The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Fr Hugh MacKenzie, the editor of Faith Magazine, is trying to increase the number of subscribers that we have in the USA and is promoting a Special Offer at $49.99 for one year (six issues) for subscribers in the USA. At the website, you can read about the Faith Movement and various pamphlets and articles, including articles from current and back issues of the magazine. The current issue (September/October) has proved very popular.

While on my travels, I took a couple of the new CTS pamphlets with me. One I would heartily recommend is the one on Louis and Zélie Martin by Fr Paulinus Redmond . in 75 pages he does an great job of capturing the spirit of their life and of their exceptional family. Zélie wanted to be a religious sister but was rejected. her prayer then was: Lord, since, unlike my sister, I am not worthy to be Your bride, I will enter the married state in order to fulfil Your holy will. I beg of You to give me many children and let them all be consecrated to You. When they were first married, Louis and Zélie lived a life of continence in imitation of the Holy Family. However, a wise priest advised them that the Holy Family was an exceptional case and that normally, married people should have children. Within a year, Zélie was pregnant with their first child, Marie Louise. In one of her letters, Zélie wrote When we had our children our ideas changed somewhat. From then on we lived only for them. They m...

Sometimes people ask me if I am busy. My stock answer is to say that I don't get bored. To youngsters asking what it is like to be a priest, I say that I have good days and bad days but that I have not yet had a boring day in nearly 25 years of priesthood. Yesterday was a particularly full day. In the morning, I celebrated the Requiem Mass for Sarah Keenan who had died at the grand age of 92. One of her American relatives had the good idea of recording some of her thoughts on tape and so after receiving her body into the Church on Thursday afternoon, I sat in my study and listened to her talking about Lourdes, Fatima, the Holy Land, the Rosary Procession in London and how she continually prayed for all her family and for all the Holy Souls. The burial was at St Patrick's Cemetery, Leytonstone. Unusually for England, this is a Catholic cemetery. Some of my own relatives from the East End are buried there. It was a beautiful day and we spent some time going around, blessing grav...

The Third Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill will take place on Wednesday 22 October. As well as the horrendous elements of the Bill itself, ( summary here ) a number of amendments have been tabled for debate and voting at the report stage (earlier in the same day). SPUC have a list of actions that you can take and in addition to these, we must pray hard at this time. The Rosary Crusade of Reparation this coming Saturday is very timely - the intention is for the downfall of this bill. There is also the 1000 Crosses for Life procession the following Saturday, 18 October. For a flavour of the kinds of arguments used in favour of the HFE Bill, see my post from last May on the second reading: Massive majority for monster creation bill .

Barbara Nicolosi at Church of the Masses has a film review which may save you some time and money: Brideshead Eviscerated . She suggests that the anti-catholic slant of the film could be compared with making an adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" that turned out savagely racist. Here is the example she cites as the most egregious: In the book, the Flyte family basically opposes Julia's engagement to Rex. In fact, the catchesis of the moral pygmy Rex Motram, who as a purely materialist capitalist is in Julia's words, "half a man", takes up the whole mid-point of the book. The family is seriously worried about Rex's lack of "spiritual curiosity," but Lady Marchmain respects her daughter's freedom too much to interfere in her daughter's marriage. Then, when it is discovered that Rex had been previously married and divorced, the Flyte family vigorously opposes the marriage and eventually Julia is cut off for leaving her faith to marry a ...

Thanks to Fr Sean for the link to this article from the Union of Catholic Asian News: Traditional Latin Mass Draws Young Working Adults . It tells of the Mass at the St Joseph's Institution International School which is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of every month. Most of those who go are young working people in their twenties; they have their own schola and servers. As well as this encouraging news, the article also has two of the daftest comments I have yet heard about the traditional Mass. A priest said that although people can learn to recite the prayers, "you don't know what you are saying, because you don't know Latin" (you could always try looking at the other column which tells you what the English is.) He concluded that "It's like having a Mass in sign language where no one is deaf." Very witty. Actually, Mass is a form of "sign language". Unfortunately this aspect has been lost in the relentless stream of vernacular wordiness....

Joanna Bogle ( Aunty Joanna ) is giving a talk on St John Southworth and the English Martyrs at Westminster Cathedral Hall at 6.30pm on Thursday 23 October (a couple of days before the anniversary of the canonisation of the 40 English Martyrs in 1970). After the talk, there will be prayers by candelight at the shrine of St John Southworth in the Cathedral, led by one of the chaplains. There will be some refreshments afterwards. The event is being held of behalf of the Friends of Westminster Cathedral. Tickets are £10 so that the event can raise some funds for the current major works in the Cathedral. For tickets, phone the Friends of the Cathedral office on 020 7798 9059. Whenever I visit the Cathedral, I always kneel and say a prayer at the shrine of St John Southworth where his body is clothed in priestly vestments. Here is a photo from the Westminster Cathedral website .

Luke Gormally, Honorary Fellow of the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics has kindly sent a comment to my article yesterday . Since this clearly sets out some important and very worrying information, I feel that it should be given prominence in a post rather than being left in the combox. Professor Gormally writes: The situation at John&Lizzies is one of grave scandal. The Cardinal has the authority in the constitution of the Hospital to determine the ethical norms that should govern clinical practice there. When objections where referred to the Cardinal in 2004 to admission of the St John's Wood Medical Practice, which is contractually committed to providing the full range of 'family planning services', including referrals for abortion, he in turn referred the matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) - though in truth the issue was clear cut.  The Hospital Management (which has long been non-Catholic) argued that there was no clear prohibition i...

The other day, a million people gathered for the Youth Pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, about 40 miles west of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Many of the pilgrims walked for 18 hours to get to the shrine. The Catholic Culture website has information about Our Lady of Lujan  and there is also a good piece at the  SSPX Canada website . The statue was originally intended for another village but various providential miracles of nature and grace ensured that the statue stayed at Lujan which became a place of pilgrimage. Here is a photo of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in blue vestments. This year, he criticised "those who do not listen to the grievances of the people", widely understood as a reference to the present government of Argentina.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and the patronal feast day of my parish. We are fortunate in that we got to celebrate the feast on Rosary Sunday as well. This morning, my regular parish Mass was in English, versus populum . I sang the Introit to a simple psalm tone rather than have an entrance hymn. At the offertory, we sang "Ave Maria O Maiden O Mother" which is one of my favourite hymns. At Communion we sang "O purest of creatures" and then after Mass, I went to the Lady altar, intoned the simple Salve and then we said three Hail Marys for various parish intentions. In the afternoon, I said Mass at the junior school which is also dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The Hall is quite squashed when all the children are there but they are soon to have an extension built so perhaps next time I celebrate Mass for the whole school, the children will be a little more comfortable. The school Mass was delightful and I was especially impressed by the reveren...

Recently, I referred to the article by Dr Thomas Pink on ecumenism. For young adults, (up to 18-35) there is an opportunity to hear Dr Pink speak on Thursday 30 October at the London Oratory "Call to Youth" series. He will be giving a talk on "How should Catholics work for Christian unity?"