A post that is not Catholic - and not about cats either!

Sometimes it can appears as if one of the major qualifications to be a real Catholic Blogger is to have a cat or cats! There! I have done it, heresy is out of the bag if not the cat!

I realise that I risk untold wrath from the cat lobby but I do not possess one therefore I cannot write about one. That's a good bit of Thomist logic for you.
We shall leave it at that. If I were to state that I am  dog lover, I suspect it would be a bridge too far. So, we shall metaphorically do as they do around the dinner table in France when the conversation heats up; place a fork across a glass. It is a silent and polite way of saying: "Let's move on".

This post is unusual for me because it is not, per se, about the Faith. It is about a Wednesday afternoon I spent with my Beloved in wild and wintry Pembrokeshire.

It was yesterday, in fact. We took off with baguettes et fromage in tow and drifted around the highways and byways of the North Pembrokeshire Coast. We have lived here for 25 years but still find new coves and beaches, such is their proliferation here.

We found ourselves at a picturesque inlet called Abercastle or Abercastell in the Welsh. It is primarily, a fishing cove where small boats put out to catch crab and lobster in pots and then ship them off to Spain or France, so unfair.
Abercastle nestles in the cliffs that are decked with the bright yellow blooms of the gorse bush so typical of these coasts. We walked between the showers and lapped up the atmosphere and we may even have drifted off to sleep for a few seconds in the car afterwards so soporific was the sea air.

'When the gorse is not in bloom, kissing
 is out of fashion' - an old country saying

And then we found a plaque set into the harbour wall and discovered that an American of Danish birth one, Alfred "Centennial" Johnson had discovered this little port long before we had. On Saturday August 10th 1876 to be precise.
Alfred, stout man that he was, had taken it upon himself to be the first man to sail solo across the Atlantic and had left Gloucester, Massachussetts on June 15th of the same year.
His craft was a 20 foot open Dory and this had borne him through many storms and gales including one that had capsized him. Various ships stopped to offer succour but the only kind he received from one was two bottles of rum, and why not?



Abercastell, Pembrokeshire



It would be wonderful to claim that Alfred was a Catholic but that would be stretching things too far. When asked in later life why he had made the trip he replied, very honestly: "Because I was a damn fool".

I like the cut of this man's jib and will offer up a prayer for his eternal soul and hope that, one day, after another voyage fraught with trials, I will meet up with him and shake him by the hand.
Photos: Wikipedia

Second only to Rome..Britain's smallest city

Nestling in the far West of Pembrokeshire, on the tip of Wales lies Britain's smallest city with a population of only 1,600 souls. St David's, or Dewi Sant in Welsh, has long been a holy place and home of the great saint himself.



Built in the depths of a valley to avoid attention from the Vikings!

 The Cathedral is also small but beautiful nonetheless and it lies deep in a small valley at one end of the city. It was built deep in the valley so that it would not be seen by the marauding Vikings who sacked, plundered and pillaged to their heart's delight. It did not escape the attentions of that other marauding sex maniac, Henry XVIII whose men systematically committed sacrilege with the Cathedral and its furnishings and valuables.
Adjacent to the Cathedral are the ruins of the Bishop's Palace.



The Bishop's Palace. Built by Saints destroyed by Sinners

 It is easy to stand outside the Cathedral and be aware of the remnants of the walls of the city and to imagine how, in the middle ages, the local community would have assembled within the city walls at night, for safety's sake. And how the monks would have offered employment to farm labourers, schools for the children and hospitals for the sick.
A veritable society of care and charity which all came to an abrupt end with the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
In medieval times, two pilgrimages to St David's were equal to one to Rome  and what is now the A40 provided much of the route of the pilgrims intent on fulfilling their considerable task of paying homage to God in one of His holy places.
A few miles outside the county town of Haverfordwest lies Slebech Park, now a luxury hotel complex for the wealthy.  This was a final stopping off point before arriving in the city and within the grounds is a ruined chapel with a sarcophagus containing the pickled hearts of the Crusader Knights who died in battle in the Holy Land.
Less than a  mile outside St David's lies St Non's Well, (St Non being the mother of the saint).

St Non's Well - a place to take the waters in medieval times

The water here is supposed to have miraculous properties. Cross the stile and you are in the grounds of a Catholic Retreat house, also called St Non's. It stands atop the cliffs of Pembrokeshire and you look out at the distant shores of Ireland, well, you can't see them but they are there.

St Non's has a faux medieval chapel in the grounds built in, I think, 1938. It is charming despite its youth and cries out for a Latin Mass to be celebrated at its original altar.

St Non's Chapel

The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path stretches out for many miles in both directions and provides for some of the best sea views in the country.

It would be rather a good thing if the Church of Wales would care to endow the Diocese of Menevia with the title deeds to St David's Cathedral, in the spirit of the Ordinariate, of course! It is so very rich in Catholic history and yet, typically, its Catholic heritage just does not appear in much of the information regarding this  
                                               Church and its past.