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Showing posts with the label Good Counsel Network

Once an island of saints

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It has been a busy few days, liturgically speaking. On Friday, in addition to my morning English Mass, I celebrated a Missa Cantata at the chapel of the Good Counsel Network . Above is a photo (courtesy of the Ecumenical Diablog ) taken from one of my previous visits there. You can see that the chapel is quite small, so it was down to the skill of Paul Smeaton, the MC, that elbow-bumping was kept to a minimum. Yesterday was the anniversary of the dedication of Our Lady of the Rosary at Blackfen. In the morning we had Missa Cantata : Then (after I had celebrated a wedding) we sang Vespers: Vespers was followed by Benediction: Then it was just a question of evening confessions and Mass to finish off the day. Today is Rosary Sunday and so in the morning our Missa Cantata was of the external solemnity. this afternoon, we had the Rosary, a devotional procession of Our Lady, and Benediction. The photos above from yesterday are by  Mulier Fortis and I expect she will post so...
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Good Counsel plans tube adverts

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The Good Counsel Network has Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament during the day as often as possible. It is an essential part of the GCN ethos that prayer, fasting and adoration support the work of the counsellors who try to offer compassionate and practical help to women seeking abortion, so that they are able to take the decision not to abort their child. Every day they deal with some of the hardest cases of crisis pregnancy and have a remarkable success rate in persuading women that there is another way out. This afternoon I was there to give Benediction at the end of the day's adoration and had the opportunity of a sneak preview of the latest newsletter which was being stuffed into envelopes afterwards. The recently started blog Maria Stops Abortion is one of their latest initiatives in education which is also an important part of the work of the GCN. (The title of the blog is a pun on the name one of the largest abortion providers in the UK, Marie Stopes International.) T...
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New tabernacle at Good Counsel

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This afternoon I was up at the Good Counsel Network on one of my regular visits to give Benediction after the day's adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. This adoration is an essential part of the work of the Good Counsel Network. They are very much on the front line of pro-life work, providing compassionate and practical help to women who are tempted to have an abortion. The tabernacle currently in use is not large enough properly to hold the pyx which contains the Benediction host. It has to be put in (reverently, of course) on its side, in order to fit into the small tabernacle along with the ciborium. I'm delighted to see that there is now a better tabernacle (see the Maria Stops Abortion blog ) donated by a kind priest. Quite properly it has been re-gilded to make it more respectable to hold the Blessed Sacrament. The cost was £1000 - maybe someone might be able to cover this? It would help keep funds available for the vital work of safeguarding unborn children and ass...
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Support the Good Counsel Network

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There is a new website for the Good Counsel Network which has information about their work in saving unborn children and helping mothers to make a real, informed and supported choice when pressured towards having an abortion. They also support women who have had an abortion and are suffering. The help that the GCN offers is practical and immediate. If you or someone you know is pregnant and worried, go to the Real Help page. The GCN also has a new blog with the good title Maria Stops Abortion . Mary O'Regan has a good post on the modern day "Alfies" who continue to abuse women and children. (The reference is to a 1960s Michael Caine film which epitomised the worst of the sexual revolution of that era.) There is also an opportunity for any of you who feel that you maybe have a little more money in the bank than you really need and that some of it really should go in christian charity to a deserving cause. As of a couple of days ago, the Good Counsel had £50 in the ...
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Plenary indulgences not impossible

Dilexit Prior in Letters from a Young Catholic asked some useful questions today about indulgences. I thought it would be best to do a post here especially to cover the controversial question of detachment from venial sin. But first the other questions: The conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence Pope Paul VI set down a number of norms relating to indulgences at the end of Indulgentiarum Doctrina . Norm 7 states: To acquire a plenary indulgence it is necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and to fulfil three conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even to venial sin, be absent. If this disposition is in any way less than complete, or if the prescribed three conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will be only partial, except for the provisions contained in n.11 for those who are “impeded.” It is worth reading the other norms bec...
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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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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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Food at Parkminster

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The Conventual Mass at St Hugh's is at 8.15am during the week. Afterwards, I followed the custom of celebrating a private Mass as the Carthusian priests do every day. More about that later. After this and thanksgiving, the first period of manual work or study begins at 10.30am. At 11.15am, the monks say the office of Sext and then lunch arrives delivered by trolley around the cloister and placed into the hatch of each cell. Here is the lunch as it is delivered. The can on top is fresh milk. There are three trays with food in, a fruit basket and your preference of drink: The meal is taken at a shelf in the window recess, called the Refectorium . There is a personal tablecloth, a metal knife and a wooden fork and spoon to eat it with. To drink, there is a choice of fruit juice or Parkminster's home-made apple wine. It sometimes gets called cider but apple wine is probably a safer name because it is 10% abv. It is quite dry and decepively strong. I had this for the first two days ...
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Is your alb back to front?

Fr Z has initiated a roaring discussion by asking the simple question whether maniples can be used in the Novus Ordo Mass. ( What Does The Prayer Really Say?: Maniples ) One commenter has referred to an important source for the question that has proved popular among modern liturgists. An answer in Notitiae of 1978 said: "When the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing or say little on particulars in some places, it is not to be inferred that the former rite should be observed. Therefore, the multiple and complex gestures for incensation as prescribed in the former Missal are not to be resumed." This is, of course, a strange answer. Saying that it must not be inferred that a rite should be used does not imply that it must not be used. We need to check the Latin of this text. (If anyone with access to a library can check it, I have seen the reference given elsewhere as Notitiae 14 (1978) 301-302, no. 2) Let us in any case take the more restrictive interpretation, bel...
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