"We think ... of all the thousands of masses which are being said or sung the whole world over, and all rising with one note of blissful acclamation, from grateful creatures, to the Majesty of our merciful Creator. How many glorious processions, with the sun upon their banners, are now winding their way round the squares of mighty cities, through the flower-strewn streets of Christian villages, through the antique cloisters of the glorious cathedral, or through the grounds of the seminary, where the various colours of the faces, and the different languages of the people are only so many fresh tokens of the unity of that faith which they are all exultingly professing in the single voice of the magnificent ritual of Rome! Upon how many altars of various architecture, amid sweet flowers and starry lights, amid clouds of humble incense, and the tumult of thrilling song, before thousands of prostrate worshippers, is the Blessed Sacrament raised for exposition, or taken down for benediction! And how many blessed acts of faith and love, of triumph and of reparation, do not each of these things surely represent! The world over, the summer air is filled with the voice of song. The gardens are shorn of their fairest blossoms, to be flung beneath the feet of the Sacramental God. The steeples are reeling with the clang of bells; the cannon are booming in the gorges of the Andes and the Appenines;the ships of the harbours are painting the bays of the sea with their show of gaudy flags; the pomp of royal or republican armies salutes the King of kings. The Pope on his throne, and the school-girl in her village, cloistered nuns, and sequestered hermits, bishops and dignitaries and preachers, emperors and kings and princes, all are engrossed to-day with the Blessed Sacrament ... "
Viva il Fabbro!!!
31 May 2018
30 May 2018
Michael Curry again
The Primus of the American Episcopal Church gave an interview on the BBC Sunday programme. Since I have been described in a recent book (Douthat) as 'waspish', I will buzz some more. I warn the temperamentally sensitive that my views on this cleric have not ... er ... mellowed. Per contra ...
Curry's principal tool as an interviewee was what, in this country, is thought of as a soppy, softly quiet, parsonical voice, together with passages of sentimentality. (He is also what I categorise as a "Y'knower".) Three times he was asked about 'reparations'; I presume this is a live issue in some American circles, because, each time, he declined to answer the question, and talked instead about 'reconciliation'.
Invited to explain the communion-breaking actions of the ecclesial phenomenon he leads, he spoke about 'differences' which, he said, should be 'navigated' by 'love'. The two examples he gave were 'homosexuality' and 'various medical issues'. My suspicion (I may accept correction from those with refined antennae more in tune with American culture) is that 'Various Medical Issues' means, or at least includes, Abortion. (Surely, since the context here is the break-up of the world-wide Anglican Communion, he is not just discussing Obamacare!) He quoted the famous aphorism which S Augustine did not invent about in dubiis libertas.
Vespae iterum bombum sonans, I wonder whether this voluble gentleman applies his sweetly tolerant principles to the issue of Civil Rights. In view of the fact that Holy Scripture in no way condemns (indeed, explicitly tolerates) the practice of Slavery, I assume that this is another of Curry's dubia about which Christians can with a smile and a wink agree to differ. Against the background of a system in a number of American states where those (often negroes and in legally worrying circumstances) convicted of murder are painfully killed by lethal injection, I wonder if he includes this as among the 'various medical issues' on which Christians can amicably differ with cheerful goodwill. There are countries in the world where coercive interrogation crosses the line into torture, medically supervised. (Then there is the not-so-little matter of the imaginative use of Zyklon B for another sickening 'medical issue'.) And, taking up his reference to 'homosexuality', it would be amusing to know whether he also regards consensual paedophilia as a dubium upon which Christians are to be expected to hold varying opinions. And if not, why not.
When Adolf Hitler heard that Blessed Clement von Galen had outed and denounced his policy of exterminating the unfit, he is reported to have snarled "When I have won this war, I shall settle my account with von Galen". Michael Curry, on the other hand, speaks with gentle fragrance about "Love and Reconciliation". Yet in each case it looks to me as if the subject is, or at least plausibly includes, the elimination of lives deemed too inconvenient to be allowed to survive. How can such very different styles of language refer to such similar objects? I am very clever and I think I know how to explain this apparent contradiction. You see ...
But there is no need for me to take up your time or my own with this. George Orwell has done the job already.
Curry's principal tool as an interviewee was what, in this country, is thought of as a soppy, softly quiet, parsonical voice, together with passages of sentimentality. (He is also what I categorise as a "Y'knower".) Three times he was asked about 'reparations'; I presume this is a live issue in some American circles, because, each time, he declined to answer the question, and talked instead about 'reconciliation'.
Invited to explain the communion-breaking actions of the ecclesial phenomenon he leads, he spoke about 'differences' which, he said, should be 'navigated' by 'love'. The two examples he gave were 'homosexuality' and 'various medical issues'. My suspicion (I may accept correction from those with refined antennae more in tune with American culture) is that 'Various Medical Issues' means, or at least includes, Abortion. (Surely, since the context here is the break-up of the world-wide Anglican Communion, he is not just discussing Obamacare!) He quoted the famous aphorism which S Augustine did not invent about in dubiis libertas.
Vespae iterum bombum sonans, I wonder whether this voluble gentleman applies his sweetly tolerant principles to the issue of Civil Rights. In view of the fact that Holy Scripture in no way condemns (indeed, explicitly tolerates) the practice of Slavery, I assume that this is another of Curry's dubia about which Christians can with a smile and a wink agree to differ. Against the background of a system in a number of American states where those (often negroes and in legally worrying circumstances) convicted of murder are painfully killed by lethal injection, I wonder if he includes this as among the 'various medical issues' on which Christians can amicably differ with cheerful goodwill. There are countries in the world where coercive interrogation crosses the line into torture, medically supervised. (Then there is the not-so-little matter of the imaginative use of Zyklon B for another sickening 'medical issue'.) And, taking up his reference to 'homosexuality', it would be amusing to know whether he also regards consensual paedophilia as a dubium upon which Christians are to be expected to hold varying opinions. And if not, why not.
When Adolf Hitler heard that Blessed Clement von Galen had outed and denounced his policy of exterminating the unfit, he is reported to have snarled "When I have won this war, I shall settle my account with von Galen". Michael Curry, on the other hand, speaks with gentle fragrance about "Love and Reconciliation". Yet in each case it looks to me as if the subject is, or at least plausibly includes, the elimination of lives deemed too inconvenient to be allowed to survive. How can such very different styles of language refer to such similar objects? I am very clever and I think I know how to explain this apparent contradiction. You see ...
But there is no need for me to take up your time or my own with this. George Orwell has done the job already.
29 May 2018
Caution
I am uneasy about the reports circulating about one of the cardinals elect. The text I have seen contains passages which I find it hard to understand.
More generally, it is important not to wish for ill reports to be true. We must pray that they be not true.
This has particular force when it so immediately concerns the Roman Pontiff.
He deserves our trust until, unless, it is clear beyond all doubt that something is amiss.
And we have a duty to pray for him, both when he is in the right and when he is in the wrong.
Among causes for gladness, the promotion of Archbishop Ladaria is prominent. Partly because he continues to show himself to be orthodox; also because, had he been omitted from the list of new cardinals, this would have indicated a sidelining of his dicastery the CDF, "La Suprema", within the Vatican structures. And that would be bad for orthodoxy.
More generally, it is important not to wish for ill reports to be true. We must pray that they be not true.
This has particular force when it so immediately concerns the Roman Pontiff.
He deserves our trust until, unless, it is clear beyond all doubt that something is amiss.
And we have a duty to pray for him, both when he is in the right and when he is in the wrong.
Among causes for gladness, the promotion of Archbishop Ladaria is prominent. Partly because he continues to show himself to be orthodox; also because, had he been omitted from the list of new cardinals, this would have indicated a sidelining of his dicastery the CDF, "La Suprema", within the Vatican structures. And that would be bad for orthodoxy.
Blogger Gibberish
"Blogger no longer supports OpenID. Existing OpenID comments and your OpenID settings may have changed".
Does anybody happen to know what this twaddle means?
Does anybody happen to know what this twaddle means?
The English Martyrs and a local EF Calendar (2)
It seems to me that the later, 1987, Ordinary Form Arundel and Brighton Calendar is a great deal more welcoming to our English Reformation Martyrs than the earlier, rather stingy, Extraordinary Form Calendar.
In using the Extraordinary Form in our present context, what is one to do? Need one simply stick to the stingy 1949 Calendar authorised for Souhwark? I think not. The principles of law embodied in Canon 19 seem to me to suggest the question: "If the SCR had still be supervising EF diocesan Calendars in 1987, what would it have done?"
It is surely reasonable ad interim to utilise cautiously the 1987 Novus Ordo diocesan supplement, not as being an authoritative intervention in the Old Calendar, which it is not, but as being a strong indication of what the SCR would have authorised had it addressed the question of dealing with (a) a brand new diocese, and (b) a new batch of beati. Of course, dates might need to be adjusted if they are already occupied on the older Calendar: again, this is simply in accordance with long-standing precedent.
The Group commemoration of "The Blessed Martyrs of Sussex" is a completely reasonable disposition, based upon the much older "The Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales". The point is that Beati are, historically, supposed to enjoy a much more limited cultus than that of Sancti. So it is reasonable to group them together rather than assigning to each of them a separate feast day throughout an entire diocese.
But there is every reason why each of them should have an individual observance in places with which they are closely connected, if the EF rubrics can admit them on that day.
To be continued after a few days.
In using the Extraordinary Form in our present context, what is one to do? Need one simply stick to the stingy 1949 Calendar authorised for Souhwark? I think not. The principles of law embodied in Canon 19 seem to me to suggest the question: "If the SCR had still be supervising EF diocesan Calendars in 1987, what would it have done?"
It is surely reasonable ad interim to utilise cautiously the 1987 Novus Ordo diocesan supplement, not as being an authoritative intervention in the Old Calendar, which it is not, but as being a strong indication of what the SCR would have authorised had it addressed the question of dealing with (a) a brand new diocese, and (b) a new batch of beati. Of course, dates might need to be adjusted if they are already occupied on the older Calendar: again, this is simply in accordance with long-standing precedent.
The Group commemoration of "The Blessed Martyrs of Sussex" is a completely reasonable disposition, based upon the much older "The Blessed Martyrs of England and Wales". The point is that Beati are, historically, supposed to enjoy a much more limited cultus than that of Sancti. So it is reasonable to group them together rather than assigning to each of them a separate feast day throughout an entire diocese.
But there is every reason why each of them should have an individual observance in places with which they are closely connected, if the EF rubrics can admit them on that day.
To be continued after a few days.
28 May 2018
The English Martyrs and a local EF Calendar (1)
I decided to see what treatment the English Martys have received from English local, diocesan, Calendars. I selected Sussex for no better reason than that I had the data by me.
(1) Leo XIII beatified two groups of Martys equipollently [on the grounds that their pictures in the Venerable English College indicated a de facto cultus] in 1886 and 1895.
(2) Pius XI beatified another group, after formal process, in 1929.
(3) Pius XI canonised two of those previously beatified, SS John and Thomas, in 1935.
(4) Paul VI canonised another 40 in 1970.
(5) John Paul II beatified another 85 in 1987.
In 1949, Sussex was part of the diocese of Southwark. Its Calendar included only
May 4: the Blessed English Martyrs (1 and 2); and
July 9: SS John and Thomas (1 and 3).
By 1987, Sussex had become, with Surrey, an independant diocese, Arundel and Brighton. That year, a (Novus ordo) diocesan Calendar was authorised which included
Feb 21 S Robert Southwell (2 and 4)
May 12: The [blessed] Carthusian [probably included because of the Parkminster Charterhouse in Sussex.] (1)
May 28: Blessed Margaret Pole. (1)
June 23: S Thomas Garnet. (2 and 4)
October 3: The Blessed Martyrs of Sussex. (See below)
October 19: S Philip Howard. (2 and 4)
Of the 10 'Blessed Martyrs of Sussex' ...
two were (1);
five were (2);
three were (5).
Tomorrow I hope to draw liturgical conclusions from these data.
(1) Leo XIII beatified two groups of Martys equipollently [on the grounds that their pictures in the Venerable English College indicated a de facto cultus] in 1886 and 1895.
(2) Pius XI beatified another group, after formal process, in 1929.
(3) Pius XI canonised two of those previously beatified, SS John and Thomas, in 1935.
(4) Paul VI canonised another 40 in 1970.
(5) John Paul II beatified another 85 in 1987.
In 1949, Sussex was part of the diocese of Southwark. Its Calendar included only
May 4: the Blessed English Martyrs (1 and 2); and
July 9: SS John and Thomas (1 and 3).
By 1987, Sussex had become, with Surrey, an independant diocese, Arundel and Brighton. That year, a (Novus ordo) diocesan Calendar was authorised which included
Feb 21 S Robert Southwell (2 and 4)
May 12: The [blessed] Carthusian [probably included because of the Parkminster Charterhouse in Sussex.] (1)
May 28: Blessed Margaret Pole. (1)
June 23: S Thomas Garnet. (2 and 4)
October 3: The Blessed Martyrs of Sussex. (See below)
October 19: S Philip Howard. (2 and 4)
Of the 10 'Blessed Martyrs of Sussex' ...
two were (1);
five were (2);
three were (5).
Tomorrow I hope to draw liturgical conclusions from these data.
27 May 2018
Ordination Season
Trinity Sunday, according to the tradition of the Latin Church, used to be the main day for Ordinations in the West: prepared for by the Pentecost Ember Week. Or, to be pedantic, ordinations happened at the Mass of the Ember Saturday, when the various orders were conferred after each of the lections.
Before both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion fiddled with their respective rites, the same words appeared in both the Roman Pontifical and the Prayer Book Ordinal as the Bishop laid hands upon the ordinandi: the Lord's own paschal and pentecostal words Accipe Spiritum Sanctum to his disciples, pointing to the Gift of the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Fittingly; because the priesthood we are given to share is at the heart of the Paschal Mystery. And the First Reading at Mattins, in both ecclesial bodies, used to be that unforgettable passage from Isaiah (6) about the Divine Glory: Et audivi vocem Domini dicentis: Quem mittam? Et dixi: Ecce ego. Mitte me. "And I said: here am I; send me". Gratias tibi, Deus, gratias tibi, vera et una Trinitas, una et summa Deitas, sancta et una Unitas.
Sacrosanctum Concilium (23) decreed that "innovations, should not happen unless a true and certain usefulness for the Church demands it". I still wonder why the Liturgia Horarum rejected that chapter from Isaiah about the Glory of God in the Temple of God ... what true and certain usefulness it was that (so the Experts decided) demanded its elimination. Strangely, the Church of England revisers have remained unaware of the doubtless profound reasons which required this change. However, in more recent years, the C of E has moved the Ordinations to a newly invented "Petertide", so as to allow a full final academic term in the Summer. A shame.
Because what a wonderful feast, how full of joy, today's solemnity is. I find it difficult to to feel sympatheia with PF when he grudgingly utters sour words about "the rigidity of abstract doctrine", as if dogma, which by definition must imply an abstractio from particularity and materiality, lacks the ability to thrill and to enchant and to be entered into and to be lived and to be shared with others. Poor chap ... what an impoverished life he must lead. Perhaps that's why he always looks so miserable.
A particular pleasure is that of praying in the Divine Office that great paean of praise, the Quicumque vult. Our Patron Blessed John Henry Newman had described it as "The most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary, to which Christianity has given birth". I wonder what he would have said could he have known that, in a century, the Catholic Church would have eliminated it from her worship!
Its loss among both priests and people in the Catholic Church is probably a big reason for the doctrinal collapses in the Latin Church. The poor robbed clergy are no longer shaped by its pin-point orthodoxy as well as its beautiful cadences. A shame, too, that in the OF the profoundly beautiful Preface of the Most Holy Trinity is no longer heard Sunday by Sunday during the 'green' season. It is no wonder that, deep down and instinctively, so few people now really believe in the Holy Trinity. You hear both homilists and laity talking about "God and Jesus". I sometimes feel that only Byzantine Christians really believe in the Trinity. But, to give credit where credit is due, I've read several things by Vincent Nichols teaching the Godhead of the Son with great clarity.
On June 9 1968, which is when Trinity Sunday fell that year, Harry Carpenter laid his hands on me, on exactly the same spot as a previous Bishop of Oxford did the same thing on a Trinity Sunday to Blessed John Henry Newman ... just a few yards from the bones of Oxford's Saxon Patron S Frideswide and those of Dr Pusey and the tomb of the last Abbot of Oseney, first Bishop of Oxford and the only one to have been in full communion with the See of S Peter.
My warmest good wishes to all brother priests who were ordained on a Trinity Sunday.
Before both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion fiddled with their respective rites, the same words appeared in both the Roman Pontifical and the Prayer Book Ordinal as the Bishop laid hands upon the ordinandi: the Lord's own paschal and pentecostal words Accipe Spiritum Sanctum to his disciples, pointing to the Gift of the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. Fittingly; because the priesthood we are given to share is at the heart of the Paschal Mystery. And the First Reading at Mattins, in both ecclesial bodies, used to be that unforgettable passage from Isaiah (6) about the Divine Glory: Et audivi vocem Domini dicentis: Quem mittam? Et dixi: Ecce ego. Mitte me. "And I said: here am I; send me". Gratias tibi, Deus, gratias tibi, vera et una Trinitas, una et summa Deitas, sancta et una Unitas.
Sacrosanctum Concilium (23) decreed that "innovations, should not happen unless a true and certain usefulness for the Church demands it". I still wonder why the Liturgia Horarum rejected that chapter from Isaiah about the Glory of God in the Temple of God ... what true and certain usefulness it was that (so the Experts decided) demanded its elimination. Strangely, the Church of England revisers have remained unaware of the doubtless profound reasons which required this change. However, in more recent years, the C of E has moved the Ordinations to a newly invented "Petertide", so as to allow a full final academic term in the Summer. A shame.
Because what a wonderful feast, how full of joy, today's solemnity is. I find it difficult to to feel sympatheia with PF when he grudgingly utters sour words about "the rigidity of abstract doctrine", as if dogma, which by definition must imply an abstractio from particularity and materiality, lacks the ability to thrill and to enchant and to be entered into and to be lived and to be shared with others. Poor chap ... what an impoverished life he must lead. Perhaps that's why he always looks so miserable.
A particular pleasure is that of praying in the Divine Office that great paean of praise, the Quicumque vult. Our Patron Blessed John Henry Newman had described it as "The most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary, to which Christianity has given birth". I wonder what he would have said could he have known that, in a century, the Catholic Church would have eliminated it from her worship!
Its loss among both priests and people in the Catholic Church is probably a big reason for the doctrinal collapses in the Latin Church. The poor robbed clergy are no longer shaped by its pin-point orthodoxy as well as its beautiful cadences. A shame, too, that in the OF the profoundly beautiful Preface of the Most Holy Trinity is no longer heard Sunday by Sunday during the 'green' season. It is no wonder that, deep down and instinctively, so few people now really believe in the Holy Trinity. You hear both homilists and laity talking about "God and Jesus". I sometimes feel that only Byzantine Christians really believe in the Trinity. But, to give credit where credit is due, I've read several things by Vincent Nichols teaching the Godhead of the Son with great clarity.
On June 9 1968, which is when Trinity Sunday fell that year, Harry Carpenter laid his hands on me, on exactly the same spot as a previous Bishop of Oxford did the same thing on a Trinity Sunday to Blessed John Henry Newman ... just a few yards from the bones of Oxford's Saxon Patron S Frideswide and those of Dr Pusey and the tomb of the last Abbot of Oseney, first Bishop of Oxford and the only one to have been in full communion with the See of S Peter.
My warmest good wishes to all brother priests who were ordained on a Trinity Sunday.
26 May 2018
Missing Faces: the Final Solution
For some fifteen years we took our summer holidays in Ireland; and, every year I wondered what it was that seemed missing on the streets of England after we got back home.
Then the penny dropped in my mind. In Knightstown, on Valentia Island in County Kerry, there was a new and happy residence for people with Down's Syndrome. We knew some of them; we greeted them and as cheerfully were greeted by them each year when we arrived there. They were an accepted part of the community.
Those faces were and are missing on the streets of England. They have been missing here for decades. Because, you know, such faces have no place in a modern state.
Just as, after Hitler's murderous deportations of millions of Jews to the death camps, there were faces missing from the streets of German cities, towns, and villages.
Leo Varadkar is receiving exstatic plaudits. Will anybody deny that he deserves them, as he sets in motion the Final Solution of the Down's Problem?
Then the penny dropped in my mind. In Knightstown, on Valentia Island in County Kerry, there was a new and happy residence for people with Down's Syndrome. We knew some of them; we greeted them and as cheerfully were greeted by them each year when we arrived there. They were an accepted part of the community.
Those faces were and are missing on the streets of England. They have been missing here for decades. Because, you know, such faces have no place in a modern state.
Just as, after Hitler's murderous deportations of millions of Jews to the death camps, there were faces missing from the streets of German cities, towns, and villages.
Leo Varadkar is receiving exstatic plaudits. Will anybody deny that he deserves them, as he sets in motion the Final Solution of the Down's Problem?
PASCHAL AND PENTECOSTAL OCTAVES
Today is, of course, the Feast of S Philip Neri, and so of great consequence to clergy and laity throughout the world who love the old gentleman and have been influenced, as I have, by the marvellous charism of his Sons. They are so potent in spreading Catholicism within the Church!
But stay. What about the Octave of Pentecost? Should S Philip be made to tranfer from today to Monday ... even, perhaps, to fight out with S Augustine who gets Monday ...
There is a real problem here which has an easy solution, hinted at by Tradition.
Until Pius XII and his henchman Bugnini started galumphing heavily around all over the Roman Rite, the days in the Octaves of Easter and of Pentecost were not uniform in status throughout the week. As in the Book of Common Prayer, Monday and Tuesday had a very special status, and excluded any other feast or commemoration that tried to elbow its way in. But the same was not true of the Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays within those Octaves. As your St Lawrence Press Ordo makes clear, those days were susceptible to the intrusion of commemorations (not of Festivals).
I think both Tradition and Pastoral Utility could suggest a return to something a bit like the pre-Pius XII system.
So, where S Philip (or anybody else who is a Double of the First Class qua Patron) finds himself ... e.g. ... on the Saturday, he might be allowed to intrude, and be observed on his proper Day..
When a Curate in the 1960s, I seemed often to be troubled by the appearance of S George in the Octave of Easter. Ordinary Christians found it hard to understand why the Church seemed so anxious to prevent him from being observed on his proper day.
My Modest Proposition: Where a Patron, a First Class Festival, occurs on the Wednesday etc. of the Pentecost Octave, (s)he should be allowed in. We should not be entirely deaf to lay instincts.
But stay. What about the Octave of Pentecost? Should S Philip be made to tranfer from today to Monday ... even, perhaps, to fight out with S Augustine who gets Monday ...
There is a real problem here which has an easy solution, hinted at by Tradition.
Until Pius XII and his henchman Bugnini started galumphing heavily around all over the Roman Rite, the days in the Octaves of Easter and of Pentecost were not uniform in status throughout the week. As in the Book of Common Prayer, Monday and Tuesday had a very special status, and excluded any other feast or commemoration that tried to elbow its way in. But the same was not true of the Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays within those Octaves. As your St Lawrence Press Ordo makes clear, those days were susceptible to the intrusion of commemorations (not of Festivals).
I think both Tradition and Pastoral Utility could suggest a return to something a bit like the pre-Pius XII system.
So, where S Philip (or anybody else who is a Double of the First Class qua Patron) finds himself ... e.g. ... on the Saturday, he might be allowed to intrude, and be observed on his proper Day..
When a Curate in the 1960s, I seemed often to be troubled by the appearance of S George in the Octave of Easter. Ordinary Christians found it hard to understand why the Church seemed so anxious to prevent him from being observed on his proper day.
My Modest Proposition: Where a Patron, a First Class Festival, occurs on the Wednesday etc. of the Pentecost Octave, (s)he should be allowed in. We should not be entirely deaf to lay instincts.
23 May 2018
Referendum UPDATE
UPDATE I beg readers who are surfing through sites they commonly look at every morning, to break off and, instead, spend that time invoking the the Holy Ghost on behalf of the Irish electorate.
I think, Thursday morning and Friday morning, I will say Mass for the people of Ireland.
I know that many people are hoping that all clergy will do something like this.
And that laity will say the Holy Rosary and/or receive Holy Communion, for the same intention.
The skill with which the Evil One has set about destroying Ireland is ... awesome.
I think, Thursday morning and Friday morning, I will say Mass for the people of Ireland.
I know that many people are hoping that all clergy will do something like this.
And that laity will say the Holy Rosary and/or receive Holy Communion, for the same intention.
The skill with which the Evil One has set about destroying Ireland is ... awesome.
A kind American priest ...
Some eight years ago, a kind American priest very graciously sent me some extremely interesting books; most of which bear the autograph (and annotations) of a Fr J B O'Connell ... a name which seems familiar ... whose reactions to emerging 'reforms' from the 1940s to the 1960s one could trace. (Tucked inside one of them was a 1946 envelope, with rough notes on the back, from 'Great Southern Hotels'; the Irish Hotel group which includes Parknasilla, where G B Shaw wrote plays, having got there travelling bolt-upright in the back of his Rolls Royce all the way through the Rebel County of Cork ... and where my family played golf while I read and watched the otters and kingfishers on a then-secluded ruined quay ... it's a small world ... is that ruined quay still 'undeveloped'?).
One volume bears a stamp of ICEL in its earliest days; it is Mary Pierre Ellebracht's highly erudite and still very useful Remarks on the Vocabulary of the ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum of 1964. Other volumes include many papers on Latinity by the ever-great, ever-admirable Christine Mohrmann.
Over these eight years, this blog has been very much enriched by that benefaction. If you read this, thank you very much, Father.
One volume bears a stamp of ICEL in its earliest days; it is Mary Pierre Ellebracht's highly erudite and still very useful Remarks on the Vocabulary of the ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum of 1964. Other volumes include many papers on Latinity by the ever-great, ever-admirable Christine Mohrmann.
Over these eight years, this blog has been very much enriched by that benefaction. If you read this, thank you very much, Father.
22 May 2018
The Royal Wedding ...
... just carries on and on in the Meeja.
I can only say that I find aspects of it puzzling and alienating.
Some things I just don't even begin to understand: such as why Ms M keeps describing herself daily as a Feminist while apparently happy to be called a Duchess simply because she has married a Duke.
Alienating? The host of 'celebrities' invited to the party alienates me. I suppose in a different age the 'invitees' might have been from other Royal Families, from the Bitish Aristocracy, and from people in our public or political life. Like most ordinary Englishmen, I could discover members of aristocratic families among relations by marriage, or Oxford acquaintances, or former pupils. Foreign Royalty? I met on comfortable terms the late King of Romania; and a Duke of the House of Bourbon. I have mingled socially and bibulously with Members of Parliament. Being quite a small nation, we are comfortably integrated and surprisingly egalitarian.
But all these International Celebrities ... I think they are known technically as "A-list" ... Sir Elton John ... Clooneys ... Serena Williams ... Ophra Winfrey ... Batman, probably ... etc. etc. ... there is not a snowball's chance in Infernis that I have or ever could run into any of them, such is their inaccessible greatness. They are of a mighty altitudo far, far above my humiliated reach. I imagine they are the sort of people whose doings are related in the glossy Celebrity magazines one sees adolescent girls devouring in omnibuses. Looking at the TV clips of those confident lordlings striding into Windsor Castle, I knew how the French must have felt when Herr Hitler visited Paris in 1940 and was photographed in front of the Eiffel Tower.
* * * * * *
Incidentally, according to the Times, the music played included Greensleeves ... and the wedding took place on the anniversary of the day Anne Boleyn lost her head. And there was a Henry with Welsh connections involved in all that, too ... perhaps I should take more interest in the blacker implications of last Saturday's events ...
What a cheap fool that American 'bishop' is ... it would be fun to see him taking part in a 'historical reenactment' in the road outside the front door of the Master of Balliol.
Conveniently, the spot is already marked.
I can only say that I find aspects of it puzzling and alienating.
Some things I just don't even begin to understand: such as why Ms M keeps describing herself daily as a Feminist while apparently happy to be called a Duchess simply because she has married a Duke.
Alienating? The host of 'celebrities' invited to the party alienates me. I suppose in a different age the 'invitees' might have been from other Royal Families, from the Bitish Aristocracy, and from people in our public or political life. Like most ordinary Englishmen, I could discover members of aristocratic families among relations by marriage, or Oxford acquaintances, or former pupils. Foreign Royalty? I met on comfortable terms the late King of Romania; and a Duke of the House of Bourbon. I have mingled socially and bibulously with Members of Parliament. Being quite a small nation, we are comfortably integrated and surprisingly egalitarian.
But all these International Celebrities ... I think they are known technically as "A-list" ... Sir Elton John ... Clooneys ... Serena Williams ... Ophra Winfrey ... Batman, probably ... etc. etc. ... there is not a snowball's chance in Infernis that I have or ever could run into any of them, such is their inaccessible greatness. They are of a mighty altitudo far, far above my humiliated reach. I imagine they are the sort of people whose doings are related in the glossy Celebrity magazines one sees adolescent girls devouring in omnibuses. Looking at the TV clips of those confident lordlings striding into Windsor Castle, I knew how the French must have felt when Herr Hitler visited Paris in 1940 and was photographed in front of the Eiffel Tower.
* * * * * *
Incidentally, according to the Times, the music played included Greensleeves ... and the wedding took place on the anniversary of the day Anne Boleyn lost her head. And there was a Henry with Welsh connections involved in all that, too ... perhaps I should take more interest in the blacker implications of last Saturday's events ...
What a cheap fool that American 'bishop' is ... it would be fun to see him taking part in a 'historical reenactment' in the road outside the front door of the Master of Balliol.
Conveniently, the spot is already marked.
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