The New Penalty For Cell Phones In Church...?

This made me chuckle...

Twitch of the mantilla to the Catholic Mom in Hawaii.

Of course, it's not as funny as the (possibly true) story I heard about the priest at Sunday Mass who, on hearing a mobile phone go off during his sermon, looked sharply at the culprit and said,

"Well, go on and answer it... and ask them why they're not here at church..."

New Blog On The Block...

Fr. Stephen Wang has started a new blog - called Bridges and Tangents, it's well worth a visit.

Fr. Stephen is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He also happens to be the brother of Mary, a friend of mine, but that has nothing to do with why I'm publicising his blog (actually, I'm shamelessly name-dropping!!)

However, Fr. Stephen is a very clever chap, as proved by the fact that he is Dean of Studies at Allen Hall seminary, where he also teaches philosophy and theology. His latest book is Aquinas and Sartre: On Freedom, Personal Identity, and the Possibility of Happiness.

Rosary & Benediction...

As befits a parish dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, in Blackfen we celebrate the public recitation of the Rosary every Thursday evening, and this is followed by Benediction. I decided to take photos of last Thursday's celebration, and made it up into a slide show "video" for the blog.

As I was checking out the camera angles before the start of the service, I was amused to see Jonathan, our senior MC, doing a quick run-through with the young man who was to be MC for the evening (at the grand old age of 11)...

...and then the young man in question proceeded to pass on what he'd learned...

The music is O Vivens Fons (Living Fountain) from the Album Vision - The Music of Hildegard von Bingen.

I've experimented ever so slightly - since not everyone is familiar with Benediction, I've included some titles explaining what is happening at a few points... hopefully these aren't too intrusive... but I'd love to know what you think (tell me in the com-box)...

UPDATE: I have been chided (oh so gently) by Zephyrinus for not alerting you all to the fact that Rosary & Benediction is at 8pm every Thursday... and everyone is welcome. The Parish Social Club is open afterwards as well...

Quick (But Important) Post...

Term has started again, and I've had to hit the floor running: busy, busy, busy! I shall endeavour to put up a couple of posts over the weekend (I know what I want to write, I just just haven't had the time) but, in the meantime...

1) Please can you pray for a friend of mine, who was taken into hospital today with a perforated appendix, and for his family.

2) I saw this on Fr. Tim's blog, and I think it bears quoting in full...

A catechumen of the Archdiocese of Hanoi, Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes under the pen name Nguoi Buon Gio, which means “Wind Trader” has been arrested and detained for criticising the Vietnamese government's distortion of the Pope's speech to the Vietnamese Bishops at their Ad Limina visit.

I humbly encourage bloggers to post on this injustice. The Wind Trader needs our support and the Vietnamese government needs to know that its distortion of the Holy Father's message is open to scrutiny from the rest of the world.

VietCatholic news: Pope's speech distorted, catechumen, dissident bloggers arrested.

See also the CNA article: Vietnamese blogger arrested for challenging media distortions of Pope's speech.

A Few More Photos...

The Requiem Mass has proved to be a popular post: I've had over 600 hits today, which is twice the normal traffic. Exploration of SiteMeter revealed that most of the referrals have been from the highly-esteemed New Liturgical Movement blog.

Shawn Tribe gave a link to the post, but he also put up copies of most of the photos, so anyone hoping to see some different shots would be disappointed... as a result, I thought I'd add a few more photos. I'm almost disappointed that I didn't make a slide show (only almost - the catafalque really does get in the way!)

One of the sweetest moments happened before Mass - one of our youngest servers, trying to light the candles... a bit of a stretch when he can barely see over the altar...

The next photo shows Fr. William Young chanting the epistle...

Priest, deacon and subdeacon seated during the singing of the Gradual and Tract...

Monsignor Gordon Read proclaims the Gospel: the lack of candles and incense at this point was a surprise to me...

The incensing of the priest during the Offertory (there is a picture of the incensing of the gifts in the previous post...)

The priest kisses the altar: I forget which point this was, exactly, as he did it a few times... it's during the Preface, I think...

And, finally, the Elevation of the Chalice...

There is a good account of the Mass itself over at Patricius' blog, Singulare Ingenium, as well as a few words from His Hermeneuticalness himself...

While I'm at it, I'd just like to point out that while these two esteemed bloggers refer to Nicholas "Breakspeare" all the Catholic schools named after him seem to leave off the final "e"...

Requiem For A Pope...

We had a Requiem Mass tonight at Blackfen to commemorate the 850th anniversary of the death of Pope Adrian IV, otherwise known as Nicholas Breakspear. (I'm not 100% certain of the spelling of his name: as with Shakespeare, I've seen a few variants... )

I do like black vestments for a Requiem Mass. I also like the unbleached candles. So I took a few photos, though I didn't bother to make a video from this lot, as I was sitting too far over to one side to catch everything: the pews had been shifted across in order to make way for the catafalque, but, if I moved further back, half the sanctuary was out of the picture.

Absolutions at the catafalque were just a little too close for me to get good photos...


Monsignor Read consented to pose for a photo, as I particularly wanted a photo with the purple pom-pom on the biretta... one that hadn't been photoshopped, that is... sadly, the purple didn't show up that well in the sacristy's subdued lighting... I thought I'd be able to get a better shot of him in his cassock (complete with the purple bit around the middle... I don't know what it's called) once he went in to the hall... sadly, I didn't realise that he'd take that off too...

So, I had to content myself with this photo of Fr. William Young (left), Monsignor Gordon Read (centre) and Fr. Charles Briggs (he assisted in choir at the Mass.)

It is so important to pray for our dead relatives and friends, and also the Holy Souls who have no-one left to pray for them. I always remember reading St. Bernadette's anxiety that, once she was dead, no-one would pray for her because they were too busy saying she was a saint, and meanwhile she would be cooking in Purgatory... and if someone like St. Bernadette, given assurances of happiness in heaven by Our Lady, could consider herself a candidate for Purgatory, then the rest of us really need to ensure that we get prayed for once we die...

Sheep...

I think that some people have too much time on their hands... far, far too much time.



Mantilla-twitch to Ttony of The Muniment Room.

Blood Money...

This looks as though it ought to be made compulsory viewing for teenagers as part of the PSHE programme in schools... it won't, of course. Local health authorities have gotten in first, pushing condoms and the "Morning-After" Pill.



This film needs a distributor, and it will only get one if enough interest is shown. If you are American, consider registering your interest at the Blood Money website, if not, go to the You Tube site to watch the video trailer... and bloggers, consider embedding the video trailer.

Mantilla-twitch to the Hermeneutic of Continuity.