In the Footsteps of Bernadette...

We started the second day of our pilgrimage with a guided tour of the main sites in the town associated with St. Bernadette. It is a while since I have done this tour, and I particularly wanted to get some new photos, so, mindful of the fact that my knees and ankles are getting worse - which means that I may not be capable of navigating the hills and cobbles for much longer - I made a bit more of an effort this morning.

After meeting at the Information Office and registering our group, we were teamed up with a group from Grimsby. We went first to the Museum of St. Bernadette to get a brief overview of her life and the Apparitions. They have a model of the way the grotto looked and its relation to the town which helped me to picture the whole scene...

Next we made our way to the Boly Mill where Bernadette was born, and spent the first 10 years of her life. The time spent here was a time of happiness for the Soubirous family...

A combination of factors led to the family suffering financial difficulties - in particular the generosity of the family towards the poor, and their reluctance to press for payment of debts. The situation was compounded by a famine in the area, during which the government distributed free flour, thus bankrupting Bernadette's father. The family was evicted from the Mill, and eventually became so poor that the only refuge they could find was the Cachot - the old jail which had been condemned as too unhealthy a place to house criminals.

En route to the Cachot we passed the house bought for the family by the bishop after Bernadette had gone to the convent at Nevers...

We ended the tour with a visit to the parish church. It isn't the one which existed at the time of St. Bernadette - that burned down - but it does still have the Baptismal font where St. Bernadette was baptised. Unfortunately there was a Mass being celebrated, so we couldn't have much of a look round...

I did manage to get our group to pose in front of the statue of Dean Peyremale (one of Fr. Tim's heroes, I think.)

The tour guide indicated that the last place we were due to visit was the English Bookshop, where we would be given coffee. None of our group was keen on the idea and so we finished the tour here. I was starting to feel the effects of the hills and cobbles (I think my Guardian Angel had been working overtime up to that point, pushing me up the hills to ensure that I didn't give up!) and I returned to our hotel for a short rest before lunch...

There are a few more photos from the tour and the rest of Day 2 on my Flickr page.

And Here We Are...

The Blackfen pilgrimage started this morning with Low Mass at the Lady Altar. Annie Elizabeth's eldest son kindly gave up the opportunity to have a Bank Holiday Monday lie-in and served the Mass... this was after a Sunday where, at the ripe old age of 12, he MC'd the Sunday Missa Cantata, served two consecutive Baptisms and then served Mass for Fr. Michael Mary of the Transalpine Redemptorists who happened to have dropped by with Brother Martin for a visit. Give that young man a medal...

The pilgrimage group is very small this year - several people expressed an interest, but then pulled out. However, I think I've managed to get a good programme of events lined up. We don't have a server, unless someone happens to materialise, so it will be Low Mass each day, but the silence and stillness of Low Mass has a special charm once you get to appreciate that silence doesn't mean "doing nothing!"

The journey by minibus from Blackfen to Heathrow was uneventful, and the Groups check-in at Terminal 5 was wonderfully smooth. Security was a bit of a pain - taking laptops and kindles out of bags when the bags are being x-rayed anyway seems a little excessive - but there was still time for people to go and get lunch or do a little shopping.

British Airways are very civilized about seat allocations, so we didn't have a mad scramble, and the flight was pretty straightforward - even the turbulence announced by the captain didn't disturb my gin and tonic. Once at Toulouse we were met by another driver who had been sent to collect us. Rush hour traffic in Toulouse is no joke, but once we were in the suburbs it was all plain sailing. I was able to put my mobile phone camera through its paces, and was delighted to find that it coped really well with the rapidly-moving landscape - I am even more impressed by the phone's capabilities than before!

Dinner was waiting for us in the hotel when we arrived. The hotel is lovely - it reminds me of an Agatha Christie novel (minus the bodies and the Belgian detective) and I wanted to get some new photos on my phone camera. My knee and ankle are playing up - a combination of travel and rather wet weather - so I thought I'd skip tonight's Torchlight Procession, and I'm now enjoying a cup of gorgeous hot chocolate before retiring.

I've brought the laptop and so plan to blog about each day's activities. If anyone is in Lourdes and wants to join us for Mass, tomorrow it is in the Jeanne d'Arc Chapel (in the Upper Basilica) at 3pm. 

And in case anyone is around, on Wednesday morning we will be in Bartrès for Mass in the parish church at 10am...

Lourdes Pilgrimage Approaches...

The time of the Blackfen Parish Pilgrimage to Lourdes is rapidly approaching. It's been three years since the last one, so I'm really looking forward to it. Mass every day according to the usus antiquior will be a real treat. Sadly we don't have any servers with us, so it will have to be Low Mass...

Fortunately we have managed to get the same hotel as before - it's a wonderful place, with a real family atmosphere... and it's less than five minutes' walk from the Domaine. I'm still waiting to hear from the Parish Priest of Lourdes, to find out if we can use the church Crypt for Mass on two of the days. We are having Mass in the church at Bartrès - the only church that St. Bernadette actually attended regularly (the church in Lourdes burnt down, and only the Baptismal font is original, while the Basilica itself wasn't finished until she had gone to Nevers. She did visit the Crypt of the Immaculate Conception Basilica, but only a few times.)

I am looking forward to getting some really good photos with my latest mobile phone, which performs far better than the digital camera I have. If, however, you really can't wait to get a dose of Lourdes, do go over and visit Richard Collins, of Linen on the Hedgerow,who has written lots about his recent pilgrimage. He even managed to get a picture of a cat and dedicated it to this blog (Mewlier Fortis, indeed!!)

Richard wondered why there were always so many women in the queue for the baths compared to the number of men. I think the women's queue just appears to be longer - we take much more time to get undressed, wrapped, dunked and dressed again... there are more bits of apparel, and they do rather need to be adjusted "just so" for the sake of modesty!

The Point Of Catholic Blogging...

Following some of the controversy surrounding the closure of Nick Donnelly's blog, Protect the Pope, the Catholic Herald decided to run a feature on the point of Catholic blogging. Contributions were sought, from five "incisive" bloggers, on the role blogging should play in the life of the Church.

That the Catholic Herald should ask Bishop Philip Egan for a contribution was no surprise, as he considered the point of Catholic blogging in his Lenten pastoral letter - this had already gone the rounds of the blogosphere due to his excellent press officer. Fr. Timothy Finigan's contribution was also unsurprising - he writes regularly for the paper, and his blog is one of the most popular Catholic blogs in the UK. Joseph Shaw, as Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, has been blogging up a storm over various key issues in the life of the Church. Elizabeth Scalia, who blogs as The Anchoress, is one of the really hard-hitting bloggers in the US, and she is also the Managing Editor of the Catholic Portal on Patheos.

And blogger number five was me...

I was extremely taken aback to be asked for my opinion - my posting has been sporadic of late. This reaction was echoed on Twitter when Bruvver Eccles asked if the Catholic Herald had started up a column about cats...

@AdamCC92 @MulierFortis Didn't see the most recent CH. Have they started a column about cats?

— Eccles (@BruvverEccles) May 8, 2014

I do think that blogging forms a vital tool for evangelisation in the Church today, and one where lay people have a major part to play. Do go over and read the articles if you haven't done so already...

A Three-Mouse Night...

There haven't been any additions to the kitty kill count in the sidebar since Miaowrini's initial post-operative mouse. I was beginning to wonder if, after proving that she could still catch things, Miaowrini had decided to retire as an active hunter.

The local rodent population may also have become complacent. Last night, just as I was settling down to sleep, Miaowrini brought in a live mouse. Furretti then pulled rank, and started to push the mouse around a bit. I decided to intervene, and the mouse was rescued and dropped out of my bedroom window. I watched it scamper off.

This morning there were two dead mice by the front door.

I'm not entirely certain that this isn't a warning...

Queen Of The May...

We had the Crowning of Our Lady's statue at Blackfen this morning after the 9am Mass, along with chanting of the Litany of Loreto...

You can see a few more photos on Flickr.

A Sorry State Of Affairs...

The excellent blog, Protect the Pope, is to close down. It was started in 2010 to help to highlight and counter increased levels of hostility and anti-Catholic propoganda being spread in the run-up to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK.

In the past four years, Deacon Nick Donnelly has worked tirelessly to bring instances of anti-Catholic sentiment and activity in the media to public attention, and to offer counter-arguments. Usually he has done this by making a simple statement of what the Catholic Church teaches.

Unfortunately, in clearly stating and defending the doctrines of Holy Mother Church, Deacon Donnelly has helped to highlight dissent from those doctrines when it comes from those members of the Church who should know better. The inaction of the hierarchy of the Church in England and Wales in countering open dissent has been exposed.

It would appear that such exposition has ruffled more than a few episcopal feathers.

Bishop Campbell first ordered Deacon Donnelly to stop blogging at the beginning of March for a period of prayer and reflection, and then, at the end of April, refused permission for him to resume blogging. Bishop Campbell also indicated that he wished others to stop posting on the blog on Deacon Donnelly's behalf.

Deacon Donnelly takes his vow of obedience to his Ordinary very seriously, and so, as he explined to The Catholic Herald, he is closing the blog.

The injustice of the silencing of Deacon Donnelly (who only writes in defence of the Church's teaching) while other dissenting voices are allowed to continue unchallenged is almost inexplicable.

One rather obvious conclusion which might be drawn is that certain members of the hierarchy may, in fact, be in sympathy with the dissent, and wish such views to be allowed to be expressed without opposition from Catholics loyal to Church teaching...

Photo Editing...

At the beginning of the year my phone was due for an upgrade. I decided that I was getting too old to squint at a tiny screen, and opted for a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which is large, but not excessively so. I had been very happy with the camera on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and was unsure as to what improvements they could have made. I think I take pretty good photos (albeit of the point-and-click variety) and so at first I didn't bother too much with the many editing options on the phone itself.

However, I've photographed pretty much all of the main celebrations at Blackfen, and I thought I should play around with the camera settings a little more. Two weeks ago I posted a photo of the Sanctuary at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen, which I had edited to look as if it was a framed pencil sketch. Several people commented on how much they liked it, and this has encouraged me to experiment a little more. Maundy Thursday provided me with a few good shots...

Not all of the photos I took were suitable for the pencil-sketch treatment - too much "background noise" in some of them meant that they didn't quite seem to work. I decided to play around with my phone's "vintage" setting for Good Friday...

Finally I took a few experimental shots at the Easter Vigil. This one was in sepia...

And I thought the vintage setting looked rather good, muting the yellow gold of the vestments...

The original photos, as well as a few other edited ones can be seen on my Flickr pages for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil, so do go and have a look, and tell me what you think in the com box...

Bleeding Hearts...

There is a great kerfuffle going around on the interwebz. There seems to be a serious security weakness in the OpenSSL software used by several sites which could render users vulnerable to having sensitive data such as passwords stolen.

Horror stories about viruses, hacks and impending meltdowns aren't exactly new, and I was tempted to ignore heartbleed as more of the same. But the acknowledgement by several of the big sites such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook that they have looked into the problem and applied security patches suggested that it was something to take seriously.

The problem is ostensibly very simple to resolve - by changing one's password. There is a catch: there is no point changing one's password unless the affected website has applied a security patch, otherwise the new password will be just as vulnerable as the old one.

Sophie Curtis of The Telegraph has provided a link to check a site's URL to see if it is affected by the bug. Even more helpfully, she has compiled a list of some of the more common websites with a summary of its status and whether or not it is necessary to change one's password.

I have to hold my hand up and admit that I have been shockingly lax in setting passwords - I basically had one for work and one for personal use, and I had been assured that they were "strong" passwords by each site on which I'd used them... the thought of trying to generate and remember unique passwords for each secure site I use made me blench. But since I now have to change my passwords anyway, I have bitten the bullet and set up a password manager which does the random generator thing for me. It even has an app for the phone. The disadvantage is that the master key which opens the password manager isn't stored anywhere. It's also an extremely time-consuming process.

Now I just have to make sure that I don't forget the master key...

Passiontide Begins...

I couldn't resist playing with the photo-editing options on my mobile phone...

The End Of The Saga...

It has been twelve weeks since Miaowrini's accident, ten and a half weeks since the operation and four weeks since her final check-up. Part of me wanted her to remain an indoor cat, but while Furretti would be happy enough to stay permanently on the sofa, Miaowrini likes to get out and about.

After a slightly more-than-usually bad-tempered spat between the kitties, I decided that the time had come to open up the cat flap...

When it came to the moment of truth, Miaowrini actually proved slightly hesitant about leaving the safety of the cat flap. She sat for a while on the top shelf, enjoying the breeze and keeping a wary eye out for the other local moggies. Finally she jumped down. I can't see the garden from my flat, but one of my neighbours promised to keep an eye out for trouble, and I assumed that, having been cooped up for so long, Miaowrini would take full advantage of her freedom and would probably not come home until the wee small hours.

I told myself that I had to be sensible about it...

I needn't have worried. After about half an hour, Miaowrini returned. I wanted to get another video of her walking around, but she wasn't having any of it. She demonstrated her complete disdain, in true feline fashion, by settling down to wash herself. Furretti, on the other hand, was feeling neglected, and decided to try and gatecrash the video session...

Finally, this evening I was given incontrovertible proof that, apart from a little stiffness, Monsignor Miaowrini has made a complete recovery. The cat flap banged a short while ago, and Furretti abandoned my lap. As I had been feeding her slivers of cod, this indicated something unusual. I went to investigate. Sure enough, Miaowrini had caught a mouse and had brought it home to play...

I have never been so pleased to see a mouse in the house...

Vestigial Traces Of Hope...

The latest story to hit the MSM has been sparked by a documentary on Channel 4, due to be aired tonight, which reveals that hospitals have been burning the bodies of aborted and miscarried babies as clinical waste, and then using the energy released to heat the hospitals.

The Dispatches programme hasn't been shown yet, but I note that, at the time of writing this post, a Daily Telegraph article about it has already attracted over 1800 comments, and has been shared countless times via Facebook and Twitter. The majority of comments have expressed outrage, horror and shock. There have even been a few international bloggers deploring the state to which the UK has sunk.

I do not wish to defend what has been done. But I do find the response interesting.

After all, health professionals are very careful not to draw anyone's attention to the fact that abortion kills babies. Chemical abortion is the ideal - the earlier the better - with suggestions that the process is more easily completed in the privacy of a woman's own home, so that any unfortunate evidence can be disposed of directly down the lavatory bowl without much chance of catching sight of any inconvenient details suggesting a dead baby. Surgical abortion by aspiration is so brutal that the vacuum pump acts as a blender, and no-one has to look too closely. Later-term abortions, where the baby is delivered piecemeal, are harder to rationalise away as "products of conception" or mere "blobs of tissue".

Despite the fact that improvements in ultrasound scans and the ease of producing photos make the lies harder to maintain, there are very few pro-choice campaigners honest enough to admit that abortion involves killing a baby.

Having gone to all the trouble of convincing us that abortion is a simple, routine procedure akin to having one's teeth filled, is it likely that hospitals would then want to suggest otherwise by presenting a woman with her dead baby to be buried or cremated with due ceremony? Even to mention that the remains are to be cremated by the hospital might raise uncomfortable questions - after all, one does not expect to be told that one's appendix is going to be cremated once removed. It is just disposed of as clinical waste. And the safest way to dispose of clinical waste is by incineration.

The Telegraph headline "Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals" is therefore rather misleading, as it suggests that the babies were deliberately and specifically incinerated with a view to reducing the heating bills. That is nonsensical, and I consider it sensationalist (and sloppy) reporting. Other reports have used similarly emotive phrases.

Nevertheless, the almost visceral response to the news does give me some cause for hope. The outrage over the inappropriate disposal of aborted babies suggests that people recognise (albeit on an unconscious level) that the unborn baby is not just clinical waste but is a human being in its own right.

Recognising the humanity of the unborn is a small step in the right direction in the fight against abortion. Now we have to help make that recognition explicit.

World Down Syndrome Day...

March 21st is World Down's Syndrome Day. We don't see so many people with Down's Syndrome as we did back in my childhood. Unfortunately this is not because anyone has found a cure. What happens is that the prenatal screening carried out aims to eradicate the syndrome by identifying the babies who carry the extra chromosome and "encouraging" the parents to have an abortion.

All sorts of arguments are used to explain the dreadful lack in quality of life that the child will experience in order to get parents to make the "right" decision. It seems to work, because, according to the most common statistic I've seen on the internet, over 90% of babies with Down's Syndrome in America are aborted. That works out as 9 out of every ten babies. And, in 2009, a report in the Daily Telegraph estimated that three babies with Down's were aborted every day.

People are attempting to redress the balance. Francis Phillips, who has a child with Down's, has posted an excellent article in the Catholic Herald on the topic, and she highlighted the following video...

Some people suggest that by aborting the babies with the abnormality the disorder will be eradicated. However, it doesn't work like that. The chromosomal abnormality is caused by the faulty division of chromosomes in the gametes of the mother - two copies of chromosome 21 are carried in an egg rather than one, and when the egg is fertilised, the sperm adds another copy. The faulty division of chromosomes is impossible to eradicate because of its random nature (it's a mutation) - though the frequency of this fault is known to increase as a woman gets older.

So the destruction of foetuses with Down's Syndrome is akin to killing an individual who suffered a major disability through an accident or illness in later life...

Oh, sorry, I forgot. That sort of thing is being done already.

The Pitfalls Of Cat-Friendly Cafés...

I suppose it was the next logical step from the stunt pulled by Ikea when it let 100 furry felines loose in one of the stores overnight. Presumably people just aren't satisfied with the knowledge that the cats had been on the furniture...

A Turin café-owner has decided that her customers need the opportunity to be surrounded by cats whilst they enjoy an espresso. Despite being a catoholic, I forsee one or two problems with this.

I suspect that the café will suffer an increased problem with shoplifters - wouldn't you be tempted to opt for an extra "take-away," especially if it actually crawled into your shopping bag of its own volition. Bags and boxes are well-documented kitty-magnets.

There will also be the high probability of an increased problem with stray hairs in the gelato. Even with just two kitties, I find that cat hairs regularly adorn my tea towels.

And finally, I suspect that the sales of coffee will go down. Very few cats like coffee. On the other hand, sales of saucers of milk will increase, but I think that these are less lucrative for café owners...

Counting Down To Easter...

Twitch of the mantilla to Bones for this little widget to remind us how much more time is left to endure the misery of being unable to eat chocolate sorry, to enjoy preparing for the Easter Season...

Having A Minor Rant...

I am seriously annoyed.

I realise that all is not well in the Catholic Church in England & Wales. That much is obvious when The Bitter Pill takes regular swipes at Church teaching on morality and pro-life issues and goes unchecked, unrebuked and often unremarked.

However, I feel that things have become rather serious when a usually sound Catholic publication such as The Catholic Herald* contains leaflets on behalf of the Alzheimer's Society.

Alzheimer's disease is awful - my grandfather suffered from it. But the Alzheimer's Society supports (and funds) stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research in its search for a treatment or cure for the disease.

In other words, babies are being created in the laboratory in order to provide cells for research. Possibly aborted babies are being used as well.

I am therefore horrified to see that Catholic papers (however indirectly) are giving support to the fundraising for such research.

Rant over.

*To be fair, The Universe had the leaflets as well... but I expect better from The Catholic Herald.

The Boys From Brasil...

When trying to describe where Blackfen is, I have usually resorted to approximations such as "the border between South-East London and Kent" and "just inside the M25 near the Dartford Tunnel" or occasionally "quite near Greenwich."

However, I think that I will have to change all that - from now on it will be "Westminster Cathedral? Oh, it's quite near Blackfen..."

Blackfen is quite the up-and-coming travel destination, it seems... at least, it is if you are a Brazilian seminarian at the Institut du Bon Pasteur, France, and you want to attend the Traditional Latin Mass on a Sunday! One of the seminarians is an avid blog-reader, and has been following His Hermeneuticalness from well before he entered seminary.

Six seminarians came to visit on Quinquagesima Sunday. Three of them joined the choir and sang the propers and a couple of other pieces at the Offertory and at Communion. The other three served on the Sanctuary. They were lovely chaps, and told us that their seminary is at a bit of a crisis point, as they have 33 seminarians and five priests, but have only got 28 rooms in two houses. Prayers would be very much appreciated.

I'm afraid that my vanity was given full rein: "Ahhh! So you're Mulier Fortis...!"

There are a few more photos on Flickr.

The End Is In Sight...

The three readers of this blog who appear to be ailurophobic can breathe a sigh of relief - I think that the number of kitty-related posts will return to pre-Miaowrini's-accident frequency.

This might mean that I post even more irregularly than of late...

To be fair, I haven't posted anything about cats for a whole month... not since the post on my last visit to the vet.

Anyway, it's time for an update. I had started to let Miaowrini spend the day wandering around the sitting room during the day, and then putting her back in the cage at night. That seemed to go well, and then, after my return from Ampleforth, I went a step further, and allowed her to roam around the flat for a few hours when I got home.

Letting her stay out and about all night was the next big thing. On the first night she managed to get up to the top of the wardrobe... and then couldn't get down. I managed to manoeuvre the suitcase down (with her on top) and so disaster was averted. The second night, Furretti had bagged the spot on top of the wardrobe, and was repelling all boarders. Miaowrini retired, in a huff.

The silence which followed was so profound that I became nervous, and went in search of her. I found her, curled up in the cage, which quite brought a lump to my throat!

The third night was rather chilly. Miaowrini promptly rediscovered the delights of sleeping on my bed.

This evening I took Miaowrini to the vet for a further check-up. The vet examined her carefully, and then nearly gave me a heart attack when he told me that her knee was swollen. Just as I was berating myself for being irresponsible in letting the cat out of the cage, the vet then told me that this swelling was totally normal, and that the cat would possibly be prone to arthritis in later years. He declared himself delighted with her progress (as well as being pretty amazed by it) though he added that he sincerely hoped that he never came across such a severe injury ever again.

The really good news is that Miaowrini doesn't have to go back for any further check-ups unless I get worried about something. She is not allowed outside, however, so the catflap must remain firmly locked for another four weeks or so. She is still falling off the occasional windowsill...

Nevertheless, a little celebration was in order. The two cages I borrowed from Annie Elizabeth were both duly dismantled (a task which was reminiscent of the puzzle challenge on the Krypton Factor - putting the cages up seemed much easier).

And tonight Miaowrini and Furretti are both curled up on my bed, fast asleep.

God is in his heaven. All is right with the world...

Photos From Ampleforth...

My super-dooper, all-singing-and-dancing Galaxy Note 3 may have been stymied by poor internet and phone connectivity out in the middle of nowhere (sorry, North Yorkshire) but the camera function on the phone is rather special. I have had a great deal of fun playing with various settings, but the simple point-and-click option works rather well.

Much of the weather was grey and damp, but there were some glimpses of sunshine on a couple of occasions, and I decided to go for a little wander around...

You can see the rest of my photos over on Flickr.