Ferias

A few days this week and next week to revisit that nice section at the end of the Missal, Votives (and the equally nice Spanish-shape purple vestments kindly given by some very dear friends across the water).

For example, Contra paganos, which a different friend across several different bits of water tells me used to be contra Turcos et paganos ... I rather like that title; it's so very Patrimony, reminding one of the Good Friday prayer in the Church of England's normative book of worship ... "have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word: and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites ... " (no nonsense, we infer from this, in official Anglican doctrine about the Jewish Covenant still being salvific!!! ... I wonder why the Church of England doesn't receive the same Good Friday battering from 'dialogue' bigots over this as the Catholic Church does when she prays for the removal of the veil ...).

But, of course, I said the Mass with a basically IS reference. Its texts remind me of the spirit of the Gesima Sundays, with their vivid picture of the Christian people grievously afflicted, calling upon a God who might seem to have deserted them.

Then there is the Mass labelled in the Missal I use as Ad tollendum Schisma; said with particular reference to Anglicans. A lovely, theological Mass, with those superb readings from Ephhesians and our blessed Lord's High Priestly Prayer. It takes me back to the 1960s, when Christian really wanted Unity and didn't just spout the rhetoric. What a popular Votive it was then. I wonder how often any of us say it nowadays.