Losing a friend

Would I join my (very) high Anglican friend at a local Christians Together meeting at the local URC Chapel? I said that I wouldn't: I don't like lowest common denominator religion, and the agenda was about supporting Oxfam and Cafod, and I don't support them.

After a while, he asked if I'd come to Benediction at his church. I said that I wouldn't.

"Is that because the Roman Mission in England believes that we are worshipping a piece of bread?"

"I wouldn't have put it that way ..." I started, and waffled, and gradually felt the threads of friendship beginning to untangle. "Don't let's fall out."

"We already have."

I'm of an age where new friendships are rare, and can't easily replace old ones; and old friendships become more valuable just because of their endurance and durability: old is good, a lot of the time, just because it's old.

But not all the time.

Oh well. Back to the poems.

More R S Thomas

I stumbled across his biography on a shelf of a forgotten bookcase a couple of days ago. He's up there with Larkin and Betjeman.

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
.
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

As lyrical a love poem as any ...

... in the English language. R S Thomas about his wife.

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
Love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
'Come' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance. And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.

Good News from Australia

In a comment on a posting in the New Liturgical Movement, "Tom" says:

"On a matter perhaps of interest, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, today celebrated Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Throne for the Vigil of Pentecost with the Nuptial Rite (according to the books of 1962) at the Minor Basilica of our Lady of Victories in Camberwell, a Melbourne suburb. It is believed to be the first time a bishop has celebrated nuptial rites within a Solemn Ponitifical Mass in Australia ever. The whole Mass was filmed ..."

O felix Australia! Not only is Archbishop Hart going to celebrate Confirmations in the Traditional Rite, but Bishop Howse celebrates traditionally too! Hat tip to Juventutem.

Annoyance

I had my annual performace review today. I was told that I was too intellectual. I said that, given that we didn't have problems any more, only opportunities, then my intellect might be an insurmountable opportunity. I was told that that was exactly the sort of thing that they were talking about.

Ho hum.

Developing a point

I said below:

"For most of us in English speaking countries, the Reformation was the great catastrophe: Catholics were martyred by people who claimed to be doing God's work. The analogous catstrophe in Latin countries was the French Revolution: Catholics were martyred in the name of politics, not religion. Perhaps this is why Belloc is different from Chesterton."

I have been asked to elaborate.

By the time of the French Revolution, Catholics in countries like Britain which had undergone the Reformation had managed to come to a form of greater or lesser tolerance by the States in which they lived. English Catholics had places of worship throughout the 18th Century, and priests could minister to them. If you were rich, there will still limitations: you couldn't go to the Universities, or join the Army - at least in England; but you could study, and serve the King, by going to University or by joining the Army in Hannover. If you were poor, you would be at worst tolerated, and the odd Gordon Riot apart, your place of worship would not be destroyed. (Incidentally, in Barnaby Rudge, Dickens mentions the execution of Catholics executed for joining in the Gordon Riots, pointing out that they were attended by their priests.) It meant that by the time of the French Revolution, Catholics in Britain were part of the polity of the State: not fully part constitutionally, but desirous of showing their loyalty.

The effect of the French Revolution on the countries which had not undergone the Reformation was different: the reconciliation of the Catholic population to the forms of the State has never fully taken place, and the ideology of the Left has always included anti-Catholicsm.

This, I suggest, is one reason why the SSPX has been viewed with more suspicion on this side of the Channel than the other. The integrisme of politics and belief which is common on the Right in Latin countries is founded in the Revolution and as such does not echo here. It is hard to believe that Bishop Williamson actually represents in any shape or form a point of view that resounds in Catholic hearts in Britain today.

The politicisation (perhaps better, the non-liturgical baggage the average non-Latin Catholic sees the SSPX bringing in its train) of the Tridentine Mass has been a gift to those Liberals who wish to see the past forgotten, especially those in English-speaking countries where the dichotomy of political Left versus religious Right might not otherwise hold. The Motu Proprio might allow this dichotomy to be shown up for the false alternative that it is.

Can the US be so sunk in sin?

According to the Daily Eudemon (a daily "must", by the way), the Catholic Mens' Quarterly is offering a book with every new subscription. He says:

"I can’t vouch for the book, but I’ve ordered a copy. Go here to subscribe to CMQ. It’s only $20 a year. I know guys who spend more than that every year on underwear (I don’t hang out with those kind of guys, but they exist)."

Really? That's £10 sterling! Who are these people?

A Translation

This is the translation of a piece by Rafael Castela Santos called "Letter to My Daughter: from Europe to Anti-Europe". For most of us in English speaking countries, the Reformation was the great catastrophe: Catholics were martyred by people who claimed to be doing God's work. The analogous catstrophe in Latin countries was the French Revolution: Catholics were martyred in the name of politics, not religion. Perhaps this is why Belloc is different from Chesterton.

Dear daughter

I write because you really are European; because you were conceived in Portugal, in Fatima; because Spanish, French and German blood runs through your veins; because you grew up in the United Kingdom; because you speak several languages, including a bit of Latin; and because your father, who loves you profoundly, sees a certain Carolingian idea reflected in you which fills him with longing. And above all, because you are Catholic, which is the True Faith: the One True, as I often have you repeat, petite chouanne. Because the only real way of being European is to be Catholic. Those who aren’t, and those who fight our True Religion are the destroyers of Europe, whether they know it or not.

About two thousand years ago, a noble people, the Romans, conquered Europe. They were excellent civil engineers and excellent soldiers. Remember the bridges and aqueducts we have seen in Spain, and the Roman roads and ruins we have seen in Cirencester, in Metz, in Salamanca, in Merida, and in Evora. Apart from all of this, they left us their laws, Roman Law, an impressive monument, which continues to inspire us. I’ll explain one day, but this is all about what your Dad says to you about being fair, about being fair to our neighbours, or about your being fair to the other girls at school.

You know how I go on about how in Spain and Portugal the Roman influence penetrated deeper than in the rest of the Empire. It’s as though we are more Roman than the rest of the Romans. You know that reverential love that I have for your grandparents, my parents? You know how the first thing that I do when I take you to Spain is to go to the cemetery? Well, sweetheart, that is something that comes from our religion, but also from the Romans. When I’m old, I want you to respect me in the same way that I respect your grandparents, and when I die, I want you to pray for me in the same way as I pray for all our dead. I’m not asking this for me particularly, nor for you, but that you remember your roots; and because by honouring your parents and your ancestors, you honour your country as well.

I always tell you that you should think about things, that you should use your reason; because of all the powers your soul possesses, reason is the most important. The Greeks taught us this, and the Romans, as they developed and invaded other lands, were not stupid, and realised that the Greeks were very clever and precise. The Romans were amazed by the Greeks. Do you remember Socrates whose death was so serene? Aristotle, of whom I have spoken to you, who had the greatest intellect of Antiquity? Well – they were Greeks. One day, God Willing, we will read them together and discuss them. But the Greeks lacked life. There was too much death and cruelty. There was slavery. Above all, there was darkness. All this because our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned. This human race need to be restored, but only God could seal off the offence which we humans had committed against God. And from among a people chosen by God, the Jewish people, whose blood also runs through your veins, the Messiah, the Redeemer was born: Our Lord Jesus Christ. But Israel, called to be the light of the world, turned its back on the most sublime Son of the chosen people and his message came to Rome, to the Gentiles.

And on that assumed obligation of loving God before all other obligations, they built, over centuries, the greatest civilisation that had ever been: Christian Civilisation. Think of the Cathedrals and castles we have seen together, all of which had Jesus Christ, True God and True Man at their centre. Think of the beauty of the things they made. The saint to whom we always pray, St Thomas Aquinas, wrote, a guiding work. A genius, the poet Dante, wrote the Divine Comedy. I remember as one of the greatest moments of my life sitting beside your crib and rereading the Divine Comedy. The Blessed Virgin spread her blue protective veil across that civilisation.

But men fell away, and Europe – Christianity – stopped being Christianity. Anti-Europe, Anti-Christianity began. In the same way as when Moses descended from Sinai and found the people worshipping the golden calf, the idea that money and trade were the most important thing began to gain ground. The knights who protected maidens in castles, as in the stories I have read to you, were no more; and kings and the powerful exploited the poor and the weak instead of defending them as is their duty.

People began to think strange things. They emptied words of their meanings and began to do ugly things. Up to then, God, Jesus Christ, had been the centre of all things. But they began to put Man at the centre of things and stopped thinking of God as so important. There were some awful men, like Luther, who split Europe in two. And as you will have noticed in Alsace, there are Lutheran villages which at first look cleaner on the outside, but end up looking uglier than Catholic villages.

Then horrible things happened, as in France, your other mother country, where some miserable revolutionaries built a world out of hatred of God and the Holy Catholic Church. Anti-Europe, Anti-Christianity began to show its true face. Now do you understand why, whenever we travel through France, I get angry and start shouting whenever we see statues of people like Eckermann, Kleber or Napoleon, murderers of the worst kind?

But there was resistance in every country. We resisted in the Vendee, in France, in the way that I hope that you, petite chouanne, will resist. We resisted in Spain, with the Carlist heroes, right up to the Last Crusade in 1936. In the other Spains, which are also European, we also suffered greatly, for example in Argentina, or later the Cristeros, martyrs in the lands of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We also stood up in Portugal to republicans, masons and liberals. In Italy we did what we could against Garibaldi and the Carbonarios, orcs who issued forth from Hell.

Meanwhile in Russia, Sauron was in incubation. Even if in Europe he has lost his power, little by little he has taken over in Asia, China and Russia. Communism, the penultimate heresy, but the worst so far, has triumphed in these countries. One day, if we follow the message of Fatima, Russia will return to the Faith and the Church. That is the day when Europe will arise.

What they call Europe today – the European Union – is no more than a few steps towards the Antichrist, the man of perdition. Do not believe in it.

I am not well and perhaps will not live to see Europe arisen. But I have given to you the best of what I know and am able to give. Europe is Christianity: nothing else. Whatever is not Christianity isn’t Europe; it is de facto Anti-Europe. Be virtuous; fight for virtue, even if it costs you your life. Pass this on to your children, my grandchildren and if you become a nun – and how pleased I would be if you did! – pass it on to your spiritual children, the ones who call you Mother.

Fight phariseeism, a cancer which corrodes the spirit. Be hopeful. We are living through bad times, but victory will be Christ’s and nobody else’s. Europe will be Christian again and there will be a shout of joy, great as the centuries have never known, and there will be peace in Christ. I’ve already taught you the Latin: Pax Christi.

Oh! One more thing: don’t eat so much chocolate.

From your father, who loves you with all his soul and all his being, and who blesses you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost

Rafael Castela Santos

Tagged for a Meme - Five Catholic Places in England

Fr Ray Blake tagged me for this one.

First, Lancashire, the County Palatine, the Duchy ("The Queen, the Duke of Lancaster!" as we toast her, loyally) and the place where the faith was never extinguished. As early as 1611, a new public Catholic cemetery was consecrated in Little Crosby.

We had six houses at school, and each was named for a Lancashire Martyr: Almond, Barlow, Cottam, Hurst, Rigby, Southworth. Lancashire was where Shakespeare came as a young actor to work for the Stanleys and be able to practice his Faith while he learned his art. Lancashire welcomed the Irish immigrants who came to fuel the Industrial revolution.

Second, the Church of the Holy Name on Oxford Road in Manchester. When I was at the University of Manchester, this was a Jesuit Church, and the Jesuits ran the Chaplaincy next door. The "spirit of Vatican II" was abroad and the Chaplaincy was in the van, but one of the priests, Fr Orr, took an interest in my spritual, moral and intellectual development, and allowed me to serve at his private Mass. The Jesuits gave the church over to the Oratorian Fathers, and I pray that Manchester's Oratory will become as London's and Birmingham's.

Third, the Hidden Gem, St Mary's, Mulberry St, Manchester. I can't find a non-copyright photo, but here's a map. This is Manchester's church, the home of the shrine of Our Lady of Manchester. The nun who knew me from when I was born until her death last Autumn (and who discovered Paul Scholes) was sufficiently Irish to be annoyed by Manchester's having its own Marian shrine, though not annoyed enough to refuse to go inside . According to the editor of the Universe, the parish Priest refuses to stock his newspaper.

Fourth, Westminster Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, and our national church. Bentley's design is both inspired and inspiring. When I go to Whitehall, I always get off the tube at Victoria so that I can walk up Victoria St and pop into the Cathedral. If I'm lucky and the times are right, I get to Mass. I always pay a quick visit to the Chapel of St Patrick where the Irish Regiments which fought in World War One are commemorated to say a prayer for all the loyal Irishmen who died for their country and those who survived but were never allowed to vote on whether or not their country should become independent of the United Kingdom. I have never yet met anybody who was not stirred by the cavernous interior of the Cathedral, and can never forget my wonder as a thirteen year old, visiting for the first time, on being told that one day all of the ceilings and walls would be covered in mosaic.

.

Fifth, and no picture, every Catholic Church in the country which is open and which allows people to wander in and pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I grew up in an area where men and women unselfconsciously crossed themselves every time they passed a church, on foor, on a bus or in a car. I long for a return to those days.

Is the Pope a Catholic?

He believes that Mary is the Mediatrix of all Graces.

He believes that anybody who corrupts children by selling them drugs runs the risk of going to Hell.

He believes that it is the job of Bishops to maintain the Catholic Faith in their local Churches.

During his trip to Brazil, the Holy Father is expounding the manifesto for his Pontificate, which is to restate the Faith of the Church.

He'll do me.

A Serious Seminary

Recent graduates of the Archdiocese of Chicago's Seminary tell it like it is. hat tip to Credo.

In which I learn a lesson

Several lessons ...

I posted a comment on the blog of a Catholic journalist on a national newspaper about the poor young Irish woman who is coming to the UK for an abortion.

1. Newspaper blogs are not quite like blogspot blogs: they are read by people from a wide spectrum of opinion rather than by people who have chosen to read blogs with which they feel in tune.

2. If you have an e-mail address on your profile, a lot of people will feel the need to send you an e-mail. There is an e-mail equivalent of green ink. E-mails can be as vile and poisonous as letters.

3. Journalists are much, much, better at witty put downs (however poor their arguments) than I am; that's probably why they are journalists and I just run a modest blog.

4. If you thought that some of the Catholics who posted on The Universe's forum when it existed were "robust" in their opinions, then try those who read blogs from national press.

5. Remember all four lessons above before posting on a journalist's blog.

6. But also remember that the Truth is Great and It will prevail; and that being a fool for Christ's sake has, at least, apostolic approbation.

Bloodied, and a bit bowed, I am

Dear Readers

Yours affec. in Xto

Requiem for a Blog

Valle Adurni was one of the first Catholic blogs I read after I had been introduced to blogging by Moretben. It is no more. A cavalcade of video images, sound thought and the great scoop - the Grey Book of the New Translation of the Mass - are brought to nought by the actions of a querelous priest who sought to defame Fr Sean Finnegan, the blog's author, in the eyes of the parishioners in the Adur Valley.

Fr Ray Blake reckons he knows who might have done it. Valle Adurni's author, Fr Sean Finnegan has simply asked for prayers for his flock and for the priest concerned.

I think it is the scoop that did it: there is an atmosphere abroad of "you can be a trad but don't make waves". Publication of the Grey Book's texts made many, many, waves. It may be a pure coincidence that so soon after publication Fr Sean has undergone this trial: but I doubt it.

He has asked for prayers for his defamer: I'm asking for prayers for him. I'm also asking for prayers for Fr Tim Finigan of the Hermeneutic of Continuity: I bet he's next on the list.

An Iberian Eye Looks at England

In a post commemorating the twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Falklands War, from a rather different point of view than we will see in the UK, Rafael Castela Santos speaks about England.

"How I wish that this England, to which I owe so many thanks and which I love so much, could once again be the England of Tolkien, of Chesterton, of Belloc; of St Edward and of Alfred the Great; the England with which I can identify myself! God grant that the vision the holy Curé d'Ars had, of an England whose culture, wisdom and holiness were made magnificent by her return to Catholicsm, might come to pass! How I wish that England could once again be the most monastic nation in Christianity, as once it was! How I wish that the bitterness towards his country of that greatest of writers, Evelyn Waugh, might be changed into a happy smile in the hereafter! If only that idea, so united, so balanced and so perfect, that Cardinal Newman had about so many things could take root in his own country! How I wish that England could stop being Phoenician and could become Roman once again, in every sense of the word!

Pray for the Church in America

The Catholic Cavemen link to a site which tell how Catholic Bishops have approved some Catholic hospitals in the US giving the "morning after" pill to women who have been sexually assaulted. This is justified as follows:

"The bishops of these dioceses believe they are allowing the use of emergency contraception only in cases where "appropriate testing" has determined that the woman is not pregnant and thus the pill, in halting ovulation may prevent a pregnancy occurring as a result of the rape. The science however does not definitively back up their hopes."

Pray for a Church whose leaders can be (let us be charitable) so ignorant. Pray that they may see the gates of Hell, which gape open for such as collude in the murder of innocent children.

(I also thought about posting about motes and beams. Geddit?)

Tagged for a Meme

Mac, over here, tagged me for a meme: what books are you reading at the moment?

You and the other reader will have realised that this is a house of books. There are more books than I can count. I have never got rid of a book because each book is a bookmark in my memory. I am dyspraxic, and have an extra-developed sense of memory to compensate for an inability to organise and plan.

I always have at least four books on the go: one for the bus, one for picking up and putting down, and two for when I read before I go to sleep according to the mood in which I go to bed. At the moment there are two for the bus.

I live in a parish where the dismemberment of anything which might remind anybody of what the Mass should look and feel like, in a way that might be familiar to anybody who lived from the third century up to about 1970, is underway. I retain a bewildered loyalty to the idea that my Bishop is in communion with Rome and that sooner or later he will right the wrongs that are occuring. I escape from what is going on by reading a 21st Century edition of Fortescue's "Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described", updated with all that is necessary. I try to remember a time when every action, every word, of the priest was so circumscribed by the rubrics that he could not say or do anything which would not make the Mass a blessed and holy ceremony, replete in every gesture with meaning.

"Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North" by Stuart Maconie was a present. Everybody sniggers when I tell them that I have (had) never heard of somebody I understand to be a well known radio presenter. All I can say is that I have never heard him on Radio 3. A chap from Wigan, living in London, who realises one day when he is looking for sun-dried tomatoes for brunch, that he has become detached from his roots goes back to find out what the north is like. I left Manchester for ever many years ago, and apart from visits to family, never go back. But Manchester has not left me, and this book is convincing me that it never will.

Volume 5 of the History of British Intelligence in World War II is by Michael Howard and is all about Strategic Deception. One of the great stories of WWII is the way that the intelligence services managed to convinve the Nazis that their agents in the UK were working for Germany, when in fact every single one was working for the UK. Prof Howard's history is a masterpiece: scholarly and erudite, yet still a page turner. I have a theory that my generation - the generation of children whose parents fought in WWII - is as affected by the war as its parents' generation. If anyone is still reading and is interested, I am happy to expatiate further.

Finally, "Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics". This is an entriguingly interesting Encyclopaedia of everybody who has gone to the bad in an entertaining sort of way in the UK in the last three hundred years or so. If you are the sort of person in whom George Orwell's essay on "The Decline of the English Murder" resonates, then this is the book for you. The Murder might have declined, as have no end of other sorts of crimes, but our tradition is proud, and even in our days, men and women are doing the sort of bizarre things that their forefathers did. This is the "dip into" book: there is nothing as satisfying as a brief entry on a mass murderer when you are trying to do the cooking.

A new blog from Jeffrey

I once posted a coment in The Undercroft (I can't remember where, and am become Jeffreyish about bothering!) about the last time I met HM the Queen, and how I bottled out of saying to her: hic autem non habemus mantentem civitatem (though I sort of paraphrased). I remembered that this weekend when reading a piece in a Portuguese blog (which I have asked permission to translate here) which also called to mind the temporality of our civilisation. What struck me was that while here we have no abiding City, we have (especially those of us in lands conquered by Rome, the lands which can truly be called civilised) lots of clues about us, in the landscape, in the architecture, and in many of the common exchanges which pass between us as civility, which can actually help us recover our roots. The ghetto I suggested as perhaps the most appropriate place for Catholics to seek in 2007 isn't the dank shtetl but a cast of mind, which can be informed by the history, and perhaps the genius locus of wherever we happen to be in our country. There is lots wrong about the UK at the moment: there is also lots right.

Up pops Jeffrey: some of us find one blog hard enough, but Jeffrey is not content with one. He has just started a new one: Let Britannia Rise: which he subtitles "A Love Letter to the British Isles". He probably recognises the faults we find in our country but wants, I think, to point out that we are still very lucky in what we have.

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Visit his blog to see how we can still be perceived, how we can still perceive ourselves, if we want to take the opportunity not to accept that the forces of darkness have won.

Another "How Not To Celebrate Mass" Video

On the day that Zenit posted an interesting article about how the Agnus Dei should be sung at the Fraction, I saw a new YouTube video which shows the Agnus Dei being sung inappropriately, while accompanying a major liturgical abuse.

Can I be a grumpy old man and right, both at the same time?

A Song for St George's Day

(Flanders and Swann, you should be living at this hour ...)

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now our contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen, or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice,
And worth any other at double the price

Ah, iechyd da

The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can
And little and dark, more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp in his hat
And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much
Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood.

And all the world over, each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest.
It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,
And the flower of the English are (Your name) and Me!

An Episcopal Irritation

Well, two actually.

A friend tipped me off to a consultation document which the Diocese of Clifton has launched. Apart from by the document itself, he was profoundly irritated by Bishop Lang's introduction:

'My motto "Evangelii Nuntiandi" (Evangelisation in the Modern World) reminds us that ...'

So that's what Evangelii Nuntiandi means! Pope Paul VI's December 1975 Apostolic Exhortation wasn't about "Proclaiming the Gospel" after all.

Is nobody in the diocesan curia sufficiently familiar with Latin? Does the Bishop himself speak Latin? I hope he's not part of ICEL!

Grump, grump, grump, grump, grump!

Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Jesus' Blood never failed me yet
Never failed me yet
Jesus' Blood never failed me yet
It's one thing I know
For He loved me so ...

In the late 1960s, Gavin Bryars wrote the music for a documentary about street life in London. One of the shots was of an old alcoholic singing an old hymn he remembered.

He wrote:

"When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.

I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp's nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism."

In 1993 he recorded his final version of the piece in 5 movements with a Coda, featuring, in the last two movements, Tom Waits accompanying the tramp. You can hear a fragment here. You will either love it or hate it (though bear in mind that that piece has taken more than an hour gradually to build up to this point.) I love it.

It does for me what Taize Chant does for other people: it takes a very simple motif and repeats it again and again. And again, and again, and again, for an hour and a quarter. There is a wonderful musical conceit: improvisation around a piece of improvised yet unchangeable performance; but I can barely listen to the music for listening to the words, the words printed above, repeated every twenty seconds or so, for the entire length of the piece.

The CD went missing nine years ago. This is a chaotic house, and books and CDs go missing for long periods of time. A twenty second fragment of music easily sticks in the mind, however, and I have never lost it. It accompanies me frequently, especially when things are conspiring to get me down. It conveys the simplest of truths, especially at Easter: Jesus' Blood never failed me yet. But not just at Easter: I have twice had the coffin of a parent on my shoulders, as I trudged across a cemetery with a gaping void in front of me, and each time, these words filled my mind.

Searching this evening for things to go to a jumble sale, my daughter found a box full of videos and CDs. And guess what: Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet was in it. She is 13 and thinks that it is rubbish. She might be right about the music - well, she isn't, but you know what I mean. But the message is sublime, and I am uplifted. God is Good.

A Meditation on Ten Years of our Governance

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet.

G K Chesterton Elegy in a Country Churchyard

In Memoriam

His father gave him a box of truisms
Shaped like a coffin, then his Father died;
The truisms remained on the mantelpiece
As wooden as the playbox they had been packed in
Or that other his father skulked inside.

Then he left home, left the truisms behind him
Still on the mantelpiece, met love, met war,
Sordor, disappointment, defeat, betrayal,
Till through disbeliefs he arrived at a house
He could not remember seeing before.

And he walked straight in; it was where he had come from
And something told him the way to behave.
He raised his hand and blessed his home;
The truisms flew and perched on his shoulders
And a tall tree sprouted from his father's grave.

Louis MacNeice

Paul Johnson on the Pope

A very typical piece by Paul Johnson in this week's Spectator (full article available). I have heard John Paul II criticsed for many things in the past but "John Paul was not much interested in aesthetics and all that side of God’s wonders" was a new one. It made me think, though: was the late Pope's sensibility theatrical rather than aesthetic?

Wish the Holy Father a Happy Birthday online!

At the Vatican website there is a form to allow you to wish the Pope a Happy 80th Birthday for 16 April. You can even send him a message of support.

W H Auden on ICEL

"The poor Roman Catholics have had to start from scratch, and, as any of them with a feeling for language will admit, they have made a cacophonous horror of the Mass. We had the extraordinary good fortune in that our Book of Common Prayer was composed at exactly the right historical moment. The English language had already become more or less what it is today, so that the Prayer Book is no more difficult to follow than Shakespeare, but the ecclesiastics of the sixteenth century still possessed a feeling for the ritual and ceremonious which today we have almost entirely lost. Why should we spit on our luck?"

W H Auden A Certain World: A Commonplace Book 1970

Computer Security: Passwords

Trying to work out who Terry Nelson might be, I learned of his IT problems.

Here's a mnemonic for the Internet age: "Passwords are like pants" (knickers, underpants).

1. Change them regularly.
2. Don't share them, even with your friends.
3. Don't show them to anybody.

Spring

I have never seen the mayflower so early or so abundant, yet the hazel is well behind its normal schedule, the first buds just beginning to show. The oaks haven't acknowledged the end of winter yet. And so far in the garden we have had bullfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, a linnet, tree sparrows, woodpeckers, blue tits, great tits, collared doves, woodpigeons, blackbirds and house sparrows. The bats come out at dusk, and there is a pair of owls nesting nearby whose cries wake me up sometimes in the night. There have been no thrushes yet, which is strange. The robins are still plentiful. A pair of buzzards is circling lazily in the thermals. It is ridiculously early for the housemartins, swifts and swallows, but they'll probably be here soon. All very strange, but good fun.

The other sort of Holy Week

All the blogs are full of how well, how reverently, how faithfully, Holy Week was celebrated. It wasn't here.

No veils on the statues or crucifixes; during Lent; no veil even, on the Crucifix which was to be venerated on Good Friday. (But to make up for it, we at least had singing.) Annoyance (I infer annoyance from the constant looking at the watch from the Celebrant) at the amount of time the Veneration took. Holy Communion on Good Friday was better organised so as to take as little time as possible. A surprise on Holy Thursday was that the Blessed Sacrament was taken out of the Sanctuary to an "Altar of Repose" in the Sacristy: I assume there was a locked tabernacle in there somewhere. The side chapels in Church were not used, so Our Blessed Lord was left on his own this year: there was no possibility of watching. The new PP has established his authority.

I didn't go to the Vigil Mass: I had a sick person to look after for a few hours. But the main Mass on Easter Sunday was a treat: a three sermon Mass (one after the Rite of Introduction; one after the Baptismal Promises; one just before the Dismissal) but at least each sermon was unprepared, so that the Holy Spirit could show that He wasn't confined to pulpits or prepared texts. And who ever said that rythmn and blues was an unsatisfactory Mass setting? It might be impossible to sing for the congregation, but the music group loved it!

This was awful, but it was typical. Typical of a Church (in England and Wales) which at best tolerates rubrics but doesn't see them as binding; typical of a Church which has promoted an inferior (if valid) Rite which almost demands spontaneity from priest and people, as though spontaneity were a blessing instead of a curse; typical of a Church which has lost its way.

Genuine questions: in what sense am I in Communion with a Bishop who tolerates and encourages this sort of thing? How wrong would it be to abandon my parish to search for orthopraxis? How many more times will I have to apologise to my children for the great Liturgical celebrations not actually being the things I tell them in advance that they are going to be?

I follow St Melito of Sardis

Another hat tip to Jeffrey for finding this quiz: which Church Father are you? (I think I may have to rethink some of my answers!)

You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

An interview with the Cardinal

This week's Spectator publishes an interview with Cardinal MO'C by Stuart Reid. It isn't available online except to subscribers to the print edition. The first three paragraphs give a flavour of what is to come.

It is good on the position of the Church in society, particularly in a secularised country like the UK, though the banner on the cover - "Christians Need More Persecution" - is a bit misleading. It is odd on the question of the Just War, in that the Cardinal is quoted as believing that the principles of just war theory "are very, very difficult to fulfil now" and suggests that the Church is all but pacifist. It is ambiguous and, to my mind, a little patronising on the subject of the Tridentine Rite. And the author concludes by implying the Cardinal's support for Abbot Christopher Jamison as his successor.

The interview tells us rather more about the interviewer than his subject. Don't rush out to spend £2.95 on the Spectator just because of this article.

The Director of "Into great Silence" interviewed

H/t to the Daily Eudemon for the link to this fascinating interview with Philip Gröning.

Define Neo-trad

Rather than post inspiring pictures of things mediaeval Jeffrey is celebrating "Get It Out Of Your System Day". (Note to self: try not to annoy Jeffrey.)

He quotes the definition of a neo-con as "a liberal who's been mugged by reality". This set me wondering what the definition of a neo-trad is. How about: "a liberal Catholic who was mugged by John Paul II"?

PM and Cardinal at odds

“But when it comes to our essential values-belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage-then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common; it is what gives us the right to call ourselves British. At that point no distinctive culture or religion supersedes our duty to be part of an integrated United Kingdom.” (Tony Blair, December 2006)

"We Catholics, and here I am sure I speak, too, for other Christians and all people of faith – do not demand special privileges, but we do claim our rights. We come not to impose, but to serve, according to our beliefs; and to be given the freedom and support to do so, as long as these do not undermine the rights and freedoms of others. I appeal to the good sense and fairness of the British people, and to the traditions which have shaped this great nation. I appeal to the need to keep faith with those traditions, lest we pass into a new intolerance which will over time shake the tree of our democracy free of its spiritual fruit. Those who proclaim Britain as a nation under God must be allowed to continue to work freely for His Kingdom here in Britain. That is our tradition. And I believe it is the tradition which British people wish to maintain. We should now engage in tolerant, reasoned and democratic debate on what is clearly the beginning not the end of this question." (Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, March 2007)

Two worlds collide: the Enlightenment and Vatican II. The Cardinal proclaims the true spirit of Vatican II; the Prime Minister proclaims the true spirit of the Enlightenment.

Sacramentum Caritatis: England and Wales are fine!

His Eminence Cardinal Murphy O'Connor has replied to an article published last week by Piers Paul Read. From today's Spectator:

"Sir: I am sorry that Piers Paul Read ('The Pope's anti-liberal revolution', 24 March) assumes that the English and Welsh bishops have not welcomed the Papal Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. It is not always customary for bishops to issue immediate comments on Papal documents. I was, in fact, part of the drafting committee and thus closely involved in its preparation. My own statement expressed my admiration for the document and my wish for it to be promulgated widely among the Catholics of this country. I have no doubt my fellow bishops will be doing the same."

(Paragraph about ecumenism snipped)

No problems for England and Wales then: given that the Cardinal was "part of the drafting committee and thus closely involved in its preparation"; given that he "expressed (his) admiration for the document"; given his "wish for it to be promulgated widely among the Catholics of this country"; we can have no doubt that it will become a seminal text for the Church in England and Wales. No doubt the seminary classes in Latin have begun already, and the Latin classes for priests (whether starter classes or top-up classes) are already scheduled. No doubt this weekend Masses ad orientem will be essayed in all of our parishes. No doubt the Bishops (as "Celebrants par excellence", as Sacramentum Caritatis calls them) will be off the blocks to reintroduce Gregorian Chant as the principal music of our celebration.

How lucky we are!

Helping Fr John Boyle spread the Gospel of Life

Fr John Boyle writes about a prayer vigil outside an Abortarium and says:

"By the way, the main reason for posting this is so that when people search on e.g. "marie stopes maidstone" they might be led to this sort of post."

The best way to ensure that is to have as many people as possible link to his post.

Go to it, bloggers!

Between a Rock and a hard place

The American Minister in Ireland in 1942 is famously reported (perhaps apocryphally) as having interrupted a harangue by President De Valera on the rights of small nations: "Mr President, the only right we have is to die for our faith; anything else we have to fight for."

It would be nice to think that the Catholic Hierarchy in England and Wales was musing in a similar vein this morning. The SORS regulations have imposed the values of the Enlightenment definitively on our country: over the forty years since the 1967 Abortion Act, legislation has undermined any sense that there can be two conflicting rights, if one of those rights has to do with how an individual behaves sexually, because the individual's sexual rights take absolute priority over all other rights.

The secular agenda has won: there are a few mopping up actions to be completed, such as removing the right to charitable status of the contemplative orders, on the grounds that they don't do anything for society (for what good is prayer?) and no doubt an attack on the right of Faith schools to teach a single religious point of view.

We don't know what advice the Hierarchy has received about how to fight back. The Catholic Union says that "its purpose is to promote Christian standpoint in public affairs, through the intervention of its members who belong to the two Houses of Parliament, and through the formation of expert opinions which are presented to Government as Submissions"; well, it has failed. The Bishops' intervention on adoption was disastrous: however good the intention, however subtle the line the Church was trying to tread, they have been sidelined very effectively and portrayed (however unjustifiably) as hypocritical.

The Hierarchy seems to have rejected the "hard place" of encouraging vocal opposition to the Government's plans. Wednesday's demonstrations were organised by Evangelical christians, and were not publicised or encouraged by the Catholic Church, while the Cathedral played host to Jeffrey Archer. This contrasts with 1944: the Hierarchy organised demonstrations against the Education Bill which killed off the Bill's initial opposition to Faith Schools.

The alternative to the hard place is usually portrayed as the rock: we are fortunate in that we have a Rock to which we can cling: Rome; Peter. Now is the time to stop trying to accomodate our beliefs and practices to the secular country in which we live, and, once again, to become, proudly, Roman Catholics. If we have to retreat into a ghetto for a few years, fine: what has forty years of engagement brought us?

Music

A recent post by Moretben led to a debate about Romantic Music (say, Beethoven to Richard Strauss, give or take). It was instructive that those of a traditional disposition in matters of the Liturgy see Romantic Music as a childish thing to be be put away - except at those moments when we feel a need to luxuriate in self-indulgent emotion. (I both paraphrase and cariacature.)

I used to like everything: I saw Black Sabbath and Deep Purple live in separate concerts within a couple of months of each other; I used to listen to Radio One; I used to go to folk clubs; I used to go to see the Halle Orchestra live; I used to sing Victorian parlour ballads to my Grandmother; I used to know lots of old music hall songs. I used to think that eclectism was a sign of maturity. "But when I became a man I put away the things of a child." (1 Cor 13)

Pop went first, and rock soon after. (Read the Pope's put down of both forms of music in "The Spirit of the Liturgy", by the way.) "Old songs" were enjoyable enough, but mainly entertained people born at the end of the nineteenth century: my grandparents' generation; and while it was nice to entertain them, I couldn't imagine singing "Believe me if all those endearing young charms" to somebody I loved while meaning it. They're lovely as a piece of nostalgia, but don't really say anything else to me now.

Folk music lasted longer until the realisation that even with really good folk music it only says what it has to say once, no matter with what force it says it. I can still feel an echo of that force when I listen to, say, the Chieftains, now; but it's an echo. (And I will run a mile to avoid the "come-all-ye" that I would have once run a mile to join in with.)

So, I was left with classical music - a universe in itself. I have some formal musical training and could spot the meretricious a mile off from an early age. But the developing taste gradually constricted, and even in the ocean of classical music, great swathes closed themselves off. Opera, once a passion, has retreated, leaving in its wake a litter of CDs which I will probably never listen to again: the voice is an instrument, not a protagonist. Modern classical music was fine to annoy parents with when I was seventeen, but my father's asking whether another cat had been thrown into the cellar sounds more like percipient criticsm to me today than the expression of philistinism that I liked to think it was then. The Baroque was wonderful until I realised that there were about ten tunes that mattered, each played in about four ways. And the seas continued to retreat, to the extent that there was no longer an ocean, but a few deep lakes.

I'm left with a few things, but the waters are no longer retreating. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ring truest; chant, of course, and not just Gregorian, but Ambrosian or Mozarabic; almost anything Orthodox; and some things I've rescued from the general retreat: late Beethoven; Bruckner; Sibelius; bits of Vaughan Williams; bits of lots and lots of things, really, but with little consistency, other their striking the same chord inside me that Tallis and Byrd strike all the time.

Music as a pleasant noise is fine: it surrounds me from when I wake to when I sleep; it's good to hear. But there is much less music to listen to and concentrate on nowadays, yet I find myself penetrating deeper and deeper into it.

My new toy

My new toy is an Internet radio. As long as you have Wifi access, all you need to do is plug it in, turn it on, enter the encryption key, and hey presto! more than 5,000 radio broadcasts from all over the world are available to you - or rather, in this case, to me!

I love listening to the radio, but I am hampered by only having AM, FM and DAB portables in the house. As I use a PC and not a laptop, I could until this afternoon, only access Internet radio stations from the back room, where the computer lives. Now I can listen to them from anywhere in the house.

There is a Swiss radio station which plays classical music: a man tells you in German what you are going to hear; you hear it, and then a woman tells you in French what you have just heard: there are no other interruptions. You can listen to Tango from Buenos Aires. The travel news on Classic FM South Africa tells me that the temperature this afternoon in Joburg was 28 degrees and there were queues on the M2 eastbound. (There are more than 200 classical music stations!)

I could now become more antisocial than ever, but my daughter has realised that there are more pop music stations in the world than anything else ...

The Westminster Stakes - an Interlude

Paddy Power seems to be receiving no bets at the moment on the succession to Cardinal Murphy O'Connor: the odds are as they were the last time I posted on the Westminster Stakes. I had thought of doing a post giving some of the in-depth form analysis punters aspiring to a serious investment on this particular book might like to take advantage of, but decided to put that off for a while, and instead do a snapshot of the reactions to Sacramentum Caritatis, given that its author (The Man in White) will be the judge and jury on the winner of this particular race.

Damian Thompson, Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic Herald, noted the fact that the Apostolic Exhortation was effectively ignored by the Hierarchy on its publication. Now that they have had a few days to reflect, what do they say?

The Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has noted the publication and provides links to the document itself, and to a summary (curiously contained on the "Year of the Eucharist" page).

However, if you are the sort of Catholic who expects that your Bishop's diocesan homepage will give you some information about the Pope's Exhortation, then you are in for a surprise.

Hexham and Newcastle thinks that the document is about globalisation and environmentalism. Northampton thinks it's about Latin. Nottingham just links to the Vatican website. Westminster gives a reasonable (if very short) summary. And that's it: none of the other dioceses mention it. Even bearing in mind that the dioceses of Wrexham and Shrewsbury do not have functioning websites, the response is - well, poor.

I have learned about the Wakefield Rhubarb Festival, and about the new Catholic Assistant Chaplain General of the Armed Forces. But don't look to the diocesan websites in England and Wales to find out what the Pope thinks about the Eucharist.

Phoenix Nights Catholicsm

Fr Ray Blake has highlighted a couple of YouTube videos. One is of the Halloween Mass in Orange County, California, notorious for, amongst other things, an extraordinary minister costumed as the Devil; the other is of a recent Mass celebrated by the egregious Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles (also California) at the end of a recent RE Congress.

Reading Fr Ray's post, it struck me that we have no simple expression (other than "sacreligious" or "heretical", of course) to describe the sort of thing that isn't just one-off wild and wacky, but is a head-on confrontation with the Universal Church. "Cafeteria Catholicsm" describes a pick-and-mix approach that offers a choice: what about the sort of Catholicsm where no choice other than a liberal-two-fingers-to-Rome is on offer?

I'd like to propose "Phoenix Nights Catholicsm". The Phoenix Club, owned by Brian Potter is a simulacrum of a normal club: it has no licence; it is a dangerous fire hazard; it is corrupt and dishonest; it is meretricious; its music is abysmally poor. The poor club-goers of TV's parallel Bolton have no real choice: the Banana Grove is equally awful, and the man in charge, Den Perry, is as criminal as Potter.

Phoenix Nights Catholicsm is not yet common in England and Wales, but we have our Brians and our Dens, and, given half the chance, they will impose their version of the practice of our religion on the rest of us.

Let's not give them their half chance. Let's do the thing they most dislike: laugh at them, laugh as much as I laught at Phoenix Nights. They are on the "Road to Nowhere": let's hasten them on their way.

"For God and King": a warning

If any of you have a link to the "For God and King" blog, then delete it immediately without clicking on the link. The site owner has let it lapse, and the sitename has been reallocated. It has been taken over by a pornographer who first redirects you to an explicit set of photos and then flashes up an invitation (seemingly coming from Microsoft) to download some software to clean the filth from your computer. It's a Trojan, of course (WinFixer). Any decent up-to-date anti-virus software will sort the subsequent problem out for you, but least downloaded, soonest mended.

Where we nearly got married ...

The Catholic Caveman's blog is headed by a picture of Mass at Covadonga. The shrine commemorates the apparition of Our Lady to the local King, Pelayo, who in 722 fought and defeated the Moors in the valley below the cave. Pelayo's victory meant that the invading Arab armies were never able to conquer the whole of Spain: Catholicsm, and the rule of the post-Visigothic Monarchy was preserved. After the Moorish defeat at Poitiers in 732 by Charles Martel, the Reconquest of Spain could begin: it was slow, but in 1492 Granada fell, and the Moors were expelled from Spain forever.

We should have been married there; we wanted to be married there. We were engaged when we lived in the same province and came to love the shrine which, as the picture shows, is in a cave. There are bears in the mountains, and eagles overhead. On a spring morning there is no more beautiful place to go to Mass.

In theological terms, Matrimony is unique in that it is the only Sacrament adminstered by those participating in it themselves. In human terms it is more complex: it is the only Sacrament in which the mother and the mother-in-law have at least as big a say as the participants. There is a social dimension around Matrimony which no other Sacrament has. This is right and proper: the other six Sacraments are essentially individual, while Matrimony unites two individuals to create a new family, a new opportunity for life. Matrimony is the Sacrament on which human society is (was? should be?) founded. Stable civil society depends on married couples bringing up families. That is why Matrimony is the only Sacrament for which parallel civil legislation exists - I once had to adminster the vows to a Spanish couple marrying in England as the Priest-Registrar did not speak Spanish and had both a ecclesiastical and a civil legal obligation to ensure that the vows had been understood and had been undertaken willingly.

When the mothers decided, therefore, that we were not to marry in Covadonga, but in the UK, we didn't really have any choice. We could have had a perfectly licit Sacrament in front of a priest and another witness, but it would have felt hole-in-corner. So we did as we were told, and had a wonderful ceremony. And even if there's a little bit of both of us that still wishes that things might have been different, Our Lady of Covadonga is as near here as She is there.

16 reasons for unhappy trads to read Sacramentum Caritatis carefully

Many trads in the Blogosphere have been disappointed in the Pope's Apostolic Exhortation, mainly because it didn't say what they wanted it to say. I'd prefer to see it as the next correction, after the Address to the Roman Curia of 22 December 2005, to the course of the Petrine Barque.

My thesis is that the Holy Father a) wants evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change; b) is boxing liberal Bishops into a corner they have made for themselves, because this document is a response to what the Synod of Bishops said it wanted him to say; and c) has a deliberate agenda of carrying out what Vatican II said, rather than accepting what has been done "in the spirit of Vatican II".

In this light, try the following extracts from Sacramentum Caritatis:

(Para 3) Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities. (From the footnote: I am referring here to the need for a hermeneutic of continuity also with regard to the correct interpretation of the liturgical development which followed the Second Vatican Council.)

(Para 21) Finally, a balanced and sound practice of gaining indulgences, whether for oneself or for the dead, can be helpful for a renewed appreciation of the relationship between the Eucharist and Reconciliation.

(Para 23) Priests should be conscious of the fact that in their ministry they must never put themselves or their personal opinions in first place, but Jesus Christ. Any attempt to make themselves the centre of the liturgical action contradicts their very identity as priests. This is seen particularly in his humility in leading the liturgical assembly, in obedience to the rite, uniting himself to it in mind and heart, and avoiding anything that might give the impression of an inordinate emphasis on his own personality.

(Para 35) Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize the care which is needed, if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendour.

(Para 38) The ars celebrandi is the best way to ensure their actuosa participatio. The ars celebrandi is the fruit of faithful adherence to the liturgical norms in all their richness; indeed, for two thousand years this way of celebrating has sustained the faith life of all believers, called to take part in the celebration as the People of God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

(Para 39) It is his responsibility to ensure unity and harmony in the celebrations taking place in his territory. Consequently the Bishop must be "determined that the priests, the deacons, and the lay Christian faithful grasp ever more deeply the genuine meaning of the rites and liturgical texts, and thereby be led to an active and fruitful celebration of the Eucharist". I would ask that every effort be made to ensure that the liturgies which the Bishop celebrates in his Cathedral are carried out with complete respect for the ars celebrandi, so that they can be considered an example for the entire Diocese.

(Para 40) The ars celebrandi should foster a sense of the sacred and the use of outward signs which help to cultivate this sense, such as, for example, the harmony of the rite, the liturgical vestments, the furnishings and the sacred space. The eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms, making available the great riches found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the Order of Readings for Mass. Perhaps we take it for granted that our ecclesial communities already know and appreciate these resources, but this is not always the case.

(Para 41) Everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty. Special respect and care must also be given to the vestments, the furnishings and the sacred vessels, so that by their harmonious and orderly arrangement they will foster awe for the mystery of God, manifest the unity of the faith and strengthen devotion

(Para 42) Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned, we cannot say that one song is as good as another. Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided.

(Para 46) Given the importance of the word of God, the quality of homilies needs to be improved. Hence ordained ministers must "prepare the homily carefully, based on an adequate knowledge of Sacred Scripture". Generic and abstract homilies should be avoided.

(Para 53) The active participation of the laity does not benefit from the confusion arising from an inability to distinguish, within the Church's communion, the different functions proper to each one. There is a particular need for clarity with regard to the specific functions of the priest. He alone, and no other, as the tradition of the Church attests, presides over the entire eucharistic celebration, from the initial greeting to the final blessing. In virtue of his reception of Holy Orders, he represents Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, and, in a specific way, also the Church herself.

(Para 56) We hold that eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion are so linked as to make it generally impossible for non-Catholic Christians to receive the former without enjoying the latter. There would be even less sense in actually concelebrating with ministers of Churches or ecclesial communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church.

(Para 62) Speaking more generally, I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant.

(Para 64) A mystagogical catechesis must also be concerned with presenting the meaning of the signs contained in the rites. This is particularly important in a highly technological age like our own, which risks losing the ability to appreciate signs and symbols. More than simply conveying information, a mystagogical catechesis should be capable of making the faithful more sensitive to the language of signs and gestures which, together with the word, make up the rite.

(Para 66) During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy.

(Para 73) For the sake of these important values – while recognizing that Saturday evening, beginning with First Vespers, is already a part of Sunday and a time when the Sunday obligation can be fulfilled – we need to remember that it is Sunday itself that is meant to be kept holy, lest it end up as a day "empty of God.

Pray for Spain

Yesterday, as the photo shows, two million Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid to protest about the government's negotiations with the Basque terrorist group ETA. This might not be the worst thing happening in Spain at the moment.

A posting in La cigüeña de la torre alerts us to a case being brought in Spain by a Catholic organisation against (inter alia) a leading Spanish socialist politician for the publication of a series of extremely pornographic satires on Christian images of Our Lord and Our Lady. The cigüeña does not post a link to these photos and I have hopefully given no clues as to where they can be found - please do not seek them out: they are profoundly disturbing; there must have been a morbid as well as a blasphemous mind behind them.

Unfortunately, this is par for the course in Spain, a country which is being polarised by a government which is determined to carry through a radical anti-Catholic agenda. Spain needs our prayers. Indeed, Europe needs our prayers.

A reflexion for Lent

Hat tip to Lactente nutris ubere who quotes the LMS's site. One sentence leapt off the screen at me:

"The empty womb stripped of its child by an abortionist is analogous to the empty altar stripped of its God by the theological abortionist - the man who either denies, or, what is more frequent, ignores or plays down the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Blessed sacrament of the Altar." ('Empty Womb, Empty Altar', Prof. Frederick Wilhelmsen, Latin Mass Magazine, March/April 1993).

Things could be worse

.
I have just read a post at Wanton Popery about the consecration of an Episcopalian Bishop in Florida's being transferred to the local Catholic Cathedral because of the number of people expected. I had earlier read Fr Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬) quoting an interview with the egregious Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles about the Tridentine Mass. I read in V for Victory about a scandalous gathering in California purportedly about Catholic RE.

However irritated we might get, from time to time, with the behaviour of some of our hierarchy, we should recognise that they come nowhere near the line some of their American colleagues appear to have crossed.

Sailing to Byzantium

"Sailing to Byzantium" by W B Yeats. Verse III.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

I grew up in an area where there was a large number of Ukranian families. They came to the local Catholic schools, but we never saw them at Mass, for there were several towns locally where the Ukranians had their own churches. The Salford Almanac had every year a Ukranian supplement which listed their calendar and a long section from Canon Law about what had to happen if anybody wanted to change Rite - this was mainly assumed only to happen when Ukranian married Roman.

The first flush of aggiornamento I experienced in the early seventies was an encouragement for a small group of us (I think we were in Lower 6th) to visit each others' churches on successive Sundays. They came to ours first then we went to theirs.

Thirty-five years later I can still remember the impression that an Eastern Liturgy had on me. I wasn't overwhelmed by a sense of theatricality: I had learned to serve Mass in the traditional Roman Rite, after all. What I found was a heady if suffocating mix of the numinous, the Liturgy as Eikon, music which penetrated to the heart, community and solidarity in Faith, and incense as surely God intended.

Even after all this time, I can still catch myself thinking about finding a house more than four miles away from a Catholic church but less than four miles from a Ukranian one. I realise, though, even while fantasising, that I am seeking to miss the point. The Eastern Churches, whether schismatic or not, are local Churches, however widely the diaspora of their faithful has spread their worship. Each one is an incredibly rich cul-de-sac.

I belong to Rome: not Kiyiv, or Constantinople, or Moscow. My belonging is not a matter of choice: I can't pretend that I'm not from Manchester, even if I have now lived away from Manchester longer than I ever lived there. And Rome is not limited: Rome's ambit is universal and orthodox, not local and orthodox.

We are a ragged family: cousins who shout at each other, brothers and sisters who quarrel and argue; big brothers who lay the law down. Amidst all the clamour we sometimes wish that everything could be as nice at home as it is at a favourite Aunt's house. But, for better or worse, we belong to our own family and make our home there.

"For better or worse": we have to hang on to that.

For Carthusian fans

A short piece from YouTube in Portuguese is available from the Casa de Sarto. As I post this, it's the second article down, beneath one about the plot to defame Pope Pius XII.

The short text says "The Charterhouse of Évora: expelled in 1834 by Jacobin revolutionarism, the Carthusians returned to their Portuguese home in 1960."

The King over the water

Is the return of Moretben imminent? Are the insistent rumours of his release from Midland exile correct? Can those of us who have kept burning a small candle, lit from the tremendous fire of his saeva indignatio, proudly proclaim the return of our Chief? Are heretics quaking? Are liberals desperately recanting yesterday's received opinion? Are traditionalist apologists looking to the acres once walked by Belloc to catch sight of their leader?

We wait, and we hope.