Bridget 🧟‍♀️ Oooo Brains

Every Catholic has a fictional pope in their head that is flattened out and shaped by their own personal preoccupations.

The fictional Leo inside my head is all-in on a Christian anti-AI, anti-influencer stance.

(Leo’s own position is much more nuanced!!)

October brings weird dreams.

Aren’t people meant to not be able to read things in dreams? Or is that just a convenient lie foisted upon us by Hollywood?

when i truly can’t tell whether I’m being tongue in cheek or the most sincere i’ve ever been in my life.

but if people keep asking, eventually I’m going to start saying, “No, the Spirit did.”

I often write a reflection on the week’s readings for the church’s bulletin, & I am up to 5 people asking me (in a complimentary way) if I coordinated my message this week with my boss (the pastor).

I keep saying “No, but we’re reflecting on the same readings in the context of the same community,”

lolllll do -I- put giardiniera on tacos? No.

Have I SEEN giardiniera on tacos? Yes I have.

(due caveat that I am a very recent transplant from the east coast and have only lived in Chicago for 18 months)

Approvingly passing taco trucks on my way home from work in downtown Chicago, thinking “This is why they hate us.”

Had a bagel with lox for big fish day. Let that be the message: you eat one of ours, we eat one of yours.

Online enough to see everyone posting about the same thing; not online enough to understand what happened.

I love Jonah so much. Absolutely one of my favorite biblical characters. Totally willing to be thrown into the sea to drown because he thinks it might save the lives of some sailors; angry enough to die about heat and a gourd.

Just because it’s TRUE doesn’t mean you have to SAY IT.

Opposing what I believe God asks of the Church to avoid personal inconvenience: is this anything?

On the one hand I do believe that if the Catholic Church is going to have a permanent diaconate that women should be ordained deacons, for a variety of theological, historical, and pastoral reasons, but on the other hand I’ll be honest it would be a headache for me, personally, were that to happen.

Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives

At least for the presbyterate. Ordaining women to the diaconate without authorization would be bad but I don’t know (IANA canon L) if it would incur automatic excommunication.

Correct.

This is, ah, NOT how I am used to hearing Catholic archbishops talk.

“I don't have any fear of [ordaining women]. … I have to work within the current structure. I don't think as archbishop I'll want to start ordaining women priests or deacons because it'll be a real short tenure.”

America Magazine is reporting that was due to the security concern: a man was arrested outside the cathedral with explosives.

The number of fights I used to have with people who simply could not accept that the Troubles in Northern Ireland were not, in fact, about papal authority or whether praying to Mary is OK.

“but i am le tired”

o no.

o no.

[i’m in this photo and i don’t like it dot meme]

All of us who are US citizens suffer from moral injury from the things done in our name, including the denial of basic needs this country can well afford to address, including healthcare to all immigrants. It would heal that moral injury to do this; it's an ethical act, not just a practical one.

We don’t use hymnals; we print weekly worship aids.

Yeah, I’m most used to it not being present at all.

My friend is a priest, which makes this all the more hilarious to me.

On Friday I sent 3 rather angsty texts to a friend of mine (I’m fine; I was just Having a Night).

Him: Sorry didn’t reply last night: I was at a party. But I had to pay a party penalty of reading the last 3 texts I received, and because of what you sent, I won a pound of dark roast coffee.

My church SINGS, and sings ALL the verses (which is unusual for a Catholic church; if my father were still alive he would say “Singing like Protestants!” (complimentary)).

Today we sang all verses of “A Place at the Table,” including verse 4, and I am very back & forth on what I think of that.

I don’t know which I like more: the fancy vertical second screen or the framed Barmen Declaration.

I have been softly repeating

Where was bought the tube of glue By which your fur was stuck to you?
In what distant deeps or skies
Are sold such art and craft supplies?

to myself all morning. This is amazing.