A Treat For Our Lady's Feast Day...

We are so very blessed at Blackfen. Not only do we have Mass in two forms of the Roman Rite (the vetus ordo and the novus ordo) but we also have a Mass most weeks said according to the Anglican Use of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. At the two sung Sunday Masses (one English, one Latin), we don't get the four-hymn-sandwich, but have the antiphons and the parts of the Mass sung.


Our Parish Priest delivers excellent sermons, and he has written down what he wants to say, so he doesn't waffle. There is even a summary of it in the parish newsletter. He doesn't treat the congregation as if they are a bunch of nine-year-olds, but covers Church history, doctrine, moral and social teaching, and usually bits from the lives and writings of the saints and the writings or speeches of the Pope (whichever one it happens to be.) The documents of Vatican II are frequently quoted (and we get Vatican I and Trent as well, just to demonstrate the hermeneutic of continuity in action.)

We have some really skilled and dedicated servers, a talented parish choir which has an amazing repertoire (lots of people sing different settings for the Kyrie, but how many times do you hear a small parish choir also knock out the Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei of Mass IV, for example?) and a marvelous team of people who clean the church and do all sorts of extra stuff in the sacristy (laundry of altar linens, mending vestments, making altar cloths) - the sort of thing that is only noticed when it isn't there.

And, as an extra-special blessing, we have Sisters who visit the parish. None of this "Nuns on the Bus" rubbish... these ones have full habits.

This is such an important witness for young women and girls - the priest is an obvious sign of a vocation in the Church, but most religious sisters in parishes are no longer "visible" at first glance. Even the teaching orders have pretty much disappeared from English schools.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate often pop over to Blackfen for Mass, and on big feasts of Our Lady's they will often come along and sing the Mass propers and a motet or two. I videoed the incensing at the Offertory, and the Sisters were singing something really beautiful - I'm not sure what it is, but hopefully one of them will let me know. It's only my little mobile phone, but it still sounds awesome, so I thought I would share...

I only took a couple of photos, but you can see them here.

Happy Feast Day...

The Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven...

Two More For The Kitty Kill Count...

Holidays are when teachers like me get to do housework properly... or at least a little more thoroughly than during term time. Hoovering the sitting room, I discovered two dead mice under different cupboards... Mind you, it could have been worse. My friend Fitzrufus tried to give me nightmares by tweeting a link to a report of a couple who found a dead (and dessicated) cat under the floorboards.

The most upsetting thing for me was that the cat looked so skinny. I rushed off to fill up the food bowls for my two hooligans...

I Wasn't Planning Another Cat Post, But...

... I videoed Furretti responding to her name (or perhaps, to be more accurate, the sound of my voice). She must have been just by the catflap when I called (the other side of a fence at the side of the building) and she either scooted under or over the fence to come running.

She then decided to go and explore somewhere else in the sunshine, and despite all my blandishments, she hasn't come home yet. Miaowrini, on the other hand, came in demanding to be fed something nicer than dry biscuits... but I didn't get that on camera...

But I'm feeling loved and appreciated...

Faith Summer Session 2013...

I didn't manage to get to the whole of the Summer Session this year, but I did go along to Woldingham for the Wednesday - there is usually a Guest Speaker on the Wednesday afternoon slot.

My journey in was a little fraught - someone at London Bridge managed to drop a signalling paddle down the side of a train onto the track, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle in trying to retrieve it - and, as a result, I was a little late for Mass. I was delighted to discover that Fr. Guillaume was giving out First Blessings after the Mass... this has become a regular feature at the Summer Session, as there have been many young men ordained to the Priesthood after being formed through contact with the Faith Movement. As you can see, plenty of people wanted to get a blessing...

The weather was glorious, and I enjoyed the scenery while catching up with many dear friends. While waiting for the afternoon session to begin, I spotted two new inhabitants of the school grounds...

His Hermeneuticalness cut me to the quick when he asked why I had taken a photo of a door. I must be losing my touch with the camera angles.

My heart sank when I heard that the Guest Speaker was a Parliamentary Officer (*yawn*) and it positively plummeted when I heard the phrase "Catholic Bishops' Conference" though I think Scotland is in a slightly better position than England & Wales (remember the Papal Visit?). However, I was very pleasantly surprised: John Deighan gave a rousing talk about his journey into politics, the reasons behind the success of the campaign for same-sex "marriage" and his ideas for fighting back against secularism.

I started to live-tweet the talk, but my battery was almost completely dead by this point. (Reminder to self - get a couple of spare batteries!) However, if his talk was anything to go by, I'd say that John Deighan is well worth following on Twitter. The Scottish Catholic Parliamentary Office also appears very well organised, especially with regard to their internet presence. Eccleston Square could learn a few tricks.

There are a few more photos on my Flickr page.

Shall I Change My Name To Cassandra...?

As the Greek myths tell it, Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but, after she refused his advances, he cursed her so that she would never be able to convince people her prophecies were true.

I pointed out, back in December, that Cameron's quadruple-lock "assurances" about churches not being forced to carry out same-sex "marriage ceremonies" were not worth much, because the European Court of Human Rights had already stated clearly that, if same-sex couples were allowed to "marry" then any church that offers weddings would be guilty of discrimination if it declined to marry same-sex couples.

One didn't really need to be Cassandra to foresee that, once same-sex "marriage" became legal, there was bound to be someone just itching to push for a full church wedding, with all the trimmings... Sure enough, less than a month after the legislation hit the statute books, one couple plans to sue the Church of England. I felt a grudging admiration for the blatant honesty in the comment: "I am still not getting what I want."

I very much doubt that it will stop there...

Orthodox Cat-holics Condemn The Bitter Pill...

Since most people read this blog for the cat posts (judging from the number of people who asked me about the kitties at the Faith Summer Session earlier this week) I thought it was worth posting...

I have no idea how, when or even if I made this gif image of the kitties showing their poor opinion of The Bitter Pill while leaving The Catholic Herald unscathed, but discovered it when I was checking through some old images.

Twitter Spats & Blog Comments...

Somehow or other, I got myself enmeshed in a spat on Twitter, all about blogs and comment threads. 140 characters just wasn't enough for this one, so I have decided to blog about it...

I usually take the stance that it's best to ignore the stupid stuff, and in general this attitude has paid off. I very rarely get abusive comments on the blog, for example, because I just delete them, and do not refer to them. Most people who want to be offensive want to provoke a reaction, so when the comment disappears without trace, it gets boring for them, and they go elsewhere.

I take much the same approach to Twitter: offensive tweets are best ignored - and much better never acknowledged, even to condemn them... Twitter feeds are pretty fast-moving, and if objectionable stuff is ignored, it will usually disappear without trace.

I moderate my blog comments. I do not necessarily agree with the comments I do publish, but if I don't like the tone of a comment, I am quite ruthless in deleting it. There is no discussion, and no appeal. It's my blog, and if someone objects, they are free to start their own blog. I suspect this is why I don't get many comments, but I don't blog in order to get comments...

I read blogs via Feedly. It shows me the blog posts as they are published, and saves me having to check whether or not someone has updated their blog. If I find a post amusing or thought-provoking, I might tweet a link to it, or I might actually put up a link from this blog. It does not mean that I agree with everything that has ever appeared on that blog.

Feedly does not show comments threads on blogs. Occasionally, I might want to comment on the blog, in which case I will visit the particular post and add a comment. This is rare - even more so now that I use my mobile phone for blog-reading when I have some spare time.

I do not consider myself responsible for the content of other blogs, still less for their comments.

Quite frankly, unmoderated comboxes are a magnet for idiots, and there is no shortage of people who wish to write very unpleasant stuff on the internet. If one comments on a thread on an unmoderated blog, then one shouldn't be surprised when the idiots pile in. That doesn't mean that it is right for abusive and vile comments to be published - and generally, when this happens, one can ask for the offensive comments to be removed... but one will have to ask, because "unmoderated" means that the comments aren't being checked beforehand, and not everyone has the time to check and re-check comments on old posts (or even on new ones), especially if the comments go up in the early hours of the morning!

Countercultural Father beat me to it, as usual, and he managed to summarise the whole thing much more effectively than me, so do read his excellent post!

In Case You Were Wondering..

One of the reasons why I haven't been blogging lately...

Cardinal Furretti rather likes sleeping on my laptop case, and sometimes I haven't got the heart to turf her off so I can retrieve the laptop...

Dressing Decently As An Act Of Charity...

The warm weather means that people are often rather scantily dressed. It interested me to note that, in an email sent round at work, people were asked to dress "decently" so that their choice of clothing did not cause embarrassment, distract or give rise to misunderstandings... in other words, to dress modestly as an act of charity to those around us.

Decent dress, according to the email, meant not showing bare midriffs, not wearing sleeveless tops, avoiding overly-translucent materials, and no low-cut trousers or shorts (of any length).

In other words, one does not merely dress to please oneself, but considers one's colleagues.

It is a shame that this attitude of charity towards one's neighbour appears to be ignored by so many when they are choosing what to wear for the worship of Almighty God...

UPDATE: As Caroline pointed out, it might be worth considering the spectacle presented by many ladies when they kneel at the altar rail for Communion if their tops are of the low-cut variety. Is it really fair on the priest? I have to confess that I used to wear low-cut tops myself when I first returned to the Faith. That stopped pretty quickly after one occasion when the Host accidentally dropped down my (not inconsiderable) cleavage...

Free The Word...!

Brandon Vogt recently got into hot water when, after making the texts of the Holy Father's encyclical available in electronic format, he was taken to task by the USCCB and the Holy See.

Brandon isn't arguing about the right of the Holy See to keep the copyright on Church documents, but what he wants is to petition for the documents to be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license. This means that people would be able to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of the work. It's an extremely popular way of safely distributing texts, especially digital content. Proper credit has to be given for the source, and the copyright is retained by the Holy See.

If you want to read more about how Brandon inadvertently fell foul of the copyright laws, and the reasons behind his proposals, check out his excellent post. You can also sign the petition by leaving a comment in his com-box.

Two Down...

Is it really four years since I started watching cricket?

I am having to watch the cricket without the benefit of expert tuition as both Jonathan and Zephy are away from the parish. Nevertheless, I was quite pleased with myself when I was able to say something vaguely intelligible after Mass when watching the Test Match in the Parish club. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was...

Although I haven't actually posted on it (for fear of saying something really stupid which will incur the wrath of cricket enthusiasts everywhere, and particularly in Blackfen) I have been keeping more than one eye on the Ashes Test Series. I have a very handy phone app which is rather useful - it tells me the score, whether the game is still on, who is in, who is out and how many runs are needed for one side to beat the other.

This year, the weather has not intervened to help out the Australian team, and, after their really disastrous first innings in the second Test, the Australians were well and truly thrashed by England.

So we only need to win one more Test out of the three in order to win the series...

I hope my support isn't going to prove the death-knell for England's chances of retaining the Ashes!

A Blessing For The Diocese

It was a very great pleasure to attend the Ordination to the Priesthood of five young men at St. George's Cathedral earlier today. 

Unfortunately, I'd had to set up for the Saturday morning Mass and Exposition at Blackfen, so I arrived late, and spent most of the occasion stuck behind a pillar. I got up to take this photo from the back...

Many congratulations to Fr. Samuel Davey, Fr. Valentine Erhahon, Fr. Stephen Haines, Fr. Thomas Lynch and Fr. Leonard Tatt. God bless them for their generous response to his call! And please do keep them in your prayers as they begin their priestly ministry.

UPDATE: There are a few photos up on the Catholic Church (England & Wales) Flickr pages.

If A Cat Doesn't Want To Know...

...lady, you can clap your hands all you like. That might get a response from a dog, but kitty cats have standards... no way is a cat going to play second fiddle to you as some sort of prop for your story...

It's Official...

Cardinal Furretti has decided that the weather is a bit warm, and so she's started to sleep in the sink...

Part of me is tempted to give her a trim...

Feeling Like Cassandra...

A fortnight ago, I had a little rant about the politician who had the gall to suggest that school Summer holidays were too long, and this was having an adverse effect on student attainment.

I pointed out that, since he went to an independent school, his holidays had been much longer, and I doubted that he felt disadvantaged. I went on to suggest that, actually, this was part of the Government agenda to keep children at school so parents would be free to work instead of actually getting to interact with their own children. After all, the parents might actually teach their children to question Government policies, and that would never do.

As an aside, do you think that politicians forget what they've been debating over the long parliamentary recesses?

Technically the news was focusing on schools being able to choose their own holiday dates, but I am rather a cynical type, and I griped that this would be a way for the schools to shorten the holidays without too much fuss, and added that I thought that schools would be encouraged to lengthen the school day too, so as to make collecting children on the way home from work easier...

Well, I never expected to be proved absolutely right quite so quickly!

Today's Telegraph Online reports that the Department for Education is planning to improve the provision of affordable childcare by (among other things) encouraging schools to open for more hours of the day and more weeks in the year.

They have even suggested that schools hold "sleepovers"...

Told you so...

Good Counsel Network Sponsored Walk...

Back in May, I advertised the Good Counsel Network's annual sponsored walk from Wandsworth to Wapping, and suggested that people might like to go along, sponsor someone, pray... or all three.

I doubt very much that it was my influence, but one of my fellow parishioners, Antonia, is planning to do the 13 mile walk with some (or possibly all) of her family. She's hoping to raise £500, and so, if you can, please go over to her JustGiving page and make a donation.

The Good Counsel Network relies totally on your donations in order to offer practical help and support to women who might otherwise think they had no alternative but to have an abortion.

It is all very well to be "pro-life" on paper, but we have to be ready to back it up by our actions. If you can't support the cause financially, then do remember to pray!

Dicing With Death...

This video of an obnoxious parakeet and a very patient kitty cat made me smile. It seems pretty obvious that the cat's restraint was purely because it was being recorded...

If either Monsignor Miaowrini or Cardinal Furretti had been in the same position, the parakeet wouldn't have lasted long...

Excuse Me While I Have A Rant...

I'm feeling a little peeved. Actually, I'm rather more than peeved. I'm seriously irritated. And annoyed.

Yet again, a politician has decided that the "long" school Summer holiday is considered fair game, and has called for us to shorten the Summer so that we remain competitive. Quite apart from the fact that a politician decrying a long Summer holiday is actually rather ironic, ("calling black kettle pot" - rearrange to form a well-known phrase) it is also inaccurate.

Some years, state schools get a full six weeks in the Summer. More often than not, it's five and a half, very occasionally just five. I am prepared to admit that the staggered start at the beginning of the Autumn term does make it longer for some students (and, as a teacher, I guess I'm biased.)

Chris Skidmore MP claims that children need shorter holidays because they "forget" everything over the break, and this lowers academic progress. He also thinks children find long holidays tedious.

Well, I've been a teacher for longer than he's been an MP and I can vouch for the fact that, should you ask a student what work they did before the weekend, most of them would have forgotten it. This is the reason that lessons start with a recap of what we did before. It's well-known that repeating things over and over again helps to improve retention. "Forgetting" stuff over the Summer isn't actually a problem. Children (and teachers) need to have a break from academic work.

Mr. Skidmore points out that the long Summer holidays are really a relic from our farming roots. Again, speaking from my years of teaching experience, I can vouch for the fact that students really don't benefit from being herded into hot, stuffy classrooms and forced to try and concentrate when the Sun comes out. All those high-achieving countries tend to have air conditioning as par for the course, I believe. The infrastructure for home learning is also there - Singapore regularly closes its schools to prepare against outbreaks of diseases such as swine flu, to check that everything is in place for home learning.

It is also interesting to note that independent schools in the UK have longer holidays than state schools. I haven't noticed a dearth of attainment in children who are privately educated. As a former student at Bristol Grammar School, Mr. Skidmore would have experienced holidays lasting 8 weeks in the Summer, which I dare say he found tedious, especially as the Autumn and Spring half term holidays were each a week and a half in length (state schools get a week for each), and Christmas and Easter are both three weeks long (state schools get two weeks for each of these.)

Does Mr. Skidmore feel he could have achieved more if he hadn't been handicapped by such onerously long holidays, or does he think it only applies to the children of the general masses who are too stupid to cope?

I suspect that what Mr. Skidmore really means is that the long Summer holidays are inconvenient for parents who have to work. His description of children sitting playing with their Super Nintendos (how very out of touch - it's all Wii now, I believe!) strongly suggests children who are home alone, without a parent who can encourage them to go out to museums, parks, swimming pools and so on. The emphasis in this country is not giving children a good all-round education (encouraging independent exploration of topics and subjects which interest the individual child over the Summer would do this) but providing childcare while the parents are out at work. Hence the proposals to shorten the holidays and calls to lengthen the school day.

Stalin would have given his right arm to get this sort of separation of children from their parents and putting them into the care of the State...

The Kitties Are Upping The Ante...

I'm not entirely sure if this is a warning or a reward, but I found this in the sitting room today...

I have no idea what bird it was - there were no obvious tail feathers in evidence - and it is very much the "parson's nose" end of the bird. I also don't know which kitty was responsible: though I'd hazard a guess at Miaowrini because she was very affectionate earlier. I assumed she was leading me to the kitchen to refill her food or water bowls, but they were both still full. She must think me very slow on the uptake...

It'll be a horse's head next. I'd probably better get in some smoked salmon...