Happy 4th of July

Currently 30% of this blog's readers are from the United States of America. So may I wish you a very happy day today if you are celebrating in the land of the free and the home of the brave. God bless America!

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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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Saint Gabriel

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The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
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Blessing of the New Painting of St Bede at Clapham Park

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This morning, the parish priest at Clapham Park, Fr Marcus Holden, blessed a new picture of the parish's patron, Saint Bede, painted by James Tildsley. It is sited over a recently installed side altar near the rear of the Church. The altar itself was acquired from Antique Church Furnishings . The website gives the information that the altar was built and carved by a nun in a convent near Liverpool. It is a beautiful piece of work and it is always a joy when such works of art find a suitable and dignified home. The inscription on the gradine is AMANS AMATUS AMOR. The sellers translate this as “Loving is the object of love” which is a reasonable stab at “dynamic equivalence”. Today the parish's relic of St Bede was exposed for veneration in its distinctive brightly-coloured reliquary. After the blessing, there was High Mass with Fr Holden as celebrant, Fr Littleton deacon, and myself subdeacon. That gave me the enjoyable task of chant...
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Rogationtide and the Prayer of Petition

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Rogationtide is traditionally a time of prayer in preparation for the Ascension; England was one of the earliest countries to spread the custom. In Rome, fasting but not abstinence was observed, a concession to the continuing joy of Easter. Challoner mentions abstinence in the 1775 edition of his Garden of the Soul, but it had gone by the 1872 edition. Guéranger lamented that the Rogation days were so little noticed. At the very least, this time reminds us that it is always a good idea to pray and do some penance before great feasts. The prayer of this Rogationtide emphasises our need to implore the forgiveness of our sins, protection from calamities such as pestilence, and a bountiful harvest. We therefore keep in our hearts not only the needs that we have ourselves, but also the welfare of all those among whom we live. In the past, plagues and pestilence would usually be associated with famine. As we take for granted the sup...
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The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

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  In 320 AD, 40 soldiers of the Roman army’s Legio XII Fulminata, garrisoned at Sebaste, in Armenia, were executed under the orders of the Emperor Licinius who ruled of the eastern part of the empire and and opposed the policy of Constantine who had freed Christianity. The feast of these martyrs is also an appropriate occasion to pray for the civil power. We ask the intercession of the 40 martyrs for those who act to oppose the law permitting the killing of the unborn, and laws which contradict our nature which is affirmed in the book of Genesis “Male and female He created them”. We also thank God for the gifts both of nature and grace that he gives us daily. PICTURE CREDIT: Wikimedia. Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. Anagoria .
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