The ultimate, ultimate in portable altars

There have been a few posts this week regarding portable altars...the sort that a priest might like to add to his baggage allowance to enable him to celebrate Mass in Machu Picchu or Ulan Bator or, wherever.

Fr Z has a natty little number that neatly counterbalances his Colt .45 on the other shoulder and, someone else (many apols. I seem to have lost it) featured one also.

But this one, this portable altar, is the ultimate.

It is, if you will pardon the expression, a real priest's altar.

It is not for the Novus Ordo priest, it is not, even, for the Novus Ordo Ad Orientem priest....

...it is an altar for a real ale, red wine, pistol packing Tridentine Latin Mass priest.....see for yourself

This is not for the faint of heart...this is for Extraordinary priests!

 In the church of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and St Ignatius in the tiny hamlet of Chideock, Dorset, home to many fine English Martyrs, lies this 'portable' altar crafted out of finest English oak.

In the past, after the 1988 'excommunications' we had visiting priests in our part of Wales who celebrated Holy Mass on a wallpaper pasting table and that appears positively limp wristed when compared with what Fr Hugh Green and his confreres had to carry.

Incidentally, his fellow martyrs included Fr Thomas Pilchard, Thomas Salmon and William Pike, a fishy bunch, if ever...oof!

This church is undoubtedly the best in Britain (a proud boast) and it beats me why Joe Shaw and his merry men at the Latin Mass Society don't organise annual pilgrimages there...but then much of what goes on at the LMS these days is a bit of a ....OK, don't let's go there!

But please spare a thought and an intercessionary plea to these fine men who must have hefted this lump of an altar around the hills and combes of Dorset and its surrounding countryside.

They must have been a strong bunch, both physically and spiritually.

 Borne out by the fact that the executioner spent half an hour delving into Fr Green's body cavity in order to find his heart and afterwards, the soldiers played football with his severed head.

An account of his death is here at Supremacy and Survival blog.

Good news! Good news!

I am quite hopeful that Fr Z will be eagerly reading this post as he likes good news on a regular basis and, let's be frank (small 'f' please note) there ain't much of it around right now.

In fact, good news is about as abundant as.....as.....piety at a eucharistic service - ahem.

Well, my good news is that we have achieved a 100% increase in the number of altar servers able to serve the Latin Mass.

We've gone (in the whole of the Menevia Diocese) from altar server 'C' (who does sterling work on the sanctuary) to altar server 'J' who began his duties last Saturday at our Vigil Mass.

So what? You might well ask.

Well, I tell you why I am so pleased, it means that I am no longer the back stop server; in fact, I can hang up my cassock for good and my cotta is now surplus (?)

That is a cause for both sadness and rejoicing.

There is no greater joy than those precious moments on the altar when the server draws close to the celebrant, and close to Christ.

There is a wonderful intimacy, at various stages during the Mass; at the Offertory when one stands close to the bread and wine soon to be made Flesh and Blood.

At the Consecration, of course and, again, when accompanying the Lord to the altar rails and holding the plate lest any terrible accident may occur.

And what greater intimacy is there than when serving  Mass attended just by Mrs Linen in a private chapel early in the morning. Pure joy.

The rejoicing bit comes from the fact that I shall no longer have to creak and groan around the sanctuary (yes, I do know that I should offer it up but it does not make for a particularly attractive sight) and, anyway, I have always criticised altar servers of a certain age believing that this duty is best performed by boys and young men.

Now, I must also confess to a small sin of pride although, I do try to keep it under control.

This is my 65th year as a server (I did start rather precociously, at three months of age).

After 65 years of serving the servant of the Lord I think I am due a bit of a rest.

But, I still remember my brother Patrick, at the behest of Canon Musgrave, hauling me out of the family pew to be boat boy at Sunday Benediction   (remember Benediction?), and to service on the sanctuary for the first time.

And I vividly recall standing before Fr Steer in the Presbytery on a Saturday morning at the age of seven and reciting the responses of the Latin Mass.

This was a critical part of being an altar server; you could not serve alone until such time as you were word perfect, without the use of a missal.

That's a bit of mud in the eye for those who claim that Latin is elitist and beyond simple minds.

You could not get much simpler than my mind at the age of seven and, I'm sorry to say that Mrs L still harbours a belief that I have not progressed much past that stage.

Still, it would be good to know if 65 years as an altar server is a record (there's bound to be some LMS MC who is 105 and has notched up the century!).

If you are A) Catholic and B) a user of the new technologies....

.....you might like to join the group meeting for Mass in the Extraordinary Form celebrated by Fr Rupert McHardy Cong., Orat. next Saturday, 15th September at the London Oratory, Seven Dolours Chapel at 10.30am.

                         Fr Rupert McHardy admitting Miss EF Griffiths 
                                                     to the light of Christ

And, afterwards, Fr McHardy will address the group before we retire for flagons of claret and roasted oxen (actually, more likely, a pint of bitter and some cheese and onion sandwiches).

This is the third official gathering of The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, a most informal and friendly group of Catholics.

You will certainly meet some well known bloggers including A Reluctant Sinner, hopefully Mary O' Regan of A Path Less Taken, Fr Tim Finigan (who hopes to join us at some stage) and......and.......so we hope, pray and believe.....a certain American priest whose surname always ensures that he is the last to be called, in alphabetical terms.

Welcome to hell - have a nice eternity!

You're enjoying your life, you are successful, have plenty of money, a fast car, house in the stockbroker belt, 3 children and a beautiful wife...pretty damn good eh?

Only trouble is, you no longer practice your faith (well you do go to Midnight Mass at Christmas and you do give the children Easter Eggs) and, to cap it all you have had an affair at the office (over now, of course) and you did have to stick the knife in on Johnson in Marketing  so that he got the push and you got his job - but then, that's business isn't it?
Confession is just a distant memory and the reception of Holy Communion, likewise.

And then, just as you are en route to a meeting that could result in a massive bonus for you - Wham! Crash! Bang! - you have just stepped out in front of an eight ton London Transport Bus and you are mutton, deceased, dead as a parrot.

Now you are coming to...aaargh! blinded by a bright light and then the vision and then...ten seconds later........you are in HELL!

Come on in, things are just hotting up!

Reality begins to set in....you are here for eternity, like forever....longer than forever...and there's no get out of jail card, no plea bargaining, no time off for good behaviour...just eternal fire, demons, souls in agony, torments, tortures....pain, humiliation, degradation, no day or night just sheer hell.

H/T to Fr Z for his one liner on the subject that set my mind racing.
Like most people, my faith is a bit of a struggle at times but I have never wavered from the fear of the prospect of eternal damnation brought down on my own head by my own deeds.

I have weighed up the various options (like missing Mass on Sundays or robbing a bank) but alway, always come to the conclusion that the effort to stay in a state of grace is so well and truly worth it.

What kind of omadhaun would play Russian roulette with a revolver that has all the chambers full?

 Not me.

Regular Confession, Mass and Holy Communion - no worries mate!
 As they say in New Holland.

See also Fr Dwight Longenecker's post

BTW - a typo on Fr Z's post regarding Fr Ray Blake and his attack by the homosexual lobby - the headline reads:
"Fr Blake of Brighton taking flake (sic) from bullies for being Catholic"

'flake' huh?  is that the homosexual version of flak?