Welcome to church. Take some palm.

You might have heard the complaint that goes something like, “Some people only go to church on Christmas and Easter!”

True, it’s not the optimal expression of one’s faith, but it’s better to have full churches one some occasions rather than none, right?

Two other times that witness full churches are Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday, which is coming up this April 5. Ash Wednesday of course is where last year’s palms are recycled into the ashes marking Catholics’ foreheads.

Palm Sunday packs in the crowds too, as churchgoers take home blessed palm fronds. Whether you display the palm in your home in a vase or turn the fronds into simple crosses tacked above doorways (my family’s preferred practice over the years), there’s an art to handling palm.

This week the Catholic Standard & Times shows how the masters weave palm – both in step-by-step photos and a fascinating story by Lou Baldwin in the newspaper, and four videos of the nimble fingers at work on our web site, cst-phl.com.

The video is new for our web site, but weaving palm is nothing new for the parishioners of Our Lady of Consolation in the Tacony neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia. Basically an Italian immigrant tradition, intricate palm displays are becoming more prevalent throughout the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s churches.

They’re a beautiful way to welcome the King of Kings as we commemorate his entrance in Jerusalem this Sunday.

Just as palms give way to ashes then to the giving of new palms at the end of the Lenten journey, so too do we journey with Jesus from the excitement of this palm Sunday to the nadir of his Passion and death on Good Friday, and the joy of His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

And please God, perhaps some of the Palm Sunday Mass participants will be moved to stay with Jesus, like the disciples in Gethsemane, throughout Holy week to Easter.

As you try your hand at weaving some palm, try also to devote more intense prayer next week beginning Sunday.

Are knit ties far behind?

Every business article produced these days mentions something like “the lowest since 1982” or “worst since 1983.”

The last was from today, as it’s been announced that unemployment is its highest since 1983. I remember those days well. I had graduated high school the year before with no prospects for college, believing the chatter all around that I was "lucky to have a job.”

So I worked third shift in a supermarket, stocking cans of beans from midnight to 8. I should have felt lucky, but didn’t.

Point is, these days again folks are fortunate to have a job, and more fortunate to have a career in which they can grow. Those career paths still exist, even if their roads are showing potholes and detours.

It’s even true for journalism. This field and many others are going to change and demand different ways of thinking and acting from its remaining adherents. But most embattled industries aren’t going away.

The larger point is that as bad as the early ‘80s were, 2009 could be worse. Pop music isn’t as bad (remember “Safety Dance” and “Flashdance”? Don’t get me started.). Interest rates remain at rock-bottom. Squared knit ties (guys) and leg warmers (ladies) are as out as zoot suits.

Also gone from those days is a sense of the inevitable decline of America. We’ve been down this road before. Few today think that we’re consigned to the ash heap of history. Though we don’t know how long the current troubles will last, we have confidence they’ll bottom out and our rebound will begin.

Americans continue to show a resilience and optimism that as bad as things are, they’ll get better. Tough times come, but they also go.

Happy days (not the TV show, which was another 80s casualty) will be here again. Our country will be changed when the recovery comes, but perhaps not worse off.

Another relic of the 1980s might stay with us as we turn our eyes upward to the cross, source of hope in dark, uncertain times: “Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.”

Glimpsing Tooker's world

A recent 60-degree day invited me out for a midday walk in center city. I had seen an ad in the Catholic Standard & Times for an art exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

I had never heard of the artist George Tooker, but the poster featured his painting “Subway” and that was so striking, I wandered over to the museum.

The exhibit was more than worth the price of admission. Organized mostly in chronological fashion, the paintings tell the artist’s story from an early self-portrait through the period where he made his significant mark on the art world.

Tooker uses an ancient technique called egg tempera (you can tell I never studied art in school), so his paintings seem to project light from the canvas. The effect is astonishing.

From “Subway” placed midway through the exhibit, I was not surprised to find similar works of social commentary. Tooker amply explored themes such as alienation, totalitarian fear and urban isolation especially in the late 1940 through the ‘50s. Those images burn themselves into one’s mind and challenge us to think about the culture and society of the time in which they were created, and our own.

But what really surprised me was Tooker’s volume of work from the last 30 years. He had already made a name for himself in the 1950s as a young man. In the 1960s he became involved in the civil rights movement with other artist friends.

After his homosexual partner died in 1975, Tooker became introspective. To deal with his grief, he turned to religion: not the Episcopalian church of his birth, but to the Catholic Church. In 1976, he converted to Catholicism.

Ever since, his works reflect not only the beauty of the human person, but people in relationship. Gone (mostly) were the disturbing images of fear, paranoia and alienation in harsh, urban landscapes. They’d been succeeded by scenes of people in warmer light -- in a sense, from broken and disconnected individuals to a harmonious, even redeemed, humanity.

While the exhibit’s companion book is pricier than admission, it reveals more of Tooker’s emerging spirituality of his later period. Particularly remarkable are the commissions of sacred art for his parish church in Vermont.

The Stations of the Cross and a triptych depicting the seven sacraments accurately express orthodox Catholic theology, according to the parish’s pastor, for whom Tooker presented early sketches to ensure he was on the right track theologically.

The triptych, for instance, shows people receiving such sacraments as baptism, holy orders (this one depicts a man kneeling before the crucified Jesus) or reconciliation. The people receiving the sacraments are pointing to the work’s center panel, which is the sacrament of the Eucharist as the host is being raised at the moment of consecration. The symbolism that the Church is oriented toward and draws its life from the Eucharist is unmistakable.

The George Tooker exhibit runs through April 5 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Here is an excellent review of the show when it was in Washington, DC last year.

The experience is worth the trip into center city. And because the Academy doesn’t draw the big crowds, you can linger on the stunning pieces in the Tooker show. Enjoy.

A Fortress of Solitude

Having just ticked over another birthday on my life’s odometer, I’ve been the recent object of well-wishing. From co-workers to friends and especially family, the many words, hugs and handshakes were all welcome, of course.

But after all the cards and some gifts – including dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant, Giacomo’s in Norristown, and my mom’s incomparable lasagna – something hit me late Sunday night.

As I walked the fairways and roughs of a darkened golf course at 10 p.m. with my dog, the desire for solitude became intense. Nothing but stars above, grass below my feet, the cold air and jangle of Doc’s collar occupied my attention. People, especially people I love, are great, but there is a need for aloneness, too.

It’s a personal asceticism of great value to me. A piece to be published in the Catholic Standard & Times on Thursday gives a wider sense of asceticism for the family.

This week readers of the CS&T will read Michelle Francl-Donnay’s Catholic Spirituality column about the value to a family when it “gives up” ordinary ways of living for simpler ones.

This kind of “Christian simplicity” is rooted in the baptismal call we all share, and further in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Asceticism is not an easy way, but as the saying goes, nothing good ever is.

We’re entering the Church’s annual season of Lent soon. That’s often a time for “giving up” foods or other things. After this weekend, while I reflect on Michelle's column (read past ones plus more resources) and before Lent begins, I am going to seek a bit of healthy asceticism.

There’s a challenge for everyone to find ways to fit solitude into our busy lives. Like our master did, we need to withdraw to those “out of the way places.” No need to travel to a desert, but rather, carve out a time and setting from which solitude and prayer enable us to be people for others.

The newess of you

Tonight is New Year's Eve, and I am yawning already.

For everybody else who will ring in the new year, go ahead and stay up late, bang all the pots and pans you want, and by all means, dance!

But please, do everyone a favor and A: go easy on the bubbly; B: don't even think of getting behind the wheel if you've had a drink.

And before stepping out with the Mummers or settling in for wall-to-wall college football, remember to go to Mass. (Here's a directory to parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, many of which have Mass times and web sites).

Thursday isn't Sunday, but it is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. What better way to start the new year than by worshiping God the Father and honoring Mary? She is the mother of Jesus, true God and true man, and our mother too.

Her "yes" to bear the son of God teaches a lesson no more valuable than these troubling times entering 2009. The best way to deal with the difficulties that lie ahead is to say yes to God's will for our lives each day, starting today, right now.

God has a plan for each of us. It unfolds every day even amid the weaknesses and sins of this life. The key is not to lose heart but trust in God's grace to help us fulfill his plan and vocation for each of us.

That's why the Church is so important in this journey: the font of graces through the sacraments and the support of our fellow Catholic pilgrims help us live the Christian life today, until we meet our God and Father ultimately in heaven.

With Mary as our guide and helper, the first day of a new year is the right time to renew a life of holiness. And don't forget to enjoy the world again on January 1. There are still more reasons for joy than sadness.

From the beginning, a matter of dignity

Today the Vatican released a document on ethical issues concerning biomedical research. And it's not just stem cell research.

The "instruction" from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith titled "Dignitas Personae" -- The Dignity of the Person -- takes a balanced view of research that aims to improve the quality of life, acknowledging the benefits of research that could result in medical advances.

But the instruction also reveals a dark side to progress: if humanity loses sight of what it means to be human, especially the innate dignity of every person from conception to natural death, then new and dangerous threats to human life could emerge.

That is why the document emphasizes human dignity so strongly.

Read the Catholic Standard & Times for more on this important teaching of the Church.

In the meantime, a news release on the document nicely summarizes the key themes, including embryo adoption; pre-implantation (of embryo) devices and drugs; gene therapy; genetic enhancements/designer babies; and human/animal hybrids.

If time allows, read the whole "Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions." It's not too long, and it's in English.

There is also a Vatican summary (a poor-quality scan, but nevertheless helpful), and a handy Q&A on the document, including a brief teaching on in-vitro fertilization.

So there is the homework assignment. Read up on this important topic. It's the best way that Catholics can influence this emerging scientific field and convey the truth of humanity's God-given dignity, from the moment of conception.

Mary, 'our pattern of holiness'

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Yes, of Mary, not of Jesus. That distinction is a cause for confusion every year around this time as somebody tries to square the "conception" on December 8 with Jesus' birth on the 25th. (And recent scholars tell us that date probably isn't the 25th but several weeks earlier. So what? As Mr. Pulitzer said, don't let facts get in the way of a good story.)

At any rate, the Immacuate Conception celebrates not so much an event in Mary's life but the doctrine of her freedom from the stain of original sin, the gift of God to she who would carry God's only Son. She was to be the sinless vessel of Jesus, true God and true man, son of Mary and son of God.

Who could put it better than Pius IX, who proclaimed the doctrine of the Church in 1854? As he said on this day 154 years ago: "the doctrine, which holds that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first moment of her conception was, by singular grace and privilege of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Human race, preserved from all stains of original sin, is revealed by God, and therefore to be firmly and resolutely believed by all the faithful." (Dogmatic bull Ineffabilis Deus, of Dec. 8, 1854.)

As Catholics attend Mass at any church today, we'll hear the prayers celebrating this great feast of our Blessed Mother. Among them is the day's Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer. Sometimes it's better to read carefully the words we hear at Mass, and let them soak into the fabric of our life, thereby transforming us a little more each day. May it be so:

"Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks.

"You allowed no stain of Adam's sin to touch the Virgin Mary. Full of grace, she was to be a worthy mother of your son, your sign of favor to the Church at its beginning, and the promise of its perfection as the bride of Christ, radiant in beauty.

"Purest of virgins, she was to bring forth your son, the innocent lamb who takes away our sins. You chose her from all women to be our advocate with you and our pattern of holiness.

"In joy we sing to your glory with all the choirs of angels: holy, holy, holy Lord..."