Fourth of July! Embattled farmers' shot heard round the world, Paul Revere's midnight ride. Old testament prophets. Reverence itself a target? Faith or pandemonium? Opening door for man with cane.

Thrill with me to the poems of this day in the history of America!

#1, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the shot.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world.

etc.

Stood on that rude bridge with fam years ago when out there for #2 Son’s graduation in the ‘hood. Was struck with the glory of it, Minute Men vs. strongest army in the world.

And #2, Longfellow and the ride:

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

etc.

Thrilled I was. Got sentimental. Energized. Distracted from . . .

. . . the work of the day.

Such as:

Psalms not Christian? Right. There were no Christians yet. Jews were learning. Like me, reading John L. McKenzie’s The Two-edged Sword - An Interpretation of the Old Testament. where on p. 41, about prophet’s “terribly immediate awareness of the divine [that] alters entirely [his] habit of thought!” and the “glowing light within his mind.” Each burdened with his “sense of otherness . . . the overpowering mark of the prophet,” who is “closer to God than to any man!” A lonely calling, his.

Let’s hear it for a contemporary hard-charger, all-systems-go Chris Jackson, on the crushing of the reverent.

The new regime wants to purge reverence itself. From Charlotte to Paraná, bishops are cracking down on kneeling, chant, Latin, & ad orientem: even in the Novus Ordo. And Leo XIV is letting it happen.

In these matters, he’s on to Leo the Charmer, who has done nothing so far but go along, permanentizing the Francis inheritance. Sad! Read to me one diversion from F. so far. Ours is not to reason why? Ours just to do and/or die? Yes and no. This fellow is in for the long haul.

Situation comes down to our pledging obedience to which pope? Whose side are we on? We are to be relieved of our duty as prescribed (or allowed) by which pope? Time is now to realize or identify our priorities and accentuate the positive and hold faith or pandemonium is likely to rule upon the scene!

Meanwhile, at mass we have the the right to pray? Of course, including or specially when matters get distracting. Fr. Soft-tone is a blessing, other good priests not so much. How much of the 1970 liturgy (55 years old by now) depends on the priest as devotion source. How many priests are up to it? And for how many worshipers?

A word about the sermon. It can begin with a laugh but can’t end with one. Doesn’t mean it ends with a tear, anything but. Food for thought, at least.

Day’s happening: One for the books. Walking into Colectivo sans cane, having left it in the car a few steps away, I saw man about, my guess, 2/3 as old as I, heading for the same door with his cane, and guess what I did? Got there first and held it open for him! Made no fuss about it but was tickled. Yay.

Then I sat with semi-small black, neither room for cream nor cream, reading Writer’s Quotation Book, a Literary Companion, from which gems.

Had dumped a dozen (!) books at the library, making minor promise not to take any more out until I finish above-mentioned McKenzie book about the Old Testament. You heard it here, OK?.

This Writer’s book is good reading but also a reminder of other books I should read! Library? No! I swear! Instead my shelves, OK? Hilaire Belloc? Sounds good.

More later . . .