A Little Advent Humour...

I saw this video on Creative Minority Report, and it made me laugh out loud. Silent monks singing the Hallelujah Chorus... you really have to check it out!

The Papa Stronsay Calendar...

On Thursday, Fr. Tim put up a post about the 2010 Calendars produced by the Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay Island. Later that evening, after Benediction, he popped into the Parish Club to show a few of us the calendar... Jonathan can be seen inspecting it in this photo...

I liked the calendar so much that I decided to order one from their blog. It's pretty easy - you can either click on the button on the blog's left-hand sidebar to be taken to the PayPal site, or you can send your address (via the message form) and the number of copies you would like, and they will invoice you.

The calendar follows the 1962 Ordo, and it also notes several anniversaries which occur in 2010: for example, St. Paul was shipwrecked on the Island of Malta 1950 years ago. It helps to remind us that the Saints are real, they are not just "nice ideals" of what a person should be, they actually existed, and the Church has a record of when they lived. This is more important than you might realise - especially for the young, who view anyone over 25 as having one foot in the grave. I still remember the terrific jolt I got when I read that there have been 266 popes (including Pope Benedict XVI) and the Church has a record of all their names...

It is important to support this and other religious communities, as they do such stirling work: hidden away from the world, but continuing to pray for the rest of us, all the while offering their lives as an oblation to God. Visit the blog, leave a message of encouragement, subscribe to their newspaper, buy a calendar... and say a prayer for them all.

Renewing My Vows...

It's a big day today - I'm renewing my vows, something I do each year. Although I consider the vows to be permanent, renewing them helps me to focus on how faithfully (or not) I am living up to the promises I made. If you want to know what those promises were, you can see them HERE. And if you are wondering why I made them, I try to explain a little more HERE.

The whole thing kicks off this morning at 10:30am with the usual monthly Missa Cantata at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen. Mass is followed by Benediction. There is then a brief pause (basically to allow the schola and Fr. Tim to draw breath) and the service where I renew my vows starts at 12noon. It's a short one, the highlight being the Litany of Saints, which this year is in the traditional form. The down-side to this is that I can't just slot in my favourite saints, as the list is set. Hopefully they will understand!

Refreshments will follow in the small hall, prepared by the UCM. I had hoped to arrange for the party to be in the Large Hall, but there is a charity event booked in. Blackfen is a busy place. Next year I'll make sure I have done the paperwork in triplicate!

Several of you have left messages of support and prayers. Thank you all very much, I am extremely touched by this, and be assured that I shall pray for all my blog readers this morning.

Archbishop McDonald Resigns...

Breaking news for the Archdiocese of Southwark:

At 11:00 am (GMT) on Friday, 4th December 2009, The Holy Father accepted the resignation of Archbishop Kevin McDonald of Southwark in accordance with Canon 401 §2.

The Archbishop submitted his resignation to the Holy Father having taken account of medical advice.

The Archbishop has had a triple heart bypass and also suffers from severe osteoarthritis. This has already necessitated surgery and the Archbishop envisages further surgery in 2010.

"I feel great sadness at having to relinquish my post as Archbishop of Southwark. Although I have had to contend with illness over the last three years, this appointment has been a great grace. It has been a privilege to lead this great Diocese and I have received a wonderful response to everything I have tried to do. I have also been very appreciative of the prayers of so many people while I have been ill. The Diocese will continue to be very much in my thoughts and prayers in the time ahead."

A Diocesan Administrator will be appointed soon and he will be in charge of the Diocese, until a new Archbishop takes possession of the Diocese.

The Archbishop's resignation letter can be seen here.

I guess PaddyPower will be featuring again as speculation among the UK bloggers is bandied around! In the meantime, one wonders who will be appointed as Administrator.

Heheheheheheh... Blog campaign: His Hermeneuticalness for Archbishop!!

On a more serious note, I am sure everyone will join in offering prayers for Archbishop McDonald's speedy recovery.

Twitch of the mantilla to Fr. John Boyle.

You Can Put Relatives In A Pressure Cooker...

The headline on Luke Coppen's Catholic Herald Blog (It's OK to put your relatives in a pressure cooker, says Catholic ethicist) was certainly an attention-grabber, and I just had to read more.

No, nothing to do with serving up Great-Aunt Bertha for a Sunday casserole. It's all to do with green funerals... and the respect demanded by the Catholic Church for the mortal remains of said Great-Aunt.

It seems that acid baths (as popularised by Crippen and Haigh) are no longer fashionable, but a pressurised soak in alkaline solutions is enough to strip one's bones clean. The bones can then be ground down, and placed in an urn for burial in consecrated ground.

Following last year's tour of the local crematorium, I found the whole thing extremely interesting... though, personally, I still want to be reduced to air pollution, if only to have my revenge for being forced to teach the topic as part of the GCSE syllabus...

Tackiest Nativity Contest...

The Crescat has a contest going for the tackiest Nativity scene. There are some pretty awful examples displayed.

One of the weirdest has to be the ducks... ooops, sorry, apparently it's geese...

Twitch of the mantilla in the direction of the Ironic Catholic.

Monday Madness...

Just for Fr. Steven Fisher's cat...

Chemical Magic...

Today I was demonstrating what happens when you react metals with oxygen. Iron filings in a Bunsen burner create lots of lovely sparks, and copper and zinc filings are even prettier (they make green sparks and blue sparks respectively.) I used magnesium powder too, which makes a brilliant white sparkler effect... and a magnesium oxide "snow" which gave me what looked like a severe case of dandruff.

The "ooohs" and "ahhs" were very gratifying.

Mind you, I then used a glowing splint to test for oxygen in a gas jar. The wooden splint bursting back into flame got the biggest cheer of all.

As I said before, Year 7 are just so easy to impress...

Karen's New Blog...

Karen, the Oceanic Gem, has decided to start up a second blog, concentrating on stuff to do with the Extraordinary Form of Mass - details of saints, catholic heritage and so on. She's including references to her source material, so it'll be a useful resource.

Go and have a look at Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie when you have a chance.

The Chocolatisation of Advent...

Miss Ellen E. has a very good and thought-provoking post on the chocolatisation of Advent.

By virtue of the fact that I had a German mother (and thus a doting German grandmother living abroad) the Advent calendars of my youth always had chocolate in them. And not in a box below the picture, either: these were proper Advent calendars, with a Nativity scene, lots of glitter, and proper chocolate... with a different shaped chocolate behind each door.

I wasn't brought up as a Catholic, and not even as a Christian - I was baptised at the age of thirteen - but I knew the Christmas story (a rather garbled version, to be sure) from school Nativity plays. I knew what Christmas was actually about, and presents and Santa Claus were an enjoyable result of the birth of Christ.

With the modern tendency to remove any Christian themes from Christmas, most children now know nothing of what Christmas is actually about, and we cannot blame them for wanting to have their favourite cartoon characters on their chocolate calendars. Finding Advent calendars with religious scenes is hard enough - calendars with religious scenes and chocolate are like hens' teeth. It's up to us to tell the manufacturers what we really want, and to keep telling them, until they get the message.