Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 5—November 15,1973
“EVERY FAMILY has its own plan of operation.
What is important is never to forget that work can and
should enhance the love we have for one another.”
. . .Maybe mother is bogged down with ironing and a
hectic house. If dad or the kids give her a hand in a
spirit of love, that can’t help but shore up the family’s
foundations.” A grandmother teaches a boy how to
iron so that some day he can help with a share of the
family work load. (NC Photo by Richard Lee)
Why Jack Is Not a Dull Boy
BY JANE WILLIAMS PUGEL
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” The first
person to say this had to live in a different age from ours, one
hemmed in by that old Puritan work ethic which nudges us
occasionally when we settle for a siesta.
A better saying for today would tell the world that Jack
would be even duller if his lot were all play and no work, an
ambition that seems to be creeping into our national list of
wants. Poor Jack! He’d join his friends on a summer afternoon
sitting around and sighing, “But there’s nothing to do!”
Religious Education
And Family Work
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
I recently heard an interesting account of how one family
works together. This family includes six children ranging in ages
from one-and-a-half to IIV2. The father works as an investment
broker. The mother works at home, mostly as mother and
housewife. Their grandmother lives in a big old farmhouse on
what had been the family farm.
Several years ago the parents wondered what they might
do together with the children that might help the whole family
grow together in a deeper way. So often it seemed that there
was little they did together, that all could share in, talk about
and become generally involved in.
As they tried to find something real--they wanted no artificial
“projects” or “gimmicks’’--they thought of their grandmother
living in the big farmhouse on several acres of land. So they
proposed to all the children that they might give their
grandmother a special present.
The present was to paint the fence that circled the old
farm-it was a third of a mile long! So they put on old clothes,
packed a big picnic lunch, and set off for grandmother’s farm.
Everyone worked. The father mixed the paint and portioned
it out in small sand buckets. The older boys helped their mother
scrape the dried paint off the fence. All, even the youngest, had
his own paintbrush and pitched in with painting. The smallest
child also pulled weeds from around the fenceposts.
It took all summer to complete the fence painting, working
one day a week. The whole family enjoyed the experience and
their grandmother very much appreciated the present. In fact,
the experience was so happy a one for the whole family that
they decided to look for other opportunities to work together.
This nothing-to-do syndrome is familiar to any veteran
mother, and most of us can tell you what happens next, too.
Mom suggests that the bored ones while away a few hours by
cleaning the basement, and then they all leap into action,
peering at the clock and making important telephone calls. “I’ve
gotta deliver my papers in exactly two hours and ten minutes,”
or “I promised the guys I’d go swimming at three!” Something
to do always crops up in the nick of time.
I guess that’s the human condition. We think we hate work,
but we begin to feel at loose ends when we have no set time
schedule. Retired people must adjust to this. A retired couple
told me recently: “Would you believe waking up each morning
and having to decide what to do with your hours? You’re lucky
to be so busy and have all your children around you!”
When I regained consciousness, I decided they were probably
right. Work does play an important part in life, particularly
family life. Traditionally this work has been divided between
the men and the women of the family, but traditions are
toppling today. Mothers are joining the money-earning ranks,
dads are helping with the housework and children, and the kids
are earning money for their own clothes and part of their
education.
I like this sharing of family work loads. I am proud that my
older children have taken jobs - and plenty of grueling ones - to
help pay their way. I am proud of my husband who, besides
supporting us, has apparently never worried whether it was
masculine to help with the dishes or scrubbing.
In my softer moments, I am not displeased with the role I
have played in our family’s work load. We happen to believe
that a family is better off if the mother can be home while the
children are growing up. I have managed this, and my rewards
have been rich - even though housework is not my bag.
Every family has its own plan of operation. What is important
is never to forget that work can and should enhance the love we
have for one another. After all, we believe that everything is in
God’s plan - even family work. If work is in his plan, then there
must be some reason for it. And what better reason could there
be for work, than that it helps us grow in love?
Maybe mother is bogged down with ironing and a hectic
house. If dad or the kids give her a hand in a spirit of love, that
can’t help but shore up the family’s foundations. If the kids
earn part of their way and lessen their financial demands on dad
- that’s love. They sense it; he knows it.
When a mother who hates to cook turns out Boston cream
pie for a husband who loves Boston cream pie - that’s work, but
also love. And, in a family that works together in love, the
children are forming attitudes that will affect their performance
as future family makers.
For special days, like grandmother’s birthday, they planted
small flower beds around her house. In the fall they picked
apples together, and picked peaches in the spring. The children
especially liked the fruit picking because they shared
immediately in the rewards of their work.
That is one family’s experience. Naturally their situation is
unique to them. Every family has its own opportunities in its
own particular situation. What struck me was the creative way
this family went about deepening their own unity in so natural
and fun-filled a manner through working together.
In today’s fragmented life-style it is often rare that father and
mother, parents and children, have an opportunity to work at
something together. Usually the father works away from home
five or six days of the week. The parents may only rarely work
at something together. And in many families there is hardly
anything the children can do that involves really working
together in a meaningful way.
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1973 by N.C. News Service)
KnowYourFaith
Megiddo Controlled Routes to Palestine
Working together can not only help families grow closer
together, but the experience of shared work can also help create
healthy attitudes toward work, as well as assist in the
development of a sense of responsibility. In rural areas many
families find working together a normal, necessary part of life
on a farm- -parents are visibly working together and all of the
children have a part in the family work. But in many urban and
suburban families it is necessary to look for honest
opportunities to work together. Perhaps the experience of my
fence-painting friends may spark ideas for other families.
“THE VATICAN DECREE suggests that further
instruction on the meaning of the eucharistic prayer,
fuller use of present alternative texts and carefully
prepared introductions to various parts of the Mass are
better ways to foster diversified, fresh liturgies than
employment of unauthorized canons.” A priest
elevates the chalice during a home Mass. (NC Photo by
Jack Hamilton)
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
The geography of Palestine conspired to make the city of
Megiddo the key to Egypt and the South, Syria and the North,
Damascus and the East and Phoenicia and the Sea.
Like the surface of a washboard, the topography of Palestine
consists of vertical strips: the coastal plain, the central range of
mountains, the Jordan Valley, and the mountains of
Transjordan.
Interrupting the symmetry of the vertical valleys and
mountains is the plain of Jezreel of Esdraelon, which thrusts
through the coastal plain and central mountain range to the
Jordan.
In the center of this valley, about 18 miles from the coast,
rises Tell el Mutesellim, the site of the ancient city of Megiddo.
It commands the valley and the nearby Pass of Megiddo, the
most strategic route from the coastal plain to the valley.
Whoever controlled Megiddo controlled all traffic from the Nile
to the Euphrates.
Archeologists have discovered traces of man’s habitation of
the site from the Chalcolithic period, the fourth millenium
before Christ. It was fortified in the Early Bronze Age, the third
millenium before Christ.
Evidence indicates the city was destroyed about 2500 B.C.,
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
Dr. James P. Shannon, former auxiliary bishop of St.
Paul-Minneapolis, graduated in May from the University of New
Mexico Law School and has now joined a law firm in
Albuquerque. On the occasion of that graduation, the National
Catholic Reporter published a lengthy interview with him, an
exchange which offers interesting insights into a current
liturgical situation.
Since leaving his Minnesota post and marrying, Dr. Shannon
has not walked forward to the altar for Holy Communion
despite the fact that he participates at Mass regularly, has been
invited by clergy friends to do so and been asked by some
priests to concelebrate with them.
His reason: “Out of respect for the discipline of the Church.”
He thinks those regulations are excessively rigorous and hopes in
time they will change. But until then, “Whatever weight my
views have will be greater if I live under the discipline rather
than challenge it.”
I think his observations are worth keeping in mind as we
examine the April 27, 1973 “Letter to the Presidents of the
National Conferences of Bishops Concerning Eucharistic
Prayers” from Rome’s Congregation for Divine Worship.
That document brought anguish, even anger to some
Catholics, especially priests. While providing for the eventual
along with other Palestinian sites, but history is silent as to the
cause. It could have been an unrecorded natural disaster or the
result of a general invasion.
Megiddo’s golden age was from about 2100 to 1500 B.C. It
came to an end when the city was conquered by Pharaoh
Thutmose III in 1468 B.C., during the Egyptian ruler’s rout of
the Hyksos, the foreign kings who dominated Egypt during two
dynasties.
The strategic importance of the city is testified to by
Thutmose’s comment that “the capture of Megiddo is the
capture of a thousand towns.” It was under the Hyksos that the
Hebrew tribes entered Egypt as honored guests and it was after
their expulsion that the Pharaohs began the oppression of the
Hebrews that was destined to end with the Exodus.
Thurmose made Megiddo the headquarters for the Egyptian
administration of Palestine and the Amama Letters (1400 B.C.)
contain communications from the Prince of Megiddo, an
Egyptian puppet.
The city rebelled against the Pharaohs about 1300 B.C., and
was subsequently captured and destroyed by Pharaoh Seti I.
Joshua 12:21 lists Megiddo among the Canaanite cities
conquered by the Israelites during the invasion but the same
book (Jos. 17:Ilf) notes that it was one of the cities which the
tribe of Manesseh was unable to take from the Canaanites. It is
likely that the city itself did not fall to the Israelites but that
they occupied the surrounding hills.
development of additional, officially approved eucharistic texts,
it still came down rather severly on those who “have frequently
used privately circulated texts for their celebrations.”
Such experimental “canons” abound. They appear on ditto
paper and in published books, find their way into home or class
Masses, convent liturgies, weekday parish celebrations, and
often stress a central contemporary theme throughout.
Priests who employ such compositions or who believe the
celebrant might do well to improvise and spontaneously create
his own eucharistic prayer tend to view the current decree as
another example of Vatican retrenchment, an out-of-touch
attempt to hold back liturgical progress.
The Roman authorities obviously feel otherwise.
One paragraph states: “Whenever eucharistic prayers are used
without any approval of the Church’s authority, unrest and even
dissensions arise, not only among priests, but within the
communities themselves, even though the eucharist should be a
‘sign of unity, and the bond of charity.’ Many people complain
about the overly subjective quality of such texts, and
participants have a right to make such a complaint. Otherwise
the eucharistic prayer, to which they give their assent in the
‘Amen’ they proclaim, becomes disorderly, or is imbued with
the personal feelings of the person who either composes or says
it.”
An earthquake and fire apparently destroyed Megiddo about
1150 B.C., and it lay abandoned for about a century before it
was rebuilt by the Philistines.
David probably took the city from the Philistines between
1000 and 970 B.C. King Solomon rebuilt the city (1 Kings
9:15), made it a provincial capital and constructed the most
elaborate fortifications in Palestine. The famous stables that
housed 480 horses were built either by Solomon or the Israelite
King Ahab.
The Assyrian monarch Tiglathpileser II destroyed and rebuilt
the city in the last half of the 7th century during his campaign
against the Northern Kingdom.
Ahazia, king of Judah, died there while fleeing from Jehu (2
Kings 9:27), and Good King Josiah was killed there in battle
with the forces of the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho (2 Kings 23:29)
who was dashing to the aid of the crumbling Assyrian Empire.
Megiddo’s bloody Biblical history ends about 350 B.C. when
the site of the ancient city was abandoned. Today it is an
interesting and much studied archaelogical site that has told us
much about the Lands of the Bible and their inhabitants.
Because of the many battles fought near Megiddo, John chose
it as the gathering place for the armies of the world for the final
world battle . . .Armageddon . . .the Greek for Har Megiddo, the
hill of Megiddo (Rev. 16:16).
In a more positive vein, the Vatican decree suggests that
further instruction on the meaning of the eucharistic prayer,
fuller use of present alternative texts and carefully prepared
introductions to various parts of the Mass are better ways to
foster diversified, fresh liturgies than employment of
unauthorized canons.
My impressions from around the country lead me to believe
relatively few priests and parishes have tapped, far less
exhausted, the riches of these revised ritual books. Moreover, as
yet, seldom do liturgy planners seem to make the painstaking
effort required to compose precise, pertinent introductory
remarks such as before the preface of the eucharistic prayer.
Until these practices become a standard procedure, it will be
difficult to evaluate the true need for a greater variety of
canons.
In its letter, the Congregation for Divine Worship also offers
this astute comment: “The many ways of increasing the
pastoral effectiveness of a celebration are not always known,
nor is sufficient attention paid to the spiritual good of the
assembly in planning the celebration.”
Vatican officials are talking here really about a process, the
process of a Christian community, the parish as a Christian
family working together to plan and execute its liturgies. That
process may be more important for good worship than the
actual product which results, a question which we will pursue
next week.
Keeping the Liturgical Commandments