Luky
THE OTHER DAY someone told me that I'm emotional, and I'm still very upset about it. It is one thing you don't call a Hollander.
Tell us we're dry and we're gratified, dour and we're elated, stolid and we're delighted, cynical and you've made our day. No Hollander likes to be called emotional, no sir, his head rules his heart every time.
Heat's off
But let's get back to me. I never knew people thought me emotional. "Vesti la Giubba, on with the motley, laugh Pagliacci, laugh," was my motto. Now that my guilty secret has been revealed, however, I can loosen my collar.
A new world will open to me. From now on when anybody asks me how I am feeling I shall describe the symptoms of my mental and physical ailments in unstinting detail. Gone for ever the brave smile and the hearty, "Fine thanks, and you?" Emotional, am I? I'll show you! When I go to see a sad film, I'll take a box of tissues under my arm and sob as loudly as my father-in-law did the time we took him to see "The Hoodlum Priest". Goodbye stiff upper lip and dignified composure. You've spoilt my fun often enough.
In future I intend to cry at all weddings and funerals in church, not behind the pine tree in the backyard. What a relief it will be when my throat will no longer feel stiff and my eyes stinging from tears unshed. Never mind if the mascara runs down my cheeks, I'm still going to be grateful to the person who called me emotional.
Actually, the only place I've ever really cried in during my adult years is Lourdes. Nobody tries to console you there, for everyone is too busy praying to see what you are up to.
Warmth
Mind you, there were quite a number of women of various nationalities who clasped my son and me into their arms and embraced us. That was being emotional, I suppose, but Joe and I just kissed them right back, beaming, and I'd think of the early Christians, and how people said: "See how they love one another."
The only thing that can pierce my defences, keep me rooted to one spot and shut my mouth is church music. If I had a thousand rands and you wanted it, all you'd need to do is play my recording of Joan Sutherland singing "Oh, Divine Redeemer", and hold your hand out silently.
My father was like that too. After he died I heard "Ave Verum" on the radio, and telling my family it was his favourite. I requested silence. Suddenly one of the children burst out crying.
"What's the matter?" we asked.
"I'm crying because this was Oupa's best", he sobbed.
One Sunday we heard an inspiring orchestral rendering of "Praise my soul the King of Heaven" on the radio. I never wasted my stiff upper lip on my husband, being Irish he is more emotional than I am. Turning to him tearfully, I asked: "If I die before you, will you ask them to play that at my funeral?"
He nodded at me thoughtfully.
"All right", he answered, "but just tell me what it's called, please."
Luciano Pavarotti, Vesti la Giubba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-H-MWJ4f14
Vesti la Giubba, English translation by Randall Garrou
http://www.aria-database.com/translations/pag05_vesti.txt
Joan Sutherland "O Divine Redeemer" by Charles Gounod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRDTeRuyFwM
Ave Verum by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Westminster Cathedral Choir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvFUw9HvRf8
Praise my soul the King of Heaven - Choir of Westminster Abbey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1eMwlDFb8
Luky
THE TIME HAD ARRIVED IN MY LIFE when the thing I watched happening to so many other mothers was happening to me: my older children were trying to make me over.
"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear", I sighed imploringly as I tried on shoes, patently manufactured for long slender feet instead of my short squat ones.
I'm deeply grateful for my feet, but why do I have to squeeze my E-fittings into these elegant concoctions?
"Pull, Mommy, you can!" my daughter stoutly asserted.
"I can't, truly" I insisted, looking helplessly at the saleslady for guidance. But before she could say anything, my daughter turned to her.
Nice pins
"My mother's got lovely legs, truly she has."
(Listening to her, I could feel my heart swelling. After all, the Eve in us never dies.)
"Of course, you can't see it, that's just because of those clodhoppers she wears."
"But I've got funny feet!" I protested.
"There's nothing funny about the feet, it's the shoes. Try these on - come on, just try."
It seemed such a short while ago that I was saying those same words to her while trying to get some baby porridge into her. But judging from the stern if motherly expression in her eyes, those days were long behind us.
The saleslady retired behind a noncommittal mask and I squeezed my funny feet into shoes whose designer would have torn his hair out if he knew where they'd eventually land up.
What can she say?
"You see? I told you she's got lovely legs, hasn't she?" my daughter said to the saleslady who could hardly disagree and answered "Very nice" in a mechanical way.
"Now the first thing you do is throw away those clumsy orthopaedic monstrosities into the wastepaper basket and get into the habit of wearing a decent shoe for a change", my daughter said decisively. "Hand me your purse, I'll pay."
"Gosh, that's decent of you", I murmured sarcastically, but my wit was quite wasted.
Knows it all
My daughter was in her seventh heaven.
"I told you", she told me triumphantly as we drove home. "All you need is a little guidance. Daddy will be so proud of you."
I doubted that very much. My husband hadn't complimented me on my appearance since we were engaged. No matter how great an effort I made, he never seemed to notice the difference. Come to think of it, that might have been one reason why I preferred comfort to beauty in my footwear.
Speaking looks
We went out to a function and my daughter enthused all the way. She must have been right because I got a few unusual looks. (I was wearing a new dress too, you see, as well as carrying the bag my son forced me to buy and they made me try a new hairstyle).
"What's up with you, Luky? You look nice, not like yourself at all, quite different", a colleague commented.
"You should feel my feet" I replied.
Would the afternoon never end, I wondered as red-hot pains shot up and down my feet. Every now and then my daughter beamed at me encouragingly as we passed each other.
"I told you you could do it", she whispered.
Home at last
When we got home I took my shoes off at the door and stumbling to my wardrobe made for the first pair of orthopaedic monstrosities I could find. With a sigh of relief I dragged them on my feet and pushed my elegant new buys far out of sight.
"Promise me you'll go in for this type of shoe from now on", my daughter coaxed from the door. "I was so proud of you today."
For once, her pleas failed to wring my heart.
Full stop
"Look here, I've got news for you", I replied belligerently. "I'm not one of Cinderella's ugly sisters, on the lookout for a Prince Charming. So I've no need to saw off my little toes. I'm a married woman. I've caught my bus. I've got six children and I'm overweight and dowdy. Too bad.
"I've got a lot of work to do which all requires much concentration and when my feet hurt I can't concentrate. So I'm going to wear my clodhoppers and relax."
Silently she turned away from the door and went to her room, casting a reproachful glance at me over her shoulder.
As for me, before going into the kitchen I wiggled all ten of my toes; my clodhoppers had space for each of them. What blessed relief.
Catherine Nicolette
That was an awful long time ago.In my own defence, all I wanted was for Mom to make the best of herself. It escaped me at the time that she - a happy and contented mom of six kids - already had, and looked lovely.
Embittered at the cavalier way Mom had treated my well meaning efforts, I busied myself with the many other things my sixteen year old self used to always find to do. Eventually landing up in the kitchen, I started doing some odds and ends there when Dad came in through the door.
Gazing at me, he asked, "What happened today?"
"Dad, you'll never guess what", I exclaimed. And told him the story. He was riveted. "She did, did she? And you told the lady at the shoe store .. ."
"That she had beautiful legs, yes, yes. And made her walk up and down in the shoes . . ."
Something in Dad's expression alerted me.
"And what did you call her shoes?" he mildly enquired with his Tramore accent.
"Orthopoedic monstrosities, Dad."
Silent mirth
At that my Dad began to shake. My initial concern turned to teenage outrage as his shaking dissolved into silent mirth. "Well, what would you have said, Dad?"
Dad laughed even more. "What I say is that you're a far braver person than I am to take on your Mom."
As he began leaving the room, I said, "Well Dad, I'll bet before she wore those shoes today you'd never noticed that she has such beautiful legs."
Dad turned back to me and said, "Oh yes, I noticed the first time I met her. Why did you think I married her so some other man didn't get her? She is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, whatever shoes she likes to wear."
Slightly scandalised and deeply impressed by the note of romance on which the shoe saga ended, I let the matter rest.
Networking with nieces
Many years later, I was going out with my nieces who looked disparagingly at my footwear.
"Please Auntie Nog, tell us you're not going to wear those while you're out with us?" the one begged.
I looked down with affection at my flat and sensible brown shoes, which have carried my feet through many hours of tramping over different countries on long charitable field trips.
"Why, what's wrong with them?" I asked.
My niece rolled her eyes to heaven dramatically, "Where do I START?" she enquired.
"Look at my shoes next to yours."
She placed her elegantly shod little feet next to mine. The Italian heels on their still new beauty contrasted next to my shoes in much the same way as a designer original compares to an old pair of bedsocks.
"Can you see the difference? Can you?" she demanded. A light crept into her eyes - much like that of the zeal of a reformer.
"I know what, Auntie Nog. We'll take you out shopping to buy a new pair."
My mind flashed back to many years ago, and Mom had my full sympathy. I knew just how she must have felt. The situation tickled my sense of humour, and I said, "Of what? Orthopoedic monstrosities?" and I gave way to a fit of giggles.
My nieces looked uncomprehendingly at one another. Sometimes my humour totally escapes them.
"What do you mean, Auntie Nog?"
"Never mind. Just ask your Ouma - she'll tell you", I said.
"My shoes are staying the way they are."
"But we want to help you" they coaxed. "You'll look so lovely with new shoes."
"Listen girls," I said, "thanks, but no thanks. I got in there a generation before you.
Like Ouma, I now prefer comfort."
There is nothing new under the sun . . .
Luky
IT ALWAYS AMUSES ME TO HEAR PEOPLE SPEAK DISPARAGINGLY OF MATERIALISM.
To listen to some, you'd think the cardinal evil of all times is the fact that people like to surround themselves with comforts.
It seems ridiculous to me. What is wrong with having the good things of life? My mother said that she never possessed a car in her life. Well, I remember my carless youth and what a bind it was.
When my parents came to South Africa, they gave up parents, family, home and security, to try their luck in a foreign country where they knew nothing, not even the language.
Silent gratitude
"We are doing this to give you people better opportunities", they assured us when homesickness overtook them.
Today when I drive my car, vacuum my carpets or do the laundry in my automatic washing machine, I thank my parents for giving me such a good deal.
If it were all to be taken away from me tomorrow, I'd say with Job: "The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
But at least I'd have the satisfaction, when looking back, that I never scorned the advances made in technology to improve the mother's lot.
I'm sure my grandmother who washed by hand for ten children went straight to heaven when she died, but she was the most practical and down to earth old girl I ever knew.
I bet if I'd asked her whether to wash for my six in the tub or get a washing machine, she'd have said: "Go for the automatic, Luky. What a question to ask!"
Sweet life
I have a number of wealthy friends and I love to visit them.
I enjoy drinking tea from bone china cups, with golden or silver spoons.
I enjoy entering a marble hall and having my feet sink into thick carpets.
I have to tell you something about these people, though.
They did not find their money in a little box on their front stoep one morning.
They made it through working eighteen hours a day.
However, on the principle that you can wear only one outfit at a time, and even two meals a day can make you fat unless you are a farm labourer, I settled for lots of time with my family and worked my 8-hour stint as a necessary evil.
So do I approve of the inequality between the haves and the have nots? Not at all.
But I believe that there are many wealthy people who do a lot of good with their money.
If they do not let their left hand know what the right hand does, that does not mean to say that their good works do not alleviate much sorrow and poverty.
Spend - and give
What I want to suggest to all concerned about materialism is:
"Don't cut down on your clothes, or your car, or your labour saving devices.
There are many poor people employed in factories, who would starve or lose their self esteem if everyone felt the way you do.
Buy what is necessary, thereby stimulating the economy.
But first, before you budget at the end of the month, tithe from your salary for those most in need."
How many takers do you think there would be?
Luky;
SOME YEARS AGO I RECEIVED A LETTER FROM MY MOTHER in which she told me that one of my father's brothers had just died - from cancer, as did my father and a third brother.
This uncle was a priest in Holland, and I know little about him, since I last saw him on the day when my brother first received Holy Communion. A thing I noticed about him was the beautiful way he pronounced his words, far better than his big brother, my dad, who like myself spoke in the rather flat Amsterdam accent.
"Papa", I whispered, "why do you hit that uncle on the back? He's a priest! And won't you try to speak posh, the way he does?"
My father roared with laughter. He called loudly over the heads of the guests; "Hear what my daughter says, Nick? She reckons I ought to come to you for speech therapy."
When my uncle threw back his head and laughed, there suddenly remained no difference between him and my father. He just looked like a younger version of my dad, and just as down-to-earth and kind.
We seldom saw my uncle unless it was at a big family gathering, since his parish was in another province. All I remember of those occasions were the looks of love and pride my grandmother would keep sending in his direction.
When my father mentioned him, he often told this story:
"Nico was three years old when my mother sent him down the street to the shoemakers. When he came in with his bag of shoes, almost as big as himself, the shoemaker said jokingly: "Well, young man, are you going to be a rich baker like your father?" "No sir", answered Nick, "I'm going to be a poor priest."
"Right through school he only yearned to go to the seminary. There was a boy who knew what he wanted to be - ever since the age of three!"
In 1971 when Joseph and I went to Lourdes for the first time, I stayed at the pilgrims' hospital in the grotto grounds. Arriving early in the morning, I was shown in to breakfast with a group of pilgrims. Having travelled all that night, I was too tired to take notice of them until their chaplain got up to lead the prayers after meals.
Recalling my school French, I prepared to make the sign of the cross: "Au nom du Père, et du Fils, et du Saint Esprit." To my surprise he said instead: "In de naam van de Vader en van de Zoon and van de Heilige Gees."
At once I felt less homesick, realising that I had inadvertently joined the members of the national Dutch pilgrimage. I correspond with some of its members to this day.
After prayers, the chaplain strolled over and patted Joseph on the head. He was delighted to find I was Dutch, although I had come from far distant South Africa, and asked whether I still had family in Holland.
"Plenty", I replied, "My mother came from a family of eleven, and my father was one of nine children. In fact, one of my dad's brothers is still a priest in Holland."
"What was your name before you were married?" he asked, and I told him.
"Well, I never", he exclaimed, "you much be Nick's niece!"
It's a small world, as you discover when you've come halfway around it to meet someone who's on first-name terms with your dad's younger brother.
Although I never knew my uncle well, the thought of his death haunts me. Thinking back I recall him and those of his brothers who also died from cancer as men in their thirties, full of life, health and laughter. I seems strange to think of them as having gone forever from this world - but we'll meet again soon. And when I think of the small domestic trials and tribulations which take up so much of my valuable time and attention, and recall the painful deaths of these people, I feel that I'm wasting the best years of my life in deploring trivialities.
LUKY;
MY PARENTS WERE MARRIED DURING THE DEPRESSION YEARS in Holland.
An uncle of my father's in Amsterdam led a choir of 160 men, all unemployed. To keep them motivated and off the streets, he spent many hours training them to sing the most complicated scores. My father used to go to his uncle's parish and would praise the choir.
Shortly before my parents' wedding, my father's uncle called to see my dad. "Gerard", he said, "how would you like my boys to sing at your wedding?"
"Good grief, Uncle," my father replied, "I couldn't possibly pay them all." "Never mind the money", said uncle, "Could you manage 160 cigars?"
"Of course", answered my dad, who himself smoked up to 50 cigarettes a day. So the 160 cigars were bought and the choir sang like the heavenly host. My dad told me about the Magnificat. I know it, I've heard it sung in Lourdes, and it would melt a heart of stone.
The choir sang the Ave Maria as my mother laid her bouquet in front of the altar of our Blessed Lady, and the Mass was sung in five parts.
My own wedding in Johannesburg twenty-five years later was a quiet one, with only my parents, sisters and brother present, and one friend of mine and one of Sean's.
Although it was such a small affair, I wore a wreath and veil, deciding that you dress up for the bridegroom rather than for the guests.
My father had not exactly struck it rich during the eight years since he had immigrated to this country, and though my husand and I earned good salaries, our car and furniture had taken all the savings we had.
"Its a flop all round", I thought to myself, "but at least there'll be the music."
The year was 1960. Some of you will know that the new Cathedral of Christ the King was then almost completed. As I entered the old Kerk Street Church for my wedding the most disappointing thing happened.
Instead of the wealth of sound I had expected from the choir loft, there came a thin, reedy Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin. Though the organist played it expertly, the sound was all but lost in the Church. Alas, most of the organ had been dismantled and transported to the new Cathedral the previous week.
That same month, Princess Margaret had married Anthony Armstrong-Jones, and seeing her wedding on the cinema news and hearing Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary played with such verve, I couldn't help wishing our wedding had been a little more glamorous.
The music didn't worry my husband, but he felt envious when he read about the Queen's lending her yacht Britannia to the young couple for the honeymoon, while he and I repaired to our flat in Brakpan. Yet the contrast between the splendid music at my parents' marriage and the disappointment at my own did some good. Till then, I had always expected the Church to run by itself. I didn't know whence came the flowers, whence the music. They had simply always been there.
Now I realised that someone had to make them happen, like the great uncle of mine who took 160 unemployed men from the streets and restored to them their dignity and optimism in the choir loft of their Parish Church.
So we had our eldest daughter trained to be a church organist, starting with the piano in sub B. I know that this column is read by earnest young parents and sons and daughters who might be prepared to sacrifice the time and the money it would take to have their children trained to be the church organists of the future.
Remember, it is music which welds the wedding service together. It is music which turns the attendance of Mass into a deeply joyous experience.
Let's encourage our children to contribute to the making of music in our churches, to sing in the choirs and play the instruments. If you decide to do that, you will discover, as I did, that though you may sow in tears, you will reap in joy.
Ave Maria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUnrLMvpQLk
Ave Maria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQVz6vuNq7s
LUKY:
EVER SINCE THE LITURGY FIRST BEGAN TO CHANGE, it was my earnest wish to attend Holy Mass celebrated by the Pope. There was a time when you could travel from Tobruk to Tokyo and hear Mass as you heard it at home. That time has gone, and we have had to adapt to many changes along the way. Through all the turmoil of the change, Pope Paul VI consistently withstood criticism and gave us firm leadership.
Eventually my wish was granted; thanks to television I watched Pope Paul celebrate Easter High Mass at an altar in front of St Peter's.
He spoke differently from the way I'd have expected. He had the voice of an old man, a very ordinary voice, nothing unusual about it, no drama - the voice of a man who had drunk the cup of suffering to the dregs and had no false illusions about himself.
Beyond the Host
He celebrated the Mass very reverently in a simple manner, the way one's own priest might celebrate it on any morning. When he spoke the words of consecration he looked as if he saw beyond the Host he was holding, but he remained natural throughout.
St Peter's Square was filled with people, thousands and thousands of them, no room to swing a cat. The people were utterly quiet -the women's heads were covered. The altar was decorated, only a vase with half a dozen white flowers in them; tulips, I think - it was spring in Rome.
Communicants received Holy Communion from the Pope. There was a choir, unaccompanied by instruments, singing liturgical music. During the Urbi et Orbi blessing, a close-up was shown of the Holy Father pronouncing the words and giving the blessing. He did this in the same simple way as he had celebrated Mass.
Mother Superior
Our hotel was run by Sisters. At the table which I sat, the English-speaking clan was gathered; two Australian nuns, two American nuns, a Jesuit with an Irish name, resident in the Philippines and an American lady. The priest called me "Mother Superior" and reckoned if I kept trying hard enough I'd make Catholics out of them yet . . .
Suffering Pope
While we were at table after the television showing someone brought in a tape of the blessing. We all sang Amen, blessed ourselves and joined in the clapping. One of the Australians had attended the Pope's Ash Wednesday Mass. "He is terribly frail", she told us. "It's sad to see."
"He's terribly strong too," I said. "The epitome of moral courage."
"He's the Suffering Pope," the Jesuit added, and to that all agreed.
Catherine Nicolette
It is with great joy that all supporting the sanctity of unborn life greet the Beatification of Pope Paul VI to be celebrated October 19th. The wonder is the miracle attributed to this great man; the unexplained healing in utero of a baby with significant organ damage. The great Prophet and Defender of Life continues his great work after moving to the next dimension.
Paul VI will be proclaimed Blessed;
When will he be recognised as Saint?
Viva il Papa!
Miraculous healing
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-theologians-recognize-miracle-attributed-to-paul-vi/
Pope Paul VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI
Pope Paul VI to be Beatified October 19th, 2014
http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/05/10/pope_paul_vi_to_be_beatified_october_19%2C_2014_/en1-798074
Pope Paul Vi
http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-blessed-montini-paul-vi-to-be.html
With thanks to Catholic News Agency, Wikipedia, Radio Vaticana and Whispersintheloggia
Luky;
APART FROM MY HUSBAND, few people have agreed with my outlook on life, which belongs to the turn of the 19th century. Someone once suggested that I made my husband as hidebound as I am, but anyone who knew him will agree that it was impossible to talk him round once his mind and conscience were in agreement. I think it was because we were so alike in outlook that we married. For one thing, I always wanted a large family and he was one of the very few men I know who don't think of a child in terms of the money the child's upbringing will cost.
Begin again
Like me, he hadn't a very high opinion of himself, but we both shared a very high opinion of our Lord. We did not think we always lived as good a life as we should, but every time we fell down, we got up, dusted ourselves off and tried again.
Our children got sermons from us all their lives about the way we feel things should be done. That few other people consider this way the right way was, of course, hard on the children. Some of them minded, some didn't. It is difficult to insist on a lifstyle that finds little applause in the world around us.
Clash of views
One of my sons used to have long talks with me, trying to point out the error of my ways. I'd like to pretend that these sessions turned into a meeting point of the generations, but they actually ended in my yelling and trying to control my tears.
Nobody who does not live my kind of life can understand how hard it is to behave differently from others.
I believe in modesty, courtesy between the genders, family prayer. I disapprove of young children going alone to the movies on a Saturday afternoon because of what I have seen on the occasions when I took mine to the matinee. I think some fashions are shocking. I don't think boys and girls should start going steady or dating until they are out of school.
It was all very hard on the kids.
Hangups for life
"I see you are bringing up the children in the same bigoted way you taught to my sister and me" my son used to say, shaking his head. "If only you knew the harm you are doing. You will give these poor kids complexes for the rest of their lives."
"I'd infinitely rather my children had complexes than that they have to shoulder parenthood too early", I'd snap back.
"You see, you see? Only one thing on your mind. Why should a little innocent dating lead to anything you would consider wrong?"
"I don't consider them wrong, the ten commandments do. And if what I often read in the media is anything to go by, they happen all right."
It happened to them
My son and I love each other, but our ideas are wide apart. He was terrified that I would bring up the younger children with a soured view of married life, but I can never forget the heartaches of special friends who struggled as single mothers.
I think the age where a child is especially vulnerable is between thirteen and eighteen. At thirteen he begins to experience an attraction to the opposite gender, one of life's beautiful things. But if he has not yet learnt to handle these new emotions by the age of 18, I won't be able to help him.
I am hesitant to trust children with far more freedom than I could or should have been entrusted with when I was between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.
However, my son's feelings about my indoctrination apart, I took courage from words he spoke to me another time.
"Not that I'd let anyone say a word against you, mind. You may be the stuffiest old lady in the world, but at least you are prepared to stand up and fight for your convictions."
Catherine Nicolette
Ah yes. I remember the battles well. I used to admire my brother, who took up cudgels and discussed issues at length with Mom and Dad. On the whole I didn't bother. We'd go round in a very long circle, and at the end the parental policy never budged one inch. I was a great one as a child for not wasting energy unduly.
I used to have to laugh though. My brother was not always keen on what he termed sermons. Mom would earnestly wind up her manifold and well thought out reasons for some parental ruling with an exhortation on the lines of, "And as Father said in his sermon on Sunday . . ." and we would get a telling moral from the previous Sunday's sermon which underlined the rule. Afterwards my brother would be somewhat bitter, saying, "It's bad enough having to listen to a sermon once, but it's unspeakable to have to listen to it twice."
City of God
One of the books in our library at home was St Augustine's 'City of God' and I used to read the book endlessly, along with a Dutch version of the life of St Pius X. Every time I got bored and moaned to Mom, she used to briskly say, "Well, go and read something from the library". Other girls my age got the teen magazine 'Jackie'. I got Augustine and Tomas à Kempis. They were good reading though.
There were a couple of points in City of God that I didn't quite grasp, and I waited until our local Theologian Fr Jansen visited. At eight years old, I asked him to explain. "What have you been reading, Nicolette?" he asked kindly. "City of God," I answered brightly. He went quiet for a long time, looking at me. "Why?" he asked. "Because it's the only English book we have in the library at the moment besides your books," I replied. "The others are all in Dutch and Irish and I don't understand all the words."
He threw his head back, and laughed heartily; his lovely Dutch laugh resonating around the then still-new furniture in our lounge. He then proceeded to explain - in eight year old terms - Augustine's philosophy about sin and our personal conscience. Augustine, he wound up, said 'Turn inward, brethren, and in everything you do, see God as your witness." So, if God knew your conscience was clear, it did not matter what anyone thought or said; all was right in your world.
On sin, Father explained the Catechism that a culpable grave sin required three ingredients; grave matter, full knowledge and full consent. If any of these was missing, then a fully understood grave sin had not been committed.
Fully explained
Well, that let me off the hook. Many's the time there was grave matter (like the inquiry that followed the eating of the icing from the family Sunday cake). It was, I now understand, a Very Very Bad Thing To Do. Although, honestly, it certainly did not feel like that at the time. I ticked off the second box for culpable sin; - I had full consent to eating the icing. But aha, the third box let me off. I did not have full knowledge that I was not supposed to have eaten the icing off the cake. Mom had stated quite clearly, don't eat the cake.
She had not stated, don't eat the icing.
And even Augustine supported me, because if I looked inwards - I explained earnestly at the court martial to Mom and Dad - my conscience was clear. Because I did not have full knowledge. Therefore there was no sin. It then followed, I concluded philosophically, that no grave sin had taken place because although there was grave matter, and full consent - there was no full knowledge.
I really could not understand why Mom got so annoyed, and started talking in Dutch.
Suffice it to say, that I was grounded from reading 'City of God' for a while. That was ok. I turned to Fr Jansen's 'The Sacramental We" and 'Existential Approach to Theology." They were pretty exciting too.
Grounded
Which brings me to the point; by age twelve, Mom grew exasperated and said one day, "Your brother argues and discusses, and then does what I say. You smile gently, turn away, and then go and do your own thing." I'm still quite sour I got grounded that week for impertinence; all I did was explain a most valid point in my defence from the philosophical point of view . . .
Ah. Those were the days.
The Sacramental We
https://www.amazon.com/SACRAMENTAL-WE-Existential-Approach-Sacramental/dp/B000FMKP4O
An Existential Approach to Theology
https://www.amazon.com/Existential-Approach-Theology-G-M-Jansen/dp/B001U8F3NU
The City of God Part 1 Audio Book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQrr_qsYXCM
City of God
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2053
With thanks to Books.Google, Amazon, Youtube and LibertyFund.Org
