Sodality Of The Five Holy Wounds...

The Sodality of the Five Holy Wounds held a Missa Cantata at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen on Friday. The Friday after the Third Sunday in Lent is traditionally the Feast of the Five Holy Wounds, which I hadn't realised before.

The unfamiliarity with this Feast meant that there was a bit of a query as to the liturgical colour in the Sacristy before Mass...

The Mass itself was beautifully sung. It was known as the Golden Mass, revealed to Pope Boniface II in 532AD and believed to have been composed by St. John the Evangelist himself.

I only took a few photos, and they can be seen on my Flickr page. The dates and times of future meetings are to be confirmed, but if you want to join the Sodality, you can keep an eye on events by checking out the Sodality blog. More information about the Sodality and its Constitutions can be found there too.

Photos From Brighton...

With shame, I realise that I didn't get around to posting any of the photos from the 150th Anniversary Mass of St. Mary Magdalen's, Brighton - the ones I posted directly from the phone didn't really count!

The Mass was really wonderful, as was the party afterwards. A selection of photos can be seen on my Flickr page for the event.

I got there early enough to get a shot of the choir rehearsing beforehand...

The church really did look beautiful...

And at the end, Fr. Ray Blake kindly allowed me to take his photo...

One advantage of having taken so long to get the photos up is that I can also link to Fr. Tim Finigan's sermon, as well as to the official photos page, and to recordings of Bruckner's Locus Iste and the setting of Tu es Petrus which Tom Bennett composed especially for the Anniversary Mass. Awesome. Clare, who runs the choir at St. Mary Magdalen's, has some fantastic posts also, so do go and check her blog.

Presents...

My next-door neighbour accosted me as I returned from Mass this afternoon. Had I received any more presents from the Monsignori? she wanted to know. I replied in the negative, and she warned me that Furretti had succeeded in catching a squirrel the other day, but when my neighbour intervened, the cat dropped the squirrel which then made its escape.

On entering the flat, both cats came to greet me in a manner which I have learned to distrust. It's a sort of "We're here, and we love you, and we want you to come with us now because we have something to show you..." manner. Warily, I followed the cats into the living room. There was a live pigeon on top of the curtain track. Miaowrini was miaowing like mad, running between me and the pigeon, as if to say "I want that one, can you get it down for me, pleease..."

Well, it wasn't easy. The pigeon was too high up for me to drop a towel over it, and when I went to open the curtains it flew back across the room, much to the cats' delight. I managed to open the window, but it blew shut again just as the pigeon tried to fly out, so the poor thing stunned itself on the glass. I got the towel over the bird at that point, and waited for it to calm down (its heart was hammering so hard I could feel it, and Miaowrini's cries of excitement didn't help!) before I let it fly off. The poor bird had been a bit chewed up before it got away, and the state of the living room floor gave testimony to the epic battle which had occurred.

I still marvel at how they got the bird up to the catflap in the first place...

Back Again...

I appear to have had a blogging break for the past two weeks. It feels a lot longer. Nothing to do with Lent - I just seemed to be too tired, or too busy, or too uninspired... or a combination of all three.

Every now and then I get the urge to give up blogging for good, but I do enjoy it... I've just been out of sorts. And I have lost a lot of readers too... I suspect that I have been given a dose of my own medicine - dead blogs are expunged regularly from my own blogrolls, so it wouldn't surprise me if my lack of output has led to the blog being culled.

Anyway, I shall attempt to get back on the straight and narrow - blogging shall recommence forthwith!