More about my brother

My brother John fell away from the Faith sometime in his middle teens. I was shocked by that at the time. I've learned since that it happens to almost every kid raised in a religious environment: they "kick against the goad" in their teenage years, or they "outgrow" what they were raised with. It happened to me too, but that's another story.

When John went to college, his undergraduate major was philosophy, which I suppose pounded the nails in the coffin of his agnosticism or atheism. All I know for sure (because he hardly ever discussed personal matters with me) is that one of his favorite philosophers was Ludwig Wittgenstein. In fact, he named his cat Ludwig.

It would take a mind more educated and sharper than mine to explain what Wittgenstein believed. From looking at articles on the net, the most I can figure out is that his philosophy is incompatible with religion in general and Christianity in particular; because in his philosophy one has to be able to prove whether a statement is true or not. This of course isn't the case with our Faith because the core is Revelation, specifically the self-revelation of God in the person of Jesus.

Late in the evening of December 29, when John collapsed at home and had to go to the hospital, I prayed to Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas to "whack John upside the head and show him the light he's been missing." I'm certain John read these three greatest of Catholic philosophers; and even if he disagreed with them I suspect he respected them all the same.

Anyway, John died in the hospital early the next morning. Early the following week, I had a dream that John and I were in a confession line in a church together. I think that's a good sign. At least it comforts me.

R.I.P. John Wirth 9 Jun 1942 - 30 Dec 2010

I could write one sentence or I could write a book. All I know right now is that I have very little idea what or how much I'm going to write.

I was conceived on or about John's first birthday, June 1943 (Pop told me that I was supposed to have been born March 10, 1944 but came early).

The picture at right is of course the two of us, living in Minneapolis sometime during the war. I can't judge kids' ages. I estimate it was the fall of 1945. The piles of leaves say fall, and I look like I was about 19 or 20 months; John would have been 3 and a few months.

He was Big Brother, I was Little Brother, and that's how it was all the way. There were modifications, refinements, and amendments as the decades went on -- the biggest being when he came home from the USAF in 1963 when he was 21 and I was 19 -- but there never was any real change.

A star inside a crescent

When I was a kid, back in the fifties, we had a superstition that if there ever appeared a star within the horns of the crescent of the new moon, the Mohammedans of the world would rise up in holy war against the West. We knew what the word jihad meant (despite modern lies to the contrary).

The more learned of us knew that that was not possible, because what appeared to be empty space was actually the unlit surface of the moon, and the stars were farther away than that. However, after Sputnik, there seemed to be a reason to worry.

Well, I've never seen that phenomenon, but I have seen jihad, even though I never thought, fifty-some years ago, that I would live long enough to see it.

The O Antiphons 6 - Third and Fourth Sundays

EMMANUEL,

Rex et legifer noster,

exspectatio Gentium,

et Salvator earum:

veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel,

our King and our Lawgiver,

Longing of the Peoples ;

yea ; and salvation thereof :

Come to save us, O Lord our God !

The O Antiphons 5 - Third and Fourth Sundays

REX GENTIUM,

et desideratus earum,

lapisque angularis,

qui facis utraque unum:

veni, et salva hominum,

quem le limo formasti.

O King of the peoples,

and desire thereof;

O Cornerstone,

that makest one of two:

come to save man

whom Thou hast made of the dust of the earth.

The O Antiphons 4 - Third and Fourth Sundays

CLAVIS DAVID

et sceptrum domus Israel;

qui aperis, et nemo claudit;

claudis, et nemo aperit;

veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,

sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel;

that openest and no man shutteth;

shuttest and no man openeth :

come to bring out the prisoner from the prison,

and them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.

ORIENS,

splendor lucis aeternae,

et sol justitiae :

veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris,

et umbra mortis.

O Dayspring,

Brighness of the everlasting light,

Sun of Justice,

come to give light to them

that sit in darkness and the shadow of death!

The O Antiphons - where?

I am really embarrassed, because the old prayerbook, from which I've been copying the Antiphons, has gone missing. And I missed last weekend too. Big time bummer.

Reminds me of some little thing I wrote down in December 1984 about the anguish of waiting.

The night is empty, dark, and cold.
I trudge along the road
Rememb'ring dimly being told
So long ago when I was young
From dark like this new hope has sprung.
The memory's old and faint and pale
Has little power to lift my load
And free me from my inner jail.