The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Here are two of the photos posted by the NLM ( more here ) and here is one of John Sonnen's at Orbis Catholicus - he managed to get up to a high vantage point (there are more at several posts on his blog for 7 January): I decided not to go on the trip to Bagno Regio today but to spend a quiet day in Rome, make an extended visit to the tomb of St Peter, go to confession in the Basilica, and celebrate Mass quietly. I also had a long walk round the Centro Storico , visited various Churches and had plenty of time to ponder yesterday's experience of assisting at Pontifical High Mass. First of all, I would like to emphasise what a devout and kindly man is Cardinal Cañizares Llovera. With devout bishops it is sometimes difficult to tell at first whether they are being prayerful or just rather grumpy and doing their best to suffer the attentions of their assistants. His Eminence took time to read the prayers in preparation for Mass quite slowly, then suffered the process whereby Fr T...

Just a quick post after today's magnificent celebration of Pontifical Mass at the Basilica of St John Lateran, celebrated by Cardinal Canizares Llovera. I had the great honour of being subdeacon for the Mass. There will be some pictures fairly soon so I hope to be able to share those with you tomorrow. NLM has the text of Mgr Guido Marini's talk from yesterday: Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy . They also have photos from the Mass with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in the ordinary form at Santa Maria in Trastevere (including the above). Tomorrow morning, we have Mass (ordinary form) with Archbishop Raymobnd Burke in St Peter's Basilica, followed by a trip out to Bagno Regio, the birthplace of St Bonaventure.

This morning, participants in the Clergy Conference attended Mass celebrated by the Holy Father for the feast of the Epiphany. A number of things stood out in comparison to the past papal Mass that I attended. There were no concelebrants (though there were two Cardinal Deacons and two other Deacons); there were the seven acolytes that others have noticed. A bell was rung at the usual times during the Mass; something that has been recently reintroduced. All of the music was, of course, liturgical music: either plainsong or polyphony. There was also very little of the clapping and shouting that used to characterise papal Masses (just a modest amount at the entrance and the recessional.) the atmosphere throughout the Mass was reverent, including some extended periods of silent prayer. In our section everyone knelt down for the consecration: again something that I do not remember from previous Masses. Pope Benedict has certainly made a significant mark on the celebration of the papal Mass....

I just found a computer with a usable internet connection so this is a brief message to tell you that the Clergy Conference is going very well. We had three excellent lectures this morning and Mass this afternoon at Santa Maria in Trastevere with Cardinal Hoyos. More soon - with some exclusive photos from inside the Papal States ;-)

Often in the past, when I have told parishioners that I am going to Rome, they have asked me "Are you staying at the Vatican?" I have answered avuncularly that it is not possible to stay at the Vatican itself but that I will be staying at a priests' residence in Rome. Tomorrow, however, I will indeed be staying at the Vatican: the Domus Sanctae Marthae which was built in 1996 to provide accommodation for the Cardinals who are taking part in a conclave. Fr Briggs and I will be flying from Heathrow T5 tomorrow to take part in the Clergy Conference organised by the Australian and American Confraternities of Catholic Clergy. I am especially looking forward to the talk by Mgr Guido Marini and the Pontifical Mass in the extraordinary form celebrated by Cardinal Canizares Llovera, although the whole of the programme is of great interest. We will both be bringing large, half-empty suitcases since we intend to do some shopping for clerical "gaaaarb". My parishioners ha...

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...

The Revd Allan Barton, an Anglo-Catholic priest of the Church of England diocese of Lincoln writes a blog called Vitrearum's Church Art which has some wonderful photographs of English medieval Church art and architecture. Here is a quotation from the introductory post of the blog: Welcome to the Medieval Ecclesiastical Art blog. England has around 16,000 medieval parish churches, buildings that are an important treasure house of medieval art and architecture. This blog is intended to be a modest exploration of some of these buildings and the works of art they contain. It is also partly intended to be a way for me to make sense of the large collection of photographs I have amassed on my Flickr page. I hope you enjoy it. Above is an example of what you can see on the blog; a Marian altar frontal from the Church of St Wulfram's Grantham, Lincolnshire.

There is an excellent resource for choirs wishing to sing the propers of the Mass. St Isaac Jogues Chant Resources has the score and an mp3 file for the Introit, Offertory and Communion, and the Gradual and Alleluia according to the Chants Abrégés. this is still a work in progress and not all the files are there yet, but there is plenty to be getting on with. There are resources for both the ordinary and extraordinary form.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade! At Blackfen we saw in the New Year as we have done for some years now, by an hour of adoration from 11pm, concluding with Benediction and the singing of the Te Deum to thank God for all the graces and blessings He has given to us during the past year. This morning, after Mass, we sang the Veni Creator Spiritus to ask for His grace for the coming year. Both devotions are enriched by the Church with a plenary indulgence - and as we know, plenary indulgences are not impossible . Here is a video taken by Mulier Fortis of the singing of the Te Deum. After the parish Mass, I went up to central London, to the beautiful Church of St James's, Spanish Place, to assist as subdeacon at High Mass which has been organised for many years by the Latin Mass Society . This is the first time that I have joined this celebration and it was really most impressive; the Church was full, and there were several clergy in choir, the senior member being the illustrious ...

At Chiesa , the blog of Sandro Magister, there is an interview with Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, the emeritus Archbishop of Utrecht. Back in the 1970s, Catholics who were dismayed by the direction that had been taken by the Church in the Netherlands, were delighted by the appointments of two strongly orthodox bishops: Bishop Simonis to Rotterdam (1970) and Bishop Gijsen to Roermond (1972). Both were highly controversial in the Netherlands and Pope Paul emphasised his support for the restoration of orthodoxy in the Dutch Church by himself consecrating Bishop Gijsen, and insisting that Cardinal Alfrinks should be the first co-consecrator. Bishop Simonis succeeded to the Archdiocese of Utrecht in 1983 (elevated to Cardinal in 1985) and resigned two years ago upon reaching the age of 75. His reflections in the interview show that it has been a long and hard road. After the virtual collapse of the Church, he witnessed the rapid growth of secularism, with the Dutch being pioneers in the legali...

Dominic Mary recently started the blog Libera Me which is well worth putting on your blogroll, aggregator, or reader. The author is a convert who says in his profile: The day I was received, a friend gave me a card which said 'Welcome Home' ! Never was a truer word spoken.