Random thoughts or events that came to me during Lent and the first week of Eastertide:

The Oakland Cathedral of Christ the Light is almost done... and the secular foodie shopping cathedral in Oakland, the new Whole Foods Market is complete. Both edifices are within a block of each other.  One is a new modern marvel of design and material, and the other a marvel of a recycled Cadillac dealership box building.  One specializes in the Bread of Flour & Wine of the Grape, and the other the Bread of Life & Cup of Jesus saving blood.  I don't know if they really are ironically related buildings, oxymoronic buildings, or whatever, but since they are both within walking distance of my corner of Oakland, it is thrilling to have gluten-free pasta within sight of an innovative, site-appropriate Catholic Cathedral (i.e. grand and soaring) that is not a technical foul of liturgical and urban design (you Los Angeles), or a mindless retrograde tribute to Euro Gothicphilia (you Houston).   

Keith wrote it, and Mick sang it:  "I was driving home, early one morning, through Bakersfield, listening to gospel music on the colored radio station, when the preacher said "You know you always have the Lord by your side..." The new Stones movie is titled after a song ("Shine A Light") on the masterpiece Exile On Main Street.  An album that includes the song "Just Want to See His Face" as in "I don't want to walk or talk about Jesus, I just want to see His face."  So even in the south of France... at the height of 1970's rock and roll bohemia The Stones were holding out for the Beatific Vision.

Meanwhile, on our local catholic radio station last week a Catholic Answers Live program, there was a caller complaining that holding hands during the Our Father was discomfitting, effeminate and borderline perverse. To which I can only say:  "Dude, get over it.  Pray for strength, Love your neighbor and hold a hand. Strangers don't bite."

After being brought up Democrat and years of voting Democrat (as I told my mother the morning after Bill Clinton's win in 1992, "I voted for Dukakis, you don't think I was going to forego the chance to vote for a Democrat with a chance to win?!"), but now being Roman Catholic I am severely conflicted about rooting for Obama/Clinton this election season.  Three years ago, Senator Obama would have been my ideal candidate... the candidate I had thought I would never live to see... someone I would have quite my job to volunteer full-time for. Senator Clinton would have been 1A on that perfect candidate list.  Now I am just confused.


There is nothing else in my life that delivers as consistently as Holy Week and especially Holy Triduum.   Revealing insights, sorrowful, astonishing music, intense, exhausting, dramatic staging, ending in the absolute definition of joy during the Easter Vigil Mass. I can't believe that there are catholics who skip one or two nights of the Triduum. Joy on the faces of this year's catechumen/candidates Le Nard, Katie, and Kenzie was a memory I will keep forever. 

The History Channel documentary on Crucifixion was very good in reminding of the miraculous nature of the death of Jesus Christ.  Crucifixion normally takes hours, if not days, to kill the condemned.  Our Lord gives his spirit to his Father, declaring that it is finished, and dies.  History Channel has become problematic the last year on Christian documentaries, but this show on Crucifixion and the Underground Cities profile of Jerusalem almost redeems the past eighteen months of slights and errata.