Category: covid-19

  • Based Church

    Based Church

    ONE THING DRIVEN HOME BY COVID-19 is many of our social structures are not only outdated but also irrelevant, and dangerously fragile. Yes, certainly racism lives under the surface of many of our societal functions recent demonstrations have attempted to reveal that to the masses. But recent actions of the government have also revealed how…

  • But What If

    The readings for the 13th Tuesday, Tempus per Annum – Amos 3:1-8; 4:11-12 – Matthew 8:23-27 Quid timidi estis, modicae fidei?Why are you terrified, O you of little faith? THIS MORNING, Fr Michael’s homily took this scene all the way back to the creation, reminding us that God’s first actions (on the first three days…

  • Day 108: On the Gospel Side

    THERE WAS VERY LITTLE POLITICAL CHOICE in my household growing up: one was either Democrat or one was silent. My stepfather was brave enough, once or twice a year, to pick fights on this issue. I don’t think he ever actually voted Republican, but I think it was something. to fight over, in those adult…

  • Day 100. Facie ad Faciem

    QUARANTINE’S FIRST TERRIFIED PANIC led to a tedium where days blent together in disordered shades of fog. This, in turn, parted like a curtain on a sort of political theater which allows us to pass the time with a modicum of excitement unrelated to our sickness or death. In my fear at the beginning of…

  • Day 75. What Has Been Learned?

    Very early in this I learned that I can go quite a long time on autopilot without realizing this is not “the new normal” but rather this is the rut I let myself make and it’s only that I’m calling it the New Normal. For a while my two emotions were fear and snark. Sometimes,…

  • Trumpovationism

    After the martyrdom of the Czar and his family, the Orthodox Church in what was becoming the Soviet Union wrestled for a while with various ideas about what was needed. In the Byzantine idea of polity, the Church and the State had always worked “in symphony” even though the idea usually manifested as State Control…

  • 1997: Like PrEP but Covid

    Continuing the series of posts comparing this current situation to the AIDS crisis in the 80s, after 1985 and 1987 it seems good to skip a bit of time, to 1997 and today. The parallels continue to hold. In conversation, recently, a friend and I were discussing the huge change that came over the Gay…

  • But in this time

    The Paschal Preface in the Roman Rite is only used from Easter to Ascension (or is it Pentecost? I don’t know). It’s present in the Novus Ordo nearly verbatim from the older order. Borrowing from Rome, the same text is also present in the 79 BCP for Episcopalians and in the People’s Anglican Missal for…

  • Day 52. A Discomfiting Question: SSA, Pr0n, Theology of the Body

    Back in the 80s there was this woman who was alway protesting in Midtown Manhattan, usually in the middle of the day when folks were about for their lunch. I did see her sometimes durning the morning rush hour. She was always around Grand Central Station, on the 42nd Street side, although sometimes as far…

  • NYC 1987: Mad as Hell

    This started with the idea that our current COVID crisis reminded me of the way we were dealing with AIDS in the 80s. In 1983 we were in denial in exactly the same way Americans were in early March 2020. In 1985 NYC was numb and scared. This time in 2020, it took America about…

  • From the Seven Last Words

    This was a meditation was part of the Good Friday Seven Last Words at St Dominic’s Catholic Church in San Francisco. As a result of the current crisis, the meditations were recorded and posted on YouTube rather than preached from the pulpit. The video is shared at the end of this post. I thirst. Many…

  • When or Because?

    Did you ever notice that we called these things stoplights even when they’re green? Did you ever wonder about that? We tend to see these things as a hindrance rather than a conveyance, or help. When I was at NYU my Religion Professor, Dr. James Carse asked us one night if we went when the…

  • NYC 1985. The Doomed.

    Last week when I told you about NYC in 1983, I titled the post Underground and discussed the active sense of denial that many engaged in. I compared AIDS in NYC, c. 1983, to where we were a week ago in this current crisis. Time is telescoping fast. The next stage in NYC in the…

  • NYC 1983. Underground.

    My coworker asked if I had ever been through anything “like this” before. The answer was instant. Yes: AIDS in 1983. I spoke with a friend after Mass tonight and he agreed. AIDS in the early 80s was exactly like this. In the early 80s (nearly until the end of the 80s, actually) we didn’t…

  • Love in the Time of Covid-19

    Dear Fathers in Christ – Some diocese are canceling public services. Some are not. No matter where you fall on the spectrum between APOCALYPSE and TOO MUCH HYPE there is something you can do to help us all: especially the folks in the places with no Masses. Put your Mass live on Facebook. Put your…