When you went all the way to France, spent months there, and realized you forgot to get a souvenir for the folks back home just before boarding the ship. . .

Paris, lampshade made from flour sack, January 27, 1919.

Merry Christmas!

As always, and as it should be, one of the most joyous, and perhaps the most joyous, time of the year.

Christmas is, of course's Christ's Mass, and has been celebrated by Christians on this date from the very earliest days of the Church.  As always, the the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, delivers a homily at the Mass he celebrates.  This year, his homily was as follows, translated into English.

 “Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Is 9:1). 

The prophecy we heard in the first reading was fulfilled in the Gospel: as shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night, “the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Lk 2:9). In the midst of our earthly night, a light appeared from heaven.

What is the meaning of this light that shone in the darkness? Saint Paul tells us: “The grace of God has appeared”. The grace of God, “bringing salvation to all” (Tit 2:11), has shone on our world this night. But what is this grace? It is divine love, the love that changes lives, renews history, liberates from evil, fills hearts with with peace and joy.

Tonight the love of God has been revealed to us: it is Jesus. In Jesus, the Most High made himself tiny, so that we might love him. But we can still ask ourselves: why does Saint Paul describe the coming of God into our world as “grace”? To tell us that it is utterly free. Whereas on earth everything seems to be about giving in order to get, God comes down freely.

His love is non-negotiable: we did nothing to deserve it and we will never be able to repay it. The grace of God has appeared. Tonight we realize that, when we failed to measure up, God became small for our sake; while we were going about our own business, he came into our midst.

Christmas reminds us that God continues to love us all, even the worst of us. To me, to you, to each of us, he says today: “I love you and I will always love you, for you are precious in my eyes”. God does not love you because you think and act the right way. He loves you, plain and simple. His love is unconditional; it does not depend on you. You may have mistaken ideas, you may have made a complete mess of things, but the Lord continues to love you.

How often do we think that God is good if we are good and punishes us if we are bad. Yet that is not how he is. For all our sins, he continues to love us. His love does not change. It is not fickle; it is faithful. It is patient. This is the gift we find at Christmas. We discover to our amazement that the Lord is absolute gratuity, absolute tender love. His glory does not overwhelm us; his presence does not terrify us. He is born in utter poverty in order to win our hearts by the wealth of his love. The grace of God has appeared.

Grace is a synonym of beauty. Tonight, in the beauty of God’s love, we also discover our own beauty, for we are beloved of God. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, whether happy or sad, in his eyes we are beautiful, not for what we do but for what we are. Deep within us, there is an indelible and intangible beauty, an irrepressible beauty, which is the core of our being. Today God reminds us of this. He lovingly takes upon himself our humanity and makes it his own, “espousing” it forever. The “great joy” proclaimed tonight to the shepherds is indeed “for all the people”. We too, with all our weaknesses and failures, are among those shepherds, who were certainly not saints.

And just as God called the shepherds, so too he calls us, for he loves us. In the dark night of life, he says to us as he did to them, “Be not afraid!” (Lk 2:10). Take courage, do not lose confidence, do not lose hope, do not think that to love is a waste of time! Tonight love has conquered fear, new hope has arrived, God’s kindly light has overcome the darkness of human arrogance.

Mankind, God loves you; for your sake he became man. You are no longer alone! Dear brothers and sisters, what are we to do with this grace? Only one thing: accept the gift. Before we go out to seek God, let us allow ourselves to be sought by him.

Let us not begin with our own abilities but with his grace, for he, Jesus, is the Saviour. Let us contemplate the Child and let ourselves be caught up in his tender love. Then we have no further excuse for not letting ourselves be loved by him.

Whatever goes wrong in our lives, whatever doesn’t work in the Church, whatever problems there are in the world, will no longer serve as an excuse. It will become secondary, for faced with Jesus’ extravagant love, a love of utter meekness and closeness, we have no excuse. At Christmas, the question is this: “Do I allow myself to be loved by God? Do I abandon myself to his love that comes to save me?”

So great a gift deserves immense gratitude. To accept this grace means being ready to give thanks in return. Often we live our lives with such little gratitude. Today is the right day to draw near to the tabernacle, the crèche, the manger, and to say thank you. Let us receive the gift that is Jesus, in order then to become gift like Jesus.

To become gift is to give meaning to life. And it is the best way to change the world: we change, the Church changes, history changes, once we stop trying to change others but try to change ourselves and to make of our life a gift. Jesus shows this to us tonight. He did not change history by pressuring anyone or by a flood of words, but by the gift of his life. He did not wait until we were good before he loved us, but gave himself freely to us.

May we not wait for our neighbours to be good before we do good to them, for the Church to be perfect before we love her, for others to respect us before we serve them. Let us begin with ourselves. This is what it means freely to accept the gift of grace. And holiness is nothing other than preserving this freedom.

A charming legend relates that at the birth of Jesus the shepherds hurried to the stable with different gifts. Each brought what he had; some brought the fruits of their labour, others some precious item. But as they were all presenting their gifts, there was one shepherd who had nothing to give. He was extremely poor; he had no gift to present.

As the others were competing to offer their gifts, he stood apart, embarrassed. At a certain point, Saint Joseph and Our Lady found it hard to receive all the gifts, especially Mary, who had to hold the baby. Seeing that shepherd with empty hands, she asked him to draw near. And she put the baby Jesus in his arms.

That shepherd, in accepting him, became aware of having received what he did not deserve, of holding in his arms the greatest gift of all time. He looked at his hands, those hands that seemed to him always empty; they had become the cradle of God. He felt himself loved and, overcoming his embarrassment, began to show Jesus to the others, for he could not keep for himself the gift of gifts.

Dear brother, dear sister, if your hands seem empty, if you think your heart is poor in love, this night is for you. The grace of God has appeared, to shine forth in your life. Accept it and the light of Christmas will shine forth in you.

Christian pilgrims flocked, as always, to Bethlehem to celebrate the day there.  In Parish, no Masses were held at Notre Dame for the first time since the French Revolution, given the terrible fire of 2019.

June 22, 1919: Reichstag votes to accept the Versailles Treaty, Allies engage in sports, Faroe's display flag, Minnesota hit by tornado.

On this day in 1919 the Reichstag voted 237 to 138 to accept the Versailles Treaty, while its Supreme Counsel also rejecting the war guilt clauses.  The Reichstag vote sealed the question of whether Germany would sign the peace agreement, or endure an Allied invasion of its territory.  It voted to accept.

While the Germans were gathering to vote to tend the war, the Allies were holding the Inter Allied Games, an Olympic like event restricted to serving Allied soldiers or discharged Allied soldiers. The event was held in Paris' new Pershing Stadium.

The inaugural events were clearly impressive.

The Arabs wouldn't be getting independent countries for siding with the Allies, but they did get their own team at the event.

In the Faroe Islands, a Danish dependency, displayed its flag unofficially for the first time on this day at a wedding.

The Faroe's have their own language and are culturally distinct. An independence movement has existed on the islands since the late 19th Century and it was growing at this time.  Further developments would lead to the Faroe's declaring independence in 1946, which was accordingly rejected by Denmark, but which did grant the islands home rule.  They did not follow Denmark into the European Community and therefore are outside of it.

Fergus Falls was hit by a terrible tornado that killed 57 people, the second worst tornadic event in Minnesota's history.

Fergus Falls, Minn. after the cyclone, June 22, 1919,

May 18, 1919. Recalling the recent war.

The war wasn't actually technically over, with the Peace Treaty not yet signed, and it certainly wasn't forgotten.  It figured prominently on the cover illustration for the New York Tribunes graphic issue for this day, which was a Sunday feature.

Ft. Riley and Camp Funston, May 18, 1919.  Camp Funston, the locus of the great Flu Epidemic, would soon cease to exist and just become the wooded lot near Ft. Riley that it is today.

 Organizations laying wreaths as a statute of Joan d'Arc, Paris, May 18, 1919.

Gatherings seemed to be going on this Sunday in Paris.

Red Cross Societies banquet, Paris, May 18, 1919.

And dramatic news was going on, concerning the advancement of aircraft across the Atlantic, and in general.

A Cheyenne paper gave banner headlines to the loss of one of the U.S. Navy seaplanes attempting to cross the Atlantic, but it was the weather item, the same today as it was a century ago, that drew my eye to this one.

May 9, 1919. French scenes.

Scenes, some sad, from the 1919 Fair Of Paris.

Convalescing U.S. soldiers in American Red Cross facility, France.

Red Cross Tent City, Paris, Champs de Mars, as photographed from a nearby Ferris wheel.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Churches of the East: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

Notre Dame de Paris, Paris France

It's not a "national landmark", it's a Cathedral

And hence its much more important.

I keep seeing references to Notre Dame de Paris as a "landmark" or a "national treasure", or all sorts of other similar terms.  All of which are in fact true.

And all of which miss the point.  Notre Dame de Paris is a Catholic Cathedral, and that's not only what it is, its why it is, and why its a national treasure and all of those other things.  It's status as a Catholic Cathedral defines everything about it.  Everything.

France is sometimes referred to as the "eldest daughter of the Church", referring to the very early conversion of the French people to Christianity.  The claim is associated with a claim that France was the first wholly Christian nation, but that claim is pretty debatable.  Actually, Armenia holds a better claim to that title.  But France became a Christian nation very early.

And by Christian nation, we mean a Catholic nation.  Irrespective of fanciful claims to the contrary that were fabricated during the Reformation, there's no doubt whatsoever that the early church was, "one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church".  That's not a matter of religious faith, that's a matter of historic fact.  Christians of other denominations can't honestly deny that, and if they're honest with themselves, they have to explain it in some historically cogent fashion, excluding such clearly false claims such as a different nature of the early church or some secret great apostasy.  As the sage Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts".

France is also a country that saw radical early anti clericalism and extreme secularization, which is party of its problematic historical legacy.  That plays into the history of Notre Dame de Paris as well.  Four churches have stood on the spot where the damaged Cathedral now stands prior to the commencement of its construction.  In 1548 French Huguenots, a Protestant sect, destroyed some of its statutes, taking the extreme iconoclast position that pops up in Christianity, and indeed in other religions, from time to time.  It was heavily rebuilt over the years to reflect changes in architectural style.  An enormous statute of St. Christopher dating from 1413 was destroyed in 1786.  A spire that had been added on earlier was removed in the 18th Century, and then a new one reinstalled in the 19th.  During the French Revolution it was seized and defamed into a Cult of Reason, and the statutes of twenty eight Biblical kings beheaded on the mistaken ignorant belief that they represented French kings.

Indeed the unfortunate legacy of the unfortunate French Revolution, the model for modern revolutions in the fact that it it became wildly debased and turned into a massive, if still celebrated, failure, lingers on in that the Cathedral is property of the French state.  After the French Revolution, France has had an uneasy relationship with everything, including itself, and as part of that, with its Faith.  France became wildly anticlerical during the Revolution, but it remains Catholic still.

And it will continue to be.  Unlike Ireland or Quebec, which really don't exist without the Church, there is a France that can be discussed without discussing the Church, but like everything European, or at least worth celebrating in Europe, it's not only difficult to do, but largely discussing something that's much diminished without the Church.

There's no doubt that Europe has been struggling with itself since some date in the 20th Century, or perhaps some date in the 19th, and part of that has been an increase in worldliness and misdirection, and a perceived decrease in Faith.  That decrease, however, may in fact be a bit of an illusion, or misconstrued.  It's very clearly the case that the churches born of the Reformation, generally eager to accommodate themselves to social trends of all types, are suffering much.  Catholicism may seem to be, but it may be much less than imagined.  When real events occur, the basic Catholic nature of Catholic peoples (and the Orthodox nature of Orthodox people's for that matter, strongly reasserts itself.

Which may be why the fire at Notre Dame is oddly portentous. France is a bellwether of some sort, descending into the depths, and the reviving.  On the night the Cathedral was burning, people gathered to pray.

And that's quite telling.

Paris Nocturne