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Showing posts with the label children

A child's view of Lourdes

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Mac at Mulier Fortis has some posts on the recent Pilgrimage to Lourdes undertaken by the parishes of Our Lady of the Rosary and St Mary's, Chislehurst. She also has a large collection of photos at her Flickr photostream . (All the photos in this post are from there.) Above you can see a young pilgrim from my parish carrying the flag which I had made for our Lourdes Pilgrimages. We are at the start of the torchlight procession, waiting for it to begin and others to find us. Below is a photo from later in the procession. Fr Briggs has sent me something written by one of his young parishioners: Lourdes is a place I'll never forget. It gave me a new love of the Rosary and I had never learnt so much about Bernadette. I found it better than I had expected: all the churches were beautiful, and each was unique. Some had the Rosary and some had the saints. The Stations of the Cross I admired the most. I loved how they were bigger than life-size, and they looked amazing. In thos...
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Children's greetings to Pope Benedict

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My sister Jane in Birmingham writes to tell me of a homeschool group meeting that took place the other day. The children talked about the life of Pope Benedict, his childhood with his family and his teenage years spent growing up in Nazi Germany, his days at seminary, and his work for the Church, culminating in becoming Pope in 2005. The children all then set to work drawing and designing over thirty cards to send to Pope Benedict, offering him spiritual bouquets of prayers to help him in his work. Jane writes: The amount of genuine affection and enthusiasm from the children for their beloved Pope was very moving. After tea we went into the church and Deacon Stephen led us in prayers for the Pope in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We are all greatly looking forward to his visit later this year. Here are some of the cards to be sent to the Holy Father:
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Liturgy, confessions, a brontosaurus, and a smashed Paschal candle

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This year, I celebrated two Masses each day from Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week so that we could offer both forms of the Roman rite. On Monday and Wednesday we had Low Mass at 7am and on Tuesday a Missa Cantata in the evening. The Chronista for St Matthew's Passion on Sunday and Synagoga for St Mark's Passion on Tuesday was a young man who is taking his GCSEs this year. His teacher was talking about St Mark's gospel on Tuesday and he mentioned that he was singing the St Mark's Passion in Latin in the evening. I think that made an impression! For the Triduum, we had Maundy Thursday in the usus antiquior and we have Good Friday and the Easter Vigil in the novus ordo . (That will keep everyone annoyed!) I hear confessions after all the services in Holy Week and the Triduum and find that this is a better option than having a "Penance Service" since it encourages people to return to the practice of regular confession in the usual manner. (If anyone is still p...
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Obama, the children, and the meaning of Christmas

My father was a primary school headmaster and, like everyone in the profession, had some good stories of how children can upset the planned direction of a lesson. One one occasion, a well-meaning priest went into a class to talk to them about grace. He wanted to use petrol as an analogy so he asked the children "What makes a car go?" One bright lad waved his arm frantically and, on being selected, said "Please, Father, the internal combustion engine." I have had plenty of such moments myself. Here is one with President Barack Obama: Here's the transcript with my comments in red : THE PRESIDENT: I think one thing that's important to remember is that, even though there's a lot of fun at Christmas, you know, you got -- especially when it's snowy like this, so it's pretty outside, you got the Christmas tree, you got the Christmas cookies, you've got presents. You know, I think that the most important thing is just to remember why we celebrate Chr...
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Crib Service at Blackfen

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Our Crib Service today was a heartwarming occasion with little shepherds, angels and kings taking part in a tableau to celebrate the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Some of the older ones read passages from the Holy Scriptures: and some of the younger ones just took part in their own way: One young shepherd was particularly enthused by some of the carols: The Kings made their procession with gifts as described in Holy Writ. It was great that so many dads came along like St Joseph, the "upright and just man", supporting the family occasion: And finally, all the children gathered to sing, to receive a blessing, to be photographed by loving parents and to help us all to enter into the spirit of the feast day:
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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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