. This being the holiday of Easter, I'd normally wear my red and gold silk one, but it was too hot outside for silk. This pink one, being made of polyester, is lighter.

Happy Easter everyone!

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***Note: before anyone starts accusing me of shit, let me make this clear: I am a Catholic, not a Moslem and do not have any intention of becoming a Moslem. However, I do sympathize with the plight of Moslems in America because they are today what Catholics were just prior to the Iranian Revolution when Islamophobia became officially etched in stone on the American psyche: persona non grata and to be viewed only with suspicion. Also, when I go to church, I make it a habit to dress modestly, which includes covering my hair. This stems from Paul's letter to Timothy reminding women to dress modestly. A hijab looks different than the chapel veil or mantilla more commonly seen in Catholic churches in the West, but it fulfills the modesty requirement, as do saris and babushkas all of which I've worn on different occasions to church. From the cultural appropriation standpoint, a hijab is not that far of a stretch from other traditional European headdresses (particularly in the Balkans). The garment has just been politicized by the powers that be for their own sinister ends and as a result we all suffer.  Any unkind comments will be deleted and dealt with accordingly.

Good Friday

A blessed Good Friday to you all, dear readers!

Despite our best efforts, my family and I were unable to go to Good Friday Mass since our bout of the norovirus still has us feeling a little off. Successfully, we were able to go to Stations of the Cross at our other Carmelite church. This is always an event we look forward to because the procession goes around the property and its very involving.

I got many pix of the procession, though not at all the stations. It was quite lovely to do this little procession on one of the holiest days of the year.

The altar of repose, where the Eucharist is placed to symbolize Jesus' burial

First station, led by our homeboy padre (in red stole) and two guest Carmelite brothers from the seminary in California

Carrying the cross

Our padre invites the men in the crowd to join in carrying the cross

My hubby is at the front of the cross, barely visible from this shot

Second station, hubby (in headband) holding up the cross

Third station. The man in suspenders is a visiting priest from the UK, though he's in plainclothes today.

Our padre invites the women to carry the cross. I'm at the end in the white shirt and black-and-white hat.

Me helping to hold up the cross at the Fourth station

Our homeboy padre leads the kids in carrying the cross

The youth/young adult group carry the cross

Eleventh station. We sang the Salve Regina at this station since our padre had been leading us in a Rosary in addition to the traditional prayers and this was the end of the Rosary

Thirteenth station. Almost done

Hubby helps carry the cross inside to the Fourteenth and final station.

As an added bonus, we got to show our homeboy padre our cholomobile. He was pleased to see it since a vehicle of that vintage would have been a common sight in his childhood. He gave us a blessing and we went on our way. It would have been nice to stay for Mass, but we were totally beat. That being said, it was nice that the Mass was gonna be in the evening, unlike the absurd morning hours which were set for the Stations and Mass at the Latin Mass church. If we had been in better health, we definitely would have stayed for the Mass.

After we got home and ate fish for dinner, hubby and I put the baby to sleep and watched "The Passion of the Christ". This is an annual tradition of ours that began on Easter weekend in 2012, before we were married and were still in the friendship stage of our relationship. This movie is also tied to our relationship because it was after we finished watching this movie that I asked my then-friend now husband why he'd never been married and he responded that he'd prayed for a wife but she never came. It was then that a voice, completely unprovoked, came into my head which asked "what if I'm meant to be your wife?" That question would be answered over the course of the next few months, but it was the beginning of my first real relationship and my liberation from my family.

Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter weekend.

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Picture of the Day

Hello, dear readers

Tonight, I write while laying in my bed feeling woozy. Yesterday, my husband and I came down with what we suspect to be norovirus, likely contracting it from the baby (how she got it is a complete mystery). While the baby was just fine, hubby and I endured waves of nausea and severe vomiting as well as diarrhea. My muscles ached tremendously as well, and for most of the day, I couldn't keep down anything. Fortunately, by the end of the day, I was able to start drinking small amounts of Pedialyte and water. It was kinda scary because I honestly thought we were gonna have to go to the hospital. Today, I felt much better, but still dehydrated and woozy. What led me to think we had norovirus was that I came across some articles on Gawker about people on cruise ships coming down with norovirus, and that spurred me to start looking into the disease's symptoms to see if they matched ours. Sure enough, they did.

Me, yesterday, at both ends. Pic found here

Due to our health, we were unable to go to Holy Thursday Masses at either of our churches. However, we should be fine tomorrow for Good Friday, which is good because these next three days are holy days of obligation.

While resting, here is a picture I took of my cat, Cruiser and my hubby

Cruiser thinks he's ceiling cat

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Palm Sunday

Happy Palm Sunday, dear readers!

Today marks the start of Holy Week, a week of intense prayer, fasting and abstinence as a means of preparation for Easter. On this day, we commemorate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem where He was greeting with palms and shouts of joy. His fellow Jews thought He was going to liberate them from the Romans and upon realizing that was not what Jesus was about, they had Him executed a few later on Good Friday. It's quite bipolar when you think about it, how quickly He went from being celebrated to crucified. It really gives an insight into the mindset of humanity post-Original Sin, as Canon Bill phrased it during his sermon today.

Daddy and the baby, looking cute for church

As is customary, we got palm leaves and went on a procession around the church. It was nice to be able to witness our faith being displayed for all to see.

Follow the priest and altarboys!

Canon Bill (in red) and the altar boys leading the procession

The choir

Kids with palms

Home stretch towards the front

Follow the leader

This part is where the priest and the choir recreate a dialog between the Roman guards and Joseph of Aramathea to seal the tomb where Jesus is laid

Back inside. Notice how the statues are shrouded. This is done during Holy Week as for devotions and the statues are then unveiled during the Easter Vigil Mass.

Canon Bill reads the Gospel.

This was also the first day we got to drive our cholomobile to our Latin Mass church and show it off to our friends and fans there. There was another debut too-we finally upgraded the baby's car seat from the baby carrier to a proper forward-facing car seat. We knew the time had come when the baby's feet started hanging over the edge of the carrier and it was getting harder to buckle her in. Since the carrier has been retired, she now gets to ride sitting up and facing forward in the stroller like a big girl.

In Arizona, primo parking is wherever there is shade. Our cholomobile is in primo parking under the palo verde tree

Cruising in style like a big kid

Unfortunately, the baby became very fussy during Mass so we had to go up to the kiddie ghetto. It was just as well that we did, because my husband spotted an ex-associate of his tailing along at the end of the procession and going up into the kiddie ghetto was the most convenient way to get away from her. This is not the first time this woman, or another crazy person from my husband's past showed up at our Latin Mass church, likely to spy on him. The University draws alot of people like them to the area, but I also think of the Parable of the Two Churches. Where God is present, the devils swarm like flies because He is there.

After Mass, we joined our longtime family friend at a nearby Waffle House for brunch. This may be the last brunch we all have together because a serious issue that had previously been quietly simmering in the background with our relationship is beginning to become more and more prominent. My husband is doing a novena to the Holy Spirit to discern how to proceed with this matter, but it will have to be confronted soon. For now, however, we wait and pray.

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