On Sacred music:

" Both in tone of voice and in melody should the singing be such as becomes holy devotion, not aiming at the utterance of brilliant dramatic passages, but as setting forth to use true Christian doctrine: not as such as in any way recalls theater, but such as may produce compunction for sin."

-De bono psalmodiae, Nicetas of Remes, ca. 399-400

So yes, the things I was talking about Here apparently go back quite a while. If it was good enough for the fourth-fifth century, it's good enough for me.

Daily Psalm.

Psalm 148, Bristol Cathedral choir.

Pre-Lent:It's what it says.

I wish that the modern calendar still had the mini-season of pre-lent.
We so often hear of priests and laity saying the equivalent of "Oh wow, Lent already?" That's because it comes to quickly. We're basking in the afterglow of the post-Epiphany Sundays, when suddenly, everything is gone.The alleluia is gone, the gloria is gone, as we suddenly find ourselves in a period of harsh penance and discipline. Some say that this is good, that it's almost better to have it all gone in a moment to shock us into the reality of sin and losing the nearness of God. I could agree with that. But taking things practically, it does'nt work. From experience, I don't really get into keeping my lenten disciplines until far into the third week of lent. Before that, it's a smattering of missed fast days, unread spiritual books , and charitable works completely forgotten. Even with all the purple and the daily office, I sometimes forget that I'm in lent.

This year, however, I'm observing the 'gesimas in my own way. I'm carefully adding some of things I'll do in lent. I've made Wednesday a fast day, but not abstinence from meat. Friday is a day of total abstinence, but not a fast day yet. I've started reading just one chapter daily of St.Alphonsus Liguori's "The Way of Salvation and Perfection", and I'm attempting lectio divina for now, with the scriptural readings from Genesis. This way, when lent comes, I can keep it properly. I won't forget to abstain, or to read my spiritual reading, or to say the Penitential Psalms, because I've been halfway doing some of that stuff already. I can leap into lent, not limp into it. Let's just see how it goes and pray that Rome will see the wisdome ofthe Pre-Lent Sundays.

New art.

I'll be re-doing the sky background later.I didn't have time to blend the colors adequately.

Hey guys, can you help me out?

Since it seems that we'll be keeping this cat at least until we find where her owners are, we're going to need a name. I want to name her Colette, but my brother wants to name her Kimahri.* We did want to pick a Final Fantasy (FFVII Of FFX) related name, but all the cool names (Sid, Wakka, Kimahri, Leon) are all male characters' names. The only good female ones are Yuffie, Riku, and Selphie. (Well, the only ones that I know of at least.You're free to suggest your own.)
Of course, there's always the non-gendered names of cities and planets. ButI'm saving Zanarkand for the bulldog we're getting in the future, and Auroch is Ginger's middle name. I guess there's Besaid then. Or I could take a normal name and translate it into the Al-Bhed language.

There's always Kingdom Hearts related names, but she's nothing like Kairi or Riku. Hayner from KH-II is a boy, and so is Roxas. The only name I would pick would be Namine. But then there's always the girls from Organization XIII. Larxene sounds nice.

Sunday.

Uggh..more shoveling to be done. The snowblower broke yesterday, after half-way working and the wind blowing the snow in my face as it went.
Only half of the walk is done. Once again, we were the first people to have a clear walk in front of their house.

I wasn't planning on going to mass today, because there's too much snow, and the SEPTA buses aren't running. Then I decided to go to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament for the 8:30 mass. No cigar, mass is canceled. So I went to St. Donato's a block or two away. I forgot that the Mercedarians help out there on weekends, so I was'nt expecting to see Fr.Matthew celebrating the mass.

Daily Psalm.

Psalm 8.

...Whaa....?

I was on the porch handing some blinds, when I heard a meowing sound. I thought it might be the neighbor's cat, Holliday, who's indoor/outdoor. But when I opened the door to let him in, there was no cat out there. So I thought there might be a cat in the porch.But there was no cat in the porch. So I put my head down to the floor, and there's a cat in the crawlspace underneath the porch. I went down and got her out. She's a small kitten, probably no older than five months. She's jet black with golden eyes, and very friendly. I don't know what we're going to do with her.

Ginger is territorial, so we've never been able to have another cat with her, except Oreo.(Who does
nt like to stay in the house, and spends 95% of his time on the porch and in the neighborhood.)

..Okay then, since we're basically....

....Snowed in at the moment, I'm going to spend the day doing random house projects that I need to do but just haven't done. I have a door to re-hang, the porch* needs to be cleaned, I have to paint the trim in my room, and the kitchen windows haven't yet been winter-proofed.

Then I have to do some work writing down some chants for my vesperal, and obviously we're not going to the market today.

No....That's not what you mean....

..Not "is".
You mean "Are" not "Is".
500 pieces of snow removing equipment Are being deployed by the city, not is being deployed by the city. I usually love channel 29.Maybe I should stop watching the news.[/GrammarNazi]

This week in the Nanny State:

We're doing a special Children's episode! All dedicated to helping the kiddies be good, law abiding citizens, by making sure that they don't do illegal things like play with toys or doodle. Thanks to the government's Zero Tolerance policies, we can make sure that children are trained to avoid things which are illegal. Chiefly, by making examples of those who break the law. Now, as above, the transgression need'nt actually be serious.In fact, it's better if it is'nt. If we come down hard on lesser crimes, surely the children will refrain from comitting greater crimes. And we have made great progress in this in the past decade. I mean, sure there's little evidence that any of this actually works, and suspensions have increased (which is the complete opposite of our goal) and there's plenty of evidence that it does'nt work, but the principles are golden!

Thanks,North-Eastern Pennsylvania Climate.

Because of the heavy snowfall to come this Friday-Saturday, the First Friday mass is canceled. So basically, I wasted all that time learning all that music for nothing.
*Sigh* And I could have gotten to the Sanctus of my mass setting.

And now,

A musical interlude.

It's not a rumour! It's true!

Yeah, remember that 2-d side-scrolling Sonic the Hedgehog Game?It's real! It's real! There's even a trailer for it! Please Sega, don't screw this up like you did every single other Sonic game since Sonic spinball.

I wonder what they'll say to me though?

At my last weekend with the brothers, we were getting dinner at a mall after the Walk for Life, and some of the kids* asked them the question they (rather obviously) always get: "Hey, are you guys the Ku Klux Klan?" I guess it comes with the habit: an outward sign of your religious vocation, and being constantly mistaken for the KKK. And I was there when they said it. Me, an obviously not white person. Me, an obviously Black person. And they still asked. I was joking with the brothers that we should have said "This is the new, more inclusive organisation. We're more liberal and fair."

So when, God willing, I make my vows and receive a habit, what are they going to say to me? I'm obviously not in the KKK. I assume they'll think that I'm muslim, since there are no less than three mosques in the neighborhood, and many of the muslims guys where white as well as black. I'll have facial hair by then, so It'll just complete the look.

And won't that be awkward. Mistaking someone who belongs to this order to be a Muslim. Irony of Ironies!
*Those were some, uh, Interesting kids. Yeah, interesting is the word I'll use. I'm generally not afraid of people wearing goth/punk clothes, 'cause they're for the most part suburban posers who've not been immerssed in the actual culture. But these people, they were scary.