The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Thanks to Anne in the combox for notice of two devotional blogs which deserve to be known about: Eucharistic Adoration for Priests (as requested by Pope Benedict) and Grateful for Purgatory "but aiming for heaven!" - both by "One Grateful Heart", a wife, mother and grandmother.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade! At Blackfen we saw in the New Year as we have done for some years now, by an hour of adoration from 11pm, concluding with Benediction and the singing of the Te Deum to thank God for all the graces and blessings He has given to us during the past year. This morning, after Mass, we sang the Veni Creator Spiritus to ask for His grace for the coming year. Both devotions are enriched by the Church with a plenary indulgence - and as we know, plenary indulgences are not impossible . Here is a video taken by Mulier Fortis of the singing of the Te Deum. After the parish Mass, I went up to central London, to the beautiful Church of St James's, Spanish Place, to assist as subdeacon at High Mass which has been organised for many years by the Latin Mass Society . This is the first time that I have joined this celebration and it was really most impressive; the Church was full, and there were several clergy in choir, the senior member being the illustrious ...

I have had a lot of very positive feedback from people who came to the 40 Hours devotion in the parish. This has all confirmed my own enthusiasm for it and I am sure we will be able to do even better next year. The Mulier Fortis has posted more photos, some of which I have pasted in below. The young people who stayed all through the second night had breakfast together in the Hall in the morning. The adult helpers deserve a pat on the back for their generosity too, in supervising and making sure that everyone was safe. The next photo of the consecration at the Mass of Reposition is unusual in that Mass is celebrated coram sanctissimo . During this form of Mass, the priest does quite a bit more genuflecting than usual and does not at any time turn his back on the Blessed Sacrament. After Mass, I had the incongruous thought of the scene in "Gladiator" where the gladiators are told to face the emperor "AND DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON HIM". At the incensations, the prie...

For the second night of our Forty Hours devotion, we had a Missa Cantata (the Mass for Peace) at the Lady altar. It was a little cramped so we only had the MC, thurfier, two acolytes and two torchbearers. I was proud that all the servers were under 15 years old. My sermon drew largely from Pope Benedict's writing on truth and conscience since I am reading his little book on conscience at the moment. Tonight the Youth Group are staying all night. After Mass they got in some fish and chips and we watched the film about St Thérèse ( Amazon link below ) which came out a couple of years ago. It was perhaps a little slow for some of the younger ones but the second half of the film is quite moving, and rewarded those who persevered. During this time, there was a good number of people watching in the Church and, after the film, the youngsters went in to take a turn. I have been very pleased that the devotion has gone so well. Putting on the Forty Hours is daunting in a one man parish, bu...

This evening our Forty Hours in the parish began with the splendid ceremonies of the Missa Cantata , followed by the Blessed Sacrament Procession and the Litany of the Saints. For my sermon, I emphasised first of all the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ, without which this devotion would be meaningless. I also spoke of the fruits of the Holy Eucharist in terms of our union with Christ and the pledge of future glory, but especially of the unity of the Church. In this respect I was inspired by Fr Zuhlsdorf's post " Whose ecumenism? " in which he suggests that we should start calling Pope Benedict The Pope of Christian Unity Pope Benedict has begun to "walk the walk" rather than simply "talk the talk" on ecumenism, providing for the real and concrete prospect of unity with those Anglicans who share our faith. It would be insulting to refer to negotiations with the SSPX as "ecumenism" but the Holy Father has unambiguously set out his motiv...

This week, we have the Forty Hours Devotion at Blackfen. This is the first time we have had this at Blackfen for decades, and it is in fact the first time that I have taken part in the devotion. We begin with Missa Cantata at 8pm on Thursday, with Procession and Litany. There is an English Mass at 10am on Friday, then a Missa Cantata at 8pm. The devotion concludes with Missa Cantata on Saturday at 10.30am with Litany and Procession. I was nervous before the weekend as people had been slow to sign up. The parish Youth Group are going to be there all night Friday to Saturday and then the excellent Knights of St Columba said that they would cover any slots unsigned for. Now, however, most of the hours are covered and so the Knights can choose their times to provide a little extra security for others. Of course, if you are in the vicinity of Blackfen, you are most welcome to call in to make a visit at any time. I pray that this devotion will bring many blessings upon my parish, not leas...

In addition to the magnificent crowds gathered at Aylesford yesterday , there was the Rosary Crusade of Reparation in Central London. Some of my parishioners went to this and were overwhelmed by the large crowd gathered for the procession from Wesminster Cathedral to the London Oratory where the day concluded with devotions and Benediction. Above is a picture from a small section of the over 2,000 crowd that came a couple of years ago when I was able to attend. It gives you a flavour of the international character of these events. It was possibly an unfortunate calendar clash that today also saw the Day With Mary at Westminster Cathedral. Nevertheless this was also well attended with hundreds of devout faithful taking part in Mass, processions and devotions to our Lady and to the Blessed Sacrament. So here is the Rocket Science Examination: UNIVERSITY OF THE FLIPPIN' OBVIOUS Bachelor of Commonsense Honours Degree Examination Rocket Science Level I (Faculty of drawing conclusions fr...

Rorate Caeli has published a good article by Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon on Interior participation and devotions during Mass . He comments on the idea of full and active participation in the Liturgy and how this was interpreted superficially in terms of physical activity. Thus there was a great increase in “participation” through recitation of the Mass parts in English, reading the scriptures, leading the prayers of the faithful, and singing, but whether this actually led to a deepened “full and active participation” in the Holy Sacrifice on the part of the congregation as envisioned by the Council is certainly questionable. It is legitimate to wonder whether my grandparents were not just as fully and actively participating in the Eucharistic Sacrifice even though their participation would have had all of the external appearances of great passivity. His comments on devotions are also important, especially during the month of the Precious Blood. In his Apostolic Letter Inde a P...

One blog that escaped my blogroll until now is Holy Cards For Your Inspiration by Micki from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She posts beautiful pictures of (mainly vintage) holy cards. I would only warn you that it is possible to spend far too much time browsing this site... Translation of the text on the above card: [ At the top :] The pause on the journey -- or the daily visit. [ At the bottom :] It is only there that my heart is at rest. Everything is taken away from my sight before that tabernacle. If someone were to ask me, "Where is your happiness?" -- I would answer, "Look! Jesus, through a miracle, has placed His home in the midst of my exile."

I received a question today regarding the Divine Mercy chaplet. My correspondent says that many years ago, the words on the small beads of the chaplet started, 'Through the most sorrowful passion of Jesus etc... More recently, these have been changed to, 'For the sake of His sorrowful passion etc... This might seem a minor thing but I do take the point that it removes the repetition of the Holy Name of Jesus. I remember that at the 99 names of Allah prayer vigil I led the Divine Mercy chaplet and afterwards there was some light-hearted discussion on an SSPX forum about whether they should have joined in with me. I would be interested to know if this was because of the newer wording or whether there is another issue in debate. St Faustina's works were placed on the index of forbidden books by Pope John XXIII in 1959 at the request of Cardinal Ottaviani who was Prefect of the Holy Office. One account of this puts it down to a faulty translation of St Faustina's works. O...

In my parish, we have Stations of the Cross every Friday evening in Lent. One year I noticed a young lad following me round at each station (our stations are one the wall of the nave so most people just stay in their place as I go round - this is OK for the indulgence.) After a couple of weeks, I invited him to serve, I don't normally allow servers to start until they have made their first Communion but if they turn up for Stations or Benediction, I stretch a point. Things have gathered apace. This evening, we had three new young servers (soon to make first Communion) who tagged along with the older ones, keeping their hands joined reverently throughout. Afterwards we had a little practice, going through how to genuflect together and then kneel down in unison. Brick by brick...

One of my favourite devotions is to make the Stations of the Cross. I even have a set of meditations on the Stations on my mobile phone so that if I am away anywhere and do not have any book of meditations, I can always use them. The saints who wrote on the spiritual life tell us that the passion of Christ is always a worthy subject of meditation and the Stations are a good way of framing such prayer. Family Publications have recently published two fine pamphlets with the Stations. First of all, there is the shorter set of meditations by Cardinal Newman . These are included in his "Meditations and Devotions" - I have a copy from 1893 which I picked up many years ago as a student. Family Publications have set them out in a fine glossy pamphlet with good illustrations. A second set is by Fr Dominic Allain, a fellow-columnist for the Catholic Herald. It is a courageous thing for a priest to set out in print his thoughts on the Stations and I felt it was a privilege to read Fath...

Climbing up a step-ladder in a cope is one of the more challenging liturgical feats but it was necessary today in order to crown the statue of Our Lady of Fatima brought by the "Day With Mary" team. After processing round the streets saying the Rosary, we returned to the Church for Mass. The policy of the "Day With Mary" is to accept the direction of the local parish priest as to whichform the Mass is in - Saturday morning is one of our two regular weekly Masses in teh  usus antiquior and the Sisters of the Immaculate were happy to sing the Salve Sancta Parens Mass together with the Missa cum Iubilo . We borrowed a fine set of Marian vestments for the day. Fr Agnellus FI took care of the Blessed Sacrament Procession and Benediction in the afternoon - I assisted him for Benediction, climbing the step-ladder to fetch down the monstrance only without cope this time. Today's Day With Mary was our best attended ever, with a full Church for much of the Day. It is a ...

Happy New Year to all of you. Let us pray for one another that God will grant us many graces during 2009. Many thanks to Emile-James of Vocation Station for sending this video of some Marian chants from Fontgombault for the solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of God. After getting back from Stonyhurst last night, we had adoration of the Blessed Sacrament concluding with Benediction and the singing of the Te Deum at midnight to thank God for the graces and benefits we have received from Him during the past year. It was kind of the people of Blackfen to accompany the Te Deum with fireworks :-) This morning we sang the Veni Creator Spiritus after Mass to implore God's help for the coming year. A plenary indulgence can be gained by devoutly assisting at the solemn singing or recitation in a Church or Oratory of the Te Deum on 31 December and the Veni Creator on 1 January.

Radiant Light , the website for the devotional and instructional paintings by Elizabeth Wang, has produced a Lesson Plan for Teachers . This can be used in various areas of the curriculum and, of course, would be a valuable resource for homeschoolers. The lesson plan includes questions and activities. It is great to hear that the website will soon include a larger collection of about 600 free high quality pictures that can be downloaded freely for non-commercial use.

This year, the meditations for the Via Crucis at the Colosseum have been written by Cardinal Zen, the Bishop of Hong Kong. The Stations offer reflections on different moments in the passion of Our Lord but they do not correspond to the standard set that we usually have in Churches. The meditations are illustrated by Chinese style pictures from the Archive of the General House of the Society of the Divine Word. The texts on the Vatican website are in Italian: I am sure these will all be translated in due course but here is one example. Sixth Station Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns From the Gospel according to Mark 15, 15b.17-19 Pilate, having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on him. 18 And they began to salute him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" 19 And they struck his head with a reed, and spat upon him, and they knelt down in homage to him. MEDITATION The scourging in use a...

Up in London this afternoon, I took the opportunity to visit the Padre Pio bookshop in Vauxhall Bridge Road. These are good people who love the Catholic faith. Downstairs, there is an amazing chapel with a wide variety of devotional statues and pictures. Mass is regularly celebrated and there are public prayers every day. The shop has all sorts of books, especially relating to Catholic devotions that you can't always find elsewhere. I picked up half a dozen things there including the TAN collection of prayers to St Joseph. Another book that caught my eye (and my credit card) was Fr Jack Spaulding's "Holy Boldness" which is a book written specifically about the spiritual life of the secular priest. A video about the message of Fatima and a leaflet with St Pio's advice on how to behave in Church have also found their way to the presbytery. A thing I really love doing is to go to these places where people give their lives for the faith and try to convey the message t...

Calling in to the parish Youth Group this evening, find that they had two activities on offer after prayers: make-up for the girls and bicycle maintenance for the boys. Run by an enthusiastic group of parents, this group has made a great start and I hope that they will be able to join in some of the various activities that can link them with other young Catholics. Then over to St Mary's Chislehurst where I catch the Friday Benediction after Mass. There is something very pleasant for a parish priest about being able to kneel down in the Church while another priest gets on with giving Benediction and then venerating the image of St John Fisher in the beautiful stained-glass window that they have in the South Wall of the nave. Fr Charles, the parish priest of St Mary's and a fellow alumnus of the English College, Rome, is the Diocesan Archvist and usually visits Archbishop's House on a Thursday. It is good to keep in touch with topics of conversation in the Diocese.

Don Marco left a comment about the Blessing of Roses in his parish for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. He says, It is customary in some places to bless roses on October 7th in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary. I intend to buy roses tomorrow: five pink roses for the Joyful Mysteries, five white for the Luminous Mysteries, five red for the Sorrowful Mysteries, and five yellow for the Glorious Mysteries. They will be placed before the image of the Blessed Virgin during Holy Mass and blessed after the Postcommunion. The petals of these blessed roses may be given to the sick or kept in the home as a pledge of the intercession of the Mother of God and of divine protection. Then he gives a prayer of blessing. Have a look at the blog called Vultus Christi . "Don Marco" is Father Mark Daniel Kirby, O.Cist., a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, which is located in Rome. He serves as chaplain to the Benedictines of Jesus Crucified at the Monastery of the ...