Happy days return

Happily, the Sovereign Pontiff didn't pander to the media by refering to you-know-what in his Easter Sermon. I repeat a point I have made before: hearing Benedict XVI, you feel that the 'Patristic Period' is still with us. I suppose that's why he shares our affection for Newman (memories here of the uxorious Manning damning Newman with the words 'the same old Oxford Patristic tone'). Incidentally, his Vigil Sermon struck a personal chord with Pam and me: last time we had a Cornish break, we read together the Cornish texts (the 'Ordinalia') in which the old pun eleos/elaios* is turned into the story of the Oil of Mercy which Adam desires on his death-bed.

I specially liked the bit in his polyglot Easter greetings where the Holy Father started the Filipino greeting; all the Filipino ladies in the crowd began shrilling; he broke off and gave that lovely shy smile; then waved; then continued. Incidentally, I hear rumours that in the congregation at S Magnus the Martyr, from which you got those Ex Fide pictures of the pre-Pius XII Holy Week rites, the number of Filipino ladies grows.

I regard them as an essential part of the Patrimony. I wish I knew how to get a couple of dozen of them for S Thomas's.
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*Eleos, Greek for Mercy (it's the root you know from Kyrie eleison); Elaion, pronounced in Koine Greek Eleon (so that they are phonetically indistinguishable in the oblique cases), Oil.