Saturday morning hangover.

Catching up on the week.
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Boy!  Was I depressed yesterday.  I realized all of my paintings for the creche at church are too big - although I'm not convinced they still won't work.  (I got the proper measurements after I began work - so it is my own fault.)  My first thought was to remove the canvas from the stretchers and size them down - but then much would be lost.  I tell myself they are not great art - just backgrounds, but then I remind myself I spent a lot on the canvas/stretcher (gallery type) and it wouldn't be wise to just throw the stretchers away... long story short - I can't bring myself to do it.  I don't want to wreck them.  So I bought smaller canvases to redo all of the paintings on - which means I will be rushed.  I am so against tension, rushing, stress, etc. during the holidays - so against it.  I'll do my best however.  Everything will work out.  (This is why I do not like to commissions however... )
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The Cardinal makes no apologies.
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The Spanish Cardinal clarified his statement regarding homosexuals going to hell.  Turns out he was misquoted, however his explanation probably will not satisfy the sensitivities of homosexual activists who continually assault the Catholic Church demanding a change in moral teaching:
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The cardinal, however, said in a statement sent to ZENIT on Thursday that his words were taken out of context. The cardinal said he was referencing the Bible, specifically St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, 1:26-27, which says (in part), "Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."

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"This is what the Word of God says, it isn't what I said," Cardinal Lozano Barragán affirmed. "Now, I have never said that a particular homosexual cannot be saved, because he can be saved."

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"Many times one is not a homosexual through one's own fault; it all depends on one's education and environment," the prelate clarified.
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Cardinal Lozano Barragán reiterated the Church's teaching on grave sin: "The only thing I can say is that for grave fault to exist, in addition to needing grave matter, one needs full knowledge and full consent: Where one of those three conditions is lacking, there is no grave fault."

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Above all, the cardinal stressed that he is not the one who judges people, since God is. - Zenit
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BTW - The Vatican never did rebuke the Cardinal's remarks - they simply offered clarified teaching.  See here. 
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Sarah's coming to Minneapolis - keep your moose indoors.
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No kidding.  To promote her book.  I am continually amazed that people are impressed with this woman and her politics.
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“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” the former Alaska governor told interviewer Barbara Walters.  (The Obama administration’s opposition to Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.)  “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.” - Source
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It is obvious Mrs. Palin thinks Armageddon is coming.  The woman is pro-life, and as a good mother, she didn't abort a down syndrome child - all very good.  She's a nice lady.  Her work for pro-life causes, and especially to stem the tide of aborting special needs kids - excellent.  Yet her politics are way too millenial/millenarianist to run for any office.  
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I think she's an opportunist as well.  The woman quit her job as Governor and now insists on being addressed as Governor - that's one of the things she requires the press to do when they interview her.  Like any good Evangelical-Prosperity-Gospel devote, the lady is making real money now.  Good for her.
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Connection between USCCB and gay rights activist sparks controversy.
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Well, she's just a lesbian - see, I don't take women seriously.  (Kidding... kind of.)  But anyway - I wasn't paying much attention to this one because it sounded like an outing event, or the result of a witch hunt in the USCCB, connected to their Campaign for Human Development fund scandal - I never, ever contributed BTW - I always give to direct service providers - that I know and trust.
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Anyway, so a lesbian woman is a consultant to the USCCB - they say she isn't really a consultant - but they say a lot of different things which don't make sense.  Like I said - I paid no attention to the story - my lawyer is a lesbian - so what - if they know their field and do a good job - let them.  Yet the situation with Mary Kay Henry probably does call for some attention, if only for this reason:
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Henry, the international executive vice president for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was recently named one of the nation's "Top 25 Women in Healthcare" for 2009 by Modern Healthcare. Her biography at the SEIU website explains that “Her faith and values as a practicing Roman Catholic led her to pursue union organizing as a vocation.”
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“Mary Kay is also active in the fight for immigration reform and gay and lesbian rights. She is a founding member of SEIU's gay and lesbian Lavender Caucus,” her description continues.
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According to SEIU, “The Lavender Caucus is the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender (L/G/B/T) Caucus of the Service Employees International Union whose purpose is to facilitate open and respectful communication between the L/G/B/T community and the labor movement.”
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SEIU also supports reproductive rights for women. - Source
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"We got heretics right here in River City!"  (Sarah Palin wink.)
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Here comes Sinter Klaus!
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BTW.  Tomorrow is St. Nicholas day - my tree goes up.  Did you Catholic-Puritan people know that the Pope suggests the European custom of setting up the home creche the day after the feast of the Immaculate Conception?  (I know!  It's still Advent!)
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Have a nice day.
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Photo:  Christmas tree scene from Angels and Demons.

The long and winding road.

"Those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding, and those who find fault shall receive instruction." - Isaiah 29:24, Today's first reading.
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I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord with courage;
be stouthearted and wait for the Lord. - Ps. 27, Today's responsorial.
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The long and winding road


That leads to your door

Will never disappear

I've seen that road before

It always leads me here

Lead me to your door.



The wild and windy night

That the rain washed away

Has left a pool of tears

Crying for the day.

Why leave me standing here?

Let me know the way.





Many times I've been alone

And many times I've cried,

Anyway you've always known

The many ways I've tried.





And still they lead me back

To the long, winding road

You left me standing here

A long, long time ago

Don't leave me standing here

Lead me to your door.



But still they lead me back

To the long winding road

You left me standing here

A long, long time ago

Don't keep me waiting here

Lead me to your door. - Lennon/McCartney
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Art:  Michael O'Brien

Archbishop Carlson takes care of business in St. Louis...

With excellent commentary by Fr. Z!  Read it here.
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"The Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage is not a demonstration of "hate" toward anyone. Undermining God’s design, however, is not charity toward anyone." - Fr. Z
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God bless the Archbishop and Fr. Z.
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(I'm busy painting, so postings have little commentary.)
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Photo: Source

Vatican Press Office Director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J. - Apparently on spin cycle.

Rebukes Mexican Cardinal Javier Barragan?  I don't think so.
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As you know from my earlier post, yesterday Cardinal Barragan, referencing the words of St. Paul, stated publicly, "Transsexuals and homosexuals will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it's not me who says it but St. Paul."  The Cardinal's comments were posted on a conservative Catholic website called http://www.pontifex.roma/. 
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After protests from gay activist groups, some in the media are reporting that "the Vatican has rebuked the Cardinal" for his statement.  No it hasn't.  Actually, Fr. Lombardi is doing all the talking right now, and to my knowledge he seems to be working on damage control - and not rebuking anyone:
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The Vatican distanced itself from the comments in a statement that was highly unusual because it indirectly criticized a top Church official.
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Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the website should not be considered an authority on Catholic thinking "on complex and delicate issues such as homosexuality".
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Lombardi quoted from the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which says homosexual acts are a "disorder" but acknowledges that many people have "innate homosexual tendencies" and should be treated with respect and not be subject to discrimination.  The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful but homosexuality in itself is not. - Source
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Anyone who follows Vatican news knows that Lombardi has not always been on top of his game when it comes to the press releases issued from his office.
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Father Lombardi viewed his role at the press office differently from his predecessor. He explained that he does not want to be called the papal "spokesman": "I don't think my role is to explain the pope's thinking or explain the things that he already states in an extraordinarily clear and rich way." But, ironically, Lombardi's stumbles began in 2007 when he began to do exactly what he said he would not: interpret.

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It is surprising that Father Lombardi, given his experience, would have allowed such high-profile blunders. He worked for the influential Jesuit-run magazine La Civiltà Cattolica and served as superior of the Jesuits' Italian province. In 1991, he was named program director, and later general director, of Vatican Radio, and was also made general director of the Vatican Television Centre in 2001. He continues to hold all three directorships (though he does not manage L'Osservatore Romano). - Deal Hudson for LifeSiteNews, 5/25/09
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I am certain that Cardinal Barragan, given the time and platform, would qualify his comments with greater theological clarity, as it was, he stated matter of fact the traditional interpretation of St. Paul's teaching regarding homosexual acts which must be judged "in the larger context of the biblical teaching on human sexuality and marriage.  In the classical texts, homosexual acts is always condemned." - Fr. John Harvey, The Truth About Homosexuality: The value of argument from specific biblical texts, p.138-141
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Gay activists and historical revisionists take the scriptural prohibitions out of context using a process often disparaged as "reductionist manipulation".  These are offered as a basis for dialog by gay activist theologians, and may well influence a great number of Catholic Church clerics and professionals, which affects the careful approach by Church spokesman to such "complex and delicate issues such as homosexuality".
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The fact media gives greater coverage and support to reductionist theories creates doubt in the minds of the faithful who adhere to traditional teaching.  That said - The Cardinal was not rebuked. 
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I think the subject is so dire and the heresies so pervasive, an Apostolic Letter or Exhortation directly from the Pope is called for.
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UPDATE:  Analyst says 'homosexuals will go to hell' likely a misquote of Vatican cardinal - CNA

A Cardinal who actually takes St. Paul at his word...

Homosexuals and transsexuals "will never enter the kingdom of heaven". - Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan
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"Transsexuals and homosexuals will never enter the kingdom of heaven and it is not me who says this, but Saint Paul," Barragan, the retired head of the Vatican's Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers said, in comments reported by the Ansa news agency.
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"People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own identity during adolescence. It may not be their fault, but acting against nature and the dignity of the human body is an insult to God," he said. - Source 
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I didn't say anything.

I'm so sick of this Holiday BS...

A post about Christmas ads, PETA, Theology of the Body, Victoria's Secret revealed, and "Do these GAP jeans make my butt look big?"
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All right - I changed my mind.  I decided the Gap ad is bad - I mean - annoying.  I love Christmas ads - but the Gap ad is getting on my nerves.  In fact, holiday marketing is very crappy this year - and yet I read somewhere that the advertising business is picking up.  Maybe that was a misprint and it meant to say they are just using pick-ups.
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Institutional ads seem to be following suit.  PETA for instance.  Without doubt the organization knows how to produce offensive ads, and sometimes they are just as bad (as in sexy) as what industry does - i.e. Victoria's Secret runway slut Christmas special last night.  (Black Eyed Peas are a class act, huh?)   If Victoria's secret be told, and the models were able to articulate a real thought, their Christmas message might well support Polish-born PETA spokesmodel, Joanna Krupa's statement defending her posing nude as an angel holding a crucifix.
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"I think worrying about going topless in a photo shoot or film is really ridiculous," protested Ms. Krupa.  "And the fact is, Pope John Paul said, since we were born naked, it is art, and it's just showing a beautiful body that God created."
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Responding to Roman Catholic critics, the TOB spokesmodel continued:  "As a practicing Catholic, I am shocked that the Catholic League is speaking out against my PETA ads. I'm doing what the Catholic Church should be doing, working to stop senseless suffering of animals, the most defenseless of God's creation." - Story
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I wonder if she is a member of the TOB Institute?  Perhaps it is cheezy of me to use a Polish spokesmodel's theological genius to critique Victoria's Secret soft porn televised lap dance last night, but I just wanted to hit two bimbos with one stone - without wasting a lot of time on the subject.
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Not long ago a lot of what we are exposed to used to be called "soft porn"...  it may not be called that now, but it still is what it is.  TOB or not.
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BTW:  Models be warned...  vanity kills...  Argentinian Beauty Queen Dies After Cosmetic Surgery on Her Buttocks
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Top Photo:  Angel bridge.  I didn't use the PETA model's photo as it is soft porn and blasphemous.

I never liked this guy.

"The way I would operate is, if someone were to come in and say, 'I have been abused. Has anyone else ever been abused that you can tell me about? and so forth,' I would say, 'This is not appropriate discussion for you and me,'" Egan said.
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Cardinal Edward Egan expressed skepticism over sexual abuse allegations against priests when he was a Connecticut bishop a decade ago:  "These things happen in such small numbers," Egan said in a 1999 deposition. "It's marvelous when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have even been accused, and how very few have even come close to having anyone prove anything. So it is not a commonplace, by any means at all. It's a unique and unexpected occurrence."
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"I believe that Bishop Egan was aware _ when he took over and during his tenure _ of these complaints, yet in some circumstances let the priests continue and was very aggressive in his defending of these cases and re-victimizing the victims," said Jason Tremont, one of the attorneys for the clergy abuse victims, said the documents "confirm the mishandling and cover-up of sex abuse claims" by Egan and his predecessor, Bishop Walter Curtis, who died in 1997. - Source

So funny...

Dissenters, now calling themselves the American Catholic Council, plan a 2011 conference in Detroit “to create a new Church.”
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Promising that the American Catholic Council will “recapture the universal call to ministry,” organizers claim to have launched the call for the national council in an effort to create a more responsive, accountable Church that “calls on the active participation of its people and more closely models the American experience.”

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Although council leaders have denied that they are attempting to create their own church, the American Catholic Council website states their mission clearly: “We seek nothing short of a personal conversion of all to create a new Church.” And, while the organizers of the proposed council have appropriated the language and trappings of an authentic Catholic council, the reality is that the American Catholic Council will be conducted entirely outside the purview of the Church, flouting canon law, and ignoring input from current Church leaders. - Read more
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Aren't those seniors cute though?  Keeps 'em busy.  I wonder if Michael is going, oh, and Sr. Lou, sosf?

Advent wreaths and calendars...

Advent wreaths and calendars...
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Neither custom has ever interested me in the least.  I suppose that sounds irreverent, but the practice has never moved me to devotion.  And they are usually awkwardly displayed as well as really ugly.
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BTW - The origins of the Advent wreath dates back to pagan times in Northern Europe and was adapted by the Christians - some say in the Middle Ages, others say during the Reformation.  Of course the Advent calendar does indeed date back to the Reformation - it began as a Lutheran thing.  No big deal though.
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Traditionally, the weeks before Christmas were always observed as a minor lent; prayer and fasting from the feast of St. Martin to Christmas Eve.  In the West, the days of preparation were shortened to four weeks or so beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  In modern times the Advent Season has lost much of its penitential character, although many traditional Catholics are known to give things up, as in the Great Lent.
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Photo:  Catholic school girls preparing the Advent wreath in the Sister's community room, just before ducking out for a cigarette beneath the gym.  Photo source unavailable.

Saturday stuff...

Twiddily dee...dah... dah... ta... dah.... twidid... whatever.
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I'm painting shepherds today - with an angel appearing to them - on the first Christmas eve.  I would have liked to have seen that - the angels.  I decided to dream about it last night, but nothing happened - I was hoping to see angels.
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Have you ever seen an angel?  I don't know if I have either - I saw someone once - but I didn't realize it could have been an apparition until after it was over - and there is no guarantee it was an actual apparition either.  Anyway, though I wanted to get away, I looked in the direction the person was pointing - just for a moment mind you, when I looked back - the person had disappeared.  I may have written about it before - it happened in the Basilica of St. Peter's years ago.  At least the shepherds knew they were seeing heavenly beings, all that light and glitter and music and stuff - my experience was pretty normal.  I think God prefers normal.
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You won't believe what happened to me this morning.  I saw Mrs. Rabitowitz!  No kidding.  I was saying my prayers and looked out the french doors and there she was - looking into the house.  She was saying something but I couldn't hear her because the doors were shut.  I made a gesture of praying hands, and then lifted my office book to show her I was praying, so she'd understand why I couldn't come to the door.  (I never go to the door or answer the phone when I am praying, and frequently while I'm painting.)  She nodded and cocked her head towards the bird feeder indicating it was time to start feeding the wildlife.  Then she hopped off into the hedge and took up her station, watching and waiting for I don't know what.  And here I thought she was dead.
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Speaking of prayer.  This morning I considered how every sin is a choice - after baptism that is.  The temptations - or the tribulations of life - test our fidelity.  In every life one is faced with a fundamental choice - to choose between good or evil, Christ or the Antichrist.  Some people may live in such severe testing, the choice is every day.  Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win - yet so long as we live in the body we have  hope and mercy is available to us - so we can lose a battle, recoup, and begin anew.  But we have to keep trying.
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"Even though we are unable to remain in control of the temptation, we are nevertheless being asked not to run from it or avoid it.  We need to undergo the temptation and pass through it in order to come to Jesus, and we need to follow in his footsteps, our eyes focused upon his, he in us and we in him...  In every temptation, in the depths of the infatuation of our senses or in the densest darkness of our mind, there is but one way out, for us as well, the way of Jesus." - Dom Andre Louf, o.c.s.o.
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Don't run from the struggles of the temptations and trials and tribulations - if you do - come back - come back to Jesus.  Never settle for, or opt for the easy way out - if you do - come back - come back to Jesus.  If you fall away - or die like Mrs. Rabitowitz did, which is just a metaphor for mortal sin - come back - come back to Jesus.  Choose life, not the temptation.  Choose real life, eternal life, and not a lifestyle.  Choose Jesus not the drama of daily compromise.  It's a choice - it really is.
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Art: Govert Flinck - Aankondiging aan de herders  Source
       Bunnycake Source
       Study for Jacob Wrestling Angel - Léon Joseph-Florentine Bonnat, 1876

The Irish Timeline...

How the story of abuse allegations in the Irish Catholic Church emerged...
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1987 to now.
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"The sexual abuse of a child is and always was a crime in civil law; it is and always was a crime [in] canon law; it is and always was grievously sinful." - Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin
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Link
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A perversion of power.
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Art:  Our Lady of Sorrows, Sossoferrato, Uffizi

Poverty of spirit amid the recession.

Do you buy it?
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Watching news coverage of shops open on Thanksgiving and stores invaded by shoppers on Black Friday, one might not believe there is a recession going on.  It all seems to be business as usual...  Thus far our  recession is not like the Great Depression - masses are not exactly lining the streets standing in breadlines.  At least we are not hearing much about it if they are.  Network news no longer hides the fact it is a propaganda machine for the the liberal agenda, in today's terms, a mouthpiece for the Obama Administration.  So you won't learn anything there.
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There are really poor people out there, families who have lost jobs and homes.  Yet if you get all of your information from television - as many Americans still do - you get the impression everything is just fine despite the recession and the isolated stories of financial woe.  Climate change is still the big crises as evidenced by NBC's Green Week, wherein all the programming adapted some sort of green story line to their prime time line-up.  See, so we are so not poor if we can worry about greenhouse gasses.
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Every American is aware that as a nation, we are the most affluent in the history of human society.  We continue to have access to all the riches our world offers.  We are a country where many of the poor are too fat - few, if any are actually starving; I just read today we throw away 40% of our food.  As we all know health care is a problem - nevertheless - there really is access, albeit limited.  (Ironically, with reform, it could be even more limited - rationed.) 
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My point is that most of the poor in the U.S. can get what they need - the basics.  Yet even in welfare homes, most have a television, DVD player, cell phone, and so on.  And even if  these things are lacking - these items - or the material perks they represent - are often the first things poor people want - after better food, clothing and shelter of course.  But people want that no matter how affluent they become:  A newer, bigger house, better clothes, fancier food... In our era of the epicurean, the ostentatious, and the avaricious.
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Who are the poor?
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Which poses the question, where is poverty of spirit?  Indeed, what is poverty of spirit?  Many established religious orders of vowed men and women seem to offer a sort of lip service to poverty - many genuinely working for social justice issues and wearing ugly clothes - but the majority live pretty well, benefiting from paid for higher-education, health care, housing (including apartments), wardrobe budgets, travel expenses, and so on.  Of course there is nothing wrong with that when it is necessary for the mission of the congregation.  In such case, the well formed religious understands the necessity to practice spiritual poverty and detachment - which happen to be interior virtues usually unascertainable to outsiders, not to mention none of my business. 
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Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to be truly poor in spirit when modern men - religious or otherwise,  take pride in their academic achievements, intellectual riches and progressive socio-politico ideals, which tend towards an elitism oblivious to the devastating moral poverty the culture.  Moral poverty is not the same thing as spiritual poverty, much less, actual poverty. 
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Moral poverty is not a virtue.   

Happy Thanksgiving...

Epicureans, sceptics and cynics, oh my!

And ostentation, avarice and laziness too?
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Britain's Chief Rabbi on the decline and fall of Europe...
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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:  "Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying, exactly as Polybius said about ancient Greece in the third pre-Christian century. The century that is intellectually the closest to our own - the century of the sceptics and the epicureans and the cynics."
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Quoting Polybius he stated: "The fact is, that the people of Hellas had entered upon the false path of ostentation, avarice and laziness, and were therefore becoming unwilling to marry, or if they did marry, to bring up the children born to them; the majority were only willing to bring up at most one or two."
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Rabbi Sacks did point out however:
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"...that sincere religious belief is able to overcome the cultural impediments to having children. "Wherever you turn today anywhere in the world, and whether you look at the Jewish or Christian or Muslim communities, you will find the more religious the community, the larger, on average, are its families," he said." - Source
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Thank God we are not like that in the United States....  ;D

Thanksgiving Day

Nothing to do?  Holidays get you down?  Family bores you too?  Looking for a new sweat suit?
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Go shopping.  This year Walgreen's, Walmart, K-Mart, Old Navy, Radio Shack and Toys R us will be open Thanksgiving Day.
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Who says the holidays are too commercial?

Kiss my...

Oops!  It's Thanksgiving - don't wreck it.
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Well it is only Thanksgiving in the U.S. - not elsewhere - especially in the U.K.  As reported here, Archbishop Nichols offered flowers to Hindu deities last Saturday.  Come on!  Hindus have been killing Catholic Christians in India for the past couple of years and the Archbishop offers flowers to pagan gods?  Christian martyrs shed their blood rather than submit to such apostasy.  So if the Archbishop doesn't believe in them - does that make it okay?  Does he really believe that Jesus is Lord?  Is he really preaching Jesus and him crucified when he makes offerings to idols?
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When the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?
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Christmas is only a month away!

November 25 - start decorating!
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Another reason I'm into Christmas so early and love it that Christmas stuff is up in the public square (ads, merchandise, etc.) is that I always make stuff for Christmas.  This year I continue my work on card designs - picking up where I left off last year, and I'm also doing Bethlehem backgrounds for the nativity at my parish.  Not huge ones - just 30" x 40" views out the stable windows.  It's fun - not great art - but pazzi and fanciful - I'm working without preliminary drawings - or strict composition.  Just doing it.
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Making things for Christmas - to sell, to gift, to donate - it makes the season come alive - it allows the prep time to be as much fun as the season itself - which lasts from December 25 all the way to Candlemass - February 2!

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The photo's here are early examples of some work I did for an exclusive interior design company - way back in 1989!  They are copies of Fra Angelico angels - flat boards I cut out, painted and gilded, and then mounted on a wood base I painted faux ivory and lapis, adding gold ball feet.  I think the firgures were about 40" tall.  At the time they retailed at $450 each.
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For Cathy of Alexandria!

She loves elves. Tomorrow is her feast day too!

John Paul II and the 'discipline'.

Hidden acts of penance.

One of my very best friends in the whole world is a very holy priest.  He once asked a very holy prioress of a very holy Carmelite monastery if the community still used the discipline and if so, where may he obtain one?  Mother responded sweetly, "Oh Father, that is a rather indiscreet question."  As was her custom, she discreetly changed the subject and poor Father never got his answer.  Unfortunately he initially felt slighted, but we all feel slighted when someone surprises us with a direct answer and charitable rebuke.  I'm quite sure my friend laughs about it now.
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I mention this as news of Holy Father John Paul II's use of the discipline has come to light this week - apparently testimony from a Polish nun who worked in the papal household has been leaked from the Causes of Saints investigation.  Talk about indiscreet.  It is especially unfortunate since contemporary society has little to no knowledge about the practice of corporal penance in the spiritual life, and have no understanding of such voluntary mortification.  (Perverted sexual practice and fetish aside of course - which poses the question, what will Theology of the Body hedonists make of this news?  I'm being sarcastic.)
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People 'get' dieting or going through painful surgical procedures to lose weight or look better.  They understand the need for an athlete to go through continual repetition of arduous exercise and practice to perfect his game.  They understand that type of body-punishing sacrifice - but not a priest or a nun whipping one's self in a spirit of penance.
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Since the Council, few religious orders continued using the discipline.  Perhaps on account of St. Therese and her Little Way, most religious superiors and spiritual directors would advise against such corporal penances - but the practice was never lost, as Pope John Paul's story reveals.  Nevertheless, it is a very private matter, isn't it.  That said, the revelation that a modern Pope, who endured so much suffering throughout his life, practiced such corporal penance can be a wonderful reminder for the Christian to return to the practice of voluntary mortification and penance in his every day life...    
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Corporal penance in the lives of the saints.
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While the Saints regarded interior penance (that is, denial of the will through the vow of obedience) greater than any kind of exterior penance, nonetheless instruments of penance have been used by the Saints throughout history, and were in widespread use in religious communities for centuries up until the 1960's. One type of exterior penance common in religious life was known as "The Discipline" (self-flagellation, using a whip, rod, or lash), which was used in Padre Pio's friary. Saint Pio was known to have continued this penance even when it was no longer required of him to do so. The Discipline was also commonly used in Saint Faustina's convent as well.
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It should again be noted that these mortifications were always done within the context of a religious community (with permission from a superior), or under the direction of a spiritual director. We might also recall that the Saints were careful to do these penances in secret, and even went out of their way to hide such instruments from their own communities. To be considered an average religious, to them, was of far more value than to be highly regarded as an austere aesthetic. Any instance that would draw the praises of men was to be severely shunned. As the Lord reminded Saint Faustina that what pleases Him most, above exterior penances, even above fasting, is the denial of one's own will through obedience to superiors and the rules of the community (which cannot be fully practiced apart from religious vows). A humble and obedient soul before God wins the most graces. - Redemptive Suffering - The Science of the Saints
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John Paul II on suffering:
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"Christ did not conceal from his listeners the need for suffering. He said very clearly: "If any man would come after me... let him take up his cross daily, and before his disciples he placed demands of a moral nature that can only be fulfilled on condition that they should "deny themselves". The way that leads to the Kingdom of heaven is "hard and narrow", and Christ contrasts it to the "wide and easy" way that "leads to destruction." Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but he states: "Follow me!". Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my Cross. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him. ...It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy." - Source
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Art:  Flagelation of Christ, Ruiz - Source

At novena's end...

Today is the last day of the monthly novena in honor of the Infant Jesus - exactly one month away from Christmas Eve...  How cool is that?
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Just think, at Bethlehem Christmas is celebrated every day...  and yet some of us complain it comes along too soon when we see Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving - every year. 
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Tut!  Tut!  No complaints as to how it is celebrated in this country, how secular and commercial it has become, and so on.  Remember, the real Bethlehem is not exactly located in a Christian country.  Oh!  Oh!  And those secular Palestinians sell Christmas souvenirs - many rather tacky - all year long.  And they listen to non-Christmas rock music while they do it.
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Yeah.  So lighten up and have a nice Thanksgiving if you can manage it.  ;)
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Art:  Adoration of the Shepherds, Murillo
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