A Case for Vespers

I find nothing stopping a group of interested friends taking to a few pews in a side chapel of a Cathedral and praying Vespers together. This could be a good option if arrangements in your diocese are a little taxing!

Feria Tertia

The Gospel for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost is one of my very favourites, and I've enjoyed having had it repeated over the last few days. It's nice to picture oneself sitting close by the feet of Christ while He is engaged in this discourse. Can you imagine His face? A reverent smirk, and a short glance to His friends? How wonderful!

Quid vobis videtur de Christo? Cujus filius est? Dicunt ei: David. Ait illis: Quomodo ergo David in spiritu vocat eum Dominum, dicens: Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum? Si ergo David vocat eum Dominum, quomodo filius ejus est?

For those using the Angelus Press Missal, you may notice the printing error during the Gospel.

In other news, Pontificals are popping up everywhere - Perth, Bendigo, Sydney, Melbourne... Details will be provided soon - perhaps by another poster.

On the Monsignor Ronald Knox Seminar and Dinner

Behind the Scenes

Looking at the martyrology for tomorrow I noted one of the saints commemorated is St. Constantius of Ancona, a sixth-century sacristan of the church of St. Stephen and noted miracle-worker. While I am certain few readers will be familiar with St. Constantius, his feast does prompt one to spare a thought and prayer for those dedicated souls who prepare the altar, flowers, linens, vessels and vestments so that clergy, servers and faithful can offer the most holy sacrifice in a befitting manner. So to all those sacristans who may be reading this blog, I wish you a most blessed and happy feast!!

NB The official patron of sacristans is St. Guy of Anderlecht, whose feast was on the 12th of this month. Adopting a life of poverty from an early age, he worked as a plowman while caring for the poor and sick. His frequenting the local church prompted the parish priest to make him sacristan and he lived inside the church, often praying through the night. One day a merchant promised him great wealth and Guy accompanied him on a voyage. When the ship sank, Guy took it as a sign to return to his old life and as penance for his greed he walked to Rome, then to Jerusalem. Returning to Brussels, he died in 1012 of natural causes and his grave remained forgotten until discovered by a horse. His relics were transferred to a nearby church in 1076 and were repeatedly moved due to wars, before being destroyed by Protestants in the 18th century.

Salvete omnes!

Well, ten days to go until my arrival in Cathar territory. Sorry, but I can't help thinking of it in those terms. It's probably the combination of knowing too many Dominicans and, umm... , having once spent my entire summer holidays reading about the Albigensian Crusade. Quite sad, really..! Anyway, 1st October is, Deo volente, arrival day for the six of us (some will get there a day earlier, two with probable jet-lag) in Perpignan. For anyone who's totally lost by now, go back to the FSSP's international site and scroll down to 'Women's Vocations' if it's still up. Scarily, I will in all probability be spending the next nine months of my life speaking French.

God has already been doing wonderful things for me here - my parents are slowly coming to terms with the situation and the fact that I am actually taking this seriously. My relationship with my parents is never likely to be close, but is better right now than it has been, well, since my conversion. For which, God be praised. Does this seem a bit odd to anyone else??? I learn very slowly sometimes, but I think that it did help that I was up-front about this right from the start.

Okay, this is now reading more like a diary entry than a public blogosphere one, but never mind. It's one of the flaws of typing as quickly as you can think - you then find that posts are really long, but can't be bothered to edit them down! The main point was to say one or two things:

1) I am going to seriously miss all of you guys. Contact will be... difficult... I suspect.
2) Ergo, guardian angel post is required. Which means I will still be praying for you all, and would appreciate your prayers (and for the other five and Fr. V.)
3) While I technically can't chicken out now, part of me wants to.
4) I still don't have my passport (it needed renewing). This is a little bit worrying.
5) If anyone knows to how many books 15kg equates, I would appreciate an indication of such.
6) AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

On the 'less-scary' side, I have already been in touch with one of the lasses via e-mail and she seems really nice and is also a musician. She is also probably less freaked out than me about this, which is quite reassuring.

On the Tram

While I was on the tram this afternoon, a disembarking man - following the others filing off, gave me a tap on the shoulder, and with a morbid tone, dictated: "Excuse me... You're in the way!" I thought it was a horrid thing to say. It's not because I wasn't aware of taking up particularly much room, but I felt treated like a soul-less chair - to look someone coldly in the eye, and tell them that you wished that their presence did not exist? How can you do that? To anyone? Greetings, I detest you.

Anyway, something lighter courtesy of the Anglicans in Sydney - referring to next year's event as the 'World Roman Catholic Youth Day'.

As usual, lots of good things about. Father Ian Ker visiting the Institute and Library at present - nice to experience something of Oxford. I have papers to write again. It's good. O Crux, ave. Spes unica.

Stop Press!

This Sunday's edition of Kairos features an article by Hugh Henry on the August 25 Pontifical at St Patrick's Cathedral. Kairos is the official news publication of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, and the article in question can be viewed online here. Copies of Kairos are sent to every parish in Melbourne, it is mainstream, and its readership is vast. This article aside, the overall quality of the publication has improved impressively over the last six months, and it makes for thoughtful reading.

Thank you!

Ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur

I am currently lamenting...

... the state of today's youth. Not that this is in any way new, after working in Croydon, but still. Not that the guys I spent tonight with are in any sense bad; but their level of understanding re: The Faith is incredibly poor. Not their fault. Quomodo autem audient sine praedicante?

Be positive. If one goes to the lengths of printing out quotes from the Catechism, Church documents and various articles and scientific papers about a certain issue and gives them to another; and that person actually reads the stuff and is grateful that you went to such effort: All is not lost. I just wish it wasn't necessary.

I'm really missing everybody today, for obvious reasons. Okay, for some of you it's tomorrow by now...

Sometimes it is really annoying...

... that the nearest Extraordinary Use Mass is in another country. And that's from the Pixies, which makes it even worse. I shall, therefore, merely have to make sure that I say the *whole* Office in order to sing a solemn Te Deum tomorrow morning. Preferably, however, once my parents have gone to work.

OTOH, is the Charpentier on youtube, I wonder...?

Rightful Aspirations

It's 1:15am. I'm having visions of running through the Archdiocesan precinct with banners and trumpets.

Established and Decreed

Those canons promulgated within Summorum Pontificum are now "established and decreed" in Australia. It's time for a Te Deum.

Expectans expectavi Dominum, et respexit me: et exaudivit deprecationem meam: et immisit in os meum canticum novum, hymnum Deo nostro.

O Crux Ave, Spes Unica!

First Sydney Pontifical Confirmed for 2008

His Lordship, Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett of the Lismore diocese, has confirmed that he will offer a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit for Juventutem in Sydney on the 16th of July, 2008. This will be Juventutem's first Ponitifical Mass during the official 'World Youth Day' week. We are all extremely grateful, and offer prayerful thanks.

If my recent posts have seemed a little out of place I apologise, particularly since this blog is concerned with so serious a subject as the liturgy. However to quote Monsignor Knox, "Humour, frown upon it as you will, is nothing less than a fresh window of the soul. Through that window we see, not indeed a different world, but the familiar world of our experience distorted as if by the magic of some tricky sprite."

In contrast to which...

Pope Urban VII was the first to impose a smoking ban, in 1590 (i.e. 'smoke and be excommunicated). In 1624, his successor Urban VIII issued the ban again... It was repealed by Benedict XIII, who smoked.

And you're not allowed snuff after the gloria. Apparently.

Dirigatur ad te oratio mea sicut incensum

When tobacco came from the New World, pipes, which caught on in England and France, never became popular in seventeenth-century Rome, but snuff did, and became a peculiarly ecclesiastical practice, sanctioned in the sanctuary, and perhaps clearing those noses which learnt to distinguish, with appreciative sniffs, the various kinds of incense which were brought out, like wine from a cellar, with an excellence matched to the importance of the occasion. Quoted by Douglas Woodruff (1897-1978), historian and journalist.

As testimony to the highly developed olfactory senses of priests, at one Solemn Mass while presenting the thurible I was duly informed to "exchange" the "odorous" incense for something with a far more pleasing fragrance.

Why the Service Must Be In Latin

Monsignor Ronald Knox on being asked to conduct a baptism in English declined, saying: "The baby knows no English and the Devil knows Latin."

Interview with Juventutem Australia Ecclesiastical Patron, the Most Reverend Basil Meeking, Bishop Emeritus of Christchurch

Official Pontifical Photographs

Photographs from the Pontifical at St Patrick's Cathedral can now be viewed here. Please note the copyright notice.

Monsignor Ronald Knox: 50th Anniversary Conference and Dinner

Hosted by the Caroline Chisholm Library, this event will take place on Saturday, 6th October 2007 in the Melbourne CBD. Precise times and venues are to be confirmed, but I strongly encourage as wide an attendance as possible.

Presently, my greedy hoard from the library is far too much to get through in a month, and according to the great Saint, Edith Stein, it is a very female thing to do.