Posts

Showing posts with the label hats

Hats off to Pope Benedict

Image
The Holy Father has neatly summed up a number of themes of interest - talking about salvation, saving the planet, gender, Humanae Vitae , that sort of stuff. He even included the rain forests! You have to take your hat off to the man: this was just part of his end of year address to the Roman Curia: Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Creed, the Church cannot and should not limit itself to transmitting to its faithful only the message of salvation. She has a responsibility for Creation, and it should validate this responsibility in public. In so doing, it should defend not just the earth, water and air as gifts of Creation that belong to everyone. She should also protect man from destroying himself. It is necessary to have something like an ecology of man, understood in the right sense. It is not outdated metaphysics when the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this natural order be respected. This has to do with f...
Read more

Pope wears precious mitre

Image
At the Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday, the Holy Father wore a precious mitre. Orbis Catholicus suggests that this was last seen on a Pope in 1978. I know that some people get a bit shirty when I post anything about liturgical garb. So let me repeat: I am not concerned exclusively with liturgical garb neither will I be intimidated because some people think it is a bit, well, precious. It is a good thing that the Holy Father is using liturgical items that only a few years ago would have been considered "abolished" by Vatican II. This ties in well with the title of the blog emphasising that we should retain continuity with the past. A priest friend once suggested to me that I should propose a motion at the National Conference of Priests stating "Conference affirms that the maniple was not abolished by Vatican II, only made no longer compulsory." When I mentioned this to Bishop Charles Henderson over dinner, he nodded vigorously and said "Yes, he's right."...
Read more

Green birettas

Image
Fr Ray Blake has a most environmentally friendly post concerning the wearing of birettas . A priest friend has turned down the heating in his presbytery in order to reduce his carbon footprint. He has consequently taken to wearing a cassock and biretta to offset the effects of the lower ambient temperature. Fr Ray speculates on the possibility of our Justice and Peace groups encouraging priests to wear birettas in order to enhance their green credentials. Perhaps I should raise this at the Deanery Meeting next Tuesday?
Read more

New St Philip Neri Statue

Image
Fr Rupert McHardy of the London Oratory, has sent round information about a statue of St Philip Neri that can now be purchased at the Oratory shop for £34.95. It is part of a series designed by the sculptor David Cope and sold by Devotum . The statues are approximately 8½ inches tall and made of reconstituted stone. I think I'll have to get the one of St Philip Neri. I don't yet have a statue of a saint wearing a biretta.
Read more

Another Clifton PP

Image
Fr Alex Redman put me onto another parish website in his diocese (Clifton), that of St George's, Warminster , in Wiltshire. It seems to be a very thriving parish with lots going on. The photographs section has pictures of the parish's Blessed Sacrament Procession. On the Fr Bede page , there are also some excellent short catechetical pieces. I also take the liberty of posting here the photograph of himself he has chosen for the parish website. From the combox, I know the consolation that such pictures bring to the laity. I don't know. I'm beginning to feel a bit of a trendy liberal with my stock photograph. Maybe I should get the Mulier Fortis to take one of me in a biretta or something.
Read more

Young clergy

Image
In the photograph in the previous post, you can see a priest sitting in the back row. He is Fr Alex Redman, recently appointed parish priest of St Augustine's, Bristol . I met him briefly at the ordination of Fr Marcus Holden last year and it was great to see him again and have the chance to talk a little. Arriving in his new parish, he was obviously asked to supply a photograph of himself for the parish website. Here is the photo that appears there: And this seems like a good time to remind you of the location of my first ever video post, Ma Beck 's classic Everything old is new again .
Read more

Two papal hat pictures

Image
Where'er I go, they shout HALLO! Where did you get that hat?
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

Baptism water rosary photo

Image
This photo is doing the rounds at the moment. Here is the accompanying text: This was taken at the baptism of Valentino Mora, son of Erica, a single mom of 21 who asked the photographer to take a picture of her son for free. The photo of the baptism of Valentino Mora is sweeping the Internet, because at the time the priest pours the Holy water over his head, the water flows in the shape of a rosary. This story began at the Parish of the Assumption of Our Lady in Cordova, Spain, where the baptism of a one month baby took place. At the time that Valentino came to the baptismal font for the sacrament of baptism, Erica asked the photographer Maria Silvana Salles, who was hired by other parents baptizing their babies, to take a photo of her son as a favor, since the young mother had no way of paying for it. The photographer, moved by Erica's request, agreed to take a photo of Valentino. Maria Silvana works with a traditional camera and had to send the film to be developed to a shop in ...
Read more

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...
Read more

Saint Gabriel

Image
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...
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

The blessing of a chariot

Image
When I studied Latin in Rome with Fr Reginald Foster, he used to suggest that a good word for a car was autorhaeda , a word in fact used in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1965 when speaking of a visit made by Pope Paul VI to the Basilica of St Chrysogonus in Trastevere. The word raeda (without the "h") was used by Caesar, Cicero and Horace for a travelling wagon with four wheels and the addition of "auto" does not make for too awful a neologism. In the Rituale Romanum , the blessing for a motor vehicle is the Benedictio vehiculi seu currus . The word currus is normally translated as chariot and reflects the way that people often view their car. Since one's motor vehicle is more likely to be the locus of one's death or injury than many other artefacts, it does make sense to have it blessed. Above you can see us striding purposefully past the Georgian houses of Victoria Road and here is the blessing of the classic mini: The blessing given in the ...
Read more