Ad Multos Annos, Fr. Jonathon...

Today I was privileged to attend the Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood of Fr. Jonathon Routh at Our Lady, Help of Christians, Folkestone.

It was a wonderful occasion. I had a brilliant vantage-point from which to take a few photos (I had been asked to sing the Ave Maria at Communion, and it was easier to stay up in the organ loft.) Part of the Sanctuary was out of my line of sight, but I think I got a few pretty good shots, a selection of which are shown here. The rest will (eventually) find their way onto my Flickr account.

First of all, the candidate for Ordination is called and presented, with the Rector of St. John's Seminary, Monsignor Jeremy Garrett, declaring that he had been found worthy for service as a priest...

The promise of obedience to the Ordinary, Archbishop Peter Smith...

The Litany of the Saints...

The laying on of hands...

Fr. Roger Nesbitt then invested Fr. Jonathon with stole and chasuble, which had been brought up by Fr. Jonathon's parents...

Fr. Jonathon's hands are anointed with the oil of Chrism...

And Archbishop Peter Smith presents Fr. Jonathon with the paten and chalice...

One of the deacons looked as if he was going to knock out the Archbishop with the thurible... despite this, the Archbishop didn't flinch at all...

Fr. Jonathon told me afterwards that he found the raising of the torches at the Elevation of the Host and Chalice to be extremely moving...

I'd just like to offer my congratulations to Fr. Jonathon, and to wish him many happy years of faithful service.

Success... (Possibly!)

Monsignor Furretti does not appear to have used the litter tray for a few days. She did go and kick the litter around a bit the last time I changed it - I can tell because it's in a neat pile to one side of the tray - and she may have peed in it so as to mark it as "hers," but she hasn't deposited anything more noxious.

She has been eating well, so, unless she is monumentally constipated, I can probably assume that she now goes out into the garden to do the necessaries...

This is a great relief to me. as I was beginning to wonder whether I should invest in a gas mask.

I suspect that the stag beetle hunting season is now over for this year. Either that or stag beetles are finally extinct in south-east London. Monsignor Miaowrini appears to have turned her attention to mice... (I'm hoping that blackbird and pigeon are off the menu for the time being!) Furretti doesn't appear to bring stuff home - though she's happy to play with whatever Miaowrini drags in.

I know a lot of people say that their cats bring them dead rodents as "presents." Sylvester certainly did, and he even brought me the occasional live offering. I thought Miaowrini was doing the same thing (only she doesn't seem to kill her prey) and would do my best to rescue her captives. It would appear that my swiping of her trophies has not gone down well... the last two times Miaowrini brought a mouse home, she took one look at me approaching, promptly picked the mouse up and ran off with it back out through the catflap.

Strangely enough, I don't feel inclined to upbraid her for her selfish attitude...

A New Definition Of Patience...

This really made me laugh for about 10 seconds. After that, I wanted to wring the pigeon's neck. How the cat managed to show such restraint beats me. My two hooligans wouldn't have shown such forbearance...

UPDATE: Ok, YouTube pulled the video for some reason. It was a pigeon or parakeet or some such feathered thing which wouldn't leave a snoozing kitty alone. The cat just did its best to ignore the bird, pushing it away gently. Like I said, I wanted to wring the bird's neck, it was that irritating. I saw the video on I Can Has Cheezburger? If you are curious as to why I didn't just delete the post rather than explaining the absent video, well, posts on Blogger exist in the ether even if they've been deleted, unless you over-write them, and I wasn't going to find another post to go with the title any time soon...

Happy Fourth Of July...

I guess that all my transatlantic readers (you know who you are, all four of you!) will be celebrating today (well, what's left of it... I'm a bit snowed under today!)

One of the most amusing posts for an ignoramus such as myself is the one by Vincenzo - three You Tube cartoons to explain what all the fuss is about. I think I like this one best...



...though I'm not sure about "the pursuit of happiness" ! Go over to Vincenzo's for the other two...

Returning To The Socks Motif...

Jonathan, Blackfen's senior MC, likes to make sure that the servers do not wear inappropriate attire on the Sanctuary. This includes an insistence on plain black socks, as one of our servers discovered last year...

Apparently James, Chislehurst's MC, is rather less strict. He occasionally plays the organ at Blackfen (extremely well, I might add) for weddings, funerals and other occasions when our usual organist is otherwise engaged. He was playing for the wedding on Saturday, and proudly showed off his red socks...

I persuaded him to run through the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria with me once the congregation had left - I'm singing it at an Ordination next week, and need all the practice I can get! I was delighted to find that I hit the top A without any trouble (I was a bit squeaky when I practiced it at Wonersh last week, but then I hadn't sung anything high for ages...)

On the subject of weddings, the one on Saturday was celebrated ad orientem, and I have to say that, from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, the setup is much, much better than the versus populum one...

Shame about the chairs. Now, if Fr. Tim could just get some backless stools for the bride and groom, it would be absolutely perfect...