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Showing posts with the label Lent

Have a lugubrious Lent

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"Have a lugubrious Lent" was a greeting invented by a boy at my school in a whimsical moment. More seriously, may the good Lord assist you with his divine grace in the penances that you undertake. I celebrated three Masses at Blackfen today, one of them according to the usus antiquior . There was a good number of young families at Mass today, but quite a few people seem not to bother with Ash Wednesday nowadays. Perhaps this is partly down to the fact that since the Holydays of precept have been moved to Sunday, it is harder to imagine coming to Mass during the week voluntarily, even when a popular sacramental is on offer. The above photo is a screen grab posted by Fr Z from the CTV coverage of the Holy Father's Mass at Santa Sabina today. He has lots more and there are plenty of encouraging liturgical details: pontifical dalmatic, Cardinals in dalmatics, no concelebration, "Philip cut" Roman vestments... all as we are now becoming accustomed to.
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Lenten Reading Plans

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Many thanks to Fr Jerabek of Huntsville, Alabama for collecting together various resources for Lenten meditation. Lenten Reading Plans has four collections of readings for every day in Lent. The Church Fathers plan has substantial readings taken from the Fathers. For this, you would need to set aside a significant (though not unreasonable) amount of time. There is also a "Lite" version with shorter readings. The readings in the Lives of the Saints plan are taken from the Wednesday General Audience addresses of Pope Benedict. There is a plan for the Year of the Priest with readings from St John Vianney , and a plan with readings from Father Faber and Cardinal Newman . The collections are made available in pdf files, except the Saints plan which links to the texts on the Vatican website. What I particularly like about the whole project is that it is a very simple use of the internet for an apostolic purpose that could have a significant effect on the life of any ordina...
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Doing something positive for Lent

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Gotcha! You all thought I was going to say earnestly that Lent is not about giving things up but about doing something positive. I'm glad to say that this mantra is now becoming part of the recognisably tired corpus of the "reform that has to be reformed." Every year on Ash Wednesday I try to work the point in somewhere that nothing stops us from doing both . Celebrating Septuagesimatide gives a neat opportunity to preach for three weeks on prayer, fasting, and alsmgiving - these topics can also be related easily enough to the scriptures read in the usus recentior and provide a good lead-in to Lent. Today, I had three Masses. 10am is our normal time for weekday Mass and there was a good attendance. We also have a 4.15pm Mass on Holydays (although there are none to be celebrated in the week this year according to the "ordinary" calendar) and I do the same on Ash Wednesday; it is a convenient time for parents and children to attend after school. In the evening, w...
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Virtual Lenten retreat with the Dominicans

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The Dominican Studentate blog, Godzdogz have announced their virtual Lenten Retreat with daily Scriptural reflections, music and videos.
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Traditional Day of Recollection

I received notice of this by email today. Recipients were encouraged to invite any interested persons. So if you are interested, consider yourself invited! There will be a Day of Recollection in preparation for Easter, preached by the priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter will preach a Day of Recollection at Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street on Saturday 17th March, 2007. Programme 10.30 Sung Mass in the traditional Roman Rite Lunch (please bring a packed lunch) 1pm First talk 2pm Second talk The second talk will be followed by Confessions. The day will end at about 4.30 pm with Benediction.
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Not quite what we had in mind

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Looking around on Google for an image to illustrate the previous post, I found this book which would surely merit a prize if we ran a "Most Spectacularly Missing the Point" competition: Hey! I think I'll give up brussels sprouts for Lent.
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Popular posts from this blog

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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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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Portiuncula indulgence tomorrow (and indulgences generally)

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Tomorrow, 2 August, you can gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions ( see below ) by visiting a parish Church and there reciting the Our Father and the Creed . This is called the Portiuncula indulgence and goes back to St Francis of Assisi. Fr Z has the details . Don't forget that you can also gain a plenary indulgence by visiting a Church on the day of the titular feast, and there reciting the Our Father and the Creed . I made a list of other indulgences: please see the post Plenary indulgences for particular days which has a link to the list. The post has some background information which you may find helpful since indulgences are not well understood today - which is not surprising since indulgences are not included in most Catholic education curricula, and most priests never preach about them. Therefore many Catholics are left with whatever silly, half-baked, ill-informed nonsense about indulgences happens to be current. If you want to understand the theology...
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Our Easter Faith: Not a Pious Crème Fraiche

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In public life, some basically well-meaning figures have the graciousness to wish us well at Easter and to recognise the importance of the Christian feast day. Perhaps they might assure us that their thoughts are with us at this time. That is kind of them and in Christian charity we should thank them for their kindness, but Easter should be a great deal more than that for us. We must believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the grave, in the flesh, and lives for eternity. We cannot treat Easter as a jolly holiday that heralds spring, or the remembrance of a significant event from the past. It must change us today and every day, change who we are and what we do. The Christian faith cannot be a mild custard or blancmange of religiosity. (I am showing my age. Nowadays, I should say that it cannot be reduced to a pious crème fraiche .) We bow down and adore the King of Kings, risen from the tomb, who, “[…] continues for ever,...
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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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