This Means War
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Category Archives: CAM jukebox
A Christmas “Fairytale”
It’s Christmas Eve so I am going off topic a bit. You have probably heard the song before and even seen the video. But if you read Michael Brendan Dougherty’s heartfelt tribute to the Pogues’ classic you will never think about the song in the same way again. A very fitting message as we begin the “Year of Mercy.” Merry Christmas!
Someday at Christmas
Andra Day and Stevie Wonder perform his 1967 holiday classic, “Someday At Christmas”.
Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where men are free
Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars
When we have learned what Christmas is for
When we have found what life’s really worth
There’ll be peace on earth
Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime
Someday at Christmas we’ll see a land
With no hungry children, no empty hands
One happy morning people will share
A world where people care
Someday at Christmas there’ll be no tears
When all men are equal and no man has fears
One shining moment, one prayer away
From our world today
Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime
Someday at Christmas man will not fail
Hate would be gone and love will prevail
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart
Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime
Someday at Christmastime
War in the Mind
O Come Emmanuel
It’s not too early, is it? I love this version.
With God on Our Side
Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that the land that I live in
Has God on its side
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
l’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side
I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side
Through many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side
So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music
Theology of the Body
Remember what you got.
IMAGINE
“Instead of a world living in peace because it is without religion, why not imagine a world without nation states?… Every major war in the last 300 years has been fought by nation states, not by the Church… The state apparatus for investigating civilians now is far more extensive than anything dreamed up by the Spanish Inquisition, although both were created to serve the same purpose: to preserve a government’s public ideology and control of society, whether based on religion or on modern constitutional order.
“…The point is that the greatest threat to world peace and international justice is the nation state gone bad, claiming an absolute power, deciding questions and making ‘laws’ beyond its competence.
“Few there are, however, who would venture to ask if there might be a better way for humanity to organize itself for the sake of the common good. Few, that is, beyond a prophetic voice like that of Dorothy Day, speaking acerbically about ‘Holy Mother the State,’ or the ecclesiastical voice that calls the world, from generation to generation, to live at peace in the kingdom of God.”
Francis Cardinal George, “The Wrong Side of History“
I like Francis Cardinal George’s take on this idea more than John Lennon’s, but it’s such a beautiful song, one must admit:
The Church of the Blessed Sacrament
In the past, I have felt compelled to catalog and record when I have seen what I felt to be evidence of militarism in the Catholic Church. It was a refreshing weekend last weekend when I attended The Church of the Blessed Sacrament as a guest on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I should catalog also positive experiences!
Instead of wincing and cringing during the Prayers of the Faithful, I was delighted and refreshed. Instead of praying exclusively for soldiers and first responders (agents of the state), we prayed for “all victims of war.” I think the word “victims” is appropriate, and of course this kind of prayer does not implicitly endorse the wars or the choice some make to participate in them. The fact that we are at war was acknowledged several times, but not in such a way that the liturgy could be mistaken for a nationalistic pep rally. The best part was that at the end of the Prayers of the Faithful, the congregation sang a brief version of “This is My Song.” It was beautiful!
THIS IS MY SONG
(Jan Sibelius - 1899 / Wds Lloyd Stone - 1934)
Finlandia
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.