The virtues of vinegar

I am a guest blogger at the Australian Catholic Families blog. I am a guest blogger...on vinegar ..and on adult women altar servers. The text ? As follows. But please also visit the blog and check out their articles.

The virtues of vinegar

As the good housewife that I am, I am planning a series of cleaning posts. You know, posts about house cleaning and not about liturgy. Or other deep subjects. Because that's what good housewives do, don't they?

Clean and make coffee.

This first post describes the virtues of vinegar. A non toxic cleaner...so it can be used for a myriad of purposes. I find it helps clean windows and mirrors and even one"s mind via cleaning and scrubbing, when one is lamenting the state of the liturgy in our Church. Wonderful writings from our Holy Father on the importance of liturgy...yet, the practice of public liturgy loses some of it's shine in the grass roots, in the field, in some of our parishes.We need to scrub away our lamentations.

But back to vinegar.Any good housewife knows that it is cheap, non harmful, effective as a cleaner. Any good housewife knows that when cleaning, one should look at the effects of cleaning....use the least intrusive method, follow the instructions carefully, to avoid possible fallout. Would that liturgy always be treated with the same respect....discourage obtrusive extraneous activities and words being added to the liturgy, follow the rubrics carefully, think about the fallout from possible actions (adult women servers may be allowed but their use and encouragement is not compulsory, you know ..what message does it send, to the women, to young men, about vocations to the priesthood? About serving being a privilege and not a right? Do we placate one group temporarily, for the general ill of the Church? What are the ultimate fruits of this action?).

But back to vinegar. Used judiciously in cleaning. To clean and not think Too Much. Because what can a laywoman do, when she feels like weeping at the some of the Liturgical anomalies ? Attend mass only in the Extraordinady Form? Discuss ad infinitum?

Concentrate on her vocation as. wife and mother ? (Yes!)

Ignore that part of her mind that cares deeply about the Church and Her liturgy?

Clean?

Ah, the virtues of vinegar.

Note on adult women altar servers.....Congregation for Divine Worship
Letter on Altar Servers July 27, 2001

"With respect to whether the practice of women serving at the altar would truly be of pastoral advantage in the local pastoral situation, it is perhaps helpful to recall that the non-ordained faithful do not have a right to service at the altar, rather they are capable of being admitted to such service by the Sacred Pastors (cf. Circular Letter to the Presidents of Episcopal Conferences, March 15, 1994, no. 4, cf. also can 228, §1, Interdicasterial Instruction Esslesiae de mysterio, August 15, 1997, no. 4, see Notitiae 34 [1998] 9-42). Therefore, in the event that Your Excellency found it opportune to authorize service of women at the altar, it would remain important to explain clearly to the faithful the nature of this innovation, lest confusion might be introduced, thereby hampering the development of priestly vocations."