Really Catholic and Uber Catholic
A few observations about Catholics I have made over the years:
- You know you are really Catholic if…
you name one of your daughters Mary.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you name all of your daughters Mary. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you go to Mass every day.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you go to Confession every day. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you want to send your kids to Steubenville.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you want to live in Steubenville. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you abstain from meat on Fridays.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you abstain from food on Fridays. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you use NFP – natural family planning.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you use NFP – “no family planning”. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you read Mark Shea’s blog faithfully.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you refuse to read Mark Shea’s blog. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you have at least five children.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you have at least five children by your fifth anniversary. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you only read books published by Ignatius Press.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you only read books published by TAN books. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you won’t send your kids to public schools.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
you won’t send your kids to Catholic schools. - You know you are really Catholic if…
you have a Mary statue in your front yard.
You know you are an über Catholic if…
your Mary statue is registered with the FAA.
Feel free to add your own in the comments.
Shoot.. I thought I was a real Catholic until my 4 off spring didn’t make the real Catholic count.
In Mexico:
Real Catholic, all your girls are Maria.
Uber Catholic, if the middle name of all your children is Guadalupe, and you have a son named Jose Maria.
I thought I was really Catholic till I got to Mark Shea’s Blog. That is real torture and he should spend the next decade railing against it.
I’ll try and play:
Real Catholic: Knows, essentially, what Canon Law is.
Über Catholic: Quotes Canon Law, without warning or provocattion.
Real Catholic: Reads & studies the Catechism
Über Catholic: Reads & studies the Catechism from Trent. In Latin.
Real Catholic: Blesses their house with holy water
Über Catholic: Sprinkles holy water in houses to which they are invited (once), and upon random unwary passers-by.
Real Catholic: Discusses the Saint of the Day or perhaps one of the mass readings at dinner.
Über Catholic: Instructs family to remain silent at dinner in order to contemplate sin, mortality, and the “vanity of all wordly desires”.
Dean – Trent! Definitely!
How about Real Catholic: Pray the family Rosary
Über Catholic: Pray the family 20-decade Rosary (each child leads a mystery)
Eric, For #4 I thought you were going to say you’re a real Catholic if you abstain from meat on Fridays and you’re Über Catholic if you abstain from marital relations on Saturday. (Wasn’t that a pre-Vatican II thing? Or is that an old [Catholic] wives’ tale?).
Sorry Clare, Über Catholics don’t accept 20 decades of the Rosary, only 15.
Apparently, the Mysterium Lumen are part of a heretical modernist conspiracy propogated by Servant of God John Paul II, at least according to a frightening number of commenters over at Fr. Z’s site.
Meh, the Luminous Mysteries are… misguided. Although I don’t know if that’s the really Catholic or Uber view… I see it in both.
I must say that this list was good for a chuckle… *and* for affirm that I am half-”real” and half-”Uber” Catholic. RealUber?
Here’s mine:
You’re really Catholic if you subscribe to the Remnant, wary of the politically-slanted and pro-war views of the Wanderer.
You’re an Uber Catholic if you subscribe to Catholic Family News, refusing to read the Remnant because it’s published by liberals
You’re really Catholic if you
Why are the Luminous Mysteries misguided?!
Why are the Luminous Mysteries misguided?!
I want to know, too. I haven’t run into any better arguments than, “Now the full Rosary doesn’t have 150 Aves to parallel the psalms” and “I don’t like anything I perceive as being younger than 500 years old (whether it is or not).”
Luckily, the Rosary is technically a private devotion. If you don’t like ‘em, don’t pray ‘em.
Umm, the Rosary was called “Mary’s Psalter” almost from the beginning, so I think that 150 Aves –> 150 Psalms is more than just a specious argument.
That, and yes, I do think there is some merit to saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” with something that has worked well several hundred years.
There’s also the whole Fatima thing… where Mary specifically talks about the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary… and asks for “one-third” of the Rosary to be said. The math major in me agonizes over that 6.666666666666666666666666666 (repeating 6s!!!!!!!!!!11111eleventy)
So, I guess to flip it, why do you *like* the Luminous Mysteries? They are, after all, optional. Why do you think they’re a good option, any more than meditating on, say, five scenes from the life of St. Paul or the Book of Revelation.
We could call them The Terrifying Mysteries!
To be said only during family rosaries when your children are disobedient.
1) Condemnation of the Nicolatians
2) Vomit out of the Lukewarm Churches
3) Wormwood = 1/3 Dead,
4) Whore of Babylon Drunk With the Blood of the Church
5)` The Last Curse (a la the Last Gospel) – Add anything, get the curses added; subtract anything, you’re removed from the Kingdom
So does it make me über Leaning Protestant if I at least understand the Catholic jokes enough now to laugh.
Cheers –
Sola Calvin
Clare, you must be a lukewarm Über Catholic — a REAL Über-Catholic has one child lead each decade.
The 15 “traditional” mysteries of the Rosary cover the whole of Jesus’ known life on Earth (and beyond, to the coronation of Mary), EXCEPT for His public ministry. The Luminous Mysteries fill in this gap, from the Baptism in the Jordan to the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Before that it went from the finding in the Temple to His agony in the garden, so the Luminous Mysteries, like I said, fill in this gap. That is the reason I was given, and it makes wonderful sense to me.
Aaron,
Whether really or Uber, every parent knows that, if his children are involved in leading any of the mysteries of the Rosary, eventually an argument and/or fight will break out over who gets to “lead the next mystery”, in an act of irony so profound that the Blessed Mother herself must chortle from Heaven.
How divisive is this? Jesus himself prayed for unity!! Piting the “holiest” aganinst the “holy” is a distraction from the evil one to prevent us from entering the liturgy and bringing the Kingdom of God to frution. “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”
Go back to the early Church and find out what makes us diciples of Christ and heirs of heaven. “Be perfect “holy” as the heavenly Father is perfect “holy”
What the world sees in a divided Church is a distorted or dismembered body of Christ. As Church, the only claim to holiness is our connection to Jesus. Apart from Him we are nothing.
Diana,
Don’t take this list too seriously – it is all in good fun. No one is claiming that these items make one a better Catholic than others (does anyone really think living in Steubenville or reading TAN books is necessary for holiness?). It is simply a self-deprecating look at how we American Catholics sometimes practice our faith.
I am in complete agreement with you that the only claim to holiness is our connection to Jesus. Amen!
Eric,
Really? Man, I already started the FAA registration process for my new 144X life-size Mary statue.
Diana,
I believe this is a way for serious Catholics of different stripes to get a good laugh at some of the internal divisions amongst us.
For example, I refuse to use the Luminous Mysteries in my devotions… but my devout sister loves them. She also exclusively attends the Novus Ordo, whilst I attend exclusively the Gregorian and Eastern Rite liturgies.
Of course, we both think the other is a few sandwiches short of a picnic… but we love each other, and isn’t family squabbling just another way of showing love?
In any event, a little humor helps to dispel the tensions among common wayfarers.
I don’t believe anyone here would denigrate anyone else or strip them of the title Catholic.
And anyways, Uber Catholics would *never* go to charismatic Steubenville. Puh-leaze. Thomas Aquinas, Christendom, or Wyoming Catholic is more like it.
God bless,
Orthros
Eric, did you think when you posted this, that it would get more comments than all your other posts put together? : )
(My score falls between Lame Catholic and Really Catholic Wanna-be. Uber Catholics don’t read Mark Shea? Who knew?!)
[...] want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxBut I still find this list [...]
Pingback by KHdN - Kenneth Hynek (dot Net) » Blog Archive » So totally not an über Catholic — May 12, 2009 @ 10:55 amdaily Mass – of course. sometimes 2/day. yesterday’s confession was 4 days fm last one. think i’m working up to daily!
really Catholic: You would like to build your own chapel in the yard.
uber Catholic: You ARE building your own church, (gothic or baroque of course)
About naming all your kids Mary…do middle names count?
Gee, I might be in the running
The Luminous Mysteries are misguided not because of whom they came from (Pope John Paul II), but because of whom they did not originate, our Blessed Mother. While the Holy Father has the authority to add new mysteries, we are a religion of Tradition and we went hundreds of years with 15 mysteries handed down directly from Our Lady to St. Dominic and the 150 Ave Marias go hand in hand with the 150 Psalms. Our Lady’s Psalter was fine for hundreds of years and this is precisely why most Traditional Catholics do not say the Luminous Mysteries, myself and my family included. No need to slam them, but no need to say them either.
Half-way from real to uber! I don’t want to live in Ohio, but I might let my kids go there. And we homeschool all our kids, including Mary.
As to the Luminous Mysteries, the Holy Father has no more authority to add mysteries to the Rosary than I have — and no less. The mysteries are traditions; good traditions, to be sure. Traditions can change, if enough people cooperate in changing them. (Certainly, if I were a publisher of Catholic books and pamphlets, I would cooperate in an annual revision of the mysteries of the rosary.)
To me, the Luminous Mysteries are a nice, even useful, variation on my prayer routine. Totally optional.
stunning and shocking me! why on earth i dont know about this real and uber catholic before…now im really starts to reply my life years before and now.. which one i really was…ha ha ha.. im a gods servants too…
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Pingback by Really Catholic and Uber Catholic Divine Life A Blog by Eric | garden statues — June 14, 2009 @ 7:40 amThe term in our household is psycho-Catholic, which was, I believe, coined by our son.
Although I think our (five) children might argue, I do not think we qualify for the title! For them, all we need to qualify is to regularly listen to EWTN, which I suppose an Uber Catholic might not do!
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Pingback by Top 10 Favorite Posts « Divine Life – A Blog by Eric Sammons — December 31, 2009 @ 7:02 am[...] a list of his top-ten posts for the past year, and I thought this one was mighty enjoyable: Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. Too true, too true. Naturally I have to like any quiz that accurately paints me for the [...]
Pingback by Notes from Greencastle — January 3, 2010 @ 12:30 pmI think I must be a lame Catholic. I know the original 15 mysteries of the Rosary.
Before I started getting on the internet, I had never heard that JP II made up 5 more, or about Divine Mercy Sunday either, even though I went to mass every Sunday. I think that’s because I live in the diocese of Rochester. I have no objection to 5 more mysteries, but if I say the rosary it is when I am out walking and don’t have a book with me to learn the new ones from. So I still say only the ones I know. I know the Hail Holy Queen, but I have never memorized the Memorare. Definitely lame.
I did have nine kids though, and fell somewhere between the two meanings of NFP.
Susan Peterson
Don’t know if I’m really or Uber, but I thought this article was a hoot!
Really Catholic Moms: Buy modest swimsuits for their children
Uber Catholic Moms: take their kids to confession after seeing the swimsuits others are wearing at the pool.
It’s summertime after all…
Suzanne, I just split my side on the Uber Catholic Moms!
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