Today's carol - 'with wings of fire'

An unusual format for this beautiful carol from the land of the Basques.

Sting is, or was, a Catholic I believe, not too sure about the dancing nymphs though.

It did not happen with Mohammed, or with Buddha or with any other religious leader.....

...only the coming of Christ was foretold.

Today is the anniversary of the death of that great Priest, Archbishop Fulton Sheen who, one day will be canonised.

This clip features his voice as he talks about the one (the only one) whose coming was prophesied....Christ the Saviour of the world!

If you want a Christmas present with a difference, buy a CD set of the Archbishop's retreats and sermons - they are just so very good.

They are available from St Anthony Communications http://www.saintant.com/



       Prayer for the Canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Heavenly Father, source of all holiness, You raise up within the Church in every age men and women who serve with heroic love and dedication.
You have blessed Your Church through the life and ministry of Your faithful servant, Archbishop Fulton J Sheen.

He has written and spoken well of Your Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and was a true instrument of the Holy Spirit in touching the hearts of countless people.
If it be according to Your Will, for the honour and glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the salvation of souls, we ask You to move the Church to proclaim him a saint.

We ask this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

The Bishop and the Vaughan....

Damian Thompson reports in depth on the latest Cardinal Vaughan School news regarding the Bishop who states that Michael Gove never spoke to Archbishop Nichols.....you may read it here (Telegraph Blogs)

Meanwhile...........

                                     Would you buy a used car from this man?


Picture: Daily Telegraph

What's a Bishop to do? Faced with looming disaster

2012 round the corner and another 15 priests will retire from the Diocese and there are  no seminarians in the wings.

There are at least two parishes (out of the Diocese of Much Dithering) where the PPs are in quite poor health and could go into hospital or worse at any time.

The Diocese comprises some 60 parishes and 5 of them are already "closed" due to shortages; parishioners of the closed parishes have to travel a few miles to the nearest functioning parish.

That means, (quick scribble on the back of the Monte Cristo box) - only 37 operational parishes out of the 60!

 It's enough to put a Bishop off his golf.

Well, there just has to be a solution.

 After all, Our Lord said that even the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church so a shortage of vocations is nothing more than  a bit of theological grit in the episcopal Vaseline.

There  is nothing that cannot be resolved, except that, sitting on hands is not an option, or shouldn't be.

So how?

We-eell, it's always easy to come up with answers when it's not your head on the block so I make the following comments in all humility. They are just strategies that I would think appropriate if I was a Bishop (Heaven forfend!).

First, call the troops together and put the situation to them. The priests must be involved and should fully comprehend what they are facing.

If anyone comes up with a cunning plan - great! But, if not, move to Plan B as follows:-

1. Rationalise the Diocese along Deanery lines, creating not individual parishes but clusters of parishes. The aim is to keep every parish functioning and every church open.

2. With a total of 60 churches in the Diocese they will now be in 6 groups or Deaneries each comprising 10 parishes. The priests will operate from a single Deanery base. There will be, approximately 3 priests at each base, serving the ten parishes between them.

3. The priests will have a rota to ensure that one of them is always on call at each 'centre'.

4. Redundant presbyteries can be used to generate income (not necessarily sold off, they could be rented out or  used for commercial purposes)

So far so good but all that has really happened has been a stay of execution. Numbers of priests will continue to decline, the clusters will shrink and a few years down the line there will only be one priest per ten parishes.

A Plan C is needed.

Plan C

Invite one of the traditional orders to establish a foothold in the Diocese. Give them a central base and a roving brief so that they provide a peripatetic service to those who wish to attend Mass in Latin.

Better still, offer one of the larger redundant presbyteries as an internship centre for seminarians - linked to one of the traditional seminaries. That way you establish a platform to attract young men from the Diocese to the priesthood as well as creating a steady flow of talent into the Diocese.

I forgot to mention that Plan A should have come first.....

Plan A

PRAY!


Of course, none of the above will happen (although Bishop Mark Davies has made the important move with regard to inviting the ICKSP to host a parish in his Diocese).

What will happen is this; as priests die or retire, their remaining colleagues will be called upon to stretch themselves across parish boundaries in order to cover calls for Mass and Last Rites. Many churches will shut down and be sold off.

More priests from the developing world will be drafted in to help out.

Vocations will really go into freefall (who would wish to be a priest faced with such problems?).

The old, sick and infirm will be left without a Mass and, in many instances, without the Sacraments.

And then.......we are back in the 17th century with just a few missionary priests ministering to a dwindling core of Catholics.

Ho hum!

The Feast of The Immaculate Conception

Ave, Star of ocean, Child divine who bearest, Mother, ever Virgin, Heaven's portal fairest.

Taking that sweet Ave Erst by Gabriel spoken, Eva's name reversing, Be of peace the token.

Break the sinner's fetters, Light to blind restoring, All our ills dispelling, Every boon imploring.

Show thyself a mother In thy supplication, He will hear who chose thee At His Incarnation.

Maid all maids excelling, Passing meek and lowly, Win for sinners pardon, Make us chaste and holy.

As we onward journey Aid our weak endeavor, Till we gaze on Jesus And rejoice forever.

Father, Son, and Spirit, Three in One confessing, Give we equal glory Equal praise and blessing.

First Wednesday in December......

...time for The Boar's Head Carol...


'Caput apri defero'


Traditionally sung at Hurstpierpoint College on the first Wednesday in December to accompany none other than a Boar's Head on a platter with creamed potato tusks, glace cherry eyes and an apple in its mouth!

A nightmare for vegetarians!

and the words.....

The boar's head in hand bear I
Bedecked with bays and rosemary
I pray you, my masters, be merry
Quot estis in convivio.       [howsoever many are at the feast]
Caput apri defero,       [I bring the boar's head]
Reddens laudes Domino       [rendering praises to the Lord]

 The boar's head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all the land,
Which thus bedecked with a gay garland
Servitur cum sinapio.       [it is served with mustard]
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino

Our steward hath provided this
In honour of the King of bliss
Which on this day to be served is
In Reginensi Atrio:       [in the Queen's hall]
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino

The boar's head, I dare well say,
Anon after the eleventh day,
He takes his leave and goes away,
Exivit tum de patria.       [he has then left the fatherland]
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino

Anon 1521 

This is how to bring Catholics home...

...the American way.....
H/T to Ron Garcia at Making things Visible for posting a great video clip from Catholics Come Home. Org.

The UK 'Come home for Christmas' campaign-
The only thing missing is intelligence

It makes the English effort look weak and shallow. All that our Bishops need to do is to purchase the rights on this film and then get an English voice over (sorry USA., no offence intended but we Brits are very insular in that way).

The point is...it's not rocket science but it does take a little more effort than pictures of hands framing an empty scene (I got it, see?).

Visit Ron's blog and judge for yourself - Making Things Visible

Tomorrow shall be my........

.......Dancing Day!

Trendy campaign from their Lordships - but there's something missing

.....Something missing?

You bet there's something missing.....umm.....a crucifix?.......an image of the Christ child?......the Holy Family?.......Virgin and child?.....even a bleeping robin on a log would be better than this image that graces the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales new website designed to issue an invitation to lapsed sorry, resting Catholics who have drifted away from the faith.

"Come home for Christmas' is the campaign heading which, to me says, come to Midnight Mass and then you can b----r off again for the rest of the year.
The website is here.

What's that? You deliberately omitted traditional Christian imagery because you didn't want to put people off?

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry! I forgot - we are now the Church of Latter Day Restraints - don't mention the Son of God whatever you do!

What a crying shame that the Bishops didn't take a note out of Bishop Tobin's book and issue a letter full of sincerity without any hint of hyperbole....here it is in case you've forgotten it, courtesy of Catholic Online:
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=39581

This priest died for the Latin Mass....

...he would also have offered his life in opposition to recognition or even 'respect' of homosexual marriage

We forget, or at least I do, that the martyrs of England and Wales, whilst dying for the faith, in particular died for the traditional Latin Mass, that was at the heart, in so many instances, of their refusal to accept the Book of Common Prayer.

Blessed John Almond - "hated carnal sins"

But had they lived in 2011 they would have also opposed recognition of a union between two same sex adults as being anything approaching a 'marriage'.
In fact, I believe that this would become for them, as much an issue worth surrendering one's life for as the preservation of the Mass of all Time.

Traditional Catholics appreciate the fact that their stance relates not to the Latin Mass per se but also to a whole host of other issues which impact on doctrinal truths, the recognition of homosexual acts and union being just one of them.

Blessed John Almond won his martyr's crown at Tyburn this day in 1612.
Here is an account of his last moments:

"On the scaffold he flung some seven or eight pounds of silver, with his beads, his points, and his discipline, for those to get them who would, and gave to the hangman an Angel, not to spare him but to treat him as he should.


He had come hither, he said, to shed his blood for his Saviour's sake, who had shed His blood for his sins. In which respect he wished that every drop that he would shed  might be a thousand; that he might have St Lawrence's gridiron to be broiled on, St Peter's cross to be hanged on, St Stephen's stones to be stoned with, to be ript (ripped) ript, ript and ript again.


He was stripped down to his shirt in front of the mob and, kneeling down he prayed: "In manus tuas, Domine...." being: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit" - he waited till the hangman was ready without any sign of fear; but, ever smiling, he protested he died chaste, but not through his own ability or worthiness but by Christ's special grace, and that he ever hated those carnal sins, for which the Catholic religion had been slandered.


At last the cart was drawn away, and with the words "Jesu, Jesu", his soul flew to Him for whom he shed his blood".


Tyburn 5th December 1612.

And from the Archbishop of Westminster in December 2011 a clarification of the statement made on 24th November...

“Clearly, respect must be shown to those who in the situation in England use a civil partnership to bring stability to a relationship,” the archbishop said, qualifying that while “equality is very important and there should be no unjust discrimination,” that “commitment plus equality do not equal marriage.”

and...

"....Same-sex partnerships are not marriage because they have no root in a sexual relationship, which marriage does,” he explained. “And that’s the distinction that I think it’s important for us to understand, that marriage is built on the sexual partnership between a man and a woman which is open to children to their nurture and education.”
So while the bishops of England and Wales “respect the existence of same-sex partnerships in law,” he said, “the point we are at now is to say that they are not the same as marriage.”

I think Blessed John Almond might have stated the teachings of the faith a little more clearly and definitely, without any lack of charity.

Father John Almond -
Ora pro nobis - Pray for England and Wales - Pray for the Faith

Bad day at Black Rock

Well....for Black Rock read Cardigan; it doesn't quite have the same sense of dramatic suspense but, today, a drama will unfold there that would tweak any Hollywood director's antennae.

'Bad day at Black Rock' - just add a few sheep
and it could be West Wales!

Let me describe the scene for you.....a deserted church in a small Welsh town....it's 2pm on a Sunday afternoon; a car appears in the distance and pulls into the church car park. Another materialises and yet, another.

People begin to walk purposefully into the church, the hands on the church tower (there isn't one actually) move slowly towards 3pm.

From outside you can hear the strains of plainchant as the schola warms up, the tension heightens until, with 15 minutes to go, the padre arrives and quietly walks directly to the sacristy to get robed.

At 3pm, Holy Mass begins in a cloud of gunsmoke and proceeds until, an hour later, the people begin to leave the church, possibly for the last time - you see?.........

......This was the last Latin Mass to be celebrated in Western Wales.......no more EF Mass...dim Massio as they say in Welsh. The nearest Sunday Mass to us now is two days away on horseback!

But then (high volume 'For a few Dollars More' type music)....
...the Spiritual Bouquet is blessed at the feet of Our Blessed Mother...no less than 315 Rosaries offered up by you kind folk from every corner of the earth...this bouquet will now be presented to the Bishop who will respond to Our Lady of the Taper's call and restore the Mass.

More than that, he will make the National Shrine of Wales the centre for the Latin Mass in his Diocese of Menevia! (steady now).

So, from all of us West Walian Catholics, a big thank you and a vow that you will remain in our prayers, you, our benefactors - God bless you!

                                                    ...or is it?

Holding hands across the pond

I have been struck for some time over the use of a picture of the traditional chapel at St Non's, just outside the tiny city of St David's in Pembrokeshire.

My good friend Catholic and Welsh actually features it on his blog and so does Tony Layne (or, so I thought).

But Tony's chapel has too many windows for it to be St Non's.

Here is the real chapel.....much as featured on Catholic and Welsh, albeit sans the rather handsome, raffish (roughish) type and lurcher standing strategically to one side.

And here is Tony's chapel, from where only he knows.....




You can, I trust see the similarity and how easily I was duped.

This ramble is by way of leading onto Impractical Catholic's excellent post today on holding hands at the Our Father (or, as we holy traditionalists say, the Pater Noster).

Sadly, it is one of life's pleasures that has passed me by and now, thanks to a Pope who is  hell  heaven bent on bringing Christ's Church and all who dwell within it back to a base of truth and sincerity, I shall now never experience it (sob!)

Just think....no warm, moist limp hand contact with Mrs Overly-Leftwing, no dead fish contact with Mr Peadar O'File, the Irish maitre d'hote of all things parochial and no hands held high with Ms Cerys Mattick leader of the tambourine and spoons section of the parish choir skiffle group.

Oh, woe! Oh tragedy!