Good to be back

Well it's good to be back home again after our family reunion with the tribe out in the midwest. It's gratifying to see multiple generations of a family together, if only briefly.

Now we are looking forward to meeting some old friends from Japan who are planning on visiting us over the New Year, as well as one of my sons who is bringing his Japanese girlfriend by for dinner a couple of days hence.

Like many of you, we also await the news from the Vatican about the motu proprio, which we expect any day. According to earlier reports, the timetable would put its probable release sometime after Christmas and presumably before the new year. According to CNA and CWN, the usual suspects ("sources close to the Vatican") reported that "the motu propio by which Pope Benedict XVI would allow for the universal use of the Missal of St. Pius V may be published after Christmas, while the post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist could come in mid-January 2007. The same report stated:

The apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist, according to the same sources, has already been finished by Pope Benedict XVI and is being translated into the different languages in which it will be presented. The document, which sources say will be issued after January 15, reaffirms the Church’s commitment to a celibate priesthood, encourages the use of Latin in liturgical celebrations, and even requests that seminarians learn the language as part of their formation. It will also promote the recovery of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphonic music as a replacement to modern music, which would result in a gradual elimination of musical instruments that are “inappropriate” for the solemnity and reverence of the Eucharistic celebration.

All of this, of course, is good news, and we wish the Holy Father a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year indeed.

Right now, however, I am looking forward to a much needed sabbatical in the spring semester of 2007. I plan to devote the free semester to a number of projects, about which I intend to keep you appraised as time allows.

While we're at it -- from comedy central:

• I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when the airport employee asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?" I said, "If it was without my knowledge, how would I know? "He smiled and nodded knowingly, "That's why we ask."
  
  
• Calling the telecommunication company to inform them my phone didn't work and that when I picked up the receiver it's completely dead, the technician said from the other end "Are you calling from the number of the phone that does not work?"