The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Family Publications will shortly be publising "A Pure Heart Create for Me". This is a collection of the various talks on " Love and Responsibility " given at Soho Square last year, (including my own talk.) The launch of the book will be at St Patrick's, Soho Square on Thursday 18 June from 6-9pm in the presence of Bishop Alan Hopes. Guest speakers will be Fr Philip Egan on "The Authority of Humanae Vitae" and Fr Anthony doe on "The Grace of Self Gift in Humanae Vitae." All are welcome but please email St Patrick's if you are going so that they can get an idea of numbers attending.

In the class that I teach at St Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster, we are now doing the tract De Verbo Incarnato . Having looked at the divinity of Christ in the scriptures and the pre-nicene Fathers, we'll be going on next time to begin looking at the Council of Ephesus and the Nestorian heresy. (We covered the Council of Nicea in the De Deo Uno et Trino .) I was glad to tell the Carthusians that I was going on from there to the Church of St Mary Magdalen in Brighton to be subdeacon at the Mass celebrated by Fr Ray Blake for his 25th anniversary of ordination, and that he had chosen to celebrate Mass in honour of the Carthusian martyrs. The picture above is from the Chapter House at Parkminster; a  post of mine from August 2006 has a few more. The novice master tells me that the pictures have been cleaned so one of these days, I must take my camera down. The drive from Parkminster to Brighton was fairly easy and I was glad to be reasonably early and meet the other priests who...

Archbishop Vincent Nichols - Installation Blog has added some more information, including some photos of the new vestments being made. The tickets for the Mass have now all been allocated. The blog has also focussed on the sung Vespers to be celebrated on 20 May at 7pm. (I would quite like to have attended Vespers but unfortunately have a meeting that evening.) The sidebar has a link to Fr Selvester's blog Shouts in the Piazza . Fr Selvester has a particular interest (and expertise) in heraldry and has posted on Archbishop Nichols' Coat of Arms It is very good to see the Archdiocese of Westminster using a blog in this way. It is an efficient way to get out good news and make it for others to publicise. (Unfortunately there is no "permalink" to the individual posts so you just have to go to the blog and scroll. Maybe the techies at rcdow could look at that?)

Nuno Álvares Pereira fought against the Castilians for the independence of Portugal, later entering the Carmelites as Brother Nuno of Saint Mary. He was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI on 26 April this year. H/T Alfonso Miguel at Tribuna

The Italian blog Cantuale Antonianum has news of a building in Foligno Indovina che cos'è ("Guess what it is") It is, in fact, the Church of ... (sorry, I couldn't find that anywhere), a symbol of the rebirth of Foligno after the earthquake. Apparently, its cubic dimension refers to the book of Revelation (Rev 21.16) although there is no jasper, emerald, amethyst, pearl etc. The light which comes in vertically and horizontally reminds of the light of Christ, you see. What a tragedy that Churches like this are still being built! Here is the official site: Nuova Chiesa di Foligno H/T Ponte Sisto

Camilla Cavendish had a good article in the Times: Children are safer with their natural families . In the wake of the torture and death of baby Peter, this is a well-balanced and sensible appeal to stop turning a blind eye to the danger posed to children by family breakdown. Cavendish observes: In Britain, NSPCC research has found that children living with biological parents are between 20 and 33 times safer than those living in any other type of household - despite the NSPCC being inclined to play down family breakdown. And she comments: If the statistics are right, by far the most effective check on abuse is the family. The real family, where the vast majority of real fathers see their first duty as protecting their children. Yet these are the people we have made afraid. We have institutionalised shamelessness among people with no notion of family, some of whom have killed children. Simultaneously we have sown widespread fear of decent, well-meaning professionals among the innocent,...

The Tyburn Pilgrimage this afternoon started opposite the Old Bailey at the Church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, a 13th century foundation. The Church still has the hand bell that was rung at midnight outside the condemned cell; several of our martyrs would have heard it. From here the martyrs were dragged on the hurdle through London to be hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. The first station was at St Etheldreda's, Ely Place , built in 1276 by the Bishop of Ely as the private chapel for his London house. Restored the Catholic worship in 1876, the Church is the one modern London link with medieval Catholic England. Next was St Anselm and St Cecilia's, Kingsway . This Church was built in 1909 to replace the old St Cecilia's which, as Chapel of the Sardinian Embassy, was the first public Catholic chapel to be opened in London after the reformation, during a period of partial toleration under Charles II. The parish priest, Fr David Barnes kindly gave me a copy of a beau...

I just found at AirMaria this video of my lecture last September at the Co-redemption Conference held by the Franciscans of the Immaculate at Grey College, University of Durham, entitled "Scotistic Mariology from Scotus to the definition of 1854". ( pdf of the lecture here ) This follows on from a previous lecture about the Blessed John Duns Scotus on the Immaculate Conception. ( pdf of the lecture here )

The monks of Saint Joseph de Clairval Abbey in Flavigny will be giving a a five-day (silent) retreat for men this July, following the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. The retreat will be from 26-31 July this year at Cold Ash, Berkshire. (The monks have a preference for Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.) Here is a link to register an interest and get in contact to find out more details.

Take a look at the Vatican Website's layout of the programme . This would be a punishing schedule for a man in his prime giving talks to easy audiences. For the Holy Father to undertake this series of events in the highly-charged atmosphere of the Holy Land, knowing that any slip will be mercilessly punished by the world's media, is heroic indeed. Yesterday and today, he has spoken at a welcoming ceremony at the Queen Alia airport in Amman, and then given an address while visiting the Regina Pacis centre, paid a courtesy visit to the King and Queen of Jordan, given an address while visiting the basilica of the memorial of Moses on Mount Nebo, spoken again at the blessing of the cornerstone of Madaba University of the Latin Patriarchate, visited the Hashemite museum and the Al-Hussein Bin Talal Mosque in Amman, and given an address at a meeting with Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein b...

A good idea for prospective graduates of Notre Dame from Father George at blogging Lourdes : [...] to graduate, no one needs to actually show up and walk the walk on stage to receive their sheepskin and, at the same time, be force fed with obamanation smiles and agreements with everything and everyone, except for the unborn and just born. Rather than boycott the ceremony, the suggestion is to hold an alternative "do" for pro-lifers, and invite Mary Ann Glendon to be the speaker. It would be great if this takes off.