Posts

Showing posts with the label St Thérèse

Photos from Aylesford

Image
The parish was buzzing this morning with excited news of yesterday's gathering for the veneration of the relics of St Thérèse. I'll ask the Knights of St Columba if they have a final estimated number for those attending but it does seem to be well over the 10,000 expected. Here, in the crowds, you can see Fr John Boyle giving Holy Communion at the Mass celebrated by Archbishop McDonald. Fr Boyle has pictures, videos and links at his blog Caritas in Veritate . The Union of Catholic Mothers from my parish left early to take their turn in the guard of honour and a coachload of parishioners left before 10am for the (normally) 40 minute drive to be there in time for Mass at 11.30am. In the event, they had to walk the last mile from Eccles since the traffic was backed up all the way to the M20. I sent down a small mobile special forces unit with the mission to capture the relics and bring them back to Blackfen: Unfortunately, the Knights of St Columba were there in considerable stren...
Read more

Aylesford today

Image
Fr Ray Blake was at Aylesford today and has some photos on his blog. It all seems to have been a great success. A coachload of my parishioners went this morning and I am expecting some photos soon. I am relieved to hear that the tailback of traffic reached to the motorway, justifying my decision to remain in the parish since if I had gone after saying the morning Mass and hearing confessions, I would have had to return to the parish before I actually got to the shrine in order to hear confessions and say the evening Mass. Fr John Boyle was also at Aylesford today and has some photos including this one of Fr Stephen Langridge making good use of the occasion at the Southwark Vocations stall. I look forward to news from the Union of Catholic Mothers in the morning...
Read more

Relics of St Thérèse arrive at Aylesford

Image
The relics of St Thérèse arrived at the Carmelite Friary of Aylesford today - a special visit on the tour, to the shrine of Our Lady in the care of her own order. This afternoon, there were many school children there for the visit and two of my parishioners took the opportunity to see the relics. Tomorrow, some members of the Union of Catholic Mothers in Blackfen will take a turn in forming the Guard of Honour. Later in the morning, a coach is going from the parish to attend the Mass celebrated by Archbishop McDonald. Here is the programme for the visit at Aylesford . After a brief sojourn at the Carmelite Church in Kensington, the relics will be taken to Westminster Cathedral. Here is the programme of events there . It is impressive that, as ever, the Cathedral offers such generous provision for the sacrament of penance with four priests hearing confessions from 10.30am to 9pm on the two full days of the visit. Say a prayer for the priests who give their time so generously to this min...
Read more

BBC sneers at St Therese

Just a quick link for you to Fr Ray Blake's justifiably annoyed reaction the BBC's Sunday programme yesterday: BBC: "As if the body of a dead nun were not enough..."
Read more

Did St Thérèse want to be a woman priest?

Image
Thanks to Fr John Boyle for notice of an attempt to hijack the visit of the relics of St Thérèse in the cause of the ordination of women. (See: St Therese and the Priesthood ). There is a good article published in Homiletic and Pastoral Review a few years back which covered the quotation usually brought out in favour of the St Thérèse as womynpriest thesis: Did St. Thérèse want to be a priest? Essentially: yes, St Thérèse said she wanted to be a priest. She also said that she wanted to be a crusader; and she expressed enthusiasm for being a member of the Pontifical Zouave. In addition, she said that she wanted to be like St Francis and refuse the honour of the priesthood. (Hint: she was speaking ... figuratively .)
Read more

Visit of St Thérèse relics

Image
The relics of St Thérèse arrived in England today. There is a dedicated page with good information at the CBCEW website: Relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux and the Catholic Herald has a portal with information about the visit. The relics are coming to the Archdiocese of Southwark from 9-11 October at Aylesford Priory . Some parishioners of mine are taking part in the veneration first thing on the Saturday morning and we will have a good group going for other parts of the day. This devotion has really caught on in a big way with very positive results. There is already a strong devotion to St Thérèse in England and the tour of her relics will help people to understand the importance of the veneration of relics, getting rid of some of the silly scruples about relics that have affected people over recent years. The Little Way of St Thérèse with its unthreatening but also uncompromising fidelity will help many to return to those devotions that are so helpful to the Christian faithful. Well -...
Read more

St Thérèse in Oxford

Image
The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux will be exposed for veneration in churches throughout England & Wales in the autumn of 2009. They will be in the Oratory in Oxford on 7th and 8th October and there is a blog giving news and updates concerning the visit. See: St Thérèse in Oxford . There is also a Brochure for the event.
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

Bernini's elephant Inscription

Image
Here's the elephant. (That's the Pantheon in the background.) And here is the inscription: It reads: SAPIENTIS AEGYPTI INSCULPTAS OBELISCO FIGURAS AB ELEPHANTO BELLUARUM FORTISSIMA GESTARI QUISQUIS HIC VIDES DOCUMENTUM INTELLIGE ROBUSTAE MENTIS ESSE SOLIDAM SAPIENTIAM SUSTINERE Which is to say "Whoever sees here that the symbols of the Egyptian sage, inscribed on the obelisk, are carried by the elephant, the strongest of the beasts: understand that it is a proof of a robust mind to sustain solid wisdom." I first read this inscription on a tour of the twelve obelisks of Rome, led by the incomparable Fr Reginald ("Reggie") Foster. He was the best teacher of anything that I ever knew and I always try to call in at the beginning of his class. 25 years on, he teaches at the same time, in the same room, with the same dry sense of humour and the same passionate love of Latin. The obelisk is outside the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where St Catherine of Sien...
Read more

CD 275: Paying cash for work done

A handyman who does work for me prefers for me to pay him in cash. Am I committing a sin if I agree to do so? It is fascinating to see how virtually the whole country has become engaged in the intricacies of moral debate on this issue, including the complex question of material or formal co-operation in evil. The broad consensus is correct according to Catholic moral teaching: there is absolutely nothing wrong in itself with paying somebody using cash, which is, after all, legal tender. However if we pay cash because of an explicit offer to reduce the cost of the work, and because this reduction is due to the evasion of income tax or VAT, then we are formally co-operating in evil, and committing a sin (probably a venial sin given the amount of tax normally involved.) If we simply have a suspicion that cash is requested in order to avoid tax, then we ought (within reason) to ask whether this is the case or not. The costs that small businesses incur with bank charges, credit card me...
Read more

Hippolytus and Eucharistic Prayer II

Image
When I was a student in Rome, I remember going with a priest for Mass in one of the ancient Churches. The priest said that he was going to use Eucharistic Prayer II because it was the most ancient of all the prayers and was specifically Roman, composed by Hippolytus. This was the standard view at that time (early 1980s) but has since been called into question. A number of people have recently mentioned the matter to me and so here are a few notes for you. In the 19th century, a number of ancient texts were discovered that were similar to the "Apostolic Constitutions", (of which the first modern edition was published in 1563). Among these texts was a document which came to be referred to as the “Egyptian Church Order”. In addition, the Canons of Hippolytus and the Testamentum Domini were discovered. The scholarly consensus in the early 20th century on the dependence of these documents was that the “Egyptian Church Order” was in fact the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hipp...
Read more

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 .
Read more

How to make an act of perfect contrition

Image
How can you go from imperfect to perfect contrition? Gabriella D from Australia asked me this on Twitter today and I want to give an answer because I think that many people misunderstand what we mean when we talk about “perfect contrition.” Perfect contrition is sorrow and detestation of sin arising out of the love of God. One way of exciting this contrition in our hearts is by considering the passion of Jesus Christ and making acts of love for Him. We can also think of the infinite love which God has for us, and express sorrow in our heart in the presence of this great love which we have offended. Imperfect contrition is sorrow and detestation for sin arising from a consideration of the ugliness of sin or out of the fear of hell. Disgust at the ugliness of sin is more common today than fear of hell. That is because we do not preach enough, or with sufficient conviction about the four last things. If a person commits an act of impurity, for example, perhaps by deliberately ...
Read more