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Showing posts with the label South Africa

New altar rails for Christmas

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Fr Gregory Charnock of St Bartholomew Parish, Lambert's Bay, South Africa, writes to tell of a Christmas present for his Parish Church. Dave and Leslie Bashkier, with their son Paul, kindly donated, and travelled up from Cape Town specially (3 hours) on 21 December to install new permanent altar rails, to replace the temporary ones that had been in use since Summorum Pontificum . After the installation, there were confessions, Rosary and Holy Mass. Following that, there was a traditional West Coast snoek (i.e. fish) and the blessing of the benefactors' car. They are pictured here with sacristans and Parishioners: The altar rails were blessed the following day with some new vestments Father was given for the Christmas season. (I feel rather envious seeing them all in summer clothes in the bright sunshine of the southern hemisphere just before Christmas.)
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Father Lionel Sham RIP

Please pray for the repose of Fr Lionel Sham, a much loved priest of the diocese of Johannesburg, South Africa, who was kidnapped and murdered the other day. An 18 year old has been arrested and charged. See article in Sowetan . Fr Sham is the second priest in South Africa to be murdered in less than two weeks. On February 27, a 34-year-old priest from the Jouberton Catholic Church gave a lift to four men aged between 17 and 21 and was stabbed to death.
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Congratulations to Paul and Catherine

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Married today at Our Lady of the Rosary Father, keep them always true to your commandments. Keep them faithful in marriage, and let them be living examples of Christian life. Give them the strength which comes from the gospel so that they may be witnesses of Christ to others. Bless them with children and help them to be good parents. May they live to see their children's children. And, after a happy old age, grant them fulness of life with the saints in the kingdom of heaven. from the Nuptial Blessing
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Original thought

St Josemaria Escriva said that we are called to the heroism of finishing each particular task. I fail on this in the matter of reading books - there always seem to be half a dozen in progress. My aim is to have just two - one for spiritual reading and one for educational reading. The book for spiritual reading does not have to be finished if it turns out that something else is appropriate. For example, I have recently begun again to read St Therese's "Story of a Soul." At Parkminster today, I explained to the Novice Master that this was my latest enthusiasm. He told me that one of the Fathers had spent decades on the study of St Therese; in doing so he had reached conclusions that went contrary to those of many other scholars of the little flower. This made me chuckle and I certainly want to find out what he has said. Since he is Spanish, this would give me a chance to improve my knowledge of that important language. I recalled a story that Fr Holloway once told of an eld...
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Saints of Christian Unity

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Fr Anthony Ho has an article for Pax Sinaica (scroll down for the English version) in which he looks at St Francis de Sales and Blessed Marie Gabriella ( right ). Concerning St Francis de Sales, Fr Ho makes this observation: St. Francis won the heart of the people gradually with his patience and kindness. The parents would not come to St. Francis, so he came to their children and played with them. When the parents saw how kind he was as he played with their children, they started to talk to him.
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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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