The World According to Taquoriaan

Today marks the Feast Day of St. Charles of Mount Argus, a well known priest in Ireland where there’s a big devotion to him. Originally he’s from Munstergeleen in Limburg, The Netherlands where he was born on December 11, 1821. He  was sent after his ordination in 1850 to England and to Ireland in 1857. He spent most of his life at the monastery in Mount Argus in Dublin, Ireland. I don’t know why I am so fond of this saint. Maybe it’s because he’s from The Netherlands, maybe because he’s a Passionist priest, belonging to the same religious order my patron saint was attracted to, St. Gemma Galgani.

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During Advent, everything is dialling back: there are no flowers in our churches, the gloria is omitted during Mass and the colour is purple. The church is preparing for Christ’s coming with Christmas. We sing “Veni, Veni, Immanuel” and the “Rorate Caeli” only during this season. But on Dec. 8 the colour gets bright, the church flares up: it is the Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception. There’s a reason that this Solemnity is on the calendar at the beginning of Advent. It helps us to understand the coming of Christ better. It really helps preparing for Christmas.
A lot of Catholics think, because we are preparing for Christ’s birth, this feast is referring to the Immaculate Conception of Jesus, when the virgin Mary became pregnant of the Holy Spirit. This is not the case. We celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Christ’s mother, the Virgin Mary, also called in the Bible the second Eve. From Catholics to Protestants the general agreement is that Genesis 3:15 refers to the Blessed Virgin giving birth to the one who would crush the snake’s head.

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

(Genesis 3, 14-15)

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This is a transcript of episode 23 of “A Journey into the Land of the Spirit” podcast. Like I promised in the podcast I transcribed the segment about statues and graven images for those who want to refer back to it.

I want to delve deeper in a topic that’s discussed often. As a new Catholic I have to explain this to my friends, who are still Protestant all the time. The most common question I will be asked is “Why do Catholics worship statues?”. And the short answer always is: “Catholics don’t worship statues”.

Their response often is “But you’ve got tons of statues in your churches”, on which I respond, “Sure, be we don’t worship those”. Usually the next comment is “But God forbids making statues, why do you make statues where God forbids you to do so?”. My response to that surprises most Protestants. First I throw back another question: “Why do you keep pictures of your loved ones in your wallet even though you see them every day? You must know by now how they look like?” Then I usually say “But God doesn’t forbid making statues, there are quite a number of Bible passages in which God commands us to make objects for veneration, but that’s something different then worshipping them of course”. Usually that’s the point where my friends are really curious, let me explain where my answer comes from.

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Today is World Animal Day, and pet owners will give their pets an extra treat. I’m living in a highly secularised country and if I would ask random people on the street, they would think this feast day is a so-called ‘Hallmark Holiday’, invented by retailers to give their sales a boost. But if you look at the history of this day, you’ll notice this isn’t the case at all. The reason that Oct. 4 is called World Animal Day is that it was on this date that Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone died in 1226. To be more precise, he died on Oct. 3 in the evening, which would be the eve of Oct. 4.

Chances are that after reading the name, you still have no clue who this Giovanni Francesco di Bernadone was. That’s he’s more famous under his Latin name: Saint Franciscus of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, the environment, stowaways and merchants. Together with another great Italian saint, Saint Catharine of Sienna, St. Francis is also the patron saint of the country Italy. It’s no exaggeration he’s probably one of the most beloved saints venerated in the Catholic Church. One can ask why his example is still so appealing to us, many centuries later. I try to explain my take, but first let’s discuss a misunderstanding. Some people think that Francis and his followers of the religious order he founded, the Franciscans are proto-hippies who like hugging trees and are devout animal lovers.

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The following post is a transcript from episode 21 of “A Journey into the Land of the Spirit” in which I discuss the history of the Blessed Rosary and what it’s foundation in Scripture is.

Where does the Rosary come from? What is the connection between the virgin Mary and the Rosary? Isn’t it wrong to put the focus on Mary instead of on Our Lord? And finally a question asked by many protestants: is the Rosary a ‘Biblical’ / Scriptural thing?

So starting with the first questions. What is a rosary? The word rosary comes from ‘rosarium’ and the chaplet comes from the word ‘corona’. So basically it’s name means ‘a crown of roses’. That seems to be a weird name for a set of prayer beads. But it becomes even stranger. Did you know that the English word for bead (so b-e-a-d) is derived from the Old English word for pray which is b-e-d-e? Even in modern Dutch and German you can find that same word still in use as a translation for ‘prayer’, which comes from the French together with a lot of other words imported from French after 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded Britain.
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Photo by abcdz2000The following post is a transcript belonging to episode 20 of “A Journey into the Land of the Spirit”.

As a new Catholic with LOTS of Protestant friends, one topic immediately pops up when we talk about prayer. For some reason, my friends believe I stopped praying myself and am mindlessly reciting the Rosary (and thus praying to Mary instead of God) or I am praying to saints instead of God. Usually I have to explain that I pray to God only, but sometimes ask for saintly intercession, just like I ask them to pray for me. And the most common response to that is: “But the saints and angels cannot hear our prayers, only God can”. To them that’s the most logical thing on earth, because since God is omnipotent and omnipresent (he knows everything and is everywhere) he knows our prayers even before we know them. Since angels and saints are not all-knowing and do not share other divine characteristics, they don’t know what’s going on down here. Sounds like they have a point, but is that all there is to it?

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St. Ansfrid's in Amersfoort, Netherlands

Today is a special day. It’s Good Shepherd Sunday, which means there’s a lot of extra attention to vocations to the priesthood in a lot of Dutch parishes, but for Amersfoort it’s an extra special Sunday: on May 3, it’s the feast day of St. Ansfrid of Utrecht. Saints.SQPN.com has the following entry for St. Ansfrid:

Also known as Ansfridus of Utrecht and Ansfried of Utrecht. Memorial 3 May

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Count of Brabant. Married to Hilsondis; father of one daughter; after the girl’s birth, Ansfrid and Hilsondis, lived as brother and sister. Courtier and knight in the service of Holy Roman Emperor Otto III and Saint Henry II. After many years of this life he realized a call to religious life, and in 974 he gave up his life as a soldier. In 992 he founded a convent at Thorn, Netherlands, which his wife and daughter entered; his daughter eventually became abbess.

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Foto door hajeka

Today the Church remembers the SS. Holy Innocents. We remember the Jewish infants born in Bethlehem around the same date our Saviour was born and who king Herod ordered to be killed. He was thinking that when he would kill all baby boys, he would save his own crown. He didn’t realise that Jesus’ Kingdom wasn’t a kindom of this world. And apart from that: Joseph and Mary already left Bethlehem after Jesus was born, so this slaying of infants, infanticide was totally unnecessary. It’s very hard to tell how many children lost their lives. Bethlehem isn’t a big city, so the estimates range from a couple dozen to several hundred. It also may sound strange that the Catholic Church venerates Jewish children. But it’s not that odd after all. According to the Church, those children are witnesses of Christ. They died because of Christ, and because of that they will be glorified because of Christ. That’s what the word ‘martyr’ means: a witness.

Important: The following post contains very graphic images of a surgery on a fetus and a picture of an aborted child. You might not want to show this to kids.

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Photo by Sint-Katelijne-Waver

Today I see a lot of American friends twittering, facebooking and plurking about ‘Boxing Day’. For me that’s a reminder ‘Second Christmas Day’ isn’t really well known outside The Netherlands. Over here we have the First Christmas Day on Dec. 25 and the Second Christmas Day on Dec. 26th.
It originated during the Middle Ages when the servants of wealthy families had to work during Christmas. The day after they got a day off to visit their relatives. The servants usually were living with their employers and weren’t seeing their relatives often. They would get a package containing food and other items that could be preserved for a longer time to bring to their families. This is how giving gifts and the typical Dutch ‘Christmas Parcel’ evolved.

In the Catholic Church there isn’t also just one Christmas Day. There’s a whole Christmas Octave in which the whole atmosphere remains festive. Today we celebrate the triumph of the first martyr, St. Stephen. He is also called a ‘protomartyr’, because a protomartyr is the first martyr in a country. And St. Stephen was the first martyr of them all. I will share what Wikipedia has to say about him.

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