Tag Archives: Tridentine mass

Forced Update

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Ugh…  I feel so tired this early in the morning.  Normally I enjoy mornings.  My best thinking happens in the morning.  Today I feel comatose.  So Marika, if you think that you are the only one whose brain goes on vacation for the weekend… guess again.  This new entry probably comes off as forced.  But I’m willing to suffer for my art. 🙂

Friday’s Latin Mass was pretty fun.  Pretty confusing, and I got lost after the first few moments.  I’m a bit disappointed in what was supposed to be the introduction to the mass.  It came off as “Most of you never experienced a Latin Mass.  And since the Pope is talking about it…  Well then here, enjoy!  And lets discuss afterwards!”.  Clearly a very informative introduction.  I hoping this leaving people in the dark, was mostly a sign of incompetence and not maliace.  I’m not complaining about the people helping to organize the mass.  Many of my friends and acquaintances took part in getting this mass off the ground.  But I’m not sure what kind of meaningful discussion can one have after sitting blankly, trying to follow along.  And the people who are familiar with Latin masses already have an opinion, so why even bother mentioning a discussion in that case?  Still I found it worthwhile to attend that mass, and I enjoyed meeting up and talking with friends afterwards.

The rest of the weekend went by in a “meh” sort of way.  Mostly work at home.

No real work on my writing.  Other than the realization, that I could recycle ideas from a previous attempt at a novel.  This will change the plot of the novel a bit, but not the general theme.  And the older work, which was supposed to consist of short stories in a larger overarching story will work well for this novel.  In fact you can say this novel will be the distilled ideas that I’ve toyed with for over 5 years.  I’m hoping the final product will turn out as amazing.

Also my Internet Tablet officially died this weekend.  So sad.  Glad it is still under warranty.  I miss that gadget already, it proved quite useful and usable.  I managed to extract all the information I needed from the device.  I’ll call Nokia for support sometime today.

Also disassembled two laptops yesterday.  And assembled my old one back again.  Interesting how the design of different machines is similar but with enough difference that components aren’t easily replaceable from one machine to the other.

A Time for Silence

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We live in a busy, bustling and noisy world.  Ever since the industrial revolution and the explosion of commerce and industry, we have learned to make more and more noise.  To the point, we get uncomfortable as my friend Marika pointed out.  We get so used to the background chatter and noise, that when it disappears we feel lost.  But should we?

Silence when not permanent, is as need as the darkness at night.  At night we need to relax.  We need the lack of visual stimuli (in the form of the lack of light) to properly function. Our eyes relax, recalibrate themselves.  Our brains go into organization mode and sort out the events of our day.  Silence lets us to look into ourselves and shut away the noise in our life.  Should one fear silence like one fears the absence of light, when all you need to do is speak or flick a switch to bring back sound or light?  Silence can be oppressive and harsh.  Sitting in a room with a stranger can be hard.  Your mind tries to figure the stranger’s thoughts and intentions.  Sitting in a room with a friend, who you deeply trust is different.  In this case, you share a delicate, intimate and vulnerable moment of introspection where you both trust each other enough to let your guard down.

Learning to accept and embrace silence is difficult.  I learned to start to accept silence two years ago I went on a Taize retreat in Montreal.  I remember sitting on the floor of an ancient-looking church.  All around me hundreds of other people sat around me.  Between each hymn we sung, we sat in silence.  People, strangers from different Christian denominations all sitting in silence in a church.  At first the moments of silence felt oppressive, alien, cold and unwelcoming.  But after each hymn belted out at the top of our lungs, the silence become welcome.  Silence became a  time of peace, relaxation and reflection upon the reason on why we had all gathered here.  We came together to be friends and neighbours.  And to come a step closer to be closer to God.  Ever since I tried to set aside a time for silence, for prayer and for reflection.  It is still something I struggle and wrestle with.

Today, I’ll be going to a Latin Tridentine mass held at the Newman Centre at Uof T.  From what I’ve been told the experience of attending such a mass is very uplifting.  One reasons why are the moments of total silence and solemnity in it.