Allow me one more post on Down syndrome. Michael Franc, the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation, takes off his policy hat and reflects on his experience as the brother of a sibling with Down syndrome as he writes a letter to Track, Bristol, Willow, and Piper Palin.

While in Seoul, South Korea this summer, I had the opportunity to attend Saturday evening Mass at Myongdong Cathedral with a young French physicist friend.

I couldn’t understand a word—it was entirely in Korean—but I was deeply moved. There were no rich vestments, incense, Gregorian chant, or Renaissance polyphony. Nevertheless, I felt—as I have rarely felt in the last forty years—that this was a Mass as Mass was meant to be. The reverence was profound, the sense of being in a sacred place powerful. It was very Catholic and at the same time very Eastern. At the elevation of the consecrated Host, a gong sounded softly and everyone bowed deeply from the waist and held that posture for several seconds, until the gong sounded again. The same at the elevation of the chalice. At the “kiss of peace,” there was no shaking of hands and “superficial chumminess” (as my one-time pastor, the late Msgr. Myles Bourke, called it). Rather, people silently bowed to those around them. Of course, bowing has always been a part of the mass, and even in the western countries we are supposed to bow at the words “by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man” in the creed. But hardly anyone does bow over here, and the few who do make a perfunctory nod of the head. In Korea, everyone made a deep and extended bow at that part of the creed.

There is something about the Korean language and the way it is prayed that made the prayers of the congregation—even though recited and not sung—sound like chant. (My pastor made exactly the same observation to me about a Vietnamese mass he attended—before I had a chance to tell him of my Korean experience.) There were, as here, four hymns—real hymns, not show tunes. They seemed Western, though I did not recognize the melodies. Everyone sang with strong and good voices. About half of the women (of all ages) wore mantillas. The celebrant was young, as were the priests who assisted him at Communion. He moved with dignity and grace and his sermon was delivered in a quiet and serious way. It contained humor, for occasionally chuckles rippled through the congregation. But he did not indulge in theatrics, hamming it up or striving for effect. The cathedral was not packed, but quite full. And according to the church bulletin they had two Saturday evening Masses and ten (!) Masses on Sunday, starting early in the morning and extending throughout the afternoon.

When we left, I remarked to my friend: “If this is how Mass is normally celebrated over here, it is no wonder the Church is growing by leaps and bounds.” And apparently it is how Mass is normally celebrated in Korea. Thirty years ago there were one million Catholics in South Korea, now there are five million. Incidentally, it is not uncommon to see nuns—mostly young—as one travels around Seoul.

There’s just something about a news article entitled “When Sex Leads To A Stroke” that makes my eyebrows rise with suspicion.

Headlines, of course, are written to grab the attention of the reader, so they tend to lean towards exaggeration. But the title of this article isn’t exaggerating. It’s just plain misleading.

The story is actually about a woman who suffered a stroke due a hole in her heart and a blood clot caused by birth control pills. But instead of writing “Birth Control May Lead to Blood Clot and Stroke,” the writer decided to highlight the fact that the woman had sex directly before the stroke occurred. It’s not until the seventh paragraph that the reader is told the real cause:

The patient was taking birth control pills which are known to cause blood clots. Dr. Biller and his team investigated the patient’s medical history and found a previously undetected hole in her heart. They theorize that the hole in her heart coupled with a blood clot might have led to the stroke.

In the end, sex didn’t have much to do with the woman’s stroke at all. It could have just as easily occurred while jogging. But you couldn’t guess that from the headline. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only report of this story to take such an angle in their headline.

“Vengeance is mine”, saith the Lord–but this does not prevent His working through fully conscious secondary causes.

One inspired avenging angel tricked would-be scammers in Nigeria into re-enacting the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch. The result is a hilarious object lesson in justice.

He was an ordinary man, on many counts: a husband, a father, a former Vietnam pilot. He worked his farm in Nokesville, VA, and gave hayrides to the local kids and built bonfires every fall; he coached soccer and basketball at my high school and laid the floor of our first real gym, which doubled as an auditorium and chapel. When there was a time of suffering in the community, he stood on that floor and led the community in prayer. And, morning after morning, he knelt in one of the back pews of the parish church, with Joseph, his son who has Down Syndrome, praying (and smiling and squirming) by his side.

Thomas Vander Woude was an ordinary man, but as one of older sons remarked, last week “this guy did something saintly,” saving Joseph’s life and giving his own. At his funeral Mass yesterday, the church pews were packed with more than 2,000 people, and seventy priests concelebrated. “This guy did something saintly, and they wanted to come be a part of it.”

The article excerpted below appeared in today’s Washington Post, reminding me that generosity, charity, and heroic sanctity–manifest in Mr. Vander Woude’s final moments–begin in daily life:

Another of Thomas S. Vander Woude’s sons, Tom Vander Woude, pastor at Queen of Apostles Catholic Church in Alexandria, gave the homily. In it, he likened his father to Saint Joseph, a man who patiently and quietly supported his family, did odd jobs for those in need and was content to worship God and not seek the limelight, Tom Vander Woude said.

At a reception at Seton School in Manassas, where six of Thomas S. Vander Woude’s sons went to school, friends and neighbors traded stories about how Vander Woude had gone out of his way to help them. Fittingly, Tom Vander Woude observed, they were standing on the gym floor that his father had installed.

Mary Heisler, 36, of Nokesville, said she never would have come to Virginia as a teenager, let alone met her future husband, if it had not been for Vander Woude. She was receiving Catholic home schooling in Texas when Vander Woude, who was helping with the home-schooling program at Seton, contacted her father and persuaded him to move 14-year-old Mary and her 11 siblings to Virginia to attend the school.

Her father obliged, sold the house, bought a yellow school bus and drove his family to Prince William County. Money was tight, so Vander Woude took the family into his home for a month before lending them money for a down payment on a house of their own in Manassas, Heisler said.

“He gave us half the home,” said Heisler, who met her husband, Tim, at Seton. “I don’t think he realized how many people he impacted.”
. . .

His dying act was, “truly saintly” and “the crown of a whole life of self-giving,” Bishop Paul S. Loverde said at the Mass. “May we find in his life inspiration and strength.”

More inspiring words from Benedict XVI as he addressed young people on the steps of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this week:

[God] invites you to see in your neighbours the brothers and sisters whom God has given you, in order to live with them in human and spiritual fellowship–in other words, to live within the Church. By revealing who the crucified and risen Lord is for us, he impels you to bear witness to Christ. You are at an age marked by great generosity. You need to speak about Christ to all around you, to your families and friends, wherever you study, work and relax. Do not be afraid! Have “the courage to live the Gospel and the boldness to proclaim it” (Message to the Young People of the World, 20 July 2007). So I encourage you to find ways of proclaiming God to all around you, basing your testimony on the power of the Spirit, whom we ask for in prayer. Bring the Good News to the young people of your age, and to others as well. They know what it means to experience difficulty in relationships, worry and uncertainty in the face of work and study. They have experienced suffering, but they have also known unique moments of joy. Be witnesses of God, for, as young people, you are fully a part of the Catholic community through your Baptism and our common profession of faith (cf. Eph 4:5). The Church has confidence in you, and I want to tell you so!

From the September issue of Magnificat:

The miniature is part of a manuscript, a psalter/hymnal destined for the liturgical use of monks, which dates back to the 1040s and belonged to the monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés before its acquisition in 1795 by the National Library of France.

Acquisition. Hmmm, I think I remember a few other objects acquired by the French government in the 1790s. Notre Dame de Chartres, de Paris, de Beauvais, d’Amiens, St. Denis, La Sainte Chapelle, Autun, Vézelay, Cluny, every other church in France. Boy it sure was a good time to be acquiring things.

Ryan Sayre Patrico noted yesterday how he heard the news of his two friends’ deaths last week on Facebook: “The horrible news was announced almost immediately on the popular social-networking website, sandwiched between two other people declaring that their weekend hadn’t lived up to their expectations.”

For an insightful read on how social-networking sites are changing how we view friendship and how we communicate, look to Christine Rosen’s New Atlantis essay, “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism.”