Empty font for Lent?

I've never quite understood to motivation to empy the bapsimal fonts and holy water dishes during Lent. Don't we want the Elect to be confronted with the awe-filled power of the plunge they are about to take? Where is the conversion to be found in a dry hole?

So keep the fonts filled this year, and keep the challenge of baptism in front of the whole community—especially those who will be entering the water for the first time.

(For another look at the same issue, click here.)

Photo by Michael Wilson.

Funeral planning

When I first started in ministry, I worked with a pastor who advised people not to plan their own funerals. He believed funerals were for the living, and the dead should leave the planning to the surviving family and friends. I recently came across a similar opinion written by Mary Roach in her book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers:

Here's the other thing I think about. It makes little sense to try to control what happens to your remains when you are no longer around to reap the joys or benefits of that control. People who make elaborate requests concerning disposition of their bodies are probably people who have trouble with the concept of not existing. Leaving a note requesting that your family and friends travel to the Ganges or ship your body to a plastination lab in Michigan is a way of exerting influence after you're gone—of still being there, in a sense. I imagine it is a symptom of the fear, the dread, of being gone, of the refusal to accept that you no longer control, or even participate in, anything that happens on earth. I spoke about this with funeral director Kevin McCabe, who believes that decisions concerning the disposition of a body should be made by the survivors, not the dead. "It's none of their business what happens to them when they die," he said to me.

What do you think?

Quiz Bowl

In the March 2007 issue of Religion Teacher's Journal, Michael Haggartey suggests hosting a quiz bowl to renergize your youth gatherings. Here are a few questions from the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament to get you started. For lots more questions, click here.

• Are Mormon baptisms valid in the Catholic Church?
• Can weddings be celebrated at Sunday Mass?
• Can non-Catholics share in communion at a Catholic Mass?
• How many holy days are there in the church calendar?

Do you have a question you have been wondering about? Click on the comments link below, and post it here for an answer.

Lent on your iPhone

The Church of England is bringing Lent to your iPhone, Blackberry, or cell phone this year. For "10 pence a day," you can text he word "Lent" to 64343 to begin receiving daily suggestions for actions from Monday 19 February through to Easter Monday. The messages are simple actions (50 in all) that church leaders hope will encourage kindness across the planet.

Actions include:

• Give up your place to someone in a traffic jam or a queue
• Have a TV-free day and do something you have meant to do for ages
• Take part in an environmental clean up
• Watch the news and pray about what you see
• Leave a £1 coin in the shopping trolley or where someone will find it.
  

The campaign Web site, Love Life Live Lent, also includes downloadable prayers, background information on Lent, PowerPoint presentations, and doezens of ideas for living Lent well.

[via Chrisitan Today]

10 Ways to Inspire Others

Lisa Haneberg has listed 10 ways to inspire employees on her Management Craft blog. The suggestions are all business oriented, but several could be translated to parish or school environments. Here's my favorite:

Be a role model of courage. When our managers demonstrate courage, this will inspire us to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

That could be adapted to read:

Be a role model of courage. When pastors demonstrate courage, this will inspire parishioners to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

Or:

Be a role model of courage. When teachers demonstrate courage, this will inspire students to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

Can you suggest some adaptations or some brand new ideas for inspiration? Post your thoughts here, and I'll compile a list of the best entries.
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/7455470

DaVigil Code — January 2007

This clue appeared in the January 2007 issue of Today's Parish Minister.

The Vigenere cipher (“erenegiv” spelled backwards) is named after a 16th century French diplomat, Blaise de Vigenere, who created a very simple cipher. If you Google “Vigenere cipher,” you’ll learn that the cipher uses an alphabet square as the basis for the code. In addition, the cipher relies on a repeating keyword to encode the letter based on the alphabet square.

So, in this case, the keyword is “Asterius.” The letters in “Asterius” are repeated as many times as necessary over the text to be encoded. For example:

Keyword: Asteriusa ste

Text: Christmas Day

Ciphertext: Czkmjbgss Vtc

The first letter of the text, C, is coded using the alphabet in row A, which is the first letter of the key. This is done by looking at the letter in row A and column C of the alphabet square, namely C. Similarly, for the second letter of the text, the second letter of the key is used; the letter at row s and column h is z. The rest of the plaintext is coded in a similar fashion. Decoding is done by reversing the process.

Using this process, the decode text from clue 4 reads:

O night more light than day
More bright than the sun
O night, night more white than snow
More brilliant than many torches
O night of more delight than is paradise.

So what night was Asterius, Bishop of Amasia in the fourth century referring to? More clues to follow!

The cross and hoe

An RTJ subscriber wrote in about the February poster:

I have ordered the Stations of the Cross posters for my Sunday School program. I am working on activities to correlate with the poster. However, I do not understand the symbol that is used for the 5th Station. A hoe? Can you explain the relevance? Any help you can offer is appreciated.

Gwen Costello, who authors the monthly posters, replies:

In the gospels of Mark and Luke, Simon of Cyrene is referred to as "coming from the country," which has traditionally been interpreted as coming from the fields. The hoe is the symbol of his work in the fields. I'm sure there might be other symbols for Simon but I don't know of them personally. I hope your class enjoys the poster. My best wishes for some wonderful lenten lessons.

To order copies for your group or class, click here.

Holy Smoke

The first time I was an M.C. for an Easter Vigil, I used so much incense I think the choir, up in the loft, had trouble seeing their music. If I only I would have had this contraption, think what might have happened!