HAPPY NEW YEAR to readers of this site. May the upcoming year bring you many good things, and may you continue to take part in the happiness and holiness of the Christmas season.

We have a tradition here to celebrate this day by listening to selections from the Vienna Philharmonic’s famous annual New Year’s Day concert. The orchestra has held a concert each New Year’s Day since 1941. (Here is information about this year’s concert.)

During its 160-year history, the Wiener Philharmoniker, with its characteristic “Viennese Sound,” has been led by many of the greatest conductors and praised by famous composers such as Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler (who conducted it from 1898 to 1901)  and Richard Strauss. The waiting period for weekend ticket subscriptions is 13 years. The New Year’s concert, which always features Strauss waltzes and ends with this rousing version of Johann Strauss’s Radetzky March under the chandeliers of the Musikverein, decorated in recent years with huge displays of flowers from Vienna’s gardens and shops, is especially popular and is broadcast on PBS in this country.

Members of the orchestra have openly stated in the recent past that the ideal member of their ensemble is a Central European man. They have even gone so far as to state that the orchestra’s sound can only be achieved by musicians who possess the appropriate cultural “soul.”

The Philharmonic did not allow women to become full members until 1997. Between 1997 and 2010, a period during which many other orchestras became heavily female, it hired only three women. Paul Fürst, a violist, once stated in a documentary on women conductors:

There is no ban on women musicians playing here but the Vienna Philharmonic is by tradition an all-male orchestra. Our profession makes family life extremely difficult, so for a woman it’s almost impossible. There are so many orchestras with women members so why shouldn’t there be – for how long I don’t know – an orchestra with no women in it … A woman shouldn’t play like a man but like a woman, but an all-male orchestra is bound to have a special tone. [Wikipedia]

Perhaps when listening to this rousing march, you will agree that though it can be enjoyed by men and women, it is made for an all-male orchestra. Is that because women are “inferior” to men? What a ridiculous idea! Top musicians typically succeed partly because of the devotion, support and musical insight of their mothers and wives. Men have been inspired to play and create beautiful music by women. No, it is because men and women are different. Let us rejoice this year and always in the true diversity — not the multicultural, feminist glop — that God in His great wisdom gave us. Let us this year and always reject the modern campaign to impose a sterile homogeneity on mankind. (more…)

CHANTICLEER performs a French 18th-century shepherds’ carol set to music from John Gay’s Beggars Opera of 1778. The shepherds express wonder at the lovely fragrance of the angels. This is from Chanticleer’s outstanding 1994 CD, Sing We Christmas.

Quelle Est Cette Odeur Agréable

Quelle est cette odeur agréable,
Bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens?
S’exhale-t-il rien de semblable
Au milieu des fleurs du printemps?
Quelle est cette odeur agréable
Bergers, qui ravit tous nos sens?

Mais quelle éclatante lumière
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux
L’astre de jour, dans sa carrière,
Fut-il jamais si radieux!
Mais quelle éclatante lumière
Dans la nuit vient frapper nos yeux. (more…)

  FROM Natural Family Planning and the Christian Moral Code by Jeanne Dvorak (Fr. Wathen Books, 2017), pp. 18, 52: I have a friend who had four girls and was in the sixth month of her fifth pregnancy when her husband was killed. The child was a boy, and when a visitor remarked to the mother how sad it was that the husband was not there, she replied, "He is right here in my son." What would that mother have wrought by the foolishness of family planning? She would have rejected one of God's greatest blessings in her life. What right has the finite mind of man to make decisions that affect human history and all eternity? Consider as well that there are many large families into which, for years, only boys were born. Finally, at the end, came a girl. Would these parents ever have known the joy of a baby girl at last, if family planning had been in progress and their string of children cut off, so to speak, "in the midst?" And the same can be said of those all-girl families, ending finally in a boy. All of us must remember that we made serious vows at Baptism. As a result and ever since, we have walked about daily under those solemn promises we made to always choose God's Will and renounce the devil and all his works and pomps --- of which birth control is one of the cleverest,…

MR. AND MRS. Timmey received the notice in the mail on December 31st, 2033, just as they were anxiously discussing whether to take Theo, their one-year-old son, to the Urgent Care Center for his worsening fever.

Mrs. Timmey opened the envelope. “Look at this!” she said. “It’s a summons from Family Court!”

The registered letter instructed the couple to appear in court in one week’s time.

“I can’t imagine what that is,” said Mr. Timmey. His mind was too taken up with the emergency at hand to give it much thought.

The following week, the couple dutifully appeared at the imposing structure on Fourth Avenue, carrying little Theo, still not completely recovered from his bronchitis. Tess and Tommy, their three-year-old and five-year-old, were with a friend. (more…)

  A COUPLE I know had their first child fairly late in their marriage. They had a daughter. The wife wanted to have one more child, but the husband refused to permit it. He was worried about money. They sent their daughter to one of the most expensive prep schools in the Northeast. She interacted there with children of top professionals. She ended up marrying a blue-collar guy from Texas the year after she graduated from college, and now lives many miles away from home. Another couple I know lost one of their two sons to sudden death when he was 12. Many years later, the loss remains fresh. Today, the loneliness of these couples is palpable. How many people experience wrenching loneliness, especially at Christmas time, because of the Sexual Revolution and the normalization of birth control? We can never know; the number is incalculably high. Loneliness is part of the human condition. Even those with many children experience it. But contraception has made it far more prevalent. In the years ahead as more children of the Sexual Revolution enter old age, their lives at times will be a grim counterpart to the hedonistic pleasures or pragmatic mentality of younger years. The best hope is that these often intense sufferings, offered with true contrition to a loving God, may constitute a form of reparation for the sins of a society desperately gone wrong. God offers abundant graces to those who…

  IT IS very hard to hear The Coventry Carol fresh because it is so often played and has become over-familiar, but it truly is a magnificent lament, inspired by King Herod's decree that all children under the age of two be murdered and Mary's foreknowledge of her Son's suffering. The terrific blog, Clerk of Oxford, offers some history of this medieval carol which has endured for roughly seven centuries: This is an exquisitely sad nativity song, a lullaby addressed to the baby Christ, but full of compassion and pain and regret for the suffering that the child will later undergo. It dates to the fourteenth century and comes from a manuscript compiled by a Franciscan friar, John of Grimestone. Is it too sad for Christmas? I wonder if the popularity of the Coventry Carol today indicates that it expresses something people don't find in the usual run of joyful Christmas carols - this song of grief, of innocence cruelly destroyed. Handel's Messiah is also sad in parts. I say they add just the right somberness to the joy of Christmas. The Coventry Carol Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. Lullay, thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This poor youngling for whom we do sing By, by, lully, lullay. Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day His men of might, in his own sight,…

 AT CHRISTMAS and Easter time, I usually make a French potato gratin with Gruyère cheese. My brother-in-law and his family liked it so much that they asked for the recipe. At that time, Gruyère was not as widely available in supermarkets as it is today, so my brother-in-law went to a nice cheese store to buy it. Having never studied French, he was a bit nervous about pronouncing this strange word. He went in to the store and said, his face turning a deep red as he spoke, "Do you have gry-EER cheese?" The owner of the store, whom I'm sure knew exactly what cheese my brother-in-law meant, said no, he had never heard of it. My brother-in-law thanked him, turned to leave and, as he got to the door, the owner said, "Do you mean GROO-yair perhaps?" If only my brother-in-law had this video he would not have been so humiliated.  

  I WAS in a grocery store this morning and to my deep amazement there was choir music on the sound system. Why are choirs so appropriate to Christmas that even a retail chain switches from sickening Christmas pop to sacred songs on Christmas Eve? The choir gives us a sense, though a dim one, of the songs of angels, praising and glorifying God in heaven. Their songs are of indescribable joy. Can real sorrow ever invade the ranks of the Holy Angels? Never. Not a single pang of disappointment, or regret, or anxiety, or sadness, or self-reproach can ever enter into their sinless souls. They were fixed in unalterable joy, when they were confirmed in grace and admitted to the Beatific Vision. Their perfect union with the Divine will prevents them from regretting anything that God permits. (Source)

  

KYLE writes:

Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria (possibly Afghanistan too) has stirred the hornets’ nest with Mattis resigning, markets diving and neoconservative politicians and pundits prophesying the end times. No matter the final outcome or true motivation for this move (to prepare an invasion of Iran?), the mere suggestion that the U.S. military should get out of the Middle East elicits instant rancor from politicians, the military-industrial complex and pundits on television. What will become of Israel if the U.S. no longer sends young Americans to be killed while clearing the way for Israel’s nation building?

The move to pull out of Syria brought to mind the interviews former Democratic Ohio Congressman Jim Traficant gave in the last years of his life and how his deflection of the charges of anti-Semitism from neocon blockheads like Sean Hannity proved Ron Paul (the only man to stand up for Traficant publicly) and Pat Buchanan right when it came to the open conspiracy of America’s Zionist efforts in the Middle East. (more…)

TOM H. writes:

I have greatly profited from reading your posts on a semi-regular basis since 2013—a time when my faith was heavily challenged and I was uncertain about whether I would ever meet a woman to marry and start a family in the morass of a Western world that has lost its way. (more…)

GERALD DUNSTON was a successful and energetic man. Confident, smart and hard-working, he did very well in his career and had a nice wife, house, and two dogs.

Everything went well in Gerald’s life until one morning he woke with a rumbly in his tumbly. “That’s odd,” he thought of the twinges of pain in his lower abdomen. The discomfort subsided and he dismissed it and thought nothing more of it.

But two days later the pain returned in sporadic stabs. That was even more odd. Then it returned every day for a month. He told his wife about it. He was disturbed and they both decided he should go to the doctor, something he almost never did.

He explained his symptoms in the medical office. The doctor listened attentively and then suggested he go to a specialist. The specialist, one of the best in the field, also listened carefully and ordered tests. Gerald did not like these invasive procedures but he submitted to them anyway as this pain was highly annoying.

He returned to the specialist’s office for the results. The specialist was a methodical man, “detail-oriented,” as they say, and careful especially in everything he said to his patients.

He looked squarely and compassionately at Gerald and said, “I’m afraid I have bad news.” (more…)

REBECCA sends a donation and writes:

Thank you for all you do, the work we notice and the inestimable work we don’t.

Blessings and peace to you as you experience this Holy Season without your parents. (more…)

ERIC writes:

Do you know if, in a Catholic society, we would be saying “Merry Christmas” before Christmas Day?  Would we say “Happy Advent” even if it’s a penitential season? Would we say “Merry Christmas” until February 2? (more…)

ONE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER DAY a few years ago, my husband and I were taking a long walk through a picturesque New England village in the mountains of New Hampshire. We have walked 11,000 miles or so together in our 31 years of marriage. Well, that’s what we estimated once. We have walked through city streets and leafy suburbs, on beaches and on empty country roads. No place that we have walked, however, has been more enchanting than this village, with its white clapboard buildings, its dark pond, its emerald common, its turreted inn, granite boulders and crystalline river, all overshadowed by the austere and noble White Mountains in the background. On this day, the sky was dazzlingly blue, and clear.

As we approached the bridge over the river, we saw people, about 15 or so, who were looking down over the stone walls of the bridge. They were gazing into the river and they were not speaking or smiling.

They were not dressed as hikers or other vacationers. They wore nice clothes; the women were in dresses and the men in sports coats. A girl of about 20 — a beautiful girl — turned from the wall and walked toward us. She was crying. She had turned from the wall in distress. (more…)

  READ more about this medieval English carol at A Clerk of Oxford. There Is No Rose of Such Virtue 1. There is no rose of such virtue As is the rose that bare Jesu; Alleluia. 2. For in this rose contained was Heaven and earth in little space; Res miranda. 3. By that rose we may well see That he is God in persons three, Pari forma. 4. The angels sungen the shepherds to: Gloria in excelsis deo: Gaudeamus. 5. Leave we all this worldly mirth, And follow we this joyful birth; Transeamus. 6. Alleluia, res miranda, Pares forma, gaudeamus, Transeamus.

SALLY writes:

I was deeply touched by the story concerning Meredith. Your succinct summing up of the value of a life struck a deep chord in me. I am referring to your statement that,” Now more than ever, there is nothing important Meredith can’t do.” How true!  That one truth reveals the importance of gratefully living the life that God has graciously granted us in spite of all the troubles we experience. The material things we lust after and the status we seek are ultimately unimportant.

My oldest child has a very rare genetic disorder. He is moderately physically and mentally disabled. Unfortunately, his condition is progressive albeit slowly and his prognosis is unclear. Before Brandon
came into my life, I am ashamed to say that I thought disabled people were lacking in some essential ingredient as if the value of a soul can be weigh and measured. (more…)

JIM writes: I enjoyed the recent post about "Peanuts," and the reference to Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. I have used one quote from that book many times over the years. It is a favorite, and although it may not be literally true always, it does say a lot. It goes something like this: A man's leisure time decreases in direct proportion to the number of labor saving devices he owns. A very thoughtful point, but I'm not giving up my chainsaw!! My donation should head out in tomorrow's mail.