Saturday Morning

I always feel better after Confession. I'm not very good at it, but after I get out of it, I usually have a comtemplative smile.

On my way out, I picked up a calendar for next year with all the seasons and feast days. As I walked out and looked at the calendar, I was pleased by it. If nothing else tells us what kind of times we are living in in the Church, it is a calendar that has on its front Pope Benedict XVI and titled 'Catholic Traditions'.

I need some help. Back when I was in seventh grade, I was included as in my region's junior high choir. Bucking the trend that God and public school must be completely separated, we sang a medley of 'Gloria', 'Adoremus' and 'Kyrie'. At the same concert, the high school all-state choir performed as well and three of their five selections were about praising God (with their final song being 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'). Their first song consisted of the following as I remember it and I've always been on the look-out for the full lyrics since then, but I've never found them. It was a very short a cappella piece, a very nice one.

What I remember:

Come let us sing
Sing to the Lord our God
And raise a joyful voice (something)
Sing to God a song of joy.

Come let us sing
Come let us sing
Sing to the Lord our God
(something)
Sing to God a song of joy!

Anyone know it?

Dear Leader, Holy Father

Spengler:

None of the political leaders of the West, and few of the West's opinion leaders, comprehend this. We are left with the anomaly that the only effective leader of the West is a man wholly averse to war, a pope who took his name from the Benedict who interceded for peace during World War I. Benedict XVI, alone among the leaders of the Christian world, challenges Islam as a religion, as he did in his September 2006 Regensburg address. Who is Joseph Ratzinger, this decisive figure of our times, and what led the Catholic Church to elect him?

His review/exposition on 'Twentieth Century Catholic Theologians', by Father Fergus Kerr.

Junk Mail Christianity

Since I subscribed to NCRegister (but since let it lapse), I've gotten all kinds of junk mail from various orders and causes and the like that I'd like to donate to, but let's face it: I'm a walking charity case myself. :D

But that's beside the point...

I went through mail yesterday afternoon after I got home and two things stood out. One Benedictine monastery sent me a St. Benedict prayer card as well as a CD of their chant work along with a little pamphlet describing what's on the CD. One problem though: I'm deaf. ;)

In another letter I opened up yesterday, I received a set of rosary beads and a 'How To Pray The Rosary' pamphlet. Not exactly high quality stuff, but definitely something worth having.

Prayer cards...
Chant CDs...
Rosary beads...

The mail is a good thing when it comes to providing one with such things. :)