After my parish Mass this morning, I set off on what the AA estimate as a journey of one hour and twenty minutes. I actually queued for an hour just getting through Tunbridge Wells and the whole trip took about two and a half hours. Later I realised that the reason for the delay was traffic diverted off the M25 which was closed for most of the day. I assumed that someone had been killed as this is what usually gets the motorway actually closed. Thank God, there was just one person seriously injured - say a prayer for their recovery. The pile-up between junctions 6 and 7 on the clockwise carriageway involved two lorries, a car and a van - and 30 tons of plasterboard strewn across the road.
On the journey, I enjoyed the remainder of a sermon on judgement and one on hell from the FSSP sermon series. I also got in the Stations of the Cross courtesy of Keep the Faith.
The people waiting for Mass were very patient. As it was the extraordinary form, I said Mass without preaching and promised a sermon after lunch. It was great to see Fr Thwaites who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. He wants to start a blog but has not yet thought of a name for it. Any suggestions?
20 comments:
Fr Thwaites, i thimk you should call your up-coming Blog " Not Dead Yet" Good Luck. I have tried to start a Blog 3 times so far and have been thwarted. Praying for your Success, old boy, Bernadette.
Mass of Old Ages...?
;-)
I assumed that someone had been killed as this is what usually gets the motorway actually closed
Now, Father, remember that I managed to get all 6 lanes of the A2 closed (both directions) a while back... it's easy if you know how!
(Seriously though, Deo gratias that no-one was actually killed!)
TwaitesThwings
Karen H. -- San Diego, Ca.
Is he the Fr Thwaites who has made the "talking encyclicals" on Sonitus Sanctus? -if so please send him the highest praise and thanks for his great work. His voice, tone, timing is so perfect you are placed into the presence of the Popes themselves as they deliver their wisdom. Excellent work.
As regards a name for his blog:-
How about:
Time Thwaites for no man
Still Thwaiting for a Bishopric
Service at 90
Only say the word
P.S. Thanks for your good advice!
Fr Thwaite's blog:
Extraordinary Form, Extraordinary Pope.
Heaven Can Thwaite?
Hermeneutic With A Vengeance?
Exorcising The Spirit of Vatican II?
..just a thought
In the light of his long wait, patiently borne, for the freeing of the forma extraordinaria - a liberation I heard him foretell as ling abo as 1987, Fr Thwaites might reasonably call his blog "Gloriam plebis tuae".
Fr. Thwaites' blog is excellent news. Please keep us posted on that. I met him many years ago when he was running his urban mission in Brixton. I sort of helped out a bit with the youth club. Fr. Thwaites made a profound impression in my soul and the (little) time I spent in Brixton is one of the cornerstones in my life. I continously thank God (and my two Opus Dei friends who intrroduced me to him) for having met Fr. Thwaites.
How about using the title of a little gem of a book Fr Thwaites,
'Our Glorious Faith - and how to lose it'.
Seems very apt for the times.
God Bless.
How about "ad multos annos" as a blog name For Fr Thwaits or maybe "post multos annos" :)
Those FSSP sermons are fantastic, aren't they? They make one feel like a Catholic, if you see what I mean.
How about calling his Blog 'Extraodinary Thwings'.
No wonder your journey took a long time. That rant on hell went on for over 93 minutes, one hour and a half. I turned it off after ten. What world do these FSSP priests live in? Fr Isaac, if that is his name, has one of the most off-putting and aggressive tones of any preacher I have had the misfortune to hear. His head must be made of concrete from the neck up. And if you found it edifying, so must yours.
My own Father Thwaites anecdote:
Several years ago, I was in Glasgow on business and took the opportunity, since I happened to be passing the Jesuit church in Rose Street, to go in for evening confession. In the course of teling my sins, to my considerable mortification, my mobile went off. "Put that off when you come in here!" came growling through the grille (I wish I'd had the presence of mind to slip it through the slot and say "It's for you...").
Anyway, a fortnight later I was on my knees on the altar step of a little hospice chapel serving Mass to dear Fr Thwaites when, guess what: HIS mobile went off during the offertory. I waited with head bowed as he retreived it from under vestments and slip-cassock, came forward discreetly at what I judged to be the appropriate moment, and receiving it with a liturgical bow, bore it off to the sacristy, glowing with that inner contentment that comes to one who's had his own back on the Jesuits.
God bless him, and preserve him for many years more.
Anon - "aggressive" I can agree with. (I don't particularly mind that although it is not my style.) But "off-putting" is interesting. After several decades of us priests telling everyone how good they are, how God loves them whatever they do and how, by implication, nobody ever commits a mortal sin and everyone is going to heaven anyway, more people seem to have been "put off" the Church if measured by Mass attendance, than in the days when sermons like Fr Isaac's were expected once a year or so at the Parish Mission.
concrete head
It's useful to have a hard head if writing a blog and allowing anonymous comments :-)
I've been listening to the sermon in question and think its pretty awful too. If priests like him think that fear is the best way to fill churches there must be something wrong with them. I think there is a different motive. That kind of religion keeps people like him in work and establishes bad psychological dependencies. I think the reality is that the people will take it with a pinch of salt. They all deserve to go to heaven after being kept captive for one-and-a-half hours by this monomaniac crank. I hope he does not look as awful as his voice and manner but suspect that he might look worse, poor man. Only institutes like the FSSP would let him in, more's the pity.
GeorgeHi Gretel - are you related to Hans by any chance?
It's people like you and anonymous that are the 'concrete heads' for being utterly unable to comprehend sound Catholic Teaching when you are presented with it.
God Bless.
Gretel, do have a look at the Gospel of St. John Chapter 6 58-65. Looks like Our Lord had something to say about that.
A little charity please!
Anyway, Father, thanks for pointing out the FSSP site. I have pretty well exhausted the Keeping the Faith site's resources in a desperate attept to put to use the time it takes me to drive from the seminary I attend (in the USA) back to my diocese every other week.
Thanks again!
-Kevin USA-Seminarian
I have not heard the particular FSSP sermon on Hell, so can't comment. But the idea of the Priest as a "nice" man, saying "nice" things is brilliantly satirised in Betjeman's poem "Blame the Vicar"
"When things go wrong, its rather tame/to find we are ourselves to blame
It gets the trouble over quicker/to go and blame things on the Vicar
The Vicar after all is paid/to keep us bright and undismayed
He never swears, he never drinks/he never should say what he thinks
And if there's such a thing as Hell/he certainly should never tell
For if there is, its certain he/will go to it as well as we"
etc. etc. etc
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